Now," said the boss.

By the time I realized Caladrel had stood, he'd unleashed three or four arrows. One jutted from the chest of a vermlek, blood spurting through its hollow shaft.

Oparal charged the demons. Her sword struck quick as lightning and blazed twice as bright. Two demons came up behind her, black energy surrounding their hands as they reached for her. The boss riffled a scroll, and two gray bolts of magic struck each vermlek in the face. They howled and clutched their eyes as Oparal whipped her sword around and opened their bellies. Bloody worms as thick as my arm poured out of the wounds. Below each thick head, the worms split into four long tails, the tails further tipped with nests of countless tiny tentacles. The abandoned elf bodies slumped to the ground.

The boss tucked his expended scroll back into his bandolier. I stayed close in case one of the worms went for him. Arni did the same, barking as a worm shot quick as a snake past Oparal. The hound jumped in front of the boss, but the demon didn't go for the count.

It raised a dripping tail and pointed straight at me. In the squealing tongue of demons, it called out to its wormy buddies. Their heads swiveled in my direction...

The Pathfinder Tales Library

Novels

Prince of Wolves by Dave Gross
Winter Witch by Elaine Cunningham
Plague of Shadows by Howard Andrew Jones
The Worldwound Gambit by Robin D. Laws
Master of Devils by Dave Gross
Death's Heretic by James L. Sutter
Song of the Serpent by Hugh Mattews
City of the Fallen Sky by Tim Pratt
Nightglass by Liane Merciel
Blood of the City by Robin D. Laws
Queen of Thorns by Dave Gross
Called to Darkness by Richard Lee Byers

Journals

The Compass Stone: The Collected Journals of Eando Kline edited by James L. Sutter
Hell's Pawns by Dave Gross
Dark Tapestry by Elaine Cunnningham
Prodigal Sons edited by James L. Sutter
Plague of Light by Robin D. Laws
Guilty Blood by F. Wesley Schneider
Husks by Dave Gross

Short Stories

"The Lost Pathfinder" by Dave Gross
"Certainty" by Liane Merciel
"The Swamp Warden" by Amber E. Scott
"Noble Sacrifice" by Richard Ford
"Blood Crimes" by J. C. Hay
"The Secret of the Rose and Glove by Kevin Andrew Murphy
"Lord of Penance" by Richard Lee Byers
"Guns of Alkenstar" by Ed Greenwod
"The Ghosts of Broken Blades" by Monte Cook
"The Walkers from the Crypt" by Howard Andrew Jones
"A Lesson in Taxonomy" by Dave Gross
"The Illusionist" by Elaine Cunningham
"Two Pieces of Tarnished Silver by Erik Mona
"The Ironroot Deception" by Robin D. Laws
"Plow and Sword" by Robert E. Vardeman
"A Passage to Absalom" by Dave Gross
"The Seventh Execution" by Amber E. Scott
"The Box" by Bill Ward
"Blood and Money by Steven Savile
"Faithful Servants" by James L. Sutter
"Fingers of Death—No, Doom!" by Lucien Soulban
"The Perfumer's Apprentice" by Kevin Andrew Murphy
"Krunzle the Quick" by Hugh Matthews
"Mother Bears" by Wendy N. Wagner
"Hell or High Water" by Ari Marmell

Queen of Thorns © 2012 Paizo Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles and reviews.

Paizo Publishing, LLC, the Paizo golem logo, Pathfinder, and Planet Stories are registered trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, Pathfinder Campaign Setting, and Pathfinder Tales are trademarks of Paizo Publishing, LLC.

Cover art by Mathias Kollros.
Cover design by Andrew Vallas.
Map by Robert Lazzaretti.

Paizo Publishing, LLC
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paizo.com

ISBN 978-1-60125-463-4 (mass market paperback)
ISBN 978-1-60125-464-1 (ebook)

Publisher’s Cataloging-In-Publication Data
(Prepared by The Donohue Group, Inc.)

Gross, Dave.
Queen of thorns / Dave Gross.

p. ; cm. — (Pathfinder tales)

Set in the world of the role-playing game, Pathfinder.
Issued also as an ebook.
ISBN: 978-1-60125-463-4

1. Elves—Fiction. 2. Imaginary places—Fiction. 3. Good and evil—Fiction. 4. Fantasy fiction. 5. Adventure stories. I. Title. II. Title: Pathfinder adventure path. III. Series: Pathfinder tales library.

PS3607.R67 Q84 2012
813/.6

First printing October 2012.

Printed in the United States of America.

For Erik Mona and James Sutter, with thanks for inviting me to play in the sandbox.

Chapter One

The Midsummer Masquerade

Varian

The slap lifted Radovan off his feet and knocked the mask from his face. He crashed through a table, scattering morsels of candied fruit across the dance floor. The music stopped, and every elf in the plaza turned to watch.

Arnisant growled. I touched the wolfhound's shoulder and felt his muscles tense. He wanted the sign to defend Radovan. I showed him my palm. Stay.

Radovan shook his head, stunned by the blow. He blinked up at his attacker.

She removed her badger mask to glower down at him. Rather than the delicate features common among elven women, she had a countenance that would not have seemed out of place among the Egorian war monuments. Her prominent jaw conveyed physical power.

Radovan pinched a lemon confection off of his precious new jacket. Wincing at the stain on the red leather, he popped the sweet into his mouth. Chewing with that lopsided grin he calls his little smile, he said, "It was just a suggestion, sweetheart."

She scoffed at him and shook her head in disbelief before stomping off.

As she passed, the other celebrants laughed, not even bothering to cover their mouths with discreet hands. They stood in cliques unrestrained by age or gender, their splendid costumes blurring their sexual identities in a manner that would have proved scandalous in Cheliax. To my eyes they appeared more like children than the nobility of an ancient race. As they watched the badger-masked woman go, they whispered the word "Forlorn"—their term for elves raised outside of proper elven communities, among the shorter-lived races.

The mockery dissipated once she vanished beyond the hedge, where the glow of bonfires indicated common folk performing the Ritual of Stardust. Having lived nearly a century as a half-breed among humans, I felt a pang of sympathy for this Forlorn elf.

The division of my own parentage had brought me to Kyonin. My mother raised me in the grand old city of Egorian, now the seat of power in Imperial Cheliax. The only material connection to my absent father arrived on my sixteenth birthday, an elven carriage of rare and lustrous red wood. There was no other vehicle like it in all of Cheliax—and then catastrophe dashed it to flinders. I had come to Kyonin hoping to locate the original craftsman and restore the Red Carriage to some semblance of its original state.

Before melancholy, my old acquaintance, could embrace me, the minstrels revived the music. Among the petal-lanterns floating above our heads, sprites resumed their moth-chasing.

Radovan grinned at the woman's retreat, careful not to reveal his big smile. For that, I was grateful. I had no wish for our hosts to mistake him for a demon after taking pains to explain that his fiendish ancestry was rooted in Hell, not the Abyss. For all I knew and could prove, my claim was true.

I crooked a finger. Radovan fetched his wolf mask, brushed off a few more crumbs, and sauntered over.

He practices that saunter. I am certain of it.

Radovan held up a hand. "Couldn't help it, boss. She was all kinds of winsome."

Again I regretted my efforts to expand my bodyguard's vocabulary. Each morning I wrote four uncommon words in Taldane, the common tongue. The challenge was for him to employ each term in conversation before day's end. I rewarded each success by teaching him the same terms in Varisian and Tien, languages of which he had picked up only a smattering. The exercises began as a means of passing the time while we awaited transport back to Absalom, but Radovan insisted on continuing.

"'Winsome' is hardly the term I would choose." I removed my domino mask to reveal my displeasure. "She nearly decapitated you with that slap."

"What can I say?" Radovan rubbed his jaw. "You winsome, you lose some."

Our vocabulary exercises had inspired Radovan to indulge in that most vulgar form of wordplay. My disapproval only encouraged him to produce more and worse puns, so I pretended not to notice. "You do not appreciate the honor we have received. Outsiders are seldom welcomed to Iadara, much less to the Midsummer Masquerade."

"All I said—"

"And I note you have been slapped quite often since our return."

"I may get slapped a lot," he said, "but I get kissed a lot, too."

I waved away his boast. A servant mistook my gesture as a call for another drink. Before I could stop her, she moved to a "tree" composed of a thousand grape vines that some druid had coaxed into a new configuration. Beneath the supple bark, a pulmonary motion of this wine-tree absorbed and crushed its own fruits, fermenting the juice until sparkling wine splashed into an alabaster basin cradled in the tree's bole.

Nearby, a lichen-faced troll sat bound in chains of gold. At a sign from the servant, a minstrel leaned near the troll's elephantine ear and sang a quiet lament. The brute snuffled and eked out a thumb-sized tear. The crystalline drop grew as it trickled down, expanding to form a tiny goblet. The servant plucked the vessel from the troll's beard and filled it from the fountain.

Absorbed by the strange sight, I missed something Radovan said. He repeated himself. "You know what I mean when I say I get kissed a lot?"

I accepted the wine and turned to Radovan. "I apprehend your vulgar insinuation. So will anyone else who overhears you. They may not often speak Taldane, but you will not find an elf here who does not understand our language. The queen herself may appear tonight. Kindly restrict your lascivious propositions to the help."

Radovan shrugged and put on a dejected face.

I allowed him to sulk as I nosed the wine. The bouquet reminded me of a delicate white from one of my western estates. At first sip, the wine seemed frail, yet the flavor grew strong as I took it on my tongue. I savored the ripe fruit before letting it trickle down my throat.

"How do you find our midsummer wine?" asked the servant.

Surprised that she should address me directly and without my accustomed honorific, I appraised the elven woman. Unlike the noble guests, she went unmasked. Her leaf-green eyes returned my gaze without deference. Her attitude verged on the insolent. She spoke again before I could admonish her.

"But you haven't come to Iadara for the wine, have you?" She dimpled a smile, not entirely unappealing. Her features were not homely, exactly, but thin and angular in the manner of some fey creatures. Her long ears drooped slightly, giving her the air of a dishrag wrung out too often.

"What do you know of my purpose?"

"It isn't often a half-human comes to the court of the Viridian Crown," she said. "And you, a Chelish lord with a hell-touched henchman. You are all the gossip in the kitchens."

"Kitchen gossip? About me?" That was too far by half. "Why, you brassy little—"

"Look!" She pointed south, beyond the trees dividing the plaza from the river. "Here comes Prince Amarandlon."

My vision is not as keen as an elf's, but I can see as well on a cloudless night as a human can by day. The slivered moon provided little light, so I could not detect what this insolent maid meant to indicate until a star winked out, followed by another. A black shape glided across the river, where the reflected starlight revealed a gigantic owl.

Behind the great bird's head, an elf stood tall in stirrups. A rack of antlers rose from his closed helm. His cloak rippled as he directed his mount to skim just above the river. With the slightest correction to navigate the hedges, he brought the owl over the plaza and dropped lightly to the floor. The owl beat its wings once and soared away.

A masked elf tossed Amarandlon a bow of silvered birch. Nearby, a pack of hounds sat awaiting instruction.

Amarandlon raised the bow above his head. A woman screamed, and the dancers stirred like sheep at the scent of a wolf. I touched the hilt of my sword, but the servant placed her hand on mine. "No," she said. "Observe."

Bristling, I watched as Amarandlon drew the bowstring. A sparkling arrow materialized in place. He let it fly, striking a goose-masked woman. The arrow exploded into a glittering cloud. The woman writhed inside the silvery dust. Her arms elongated and feathered as she raised them above her head. An instant later, she honked and beat her wings, transformed into the very image of her disguise—yet still I could perceive her true form within the illusion, an elf within the bird.

The man who provided Amarandlon his bow signaled a hound. The dog dashed toward the goose, which flapped onto a table and scattered a platter of cheya dumplings. Snatching one in her mouth-beak, the goose-woman gulped down the enchanted morsel. In an instant she glowed pale blue and began to float above the table. She flailed her arm-wings, honking in alarm as she rose uncontrollably higher.

The other guests scattered, but I realized their screams were full of delight, not terror. They laughed at the first victim even as they sought shelter from the hunter.

Amarandlon stalked his prey, shooting every few steps. Each elf struck by the ephemeral arrows became the creature whose mask he or she wore: deer, skunk, duck, ferret, salamander, or bear. Through each illusion I perceived the elf's original form.

After their transformation, the "prey" attempted escape through guile or by enduring the unpredictable effects of the cheya dumplings. Some dumplings transformed the eaters into nightingales or caused them to vanish—yet again I could perceive the faint outline of their otherwise invisible figures, even as the pursuing hounds paused, momentarily confused, before picking up the scent trail.

Other dumplings caused the eater's screams to appear as ribbons of colored light. One inflated its subject like a balloon, causing both his elven and hedgehog forms to sprawl helplessly on the floor until one of the hounds nosed his body. The first touch of the dog's snout dispelled both magic and the mask, leaving the elf to loll on his back, gripping his arms in uncontrollable laughter.

Arnisant whined deep in his chest. He glanced up, craving permission to join the game. I offered none.

Beside me, I felt the servant watching my reaction. What did it matter if she saw my disappointment in her people? They were childish and cruel to their own kind, as evidenced by their mockery of the Forlorn woman. Yet they seemed oblivious to the effects of their behavior.

I hated them a little, for they made me feel old. They were as mercurial as the gnomes and fey creatures they allowed to reside with them. Certainly they lacked the grim demeanor of the elves who refused my first petition for entry.

After an unwelcome return to Absalom, I journeyed to the port of Greengold, which served as a diplomatic and trade buffer with the surrounding human nations. There, despite my substantial credentials and the physical proof of the carriage I wished repaired, the clerk remained deaf to my request to pass into the interior of Kyonin. That was until he received a reply to his request for more information about "this half-breed landowner from the Infernal Empire." As he read the response, on which I spied the royal seal, I witnessed a transformation as profound as any caused by Amarandlon's arrows.

After a few hours punctuated with unctuous apologies, we departed Greengold in the company of an honor guard. We rode through the western reaches of the Fierani Forest until we reached Omesta, where gnomes had built a city in the trees above the once-abandoned elven homes. There our escorts insisted we leave the Red Carriage once more in storage.

From Omesta we traveled by skiff along the Endowhar River, disembarking among the shining spires of Iadara. Servants led us to chambers reserved for diplomats and left us in peace except to deliver meals, fresh clothing, and invitations to bathe, worship, or wander where we would.

Radovan visited the baths daily. Since his misfortunes in Tian Xia, he had become fastidious about his personal hygiene. He was especially fixated on a toothbrush acquired in Goka, which he employed with a mixture of seashells and soda ash. Doubtless he wished to make himself as appealing as possible as he resumed his pursuit of voluptuous pleasures.

After a modest offering at a shrine to the Tender of Dreams, I explored the elven capital. A thin gray mist obscured much of the city, foiling my curiosity. It was no natural fog, for I could see that the river sparkled clear in the sunlight. The haze hung upon the silver towers like a veil, stirred but never dispelled by the summer breeze. Even where the vapor thinned to reveal a hint of the inner chambers through crystalline walls, green vines preserved the occupants' modesty.

Or perhaps their secrets.

I could see more of my present surroundings after sunset than I could of the city in daylight. The highborn elves held their Midsummer Masquerade in a plaza surrounded by lush arbors and weathered statues of elves who had died ages before the founding of Cheliax.

Servants had covered the stone plaza with a wooden dance floor. Rather than the trapezoids of parquet, the inlaid woodwork depicted wild undergrowth. Its roots and vines entwined, only to part ways until each tendril found another entanglement in the next panel. There was a pattern to be discerned, one incomprehensible to the negligent eye. Some quality of the work gnawed at my memory, as if I had seen it somewhere—

"What're you doing after this little shindig, sweetheart?"

My hand tightened on the pommel of my sword as I saw that Radovan had sidled up to the impudent servant—whom I now saw in a surprising new light.

Just as those struck by Prince Amarandlon's arrows appeared as two beings at once, so did she. Beneath the servant's mask I saw another face, this more stately than mischievous. Her real eyes were the color of amethysts. Three faint scars upon her cheek heightened rather than marred her austere beauty. Upon her brow she wore a silver circlet in the shape of vines set with tiny purple gems.

A lump of fear dammed my throat. Recalling a letter I had once received from the Chelish ambassador to Kyonin, I glanced up to spy a hawk perched upon a branch of the wine-tree. It returned my gaze with keen intelligence. It was no mere bird, but a wizard's familiar.

A very particular familiar.

I stepped out of the elven woman's view and showed Radovan the sign for danger: Stop.

He didn't notice. I signaled again, this time with enough vigor to alarm Arnisant, who supported my efforts with a hearty woof.

"Because I'm not doing anything," said Radovan, either oblivious to my efforts or pretending so. He reached for the woman's hand. "And if you aren't doing anything, maybe we could do it together."

"Alas," said the woman, withdrawing her hand. "I have a previous engagement."

"Maybe I could show you a few things that this previous engage—"

"Radovan!" My bodyguard was on the brink of causing the worst possible breach of international diplomacy. I gripped my sword tighter than ever.

He shot me an irritated glance, then noticed my alarm and frowned, perplexed. He stepped away from the woman. "Some other time."

"Some other time," she agreed. Both the illusion of a maid and the woman beneath it smiled.

"Radovan, I need you to attend that matter we discussed."

"Oh, yeah. That matter. I'll just—" Something behind me caught his eye. I turned to see an elf woman masked as a fox. She fled the crowd in the center of the dance floor and took shelter behind the wine tree. She tilted her head at Radovan. At his wink, she shook her bushy red tail.

"I'll get right on it," said Radovan. He fairly skipped toward the fox-woman, who darted away. He donned his wolf mask and gave chase.

Arnisant whined again, wishing to join the hunt. I forbade him, and he settled, silent at my heel.

"Your man has certainly embraced the spirit of the festivities."

"I pray he has not offended you." Realizing the impropriety of touching the hilt of my sword in her presence, I removed it. The double-image of the woman resolved into that of the servant alone.

The Shadowless Sword was so named for its swiftness, or so I had assumed. Disheartened by the circumstances of our departure from Tian Xia, I had not yet studied the full extent of its enchantment. I let my hand brush the hilt once more. Once again, I saw two images of the woman before me.

"Your Majesty!" Amarandlon rushed toward me, dropping his bow and drawing his sword.

A few other guests shouted, but the sound of alarm differed little from the cries of the mock hunt.

Arnisant pushed between me and Amarandlon.

"Arnisant, down!" The hound dropped to the floor, eyes locked on the elf menacing me. I stepped away from the woman and raised my hands—whereupon once more I saw only the illusion, not her true appearance.

"Stay your hand, Prince Amarandlon." With a flourish, the woman dispelled her guise and revealed herself as Queen Telandia Edasseril, monarch of Kyonin. Gossamer of white and violet flowed down her lithe figure, the train of her gown floating just above the floor as if suspended by a river current. In the crook of her arm she held a green oak staff, the gnarled fingers of its crest curling around yet not touching a walnut-sized emerald suspended between them. Even without the benefit of a spell, I sensed the arcane power radiating from the stone, but it was Telandia's royal presence that bent my knee.

"You will forgive our ruse, Count Jeggare." The queen gestured for me to rise. "And we shall forgive your giving away our disguise so early in the evening."

I bowed again, this time in the fashion of Cheliax. "I beseech Your Majesty to pardon my bodyguard's disgraceful behavior."

"Your bodyguard's?" The mischief of her former guise twinkled in her purple eyes. "Do not fear for our dignity on that point. We are advised that we have a little brass."

The lump in my throat turned to stone. Never had I so thoroughly humiliated myself before such an august personage.

"My apologies if I frightened you." Amarandlon's voice rumbled beneath his stag helm.

"Not at all." While I resented his part in my embarrassment, I could hardly blame him for coming to the aid of his monarch.

"We value your vigilance, Prince Amarandlon," said Telandia. Her familiar dropped from the wine-tree to perch upon her staff's head. "And your loyalty."

Amarandlon bowed. I sensed something practiced in their exchange, but flustered as I was, I could not decipher its meaning.

"Since we can no longer speak in anonymity, Count Jeggare," said the queen, "we shall rely on the reports of our trusted counselors in weighing the merits of your petition."

"Your Majesty—" I began, but she had already turned away.

Amarandlon signaled his man as we retired to a secluded corner of the plaza.

"Your Highness, I assure you that I intended no threat to Her Majesty."

"No, of course not." He received a pair of wine goblets from his man, who arrived with one of the white hounds at heel. Amarandlon handed me one goblet and watched me drink it before handing me the second. He removed his helm.

The elf prince stood a hand taller than I, who am accustomed to looking down at my fellow Chelaxians. His hair was as black as mine, but longer and braided with clever knots. Although we had never met, I knew his face. The celebrated Ranger Prince of Kyonin appeared in paintings throughout the noble houses of Egorian.

Amarandlon indicated his servant. "My master of the hunt, Caladrel Nirthanya."

"Your Excellency." Caladrel bowed in the Chelish manner, but without the flourishes of recent vogue. His seamless face was tan beneath hair the color of corn silk, but I perceived no clue as to his age except that he seemed younger than Amarandlon and Queen Telandia, the latter of whom I knew to be the prince's niece. Considering the longevity of elves, Caladrel's last visit to Cheliax might have occurred before my birth. I returned his courtesy.

Our hounds eyed each other but remained seated. Caladrel looked at Arnisant, then to me for permission. I nodded. We released the dogs from their commands to heel. They snuffled each other at either end before settling back into place.

"Do not feel too badly," said Amarandlon. "The queen relies on illusion to gather information and secure her safety. Sometimes, unfortunately, this tactic causes more confusion than security."

"It was entirely my fault," I said. "I was surprised. Some unexpected property of my sword allowed me to see through her disguise."

"'Some unexpected property'?"

"Indeed."

"But I am informed you are a wizard of considerable talent. How can you not know the powers of your own weapon?"

While I had studied magic for many decades, only recently had I overcome the handicap that prevented me from casting spells. Misadventure deprived me of my spellbook the previous spring. I had spent months learning new magic from foreign scrolls and had only recently consolidated them into a new grimoire. The story of the Shadowless Sword was even more involved, so I simplified my answer: "It is a recent acquisition."

"Tian?"

"You have a keen eye, Prince Amarandlon." I handed him the sword in its scabbard.

He examined the ornamentation. "Mainland, of course, and I will venture to say from Imperial Lung Wa before the dissolution." He unsheathed the blade and admired the thousand tiny characters graven in the steel. "Forty-fifth century?"

"Tian scholars would say—"

"Seventieth," we finished together.

"Of course," he nodded. "Naturally, the Tian calendar does not start with the founding of Absalom."

"Have you traveled to Tian Xia?"

"Only through books and the reports of our emissaries," he said. "My charge is to protect Iadara. To that end, I study every chronicle of war."

"Surely you do not expect war to come to Kyonin."

"We have been at war since the moment we returned through the Sovyrian Stone," he said. "Or do you forget the Lord of the Blasted Tarn?"

I knew the conflict he spoke of. Ten millennia ago, the elves fled our world of Golarion to escape the ravages of Earthfall, when the Starstone plummeted to earth and rang calamity across the world. Just over two thousand years ago, the demon known as Treerazer attempted to capture their last remaining passage to this world. The armies of Kyonin streamed back through the gate to secure the portal to Golarion, driving the abyssal hordes out of their capital, but not out of their country. "I understood that the demon is contained."

Amarandlon shook his head. "Only held at bay. His forces range daily out of Tanglebriar. Only the endless vigil of rangers like Caladrel keeps them from our doorstep."

Caladrel bowed to acknowledge his master's praise. "Despite our best efforts, the demons creep nearer every day. From the prince's owl, you could spy a grove where just last month we stopped a mob of scouts. If only we had your Chelish talent for entreating the fiends to truce."

I winced. Since the rise of the House of Thrune, my native land has bound itself to the forces of Hell. While I eschew diablerie so far as the obligations of my rank permit, demons are by far the worse abomination.

"There can be no question of treating with them," I said with some heat. "Demons are creatures of chaos, not law. You must drive them not only from your city but from this world. They must be obliterated."

Amarandlon stared at me. His dark irises made unreadable pits of his eyes. At last he nodded. "I wish more members of our court shared your clear and passionate understanding of the issue. But enough of history and politics. I am told you desire permission to seek the crafter of your renowned carriage."

"That was indeed my purpose." After its fall from the Senir Bridge, the ruins of my father's legacy lay for six seasons within a Greengold warehouse. "I fear my impropriety may have deprived me of the queen's consent."

"Not at all, Count Jeggare. Her Majesty said that she would rely upon the report of her most trusted counselor. I assure you that report will be favorable."

Chapter Two

The Third Sting

Radovan

Kim— Kem—? Hey, girl. Where'd you go?" I'd lost her name in the hubbub of the party. Now I'd lost the elf herself in the shadows between the trees and towers of Iadara. I can see right through most dark, so that meant magic.

"Kemeili!" She corrected me from behind a pair of stone angels linking hands to form an arch. She sounded irate, but I still liked my chances.

I moved through the gate. The statues weren't really angels, but one of those twin images of Desna. The goddess's butterfly wings were thin as parchment, a few pockmarked spots letting starlight through the stone. The gate and surrounding hedges formed a little garden. In the middle, a half-dozen or so elves encircled a bonfire. One threw a handful of what looked like sand into fire, setting sparks dancing above the flames. The rest stood away from the fire, paired off, hands entwined, faces close.

Past them, I saw a shrub move and heard Kemeili's laughter. I kissed my thumb and drew Desna's wings over my heart. Lady Luck, smile on me, you sweetheart, you.

Past the garden, the path looked more accident than plan. Even the statues seemed abandoned, like they'd been dropped by lazy porters on their way to a museum.

Stalking Kemeili through the maze got my blood pumping—not that I wasn't ready the moment we snuck away. I'd been ready for weeks, ever since I got my pretty body back after a year stuck in a devil's big bag of bones.

The elf girl—I knew she was older than me, but she looked plenty younger—ran off whenever I pushed through the bushes, going quiet whenever I stopped. She'd played this game before.

I shook a branch and listened. Her footsteps retreated on the other side of a high hedge. A couple months back, I could have jumped the wall and landed right behind her. These days I had to rely on my sneakitude.

In the back of my mind, I wondered whether that was a word. I put up with the boss's grammar lessons to keep his mind off those Pathfinder mucky-mucks back in Absalom. When we finally got back from the last job they'd given him, he asked why they'd sent us halfway around the world. Whatever they'd said to him, he didn't like it one bit.

Worse, they'd handed over his agents to other venture-captains since he'd been gone so long. Maybe he kept his cool in front of them, but when we were alone he hit the ceiling. Afterward, it was all I could do just to keep him off the sauce. He gets to drinking way too much when somebody hurts his feelings.

After we blew out of Absalom, the first thing the boss wanted to do was fetch his busted carriage, which we'd left in a Kyonin port over a year ago. He got permission to enter, and we found the place was pretty much one gigantic forest, except for a town where gnomes lived in tree houses above the elves, and then Iadara with its magic fog and shadows.

I circled around to where I reckoned Kemeili was hiding. Her foot cracked a twig. I crept toward the sound and heard her let go of the breath she'd been holding. Easing around a broken column, I saw her crouched in its shadow.

Most elf women were taller than me, but Kemeili was a bitty little thing. She couldn't have weighed much more than my left leg. My devil vision let me see her only in shades of gray, but I'd already seen that her hair matched her red fox outfit. We'd dumped the masks as soon as we left the party. I'd climbed up to hang my wolf mask on the face of a statue. She'd laughed and made him a codpiece out of hers.

If she knew I was right behind her, she didn't let on. The temptation to grab her grew stronger. I can resist almost anything else, just not that.

She screamed and wiggled around in my arms. Instead of pushing away, she grabbed my hair and pulled herself up for a kiss. Just as her lips brushed mine, she stopped and felt my ears between her finger and thumb.

"How can you hear anything? They're so small!"

"That ain't what a guy likes to hear."

"They're cute." She bit me hard on the earlobe.

"Ow!" I let go, and she sprinted away.

I chased her up a hill shaped like a loaf of bread. On the crest lay a long pool lined with blue-white columns. The moonlight made ghosts of all the colors of the city. The slim towers and fragile bridges were all pretty much the opposite of the heavy red-veined black looming all over my home town of Egorian.

By the time I caught up with her, Kemeili had her slippers off and dandled her feet in the water. I pulled off my fancy new kickers and set them far from the water's edge before joining her. A current tickled at my toes, but I couldn't see any source. There had to be magic feeding the pool. You'd think I'd be used to spells since the boss got over his spellcasting problem. I'd just never seen so much magic in one place.

Kemeili leaned against my arm and pointed down the other side of the hill. "There's the temple of Calistria, where I was raised."

The temple dome looked like a fat onion with a hole near its tip. It pointed off to one side like the little observatory on top of the boss's house. As I watched, a big bug flew near, clung near the hole, and crawled in. It took me a second to realize that the thing had to be the size of a pony. When I saw an elf slip off the bug's back, I whistled low.

"Temple patrol," said Kemeili, squeezing my knee. She found the hard bone of my kneecap and felt it the way women do when they discover the little differences in me. Except for my elbow spurs, most you can barely notice so long as I don't smile.

"You're a priestess?" I nibbled her arm—not too hard, since a little nibble from me goes a long way.

"No, not a priestess." She raised her shoulders. "That tickles!"

I lifted the sleeve of her blouse and found a tattoo of a wicked-looking bug. "What, were you a temple beekeeper?"

"It's a wasp. Don't you have wasps in Cheliax?"

"Sure, but we ride the horses." Well, other guys ride horses. I stay out of their way.

"Wasps are sacred to Calistria," she said. "Unlike a bee, which dies after using its sting, a wasp lives on to strike again and again."

"Zzzt!" I poked a finger between her breasts. Her skin was softer than the fabric of her clothes. "So what did you do? Cook? Housekeeper? Don't tell me: you kept the ledgers."

"I worked in the temple brothel."

"How's the what?"

"For years I had the honor of serving as a sacred prostitute of Calistria."

Thank you, Desna.

"Does that trouble you? Some outsiders find the sacrament of lust distasteful."

"Oh, it don't bother me. Say, you got any other tattoos?" I let my finger slide down the crevice between her breasts.

"Two." She plucked my finger out of her blouse and guided it to her other shoulder. I lifted her sleeve and turned her for a better view. At first I took it for the spiral of Pharasma, Lady of Graves, but it was just a tattoo of a coiled whip.

She stood and looped an arm around my wrist. "Do you want to see my third tattoo?"

I rose with her. "Oh, yeah. I definitely want to see that."

She turned my hand, levered my wrist, and flipped me into the pool. She wasn't strong, but she knew where to twist.

I surfaced, spitting water. "Damn it, girl, this is a new jacket!" The red leathers had cost me a fortune even before the enchantments. I should have sprung for the waterproofing.

Kemeili laughed and held my boots above her head.

"Don't!"

She tucked them under her arms and ran.

She was down the slope and halfway to a leaning tower near the temple before I was slipping barefoot down the hill. I fell twice, stopping the second time to check my jacket for grass stains. I took it off and carried it over my arm.

Near the base of the tower ramp, Kemeili paused to laugh at me again. When she saw me coming, she ran up around the tower, out of sight. I slogged after her, leaving behind a trail of wet footprints.

She'd left the door open for me, or else I might have had to start knocking. The tower narrowed as it rose, with one oval door more or less over the one below. They all faced east, toward the wasp-nest roof of Calistria's temple. That couldn't be a coincidence.

Before I entered Kameili's rooms, I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck. I looked back at the temple and the nearest towers, but all I saw were dark, hexagonal windows. There wasn't anybody on the other ramps, and nothing moved in the nearby groves and gardens. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that someone was spying on me.

I shuddered. Maybe it was just the breeze on my neck. Maybe I just needed to shake off more of the past year's memories.

Fortunately, I had a pretty good idea what would make a good distraction.

As I stepped through the threshold, all the outside sounds stopped as if I'd closed the door—which I hadn't. More magic. I shut the door.

Kemeili hit me in the chest with a towel made of some gauzy fabric. It smelled all right, so I tried not to think of spider webs. As I dried my hair, I had a look around.

Farthest to the left was a little nook I figured for the loo. Beside it was a narrow window. Next to that was a tall oval wardrobe growing right out of the wall. It wasn't exactly wood, though it was the color of maple. It had a sort of earthy quality to it, like some cross between stone and wood. The stuff made me think of a few pieces of petrified wood the boss had in the library back at Greensteeples. Maybe this whole tower was a big petrified tree. The elves had plenty of wizards and druids who could bend wood and stone. Kind of like the boss, only without his flippy scrolls.

There was a bookshelf and a little dressing table. The table's mirror was decorated with gold wasps. On its surface stood naughty little statues of men and women, men and men, women and women, and assorted other variations on my favorite pastime. I was getting the impression that elves, or at least their temple prostitutes, were pretty broad-minded.

Leaning in, I spotted a big alcove to the right. It was dark, but I saw the outline of a bed covered in pillows. Light glimmered off oval mirrors on the walls and ceiling.

"Leave your wet things there." She indicated a row of antlers on the wall by the door. Some I recognized as stag or elk, but a few were from animals I'd never seen, not even in the boss's art gallery. Kemeili had left more towels on a wicker chair.

I hung the jacket over the chair back, which was less pointy than the antlers. Even though the enchanter made the leather extra tough, I didn't want to chance a scratch.

The jacket was the best I'd ever owned. It should have been, for all the cost I'd paid and waiting I'd done. The Tian craftsman I'd hired wouldn't start work until I'd told him the whole story of my time in his land, every fight, every killing. Most guys would have laughed at my stories of phoenix warriors, monkey gods, and dragons, but he just nodded and got to work. When he was done, a celestial dragon twisted up one arm of the jacket, across the shoulders, and down the other arm. On the back, a phoenix died in ashes. A monkey-man on one breast faced off against a pair of silk-throwing women on the other. In the borders between those scenes fit images of goblins, necromancers, dragon turtles, ghosts, swordsmen, and devils.

"Nice jacket," said Kemeili.

"Thanks."

I shucked off my leather pants and removed the spiked leather cup I keep as a surprise for mooks who lead with the knee.

"Kinky." Kemeili whistled and gave me the up and down. She frowned.

"What?" I resisted the urge to cover up.

"Isn't the tail usually on the other side?"

Much as I appreciated the compliment, the tail thing is a sore point for me. Plenty of hellspawn have 'em, just not me. No horns, neither. I pulled the big knife from its inverted sheath in the jacket's spine, showing her that what looks like a tail is really the weapon's grip.

"I like it." Her eyes weren't on the knife. I let her have a good look because I'm not shy, and she'd see it all soon enough. When she was done, I wrapped the towel around my waist.

As I put the knife back, my fingers traced the secret pockets in my jacket. My hidden arsenal added extra weight, but it also gave me extra protection.

I felt a little piece of lemon something stuck in my teeth.

"Mind if I clean up?" I slipped my toothbrush out of a slot made to fit my lock rake. The pick fit inside the toothbrush handle, so I didn't need to sacrifice a sleeve.

Kemeili filled a basin from a pitcher near a bigger window. The opening tilted upward to let the rain fill wide-mouthed pitchers. Beside the water table stood a wooden screen carved with images of dancing elves. A second glance showed they weren't exactly dancing.

That grin was going to get stuck on my face pretty soon.

Over the screen hung a bulging membrane, like an animal bladder, only made of plant fiber. Kemeili slipped out of her own clothes and stepped behind the screen. At the stroke of her finger, the membrane let loose a shower from its sieve-like belly. The water rinsed the red from her pale blonde hair.

She saw me staring through the holes in the screen. She nodded at my toothbrush. "Weren't you going to—"

"Yeah, yeah." I wet the brush, loaded it up with tooth powder, and went to work. Before that Gokan merchant sold me with a terrific pantomime, I'd never seen a toothbrush. Now I didn't know why everyone didn't have one. Maybe the barbers had a racket to keep them out of the markets in Egorian. Anyway, it meant no more paying the barber extra for a scrape every few months.

Just as I worked up a good lather, Kemeili stepped out of her shower and said, "Can you reach up there?"

She nodded at a lit candle on a nearby table and pointed above her bed. Three iron cups hung from a chain in the ceiling. I bit the toothbrush like a cigar and stepped onto the bed. The instant I touched the chandelier, two of the "cups" popped open like crab claws. Before I could move, they snapped shut around my wrists.

"What the—?"

"Mind the flame," said Kemeili. "Let's not set the sheets on fire just yet."

I set the candle in the third cup—a real one—before testing the strength of the trap. The manacles were as strong as the chain fixed to the ceiling. The harder I jerked, the more it pulled me up.

"Relax," she said. "If you stop struggling, you'll have enough slack to kneel."

I could barely stop myself. By the time I could walk, I'd been sold as a slave to the Goatherds, one of the petty street gangs in Egorian. Even though I wasn't shackled often, I never could shake the feeling of chains and manacles. It took me years to earn my way out of the Goatherds, and there's still nothing I hate more than chains. "What are you playing at, girl?" The toothbrush bobbed as I spoke.

"Kemeili." She paused by the dressing table. After putting on a transparent little blouse that fell barely past her hips, she touched one of the gold wasps on the mirror. Its wings buzzed, and it took to the air like a live insect. "If you haven't remembered my name by now, you certainly will before the night is through."

That didn't sound as good as it would have earlier, but I tried relaxing my arms. Sure as her word, the chain let out enough for me to kneel on the bed, but I had to keep my arms raised.

"Kemeili," I mumbled around the toothbrush. The gold wasp flew over and landed on the end of its handle. I tried to shake it off without dropping the toothbrush, but it clung tight. The chains shook as I wriggled.

"Not fond of chains?" she asked. "You should have thought of that before you entered Iadara under false pretenses. There is a reason that I am the youngest initiate ever to earn the title of inquisitor. In fact, there are many reasons. Shall I show you some of them?"

She stroked one of the lewd figures on the wall. The oval mirror beside it flipped around. Coiled whips hung from the other side of the panel. Most were of the leather braid variety, but I saw a braid of razors, a chain of bones, and what looked like a living vine with finger-length thorns.

"Can't say I'm too keen on whips, either."

"No? Oh, I know just the thing," she said, walking away. "Don't go anywhere."

She returned to the chambers' entrance. I rose back up to put the toothbrush close to my hands. I shook off the wasp, slipped the rake out of the handle, and popped the toothbrush back in my mouth. I knelt back down just as Kemeili returned with my big knife and a few throwing blades from my jacket.

"You came armed to the Masquerade," she said. She plucked the toothbrush out of my mouth and threw it aside. The gold wasp bobbed and flew after it.

"There were plenty of guys with swords."

"Nobles," she said. "Including your master, who enjoyed the privilege as an honored guest."

"He's not my master, he's my—" What was I going to say? Partner? Buddy? Employer? Before I could answer, the damned wasp flew back up to my face. Its wings brushed my skin a couple of times before it settled on my cheek. I started to rise so I could swat it away, but Kemeili shook her head.

"Nobody said boo about my kit," I mumbled. I stayed on my knees and tried not to think about how close the gold wasp crawled to my eye. "Besides, if I'd wanted to cause trouble at the party, why would I slip away with you?"

"Why indeed?" She tested the point of the big knife with her finger. A bead of blood welled up on her skin. She sucked it off. "What drew you to that Forlorn at the Masquerade?"

"The what?" The wasp crawled up my temple.

"The woman who struck you." She touched the point of my own blade to my skin, just below my left nipple.

"Oh, her." I would have shrugged, but I didn't want to go through life with one less teat—assuming I got to go through the rest of life. "I don't know. I guess because I hadn't caught sight of you yet."

The knife trembled for a second, but she withdrew it, smiling. One tool I don't keep in my jacket is my winning charm.

"Tell me, what is your master's true reason for coming to Iadara?"

"He's not my—"

Kemeili sighed and stepped away. "Revenge, perhaps? Who are his friends in Kyonin? Who are his enemies?"

I couldn't think of anybody the boss knew in Kyonin, but he never gave me a list of all his hundreds of pen pals. Kemeili stroked another carving to reveal a hidden compartment full of knives. Most were throwing blades, but I saw a couple starknives and Katapeshi punching daggers, plus one of those three-headed Mwangi throwing blades they call a hunga munga. She took that one down to make room for the big knife.

I wanted to protest, but instead I used the opportunity to slip the rake into the keyhole. The pick was a little too big for the tiny opening. I twisted the flimsy metal strip until its teeth pushed through.

Kemeili turned back to me. I held my hands as natural as I could under the circumstances, pretending I couldn't feel the wasp exploring my ear. The way Kemeili looked at me, I could tell she was waiting for an answer.

"Seriously, he just wants his carriage repaired. That's it."

"So he has brought it all the way from Cheliax?" she said. "I think not."

"We were in Ustalav when it got busted." There was no harm in telling her that. As far as I knew, the boss didn't have any secrets from the elves, not about this visit anyway. "Besides, it's a special carriage. The guy who made it lives here. The boss wanted it fixed a long time ago, but we got distracted."

Kemeili stepped onto the edge of the bed, watching my face as she eased closer. If she came close enough, maybe I could wrap those chains around her pretty little neck. What a waste that would be. I wasn't even sure I was up for it these days. A lot of my killing instinct had gone to hell with my old devil.

"What was the nature of this distraction?" She reached up. For a second I feared she'd seen the rake between my fingers. Instead she plucked the candle off its holder and dribbled hot wax onto my neck.

I hissed at the pain, but I was glad to feel it. There was a time I could have juggled red-hot coals without raising a blister. That had gone with the devil, too.

"Pathfinder business." I shrugged. She drizzled a little more wax on the other side of my neck. It hurt plenty, but my wincing covered the motion of my fingers. The rake was barely small enough to move inside the mechanism. I didn't like the chances of popping this lock. Still, I had to buy some time. "They sent us to fetch some magic pearl! I don't know the why. I'm not a member of their little club."

"Your master is a celebrated finder of forgotten things."

"He's not my master. I'm a free man. I just go along on these Pathfinder jaunts to keep him out of trouble."

"What do the Pathfinders have to do with your visit to Iadara?"

"Not a damned thing."

Kemeili untied the strings of her blouse and parted the fabric over her belly. My fingers kept moving above my head as I looked down. A tattoo of three slim daggers pointed out from a circle around her navel.

"The three stings of Calistria," she said, pointing at each blade in turn. "The first is for revenge, which we visit on those who offend us. The second is for guile, which led you here. The third is for lust. You know that one well, I imagine."

"You aren't wrong about that."

Click.

Coughing to cover the sound of the lock snapping open, I held onto the chain and left the manacles draped over my wrists. It might have been smarter to let things play out a little longer, but temptation tugged at me again. I flashed the big smile.

Kemeili didn't even flinch at the armory I had for teeth. I was impressed by her cool. "Why are you really giving me the third degree?"

If my change of tone bothered her, Kemeili didn't show it. "There are many breeds of wasp. When a rival infiltrates a nest, guardians detect and kill it before it can reach the queen."

"I got nothing against your queen," I said. "Neither does the boss."

She peered into my eyes while she considered whether I lied. Hers were golden-brown with no visible white around the oversized iris. Elf eyes are hard to read, and I couldn't even see my reflection in Kemeili's.

"I believe you," she said at last. "Still, as long as I have you here ..." She turned to open the third panel. When she turned back, I was spinning the manacles around a finger.

She gaped. "How did you—? So quickly!"

"It's all my guile."

She smiled even as I slid off the bed and stepped close to her. She backed up against the wall of whips. "Don't tell me now you're in the mood for revenge."

"I told you, I'm not too keen on whips and chains. Now be a good girl and hand me my big knife."

If that scared her, she did a good job not showing it. "Perhaps you would prefer the third sting." With her chin she indicated the things inside the third hidden compartment. I'd seen a few of them in Egorian brothels or the bedchambers of people the boss was investigating. Still, there were plenty I couldn't even figure how to use.

"Don't worry" Kemeili offered me her wrists for the manacles. "I'll show you how they work."

What the hell? I thought. In for a copper, in for a gold.

Chapter Three

Omesta

Varian

The first buffet of the giant owl's wings flung the riffle scroll from my hand. I snatched at it, but the wind tore it away. Without its magic, I would plummet to my death should misfortune throw me from the saddle.

"Hold tight, Count!" Seated immediately before me, Amarandlon shouted above the din. Petrified of falling without the benefit of a spell to soften my landing, I gripped the pommels of the tandem saddle.

Amarandlon held no pommels, and there appeared to be no reins with which to guide the enormous bird. The communion between owl and rider seemed derived entirely of training and empathy, despite the disparity in their sizes. The giant steed stood three times the ranger lord's height, its unfolded wings nearly twice that span.

We rose above the spires of Iadara and soared out over the river, its waters shimmering gold beneath the setting sun. As the beating of the owl's wings subsided into a steady motion, our escorts moved up beside us.

To our left flew a ranger called Faunra. She sat before a closed wicker palanquin used to transport Amarandlon's hounds. Arnisant's gray snout poked through one of the narrow windows, wide eyes watching me for reassurance. He had entered the compartment obediently, but he shared my unease at traveling on the back of a giant bird.

On our right flew Caladrel, his courtly garments exchanged for the green-and-dun leathers of the Kyonin rangers. In the saddle behind him dozed Radovan. Caladrel cast an uncomfortable glance backward as my sleeping henchman snuggled his head upon the elf's shoulder.

Radovan had returned long past noon, a weary smile on his lips. He hung his jacket with care and peeled off his shirt. I noticed more than a few scratches, welts, and mild burns on his neck, shoulders, and back. He mumbled something about checking him for charms, so I riffled a simple divination and assured him he was under no magical enchantment. Before I could question him further, he fell into an unshakable slumber until the time for our departure. I surmised his involuntary abstinence of the past year had come to an end.

The owls drifted across the southern bank and soared across the green expanse of the Fierani Forest. Purple shadows lurked under the dense canopy, darkening as the horizon devoured the sun. Occasionally I spied a meadow or stream below a gap in the canopy. Here and there a hill rose up, its head crowned with ancient stones.

In other clearings slouched the ruins of abandoned watchtowers or temples. They appeared to have been ancient before the fall of Azlant. The elves had done little to reclaim such sites, leaving them as monuments to the civilization they abandoned in the face of Earthfall.

The beauty of the land awed me to reverie. Suspended between the earth and sky, I felt a tranquility I rarely enjoyed outside of dreams. For hours, it seemed, I mused on how my life might have differed had I been born in Kyonin rather than Cheliax. Yet even the elves looked down upon their half-breeds, confining them to the port city of Erages. By the laws of Cheliax, I was no less gentle for my mixed heritage. And by the beneficence of my grandfather, I was as legitimate as any trueborn heir.

As the stars and a thin crescent moon appeared, I spied an anomalous shape at the head of a ragged clearing. The dark figure itself appeared to be an enormous tree sculpted into the shape of a man caught midstride. On second glance, I surmised it was composed of at least three different trees bound together in parasitic vines and ivy.

"The Walking Man." Amarandlon twisted in the saddle. He hardly needed to raise his voice, so quiet were the owl's wings since gaining its full altitude. He signaled Caladrel to point out the sight to Radovan, but my bodyguard drooled insensate on Caladrel's shoulder.

"An elven construct?"

"It appears so." He released the saddle straps and turned to face me in a gesture reminiscent of a Qadiran camel-rider. So far above the ground, his motion set a flutter of vertigo through my stomach. "Not even our most venerable scholars remember its creation. We know only where it is going."

"It moves?"

Amarandlon pointed down at the Walking Man. I strained to see what he indicated. As I was about to admit that my half-elven eyes were not equal to the task, I spotted a dark patch behind the figure's trailing leg. Taking the spyglass from my coat pocket, I focused on the spot.

"A footprint?"

Amarandlon nodded. "If you had been here yesterday, you would have seen it step forward. It does so every midsummer, one immense step each year."

"And you know its destination?"

"Erages," he said. "Have you seen the village of half-elves?"

"No." Curious that he should ask again. Last night he had asked me the same question, although I sensed he had already received a comprehensive report of my limited previous visits to Kyonin.

Unlike Greengold, the mixed city administered by humans and open to all, Erages welcomed only half-elves born in Kyonin, not foreigners like me. The village sprawled among the crumbling ruins of elven towers that I had long wished to visit despite—or perhaps because of—the tales of lost expeditions beneath their ancient foundations. In our visit to court, I had gleaned enough gossip to know that some among the Iadaran nobility feared that the simmering resentment of the half-breeds had reached the boiling point of sedition.

I exchanged my spyglass for a fresh journal. Reserving the first few pages for a later introduction, I dashed off a crude sketch of the aerial view of the Walking Man before returning the book to my pocket.

We descended soon after passing the Walking Man, the owls alighting on a bald hill where more of Amarandlon's rangers awaited us. In their dun-and-green leathers, they were invisible from above, even through the lens of my spyglass. They flung dozens of hares and squirrels up to the great owls, careful not to venture too near their powerful beaks.

We sat on the grass, drank the last of the spring nectar, and ate loaves stuffed with fresh snap peas and herbed venison. Radovan devoured half his meal before flopping down to continue his nap. Before he awoke, his food had vanished. In its place sat Arnisant, his canine countenance a study in innocence.

When roused to continue our journey, Radovan remained awake, for which Caladrel appeared much relieved. Once in the air again, they spoke in Taldane. Radovan asked the elf to teach him a few choice phrases in Elven, from the flirtatious to the vulgar. I pretended not to notice. To my relief, so did Amarandlon, although Faunra's long ears twitched as she overheard some of what passed between them.

As the hours passed, I divided my observations between the wheel of stars above us and the sea of leaves below. Astronomy and botany were studies to which I returned frequently over the years, while others remained passing fancies, their accoutrements gathering dust in the storage rooms of Greensteeples. The elves were masters of both arts. Would that I could spend a decade in their lands, learning from the ancient scholars who still walked among their descendants.

The mellow breeze stroked my hair. Once again I surrendered present thoughts to antique memories and half-remembered dreams. Too soon the sky behind us brightened, and Amarandlon called out, "Omesta!"

Our owl folded its wings and dove. The forest canopy surged closer, the slashing wind forcing me to squint through tears. Soon leaves and branches slapped at us. I prayed Amarandlon's eyes—and those of the owls—were keen enough to navigate the tangle.

Somewhere behind us, Radovan whooped with glee. I was glad that one of us should enjoy the plunge, yet also resentful that he should find delight where I found terror.

The owl's wings snapped open like a sail catching the first breath of a gale. With a final slump downward, the owl settled on a massive perch.

We had landed in a wide clearing upon a tree-borne platform. A pair of elven rangers wheeled a portable stair beside our owl. While I struggled to free myself from the saddle straps, the elves clambered nimbly down the harness. By the time I steadied myself on the stair, Radovan imitated the elves' descent.

"How was that?" he asked Caladrel.

The elf considered the question. "I saw a monkey once, at court."

"A monkey, eh?" Radovan scratched his neck. Sometimes that was a sign he was about to throw a punch. Before I could intercede, he said, "A monkey. I like that."

The elves lowered Arnisant's basket to the floor of the aerie. With another pang of vertigo I noticed that we remained high above the ground, our platform secured in the high branches of a giant elder ash. Peering over the edge of the aerie, I saw far below us the stone paths and warm brown shingles of the elven city of Omesta.

Arnisant wobbled as he emerged from his compartment. He looked to me for an explanation for his miserable state, but I could only scratch his head while we awaited the return of our land-legs. As the Omesta rangers unsaddled the owls, Caladrel laughed with Faunra over Radovan's egregious pronunciation.

"I must go down to receive the reports of the local captains," said Amarandlon. "I hope we meet again."

"Upon my return to Cheliax, your reputation for generosity shall rival the legend of your valor."

We made our farewells, and Amarandlon placed us in the care of a pair of gnome watchmen. The gnomes were barely taller than my halfling servants at Greensteeples and even slighter of build. One had hair the color of new violets, the other a brilliant yellow mustache threaded with glass beads which rattled when he spoke. Their clothes were brighter still, the leather and plant fibers dyed in hues of berry and petal.

As Amarandlon's group departed, Faunra glanced back at Radovan. He winked at her. She smiled back before following Caladrel down a rope ladder.

"Perhaps you should pace yourself," I suggested. "We'll never get back to Egorian if you try to seduce every woman in Kyonin."

"You're just jealous."

The gnomes led us to a stair winding down around the trunk of the giant ash. They paused occasionally to touch, smell, taste, feel, or peer at trivial objects along the way. One chewed a leaf, then lifted a mantis on his finger and carried it a while before setting it back down. The other dropped back to walk beside us, constantly fingered the hem of my coat or the leather of Radovan's jacket, until Radovan slapped his hand away.

"Sorry!" said the gnome. "That's a nice jacket."

Radovan showed his teeth. The gnome skipped ahead to avoid further retribution.

"What's wrong with these guys?" Radovan whispered.

"Gnomes experience the world with all of their senses, a habit that puts off many of the less inquisitive races."

"I think that one just ate a bug."

As we ducked to avoid the arms of a slanted windmill, I thought it time to broaden Radovan's education in elves before we delved too deeply into the subject of gnomes. "You should know that it is dangerous to trifle with the affections of an elven Calistrian. In Kyonin, the worshipers of the Savored Sting are far more ardent in pursuing her teachings. The three blades of her sigil stand for—"

"Guile, lust, and revenge. Yeah, I learned all kinds of stuff the other night."

"Once again you prove that you are smarter than you look."

"Hey, how'd you know Kemeili was a Calistrian?"

"I learned 'all kinds of stuff' before your grandmother was born."

The gnomes paused to offer us a shortcut on an aerial ropeslide connecting their tree-borne platforms. I declined in favor of the rope bridges, which had the advantage of being fixed at eight points rather than two.

"That Kemeili really is something." Radovan licked his thumb and soothed an angry mark on his neck. "Still, I'm glad we flew out of there when we did. One more night, and I'd have needed a healer."

"So you have no intention of returning to resume your tryst?"

"Nah," he said. "She's a fun-once kind of gal."

"Good. It could complicate my relations with the court if you were to disappoint her."

"Oh, she wasn't disappointed."

Rising song and laughter gave me an excuse to look away rather than listen to the sordid details.

Below us, the occupants of Lower Omesta had emerged from their homes. Elven potters wet their morning clay near a well. A family of leatherworkers sorted scraps upon a shaded table, preparing for the day's work. A painter in a sunny spot daubed color on the wings of swallowtail kites, while men crawled over a nearby roof, peeling away moldy shingles. Children ran along the street. One of the swallowtail kites pursued them, lofted by a young woman I took for their minder. They were the ones who sang, though all they passed joined in their laughter.

"Happy families," said Radovan. His wistful expression made me wonder whether he missed Egorian so much. I suspected he still thought of Ustalav and the woman he left there. He rarely spoke of her, but on moonlit nights I sometimes spied him tracing the wings of Desna between thumb and finger. Sometimes he murmured a name in his sleep.

The city in the trees was a distorted reflection of the city on the ground. Instead of paved roads, paths of wood, rope, and living vines threaded the boughs. The gnomes made their homes in tree houses and platforms suspended between the sturdiest trunks. From the ground they could ascend on spiraling ramps, rope ladders, and great baskets raised by rope and tackle. Windmills powered their machinery and stored power in enormous flywheels. Even where I could see no obvious need for them, gears, axles, levers, belts, and draw-lines acted as the connecting tissue to the larger organism of Upper Omesta.

I explained to Radovan that the gnomes had discovered the original Omesta during the elven retreat from Earthfall, the cataclysm that wiped the ancient empires of Azlant and Thassilon from the face of Golarion. Rather than take over the existing structures, they built their homes above them. When the elves returned, the gnomes introduced themselves as neighbors, not squatters.

"You know what this place reminds me of?" Radovan waved at the disordered structures around us. "A labyrinth."

"Very good." Earlier he had used the term "lethargy" in conversation with Caladrel. "And in Varisian?"

He took well to the tongue of his homeland, but I had to correct his Tien. I told him the Elven word for "maze." He was still trying to pronounce it without spitting when one of our escorts tugged at my sleeve.

"Up there." He pointed at a circular platform suspended by lines from five surrounding trees. Its high position left it in open sunlight. "That's where you'll find your woodshaper."

"Will you not introduce us?"

The gnome with the beaded mustache sniffed, sneezed, and shivered. "Not on a bet."

Before I could object, our guides withdrew with such alacrity that I looked over my shoulder to make sure no great spider descended upon us. Radovan, Arnisant, and I ascended the last spiral stairs to the platform. We emerged in full sunlight, surrounded by a profusion of greenery.

An elaborate arrangement of tough ropes and wire suspended earth-filled troughs above the platform, casting more than half the area into dappled shade. Lush vines and tendrils in full bloom overflowed each container. At a glance, I discerned three distinct areas on the platform.

To our left stood an octagonal arrangement of tiered shelves bearing planters full of herbs and unusual plants. Some were the same as those I cultivated in my hothouse in Greensteeples, but others I had never seen. Whoever tended these had more than rudimentary knowledge of botany, and perhaps also of magic.

Before us sat a double row of tables filled with woodworking tools, planes, awls, knives, and brushes. Jars of pigment and lacquer sat under the tables, and around them lay scattered patches of sawdust and curlicues of wood shavings.

To our right squatted a thatch-roofed structure no larger than a garden shack. Exquisite carvings on its outer walls depicted woodland scenes. A slender unicorn drank at a brook, while a family of stoats sheltered beneath the bole of a gnarled oak. The carvings emphasized the beauty of the flora as much as that of the fauna. The artist loved the grass and trees as much as the unicorn.

"Hello," I called out in the tongue of gnomes.

"Bless you," said Radovan.

I repeated my greeting in Taldane. "Hello, Fimbulthicket?"

We walked around the little house to the eastern side of the platform.

"Ah!"

A gnome sat facing the sunrise, his back to us. All I could see of him was a mass of white hair spilled loose over his naked shoulders. He sat upon a cushion of what I imagined were his own grimy robes, but they lay upon the leather couch of my beloved Red Carriage.

The wreckage lay in heaps and stacks across the platform. Even if I had not inventoried the shattered pieces in the vain hope they had all been recovered, I would have recognized the distinctive ornamentation of the carved wood.

The carriage fragments were not simply strewn about. The doors lay to either side of the central compartment, the back and roof behind, the driver's perch, lamps, and tongue to the front. Its broken pieces had been arranged like an unfolded paper box.

The gnome stood, revealing that he was completely naked. Before turning to greet us, he donned his robe and secured his hair with a leather thong. The bound hair more resembled the spray of a fountain than a ponytail.

The gnome resembled a pale pink phantom. Even his blue irises had faded to the color of winter skies. He stared at me, his huge eyes uncanny as the sun at his back cast his blanched face into gloom.

He suffered not from albinism but from the Bleaching, perhaps on the verge of surrendering completely to the doom of the gnomes. Just as they embrace the tangible world with all of their senses, gnomes suffer a sensory withdrawal if they do not maintain a constant state of new experiences. As they age, those who suffer from too much boredom or routine find that the once-vivid hues of their skin, hair, and eyes begin to fade. Left unchecked, the Bleaching almost always proves fatal.

"Varian Jeggare." The gnome stared at me as if remembering my face.

"Have we met?"

"No, of course not. But you look just as I imagined you would."

"Perhaps you have seen my image before."

"Something like that."

While hardly as famous as Prince Amarandlon, I do occasionally find that someone has mounted a copy of one of my portraits in their salon. It is possible I stood slightly taller at the implied compliment.

"Careful, boss." Barely concealing his smirk, Radovan glanced at a potted plant hanging above me.

"My associate, Radovan."

He tossed Fimbulthicket an irregular salute. That was a bad habit to bring home to Egorian, where the Hellknights are quick to take offense. Radovan took a cue from my raised eyebrow and withdrew, settling down on a three-legged stool where he began massaging Arnisant's back. The hound scooted closer to him.

I turned back to Fimbulthicket. "I see you have examined the remains of my carriage."

"It breaks my heart to see the dear thing in such a state." He picked up the top half of a lamp casing. "I carved these."

"I thought you created the entire carriage."

"No, I merely assisted, and later I drove the carriage to Greengold and had it shipped to Egorian. You never knew that, did you? We almost met then, but I decided not to take such a long trip alone. Variel Morgethai himself created the carriage."

"Oh." I had been under the misapprehension that Prince Amarandlon had located the crafter, not simply his assistant. Still, it was a clue that might lead me to the man I needed. "And where can we find him?"

"No one knows," said Fimbulthicket. "He has been missing for seventy ...no, more like eighty years. Isn't that the real reason you are here? To find Variel?"

"Insofar as I wish my carriage repaired, I suppose so."

"But the queen must want you to find him. Why else would she invite you to Iadara? Why else would she tell me to help you?"

"Is he so important?"

"He was to Queen Telandia," said Fimbulthicket. In a softer voice he added, "He was to me."

"But if no one knows where he is, how do we begin? Perhaps you can start repairing the carriage. Since you assisted in its creation, can you—?"

"My powers never matched Variel's. In fact, since we parted, I have turned to nursing plants and helping those who will accept my assistance." He sighed and glanced down at Lower Omesta. "That means mostly elves."

I thought of what he had not said. "Your fellow gnomes shun you because of the Bleaching."

His brisk nod conveyed no invitation to pity. "The fact is, I could craft replacements for the parts I contributed, but I can't restore the body of the carriage to its original state. Only Variel can do that."

While I had hoped to return to Egorian soon, I had been away so long that a few more days would hardly matter. "I suppose I shall need your help to find him."

"I hoped you would say that. I can show you all our old haunts. We traveled half of Kyonin together before...Well, before I began to get old. Nothing would please me more than to see him again. And it's true what I said: He's the only one who can revive your carriage."

"Revive? That seems a strange way to describe repairs."

"No, don't you see? Come, come here." He grasped my hand. His skin felt paper-thin, but beneath it I felt the pulse of life. He placed my hand on the outer panel of one of the carriage doors. "Feel it."

The lacquer had peeled, leaving the once-smooth surface coarse and brittle. Ash and crystalline residue clung to my fingers. I reached for a handkerchief.

"No," insisted Fimbulthicket. "Feel it. Really feel it."

Suppressing an impatient sigh, I did as he bade me. Kneeling beside the ruined door, I pressed my hand to the scorched surface. Still I felt nothing more than the cold dead wood of an object I treasured perhaps more than I should. After all, I had never met the father who sent it to me.

A sudden anger stirred my heart. Had I been deluding myself all these years? Why had I elevated the stature of my absent father so? Was it to replace the lacuna of his existence with an ideal of a lost, romantic figure, unable to return to the family he loved? In my childish fantasy, the carriage provided a substitute for an affection I had never received.

"I feel nothing."

As I rose, I touched the hilt of my sword to avoid tripping. Just as had occurred at the masquerade, a double vision appeared before me. Radovan, Arnisant, and Fimbulthicket appeared unchanged, although the images carved on Radovan's jacket shimmered with motion—no doubt the result of its recent enchantments. It was the Red Carriage whose outer illusion faded to reveal the truth inside.

Its wooden body appeared not as scrap but more as the injured body of a living plant. Its splintered edges oozed with a golden sap so clear and fine as to be invisible to the unassisted eye. The darkened clots I had taken for mold now seemed far more like weeping scabs.

I could see beneath the surface. Within the fibers of the wood, thousands upon thousands of vital capillaries spread throughout the carriage. At every injury they had been severed. The missing pieces were not lost but amputated.

"It is wounded," I said. How long had I left the carriage to lie alone in a Greengold warehouse? Had it suffered in its untreated injury? Could it feel pain? Loneliness? For how much was my ignorance to blame? A surge of remorse caught in my throat.

The gnome placed a hand on my shoulder. "Now you see. Now you feel. The carriage doesn't need repair. It needs healing. It needs Variel."

"Tell me more about this Variel Morgethai."

Fimbulthicket paused, his face contorting with a sudden epiphany. "Oh, no! I thought you understood. I thought you knew! Oh, I should have known by the way you said his name."

"What is it?"

"Variel Morgethai isn't just the creator of the Red Carriage," said Fimbulthicket. "He's your father."

Chapter Four

The Fierani Forest

Radovan

Somebody was making a hell of a racket, and not just in my nightmare. I'd been having a lot of those lately. I shook off the terrors, sat up, and rubbed sand out of my eyes.

Desna smiled. Nobody was getting murdered outside of dreamland. Arnisant just had Fumblewhatsit backed up against the campfire.

"Call off your animal! Great glens and gardens, he'll eat me in one bite!" The gnome wasn't tall enough to hold the skillet out of reach. He protected it with his body, but the hound's big jaws shook his confidence.

"Arni, get over here!"

The dog bounded and sat beside me, a long rope of drool running from his jaws.

The gnome scowled at Arni and set the skillet back on the fire. Fat black sausages sizzled in the pan.

"You all right, Fim?"

"Fimbulthicket," he winced as he pressed a hand to hip. "And I'm fine, thanks for asking. Dodging a hungry dog is nothing new, I'm sorry to say."

"Where's the boss?"

The gnome tilted his head in the direction of the brook. His baggy eyes told me the boss had kept him up late, as he had our last couple of nights in Omesta, quizzing him about his old man. It didn't help that we'd slept this last night in the forest just outside the elf and gnome city. The boss said it was supposed to get us prepared for the upcoming journey.

It was going to take a lot more than one night's camping to toughen up the gnome, who winced every time he moved. He probably hadn't spent a night out of a soft bed since he'd last seen Variel. That was around the time the boss was born, and I still had trouble thinking of him as working on a hundred years old.

I didn't mind sleeping on the ground so much as the fiends tearing through my dreams. I couldn't blame it on last night's supper, which had been pretty plain fare after all the rich elven goodies back in Iadara. No, I had a pretty good idea where my nightmares came from. They didn't come from the things I'd eaten. They came from the things I'd done.

As I pulled on my boots, the back of my neck itched. I looked around, saw nothing. Listening, I heard the sizzling meat on the fire, the water from the brook, and birdsong from the trees, but nothing out of order. Still, it felt like somebody was watching me.

I shook out my blanket and made a cloud of gray dog hair. No wonder I'd dreamed about wrestling a demon-bear. Whenever I slept near the boss, Arni waited for him to fall asleep before moving from the foot of his bunk to steal my covers, the big mooch.

The starknife rested behind the pack. I'd carried it with me ever since we'd left Ustalav. Even all the time I tramped through Tian Xia in a devil's body, I kept it near. A few times I'd had to use it to kill, but that's not why Azra gave it to me. Despite swearing to Bishop Senir that I'd never go back to Ustalav, I wondered sometimes whether Azra was waiting for me to return her knife and seal the offer she'd made me.

It was a stupid thing to think about. I wrapped the starknife in my blanket and stuffed them both into my pack.

I fetched my jacket off the tree where I'd hung it. It looked no worse for the dunking I'd taken back in Iadara. Most of my scrapes and bruises had healed, too. While the night I spent with Kemeili was fun, I was glad it was behind me. There'd been a time I'd have felt different. Maybe the problem was I'd spent a year stuck in a body nobody could love. Or maybe I'd had my fill of rough stuff for one lifetime.

My spurs slid into their elbow slots as I shrugged on the jacket. I rolled my shoulders to feel the slack hidden under the overlapping strips of red leather. It was the best jacket I'd ever had, and I liked feeling my tools close to hand. If I slapped my arms just so, razor-sharp blades filled my fingers. Even in a tight spot, it was easy to slip a rake or probe out of a hidden pocket.

I snagged a couple sausages from the skillet, juggling them as the fat dripped down my fingers. It was time I learned to be more careful around hot things.

Arnisant followed me out of camp. When I paused, he sat at my side and gave me a pitiful look.

I broke a sausage in half and held it up. "You stay off my bed. Got it?"

The Arnisant Falls started flowing. Before he could drown in his own puddle of drool, I dropped the sausage. He made it disappear and looked to me for more. I finished mine before I let him have the other half of his. Otherwise he'd harry me all the way to the brook.

We found the boss in the middle of the stream. He stood on a stone, his pose telling me he was halfway through the Thirty-Six Forms he'd learned from the masters of Dragon Temple. I'd learned the same exercises from a less reputable source. No surprise, the boss still practiced the Forms, and I had to admit he was a lot better at them than I was. Still, I made better use of them up close and personal.

I hopped onto a nearby stone and joined him. Usually we didn't go for more than a minute before he started pointing out my mistakes. This time he didn't say a word. We just let our bodies flow through the motions.

We finished and began again. As we Gathered the Sun and did Crane Steps Forth, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. The elf ranger Caladrel crouched on a branch overhanging the brook. He watched until we finished the second routine.

The boss looked at Caladrel. An unspoken message passed between them, and the elf dropped as light as a leaf to the ground. He set aside his bow and quiver, slipped the long elven curveblade off his back. Facing us, he imitated our movements as we did it all again.

By the time we reached Tip the Leaf, I knew he was one hell of a quick learner.

"Immaculate," the boss said when we were done. "Have you studied?"

Caladrel shook his head. "I practiced Willow-Oak calisthenics while training for the rangers. Your exercise seems to have a similar purpose."

They collected their weapons, and Arni and I followed them back to the campsite. Caladrel and the boss were the same height, a good five inches taller than me. As they locked step, the boss fell into the ranger's rolling gait. As long as I'd known him, he was a natural mimic, even when he wasn't trying.

It was good to see the boss in his long coat with the riffle scrolls slung around his chest. The Shadowless Sword hanging from his hip should have looked all wrong with his Chelish clothes, but somehow its black-and-gold lacquered scabbard seemed to fit in just perfect. When he drew the blade, it moved as swiftly as his Chelish rapier ever had. Swifter, even. He said that's how it got its name, because it moved too fast for the sun to throw a shadow behind it.

The one difference I noticed in the count lately was that he'd lost that little bit of gray in his hair. I couldn't tell whether he was using dye or magic, but it was only a matter of time before I caught him at it. He was getting old, even for a half-elf, but he hid it pretty good.

"Prince Amarandlon sent me to aid in your search," said Caladrel. He saw the boss's eyes narrow, same as me. "He explained that the expedition is under your command. I welcome the opportunity to learn from you."

The boss nodded, but he was preening on the inside. He likes having his toes kissed. I guess that can't be helped, when you're born into the richest family in the richest country in the world. "The prince's message said I should expect two others."

"Maybe Faunra?" I'd hoped to find that doe-eyed ranger in Omesta while the boss and Fimbulthicket planned our excursion, but the gnomes told me she'd flown back to Iadara. I made up for my disappointment by catching up on the sleep I'd lost with Kemeili.

The boss gave me a look, but Caladrel smiled. He was turning out to be a regular guy, despite the toe-kissing.

"I'm afraid not," said the elf. "I'm here for the rangers. The others will represent other concerns. Doubtless one will be the queen's creature."

The boss's eyebrow rose a bit. Otherwise he masked his suspicion pretty good.

"That reminds me," Caladrel said, rummaging in his pack. "I bring a gift from Prince Amarandlon."

"Your master has been most generous to me," said the boss.

"Actually, the gift is for your associate."

The boss masked his disappointment pretty bad.

Caladrel pulled out a dirt-colored cloth and handed it to me. It was light as a handkerchief, but I let it fall open and saw it was a full cloak with a hood.

"Thanks," I said, trying to sound polite. "But it's not really my style."

"Your red leathers stand out against the forest," said Caladrel. "With scouts from the Witchbole venturing ever closer, stealth is our first line of defense."

"It's kind of warm to wear a cloak, don't you think?"

"Try it on."

The boss gave me the look, so I threw the cloak over my shoulders. The hem fell just above the top of my boots, covering up my red jacket and pants. It wasn't too warm after all.

"Much better," said Caladrel. "Now you aren't visible from a mile away."

"Thanks." Maybe it'd get caught in a briar patch. Maybe a breeze would blow it into a ravine. I revised my wish list for Lady Luck.

Back at the camp, the gnome with the goofy name rolled his eyes when he saw we'd brought company for breakfast. When the boss told him to expect two more, he shuffled over to his pack and dug out more sausages. Grumbling as he rubbed his wrists, he said, "I hope they bring more provisions."

"It would appear one has," said Caladrel.

A tall figure came out of the forest. Mirror-bright armor glinted out from beneath a hooded elven cloak like mine. The warrior's backpack was twice the size of mine, and it came with a barn door of a shield and a rafter of a sword.

The newcomer dropped the pack. Pulling back the hood, she revealed herself as the Forlorn woman who'd slugged me at the queen's party.

"Desna weeps." Sometimes I forget and say it out loud.

Caladrel coughed. "Count Jeggare, allow me to introduce Oparal, paladin of Iomedae."

"Your Excellency." She made a stiff Chelish bow.

The boss barely nodded, reminding her of the pecking order. With a sly smile, he said, "I believe you are already acquainted with my bodyguard, Radovan."

The black pupils of her steel-colored eyes slid toward me. Her nostrils flared. Her expression was almost comical except for the fact that my jaw still ached. Otherwise, I would have tipped her a wink to show I wasn't scared.

I wasn't. Not much, anyway.

"Hungry?" asked the gnome.

"Yes," said Oparal. "Our owl only just arrived."

At a nod from the boss, Oparal went to sit beside the fire. I made the "let's talk" sign. Caladrel caught the hint and joined the others at the fire while the boss and I strolled out of earshot.

"You sure this is a good idea? I mean, seriously—a paladin?"

"We could wish for no better ally if we encounter demons in the forest."

"We don't need one of these holy avengers. They make me nervous. You don't like them either. Besides, we've handled fiends before."

"I never said I don't like paladins. As for demons, you and I have only ever faced one or two at a time, usually with the Egorian Watch only a shout away."

"You're forgetting Iron Mountain."

"I forget nothing," he said. "Those were devils. And you were on their side."

He had to remind me of that. "I couldn't help it."

"All I am saying is that the circumstances are different."

"You weren't the one that ogress clobbered."

"I was not the one who offended her."

"Thanks for the sympathy."

The boss looked past me. That sly smile found its way back onto his face. "Perhaps our last companion will be more to your liking."

I turned to see her approach. Under an elven cloak she wore black-and-yellow leathers—wasp colors. A coiled whip hung at her back, pushing up her cloak like the bustle of a ball gown.

Kemeili planted a fist on her hip and smiled at me. "You didn't think I'd let you get away that easily, did you?"

∗ ∗ ∗

Caladrel paused and raised a hand. He lowered it, palm-down. We all crouched low. Even Arnisant lay down without needing to be told. Clever boy.

Whatever the ranger spotted, I was glad to set down my overstuffed pack. The boss kept his books in his satchel, but I was the one hauling around the rest, including his tent. At least he had all his little scrolls and widgets in his coat and bandolier.

Caladrel beckoned the boss forward. I went with him.

We peered through some bushes at a mob of demons ambling through the forest. They wore the bodies of elves, some of them in scraps of ranger leathers, but there was no mistaking them for real elves. They jiggled with every step, glutted with something wriggling inside them. I counted seventeen of the damned things.

"Vermleks," whispered Caladrel.

"I will lead the attack," said Oparal, who'd joined us without an invitation. She shrugged off her pack and set her shield on an arm as thick as mine. Traced in gold on the shield's face was the image of a winged, eagle-headed woman.

"No," said the boss. "There are too many for us simply to rush in."

"The count is right," said Caladrel.

"But we are less than half a day from Omesta," said Kemeili, who I hadn't even heard creep up on us. "They have never come so close before."

"They have, and more often than you might think," said Caladrel. "But we are charged with protecting the queen's guest. You take your duty seriously, don't you, Oparal?"

"I—" Oparal looked at the boss and me. "I do."

"Then wait. With your permission, Count Jeggare ...?"

The boss gave him the nod, and Caladrel drew an arrow from his quiver. I could have sworn the fletching moved itself into his fingers, like the container was handing it to him. He nocked the arrow. On its tip was a lump that looked like a plant bulb.

The boss whispered to Oparal. "Caladrel knows the forest. We will follow his lead."

"Of course, Excellency."

"In the field, call me Varian."

I didn't like having a cloak on me, even if it didn't make me too hot. I dropped it on the ground. As an afterthought, I shrugged off my jacket, too. Oparal looked at me like I was stupid. Maybe she was right, but I didn't want demon gore all over my new leathers.

Caladrel popped up and back down so quick that I noticed the sound of his bow only after I realized he was moving. The demons heard it, and some of them looked back in our direction. A few stared so hard I felt like they were looking straight at me. I moved real quiet-like, and their elven eyes followed me.

Past the demons, the arrow hit the ground with a squelching sound. That got the attention of all the demons. Wailing, they rushed toward the arrow, shoving each other to reach it first.

"The scent drives them mad," Caladrel whispered. He pointed through the brush at a pair of demons ripping hunks of meat off each other. Caladrel nodded up toward the forest canopy. "It also attracts help."

At first it looked like cones were dropping from the high branches, but there were no pines around. The "cones" were fist-sized wasps.

"Well done, Caladrel," said Kemeili.

The demons noticed nothing but what was between them and the scent. The wasps swarmed over them. For a few moments, the demons didn't seem to notice. Then one began screaming and slapping at its elven body. Its head swelled and darkened. An instant later, it burst open like a rotten melon. A liver-colored worm's head burst out through its gaping neck, squealing as it squirmed free of its wasp-stung body.

"Now?" Oparal had her hand on her sword.

"Let them weary themselves," said Caladrel.

An impatient growl rumbled in Oparal's chest. She sounded like Arnisant when he spied a cat. She was spoiling for a fight.

Six or seven of the demons raised their stolen hands above their heads, gurgling unholy prayers. The air around them congealed. The wasps fell to the ground while the demons crushed the insects in a frenzy of slaps and stomps.

"Now," said the boss.

By the time I realized Caladrel had stood, he'd unleashed three or four arrows. One jutted from the chest of a vermlek, blood spurting through its hollow shaft.

Oparal charged the demons. Her sword struck quick as lightning and blazed twice as bright. Two demons came up behind her, black energy surrounding their hands as they reached for her. The boss riffled a scroll, and two gray bolts of magic struck each vermlek in the face. They howled and clutched their eyes as Oparal whipped her sword around and opened their bellies. Bloody worms as thick as my arm poured out of the wounds. Below each thick head, the worms split into four long tails, the tails further tipped with nests of countless tiny tentacles. The abandoned elf bodies slumped to the ground.

The boss tucked his expended scroll back into his bandolier. I stayed close in case one of the worms went for him. Arni did the same, barking as a worm shot quick as a snake past Oparal. The hound jumped in front of the boss, but the demon didn't go for the count.

It raised a dripping tail and pointed straight at me. In the squealing tongue of demons, it called out to its wormy buddies. Their heads swiveled in my direction. They rushed me.

I tensed, deciding whether to stand or dodge.

With a crack, Kemeili's whip caught the first vermlek by one of its wormy tails. The demon struggled to get free, but the curved flaps of the whip held it tight. Kemeili pulled it off course, giving me all the room I needed.

I planted the big knife a couple of feet below the worm's five-jawed mouth. Dark blood sprayed up as I pulled out the blade, but the demon barely grunted at the wound. Maybe that's not where it kept its heart.

Or maybe vermleks don't need hearts.

It rammed its head against my ribs, knocking the breath out of me. Arnisant's jaws caught the worm just below its head. The hound shook once, twice, and the third time tore away a mass of ruined flesh and six inches of bloody windpipe.

Turns out vermleks do need windpipes.

We left it flopping on the ground and turned to stop the next one coming toward me. None even came close.

Caladrel and the boss each put down another one with their swords. The ranger's big two-hander moved so fast that all I could see was its red blur. It hummed as it moved, louder when it touched a demon. In the instant it was out of its sheath, the boss's Shadowless Sword was damned near invisible. It looked as if everywhere he pointed his hand, some magic power tore wounds in the demons' flesh.

Oparal cut the legs out from under two vermleks trying to break away. As the worms escaped their host bodies, she chopped them into pieces.

Kemeili twisted the handle of her whip. Three long, wicked barbs grew from its tip. She lashed a vermlek across the belly, revealing the worm inside. With another stroke, she tore it out of its shelter. I filled it with darts from my jacket sleeves. It flopped a few times and lay still.

It was over before I'd worked up a good lather. I thought about how the vermleks had looked at me, then I began to sweat.

Oparal looked at me herself, eyes narrowing. The white light of her sword began fading. She raised it up and chopped the head off another demon.

Caladrel joined her in the beheadings. The closer his sword came to the vermleks, the more it glowed like blood on a lantern pane. As the demons died, so did the glow.

The boss had been right. It was good to have a couple demon slayers with us. I only hoped they didn't mistake me for one of the bad guys.

Kemeili wiped the gore off her whip while the gnome looked us over for injuries. A gnome-sized whirlwind floated just above the grass behind him, but it hadn't left his side during the battle. He didn't find any wounds on us. "Not even a scratch!"

Good thing, I thought as I fetched my jacket. Otherwise I'd have felt pretty silly setting aside what little armor I had. I promised myself not to do that again, even if it meant getting a little slime on my leathers.

"Don't sound so disappointed," Kemeili said to the gnome. "Or maybe next time just help us fight them."

He waved away her complaint. "I've seen scum like these a dozen times before. I knew you could handle them. They're boring."

The boss knelt to examine the dead demons. I counted time in my head until he broke out his sketchbook. Fourteen seconds—a new record.

Kemeili shot me a silent question. What is he doing?

I could have told her that the boss is a student of everything, but the truth is he likes weird stuff best. For instance, he calls himself a botanist—a fancy word for "gardener"—but the plants he likes most are the freaks like those whispering lilies he used to give his Pathfinder agents. They could plant one wherever they were, talk into the flower, and their words would come through lily's twin in the boss's greenhouse.

I could have told her that, but I didn't want to lead her on. If she'd finagled her way into the group because she couldn't get enough of me, well, who could blame her? On the other hand, it was way too convenient. If the queen had sent Oparal, that left the temple to send Kemeili. And while the Calistrians were bunches of fun with their temple baths and prostitutes, guile and revenge weren't high on my list of good times.

Kemeili waited for an answer until I shrugged and turned away, pretending to concentrate on cleaning the gore off my knife. Once the boss decided we had to bury the elven bodies and burn their demon hosts, I kept busy enough to avoid her for the rest of the afternoon.

After we finished, we hustled east until the boss called a halt at dusk.

It was about time, I figured, since I was carrying twice as much gear as anybody except the paladin, and I'd decided she was half giant.

Actually, she didn't look half bad. I liked how the sunlight made her black hair shine almost blue, but she never cracked a smile, especially when she saw me looking back at her.

The gnome dropped his pack. It hit the ground with a heavy thump. I grabbed the strap and hefted it. It was almost too much to lift in one hand.

"Hey, Thick. How do you haul so much?"

"Fimbulthicket," he corrected me, but then he smiled. He'd shaken off his morning grump, but he still winced as if every move brought out a bad ache in his bones. "I imbued myself with the might of an ant."

"An ant?"

"Proportionately, they are far more powerful than we gnomes. Even stronger than you humans."

He called me human, so I liked him a little better, despite his stupid name. "So you cast a spell?"

He nodded.

"You got to teach the boss that one." I touched my own aching back. It'd be worth one of his riffle scrolls to lighten my load.

The gnome shook his head. "It's not some arcane formula, but rather my connection to the Green that lends me power."

"I get it. You're more like a cleric than a wizard. But the boss is a clever guy. Maybe he could figure out a way to do with his scrolls what you do with your Green."

"Perhaps." The gnome shrugged, then brightened. "If he did, it would certainly be the first time that I ever heard of such a thing."

The boss doled out chores, and no one seemed to mind his giving orders. Caladrel made a fire as Kemeili skinned the hares he'd shot while he scouted ahead during our hike. She was good with a knife, as I knew better than most.

"Hey, boss. I could use a little help with that thing over there."

He glanced at Kemeili and back at me. We walked off far enough that I figured the elves wouldn't overhear us.

"I'm starting to think it's a bad idea to take Kemeili with us."

"She is an official representative of the temple of Calistria," he said. "You realize they are the most influential sect in Kyonin?"

"Yeah, yeah." He'd given me the long lesson before we'd arrived, and I could list the names of all the elf gods. I liked that they worshiped Lady Luck, same as me and the boss, but their favorite was Calistria, the Savored Sting. "I'm just saying I don't think she's here for the right reason. Even if she was, she's going to be a distraction."

"She is important not only to the success of our mission but to the continued goodwill of her temple, the court, and the queen herself."

"Sure, but—"

"Just keep her happy," he said. "That should not be too onerous. Or have you lost your touch with the ladies?"

"Lost my—? Hey, now. You know that's not a problem."

"I hear quite a few wild boasts, but when we face a situation that requires a certain subtle—"

"Fine."

"Fine?"

"Fine, I'll keep her happy."

"Excellent," he said, turning to go back to the others. He paused and added, "Just not near camp. Show some discretion."

The boss and Oparal went off to fetch water, talking as they went. I had his tent set up and his gear stowed inside by the time they returned with filled canteens and waterskins.

I stretched out Arnisant's supper by giving him a little at a time rather than throwing him a whole hare. By the time it was gone, he didn't even give me the starving dog routine. He just settled down at the boss's feet.

"What other varieties of fiend might we face?" the boss asked Caladrel.

"The list is endless," said Caladrel. "The vermlek are the least of them. I have fought over a dozen kinds, but many others lurk in Tanglebriar or await summons from the Abyss."

"This is why I returned to Kyonin," said Oparal. "To wipe this filth from our land."

Caladrel raised his leather tankard in salute. "May you touch the Brightness."

"A laudable goal," said the boss. "But I would be as glad to avoid them as to slaughter them. Our mission is to find Variel Morgethai."

"We are all here to help you find your father, Varian," said Kemeili. He usually told people to call him by his given name 'in the field,' as he put it. Still, I didn't like the way she said it. Maybe he would have to be the one to keep her happy. That thought was more annoying than I'd expected it to be.

"Are we certain he still lives?" said Oparal. "No one has seen him for almost a century."

"I would know if he had died," said the gnome. He rubbed his knuckles. "I would feel it."

The boss shot him a curious look. It was a weird thing to say. From the way everyone else looked away, I wasn't the only one who thought so.

The gnome picked up on it too. "I would feel it in the Green. Variel has always been a strong presence in the land."

Everybody nodded as if that explained everything, but it still killed the conversation.

Caladrel and Oparal discussed the best ways to kill demons. Lightning and poison were useless. Fire, frost, and acid weren't so good either, but that mattered more to the boss, who had to pick the right spells to write in his riffle scrolls. Since I'd had the big knife whammied in Goka, I was all set to slice off a hunk of demon.

As we banked the fire and got ready to sleep, I caught another of those looks from Kemeili. It was weird how she could look like a girl one moment—complete with a baby-doll voice that shouldn't have done it for me but, to be honest, kind of did—and then turn her head in the firelight to become all woman.

Well, maybe part tiger, too.

Sleep is what I wanted, and Kemeili looked like she had more than cuddles on her mind. I rolled up the elven cloak and shook out my jacket, trying to make it clear that I was ready for sleep.

"What's that?" said Oparal. She sat on a fallen log beside the fire, her big sword across her knees. "That image on your jacket."

I held it up, showing off the phoenix on the back. "Phoenix. Big flaming bird. They got them over in Tian Xia."

"Did you see one?"

"Yeah. Once. Kind of."

Oparal tilted her head to the side, obviously not buying my story.

"I had this jacket made to remind me of all the fights I had in Tian Xia. That's a land on the other side of the—"

"I know what Tian Xia is."

"Well, long story short, I got into a few tussles over there. Each of these pictures is kind of my souvenir."

"Trophies of your kills?"

I didn't like her tone. It didn't matter to me what god she wore on her shield. She had no business judging me. Still, I wasn't about to back down just because she wore shiny armor. "I didn't kill them all," I said. "Just the ones who got in my face with their righteous attitudes."

"That's no phoenix." She held up her shield to show off the bird-woman—which now that I looked closer, did bear some suspicious similarities to the symbol on my jacket. Not the same, but close enough to make me wonder what the artist had known. "It was someone bearing the symbol of my order, wasn't it?"

"Nah," I said. "It was a whole other country. Different gods and everything."

Oparal reached into a belt pouch and brought out a little jar. She opened it and dipped in a finger before drawing a little sun on her brow, across her lips, and on the armor over her heart. "Tell me again who you killed," she said. "I will know if you lie."

"That's enough," said the boss.

"So you know what he did?" said Oparal.

He didn't know, because I hadn't told him. The moment he hesitated to answer, Oparal knew it too.

"There were two of them," I said. "Well, one woman in two bodies. I think one of them was a paladin. I wasn't looking for a fight, but they were. This phoenix on my jacket, that's what was left of them afterward."

Oparal's eyes widened. No doubt she was surprised I'd told the truth.

"Like I said, I wasn't the one looking for a fight."

"You killed a paladin!" She dropped her jar of holy balm and drew her sword an inch from its sheath. It lit up the trees around us.

"Put that away," said Caladrel. "They can see that light in Razmiran."

When Oparal didn't move, the boss snapped, "Sheathe your weapon, or return to Iadara and tell the queen we have no use for you."

Oparal shoved the blade back into place, but her eyes never left my face. I folded the jacket so nobody else could see the phoenix or any of the other figures carved into its leather. Eventually I turned away from Oparal and walked out of camp, half-hoping the boss or Arni would follow. But they didn't.

I found a cozy spot just within range of the fire's light and sat down. What pissed me off about Oparal wasn't that she'd made me admit what I did. I didn't give a good damn what she thought. I just didn't like thinking about the people I'd killed. Most of them had it coming—killers themselves, or worse. Others came looking to kill me, and I shouldn't have felt a bit bad about killing them first.

But this phoenix paladin, when she'd found me, she thought she'd found a devil. A monster, not a man. I tried telling her otherwise, but she wouldn't listen. So I could say I hadn't killed her. She'd killed herself.

But that was a lie, and I knew it. The truth was that I beat her before I killed her. I could have walked away. Well, run away. But I could have got away—that was the point. I could have got away and left her there alive.

But that's not what I did.

Shoving the jacket under my head for a pillow, I lay down alone. When sleep finally caught up with me, it brought me nightmares about the people who hadn't had it coming.

People I'd killed anyway.

Chapter Five

The Walking Man

Varian

While Caladrel and Kemeili clambered across the Walking Man's torso, Radovan stood on the shoulder and raised his face to the emerging sun. He squinted for a moment before allowing a thin smile to crease his broad jaws.

That was a relief. Seeing him shake off the cloud that had hovered over him in recent days gladdened my heart.

Thirty feet above the ground, Radovan shaded his eyes in mockery of an explorer viewing undiscovered territory. I knew just the painting he had in mind, for it hung in my gallery. Radovan's foot slipped in the damp ivy, but he caught himself before falling to the ground. He laughed away the near-fatal accident and resumed his pantomime.

Shielding the page of my journal from the rainwater dripping from the leaves above, I sketched him into my drawing of the Walking Man. As I worked, I heard the muted clank of Oparal's armor as she drew up beside me. She peered over my shoulder to inspect my sketch. "He looks too human."

I added more flowers to the head-like lump surmounting the man-shaped amalgamation of trees, but I knew Oparal spoke of Radovan. Why else would she address me in Taldane unless she hoped he might overhear? Radovan's infernal features are hardly prominent compared to the horns and tails common to so many other Chelish hellspawn, but they are not so subtle that he can pass for human, as he often fancies.

Oparal's stern demeanor gave me the impression she would have enjoyed seeing Radovan fall to his death. That thought may have been uncharitable, but some paladins are scarcely different from the empire's Hellknights. It was no coincidence that the center of worship for Iomedae and Asmodeus shared the same homeland. Both followings too often valued their particular form of order over general reason.

That thought triggered a realization about Oparal's Taldane accent. "How long did you reside in Cheliax?"

The question seemed to surprise her. "I ...I was born there."

Of course, I realized. The elves reserve their scorn for those raised outside of Kyonin—outside of any sizeable elven community—not those who simply travel through non-elven countries.

"In Westcrown, I imagine. You have visited Egorian, though. But you did not spend long enough there to adopt the Imperial pronunciation."

"You have a knack for dialect, Count Jeggare. Before joining the Order of Lymirin, I made pilgrimage throughout the country. I visited every remaining shrine to Iomedae and built another wherever the Prince of Lies had usurped her place."

There was no point in correcting her characterization of the Prince of Law. In private, I sympathized with her distaste for the Infernal Compact that bound my nation to an everlasting treaty with the forces of Hell. Since we were both outside the jurisdiction of our homeland, I felt a temptation to confide my devotion to Desna, but decided in favor of caution. Too often had I seen good friends and family denounced by the inquisitors of Asmodeus, sometimes fatally.

"Radovan is no disciple of Asmodeus," I said. Although he viewed the goddess as Lady Luck, my henchman shared my devotion to the Tender of Dreams. "Nor is it his character that offends your divine perceptions. What you sense in him are the sins of his ancestors."

Oparal scoffed, but she did not challenge me to elaborate. That was just as well. What details we knew of Radovan's heritage we dared not reveal. What we did not know might have founded a university.

"He is a killer," she said.

"As, no doubt, are you."

"He killed a paladin!" she insisted. "You know it's true."

"I know no such thing." Yet I could not argue the point. Radovan and I had spent a year apart. He rarely spoke of that time, yet he had fought many battles while under the thrall of a sorcerer. He had not told me everything about his time in Tian Xia, and I suspected he wished he could forget much of it. Since his release from his devil's form, I had seen him sometimes at sunset, staring into the darkness of the east as though he did not feel deserving of the sun's last glimmer. "However, I do know Radovan. If ever he fought a paladin, I would assume the paladin was in the wrong."

"I should expect no better answer from a lord of Cheliax."

Before I could retort, Fimbulthicket approached, offering us an ingratiating smile. With his rain-dampened hair and enormous eyes, he resembled a drowned cat. His pockets bulged with herbs he had gathered from the base of the Walking Man. He pointed upward, blinking as another raindrop slipped down to splash on his cheek. "It hasn't changed much since the last time I saw it. It's more like a mountain than a tree."

Standing beneath the Walking Man, I felt the full mass of the structure. At least four ancient trees had abandoned their plots to compose a gigantic manikin. Its fibrous joints coiled like springs, while the moist vines twining its limbs resembled the muscles of a flayed body. Had we been present for its recent step, I might have been able to prove my theory that a sudden contraction of the vines served to propel the wooden frame.

Invisible from our nighttime observation were the tens of thousands of flowers rioting across the surface of the Walking Man. Among a vast variety of blooms, many of them strange to me, I identified amaranth, creeping bellflower, bluebell, buttercups, celandine, clover, daffodil, dragon's teeth, eyebright, goldenrod, hawksbeard, hyacinth, iris, knotweed, lily, mouse-ear, mudwort, nightshade, half a dozen varieties of orchid, shepherd's purse, and tansy. So many flowers from different environments, I thought. The Walking Man must have traveled a vast distance to steal so many disparate blooms. "He wears the mantle of a thousand different fields."

"Is that a line from a poem?" asked Oparal.

"Just a stray thought," I demurred, pleased that she had mistaken my half-conscious remark for a lyric.

I brushed away another drop of rain and closed my journal. While I did not mind the elves viewing my sketches, I did not wish to reveal the map I had hidden on the back pages. No one had explicitly forbidden me from creating a chart of Kyonin, but Caladrel's repeated emphasis on his role as my escort suggested that the elves preferred to keep visitors dependent on the rangers for guidance.

Fimbulthicket pointed at my journal. "He did the same thing when we were here. Only the pages of his book were strips of bark, and his finger was his pencil. You know, we might find some of his notes on the Walking Man itself."

"This is where you last saw Variel Morgethai?" Earlier I had recognized the family name as one of the most common among the elves of Kyonin. How many times had I uttered it without realizing it might have been my own?

"He was studying the origin of this construct. We were standing right here when he sent me back to Omesta, saying he wanted to go on by himself." Fimbulthicket frowned and looked to the east. "Well, no. Not right here. About eighty or so giant steps that way."

"Why did he want to be alone? Because of my mother?"

"Maybe." The gnome shrugged. "She'd gone back to Cheliax and we returned to Iadara. He spent a lot of time at court, and I saw less and less of him for a while. He would come to Omesta from time to time. That's where we worked on the Red Carriage. When it was finished, he said it was time to roam the Fierani again. But once we got here, he sent me back to Omesta. He asked me to send the carriage to Lady Pontia Jeggare in Egorian. I thought he'd join me later, but he never did."

From what Fimbulthicket had already told me, I knew my parents parted soon after my conception. Could her pregnancy have been the cause? "And you do not know why my mother left?"

Fimbulthicket sighed to remind me I had asked him the same question several times before. "I didn't spend much time with them. I always felt, if you are familiar with the gnome saying, like 'a fifth wheel.'"

"Here." Kemeili called down from the Walking Man. She pulled away a mass of flowering vines from its torso. "There's a gap underneath."

I asked Fimbulthicket, "Did Variel discover an interior compartment?"

"Not while I was here."

"Did he expect to find one?"

"I—" He hesitated. "I don't remember."

"You said you were right here."

"Not for long. Besides, it was a long time ago! I don't remember every little detail." He touched his thumb to each of his fingers in some sort of mnemonic exercise. Where he depressed the skin, dark veins appeared and soon vanished. "My memories are fading away, just like the rest of me."

"My apologies." Repeated questioning seemed only to aggravate Fimbulthicket's Bleaching. What he needed were fresh experiences, not simply reminders of the past.

Fimbulthicket accepted my apology with a wan smile that turned into a wince as he suffered yet another rheumatoid ache in his elbows. The damp did his joints no good.

"It's too small." said Radovan. His arm and shoulder glistened where he had tried to push himself into the opening. "I can't get in there."

"I can." Kemeili steadied herself against Radovan. "My shoulders aren't so broad."

Radovan's grin vanished when he saw Kemeili beaming at him, awaiting his reaction to her uncharacteristically subtle flirtation. He had been less than obliging with her recently, although I sensed his mood softening since his quarrel with the paladin.

He called down to us. "Maybe Thimbleticker can slip inside."

"Fimbulthicket!"

"Right. Come on up, little guy."

"I'm not a squirrel to scamper up the side of a tree."

"Here," I said, producing a riffle scroll. Since Caladrel cautioned me that fire and lightning were less dangerous to demons than to the forest, I had taken to preparing more utilitarian spells. "With your permission ...?"

Fimbulthicket pinched his lip, considering the little flip-book on which I had inscribed a spell. At last he nodded.

I pressed my thumb against the edge of the unorthodox scroll and let the tiny pages ripple past. On each I had drawn a portion of an arcane symbol. Riffling the pages supplied the motion normally provided by the gestures of the spell, as well as eliminating the need for me to speak the arcane syllables aloud. The ink, into which I had crushed a live spider, vanished as the magic left the scroll. Fimbulthicket's nose twitched. He suppressed a sneeze.

"What did that do?" he said. "Can I fly?"

"The next best thing," I said, expending an identical scroll on myself. "Follow me."

Gripping the lowest vines, I clambered up the Walking Man's leg. Mystic attractions reinforced my grip and ensured my footing. Moments later, I clung beside the opening.

Beneath the ivy lay a shallow gap. If it were no narrower inside, I might just squeeze in.

Fimbulthicket climbed up beside me. "Let me go first. I won't get stuck."

"Take this." I removed the tourmaline ring I'd bought in Absalom and showed him how to evoke either a dim or a bright light by twisting the bezel.

"I should have bought one of those." With his feet planted on the Walking Man's side, Radovan gripped a pair of vines and hung out over the opening for a better view.

"You could have, if you hadn't spent all your money on that jacket."

Fimbulthicket wriggled through the damp aperture. Radovan, Kemeili, and Caladrel put their ears near the opening. Oparal peered up at us with an expression of consternation, perhaps feeling left out. I half-regretted not having prepared a third climbing spell, but it was just as well to keep her and Radovan separated.

"He's found something," said Caladrel. Kemeili nodded, but I heard nothing.

"Listen pertinaciously." Grinning, Radovan held up three fingers. "You thought I'd never get that one."

I resisted the urge to correct his clumsy usage. He had only two more words to cram into his vocabulary today, and the exercise was becoming a distraction. Happily, I heard Fimbulthicket's voice within the Walking Man's hollow interior.

"What is it?"

The sound of the gnome's slide down the passage garbled his reply. By the time he emerged, he fairly burbled with joy. "Variel was definitely inside!"

Grinning, he wiped the tourmaline on his robe and returned it. "You have to see for yourself."

∗ ∗ ∗

Less than an hour later, I lay against the inclined wall of a narrow chamber and sketched the strange contents of the Walking Man's interior into my notebook. So long as I kept my knees raised, I remained wedged in place. My resulting position was ideal for viewing the construction before me.

At first I saw only the writing that had excited Fimbulthicket, who had wiped away a portion of the obscuring slime with his sleeve. I expanded his efforts, sacrificing my handkerchief in the process, but revealing an even more exciting discovery.

Many previous visitors had inscribed notes upon the living wood of the Walking Man's interior chamber. Their writing covered the walls above and beside me. Centuries of the surrounding wood's growth and deterioration had obscured much of the most ancient script. To my vexation, I could decipher little of the text.

Briefly I rued my failure to inscribe more potent divination spells into my new spellbook. Except for the simplest spells, like those to detect the presence of magic, I eschew divinations almost as much as charms or necromancy. Relying on such tricks dulls the mind and, frankly, deprives me of the joy of unraveling mysteries with my favored tools of knowledge and intellect.

Yet then I recalled the unexpected powers of the Shadowless Sword. If it could reveal the truth under Queen Telandia's illusion, I wondered whether it might also show me the now-illegible inscriptions in their original form.

The moment I lay my hand upon the sword's hilt, a new wonder appeared before me.

In the center of the inscriptions—now clearly legible—six roughly hexagonal protuberances formed a ring around a central hexagon. Except for their regular proportions, the "panels" appeared more like organic structures than crafted constructions. Yet there were signs too of purposeful design.

A labyrinth of whorls filled each hexagon, their patterns reminding me of nothing so much as the dance floor in Iadara. I narrowly resisted the urge to brush away what appeared to be cobwebs covering the blister-panels. Gossamer-delicate fibers grew out of those patterns, the strands growing slightly thicker before vanishing into the nearby wood. Judging from their arrangement, I surmised that they spread throughout the body of the Walking Man, with each of the six blister-panels gathering fibers from a different region.

Exhilarating as I found the mystery of the network, my attention soon returned to the writing on the nearby walls. The most recent entries, less than a century old, composed a journal, its earliest date older than me by mere months. The name Variel Morgethai appeared prominently near the beginning.

Fimbulthicket had assured me that the writing was in Variel's hand. The height of each elven character was exaggerated in a style I associated with ancient chronicles. Of course, I realized, Variel must have learned to write centuries ago.

I had never before considered how old he must have been when he met my mother. The question summoned long-dormant memories. I knew my mother was nineteen when she met and fell in love with my father. When I asked for more information, she gently refused and exacted two promises from me: first, that I would never ask her again; second, that I would never despise him for his absence.

They were difficult promises to keep.

With a child's logic, I told myself that she had forbidden me to ask her for more information but not to seek it elsewhere.

Thus I began to stalk the house staff.

From one housemaid I learned that my mother had canceled the remainder of her Grand Tour after dancing with a handsome elf in Greengold. By some charm she gained permission to pass beyond the port city into Kyonin proper, a rare honor for a human. Another maid suggested my mother had been sent to Kyonin as a spy who had manipulated a highborn elf to gain access to Iadara. Yet another suggested that my mother had been the one charmed, enjoyed, and abandoned by her ruthless lover.

In my innocence, I asked my mother to explain the gossip. After the dismissal of three housemaids, the remaining staff learned to hold their tongues in my presence, or whenever they imagined I spied on them from one of our home's many secret passages—which was, in truth, practically whenever I was out of their sight.

Thwarted among the servants, I turned my investigations toward the extended family. Before I could complete my first day's investigation, word reached my grandfather. Everyone was cowed to silence by Patroclus Jeggare, who worshiped propriety above all other virtues. The only other thing he loved was his daughter, who had broken his heart by bearing an illegitimate child. She wounded him further by pronouncing that she would never marry and that he should expect no other grandchildren.

As I approached the age of inheritance, young cousins sprouted on our doorstep like mushrooms after a spring rain. They came from Egorian, Westcrown, and all the counties of Cheliax. They came from the distant Varisian colony of Korvosa, the vassal state of Isger, and even the rebellious colony of Sargava.

My grandfather welcomed each visitor in the morning. After I became acquainted with my kin in the afternoon, he summoned me to his den in the evening. There he tutored me in their parents' holdings, their virtues and foibles, and precisely what portion of his properties they hoped to claw away by persuading him to adopt their offspring. He instructed me to bury that knowledge in my heart, to treat my cousins as beloved friends, and never to forget that they too concealed secrets from me.

After three summers in which I became familiar with every rapacious twig of our family tree, my grandfather summoned all his clerks and counselors. They closeted themselves for the better part of a month, emerging with a trove of documentation forever and irrevocably legitimizing me as Patroclus Jeggare's sole heir.

My relations sent me no more playmates.

On my sixteenth birthday, my mother led me to the gatehouse to view my gift: the Red Carriage. She said it was from my father, the only legacy I could expect from him. That word "legacy" suggested that he had died, yet she said no more and did not mourn. I kept my promise as well as I was able, forcing myself not to question her and not to hate him, until that awful day on which she died.

Then I did despise him for his absence, for his failure to protect her, and for leaving me alone and unable to save her.

A balm of decades gradually diminished my resentment. In time I came to think of him only when I admired the supernal craftsmanship of the Red Carriage. Eventually I thought of him hardly at all, until my cherished vehicle fell to its ruin.

As I read his thoughts upon a wall inside the Walking Man, I scanned his journal for any reference to Pontia Jeggare. To my disappointment, I found none.

Apart from one instance of his own name—I no longer thought it strange that our names were so similar, for doubtless my mother had named me after him—Variel Morgethai wrote only of his observations concerning the Walking Man. His prose was succinct with an occasionally well-turned phrase. I could sense his passion for the object of his studies, his earnest desire to understand the origin and function of the construct.

More interestingly, Variel's notes incorporated those of his predecessors, passages of which he had linked to his own writing with a network of lines that evoked the fibrous connections of the Walking Man itself. Further examination revealed that other visiting scholars had done the same, linking their discoveries to those of their predecessors.

The thought of so many generations of scholarship appearing all together and correlated with such simple but immediate notations evoked its own thrill. The obvious problem was the difficulty of duplicating and disseminating the information rather than allowing a single copy to remain at the site of interest. Yet the very concept of a single, annotated and collated—

I arrested the thought before it carried me away on a useless detour. Rather than allow the idea to distract me from the matter at hand, I consigned it to my memory library for later consideration.

By deduction and divination, Variel had not only discovered the controlling organs of the Walking Man but also proposed hypotheses on their specific functions. From each of the seven blisters he had traced a sort of circulatory system throughout the major limbs of the giant amalgamation of plant growth. The fluid in its arteries accumulated pressure over a period of months, releasing a fraction of its full power each year at Midsummer.

If Variel's theories were correct, direct stimulation of the nexus before me might stir the Walking Man's limbs to motion. The blank central blister, he supposed, might allow a controller to organize those motions in a prearranged series set to activate according to tidal forces or the rotation of Golarion—on that point he remained uncertain.

"Incredible," I murmured.

"Figured it all out?" The gnome had crept back inside so silently that I had not noticed his presence. In the shadows by my feet, he perched like a familiar I had never summoned.

"Only in theory," I admitted. "Variel's notes are extensive but incomplete."

The gnome bobbed his head. "He was always moving on to something new before finishing the work at hand. He said it was because every new thing he learned taught him something about everything he'd discovered earlier. That's why he had a habit of making notes wherever he went. That way, when he came back he'd have a reminder of what he was thinking before he was distracted."

"How unfortunate. In time, he might have discovered how to operate this colossus."

"Might have?"

"There is no evidence to suggest he tested his theories." I pointed to one of his later notes. "He writes that he is reluctant to interfere with the Walking Man but may return after a visit to a place called Erithiel's Hall."

"I know where that is," said Fimbulthicket. "It's a barrow mound, older than the first elves."

I pointed to another passage written beside the panels. "Variel speculates that site could be related to the Walking Man."

Fimbulthicket smiled and wrinkled his nose. "Is it a human custom to call your father by his given name?"

"No," I said. "It simply seems strange to refer to this man I never met as—"

"You're angry with him."

"No." Hearing my own curt response, I wondered whether I was lying more to Fimbulthicket or to myself. "He is simply a stranger to me."

"It's been so long since I last saw him, he may have become a stranger to me, too. Look how much I've changed."

"I can only imagine."

"Oh, of course!" He chuckled. The sound of his mirth was a welcome relief. "That's odd. For a second, seeing you there poring over those carvings, it was almost like old times."

"Do I resemble him so much?"

"Very much. He's a bit taller, but you have the same build. And he doesn't have one of those things." He stroked his chin where I had allowed a narrow strip of beard to grow beneath my lip. It was the most obvious sign of my half-human heritage, although any elf would take one look at my eyes or ears and know I lacked their pure elven blood.

"More than that, it's the way you do this," he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Or this," he said, stroking his chin, "when you're studying those notes."

"Nonsense," I said. Such habits could not possibly be inherited. Surely they were learned traits derived from my grandfather or some other relation who visited often in my youth. Upon reflection, however, I could think of no uncles, friends, or teachers who demonstrated those particular affectations.

Fimbulthicket saw my indecision and smiled again. As I had observed often in the past week, his brief amusement soon faded to a wistful expression. "Anyway, I came to let you know supper's ready. It's almost dark."

"I've been here so long?"

He nodded.

"Very well," I said, passing him my satchel. "I will come out right behind you."

He frowned as he took my bag, and I realized that I had treated him as a servant. Most of my servants are halflings, yet that was no excuse for such discourtesy. "Thank you," I called after him. But he had already slid away down the passage.

I began to follow, but curiosity gnawed at my imagination. How could Variel have left the Walking Man without attempting to prove his theories? How could such a man—my father—be so reticent?

One simple test would take but a moment. I touched a bundle of filaments connecting the "heart" of the Walking Man to its right "arm." A thin film of slime came away on my finger, but I detected no reaction. With my handkerchief I wiped the strands clean. Still nothing happened.

I tried another strand. The fibers warmed at my touch, a faint white radiance rising within the translucent material. Simultaneously, a dull red glow appeared on the central blister. It formed an elven-style rune unfamiliar to me. I traced my finger from the fibers to the rune.

The entire structure shuddered. I touched the rune again, hoping to cancel the effect. Instead, I heard an agonizing creak of timber and felt the entire structure lurch forward. Startled screams and barking erupted outside.

I reversed the path of my finger, drawing a line from the rune to the fibers. More strange runes appeared on the central hexagon, arcane lines radiating outward to activate more of the surrounding fibers. The Walking Man heaved forward in another step, and another.

Calming my racing heart with a deep breath, I recalled the order suggested by Variel's notes. Perhaps my mistake had been to touch a fiber first. I concentrated my attentions on the central blister. At my touch, some of the runes darkened and disappeared, while others sprang to life unbidden.

A mighty leap pressed me down against the wood. I forced my knees up and thrust out my arms, clinging desperately to avoid sliding out of the access chute. When the colossus struck the earth again, I nearly dashed my brains out on the "ceiling." The shouts I heard earlier now rattled in my dazed skull. Before I could shake off the confusion, the Walking Man lunged forward again, each step faster than the previous.

My fingers lashed out to strike every rune in turn. The only difference was that each step felt far longer than those before, and swifter.

Recovering the tatters of my thoughts, I reconsidered Variel's notes. If he had made a mistake, where was it? I retraced my original steps in reverse to no avail. I tried deactivating each motor activator in sequence, again without result. Desperate, I spread my fingers as wide as possible to touch the stones of all six panels at once.

The runes of the central panel dimmed. The Walking Man slowed. With a final shuddering step, the colossus came to a halt.

When I had mastered my breathing, I allowed gravity to pull me down the shaft, catching hold of the vines at the entrance. The Walking Man's posture differed from when I had entered, its forward leg providing a gentle incline toward the ground. For that, at least, I was grateful. My climbing spell had long since dissipated.

Caladrel arrived as I set foot on the ground. His awful expression was all the admonishment I could bear.

Arnisant arrived soon after, sniffing my hand before settling at my heel. Radovan and Kemeili reached us next. Behind them trotted Fimbulthicket and Oparal, still in her shining armor. Behind them, the slivered moon revealed a wake of ten thousand blossoms shaken off the Walking Man. They led back to the fire of the camp we had pitched beside its earlier position.

No one spoke, but I saw the approbation in their faces. Only Fimbulthicket seemed to gain rather than lose color, although the blush in his cheeks could as easily have come from sprinting.

Seeing that I was unharmed, Caladrel took a look at the Walking Man. His face paled. As he turned and walked back toward the campfire, he clenched his jaws to stop himself from speaking.

Kemeili shook her head. She tugged on Radovan to come with her, but he shrugged off her hand. She huffed, turned on her heel, and followed the ranger.

After a glare that would have withered a better man, Oparal did the same.

"That's something I never saw before." Fimbulthicket almost smiled at me before deciding against it. He grimaced and slipped back toward camp.

Only Arnisant and Radovan remained. I braced myself for a snide remark, but when he spoke, it was with barely suppressed admiration and a certain whimsy. He whistled low. "That was monumental."

Chapter Six

The Ruined Unicorn

Radovan

A couple of days after we left the giant tree golem, everybody was still spooked.

Only the gnome seemed chipper—at first, anyway. He even had a little color in his cheeks, though I had to catch him in a sunbeam to see it. He couldn't stop talking about how we'd been the first to see the Walking Man take more than one step. It wasn't like he was glad it had happened, exactly. He was just glad to have been there when it happened.

The gnome's good mood didn't last. Soon he was rubbing his knees and elbows, snapping when anybody spoke to him. When he was alone, he stared off into the distance, looking caught halfway between bored and...I don't know. Lost, maybe. Poor little guy looked lost.

When the boss wasn't looking, Oparal did her best to set him on fire with her eyes. I was glad she was giving somebody other than me the stink-eye, but I reckoned I'd need to keep watch on her. Probably she wouldn't take a poke at the boss, but I meant to be nearby if she did. I'd been keeping out of her way, and lately she'd kept out of mine. That was as good as it was likely to get.

Kemeili sensed I had something on my mind, and she wanted a piece of that action. That worked for me, since the boss wanted me to keep her occupied and maybe suss out her motives. The best way to do that was to give her what she expected. The more she thought she was handling me, the more likely it was she'd let a little pillow talk slip out. Despite our occasional cuddles, I'd yet to learn anything really useful. Like, for instance, what she meant to get out of this trip other than the pleasure of my company.

Problem was, Kemeili took a cue from our first night and thought it was cute to tell me I needed to be punished. She pushed it too far a few times. I showed her my teeth. That set her on her heels, but she kept coming back, especially late at night. If she weren't so good at what she was good at, she'd have begun to annoy me.

In fact, all the elves were starting to annoy me in one way or another. Caladrel had begun scouting farther away. Just when we started to wonder whether he was coming back, he'd materialize beside the campfire. He even scared Arnisant, who woofed and sat up when he finally smelled the ranger over the wood smoke. The ranger was starting to remind me of an old crony who'd come close to giving me my first heart attack back in the Eel Street alleys.

Arni and me, we stuck by the boss, even though he wasn't his usual loquacious self. "Loquacious" was one of my new words—as far as the boss knew, anyway. His little exercises might not have been teaching me as much as he figured, but it was great practice for my gambling face. More important, it was something to keep his mind off his troubles. It still bugged him what happened at the Walking Man, and how everybody else had treated him since then.

"Don't let one little goof get you down, boss. What's a few years to that elf village?"

"Perhaps we should focus your lessons on arithmetic instead of vocabulary. The colossus took nearly three dozen steps. My 'little goof' advanced the doom of Erages by a third of a century."

"So how much longer before the big guy hits town?"

His mouth worked for a second before the sound caught up. I guessed he was doing arithmetic. "Something short of twenty millennia."

"A millennia is a bunch of centuries, yeah?"

"'Millennium' is the singular. But yes, it is precisely 'a bunch.'"

"So really, there's plenty of time for your half-elf buddies to get out of the way. Yeah?"

He didn't smile, but he looked like he was remembering how. "Thank you for putting the matter in perspective."

"Smarter than I look, right?"

"The converse is barely possible."

A little ribbing was better than all the moping. "I call 'millennium' as one of my words."

"Very well." He told me how to say "millennium" in Varisian, Tien, and Elven. The Varisian was no problem, maybe because it was the language of my ancestors and all that. Tien didn't feel as natural, but it was still pretty fresh in my mind from our visit to the other side of Golarion. I was getting good at the Elven, too. The trick was to hiss and lisp at the same time without spitting.

The boss found a sunny spot where he could sit down and scribe some riffle scrolls. He could have only so many ready at one time—don't ask me why—but he was constantly changing his mind about what he wanted handy. Arnisant went over to him, turned around a couple times, and settled at his feet. The boss flipped back and forth in his book of spells, shaking his head.

He fussed over his book every time we took a break on our way to this guy Erithiel's hall. Time was he'd just slap together a bunch of fire and lightning. One day we got caught in a big warehouse fight where none of that stuff was any good, so he started mixing it up. It was the same thing here in the forest. Besides, lightning was no good against demons, Caladrel said. And fire wouldn't make me bigger and badder the way it used to—not that I was complaining. It was good to be free of that devil at last. For the first time in a couple of years, I felt like myself again.

While the gnome brewed tea to go with the last of the seed cakes he'd brought from Omesta, Oparal made a big show of sharpening her sword. When she looked my way to see whether I got the message, I whistled a dirty tune whose lyrics I bet she'd heard in Cheliax. Her face reddened, and I walked off triumphant.

Hurrah for me.

I decided to take a stroll outside of camp, figuring Arni could look after the boss. After a minute or two, I sensed someone had followed me. Before I turned to see who it was, Kemeili's whip caught me around the ankle with a smart crack. The thick leather on my kickers saved me from the sting. I looked down to see she'd used the soft touch: three leather flaps at the end of the whip closed like fingers around my ankle, holding me tight.

Kemeili crooked a finger and tugged me toward her, not hard enough to trip me, just strong enough to tell me she wanted me to follow. Her wicked little smile told me that all by itself.

I took a step in her direction. She tugged again, and I took another. Why not? I'd gotten some rest between nightmares, and my blood had been up ever since our tussle with the demons. That fight had almost been fun. I'd fought worse than those worm things plenty of times, and there was no feeling bad about putting down something from the Abyss. Demons weren't people. Killing them was nothing like a sin.

Even Oparal had to agree with that. The business with my jacket still bothered me. Aside from a few little stylistic details—the sort of flourishes rich people love, and artists love to charge extra for—my phoenix looked nothing like her bird-headed saint, or whatever it was. Still, ever since the night she called me out, the jacket felt heavier. With or without that stupid elven cloak, it was too hot to wear most of the time. I'd taken to carrying both of them over my shoulder. That was a shame, because I looked mighty fine in that jacket.

"Wake up!" Kemeili tugged on her whip. "We don't have all day."

This was no time to be thinking of Oparal. I followed Kemeili, her whip pulling me along in jerky little steps. The awkward pull-and-step made me feel like a Sarini fool on stilts. I grabbed the whip near its grasping leather tabs and tugged back.

Kemeili hesitated. She could twist the handle the other way to unleash razor-sharp barbs, but I was betting she wasn't out for blood. She dropped the handle and watched me coil it up while she walked backward, leading me farther away from camp.

When she paused just a couple dozen yards away, I shook my head. "Farther," I told her. "Your voice carries."

"What makes you think my voice will carry?"

"Go on a little ways. I'll show you."

At that she ran. I gave her a head start before I lost my cool and chased her.

She let me catch her in a green grove just as the sun peeped out from behind a cloud.

"You took my whip. In return, I want ..." she eyed my jacket before saying, "those boots!"

There was no water nearby, so I figured there'd be no harm in that. Barely breaking stride, I tugged them off and tossed them to her. When she caught them, she threw each in a different direction.

"Hey!" I dropped the whip and rushed her. Laughing, she ran through an overgrown stavisiberry patch, leaving me to follow barefoot.

I'm less keen on following than on finding the shortcut. A nearby tree gave me a path over the bushes. I clambered up and swung branch-to-branch, monkey-style. I hit the ground on the other side just as Kemeili came out of the bushes.

She rewarded me with a pretty good shriek. She tried to run back, but I had my arms around her waist. She caught the back of my knee and tried to throw me over, but she'd tried that trick before. I pulled her across my thighs, turned her over, and gave her a swat on the bottom.

Her smile vanished, but it wasn't anger on her face. She grabbed my hair and pulled herself in for a vicious kiss. I winced as she bit my lip.

Guess she was out for a little blood after all.

After that startling nip, her lips and tongue taught me more Elven than I'd learned in the past week. Her mouth moved from my lips to my ear, then down my neck where the last bruises she'd given me had only just faded. With her free hand, she tugged the jacket off my shoulder.

"Hey, mind the—"

"'Mind the jacket!'" She slapped me hard and held my chin to make me look her in the eyes. "Forget the jacket. Give me those pants."

"Give me yours."

Our negotiation lasted maybe twenty seconds before all our clothes and two broken saplings lay in a trail behind us. Even back at her place, I didn't need to ask whether she'd taken precautions. The year I took up girl-wrestling, I paid a hedge witch for a potion to take care of that forever. The world had enough little hellspawn without me adding to the legion of cursed kneebiters.

We took turns making angels in the grass before finding another patch to spoil. We found us a cozy spot up against some kind of I-didn't-care-what-kind-of tree. I pressed Kemeili up against the bark. Before she could complain about its rough edges, I showed her what it was that made me think her voice would carry.

What do you know? I was right on the money.

She got plenty out of me, too, including sounds I'd never heard before, much less made. Maybe we didn't have much to talk about, but what we had in common didn't need words. We scared off the birds, marked the grove as our territory, and shook the leaves from the trees. Hell, pretty soon we even called down a storm. The thunder rolled up behind us, louder and louder.

"Radovan, move!"

I was moving, but I heard the fear in her voice. It wasn't thunder behind us. It was hoofbeats.

I pushed Kemeili up. When I saw her catch a branch, I jumped.

Half the tree trunk exploded as I rolled away. Bark sprayed my skin, splinters sticking in places you never want splinters. I couldn't feel much pain yet, but I did feel the hot breath of the animal.

It was the ugliest horse I'd ever seen, and one of the biggest. Its shoulder was high as my head, and its thick neck rose even higher. Looking up, I saw it wasn't exactly a horse.

From its forehead jutted a spiraled horn, black as pitch at the tip but fading to bone white near the base. The beast's hide was mottled gray turning white and pink near its belly and in a few unscarred patches. Where there weren't scabs, fire and acid burns covered its pelt. Its mane could have been a hedgerow some farmer had failed to burn down.

The unicorn stamped and shook its head. Its hoof smashed a root thicker than my leg.

"Stay up there, girl."

Kemeili climbed higher to avoid the reach of the unicorn's horn. She needn't have bothered. It was me the beast wanted.

Horses never liked me, even when I was a kid. Neither did donkeys, mules, oxen, cows, or that damned camel some crazy Osirian brought to Egorian a few years back. Dogs and cats? Not a problem. Pigs, rats, ferrets, chickens? Well, I hated chickens for other reasons, but animals generally weren't the problem. Riding animals were the problem.

I darted behind a thicker tree. The unicorn came for me. I kept circling until our routine started to get comical. For a second I thought about climbing up beside Kemeili and shouting for help, but I wasn't sure they'd hear us all the way back at camp.

I made a run for the stavisiberry patch. It was no good for shelter, but that's not what I had in mind. When I heard the unicorn closing, I jumped to swing across the shortcut branches.

The brute never stood a chance. He ran right into the patch. The shrubs didn't hurt him, but they slowed him enough for me to get to my jacket. I didn't bother trying to shrug it on. I just pulled out the big knife and put my back to another tree.

"All right, big fellow." He was definitely a fellow, and big didn't begin to describe him. I pointed the knife at his spiral horn and considered making a crack before realizing it'd be lost on the dumb beast.

The unicorn didn't need my encouragement. His hooves scratched out divots the size of my head from the ground, tearing away the berry plants. When he was free, he shot toward me.

I wished I'd put on the jacket, but I doubted it would save me from that horn. It looked fire-hardened, like those Mwangi spears the boss had on his library wall. It'd go straight through me if I didn't get out of the way.

Forget the dodge-and-stab. I scrambled behind another tree instead. This time the unicorn corrected course in time to avoid stabbing the trunk. As its head passed near, I slashed at its muzzle.

It should have been an easy shot, but at the last second something made me hold back. I couldn't tell you what that was, not exactly. Maybe it was something in the unicorn's eyes. They were so wide I could see the bloodshot whites ringing its irises, blue as cornflower petals. Its flared nostrils revealed pink skin inside. It was at least half as scared as it was mad, but it was too brave to back down.

We played ring-around-the-roses again, but only for a few seconds. With a deafening crack, Kemeili's whip lashed out and left three long red wounds on the unicorn's flank. She stood naked and defiant as she shouted, "Get away from him!"

Her expression turned from fierce to fearful as the unicorn turned toward her. I called her name, but she'd already twisted the whip handle. She snapped the whip up and pulled herself into the branches, out of reach. Again, she needn't have bothered.

The unicorn had only pretended to charge her. The crafty brute wheeled all the way around and ran straight for me. I hesitated for a moment.

A moment was all it needed.

My feint was no good. As I swayed to the left, the unicorn tossed its head and brought its horn up beneath my arm. The tip stabbed straight through my biceps and lifted me off the ground.

The unicorn shook its head, tossing me around like a straw doll. The pain screamed in my face, painted my eyes red. It sucked the breath from my lungs, leaving me nothing for a good curse.

Kemeili cursed for me, but her harshest words weren't enough to distract the beast. It threw up its head, flinging me off its horn and onto the ground. Then it reared, flinty hooves poised to crush my skull.

A gray blur struck the beast's hind legs. Knocked off balance, the unicorn fell onto its side. It tried to stand, but Arnisant materialized like a monster from one of the boss's scrolls. The hound was everywhere at once, nipping the unicorn's tail, its flanks, and even its muzzle until the brute swung its horn around and shied him off.

Arnisant backed away, but not from fear. He had some slippery moves, that dog. If he could keep the thing occupied for another second or two, I knew I could stand up again. My arm was dead, but that's why I had two. The trick was to remember where I'd put my legs. After that, I was sure I could get at least one back under me. For the moment, the best I could do was lift my head.

Kemeili dropped down from the tree to harry the unicorn with her whip. She sprinted in to lash it before jumping back behind shelter. I didn't blame her for being careful. That horn was nasty. I shoved my thumb into the gushing hole it left in my arm, but it wasn't enough to stop the flood.

Fearless Arnisant kept going in for the bigger animal's hindquarters. I don't care how brave you are, when jaws like Arni's dive in for your tenders, you move them quick.

"Stop it!" boomed a voice. "Call off that dog."

The sun was a candle compared to the white light of Oparal's sword. She held it up like a torch.

The unicorn froze at the sight of the paladin. Oparal spoke again, her voice so strong I had a hard time doing anything other than listen to her. "Stop."

The unicorn tossed its head twice before bowing in her direction. I couldn't tell whether its eyes were locked on her face or on the sword. Either way, the thing was mesmerized.

"Arni, come." He did, and I shot Kemeili a look that told her she'd better join us. She helped me sit up. The wound in my arm was flowing copiously, as the boss might say. When she wiped away the blood, I could see through the hole.

While Oparal kept the unicorn busy, Kemeili pressed a palm on either side of my wound. She said a prayer, and I felt a buzzing in my arm.

"Ow!" I hissed away the rest of the sting. When she removed her bloody hands, I saw a thick knot of a scar remained where the hole had been. "Thanks."

The unicorn moved closer to Oparal, a few steps at a time. The paladin held her sword high. For a second I thought she meant to chop off the beast's head.

I hoped she'd wouldn't.

I had no idea where that sympathy was coming from. The damned thing had tried to kill me. Still, I couldn't wish it dead. I just wanted it to stop trying to make me dead.

Confused or charmed or whatever, the unicorn knelt before Oparal. The paladin sheathed her sword and touched the unicorn's battered head. One of its ears was gone, a scabby rash of pustules covering that side of its face. Its eye on that side was paler than the other. I shuddered to think where it would have hit me if it weren't half blind.

Oparal crooned over the unicorn. Her voice tamed it until the brute lay still as a sleepy babe. Where her hand touched its damaged pelt, the wounds stopped oozing but didn't vanish. Its ashy coat lightened under her fingers, but didn't turn white. Unicorns are supposed to be white, I thought.

The beast pushed against Oparal's legs, forcing her to sit and let it lay its head on her lap. The gesture reminded me of Arnisant in the last of his puppy days, before the boss trained him better. The unicorn wanted to be petted.

It wanted to be loved.

The way the unicorn curried Oparal's affection, I knew he was more than an animal. Like Arnisant, he could be a companion. A buddy.

Pressing her hands against his wounded flesh, Oparal mended what she could of the unicorn's head. Then she moved back and produced a little jar from her pouch. I thought she might rub ointment onto the unicorn's wounds. Instead she painted a little yellow starburst on her brow. She made another mark on her lips, and a third in the center of her breastplate. Then as if the rest of us weren't even there, she began to pray.

Her words pulsed like the beat of a drum. With every repetition of the same phrase, she struck the unicorn's body. She slapped his neck, beat his shoulders, and pounded his ribs. Wherever her hands struck, the weeping sores dried, the scales fell away, and the bruises faded. But in the end it didn't matter how much light or radiance or whatever it was she got from Iomedae: she ran out of juice before she could heal more than a fraction of the unicorn's wounds. The animal was still ugly, scarred from hoof to muzzle. He craned his neck toward her.

Oparal stood and shook her arms the way you do after a tough fight. I realized I'd been staring, and I wasn't the only one. The boss stood not far away, Arnisant at his side. Caladrel and Thimblefiggit had joined him. They all stared at the paladin and the unicorn. Kemeili reappeared a moment later, fully dressed with her whip secured to her belt. I hadn't even noticed she'd left.

"Rise," said Oparal. The unicorn obeyed, its eyes locked on her face the way Arnisant looks to the boss for instructions. Oparal pointed into the forest. "Go."

"That's ...unexpected," said the gnome. His voice was equal parts astonished and lively.

The unicorn shook his head and whinnied.

"Go," said Oparal. "Return to the forest. Trouble us no more."

"What is she saying?" whispered Kemeili. "Doesn't she realize how seldom—?"

Caladrel shushed her. "It is not for us to speak at this moment."

The unicorn reared up and wailed the most sorrowful sound I'd ever heard. It was almost like language, only I couldn't understand the words. Even so, there was no mistaking his meaning. I love you. Let me stay.

"You aren't wanted here," said Oparal.

"Don't!" said Kemeili, stepping forward. "It's offering itself to you. How can you refuse?"

Caladrel pulled Kemeili back. "Don't interfere."

I wanted to say something, but I didn't know what. Best I could do was stand up.

The boss stared slack-jawed at Oparal. He'd seen a lot of crazy stuff in his ninety-some-odd years, but I bet he'd never seen this before.

Oparal slapped the unicorn's rump. "Go!"

The unicorn reared again, this time turning toward me as it shied away from Oparal. He stamped the ground with those blackened hooves. He looked straight at me with his good eye and screamed again. This time his voice held no love or sorrow, only hate.

Part of me wanted to shoot him the tines, show him I wasn't scared. Instead, I grimaced at the glare of his pain.

The unicorn turned and dashed away.

Kemeili was weeping. "How could you be so stupid? So cruel?"

Oparal turned on Kemeili. "You would hardly understand."

The boss spoke, his voice cracking. "The unicorn has fought against the demons. Its scars, both those we can see and those we cannot, have rendered
it ..." he tried to find the right word and came up with
"...imperfect."

The paladin set her jaw and nodded. "A paladin must inspire people. Noble as it once was, the poor wretch is no fit mount for a warrior for Iomedae."

"What? It's not pretty enough for you? Those are battle scars!" Kemeili sputtered. "You conceited...pompous ...Forlorn ..."

"Kemeili!" Caladrel pulled her away, this time not so gently.

Oparal chafed at the word and looked like she might have a few words of her own for Kemeili, but then she spotted my usually hidden treasures. I was glad for the warm summer air.

I winked at the paladin. "See anything you like?"

Her reserve cracked, but not the way I'd hoped. When the fire reached her eyes and her hands closed in fists, I thought maybe I was in trouble. Instead, she spun on her heel and walked away.

"She does that a lot," I said, turning to see whether I'd amused the others, anyway.

Caladrel shook his head as if I'd said something stupid. He let go of Kemeili's arm and walked back to camp.

"What?"

Kemeili slugged me on my bad arm. Even healed by magic, it still hurt. "Shut up, you idiot."

I looked around for support. The gnome threw up his hands and turned away.

I looked to the boss for sympathy. "You aren't going to tell me to shut up, are you?"

You could draw a picture of disappointment, and it would look like his face did then. He summoned Arni to heel and walked away.

Chapter Seven

Erithiel's Hall

Varian

This place was ancient before the elves first came to Kyonin." I pointed along the length of the sinuous barrow mound whose course we had followed for miles. Fimbulthicket and the elves needed no lesson in elven history, but I wished to offer Radovan some background. "The hero Erithiel came to Golarion from the First World to fight the great serpent Garukresh. Their battles left deserts and oceans in their wake. At last Erithiel defeated the serpent and carved out its corpse to make his own funeral mound."

"No, that's not true," said Fimbulthicket.

"Pardon me?"

"That's just a story."

"Of course we must make allowances for the embellishments of historians who fancy themselves bards, but numerous sources cite the tale of Erithiel as—"

Fimbulthicket shook his head, an irritating smile on his pale lips. No doubt he sought an argument, a solicitation of his opinion, any diversion to take his mind off the tedium of repeatedly using his Green magic to set nonlethal traps behind us. Despite Caladrel's best efforts to throw the creature off our trail, the unicorn continued to follow us. Regardless, I disliked the gnome's cheeky tone and the way the elves smiled at his insolence. "I was unaware that you are also a scholar of elven history," I said. "Please enlighten me."

"Your people didn't come from the First World, did they? Besides, how long have you been in Kyonin?"

He knew perfectly well that I had been in the country barely more than two weeks. "That hardly matters. I have read many books, some translated from the oral history of the most ancient elven bards, and the predominant opinion— Why do you look at me that way?"

Oparal shrugged. "I always heard that Erithiel was a name given to any fey hero in those days. It wasn't one person."

"Be that as it may, one of those heroes slew a great serpent. The chronicles are explicit on this point."

Caladrel cleared his throat.

"Perhaps you can illuminate us on the matter," I said.

The ranger grimaced. "The chronicles of which you speak... they wouldn't happen to include Emerald Dreams, would they?"

"Well, certainly that is one of the sources on which I—"

"Fairy stories," said Fimbulthicket. "Bedtime tales for children."

"Naturally I approach all secondary sources with a healthy skepticism. Yet surely I can perceive the difference between scholarly work and so-called histories written to the advantage of one or another political faction. Even in my native Cheliax—"

"No, Varian." Kemeili giggled as though amused by a small child. I disliked the wry smile forming at the corner of her mouth, and I was beginning to regret inviting her and the others to use my personal name. There was something about the way she pronounced it that I found uncomfortable. "Fimbulthicket means stories literally written by fairies."

"Sprites, spriggans, brownies, pixies, others," said Caladrel. "Also some elven bards, of course, but even our chroniclers leaven their tales with romance. In any event, that particular volume is not to be trusted for historical accuracy."

"But it is known throughout the Inner Sea region as a legitimate source of elven lore."

Oparal shook her head, evoking broader smiles from Caladrel and Kemeili. Fimbulthicket held his nose to stifle a laugh.

"Forgive us, Count," said Caladrel. "Our chroniclers prefer to keep human scholars more entertained than enlightened."

"Ha!" Radovan coughed to cover his outburst, but his grin gave him away. The matter of the unicorn had briefly deflected the elves' disapprobation from my error with the Walking Man, but within a day I noticed my bodyguard comparing weapons with Caladrel, joking with Fimbulthicket, and canoodling openly with Kemeili, whose affections remained undiminished. It was perhaps too much to hope that he was learning as much about her true motives as she was learning from him.

I fixed Caladrel with my most remonstrative gaze. "Surely that is no way to treat friends and allies."

It was Oparal's turn to cough.

"That's why I don't mind telling you the truth," said Caladrel. "You are a friend to Prince Amarandlon, and thus to Kyonin."

It was a trifle much, but I accepted the compliment with a nod. "What of the historical record? Do the scholars of Kyonin not care what neighboring nations think of their chronicles?"

"Have you looked at a map recently?" Kemeili shook her head impatiently. I was beginning to lose my own patience with this condescending behavior. No matter how little they esteemed my human heritage, my title and my elven blood deserved some measure of respect.

Caladrel frowned at Kemeili, but then he explained, "Across the Glass River live the Razmiri. They breach our border so often we're effectively at war. Beside them, the River Kingdoms exist in a constant state of conflict. To the east lies Galt, where men and women prove their zeal by betraying and beheading their neighbors. And the people of Taldor are so decadent—"

"You have made your point," I said. No doubt he would find nothing favorable to say about the empire, at which point my patience must end.

"Perhaps you will uncover something new and claim firsthand discovery of our history," suggested Caladrel. He indicated a site less than a quarter of a mile to the south. In the afternoon sun I spied an excavation in the western side of the mound known as Erithiel's Hall. Plentiful weeds and wildflowers had begun filling the gaps left by the diggers, but I saw no sign of an encampment.

It occurred to me that we had been traveling south for hours only after following a northwestern course most of the day. I looked around. To the east I spied three distinctive hills leaning together as if in conference. Caladrel had led us well around them, while it was obvious that passing nearer would have allowed us to reach our objective hours earlier. I wondered what he was hiding.

I completed my circuit of our surroundings and shaded my eyes as I studied the site to the south. "They barely did more than remove the sod."

"No excavation remains here for long," said Fimbulthicket. "The elves like to say it's because they're cautious."

"That's true," said Caladrel. "There's no telling what might lie beneath this ridge."

"Whatever," said Fimbulthicket. "Mostly the archaeologists just lose their nerve. Those that stick to it are eventually driven off by the fey creatures guarding the place."

"These fey are dangerous?"

"Can be," said Fimbulthicket. "Mostly they do just enough to warn off anyone who becomes too curious."

"It's wise to heed the warnings of the fey," said Kemeili.

"They're probably just guarding their gold," said Radovan. "It's a racket."

"That's also possible," said Caladrel. "But those who've pressed on in hopes of finding treasure have experienced the worst possible misfortunes."

"They died?"

"Some did. Eventually."

Radovan chuckled, but when he saw the sober faces of the elves, he swallowed hard.

Arnisant woofed and pointed. I saw nothing in the direction he indicated. I looked to Caladrel, but the ranger shook his head. If his sharp eyes perceived nothing wrong, then it must have been a scent that Arnisant picked up.

"Arnisant, find it."

We followed him to the abandoned excavation. There he led us to a spot where he nosed something hidden in the overgrowth.

Radovan knelt beside the hound and retrieved a doll-sized body from the grass. A mole's head and pelt were all that differentiated the creature from a brownie. Dried blood stained its kilt of petals, and its pear-shaped head hung limp from its broken neck.

"Don't touch it!" warned Fimbulthicket.

Radovan cast away the corpse as if it were a scorpion.

"Show some respect for the dead," snapped Oparal.

"It's a gremlin," said Fimbulthicket. "A nasty sort of fey. Even dead, they can spoil your luck."

"Desna weeps." Radovan sketched the wings of the goddess over his heart before wiping the hand with which he'd touched the tiny creature.

I had read reports of fortune-fouling gremlins living in southern deserts, though those were described differently. I should have liked to study the corpse, but after my careless triggering of the Walking Man, I considered it better to abstain.

We found four more dead fey near the dig, burned, crushed, or torn to pieces. Caladrel pointed out the scorched remnants of hoofprints in the earth.

"Satyrs?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Some forest satyrs do make their get on fiends, and the offspring are as foul as demons. No, these are the prints of brimoraks."

I recognized the name as one of the lesser sort of goat-headed fiends.

"Really?" Fimbulthicket brightened. "I haven't seen a brimorak ...Oh, wait. Yes, I have. I remember now." He shrugged off his oversized pack and sat heavily on the ground. It was time to give him a task before he surrendered yet again to the ennui that gripped him each evening.

The others established a camp while Fimbulthicket gave me a tour of the excavation. Previous visitors had left notes, much as Variel had done at the Walking Man. Most of these were warnings not to dig deeper, lest we awake the wrath of the mound's fey guardians. Others suggested deeper explorations might wake the great Garukresh itself.

"See?" I said. "Obviously not everyone believes the story of the great serpent to be a fairy tale."

"Did you know that humans didn't have a word for 'gullible' until they borrowed it from the gnomes?"

"What? That's ridic—" The jest registered, and I could not help but smile. Perhaps I had finally grown accustomed to Fimbulthicket's peculiar whimsy, but now I sensed less mockery than wistfulness in his expression.

"You have his smile."

"Variel's?"

"Your father's."

We continued our explorations as long as the dying light permitted. We found a few more promising notes scratched into flat stones, although the script never matched Variel's wood-drawn writing. Several times I spied references to the Century Root, a site I understood, even before Fimbulthicket's reminder, to be a meeting place for the Fierani. I longed to meet one of the Kyonin tree-people and learn how their culture differed from that of the Tobongo of the Mwangi Expanse. The tree-people were older than the elves. If anyone knew the truth behind Erithiel's Hall, it would be they.

Fimbulthicket grew increasingly impatient at every site, each of which he complained had changed little since his previous visit. "No one works these digs for long," he said. "Even if Variel came here, he probably didn't stay."

Disheartened but not defeated, we continued the search until nightfall. I insisted on taking first watch with Radovan so that I could perform another investigation away from the eyes of my companions. When the others laid down to rest, I showed him sign that I would return within the hour while he remained on guard. He leaned his back against a stone, using his folded jacket as a cushion.

Once out of range of the elves' hearing, I removed a riffle scroll from my bandolier. Guilt urged me to peer about the gloomy forest before casting the spell. Radovan had promised to keep Kemeili occupied should she wake, and I had no fear of subterfuge from Oparal. Yet between Fimbulthicket's magic and Caladrel's stealth, I balked at every sound in the dark forest. Even if my suspicions proved baseless, I did not wish to be discovered investigating the ranger's odd behavior.

Night birds called from bough to bough. Squirrels scratched the bark as they clambered through the trees. Detecting no sign of pursuit, I thumbed the edges of the scroll and felt the magic suffuse my body.

I had cast the spell that first drew me to the arcane art. I had studied its basic formula and several variations for decades, but without the ability to cast it. Once I overcame my disability, I still hesitated to release its power. Inexperienced in its use, I feared injury or, worse, holding myself up to ridicule.

But now I had both opportunity and—I suspected—necessity. With a preventative scroll in either hand, I bent my knees and leaped.

I flew.

At first I rose slowly but, as I asserted my will over the magic, my speed increased. The spot I had chosen for my first flight allowed both cover from the other members of my party and a generous gap in the forest canopy. I passed clusters of shelf fungus. From one spilled yellow light out of tiny windows, through which I could have sworn I spied a family of sprites. A sinuous constrictor lounged nearby, a large pair of insect legs twitching in the vise of its jaws.

I emerged from the gloom and into the silver light of the crescent moon. Once more I marveled at the beauty of the forest from above. The nearest boughs were alive with creatures, their nocturnal chores illuminated by millions of moonflies. The glowing insects floated silently above the trees like algae in a clear sea. They parted in my wake as I glided toward my destination.

In the dell formed by three huddled knolls, I spied a gate of pale green stone. Dark ivy ringed its oval borders, and at its foot lay a plaza half-devoured by encroaching grass and wildflowers. Descending toward the site, I saw that within the gate's borders stood an unbroken span of stone marred here and there by a patch of moss. The gate held not a door but a wall.

Landing beside the structure, I retrieved a riffle scroll and triggered a minor divination. The gate pulsed with powerful magic, confirming my suspicion.

Here stood an aiudara, one of the fabled "elf gates," although why the elves considered the Taldane expression vulgar remained a mystery. My inquiries always elicited a withering reproach or a scandalized silence. What I did know of aiudara perhaps explained why Caladrel had led us miles out of our way to avoid this site.

The teleportation gates were the elves' most potent defense against invasion. Those who knew the key to activating them could transport armies freely throughout Kyonin and, some speculated, to sites all across Golarion. After the cataclysm of Earthfall, the elves fled the world through the fabled Sovryian Stone, the aiudara connecting our world to the fabled elven refuge.

I lay my palm against the cool white stone of the gate. A static charge lifted the fine hairs on the back of my hand, and I sensed a coruscation of invisible power. As a ranger, Caladrel had doubtless slipped away to ensure that no Abyssal forces had discovered the gate. The lingering arcane activity caused me to wonder whether he had also activated this portal. If so, I wondered to what end. Had he sent something through the gate? Or had he used it to deliver a message?

Twisting my ring to cover the gem with my hand, I activated the light and shone it on the aiudara's border. Erosion obscured the elven script in many places, but others remained clear. I wished I had brought tracing paper, but a quick sketch would have to suffice. I could not linger long before my absence was noted, and a brief study might suffice to deduce the key to its activation.

I had barely outlined the structure before I heard the faint sound of a sword unsheathed.

"You should not have come here, Count Jeggare."

Turning to face Caladrel, I dropped my journal to free my sword hand. He held his elven curveblade in an easy two-handed grip. A nimbus of dim red light played along the sword's edge.

"Put out that light," he hissed. "You've already drawn too much attention."

I quenched the light and drew my sword, silently cursing myself. After my mistake at the Walking Man, I thought I had demonstrated much more caution. I had only examined the aiudara, not interfered with its function. Explaining that would have done little to soothe Caladrel's ire. No doubt he was charged with protecting the secrets of Kyonin from my inquisitive eyes even as he protected me from the roaming demons.

The lurid glow of his sword grew brighter, but only for an instant. The light dimmed.

"Spite!" cursed Caladrel. "There are demons near, but they are not coming for you."

I remembered how the vermleks had behaved in our earlier encounter. "Radovan."

Caladrel raised an eyebrow, but he knew better than to delay us with a question. "Follow me."

"You are faster without me." I triggered another scroll. "I will return the way—"

He disappeared. I leaped into the air, my hand already on the scroll that would hasten my flight. The moment I rose above the treetops, I flew toward the light of our camp. Arnisant's frantic barking confirmed my fears. Whiter than lightning, the flash of the paladin's sword lit the trees. Weird silhouettes danced among the boughs.

I descended to see the others standing with their backs to the campfire. All around, the darkness roiled with demons.

Radovan and Kemeili stood back-to-back, Arnisant guarding their flank. Flames flickered at the gore on the hound's snout and Radovan's knife. Piles of the vermleks lay in mounds at their feet, but those were the least of the attackers.

Goat-headed dwarves led the assault. Glowing magma formed their eyes and swords. Their cloven hooves left smoking prints in the grass. Three of them backed Oparal against the fire, chanting unholy verses. As they closed, the paladin fell to one knee. Her gesture surprised them for the instant it took her radiant blade to sweep out at the height of their throats. The first demon dropped its blazing sword in a futile attempt to catch its own tumbling head. The others seized their throats, fiery blood pouring over their gray fingers.

Caladrel's bow sang out from the darkness. Bleeding shafts sprouted from the eyes and throats of the demons.

Fimbulthicket frantically sang out to the Green. A man-sized conglomeration of earth and stone rose from the ground to stand beside the gnome as he dipped his fingers into a pouch for another sprig of holly with which to cast a spell.

A second wave of goat-headed fiends rushed the paladin. She tugged at the straps of her armor as the metal began to glow red from infernal magic. She screamed in pain as she tore away her breastplate and shook her seared hand.

I discharged a riffle scroll. A wall of blue-white ice materialized before the charging demons, who smashed their hideous faces against the barrier. Stunned, they slashed at the wall, their blades trailing ice vapor.

Just as they realized it was quicker to run around, the grass at their feet rose like tentacles from the ocean deeps. The fronds grasped their ankles and held them fast to the ground. With his earth elemental at his side, Fimbulthicket called upon the Green again.

I drew another scroll and finished off the trapped demons with a blast of arctic cold. The spirals on their gray skin showed through the rime. For an instant I imagined them as the riffle scrolls of the Abyss, hateful spells inscribed upon their flesh. Turning, I sought another foe.

Emaciated figures with weeping skin stalked the edges of the melee, looking for an opening. One reached high to stab down at Radovan with a blackened spear. The point caught in the sleeve of his red jacket. As Radovan tore himself free from the spear, Arnisant crashed against the demon's shins. The shriveled figure fell. Before it could rise, Radovan fell upon it. He grasped the demon's horn and jerked its head to the side. "Not the jacket, you skull-faced prick!" Radovan punctuated each stab of his knife with another curse, each fouler than the previous one.

"Fimbulthicket!" shouted Caladrel.

Even as I turned toward the ranger, one of his arrows sprang up in the throat of the demon menacing the gnome. The fiend's wet, leathery skin shredded like a storm-blown flag. Its mangled body fluttered for an instant before it was drawn through a tiny void in the fabric of the world. A sudden change in air pressure caused my ears to pop.

"Varian!" Kemeili's whip snapped forth. She tugged with both hands, dragging another goat-fiend past me. With the Shadowless Sword I severed the tendons in its wrist. It reached for me with its other claw. I kicked the wretched appendage away. Three swift strokes terminated its life on this world. I stepped away, slapping at the little fires its blood spatter set on my clothes.

Caladrel's bow thrummed a steady rhythm, each shot answered by a demonic shriek. Kemeili spun away from me to protect the ranger's back. Twisting the grip of her whip, she struck vicious blows against the demons, each stroke leaving a triple-furrow of bleeding flesh.

Arnisant came to my side. Radovan had vanished, but that was not necessarily cause for alarm. The shriek of another skulking demon proved yet again that my bodyguard does some of his best work unseen.

The demons wavered, cringed, and backed away. Wary of a ruse, I drew another riffle scroll. Then an overwhelming stench rolled over our camp, and I sensed the horrid presence of a worse fiend.

When the demon moaned, I felt as though I were falling. When its miasma reached us, the grass melted into slime. The other demons gathered in its wake as the first glistering expanse of the fiend hove into view.

Weeping from the stench, at first I perceived only a pair of eyes above a maw wider than a carriage door. As my vision cleared, I almost wished I had remained blinded. Suppurating blisters the size of tomatoes shuddered and burst on its sagging torso. With claws as wide as a garden rake, it lanced more of its own disgusting sores. The gray-brown miasma oozed from the wounds and spread out to envelop us all. The fiend itself shuddered toward us, its corpulent frame supported by amorphous limbs.

"Guh!" Kemeili staggered away from the demon and retreated past the fire. There, Fimbulthicket retched and fell to his knees.

With the other demons gathered in the giant's wake, I had to act before they scattered once more.

With another riffle scroll, I unleashed the fury of a boreal storm. A white cone of frost shot from my cupped hands to cover the advancing demons. Several flinched and fell, but most forged ahead, including their champion.

A flight of arrows sprouted across the fiend's body, blood spurting from their shafts. Each struck so soon after the last that I imagined a squad of archers rather than the lone Caladrel launching them.

"Iomedae!" Oparal charged. Her boot slipped in the putrid remains of the grass, but she lunged forward, seemingly unstoppable. Two of the emaciated demons leaped toward her. Her holy blade bisected one and cut ribs out of the second.

Two more of Caladrel's arrows found their mark in the cesspool of the big demon's face. It unleashed a clotted, choking moan and swung its thick arm. Oparal flew up and crashed into an oak trunk with a clatter of steel. Again the demon moaned, but not in pain.

It laughed.

Unwilling to move closer, I unleashed the magic of another scroll. Even as they formed, the gray points of arcane force meant for the demon melted away. For an instant I feared I had made some error inscribing the scroll. But then I saw one of the bony demons cackling as its fingers completed the sign of a counterspell.

I raised my blade toward the fiend who had stolen my spell. The look of shock on the demon's face at first made me think I had discovered another hidden power of the Shadowless Sword. As it fell forward, however, I saw that its doom had come at the point of Radovan's big knife.

"Look out!" shouted Kemeili.

Radovan threw himself to the side, but he was too slow to avoid the pestilence demon's grip. The brute pinned Radovan's knife arm against his body with one festering hand. Then it hugged him close.

Arnisant leaped to Radovan's defense, but goat-headed fiends held him at bay with their flaming blades. I hurled another volley of arcane bolts at the fiend. They struck true, as did more of Caladrel's arrows and Kemeili's knives, but the horror barely winced at the injury.

"Back to the pit!" With a mighty leap, Oparal hacked down at the demon. Her sword burned through its arm. Radovan and the demon screamed in unison.

"Stop it!" cried Kemeili. "You're hurting Radovan!"

Indifferent to Kemeili's plea, Oparal struck again. The demon raised its other arm. Radovan tried to push away, but too slowly. The paladin's blade cut claws from the demon's hand and passed through, slicing Radovan from cheek to belly. The miasma thickened, revealing only the light of Oparal's sword and the hateful light of the demon's eyes.

Unleashing a scroll to sweeten my strike, I thrust where I guessed the demon's heart lay. Hot ichor wet my face. I held my breath against the stench and struck again. The white brand of Oparal's sword blazed beside me. An instant later, so did the red arc of Caladrel's curveblade.

"I have him!" called Kemeili. Near her Arnisant woofed in a tone that meant "retrieved."

The rest was chaos. Endless seconds later, the surviving demons fled, but few had survived. We three defenders, Oparal, Caladrel, and I, stood steeped in demon gore and the sweat of our own terror.

"What is wrong with you?" Kemeili shouted at Oparal. Her hands remained on Radovan's neck, where her prayers had closed the worst of his wounds. "You nearly killed him!"

Oparal wiped demon filth from her cheek. Without a glance at Radovan, she cleaned her sword and returned it to its scabbard.

"Forget it," grumbled Radovan. His eyes lingered on the paladin's until she looked away, and I knew he would not forget it. He traced the wet scar from his check to a point just above his navel. "She missed the jacket."

"That's not the point!" protested Kemeili.

"Now is not the time for quarrels," said Caladrel. "Let's put more healing on that wound."

Silently, I thanked the ranger. He was right. Now was not the time for quarrels. But that time would come.

"My powers are spent," said Kemeili. "Where's Fimbul—?"

We turned as one to see the gnome lying motionless beside the fire. I moved toward him, but fleet Caladrel was there first. Fimbulthicket's skin had lost its last blush of color. Even his eyes had surrendered their last faint tint of blue.

Caladrel touched the gnome's cheek. "Too late," he said. "He's gone."

Chapter Eight

The Century Root

Radovan

You know you want it," said Kemeili.

"You don't know what you're talking about, sweetheart." Even in the forest shade, the summer sun was baking us. I shrugged off the jacket and hooked it over my shoulder along with the elven cloak. A day earlier, I'd dropped the cloak all inconspicuous-like. Caladrel returned it to me at supper. It was hard to read those elven eyes, but I thought he was on to me.

"I can feel the heat coming off you. That's what first drew me to you, back in Iadara. But you don't look on me with that heat anymore."

"I've been busy getting perforated by secondhand unicorns."

"I see it when you look at Oparal."

"Give me a break. I'm not interested—"

"You ache for it. I can tell. You'd like to put your hands around that thick neck of hers and squeeze the breath—"

"Shut up." It was a relief that Kemeili was talking about revenge, not the one sting of Calistria I actually liked. For a second I was afraid I was going to have to put up with a jealous elf, which sounded a lot more dangerous than a mean one.

I flattened a mosquito on my cheek and got a little shiver. I'd been getting that feeling again, like somebody was watching me. The trees were probably lousy with fey. That had to be it, I told myself.

"I could make it easy. I could give you a taste of Calistria's fury. Let the goddess guide your hands." Kemeili unbuttoned her leather vest and slid a pair of fingers around the tattoo circling her belly button. The ink on the dagger tattoos glimmered. The three blades on her skin were what she had for a fetish connecting her to the goddess. She started saying the prayer to call down the magic.

"I said no." I slapped a hand over her mouth, hitting her harder than I'd meant.

Her eyes flashed angry, but she smiled and licked a drop of blood from her lip. "That's more like it."

"I didn't mean to smack you. Sorry."

"Don't be." She showed me a wicked little smile. "You should be angry, just not at me. Oparal's the one who tried to kill you. I just want to help you get the revenge you deserve."

We both looked at Oparal. The paladin walked up front with Caladrel. At the sound of the slap, they'd stopped to squint back at us. They'd gotten used to hearing me and Kemeili play rough, but smacking her like that looked bad.

Almost as bad as I felt about it.

"I really am sorry. I don't want to be that way."

"Why not? It's who you are."

"No, it's not!" A flock of sparrows exploded away from us. I lowered my voice. "Anyway, it ain't who I want to be."

"Oparal is strong, but you could kill her if you wished it."

"Well, I don't wish it. What's your problem with her, anyway? She didn't do anything to you. It sounds like you're the one who wants revenge."

"She thinks she can spend her whole life among the humans and then offer her sword to the queen as if she weren't Forlorn. Just think of the way she's treated you. She has no subtlety—none! And she's a complete hypocrite. She spits on the idea of revenge but uses the word 'justice' to attack you without provocation. And don't get me started on lust! Even before the unicorn, was there anyone who didn't know she's a maiden? She's barely even an elf. She has no right to serve the throne, not compared to someone who's dedicated her entire life to Calistria."

Just as she was working up a good mad, Kemeili caught herself. Maybe she realized she'd said too much. I tried to keep a straight face, but on the inside I was taking notes for the boss. Insecure? Check. Jealous? Check, and thank Desna it wasn't pointed at me. Dangerous? Hard to tell. Needs further hands-on investigation.

"Besides, no one's allowed to hurt you but me." Kemeili's snarl turned into a lash of a smile.

Her "love bites" from the other night were still tender. I rubbed my neck. "Speaking of that—"

"I know, I know," she sighed. "'Don't break the skin.' You're as delicate as a lily petal."

"I'm serious."

"Spoilsport."

While she didn't manage to get me into a fight with the paladin, Kemeili did get me thinking about Oparal. Five days out from Erithiel's Hall, I'd managed to avoid the Forlorn rather than give her hell for the slash she'd given me. I wasn't sure she'd meant to kill me along with that big demon, but I wasn't sure she hadn't, either. Arnisant felt the same way, growling whenever she came up behind me. He's a loyal boy, that hound. A better bodyguard, too, I sometimes think.

The boss told me he'd have a little talk with Oparal, but I didn't think he'd found the "opportune moment," as he put it. Oparal didn't seem to like him any better than she liked me, so I couldn't see what good that'd do.

He'd already had some one-on-one time with the others to explain that it wasn't demon but devil blood I had in my veins. The difference is lost on a lot of people outside of Cheliax. It all boils down to one thing: You can make a deal with a devil, if you're clever. There's no bargaining with a demon.

After the fight at Erithiel's Hall, no one was in much of a talking mood anyway. My little spat with Kemeili had just told me more about her opinion of Oparal than I'd gotten out of her in our trysts away from camp. Once she was good and relaxed, I tried to snake out her real reasons for coming with us, or what she thought the others might be up to. Usually I was pretty good with the pillow talk, but somehow she always managed to change the subject in a way that made me extra sleepy.

You could say she had a knack.

The boss dug up nothing new on his old man at Erithiel's Hall, but he found so many references to this place called the Century Root that he asked Caladrel to lead us there. Once we set out, we didn't see much of Caladrel except in the morning and at supper time when he'd appear with a brace of hares or pheasants.

On our first day out, soon after Caladrel left, the boss took me aside and told me what he'd discovered just before the demon attack.

"An elf gate?" I snickered.

"You must call it an aiudara. For some reason the elves consider the common term vulgar."

I fell out laughing. The night we'd met, Kemeili had used that phrase, and I figured it out the first time. When the boss raised his eyebrow, I said, "You don't even want to know."

I made my escape before the confusion on his face gave me another fit of the chuckles.

At least there was plenty to see on the trip to this Century Root. The deeper we went into the Fierani Forest, the weirder it looked.

It wasn't just that the trees were so much bigger than normal. Some had leaves that were green on top and red on the bottom. Others had bladders the size of grain sacks huffing orange spores out of their trunks. Caladrel warned us to stay clear of those ones.

The boss recited the names of trees we passed, most of which I'd never seen before. Pretty soon, he began asking the others to tell him the names of the ones he'd never seen. That was something that didn't happen every day.

Rings of brown and yellow fungus formed platforms among the trees, making me think of the gnome city in Upper Omesta. Sometimes I caught sight of little sprites sitting on the edges looking down at us. Some waved, some laughed, and others took one look at us and fled inside their mushroom homes. One of the little jerks beaned me with an acorn. I threw him the big smile, and his whole gang flew off squeaking. Kemeili and Caladrel left offerings of food or cheap jewels at the foot of their trees to make peace. Eventually the fey stopped hassling us.

Birds sang all day, different ones taking over at dusk, and another shift at night. Sometimes the buzz of insects was louder than the birdsong. Almost every day I spotted wasps or bees bigger than Arnisant, thankfully at a distance. Once I saw a mob of them flying together, carrying the carcass of a centipede the size of a crocodile. Kemeili threatened to summon them over just to watch me squirm. She wouldn't let me forget the way I'd winced at the gold wasp she'd teased me with back in her room.

The light was different in this part of the forest, like the leaf mold somehow stained the air. When I stepped through a shaft of sunlight, it warmed my skin for a few seconds before the shade put its cold fingers back on my neck.

Caladrel made one of his bird whistles and waved me forward. He'd begun including me in his short scouting runs, including this one, in which we were circling around the rear to check for unwelcome followers.

I wondered why the ranger wanted me. Here in the forest, he was obviously better than me. Give me a warehouse, a cellar, or a dark alley, and I can make myself invisible. Out here, he was the ghost. I was lucky not to trip over a root or step in a gopher hole.

Oparal peeled away from Caladrel as I came up. That was just as well, because the last time she gave me one of her dirty looks I'd shot her the tines. She'd spent enough time in Cheliax to know everything the gesture implied, and we almost had it out right there. After they'd pulled us apart, I promised the boss not to provoke her. That's when Kemeili really started bugging me to get my revenge.

"The count should have finished his introductions by now," said Caladrel. "It's time we joined them." He pointed with a newly carved arrow to a ridge just beyond the next stand of trees.

"You've been busy." I nodded at his quiver, which he'd filled with at least a dozen new arrows. The longer I looked at the quiver, the more arrows I realized it held. There was some kind of magic to the thing, lifting up just the arrow he wanted when he reached for it.

Caladrel shrugged. "Most are plain arrows, but I've replaced some of the bleeders. It takes a while for them to weaken a demon, but they make a difference in a long battle."

"Good thinking." I'd learned a similar lesson on Eel Street back in my Goatherd days. You don't need to kill a guy on the first shot. Make him bleed and back off. If he's got a lick of sense, he'll slink off to wrap himself up, and you can go about your business. If he follows you, then he's that much beat already.

"You make all your own arrows?"

"Most of them, but some require magic from our wizards." He plucked a red-fletched shaft from his quiver. "Demonbane arrows. Not as useful as my sword, which can smell the demons' approach, but deadly when well placed."

"I notice you don't miss a lot."

He smiled.

"What's that one for?" I pointed at the arrow that clung to the outside of his quiver, like a bit of iron on a lodestone. Its head was half as wide as my hand. Instead of steel, it was carved out of wood with wormy veins running across its surface.

"That is for when all else fails," he said. "Have you ever used a bow?" He offered me his, but I waved it away. I'd seen all kinds of weapons, but for my money a knife and a soft word are the best. I'm happiest when the word is all it takes.

We reached the ridge and looked down into the biggest clearing I'd seen since we entered Kyonin. What I saw there made my jaw drop.

"I know." Caladrel watched me. "I felt the same way the first time I saw the Century Root."

It took me a minute to understand what I was seeing. At first it looked like a ruined city on a hill, maybe half a mile across. Jagged towers crouched above a brown cliff. Thick ridges ran down in all directions, like the roots of a gigantic tree.

No, I realized. They weren't like roots. The long brown hills were roots.

Those weren't towers up above, either. Tall as Egorian townhouses, they were splinters jutting up around the edges of a mountain-sized tree stump. Deep pits in the wood looked like windows and doors. Inside the perimeter, little forests sprouted on the surface of the stump. In other places, crevices in the stump floor looked like country roads. Green waterfalls trickled off the sides.

All around the base of the trunk stood ordinary trees, or that's what it looked like. Again, what I thought I saw wasn't what I saw.

"That one just moved." I pointed at a rowan I'd thought was swaying in a breeze before it passed in front of a pair of elms. Standing at its foot was the boss, looking tiny as a sprite. "Tines! It's a whole colony of Walking Men!"

"No," said Caladrel. "The Walking Man is a construct. These are living creatures, the Fierani."

"Huh. I thought they'd be smaller."

The tree-people were every bit as tall as the Walking Man, only not so massive. And they weren't made of a big mess of trees and plants. They looked a lot like regular trees, except that they milled about like nobles strolling through a park.

By the time we came down the shallow hill, the boss was walking toward us, Arnisant at his side. "They are the most inhospitable creatures I have ever encountered. They will not even acknowledge my presence."

"Perhaps he will have better luck." Caladrel nodded past the boss at the little ghost sitting at the base of one of the roots. He had his shoes off, and he'd stuck his feet into the soft loam.

When Fimbulthicket went down at Erithiel's Hall, I thought he'd died. Oparal pressed her hands to his skinny chest and poured holy light into him until it became obvious it wasn't going to help. Kemeili took over, but it was just no good. The little guy hadn't been injured in the fight. I guessed his heart just gave out.

Just when we'd all given up, he lifted his head.

"Thank Iomedae," said Oparal.

"Thank Calistria," said Kemeili.

"Thanks for nothing," said Fimbulthicket. His voice was a whisper from the end of a sewer tunnel. His eyes were pale before, but now they were the color of clear ice. Faint gray veins pulsed under his thin skin.

Later the boss told me the gnome had finally succumbed to his "Bleaching" disease. Before that night he was just fading. Now he was all gone, caught between, not life and death, the boss said, but something like the real and the unreal. The certain and the possible. Something creepy like that.

I didn't understand the difference until a couple of days later while we were slogging toward this Century Root. The gnome stood straighter than before, moving easy through the woods even with his big pack.

"You'd make one hell of a porter, Fim."

"My name is Fimbulthicket."

"You got it, little guy."

"Not 'little guy.' Not 'Thick' or 'Shorty' or 'Spooky.' It's Fimbulthicket."

"Sure. It's just everyone's got nicknames for their pals."

"We are not pals."

"All right, all right," I tried to laugh it off. "'Fimbulthicket.'"

"Too late for that now," he said in his chilly voice. "You had your chance."

I kept shy of him after that.

"Has Fimbulthicket been able to help?" Caladrel asked the boss. Oparal and Kemeili came up behind him, both looking curious about the answer.

"He has remained silent since we arrived, and the Fierani will not speak to me." The boss pointed at a few of the nearby tree-men. They looked back at us. Sometimes two would lean their branches together. They creaked open their mouths, letting out a sound of wind and rain.

"I suppose you tried addressing them in Elven," said Caladrel. "More of them will speak our language than the common tongue."

The boss nodded. "And in the fey tongue—although mine is limited—to no avail. Whatever brought them to this impossibly huge tree stump consumes their interest."

"What about the little—Fimbulthicket?" I said. "Can't he talk to the plants and animals?"

"He has been attempting to do just that," said the boss. "It appears he has made some progress, but it is impossible to know until he deigns to speak to us. He has become quite terse since his incident."

"Kind of spooky, too, if you ask me."

He shot me the look that said he hadn't asked me. Everyone else grimaced or looked away. I wasn't the only one Fimbulthicket made nervous.

"Look," said Oparal. "Here he comes."

He walked with his shoes and stockings in hand, clumps of dirt and grass still stuck between his toes. He hadn't smiled since that night he "went over," as he put it. He didn't show any emotion. He tramped up to us and spoke without looking at anybody in particular.

"I told them why we came."

"The Fierani have been gathered here for almost two hundred years," said Caladrel. "Did you at least find out why they have come to the Century Root?"

"You didn't tell me to ask about that. I asked about Variel. They say an elf came with questions about ancient sites across Kyonin almost a century ago. Most of the Fierani ignored him, all except one. And none of the others will speak to that one."

"Who was it?" said the boss. "What was his name?"

Fimbulthicket opened his mouth and breathed out a sound like a death rattle. It made my teeth hurt to hear it. Arnisant whimpered and covered his ears.

"Nobody understands that noise." Kemeili stuck her fingers in her ears. "What do we call him?"

Fimbulthicket thought a minute and said a couple of elven words I hadn't learned yet. I nudged the boss. "What's that mean?"

"It translates, more or less, as 'Peculiar in the Head.' Or perhaps 'Eccentric of Mind.' Though I cannot say either particularly rolls off the tongue."

"How about 'Oddnoggin'?" I suggested.

"I like that," said Fimbulthicket, but in his hollow voice it was hard to tell whether he meant it.

After Fimbulthicket assured the boss it wouldn't upset the Fierani if we took a look around, we started climbing the Century Root. The gnome led the way through a wooden canyon with cliffs lined with mushrooms and pools filled with slime. I got some nasty yellow stuff on my kickers, but I kept my jacket clean.

We came to a place where rot had eaten away a ramp leading to the top of the stump, which the boss called its plateau. About half of the plateau was flat. It looked like some god had struck the old tree one blow with a giant axe, letting the rest fall away to form a range of splinter-peaks. I wondered where the rest of the tree had fallen.

We found Oddnoggin by the side of a green pool. A little forest of other Fierani stood together on the opposite shore, but none of them came near him. When we got close, I understood why.

The tree-man had only one eye, and that one squinted shut with a solid trail of sap oozing from the corner. Where his other eye should have been was a pit the size of a salt barrel. A bunch of brown squirrels swarmed out of the hole, leaping onto the branches that sprang from his head. They shrieked and chattered at us.

Arni lost his cool, barking and jumping up on Oddnoggin's trunk.

"Down, Arnisant," said the boss. "Fimbulthicket, would you please ask this Oddnoggin to control those pests and speak with us?"

Fimbulthicket was the only one who didn't seem to mind the racket. He cocked his head, raising his curled fingers the way the squirrels held their paws close to their faces. He chattered back at them. They shut up and listened.

Oddnoggin came closer. The Fierani's head and shoulders had thickened up with knots and rills of fungus in his—what was it? Flesh? Wood? Oddnoggin had more than a goofy name in common with Fimbulthicket. He was a good eight feet shorter than the other Fierani. He looked so top-heavy that I worried he was going to fall on us as he moved in, but instead he knelt down, bringing the squirrel nest closer.

"Oddnoggin can't speak for himself," said Fimbulthicket. "Ages ago, he suffered a terrible wound while driving demon-sorcerers away from the Century Root. A family of squirrels nested near his ...Let's call it a brain. Their offspring were born close to Oddnoggin's thoughts. At first they could only dream what he was thinking, but each new generation was born closer and closer to his mind. Now they know his every thought."

"They are his voice," said the boss.

Fimbulthicket nodded, and I was glad. Pointing out a little detail like that was all it took to slough off some of the boss's grump. I realized what was irritating him: He hated not being the translator. Ever since I'd known him, he'd been as proud of his collection of languages as he was of anything he owned. Once or twice I'd seen him talk to a foreigner through a translator, always with the boss ending up in a snit because he couldn't do it himself.

Oddnoggin bowed his head, causing a ruckus among the squirrels. His skin looked like brown bark, but when he moved it looked as supple as snakeskin.

"His injury makes the other Fierani shun him," said Fimbulthicket. He was quiet for a moment, and I reckoned he was thinking the same was true for him, with the gnomes of Omesta shunning him on account of his Bleaching. "Fortunately for us, it makes him more inclined to speak with outsiders—at least those who can speak with the creatures of the forest."

"Ask him what Variel sought here."

Fimbulthicket nattered back and forth with the squirrels. The squirrels ran into their nest in Oddnoggin's trunk. They were quiet in there for a minute or so. The boss began to pace. At last the squirrels jumped out and chattered back at Fimbulthicket.

"He was looking for something lost. He knew it existed, but he couldn't find it."

"That's it?" said the boss. He looked disgusted.

"What did he seek?" asked Caladrel. "Was it a weapon?"

The boss glanced at the ranger before looking to Fimbulthicket for an answer. The gnome shrieked at the squirrels. They shrieked back. They went to their nest. Eventually they came out, and they shrieked some more.

"Something old," said Fimbulthicket, holding up a hand to hold off questions while the squirrels continued their racket. "Something to help bring together ..." He screwed up his face, trying to understand. "'More than the forest' is the closest to what he's saying."

"All of Kyonin?" asked Caladrel.

"Maybe." Fimbulthicket tilted his head left, then right. The motion made him look like one of the squirrels. "It could be."

"Variel was not simply exploring," said the boss. "He had a mission. He had a purpose. You traveled beside him for decades, and you have no idea what it could have been?"

"How many times must I tell you—?"

"Where did Oddnoggin tell him to go?"

Fimbulthicket talked to the squirrels. Either the question or the answer turned out to be complicated. Squirrels, gnome, squirrels, gnome, squirrels, nest. Oddnoggin rubbed the bark beside his mouth for so long I thought he'd start a fire. The boss paced and crossed his arms. The squirrels popped out and chatter chatter chatter.

No matter how much Fimbulthicket told him, the boss was never happy with the answer. I couldn't blame him. A lot of it was pretty poetical stuff. Fimbulthicket said, "He sought a secret no one could be told, a memory no one could remember."

They did that a few times. It was all a lot of stuff like that.

The rest of us took a breather while the boss crabbed at Fimbulthicket for better answers. Caladrel listened in and gave us updates. "Variel was one of many elves, including my rangers, who searched Kyonin for unrecovered sites of cultural or strategic value. We've always known about some of them, like the Walking Man and Erithiel's Hall, but those were deemed too dangerous or unpredictable to disturb."

"Is that what they're saying now?" I asked. Something about the way Caladrel spoke made me think he was telling us stuff he'd known all along. I wondered whether he'd told the boss any of it. If so, I wondered why the boss hadn't told me.

"I'm inferring some from what they're saying, some from what I've heard of Variel Morgethai. A few explorers, I assume Variel among them, searched for sites that had been lost, forgotten, or intentionally obscured."

"Ah, the boss is going to love that." I looked over at him, and sure enough he was leaning forward, interrupting Fimbulthicket with questions before he'd finished translating the last answer. "Turning up that kind of stuff is what he lives for."

After a while, Fimbulthicket said the squirrels had enough. I think they were scared to have Arnisant so close. He obviously wanted to eat them.

The boss still seemed dissatisfied. Maybe he didn't get the answer he'd hoped for after all. He came back to us as Fimbulthicket continued chattering at the squirrels. The gnome turned to call after him. "Wait!"

Oddnoggin opened his mouth and moaned. What rumbled up out of his trunk was a nightmare version of the Fierani talk, mournful and menacing. The other Fierani picked up his song. Soon it echoed through all the hollows and ravines of the Century Root. When it began to fade, the tree people all turned. One by one, they lifted their leafy limbs and pointed more or less to the darkening eastern sky.

The boss fumbled through his satchel and fiddled with his navigating gadgets. After he'd figured out where they were pointing and scribbled down his results, he put his hand on his breast and bowed to Oddnoggin. "I thank you."

We put a few more miles behind us before making camp. When everybody started in on chores, the boss made a point of coming with me to collect deadfall. We didn't need the fire except we were all getting used to having Fimbulthicket's nettle tea at night and a hot bowl of porridge in the morning.

"I want you to extract some information from Kemeili," he said. "If the opportunity arises, see what she knows about Variel, his past associates, his relationship to the queen. Surely she's heard something."

"Sure," I said, but I wasn't sure how I felt about it. "I asked her some of that stuff before, but I don't think she knew him."

"Nevertheless, try again."

"Why don't you ask her?"

"I shall, but I expect she will lie to me. You might catch her off guard while her attention is ...diverted."

"Yeah, yeah. I got it. How about the others? Caladrel seems to like you pretty well."

"Indeed, perhaps too well. Did you notice what he asked Oddnoggin?"

"A weapon." I'd noticed, all right. "But doesn't it make sense that your dad would want to bring a weapon back to the queen?"

"No one mentioned a weapon before. In fact, no one has told me much of anything. I feel any or all of those who have come to help us might have ulterior motives." He paused to look at my expression. "By 'ulterior,' I mean—"

"Yeah, yeah. I know 'ulterior.'" I looked close to see whether he was joking, but I couldn't tell whether that was a smile lurking at the corner of his mouth or just a shadow from the sunset. "So who can we trust? Fimbulthicket? I know it sounds crazy, but how about the paladin?"

"No one, of course. All of them were sent to us, except Fimbulthicket. And we were sent to him."

"Well, you know you can count on me," I told him. "And Arni."

He clapped me on the shoulder and smiled, but as we gathered the last of the firewood, he had his brooding face on.

"What's eating you, boss?"

"The direction the Fierani indicated leads to none of the sites on our map, although it is between two locations that might have interested Variel."

"What kind of locations?"

"The farther is the ruin of a scholarly monument. That one does not trouble me."

"Yeah? What's the other one?"

"A tomb."

Chapter Nine

The Endless Cairn

Varian

Torchlight fluttered as another noisome gust erupted from the lower crypts. My tourmaline shed ample light for our search, but the flames provided a modicum of warmth against the damp chill. While we stood on dry marble, only a few floors below us, the mausoleum sank into the swamp. Over centuries, the elves had continued to build atop the subsiding foundation, even as the deepest tombs became submerged beneath the marsh.

Radovan crouched beside the tomb and held his brand close to the stone: "Lanliss Morgethai, His Blood Restores the Land." He traced his finger over the graven name. He could recognize only a few words in Elven, but one of them was Variel's name.

"At least it's not him."

"Variel's not dead," moaned a spectral voice. "I told you that."

Oparal whirled, nearly dropping her torch before her light revealed Fimbulthicket lying on a nearby bier. He had taken off his shoes again, pressing his bare soles and palms to the stone. With his colorless skin, he looked at home among the dead.

"Desna weeps." Radovan shuddered. Kemeili put a hand on his shoulder as he stood up. For a moment, her seeming youth and diminutive stature made her appear almost childlike beside him. Radovan took a deep breath before casting me an imploring glance.

I could do nothing to arrest the gnome's increasingly strange demeanor. No one could. Most gnomes who succumbed to the Bleaching simply perished. Fimbulthicket was one of the fortunate—or unfortunate—few who lingered on in a state of spiritual and physical limbo, neither dead nor undead, but not truly alive either. He had become a bleachling.

"Was this Lanliss close kin to Variel?"

"Your father," said Fimbulthicket, rising to sit upright. His slow grace was eerier than his hollow voice. "You should call him your father."

I fought an impulse to argue the point. It occurred to me that I had only the word of this strange gnome that Variel Morgethai was indeed my sire. The other evidence—Fimbulthicket's knowledge of my mother's visit to Kyonin and later my gift of the Red Carriage—remained circumstantial. I wondered whether Fimbulthicket was cunning enough to play upon my family history to manipulate me to his own ends. If I had fallen prey to some scheme, had it originated with him or with some faction of the elven court?

"Do you know this Lanliss?" I insisted.

"No," he said, drawing out the syllable like a hesitant ghost.

"The Morgethai family is the largest in Kyonin," said Caladrel. "They have their own dedicated genealogists."

So do the Jeggares, I thought, although the human side of my family was less concerned with inbreeding than with disadvantageous matches, like the one between my mother and Variel Morgethai—assuming for now he truly was my father.

"Variel did not come here to die," said Fimbulthicket.

"Of course not." In truth, I had considered the possibility that Variel had come to inter himself within the Endless Cairn remote at best. Of the sites included in Oddnoggin's vague gesture southeast, this vast tower of crypts was both the nearest and the most intriguing.

Elves seldom die peacefully. Those who escape death through mishap can live for thousands of years. Perhaps this fragile longevity is the reason they fled after Earthfall, when life on Golarion became inexpressibly more dangerous. Yet they returned to defend the last bastion of the Sovyrian Stone, whose value must have far outweighed that of the countless elven lives sacrificed to win back the territory usurped by demons. Thus the all-too-common epitaph: His Blood Restores the Land.

"There is nothing more to learn here," I decided. "Let us depart."

"I will stay a while," said Oparal. "I wish to pay my respects to the crusaders."

"Very well. We will wait for you."

"No," she said. "I prefer to be alone."

"As you wish." I nodded at Radovan, who offered Oparal his torch. Hesitating long enough to cast him a disparaging gaze, she accepted the brand and descended deeper into the gloom.

As we turned to ascend, I contrived to touch Radovan's shoulder. He did not react, but he understood the sign I traced there. To facilitate his task, I stepped past him and took Kemeili by the arm. "Tell me more of the burial customs of Calistria."

She leaned into me, a faint turning of her head supporting my expectation that she welcomed the opportunity to test Radovan's jealousy. "We celebrate life rather than death," she began. "But few followers of the Sting would wish to leave their mortal remains shut in a place like this. Far better to be returned to the loam or to the trees."

We passed the monuments of elves dead a hundred years, then ninety, and so on until we returned to the ground floor. Above us the ramp rose several stories higher. From the walls protruded ranks of sarcophagi three rows high, the upper biers "flying" above those below. These were not the oppressive stone boxes of human tombs but rather sculptures of such natural beauty that one might be forgiven for mistaking the place for the interior of a gigantic insect nest. Most of the tombs resembled the cocoons of enormous larvae, with intricate designs sweeping along the edges. Others looked like great folded leaves or elaborate acorn caps with carvings of sleeping fey inside.

The legends of the dead appeared on the wall beside the coffins, sometimes beneath a bas-relief of the deceased, sometimes with a song or poem inscribed upon the stone. Each remembrance was unique, and the variety of expression endless. I had sketched several of the most outstanding specimens in hopes of having them reproduced for display at Greensteeples.

I focused my attention on keeping Kemeili distracted until we reached the ground floor of the building and emerged into the swamp. Behind us stood the tower of the Endless Cairn, its white marble veined with blue and pink.

Those who mock the folly of placing such a building amid a swamp forget that the structure was ancient before the elves departed Golarion. Doubtless the land had originally provided a firm foundation, transforming into its present marshy state only after a period of millennia. The elves had built up a circular island around their mausoleum, although it too floated on the surface of the mire rather than providing a true foundation. It sole purpose appeared to be as a comfortable landing for visitors to the cairn.

Arnisant sat up at attention as we returned to our campsite. I went to the eroded stone plinth I had made my desk and opened my journal.

"Where's Radovan?" said Kemeili.

I pointed beyond the cairn with my pencil. "I asked him to scout out the other side of the island."

"Oh." She frowned for a moment before pouting like a child. It was difficult to estimate an elf's age, but I would have been surprised to learn that Kemeili was younger than I. I could only imagine her apparent immaturity was a ruse to gull the sort of men who find it appealing. It was a stratagem completely wasted on me. "I'll find him."

As she dashed away, Caladrel drew near. For a moment he admired my previous sketches of the cairn upon the island. "I hope your man is careful. If Oparal notices his spying on her, her response is apt to be ..." His hand sketched a vague gesture.

"Disproportionate?"

He nodded.

"Even if he has forgotten the slap, I doubt he has forgotten the wound."

Caladrel fixed his gaze upon me, hesitating as if uncertain whether he should utter his thoughts. Before I could prompt him, he said, "What do you make of her?"

It was a good question. Caladrel smiled as I considered it for a moment before answering. Neither of us wished to speak ill of someone who might report to Queen Telandia. "Her devotion to the Inheritor seems genuine, but her animosity toward Radovan is problematic. On the other hand, she is a great help to us. There can be no question of her prowess."

"No, definitely no question," said Caladrel. His smile softened for a moment, and I imagined he admired more than the paladin's strong sword arm. He perceived my reaction and guessed my thought. He chuckled. "No, it isn't that. I value the passion with which she dispatched the demons we encountered."

I thought of his thrumming bow, his flashing red blade. "Her capacity for mayhem is no greater than yours."

"Thank you. Driving the last demon from Tanglebriar is my path to the Brightness."

Many elves sought to find an activity or state of mind leading to a transcendent perception of the world. The path to this Brightness was unique to each individual, and many never found it. For some it was as simple as practicing meditation, while for others it was the expression found in art, menial tasks, or even ambitious pursuits such as Caladrel's. "What do you imagine is Oparal's path to the Brightness?"

"She is not from Kyonin," he said. "I don't know whether she holds such values, but she hates the demons. We could use more like her here at home, instead of charging off to join another nation's crusade."

"Indeed." Even while her kin scorned her as Forlorn, Oparal could live in Kyonin. As a half-breed, I was welcome only as a guest.

"Now I shall leave you to your work, as I must do some scouting of my own. I hope you won't feel the need to follow me."

"You have my word."

"Thank you, Count. My master will appreciate your discretion."

I suppressed the urge to ask whether he had reported my discovery of the aiudara to Prince Amarandlon. Of course he had. While he showed me every courtesy and even the semblance of friendship, Caladrel's loyalty lay with his prince.

Fimbulthicket busied himself preparing our evening meal. Supplementing our supplies with wild game provided by Caladrel, he had rationed the dry goods so efficiently that his pack still bulged with packages of dried beans, lentils, onions, and root vegetables. Since the attack that marked his transformation into a bleachling, however, he had occasionally forgotten to enliven the pot. Perhaps because he noticed I was watching, he made a point of adding a parcel of spice.

My exchanges with Kemeili and Caladrel disrupted the memory I held of the interior of the Endless Cairn. Fortunately, I had already sketched its features in my memory library. Closing my eyes, I summoned the ideal of my workplace to mind. Going to the easel where I kept notable sketches, I refreshed my memory. Opening my eyes, I set pencil to page and consigned the images to my journal.

By the time I lifted the stylus once more, I heard Radovan call out, "Hey, boss!" His face was flushed, and he walked in the long strides I associated with his desire to hurry without being seen to run. He approached from an angle oblique to that of the Endless Cairn, where I saw Oparal emerge and look suspiciously about before coming to join us.

"I thought I got away clean, but she got up in such a hurry, I had to beat it out of there before she saw me."

"Anything unusual?" Uncertain just how keen the paladin's elven ears were, or whether she shared our skill at reading lips, I asked the question in Varisian.

Radovan hesitated, frowned with concentration, and replied in Varisian, "No. She did what how she said what she was doing."

I replied in Taldane. "Clearly, we need to work on conjugation and idiom as much as grammar."

"Hey, it's not like I've had much practice." He smiled, but then his eyes lost their focus as he looked beyond me, not at the swamp but at a memory. The smile faded.

Oparal strode directly up to us, her armor clattering with every step. "Where are the others?"

"Caladrel is scouting the area," I said. "And Kemeili is off looking for Radovan."

Oparal fixed him with a steely glare. "Where were you that she went looking?"

"I had to see a man about a dog."

"What?"

"We were just discussing the problem of idiom," I said. "He means he evacuated his bladder."

"Aren't you glad you asked?" Radovan winked at her.

I feared that was going too far, but Oparal seemed mollified by his characteristic insouciance. Deciding not to press his luck, Radovan tossed off a footman's salute and went to assist Fimbulthicket with supper. Oparal also began to leave, but I beckoned her to stay.

"That is the first time I have seen you speak to Radovan since the Century Root," I said. "Have you given further thought to talking to him about the night you struck him?"

"He deserved worse than a slap for his vile insinuation—"

"I refer to the other night you struck him."

Her unchanging expression told me that she knew perfectly well what I had meant. "If you are ordering me to apologize, then I'm afraid you will—"

"I am doing nothing of the sort. As a blooded warrior, you know that mutual defense requires mutual trust." I was not ignorant of the irony of my words, considering my recent request that Radovan spy upon her.

"I've encountered his kind before. Hellspawn," she spat.

"A tainted lineage does not rule one's character."

"Of course a Chel would say that."

My face grew warm while my blood ran cold. The derisive term for my countrymen is grounds for issuing a challenge to a peer or having a commoner horsewhipped.

Oparal saw her error reflected in my face. "I—I chose my words poorly."

It was time for a different tack. "Do you know what I thought when I first saw you at the Midsummer Masque? I thought how cruel the others were to mock you. Forlorn. Does the term describe the natural state of those raised away from their kind? Or is it caused by the shunning of your fellow elves when you eventually meet them? It is no wonder you lash out, but it does you no credit. Like those who call you Forlorn, you are far too quick to judge from superficial evidence. You took one look at Radovan and decided he was wicked."

"It wasn't one look," she snapped. "Certainly he made an abominable first impression, but I didn't know until I saw his jacket that he—"

"Until you saw his jacket? You judge him by his clothing?"

"Which he chooses to wear! Which he had made. Every time I look at it, I think he's boasting of all the crimes he's committed."

"That is one perspective."

"What is another?"

"That he chooses not to forget the ordeals he has survived."

She had no answer to that. We both took a moment to breathe. When I felt and she appeared calm, I said, "I recall an aphorism about books and covers."

"It doesn't apply to hellspawn."

"Actually, I was thinking of the unicorn."

She offered no reply.

"'When you find a wicked man within your village, do not banish him. Inspire him with your words and deeds. Do not banish the man; banish the wickedness.'"

"What is that from? One of your Chelish philosophers?"

"Yes, in a manner of speaking." I reached for her shield, awaited her nod of permission, and turned it so that we could look upon the winged, eagle-headed woman embossed on its surface. "You know her as Saint Lymirin."

Oparal started. Emotions warred on her face. Before outrage at my rhetorical advantage could win out over self-reflection, I changed tack.

"The point is that we must never allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good."

"After a lifetime spent in Cheliax, how can you believe that?"

"I have spent my lifetime in many other nations, as well. I have befriended those whose customs at first seemed abominable to me, and I count among my sworn enemies countrymen who share my every more. Besides, if I did not believe that you and Radovan can work in concert, I would have had you sent back to Iadara long ago."

"But the queen commands me—"

"The queen would be most displeased with your failure to cooperate."

There it was: the ultimatum she could not ignore. "I promise to be more careful."

"Then I welcome your continued assistance."

She favored me with a curt nod and turned on her heel. Seeing only Radovan, Fimbulthicket, and Arnisant at the campsite, she hesitated. I imagined she considered pretending to visit her own man about a dog, but instead she went to sit near the fire. I joined them as Kemeili emerged from behind the squat dome of the cairn. Her leathers were covered in muck to mid-thigh, and she looked none too pleased.

Caladrel returned soon after, reporting nothing of especial danger but warning everyone not to wade barefoot in the swamp water and asking Fimbulthicket whether he was prepared to treat poisonous wounds.

Later, as we stood watch together, Caladrel whispered, "The unicorn is still following us."

"Did you see it?"

"Only its tracks."

"You are certain they are not from some other creature."

He replied with a look of pain.

"My apologies."

"Do you think you can persuade her to talk with it?"

"I think not. Perhaps in time her attitude will soften, but not soon."

Caladrel shook his head. "It's hard to imagine. Every elven maiden dreams of being chosen by a unicorn."

I inclined my head toward Kemeili, who had finally usurped Arnisant's favored spot by overlaying her blanket on his. "Every elven maiden?"

"Well, practically every one. Have you been to an elven market?"

"Only in Greengold."

"The stalls are filled with unicorn statuettes of wood, shell, bone, crystal, even gold. And they sell briskly, always to young maidens."

"The markets of Egorian are similarly afflicted," I said. "With the unicorns, I mean. Not the maidens."

Caladrel smiled and lifted an imaginary toast toward me. "To unicorns and maidens." For a moment I longed for a bottle of Chelish red to share during our quiet vigil. A good wine would soothe the discomfort I felt since our exploration of the cairn. Caladrel went to rouse Oparal from her meditation. I did the same with Radovan, who tugged on his boots and nodded to assure me he would remain awake.

I removed my own footgear and lay down, hands folded upon my chest. Arnisant rose to take his place at my feet, leaving Kemeili curled up alone beside the fire. Caladrel lay against the bole of a tree, his eyes half-closed. Oparal knelt in an attitude of prayer, her hands upon the massive longsword lying across her thighs.

Although my body was weary, my mind would not rest. Walking past so many tombs reminded me that I had more dead than living acquaintances. How many relatives, friends, and enemies had I outlived? I thrust away the morbid thought of cataloging them. It was better to think on the present.

Listening to the sounds of Oparal donning her armor, I wondered whom I could count among my friends in the here and now. Of Radovan and Arnisant, my mind harbored no doubts. Of the others, Caladrel was the easiest to admire, both for his loyalty to Prince Amarandlon and for his talents as a guide and demonslayer. Despite understanding his need to visit the aiudara alone, I could not help but resent the reminder that I remained an outsider among the elves. I felt like a child forbidden to enter the library.

Fimbulthicket's motives for aiding my search for Variel seemed innocent at first, but his strange behavior put me on my guard even before he succumbed to the Bleaching. Thinking on our conversations about the man, I realized I had asked too little about their friendship. I needed to learn more about why they parted ways.

Crusaders of Iomedae are not known for their subtleties, but not since our last encounter with the Order of the Scourge in Egorian had I seen Radovan evoke such animosity from an agent of the law. The Hellknights despised his criminal past as much as his hellspawn heritage, although even more they resented his refusal to serve as their informer. Those motives I understood. Oparal claimed that her divinity-granted grace revealed Radovan's wicked nature. With all respect to the Inheritor, I value my own conclusions over the declarations of her worshipers.

As an inquisitor of Calistria, Kemeili could not be as naive as she often appeared. Her interest in Radovan was no more surprising than that of the many other women who had taken a fancy to him, despite the obvious shortcomings of his station and mixed blood. Despite his insouciant front, I could trust him to report any unusual lines of questioning during their trysts. For surety, I checked him twice daily for any sign of glamour.

Radovan and Oparal spoke quietly. Just outside the dim light of our campfire, they sat closer than I would have expected. Perhaps the paladin had taken my advice to heart and was at last apologizing for his injury. I closed my eyes and prayed to Desna that it be true. Then I bade the Tender of Dreams to send me some vision of my father. My mother's face appeared in my thoughts. Beside it I conjured the mirror's reflection of my own. I subtracted the high brow and prominent nose of the Jeggares, lengthened my tapering ears and imagined irises so large that no white appeared in the eyes. Of course there would be no facial hair, so I erased the tiny beard a long-lost lover had first encouraged me to cultivate.

"You have no right to speak to me like that." Oparal's voice rose, shaking me from my reverie. "I'm not some puppet-show parody of a paladin."

"That's just what I'm saying," said Radovan. "You're a bigot. Just because my great-great-whatever fooled around with devils don't mean I'm one."

"That's exactly what it means. Evil is in your blood."

After a long silence, I began to hope that Desna had indeed heard my prayer. As long as Radovan did not reply, perhaps Oparal would be content to have had the last word. Just as my body began to relax again, he spoke.

"You don't really hate me," he said. "You hate yourself for liking me."

"What is wrong with you? You disgust me."

"Yeah? Then why can't you keep your hands off? You didn't need to belt me at the party."

"You needed to be taught a lesson."

"Now you sound like her," he said. I opened my eyes just enough to see Kemeili, who remained curled up on her blanket. Well beyond her, I saw Radovan and Oparal sitting on a log. The paladin moved her sword from its place between them to rest on the log on the other side of her body.

"I am nothing like that harlot."

"I don't know," he said. "You both play rough, and you both want to teach me a lesson. Hey!"

Oparal shoved him to the ground.

"Like I said, neither one of you can keep your hands off me." He stood, slapping a clod of dirt from his leathers.

She grabbed him by the jacket and pulled him close. "You listen to me—"

Radovan raised his face to kiss her. Oparal recoiled, but not before his lips brushed hers.

It had all gone too far. I rose from my blanket to put an end to their quarrel. Caladrel had also stood up, bow in hand. Before either of us could speak, Oparal thrust her knee into Radovan's groin. The force of the blow lifted him a foot off the ground.

For a second he gaped at her, his wide mouth forming a huge circle of surprise as his feet hit the ground.

Oparal's knee remained fixed to his crotch. She struggled to free it, kicking downward twice, three times, and finally pulling away with a sound of steel on steel. On the steel plate of her knee I saw the dark line of a wedge-shaped puncture two inches long.

Radovan pulled the leather of his pants aside to reveal the spiked cup he wears to discourage exactly that sort of attack. His feigned astonishment transformed into a grin. "That wasn't very nice. Tell me you can sew that back up for me."

"Oparal, don't!" Caladrel raised his bow, a blunt arrow nocked in place.

"Radovan, step back," I said. My fingers counted the slots on my bandolier, seeking a spell that would do no lasting harm.

Radovan had barely begun to move away when Oparal's fist smashed his nose. He dropped, limp as a sack of grain.

Arnisant leaped up and barked a warning. He looked to me for direction, but I signed for him to stay.

Caladrel's arrow struck Oparal's sword where it lay against the log. The force of the blow knocked the blade away, but the paladin did not reach for it. She leaped on Radovan and raised a gauntleted fist.

Kemeili's whip cracked, its three binding lashes capturing Oparal's wrist and pulling it out of line. The paladin's fist struck a dent in the soft ground beside Radovan's face.

"Get off him," shouted Kemeili. "There are two other men here who I'm sure would be glad to help you shed your virginity."

Oparal's head snapped toward Kemeili. "What? How dare you suggest that I ...and this thing ...?"

"Don't think I haven't noticed."

"Three men," mumbled Fimbulthicket, rubbing his eyes as he sat up on his blanket.

"That's enough, everyone," said Caladrel.

Heedless of the ranger, Oparal raised her other fist.

"Step away." I showed Oparal the riffle scroll I held in one hand, hoping I would not need to use it. She seemed unimpressed until I lay my other hand on the hilt of the Shadowless Sword. She rose, hesitated as if considering whether to kick Radovan. She backed away without doing so.

Radovan sat up, blood covering his chin like a bandit's kerchief.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"Bluh."

Chapter Ten

The Wandering Spheres

Radovan

Four days past the swamp tombs, Caladrel led us to a dead giant owl.

Crows flew off as we came near. Its hill-sized carcass sagged under the weight of its saddle. When the boss knelt beside the thing, a swarm of little rodents scattered out. They ran on two legs, waving their oversized paws like startled clowns.

The scavengers had been feasting for days. Most of the owl's body had been eaten away from the inside, but a pair of huge cuts across the back of its head had to be what brought it down.

"Demons?" asked Kemeili. She hadn't been so clingy since my last scrap with Oparal. She also wouldn't heal my broken nose. Neither would Fimbulthicket, who said I wasn't hurt bad enough to break out the power of the Green or some crap.

The only other one who could have fixed me up proper was Oparal, and I wasn't going to poke that bear. I made do with a salve the boss made from oily leaves Caladrel brought back from scouting.

The ranger said, "The wounds are far too large to have been made by any flying demon I have seen in the Fierani."

"Is it conceivable that the Lord of the—?"

"No." Caladrel cut him off as if he were scared of what the boss might say. "There are a hundred scouts between here and the Witchbole. I would have heard."

The boss nodded, but I saw doubt on his face.

We spent an hour searching for any sign of the owl rider. There was nothing. Whatever had brought down the owl had carried him off—or gobbled him up.

A few hours later, the boss walked with me and Arnisant as Caladrel scouted ahead and Fimbulthicket schemed with the girls about how to make me more miserable. "Caladrel has had many opportunities to visit the aiudara," said the boss.

"Elf gates." I snickered. The boss still hadn't figured out the joke.

He frowned. "Has it not occurred to you that he might have some reason to visit them other than ensuring they remain undamaged?"

"What? Like going back to Iadara?"

"He could do that with the right aiudara, and with the right key. Considering his position as master of the hunt, we must assume he has liberal access."

"So what's he going to do? Nip back to Iadara and—? Say, wait a second. 'Aiudara.' 'Iadara.' Am I saying those right?"

"Curious. They are near homophones."

"Also, they sound almost exactly the same."

He looked exasperated. "Probably it is mere coincidence."

"You're always saying not to trust coincidence."

"Well, of course. But what could the similarity between the names indicate?"

I shrugged. "All gates lead to Iadara?"

He stopped walking. Arnisant sat at his heel and looked up as the boss brushed his little strip of beard with a finger. After a few seconds, his fingers rose up to pinch the bridge of his nose. At last he said, "You may have something there."

"What's it mean?"

"I do not know."

"But you think it's something."

"I think, as I have said on occasion, that you are smarter than you look."

"I'd rather be pretty again. Can't you talk to Fimbulthicket about my nose?"

He sighed. "Would it not be simpler just to mend your bridge with Kemeili?"

"She's pretty sore."

"Perhaps your famous charm will work better with her than it did on Oparal."

"Hey, that wasn't my charm. My charm is plenty better than that. I've got charm you never saw. Anyway, she hit me. I didn't start it."

"You provoked her," said the boss. "Otherwise I would have insisted she leave. If you simply hadn't kissed her, she might have apologized to you. What impulse drives you to antagonize the very women who find you most repellent?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"No? The last time I saw you make such a fool of yourself was also with a woman who beat you."

"What woman? Nobody ever—" I realized who he was thinking about. "She never beat me."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Those were just friendly little chucks on the arm."

He raised the other one.

"Anyway, she wasn't a paladin."

"She is the nearest thing to one. And she too saw you as a fiend when you first met."

"That was different. I was all big and spiky when we met. And she worships Lady Luck, not that crazy crusader."

"Do not disparage the Inheritor." He sounded grim, and I didn't think he was kidding.

"Seriously? You're going to defend—?"

"Iomedae was the herald of Aroden."

"All right, all right."

"And no less worthy of your respect than Desna."

"Got it."

Fimbulthicket and the ladies caught up with us, so we started walking again. It was funny to see tall Oparal, short Fimbulthicket, and regular-sized Kemeili walking side by side behind tall boss, shorter Arnisant, and me.

That night, Kemeili sat near enough that I took it as an invitation to rub her neck. She leaned into it, but afterward she put down her blanket on the other side of the fire. That was all right. I know that game, and I can be patient even when my nose is out of joint.

A day and a half later, we reached the spot marked "The Wandering Spheres" on the boss's map. At first glance it looked like the worst garden in the world, with crooked hedges and mossy boulders. Then I saw a glint of bronze under the pale green surface of what I'd thought was a rock.

Giant metal globes lay all around the glen. Some were taller than the boss, and some of the shards lying about must've come from bigger ones. What I'd taken for hedges were curved metal bars the size of a ship's crossbeams. One looked like the kind of chain that runs through gears, only each link was big as a tavern table. I couldn't see what it had been, only that a long time ago something had smashed it to pieces.

"It was once a vast orrery," said the boss. "A mechanical model of all the worlds in our solar system."

"Slow down a second, Professor. I'm still trying to fit 'orrery' into my limited vocabulary."

He knew I knew what an orrery was. One time I'd pulled Golarion off the one in his library to bean an intruder, and he'd left the planet dented to commemorate the occasion.

Anyway, the boss stopped giving me words after our visit to the tombs. Graves always gave him a case of the mournfuls, even when he wasn't searching them for a lost relative. I wondered whether he was starting to worry we wouldn't find his old man alive.

While the boss studied the giant orrery, Caladrel watched him with a little smile on his face. The ranger was holding himself back from saying something. Eventually, the boss caught a glimpse of his face.

"What is it?"

"You'll notice as you look more closely."

Out came the journal. The boss sketched for a minute before stalking off to the next pile of wreckage. Arnisant heeled after him, so I split off and climbed a nearby heap. From the top I could look out at the entire glen, hundreds of feet across.

I let my pack slide off my shoulders and shrugged off my jacket. Much as I liked my new leathers, the summer heat was starting to melt me. I wasn't used to getting overheated. That was one thing I missed about having that devil hiding inside me, waiting for enough fire to let him out.

I leaned back and listened to the birdsong.

Hearing birds meant we could relax. After Caladrel pointed it out a couple weeks back, it seemed obvious. If demons or any big predators came by, they'd go quiet. That wasn't so different from the streets of Egorian, where I'd learned to listen not just for the sounds but for the silences. The forest was turning out to be more dangerous than Eel Street, but at least it smelled better.

"It's not our system!" shouted the boss. "Do you know what that implies?"

Caladrel laughed, but he sounded more friendly than mocking. He and Fimbulthicket joined the boss, giving him an audience while he worked out the meaning of what he'd seen.

I stayed where I was. It wasn't that the boss was really boring, usually. I just couldn't get as excited as he did about every little detail of history or nature or magic or whatever happened to catch his attention. I preferred hearing about stuff that mattered to us right now. If he found something to do with his father, I'd want to hear it.

The sun stared straight down at me, and I began to sweat. I rolled up my sleeves. For no reason I could guess, I felt fidgety. I wanted something to do with my hands. Time was I'd have lit a pipe, but I hadn't felt the yen for tobacco in a while.

Come to think of it, I hadn't wanted a smoke since my devil died. That didn't make sense, though. I'd enjoyed a cigar now and then even before the changes came on. Well, "enjoyed" might be overstating it. I smoked when the other Goatherds smoked, and later I lit up when I wanted to annoy the boss. Maybe I'd never really had a taste for the stuff.

An unbirdlike whistle grabbed my attention. Below my perch, Kemeili looked up at me. Oparal stood beside her. Seeing them together made my gut shrink. The last thing I needed was them teaming up on me.

Kemeili cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted up at me. "We came by to tell you that Oparal is as stupid as a troll and twice as ugly."

My jaw dropped.

"Isn't that right, Oparal?"

The paladin nodded.

I gaped wider, but covered by saying, "You don't say."

"She wants you to know she doesn't want to sleep with you. She's taken a vow to surrender her virginity to the first orc who defeats her in combat."

"What the what?"

Kemeili plucked Oparal's elbow. "Did I get that right?"

Oparal nodded. "That is my vow."

"So she wants you to know she's sorry to disappoint you. She says you're ugly, just not ugly enough."

The back of my neck itched. I got the feeling someone else was watching me. Looking around, I spotted the boss and Arnisant with Caladrel and Fimbulthicket. A pair of yellow birds chased each other across the glen before disappearing into the forest. Far behind the girls, something moved among the trees. I caught a glimpse of slender brown legs.

"No hard feelings," I said. I knew it was some kind of joke but couldn't understand how Kemeili got Oparal to go along with it.

"Now she'd like you to throw down your pants so she can mend the tear in the crotch."

Oparal looked around as if she'd heard something in the woods. At a nudge from Kemeili, she nodded and called up to me. "That's right."

"Very funny," I said.

"I mean it." Oparal frowned. "Are you mocking me?"

"No, I am definitely not mocking you." I pointed past her, at the edge of the clearing. "Say, what's that?"

When she turned, I shot Kemeili a warning scowl. The way she flinched and covered her mouth with her hand, I knew she was doing some mischief. I drew a thumb across my neck, Knock it off.

"What did you see?" said Oparal. She shrugged her shield off her back and put a hand on her sword.

"I don't know," I said. I wanted to get rid of her and ask Kemeili what she was doing. "Maybe just a deer."

"I will make sure." She drew her sword and marched into the woods.

I grabbed my stuff and climbed down. As I pulled on my jacket, Kemeili shook with laughter.

"What did you do?" I said. "No, don't tell me. It was some spell to make Oparal hear something different from what you were saying to me."

"As Varian says, you're smarter than you look."

I didn't like her picking up that line or using his first name, but whatever she'd done was a nice trick. The boss and I used hand signs, a code word now and then. This was the kind of spell he'd love to cast. Too bad it came from a goddess instead of a book of spells.

"It was a good one," I said. I changed my tone to let her know I was serious. "What was she really trying to say to me?"

Kemeili started to put on her little-girl pout but let it go. That stuff works only to a point, and she knew it. "She wanted to apologize for hurting you when we fought that demon at Erithiel's Hall."

That was better than I'd hoped. "What about for breaking my nose?"

"I don't know what's wrong with you. You brought that one on yourself."

"How about you? Now that you've had your laugh, think you can fix me up?"

"I don't know." She trailed a finger down my chest, plucking open the last of the laces. "I could be persuaded, if instead of flirting with that golem you put that silver tongue to better use."

"Copper tongue."

"What?"

"Never mind," I said. The old nickname from Zandros was his backhanded compliment for the way I used to talk my way out of trouble while remaining a cheap crook. "I wasn't flirting with her."

"So you weren't serious about kissing her?"

Desna smiled, and the boss shouted for me from across the glen.

"Got to go."

By the time we reached him, the boss was lost in his own monologue. "—not only other worlds but other stars. The distances alone must be incalculable. I must speak to one of the elven astronomers. The first matter to address is—"

"Perhaps your father can answer your questions," moaned Fimbulthicket. "He is an accomplished astronomer."

"You told me he was devoted to the Green."

"Life is not limited to the surface of the world. It encompasses the seas, the skies, and all the land beneath us. Our whole world and all the countless others are a part of the Green."

The boss's eyes widened. "The entire sea of stars...of course."

"You begin to understand," said Fimbulthicket.

Caladrel pointed at a tree stump beneath the shell of one of the metal worlds. The shattered globe gave it shelter from the rain. "What's this?"

"More of Variel's journal," said the boss. "He came here some after his studies at the Walking Man."

"What was he doing?"

"Judging from what he wrote here, I surmise he was studying this ruined orrery to determine whether it had some defensive as well as scholarly value."

"Could it have been a weapon?"

"Perhaps," said the boss. "These notes are incomplete, often difficult to understand in context."

Fimbulthicket nodded. "That's because they weren't left for us. Variel wrote these notes as reminders to himself. He often did that when we roamed the forest."

The boss nodded, as if he'd already guessed that much. "That must mean he intended to return."

Fimbulthicket nodded.

"Then why didn't he come back?" The words were out of my mouth before I realized the obvious answer was that he was dead.

Kemeili covered for me. "It is not such a long time. A decade seems like a long time only to you humans."

I could have kissed her for that. That was the second time somebody in Kyonin had called us human.

The sour face on the boss told me he didn't consider it so much a compliment. "It's possible that what Variel learned here led him to some other site, as it did earlier."

"So where'd he go next?"

The boss shook his head. "I see no hints in the notes. Fimbulthicket?"

The gnome looked down at the elven script on the tree stump. "No," he said, almost whistling the word. "It looks as if he left before finishing this last entry."

The boss turned away from Fimbulthicket. "Let us spread out and search for any other sign of Variel's visit."

Arnisant stuck to the boss, and Caladrel and Fimbulthicket struck out together. As we set off in our own direction, Kemeili grabbed my butt and squeezed.

"Not now, sweetheart." I frowned away the phony pout she put on. "Say, where'd Oparal run off to?"

"You worry too much about her," she said.

"I kind of sent her on a wild goose chase." Or had I? I wondered. Was that a deer I'd seen?

A voice called out from the forest, but I couldn't make out what it said. "Listen."

Kemeili froze and cocked her head. No matter how much she liked distracting me, she straightened up the minute there was trouble. "It's Oparal," she said. "She's calling for help."

"Get the boss," I said. "I'll go after her."

"No, I'm coming with you."

There was no time to argue, so I ran into the woods. "Boss!" I yelled, hoping the others hadn't gone too far. "Caladrel! Fim ...bulthicket! Over here!"

In twenty steps, Kemeili got ahead of me.

The afternoon light slanted through the trees. Something too small and quick for me to see leaped from branch to branch way above our heads. I thought about the squirrels in Oddnoggin's noodle, but these sounded like something bigger.

"Oparal!" Kemeili called out now and then. There was no answer.

"Maybe she circled around."

Kemeili hesitated before nodding. "Maybe."

I realized all the birds had gone quiet.

"Over here!" Oparal's voice rang out farther away, beyond a stand of elms. I headed over. Kemeili followed. I couldn't see the paladin anywhere.

"Where are you?"

Nobody answered, and I felt my hackles rise. I searched the ground for footprints, broken branches, anything like that. Either I couldn't see the things Caladrel would spot right away, or Oparal hadn't come this way.

Kemeili ran a thumb around her belly tattoo. She waved her hand, looking ahead at the ground yards ahead of us. "There," she pointed at a mark beside some crushed fronds. "Hoofprints."

"Deer?"

"Maybe," she said. "If so, they're big ones."

Something big ran away from the elms. Before I could see what it was, it disappeared behind a wall of ferns.

"Over here. Help me, Radovan!" called Oparal—or her voice, anyway. That didn't sound like something she'd ever say. Despite my bad feeling, curiosity drew me to the sound. If I was wrong, then she was in trouble.

Kemeili hung back. "Radovan, wait. Something isn't right."

I couldn't help myself. I kept moving in the direction of the voice.

"Snap out of it!" she said. Hoofbeats retreated ahead of us. I ran after them.

Kemeili's whip caught me on the ankle. I fell forward, barely breaking my fall. "Dammit, we've got to find her!"

As I pulled the whip free, Kemeili ran up and jumped on top of me. "You're charmed!"

I shoved Kemeili aside. "Maybe. And maybe she's in trouble. Go get the others."

Without turning to see whether she obeyed, I sprinted through the woods. Now and then Oparal's voice called out, leading me on. I caught another glimpse of the animal I'd seen before. It was built like a stag but without the antlers. Its back was striped brown and black.

I heard other hoofbeats in the forest, just far enough away to stay under cover.

I couldn't catch the four-legged beast, but I pumped my legs hard and got close enough for a good look. It had a stag's legs and haunches, but its upper body was all predator. It grinned at me.

It laughed in Oparal's voice. "Is that far enough? Are we all alone now?" It had the jaws of a bear trap, with sharp bony ridges instead of teeth.

I threw it the big smile.

The monster reared up on its hind legs. I liked seeing all that soft white underbelly, but I veered off to avoid its sharp hooves. It leaped after me, so close I could smell the stench of its body, equal parts animal musk and filth.

"My pack has scattered your herd," it said. Its breath was worse than its body odor. The way its animal lips formed human words made me queasy. "Alone, you are weak."

I slapped my shoulders, filling my hands with blades, and threw them at its face. It ducked, splaying its forelegs like a dog at play. Two darts sank into its hunched shoulders. It spat like a baited badger.

I grabbed the big knife and tensed to stab when it lunged. When I felt the hot mass of the thing closing, I changed my mind. Rolling back, I barely evaded those bony jaws. They tore into a root the size of my thigh and ripped it out of the ground.

Getting back to my feet, I heard Oparal's voice cry out from another direction. "Help me, Radovan!"

"Oh, Radovan," her voice called from another direction. "You're the only one who can help me!"

Two more of the damned things stalked forward, grinning while the first one barked with laughter. More hoofbeats approached. I was in big trouble.

The newcomers moved to flank me. I put a tree behind myself and the first monster, half-expecting to see a fourth coming up from behind. Instead, a gray blur charged past me. It crashed straight into one of the monsters, head-to-head like rams.

The unicorn stepped back, a bloody streamer trailing its horn. The monster it struck fell dead as a stone, a dark red hole in its skull.

Realizing I'd stopped to stare, I jumped back, expecting an attack. Instead, the beast nearest me gaped at the unicorn the way I had. The monster saw me coming a second too late. I vaulted onto its back and gave it a big hug, drawing a nice red ribbon around its neck with the big knife.

The monster reared, and I let myself drop away, rolling as I hit the ground. It turned as it bucked, wheeling around to smash me with its hooves. I kept rolling away. When I came up to one knee, I looked up to see Oparal's blinding sword cutting through the beast's hind legs. The monster went down screaming obscenities in the paladin's voice.

Oparal turned to the third beast, raising her sword. The monster took one look at its pack-mate's blood sizzling on the blade and ran off.

I heard the unicorn running at me before I turned to look. Head and horn lowered, it charged straight toward my heart. The nearest tree was too far away. I gripped my knife and showed my teeth.

"Down, you fool!" Oparal kicked me in the shoulder, throwing me flat to the ground. She stood where I had been, shield up, blade out.

The unicorn planted its hooves, tearing up roots and brush as it skidded to a halt. It shook its head and neighed in protest. It danced left to get around Oparal and crush my head, but she stepped in its way.

"Go back," she said. "This one is not for you."

The unicorn reared and screamed. I could have sworn it was trying to speak, but some old wound had damaged its voice beyond the paladin's power to heal.

I made a show of putting away my knife, but I stayed behind Oparal and her shield. "We have to find the others," I said. "Those monsters lured us away on purpose."

"Go!" Oparal said. I couldn't tell whether she meant me or the unicorn. It didn't matter. I turned and ran, praying to Desna that I got back in time.

Chapter Eleven

The Invisible City

Varian

So this is how it ends, I thought. Not among the last brothers of Dragon Temple nor facing the flayed-face masks of the Anaphexis. Not upon the deck of a Chelish warship, nor in the deserts of Katapesh. A dozen times I might have succumbed to privation or sickness in the jungles of the Mwangi Expanse.

In nightmares I had imagined myself dying in a fall from the rooftops of Egorian, grappling to the last with a criminal nemesis. In fearful hours, I dreaded a final agony upon the tines on Judgment Day, when the minions of House Thrune at last decided the son was as disloyal as the mother. Never had I considered that I, Count Varian Jeggare, late of Egorian, would suffer his final moments torn to pieces by a pack of savage beasts.

The leucrottas dragged me along the forest floor by a leg and an arm. My free limbs hung limp and numb, my sinews crushed by their inexorable jaws. The Shadowless Sword, still hanging from its scabbard, struck rocks and roots with a dull clatter. I could summon no breath to shout, so I prayed that the others might discover a sufficient trail to recover my corpse for interment in the family crypt.

That was assuming, of course, that any of them survived.

Arnisant barked in the distance. That he lived was small solace, for I knew the hound could not long survive the pack of eight beasts that ambushed us. As soon as the leucrottas attacked, he strove to put himself between me and the monsters. With their superior numbers and massive size, they soon divided us. Before I could discharge a single scroll, two of them buffeted me to the ground. As I sought to draw my sword, I felt their jaws clamp around my arms, obliterating my strength before dragging me off through the forest.

Perhaps if Arnisant's barking could summon Caladrel and Fimbulthicket ...but no, I realized they could never arrive soon enough to rescue me. Even a brief delay would be enough to ensure my demise, and doubtless my own voice called for help far from my true location. The monsters were perfect voice mimics.

At any moment, I feared the leucrottas would begin feasting on my body. They slowed a few times, listening for the sound of pursuit. From my supine position, I saw their badger-like heads turn in the direction of a distant clamor, which my battered brain could no longer translate into comprehensible sounds.

My eyes fluttered. I could no longer direct them where I willed. I saw the inverted islands of the forest canopy, streams of blue sky running between them. My agony receded as I felt myself slip free of the world's gravity. For achingly long moments, I felt as though I were flying to an unknown destination.

A sharp report interrupted my reverie. Voices cried out for help, but I could not know whether those who uttered the words were friends or foes.

The leucrottas released their grip. Their fetid breath warmed my face. Had an ounce of strength remained in my body, I would have tensed against the final violation of my flesh.

A rainless storm broke above me. Lightning dazzled my vision as loose foliage blew across me, driven by a wind I could not feel. All the sensations merged as they faded, until I smelled the last flashes, tasted the distant tattoo of thunder, and heard a warm tongue upon my neck.

"Get back, dog," said a woman's voice. "Let me help him."

A cold jolt galvanized my body. My wounds screamed for an instant before quieting. I jerked away from the grip on my arms.

"Lie still," said the voice. The indistinct face of my mother gazed down at me. I tried to speak, but my lips moved in silence. Blinking away the vision, I saw Oparal's gray eyes watching me. Upon her brow and lips I saw the blaze of Iomedae. She cupped my face, and I felt the warmth of the sun sink into my body, then deeper still, into my soul.

As the divine power restored my shattered senses, I heard voices beyond the paladin.

"Will he live?" asked Kemeili.

Oparal rose and stepped away from me.

"Let me take over," said Fimbulthicket. I felt his small hands upon my shoulder. My skin tingled where he touched me, and I felt the sensation of a hundred blades of grass growing down into my flesh. The feeling passed, and I could move my arm once more.

"The others?" I asked.

"See for yourself." The gnome lifted my head. I felt my strength returning. I sat up.

Radovan crouched over the body of a leucrotta. In his hand, the big knife dripped with the blood of a killing stroke. He held his other arm like a broken wing.

Oparal went to him. He gasped when she grasped his arm in both hands. The golden light of Iomedae spilled from her palms. A moment later, Radovan tested his healed arm. The paladin turned away, but he grabbed her arm. She stiffened at his touch.

"Thanks," he said. "For this, and for the other thing."

She matched his stare for a moment before pulling away. Surely they had not ...Now was not the time for such speculation. I scrawled a note in my memory library to ask Radovan what had transpired between them later.

Kemeili took Oparal's place beside Radovan, whispering to him as her eyes remained on the retreating paladin.

Unsteadily, I rose to my knees. The Shadowless Sword hung halfway out of its scabbard. As I grasped the hilt to replace it, an immense wall of brambles appeared sixty yards away. Standing, I removed my hand from the sword and saw only the tangle of forest through which the leucrottas had dragged me.

"Radovan." I beckoned him over and offered him the sword pommel-first.

"What?" he said, accepting it. "You know I'm no good with ...Tines! Would you look at that!"

One by one, the others took a turn holding the Shadowless Sword, until I retrieved it and gazed once more upon the invisible wall.

At first glance it appeared different only in scale from a garden hedge. The growth was far larger and denser than domestic flora, with vines as thick as tree trunks. I could see nothing of the other side. The barrier extended as far as I could see through the forest to either side. It rose at least as high as the tallest trees, leaving us unable to judge its full size from our present vantage.

"What is it?" asked Radovan.

I looked to Caladrel for an answer. Comprehension warred with amazement in his face.

"This region has always proved difficult to map," he said. "My best scouts have lost hours, even days traversing the forest between the Wandering Spheres and the Endless Cairn. We have always assumed some ancient magic lingered in the area, disorienting travelers. I think you have uncovered the source."

"Only by the unorthodox method of allowing myself to be dragged half to death through the forest," I demurred. "And by the incredible good fortune of bearing a sword capable of piercing illusions."

"Desna smiles," said Radovan.

"That she does." While my prayers seldom addressed the goddess in her aspect of Lady Luck, my continued existence was proof of the good fortune she bestowed on me. "But we still do not know what this wall conceals.

"We must go around," said Caladrel.

"I have a quicker solution." I took a scroll from my scuffed bandolier and triggered it. "Wait here. I will return soon."

"You only just got on your feet, boss," said Radovan. "Maybe I should go with you."

"You're welcome to join me, if you can." I leaped up and flew toward the forest canopy.

His surprised exclamation was every bit as rewarding as I had hoped. What whim had compelled me to show off in such a manner? Perhaps my latest scrape with death had revived the reckless élan of my youth. Maybe I wished to demonstrate to the others that I was more than a vulnerable visitor in need of their protection. Whatever the cause, all thoughts of my companions dimmed as I rose above the Fierani Forest, Shadowless Sword in hand.

The thorny barrier was not simply a wall. It was but a tiny fraction of a vast dome spanning an area at least the size of the Century Root. The weave of its gargantuan vines grew broader as I ascended. The vines remained thick as tree trunks, their thorns as long and sharp as scimitars. Impaled on one of them lay a tangle of desiccated skin and bones. It took me a moment to recognize the remains as the corpse of a leucrotta. Only a creature the size of a giant owl could have dropped it from such a height.

Beneath the dome lay an elven city. Its slender spires resembled those of Iadara, except that many had crumbled to ruin. Those that remained had yellowed over time, resembling old ivory rather than the alabaster of the capital city. Creeping vines, clustered weeds, and even rogue trees sprouted from the collapsed foundations. In some cases the overgrowth appeared to support rather than undermine the buildings. Thick vines wound like bandages around the forking spires of a great tower.

As in Iadara, the avenues of this hidden city were filled with lush trees and blossoms of a hundred hues. Far to the east I spied a temple district and a hilly region filled with grand manors and an amphitheater.

In the center of the thorny dome, beneath a gap some hundred yards or more in diameter, lay a circular plaza. Around its perimeter rose six hexagonal plinths, four of which supported tapering obelisks. A maze of whorls and arcs covered the yellow stone between them, its elusive lines converging near the center in a symbol of such complexity that my fingers yearned for a pencil to sketch it into my journal.

As I sheathed my sword and released the pommel, the dome and city vanished, their presence once more obscured by the illusion of dense forest. My imagination thrilled at how powerful the spell must be to have endured since the return of the elves—or perhaps for far longer, for all I knew. And to think that it had deceived the keen perceptions of the Kyonin rangers for so long, only to reveal itself to me. I recalled a line from a comic opera: "Chance is the fool's name for fate." At the risk of hubris, I wondered whether some divine providence had led me to discover this long-hidden mystery.

Abruptly I knew—not believed or surmised or hoped or expected, but knew—that I would find my father inside this hidden city. And not his corpse, but the living man. I would find Variel Morgethai, and he would answer all the questions my mother had made me vow never to ask her.

Flush with resolve, I drew the sword again and flew toward the vines in search of a gap large enough to admit me. My body veered to one side, despite my concerted effort to will myself toward the dome's surface. I halted and tried again. Once more some enchantment subverted my will, deflecting me from my intended destination.

Small wonder that even the Kyonin rangers became lost in this region.

I flew down to rejoin my companions.

"You nearly died because we allowed those monsters to divide us," said Oparal. "With respect, I suggest you do again not stray from our protection."

Her formal tone amused me, but I saw her stern expression reflected on the faces of the others. Even Radovan shook his head in disappointment, while Arnisant sat at his heel and gazed at me in stoic silence.

"You are quite correct," I said, suppressing the disappointment that no one had commented on my flying. How adolescent I felt. The true magic of the elves was to make me feel at once very old and entirely callow. I wished to blame my recent brush with death, but I remembered my rash behavior at the Walking Man all too keenly.

Caladrel relaxed, perhaps grateful that Oparal had relieved him of the obligation to admonish me. "What did you see?"

I described the dome, its city, and the compulsion that prevented me from approaching. Together we approached the base of the dome. As I had experienced above, no amount of willpower could resist the enchantment.

Wary of losing the site we had discovered, Fimbulthicket, Kemeili, Oparal, and Arnisant remained with me while Radovan, Caladrel, and Oparal retrieved our abandoned packs. We remained alert for any sound of alarm. When the others returned and set to work repacking their gear, Caladrel produced Radovan's elven cloak.

"You left this behind."

"Thanks a bunch." With a sour expression, Radovan accepted the cloak.

Our bad luck abated long enough for me to mend my torn clothes while Radovan inspected yet another hole in his red jacket. The others tended lesser hurts, while Fimbulthicket prepared his universal balm: a pot of nettle tea. We rested only long enough to drink a cup before returning to the matter at hand. Hours of daylight yet remained, but we remained conscious of the surviving leucrotta.

Despite my caution that he might hurt himself, Radovan sprinted toward the wall after touching the Shadowless Sword. Within twenty yards, he veered away and continued running another thirty yards before throwing up his hands, bracing for an imagined impact that never came. He looked back, seeing that the rest of us stood in an unexpected location, before rubbing the back of his neck and shaking his head in bafflement.

Kemeili beseeched Calistria's guidance to no avail. Oparal likewise called upon the wisdom of Iomedae with no better result. Fimbulthicket chanted spells but shrugged at the results. "I see nothing."

Caladrel seemed to solve the problem when he looped a ball of string around an arrow planted in the ground. Tying the string to another arrow, and touching the Shadowless Sword to find his mark, he launched a tangleshot arrow. Holding the sword, I saw its bulbous head burst and release gooey adhesive on the wall of vines. Caladrel took the string in hand and followed it toward the dome. Placing a hand upon his shoulder, I followed him. Radovan took my arm, Kemeili his, Fimbulthicket her hand, and Oparal his.

"Wait," I said. "Oparal, call Arnisant to you."

She called his name, but the hound looked to me instead. I pointed to the paladin. "Go."

When he reached her, she placed a tentative hand on his shoulder. When he accepted her touch without growling, she led him along with us.

Caladrel resumed our approach. Soon I felt an intangible resistance to moving forward. The ranger slowed as well, gritting his teeth with the effort to take another step.

"Focus," I said. "Try closing your eyes, but be careful not to snap the string."

Each step felt like pushing through a briar patch rather than simply approaching one.

"Wait," said Oparal. "Just relax a moment. Brace your arm against the person in front of you."

"What for?" said Radovan.

"Do it," I said. "I think I know what she intends."

The paladin proved my guess correct when she, still outside the effect of the aversion spell, pushed us forward. My hand slipped from Caladrel's shoulder. I sheathed the Shadowless Sword and placed both hands upon his back. When Oparal pushed again, we staggered forward. Caladrel stumbled ahead two steps before turning.

"I'm through!" He grasped my hand and pulled. One by one, halting, pushing, and pulling, we won past the ward that had for ages protected the hidden city. All of us but Arnisant.

At the sound of his yelp, I looked back to see Oparal lose her grip on his coat as she stepped through the unseen zone of avoidance.

"I will go back for him," she offered.

"No," I said. "I will take care of it."

"Come here, Arni," said Radovan. He reached into his pocket for one of the morsels with which he spoiled the dog throughout the day.

Arnisant bounded to him, unhindered by the magic that repelled us.

"Interesting," I said. "The ward does not deter animals, only intelligent beings."

"Don't listen to him," said Radovan, feeding the dog a sausage. "You're smarter than you look, too."

"You're right," said Caladrel. "Listen."

A symphony of birdsong emanated from the other side of the bramble wall. So too did a sweet aroma of pollen, blossoms, and green grass. I heard the burble of an unseen brook and could almost feel the cool of its stream. Still, so dense was the lower wall of the dome that I could see nothing of the interior I had glimpsed from above.

"It smells like paradise in there," said Kemeili, taking a deep breath. I glanced at Fimbulthicket. Before I could voice my question, he muttered a few phrases and shook his head. "If there's anything funny about the smell, it's not poison."

I expended a scroll to discern what magic suffused the wall. My cantrip revealed auras of blinding potency, stronger and more complex than any I had ever seen. Layer upon layer of spells stood before us, in and around the fabric of the dome. Ancient magics of several orders had been sustained indefinitely by wizards of unimaginable power. Even the most venerable of my teachers at the Acadamae had surely never witnessed such an awesome display.

"Can we cut through it?" said Oparal.

"Better not," said Fimbulthicket.

"Is now really the time to lecture us on forest preservation?" said Kemeili.

"It's not that," he said, oblivious to her sarcasm. "There may be a portal, or at least a better place to enter. There is something ...familiar ..." He walked beside the dome, his fingers trailing across the massive vines at its base.

"Familiar in what way?" I asked.

The gnome did not answer. Instead, he pulled off his shoes and dug his bare toes into the earth. With his white hands against the barrier, he pressed his cheek against the wood and closed his eyes. His lips moved, but I could not hear his words. I glanced at Caladrel, who shook his head.

We waited until Fimbulthicket had finished his silent communion. With a sigh, he stepped away from the wall and wiped the dirty soles of his feet upon the grass. Noticing a fallen rowan branch, he lifted it to peer at the tiny insects crawling over is fruit. "The eldest vines will not speak to me, but I sense a million voices all intertwined with them. Some are much younger. I sense that some of them have known Variel's hand."

"Just how adept in the Green is he?"

"Oh, nothing like whomever—or whatever—originally created this place. But even when we parted, he was far more powerful than I. Since then, I have grown very little in the Green, although since that night at Erithiel's Hall I feel it more keenly than I ever did before. I ...understand things better. We gnomes and elves and humans, we think we hold such a grand place in the world." He indicated the aphids on the rowan fruit. "But our lives are no more meaningful than those of these tiny things." After his uncharacteristically long speech, he seemed to forget the rest of us. He plucked an aphid from the rowan fruit and crushed it between his fingers, whispering to its remains, "Where are you, Variel?"

The rest of us looked to each other, unwilling to speak until Radovan clapped his hands and rubbed his palms together. "Well, let's have a look around."

We began a sunwise circuit of the dome. After a quarter of an hour, Caladrel spied an arched opening in the dome wall.

Caladrel scanned the ground before the gate, beckoning the rest of us over to see the fresh prints. "Cloven hooves."

"The leucrottas?"

"Without a doubt."

"Did they go back in this way?" asked Radovan.

"No, the tracks lead only out, and in some haste," said Caladrel. "Besides, if the outer barrier keeps out intelligent creatures, how would they return?"

"A good point," I admitted. "Let us look inside."

Radovan and Oparal bumped shoulders as each tried to be the first one through. Radovan stepped back and, with a surprisingly courtly bow, ceded the right of way. Oparal eyed him for any evidence of mockery before stepping through. Radovan passed her pack through the gate and began to follow, but Kemeili put a hand on his chest. "Do you reserve these Chelish courtesies for the Forlorn?"

She pushed past him as he searched for the elusive correct response. When she was inside, he grinned, shook his head, and followed. A moment later, he called Arnisant through.

Caladrel waited for me to go next. Fimbulthicket sighed, and I turned to see, for the first time since Erithiel's Hall, a broad smile materialized on his face.

"You look pleased."

"Aren't you?" he replied. "We're about to see something we've never seen before."

Despite suffering the final throes of the Bleaching, some tiny flame of curiosity lingered in Fimbulthicket's heart. I would not be the one to dampen it. I stepped aside and duplicated Radovan's gallant gesture. "After you."

Chapter Twelve

The Second Sting

Radovan

We moved into the dome city. For a long time, nobody said a word.

We could barely see the city for the trees. Here and there a few yards of sand-colored stone peeked out from the greenery. Carvings covered every inch of the stones, but before I could follow the lines far enough to make out a picture, the green took over again. Where there weren't weeds there were flowers, and where there weren't flowers there was moss. Trees sprouted up out of foundations and roofs through tower windows.

The whole place was like an overgrown garden, but nothing grew like the vines. They crawled along the streets and up the walls. They choked alleys and smothered statues. They hung off the edges of roofs and wound around ruined towers.

Every living thing beneath the dome was a giant. I saw ivy leaves big enough to make me a sun hat, blossoms I could have used for a chair. A distant buzzing reminded me of the pony-sized wasps I'd seen back in Iadara, and I hoped they stayed distant.

I began to feel like an ant in a basket. That feeling got stronger when I saw a beetle twice Arni's size crossing the street ahead of us. It paused, sensing us. The boss signaled a halt. Caladrel drew an arrow from his magic quiver, but the big bug lumbered away before we had to get rough.

A fat shaft of light slanted through the dome's open roof, shining on the eastern hills. Shadows from the woven dome mottled the rest of the city. With all those vines above us, it felt like we'd never left the woods.

We climbed a giant mass of shelf fungus to reach the roof of a house. From there we could see across the whole city.

Caladrel pointed at three hulking figures shambling down one of main roads. They could have been shaggy bears except for their dripping green coats dotted with mushrooms and flowers. We took turns pointing as we spotted more and more critters moving in the distance. Most looked to be plants, insects, or reptiles, but now and then we heard the faraway cry of a hunting cat or the grunt of a boar.

The boss passed around his spyglass. On my turn, I saw a one-eyed giant pull a fish from a lake and dash its brains out on a rock. There were lots of other beasts moving around in the jungle, but Kemeili grabbed the spyglass away before I could get a good look.

Even without the glass I could make out the four spires the boss had seen from the air. They rose as high as the towers in Iadara, but they looked more like monuments than homes. Just like he'd told us, there were two empty spots where a couple more should have stood.

Between the spire and a clear central area, a couple of fountains sparkled in the evening light. A third pool completed the circle, but instead of water it was full of fuzzy green and yellow lumps. Long-plumed birds roosted on a nearby trellis. One flew over to pluck some crawling thing off the mound. The bird barely escaped a fat, wet tendril reaching after it.

From the hub of spires and fountains, six main roads shot out like the spokes of a wagon wheel, dividing the city into pie-slice neighborhoods. The northeast and southwest sections gave in to jungle. I saw a few buildings in the overgrown areas, but I guessed they'd been gardens a long time ago. A reflecting pool wide enough to float a barge ran the length of the one to the south. The water escaped its original borders, filling half the district with a lake. Lily pads and patches of green scum covered the surface.

From our building, we could still see more or less what the other districts had been. Ours had been a neighborhood of houses and shops, with a few towers here and there. A few overgrown strips of land might have been gardens a thousand years ago, but they'd been smothered in woods. In the corner closest to the central plaza stood a few rows of pillars that might have held up a roof when the world was young.

To the north, the houses spread out on either side of a line of towers. Four rose as high as any I'd seen in Iadara, but three had fallen. One was a black stub, barely more than one story high. Nothing grew on the foundation, but gray and yellow oozes slid along the stones.

To the southeast lay a temple district. A cloud of insects hovered over an onion-shaped dome, reminding me of the temple of Calistria in Iadara. A few streets down I saw what might have been a twin-goddess gate covered in grape vines. I drew the wings of Desna over my heart and prayed she'd smile on me in this weird place.

Over to the east was where the rich elves must have lived—on the highest hills so they could look down on everybody else. A big amphitheater sat right in the middle of the neighborhood. The sun reflected plenty of glitter under its crumbling shell of a roof. Any of the four or five surrounding mansions could have been a palace. There wasn't nearly as much overgrowth crawling over them as on the rest of the city. Maybe there was some magic on them that kept the weeds away.

Or maybe somebody was home.

We must have stood there an hour, taking turns pointing out each new sight crazier than the last. Big silky balls floated high above us. The boss and Fimbulthicket debated whether they were giant puff seeds or poisonous spores.

Fimbulthicket and Caladrel pointed out places where they saw dangerous plants or animals. They and the boss took turns naming them. They sounded plenty nasty. The boss marked those spots on a map he sketched in his journal.

"I've never seen such a high concentration of rare flora." The little guy's voice sounded like it came up out of a deep well before getting out of his mouth. He was panting, too. I couldn't tell whether he was just excited or having another attack.

"Someone must be cultivating them," said the boss.

"I'll have a look around," said Caladrel. I kind of wanted to go with him if the boss and Fimbulthicket were going to talk plant theory.

"Wait," said the boss. "The city teems with dangerous wildlife."

"That's exactly what I'm trained to handle."

"Yet this is foreign territory, even to you. The flora and fauna of this bramble city might be the least of its dangers."

"Consider the lesson of the leucrotta," said Oparal. She looked at me and said, "We mustn't allow anyone to be lured away."

"Hey, you got lured first," I said. Kemeili smiled at that, but it was a stupid thing to mention. Oparal wouldn't have gone off on her own at the Wandering Spheres except I was trying to get rid of her. Come to think of it, I wouldn't have done that except for Kemeili's secret word spell. I wondered whether getting rid of Oparal was my idea or hers. I started to think Kemeili was playing me more often than I'd realized.

"I take your point," said Caladrel. "I'll stay within shouting distance, but if we're to remain here, I must be sure the site is secure."

"We'll scout together," said the boss. "What we lose in speed we'll gain in strength."

"As you wish," said Caladrel. He didn't look happy about it. "The wasps will become more active as the air cools. We must find a secure site to make our camp."

"In that case, let us find an unsealed building, or better yet an entrance to a subterranean level."

"This is not a dwarven city," said Oparal. "I doubt you'll find more than a cellar."

"On the contrary, I expect to find a substantial network of aqueducts. The city waterworks appear far too extensive to be supported by magic alone. The inoperative fountain in the plaza suggests a mechanical rather than arcane source of water. There must be springs or pressure wells feeding the system."

"That makes sense," said Kemeili. "The temple baths in Iadara are fed by underground channels that also feed the nearby spires."

The boss pointed to a fountain on the nearest road. "Let us search for an entrance. There must be maintenance access throughout the city."

Caladrel led the way. He took us along a street of single-story houses. The boss paused at one of the ones wrapped up in vines. The vines wound around the building in regular patterns, like bandages. The boss put his hand on one, felt how hard it clung to the building, and moved on.

Most of the unbound houses had lost their domes. Trees sprung up from inside to form a roof of leaves. I wondered why we didn't see any critters perched on the branches. Then I saw one of the branches open its insect eyes. As we got closer, it opened up like a blossom, growing ten times bigger and showing off bright colors under its bark-colored disguise.

The sun sank lower. Shadows leaned east, and bobbing lights popped up above our half of the city. Way bigger than the lightning bugs we'd seen in the forest, they hovered around the big floating puffballs. They gathered in twos and threes before splitting up, searching for something on the ground. When one brightened or changed from blue to yellow, the others rushed to join it. They sank together toward the ground.

"Will-o'-wisps," said Caladrel. "They are drawn to the fear of the hunted."

"They're all over the place," said Kemeili.

"This city teems with prey."

"And predators," said the boss. "We must find our shelter soon."

We paused a couple of times to test the strength of the vines binding the houses. Maybe with ten more guys and axes we could have gotten through.

I wondered why these joints were shut tight. My curiosity heated up, and I began to understand how the boss felt all the time. We listened for any sound from inside the houses, but we couldn't hear anything over the birds and bugs outside. What was in there that somebody wanted hidden? Or what was in there that somebody didn't want getting out?

Near the main road, the boss chose a small building that looked like a guard station with a slanting wall.

"The shape suggests a stairwell." He pressed a hand against the wall at different heights. "It feels cooler near street level. It must lead to an underground passage."

"If there's fresh water down there, it would make an excellent shelter," said Caladrel. Nobody else objected. The boss gave me the nod to check it out.

First I got rid of the ivy hanging over the door. It wasn't nearly as thick as the vines of the closed houses, but I still needed the big knife. The door looked like the petrified wood of Kemeili's spire back in Iadara, only a sandy color instead of silvery white. Where there should have been a lock, I found a pair of three-spoked dials set into the door. I'd seen something like that before.

"The Krupt vault," said the boss.

I nodded. He'd never seen it, but the boss remembered what I'd told him about the weird lock I'd found in Baron Krupt's mansion. While he distracted the baron, I found the vault behind a phony bookcase. Then it was a matter of listening for the pins clicking into place over the sound of the weeping girl trapped inside. It took almost an hour, but by the time the baron shooed the boss out of his parlor, all he found in his secret torture chamber was a note telling him to expect a visit from the duxotar.

I twisted these simpler dials and listened for the click of pins. "Should be no problem."

"A lock-cracker," said Oparal. "I should have known."

"You might be surprised at how he has employed that talent," said the boss.

I shushed them both, straining to hear the difference between the catches on each dial.

Kemeili leaned close, pretending get a better look at the latch—it was too simple to call a lock—but what she really wanted was to distract me with her breasts on my shoulder.

"I'm doing this," I said, wriggling away.

"I can help." She wriggled back into place.

"Not now." I'd felt which pin snapped heaviest on either dial, but even when I triggered them at the same time, I couldn't budge the door in or out.

"Try twisting them in opposite directions."

"I know what I'm doing," I said. Still, it was worth a try. I turned one dial sunwise, the other widdershins, timing it so that the big pin dropped on each dial at the same time.

The mechanism clicked into place.

"See?" said Kemeili. "Good things come of listening to me."

"I'll give you that—"

A shiver ran through my body. It took a second to realize I was feeling a vibration in the air and through the ground. It took another second to realize that what I felt was really a sound so deep I could barely hear it.

The birds stopped singing. I still heard the buzz of insects. Caladrel nocked an arrow. The boss and Oparal put their hands on their swords. Fimbulthicket hugged his arms close, and Kemeili touched her belly where the symbol of Calistria lay beneath her leathers.

"What the hell was that?" I whispered.

Oparal stepped away from the little building and looked up toward the center of the dome. Her voice was a ragged whisper. "We shouldn't be here."

A shadow moved across the dome, bigger than a storm cloud, but there was no wind to move it so fast across the sky. The shadow passed over the dome opening and disappeared.

The dragon came into view.

Even from a quarter-mile away, I felt the size of the thing. It could have held a fishing boat in either talon, wrapped its green wings around any tower in the city. Yellow plumes trailed from its nostrils as it turned its massive head from side to side, eyes seeking some unfortunate thing on the ground.

Looking up at it, I suddenly felt the need to piss.

The dragon spied its target and angled toward the northeast parkland. Something fell from the dragon's mouth. It looked like a couple of dead deer at first, but I recognized their striped pelts. The leucrottas crashed through the trees. An instant later, elven voices cried out in terror on the ground, and the sound of a stampede echoed across the city.

"Look at the horn on that thing," Fimbulthicket peeped. For the first time since Erithiel's Hall, he sounded less scary than scared. "It must be ten centuries old!"

"Calm yourself," said Caladrel. He pointed at a pair of glowing lights swooping down at us. "Your fear draws the wisps."

"You calm yourself," snapped the gnome. The menace returned to his voice. "We have to get under cover."

I pushed against the unlatched door, but it didn't budge. I gave it my shoulder, but it moved less than an inch.

"Step aside," said Oparal.

Before I could move, she slammed her shoulder into the door. Pulpy gunk crackled at the edges, but it opened a little more. A musty stink rolled out of the little building, and I heard a rustling.

"Wait!" Too late to stop her.

Oparal put all her weight and strength into it, smashing the door open and falling into a writhing mass of insect larvae. They crawled over the ruins of a papery gray mess we'd knocked off the door and onto a stair landing.

"It's a nest!" shouted Kemeili.

I stepped in and grabbed Oparal by the belt. She was already struggling to stand, gagging as fat white grubs swarmed over her. They were the size of my thumb, each one with a pair of dark red pincers wriggling around to catch hold of something soft.

Oparal's thrashing worked against me, but I managed to yank her backward. We fell, stumbling over each other's legs until she crashed down on me. I moaned, worried she'd broken my hip. In all that armor, the girl was heavy.

"Get them off!" she cried, not exactly shouting but not exactly calm, either. The way she jerked every time one of the bugs found exposed flesh, I couldn't tell whether she was just disgusted or they were really hurting her. Her gauntlet came away wet with yellow bug gunk and red blood, answering that question.

"Here they come," groaned Caladrel.

He drew his curveblade and waited for the wisps. Before they reached us, they vanished.

"What's that mean?" I asked, disentangling myself from Oparal. Kemeili slapped grubs off Oparal with her coiled whip. I did the same with the backs of my hands.

"They're still here," said Caladrel. "They're just waiting."

"For what?"

Another earth-shuddering cry from the dragon answered that question.

"For her."

"We must get off the street," said the boss.

"We can't go in there," groaned Fimbulthicket. "They'll eat us alive."

"Stand back," said the boss. He snapped a riffle scroll. A glint of flame appeared in his eyes. He stepped forward and opened his mouth as if to shout at the bugs. Instead of words, fire poured out of his mouth.

"No, she'll see!" said Caladrel.

Flames filled the little building, incinerating the nest. The larva whistled and popped, sausages left too long on the fire.

I poked my head around the corner to see whether the dragon noticed the commotion. It circled the central plaza before gliding off to the east. I let go a sigh of relief. "Desna smiles. It didn't see us."

"Not so fast," said Caladrel. Black smoke poured out of the burned chamber. It rose above us in a column nobody in the city could miss.

"A calculated risk," said the boss. I heard the lame tone in his excuse, but maybe the others didn't know him well enough to pick up on it. "Still, we must get inside before the dragon detects us."

"Too late for that," said Oparal, pointing.

As the smoke rose in a black column, the dragon flew straight toward us.

"Go," barked Caladrel. He shoved Fimbulthicket toward the smoking entrance. "Get off the street!"

The gnome balked before the smoldering bug nest. I scooped him up under my arm, grabbing his pack with my free hand. I paused long enough to make sure the boss and Arni were coming, and I went in.

My boots squelched on the charred bug larvae. I kicked through animal bones and moved down the stairs. Lumps of pulp, fur, and teeth clung to the walls. I tried not to think too hard about what mama bug brought home for supper.

At the bottom of the stairs I stepped into a wider corridor. A brick channel ran along the center of the passage. In the dark I couldn't make out colors, but long-dried mold stains were the only sign of water.

Fimbulthicket squirmed and complained all the way down. When I felt his teeth on my wrist, I dropped him on the floor before he could clamp down. I tossed him his pack.

He hissed at me, the little jerk.

"You're welcome," I said, taking the high ground.

Kemeili came next, Caladrel and Oparal close behind. Their shadows leaped out in front of them as the boss lit up his ring. "Go to Radovan," he said in his dog-ordering voice.

"Get down here, boss."

"Just a moment," he called down. "I want one more glimpse— How swift—!"

An explosion of dust blotted out the light. The ground jumped up, and bricks rained down on my head. I kept up on my feet until a blast of dirty air blew me down. Arni yelped and barked over the confused voices of the elves. They cried out single words in their own language: "What?" "Here!" "Where?!" Other stuff I couldn't understand.

"Boss!" I scrabbled in what I hoped was the direction of the stairs. The dust blinded me, but I felt a slope of rubble where the stairs had been. Two or three feet up, my hands found a warm body. Kemeili.

"Mmmallright," she mumbled. I swept some rubble off her, and she climbed the rest of the way out.

I pushed her back the way I'd come. "Get down there, and keep moving."

A few more stones tumbled down from above, but the stairway stopped collapsing. I found Oparal by her armor and worked my way up to her face. By the time I slapped her cheek lightly, she was already shaking it off.

"Here," said Caladrel, coughing on the dust. "I've got her."

I pushed past, following the sound of Arni's voice. He'd stopped barking and begun whimpering.

"Boss? Can you hear me?" I crawled up another few feet and felt the fur of Arni's back. It was standing up, thick with fear. I put a hand on his shoulder to calm him, but his jaws whipped around to catch my wrist. His fangs broke my skin before he checked himself and let me go. His whine was half apology, half plea for rescue.

I pulled at a stone until the hound cried out. I scooped the loose dirt with my hands, freeing his hind legs. That was enough. He pulled himself out the rest of the way and crawled forward, where the boss had been. I wanted to pull him back out of the way, but he was so skittish I followed him instead.

The stones shifted above us. A ragged crack of sunlight appeared for a moment. Before I could make out anything through the dust, something moved close to black it out.

Cold spread through my body, but it came from the inside. Warm, animal breath blew down the wrecked stairwell. Beneath the musk of reptilian flesh was a stink like vinegar, only a thousand times stronger. It stung my eyes and swelled my dry tongue.

"Boss?"

Arni tried to growl, but the weak sound tapered off into a whine.

We could hear it breathing, the dragon. From the force of its breath, I imagined a nostril the size of Oparal's shield just above us. When it pawed at the wreckage, its claws made a sound like plows through gravel. It sniffed and dug, sniffed again, dug some more.

The light returned for an instant, reflecting green off the dragon's scales. I saw the boss's hand jutting out from a pile of stones. I grabbed it, felt its warmth. It didn't return my grip.

A voice spoke above us. It sounded like a millstone on gravel. I couldn't understand what it said, but I could tell it was a voice, not just an animal grunt. It sounded surprised.

The heavy breath sucked again, sniffing, scenting. The dragon's earthquake voice repeated the word that I didn't understand.

Then it said a word I did know.

I pulled on the boss's hand. It barely moved. There was too much on top of him.

I bloodied my hands scooping away the rubble. Arni dug beside me. There was no way to do it quietly, so we dug fast. The dragon's nose was only feet away. Even if it couldn't see us, it could definitely smell us.

More light spilled in through the ragged gap above us. My hands were too busy unearthing the boss to draw the wings, but there was a prayer in my heart. Sweet Desna—

Before I could complete the thought, a blast of air blew down through the ruined stairwell. Dirt stopped my mouth and nose, rattling my brain until the only thought left was the word I'd heard the dragon speak:

"Variel."

Chapter Thirteen

Circle of Truth

Varian

Everything was dust. Dust was everything I could see, smell, or taste. Dimly I heard the muted voices of my companions. They pulled me by arm and leg, but instead of dragging me off to die, they were hauling me out of my sudden grave.

Blinking caked eyelids, I saw Fimbulthicket's enormous, childlike eyes gazing down at me with concern. The rest of his face was a mask of dust. His little hands clutched my head. From the tingling sensation that suffused my skull, I knew he had repaired my fractured skull with his Green magic.

"That's all I have left," he said. "Kemeili?"

"Wait," said Caladrel. "We mustn't stay here. Can he walk to the next junction? I heard water."

"I'll take him," said Radovan. I gasped as pain erupted in my hip and thigh. The collapse had shattered my bones.

My present agony was worth the sight I had glimpsed.

Arnisant licked my hand as Radovan bore me along the passage. "Boss," he murmured. "You've got to stop getting your ass kicked so hard. You're making me look bad."

Trails of dust spilled down from the riven ceiling, glowing golden brown in the light Kemeili conjured on the tip of a dagger. She held it up like a torch and led the way.

I felt the damp in the air before we saw the reflection of the water. We turned twice before entering an unbroken passage similar to the one we first entered, with the singular exception that the trough running down the center of the hall was filled with clear water.

Kemeili set her dagger on the edge of the channel. "Get his clothes off, and help me bathe him. I can't see what's hurt under all that dirt."

"Wait," said Oparal. "I will tend him first. Leave his clothes on."

Radovan set me down with my back against the low wall bordering the water channel. Oparal knelt beside me, her brow, lips, and heart already painted with the blaze of Iomedae. I read the silent prayer on her lips and spoke the final words with her: "Glory to the Inheritor."

Her eyes met mine, but there was nothing but sincerity for her to see there. She removed her gauntlets and smeared the dirt on her mouth with the back of her hand. She grasped my hands and closed her eyes in prayer.

The warmth of the goddess spread through my body. Oparal had no need to touch my injury, only to lay her hands upon me and bestow the blessing of Iomedae. Some claimed the power of a paladin would not heal an unworthy subject, but Oparal and I both knew that was untrue. The choice to heal me was hers.

When she was done, I tried to rise to thank her properly. The pain lanced through me again, this time concentrating on my ribs. Wincing, I gasped, "My thanks."

Kemeili peeled off my coat as Radovan pulled off my boots. "We could all use a bath," he said, pouring a stream of dirt from a boot. The others agreed, as well they might. Together they looked like a collection of clay golems.

"I will bathe alone," said Oparal. She walked away, armor clanking.

"Don't go far," Caladrel cautioned her.

"Turn your back."

He obliged, exchanging a bemused glance with Kemeili. In my experience, even those elves not devoted to the Savored Sting displayed far less body modesty than humans do.

As they lowered me into the cool water, I noticed Radovan's attention drifting in Oparal's direction. "Radovan."

"Oops," he said. "Didn't mean to peek."

"Yes, you did," said Kemeili. As she unlaced my trousers, her hand brushed my thigh as if by accident. I raised a reproachful eyebrow, but she only giggled in that childish tone she reserved to attract Radovan's attention.

"Hey," said Radovan, noticing her flirtation. His indignation might also have been feigned, but I doubted so. "If you two want some privacy, I'll go see if Oparal wants her back scrubbed."

I understood he was bluffing—Oparal would not react kindly to such an offer—but Kemeili did not. "You'll stay right here and rinse Varian's clothes," she said. Her sportive tone vanished, replaced by an undercurrent of menace.

Her lascivious touches gave way to a more businesslike approach as she mended my remaining hurts. For this I was much relieved, because the effects of the cool water would not long prevent a discomfiting reaction should she continue to test my aplomb.

By the time I felt hale and whole once more, I saw that Radovan had rinsed both my garments and his own, laying them out to dry on the channel wall. Fimbulthicket and Caladrel were washing their own clothing a piece at a time, stripping as they stood in the water. Beyond them, at the very edge of the light, I observed through half-lidded eyes as Oparal set aside the last article of her clothing and sank her statuesque figure into the stream.

Radovan was too busy cajoling Arnisant into the water to notice my misdemeanor, but an impish smile dimpled Kemeili's cheeks.

Arnisant rescued me from further embarrassment by leaping into the channel. After the instant of commotion, he stood unmoving, unhappy with the temperature or some other quality of the water. Radovan splashed him, setting the hound bounding back out of the water.

Eddies of dirt curled away as I wiggled my toes. The cool water soothed my aches, which lingered even after the ministrations of our healers. When I saw blood flowing away from the scrapes on Radovan's hands and arms, I regretted allowing them to expend all their efforts on me.

Arnisant shook himself, spraying us all with dog-scented water.

At that, both Radovan and Caladrel laughed. A moment later, Kemeili and Fimbulthicket joined in, less amused than relieved to realize we had survived an encounter that should have slain us.

The released tension caused me to reflect upon my many narrow escapes. I did not like to tally the occasions, but I knew that this one, like all the rest, would lodge forever in my memory library. I preferred to concentrate on the aftermath, in which we basked in the victory that is survival.

"Listen, boss," said Radovan. By his tone I knew the time for jollity had passed. "Did you hear what the dragon said?"

"I heard nothing after the roof came down."

"Variel. It said 'Variel.'"

A hundred possibilities flew through my brain at once. "Are you certain?"

"Positive," said Radovan.

"He's right," said Caladrel. He squeezed the water from his long hair and laid it upon his shoulder. "But she also said 'dragon's blood.' Do you know what that means?"

I realized exactly what that meant, but I had no wish for Caladrel to direct the conversation. "Why do you say 'she'?"

The ranger shrugged, by which gesture I knew he was dissembling. "The voice struck me as more feminine."

"But you called it 'she' even before we descended to the aqueducts."

"That's right," said Fimbulthicket. "You did it twice."

Caladrel's eyes hardened. I could almost read his thoughts upon his face. "You have already uncovered a few of Kyonin's secrets, Count Jeggare." He made himself smile. "I suppose one more will not imperil the realm."

"What are you talking about?" said Radovan. He looked at Kemeili and Fimbulthicket before craning his neck in Oparal's direction. "Do you all know what he's talking about?"

Kemeili shook her head. Oparal said nothing, but she moved closer to listen, keeping her body concealed under the surface of the muddied water.

"If it's something about Variel, I want to know," said Fimbulthicket. "If this dragon said his name, she must expect him to be alive."

"Or perhaps she mistook Varian for his father and was surprised to think he was alive," said Kemeili.

While such speculation was interesting, it detracted from my question. "What do you know of this dragon, Caladrel?"

"The rangers have long known that a great dragon hunts this region," he said. "We know the dragon is a green female, but we had never been able to find her lair. Now we know why."

"The dragon must enjoy the protection of the city's wards. Caladrel, what else you can tell us about this secret elven city?"

"Nothing," he said. "This region of the forest has perplexed my best trackers for centuries. The city's wards have concealed it from us."

"But you had to know that this city once existed. How could there be no record?"

The elves shook their heads. Fimbulthicket lifted his hands and let water drain from his palms.

As the stream carried away the dirt, the light reflecting from the water's surface danced upon the ceiling. Our shadows wavered on the stones above, yet each of us sat naked beneath the water. "Is it not time to share your true purposes in accompanying me in this search?"

"I serve Queen Telandia," said Oparal.

"I just want to find Variel." Fimbulthicket's voice echoed through the aqueduct.

"I came at the behest of my Prince Amarandlon," said Caladrel. "He hopes that returning Variel Morgethai to court will please the queen."

"You mean it will please Prince Amarandlon," scoffed Kemeili.

"Variel Morgethai has a more profound influence on the court than any Calistrian. You shouldn't be so proud of being the youngest of the temple inquisitors. You have the title, but you haven't earned it."

"I may be young," said Kemeili, "but I know that you hope Morgethai will take your lord's part in the question of the Witchbole."

"Perhaps he shall," said Caladrel. "As a Chelaxian, Count Jeggare may also support the cause. Is that why you came along, to report him to the queen?"

"Maybe I came to keep an eye on you," she said. In the refracted light, her elven eyes were even more difficult to track, but I sensed they glanced at Oparal. Kemeili eased over to lean on Radovan's arm. "But the truth is that I'm here as the eyes and ears of the temple, and the temple serves the throne. And yes, I volunteered to come. We seldom receive foreign visitors. These two are interesting."

Oparal spoke up. "If you wish it, Count Jeggare, I will call upon the power of Iomedae. Should anyone utter a lie while the eye of the Inheritor is upon us, I will know it."

I watched the faces of the others for a reaction to the paladin's proposition. Kemeili appeared annoyed, while Caladrel stiffened, ready to protest. Fimbulthicket had grown bored again. He leaned back to float on the water, the bulge of his white belly protruding from the surface like the hump of a miniature whale.

"Thank you, Oparal. That will not be necessary." While I do not object to specific divinations, like the cantrip that allows me to perceive magical auras, the use of such spells has always struck me as both tawdry and vulnerable to fraud. The Hellknight signifers, for example, are notorious for reporting only that information which serves their cause. While I had no reason to believe Oparal to be corrupt, she was certainly capable of concealing a secret agenda.

"What is the question of the Witchbole?"

"Queen Telandia hesitates to bring our forces into direct conflict with the Lord of the Blasted Tarn," said Caladrel.

"Some call the demon lord Treerazer because his horde leveled much of the forest during the retreat," said Kemeili. "We drove him back to the Witchbole, a fortress made out of a vast and corrupted tree in the south."

"He remains there unchallenged, endlessly summoning more forces, harboring cultists who infiltrate sites throughout Kyonin. They sacked Shevaroth and bent the temple of Calistria to their depraved rituals." Caladrel pointed an accusing finger at Kemeili. "Even then, the clergy of Iadara refused to support a counteroffensive."

"Don't speak to me of Shevaroth," said Kemeili. "True strength lies in patience. A ranger should know that."

Radovan pulled her by the arm and murmured, "Settle down, sweetheart. It's just a little difference of opinion."

"Perhaps to you," said Oparal. "With your fiendish blood, how are we to know where your loyalties fall?"

"What is it with you? I didn't do a damned thing—"

"Enough." How quickly the conversation had degenerated into a general melee. So much, I thought, for my hopes of clearing the distrust among my companions. "We will continue this conversation later. For now, wet clothes or dry, we must move farther from the site where the dragon spotted us. Apart from avoiding becoming her next prey, our purpose remains unchanged: to find Variel Morgethai."

An hour later, I regretted my decision about the wet clothes. Fortunately, we found the aqueducts both more expansive and far more interesting than I had previously imagined. Despite my efforts to record our path in my journal, I feared my impromptu map was hopelessly inaccurate. I would do no better until after I had rested.

The aqueduct ventilation system remained functional, so we risked a fire, laid out our damp clothing, and set a guard. After my turn to sleep, I performed the Thirty-Six Forms exercises alone. The calisthenics soothed my mind and body, but my soul remained restless. I felt we were close to finding Variel. I wondered whether he ever imagined seeing his son, and why he had not joined my mother in Cheliax. Was he ashamed of his half-breed child? Had he tired of my mother? None of my questions mattered unless I could find the man and demand the answers.

I surprised myself with an unconscious verbalization and realized my previously graceful gestures had become violent strikes. Oparal opened her eyes to look at me from where she sat meditating. I mouthed a silent apology and abandoned my exercise. Instead, I set to the task of replacing my riffle scrolls.

After everyone had time to recuperate, we continued our explorations. The towers of the northwestern sector aroused my curiosity. My hypothesis was that each was a center of learning dedicated to one of the eight classical schools of magic. My own arcane education had taken place in Korvosa, where the Acadamae maintains the tradition of separating students of each school in the hope of inspiring rivalry and, thereby, swifter innovation. That is the hope. The reality is somewhat more vicious and less productive.

Enticed as I was by the mysteries of the city's magic district, our goal remained locating Variel Morgethai. Judging by our rooftop survey of the city, the eastern manors seemed the most likely site for a resident druid. Unfortunately, they also seemed the most likely lair of the dragon. Of the city's other features, none seemed more likely to have drawn his attention than the prominent spires on their plinths in the city's central plaza. I directed our exploration of the aqueducts in that direction.

"Here," said Kemeili. She shone her light on a section of wall indistinguishable from the others. "Do you see?"

Radovan peered at the wall before turning to me and shaking his head.

"Of course," said Caladrel, approaching the wall. He knelt and blew on the floor, revealing ancient scratches in the stone.

"All right, now I see it," said Radovan. The three of them found the hidden seams of a concealed door. After a brief conference, Caladrel and Kemeili stepped back as Radovan tested a few spots with a needle-thin probe from a jacket pocket. A few moments later, he switched to a stronger probe and warned us all to step back.

"I don't feel any tricky stuff," he said. Standing to the side, he depressed a section of the wall. Immediately the borders of the portal became visible as a puff of air blew out the dust in the cracks. He pressed again, and the door receded half an inch before a hidden fulcrum allowed it to open toward us.

The warm breeze that washed into our passage smelled of fresh soil and plant growth. A barely distinguishable haze accompanied the gust, its earthy warmth reminding me of opening my greenhouse in winter. We peered down a gentle ramp, where the source of the mist was hidden behind a corner.

Kemeili made a Calistrian sign and said, "It's not poisonous."

Thus assured, I led the way down the ramp.

My impression of a hothouse intensified as we explored the corridor at the base of the ramp. The passage was a torus nearly twenty feet in diameter. A furrowed walkway rose above a pool in the floor. Water trickled down the mosaic walls to spill into runoff troughs on either side of the relatively narrow floor. Sunlight emanated from lenses at the base of cylinders disappearing into the ceiling. A few were dark, but most shone steadily.

"Sunlight," said Fimbulthicket, awe coloring his sepulchral voice.

I shared his wonderment. "I imagine those tubes are lined with some highly reflective material. They must lead to larger apertures on the surface. The dark ones must have collapsed or been overgrown."

"What is this place?" asked Oparal.

I was unprepared to speculate without further evidence. We followed the passage, pausing to study the mosaics. Composed of polished stones and glass, the images depicted elves performing a variety of activities: herbalists selecting plants, alchemists extracting the venom of giant centipedes, hunters stalking beasts both familiar and strange, druids healing the Fierani people with their Green magic, and geomancers conjuring crystal towers out of the bedrock. Fey creatures from fauns to gremlins accompanied the elves at many of their tasks. Some perched like familiars on the shoulders of elven scholars studying tablets.

We came to a short passage leading toward the city center. At its end stood a wide door covered in vines. They smelled fresh, as did the earth spilling from the foundation where they had rent the tiles.

"More Green magic?" I asked Fimbulthicket.

He touched the vines gently with the palm of his hand. "Yes, definitely." When they did not yield to pressure, he gripped one and pulled. It remained as rigid as an iron gate. "Variel has grown far more powerful. These vines are as hard as ironwood."

"How can you be sure Variel is the one who put these vines here?"

"It's his style," said Fimbulthicket. "Don't you recognize it?"

The almost imperceptible pattern in the plant-formed gate before us was the same as that of the sealed houses above. "I have no idea what his style—"

Epiphany struck. I had seen the design even before we reached this briar city. It was the signature pattern I had noticed in the dance floor in Iadara—and in the Red Carriage.

It was my father's signature.

"This is the sort of spell he must renew from time to time. We're close." He ran his fingertips across the hardened vines. "Very close indeed."

"Can you remove the barrier?"

He drew in a dubious hiss. "I can try, but the spells Variel used—"

"Behind the corner," whispered Caladrel, ushering the others toward the gate. He indicated the direction from which we had come. "Everyone, be ready to attack. Count, come with me please."

He led me forward rather than back, his bow in hand. "Our friends from outside have found us."

"Which friends?"

"Leucrottas, two of them judging from the sound of their hooves. I know you do not worship Calistria, but if you have any desire for revenge, now would be a good time to select a painful spell."

"We must capture one. The leucrottas may know the city's secrets."

He nodded, reaching for his quiver. At his unspoken thought, a tinted fletching placed itself into his fingers. He nocked a bulb-headed arrow to the string and stepped back into the gate alcove. "Let them see you. When they come, kill the one on the left. I will capture the other."

I selected a riffle scroll and waited. Soon I too heard the click of hooves on the floor. A pair of badger-like heads appeared around the curving corridor, but the beasts stood as tall as stags. One lowered its head, an evil smile forming over its inhuman jaws.

"What have we here? Another elf?"

"A half-elf," said the monster's companion. They moved forward. "Look at its eyes. Its father must have been a gnome."

"I'm more interested in how it found its way in here," said the first leucrotta. It remained slightly behind its companion, wary of a trap. "It will tell us...eventually."

"Stay back," I warned them. My voice trembled in fear, most of it feigned. I could not forget the helpless agony of being dragged through the forest, arms pinned in the creatures' jaws.

My hand drifted to the pommel of the Shadowless Sword. At the sight of the weapon, the leucrotta stopped. It began to say something to its companion. I had to draw them closer.

I spun around and ran.

A clatter of hooves erupted behind me. After half a dozen steps, I whirled and unleashed the scroll I had readied. Four gray bolts of raw arcane energy shot forth. They struck the leucrotta in the breast and throat. The force knocked him against the outer wall, allowing his cautious companion to pass him.

Caladrel stepped out of hiding and unleashed his arrow. It struck the floor a good ten feet in front of the charging leucrotta. The bulb exploded in a mass of white-and-yellow fluid. The substance expanded so quickly that the creature never had a chance to veer away. It plunged its hooves into the tacky mess, crying out as its forelegs adhered to the floor. Its body jerked forward, sending its head and neck into more of the sticky trap.

Dazed but undeterred, the other leucrotta resumed its charge. I dropped the depleted scroll and reached for another as I drew my sword. The scroll would sweeten my aim, perfecting my stroke as I stepped aside and struck the beast's thick neck.

The monster charged past Caladrel, who ignored it in favor of shooting another gooey arrow at the trapped beast. A red blur flew from the alcove, sliding beneath the leucrotta's belly as a dagger sprouted from the beast's ear. Oparal's blazing sword struck down upon the monster's flanks as Arnisant leaped out to catch its hind leg. I stepped aside as momentum carried its carcass past me, dragging the tenacious wolfhound along in the slick wake of blood from its open belly.

Radovan jumped up, bloody blade in hand. He ran to the surviving leucrotta, which struggled to free itself from the goo. He rapped it on the head with the butt of his knife. "Sit still, Stinky, unless you want some of what we gave your buddy."

Our captive required another rap and a punch on the muzzle from Radovan before settling down to accept its captivity. Stifling my disappointment at the lost opportunity to demonstrate my flawless sword-strike, I kept the sword in hand as I approached the surviving leucrotta.

The magic of the Shadowless Sword revealed no illusion, but the very thought of its power reminded me of the paladin's earlier offer. "Oparal, would you be so good as to create your aura of truth?"

She spoke the prayer and said, "Done."

"And if this abomination dares to utter a lie, strike off his head."

"Gladly." She raised her sword high in an executioner's posture. I thought that a nice touch for intimidating the subject.

I returned my attention to our captive. "You called me 'another elf.' Are there others in this city?"

The monster growled its defiance until Arnisant returned the threat. Some bestial message passed between them, and the leucrotta yielded. "There is one, a druid. The dragon's pet."

"Who is he? What does he do?"

"He spends his days exploring the buildings and the chambers under the city. We had never been able to follow him here until you left the door open."

"Oops," said Radovan. "I'll be right back." He ran toward the secret portal. I trusted him not to close it without ensuring he knew how to open it from this side.

"Where does the elf reside?"

"In a big house on the eastern hills."

"How do you open the vine gates?"

"We don't. They part only for the druid."

"Then how do you leave and return through the dome?"

"He opens them when she grows bored," said the leucrotta. "Some of my kin always make a run for it. The dragon enjoys hunting them. She leaves their bodies on the thorns."

I glanced at Oparal, who nodded. "The abomination speaks the truth."

"We could tell," said Kemeili, "since it still has its head."

"Let me go," said the leucrotta. "There are dozens of us. My brothers were right behind us. Doubtless they have already devoured your friend. They will come—"

Oparal's sword fell like a final blade of Galt. The leucrotta's warm blood spattered my face. I stepped back and reached for the handkerchief in my sleeve.

"Why did you do that?!" cried Kemeili.

"The creature lied."

I blotted the blood from my mouth. "You could simply have informed us of that fact."

"But you said to execute him—"

"A ploy. A matter of intimidation." My mind reeled at her stupidity.

"You Forlorn—" Caladrel stopped himself from saying more.

My own anger wrestled with the desire for harmonious relations among these uncertain allies. I considered my words before speaking. "The fault is mine. I presumed too much on your unspoken understanding."

Radovan ran back to us, a sheen of sweat on his face. "What'd I miss?"

"Before we could finish questioning the leucrotta," said Kemeili, "Oparal chopped off its head."

Radovan started to laugh but stopped himself when he saw our bleak expressions. "Oops."

Chapter Fourteen

Six Spires

Radovan

The boss and Fimbulthicket called Kemeili over to help with the vine door. That left the rest of us to lug the guts away from the alcove.

Arni wanted to come with us, but I sent him back to the boss to keep his snout out of the gore. The magicians always get out of the dirty jobs. On the other hand, I have blades and picks in my pockets. The boss has a bag full of bat shit and dead spiders.

After dragging off the corpses, we saw Kemeili, Fimbulthicket, and the boss take turns calling on the power of Calistria, the Green, or arithmetic. It looked like it would take a while, so Caladrel, Oparal, and I took a stroll around the ring to make sure nothing else was going to sneak up on us.

The air was wet, and all the sunlight made the passage feel even roomier than it was. The art didn't hurt, either. We saw more murals of whole worlds, green and blue balls floating in a black sea. Others were diagrams that made no sense to me. Caladrel called them "star charts."

The elves spotted more hidden doors. Even when I knew where to expect the next one, I couldn't see them until Caladrel traced the edges under the water running over the outer wall. About a third of the circle was dry. I figured that part had to be under the clogged fountain outside.

Caladrel paused to kneel a few times in the dry area. I spotted the edge of a footprint in the dust.

"Fresh?"

"And frequent. They are harder to see where the spray dampens the floor, but here you can see the edges in the dust. They are from one person: an elven man, a trifle taller than me."

"You can tell he's an elf? Not a human?"

Caladrel nodded.

"How much money's in his purse?"

Caladrel smiled, but Oparal shook her head. She got the joke all right. She just disapproved of humor. Or maybe she didn't think I was funny.

"I'd been meaning to ask what happened with the unicorn after the fight. I guess you sent it packing, huh?"

Caladrel stared at her. "You saw it again?"

She nodded.

"Did it ...submit to you again?"

Oparal looked at the floor. I nodded for her.

"And you refused. Unbelievable."

Oparal set her jaw and walked past us. Caladrel looked at me. It was our turn to shake our heads at her.

Caladrel found the spot he was looking for and put his hand on the east side of the passageway. "He comes from this direction."

"Shall we open it?" said Oparal.

"Let's wait for the boss. He'll want to see this."

We counted six hidden doors on the outside wall and six alcoves on the inside. One other alcove was sealed up with vines like the first one. It didn't take a wizard to figure out that the two closed rooms were under the missing spires up top. I said as much to the elves. Caladrel nodded.

"What do they do?" said Oparal.

"I bet they do the magic that keeps people from finding this place. Maybe these two are broken."

"Or deactivated," said Caladrel.

I nodded. "Still, there's one thing I can't figure out."

"And that is?"

"How the hell you elves can spot a secret door twenty feet away but lose track of a whole damned city."

Caladrel shrugged again, but I didn't buy it. He knew something, and he knew I knew. "We've long suspected something was wrong in this part of the Fierani. The primary goal of the rangers is to track the movements of the demon horde. We leave the archaeology to scholars and druids, like your master's father."

I showed him my teeth at "master" and turned to Oparal.

"Don't look at me," she said. "As my kin are fond of reminding me, I grew up elsewhere and have never traveled widely in Kyonin."

"Much was lost in the retreat." Caladrel softened his tone, maybe picking up that he'd hit a nerve with his "master" crack. "When our people left here for Sovyrian, it was because we believed Golarion doomed after Earthfall."

"But you're always reminding the boss how you know the true history of the world. I just can't see how your scholars let something as big as a city slip out of a scroll somewhere."

"Perhaps Kemeili can tell you more." There was a hint in his tone, but I didn't trust it.

Neither did Oparal. She snorted. "A temple spy? The prostitute?"

"You underestimate her," said Caladrel. "Of the three stings, guile is the sharpest. The Calistrians are by turns as subtle as they are lewd or vengeful."

"I thought all you elves worshiped Calistria."

"Obviously not all," said Oparal.

"Most elves in Kyonin favor the Savored Sting or Desna," said Caladrel. He lifted the clasp of his cloak to show off the symbol of a hawk on a crescent. "We rangers revere Ketephys, who teaches us to depend on our own strength rather trickery."

"I don't know," I said. "Between your fancy arrows and the way you sneak through the woods ..."

"Fair enough." Caladrel raised his chin to show I'd scored a point. When he did that, he didn't look all that different from one of the Eel Street boys back in Egorian. Well, taller, maybe. Cleaner, for sure. Anyway, all the elves seemed less weird to me after the past few weeks. Not exactly human, but more and more like the rest of us.

When we got back to the vine door, the boss and Kemeili had done their tricks. While we filled them in on what we'd found, Fimbulthicket waggled his fingers, and his Green magic bent the vines to either side. The boss poked his head through, but Kemeili touched his shoulder. "Wait."

She peered inside at a short corridor. A few seconds later, she drew in a hissing breath. "I don't like it."

The boss riffled a scroll and had another look. "I detect a persistent aura of death magic, but it originates from the chamber beyond the corridor."

"It's not that," said Kemeili. "The floor patterns look designed to conceal pressure plates."

"Ah." Since he'd begun casting spells instead of just collecting them, the boss sometimes forgot it doesn't take a wizard to set a trap. "Radovan?"

"All right," I sighed. "Let's lose the light."

Checking security wasn't my favorite part of the job, and the only reason I'd gotten any good at it was that I used to take a percentage of whatever was on the other side. I guessed finding the boss's dad wasn't such a bad prize, as long as I didn't get crushed or impaled or dissolved or incinerated or turned into slime. I drew the wings.

Smile on me, Desna, you sweetheart, you.

The boss turned off his ring, and I had a look at the darkened corridor. Sometimes I can spot things better in the dark, but not this time. I signed for the light again.

I saw what Kemeili meant about the floor patterns. They were all circles lying in perfect lines, with smaller circles overlapping the gaps between them.

I leaned through the gate and blew on the floor. Not much dust, I noticed. If the owner of the tracks came here regular, he must know how to deactivate or avoid the trap. I looked left and right, studying the walls. I turned around to check the ceiling. When I didn't spot anything that looked dangerous, I knelt down and eased into the corridor an inch at a time.

Everything seemed pretty all right until I put a little weight on my right hand and felt the tile give.

"Everybody get back."

"What sort of trap is it?" asked the boss.

"Don't know yet." I hadn't felt or heard anything, but then I realized I had three and a half elves behind me. "You hear anything just then?"

Nobody had. A pressure plate needs more weight than I'd given it before it lets go. Usually. I had a long look around the hallway. I didn't see any dart holes or gas cracks, no acid nozzles or floor dents.

"Will this take long?" Fimbulthicket sounded impatient.

"Don't rush me." My head was full of memories of the smoking corpses of Eel Street burglars and dismembered Sczarni, guys who'd moved when they should have stood still. I meant to take my time.

"I'll help," said Kemeili.

"Don't—" She was already through the door.

"I can see things that you might miss."

That was true. "All right. Just stay behind me. Don't put your weight anywhere you don't see me go first."

She put her lips close to my ear and whispered, "You got it, boss."

Part of me loved hearing that, but I hoped the others hadn't heard. I resisted the urge to look back to see their reaction.

We spidered over the floor, testing every tile until we had a good idea which ones were safe. I crawled back to the door and asked the boss for some chalk. Crawling back, I marked the dangerous spots with a word in Elven.

"Why are you writing 'bowl'?" asked Kemeili.

"Damn it. I meant 'dangerous.'"

"Here." She took my hand and traced her finger along my palm. Her touch made me tense in all the right places. She drew the word again. "Got it?"

"Maybe once more, just to be sure."

"Greedy." She smiled as an idea sprouted in her brain. She traced the word again, but her other hand slid up the inside of my thigh, then over to touch the dagger tattoos on her belly. She licked the tip of her middle finger and drew it across my palm. This time it didn't tickle, it burned.

"Ow, ow, what the hell?!" Recoiling from her touch, I slipped. My right spur touched the floor, and I felt it give. Stone grated beneath us, and the floor opened wide. We fell.

∗ ∗ ∗

The boss didn't even shake his head at me. Unhappy as he was about our botched job in the hallway, he had to admit that we couldn't have figured out how to disable the trap from above. All the mechanisms were downstairs, along with the centuries-old bones of an ogre and a couple of goblins. At least the bones turned out handy. Once I'd jammed them into the works, the pit wouldn't be opening up again anytime soon.

The boss watched as Kemeili blew dust off a section of carved stone. It was one of six six-sided spaces around another six-sided plug in the floor. She reached for a yellow cat's-eye embedded in the stone.

"Be careful," said the boss. "The apparatus inside the Walking Man was similarly arrayed in a hexagonal configuration. While that contrivance appeared to combine arcane function with biological components, the similarity of form suggests that these stones might act as triggers to some motor function."

I translated for her. "Don't push that button."

Truth was, I half-hoped Kemeili would screw up again, if only to show everyone it hadn't been my fault with the trap. She thought it was cute to write her name on my hand with that nasty little spell. Afterward she said I was too sensitive and it was my fault for flinching like that. Still, she couldn't look anybody else in the eye since they'd pulled us out of the hole.

Lucky for both of us, the boss had the right scroll in hand. After half a second of falling, his spell made us float as light as goose down. Much as it bothered me that he'd been ready for us to screw up, I was glad he was ready when we screwed up.

The other thing that bothered me was that I hadn't figured Kemeili for so reckless or stupid. What was she trying to do? Maybe she was trying to get me killed, but that made no sense. She'd have been as dead as me if the boss hadn't saved us. The only thing I could figure was that she really wanted my attention, but that was childish.

I wondered again just how old she was. Young for an inquisitor, I knew. But what did that mean?

On the ceiling was another six-sided plug surrounded by tiles of the same shape, same size as below.

"These blocks appear moveable," said the boss. "The central plug is approximately the size of the plinths in the city's central plaza. My hypothesis is that the active spires create the illusory and repulsion effects we experienced upon approaching the dome. The remaining two spires, currently beneath these chambers, must perform functions we have yet to discern."

"What's the one down here do?"

"Something dreadful," said Fimbulthicket in his spooky voice.

The boss agreed. "I believe each spire is attuned to a different school of magic. The inscriptions on the surrounding stones indicate an emphasis on necromancy. We cannot determine its specific function without further study. Thus, it is imperative not to experiment with the controls."

"What of the other two active spires?" said Oparal. "Wards and illusions only account for two of the four."

"I have a theory. But first, let us examine the open chambers."

We made the circuit, peeking inside each room. Instead of a ring of six-sided stones on the floor and ceiling, a six-sided pillar stood in the middle of each of the other rooms. The carved runes glowed a different color on each: green, blue, purple, and white. The boss nodded at each rune as if he understood what he meant, which of course he did. That's the sort of thing he's good at.

"What kind of magic is in the other sealed room?" asked Oparal.

"It should be a summoning, divination, or energy effect. There are eight schools of arcane magic, but only six plinths. Curious ..." He pinched the bridge of his nose the way he does when he's thinking real hard. "We should recover our strength before opening the other sealed door. Then we can be sure which of the schools are not represented."

"Wouldn't you rather see where those footprints lead?" said Caladrel. "If I am not mistaken, they belong to your father."

"How can you know that?"

"Show me," said Fimbulthicket. "I will know."

"Very well." The boss didn't sound happy to leave the spire rooms. Show him something magic, and he's like a kid with a new toy. Still, I thought he'd been keener on finding this long-lost father of his.

Caladrel led the way, Fimbulthicket trotting close behind. The instant the ranger pointed, the gnome threw himself to the floor and sniffed at the print. He muttered, either another of his Green spells or just more crazy leaking out of his head.

"It's Variel." The gnome stood up and looked at us. When we stared back at his weird behavior, he said, "What are we waiting for? Let's go."

The boss looked back in the direction of the gate we hadn't opened. "It would be helpful to know what Variel was doing with these spires before—"

"You said you were going to find Variel, not to explore ruins." Fimbulthicket started out calm, but his face twisted as he went on. "You're just like him. No, you're worse than he ever was! I never should have ..." He stopped to look at his shaking hands.

The boss didn't answer. He looked afraid—not of the gnome, weird as he was, but of the idea of finding his father. The longer he hesitated before answering, the more everyone stared.

"You are correct, of course," he said at last.

We fetched our packs and followed the trail of footprints. They were harder to spot once we entered the aqueducts. Caladrel showed us where they went in different directions, and he always knew where the trail was fresh and where it had been crossed most often.

The main path led us to a big crack in the aqueduct wall. Squeezing through, we found a cool cellar filled with tall clay jugs sealed with wax. I gave one a shove, and liquid sloshed inside.

"Fascinating," said the boss, shining his light-ring on one. "These amphorae bear a passing resemblance to those of—"

"Leave it," Fimbulthicket said. "No more dawdling."

The more reluctant the boss seemed to find his dad, the more eager Fimbulthicket became.

Caladrel led us up to the main floor of the house. From all the shelves and counters, I took it for a shop or storehouse. The boss traced a finger over some elven writing on a smaller clay jug, but he didn't pause long enough to get another scolding from the gnome.

We stepped outside into the cool night. The crescent moon grinned through the cage of the dome. Choirs of night birds and insects sang all across the city. I figured we'd wait until dawn to keep going, but Caladrel kept moving. We followed him along a wide street and around the corner of a grape arbor.

"Do you notice the difference?" The boss spoke just above a whisper.

Once he mentioned it, it was obvious. There was hardly any rubble in the streets. The trees and other plants filled their gardens but didn't overflow them. "Somebody's been minding the joint."

In the arbor Caladrel led us to a hut. The door was latched but not locked. Inside we found the walls covered with gardening tools; pots and bins covered the worktables. We weren't in there ten seconds before Kemeili piped up. "Trapdoor."

We checked it out and it seemed harmless. We climbed down into a cellar. There, half-hidden behind a pile of sacks, we found another secret passage. This one was a tunnel carved straight out of the earth. Instead of brick walls, thick roots grew up to form arches every seven or eight feet. The place smelled of fresh dirt and earthworms.

We followed it for hundreds of feet, turning now and then but always heading east and upward. At the far end we found a simple door, no lock or traps. We stepped through into a wine cellar full of empty racks.

It was a sight to break the boss's heart, but he didn't mention it. "We are in one of the manor houses."

"Someone has been living here," said Oparal.

The elves agreed. So did Fimbulthicket. "He's here," said the gnome. "He's here right now."

Before anybody could stop him, he scampered up the stairs.

We hustled after him, chasing him through halls with dark little rooms on either side. We caught up in a kitchen, where I saw a big bowl of vegetables and a basin of clean water. But he wasn't trying to get away from us—not that he could have on those little legs of his. He dropped his pack on the floor and called out, "Variel?"

"Hush," said Kemeili. "Even if he is here, we don't know whether he's alone."

Caladrel took the lead away from Fimbulthicket, but then the boss took it from Caladrel. The uncertainty I'd seen on his face was gone. His curiosity was taking charge. He had his finder face on.

We moved through a hallway and what looked like a dining room that had been kept clean but wasn't much used. There was a salon with faded tapestries on the east wall and a huge window to the west. Through it we could see the whole city beneath us.

The boss led us up a curving staircase and across another wide hallway. Through an open door I saw a room full of bookshelves and tables full of stuff. I spotted a couple of globes, a half-assembled orrery, several taxidermied animals, and what looked like the collected bones of a giant overflowing a basket. Arnisant spotted the bones and licked his chops.

I nudged the boss. "Looks like your library."

Caladrel raised his fist for silence. A second later, I heard the voice that put him on his guard. We crept up the hallway toward a corner where yellow light spilled out from a room on the other side of the library. The closer we got, the more I smelled fresh air. The voice grew louder, as did the sound of wind chimes.

"—had your fun, I'll give the beasts another day to recover from their fright. I think it's time I had another look at the mage district. I haven't culled the aberrations since the windstorm took down the old willows. I know how they fascinate you, but we'll be sorry if we let them breed for more than a season or two."

The voice sounded familiar, but I was pretty sure I hadn't heard it before. That's when it occurred to me that it sounded a lot like the boss.

He must have thought so, too. He walked straight down the hallway and turned the corner.

I hustled after him, the others so close on my heels that they nearly knocked me down when I stopped in the doorway.

Inside was a bedroom that would have put a brothel to shame. Golden sheets of silk formed a canopy over the round bed. Dozens of pillows spilled onto the floor. Stuffed lounge chairs and sofas loitered all over the room. There was no fireplace, but the hanging braziers were big enough to float as skiffs. Like in the salon downstairs, the western windows looked down over the city. The only difference was that the windowpanes were gone, leaving that side of the room open to the sky.

The boss stood still, hand on the pommel of his sword. He stared across the room at what I could have taken for a mirror if the other guy were wearing anything other than a long green skirt. His ears were longer, and no white showed around his big elven irises. He didn't have that little beard the boss keeps under his lip, and he looked a couple of inches taller. He also looked about twenty years younger.

"Variel!" The gnome got past me and rushed the elf. The boss took a step forward but froze as Fimbulthicket threw himself at the elf.

Variel caught him around the waist, leaning back as he held him on his hip like a child. "Fim?"

Oh, sure, I thought. He gets to call you "Fim."

Fimbulthicket buried his face in the elf's neck. Variel gave him a squeeze back, but he stared at the boss.

Caladrel stepped forward and bowed. "My lord Variel."

Variel spared him a brief glance before returning his gaze to the boss. I couldn't see the boss's face well, but Variel's expression kept changing like the characters on the little pages of a riffle scroll.

Caladrel spoke again. "Allow me to present Oparal, agent of the queen, and Kemeili, inquisitor of Calistria."

Variel nodded, still looking at the boss. Each of them seemed to be waiting for the other to speak first. My money was on the boss holding out longer. Too bad I didn't have time to place a bet before Variel spoke.

"You have your mother's eyes."

"So you know," said the boss. "You know who I am."

"I knew the instant I set eyes on you. You could only be the son of Pontia Jeggare."

The boss's face filled with blood. He was going to pop any second. "Do you even remember her a century after—?"

"Let's not begin with a quarrel." A woman's voice came from behind a dressing screen. I smelled flowers on the steamy air and guessed there was a bathtub hidden back there.

She stepped into sight, a tall elf wearing only a towel. Her green hair spilled over her shoulders to curl down to a point between her hip and knees. Thick as it was, it did nothing to cover her curves.

The boss stepped back. "Look out! She is not what she appears." The Shadowless Sword was in his hand, pointing at the woman's heart.

"Of course," she said, fiddling with a ring on her finger, "if you have come for a fight, we can oblige you."

"Please don't!" Variel dropped Fimbulthicket and stepped between them. At first I thought he was protecting her from the boss, but he turned to the woman. "Please."

The woman's eyes narrowed as she studied us. She walked past Variel to have a closer look. She brushed catlike past me, drawing in a breath through her teeth. She felt Oparal's hair and brushed her cheek against Caladrel's ear.

When she came to the boss, he lowered his sword and stood stock still. She leaned in to sniff his neck, first one side and then the next. "Interesting."

"Let me talk to them," said Variel.

"Very well." She walked to the wide open window, still fiddling with her ring. "But I want to talk, too. Catch up with your child, but send the others down to me, one at a time."

"Zuldana, be reasonable."

She gave him a look I'd seen on the faces of wives whose husbands talk too much. She plucked the ring from her finger.

Her hair lifted up all around her, as if she'd just plunged into water. The strands merged to form wings as her body grew. Tiny scales appeared on her skin. At first they were the tiny points of a pox, but a second later they were green coins. She kept growing, her neck stretching, her arms and legs swelling with muscle.

When she was ten feet tall, she threw herself backward through the open window. She rose into the air, green wings beating the air. Her voice sounded garbled when she spoke: "I want to talk to these unexpected guests. Send them to me."

She rose, turned, and glided down toward the amphitheater we'd spotted earlier. She was still growing as she vanished into the shadows, and I knew she was the same dragon we'd seen the day before.

Arnisant stood in front of the boss, his head drooping with uncertainty. I'd never seen him so scared. The Shadowless Sword clattered on the mouth of its scabbard before the boss managed to put it in place. He folded his shaking hands behind his back. The others looked too scared to talk, and I knew just how they felt.

"I'm not going first," I said before anybody else spoke up.

"I will," said Caladrel.

Kemeili shot him a dirty look and said, "I'll go second." Excitement gleamed in her eyes.

Oparal and Fimbulthicket exchanged a look. Maybe they were annoyed that they hadn't spoken sooner. That's when I realized that the others had been waiting for this moment. These past weeks, they hadn't been helping the boss to find his father.

They'd been using the boss to find the dragon.

Chapter Fifteen

In the Manor of His Father

Varian

Caladrel departed at once. His eagerness to speak with the dragon was palpable, as was Kemeili's. I perceived no hint of a hidden agenda on the faces of Fimbulthicket or Oparal, which only piqued my suspicion the more.

"There are comfortable rooms nearby," Variel said. "Please make yourselves at home while I talk with ..."

I did not understand his hesitation until Fimbulthicket supplied my name.

"Varian," repeated Variel. Despite the overwhelming visual evidence of our relation, I still struggled to think of him as my father. He appeared to suffer no such difficulty as he beamed at the similarity of our names. "She named you Varian."

"You may abandon the pretense." My voice broke, releasing the anger that had lodged in my heart. "Do you expect me to believe you sent me the Red Carriage and never knew my name?"

"The Red Carriage?" He appeared confused. I searched his face for any hint of pretense, but he revealed none. "I didn't send it for you. Until now, I did not know you existed. I sent the carriage as a gift to your mother."

"But she— Fimbulthicket said he sent it—" The words escaped before I realized that the gnome had never said that I was the intended recipient, only that he had seen it dispatched to Egorian. In an instant, I understood that it was only natural that my mother should tell me the gift was meant for me. She gave me everything else I possessed: breeding, education, status, wealth. On my sixteenth birthday, she also gave me the illusion that my father thought of me.

"You want me to stick around?" said Radovan as Oparal and Kemeili slipped out of the bedchamber Variel shared with the dragon.

"No, thank you."

"I'll be right around the corner." He scratched Arnisant under the chin before stepping out. The hound stayed with me.

Fimbulthicket remained by Variel, staring up at him in abject adoration. Variel stared at me, similarly astonished. I glared at the gnome, silently willing him to realize he was intruding on what should be a private conversation.

"Varian, I promise that if I had known ..." Variel lifted a hand in a helpless gesture. "But I didn't know."

Either he was a skilled dissembler or he spoke sincerely. In either case, I had no idea how to respond. A lifetime of absence followed by a journey with uncertain allies through a demon-infested forest leading to an illusion-shrouded city filled with all manner of monsters including a dragon who was by all appearances my father's lover ...it was all too much to assimilate.

Once more, Fimbulthicket bridged the silence. "Varian brought the Red Carriage to me in Omesta, but it's a complete wreck. You're the only one who can repair it."

Variel gasped. "I wove sustaining spells into every inch of that carriage. What in all the Green did you do to it?"

"What did I do? I survived an attack that hurled the carriage down a mountain ravine. It was only by the wink of Desna and the generosity of a local peer that I recovered its fragments."

"Did you drive it into war? I never built it to face such mistreatment."

"I was visiting Ustalav, where certain obscure parties did not wish me to locate a missing colleague."

A quizzical frown creased his brow.

"A Pathfinder colleague."

"You are a member of that ...organization?" His tone shifted from disdain to amusement.

"In fact ..." I was about to point out that I was not only a Pathfinder but a venture-captain. In light of my superiors' recent neglect, however, I was no longer certain I wished to advertise my status. "I have been known to aid the Society from time to time."

"I see," he said. His impenetrable eyes revealed nothing, but from his hesitation I inferred that he too strained to find the next words. It occurred to me that I had had weeks to prepare for our meeting, yet he apparently never anticipated the revelation that he had a son. At last he said, "How is your mother?"

Astonished at the stupidity of the question, I snapped, "Dead these seventy years."

"Varian," snapped the gnome. "There's no need to be cruel."

"Fim." Variel's hand rose to his chest, where he touched his breastbone as if to soothe an injury. "Let us speak alone."

"All right," said the gnome. "I'll be nearby if you need me."

"I always need you," said Variel. He knelt and kissed Fimbulthicket on the eyelids.

"It's so good to see you again," said the gnome. The crinkling of his white cheeks expressed a long-absent joy.

Variel smiled as he watched his friend leave, but his expression was tainted with sorrow at the news I had spat in his face. I regretted my intemperate response. All the childish resentments I thought long dead had only lain dormant, waiting to erupt at the slightest provocation.

Variel saw a hundred questions reflected on my face. "We know nothing of each other," he said. "When we first met, Zuldanavox questioned me for three days before she would allow me to rest. Strangers fascinate her, and you've just presented her with six. Let's use the time until she sends for you to become acquainted."

"And when she sends for me?"

He drew a deep breath. "Let's pray she likes you."

I flinched at the implication.

"I jest." He said it with a smile, but doubt soon clouded his face. "For the most part, I jest."

He offered me a seat facing the western window. The southern and western walls had been removed, the ceiling reinforced with the vine arches I had come to recognize as Variel's handiwork. From the vines grew plentiful leaves to redirect rainfall away from the floor.

Variel poured two goblets of yellow wine, passing one to me before raising his own. "To Pontia Jeggare and all she has given us—including the gift of our long-delayed meeting."

On first sip, I found the wine young and sweet, but not cloying. I thought of the empty wine cellar and realized anything he had discovered there could hardly have been fit to drink after so many centuries abandoned. "Do you make this?"

He nodded.

"I hold a number of vineyards in western Cheliax."

"I don't suppose you brought any with you. I'd wrestle a bugbear for a decent red."

"Alas, I have been away from home for some time."

We sipped wine and exchanged trivialities as we gazed out upon the city. Gigantic seed pods drifted through shafts of moonlight. Bats hunted among the insect swarms, and the will-o'-wisps trailed predators in the darkness, plunging into the shadows to feast on their prey's fear.

Beside the manor stood the amphitheater, cracks webbing its stone shell. As the silver light of stars and moon shone down from above, so did the warm glint of gold glitter up from below.

"Zuldana keeps her hoard down there," Variel sighed. "She likes to tempt the city's denizens, but even the most avaricious have learned not to steal from her. Now she leaves the gates open, tempting them with freedom. She loves learning more than anything, except sometimes the chase."

"What does she have down there?"

"The wealth of the entire city, which once rivaled Iadara in prestige and power. She leaves all the valuables we've salvaged down there under that leaky roof. At least she lets me keep the books up here in the library."

"Books?"

His eyes lit up as he heard the interest in my voice. "All the lore we believed lost in the Retreat."

"Surely you exaggerate."

"Well, perhaps. But you would not believe how much I have found already. Every month I discover something new, often forcing me to reevaluate everything I thought I'd learned about this place. There are terrors as well as wonders, so I proceed with caution. You may have noticed that I've sealed some of the buildings. In most cases it is to deter intrusion. In others, it is to prevent escape."

I shuddered to think I had considered opening those buildings. "Why did you come here? How did you detect this hidden city?"

"I'll answer any question you like," he said. "But first, indulge me. Until this night, I did not imagine you existed. I've no other children—well, I suppose I can't say that with confidence anymore—and here you stand before me full of nearly a century of stories. Tell me something about yourself."

Suppressing my impatience, I sketched out my life in reverse. I recounted our pursuit of Variel's trail in Kyonin—omitting my error at the Walking Man—before outlining the year I spent among the peoples of Tian Xia. I described my ill-fated expedition to Ustalav, omitting the more dangerous facts and glossing over the compromises we had been forced to accept.

Still he was not satisfied, so I told him of the years in which Radovan acted as my bodyguard while I solved the riddles of my peers' misfortunes and infidelities. As I related the tale of my first meeting with the street thug who would become my confidant, Variel rose to refill the wine decanter. Only then did I realize I had been speaking for hours.

"This Radovan is more than your bodyguard, isn't he?" said Variel. "You are close?"

"Certainly not as close as you and Fimbulthicket appear to be."

He smiled until he saw that I had not intended a joke. Then he chuckled. "You are so very Chelish."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It's just that humans, especially Chelaxians, even apart from their desperate grasping for former glories ...You have to admit they are—shall we say 'repressed'?"

"I confess that my peers would look askance at me should they discover my father shares his bed with a dragon."

"That's exactly what I'm talking about! But you're the last person who should object to unorthodox relationships. If your mother and I had never fallen in love, you would not exist."

"My mother was not a dragon."

"No, but she had every bit as much life in her as Zuldana does. Pontia was so vivid and full of dreams." His smile faded. "You say she died seventy years ago?"

I nodded, regretting both my earlier outburst and the implied invitation to inquire about the evil days surrounding my mother's death. After sufficient silence, Variel accepted my unspoken rejection of the subject.

"I understand now why she came to me, that last day. I wanted to surprise her with an invitation to visit my family—our family, yours and mine both—in Riverspire. In high summer, the spray of the waterfall chills the orchard plums. We would have danced among the dryads and teased the fairies at hide-and-seek ...Alas, I was not the only one who had a surprise that day. She asked me to return with her to Cheliax."

"And you refused."

"You have probably known elves living among humans. In some ways we are not so different from them, but we crave more life than one finds in their cities of dead stone and timber. It is worse for those elves raised among humans, the Forlorn. They are like..." He sought for a word and found it. "Amputees."

I thought of something Fimbulthicket had said. "You need the Green."

"Just so. Even those elves who don't pursue their Brightness through the Green can feel the absence of its purest energy, which flows more freely through elves and the unsullied land than it does through humans and their crude creations. Those who stray too long from Kyonin and the other elven holdings begin to change. Though not truly Forlorn, they lose the joy inherent in their connection to the world through their people."

Again I thought of Fimbulthicket. "Like gnomes who succumb to the Bleaching."

"A valid comparison, but the physiological effects are not so profound." Variel grimaced and looked at the door. "Fim looks like a sketch of himself."

The gnome's condition was exacerbated by the absence of his beloved friend. I sensed Variel recognized his culpability in the matter. Despite my lingering resentment toward him, I had no wish to aggravate his misery. "Enough of this," I said. "Tell me how you came to find this city."

"First, tell me one more thing. Why did you seek me out? That story about the carriage might have fooled Fimbulthicket, but he has a fond and open heart."

"The story is true." As he began to protest, I held up a hand and added, "But I understand your suspicions. I found it strange that the queen granted permission for me to roam Kyonin freely on such an errand."

"Perhaps not so freely. She sent an interesting group of escorts. I know Caladrel, Amarandlon's loyal right hand. What do you know of the others?"

"Kemeili is a Calistrian, one of their inquisitors. She took a liking to Radovan at the Midsummer Masque. Naturally that was a charade to insinuate herself into my company."

Variel nodded his approval of my conclusion.

"Oparal's purpose remains obscure. She is, as you would call her, Forlorn. She grew up in Cheliax as a paladin of Iomedae, but she returned to Kyonin and pledged her sword to Queen Telandia. She may be just what she seems: a servant to the queen."

"At least we can trust Fim."

"Can we?" Even as I spoke the words, I wondered why I should trust Variel or he should trust me. Until the previous hour, we had been strangers. "Whoever directed me to Fimbulthicket must also have known of my relation to you, yet I was allowed to discover the connection as if by chance. The ruse would have been difficult to effect without Fimbulthicket's complicity."

"That doesn't mean Fim knew of a plot."

"No, but his condition makes it difficult for me to discern his motives, especially since he succumbed to the Bleaching. The real question is why I have been manipulated, and by whom."

"Whom do you suspect?"

"Either Prince Amarandlon or the queen herself arranged for my journey. It is possible that one of them has also been manipulated, perhaps by the Calistrians or another party."

"The queen has long known where I am and what I am doing here."

"Then Amarandlon or the Calistrians. But to what end?"

"To force Telandia's hand. The prince is wise in war, but he grows weary of commanding a legion of skirmishers. He dreams of recovering a mighty weapon, one that would allow the forces of Kyonin to do more than hold the demon horde in abeyance."

"Zuldana?"

"It is better that you call her Zuldanavox. She permits me to contract her name only because she has grown fond of me over the decades. Once I made the mistake of calling her Dana. After the quarrel that followed, I spent the better part of a decade repairing the damage we caused to the temple district."

"You fought her?"

"Only until her temper cooled."

"I mean, you survived a fight with an ancient dragon?"

"Be careful not to suggest she is a day over nine hundred years. Unlike others of her kind, she's queerly sensitive about her age."

"But she is enormous!"

"That's another remark I'd suggest you not repeat in her hearing. In fact ..." He stood to peer down at the amphitheater. "We're probably all right so long as she's still talking with the others, but she can spy almost anywhere in the city."

His casual demeanor only increased my astonishment. "You fended off a wrathful dragon? Fimbulthicket says you are powerful in the Green, but ..." I could not imagine any lone elf surviving such a contest.

"If she had meant to kill me, I would be dead. I'm no match for her, spell to spell or otherwise."

"Is she so powerful that she could be the weapon Prince Amarandlon seeks?"

"If the prince thinks so, then he is a great fool. You must know enough about dragons to realize she would never willingly serve. Besides, I doubt Amarandlon knows of her existence. More likely he hoped to discover this city or something in it."

"Zuldanavox could be a powerful ally against the Witchbole."

"I agree, but such a relationship could occur only after a long and careful period of diplomacy."

"Which is why you are here."

Variel nodded, smiling.

"How did you overcome the wards concealing the city?"

"Ah!" He stood and retrieved an oaken quarterstaff leaning against a table. Its gnarled head resembled a clutching hand. A large turquoise slowly turned, suspended between the wooden digits in an effect reminiscent of Telandia's staff. "Shall I show you?"

"Please do."

We moved to the window, and Variel once again looked down at the amphitheater. "These interviews are passing more quickly than I'd thought."

Kemeili emerged from beneath the structure's domed roof. A trio of will-o'-wisps appeared, bobbing like balloons in her wake. As I reached for a riffle scroll, Variel said, "Don't worry. They seldom attack, and never so close to home. Some always lurk near Zuldana's lair to savor the fear in the city residents she occasionally summons for a good grovel."

Proving his words prophetic, the wisps abandoned Kemeili as she reached the manor. They stalked Oparal as she went to the amphitheater, but their bodies grew wan as they followed the fearless paladin.

"Here," said Variel. He offered me his hand. When I took it, he intoned a few words in a tone deeper than his speaking voice. The sound emanated not from his lips but from his chest, deep within his throat. I felt their vibrations throughout my body and saw the leaves of the living arches stir in sympathetic motion. Still grasping my hand, he stepped toward the nearest vine arch. "Come."

I followed, hesitating only for an instant as I saw him step into the living wood. When I followed, the arch offered no impediment to my passage between places. His Green magic transported us from his manor to somewhere else.

We arrived in a darkened hall. After a moment for my eyes to adjust to the gloom, I looked down the passage we had opened earlier to see the vine gate we had opened in the chambers beneath the city plaza. Variel had transported us from plant to plant, much as the whispering lilies I nurtured at Greensteeples communicated messages across vast distances.

"What is this?" said Variel. "Someone has tampered with my barrier."

"Our doing. We examined the vault but did not disturb the hidden spire."

He pressed a hidden panel on the wall to no obvious effect. He frowned, dissatisfied with the reaction.

"I am afraid we also disabled the trap."

"How many of my secrets have you already learned?"

I winced, but he smiled, apparently more impressed than annoyed.

In the faint moonlight of the corridor, I could barely discern the outline of the alcoves we found within the city's subterranean passage. I activated my tourmaline to illuminate the space. We entered the vault of the spire.

Variel studied my face for a moment. "Shall I trust you with a secret?"

Before I could answer, he touched the stones embedded in the surrounding hexagons with deliberate slowness. With each contact, an eldritch light suffused the stone. He spoke no words of magic, nor did I detect any furtive gestures from his other hand. It appeared that anyone who knew the sequence could operate the device.

The surrounding hexagons sank into the floor before moving aside. A stone spire rose out of the floor to fill the room, halting just before its tapered tip could touch the high ceiling. Purple witchlight played along the runes carved upon its six faces. Everywhere I saw signs and sigils of that darkest of all magic, necromancy.

Variel indicated another sequence of stones, this time careful not to touch them. At last he held his finger above a jasper. "That is to raise the spires to the surface. Do you have it?"

When I nodded, he pressed another sequence of stones, which I also consigned to memory. With a sound of grating stone, the spire sank once more into its hidden compartment. The arcane light flickered and died upon the activating stones.

"Come."

He led me out of the vault and over to the remaining alcove. Inside, he depressed the hidden wall panel and triggered an audible lock of the trapdoor. With another deep-chanted spell and a gesture of his staff, he parted the vine gate to reveal the passage to the sixth chamber. He gestured me toward the gemstones embedded in the floor.

"Would you care to do the honors? Just lift it from the vault. Please don't raise it into the city where Zuldanavox would see it."

I pressed the correct sequence to lift the spire from its vault. The runes along its edges glowed red. I expended a riffle scroll to confirm my suspicion: this spire channeled raw arcane energy, the stuff of fireballs and lightning bolts.

"Hasn't Zuldanavox come to examine these chambers herself?"

"She could, of course. You've seen how she sheds her shape. Still, the problem is ..." Variel winced as he considered his words. "She dislikes close quarters."

"A claustrophobic dragon?"

"Never put it that way where she might overhear," he warned. "Fortunately, this close to the spires, she can't spy upon us."

"That must be an effect of the warding spire."

"You understand these arcane matters better than I, but that was my assumption too. Anywhere else in the city, you never know for sure whether she is watching or listening."

"Why are you showing me this?"

His fingers danced across the gems. With a scrape of stone, the channeling spire vanished into the floor. He stood and slapped the dust from his hands. "You must be prepared to act as an emissary between Telandia and Zuldanavox in the event that I am killed."

The suggestion struck me like a cold dash of water. "Who would wish to kill you?"

"Perhaps one of your companions from Iadara."

"But to what end?" My thoughts reeled. No stranger to murder as a tool of courtly intrigue, I struggled to conceive of my father as a target. So soon after our first meeting, the prospect of losing him to an assassin felt overwhelming. "What would killing you achieve?"

"It would delay or destroy any chance of an agreement between Zuldanavox and Queen Telandia."

"Who would dare such treachery?"

"Some—perhaps your paladin of Iomedae—would object to treating with a dragon. And not everyone in Kyonin agrees with Telandia's measured approach to the question of the Witchbole."

"'The question of the Witchbole.' That is a phrase I learned only recently."

"It has long been a point of contention at court," Variel said. "Some among the Calistrians desire revenge for the sack of Shevaroth. Others feel the time is not yet ripe. Telandia's cautious approach to the horde has frustrated some among the rangers. The half-elves of Erages would welcome any disruption of Iadaran authority. A dozen other factions would be glad to see the balance of power tip one way or another."

"You have been away from court for a century. Much has changed in that time."

Variel smiled. "Do you know the aphorism about the difference between elves and humans?"

I did. Since pure elven societies on Golarion were generally restricted to the relative confines of Kyonin and a handful of other strongholds, they did not claim so much territory as the humans of Cheliax, for example. "Elves think a hundred miles is a long distance ..."

" ...and humans think a hundred years is a long time. Rest assured that little has changed since I was last summoned to court. The trick is to anticipate what an individual is willing to do to achieve a goal."

"And you think one might be willing to murder you?"

"I am the one thing all of your companions expected to find when they agreed to accompany you. If their intention was to convey a message to me, they have had ample opportunity."

"Perhaps their goals changed upon discovering this city and the dragon."

He nodded. "Undoubtedly. We must prepare for the worst."

Variel's impulsive confidence troubled me. "Why are you entrusting this information to me rather than Fimbulthicket? Simply because I share your blood?"

"You have no affiliation at court, and I believe you when you say you came to Kyonin for the carriage."

"That is as flimsy a reason as saying you trust me because I am your son."

"No, Varian," he said. "I trust you because you are Pontia's son."

For his posing such an argument, I began to love him.

It was no time to wallow in sentimentality. "Caladrel says the rangers have suspected the existence of this city. How many others might be aware of it?"

"Very few, I imagine. The druids and rangers of Kyonin have long sensed an anomaly in this part of the Fierani, but there are no records of its existence in the archives."

"How is that possible?"

"I was hoping you might have an opinion on the matter. Despite my facility with the Green, matters of the arcane often elude me."

"But such a deception on such a grand scale is barely conceivable. It would require both a massive conspiracy and enchantments of the highest order. The six spires must be the key, of course. You say that Zuldanavox has a curious mind. Has she not researched their function?"

"She has, although her reluctance to enter these chambers has limited her studies. I've described the chambers to her—in something less than perfect detail—but to her magic is not an academic pursuit but a birthright."

"But you have learned more than you have told her, yes?"

"A few things, perhaps. I know the inactive spires are not damaged, as I have led her to believe. I suspect some previous inhabitants of the city lowered them—whether intentionally or inadvertently, I can't say. Without knowing what they do, I've taken a cautious approach."

I remembered the caution hinted at in the notes he had left behind. "The pattern of these stones, and the arrangement of the six spires—do they not remind you of what you found within the Walking Man?"

"They do," he nodded. "Unfortunately, I never returned to perform practical experiments with the Walking Man. If only I had—"

"I did."

"You did?"

I took a deep breath and related the tale of my rash experiment. Variel's face paled when I described my unintentional drive toward Erages, but he seemed relieved to hear that I had at least some practical knowledge of the controls.

"Could you do more than raise and lower these spires?" he asked. "Can you control their powers?"

"Given time, perhaps. Obviously the illusions and wards are already active. We experienced that magic upon our approach. Presumably there are also transfiguration and enchantment effects in place, but I have not observed their effects. That leaves the inactive necromantic and energy spires ...and the seventh spire."

"Why a seventh spire?"

"The ancient Thassilonians divided arcane magic into seven schools or philosophies."

He frowned. "So?"

"So perhaps the elves in this city followed the same tradition."

He started to scoff, then stopped himself as he saw my serious expression, turning the sound into a discreet cough. "I suppose it's possible," he admitted. "Certainly there must have been information exchanged between the scholars of Kyonin and the human empire, in the days before Earthfall. And it may well be that this city was constructed during that period. But I still can't truly imagine our wizards giving up one of the eight classical schools of magic—nor undertaking such a drastic change on the advice of humans." He winced slightly. "No offense intended."

I nodded. Inside, my spirit deflated at his casual dismissal of my hypothesis, but I pressed on. "It is a bit of a leap, admittedly. I had hoped—but never mind. In the Walking Man, you noted six panels surrounding a seventh. And here we have six spires surrounding a plaza. Surely the similarity is more than mere coincidence."

He considered. "You think there's another spire under the plaza."

"My hypothesis exactly."

"What does it do?"

"If each spire is tuned to a different type of magic, then the final one could be devoted to either divination or conjuring. As you say, there's no reason the builders of this city should have stuck to the same divisions as the Thassilonians. Perhaps the final spire is attuned to both. Yet it seems to me that conjuration would be more in line with the functions of the other spires"

"Like summoning elementals to defend the city?"

"Possibly. But I believe it is an aiudara."

Variel blinked. "That would explain why I haven't found one anywhere else in the city."

"And Zuldanavox does not know of its existence?"

"She suspects there must be an aiudara within the city, but as long as I continue to unearth other treasures to engage her curiosity, she is content."

"It must be connected in some manner to these six spires. When I halted the Walking Man, it required triggering filaments from all six panels at once. Perhaps all six spires must be raised—or lowered—to activate the aiudara."

"How much did you learn of these spires before you found me?"

"Less than you have just showed me. The rest I am simply extrapolating."

"Do your companions know of the aiudara?"

"Not with certainty, no," I said. "But some of them are clever enough to make the same connection as I."

"Let us hope not. Zuldana has only just begun to warm to the notion of establishing diplomatic relations with Iadara, but she considers this city her territory. She would not be pleased to discover that the forces of Iadara could march in at any time."

"How can I help?"

"Should the subject arise in your conversation with Zuldanavox, emphasize that while the court factions may influence the queen, she alone has the power to make treaty—not Prince Amarandlon, not the Calistrians, and certainly not some Forlorn agent of Cheliax."

I almost laughed. "You need not fear that Oparal represents the empire."

"You would be surprised how often a Forlorn elf returns to Kyonin only to reveal herself loyal to her adopted land."

"It is hardly likely in this case."

"Why not?"

"Oparal is truly a paladin," I said.

"Isn't Iomedae the inheritor of Aroden's mantle? I imagine all the temples of Cheliax have adopted her worship by now."

A hundred years is indeed a long time. Now did not seem the moment to explain that since Variel last heard word of Chelish politics, House Thrune had taken control of the empire by virtue of an infernal compact with Hell. "Trust me when I say that Oparal is no agent of Cheliax."

"I will," he said.

"We must return before your dragon summons me to audience."

Variel took my hand and once more led me through the concourse of the Green. We emerged where we had begun. Arnisant leaped up and woofed at our sudden appearance. I gave him the sign to sit. Behind him, Radovan relaxed after reaching for the darts concealed in his jacket.

"Where'd you go, boss?"

"Just a turn about the garden," I said, simultaneously giving him the sign that all was well. Seeing it, he relaxed. "Where are the others?"

"Everybody's been wandering off after talking to the dragon. Fimbulthicket's waiting for Oparal downstairs. I'm supposed to wait here until he comes to fetch me. She wants to see you last."

"That's a striking jacket," said Variel.

"You like it?" Radovan turned around to show off the tooling. "I got it in a city called Goka on the other side of the world."

"They must have excellent tailors there," said Variel. "It's very well fitted."

I did not like Variel's admiring tone.

"Yeah." Radovan raised an arm to mime the act of elbowing an opponent. The spur on his elbow jutted out from the slot built into the arm. "Keeps me ready for action."

"I've no doubt of that."

"Show me the library," I said abruptly. "If you don't mind, I have more questions about the reasons this city was concealed after the Retreat."

"Of course."

"Sounds good," agreed Radovan, turning to lead the way. "Looks comfy in there."

"You go downstairs," I said. "Fimbulthicket will be waiting for you there."

"All right," said Radovan, seemingly oblivious to the flirtatious undercurrent of Variel's banter.

Radovan descended to the ground floor while Variel led me to the library. He spoke a resonant word that woke a dozen glowing blossoms to illuminate the chamber. Hundreds of volumes lined shelves on the eastern wall, safely away from the open western wall.

I was eager to pore over their titles, but I had to dispense with the tawdry matter at hand. "As Radovan might say, you are barking up the wrong tree."

Variel reached down to stroke Arnisant's head. "I was just being friendly."

"Well, stop it."

I ignored his laughter and went to the nearest table to peruse the lost history of the City of Thorns.

Chapter Sixteen

The Temple Baths

Radovan

It seemed to me like it'd take a thousand elves or more to fill the amphitheater. Even at the bottom, the dragon looked big enough that one good stretch would bring the place down. Above us, birds perched on the rotten shell of the roof and chirped at the sunrise. A flock of sparrows took off as I came in, shitting white streaks across the dragon's scales. She didn't seem to notice.

She sat still as a hill and twice as quiet while I walked down the aisle. She lounged in a flooded pit where a stage once stood. The sight of her should have grabbed all my attention, but I couldn't keep my eyes off the treasures surrounding us.

Heaps of brass urns, silver plates, gold chains, crystal goblets, and iron chests overflowing with ancient coins spilled over the tiers. I saw lacquered boxes and wardrobes, embossed shields and bows and curveblades, statues, carvings, goblets, and a bunch of paintings made of thin layers of colored wood. Tapestries and banners hung from wooden frames, and so did a map of the Inner Sea painted on the blue hide of a six-legged lizard. You could empty all the vaults of all the manors in Egorian and not come up with so much loot.

There were even few suits of gleaming plate armor standing guard among the treasure. Someone had to put in a lot of work to keep the metal shining. I wondered whether that was one of Variel's duties or if they had some servants hidden away. Either way, it was a nice touch. It caught my eye and tickled my greed. At the same time, the sheer amount of wealth reminded me that this was a dragon's hoard. I'd be a fool to palm so much as a copper coin.

I went down to stand on the Qadiran carpet on the tier nearest the dragon's head. Still she didn't make a sound. I wondered how she could even talk through jaws that had less in common with a mouth than with a city gate. Her smallest teeth were the size of rum kegs. Her fangs were longer than me. I caught myself staring at them and made myself look away.

A couple of chairs sat on either side of the carpet. Not just chairs but thrones of polished wood inlaid with gold and gemstones. Maybe she expected me to sit in one. Or maybe it was some kind of test to see how high I thought of myself. Did she expect me to bow? Kneel? Make a speech? I wondered what Caladrel had done. I should have spied on him earlier instead of hanging back near the boss. Whatever the others had done, they'd come out uneaten. I didn't want to break that streak.

Thinking about it was making me twitchy, so I swallowed the lump in my throat and looked up at the dragon's eyes. They glowed like emeralds held up against the sun. Looking up at them made me dizzy. As I felt myself about to fall backward, I blurted out, "So, you and the old man? How long's that been going on?"

A puff of green vapor came out of her nostrils, either one of which I might have squeezed into if I'd dared. Between them squatted a triangular horn the size of a ship's prow. There was a dent on either side where she'd scraped away the horn. When she turned her head, I saw it was the only way she could see past it to look straight forward.

All at once I wished I'd had a piss before coming. I remembered she had that effect on me the first time we met.

The words kept pouring out of my mouth. "I guess that's why you said his father's name when you caught us on the other side of the city. You smelled him, right? Desna smiles. I mean on us. It was lucky for us, not you. You don't need any luck, do you?"

The dragon's eyes were like the elves'—all iris, no whites. But they were also like a cat's, with a big narrow pupil that tracked me as I paced back and forth. My head spun from feeling them locked on me. "I'm going to sit down a second, if you don't mind. You want to—? I guess you're already sitting."

Now I'm babbling, I thought. Maybe she'd cast a spell to muddle my brain. Or maybe this is just how bugs feel when they look up to see Arni looking down at them. It was all I could do not to run away or throw myself behind a pile of coins and hope she forgot I was there.

"The others explained their reasons for intruding on my demesne." Her voice surprised me. It flowed into my ears like a slow summer river. There wasn't a damned thing I could do if she decided to sweep me away. All I could do was let the current take me and hope I didn't drown. "What is your excuse?"

"I'm just here with the boss—Count Jeggare. Varian Jeggare. Variel's son, that is. My boss." At that point I accepted the fact that, whether or not she'd cast a spell, I'd become a moron. She didn't say anything else, so I added, "I guess I came for the same reason he did."

"What is that reason?"

"To get his carriage fixed."

The dragon lifted her head so fast I felt like I was falling off a cliff. "What?"

"The Red Carriage. It was a gift from Variel something like eighty years ago. I don't know the details. My grandmother wasn't even born yet."

"Variel knew he had a son?"

"I guess so." The words were out before I realized they might cause the boss some trouble. "I don't know."

The dragon leaned down close. I shrank into the throne, hoping she wouldn't want splinters in her mouth. Instead of gobbling me up, she sniffed. I felt my hair rise as all the air rushed into her nostrils. When she spoke, I smelled the swamp on her breath. "There is something wrong with you."

"Lately, every woman I meet tells me that."

"I am no woman."

"I don't know. I got a pretty good look upstairs before you flew off. You could have fooled me."

She huffed. It wasn't my best line, but you got to lead with your strength. Wisps of yellow vapor blew into my face. The stuff stung my eyes and made me weep. Then I heard a sound like distant thunder, so close it buzzed my teeth and bones. When I realized what it was, I knew I was going to be all right.

I'd made her laugh.

"Now," she said. "Tell me about the others in your group."

∗ ∗ ∗

After I finally had that long, hard piss, I found the boss in the library. He sat at a table piled with stacks of books. I couldn't read the titles, but I would have bet a gold sail he'd sorted them by category before reading them in some clever sort of order. He had his nose stuck so deep in a book that I had to speak twice before he came up for air.

"Where's your old man?"

"He and Fimbulthicket are catching up."

The way he said it made me think he and Variel hadn't hit it off that well. I changed the subject and told him about my chat with the dragon, especially what I'd said I thought about the others in our merry band of misfits. Nothing that should have gotten anybody eaten, but I guess that depended a lot on what they'd had to say when it was their turn.

"It is better that you told the truth." He fed Arni a scrap of dried venison and wiped his fingers on a handkerchief. "She would have known had you attempted to dissemble."

"You're going to like her," I said. "She uses words like 'demesne.'"

He shot me the withering glare. After cracking wise with a dragon, I felt wither-proof. He did a double take and gave me a hard look. "How many of the words I have labored to teach you these past months have you already known?"

I'd been wondering how long it would take for him to catch me out. "I don't know. Four or five, maybe?"

He looked dubious, but I stood firm on my bluff. "Sometimes when I was waiting in the library, I'd pick up a book. You saw me do that plenty of times."

"I assumed you were admiring the illustrations."

"I like the pictures, especially the ones in the books you keep locked in the low cabinet."

He cleared his throat, and we were done clowning. "Were you able to bend your subtle intellect to discerning the dragon's true intentions?"

"Not even a little bit. She's what you'd call inscrutable."

"Perhaps I overestimated your facility for engaging the fair sex."

"You haven't seen her up close. She ain't all that fair anymore. But she likes me all right. I mean, I got no reason to think I'm on the menu. But I'll tell you one thing, she wants to put some fear in you. After that, she eases up. Use her name a couple times. She likes to hear it."

"Zuldanavox."

"I said 'Zuldana,' since that's what your old man called her."

He stared at me again like he was amazed I was still there. "That was rash. Variel warned me that contracting a dragon's name even by a syllable can cause irreparable offense."

"Maybe my good looks covered for me." I looked him over. "You'd better use the whole name."

Again with the withering, but he couldn't keep it up and cracked a smile. That was a good sign.

"Things went all right with your old man?"

"Better than expected. I still have many questions. Foremost among them is whether Zuldanavox will allow him to depart with us. From what he told me, I suspect her sense of territoriality extends to his person as well as to this city."

"Maybe you can work out a deal. You used to be a diplomat, didn't you?"

"A special envoy, yes, but only when my expertise provided an advantage to suit the occasion. My experience with elves is only slightly greater than my knowledge of dragons, which is to say 'insufficient.'"

"She likes magic. She'll get a kick out of your riffle scrolls."

"That could be useful. What else?"

"She wanted me to guess what the others wanted from her."

"What did you say?"

"I figure Caladrel wants a military alliance. Oparal, I got nothing except she serves the queen. Her being a paladin, you figure what you see is what you get. Kemeili's the tricky one. Maybe she really does represent the queen, maybe the temple. She's been slippery whenever I've tried to get some read on her."

"Slippery, you say?"

"Hey, you're the one who said I had to keep her happy. Anyway, Zuldanavox didn't seem too surprised."

"Perhaps you will have better luck now that they have revealed themselves to the dragon. See what you can learn from Caladrel or Kemeili. I shall do what I can to lure the dragon into revealing something to me."

"Good luck with that, but don't push it, all right? I don't want to go back without you, boss."

"You know," he said, putting aside his book, "after all we have gone through these past few years, you can call me Varian."

"Yeah, I know."

He nodded, looked like he was going to say something else, but just nodded again.

"I'll go charm the elves." I tipped him a wink. "You go outwit the dragon."

He headed over to the amphitheater, Arnisant at his heel. I turned to walk down the hill, where I'd seen Kemeili heading after her chat with Zuldanavox a couple hours back. Something itched inside me. I turned to look at the boss, catching him just as he turned back to look at me. For a second I felt like maybe I should go with him, even though no bodyguard could protect him from that dragon.

"You keep him out of trouble, Arni." I touched my chin, the way we do down on Eel Street. The boss surprised me by doing the same before we turned and went our separate ways.

About a street away, I found Oparal sitting on the base of a statue of an elf reaching up to cradle the sun or moon in her arms. The paladin didn't notice me at first. I thought about coughing so I didn't surprise her and get my nose re-broken, but her posture told me something was wrong. She'd left her sword and shield leaning against the statue. Her head hung low.

I crept up for a better look. Her eyelashes glistened in the morning sun. I'd never noticed how long they were. "You all right?"

She barely turned at the sound of my voice. Maybe she'd known I was there the whole time. She opened her eyes wide to keep the tears from her cheeks. "I'm fine."

I moved around to her other side and leaned on the statue, careful not to get too close. "Did the dragon do something to you?"

She tried to sneer but failed.

"I was pretty scared at first, too."

"I was not scared."

"No, 'course you weren't." I raised my palms to mime worshiping at her feet. "'Fearless paladin!'"

"You know nothing about it," she said. "You've no responsibility except to your master."

"He's not—"

"Spare me. I lived in Cheliax long enough to know that all hellspawn are either criminals or slaves."

That crack should have got a rise out of me, but it didn't. Maybe it's because it was basically true. "I know we haven't gotten along all that great, but if there's anything you need—"

"Don't you ever give up?" she said. "Your advances are no less repugnant now than they were when we met."

"I'm not advancing anything. You just looked sad. I didn't— You know, forget it. Whatever problems you got, you can keep 'em. Which way did Kemeili go?"

Oparal looked as if she was about to say something. Instead, she pointed south at the Temple of Calistria.

"Thanks." I headed down the hill at a trot, resisting the urge to look back as I heard Oparal mutter something about dragons, queens, and liars.

I kept my attention on the street. The last thing I wanted was for some of those giant bugs or wandering plants to sneak up on me.

Variel hadn't kept the temple district as tidy as the streets near his manor, but the area wasn't as overgrown as the west side. It looked like the place had been hit by an earthquake, too. There were lots of places where Variel's magic vines held a wall together or replaced a fallen roof. I relaxed a little, figuring I'd see or hear anything nasty coming my way. Still, I didn't call out Kemeili's name. Even though Zuldanavox had put the fear into them, there were more leucrottas running around the city somewhere.

That thought made me think we were stupid to split up again. I couldn't think of why the others would do that, unless it was because of something the dragon told them. Caladrel disappeared after telling Kemeili it was her turn, and she vanished after passing it off to Oparal. At least the paladin hadn't gone far, and I was guessing Fimbulthicket had gone back to the manor with Variel.

The drone of wasps grew loud as I got close to the temple. I hoped that was because the onion-shaped roof magnified the sound. Otherwise, there were lots of bugs in there. Or big ones. Most likely lots of big ones.

Balconies and ornaments from the upper levels had fallen into piles at the base of the temple. Most of its columns were still standing, but the entrance had collapsed a long time ago.

In another spot, someone had hacked away the vines hanging over a clear pool. It had overflowed its fountain to fill a gulley beside the temple wall. I peeked inside but saw nobody. Then I heard the singing.

Kemeili had never sung for me before—not like that, anyway—but I recognized her voice. My Elven wasn't good enough for me to follow all the lyrics, but I picked up enough words to know it was a prayer. I understood the phrases the Lady in the Room and the Unquenchable Fire, two more names for Calistria. From what I could piece together, the rest of the song seemed equal parts worshipful and really, really dirty.

I moved in, careful not to kick around the debris littering the halls.

Following the sound of the song, I went down a long ramp to a grotto beneath the main floor. Kemeili had set candles floating on ceramic dishes, but almost as much light shone down from fist-sized grubs crawling on the ceiling. Their fat yellow bodies caught the candle light and cast it across the ceiling. I got a shudder trying to imagine what they were going to grow up to be.

The light reflected off three wedge-shaped pools of green water and onto a statue of Calistria. She had just dropped a gown to dip a toe into one of the pools. Kemeili stood there in the water, naked as the goddess. She stroked the foot of the statue as she sang, her supple hands applying pressure as if massaging flesh.

Kemeili's head turned, and I knew she was trying to get a glimpse of me out of the corner of her eye. She pretended not to see me, but she let go of Calistria's foot and cupped water in her hands. Turning just enough to give me a better view, she poured water over her face and let it trickle down over her small breasts and the gentle curve of her belly.

"All right, all right," I said. "I didn't come here to peep."

She shot me an exasperated look. "Why not? That would have been a fun way to start."

"Good point." I went over to crouch on the floor between the baths. "But it's time to talk."

"Varian sent you to find out what I said to the dragon, I imagine."

"Something like that."

"What's in it for me?"

"Like the kids say, you show me yours, I'll show you mine."

She grabbed the toe of my boot and tugged me toward the water. "That sounds more like it."

"I was being metaphorical," I said. "Besides, there's plenty of time for the other thing later."

"Are you sure?" she said. "How do you know Zuldanavox doesn't plan to hunt us like the leucrottas?"

"I got a feeling somebody might've made her a better offer by now. You and Caladrel sure were eager to talk with her. It's almost like you knew about the dragon before we saw her."

"Are you asking me?"

"Yeah."

"And what do you offer in return for my answer?"

"I don't—"

"The jacket."

"No way. I love this jacket. Besides, it wouldn't fit you."

"I meant for you to take it off."

"Oh, well, that's all right then." I shrugged it off and set it on a little stone bench.

"I knew we might find a dragon."

"That's it? That's all you've got?" I reached for the jacket.

"An ancient and powerful dragon," she added. "There have been rumors ever since the Return."

"Go on."

"Pants."

"I can't take them off over my boots."

"Your boots, then."

"One boot."

"I thought you enjoyed playing with me."

"I'm just playing by your rules."

"Ah." She frowned, then brightened. "Good. One boot, then."

I grabbed the boot by toe and heel, but as soon I was standing on one foot, she pulled me into the pool. I came up sputtering mad. "Girl, I told you I didn't want my leathers wet."

"Now you have no choice but to take them all off."

"Why would I want to—oh." She started in on the laces and showed me a good reason. It was good enough that I lost track of my original point. For a while we didn't talk as much as I'd planned, but I managed to slip in a few questions along the way. After the second time we came up for air, she admitted she'd come along to keep an eye on us for the temple.

"So, who are you really working for?" I said.

"No matter what Oparal or Caladrel might have told you, the temple serves the queen, not its own interests."

I took that for what it was worth, which wasn't much. She asked me more about the boss, and I told her the truth. As far as I knew, he had no idea his old man was even alive before Fimbulthicket told him different. He really had come to Kyonin to get his carriage repaired.

She stayed slippery in more ways than one, never really telling me what she'd said to the dragon. She hinted that whatever she'd said was in the interest of the queen, even if it wasn't on her orders. The more I asked, the more she did things to prevent me from talking. She was pretty persuasive, and after a while we lay beside the pool to dry off.

"That was nice," she said after catching her breath.

"Nice?"

"Well, our first night was more exciting, after you broke out of the cuffs so quickly. And of course even that couldn't compare to being interrupted by a unicorn. That was ..." She shuddered with pleasure at the thought.

"You can have the unicorn. I'd rather—" I realized she could take that two ways.

"You can't stop thinking about Oparal, can you?"

All right, so she could take it three ways. "That's not what I—"

"I must admit, I've thought about her, too."

"You have?"

"Imagine that thick black hair spilling onto your face. And those long fingers of hers, so strong and sure."

I didn't even try not to imagine it, but I couldn't stop picturing how sad she'd looked sitting by the statue. Thinking of all the times she'd appeared mad at me, the boss, or the others, I wondered whether her bad attitude wasn't just another shield.

"You know," Kemeili purred, "the unicorn would not have submitted to her unless she was chaste. How often have you had the pleasure of a woman's first embrace?"

That was the wrong thing to say to me. For most of my life I'd been owned, just like the girls bought by Trick Alley brothels who made back their price by auctioning their virginity.

Kemeili saw it on my face and changed tactics.

"It's not as if she doesn't already desire you," she said. "You said it yourself, she can't keep her hands off you."

I felt my broken nose. "Yeah, that's done wonders for me so far."

"You know there's more to it than that. I think the reason you've avoided me lately is that you'd rather be with her."

"Nah."

"You can't tell me you wouldn't love to take her in your arms, open her mouth with your tongue, and fill that aching warmth she has been saving all her life."

"Never gave it a thought."

"No?" Her fingers trailed down my chest and across my belly. Before I could wriggle away, her hand caught me where I couldn't lie. "Admit it. You've been thinking of her this whole time. You've been wondering what it would be like to have us both. You could, you know."

A blind man could spot that trap a mile away. Still, considering what I knew of Kemeili—especially her bedroom decorations and what she kept behind that third panel—she could be serious. The possibilities were beyond tempting. But the risk ...

She shifted her grip and twisted hard. "You are thinking about it!"

"Gah!" This was the second time she'd proved that knowing there was a trap wouldn't keep me from falling into it.

"I knew it." She pushed me away and moved toward her clothes. Above her, a bright patch on the ceiling caught my attention. A big pile of bugs clustered there. The more they climbed over each other, the more the pile of them drooped down like a stalactite.

I grabbed Kemeili and pulled her away just as the first bugs fell. "What are you—?"

The bugs answered her question as two or three splashed into the pool. More plopped onto the floor and skittered around, afraid to crawl in any direction. A big mess of them came down on my clothes. The rest kept bunching up above us.

"They're trying to get us," I said.

Kemeili clutched her clothes to her body and stepped back from the rain of larvae. She looked up as she stepped into her leathers. "No they aren't." She pointed at the ceiling farther away. The bugs moved toward the center of the room. "They're trying to get away from something else."

All around the edges room, I saw the dull glow of fire-colored eyes. Their silhouettes were all angles and spines, pincers and claws. I recognized the goat-headed dwarves and the worm-stuffed elves. Somehow the demons had gotten into the city, and they were coming for us.

I lunged for the jacket. All the demons shifted when they saw me move. I grabbed the big knife and sidestepped away from Kemeili. They demons moved with me again.

"Go get the others."

"I won't leave you here alone." She cracked her whip, but none of the demons reacted. I leaped over one of the pools. They moved to cut me off.

"You've got to. The two of us could never fight our way through this gang."

She didn't like it, but she saw the sense in it. "I'll be back."

"Go!" I ran at a cluster of the little goat guys. The first one got one hell of a surprise. I jerked the big knife out of his throat and slashed another across the arm. As the rest of the demons surged toward me, I got one last glimpse of Kemeili running away, her heart-shaped bottom churning under her leathers.

As last sights go, I figured, that one wasn't so bad.

Chapter Seventeen

Interview with the Dragon

Varian

There was no need to feign my fear as I bowed before Zuldanavox. The greater struggle was to prevent myself from reaching for my handkerchief and covering my nose against the stench of her lair. Her breath was even worse, and she directed the occasional plume of sulfurous vapor in my direction to test my composure.

To his everlasting credit, Arnisant barely whimpered as the wretched gas passed over us. The hound remained obediently at my heel, albeit with his head upon the floor.

I finished my courtesy before coughing into my fist and wiping the tears from my eyes. "Mighty Zuldanavox, I greet you on behalf of myself alone and beg forgiveness for my ignorant trespass."

She remained as still and silent as a monument. I averted my gaze from her eyes but could not help admiring her gleaming scales. Even the least of them would provide the material for a spell allowing me to replicate her caustic breath. I wondered what she would think if she looked inside my satchel and found the red dragon scales.

Like a queen, she allowed her silence to weigh upon me. As a courtier, I was used to such methods of intimidation, but never from such a physically intimidating creature. Still, I knew my role and awaited her judgment like a soldier attending his commander.

When at last she spoke, her voice caused the surrounding treasures to tremble. "What boon do you beseech of me?"

"While I did not know of you until yesterday, I came here seeking my father. I ask that you allow him to return with me to Omesta."

"For what reason?"

"To—" I could not utter the words, so trivial did my purpose now seem. What did a creature nine times my age care of repairing the Red Carriage? Even to me, who had cherished the vehicle all my life, it seemed absurd to have traveled so far and endured such dangers simply to enlist the efforts of a carriage maker. Besides, my purpose had changed. Before that moment, I did not know how to express it. "So that he may introduce me to my elven family, show me the city where they live, and teach me what it means to be an elf."

The dragon rose and turned three times before settling once more. I struggled not to compare her gesture to that of Arnisant even in my imagination, for I knew some dragons could skim the thoughts of other creatures. Once more she fixed me with those unknowable eyes. "As you have no doubt discerned, I have grown accustomed to Variel's company. What do you offer in return for such a favor?"

For this much I was prepared. "I have uncovered an unusual form of magic, long forgotten among human wizards."

"Show me."

For this too had I prepared. I produced the riffle scroll from its pouch on my bandolier and fanned it before her. "On each of these tiny pages I have drawn a fraction of an arcane rune, divided by a formula derived from the cadence and gestures necessary to produce the spell's effect." Closing the scroll, I turned to show that I was not casting the spell in her direction and let the edges slip out beneath my thumb. The magic filled my body, and I kicked upward to hover a few feet above the floor.

Zuldanavox turned her head in a manner I took for interest. Once more I spread open the scroll, showing her that the runes had vanished as I discharged the spell.

"An interesting novelty," she said. "But I require no scrolls to work my magic."

"Of course not," I said. "Yet as a seeker of knowledge, you might extrapolate this simple function into something beyond my meager ability to suggest."

She growled, a great deep sound almost beneath the range of my hearing. Arnisant sat up and looked anxiously to me. I gave him the sign to lie down and thanked Desna that he obeyed. I had displeased the dragon with my clumsy flattery, but to apologize directly would be to acknowledge it. I abandoned my prepared speech. "In truth, the secret of the riffle scrolls was not forgotten as much as it was discarded. Apart from its novelty, it is useful only to those suffering from a rare handicap."

"What is that?"

"While I comprehend the theory of magic well enough, when I arrange a spell in mind, I suffer debilitating physical side effects."

"What sort of side effects?"

"Muscle aches, dizziness, and ..." How I loathed saying it aloud. "Nausea."

The dragon huffed, producing twin rings of vapor from her nostrils. Her inhuman face concealed whether she snorted in derision or amusement, but then she pressed her snout against my chest and inhaled.

The movement was so sudden, her head so massive, that I reeled in an overpowering sense of vertigo. Arnisant leaped to my defense, but I called out his name to halt a fatal provocation. There was nothing he could do to save me if Zuldanavox meant to kill.

But she did not intend harm. Instead, she sniffed so deeply that I felt my hair drawn up and my entire body pulled against the scales of her snout. Her body was much cooler than I had expected, not wholly reptilian but neither as warm as a mammal. As her breath subsided, I felt myself released from the current.

"Why do you suffer such difficulty with magic?" she asked. So close to her mouth, I felt her words like the first gusts of a summer storm.

"I do not know," I said truthfully.

"I will tell you the answer," she said. "You were not born to be a wizard."

"What?"

"Tell me about your mother."

"What?"

"I will soon regret sparing your life if your words do not become more interesting."

"My mother was Pontia Jeggare, a noblewoman of Cheliax."

"And Variel's lover, yes?"

"Yes." I disliked hearing my mother referred to by such a term. She should have been Variel's wife, but for her pride and his.

"And you think she was human?"

"What?"

"If I hear that word again, our conversation will conclude most abruptly."

"Of course she was human," I said. My teeth hurt from the effort of containing my anger. "She was heir to the greatest lineage in all of Egorian, one of the four most ancient lines in all of Cheliax, second in prestige only to the ruling house of Thrune and the noblest lady of her generation!"

"Yet she gave birth to a half-elven bastard."

"How dare—?" My hand turned to ice with the effort of not reaching for the Shadowless Sword.

"Have you never wondered where else your ancient family tree has branched?"

"There is no blemish on my lineage." Except my own bastardy, I thought.

"Then why," said Zuldanavox, "do you smell of dragon?"

The question paralyzed me. Its implications shook my will so greatly that I dropped to the ground. I barely remained standing from the jolt, but with it came understanding: Zuldanavox smelled some draconic essence on me. Yet it was not my ancestry she detected.

It was only my broken heart.

"Months ago, I suffered a grievous injury." I touched my breast. "My life was spared by the essence of a celestial dragon."

Zuldanavox raised her head again, neck arching in a gesture I took for disbelief. She lowered her head and sniffed again. Arnisant lay his head flat upon the floor and covered his muzzle in two enormous paws.

"I prefer my theory, but I suppose it is plausible," Zuldanavox said. The timbre of her voice rose in suspicion. "Did you murder this dragon for his heart?"

"No, it was a gift."

"To you?"

"No, to another who shared it with me."

"Tell me more."

And so I related the story of my recent journey to Tian Xia. I found myself expanding upon details I had barely sketched when talking with Variel. Somehow the knowledge that Zuldanavox cared nothing for me—might easily snuff my life at the most insignificant slight, intended or accidental—compelled me to speak with utter candor. I spoke bitterly of my demeaning treatment at Dragon Temple, the petty rivalries among my so-called brothers there, and my genuine astonishment at the fraternal bonds that eventually grew from such inauspicious origins. Finally I described my helpless wonder at the grace bestowed upon me by a princess of Quain.

Difficult as it was to interpret the body language of a creature the size of a townhouse, I sensed Zuldanavox was disappointed at my story. "Did you really think me descended of a dragon-human union?"

"It is uncommon," she said. "But it has been known."

Another shocking thought sprouted in my imagination. "You and Variel haven't—"

"Certainly not. He has been useful in gathering the treasures of this city and occasionally helpful in deciphering its mysteries, but he is no fit sire for my offspring."

"You are fond of him, though."

After a ten-second silence, she said, "I have grown accustomed to his presence."

Suppressing a smile, I mused privately that such words probably constituted a warm endearment from her when discussing an elf.

"Fly with me." No sooner had she uttered the words than she launched her massive form into the air. The beating of her wings crushed me to the floor and sent Arnisant sprawling. As she rose through the western opening of the amphitheater, the gale subsided.

"Stay," I bade Arnisant before taking to the air to follow.

Zuldanavox circled twice to allow me to catch up with her. Even by expending another spell to speed my flight, there was no way to keep pace with her. With each stroke of her vast wings, she propelled herself acres across the overgrown city. By stalling and gliding, she allowed me to soar beside her as she flew a tight circle around the central plaza. I dreaded the questions she would ask me there.

"What did you discover of the missing spires?" Out in the open air, her voice sounded more like a wave than thunder.

"One projects some sort of necromantic effect," I said, trusting that simple honesty would be the best protection against Variel's secret. There was no point denying that we had seen the subterranean chambers. If she had spied on us through her magic, even if Variel was correct that she could not scry upon the hidden chambers, she would know we had been there. The challenge was not to volunteer more than she asked.

Unfortunately, she was too persistent for that ploy to succeed. "What of the other?"

"Probably energy-channeling magic."

For a few moments we circled the plaza without speaking. I wondered how well versed she was in the classical schools of arcane magic. Like sorcerers, including those whose bloodlines descend from the ancient wyrms, dragons have an innate command over magic. Unlike wizards, they need not learn arcane formulae to unleash their spells. Everything I had learned of Zuldanavox suggested her hunger for knowledge exceeded even mine. It would be a mistake to assume she was ignorant of the mystery of the unrepresented schools. While I fretted silently about what she might deduce from what I had told her, she surprised me with a different question.

"Can you raise them?"

Recalling my own advice to Radovan, I said, "Yes."

"What will happen if you do?"

"That I cannot know without much more study," I said. "Obviously the others are designed to defend the city. Perhaps they harm invaders or create defenders or compel resident creatures to defend the city, but those are reckless suppositions."

"I could use more recklessness."

Zuldanavox flew toward the northwestern district. I followed as swiftly as possible, concerned that my flying spell would not persist long enough for the return journey. Despite the enhancements I wove into the riffle scroll, I could remain airborne for only a short period.

Zuldanavox flew to the highest tower in the city's mage district. She perched near its roof for a moment before her figure shrank and transformed into the elven shape I had first encountered. As I alit on the balcony on which she stood, I saw her slip a platinum band around her finger.

The ornament was not her only attire. Her magic also conjured clothing. She wore snug leggings and a simple vest, both of deep green suede. An undyed cotton blouse hung loose upon her arms, embroidered at cuff and collar with thread of gold. Seeing no weapon on her person reminded me that she hardly needed one. She leaned on the balcony railing and looked out across her city. The morning breeze lifted her hair, from which I detected an altogether agreeable scent of fresh leaves. Her feigned image appeared far more approachable than her true form.

"When did you first discover this city?" I asked.

"Is that your subtle way of asking my age?"

"No, no, no, definitely no."

She laughed, tossing her head as if she were a girl on the brink of adulthood. I smiled as though my panicked reply were an intentional joke.

"The city is mine," she said. "I took it from no one, but I could take it back from anyone. Do you understand?"

"I do." I barely stopped myself from adding, "Your Majesty."

"The elves flatter themselves that they could wrest it from me."

"Not all elves," I said. "Telandia is known for her wisdom. Surely she would treat with you rather than threaten."

"You are a fine parrot to your father."

"I share his opinion."

"You are not even an elf."

"No, I am not," I said. "I have met many elves in my years, but I have never understood their people. By heritage and breeding I am human."

She turned to me at that, leaning close as if to sniff at me again. Instead she put her cheek close to mine, the soft illusion of her flesh brushing against my skin.

A decadent thrill passed through me. Simultaneously I felt a guilty excitement and an uninvited understanding of my father's association with this creature. What she lacked in genuine humanity she more than sufficed in its semblance.

"Please, will you tell me something of what you have learned about this city?" I asked.

"Why do you care to know?"

"My passion—"

"Your passion?" She moved closer.

"My greatest interest is in discovering new knowledge, or recovering that which was lost."

"You sound like a Pathfinder."

Remembering Variel's reaction to my revelation that I belonged to that society, I hesitated before answering. My hesitation was all the answer Zuldanavox required.

"You are a Pathfinder!"

I bowed my admission, hoping it would not be my final gesture.

"I adore Pathfinders."

Some mad whim put Radovan's words on my tongue. "Not for supper, I trust."

Her eyes widened, and for an instant the morning light imbued them with breathtaking radiance. I felt my lips part in a schoolboy's gape at her beauty.

"No," she said with a lascivious smile. "But perhaps for dessert."

The vertigo returned. I gripped the balcony railing for support, inadvertently clutching her hand. As I withdrew it, she fastened her grip upon me.

"You wish me to let Variel leave this place," she said.

"Yes."

"I will do so, on one condition."

"Yes?"

"You take his place."

"What?"

She sighed. "I thought we had won past that obstruction."

"I cannot possibly ...I mean, I have obligations at home." I swallowed the lump in my throat and exerted a supreme effort not to stammer. "Besides, what is the point of bringing him away if he cannot take me to Riverspire and introduce me to my family?"

"In winter, then," she said. "Come to me in winter. You know things Variel never learned. You have traveled far beyond the borders of Kyonin. Help me uncover the secrets of this place. Spend the rest of the year where you will."

"I am not like Variel. I do not dispense my affections so freely."

"Ah."

"I mean no disrespect to you nor to him."

"Ah."

"I mean nothing would please me more than to plumb the mysteries of this city, but ..."

"But?"

"I have been long away from home, neglecting my obligations to my tenants, my peers, and my family."

"Have you any family closer than a father?"

"Well, no. But my obligations ..."

"Just the winters, then. Six short months."

"Six? There are four seasons to a year."

"Let us say four months, then."

"What are we negotiating?"

"How much do you wish to serve Queen Telandia?" She gripped my hand tightly. There was no more warmth in her fingers. "How fond are you of your bodyguard? Your father?"

Despite my befuddlement, her insinuation did not elude me. Nevertheless, I recognized that we had only begun to negotiate. "One month, perhaps, every few years as my previous obligations allow."

"One month?"

I bit my tongue against the temptation to reverse her earlier criticism of my vocabulary. "I welcome a counteroffer."

She showed me her teeth, flawless pearls in a bed of pink flesh. I wondered how she would react to Radovan's big smile. She must have seen the hint of mirth upon my lips, for then she smiled. "Three months annually," she said. "And you must bring a substantial gift."

Emboldened by her favorable humor and the thought of Radovan's unorthodox tactics, I leaned forward and said, "What gift could exceed the pleasure of my company?"

"Something wrought of gold." Her expression hardened. "Adorned with the rarest jewels. I assume I need not mention it must contain a form of magic I have never before seen, lest I be displeased."

I sensed we approached the limit of our negotiations. "Your terms are most generous."

She shrugged. "I'll give the notion some consideration, when I have no more important matters to consider."

"As you wish, Majesty."

Her eyes flashed, and I feared I had gone too far until her lips curved in a satisfied smile.

"Naturally, the results of the others' entreaties may interfere with my ability to visit. I will be freer to travel if you and Queen Telandia establish a mutually beneficial agreement."

She turned her head to look askance at me. "I can't decide whether your clumsy ploys are calculated or naturally charming."

"Can they not be both at once?"

She thought on that. "No."

"Then I insist my intention was charm."

"If you intended it, then it is calculating."

The confectionary tone of her banter caused me to smile until I saw that she was not smiling with me. "There is no point in my trying to charm you, Zuldanavox. It is possible I have seen some things that you have not, but your experience is far greater than mine, and your wits too keen for any pretense I have learned. I have told you plainly what I want, and if it pleases you that I visit you from time to time, it should be my pleasure. You have my word as a gentleman that I will obey our agreement. Yet beyond all that, I implore you, as my father asked of me, to put your faith in Queen Telandia before any other elf of Kyonin. She is the rightful ruler of her land, just as you are the rightful queen of this city."

I stopped before my shortness of breath became obvious. While I meant every word that I had spoken, I knew I might sound too bold for the dragon's liking. Considering our relative stature, she might take umbrage at the suggestion that she should place any store in my word.

She stood to her full—illusory, I reminded myself—height and looked down at me. I straightened my back, prepared to face her wrath as bravely as I might. If nothing else, I thought, I knew where to pull the riffle scroll that would break my fall. I could fling myself from the balcony and run for shelter, praying that her aversion to close quarters might save me if I took shelter underground.

She settled back to lean upon the balcony railing. "You are not as much like Variel as I first thought."

"I hope that you find me sufficiently like him that we may be friends."

"No," she said. "But perhaps sufficiently different. You have a better understanding of the arcane, and despite your youth, perhaps a broader knowledge. Much of what Variel can tell me, I already know."

I thought of Radovan's vocabulary lessons and felt foolish. As a cloud passed over the wreath of brambles above us, I glanced up and realized for the first time how much the dome above us appeared like a crown above the city, its points made of thorns.

I made a ring of my thumbs and forefingers and raised my hands as if to crown her. At my gesture, Zuldanavox raised a perfect green eyebrow. "If I may be of any service to the Queen of Thorns in an embassy to Iadara, Her Majesty has but to command me."

As I dropped my hands and stepped back into a formal bow, I realized my grandiloquent gesture was too much by half. In her presence, I was once more the callow youth who had learned the extravagance of love at the tutelage of an Ustalavic countess, or the foolish old man who had yearned after a Tian princess less than a quarter his age. This time I was a feeble man currying favor with one of the most powerful creatures on the face of Golarion.

As I raised my head, I saw Zuldanavox smiling down at me. If nothing else, I had amused her. Her levity soon passed, and she spoke in a somber tone. "If you can make the elves of Iadara understand that this is my domain..." She turned with a gesture to encompass the entire city, but her eyes fixed on the central plaza. Her benign expression contorted into a snarl of rage. "What is this?"

I saw immediately what had angered her: the four spires of the central plaza had disappeared.

"You sent your henchman to deactivate them while you lured me here," she rumbled.

"No, I swear," I turned back to face the dragon, imploring her to reason. "Besides, I followed you here."

She pointed southeast. "What is that?"

A mass of figures spilled out of the Calistrian temple. I drew the spyglass from my coat and focused on the site. Dozens of demons bustled and shoved against each other. At the center of the mob four massive figures held the naked Radovan by arms and legs. They peered around and shifted direction as they spied something approaching from the edge of the dome.

I lowered the spyglass and spotted another mob of demons approaching from an open gate to the south. At their head slithered a four-armed woman on the body of an enormous centipede. She brandished four glowing swords of enigmatic shape and mouthed unholy words as she advanced on Radovan.

"What have you done?" roared Zuldanavox. She plucked the ring from her finger and leaped onto the balcony rail. Once again I saw her lithe elven form enlarge and transform into a sinewy green dragon.

"Nothing, I swear it!" I drew the remaining flying scroll from my bandolier and unleashed its magic, but I was too late. Even as I sprang into the air, the demon-priestess closed with Radovan and raised her weapons. Plunging the blades into his body, she tore him open in four directions.

Radovan's scream tore through the city as I leaped off the tower, knowing I was far too late to save him.

Chapter Eighteen

The Little Hell

Radovan

Once, when I was kid, I stole a rope of pepper cheese as long as my arm. Grub at the Goat Pen had been scarce that fall, so I ate the whole thing before I went to hand over the day's other pickings. Zandros took one sniff of me, realized what I'd done, and ordered three of the bigger boys to beat the truth out of me. When I confessed, he laughed himself to tears. He called off the boys, saying I'd soon suffer enough for my crime.

He wasn't wrong.

The bellyache started that night. I didn't sleep a wink. Worst, I stayed bound up inside the whole next day and the next one after that. The peppers burned me from the inside while the cheese kept it all from passing through.

It finally got so bad I gave every last coin of my emergency stash to my favorite hedge witch in the Longmarket. In exchange, she gave me a potion full of floating bits and chunks. She shouted something as I ran off, chugging back the oily brew. Too late I realized she was telling me to wait until I hit the privy before drinking the stuff.

I got off the street just in time to leave a permanent stain on the back wall of a tinsmith's shop. When all the runny cheese and chunky bits of pepper began their charge, I felt equal parts agony and relief.

It was that kind of feeling when the demons peeled my body open to let the Abyss blow through me and into the world.

After the centipede-woman tore me open, I felt a distant howling. It didn't come from anywhere in the dome city. It came from somewhere deep inside of me, a place farther away than anything could get. But it was coming closer.

Some of the sounds were words I recognized. I didn't understand them, but I knew them for demonspeak. Most of the sounds were nothing intelligible. They were screams of pure hate.

It grew louder as the fiendish voices churned into me, filling me up and burning me from the inside. When the sound grew loud enough to deafen me, I saw the first demon fly out through the hole they'd made in me. It sprang out tiny as an imp but grew large as it capered out into the daylight. It sang out a gleeful word, and somehow I knew what that one meant: Freedom!

As it bounded away, the next one popped through. That one hadn't even hit the ground before the third one boiled up to spill on the ground like a bag full of eels.

They didn't stop coming. As each one pushed through, all its violence snapped my body like a wet flag. My eyes flickered open and closed again. Soon the pain ate up my sight, and all I could see were pulses of red and green against the morning sky.

Soon I couldn't even hear the screaming, the demons' or my own. I could only feel the pain slowly tipping me back. I felt like I was lying over the edge of the cliff, and someone down below was pulling on my hair, pulling me over inch by inch.

Then I went over.

I felt the fall, but only for an instant. But instead of plunging into the Abyss, I felt myself flip over like a mirror on a stand. Where I'd been staring at the sky, now I was looking down into an endless dark. Before I could get used to that feeling, I lost the last sense of weight. I could have been looking up, down, or sideways for all I could tell.

I tried to open my eyes, but I didn't even feel my lids move. I had no tongue to speak, no lips to whistle. I heard a sound like a water drop, but only from my right side.

Maybe the demons had cut off my ear.

I listened harder. When the sound came again I heard an echo. It was like the drip of water in a cavern.

The instant I imagined a cave, I felt a damp coolness, but not on any particular part of my body. I couldn't feel hands or legs or the hair on my neck. I couldn't feel the wounds the demons had torn into my chest, nor even the summer air. I couldn't smell anything, not even stone or water. I knew I wasn't in the dome city anymore.

It started to dawn on me that I wasn't anywhere in the world.

A dull orange light formed in the nowhere around me. Just like my hearing, I sensed it only on my right side.

Maybe the demons had torn me in half.

Weird thing was, that thought didn't fill me with horror. It was like whatever had happened to me in the dome city happened to somebody else, or maybe just to the things I'd left behind. My body was like an old set of clothes I didn't need anymore. Except maybe for the jacket I'd left in the baths.

I was going to miss that jacket.

Another drip struck, and all the light rippled in circles from a spot I could almost feel. The sensation was as much a thought as a feeling. Somehow I knew it hadn't hit my body. It hit something within me, some invisible part of me. I don't know what. Maybe my soul.

The light grew brighter, and I smelled limestone and a hint of sulfur. I heard voices, again only from my right. Like the sound of dripping water, they seemed to come from deep inside a cave.

"Too late," said two voices in unison. One sounded like a boy whose voice was just breaking. The other was a snaky whisper. "The gate is lost to us."

"I don't accept that," said an ogre-deep voice. "The horde have never held it before. They don't know how to control it."

"Neither do we, Fell Viridio," said a woman's voice. "Only Norge had the strength to try. In the end it killed him."

"He isn't dead," piped a little voice. "He's only dreaming. See how his leg moves? He's like a hellhound chasing vermleks."

The fifth voice sounded like a chain dragged over gravel. "We'll all be dreaming like Norge if the others find us here. Look at the way the gate shivers. It's going to break, and that's bound to attract attention."

"Go then, Gharalon," said the woman. "If you are afraid of punishment, I will stand vigil."

"You'd like that, wouldn't you, Eriakne? I won't give up my place."

I heard the rustle of wings and wondered which voice they belonged to. The instant I had that thought, the speakers appeared in the orange haze.

Eriakne looked like a bloodless woman with big wings of ash-colored feathers. I'd seen her kind before: dark angel.

"It was worth a try." She shrugged and held out a bruised arm, and a little devil flew up to perch on her wrist like a falcon. "Wasn't it, Quang?"

"Not with such a lame effort," squeaked the imp. "I don't care how tired we are, nobody's going to fall for that crap."

Eriakne shook him off her wrist. Quang saw it coming and was already beating his wings to hover.

Who the hell are these mooks? I wondered.

"It speaks," rumbled Viridio. He leaned close, and I saw a face only a scorpion could love. "It has never spoken."

"Anyway, it answered its own question." The imp cackled at its own joke.

"'It' is Radovan Virholt," said two-voice. He looked like a young boy wreathed in purple flame. Two mouths spoke from his eye sockets. He held up a veil to conceal whatever he had in place of a mouth. "You have the honor of addressing Dokange the Flaying Tongue, seducer of your great-great-great—" He went on like that until Viridio smacked him on the back of the head. "—grandmother."

"You surrendered yourself to the horde," said Gharalon. I couldn't see him—her, it, whatever—but I felt its presence like a grease stain on my neck. "Now you are a slave of Chaos."

Who're you calling a slave? I didn't exactly give up without a fight.

"Nevertheless," said Viridio, "in succumbing to the Abyss, you have betrayed the oaths of your ancestors."

What the hell are they talking about, oaths? The instant I thought it, they heard it. I was going to have to be careful. I don't know nothing about any oaths.

"Ignorance of the law is no excuse!" Quang cackled until his laughter turned into a coughing fit. He perched on Viridio's leathery shoulder and pounded his chest with a little fist. He wheezed, "That's always been one of my favorites."

Dokange said, "It was my turn after Norge."

"You won't have a turn," said Viridio. He brushed Quang off his leathery shoulder with a hand the size of a coal shovel. "The gate is lost."

They're devils, I thought. Knowing they heard it, I rephrased the idea. You're devils. And we're in Hell.

"He is smarter than he looks." Quang said it in a perfect imitation of the boss.

Knock it off, you little twerp. Don't you use his voice.

"Or what?" laughed the imp. "You can't touch me. You aren't even here incarnate. Your body is busy letting the hordes of the Abyss spill into your world."

"Our world," said Viridio. "By law, it belongs to us."

"Not all of it," said Eriakne. "Not yet. There are many more compacts to be made."

"In time, though," said Dokange of the double voice. "Inch by inch and soul by soul, we shall have it all."

"Not without the gate, we won't," said Quang.

"Then we must win it back. Despite the interference of the horde, we are the ones who created this portal. We are the ones who will ultimately prevail."

What you said about my grandmother—Dokange, right? You're the reason I was born hellspawn? We're...related?

"'Hellspawn' is not purely accurate in your case, but yes, I am your ancestor many times removed. In fact, all of us here are your ancestors. Your great-great-great—if you touch me again, Viridio, I will flay the chitin from your face!—your many-greats-grandmother was far less human than you."

What's that supposed to mean?

"Many of your forefathers conjured lovers from Hell ...or the Abyss," said Eriakne. "The first were half-devils, powerful sorcerers and cultists. Later generations were diluted to what your people carelessly call 'hellspawn.' I myself knew two of your many-greats grandfathers."

"Stop bragging!" said Quang. The imp darted away as one of her wings slashed at him.

What do you mean by "knew" two of them?

"You know the answer. Does it make your skin crawl to think of me as your great-granny?" she hissed. "Do you understand what an abomination you are? Twice-birthed by me alone, you are the result of centuries of degenerate fathers."

"And mothers," said Quang. "Me, I always go for the mothers."

"The atrocity of your existence is no accident but our patient design," said Gharalon. Hearing the devil's voice was like letting hot porridge go down the wrong pipe. It made me choke just to hear it. "For centuries we secretly interbred with the Virholt line, starting with the bastard prince. A few of his descendents resisted our desire, but far more embraced it willingly. When the lich Tar-Baphon shattered their kingdom, they looked beyond your world to regain their lost power."

"Most looked here, to Hell," said Dokange's boy voice. The snake voice added, "Others turned to the Abyss." Together the voices said, "Their treachery was punished, but not until after we had salvaged their get and adjusted the design."

I always knew I had devil blood, but if anybody back home suspected I had demon in me, they'd run off to report me to the Hellknights ...Not that it mattered now that I was dead.

"Law and Chaos both flow through your veins," said Viridio. "Contained in your mortal flesh, that mingled blood makes you a child of three worlds."

Desna weeps.

Eriakne hissed when I thought the name of the goddess. I would have shot her the tines if I'd had my fingers.

You called me "the gate."

Dokange's voices answered. "It is your destiny to open a portal to Golarion for us, the architects of your abomination. It should have been one of your ancestors who provided us this path but for unexpected interference that delayed our scheme."

"But now you are failed," said Viridio.

Can't fail at something I never tried to do.

"I did not say you have failed. I said you are a failure."

I can't tell you how broken up I am about not letting you assholes into my world.

"You will feel differently soon," said Eriakne. "Your friends will be the first to enjoy the caress of the demon horde."

"Under our reign, they could have served much as your countrymen serve the Prince of Law," said Dokange. "To the horde they are less than chattel. They are prey to be savaged and discarded."

I hated to hear that, but there was nothing I could do about it. I'm dead now. I'm done.

"No," said Dokange. His boy-voice cracked with excitement. "You cannot die so long as your body remains a gate. A large portion of your soul is rooted here in Hell, a smaller one in the Abyss. The rest connects them both to Golarion."

But you guys show up in my world all the time.

"At the behest of a conjurer," spat Eriakne. "Or by the command of our superiors. Never beyond the scrutiny and control of the Prince of Law."

"Never to do as we will," said Dokange. "Never to rule our own domains."

So I'm your back door, letting you slip out to do your mischief with daddy none the wiser. I've met a few girls like you.

Quang cackled. "I like him. I want to ride next."

"You must await your turn," growled Viridio.

"And you yours," said Dokange. "I am next in succession."

Wait a second—you're talking like you can still get through me somehow.

"Not as Norge did," said Viridio. He looked over his shoulder. Without a neck to crane, I couldn't see what he was looking at—but the moment I thought that, my vision shifted. I could move around. All I had to do was think about it.

We were in a cave after all, only the walls looked more like scabs than stone. The trickling water was thick red and yellow fluid, sticky where it pooled beneath Viridio's clawed feet.

Curled up in a fleshy alcove in the cave wall lay a familiar shape. I'd seen his shadow plenty of times, his reflection a couple others. It was the devil who'd been riding me for the past couple of years, until the blow meant to end me killed him instead.

Norge, is it?

His ragged snores were slow and unsteady. About seven feet tall and thick as a bear, the devil was covered in spikes and spurs, and not just where I had them on my elbows. He must have gotten those for free when he was "riding" me. Even in his restless sleep, he couldn't close that mangle of blades he had for jaws. Looking at him from the outside, I didn't feel so bad about my own set of choppers.

"He was the first to try passing through you," said Dokange. "The rest of us felt you were not ready, that we should wait for another generation before making the attempt. Norge proved us wrong."

"Not wrong, exactly," oozed the voice of Gharalon. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't get a look at that devil. "The gate was not ready, at least not for us. He never managed to step through you, but he imprinted his carnal form upon yours by force of will."

By force of fire, you mean.

"Fire is Norge's sigil," said Gharalon. "Still, none of us could have ridden your soul until you tasted infernal blood."

But I never ...Oh, yes I had. I remembered that night beneath the Scion's Academy back in Egorian. The boss and I had been sniffing down a killer. What we found turned out to be worse. When push came to shove, I found myself in a bad spot and had to bite the devil. I remembered the sickening taste of its blood and the filth it spread inside me, just before his sorceress lit me up with a ball of fire. I always thought it was the fire.

"Norge could not possess you wholly without a compact, but whenever you were bathed in fire, he could push through this veil and ride your soul, body to body. But he was never able to exert—"

Eriakne and Quang hissed him to silence.

What? What wasn't he able to exert?

All the devils remained silent, watching me. I wondered what I looked like to them. Again, soon as I had that thought, the cave turned and I looked back on that piece of myself that was stuck in Hell.

It looked like a pool of molten copper, only sunk into the cavern wall instead of lying on the floor. Drops rippled across its surface, faster and faster. With each drop, I felt something give inside me, like a bursting blister leaving behind an empty pit.

What's that? I asked as another tiny rupture opened inside me. The gate? My soul?

"Another demon passes through your carnal self," said Viridio. "They are moving faster as the gate widens."

How do I close it?

"You can't," said Dokange. "But if you cooperate, over time we might be able to flip you open to this side, stanching the flow of the horde."

My friends don't have time. And I don't want to be a gate to Hell, the Abyss, or anywhere.

"That has always been your purpose. It is your destiny."

I'm not so crazy about destiny. I kiss the wings of Desna.

"Don't mention that bitch again!" screamed Eriakne.

"There is another option," said Quang. His grin looked wide enough to cut his pointy little head in half. "Make a compact with me. Let me ride you as Norge did. We'll give those demons some hell, all right."

"Not with the imp," said Dokange. "While Norge remains incapacitated, the succession falls to me."

"No," said Viridio. "You are no warrior. Too many demons have already passed through the gate. You could never defeat them all."

"Perhaps not, but I could escape. I could take one of your friends with me as well."

Saving the boss would be worth something. But a compact with a devil? I don't know.

"Is it not better to bargain with Hell than to be a slave of the Abyss?"

Right now, I figure you got no claim to my soul. Hell and the Abyss can fight it out without me.

"I wouldn't count on that," cooed Eriakne. "Especially while Norge rode your soul, you've done a great deal of evil in your world. Like so many of your countrymen, you have been a great servant to Hell, willing or not. Do you truly believe your capricious goddess can save you from the pits?"

"Besides," said Dokange, "so long as the gate is open, your soul remains trapped between Hell and the Abyss."

"Time is running out," said Eriakne. "I can hear them screaming. Would you like to know what they are saying about you?"

No, I said, but I could feel the demons breaking through me like a hundred boils bursting one after the other.

"Radovan, where are you?" Quang sounded just like the boss. "I need you!"

Stop it!

"Radovan, please!" The imp imitated Kemeili's voice, just like the leucrottas did with Oparal's. Did that mean Quang had something to do with them? "They're tearing me apart!"

Knock it off! I'm thinking.

"You must decide soon," said Eriakne. "When I ride your soul, my wings can carry us above the battle. We can save the one you love best."

"They lie," said Viridio. "If you let them through, they will flee to do what they wish. With me, you will become unstoppable. No demon can stand against us. Together we'll destroy all who stand between us and our desires."

"Whuff!" barked Quang.

Don't you do my dog, I warned him. One day I'll have my hands around that scrawny little neck of yours...

"You won't have hands. Not unless you let one of us through. I like dogs."

A crazy thought came to me then. How the hell am I supposed to sign a compact with no hands? I don't even have blood for ink.

"An oral agreement is satisfactory in this place," said Gharalon. "Simply say, 'Gharalon, I welcome you to claim my immortal essence.'"

Pull the other one, grease ball. I don't know if I'm smarter than I look, but I'm smart enough not to fall for that one.

"Your friends are running out of time," said Eriakne. "Think of flying on my wings, and invite me in."

The molten copper pool churned like a boiling pot. The demons flying through whatever part of me made up this gate were confusing my mind. I couldn't decide what to do.

"It is no use," said Dokange. "Who knows what changes the demons have wrought in him already? I say we abandon this one and concentrate our efforts on the child."

What child?

"Your child, the last of the Virholt bloodline."

Bullshit. I don't have any kids.

"Are you sure?"

"You ought to have filled a village by now, the way you go at it." Quang cackled. "We'd have a lot of fun, you and me. Invite me in, and we'll go find some sweet young temple acolytes. I've always been partial to the priestesses of Shelyn. Do you happen to know any—?"

I'm damned sure I don't have any kids. I had that taken care of a long time ago.

Eriakne transformed into a sunburned old woman. I recognized her as my favorite Longmarket hedge witch by the black locks spotting her shaggy white hair. She held up a bottle just like the one I'd bought around the time I started practicing my charms and wiles. "And did you drink the potion while walking widdershins backward around a fresh-dug well, swinging the carcass of an orange cat by its tail?"

You're bluffing, I said. You just pulled her face out of my memory.

"That's possible," she said, nodding as her crone's face transformed back into the image of the bruised angel. "I could do that."

"But she could also have sold you a bottle of goblin water for a purse of thirty-nine gold coins and three painted lead slugs," said Dokange. He had me there. "We could not allow you to cut off the Virholt line. We have watched over you since your birth."

"At least until you got Norge cut off," said Quang. "You've been tough to follow since then."

But I've felt someone watching me, ever since this Norge went down. If it wasn't you...

"The demons." The imp hovered between Dokange and an empty space where I was beginning to think Gharalon stood or hunched or slithered or whatever unseen. Now that I focused on it, I heard his voice coming from that spot.

"Oh, how sad. The first of your friends has fallen." His voice left a slime trail in my head. "The others are soon to follow."

Which one?

"Invite me in, and I will tell you."

If I do that, we've got a bargain, right? You can come with me the same way this Norge did. I get lit up, you get a visit. A brief visit.

"Fire is Norge's sigil," said Viridio. "Each of us is invoked by a different—"

"Ooh, that looked painful," cried Quang, shaking his fist like he was watching a prize fight. "Another one down."

All right, damn it. I'll let you in. One of you.

"You have to choose," said Dokange. "Say my name. I am the next in line."

I felt his fingers plunge into the surface of the molten pool, into the gate—into me, I guessed. He hissed in pain as his fingers tickled at something deep inside me. It wasn't a good feeling for me, either.

"No, say mine! Eriakne!"

More fingers, more grasping claws reaching for the center of my soul.

"This is no time to choose a lesser devil," said Viridio. "Call my name."

"Gharalon!"

"No, Quang! I'll make you smarter! Better looking! Without me, you're going to lose that hair. I've seen it in a vision!"

In for a copper, I decided, in for a gold.

I made a choice.

Chapter Nineteen

The Horde

Varian

Reaching for a scroll, I saw that I was already too late. Radovan was dead.

The demons had not only slain him, they had destroyed his body. Four of the larger brutes raised his eviscerated corpse on a frame of branches. Beneath this gore-drenched banner, the four-armed demon priestess brandished her bloody swords as proof of her deed.

Ice suffused my veins. I drew the Shadowless Sword, my fingers aching to plunge the blade through the fiend's heart.

With the sword in hand, Radovan's corpse changed before my eyes. Within the gaping wound on his torso churned a roiling vortex vanishing into infinity.

A dark speck appeared within the maelstrom. In an instant it grew large, leaping from the vortex to emerge as a fully formed demon resembling a boiled goat. As its hooves clattered on the street, it raised its sinewy arms and screamed a fiendish word: "Freedom!"

Before my mind could assimilate what I had seen, another mote leaped out from Radovan's body. This one grew into a scabrous, horse-sized condor. Weeping buboes pushed up through its black feathers. It beat its wings, unleashing a cloud of dusty spores.

Through some Abyssal ritual, the centipede-woman demon had made a portal of Radovan's body. Beneath the glacier of my anger, my curiosity stirred. The answer to the demons' interest in Radovan lay in this horrific tableau. If the victim had been a stranger, my desire to understand its design might have overcome my need to destroy those responsible.

More demons poured through the gate, singly at first and then in groups of two and three. Long before I could close with the demon-priestess, they burst forth in clusters of half a dozen. The fliers climbed at once to the upper reaches of the dome, while the rest scattered through the ruined streets of the ancient city.

A cry for help drew my attention to the east. Kemeili's voice rang out above the din. She sprinted from the temple district toward Variel's manor, a multifarious pack of demons at her heels. Lashing them forward was a tall, brown-skinned man with long white hair and red-veined bat wings. I knew its kind from demonic tomes: an incubus.

I hesitated only an instant before choosing to aid the living before avenging the dead.

As I turned toward Kemeili, Caladrel dashed across the rooftops behind her. He unleashed an arrow with every third or fourth step. The first few fell short of the pack. Recalling his entangling shots, I knew he had not missed.

One of the fliers dived toward him. I called out a warning. The ranger looked up in surprise but instantly saw the danger. Three broad-headed arrows feathered the condor-demon's chest. Twisting and screaming, the fiend plunged toward his target. Caladrel somersaulted off the roof, barely escaping the fiend's crash through the roof tiles.

In the street, the incubus flung his lash at Kemeili, capturing her by the leg. She cursed at him as the demon dragged her toward its gibbering minions.

I thumbed a scroll. Ice particles formed a cone before me, covering the demons in a glittering blue rime of frost. The corpulent wretch at the head of the pack froze solid. His frostbitten companions barreled through him, leaving the shattered chunks of his body skittering across the street.

Kemeili rolled onto her back and threw a handful of darts at a pig-faced brute. The demon squealed as the blades sprouted in its cheek and jowls. She raised a curved blade and hacked at the demon's lash.

She severed the line a moment too late. The incubus's minions reached her even as I landed. I hamstrung a brimorak and stabbed the pig-fiend through the throat. Reaching for another scroll, I called out for Caladrel.

Only a deep laugh answered. The incubus pointed toward me, the unearthly beauty of his smile even more unnerving than the ugliness of his minions. He uttered a command to bring her to him, but none of the pack heeded his words. They scrambled over Kemeili, each vying for the next taste of her flesh.

As I decapitated a bird-fiend and kicked away a bloated manikin, the incubus raised his lash. He aimed not for his disobedient slaves but for me.

A blinding brand swept up through one of his wings, arcing down to sever the other. With a scream worthy of a castrato, the incubus turned just in time to see Oparal's blazing sword split his perfect body at the waist.

I kicked a wormlike vermlek away from Kemeili. The porcine brute that led the charge against her rose again, despite its bloody wounds. It snorted and lowered its tusks, turning on me. Before it could move, a pair of arrows plunged into its bristling red neck. The distraction gave me time to prick out its tiny eyes before plunging my blade into its heart.

Oparal appeared at my side, her holy blade singing as it carved into the fiends. Four fled her shrieking sword. Caladrel's arrows felled two of them as they ran. The survivors escaped to join the mob gathering beneath the gate that had been Radovan.

Slick with ichor, Kemeili crawled out from beneath the demon carcasses. Her eyelids flickered. She dropped her blade and thrust three fingers into either side of the pig-faced demon's bloody jowls. She spat out a few savage phrases to the Savored Sting.

Kemeili drew the demon's waning life into her own body. Her eyes glowed as the power of entropy sealed her most grievous wounds and filled her with the last drams of the demon's strength. It was not enough to heal her, but it was enough to let her stand and bare her teeth. She was eager for revenge against the horde.

Oparal flinched at what Kemeili had done. I understood her reticence—Kemeili's spell little resembled the boons of Iomedae—but now was no time for a dispute of dogma. I summoned the voice with which I had once commanded imperial marines. "Heal her."

Oparal set her jaw but stepped close to press her palm against Kemeili's cheek. A word to Iomedae evoked the healing radiance. Despite the paladin's qualms about the Calistrian's spell, the goddess did not withhold her blessing.

Caladrel and I stood guard against a return of the demons. None came for us immediately. Those who paraded Radovan's body headed toward the central plaza. At each intersection they balked, quarrelling over which path to choose until the priestess slew one or two objectors and urged the rest forward.

Many more demons had dispersed throughout the city, befouling the land wherever they went. I detected a whiff of corruption upon the air, and foul trails lingered in the wake of fiends resembling birds, bats, and winged humanoid abominations.

Hopeful mobs of smaller demons gathered around the behemoths. A crab-spider the size of a caravel smashed against the hardened vines of one of Variel's reserved buildings. I prayed it angered whatever it released.

Other gangs of demons encountered the city natives. A pack of leucrottas harried a beak-faced brute until the demon stood its ground and tore one of its attackers to pieces. The remaining leucrottas fled until they ran into a pair of wolf-headed fiends whose scythe-like claws chopped them to gobbets.

Two of the plant creatures we had seen lumbering through the city dragged a feathered but wingless demon into marshy ground near the northern lake. Swarms of wasps covered all four wings of a serpentine demon until they plunged together onto the balcony of a nearby manor house. Elsewhere, the one-eyed giant fought in vain against a rabble of brimoraks. The demons left its broken body and smoldering tracks in their wake.

Arnisant barked. I turned to see him dashing toward us from the direction of Variel's manor. Behind him, Variel conjured a whirlwind with a shake of his staff. Nearby, Fimbulthicket blew on the surface of a fountain. A waterspout rose to join a pair of earthen hulks following the gnome. The druids sent their minions down to harry the horde which they could never alone defeat.

Zuldanavox had not been idle in defense of her home. After pouring clouds of acid over the demons breaching the southern gates, she conjured her own defenders. Elemental spirits shook the trees to the west, tossing lesser demons into the air and blasting fliers out of the sky.

A pair of tarry-skinned demons plunged into the southern lake. The water's surface rose up, and a gray-green behemoth emerged with a croak that shook leaves from the dome high above. A two-headed demon struggled in the grip of a slimy tentacle. A bat-faced fiend took to the sky, only to be caught by the great beast's sticky tongue. Both vanished into the monster's colossal maw.

"Why are the spires gone?" said Oparal.

The question gnawed at me as well, but I could not give it the consideration it demanded. A glance at Kemeili and Caladrel revealed nothing.

"Can you raise them?" Caladrel asked. "Can they keep more demons from entering the city?"

"Not so long as they have—" I choked on Radovan's name "—that gate inside the dome. It pains me, but we must destroy it."

Kemeili shook her head. "We could never fight our way through so many demons."

She was obviously correct. Despite the tendency for the horde to scatter, a hardened core of their forces remained around their gruesome gate.

"I knew he was dangerous from the moment I laid eyes on him," said Oparal.

"Shut up." Kemeili glared at the paladin with such ferocity that Oparal's eyes widened and her mouth clamped shut.

"We must at least cut off the reinforcements that enter through the wall." Even as I said so, fiery explosions struck three spots along the dome. I prayed the vines were not a necessary component of the wards.

"I'll go to the spires with you," said Caladrel. "The others can fend off the demons here."

"No," I said. "This is the worst time to divide our forces. Zuldanavox and her minions must suffice to defend the city while we go down together."

"We can't abandon the field to the horde," Oparal said as Variel and Fimbulthicket arrived.

"How did this happen?" Variel looked to me for an answer I did not have.

Theories involving Radovan's fiendish heritage spun in the firmament of my imagination. "There is no time to speculate. We must reactivate the spires. How long will it take?"

"Not long, if we work together." He thought a moment and said, "In theory."

"Where's the city's aiudara?" said Caladrel. "There must be one."

"We must activate the spires to reach it," I said. Anticipating Variel's admonishment, I added, "The time for caution is over. We need reinforcements."

"Your son is right, Lord Variel," said Caladrel. "You know it's true."

A trumpeting cry sounded across the city. Zuldanavox glided low over the southern districts, a growing band of winged fiends in pursuit. She arched her wings to stall her flight, allowing them to close the distance. Just before they reached her, she dived to glide just above the ground forces and lay down a thick green trail of corrosive mist. Her pursuers plunged in, heedless of the danger. The few that emerged left trails of blood and lost limbs in their wakes.

"She is holding her own," I said.

Variel nodded, a shadow of uncertainty falling away from his eyes. He had made his decision. "This way to the plinths."

We set off at a jog, pausing only when Variel pointed to a spot two streets ahead. "There's an access to the aqueducts nearest the inner ring."

We ran barely three steps before Oparal exclaimed, "No, not now!"

I traced her gaze to the southwest. Through the foliage by the lake surged a vanguard of demons. They whooped as they pursued their quarry: the gray unicorn.

The unicorn leaped a rotting log. The marshy ground sucked at its hooves. An ogrish demon rushed forward, its bony fingers reaching for the beast's tail. The unicorn kicked backward, knocking it into a pair of smoking brimoraks. More demons piled over the fallen, their eyes afire with bloodlust.

Oparal shouldered her shield and raised her holy sword.

"Wait!" said Variel. "Stay with us."

Ignoring him, she ran as fast as her heavy armor permitted. Her blade sang louder as she closed with the demons."

"Crazy Forlorn—!" began Kemeili.

"Let her go," said Caladrel. "We must get to the aiudara."

Tactically, he was correct. In other circumstances, I might have agreed. But as I saw more demons scent the unicorn and join the chase, I thought of what they had done to Radovan. I would not allow another ally to fall into their clutches.

"Come with me!" I ran after Oparal, sword in hand and Arnisant at my side.

"She's not worth it," complained Kemeili, but she ran only a few steps behind me. Fimbulthicket lagged behind, but only for a moment before casting a spell speeding his pace.

Caladrel soon outpaced me, shooting arrows as he ran. Every one of his motions was so swift, so economical and precise. I was glad to have him at my side.

Within seconds I knew we would not arrive in time. No spell that I had inscribed on my scrolls could reach so far.

Variel's Green magic was not so limited. His deep-throated chant grew louder as we ran. He swung his staff in an arc above his head, a glowing nimbus forming at its head. The same witchlight played along the ground beneath the unicorn's hooves.

The nimble beast leaped ahead, but its pursuers foundered in muck that had been solid ground an instant earlier. A few paused to hurl spells after the fleeing unicorn, which shied away from venom and flame with the skill of a veteran warrior.

More demons clambered over the sinking bodies of the first wave, pushing them deeper into the muck before sinking with them. A third wave did the same, but the fourth ran over the bodies of the fallen.

Caladrel slew a few more brimoraks, and the unicorn appeared to have escaped. Its freedom lasted only for a moment. A condor-demon hurtled down to tackle the beast by the neck. The unicorn tumbled to the ground in the fiend's embrace.

Oparal ran to them. "Get off—!" A demon fell upon her, too swift for anyone to cry out a warning. Oparal fell, but only for a moment before rising to grapple with the fiend. Her sword lay on the ground, its radiance fading for lack of her touch.

The demons intercepted us before we could reach her. Kemeili threw a handful of darts and loosened her whip. I prepared to defend the line.

"Back!" cried Variel. With another wave of his staff, he conjured a wall of thorns between us and the demons.

"No!" Even as I protested, I saw that he had been right to cut our losses. There were far too many demons to fight. They thrust their bodies through the barrier, heedless of the wounds they inflicted on themselves. They feared their own pain far less than they craved ours.

On the other side of the wall, Oparal and the unicorn vanished under piles of fiends. They were not even close enough to defend each other. I uttered a prayer for their swift release—and then a dreadful silence blew across the field. I felt it as a sudden change in air pressure and looked around for the source.

A blast of wind flattened us. It uprooted Variel's bramble wall and cast its million thorns across the city. I heard the muted roar of Zuldanavox in the distance. As I tumbled helplessly across the battlefield, I glimpsed a bat-winged woman thrown against a pair of giant thorns in the dome ceiling.

I tried to rise, but a second blast threw me to my knees. Arnisant butted my side and stood close as I clung to him for support.

All around, demons and elves alike stood, shaking confusion from their skulls. Turning toward the origin of the blast, I saw a shower of gore descending on the spot last occupied by the demons bearing Radovan's body. One of them retained the bottom half of his pole, the wood blackened, its tip glowing red.

The demon stared stupefied at the glowing tip of the truncated staff as a dark shape rose behind it. A huge spearpoint pierced the flabbergasted demon's breast.

Not a spear, I realized, but a long hand with razor sharp talons. What had appeared like a spearhead opened like a blossom, revealing the demon's still-beating heart in a big fiendish hand. It crushed the heart to pulp before jerking back out through the demon's corpse.

The new fiend rose to its full height, easily nine feet from its spurred heels to the top of its plated head. Mottled gray chitin covered its lean body, except at the inner joints where angry red flesh pulsed under the armor. A massive scorpion's tail curved behind its body, its heavy barb dripping venom onto its own shoulder.

The fiend's head jerked back as it shied away from the poison smoking on its armor. It whipped around like a dog chasing its tail, neck craning to see the elusive member. What appeared to be vestigial mandibles twitched to either side of a wide maw over-filled with sharp but irregular teeth. I could not hear its words, but I could read them on its lips.

Desna weeps. Not a goddamned tail!

The fiend turned, but not toward me. The centipedal demon-priestess reared up, spitting her own venom while brandishing the weapons still stained with Radovan's blood. The fiend showed her a big smile, and I knew for certainty that this new fiend was somehow Radovan reincarnate.

His tail struck a sword from the demon-priestess's hand. She struck back, but his claws grasped two of her wrists. He broke both arms with a single shake before biting off the third. Before she could complete an arcane gesture with her remaining hands, he used his claws to return the favor of his evisceration.

"Radovan!" The scorpion-devil ignored me in favor of savaging the corpse of his fallen foe. The awful sight shook my confidence in his identity. "Radovan?"

Caladrel grabbed my shoulder. "What do you mean, 'Radovan'?!"

I saw the same question written on the faces of Kemeili and Variel. "That is no demon. That is Radovan in a devil's body. You must trust me on this point."

Kemeili shook her head in disbelief, but then she cried, "Oparal!"

That paladin had shoved away the bodies of her attackers after the blast stunned them all. One eye was swollen closed, but the other blazed with golden light as she clutched the symbol of Iomedae emblazoned on her breastplate. The divine radiance surged through her body. She reached for her fallen sword, but a demon stamped its hoof upon the blade. An instant later, the fiend howled in pain as the holy sword seared its foot. Oparal pushed it down and bent to grasp the sword. Her fingers were inches away when a pair of tusked demons barreled into her, knocking her away from her blade.

"Go to her," I said. "Arnisant and I will fetch Radovan."

"You said to stay together," protested Caladrel. "Besides, it looks like he's coming."

Radovan's half-insectile head turned in Oparal's direction. His face contorted in disdain, and I could have sworn I saw steam emerge from the narrow slits above his jaws. He leaped toward her, each stride covering yards.

Caladrel raised his bow. "He doesn't look like he wants to help her."

"That's not Radovan," said Kemeili.

"It is Radovan," I assured her. Nonetheless, I ran toward Oparal.

A burly demon with a wolf's head on its shoulders and a grotesque mockery of a dwarf's face upon its chest rushed to intercept me. I pretended not to notice until it came within range. I stepped aside, sweeping the keen edge of the Shadowless Sword across its lupine throat even as Arnisant crashed into the demon's crooked legs. We left it there, burbling curses as it clutched its wounds.

Behind us, Variel sang the trees to action. Half a dozen pulled up their roots and staggered toward the demons, joining the elementals the druids had already sent into the fray.

"Varian!" Kemeili's whip cracked as she shouted warning. She tripped a brimorak approaching me from behind and pulled it to the side, where two quick strokes of my blade dispatched it.

With a crash, Radovan landed nearby. He grabbed a pair of brimoraks by the scruff and pulled them off of Oparal. He smashed their skulls together before dropping their lifeless corpses and reaching down for more.

With Arnisant on one side and Kemeili on the other, I fought my way toward them. Caladrel thinned the nearby horde with such alacrity that I began to worry he would run out of arrows. Variel directed his marching trees to protect our sides, while Fimbulthicket dispatched more earth and air elementals into the fray.

Radovan flung away the last of the demons attacking Oparal. He looked down at her with such intense hatred that I feared I had been mistaken—that this was not my friend, but some great demon whose awful presence destroyed the gate as he passed through it. He grabbed Oparal by the breastplate and pulled her up. As she rose, her eyes flashed with defiant anger, and she thrust her dagger into his belly.

"No, no, no!"

The blade slid ineffectually against the chitin on the fiend's stomach. She drew back her arm for another strike, but the fiend—Let it be Radovan! I prayed—grasped her arm. I winced, thinking of what I had seen him do to the demon-priestess.

The fiend lowered its head to put its face within inches of Oparal's. "Knock it off," he said. The voice was all wrong, but there was no mistaking the cadence of Radovan's speech. "Before I decide I don't want to be such a good guy anymore."

Oparal must have recognized Radovan in the fiend as well. Her jaw dropped, and she stepped back—not in fear but in amazement. She staggered, woozy from the beating she had suffered. She shook her head, suddenly alert.

"Where is the unicorn?"

Caladrel grimaced, pointing past our small army of trees and elementals. A mound of demons scrabbled among themselves over the unicorn's broken body.

"No!" Oparal stepped back, tripping until Radovan caught her by the arm. "My fault."

"Call to him!" said Variel. He moved to stand beside her, eyeing Radovan with trepidation.

"How can he escape those demons?"

"Accept him, you fool!" said Kemeili. "He's offered himself to you."

Oparal reached toward the unicorn. "Please, don't die because of me. I accept you, if you will still have—"

The demons fell over each other, squabbling over the sudden empty space where the unicorn had been. Their heads swiveled in our direction. I braced for the inevitable attack and sensed Caladrel raising his bow beside me. Before either of us could unleash a spell or arrow, Radovan loosed a deafening roar and charged the demons.

"What is he doing?" cried Fimbulthicket. "There are too many. They'll slaughter him!"

Radovan leaped, hurtling twenty yards into the thick of the mob. His huge claws tore a pair of brimoraks to pieces while his barbed tail struck again and again into the thick of the pack. By the time he ripped a wicked fork out of the hands of a three-headed equine demon, the mob began to scatter. The devil chased after them, catching a few and breaking them across his barbed knee.

"Remind me to be nicer to Radovan," murmured the gnome.

The mangled body of the unicorn appeared on the ground before Oparal. Its wounds were beyond mortal. Every leg broken, its heart and lungs exposed through the rents in its hide. It gave no sign of life except for its eyes, which yearned back in their sockets for one last glimpse of the paladin.

Chapter Twenty

The Seventh Spire

Radovan

By the time I got back from chasing demons, Oparal was weeping over the unicorn. It was obvious the big fellow wasn't going to make it. Everybody else stepped away, as afraid of her tears as they were of me.

They all looked so tiny and breakable. The way they turned away as I came close was damned irritating. Rude, even. Even Arnisant shied off when I reached out to pat his head. What that dog needed was a good smack across the jaw.

That wasn't right. I clenched my fists, trying to squeeze away the heat I felt in my belly. Knock it off, Viridio. I know that's you in there.

There was no answer. My other demon never talked to me either. That was probably a good sign. They might ride me around, but they couldn't control me. If a short temper was the best they could do, then I had nothing to worry about.

While the others decided how to deal with Oparal, I kept an eye out for more demons. I'd run off the nearest ones, but plenty more ran riot through the city. They'd spread out through all six districts, busting open sealed buildings or scrapping with the critters that lived under the dome. Will-o'-wisps lit up all over the place, flashing white, yellow, and red as they soaked up all the fear. Mood I was in, I could give them more than they could stomach.

The dome was burning in six or eight places. Where it wasn't on fire it was crawling with fiends of all shapes and sizes: ape-armed demons swinging vine to vine, giant bugs with human faces crawling over the towers, and skeletal birds watching for prey from their perches in the dome. On the ground, more demons were tearing in through the vine wall, which didn't seem as strong as it had before. Turning off the gate they'd made of me wasn't going to be enough. We had a whole damned horde pouring in from somewhere else. The Witchbole, I guess.

Only how'd they know to be here? I smelled a rat in our little group of elves.

It was making me antsy, this waiting around. Sure, we had a moment to breathe, but everybody was standing around like they didn't know what to do next.

"What the hell is wrong with you jerks?" I was a lot louder than I'd meant to be. "Heal that pony and let's get moving."

"It's no good." Oparal pressed her hands hard against the unicorn's neck. Some of that piss-yellow light flickered around her fingers. The unicorn's wounds grew pink, but they weren't closing all the way. "He's too far gone."

I'd never heard her voice sound so sad—so goddamned weak. That puny, whiny voice made me want to belt her one.

"Then leave it. Damned thing's more trouble than it's worth."

The boss stepped in front of me. "Radovan, I am afraid—"

"Shut up, you." I shoved a finger in his face. It was longer than I was used to, and I nearly put out his eye.

Variel stepped up. He didn't seem as scared of me as the others did, but as he passed me his knuckles whitened as he gripped his staff. He knelt beside Oparal and ran his hand over the unicorn's flank. It came away wet with blood. He set down his staff and began his healing song.

Little threads of flesh sprouted out from the edges of the unicorn's wounds. They grew like blades of grass, twining around each other like some invisible weaver was making a basket. When Oparal saw what Variel was doing, she really started praying. Her holy words itched on my ears. I tried to scratch and found out I didn't actually have ears, just some rough knobs on either side of my wrong-shaped skull. That made me madder. I had to get away from the sound of prayers, so I stomped off a bit.

Turning back for a look, I was surprised to see the boss had followed. He stood way too close, startling me. Before my balled fist could knock him down, I caught it with my other hand.

Fighting myself! I looked stupid again. It was his fault for surprising me. I was about to say so, but all that came out was a nasty snarl.

Arni put himself between us. He didn't growl back, but I saw by his flattened ears that he was ready to go for my throat if I made a move on the boss. Part of me was thinking, Good boy. Another part was thinking of tearing his throat out.

The boss looked me up and down. I got that naked feeling and had a peek. The good news was this devil body didn't have such a nasty mess of danglies as the last one. The bad news was there was nothing at all hanging between the legs of this one. I didn't know which was worse.

The boss walked around me for complete look. His lips quirked like he was trying to hold back a smile. I didn't like it, not knowing what amused him so much. He touched the hard armor built into my arms and chest. At last he said, "Nice jacket."

For a second I thought he was mocking me. Then the notion of wearing Viridio's skin like a jacket tickled me enough to break the tension. "Heh."

The sound was like the pebble that starts an avalanche. Pretty soon I was holding my sides, feeling the hot flesh under the beetle-like armor plates. I sensed Viridio sulking inside me. The devil had no sense of humor.

That made me laugh harder and harder until I was slapping the ground and whooping. I began to wonder why nobody else was laughing with me. Even the boss looked uncomfortable, like I was making a scene.

Right, I remembered. The stupid unicorn.

First the temper, then the uncontrollable laughter. I hoped this wasn't going to be a regular thing, these mood swings. If we were going to get out of this place alive, I was going to need a cool head.

Variel finished his spell. With him and Oparal in the way, I couldn't see what they'd done with the unicorn. I stepped forward for a better look, and the unicorn rolled up off its side. With a couple of faltering steps, it stood up.

The beast still wasn't white, except for its chin beard and a little area around its mouth and nose. The rest of its body was still battered and burned into a hundred different shades of ash. Only now its coat had a kind of sheen to it, less gray than silver.

The unicorn balked and stamped when it saw me coming. Part of me wanted to give it a good reason to be scared, but I gritted my teeth and pushed that part back down. The Viridio part, I thought. To make things easier, I took a few steps back. "Steady, boy. You don't want a tussle with me. Besides, I'm not such a bad guy."

As I sidled away, my foot touched Oparal's dropped sword. I grabbed it by the blade to hand it to her. The moment I touched the thing, it flashed blinding white. It burned even though the tough skin of my devil hands.

"Ah ah ah!" I bobbled the sword like a bar hot from the forge. I half-dropped, half-threw it to Oparal.

The paladin caught it by the grip. She looked ready to stab me through the heart, and the others looked like they wouldn't have stopped her.

"All right. Let's just say I'm not half bad."

A howl of demons rose all around us. Every fiend in sight spotted us the moment Oparal's sword lit up.

"That tears it," I said. "Let's move."

Nobody budged. They looked to the boss. He said, "To the aqueduct."

We didn't make it ten steps before it got obvious we weren't going to make it.

The demons flapped and hopped and galloped toward us, drawn to the light and sound of Oparal's sword. When Oparal realized what was happening, she shoved it back in its scabbard, but it was too late. The demons began surrounding us, but they didn't come all at once. They were waiting for reinforcements. Pretty soon there wouldn't be dozens but hundreds.

Fim and Variel sang to the trees, bringing them up out of the ground to fight beside us. Oparal drew her sword again, the unicorn stamping nervously beside her. Nearby, Caladrel slung his bow—he barely had any arrows left—and pulled out his big curveblade. The boss had his sword in one hand, a scroll in the other. Arnisant stood on his right, Kemeili on his left. That figured, I thought. I'm out of the picture for a little while, and she sticks to the boss instead. Fickle minx.

I stood all alone. My hands itched and felt empty. I should have grabbed centipede-girl's swords. Big as I was now, they'd be about the same relative size as the big knife. Still, I wasn't exactly unarmed. My fingers were long as knives, and sharper. They itched to plunge into some demon flesh.

We stood back to back, elves and gnome, paladin and unicorn, dog and devil, all bracing for the rush.

The demons shrieked, snarled, and cursed at us. I shot them the tines. One spat a stream of yellow-green bile in my direction and grinned at me. Another flashed a tongue with its own hissing jaws on the tip. I showed that one the big smile, and it nearly swallowed its own tongue. Choking, it ran away. So did those near him.

Pleased with myself, I turned to see whether the others had seen how fearsome I was to demons.

That's when the shadow covered us and a hot wind beat straight down. We scattered as Zuldanavox dropped down right in the middle of our little circle. The demons feared her, not me. One look at how big she was with her wings extended, I didn't blame them one bit.

Screaming and bucking, the unicorn shied from the dragon. When his retreat brought him right next to me, he shrieked again. Caught between the dragon and the devil, he reared and plunged right into the others. They scattered, covering their heads.

"Here!" shouted Oparal. The unicorn vanished and appeared an instant later beside her, just like it'd done before. Tall as she was, she still had to raise her hand to stroke the big boy's shoulder. Despite all the monsters around him, he settled right down at her touch.

"I should destroy you all," rumbled Zuldanavox. Her head swung toward me. "What is this demon doing among you?"

I had a couple of words for that, but I swallowed them at the sight of her so close to me. Somewhere inside me, Fell Viridio twisted and cursed, trying to escape. This wasn't what he'd bargained for. Tough luck, chump.

Even as I thought the words, Viridio started beating on the inside of my skull. It made me want to hit something, bite something, rip something to pieces. I couldn't make out what the dragon and the boss were saying until I concentrated on squeezing the devil down tight inside me. You stay still, you ugly mug. You make me hit that dragon, we both die. You want what whatsisname got? Norge? You ready for a big sleep, too?

The devil stopped his squirming, but his fear kept shaking in my arms and legs.

Or maybe that was just mine.

"—and I was standing beside you when the demons entered," the boss was saying. "Let me reactivate the spires."

"You know how to do that?"

"In theory, yes. But I feel sure I can do it."

"So you could have showed someone else how to deactivate them." Zuldanavox glowered down at him.

He hesitated only a second, but if I could see the doubt on his face, so could the dragon. "I did not show anyone, nor did I know of any plan to deactivate the spires," he said. "You have my word as a gentle—"

"I will be the judge of that later. Go to the spires. Restore my city's defenses. The others will remain with me."

"No!"

She roared in his face, blowing his hair back and dotting him with flecks of acid.

"I need help to activate the spires."

"Someone lowered them without your help."

"But we must raise them as quickly as possible."

A house-sized section of dome crashed down to set the northern park on fire. The boss couldn't have timed it any better if he'd blasted it himself.

"He's right," said Variel, stepping up to stand beside his son. If anything, he looked younger than the boss. Except for the ears and eyes, they could have been brothers. "Varian's arcane knowledge far exceeds mine. I beg you to trust him as I do."

Zuldanavox scoffed, a puff of her nasty breath rolling over them both. The boss turned away, pressing his handkerchief to his eyes. Variel just took it, tears rolling down his face. "There are seven of you and only six spires," said the dragon. "One of you will stay with me."

She had him there, I thought, but the boss said, "I need everyone together. There is a seventh spire."

The dragon's head rose so fast it made me dizzy. When she swept back down, I thought we'd all be crushed. She butted her snout against Variel's chest. "You kept this from me?"

"He did not know of it," said the boss. "If my theory is correct, we'll find this seventh spire hidden beneath the central plaza. Activating all seven at once could do more than restore the wards—it could drive the demons from your city."

Even with Viridio buzzing around inside me, I heard his emphasis on "your city." I hoped his diplomacy was going to pay off for all of us.

The dragon considered what he'd said. Her head barely moved as she looked hard at each of us, smelling us as if she could sniff out the traitor. When she came to me, she paused to take a big whiff. I tried not to blink. When she was done, she looked down at me and said, "There is still something wrong with you."

"You don't know the half of it."

"We will have another chat when this is done."

"Looking forward to it, sweetheart." It just kind of slipped out. For a second I wondered whether I'd gone a word too far. Inside, Viridio panicked again. For a big bad demon, he was damned skittish.

"Go!" Zuldanavox's voice was thunder breaking on our heads. "Return the instant you have restored the spires. Do not make me hunt for you."

We hustled toward the street. Zuldanavox saw where we were going and flew ahead of us. The beat of her wings blew the little demons across the ground. She snatched up a few of the bigger ones in her claws and squeezed them until they stopped moving. One four-armed dog-faced brute had the balls to jump up at her. She caught him in that city gate of a mouth and swallowed the half that didn't drop away.

A cluster of many-armed demons stood their ground and gestured at Zuldanavox. All around her body, spells dashed themselves to death in flashes of black and green and white. Something got through, and she plummeted straight up toward the burning dome.

The dragon twisted, folded her wings, and grabbed the thorny vines to keep the demon magic from hurling her into the sky. When the spell died, the dome shuddered before sagging under her weight. She let go, falling with a dancer's grace as her wings opened and caught the wind. She glided back toward the spell-flingers, her great big maw opening to release a storm of green acid.

"Come on, slowpoke!" yelled Fimbulthicket. I hadn't realized I'd stopped. Only Fim and the boss waited at the door to an aqueduct entrance.

When I got there, it didn't look like I'd fit inside. I hunched down and squeezed my shoulders tight, but something kept snagging me.

"Tail," said Fimbulthicket.

He was right. I could feel its weight balancing my weird, long body, but when I thought about lowering it, I just struck the roof of the little house. Tiles clattered off the roof. Fim and the boss ducked inside. It took a few more tries, but finally I crouched down and got inside, scraping the tip of my tail—I had a goddamned tail!—in across the ceiling.

"Shut the door," called the boss.

He always tells you what to do.

I almost said as much out loud. Instead I slammed the door. That felt good enough ...for now. The others didn't wait for me. They ran down the stairs and along the aqueduct.

They don't hesitate to leave you behind. You mean nothing to—

"Nice try, jackass." Saying it out loud helped me stuff down the anger he was getting to rise out of me. I kept my head down and ran after the others. By the time I caught up, the boss was talking with his old man.

"That was an artful bluff," Variel was saying.

"Well, there are seven spires, metaphorically speaking."

"Metaphorically speaking?"

"It's a damned figure of speech," I snapped. How stupid could these elves be? "It means—"

They jumped, startled by my big devil voice, which came out a lot angrier than I'd realized.

"I know what it means," said Variel at the same time the boss said, "He knows what it means." The boss added, "Any lingering doubts about Radovan's identity have now vanished."

Variel ignored me and said, "You were saying?"

"The aiudara may not take the form of a spire, but it is likely connected to them."

We went through the same hidden door we'd passed on our way to the manor house. Inside the ringed corridor, demon shadows crisscrossed the lighted floor. I could hear the screams and explosions outside.

"First, everyone come with me." The boss led us to the nearest chamber and counted off to six, pointing at himself, Caladrel, Oparal, Kemeili, Fimbulthicket, and Variel. While they watched, he mimed pressing four of the stones embedded in the floor. He did it a couple more times to be sure. "In this order, understand?"

Everybody nodded.

"Without more time to experiment, let us make our first attempt in unison, or as close as we can manage. Each of us shall take a place outside one of the—"

The ceiling exploded. Thank Desna, it wasn't right above us but a couple dozen yards around the loop. Before the dust cloud blinded us, I caught a glimpse of green scales and heard the dragon's trumpeting cry. She screamed and thrashed, every move bringing down more of ceiling and walls.

"Don't panic, Zuldana!" Variel was the only one running toward the dragon instead of away from her. "Change shape! Change shape!"

That sounded like a good idea until I heard the whoomp of fifty tons of dragon disappearing from the rubble. The pile of broken stone and earth caved in all over again on the much smaller figure.

"'Dana!" screamed Variel. Blinded by dust, I chased after his voice. He stopped stumbling over the stones long enough to conjure a gust of wind that blew the place clean. In the middle of the wreckage, a sinkhole gave me an idea where Zuldanavox had gone.

"Stand back, Greenfingers." I shoved him aside and dug in, throwing tiles and bricks over my shoulder. That was one good thing about my big ugly hands. I could dig like a mole.

Someone slapped me on the shoulder. I whirled, snarling. Luckily I recognized the boss quick enough to keep from taking his head off. As his hand came away from my shoulder, I felt power pouring through my body and knew he'd made me stronger.

In seconds I was digging up such a big cloud that Variel had to step back and blow it all away with another spell. The others stayed back to avoid a brick to the head.

A hand shot out of the rubble and grabbed my wrist. My instinct was to swat it away, but it was stronger than me. It held tight and began pulling me under.

"Hold on, sweetheart. I got you." I planted my feet and lifted with every muscle. Inch by inch, Zuldanavox emerged, choking and cursing. She wore nothing but dust and a sneer that could have cut a man in half. Good thing I wasn't a man at the moment.

"Too many ..." She coughed some more. "The behemoths are tearing through the vines. I saw a shadow against the dome, a terrible shape ..."

"Treerazer," said Kemeili.

"No," said Caladrel. His voice broke in fear. "It can't be."

"To the spires," said the boss.

"Where you want me?" Before he could speak, I knew the answer. Zuldanavox wasn't the only one who'd come through the ceiling. A couple of giant claws cast a shadow down on me. Looking up, I saw the head of one of those crab-spider demons. The whole thing was big as a house, I knew.

I started climbing, but Zuldanavox just stood there. I saw plenty of mad on her face, but there was something else going on. Her hands trembled. She wasn't looking up at the demon but around at the narrow, crumbling walls surrounding her. "Come on, girl. I'll give you a boost."

When I scooped her up, she gripped my arm so hard I thought she'd tear it off. I scrambled up the rubble and set her down on the plaza between two spires.

She fell to all fours and tilted her head back like a hissing lizard. For a second I thought she was about to blast me. Instead, she stood to her full height and raised her arms like wings. I'd seen the change before, so I turned back toward the horde.

The sight of the dragon rising behind me didn't faze the demons. The little ones jumped up and spat fire and acid at me. I soaked it up and swatted them away, the little punks. The bigger ones came on with teeth and claws. I gave them a taste of my own. A few let me have their spears and glaives. I gave 'em back with interest.

Soon I fell into a kind of trance. The demons burned and slashed my armored body, but the pain just made me laugh. Some cast spells to freeze my blood or shatter my bones, but mostly they tickled and helped me pick who'd be next to die. I was where I was always meant to be: in the thick of a fight, making piles of dead demons all around me.

Finally, there was nothing else between me and the giant crab-spider that was still trying to squeeze its way into the trench. I grabbed a fork with a severed demon hand still attached and climbed the thing's shell. It tried to shake me off while I stabbed at its joints, looking for a soft spot. Before it could, I found an opening in the pit of one arm and shoved the fork in deep, twisting it until the demon shuddered and lay still.

Another shadow fell over me. I turned around to see the six spires rising up, two of them darker than the other four. They'd been the ones left underground for centuries—maybe millennia. The word "millennia" gave me a grin as I jerked the fork out of the crab demon and skewered a brimorak with it. The boss had done whatever he'd needed down below. The question now was whether it was going to do us any good up here.

Lightning in six different colors licked over the spires. They made for a spectacle, but I couldn't see that they did anything except attract attention. Demons all across the city turned toward the plaza. The nearest ones retreated, but those farther away came up for a better look. The fliers began circling the plaza, ready to react to whatever happened next. The ground shifted beneath my feet as Zuldanavox leaped up to join them.

A big circle of stone turned inside the ring of spires. The way it moved, I realized it was another vault, only a hundred times bigger than the ones under the spires. It opened up six wedge-shaped gaps before sinking below street level.

The sound of scraping stone overwhelmed the screams of fiends. A cloud of dust rose out of the gap, and the lightning dipped its fingers in. The colored lights flashed, at first in no particular pattern, but then in time with my pounding heart.

Hearts, I realized. I felt four throbbing beats in my chest, reminding me that in this battle I was just another fiend.

The stony groan grew louder as the plaza rose up again. In each flash of lightning, I saw six silhouettes. There was no mistaking Arnisant or Fimbulthicket, and I could tell the women from the men. What I couldn't tell was which of those men stood in the middle, shouting words I couldn't make out and swinging his arms in ritual gestures.

I realized I was staring. So were a couple of little demons who'd run up to fight me, only to get distracted by the sight. I grabbed one by the horns, tucked his goaty head under my arm, and snapped his neck. That felt so good I turned to grab the other one, but he heard what I'd done and ran away. I let him go and turned back to the plaza.

In the next flash of lightning, I saw that it was Caladrel doing the ritual. He would have been my last guess, since the boss and his old man were the magicians. Whatever spell he was doing, the next flash of lightning showed me it'd worked.

Hundreds of figures crowded the plaza stone. With each flash of light, I saw they were moving outward, into position. After the fourth flash, the lightning leaped back onto the spires and clung there crackling, each in its own color.

In six separate groups, hundreds of elves stood around the plaza with bows raised. Standing in the stirrups atop a gigantic horse, their stag-helmed leader called out a command. Their first volley of arrows darkened the sky as they came down on all the nearby fiends, including me.

Chapter Twenty-One

The Host

Varian

I scanned the battlefield for any sign of Radovan. His towering figure stood less than a hundred yards away, surrounded by heaps of dismembered demons. Terrible as his previous Abyssal incarnation had been, this one made it seem puny by comparison.

As I watched, another cloud of arrows flew toward him.

"Wait!" I cried, too late to stop the archers but just in time to divert the spellcasters to other targets.

Amarandlon had come prepared. When Caladrel opened the aiudara, the prince rode through. Behind him came a legion of rangers supported by wizards and Calistrian priests. Kemeili exchanged a nod with one of the latter. Fleetingly, I wondered what that meant, but there was no time to ponder further.

Radovan leaped, his elongated arms and legs pinwheeling in a motion I had previously seen demonstrated only by the masters of Dragon Temple. Even before his tutelage from the renegade war-sorcerer known as Burning Cloud Devil, Radovan had taught himself how to catch a thrown knife or deflect a handful of darts. Now he faced not a few small projectiles but the clothyard shafts of Kyonin's most elite archers. The shadows of their arrows cast him in darkness.

"Not that one! That's no demon. It's my man Radovan!" Ignoring me, the rangers prepared another volley. "Caladrel, tell them!"

Caladrel looked to Amarandlon, whose antlered helm dipped in assent. Caladrel barked, "Birch Team, avoid the scorpion-tailed fiend."

The archers hesitated, unsure which fiend Caladrel indicated.

"Mark him, Fim." Variel completed his own spell. His skin puckered and hardened to form a sheath of living armor.

As Fimbulthicket hurled a spell at Radovan, red lightning leaped from its spire to envelop his demonic form. For an instant I feared he had been destroyed, but the energy did not seem to harm him. Rather, it surrounded his huge man-scorpion body in a blinding green halo.

A winged seducer pointed down at Radovan and screamed, "A devil in our midst! Slay it, my wretches!"

Dozens of fiends swarmed toward the beacon. Radovan snarled through his weird combination of mandibles and jaws. His insectile eyes locked on Fimbulthicket, and his fingers rose to his throat in that most vulgar of Chelish gestures.

"Oh, I knew he'd hate that, but I didn't think it would be that bright!" Fimbulthicket looked to Variel, who had already begun casting another spell. "If he asks, I'm saying you did it."

Caladrel directed Birch Team to cover Radovan. The demons fell in droves to the rangers' arrows. The archers came as well armed as Caladrel. Some fired entangling bulbs at the demons' feet, while others feathered them with bleeding shafts. Here and there a demonbane arrow struck home and flung the ruins of a fiend across the field.

The red spire blazed again, its lightning leaping into the air above Radovan. With a blast of thunder, Variel's spell cracked the sky. Stunning forks of lightning blinded our eyes and seared the earth, but they had no apparent effect on the demons.

"Lightning is no good," cried Caladrel. "Nor poison. Try frost or fire or acid if you must, but it's best to cut them down."

Variel marveled at the effect of his magic. "My spells have never been so strong before."

"The spires," I said. "They amplify our spells."

Ill prepared for all-out war, I still had some spells to bolster our allies. I ran to the center of the plaza. "Caladrel, prepare your men to shoot on my signal."

Once more, the ranger looked to Amarandlon. The prince removed his helmet and studied my face for an instant before nodding to his lieutenant. Caladrel nodded. "All teams, await my mark."

Riffling a scroll on which I had inscribed a transfiguring spell, I looked to the green spire. Its viridian lightning erupted to fill the entire plaza around me. The elves flinched, but we felt not the slightest jolt of electricity. The spell infused our bodies with swiftness.

"Now!"

At a word from Caladrel, the archers unleashed their arrows and continued to shoot in an almost unending stream. Seeing the effect of my spell, Caladrel raised his own bow. Far faster than even the elite archers under his command, the ranger lord became a blur of motion. In moments, he depleted his quiver except for that one curious arrow clinging to its side. He dropped his bow and drew the long elven curveblade from his back.

Nearby, Oparal leaped onto the unicorn's back and unsheathed her holy sword. Her steed pranced, eager to join the fray but awaiting the command of his mistress. The paladin did not so much as clutch the animal's mane, but through some silent communication she held it in check until the time was right.

At my back, Variel and Fimbulthicket brought more and more trees and plants to life. As they completed each spell, the green spire cast lightning fingers out into the city. From creeping vines to proud oaks, every living plant the light touched pulled up its roots and marched into the scattered horde. Instead of appearing alone or in small groups, they stepped out of the loam in whole companies. Soon two armies opposed the demons, one of flesh and bone, another of leaves and bark.

Beside me, Kemeili conjured a ball of acid. None of the spires reacted, but yellow lightning surged up from the stones beneath us. The plaza served as both the city's aiudara and its seventh spire.

With Arnisant at my heel, I tested this bastion of magical power. Under the power of the red spire, a meager spray of frost became a deadly beam of utter cold, freezing solid two of a four-armed demon's limbs. I hurled arcane missiles at the demons who survived the archers' assault. Each bolt of force felled another demon before the fiend could close with Radovan. Those were merciful killings compared to the fate of those who reached him.

With open claws and prehensile tail, Radovan welcomed those who survived. His scorpion barb dipped down again and again, trailing blood and venom as it rose up out of yet another horrendous wound. He opened wide his mandible-jaws and bit off a demon's equine face, shaking it away as a dog savages its prey.

After depleting their ammunition, the elves exchanged their bows for curveblades. At a word from Caladrel, they sprinted out of the plaza, swords cutting down demons right and left. Caladrel mounted the steed Amarandlon had brought through the gate for him. With the prince's guard and the paladin at their side, they rode out to engage the thickest mob of demons.

Radovan bounded after them. He paused suddenly, realizing he was running on all fours. He stood up and looked around to see whether anyone had witnessed the indignity. Before he saw me staring at him, a pestilent condor-fiend flew down to grapple with him. I peppered the demon with the last of my arcane missiles. Radovan waved away the resulting cloud of feathers and ichor, looking down at his own fiendish claws in astonishment. I could almost read his mind by his astonished expression: Sometimes I don't know my own strength! He resumed his chase of the dispersing horde, once again falling into a four-legged lope.

As the elven host rode forth, I remained with the other spellcasters. The other wizards marveled at the effect of the spires. The clerics remained just long enough to ensure that we were warded against the demons before following the rangers into battle, by turns smiting demons and healing their wounded fellows.

Fimbulthicket summoned more elementals. Rather than the small whirlwinds and living stones he conjured earlier, great winds screamed down from the sky and hulking avalanches erupted from the earth.

Variel raised a battery of living catapults around the plaza. What had only moments earlier been trees became autonomous siege engines. Their branches scooped up huge clods of earth and bricks and flung their makeshift ammunition hundreds of yards to pulverize unsuspecting demons.

The sunlight brightened all around us as another section of the dome fell away in flames. Enraged at the sight of more damage to her home, Zuldanavox beat her wings in a circuit of the dome. Everywhere she flew, she liquefied demons with her acid breath or tore them to pieces in her claws. Those foolish enough to grapple with her soon vanished into her enormous jaws.

As I depleted the last of my battle spells, I saw no more behemoths tearing through the dome at ground level. Whatever fell presence frightened Zuldanavox earlier had withdrawn.

Scattered bands of lesser demons fled out through the rents in the barrier. Those who escaped the elves or Zuldanavox or Radovan or the hundreds of monsters native to the city occasionally ran into their wrathful superiors. The greater demons slew the cowards, surveyed the field, and expeditiously beat their own retreats.

The victors pursued the demons until a fracas broke out between the rangers and a band of leucrottas. The latter sought to win past and escape the city, but one trumpeting blast from Zuldanavox sent them galloping back to their shelters deep within the city.

The dragon descended to land near Amarandlon. The prince leaped nimbly from his rearing stallion. He stepped forward and bowed. Caladrel caught the reins of his lord's frightened horse and led it and his own animal beyond the dragon's awful presence.

I wished for a spell to overhear Amarandlon's words. Turning to Variel, I saw my concern mirrored in his furrowed brow.

"What is he doing?" said Fimbulthicket. "Did Telandia send him?"

"I doubt it," said Variel. "I doubt it very much."

The lightning crackling around the spires began to subside. Unless some unseen agent had deactivated them from below, we had expended their energies. I favored the latter explanation, but the thought reminded me that someone had intentionally deactivated the spires earlier. That act of sabotage had allowed the demons to enter the city, not only betraying Zuldanavox's hospitality but endangering us all.

While Amarandlon's wizards pored over the markings on the spires, we hastened across the ravaged city to join the audience between the elven prince and Zuldanavox.

We paused twice for Variel to conjure an elemental from a pool to douse a growing fire. On the second occasion, he and Fimbulthicket expended the last of their strength to send a number of elementals across the city in search of blazes to quench.

As we approached Zuldanavox and Amarandlon, I saw that the rangers had assembled in a group some sixty or seventy yards distant. Sentries watched for stragglers among the demons or the monstrous occupants of the City of Thorns, while the Calistrians tended to the more grievous wounds. A few dead lay surrounded by an honor guard in the center of the camp.

Amarandlon and his guard stood beneath the dragon's massive head. Her gaze was locked on the prince, but somehow I knew she remained aware of every nearby creature, including Caladrel, Kemeili, and Oparal. The battered unicorn stood beside the paladin, its head raised proudly as the paladin rested her palm upon its shoulder.

Radovan approached them from the side opposite the unicorn. He swung his long devil arms in a carefree gesture, but with every step his stature shrank. As he approached Caladrel, the rangers' horses reared and shied from him.

"Right, right, sorry." He raised his hands in mute apology and backed away. Only then did he notice that he no longer towered over the animals. His hands moved by reflex to cover his genitals, but with a visible effort he thrust a fist against his hips and demanded, "Which of you jerks has my pants?"

"I know where you left them," said Kemeili. She strove for a tone of seductive nonchalance, but it sounded forced.

I tried to ignore them both in favor of overhearing Amarandlon's conversation with Zuldanavox. A breeze rustled the remaining trees, and my half-elven hearing was not keen enough to pick up Amarandlon's words, but I heard Zuldanavox demand in a deep growl, "Which of them?"

Amarandlon said something to her before turning toward us. His dark elven irises made it difficult for me to see the object of his gaze, but Zuldanavox lowered her head and hissed. The unicorn reared.

Oparal shouted, "No! On my honor, by Iomedae, and in the name of Queen Telandia, I did no such thing."

"Seize her," cried Amarandlon. His deep voice carried as easily as the dragon's roar. Except for her utterance, Zuldanavox remained seated, observing.

Oparal leaped upon the back of the unicorn. Without so much as a kick to the flanks, the animal wheeled and galloped toward the center of the City of Thorns.

Caladrel mounted his horse.

"There has been a mistake," I shouted. "She is a paladin and envoy of the queen. Her word—"

"Her actions speak for themselves. The innocent have no need to flee." He kicked his horse's flanks and called out for a team of his rangers to follow.

The stupidity of his statement aside, I could not fault Caladrel's obedience to his lord.

Radovan ran a few steps after them before realizing the futility of the chase. "This is bullshit."

As much as Caladrel's loyalty, I admired Radovan's pith.

Regretting that I had prepared no more flying spells, I could only watch as the rangers ran to cut off Oparal while Caladrel pursued. Fleeter and more sure-footed than his pursuer, the unicorn soon outdistanced Caladrel and began to skirt the intercepting rangers.

"Cut them down!" cried Caladrel.

"No!" shouted Fimbulthicket. "Don't hurt them!"

Variel scowled and raised a hand, murmuring one of his forest songs. A ranger fell, and then another. The others tugged at their feet, entangled by the grass beneath them.

"Do not interfere," boomed Zuldanavox.

"This is not right, Zuldana!"

"This is my home," she thundered. "Even you are only a guest here."

Variel's hand clenched. He gripped his staff in both hands and planted it firmly before him.

Kemeili had not spoken. With a troubled expression, she watched the retreating figure of Oparal. She had demonstrated no affection for the paladin, but Amarandlon's accusation had surprised the inquisitor. She started when Radovan pulled the elven cloak from her shoulders and tied it around his waist as a skirt.

"What?" he said as she turned. "There's a breeze."

I went to Amarandlon. The others joined us.

"Your Highness, you must call them off. They'll kill her."

Amarandlon raised an eyebrow at my impertinent tone. "Count Jeggare, this Forlorn exposed our land to the horde. She must face justice."

"Oparal came here at the queen's behest. There must be—"

"The queen would sit idle while the demons overrun our country. It was not the queen who came to the aid of the mighty Zuldanavox. It was I alone who extended the hand of friendship."

"What evidence do you have against Oparal? She is the last person who would aid the demons."

"Sometimes the seemingly righteous stoop to base means to achieve their ends."

"That is true of many," I said. "But not of a true paladin. You saw for yourself that a unicorn chose her. Would that be possible if she harbored some secret treachery in her heart?"

Amarandlon drew in a heavy breath, turning toward Zuldanavox as if for support. The dragon peered down, awaiting his answer.

"She's almost reached the plaza," said Fimbulthicket, hopping up to catch brief glimpses of her progress across the overgrown city.

"Where were you before you stepped through the aiudara, Amarandlon?" asked Variel. I detected a sly undercurrent to his tone.

The prince's face darkened. "My wizards will allow no one to pass."

We all turned, the shadow of Zuldanavox's head shading us from the high sun. Oparal and the unicorn galloped toward the plaza. As Amarandlon predicted, his wizards stepped forward to block her path. Two of them conjured walls, one of ice, the other of stone, together forming a channel designed to force the unicorn into a dead end at the base of the nearest spire.

The unicorn did not slow. Indeed, it increased its pace. Before it struck the barrier, it vanished along with Oparal.

For an instant, steed and rider appeared together in the middle of the plaza. Then, just as when Caladrel had first performed the key gestures, the magic of the gate blazed white. Oparal and the unicorn vanished.

Zuldanavox looked down on Amarandlon, who for all his titles and power appeared a small thing beneath her gaze.

"No matter," he said. "My men hold the other side."

"They appear to hold this side as well," said Zuldanavox. "Yet she eluded them."

He turned to her and bowed. "You are right, of course, mighty wyrm."

"I detest that phrase."

"Great Zuldanavox, then. Or what honorific do you prefer?"

The dragon turned her head, almost imperceptibly, but I knew she stared at me even as she answered the prince. "You may address me as the Queen of Thorns."

∗ ∗ ∗

After Oparal's escape, Zuldanavox allowed Amarandlon to marshal his men in the temple of Desna. She warned him not to let his men stray from the roofless ruin. I suspected she had chosen the site so that she could look down upon the elves from her amphitheater lair, but also so that they could glimpse the treasures in her hoard. Her forbiddance was as much an enticement as a warning.

Kemeili remained with her fellow Calistrians in Amarandlon's camp. Initially she protested, wishing to remain with me and Radovan. When a senior cleric reminded her of their relative status, she submitted with uncharacteristic meekness. Her absence left me and Radovan to stand beside Variel and Fimbulthicket as the dragon heard Amarandlon's petition.

"For centuries, Queen Telandia has allowed the Witchbole to fester in the south. When the boil bursts, the putrescence must infect your city before it reaches Iadara. Today you saw the truth of it. And who but Telandia's paladin could have lowered your defenses? Where was she when the horde invaded your home?"

"Yet you were poised to come to my rescue." Zuldanavox sat among her riches, watching to see which would capture the prince's attention. Amarandlon locked his gaze to the dragon's emerald eyes.

"Someone had to be ready to offer assistance. My niece has the heart of a child, too frightened of the horde to oppose them, too intimidated by your power to approach you honestly. She has known of your existence for centuries, but she dared not seek you out herself. Instead she sent her old lover to learn your secrets and report to her."

"Zuldana," Variel protested, "I've been completely honest with you about Telandia's intentions."

"But not so honest as to tell me you were once her lover?"

"That's overstating our relationship."

"So it was a relationship?"

Variel barely stifled his exasperation. "It was ages ago, and only for a summer. We were never really suited for each other." His cavalier dismissal of a tryst with the queen caused me to reevaluate his profession of love for my mother. Their romance had also lasted only a summer, and now I wondered whether he had feigned his fondness for her in an effort to soothe my ire.

"She cherished you so little but considered you a fit gift for me?" said the dragon.

"I didn't come here as a gift. I came as a friend."

"Leave us," she said. "Take the gnome and your mongrel whelp as well."

As Variel and Fimbulthicket returned to the manor, I led Radovan and Arnisant south toward the temple district. There Radovan fetched his clothing from the ruined temple of Calistria. He walked barefoot as we left the baths, his damp boots draped over one shoulder. His wet pants must have chafed, but at least his jacket remained dry. It fit as perfectly as before his latest transformation. No matter the physical differences between his previous and current "passengers," as I had begun to think of his possessing devils, it seemed to have no effect on his default anatomy.

"I know Zuldana sounded pretty hard on you back there, boss, but I think she still likes you. In fact, if I understand anything about women—and I think I do—I'd say she's got her eye on you."

Grateful as I was for his return, I disliked Radovan's insinuation. "Do not suggest for a moment that I share Variel's proclivity for interspecies romance."

"Hey, I'm the one who wanted to leave Kemeili back in Omesta. You're the one who said, 'Keep her happy.' Maybe it's time you took your own advice."

"There is a vast difference between consorting with an elf and—"

Radovan was barely containing his laughter, and I realized he was baiting me to lighten my mood. Yet it was not the time for levity.

There was little doubt in my mind that Amarandlon stood before Zuldanavox and proposed treason against his own queen. As a guest of Queen Telandia and a man of honor, I was duty-bound to thwart his scheme.

We gave Amarandlon's men a wide berth and came to the spot where I had first seen Kemeili fleeing the demons. I recognized the house where Caladrel had dropped from the roof to evade a flying demon. Nimble as the ranger was, his hasty drop had left a scattering of broken roof tiles upon the street.

From there it was easy to trace the route of Kemeili's escape. In the street lay the corpses of the demons I had frozen and several more sprouting Caladrel's arrows. I searched the ground.

"What are you looking for, boss?"

"Something that is not here." As I uttered the words, I spotted the broken shaft of an arrow in the weeds near the body of a near-skeletal demon. I picked up the arrow and saw that it was broken a few inches above the tip. Poking through the weeds, I sought its arrowhead. Shrugging off his jacket, Radovan joined the search.

Moaning a fiendish phrase, the demon I had presumed dead rolled over and reached for Radovan. Without thinking, I drew the Shadowless Sword and cut through its windpipe. As it died, the meaning of its words dawned on me: "The gate."

I looked at Radovan. "It sensed you only after you removed the jacket."

"Yeah, go figure."

"The demons went straight for you the first few times we encountered them."

He nodded, grimacing at the memory.

"The first time you had set your jacket aside, but the second time you were wearing it."

"Yeah. No, wait. The second time I had it off when they showed up. I pulled it on just as the fight started, before you came back."

I should have examined his new jacket more thoroughly. The sorcerer in Goka had imbued it with far more magic than I had imagined. That explained one question that had troubled me over the past weeks, but not the ones whose answers I currently sought.

"Yuck," said Radovan. He lifted a limp sac of vegetable matter from the weeds. He offered it to me. Covering my fingers with a handkerchief, I took it from him and sniffed the fibrous material. I recognized the smell.

"This is where I saw Kemeili running from the temple. Caladrel and I came to her aid, but now I wonder...Did you notice where the demons first breached the dome wall?"

"I was kind of occupied, getting cut up and turned inside out."

"My apologies. I had not forgotten the torment you must—"

"Forget it. It was over there somewhere." He pointed to the wall.

I offered Arnisant the plant fiber. The hound dutifully sniffed and raised his snout to catch the scent on the breeze. "Arnisant, find!"

We followed him to the dome wall. Demon bodies and the splinters of the city's vegetable defenders littered the ground. The battle had despoiled the temple district more than many others. I recalled Variel's anecdote about his quarrel with Zuldanavox and wondered how many decades it would take to mend the damage from this battle. I hoped the dragon would not insist we remain to perform the repairs.

Arnisant pointed at the spot where one of the original vine gates had stood. Now only the charred remains of the once-imposing barrier lay scattered on the sward. Arnisant led us out of the domed city.

Within a hundred yards, Arnisant caught the scent again. We followed him in search of a third site, but there was none. Still, the trail of scent was strong enough and lay far enough from the city to lead the horde to the dome.

Radovan scratched the back of his neck as he considered our findings. A glimmer of understanding appeared in his eyes. Although I repeat the phrase in jest, he truly is smarter than he looks. Even so, I am loath to spoil the suspense he claims to feel before the moment of truth.

"I get it," he said. "I get some of it, anyway. I'm just not sure what we do about it."

"We report our findings and offer our counsel," I said. "After that, the decision must rest with the queen."

Chapter Twenty-Two

The Hoard

Radovan

Zuldanavox lay curled around a fountain. In the middle of the water stood a bronze monument of elves lifting each other up in laced hands. The tall ones on the bottom were gaunt like the old elves I'd seen. Standing on their hands and shoulders were young adults who lifted teenagers above their heads. On top was a young elven girl, her own hand reaching up to the sun. At night I guess that meant the moon, maybe the stars.

Desna smile on us. We're going to need it.

Across the fountain from the dragon's head, Amarandlon stood with that easy confidence you see in guys who've just won a fight. He'd left his antlered helmet somewhere else, but his curveblade lay in its half-sheath across his back.

Caladrel stood on Amarandlon's right, holding his bow like a staff. His quiver was still empty except for that one big arrow clinging to the outside. He didn't look so cocky as his boss. In fact, he looked a little nervous, I guess on account of the dragon.

A Calistrian cleric stood on Amarandlon's left, his hand on Kemeili's shoulder. From her scrunched nose, I could tell she didn't like that one bit. What I couldn't tell was whether she was in trouble or ready to make some.

Apart from them stood Variel with Fimbulthicket at his side. The boss and I went to stand with them, Arnisant between us. As we took our spot, Caladrel shot me a questioning look, like he wanted to know why we hadn't stood with him.

Zuldanavox sat there looking down on us while we looked at each other, waiting for somebody else to speak. Variel broke the silence.

"Prince Amarandlon does not speak for Kyonin," he said. "Only Telandia can do so."

"Then why has she not come?" asked the dragon.

"She is timid," said Amarandlon. "And subtle."

"She is cautious," said Variel. "And she is wise in her caution. Only a fool would attempt to deceive you, Zuldana. Whoever led those demons to your home is standing right here."

"The Forlorn paladin is your betrayer," said Amarandlon, "and she has already escaped. But if you return with me to Iadara, you will have the vengeance you deserve. I swear it."

Variel gritted his teeth, but the boss spoke up. "Then you are forsworn, Prince Amarandlon, for you have pledged fealty to Telandia."

"My loyalty is to Kyonin. Telandia's timorous approach to the adversary has endangered us all. But if we join forces, with the combined forces of the City of Mists and the City of Thorns, we can take the battle to the Witchbole and end this threat once and for all."

"That is a question for the queens to decide."

"Then we need a new monarch in Iadara, a strong king to treat with the strong queen of this City of Thorns."

"So there it is at last," Variel said. "Open treason."

"And why not? Telandia has failed us. She has failed all her people."

"You have betrayed one queen. Why should Zuldana trust you to keep faith with her?"

"Because like all strong rulers, Queen Zuldanavox knows when the weak must be swept away. She knows that I respect her strength too much to dare betray her."

I looked up, but I couldn't read a thing on the dragon's face. She might as well have been carved out of jade.

"And yet you have already deceived her," said the boss. "Just as you manipulated me even before we met at the Midsummer Masque."

"Here it comes." I leaned down to whisper to Fimbulthicket. "This is my favorite part."

"What are you talking about?" he whispered back.

"You'll see."

"Telandia entrusted you with the knowledge that she had dispatched Variel Morgethai on a diplomatic embassy, yet she did not tell you where. You suspected he had discovered this hidden city, but you could not yourself find it."

"No one could find it," said Amarandlon.

"And you of all people could not risk seeming to search for it, not without causing Telandia to doubt your loyalty. So when I came to Kyonin—unaware that Variel Morgethai was in fact my father—you saw an opportunity to find him without appearing to search for him yourself. All you had to do was counsel the queen to permit my search—after you assured yourself of my disdain for the demonic horde. Then it was a simple matter to send your master of the hunt to accompany me, reporting our progress through the aiudara."

"What of it? Naturally I could not let a half-breed Chel roam freely through our land."

"If the safety of Kyonin was your concern, why did you permit me to continue after the debacle of the Walking Man? Fortunately, if I had not made that error, I would not have understood enough of elven arcana to raise the deactivated spires. I certainly would not have deduced the existence of the aiudara hidden between them. But someone else knew there was an aiudara in this city."

"Of course there is an aiudara here," said Amarandlon. "There is one in every major elven city in Kyonin."

"Yet the instant we activated the aiudara, Caladrel was able to open it. The keys to the aiudara are among Kyonin's most closely held secrets, are they not?"

"As my master of the hunt, Caladrel knows the keys to all of the aiudara."

"Even the ones in cities that no one remembers?"

Amarandlon was getting a little color in his cheeks, but he kept his temper down. "There are far more aiudara than there are keys. Caladrel made an educated guess."

"And you just happened to be prepared to step through the gate with a legion of rangers at your back."

"Of course not. Caladrel apprised me of the situation, and I marshaled my men."

"When did he apprise you? And how?"

"I am a prince of Kyonin. I will not be questioned by some inquisitive—"

"Was it on your order or his own initiative that Caladrel lured the demons to this city?"

"That's ridiculous."

I nudged Fimbulthicket. "That's it. It's over."

"How do you know?"

"They always start saying things like 'That's ridiculous' just before it's over."

The boss pulled his handkerchief from his pocket. "I have here several of Caladrel's scent arrows. He demonstrated their effect shortly after we left Omesta. They drove the vermlek demons into a frenzy."

"It wasn't my arrows but your own man who attracted the demons," said Caladrel. "We all saw how they ran straight for him every time we fought. You're the one who brought the horde to this city."

"No," said the boss. "The demons could track Radovan only when he was not wearing his jacket, although we did not understand its warding powers until today. And considering the power of the city's wards, I doubt the horde could sense him here until you lured them to the gate with these scent arrows and lowered the spires."

"I'm no wizard. How could I lower the spires?"

"When Variel showed them to me last night, you had already left your audience with Zuldanavox. I have never known anyone so fleet or silent as you. I think you were already near the spire chambers when Variel and I visited them. You overheard our speculation on their function and watched as he showed me how to raise and lower them."

"You have known how to raise the missing spires?" Zuldanavox rumbled.

Variel winced, but he had the good sense to let the boss answer.

"Variel could not have activated the aiudara without experimenting further at the Walking Man, as I did. My blunder there allowed me to deduce the operation of the aiudara here."

"So Variel is more like Telandia: cautious but ineffective. And you are more like Amarandlon, reckless but capable."

The boss hesitated. "Yes and no."

"Explain the 'yes' part."

"My people—that is, my mother's people, humans—do not enjoy such long lives as elves or dragons. We take more risks, and often we make mistakes as I did at the Walking Man. But by taking those risks, sometimes we learn more quickly than those who are more cautious. In this case, the organs I found within the Walking Man functioned in a manner similar to the controls in the vaults containing your city's spires. Yet the cost of the knowledge that helped us here was harm to the previous site."

"And explain the 'no' part."

"Unlike Prince Amarandlon, I never betray a queen."

I thought it was a great line, but I couldn't tell what Zuldanavox thought. She turned her head to look straight down at Amarandlon. "I could crush you now."

Amarandlon's lips twitched. He wanted to say something tough—and I don't think anybody had forgotten about the men he had waiting over at the temple—but like any smart man, he knew better than to threaten a dragon.

A deep vibration filled the city. We all turned at the same time to see the plaza—the aiudara—flash with light from all six spires. A hundred mounted elves appeared. In the middle of them all sat Queen Telandia. I'd never got a good look at her before, but standing there in her stirrups, I could have mistaken her for one of the elven goddesses.

Two riders broke from the group and came toward us. One held a banner with the image of a briar-wrapped gem above a white flag of truce. The other was Oparal riding the unicorn.

"Behind me, my prince!" Caladrel had his bow drawn, his special-occasions arrow pointed at Variel's heart. "We will withdraw to our men and depart. This arrow is doom to any elf."

The boss put his hand on his sword. What probably nobody else saw was that he already had a scroll in his other hand. I didn't know what he had in mind, but at least he seemed to have a plan.

"Don't move, Count," said Caladrel. "You have only just met your father. Do not force me to make you an orphan."

"There is still time for an honorable surrender." The boss edged over, trying to put himself between Caladrel and his old man, but Caladrel moved too. "You have been loyal to a bad lord, but loyalty is a virtue. The queen may show you mercy."

"Stay where you are. You are a capable swordsman, but you are not swift enough to cut this string before I release it."

"You will not leave," said Zuldanavox.

"Then neither will your lover." Caladrel released the arrow.

He was right when he said the boss could never reach the string in time. He couldn't even draw his sword more than a few inches, but the boss knew that too. He shook the blade out of its sheath, thrusting the still-half-scabbarded sword toward Variel's chest even as he let the riffle scroll flip across his thumb. The blade glimmered as the spell sweetened its path, putting it right where the boss wanted it to go.

Caladrel's arrow struck the blade's razor-sharp edge. The wooden arrowhead splintered into a thousand harmless threads and floated away like seed pods.

Caladrel let his bow drop to the ground, his arms hanging limp at his sides. "My prince, forgive me."

"Caladrel."

"I should destroy you both," said Zuldanavox.

"I beg Your Majesty to spare him," said Kemeili.

"Why?"

"Queen Telandia has come with gifts. If you would offer her one in return, let it be a gift of revenge. Amarandlon will suffer more at her hands than from any torment you can offer."

"Is that so?" said Zuldanavox. "You think you elves with your three little stings have perfected the art of vengeance, do you? How little you know of dragons. And yet I do wish to offer Telandia a gift. I shall demonstrate my idea of revenge."

Dark light played around the dragon's big horn. An inhuman screaming rose from the flickering magic that gathered at its tip. When it lashed down to strike Caladrel, it blinded everybody for a moment. When we blinked the sight back into our eyes, there was nothing left but a scorch on the street and a look of ruin on Amarandlon's face.

∗ ∗ ∗

We stuck around after the Council of Queens. One thing you got to love about the highborn, they put a title on everything they do, like it was a play or an opera or something worth seeing. That sort of thing usually gives me a chuckle, but I had to agree that putting Telandia and Zuldana together was a big deal—and not just for the elves. Depending on how things fell out, the boss was going to take his old man back to Iadara. When I asked him about it, he took a deep breath and explained that he might need to pay an additional price for Variel's escape.

"What kind of price?"

"Zuldanavox desires that I visit occasionally and share the knowledge I have discovered in lands outside of Kyonin."

"Yeah? That don't sound so bad." He still looked a little pale, and then I got what he wasn't saying. "Oh. Oh!"

"I hope that she will be satisfied with a copy of my Pathfinder journal and a demonstration of rituals like the Thirty-Six Forms, curiosities like the whispering lilies or the riffle scrolls."

"Aw, boss, you're going to have to do better than that. This is a highly sensitive diplomatic situation. You know what a smart guy told me when I was in that situation?"

He shot me a look meant to shut me up, but he spoiled it by swallowing the lump in his throat.

"Keep her happy, boss."

When it got obvious he wasn't going to get a laugh out of it, I let him off the hook.

For the next few days, Telandia's guard stuck around to protect the laborers she sent through the aiudara to help clean up. The guards killed a few straggling demons but were careful only to drive off the other monsters living in the city. They'd been forbidden to harm the subjects of the Queen of Thorns, which is what Zuldana wanted everybody to call her now. Hearing that phrase was one of the few things that gave the boss a smile, like he was proud of it or something.

The boss and me, we mostly hung out at the manor. He spent all his time in the library, trying to memorize as many of the books as he could before we had to leave. He grumbled about not having brought a spell to let him copy all the most interesting books. Zuldana wasn't going to let him borrow any. He'd have to come back to read more.

When I got bored of watching him read, and knowing that Variel was on hand to look out for him, I took Arni for a walk. The eastern neighbors were more or less safe. The dragon queen had given everybody the freedom of the city. She might have been hoping to see how many elves got themselves swallowed by her giant lake monster or carried off by leucrottas. But really I think she wanted to tempt them with her treasure hoard.

Whenever a couple of the elves got too close to the Amphitheater, I warned 'em off. "Don't go in there," I'd say. "You think she can't see you because she's flying way over there, but she'll know. You touch so much as a coin in there, and she'll eat you."

They pretended to listen or told me off. Some shot back with the Elven words I'd learned best, which gave me an excuse to shoot them the tines or the big smile. When those ones snuck back later thinking I wasn't looking, I didn't tell 'em a second time.

Zuldana spent a lot of time gliding over the city. She said it was to survey the damage, but I think she was keeping an eye on things. She might have struck an alliance with Telandia, but that didn't mean she trusted her followers after the stunt Amarandlon pulled. I was still sorting out the details of what everybody in our little gang had really wanted.

It seemed like Fim—he still didn't like me calling him that, but too bad for him—really did just want to find his old friend again. No matter how spooky he looked on the outside, you could tell by the way he laughed from time to time that he was getting back to his old self. Maybe not "unbleaching," exactly, but remembering how to enjoy life. Something like that.

The boss told me Oparal was always the agent of the queen, just like she'd said. I wanted to know why she'd been crying after her audience with Zuldanavox. He said it was harder for her to deal with a dragon than it was for the rest of us. After all, none of the rest of us was above deception to get our own way. I wanted to argue that point, but we'd done our share of lying to the others, me and the boss.

Kemeili had a different opinion. She came looking for me one night, but it wasn't a tumble she had in mind.

"You have to tell Varian something's wrong. There is no way Queen Telandia would choose a Forlorn as her agent. She already had me."

"Yeah, maybe so. But sometimes back in Egorian, when my old boss was running a hustle, he'd send in two of us to do the same job. One was there to draw off all the attention while the other got the job done."

"But that doesn't make sense," she said. "I was told nothing about Amarandlon's scheme. Those clerics were in league with him, yet nobody told me—"

It was beginning to dawn on her. Kemeili wasn't going to like it when she realized Telandia sent her as the decoy, knowing she'd draw everybody's attention away from Oparal, the agent that she really trusted.

The clever part was picking Oparal in the first place, knowing that none of the elves would like a Forlorn but also guessing that none of them would imagine the queen chose the paladin as her real agent. Everybody would be looking at the "youngest inquisitor ever chosen," especially when that was a woman whose biggest talent was making everybody pay attention to her. I didn't want to be around when Kemeili had the rest of it figured out, so I said, "Yeah. It's a real puzzler."

"When we return to Iadara, you won't tell anyone that I was deceived by my own people, will you?"

"Listen, sweetheart, I don't think I'll be sticking around long after the boss gets his carriage back."

"All right, but until then, we'll finally have time to spend together." She put on that little girl voice that used to get my attention before it started to get old. "I'll show you the most secret parts of the city."

"I don't know. There's going to be a lot going on. With Amarandlon back at court, the boss is going to need an extra set of eyes on his back. I've got to be there for him."

"He'll be under Telandia's protection," she said. "No one will dare hurt him."

"Still, I'll feel better if I keep an eye on him."

Her eyes opened wide as she realized we were having The Talk, and she wasn't the one giving it, she was the one getting it. "You're done with me!"

"Don't think of it that way. I didn't figure we'd have more than that first night, and look at all the fun we've had since then."

"You really did want to escape after Iadara!"

"Well, you know, you're a busy gal yourself, what with all your inquisiting and beguiling. We could use a break."

"A break!"

"Listen, I can see you've got a lot on your mind. I'm just going to go back up to the manor and see how things are coming along—"

"Fine." She spun around and walked toward the aiudara. I enjoyed the view for a minute but didn't sigh in relief until I was damned sure she couldn't hear me.

Oparal was nowhere to be found, which was just as well. I don't know why I even thought about talking to her again. Now that I'd made an actual compact with a devil, even if it was to come back to the City of Thorns and help fight the demon horde, I didn't see us getting friendly. Her unicorn hated me, her sword hated me, and I didn't see any reason why she wouldn't hate me more than ever.

Apart from that, I was feeling surprisingly good about the whole situation. Sure, Viridio had an open door to "ride" me whenever I called on his sigil. Whatever that was—I already knew it wasn't fire. The boss and I tested that theory right away with a hot skillet. He wanted to do a bunch more tests. There was a time I would have begged off, but I was starting to think it was a good idea to know more about the hows and whys of my bad ancestry.

More than that, I wanted to find out more about this child the devils mentioned.

"Devils lie," the boss reminded me. After I'd told him about what I'd learned in the little hell, he'd acted at least as concerned as he was curious. Or maybe he was just biding his time before he proposed a whole 'nother series of experiments to do on me.

"I know," I said. "But they tell enough of the truth to make it hard to know when they're lying."

He couldn't argue with that.

"You've just found your father," I said. "Now it looks like I've got a kid somewhere. At least one. That imp made a good point. If that potion was a phony, I could have hundreds of brats by now."

"Surely not hundreds."

"I don't spend so much time in the library as you do."

He couldn't argue with that, either.

On our last day in the city, Zuldana said her goodbyes and made a pointed reminder that she expected a visit from the boss that winter. As we headed down to the aiudara, I looked up for one last view of the dome. I spotted something hanging from one of those arm-length barbs high above us. The boss loaned me his spyglass, and I focused it on the shape of one of those looters I'd warned off.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Nothing," I told him. "She's just redecorating."

The briar dome sagged in a lot of places, but in others Variel had already begun restoring the vines with his magic. It wasn't going to look the same anytime soon, but it sure looked like it belonged to a Queen of Thorns.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The First Sting

Varian

Turning left," said Variel, guiding me by the elbow.

He and Fimbulthicket led me blindfolded through the labyrinthine passages of Queen Telandia's palace. They had wanted Radovan as well, but they arrived moments after he had left for a visit to the temple baths. While he made a show of taking his toothbrush, I doubted his principal motivation for the visit was a question of hygiene. We had not seen Kemeili since our return to Iadara, and I sensed Radovan regretted their parting words.

Even blindfolded and without my bodyguard, I followed Variel and Fimbulthicket in complete faith. Since our return to Iadara, I had begun to see Variel less as a father figure and more as an elder brother—an equally strange relationship to one who had in all his long life known neither sire nor sibling.

"Steps," said the gnome. "Three, two, one, there you go."

The morning sun warmed my face as we moved out of doors. I heard the clop of hooves on stone and smelled horses. More faintly I heard the rustle of silk and the whispers of a hushed audience.

Although the whole business seemed absurd, I felt an unexpected excitement at the ritual. When the druids came to fetch me, I knew the surprise awaiting me could only be the Red Carriage. Yet once I donned the blindfold and allowed them to lead me from my room, anticipation built in my heart. I recalled the day my mother led me down the stairs of Greensteeples, bidding me to close my eyes before she led me to the drive. By the time we reached our destination, I felt as breathless as the horses sounded.

"You may remove the blindfold," said Variel.

Blinking in the sunlight, I gazed in astonishment at the sight before me.

Inside the courtyard crowded a group of elves, many of whom I half-recognized from the Midsummer Masquerade. They wore no masks, but their clothing was no less splendid than at that celebration. They wore gowns of gossamer, robes of living flowers, and coats of leather so vibrant they resembled living hide. The women wore headdresses to put the most splendid peacock to shame, strings of gemstones sparkling in imitation of waterfalls, and tiny fairies perched in swings formed of hair braids.

All eyes remained on me as I took in the sight of my restored carriage. The red wooden body was unmistakably similar, but for an instant I feared it was an entirely new vehicle. The lustrous red wood was the same, but the carriage was half again its original size. Variel had incorporated its salvaged parts throughout an expanded structure. He had preserved the lamps and added six more to the upper corners and the sides. Brass shone at the new handles and fittings.

Both front and back boots had been much enlarged. The driver's seat now featured a wide dashboard with built-in compartments and several mysterious consoles within arm's reach. At the rear, the footman's perch now included sturdy seats and metal hooks to either side of the message compartment.

To the original doors adorned with the Jeggare family crest, Variel had added two more emblazoned with an elegant silhouette of a slender tower beside a waterfall. From what he had described of his family's home, I surmised the crest represented the Morgethai family of Riverspire.

Fimbulthicket hopped up on a carriage step and opened the doors. Within the carriage Variel had widened both the fore and aft couches and added a single seat to either side between the winged doors. While once the carriage could house only four passengers comfortably, now it could accommodate eight. Fimbulthicket stepped inside and unfolded a clever table of the same deep red wood as the carriage body.

With so many features added to its already considerable weight, the carriage required a larger team. One had been provided: yoked to the lengthened tongue of the vehicle stood six massive draft horses with deep bay coats and feathered black fetlocks.

Speechless, I turned to Variel. "I would never have imagined you could exceed the original."

His proud smile was yet another reward. "I have learned a few new techniques in the past century, and from what you have told me of your recent travels, I imagined you could use the extra room."

"Where did you find such magnificent horses?"

A profound bass responded from behind me. "Her Majesty suggested you would need a team of strong horses. These are finest of my herd, a gift to our invaluable friend from the Empire."

Even before I turned, I recognized the voice of Prince Amarandlon. The guards at his sides wore the queen's violet and green, not his personal colors. I knew that the indignity of a royal escort was only a fraction of the vengeance he would suffer for his disloyalty. His gift of priceless horses was another. While he maintained an expression of perfect cordiality, I sensed hatred seething beneath the mask. One day, I knew, he would unleash his own revenge on me.

I bowed to him in the elven style. He responded with a shallow nod, the privilege of his rank. Even that scant courtesy rankled, I saw in his eyes. Had I inherited my father's caution, I should have withdrawn without another word. Yet I did not wish this oath-breaker to imagine I feared his vengeance.

"Whenever I look out from my carriage and see these fine animals walking forward, I shall think of you."

I regretted Radovan was not present to see Amarandlon form the thin smile of a man who understands he has just been called a horse's ass.

"I shall think of you also, Count Jeggare. May Calistria grant us another meeting." He withdrew swiftly, sparing me the obligation to continue our badinage.

Some of the attendant lords and ladies slipped away to avoid the appearance of favoring the foreign interloper over their disgraced prince. The rest remained, more curious than cautious, or perhaps so bold as to stand apart from Prince Amarandlon's camp. I consigned their faces to my memory library in hopes that one day I would find allies among them. The elves do not soon forget an enmity, and they live far longer than human patience.

Variel took me by the arm and turned me away from my retreating enemy. "Whatever else one might say of the prince, he breeds the finest horses in Kyonin. While the queen's command was certainly meant to punish him, it was also meant to honor you."

"What are the chances one of them is a basilisk hidden under an illusion?"

"The queen had her wizards examine the animals for any such surprises."

I sought his face for some sign that he was joking but spied none. When he finally cracked a smile, it was at Fimbulthicket, who had climbed onto the driver's perch and slapped the reins over the team. The carriage jolted forward, tipping the gnome back into the seat.

"Your new carriage needs a maiden journey, if it survives Fim," said Variel. "He could use some practice. Let's have him drive us to Riverspire. The family will have forgotten my face by now, and they will want to see yours."

His remark reminded me that I had been away from home too long. The second anniversary of my absence from Greensteeples approached. "Come with me to Egorian," I countered. "Let me show you all the places mother loved best. We have a box at the royal opera house. We can drive out to my vineyards. We shall drink the finest red wines of Cheliax."

He displayed a noncommittal smile, but I already knew his answer. If he could not bear to leave Kyonin to be with my mother, he could not do so for me.

"No." I relinquished the hope. "Your place is ever in Kyonin."

"It can be your home also. The queen decrees that you may come and go just like any elf."

The gesture was one of many honors and treasures Telandia had showered upon me for my role in thwarting Amarandlon's scheme. Although her generosity humbled me, it did not alter the painful truth in the phrase, "just like any elf." Rather like the Forlorn Oparal, I would forever remain an outsider to the elves of Kyonin.

"Queen Telandia honors me, but my place remains in Cheliax, and my fidelity to Her Infernal Majestrix, Abrogail II. Yet I look forward to returning one day. There are so many wonders yet to discover in Kyonin, and I should like to help recover more of what was lost."

"Zuldanavox will be impatient to see you again. She would not stop talking about your Thirty-Six Forms."

"In the meantime, I rest assured she will be content with your company."

"On that count she must be patient." He watched as Fimbulthicket guided the carriage around the courtyard, scattering elven lords and ladies. "Seeing how much he has changed reminds me how fleeting life can be for other people. I think you know something of that as well, living among humans and—what is the polite term? Hellspawn?"

"There is, I fear, no polite term."

"I want to fly across the Fierani again, visit the sites that Fim and I first discovered together. Well, that's my excuse anyway. The truth is I need to make sure you haven't accidentally sent any more ancient colossi charging toward unsuspecting villages."

"What? It was fewer than forty steps! Besides, if not for my experiment at the Walking—" Before my protests could make a worse fool of myself, I saw the humor crinkling at the corners of his eyes.

The nearest courtiers joined in his laughter, as if they had anticipated his jibe. I felt a pang of humiliation, but only until an elven lady adorned in gold and crimson feathers put her hand on my arm in a familiar but not unwelcome gesture. Her companion pressed a goblet of dandelion wine into my hand and said, "We are so glad you have returned home, Count Varian."

I did not correct her usage.

Variel had unleashed a dam of trepidation among the hesitant elves. Offered the welcome of a joke, they spilled around us, reintroducing themselves, inviting us to dine, and questioning us about our journey through the Fierani. Much of what we had experienced was already known throughout Iadara, but they craved details and gossip about our companions—especially Oparal and Radovan, around whom a mostly false and scandalous tale had grown since our return. We had only to omit mention of Amarandlon's treachery, although it was known and widely whispered, and the true nature of Caladrel's death. A heroic tale of aiding an unexpected new ally would serve the realm far better than the truth about the death of the master of the hunt.

It took a team of hostlers to pry Fimbulthicket from the reins and prevent a second disaster with the Red Carriage. The gnome joined us as we received the flattery of the remaining courtiers. Gradually they drifted away, until at last the servants attended only the three of us.

"We leave for Omesta soon," said Variel. "Come with us for a few days. Perhaps you'll change your mind and come with us to Riverspire."

"Tempting," I said. "But it is time I returned to Egorian. I have been too long away from home. But I will send word and wine and perhaps a few other things. And one day, I promise to return for a longer visit. In the meantime, you have many forgotten things to uncover. I insist you send me a copy of your notes."

"He will," said Fimbulthicket, clutching Variel's thumb. "If he forgets, I'll remind him."

We arranged a time for our farewells at the aerie, but first I would fetch Radovan. He would be as glad as I to return to Egorian.

Or would he? I sensed he had enjoyed our journeys away from home. Despite the perils we had faced, I liked to believe there was an element of adventure to our travels. Though he had squandered much of his portion of our reward from the King of Quain, the wealth he received from the queen of the elves was enough to sustain him for years to come. There was no longer any financial need for him to work as my bodyguard.

I stopped at an intersection of four passages in the outer courts of the royal palace. Upon our return, I wondered, would Radovan continue to act as my bodyguard? Perhaps that term was no longer apt. More than a year earlier I confessed that I thought of him not as a servant but as my friend. A few months ago, in the certain belief of imminent death, I had called him brother. Suddenly I feared that his financial independence might spell the end of our association.

As these thoughts troubled my mind, a familiar voice called out from behind me, and I turned.

Radovan

Nothing beats a hot bath.

Washing up began as an excuse to go to the Calistrian brothel, but once I felt the steam of the hot springs I was sold.

When the majordomo told me about the gnome girls, I paid extra for the special. While I lay down on a warm stone, the muscular little gals danced barefoot on my aching back. By the time they were done with me, I knew how a warm pudding felt right out of the oven. I could barely move to go on to the springs.

When I asked after Kemeili, they told me she hadn't worked there in decades. I tried explaining that I knew that, but she hadn't been at her place when I dropped by, so I thought she might be here. Nobody wanted to talk in the common tongue, and my Elven still wasn't good enough to get my point across. I had to turn away four women and a man before they understood I wasn't looking for a tumble.

Most of the action was going on in another room, where I guessed they held most of their "worship." The temple acolytes steered me toward a hot pool as green as tarnished copper. There were only a few others there, elves with long, fine hair and features that could have been etched in glass. I still hadn't seen any elves with gray hair or wrinkles, but I was pretty sure they'd put me in the old folks' pool. That was all right by me. I sank in and let the heat of the mineral water soak into my bones.

I'd never really appreciated hot soaks before shaking off my first devil. Until then, even scalding water barely bothered me. Even a little fire had never bothered me because of him, this Norge who lay sleeping in the little hell. I'd like to be able to say that some of the wrong things I'd done were his fault, too. But especially after wrestling with Viridio back at the City of Thorns, I had a feeling the truth was I was always the one in control. Even if the devil cut short my temper and gave me his fiendish strength, what I did with it still came back to me in the end.

It'd been the same way with me and Kemeili, and especially in the way I'd reacted to Oparal. Kemeili had whispered in my ear, all right, but she couldn't make me to do anything I didn't choose. I'd begun to think of her as another kind of devil, giving me bad ideas but never forcing my hand.

But that wasn't the truth, either. I'd always known what she was up to. No matter how I tilted the question, it still came back on me in the end.

Now that a different devil had its hooks in me, I wondered what surprises were waiting for me in the days ahead. I was glad I could feel the heat of the bath, but that just meant I didn't know what "sigil" would bring Viridio across from the Abyss to ride me around the yard. The boss kept pestering me to do some experiments, but all I wanted was to feel clean again.

One of the temple whores gave me a towel as I stepped out of the steaming pool. I couldn't decide whether I was sorry or glad that I hadn't found Kemeili. I had half an idea that I should say goodbye, make sure she wasn't still sore at me. When I didn't spot her among the Calistrians at the bath, I had to admit to myself that I was more relieved than disappointed. I started thinking it was better I got out of town nice and quiet. The girl was volatile, as the boss might say.

I dried off and wrapped the towel around my waist. Most of the elves returned from the baths completely nude, taking what they called a "gnome air bath" on the way back to their rooms. Tempting as that was, I didn't want to make the other boys jealous.

Just as I was stepping out, a tall elven man entered the baths. Pretty much all the elves looked tall to me, but this one was so skinny that you could put leaves in his hair and call him a Fierani. He wore nothing but a little loincloth and a leather harness with a golden medallion of Calistria on his chest. He took one look at me and headed over, keeping his distance as much as he could as he held out a rolled letter.

He cleared his throat and said, "'I stab at thee from my heart.'"

I regretted leaving the big knife with my jacket back in the room. I made a fist and showed it to him.

"No!" he peeped. He glanced around to see who was watching before whispering. "It's a message from Kemeili."

"All right. Let's hear it."

"Remember, I'm just the messenger. Between you and me, she never did learn to separate the chef from the dish."

"Spill it, beanpole."

He cleared his throat. "'You turned away what I offered freely. Now you will suffer as I take from you that which you love better than me.'"

"What does that mean?" Even as I said it, I got a real bad feeling.

The skinny elf shrugged. "Revenge, obviously. I don't know the details, but Kemeili is famous for her ...let's say 'disproportional' retaliations. When she says she's taking something you love, she means whatever you love most in this world."

"Desna weeps." I shoved him out of the way and ran. Somewhere between the temple and my room I lost the towel. Pushing past anybody that got in my way, I charged up the ramp to the diplomatic quarters. Arnisant sat in front of the boss's door. That was a good sign, since I couldn't imagine the hound letting anybody in to hurt him. I hit the door hard enough to make Arni woof.

There was nobody inside. I peeked around the privy alcove and out the window. Nothing out of place.

"Arni, where'd he go? Find the boss!"

He took off like a bolt. I grabbed a sheet off the bed and chased after him.

The hound followed the trail toward the royal palace. For a second I debated whether it was better to explain to the guards or just bowl past them, but before it mattered Ani stopped to snuffle the ground. He sniffed the area, following some confused scent trail. The boss had gone in, but he'd come out again.

Or maybe he'd been dragged out.

"What are you doing here dressed like that?"

The sight of Oparal surprised me. She hadn't let the priests disappear the scars on her face. I thought the wounds made her look more human—not that she'd appreciate that sentiment. Actually, they made her look more like her stupid unicorn with all its scars.

That damned thing followed her, a black-and-silver saddle on its back. With the worst of its wounds healed, it looked better than it had, but still like a girl's doll that'd been left out in the rain for a few weeks. Arnisant barked a warning, and the big gray beast stopped in its tracks. It might not like me, but it knew the pecking order, and Arnisant was on top.

"You seen the boss?" I asked.

"We said our farewells a short time ago. What he said made me think—"

"Which way did he go?"

Arni woofed and began following the scent trail in a new direction.

"I don't know," she said. "We parted in the inner court. I was on my way to speak with you. I thought we should—"

"I got no time for that. Arni, go!"

The hound loped away from the palace. Here and there someone pointed at us, but no one got in our way, lucky for them. We ran across a grassy meadow and up a hill leading to the royal aerie. From below, all I could see was a giant owl rising from its perch. I couldn't see past the beating wings to tell who was riding it. We ran up to the platform. I felt a cold ball of lead in my stomach and was afraid of what I'd find.

The boss was alone on the platform. He held up a hand to wave at the giant owl and its riders. Arni went to sit at his heel while I looked around, expecting an assassin to pop up at any moment. Why hadn't I grabbed the damned knife?

"You all right, boss?"

"Quite all right," he said, dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief. "These owls certainly stir up a prodigious amount of dust when they take flight."

I didn't notice any dust, but his eyes sure were red. I looked up at the owl to see Variel leaning forward in his saddle, Fimbulthicket seated in front of him. "You going to see your dad again soon?"

"Not soon, I fear," said the boss. He noticed I was wearing his bed sheet. "What possible reason—?"

"Wait a second," I said. "You're all right. Arni's all right. What did Kemeili mean?"

"What did she say?"

"She said she was going to take away something I cared about more than her." It hit me then. "Oh, nine hopping hells!"

I took off at a sprint. When the sheet tangled up in my legs, I threw it away and ran bare-assed in the open air.

"Radovan!"

I ignored him, but a second later I felt the cool tingle of magic through my body. He'd sped me up with a spell, so I took full advantage and flashed back to my room.

The door stood open. A couple of elf servants retreated from the room, slapping wet blankets at the black smoke.

"What's going on?"

"There's nothing to fear," said one of the elves. They stood in the way, stupid smiles tilting their mugs as if they'd accomplished something. "We managed to save the room."

I shoved them back and looked inside. As the smoke cleared, I saw the source of the fire was on the table. There wasn't much left but a shapeless mass of charred leather and the blackened shape of the big knife.

"Kemeili!"

The boss arrived, running so fast I knew he'd cast the spell on himself, too. He looked at me and the burned remains of my jacket. By the way he smiled and shook his head, I swear he could have recited Kemeili's note word for word. I didn't need to explain nothing.

"Oparal was looking for you."

"Yeah, she found me, but I was in a hurry." I couldn't stop looking at the smoldering pile of leather. So much for the sorcerer's claim that it was fireproof. Then I noticed the slashes in the leather and the yellow stain still burning through the hardened wood. "A blade, acid, and fire? That's just mean."

"At least not all of the ladies of Kyonin are displeased with you. The queen asked after you earlier, and Oparal gave me a message in case she did not find you before she left. Having discovered that fighting demons is far simpler than navigating the intrigue of the elven court, she has decided to join the Mendevian Crusade. She said to tell you, 'Let the perfect and the good be at peace.'"

"Yeah? Which one am I? The perfect or the good?"

"You are far from perfect," he said, poking at the ruin of my jacket with the tip of his scabbard. "Kemeili certainly seems to think so."

"'That which you love better than me.' I should have known."

"At least she left your pants," said the boss. "Perhaps you could put them on, and we can go find a saddler to make you a new jacket."

I got dressed and wrapped a cloth around my hand to retrieve the big knife. Even through the cloth, it was damned hot. The grip was ruined, but maybe I could salvage the blade, as long as whatever Kemeili had poured over everything hadn't broken the enchantments. It didn't look good.

We went down the ramp side by side, Arnisant just behind us. When we reached the ground, the boss said, "I must thank you."

"What for?"

"You said Kemeili threatened to take away something you loved, and you did not think of your treasured jacket before you came to ensure my safety. A touching gesture."

I shrugged it off, hoping he wasn't going to need his hanky again. "No problem."

"And yet ..." He trailed off.

"And yet what?"

"I notice that you saved the dog first."

About the Author

Dave Gross is the former editor of magazines ranging from Dragon to Star Wars Insider and Amazing Stories. The adventures of Radovan and Count Jeggare feature in the novels Prince of Wolves and Master of Devils, as well as many novellas and short stories available at paizo.com. His Forgotten Realms novels include Black Wolf and Lord of Stormweather. Other recent publications include stories in Tales of the Far West and Shotguns v. Cthulhu. You can keep up with Dave's latest shenanigans on Facebook, Twitter (@frabjousdave), and at frabjousdave.blogspot.com.

For feedback and encouragement from outline to draft, I thank Elaine Cunningham, Amber Scott, Lindy Smith, and Kevin Andrew Murphy.

Glossary

All Pathfinder Tales novels are set in the rich and vibrant world of the Pathfinder campaign setting. Below are explanations of several key terms used in this book. For more information on the world of Golarion and the strange monsters, people, and deities that make it their home, see The Inner Sea World Guide, or dive into the game and begin playing your own adventures with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook or the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beginner Box, all available at paizo.com. In particular, fans of Kyonin may wish to check out Pathfinder Adventure Path #17: A Memory of Darkness for its gazetteer of the elven nation, or the novels Prince of Wolves and Master of Devils for the previous adventures of Count Varian Jeggare and Radovan.

Absalom: Largest city in the Inner Sea region; current location of the Starstone, which allows mortals to ascend to godhood.

Abyss: Plane of evil and chaos inhabited by demons, where many evil souls go after they die.

Abyssal: Of or pertaining to the Abyss.

Acadamae: Notoriously effective and amoral school of magic in Korvosa.

Aiudara: Magical portals created long ago by the elves in order to help them step easily across vast distances. Sometimes referred to as "elf gates." Many have been lost to the ages.

Anaphexis: Deadly cult devoted to keeping secrets at all costs. For more information, see Prince of Wolves and Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Rule of Fear.

Aroden: God of humanity, who died mysteriously a hundred years ago, causing widespread chaos, particularly in Cheliax (which viewed him as its patron deity).

Asmodeus: Devil-god of tyranny, slavery, pride, and contracts; lord of Hell and current patron deity of Cheliax.

Avistan: Northern continent of the Inner Sea region, on which both Kyonin and Cheliax are located.

Azlant: The first human empire, which sank beneath the waves long ago.

Bleaching: Sickness suffered by gnomes who aren't regularly exposed to new experiences. Often fatal.

Bleachlings: Gnomes who succumb to the Bleaching but don't die, instead becoming strange, colorless versions of themselves. Shunned by most normal gnomes.

Brightness: An elven philosophy of personal self-perfection, the pursuit of which can take many routes.

Brimorak: Goat-headed demon with a burning sword and hooves.

Bugbear: Large, humanoid monster related to the goblin. Extremely violent and ill-tempered.

Calistria: Also known as the Savored Sting; the goddess of trickery, lust, and revenge.

Calistrian: Of or related to Calistria or her worshipers.

Century Root: Stump of a massive tree located in Kyonin, of much significance to the Fierani tree-people.

Chel: Derogatory term for a citizen of Cheliax.

Chelaxian: A citizen of Cheliax.

Cheliax: A devil-worshiping nation in southwestern Avistan.

Chelish: Of or relating to the nation of Cheliax.

City of Mists: Iadara.

Cleric: A religious spellcaster whose magical powers are granted by her god.

Demon Lord: A particularly powerful demon capable of granting magical powers to its followers. One of the rulers of the Abyss.

Demons: Evil denizens of the Abyss who seek only to maim, ruin, and feed.

Desna: Good-natured goddess of dreams, stars, travelers, and luck.

Devils: Fiendish occupants of Hell who seek to corrupt mortals in order to claim their souls.

Dragon Temple: Monastery in Quain where monks are trained to accompany the royal emissary to the Dragon Ceremony every twelve years. For more information, see Master of Devils and Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Dragon Empires Gazetteer.

Druid: A spellcaster who draws power from nature (sometimes called the Green Faith, or the Green).

Dryads: Fey women who bond with trees.

Duxotar: Commander of the city guard in Westcrown.

Dwarves: Short, stocky humanoids who excel at physical labor, mining, and craftsmanship.

Earthfall: Event which occurred thousands of years ago, in which a great meteorite called the Starstone fell to earth in a fiery cataclysm, sending up a dust cloud which blocked out the sun and ushered in an age of darkness.

Eel Street: Rough neighborhood in Egorian.

Egorian: The capital of Cheliax.

Elemental: Being of pure elemental energy, such as air, earth, fire, or water.

Elven: Of or pertaining to elves.

Elves: Race of long-lived and beautiful humanoids. Identifiable by their pointed ears, lithe bodies, and pupils so large their eyes appear to be one color.

Endless Cairn: An ever-expanding tower-mausoleum in Kyonin that's slowly sinking into a swamp.

Erages: Village in Kyonin populated entirely by half-elves.

Erithiel's Hall: Long, mysterious mound in Kyonin, believed by many to be the barrow of an ancient hero.

Familiar: Small creature that assists a wizard, witch, or sorcerer, often developing greater powers and intelligence than normal members of its kind.

Fey: Creatures deeply tied to the natural world, such as dryads or pixies. May also have ties to the First World.

Fiends: Creatures native to the evil planes of the multiverse, such as demons, devils, and daemons, among others.

Fierani (Creatures): Intelligent, mobile trees native to the Fierani Forest.

Fierani Forest: Ancient forest which occupies most of Kyonin's territory.

Final Blade: Guillotine used in Galt.

First World: The precursor to the Material Plane, from which fey and gnomes originated.

Forlorn: Elves raised in human society—so called because the difference between human and elven lifespans causes them to outlive generations of human friends and family.

Galt: A nation crippled by constant, violent democratic revolution. Fond of beheadings.

Garund: Southern continent of the Inner Sea region.

Gnomes: Small humanoids with strange mindsets, originally from the First World.

Goatherds: Small-time street gang in Egorian.

Goblins: Race of small and maniacal humanoids who live to burn, pillage, and sift through the refuse of more civilized races.

Goka: Port city on the western edge of Tian Xia, far to the east of the Inner Sea region.

Golarion: The planet on which the Pathfinder campaign setting focuses.

Green: Also called the Green Faith; the worship of nature from which druids draw their magical powers.

Greengold: Trading city in Kyonin; the only place in the elven nation where humans may travel freely.

Greensteeples: Ancestral manor of Varian Jeggare's family line.

Gremlins: Tiny fey known for their mischief and malice.

Half-Elves: The children of unions between elves and humans. Taller, longer-lived, and generally more graceful and attractive than the average human, yet not nearly so much so as their full elven kin.

Hell: Plane of evil and tyrannical order ruled by devils, where many evil souls go after they die.

Hellknights: Organization of hardened law enforcers whose tactics are often seen as harsh and intimidating, and who bind devils to their will. Based in Cheliax.

Hellspawn: Someone with fiendish blood, such as from ancestral interbreeding with devils or demons.

House of Thrune: Current ruling house of Cheliax, which took power following Aroden's death by making a compact with the devils of Hell.

Iadara: Illusion-shrouded capital of the elven nation of Kyonin.

Infernal: Of or related to Hell.

Infernal Compact: Common name for the treaty by which Cheliax joined forces with Hell in exchange for power.

Inheritor: Iomedae.

Inner Sea Region: The heart of the Pathfinder campaign setting, centered around the eponymous inland sea. Includes the continents of Avistan and Garund, as well as the seas and other nearby lands.

Iomedae: Goddess of valor, rulership, justice, and honor, who was a holy crusader in life before passing the Test of the Starstone in Absalom and attaining godhood.

Katapesh: Merchant nation southeast of Thuvia.

Ketephys: Elven god of the hunt.

Korvosa: Largest city in Varisia and outpost of former Chelish loyalists, now self-governed.

Kyonin: An elven forest-kingdom in eastern Avistan. The center of elven power in the Inner Sea region. Largely forbidden to non-elven travelers.

Lady Luck: Desna.

Lady of Graves: Pharasma.

Leucrottas: Predatory monsters with the body of a stag and a head like a badger's. Notorious for their cunning and perfect mimicry of humanoid voices.

Lich: A spellcaster who manages to extend his existence by magically transforming himself into a powerful undead creature.

Lord of the Blasted Tarn: Treerazer.

Mwangi: Of or pertaining to the hot, southern jungle region known as the Mwangi Expanse; someone from that region.

Mwangi Expanse: A sweltering jungle region spanning a huge portion of the Inner Sea region's southern continent.

Ogres: Hulking and brutal humanoids with little intelligence and an enormous capacity for cruelty.

Omesta: Strange double city in Kyonin in which elves live on the ground, and gnomes live in a collection of tree houses in the forest canopy above.

Order of the Scourge: Hellknight order devoted to punishing lawbreakers and oathbreakers, based near Egorian.

Osirion: Desert kingdom ruled by pharaohs.

Paladin: A holy warrior in the service of a good and lawful god, granted special magical powers by his or her deity.

Pathfinder: A member of the Pathfinder Society.

Pathfinder Society: Organization of traveling scholars and adventurers who seek to document the world's wonders.

Pharasma: The goddess of death, birth, fate, and prophecy.

Prince of Law: Asmodeus.

Prince of Lies: Asmodeus.

Qadira: Desert nation on the eastern side of the Inner Sea.

Quain: Nation far to the east of the Inner Sea region, in Tian Xia.

Ranger: A swift and stealthy warrior uniquely suited to a particular terrain, often used for scouting and skirmishing.

Razmiran: Nation bordering Kyonin, ruled by a self-proclaimed living god.

Razmiri: Worshipers and subjects of Razmiran.

Retreat: One of many terms used for the elven exodus following Earthfall, during which the elves of Golarion avoided the Age of Darkness by using magical portals to travel to a mysterious refuge called Sovyrian, only to return millennia later.

Riffle Scroll: Magical scroll shaped like a flipbook, which is activated by flipping the pages rapidly.

River Kingdoms: A region of tiny, feuding fiefdoms and bandit strongholds, where borders change frequently.

Riverspire: Elven tower-city in southern Kyonin.

Saint Lymirin: Former priestess of Iomedae, now honored as a saint by the faithful; often depicted as an eagle-headed woman with wings.

Sargava: Former Chelish colony which successfully won its independence.

Sarini: Noble family of Cheliax, well known as jesters for the ruling House Thrune.

Satyrs: Male fey with horns and the legs of goats.

Savored Sting: Calistria.

Scroll: Magical document in which a spell is recorded so that it can be released when read, even if the reader doesn't know how to cast that spell.

Shelyn: Goddess of art, beauty, love, and music.

Shevaroth: City of Kyonin that was sacked by demons long ago.

Signifer: Hellknight spellcaster, who specializes in fighting with magic rather than physical weapons.

Sorcerer: Spellcaster who draws power from within, and does not need to study to cast spells.

Sovyrian: Mysterious realm to which the elves retreated after the catastrophe of Earthfall.

Sovyrian Stone: Powerful magical artifact which allowed the elves to leave and escape destruction after Earthfall, during the Age of Darkness.

Spellbook: Tome in which a wizard transcribes the arcane formulae necessary to cast spells. Without a spellbook, wizards can cast only those few spells held in their minds at any given time.

Starknife: A set of four tapering blades resembling compass points extending from a metal ring with a handle; the holy weapon of Desna.

Starstone: A magical stone that fell from the sky and was later raised from the ocean floor by the god Aroden. Has the power to turn mortals into gods.

Taldane: The common trade language of Golarion's Inner Sea region.

Taldor: Former empire in the Inner Sea region, now mostly fallen into decadence.

Tanglebriar: Southern section of the Fierani Forest in Kyonin, long since corrupted and held by the demon Treerazer and his minions.

Tender of Dreams: Desna.

Thassilon: Ancient empire once located in northwestern Avistan.

Thassilonian: Of or related to ancient Thassilon, as well as the name of its language.

Tian: Of or pertaining to Tian Xia.

Tian Xia: Continent on the opposite side of the world from the Inner Sea region.

Tien: The common language of Tian Xia.

Tines: Extremely rude gesture from Cheliax, implying that the viewer will be impaled on a spike.

Tobongo: Sentient tree people native to the Mwangi Expanse.

Treerazer: Powerful demon who came to Golarion long ago and inhabited the Fierani Forest during the elves' retreat after Earthfall. Though the elves returned and forced him back into the southern section called the Tanglebriar, he and his minions remain the biggest threat to the nation's safety.

Trick Alley: Neighborhood in Egorian known for prostitution.

Ustalav: Gothic nation bearing a reputation for strange beasts, ancient secrets, and moral decay.

Varisian: Of or relating to the region of the frontier region of Varisia, or a resident of that region. Ethnic Varisians tend to organize in clans and wander in caravans, acting as tinkers or performers.

Venture-Captain: A rank in the Pathfinder Society above that of a standard field agent.

Vermleks: Worm-demons that inhabit corpses and move them around like puppets.

Viridian Crown: Symbol of office for the ruler of Kyonin.

Walking Man: Ancient artifact in the shape of a giant topiary man, which takes one step each year toward Erages.

Wandering Spheres: Artifact in Kyonin believed to be a broken orrery, though of an unknown solar system.

Westcrown: Former capital of Cheliax, now overrun with shadow beasts and despair.

Will-o'-Wisps: Tiny, glowing creatures which appear as bright spots of floating light and feed on fear.

Witchbole: Twisted tree-fortress of the demon Treerazer.

Wizard: Someone who casts magical spells through research of arcane secrets and the constant study of spells, which he or she records in a spellbook.