Short Stories of Karl Esward Wagner

1.  Cold Light
2.  Mirage
3.  Ravens Eyrie
4.  Reflections For the Winter of My Soul
5.  Sing a Last Song of Valdese
6.  Two Suns Setting
7.  Undertow






				Cold Light



The assault on the ogres' stronghold had been brutal, reflected Gaethaa as he wearily looked over the ruins. Pulling off his silver-trimmed helmet, he ran a bleeding hand over his grimy face, pushing the sweat-soaked blond locks from his eyes. He squinted through the smoke that made red the sun. Inside the fortress walls all was one chaotic turmoil of smashed and burning buildings, seige engines—bodies of both his men and the ogres' retainers. 

He pushed a corpse from an overturned cart and sprawled onto the vacated space. Wincing against the pain as he sucked in a deep breath—some bruised ribs there at best, but the cuirass had turned the sword—Gaethaa permitted himself the tired exultation befitting a man who has brilliantly conceived and executed a difficult task, one fully as honorable as it was dangerous. 

Credit must be given to many others, to be certain. Had it not been for the genius of the young Tranodeli wizard, Cereb Ak-Cetee, the sorcerous flames that guarded the ogres' walls would not have been extinguished, nor their impenetrable obsidian gate blasted into splintered rubble. Mollyl had been magnificent as he led the first wave through the smouldering gap and into the full fury of the ogres' minions. And the Red Three had very nearly succeeded in overwhelming his soldiers, even with the failure of their spells and the rout of their servants. Many had been smashed and torn under the huge weapons of the seemingly invincible ogre brothers. Then Gesell, the middle brother, fell from the poisoned arrow which Anmuspi the Archer threaded through the visor of his helmet. And Omsell, the oldest, was grievously wounded from a swordthrust of the dying Malander, and as the ogre fell to his knees, Gaethaa himself had struck his hideous head from his shoulders. That left only Dasell, who had been knocked senseless when he tried to leap in escape from the fortress walls. Gaethaa had ordered him bound, and now the ogre's twelve-foot body swung in grotesque dance, as it dangled from a gibbet overlooking the valley that he and his brothers had so long held in terror. 

Alidore approached him through the haze, his broken arm now roughly bandaged. You did that when you blocked Omsell's axe from splitting me, thought Gaethaa, and vowed to make his lieutenant a generous gift from his personal portion of the booty, although such bravery was truly a knight's duty to his lord. 

"We've got it all about mopped up, milord." Alidore had started to salute with his other hand, but decided it would look foolish. "Looks like we've rounded together everyone still alive inside. Not too pretty—the Red Three must have ordered all captives slaughtered when it was obvious that we were about to break through the wall. So that leaves us with maybe twenty survivors that we're holding for your orders—the last of their soldiers and servants." 

"Kill them." 

Alidore paused, reluctant to dispute his leader. "Milord, most of them swear they were forced to serve the ogres. They either obeyed their commands or were eaten like the others." 

A cold note crept into Gaethaa's voice and his face was hard. "Most are probably lying. The others deserve worse, for they stooped to save their own lives by becoming tools for the enslavement and destruction of their fellow men. No, Alidore, mercy is commendable to be sure, but when you seek to destroy an absolute evil, you must destroy it absolutely. Show mercy in expunging a blight, and you only leave seeds to spread it anew. Kill them all." 

Alidore turned to give the order, but Mollyl had been listening and was already loping across the court to see it carried out. He would enjoy that, Alidore thought in distaste, then dismissed the Pellinite from his thoughts. He addressed Gaethaa sincerely. 

"Milord, you have done a really magnificent thing here today! For years this land has lived in abject terror of the Red Three. Most of the countryside has been stripped bare by them, and no one can say how many captives have ended their lives as food on the ogres' table! With their death the area can return to life once more—its people can farm the lands and sell their wares in peace, and travellers can enter the valleys and pass without danger. And here—as before when I have followed you on your missions—you will accept nothing from the people but their gratitude!" 

Gaethaa smiled tiredly and waved him to silence. "Please, Alidore! Save eulogies for my death. I can't bear them now. Many have died to help me in my crusade, otherwise I could have done nothing. They are the ones who deserve your praise. 

"No," and his voice was dreamy, "my only desire is to destroy these agents of evil. It is my goal in life, and I ask nothing in return." 

Admiration glowed on Alidore's battle-weary face. "And now that the Red Three are destroyed, what is to be our next mission?" 

Gaethaa's voice was inspired. "As my next mission I will seek out and destroy one of the most dangerous agents of evil that history or legend knows. Tomorrow I will ride out for the death of a man called Kane!" 

I. Where Death Has Lain
At times the awesome curse of immortality weighed on Kane beyond all endurance. Then he was overcome with long periods of black despair, during which he withdrew entirely from the world and spent his days in gloomy brooding. In such dark depression he would remain indefinitely, his mind wandering through the centuries it had watched, while within there cried unanswered a longing for peace. Ultimately some new diversion, some chance of fate, some abrupt reversal of spirit, would cut through his hopeless despair and send him forth once again into the world of men. Then cold despair would melt before the black heat of his defiance against the ancient god who had cursed him. 

It happened that such a mood had seized Kane when he came to Sebbei. He had just fled the deserts of Lomarn, where his bandits had for a few months been plundering rich caravans and laying waste to the scattered oasis towns. An ingenious trap had cut down most of Kane's forces, and he had fled westward into the ghost land of Demornte. Here his enemies would not follow, for the plague which had annihilated this nation was still held in utmost dread, and although it had struck this desert locked land nearly two decades before, still no one entered and no one left silent Demornte. 

Dead Demornte. Demornte whose towns lie empty, whose farms are slowly returning to forest. Demornte where death has lain and life will no more linger. Land of death where only shadows move in empty cities, where the living are but a handful to the countless dead. Demornte where ghosts stalk silent streets in step with the living, where the living walk side by side with their ghosts. And a man must look closely to tell one from the other. 

When the great deserts of Lartroxia West and Lomarn to the east had been carved from the earth, some freak of nature had spared Demornte. Here, shouldered between two mighty deserts, green land had held out against scorched sand, and a considerable region of gently rolling hills and cool lakes had sheltered thousands of inhabitants under its low forests. It had been as a giant oasis, Demornte, and its people had lived pleasantly, working their many small farms and trading with the great caravans that crossed the deserts from east and west. 

The plague had ridden with one such caravan, a plague such as these lands had never seen. Perhaps in the faraway land from which it had come, the people had formed a resistance to the disease. But here in fertile Demornte it sped like the wind throughout the green land, and thousands burned in its fevered delirium, screaming for water they could not swallow. 

Desert locked Demornte. The plague could not cross the sands, so its fury fell fully on this peaceful world. And when it had run its course at last, peace returned to Demornte. The land became one vast tomb and knew the quiet of the tomb, for rarely were there enough survivors to bury the dead. Demornte, where ghosts stalk silent streets in step with the living, where the living walk side by side with their ghosts. And a man must look closely to tell one from the other. 

Some few the plague had spared. Most of these gathered in Sebbei, the old capital, and here a few hundred dragged out their days where before 10,000 had bustled about their daily tasks. In Sebbei the remnants of a nation gathered together to await death. 

To Sebbei Kane came seeking peace. A deathless man in a land of the dead, he was drawn by the quiet peace of the city. Along overgrown roads his horse had carried him, past farms where the forest was ineluctably obliterating all signs of min's labors. He had ridden through debris strewn streets of deserted towns, watched only by empty windows and yawning doorways. Often he passed piles of bleached bones—pitiful relics of humanity—and sometimes a skeleton seemed to wink and smile knowingly, or rattle its bones in greeting. Welcome redhaired stranger! Welcome you with eyes of death! Welcome man who rides under a curse! Will you stay with us? Why do you ride by so fast? 

But Kane only stopped when he came to Sebbei. Through gates left open—for who would enter? who would leave?—his horse plodded, past rows of empty buildings and down silent streets. But the streets were kept reasonably clear, and an occasional house showed occupants—sad faces that stared at him with little curiosity. None challenged him; no one asked him any question. This was Sebbei, where one lived amidst death, where one waited only for death. Sebbei with its few inhabitants living in its silent shell—mice rustling through a giant's skeleton. To Kane Sebbei seemed far more eerie than those towns peopled solely by the dead through which he had ridden. 

At the town's one operating tavern he had halted. Assailed for a moment by the uncanny lifelessness of the city, he paused in his saddle and licked his cold lips with tongue dry from travel. Over his right shoulder protruded the hilt of the long sword he wore slung across his back, and its scabbard rattled when he shook the tightness from his corded muscles. Lightly he slid from the saddle and entered the tavern, gazing speculatively at the incurious eyes that greeted him. Eyes so dull, so lifeless, they seemed clouded with corpselike glaze. 

I am Kane, he had told those who drank there. His voice had echoed loudly, for in Sebbei they speak in hushed whispers. I have grown tired in crossing this desert, and I plan to stay here in your land for a time, he had explained. A few had nodded and the rest returned to their thoughts, Kane shrugged and began to ask questions of some of the townsmen, who listlessly gave him the answers he sought. 

At length someone pointed out a faded old man who sat at a table in one corner, his back straight but his face broken. Here was one called Gavein, who served as Lord Mayor of Sebbei—a somewhat ironic dignity, for his duties were few in this town of ghosts, and prestige only a half-hearted echo of tradition. Gavein regarded Kane without comprehension when he attempted to explain his wishes to the mayor, but after a moment he seemed to awaken from his reverie. There are many empty houses, he told Kane. Take whatever you require—there are palaces or hovels, as you please. Most of our city has remained untenanted all these years since the plague, and only ghosts will take issue with your occupancy. Food you may purchase here at our market, or raise what you desire. Our needs are few these days, so you may soon grow tired of our monotonous fare. This tavern furnishes our amusements, if you feet inclined to such things. Stay with us then for as long as your spirit desires. Do as you wish, for no man will pry into your affairs. We are a dying people here in Sebbei. Our visitors are rare and few stay for long. Our thoughts and manner are our own, and we care not what chance brings you among us. It is our wish only to be left alone with our thoughts. We in turn leave you with yours. And Gavein tugged the worn folds of his cloak closer about his thin shoulders and returned to his dreams. 

So Kane wandered through the deserted streets of Sebbei, watched by only an occasional pair of clouded eyes from the few inhabited dwellings. At length he took residence in an old merchant's villa, where the rich furnishings appealed to his taste for luxury, and whose neglected gardens along a small lake promised solace to his anguished spirit. 

But he lived there not alone, for often there came to him a strange girl named Rehhaile, whom many called a sorceress. Only Rehhaile among those of Sebbei showed more than distracted aloofness to the stranger who had stopped in their city. An outsider herself, Rehhaile spent long hours in Kane's company, and she ministered to him in many ways. 

Thus came Kane to Sebbei in Demornte. Demornte where death has lain, and life will not linger. 

II. Death Returns to Demornte
Death came again to Demornte. Nine gaunt horses beat their hooves with hollow echo through the silent streets of Demornte, past the overgrown fields, past the empty, staring houses, past the mocking smiles of skeletons. Death had returned to Demornte flying varied standards—idealism, sadism, duty, vengeance, adventure. New banners, but it was death that marched beneath them, and the omniscient eyes of the deserted houses, of the laughing skulls recognized death and welcomed it home. 

Only nine men. Many had started, seasoned mercenaries hired with Gaethaa's wealth, adventurers drawn by the boldness of the mission, men of hate with festered scores to settle with Kane. But the way had been hard, and some had fallen on the trail, others had deserted when they thought more about the man whom they were seeking. At Omlipttei outlaws had mistaken them for a troop of the Lomarni guard; their ambush had slain many. And when they at last had reached Demornte, many had not trusted the triple spell which Cereb Ak-Cetee swore would protect them from the dreaded plague. They had tried to desert; Gaethaa had pronounced them traitors and thus servants of evil, and he had ordered all deserters executed. The fight had been short and vicious, for these were hardened warriors. At the end there were left only Gaethaa and eight of his men to ride to Sebbei, where Cereb Ak-Cetee's magic had shown Kane to be staying. 

We are enough, said Gaethaa. We must not give this demon a chance to escape his doom. And so they had followed him into the ghostland of Demornte. 

Gaethaa—called also Gaethaa the Crusader, the Good, the Avenger—had fallen heir to extensive baronial estates in Kamathae. As a boy he had spent most of his time in the company of his family's men-at-arms. He had grown to despise the pampered luxury and wasteful existence of his class, and to yearn for adventures like those the men talked of by the fires. At manhood he had resolved to use his wealth to fight the battles of the oppressed, to seek out and destroy the creatures of evil who preyed upon mankind. He was a fanatic in the cause of good, and once he had recognized a center of evil, he trampled over every obstacle that would hinder him from burning it clean. For several years he had marched forth against petty tyrants, evil wizards, robber barons, outlaw packs, and monsters human and inhuman. Always he had vanquished evil in the name of good, shackled chaos with law. And now he rode against Kane, a name that had always fascinated him, but which he had half regarded as legendary, until he began to realize the truth that lay in the fantastic tales of this man. Kane would be a magnificent challenge for Gaethaa the Crusader. 

Alidore had followed him from the first. A younger son of impoverished Lartroxian gentry, he had left home early and had passed through Kamathae when Gaethaa was organizing his first mission. Gaethaa's idealism was mirrored in Alidore, and the young man had joined him with unfailing enthusiasm. Through all of Gaethaa's campaigns he had followed faithfully and fought bravely against all odds. Now he was Gaethaa's lieutenant and most trusted friend. Alidore would follow wherever his lord should lead and fight beside him with the same unfaltering zeal of idealism. 

Cereb Ak-Cetee was a young wizard from the plains of Tranodeli. He looked like a gawking hayseed choirboy in his silken mage's cloak, but be was very far from harmless. Cereb needed wealth and experience before he could pursue his training to the not inconsiderable height of his ambitions. Gaethaa had noted the sorcerer's skill in penetrating defenses and ferreting out fugitives, and he paid Cereb handsomely for his services. 

Next in rank—although Cereb's position was ambiguous—came Mollyl from the ill-famed island of Pellin in the Thovnosian Empire. Mollyl was a dark man who smiled only when another screamed in agony. His total lack of fear—perhaps he lost it in the exultation of killing—made him indispensable to Gaethaa in battle. Mollyl took Gaethaa's wealth, but he would probably follow him without pay, so long as his lord offered him new fields of delight. 

Also from the Thovnosian Empire, but from the island of Josten, came Jan. Ten years ago when Kane's pirate feet had terrorized the island empire, Jan had seen his family butchered, and Kane himself had chopped off his right hand when Jan had tried to fight back against the raiders. Since then Jan had laced a padded base to the stump of his wrist, and from the base he could affix either a blunt hook or one with needle tip and razor-sharp inner curve. He had joined Gaethaa for vengeance. 

Although aging, Anmuspi the Archer still boasted he could thread an axehead at a hundred paces. Few who had seen the mercenary shoot would care to call his boast. Anmuspi's luck had run out in Nostoblet in Lartroxia South. A palace revolution had failed, his employers were crucified, and Anmuspi was put on the slave block. Gaethaa had bought him after hearing the auctioneer proclaim his skill as an archer. For Anmuspi it meant only another shift in employers, and he followed Gaethaa's every command faithfully. For Anmuspi right and wrong were not his to question; obedience was his code. 

Dron Missa was a footloose adventurer from far Waldann. His people were a warrior race, and even among them Missa excelled as a swordsman. Gaethaa promised him adventure, so Dron Missa had exuberantly come along for the ride. 

Two others sought vengeance. One was Bell, a peasant from the Myceum Mountains. Bell was fully as stupid as he was brutal and powerful. Five years before Kane had sacrificed two of Bell's sisters as part of an ill-fated sorcerous experiment. Bell never tired of telling people what he planned to do to Kane someday. 

Sed tho'Dosso listened carefully to Bell's descriptions of torture, for like Jan and Bell he had a score to settle with Kane. Several months previous when Kane had been organizing the desert raiders of Lomarn, Sed tho'Dosso had offered resistance on the grounds that he should lead since his band was the largest. Kane had peremptorily smashed Sed tho'Dosso's forces and had left the bandit chieftain staked in the sun to die. By a freak chance he had escaped death, and when he heard of Gaethaa's mission in crossing the Lomarn, Sed tho'Dosso eagerly joined him. 

So they rode through Demornte, each man silent with his own thoughts. Death rode nine gaunt horses through the familiar streets of Demornte, and dead Demornte bade Death welcome. 

III. Ripples and Shadows
The moon cast pale light upon Rehhaile's slender body as she watched Kane moodily toss stones into the lake beneath their perch. Goose pimples rose on her tanned skin, and she wriggled over the velvet moss of the bank to press her shivering form against his. His body was warm, though his mind was distant, and she rested her head against his shoulder in contentment. 

Rehhaile did not share the gloomy apathy, the bitter despair of her people. She loved the sunlight while the others generally kept to their shops and houses. As a result her lean figure was tanned an even brown that matched her unbound hair, and there was a strong hint of freckles across her face. Her features were somewhat boldly shaped, although not to the point of losing femininity. Her breasts were small and firm, her hips slim—making her appear a few years younger than her twenty years. 

Bunching her long fingers over the massive muscles of Kane's shoulders and back, she began to massage them, trying to shape the knotted muscles to the pattern of the ripples on the lake. Kane seemed to ignore her, but she reached out with her mind and sensed that she was drawing him into lazy arousal. 

For Rehhaile was blind, her wide eyes altogether sightless. Her mother had died from the plague while Rehhaile yet lay in her womb. Her father had sworn that death should not take all from him, and a physician had quickly torn her from the dead womb. Both father and physician died of the plague within the week, but somehow Rehhaile had survived while all about her Demornte was seared by the plague. Someone had taken care of her, for Demornte was a land of motherless children and childless mothers. Later she made a living by whatever way she could, for the most part hanging around Sebbei's sole tavern. 

But Rehhaile had been blind since birth. And yet she had in place of sight an infinitely more precious power of vision. Her macabre birth, a genetic mutation, some whim of the gods—the reason was unknowable and unimportant. She was given a psychic talent that provided a far more wondrous sense of perception than any human eyes could afford. 

Rehhaile could reach out to link her own mind with another. Through this psychic contact she could share the other person's perception of his surroundings, in effect see through another's eyes, hear through his cars, feel through his fingers. And along with this sharing of sensory impulses, Rehhaile could actually sense the feelings of another mind—not so much read the thoughts, but experience for herself the myriad emotions that drift through the corridors of the mind. Her incredible talent to see into another human mind established Rehhaile as a sorceress in the eyes of the townspeople of Sebbei, and in their despair they accepted this without concern or curiosity. 

Because she could perceive the emotional turmoil of others, Rehhaile shared the distress of that soul she touched. If there was pain, she tried to soothe it in whatever way she could. For the people of Demornte nothing could be done. Theirs was an inconceivable, inconsolable grief, and their emotions were a burned out wasteland that could never be healed. The people of Sebbei largely ignored Rehhaile just as they ignored everything except their bitter memories. Rehhaile lived with them because there was nothing else she could do. And in sharing their thoughts, she shared their joyless depression, a steeping in gloom that almost overwhelmed her own soul. 

The rare travellers whom chance brought to Sebbei were a marvel to her. She bathed in the exotic colors of their thoughts, finding a universe of unimagined interest and vitality even in the mind of a stray camel driver. She often tried to persuade these strangers to take her along with them across the desert, but inevitably the knowledge of Rehhaile's witch powers would turn them cold to her appeal. 

Then Kane had come to Sebbei, and she had experienced worlds of sensation unlike any she had ever imagined a human mind could hold. Kane had been a whirling labyrinth to Rehhaile. Most of his emotions were altogether alien to her, and many frightened her with their strangeness. But she had recognized the awful need for rest that screamed within him—the unaswerable longing for peace. So she had gone to him to minister to his agony in the arts that only she knew, and through the months of companionship they had known, it seemed to Rehhaile that the pain had somewhat dimmed within Kane. 

She tugged a shock of red hair playfully. "Hey! What do you see down there in the pool?" 

His mind was cold, far away. "Ripples on the water like the passing of years. Man enters life and there is a splash. His life sends out ripples—small ripples for a little man, huge waves for a great man—waves that overwhelmed the tiny ripples, wash them away or remold them. But in the end it is all the same, for the ripples go out into the lake of life and soon die away, to leave the lake smooth for new lives or stones." 

She scratched lightly with her nails. "Make that up just now?" 

"No. I heard that analogy from the sage Monpelloni whom I studied under in Churtannts." Rehhaile did not know that Churtannts had lain in ruins for over a century. "Only I don't fit the frame he proposed here. I'm something marooned on the surface of existence. Instead of a short splash, I keep floating there, struggling about and making an endless succession of waves." 

"I can see you there. Like an old bat fallen in and flopping about the pool." She dug her nails in deeper. "Come back to me, Kane! Don't you love me?" 

He rolled over so abruptly she nearly slipped off the bank. His cold blue eyes bored into her blind face. Those eyes—how they frightened her with the promise of death that lurked within! But now Rehhaile thought she sensed an even more haunted glare. 

"No, Rehhaile!" He said with slow intensity. "Can't you understand! Your life is only a brief ripple across the pool, and mine is a constant flow of waves into infinity! Your ripple is only noted in passing and swept aside!" 

She shivered with a coldness not of the wind. 

"And do you love me?" he returned. 

"No!" she answered him softly. "For you there can be no love. I can only pity you and try to soothe that which can never be healed." 

"I think you begin to understand," Kane said with a bitter laugh. Then soon they lay together under the pale moon. And about them the ghosts of dead Demornte slipped by unheeded. 

IV. The Crusader in Sebbei
"Their faces are as empty as the skulls we've passed!" commented Dron Missa, craning his long neck to stare down a seated townsman who stolidly watched them ride by. "Bunch of fish faces! I've eaten baked fish that had more intelligence in their boiled eyes than these cretins." 

"Thought they ate only flesh in Waldann—raw flesh at that," scoffed Cereb Ak-Cetee. 

Missa laughed unappreciatively. "Nothing wrong with raw flesh. Tastes good with a little salt. Once ate a squirrel raw on a bet—whiskers to tail with the thing still kicking. I've hated the little furry bastards ever since." 

"How about keeping your mind on finding that tavern," interrupted Gaethaa caustically. His nerves had been on edge since entering Sebbei. Ruined cities were no novelty to him. But the utter lack of curiosity shown by the people was unnerving. Their indifference upon seeing a band of heavily armed strangers ride into their city was unsettling and something of a subtle insult. 

The first person they encountered in this city of ghosts had been a disheveled fat man with a yellow streaked beard. He was sitting loosely before a stagnant fountain near the unguarded city gates. With a vapid expression he had watched their approach, then scurried off giggling when Alidore stopped to question him. It was not an auspicious welcome. 

Several others that they met had turned away or closed their doors when hailed, and Gaethaa had grimly recalled the stories heard while crossing the Lomarn that in Sebbei there dwelled only ghosts and madmen. Still it seemed evident now that they would confront no organized opposition from the townspeople. This would make their mission one of more direct attack—Gaethaa had been prepared to use more subtle tactics should it have developed that Kane had established himself as ruler of the dead city. 

Finally, persistent questioning of those they met indicated that someone named Gavein, who held the office of Lord Mayor, was more or less responsible for central authority in Sebbei. This Gavein could likely be found at Jethrann's tavern. Directions to Jethrann's tavern had been given with the provincial assumption that a stranger knew his way through the city to begin with. Sebbei was an old city, laid out in chaotic growth, and its narrow streets were disturbingly labyrinthian. 

After several wrong turns and unenlightening inquiries, they came upon a brown haired girl seated under a tree. She seemed to be asleep, for she failed to notice them until the riders drew close. Then her head snapped toward their approach, face wild in an uncanny wide-eyed look of fright. 

"By Thoem—at least here's somebody that doesn't have both feet in the grave!" smiled Dron Missa appreciatively. "Hey, Miss! Care to help some bone dry travellers find a cool place to rest? We're looking for a tavern—Jethrann's place." 

The girl rose to her feet and began to back away from them, her face oddly contorted in fear. Gaethaa spoke quietly in reassuring tones, explaining that he and his men were strangers passing through Sebbei, that they... 

She turned from them and broke into a run. As she dashed from the shade, sunlight caught the flash of tanned limbs beneath her short dress of green trimmed brown suede. Hooves struck the earth in faster rhythm. Mocking laughter overtook her. Defiance edging her squeal of fright, the girl was jerked from the street by a bronzed arm and swung onto a saddle. 

Mollyl laughed as he pinioned her lashing arms against her side. "Cut it, sweetheart!" he grinned. "Young girl like you must be real lonely here with all these dried up old scarecrows! Is that why you shy away when you see a real man, sweetheart? Maybe I could teach you the right way to say hello to a stranger." 

"All right, Mollyl! We don't want to frighten her any more than we have already!" Gaethaa growled. "Stop squirming, child! We're only trying to get directions to Jethrann's tavern. Please forgive my men's lapse of breeding—we meant no harm to you. Now can you please tell us the way?" 

Fear still lined her features, but her struggles grew less. Helplessly she perched on the saddle edge, crushed against Mollyl's hard chest, "It isn't far," she answered haltingly. "Keep on down this street maybe half a mile. You can begin to see the market square on down to your left then. The tavern is on the square." 

"My thanks, child," Gaethaa returned. "We were on the right track at least. Guess our preconception of a market square doesn't fit this ghost town." 

The girl wriggled hopefully, seeking to slip away. The expression of unaccountable fear still marred her face. Cereb Ak-Cetee grunted curiously and leaned toward her, peering at her face. Frowning in puzzlement he moved his long fingers before her eyes. She drew away with a shudder when his hand brushed her flesh. The wizard examined her speculatively. 

Gaethaa spoke in command, and Mollyl reluctantly permitted his captive to slip to the ground. Shaking herself as if to shed some taint, the girl stepped back, still staring at them in dread fascination. Abruptly she whirled and disappeared into an alley. 

"She's blind," observed Cereb Ak-Cetee as they rode away. "Did you notice? No focus. Her eyes are sightless." 

"What do you mean—blind?" Alidore exploded. "She damn well acted like she could see good enough. Had a strange look to her eyes, granted. But she can't have been blind." 

"I said she was blind," the wizard persisted tight lipped. "I'm not at all sure how she perceives things, but I know enough to recognize blind eyes when they present themselves to me." 

"Yeah—Ok!" Alidore answered in dismissal. He was not about to provoke the wizard's petulance. 

"Hey, Bell!" Dron Missa whispered. "Cereb says we just took directions from a blind girl. Doesn't that ring a bell even in your thick skull?" 

"You're funny, Missa," Bell rumbled. "Real funny. Yeah, you're a scream. You ought to become a jester. You'd be good. You're really a riot." 

Alidore wondered how long it would take Dron Missa to push Bell too far—or vice versa. The Waldann's sword arm was among the deadliest Alidore had witnessed, but Bell could tear him into quarters if he ever got the drop on him. 

"That's it!" Jan pointed with his hook. "Hell, man! I can smell that wine from across the square!" 

"Good!" Gaethaa exclaimed. "And this part of town is as stagnant as the rest of the place. Doesn't look like there's any kind of organized force here, but we can't be sure what Kane will have done. Looks like he's just lying low so far though. So we'll play it by ear until we know the set up. Stroll on into the tavern just like we were on our way across Demornte and stopped to rest. Alidore and I will start stalking with this Gavein—assuming he's here—and sound him out. Then we'll take it from there. But no mention of Kane by any of you until I make the move. And easy on the wine—things might happen fast." 

Tethering their mounts before the three-storied stone structure, Gaethaa and his band entered the open doorway. Inside the air was cool, albeit somewhat stale. A small number of men stood at the bar and sat at small tables occupied with their drinks. Low-voiced conversation broke off as the riders sauntered across the smoky room to the bar—a conspicuous entrance even had strangers been commonplace in Sebbei. Still the townspeople returned to their incurious aloofness once the initial stir had settled, and the murmur of quiet voices began again. 

Jethrann, the scar-faced innkeeper, took their coin with an empty smile and brought them wine. In response to Gaethaa's guarded inquiry he indicated the Lord Mayor, who sat alone and half asleep at his usual table. 

Wiping the wine from his mustache, Gaethaa carried his lung across to Gavein's table, followed by Alidore who brought along the bottle. "Mind if I join you?" he asked. 

Gavein shrugged. "Suit yourself." 

"Have a drink with us?" suggested Alidore, already filling the mayor's empty mug. 

"Thoughtful of you," Gavein observed. "Bunch of well armed toughs comes stomping into the place when we see maybe a dozen strangers in a year, and right away they want to share a bottle with the mayor. Maybe mercenaries are better mannered now than in the old days, but I doubt it. So thanks for the drink, and what do you want?" 

"My name is Gaethaa," he introduced himself, deciding to come directly to the point. This gambit fizzled when Gavein made no show of recognition at the name. But Gaethaa was not a vain man, and he realized that it was unlikely tales of his exploits had penetrated empty Demornte. 

He shifted to another approach. "I see my name is not known here in Sebbei—but then there are many names known far wider than Gaethaa. Take the name Kane for instance—there's a man whose fame has reached across our world. I seem to have heard that Kane came through Demornte once—perhaps you've met him?" 

"I know a man of that name," Gavein admitted. 

Gaethaa caught Alidore's eyes significantly. "Perhaps this isn't the same man. The Kane I have in mind is a giant of a man—stands about six feet and is built like he had the muscles of three strong men stretched upon a single frame. He has sort of a coarse face, has red hair and often a short beard. Generally carries his sword slung across his back in the Carsultyal fashion. Left-handed—although he's a deadly swordsman with either arm. His eyes though—people remember his eyes. Has blue eyes with some sort of insane menace in their gaze..." 

"We're talking about the same Kane," Gavein grudgingly acknowledged. "What about him?" 

Gaethaa forced himself to speak noncommittally. "So Kane is in Sebbei, is he?" 

The mayor considered his wine cup. "Yeah, Kane's here in our city—Thoem knows why he stays. Lives out in the Nandai's old villa. Keeps to himself—Rehhaile's the only one who sees much of him. You some friend of his?" 

Gaethaa laughed and rose to his feet. His men along the bar wavered hands near weapon hilts at the movement, but halted when they saw the eager triumph lighting the Crusader's long face. "No—Kane is no friend of mine! Far from it!" he intoned loudly. The townspeople gaped at him in startled amazement. 

"In the world outside your ghostland men know me as Gaethaa the Avenger!" he announced. "I have made it my mission in life to hunt down and destroy the agents of evil who bring death and deprivation to the helpless! Too long has evil held sway over our lives—too long have the creatures of evil run unchecked among mankind! Evil has ruled the lives of men with the consuming might of merciless force—and mankind has had to bow to its terror or else be destroyed! But I have sworn to destroy the servants of evil whatever they hold mankind in thrall! I have time and again done battle with the forces of evil, and each time I have triumphed and destroyed with the greater strength of good! Order has mastered chaos—I have fought evil on its own ground, and with the superior power of good I have conquered! Conquered because I have had the courage to confront evil face to face—because I have turned against evil the very violence with which it holds mankind under its heel—because I have met force with force and destroyed brute power with brute power!" 

Gaethaa's face was bathed in demonic transfiguration as he breathed fierce sincerity into his explosive diatribe. His listeners watched him with the awestricken attention commanded by saints and madmen, and even here in Demornte none dared to break into the spell of ferocious fanaticism he spun for them. 

Seeming to recollect himself, Gaethaa paused in his harangue and gestured toward his men. "These are my followers," he explained hoarsely. "A small army at the moment, but they're picked fighters and every man a seasoned and fearless warrior! Many have followed my command through other hard fought campaigns, and all have endured sufficient hardships and danger just in winning through to Sebbei to put old sagas to shame! For I have come to Sebbei with my men to seek out this creature who calls himself Kane! I am here to deliver your city from Kane!" 

Gavein shrugged uneasily, uncertain how all this was going to involve him and his townspeople, "But Kane does nothing to us here in Sebbei. He keeps to himself in a villa at the edge of our city, as I've said. We don't even see him except when he comes by from time to time to buy provisions. Why don't you take your quarrel elsewhere?" 

Gaethaa was aghast. Stunned by the mayor's indifference, he turned to Alidore to see if madness had claimed all present. Alidore cleared his threat and suggested in Kamathaen, "It may well be, milord, that we underestimated the parochial isolation of these people. Incredible as it seems, I don't think they have any idea who Kane might be. Why else would they have permitted him to remain in their city?" 

Once more assured, the Avenger addressed his nervous audience. "Obviously then you people don't realize what manner of fiend is living here in your city! It seems incredible in view of his dark history that he hasn't already turned on you—Tloluvin only knows what demonic scheme he has in mind for you and your land! I've pitted myself against some utterly ruthless black hearted monsters in human guise in the past, but this Kane could be the most evil man ever to walk the earth! His crimes are so numerous, so colossal in infamy that most people believe Kane nothing more than wild legend! I once thought him legendary myself until in my far searching crusade against the forces of evil, I began to cut across his blood stained trail too often for me to doubt his existence among us! 

"Legends—there are countless legends if you travel far enough to hear them! It's astonishing how far back these tales go in man's history. A lot of these things may well be spurious or latter day reinterpretations, but there are enough common themes to make me give serious consideration to many points. These legends tell that Kane is immortal—further that he was one of the first true men! They say Kane rebelled against his creator—some forgotten god who had attempted to create in mankind a perfect race modeled according to his own warped ideal. This god had failed many times before he finally created a golden race that he kept in a sheltered paradise for his own amusement. It's not clear how, but evidently Kane provoked this golden race of men to revolt from their paradise existence—even killed his own brother when be tried to prevent this. Kane's defiance and murderous violence resulted in the destruction of the golden age, with the subsequent scattering of humanity across the ancient earth. Kane himself was doomed by this god with the curse of immortality! A curse of eternal wandering, never to know peace, haunted by the spectre of the violence he introduced to mankind—marked an outcast from humanity by the brand of his eyes, a killer's eyes! Only through violence such as he engendered can he die, but throughout the centuries no man has been able to destroy Kane in this his own element! 

"Well, that's the gist of the oldest legends, and of course you can't tell where to draw the line with these old tales. But there are too many other legends and sagas over the centuries in which the name of Kane appears to lay this entirely to chance or to recurrent poetic theme! A few facts appear certain. Kane has lived for at least a few centuries—he is not the first agent of evil endowed with preternatural longevity by any means—and during this time he has brought nothing but death and destruction wherever he has wandered! Catastrophic violence seems to slither behind him like a shadow! And Kane has generally been the author of this bloodshed and ruin! He has engaged in the most hideous acts of black sorcery—the wizards of Carsultyal even drove him from their land in abhorrence at one time! He has been a pirate, a bandit, an assassin—committed countless numbers of violent deeds! He has gathered and led gigantic armies and navies against peaceful lands for purpose of conquest and pillage! He has ruled nations as the blackest of tyrants. He has been involved with—often instigated—numberless conspiracies to overthrow lawful governments! His name has become a byword for treachery over the centuries! 

"I'm not just rehashing a bunch of fantastic legends for you to hear! Men who are with me today will attest to his guilt—they have seen Kane's insane deeds with their own eyes!" It was essential to Gaethaa that Gavein and his people recognize the justice of his mission—fully appreciate the infamy of Kane. "Talk to them! Just ask either Jan or Mollyl there what the name of Kane means to their fellows in the Thovnosian Empire! Ask Bell what Kane did to the people of his native Myceum Mountains! Ask Sod tho'Dosso to describe for you the murder 

Kane and his bandits made upon caravans crossing the Lomarn here at your doorsteps only a few months ago! I've talked enough now—go on and question these men!" 

Gaethaa looked about him, earnest eyes seeking the faces of the townspeople—faces that turned away in frightened confusion. Finally Gavein essayed to speak, blinking at the Avenger as if hoping he and his men would suddenly fade off into the late afternoon shadows. His response gave Gaethaa his greatest shock of the long, trying day. 

"Please! I don't really care to hear your tales of ancient legends and black evil run rampant in the world beyond our land. We of Demornte have quite enough to consider in our own sorrows. You speak to us of murder and destruction—but we have watched the death of our entire land and its people. Kane's crimes mean nothing to us here; we care nothing and ask nothing of the outside world. What happens or has happened there does not concern us." 

The paleness of his face made his lips a red wound Checking his hand that longed to seize sword hilt, Gaethaa thundered incredulously, "Do you mean to say that you intend to protect Kane!" 

Gavein looked at him with a touch of almost pity in his tired face. "You misunderstand. We care nothing of your quarrel. If it is between you and Kane, then go to him with it. The two of you settle it according to whatever laws seem best to you. In Sebbei we ask only to be left alone with our sorrow. As regards your 'mission,' we will neither help you nor hinder you in any manner whatsoever. It's your fight—do what you wish. But leave us alone!" 

Shaking his head in astonishment, Gaethaa turned to Alidore for counsel. "They're obsessed, you know!" he exclaimed in sick pity. "The whole land is like this it seems. So obsessed with this one thing that they've lost all perspective! I don't think a man here really understands anything I've tried to tell them!" 

"I'll agree it looks hopeless for them. At any rate they'll pose no threat to us," Alidore observed. "Kane's backed himself into a corner this time, and it appears that he has only himself to turn to for help. Ask the old man to tell us where Kane's villa is." 

"And get lost again?" Gaethaa growled. "Got a better idea. We'll let him lead us there in person." 

Invited to accompany them, Gavein protested that it was not his affair. But when Bell and Sed tho'Dosso eagerly stepped toward him at Gaethaa's nod, the Lord Mayor gloomily rose to his feet and was escorted into the street outside. 

V. To Trap a Tiger in His Lair
Rehhaile frantically hurried through the narrow streets of Sebbei, her mind still crawling with fear and loathing. The shock of confronting Gaethaa and his men had been brutal, and her concern for Kane was obscured by the pall of revulsion she had felt on touching their thoughts. Her soul felt outraged at the contact. Never had she experienced such a barrage of depraved, bestial images and cravings. Kane's mind was altogether alien to her, and she took care never to reach too deep within its tortuous depths. But among the thoughts of Gaethaa's band outright cruelty reveled alongside demented lusting, and Rehhaile's mind still cringed in memory, sick and soiled by the touch. 

She ran along recklessly, stumbling in her haste, avoiding jarring collision time and again by the closest margins. To her sightless mind the twisting alleys of Sebbei assumed a bewildering pattern of clarity and darkness. Wherever possible Rehhaile cast out her mind to draw sight from another. At fortunate moments she made contact with one of the townspeople who was in the vicinity and through whose eyes she could see a portion of the course she followed. But in deserted Sebbei such chance encounters were too few, and more often Rehhaile found her path blotted out in darkness. Where there were no other's eyes through which she could see, she attempted to make a detour by reaching out to touch another nearby mind and follow a circuitous route along this region of light. But this wasted too many invaluable minutes, and Rehhaile was forced to plunge into the darkened segments of the labyrinth frequently—there to rely on shadowy hints from distant minds, or to feet her way along blindly. Although she knew the streets of Sebbei well, these passages of absolute blindness placed deadly obstacles in her search for Kane. 

As she had felt certain she would, Rehhaile found Kane at the abandoned Nandai villa. Gasping for breath she ran through the walled gardens, her remaining steps made certain as Kane watched her disheveled approach. Kane had been half asleep, moodily contemplating the late afternoon sun from the shade of a densely laced roof of floral vine. A nearly drained amphora of thin Demornte wine leaned beside him, still damp from the cool waters of the lake. Alongside rested a bowl of strawberry domes. 

"Hello, Rehhaile," he greeted her thickly, rising to his feet at the panic that lined her face. "Hey, what the hell's the matter? Somebody chasing you?" 

"Kane!" Exhaustion forced her words out in strangled bursts. "Kane! You're in danger here! There're some men in Sebbei! They've come to kill you! They've been searching for you for weeks! They know you're in Sebbei! They'll be coming here to kill you as soon as they find out where you are! They'll be here any minute! They're going to kill you!" 

Desperately Kane fought to command his semi-drunken faculties. "Men in Sebbei looking for me!" he exploded. "How many? Who are they? How are they armed? How do you know they're on my trail?" 

Rehhaile poured out an incoherent account of her accosted by Gaethaa and his men, babbling frenziedly of strange men with harsh minds and thoughts of violence and death. Her words were disjointed, attempting to convey sensations for which language failed to accommodate—but Kane immediately understood the imminent danger of his position. Cursing bitterly the monumental carelessness into which his despair had lulled him, Kane questioned her sharply for details. She followed him into the villa as he dashed about buckling on his sword and searching for an extra quiver of bolts for his crossbow. 

"Kane—what are you going to do?" Rehhaile moaned. "Are you going to try to stand them off from the villa?" 

Kane's boot caught the edge of a bench, and he reeled away clumsily, slapping at his shin and snarling angrily. "I'm not sure what I'll do! Nine seasoned professionals make tough odds in an open fight! And they must be damned good to have trailed me to Sebbei—Tloluvin knows why, although that's besid ethe point at the moment! If I wait for them here, they can bottle me up like a bear in his cave! I can run for it, but if they've followed me this far, there's no reason to hope they won't hunt me down somewhere else in Demornte or the desert beyond!" 

With practiced hands Kane worked the action of his crossbow. He felt grim satisfaction that he had permitted no rust or dirt to collect on his weapons—at least he had not fallen altogether under the spell of dead Demornte! "The best chance is going to be for me to get out of this villa, but to stay here in Sebbei. I can use the empty buildings for cover, and strike back at them on my own terms! These bastards won't be the first hunters to make the mistake of daring their prey within its lair!" 

He started for the garden gate, when Rehhaile abruptly cried out a warning. "Kane! Get back! Those men are almost here! You'll never make it to cover!" 

"That tears it!" growled Kane. Wheeling about he darted back into the villa—cursing vehemently in several languages. Quickly he gained the second floor of the dwelling and glanced through a window in the direction Rehhaile indicated. The sun cast long shadows away from the group of riders who stood near the edge of Sebbei watching the villa expectantly. 

"You can see them now," Rehhaile observed. 

"Yeah, I see them!" Kane rasped. "And they seem to know just where to find me! Is that Gavein with them? Wonder what's holding them back now!" 

At the outskirts of Sebbei Gaethaa halted with his men to consider the villa before them. Beyond the old wall extended a periphery of newer structure—shops, inns, estates of the wealthy—a scattered suburban area outside the dirt, noise and stench of the crowded old city, but still within the confines of Sebbei's widely flung outer wall. Only now the outer wall guarded a ghost city from nonexistent raiders, and the forest was seeking to reclaim the outer city unchallenged by any hand. 

The old Nandai villa had been situated somewhat apart from the neighboring structures. It stood against a small lake on one side, a lake which curved back upon the inner wall in one direction and extended toward the low outer wall in the other. Rotted piers tenanted by half-sunken vessels reached out across its quiet surface, and the lake shore was overgrown with tall reeds and low shrubs. The overgrown gardens encircled the old villa, and outside garden wall there had once been tilled fields. These fields were now in weeds with a sparse growth of young palms and pine trees, but there was little or no cover afforded here, and the villa was in effect surrounded by a clearing. 

"No chance of riding up on him unobserved," Alidore commented. 

Gaethaa grunted acknowledgement. Turning to Cereb Ak-Cetee, he asked, "Gavein still swears he knows of no protective magic that Kane has invoked to guard his lair. How about it?" 

The wizard absent-mindedly picked at his nose and stared at the villa. "Well, there's no immediate evidence that we'll be dealing with sorcery here. I think we've caught Kane totally off guard. Give you odds we could ride in on him right nbow and take him." 

Mollyl looked at Gavein knowingly and whispered something to Jan, who laughed and stropped his gleaming hook across his leather pants. "Now, Gavein," Mollyl grinned, "I just know you're telling us the truth about old Kane living out here all alone and all. But Jan here thinks maybe you might be holding back something on us—maybe Kane keeps some men around here as bodyguards, or maybe Kane has some little sorcerous devices waiting for his enemies. You sure you got your story straight, Gavein? You're not going to let Jan change your mind for you now, are you?" Gavein shuddered, eyeing the razor-edged hook in fascination. 

"Cut it out, Mollyl," Gaethaa commanded. "I believe him. These people are too gutless to lie to us." 

"Cereb, make damn sure Kane doesn't have anything in store for us we aren't expecting! The black hearted devil didn't live this long on the strength of his reputation alone. Others have been destroyed by Kane when they thought he was helpless, and I'm not about to believe we'll walk in and find him snoring away on a pile of empty wine jugs!" 

The wizard slipped to the ground and began to remove a number of items from his voluminous packs. "Let you know for certain in a minute. But we'll end up wasting our advantage of surprise at this rate." 

"Kane has no reason to expect us," Alidore pointed out. 

"No, we don't look too suspicious, do we now." Cereb Ak-Cetee shrugged and bent to his work. His movements were certain, and his slender fingers arranged his paraphernalia with professional confidence. For all his youth, the Tranodeli was well on his way to becoming a powerful wizard. In his own mind, Cereb had decided to seek tutelage from one of the old Carsultyal masters after he had gained experience and wealth of a few more of Gaethaa's missions. 

Carefully he filled a copper bowl with water from a canteen, poured a few droplets of oily fluid from three vials, then dusted the opalescent surface with tiny pinches of powdered substance from other containers taken from his kit. He squatted over the bowl, his bony knees poking tightly against his robe, and began to chant into the bowl, but its surface remained clouded. Abruptly a tiny mote of red fire seemed to dance upon the center of the bowl. The surface shimmered faintly for a moment, then vaporized with a rush of thick fumes. The red flame lingered sullenly for a second, then winked out. 

Dusting his hands on his cloak, Cereb straightened and began to collect his accoutrements. "As I said, nothing," he explained. "Any forces of magic connected with the villa before us would have been reflected on the surface of my bowl. As you observed, the only response was a flicker of crimson. This I interpret as representing Kane himself, who if all tales are true has sufficient sorcerous influences about him to elicit a reflection." 

He chuckled affably. "I'd say we've caught Kane completely by surprise. They claim he's a good enough wizard in his own right, but so far as I know Kane's never made a sorcerer's pact with any god or demon. That means he has no powers to turn to for immediate assistance. Without some form of patron deity to call upon, a sorcerer—no matter how adept he may be—requires a lot of time, effort and materials to cast any sort of effective spell. Black magic isn't some cheap charlatan's trick you can perform with a finger snap and a puff of smoke, after all. Well, Kane hasn't had any time, and I doubt if he has any sorcerous materials at hand either. He's all yours, Milord Gaethaa." 

"Well done, Cereb," Gaethaa returned with a thin smile. "We'll put your words to a test then. All right men, we'll play it like Kane doesn't know we're searching for him yet. The road to the outer wall leads straight past the entrance to the villa. We'll ride along it like we were headed on out of Sebbei minding our own business. Then once we get abreast of the villa, we'll rush the place. With luck he won't suspect anything until that moment. The garden gate will pose no problem, and once through, Mollyl, Jan, Bell take the front with me; Sed and Missa take the back with Alidore; Anmuspi and Cereb hold back to see if he gets past us. Cereb, I'm counting on you to be alert for any sorcerous defenses. Gavein, you can go now. So act nonchalant then, and let's get him!" 

Released, Gavein gloomily watched them ride away toward the villa. He ran damp fingers across his throat, as if to convince himself it was yet intact, then shuffled back through the streets of Sebbei muttering under his breath. 

Gaethaa led his men at a slow pace along the road, offering only casual attention to the villa they approached, Dron Missa argued with Mollyl over an imaginary dice game, and Jan loudly complained that both men had cheated him of his share of the pot. 

They drew closer to the villa. Still there appeared no threatening movement from inside. Yet it seemed impossible that Kane was not watching their approach. Did he suspect? 

At about two-hundred yards there sounded a sudden deadly hiss! Bell screamed and fell back on his saddle, reddened fingers clutching at the crossbow bolt that had abruptly sprouted from his left shoulder! His horse reared in alarm at the scent of fear and pain. 

So Kane had been waiting! Gaethaa whirled in his saddle to shout an older, and a second bolt screamed through the space he had just turned from! Alarmed at the accuracy and speed of Kane's marksmanship, Gaethaa again realized there was no cover for them until they could reach the villa. 

"Get back!" he bellowed, as his men started to spread apart to ride in low. "Get back out of range! Hurry!" 

A third bolt glanced across the back of Alidore's mail as the men wheeled on his command. Alidore cursed and bent low over his horse's neck. Luckily the shaft had struck him as he was turning and merely glanced on past him. Even at this range a direct hit from a powerful crossbow would slice through chain mail such as he wore. A fourth bolt narrowly missed Dron Missa before they galloped beyond range. 

Bell held his saddle until they returned to the shelter of a grove of palms. There be slumped to the earth and sat against a palm trunk while Sed tho'Dosso examined the wound. 

"Can't be fatal if he call still cuss like that," Missa offered thoughtfully. "A few inches off the heart, but not bad for the range. Why call us back here, milord?" 

Gaethaa scowled at the villa in reappraisal. "Don't want to risk any further casualties. Too little cover around the place, damn it! Fast as he was firing, Kane must be working the cocking lever by hand. He'd be sure to get off a few more shots before we reached him, and at the range he hit Bell he must be as good a marksman as they claim! Damn near finished a few others of us anyway—he waited till we were well in his range before attacking! Not worth the risk to rush him now. We'll have darkness shortly. So we'll hit him again when the light's too poor for archery, but still too bright for Kane to slip away—if we watch carefully!" 

"That's cutting it close," Alidore commented. 

"Don't tell me what I already know!" Gaethaa retorted, "Anmuspi! Think you can get a fire arrow in where it can smoke him out? If we drive him from the villa, then Kane will be the one caught in the open!" 

The archer smiled deliberately, his lined face asymmetrical with the sword sear that flashed white in rare moments of anger. "Roof of that place is timber, of course. I can ride a bit closer and pepper it with as many fire arrows as you want. It's an easy target that size, and I'll still be out of Kane's range. No crossbow can shoot as far as a heavy horn bow—unless you count those stupid-looking contraptions that take five minutes for a strong man to wind to a cock." 

"Great? We'll burn him out then!" Gaethaa declared. 

So Anmuspi the Archer rode back toward the villa. Dismounting beside a clump of young palms, he kindled a small fire and wrapped the ends of several shafts with resinous material. Lighting these from the fire, Anmuspi stepped into the open to draw his bow. He sank his first arrow into the roof of the villa, and his second shot struck about two feet from the other. They burned dismally, evidently unable to fire the timbers. The third arrow was snuffed out in flight and fell without effect upon the roof. 

"Try for a window, Anmuspi!" Alidore called. 

The archer nodded and shifted his target. Without apparent effort, he fired two more arrows through one window and embedded another in the wall beside the opening. This time he was rewarded with billows of smoke from within. Dron Missa applauded loudly. 

Anmuspi was drawing a seventh arrow then, when a crossbow bolt tore straight through his heart. Released, the last arrow shot into the sky and made a burning arc through the gathering night before it plunged into the lake. 

"Damn!" exclaimed Gaethaa in amazement, staring at the archer's body on the ground. "There died a good man! Chalk up one more point on Kane's tally—he'll make an accounting soon!" 

"Looks like he's put the fire out too," observed Alidore glumly after a pause. "See—the smoke has just about cleared away. Bell will live, but he's useless for the moment. That leaves seven of us to deal with Kane now, milord." 

"Seven to rush him, it seems," Gaethaa mused. "Still that looks like our best strategy. Once it gets a little darker we'll charge the villa. Spread out and move fast in the bad light—all of us ought to make it to him. One man isn't going to prevail against seven like us. Kane may get a few of us before he's taken, but take him we will!" 

Cereb Ak-Cetee had been rubbing his narrow jaw in thought for several minutes. Now he smiled like a school boy with the solution to an examination question and announced brightly, "It may be that Kane will offer us no further resistance milord. I know of one spell that has a fair chance of drawing his fangs and I should have enough time to cast it before the light grows too dim to keep watch!" 

"You picked a fine time to remember it, wizard!" Alidore exploded. "What kept you from mentioning this spell earlier!" 

"Just remember that you're Gaethaa's lieutenant, Alidore, and leave the science of magic to me!" Cereb snarled. "In simple words for simple minds to grasp, I'll remind you that sorcery has its laws and limitations. As you know, I've made no pact as yet with any patron god—if I had I wouldn't be wasting your sort! 9 my time riding around with 

"Without direct demonic aid, I have to resort to the pure science of sorcery. That means in general that I require lengthy and arduous preparations to weave any powerful spell. The fact that I have no bit of hair, piece of nail, any fragment of Kane's body—not even an item intimate to his person for that matter—to serve as a focus for my magic eliminates most possibilities for any sort of really potent spell. I've never even seen Kane, and we're no more than reasonably certain that he's the man inside the old villa. Add to this the fact that Kane is himself a sorcerer of considerable ability—a man who can probably block most of my spells through his own knowledge. Now then, tell me where that leaves me!" I 

"All right! I apologize," conceded Alidore with little grace. "So where does that leave us? What do you have in mind?" 

Cereb Ak-Cetee went on with a sneer in his eyes. "I know a fairly simple spell to induce stupor. I can diffuse it to include anyone within the villa, which will seriously weaken its influence. And Kane may bear some counter-charm against such minor sorceries for all I know. In fact, he can probably resist its effects to an extent purely through force of will, granting he's had extensive occult training. But regardless of whether he can resist it or not, unless he's completely protected the spell is going to slow him down considerably, even if it doesn't lay him out altogether. I didn't mention this spell earlier, because I had assumed he would be too great an adept to fall under its influence. Now I'm not so sure—I doubt if he's made any sort of preparations to guard against attack, in fact. Anyway the spell can soon be cast, and if it doesn't work we're no worse off than before." 

"Cast your spell, Cereb," Gaethaa ordered eagerly. "If it can silence that crossbow and nothing more, it can drop Kane right into my hands!" 

Kane watched the spot where his attackers had taken cover carefully, the closing darkness limiting his vision far less than for another man, "They seem to have given up the fire arrow idea for now. Guess that means a concerted attack before long. Anyway we seem to have all the fires put out." 

He caressed the crossbow stock appreciatively. Kane had had it crafted according to his design, and he prized it highly. "There's a good weapon, though I doubt if many men could draw it with nothing more than this lever. Still the thing takes too long to cock and fire—though that fast shot proved its worth once again. Thoem! If I just had that archer's bow, I could pick off every last one of them before they could cross the clearing!" 

He addressed Rehhaile. "What are they doing now?" 

Rehhaile's face was tight with concern under the soot—she had helped Kane put out the fires—working through the vision his eyes had given the scene. Cautiously she reached out with her mind to link with the attackers. Avoiding the touch of those whose contact so distressed her, she felt for Alidore. At that distance she could appreciate only dimly the sensory impulses his mind emanated. 

"It's hard to say, Kane. The one you shot first is still moving. They don't seem to be getting ready to charge just yet. Some are watching us, and the others are watching someone who seems to be working at something on the ground—I can't tell what. Kane—he's the one that scared me worst—the one who knew I was blind! I think he must be a sorcerer from bits of their thoughts. I could never touch that demented mind of his again!" 

"A sorcerer! As if a simple attack by a band of professionals wasn't enough!" Kane swore. "I wonder though—I've heard of some madman called Gaethaa the Avenger who travels with a wizard in his band. A savior of the oppressed, they call him. Maybe this is Gaethaa then who's gone to all the trouble to trail me here—he's fanatical enough to pull the stunt from all I hear! Thought he usually kept a small army with him though." 

Anxiously he gauged the amount of daylight left. "Suppose there's no chance they'll let it grow dark enough for us to make a break. They'll rush as soon as it's too dark for me to pick them off in the open. Break through the garden without any problem and be at the door. I'll try to take them one by one in the entrance hall—maybe get a few shots off first. No, they'll expect that and enter in groups from both sides to surround me. Damn! Wish 1 knew what that wizard or whatever they have can do! Rehhaile, can you maybe try to enter his mind long enough to..." 

Rehhaile cried out in terror. "Kane! Something's wrong! I can't stay awake! Kane! I feel like I..." Her frightened voice trailed off. Like a collapsing puppet, she slumped to the floor. Arms pushed out to hold back the lethargy gave way brokenly, dropping her body to the planks with a soft thump. A tremor shook her as she struggled to rise, then her face fell back, unconsciousness preserving a mask of fear. 

Kane struggled to keep to his feet! Blackness slashed through his mind, and his limbs were cased in lead! His strength slipping from him, Kane grimly recognized the cold touch of a spell of paralysis! A simple spell, but one for which he was totally unprotected. No time even to work the counterspell that almost any third-rate conjurer could command. 

Desperately he fought the spell. It was a weak one, or he too would lie stretched out on the floor. Still he knew he was helpless to fight off an attack unless be could break free. Sweat dripping from his frame, Kane forced wooden muscles to move limbs of stone. There was a chance for him if he could only move outside the spell's range. 

He tottered to the stairway, commanding his body to resist the spell with every atom of his will. On the first step he lost balance and slid drunkenly down the entire flight, rolling to a painful stop at the bottom. Setting his teeth in a death head grin, Kane crawled to the rear door. Already he could hear the hoofbeats of his enemies closing in for the kill. Somehow he pushed through the doorway and kicked it closed behind him. The lake offered an avenue of escape—or a death trap if he could not swim. Still it was his only chance. 

Staggering, lurching, crawling, writhing on his belly—frantically Kane forced his body to cross the twilit garden. The sound of riders was closer now, and Kane had no way of knowing whether they had spotted him in the semidarkness. Hunching forward, he gained the bank of the lake at last. Now he could hear them pounding against the front gate. A final few yards remained. Kane rolled weakly down the slope of the bank and slid off into the lake. 

He floundered for a moment, trying to reach deeper water. The cool water closed over his body, and the weight of the sword on his back drew him down. Grimly holding his breath, Kane kicked against the bottom in an effort to get farther from shore. If the water were deep enough, he hoped to be able to float. But although Kane was a strong swimmer, he knew his massive bulk permitted him to float with difficulty in the best of circumstances. 

His breath was growing short. With a major effort he wrenched his head above the surface to draw a gasping breath. He had progressed a good many yards from shore, he saw with relief, and as yet his attackers were too busy breaking into the villa to search for him in the lake. 

The spell seemed to be lifting! Each movement seemed easier now; no longer did blackness seek so ineluctably to overwhelm his consciousness. The water, the distance he had moved from its focus had stolen power from the spell. The wizard must have ceased to send it against the villa now that his fellows were within. Whatever the reasons, Kane felt his strength begin to return to him. 

With silent, powerful strokes Kane swam away underwater across the darkened lake. Behind him his baffled enemies were angrily searching through the silent villa and its gardens for their prey. But it would be too late to act by the time they realized how their quarry had escaped. 

VI. Sword of Cold Light
Gaethaa had been furious once it was obvious that Kane had somehow escaped him. A careful search of the villa had turned up no one other than Rehhaile, still unconscious from the wizard's spell. A search of the gardens had disclosed a trail such as a crawling man might make that led into the lake. Reconstructing Kane's probable actions, Gaethaa had ordered his men to circle the lake shore. But by this time darkness had settled, and it was a hopeless task to search along the overgrown shoreline. Of Kane there was no sign. 

In baffled disgust they finally returned to Jethrann's tavern in Sebbei. Rehhaile they bound and brought with them, for Gaethaa had hopes of learning something of value from her. 

"Maybe he drowned," Dron Missa offered. "If Cereb's spell was so efficacious, he shouldn't have been able to swim. But then he shouldn't have been able to crawl off either." 

"Don't make any bets on it," Gaethaa growled. The Avenger frowned and tugged at his mustache in frustration. "Missa! Damn it all—stop the racket! I'm trying to think!" 

Dron Missa started and laid aside his dirk. He had been nervously tapping the born handle against the table. 

"What now?" Jan wanted to know. 

"Good question," Gaethaa cursed. "We do nothing now—nothing we can do until morning! By then Kane will be half way across Demornte, no doubt! And for the moment we can't stop him. All we can do is patch up Bell and try to pick up Kane's trail when it gets light. 

"Well, what's the story with this girl we captured?" he asked, as Alidore took a seat beside him. 

"Got kind of a crazy story on her, but they all say about the same," Alidore explained. "Her name's Rehhaile, and she's the one Gavein mentioned earlier as spending a lot of time with Kane. Seems she's his mistress, although I gather she's pretty much anybody's who wants her. Lived in Sebbei all her life—family died in the plague—and makes a living anyway she can. Seemed fascinated with Kane when he showed up, so she's been living with him mostly since then. 

"The townspeople consider her to be a sort of witch. They say she's been blind since birth—and that bears out—but she seems to have some type of second sight. It's claimed she can look into your mind and see through your eyes so to speak. They say she can read your thought—scan tell exactly what your feelings are and what you're thinking. I tried her and the story seems to be true." 

Gaethaa nodded solemnly. "A witch with psychic powers. Cereb has been telling me of such—he noticed her from the first. Just the sort of creature to be in league with Kane! Obviously she sensed our intentions when we met her on the street and ran off to warn Kane while we were wasting time here with Gavein. Damn the luck!" 

"What are you going to do with her?" Jan persisted. 

"I'll decide what to do with her tomorrow. She may be of some use to us yet, so we'll hold her for now. As an accomplice of that devil, she deserves death." 

"No objections to our having some fun then?" murmured Mollyl, winking at Jan. 

"She cost us our quarry," Gaethaa said coldly. "But don't you guys tough her up so she won't be of use to me later. Doesn't look like she knows anything important about Kane, but maybe there'll be something." 

"Even if we must execute her," Alidore protested, "is it right for the men to rape her? This seems like pointless torture." 

"Can't rape a whore, Alidore!" laughed Dron Missa, joining the other men in a squabble over seniority. 

After the others moved away, Alidore remained at the table beside Gaethaa, a frown still troubling his tanned face. His wine cup stood before him untasted. An occasional twitch flickered along the square line of his jaw, as if there were words that must be uttered, but that he kept to himself. 

Gaethaa noticed his lieutenant's mood and turned to him in concern. The Kamathaen lord prized Alidore's comradeship highly. He had admired the Lartroxian youth's tough courage and intelligent zeal when Alidore had first joined his band nearly two years ago. Alidore had been in his late teens then, and Gaethaa, about a dozen years his senior, had grown to consider him a younger brother. He knew he could count on Alidore to stand beside him in any battle and he relied on his counsel in deciding many points of strategy. While most of his followers over the years rode behind his banner for gold, adventure, revenge or other personal motivations, Gaethaa recognized that Alidore more than any of the others was drawn by the same idealism he felt. His present mood puzzled Gaethaa. 

"All right, Alidore," he said quietly. "What is it? Something has been gnawing away at you for a good while now. I've watched it building up inside you bit by bit. Out with it—what's bothering you? You know you don't need to hold it back from me if you don't feel right about the way something is going." 

Alidore bit his lip and raised his wine cup, not yet meeting Gaethaa's eyes. "It's nothing worth... It's vague..." he began uneasily. "Just something that's been getting to me more and more as it keeps showing up. I don't know, maybe I'm getting battle fatigue after too many campaigns. I just notice it more. Nothing definite I like to bring up, but..." 

Gaethaa watched him anxiously, knowing that in time his lieutenant would speak his mind. This much reticence was out of character for him. 

"It's this girl Rehhaile..." 

"Rehhaile?" Gaethaa's hawk-like face twisted in surprise. "Rehhaile? What's there about the witch that bothers you?" 

"Well, it's not just her, it's a lot of things that keep hanging in my mind. She's an example is all," Alidore continued. "The mutiny we had at the border of Demornte. The execution of the prisoners when we destroyed the Red Three. The way we took the town apart last year in Burwhet when we took on Olidi and his gang of raiders. Those men you let Mollyl torture to tell us where Recom Launt would attack next. The hostages you let him butcher when you refused to lift the seige of his fortress..." 

"The alternative was to withdraw—to turn tail and let that murderous robber baron regain his stranglehold on the trade routes. And I had to know when and where to strike for that first battle with him. The lives of his henchmen and of some hostages were unimportant weighed against the greater good I accomplished there by destroying Launt and permitting thousands to cross his domain in peace. Perhaps the men were a bit out of hand in Burwhet, but regardless of the destruction we caused there, Olidi and every last one of his cutthroats died in the fighting. Burwhet could rebuild and prosper with that gang of renegade bandits finally scoured from the land. Those weren't prisoners we executed—they were accomplices of the Red Three and tainted with the ogres' inhuman crimes. As for the men who turned traitor to me in the shadow of Demornte, any man who's ever carried a sword in his lord's army knows that mutiny is punishable by death. No leader could ever command respect and discipline of his men if he ignored blatant desertion. We've been through this before, Alidore. 

"This sorceress Rehhaile—in view of her youth and ignorance I could have overlooked her living with Kane. But she deliberately gave him warning of our presence here, and for that crime she must pay the price. If we had taken Kane by complete surprise—as it seems likely now we would have—our mission here would be completed. Anmuspi might well be alive still, although it's foolish to think we could have taken Kane without some casualties. Foolish to speculate over what should have happened anyway." 

A woman's moan of pain broke from the upstairs of the tavern, accompanied by thick laughter. 

Alidore winced. "Why not give her a clean death then? Why torture her like this?" 

"She's a wanton—you told me as much yourself." Gaethaa shrugged. "She's not getting anything such a woman isn't used to. Besides the men need a break—they've ridden long and hard without any sport. Let them have their fun—I'll deal with Rehhaile tomorrow maybe." 

Alidore still seemed troubled. "It's all logical when you explain it. I'm not implying we've ever stooped to senseless brutality, of course. I don't know, maybe my backbone's getting soft. It seems like there could be a little room for mercy..." 

Drawing a hand across his high forehead to push back the blond locks that drifted down, Gaethaa drew a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. His blue-gray eyes grew bitter in memory. "Sure, mercy. Remember the time years ago when Reanist talked me into sparing that girl we found chained in the sorcerer's tower? The people of the region protested, but Reanist had an eye for beauty and insisted she was only a prisoner. That night her kisses killed Reanist and five other good men before my sword ended her inhuman thirst, and even Cereb Ak-Cetee wasn't certain what manner of demon we had harbored. Or earlier when we spared Tirli-Selan's family, then had to return later and fight a far more costly battle when we learned that they were bloodier despots than their uncle. 

"Alidore, it doesn't work out like you'd hope for it to. I've let too many men die from blood poisoning still begging my surgeon not to amputate all of a gangrenous limb. Poison spreads. A tiny cancer will ultimately corrupt and destroy the strongest organism. Let a fragment of evil evade your exorcism, and it will inevitably flourish to cause even more death and suffering to humanity. False mercy is worse than ill-advised in my struggle against the forces of evil. Its consequences can completely pervert and destroy all the goals for which I fight." 

Gaethaa's face grew pale with emotion. His eyes glowed with vision, and sweat glistened over his forehead. A tremor passed through his clenched hands, as his voice shook with intensity. 

"I am called Gaethaa the Crusader, and the name is one I hope to be worthy of always. I have made my life a crusade against evil, and it is a crusade that will end only when the last spark of life fails me. When I was a child I listened to the great sagas told by my father's soldiers around the fires—and I listened to the darker tales they whispered of the strange lands where forces of evil held power over all who dwelt therein. Even then I vowed to myself that when I became a man I would not waste my life among the perfumed sycophants of Kamathaen nobility. I turned my back on indolent court life, and chose instead a life of riding against the cold wind with a war cry on my lips and a sword raised in my hand. I worked from childhood to prepare myself for this life. For tutors I drew upon the best tacticians available to teach me military strategy; my training at arms was at the hands of masters of their chosen weapon. I learned to read and converse in a dozen languages, and the wisest scholars of our age instructed me in logic and philosophy—for I knew it was not sufficient that I learn to wield a sword untemptered by reason, nor allow other men to be my ears and tongue. 

"Alidore, I have seen the cold light of good! The cold light shed by truth, righteousness justice. The cold light that dispels the darkness of evil! The universe is structured on these two forces—the power of good shining as a beacon of cold, clear light against the smothering blackness of evil! And as surely as sunlight drives away the night, the cold light of good annihilates the darkness of evil! 

"And I have vowed to serve the cold light! To destroy with a sword of cold light the shadow of evil that darkens our world! Darkness is vanquished by fight, and the forces of evil fall before the powers of good! But in the battle of light against darkness there can be no intermediate shades—no twilight powers! Those who do not follow the cold light are children of darkness, and they must and shall be destroyed by the cold, clear fight of good! 

"And if my crusade at times strikes you as without mercy, it is because there can be no mercy, no uncertainty in this struggle! The cold light shall burn away the darkness of evil, even if a thousand must die to drive back the shadows! Their suffering is a petty price to pay for the ultimate victory!" 

Totally swept up in the spell of Gaethaa's exhortation, Alidore listened with mind awhirl—uncertain at times whether he served a saint or madman. 

Gaethaa had been silent for several minutes before Alidore broke from his near trance. "I'm sorry to have sounded unworthy of the confidence you place in me, milord," he spoke dazedly, not certain how the Crusader had interpreted his misgivings. 

A quiet smile crossed Gaethaa's face, and he rose to brush his fist against his lieutenant's shoulder. "Why are you apologizing, Alidore? Your concern is understandable, and mercy is an invaluable principle when it is called for. Your feelings are misplaced, that's all, and I hope I've done a little toward clearing away the confusion in your mind. You need to remember that we're only a badly outnumbered few aligned in a cosmic struggle between diametrically opposed forces. Softness in this struggle isn't mercy, but unforgivable stupidity. 

"Look, it's getting late, and we'll be up and after Kane as soon as there's daylight outside. I'm going to get some sleep now, and why don't you turn in yourself. You're exhausted now, and a lot of things will be clearer to you in the morning." 

Alidore watched his leader depart. Things were a lot clearer after listening to Gaethaa, be realized. Still he did not feel like turning in. A strange restlessness still haunted him, and he sat up mulling over his thoughts and slowly sipping his wine. Sleep did not come, perhaps because every time his eyes started to close he caught the sound of choked cries from the room above. 

At length when the others lost interest, Alidore went to Rehhaile also. 

It was near dawn when Alidore left Rehhaile and started to pull shirt and trousers over his lean body. She was not asleep, but turned toward him on the bed, her uncanny blind eyes red from tears. There were many sullen purple bruises marring her tan skin, and her back was crossed with livid welts. Compared with other women whom Mollyl had amused himself with, she hadn't been badly messed up, Alidore thought. 

She looked so forlorn there on the rumpled bed, and Alidore felt remorse for what they bad done to her. She hadn't been like a whore at all—there had been no hardness, no professionalism. In a way it had made him feet like he had raped one who loved him, and Alidore couldn't shake the awful feeling of betrayal. 

Rehhaile ran a tongue, over swollen lips, sensing his guilt. "Don't feel too bad. You were kinder than the others at least." Alidore muttered something and offered her a cup of wine. "What is to happen to me now?" she asked, and he felt uncomfortable and told her noncommittally that this was for Gaethaa to decide. Weakly she sat up and touched her bruised abdomen tenderly, a whimper hovering on her lips. "Why are you doing this to me?" 

Alidore looked away. He could tell her that she deserved no better because she had chosen to align herself with evil, but somehow the words seemed unreal now. "You did a foolish thing when you helped Kane escape. In doing so you have thwarted the cause of justice, and punishment must be carried out." 

"Was raping me an act of justice? Do you think I deserve what is being done to me?" Rehhaile responded illogically. 

Alidore was fumbling for a reply, when a shriek echoed from the stables! 

VII. A Wounded Tiger
Kane had not fled Sebbei. 

Regaining his strength, he had crossed the small lake in the darkness. Reaching the inner wall of the city, Kane had lain hidden among the tall reeds while Gaethaa and his men floundered about in a futile search for him. Silently he had watched from the shadows as Gaethaa returned to Sebbei. With noiseless step he had followed his enemies back to Jethrann's tavern. 

Like a phantom he had stalked them through the ghostly streets of Sebbei, and in his killer's eyes there gleamed the cold fires of death. For Kane had no thought of fleeing from his pursuers. Their attack had made a fool of him—nearly succeeding because of the apathy into which he had drifted. Now only blood would shake the fury that drove him after those who hunted him. 

Crouched in the darkness outside the tavern, Kane watched and listened, striving to learn more of his assailants. Among them Sed tho'Dosso was the only man he recognized. But once he heard spoken the name Gaethaa, Kane understood the reason for the attack. 

Gaethaa the Avenger—so the Kamathaen lord had at last determined to include Kane in his crusade. Kane worked to recall all the scraps of information he had come across concerning Gaethaa. The prospect was not pleasing. Gaethaa was a dangerous opponent—a man of tenacious courage who was reputedly a deadly warrior as well as brilliant strategist. His mercenaries were one of the best private armies in the civilized world, it was said. From their numbers they must have had a few setbacks in finding him though, Kane mused. 

Eight men—all professional fighters—plus the unknown factor represented in the wizard. The wizard would be that young Tranodeli he had heard a little about—one of the Cetee clan whose talents had run toward sorcery. And he was supposed to be as brilliant a mind to study the black arts since the strange fall of Carsultyal. The odds were clearly too great for direct attack. The game would have to be played by more subtle rules. 

And so Kane waited in the darkness, waited for a chance to kill, and to his ears there came at times a girl's cry of pain. 

Toward the approach of dawn Kane crept into the shelter of the tavern stable. He had hoped for a chance to attack Gaethaa's band while they slept, but several of the men had been up throughout the night—not so much standing guard as raising hell. Abandoning the idea, Kane stealthily climbed into the darkened loft to wait for events to unfold. Evidently Gaethaa's confidence in his own power was sufficient that he assumed Kane would spend the night hours in full flight Lurking in his very shadow was as safe a position as any. Besides the night was cold, and Kane was still damp and caked with mud from the lake. Shivering from the chill, he helped himself to a pile of horse blankets and snuggled into the straw of the loft. There were fleas crawling through the blankets, but they were warm. 

In the last quiet moments before dawn his vigilance was rewarded. A man now stumbled through the door—tho'Dosso, Kane recognized with grim delight. The desert bandit had been awake most of the night, and now he sleepily cursed Gaethaa for sending him to took after the horses. With groggy movements he passed from stall to stall, checking to see that each mount had all the grain and water it required. Completing his rounds, Sed rested his lantern on a barrel and sullenly contemplated the pile of saddles and equipment that would have to be harnessed to the horses before long. There was time enough for a nap, he decided. With a groan be sank down against a stall and closed his eyes. 

Kane watched the Lomarni bandit chieftain intently. Here was an excellent chance to rid himself of one of his enemies, but there were a few problems. Kane still carried his sword and dagger, but neither weapon was useful at the moment. With Sed tho'Dosso below him, he would have to descend the loft ladder to reach him—and that meant too much noise to hope to take the other unawares. In his huddled position, the bandit presented a difficult target for a dagger throw. There was no chance for a quick, clean kill, and Kane knew he would have to strike silently. At the first shout of danger, Gaethaa's men would come swarming over the stable, and Kane would again be trapped. 

Slowly Kane slipped free of the blankets. A coil of rope lay at hand in the loft, suggesting a possibility. Cautiously he crawled across the loft, watching the sleeping bandit for the first sign of alarm. The loft was laid with thick beams, and they held his weight without creaking. Still the boards were widely spaced, and a thin trickle of dust and straw sifted down from the loft as he passed. The stream was not noticeable in the darkness, but as it drifted closer to Sed tho'Dosso, there was danger that he might feet the dust brushing his face. 

The desert man snored softly. Gingerly Kane rose to his feet and reached for the rope. The sky was starting to gray, but the loft was still hidden in shadow. At any moment another of the Crusader's men might enter the stable to help Sed with the horses, and Kane knew his time was running out. A chance entrance, a flash of lantern light, and he would be silhouetted against the rafters. 

Quickly he worked one end of the rope into a sliding noose. Playing the hemp through his hands, he coiled it into a throwing lariat that he felt he could count on. Poising himself on the open edge of the loft, Kane looked down at the sleeping bandit. Grimly he readied the noose in his hands. 

"Sed! Sed tho'Dosso!" he called softly. "Wake up, Sed!" 

With a guilty start the Lomarni roused himself. Still groggy, he raised his head and looked about him stupidly. "Huh?" 

Kane cast his lariat the instant Sed lifted his head. Perfectly aimed the noose dropped over the bandit's head, and with a jerk Kane snugged it tight against his neck. Sed had time for one thin shriek as terror slashed through the curtain of sleep, then the biting noose cut off his breath! Even as his frenzied fingers tore at the choking coil, the Lomarni was violently yanked from the stable floor and swung into the air! 

Kane swore in anger, the muscles bunched along his shoulders and back as he hauled the bandit free of the earth. His cast had been on target, but he had meant to draw tight the noose before his startled victim could cry out. Now a warning had been sounded. Helplessly twisting like a fly in a spider's web, the wiry desert man kicked and contorted in Kane's grasp. 

Holding the writhing bandit chieftain suspended with one hand, Kane hurriedly tossed the free end of the rope over a rafter. Then he seized the loose end and leapt from the loft. Sed tho'Dosso jerked and shot relentlessly toward the roof, as Kane's greater weight bore his end downward to the floor. Lightly he landed and knotted the rope over a stall. The entire episode had taken seconds. 

Eyes bulging horribly, Sed tho'Dosso watched his laughing enemy wave a derisive farewell as he stepped through the rear door to vanish into the dawn. 

Seconds later Gaethaa and his men pounded into the stable. They glared about without comprehension until Jan pointed his hook upward, and then they cut him down. But the Lomarni's neck was broken, and even as his lips formed the name "Kane," his body shuddered in death. 

"Kane!" shouted Gaethaa in exultation. "Then he came back! By Thoem! I was a fool to think that he would flee us! Like a wounded tiger, he's turned on his hunters! Well, he's the fool this time, because now we don't have to ride off after his trail! We have him trapped! 

"How about it Cereb—can you flush him out for me?" 

The wizard tossed his bony shoulders beneath his cloak. "Just watch," he replied lazily. 

Shortly thereafter Kane was not overly surprised to see the walls of Sebbei suddenly burst into blue flame. From his vantage point on the flat roof of an empty house, he watched the fires blaze with undiminished heat, despite the fact that they were fed by nothing visible, and that within them the wall stood undisturbed. But anything living would be instantly consumed he knew, for he recognized the spell. 

He drew back his lips in a savage grin. Yes, it was a powerful spell, one which he had no hope of breaking in his present position. He was trapped in Sebbei. But then, he had no intention of fleeing the city until the game was played out. Gaethaa probably sensed this now, so perhaps he and his pet wizard had something in mind that might shake his resolve. 

Something had to be done about the sorcerer, and Kane searched through his fantastic stores of black knowledge for something that be could use to retaliate. Finally in utter frustration he realized that his opponent was certain to be protected against any spell available to him under present circumstances. Gaethaa would keep his wizard well guarded from physical danger as well. An arrow might do it, and Kane again regretted the loss of his crossbow. So far the only serviceable long range weapon he had found in the deserted buildings was a thick spear—designed only for stabbing and short casts. 

Disgusted, Kane slipped away to see why his enemies had not yet followed. 

In the square before the tavern he found them. Fascinated Gaethaa and his men observed while Cereb Ak-Cetee performed a long incantation over an intricately designed pentagram. Abruptly the incense-choked air within the pentacle wavered, and then within the smoke crouched a demon with checkered, reptilian scales—summoned from some unguessable plane. 

Pleased with the success of his invocation, Cereb's flushed face broke into a boyish grin. Trapped within the pentagram the demon glowered back wrathfully and champed its reeking fangs. Suddenly its hunched shoulders heaved and the demon's crusted talons ripped out for the wizard—only to strike crimson sparks as they encountered the magic barrier! Cereb Ak-Cetee chuckled at the monster's howl of agonized rage. "Fight all you want to, slave! The pentagram will hold you fast until I grant you release! And that I won't do until you first swear to perform a service for me!" 

The demon spat out a mockery of human speech. "You have summoned the wrong servant then! In my sphere I hold only very minor powers. Release me now, and summon one greater than I to do your bidding!" 

"Modest, aren't you now. No—I'm not about to call any of your brothers! A bigger fish might prove too strong for my net to hold. You can do what I require of you well enough though. We have a man who hides from us here, and I command you to bring him to us. He's trapped here—I've enclosed the town within a ring of fire. And my spell will make it possible for you to move within the ring of fire, despite the disparity of your universe and this one. All you need do is ferret him out, and to help you we've procured this..." 

"Watch out!" shouted Jan. "It's Kane! Making a rush!" 

They all whirled at the shout to see Kane dashing toward them with spear poised! 

"Cover Cereb!" Gaethaa ordered. "We've got..." 

And Kane hurled the spear! Wobbling, the clumsy missile curved across the square—easily dodged even in the short space. But Kane had not thrown at the sorcerer, nor at any of the men; such an effort would have been wasted at this range. Instead he cast the spear for the pentagram! 

The iron spearpoint skittered upon the packed ground and ripped into the earth, cutting through the border of the pentagram! 

The demon howled in unearthly laughter as it catapulted from its shattered prison! Cereb Ak-Cetee uttered one great scream of inexpressible horror as the vengeful creature swept him up in its awful embrace! "Now who commands his slave!" roared the demon in triumph. 

Shuddering roar as the cosmic portal swung open, then shut—cutting off hopeless shriek and mocking laughter in mid-peal! Then only a trading puff of sulfurous mist marked the spot where wizard and demon had disappeared. 

Nor—when they at last broke from their shock to look—was there any sign of Kane. 

VIII. To Destroy the Servant of Evil
Glumly Gaethaa considered the fate of his wizard. So now it was just the six of them against Kane. 

"The flame barrier has fallen, milord," Alidore observed. The spell had broken with the wizard's death. 

Gaethaa pensively scratched his long jaw. "Doesn't matter. Pretty obvious by now that Kane means to finish the chase right here. Looks like Kane has lived up to his legend—easily the most deadly and resourceful agent of evil I've set out to destroy." There was grim satisfaction in his face. 

He turned for the tavern, and his men followed willingly. Dron Missa rummaged around frantically for an unopened flask of wine among the wreckage of last night; a delighted cry marked his success. 

"Question is, how do we find him in all this maze," continued Gaethaa. "Damn it! Quit fighting over that wine and let me think! Jan—tell that spineless host of ours to bring up some more on the double! After what we've just seen, a drink is damn well called for!" He frowned and pulled at his mustache in thought. 

Mollyl glanced towards Rehhaile, who slumped bound against a pillar. "Kane seemed hot for the bitch there. Maybe if we took her outside and started to tickle her a bit, Kane would make a rush to get her. If she can't tell us anything, she'd still be good bait." 

Gaethaa considered the suggestion carefully, staring blankly at Rehhaile, mindless of the girl's terror. "Could be," he concluded. 

A sick feeling was growing in Alidore's stomach. Witch, whore, whatever her crimes might be—it was too much to turn this girl over to Mollyl's twisted amusements. "Milord," he said hastily, "it seems altogether unlikely to me that a demon like Kane would give a second thought to the sufferings of another person regardless of the fact she saved his life with her warning. Mollyl's suggestion would only give Kane valuable time either to escape or hatch further schemes." 

Gaethaa nodded at his logic, and Alidore felt unreasonably relieved. And in noting the expression of gratitude flashed him by Rehhaile, he missed the glare of hatred on Mollyl's face. 

"Nothing for it but a house to house search," concluded Gaethaa. He rose to his feet. "Only six of us. That means we'll need the help of the townspeople. 

"Gavein! I want you to call together all available men who can carry a weapon! We'll initiate a systematic sweep of the town until we can uncover that devil!" 

His face was tired beyond human endurance, but his rusty voice rasped in weary determination. "Please, milord. I have already told you that we of Sebbei will have nothing to do with your fight with this Kane. We wish only..." 

"I know—only to sit around and slowly die. Thoem! You people take longer to die than anyone has a right to! Well, you can go on with your merry little moldering lives as soon as we finish with Kane! Until then I'll demand that your people give me full co-operation!" 

Gavein set his stubbled jaw. "Demand all you want then. But no one in Sebbei will bother to obey your ranting!" 

Gaethaa uttered a curse of baffled anger, "Mollyl! You and Jan talk to this fool outside where they can all see we mean business! If I have to bully them into helping us look for Kane I will! It's plain this bunch of gutless slugs won't lift a hand against us!" 

With a thin smile Mollyl grabbed the scrawny mayor, while Jan painstakingly rescrewed the hook to the stump of his wrist. "Gaethaa—you can't be going to torture this man because he refuses to help us!" Alidore protested. 

The Crusader's face was grave. "Regrettable I know, Alidore. But desperate measures are called for. I am prepared to sacrifice any number of lives to destroy this madman Kane—because in the end many more lives will be spared from his monstrous schemes! Anyway, in refusing to help, Gavein and his people are giving direct aid to the cause of evil! They've brought this all upon themselves!" He stalked resolutely from the room. 

"Stay here with the bitch if you're squeamish," suggested Mollyl with a smile. "Jan, you and Bell give me a hand. Go call the people together, Missa." 

Alidore frowned irritably and started to follow, but Rehhaile called his name. So he stopped, mind in indecisive turmoil, and hesitantly approached their captive. From the square outside came a howl of agony and an inspired laugh. 

"Is that what's going to happen to me?" she asked him. 

He felt a sharp nausea of unreasonable guilt. "I'll see that you'll feel no pain," he declared, then cursed his callousness as he saw her frightened tears. Damn! He had no business permitting personal feelings to intrude on a clear-cut matter like this. What difference did the fate of this devil's whore make to him? She mattered nothing weighed against the rightfulness of their mission. Uneasily Alidore realized that despite her guilt, her own fate meant a great deal to Rehhaile. 

He drew his knife. "Look. You don't really belong in this mess. Your crimes aren't that important to us." He mumbled on clumsily, unable to say anything that did not sound foolish in his own ears, still unable to shut up. The knife sliced her bonds as he talked. 

Unsteadily she rose to her feet. "You're letting me go," she said needlessly. 

Alidore gave a tight lipped nod. "I can slip you through the rear door—I can see everyone else is out front." She shuddered, her face frightened and pale. Alidore thought of her uncanny second sight and realized she could sense every detail of the beating going on outside. 

"Get away from them!" she whispered fiercely. "You don't belong with them! In your soul there is still some human feeling! All but burned out!" 

"What do you mean!" Alidore protested. "These men are my fellow soldiers on a mission of good! We may be forced to resort to savage methods, but our goal is to help mankind! I'd die for Gaethaa willingly! He's the greatest man of this age!" 

She laughed then—or maybe it was a sob. Alidore could not be certain. Her sightless face held him as she spat back in scornful pity. "Do you call me blind, Alidore! Gaethaa a great man! A Crusader battling the forces of evil! While Kane has lived here he has harmed no one. Since you came yesterday, your great man and your fellow soldiers have terrorized the town, raped me and threatened worse, demolished this tavern, bullied Gavein—and now you're beating him to death to force the people of Sebbei to obey commands meaningless to them!" 

Alidore protested hotly. "But it's for the good of all! The man we're after is one of the most villainous..." 

"Are you so much better then? Is Gaethaa a saint who has brought all this upon us? Are men like Mollyl, Jan, Bell and the others heroes? Perverted killers! Animals! Mercenaries who kill for profit and pleasure! 

"Alidore! Please leave them now!" 

"Get out of here! Right now!" he snarled. "I'll not desert Gaethaa!" His mind a whirl of confusion, be buried his head in his arms upon the table. Her steps moved away hurriedly, but he no longer listened. 

A thousand years passed before Gaethaa called him, and he dazedly went outside. "Well, the old fool's dead!" the Crusader snapped in annoyance. "Completely useless too. These walking dead men only ran off when we tried to show them a lesson! Locked in their houses! They'll all die in their shadows before breaking out of their apathy! Never mind though! Their cowardice makes them worthless to us. We'll find Kane ourselves one way or another!" 

Hoping that Rehhaile would have time to reach some place of safety before the others noticed her absence, Alidore joined Gaethaa in the square. The twisted body of Gavein lay sprawled in the dust, a patch of dampness growing in the late morning sunlight. His veins should have contained only dust, Alidore mused, avoiding the ruined face that tilted upward toward the sky. Jan caught his eye and grinned, fastidiously polishing his hook across his thigh. 

"Shall I bring out the girl?" Mollyl smiled, his pale face a tight mask. "Anything's worth trying now." 

Gaethaa shrugged. "Might as well. We'll stake her out in the sun and leave her. It might draw Kane's attention and keep him close by, even if he won't risk getting to her," 

Alidore casually watched as Mollyl and Bell entered the tavern. No longer did he have second thoughts on his decision to release her. He almost smiled at the angry shout from within, as Mollyl discovered her escape. 

"Hey, she's gone!" Mollyl bellowed from the doorway. "Her bonds were cut! Damn you, Alidore! You turned the witch loose!" 

Bristling in defense of himself, Alidore snarled back "The hell I did! She was tied tip when I left her a minute ago! One of the townspeople must have done it! Maybe Kane came back! Hell, there's broken glass all over the tavern—she might have cut herself free while you were playing with Gavein!" 

"All right! Let it pass! She's gone!" Gaethaa shouted to halt the dispute. He looked at his lieutenant narrowly, but decided it was not worth an inquest. Maybe Alidore would be less moody now. 

"She wasn't of any real use to us anyway," he continued. "If she's with Kane now, that's fine for us. She'll only hinder his movements, and the two should be ten times easier to find than Kane alone. 

"We'll divide our forces and start searching from house to house. That will make it three to one when we find Kane, and I'd rather the odds were greater after what we've learned of him. Still it's the best we can do. If we stuck together, we'd only chase around in circles through this ghost town. And if we spread out any more he might pick us off one by one. So don't underestimate our quarry. Remember he has untold centuries of cunning to direct his every move. When you find him don't give him a chance. Call for the rest of us when you get close to him, and be ready for anything. 

"Ok then. Mollyl and Jan come with me—we'll start to the west from the square. Alidore, you take Missa and Bell and search east. Good hunting!" 

Dron Missa critically eyed Bell, whose left shoulder was wrapped in thick bandages. "Too bad you can't trade that sling for a hook like Jan's," he commented. "Then you'd maybe be worth something in a fight." 

Bell's coarse face grew scarlet in anger. "Anytime you want to find out, kid! Anytime—you don't even need to ask! I'll push in your smirking little face just as sure with my right arm as with both! Want to try it right now?" 

"All right! Save it for Kane when we find him!" Alidore ordered. 

Eyes alert for the first sign of danger, the hunters strode across the square and into the silent streets. Somewhere in this city of ghosts lurked the man they had come to destroy. This mission that had already cost so much hardship and death must soon be completed. 

"By the way, Alidore," Dron Missa whispered as they moved away. "That was a good move with Rehhaile." 

Alidore looked at the Waldann curiously, then answered his grin. 

IX. Death in the Shadows
Kane edged along the rooftop cautiously, keeping in view the three men who walked through the street below. The morning had faded into afternoon, and now the shadows again were stretching out across the empty streets. Soon they would reach all the way across, then the shadows would soften and begin to creep over the entire city. And darkness would return to Sebbei. 

Kane was waiting for the night. Throughout the day be had assiduously avoided his pursuers, moving always just a little ahead of their search. This way he could keep them in view at all times, and thereby preclude a chance confrontation. He had considerable confidence in his own prowess, but he recognized that his opponents were hardened fighters as well. At present it seemed pointless to meet his enemies on their own terms. Three of them might well hold him at bay long enough for the others to arrive. Kane did not care to be caught in a trap again. 

So he waited for darkness to come. Night would be to his advantage, and in the interim Gaethaa and his men could grow exhausted and careless. 

The roof was hot. Exposed on the glossy slate surface, Kane was reminded most emphatically that it was a desert sun shining down over Demornte. The tiles stung his bare flesh as he crept over them—slabs of green—and gray-hued black, whose relative darkness Kane could judge from the heat that met his touch. Sweat trickled across his body, leaving damp patches wherever he rested, making his hands slip against the slate as he climbed the sloping roof. 

It was easier to steal through the streets, keeping to the alleys and slipping through the empty buildings. The few townspeople that Kane encountered slunk away from him with faces averted, all but squeezing shut their eyes to avoid any contact with him. So did they creep away from his pursuers, Kane had observed, scuttling for their burrows when the strangers demanded information of them. They would not betray him, Kane felt assured. They only stood wretchedly by while his hunters searched suspiciously through their shops and houses, or pointed blindly when impatient threats demanded an indication of Kane's hiding place. At length Gaethaa's men too dismissed the townspeople as participants or even witnesses in this hunt. 

But Kane made it a point to leave the maze of narrow streets and empty buildings at frequent intervals. Their cover masked his enemies' movements as welt as his own, and such apparent sanctuary could too easily become a cul-de-sac. Climbing along the rooftops he could follow their progress and alter his own course as their movements dictated. 

A rustling scrape alerted him, and he spun about with knife poised. It was a long, gray lizard, crawling across the tiles away from him. The reptile hafted, settled against the sun steeped states, and regarded the human with a glassy, inscrutable stare. Kane licked his dry lips, tasting salt, and wiped his sticky face with a grimy arm. His sword belt chafed his back, and sweat dripped across his chest to soak the harness. He had rolled the sleeves and opened the front of his shirt, but his leather vest and pants offset any help this afforded toward cooling him off. With darkness the air would soon grow chill again. 

The inner wall of Sebbei was growing close again, so the search had now completed half of its second circuit—once already Gaethaa's men had worked their way from the square to the wall and back again, and now they had returned to the wall a second time. Tempers were as burning hot as the slate tiles he rested upon, and Kane caught shreds of argument that he probably had left the old city altogether. Vigilance had relaxed as frustration piled up, and Kane decided it was an opportune point for him to strike. 

Kane had always been careful to stay well ahead of his pursuers while he climbed across the rooftops. His boots made a soft scuffling upon the slates no matter how gingerly he moved about. In each group of searchers, one man always held an arrow ready to draw, and no building was entered until they made a close scrutiny for evidence of their quarry lurking somewhere above them. Now as he saw them approaching the empty apartment house on whose roof he lay hidden, Kane held his position. 

Huddled against the stone cornice, he watched through a chink in the blocks as the three halted before the structure and looked it over. Alidore stood back with an arrow nocked and ready, his eyes scanning the building front for any sign of danger. Swords drawn, Dron Missa and Bell entered the tenement ahead of him. Once they called out to him, Alidore hurriedly stepped inside as well. 

His ear pressed to the roof, Kane could bear an occasional faint crash from within, as they carried out the tedious business of examining each room of the crumbling apartment. There was no access to the roof from within, so Kane knew they could not reach him at the moment. This particular tenement had obviously been in disrepair even before the plague, and the intervening years were not far short of bringing it to total ruin. Earlier in the day Kane had almost lost his balance when a cornice stone had shifted beneath his weight, and the decrepit state of the entire building front had suggested a possibility. 

Now while his enemies searched through the rotting apartments, Kane busily attacked the cornice with his knife. The dagger point dug into the crumbling mortar as if it were mud. A growing pile of grit and dirt spread about his knees as he worked, hoping that the soft grating of metal on stone would not be heard below. 

The sound of voices reached the street again, and Kane sheathed his blade quickly. Rising to his feet he tried to peer through the cracks to see when the men would step out into the street. Luck was still with him—they had not attempted the rotted stairs leading from the tenement's rear exit. But his vision was limited by the position, so the best he could do would be to estimate by the sound of their voices the approximate moment they would walk beneath the cornice. 

It was time to take the risk. If his timing were off this might prove catastrophic. His feet set against the slates, Kane braced his shoulder against the cornice and slowly heaved, hoping that the entire building front would not collapse as well. The cornice resisted his pressure at first, so he threw against it the full strength of his massive frame. With a sudden treacherous release of tension, the stone facade buckled outward and collapsed! Thrown off balance, Kane waved his arms wildly and tottered on the brink, about to topple after the plummeting stonework! 

The three were just emerging from the doorway in chagrin, when Dron Missa felt a trickle of grit sift past his face. "Look out!" be howled, his fighter's reflexes reacting faster than thought to the cold breath of death he sensed. With the blinding agility of an acrobat, Missa sprang into the street and rolled in a somersault across to the opposite side! Still in the doorway, Alidore leapt back into the hallway at the Waldann's cry of warning! 

Bell's dull mind was slower to react. Not comprehending the cause for Missa's shout, he wasted a scant second to glare upward. His eyes had barely time to register the terror that started within him as Bell saw the wall of rock hurtling down upon him! His scream had scarcely reached his lips before it was swallowed in the thunderous shock of the facade slamming against the street! 

Alidore glanced in horror at the scarlet splotched heap of rubble strewn before the doorway. Only the barest fragment of time had separated him from such a death. 

"There he is!" shouted Missa, recovering from the shock in time to see Kane regain his balance and dart back from the roof's edge. "Quick, Alidore! Bring the bow! Kane's on the roof!" 

Scrambling over the roofing tiles like an ape, Kane dashed for the neighboring building. Not so distant shouts were answering the alarm in the street below, and Kane had no desire to be caught in the open. Another building stood adjacent to the tenement. Kane threw himself upward to clear the few feet discrepancy between the two structures and started across the steeper sloping roof. 

A tile broke loose under his feet halfway up, and Kane skidded dizzily downward, hands clawing to secure a grip! But there was no purchase! Helpless to halt his slide, Kane floundered over the edge and dropped back to the tenement roof. His heart racing, Kane leapt up and began his climb again, thankful that his fall had been only a few feet rather than all the way to the street below. An arrow grazed past to shatter a tile under his fingers. Then Kane gained the crest of the roof and slid clown the other side, protected for the moment. 

This side abutted upon a building one floor less in height. Catching the gutter as he reached the edge, he lowered himself over the side and dropped lightly to this next rooftop. Angry shouts sounded closer now as his pursuers sought to close in, but Kane felt more confident. A stairway at the far end of this structure led him down to an alley in back. 

On reaching the alley, he pushed through a door in an opposite building and vanished before Gaethaa's men could circle from the other street. While they frenziedly sought to retrace his movements, Kane ducked through several empty buildings and finally reemerged some distance away. The darkening streets cloaked his escape. 

The twilight deepened and was swallowed by the night. Across dead Demornte settled the blackness of the tomb. No lights shone in the empty towns and abandoned homes, and a velvet curtain was drawn over the plague scarred corpse of the stricken land. Starlight and gibbous moon looked down on dead Demornte, their soft illumination no more than shading the night to gray. Their glow was like candles burning at a wake, sculpturing the face of the deceased with stark angles and shadowed hollows. Among the bones of a nation crept the creatures of night, stepping solemnly as mourners through the spectral silence. 

In Sebbei only a few houses showed light, and this through cracks in bolted shutters and doors. For death again stalked the streets of Sebbei, and even in their despair the townspeople trembled at the familiar sound of his step. In the darkened streets even the phantoms who nightly walked the stones seemed aware that death had returned to Demornte, and the wraiths melted into the silent shadows, abandoning the night to the spectre of death with his bared sword. 

Half a dozen torches blazed yellow in the deserted streets, driving back the shadows as they passed. Grim-faced men cast suspicious eyes over each segment of nighted city laid bare by the torch flames. Warily they searched for some new evidence of their quarry's presence. 

Determined to put an end to this deadly match of cat and mouse, Gaethaa grouped his remaining men together and ordered an all night search. Now by torchlight he and his band relentlessly pushed through the city of ghosts, stalking their prey through the now familiar streets and deserted buildings. If this was to be a contest of endurance, Gaethaa meant to give his enemy no chance to rest. Not even Kane could hold up against the strain of ceaseless skulking from place to place, never gaining more than a few steps on his pursuers. And if Kane's role as fox were any less taxing than that of hound, the hounds outnumbered him and could hunt in shifts if need be. Eventually Kane would grow weary and then careless. They would trap him and learn how well an exhausted fox could fight as the pack closed in to kill. 

"Hell, I'll lay you odds Kane's clear out of Sebbei right now!" Jan growled, his surly temper worn thin from the hours of tedious search. "Probably sleeping somewhere out beyond the wall—while we're here wearing ruts down the streets. He'd be a fool to stay here inside the walls dodging us all night." 

"That's true enough—assuming Kane is running from us," Dron Missa pointed out, an unaccustomed note of unease in his voice. "But that isn't the case here. It seems to me Kane is stalking us just as we're hunting him. We've thought we were hounds chasing down a fox, but I think it's more realistic to consider this a tiger hurt. I was on one once far south of here, and I remember the crawling sense of danger that haunted each step through that shadowy jungle. We were stalking the beast in his own element, and no one had convinced the tiger that he was supposed to be the quarry. Three of us died in the shadows before we finally brought him down." 

"Well, it's obvious enough by now that Kane isn't exactly in full flight," Gaethaa broke in brusquely. "We've known that ever since he followed us back to the tavern and murdered Sed tho'Dosso. He's still with us—staying just out of sight like a cobra, waiting for a chance to strike at us. But his boldness will be his undoing eventually—we'll wear him out before he does us. So keep your eyes open, damn it! Remember he's waiting desperately for us to give him an opening!" 

Doggedly the Avenger and his men concentrated on their search. Alidore worked his way close to Dron Missa and studied the normally flippant Waldann. "What's the trouble, Missa?" he asked quietly. "I don't recall seeing you in so gloomy a mood before. Is this place getting to you?" 

The other man glanced at him edgily, somewhat ashamed at broadcasting his ill ease. "I'm all right. Been a long day, that's all." He paused, "No, that's not all of it. Kane, this place, these people... Something's getting to me. My nerves are all sort of... Well, like on that tiger hunt—right before that striped devil came bounding out of the brush and tore apart the guy three steps back of me. Only I've got the same feeling worse this time... thinking maybe I'll be the one the tiger picks to spring upon this time..." 

His voice trailed off uncertainly. Then he smiled and punched at Alidore's shoulder, his old smile returning. "Look—don't let me pass my bad nerves on to you. I'll be in fine form once we drive Kane out into the open. This monotonous game of poking through a ghost town trying to flush a cobra is not my style, that's all. Give me an open fight, and I'll shake off my depression soon enough.'' 

"Hell, I'm not worried about your nerves, Missa," Alidore assured him. "All of us are on edge by now—who wouldn't be! Kane is feeling it worse than we are though, and my guess is he'll either make a stand or break and ran before much longer. Dawn can't be more than a few hours off." 

Death waited in the shadows. 

Stealthily Kane raised the heavy trapdoor. Its dry hinges rasped in loud complaint, and Kane uneasily peered about the darkened warehouse. Satisfied that no one was near enough to catch the sound, he grimly inspected the dank smelling subcellar below, then replaced the trap over the opening. Whether the old tunnel still lay open was impossible to say without light, but at least the trapdoor would open for him. Silence. His pursuers had not yet reached the warehouse, although their torches had been drawing close to the seemingly abandoned structure when last Kane had looked outside. 

The warehouse was a looming structure of unyielding stone walls, stoutly built to protect costly merchandise from thieves and the elements alike. It stood somewhat apart from neighboring buildings, with only a short open space intervening between its rear wall and the inner wall of the old city. At some time in the past, evidently before the outer wall had been raised, the merchant owners had found it expedient to drive a tunnel beneath the city walls—and thereby link the warehouse with the cellars of another establishment located a short distance beyond the inner city. In those days caravans with trade goods had stopped by the outlying inn to rest and partake of pleasures offered there. It had been profitable to bring certain goods directly to the warehouse from the inn by way of the tunnel, an artifice which avoided the needless expense of custom duties, as well as suspicions eyes of city officials who might scruple over legal ownership of some items. 

The tunnel had fallen into disuse in later times, abandoned altogether after the plague. Kane had discovered it one day while prowling through the deserted city in search of nothing in particular. Despite its advanced state of disrepair, curiosity drove Kane to risk one trip through the tunnel with its rotting timber braces and settling walls. Now he remembered the old warehouse with its smugglers' tunnel, and centered upon this he had planned a rather dangerous attack upon his pursuers—a trap that could strike either way. 

As Gaethaa and his men drew close to the deserted warehouse, Kane moved on ahead of them, certain that they would again enter to search again, the dust laden stacks and bales. There was no evidence that the trapdoor had been discovered—it was well concealed, and Kane himself had originally come upon the tunnel from its other end. This would leave him an exit from the warehouse once they knew he was inside. There was no way they could trap him inside—assuming the tunnel had not collapsed since he passed through many weeks before. That was a risk he could not escape at this point, through. 

With soft steps Kane ascended the cellar stairs and crossed the darkened warehouse. At the side and rear doors he paused to make certain their heavy bars were in place. A smaller front door was similarly bolted. There remained only the massive main door through which to enter the warehouse. All doors were of thick, iron-bound timber, windows there were none, and the walls built from heavy sandstone blocks. Once the main door too was locked, long hard work with axes and prybars would be needed before entrance could be forced. 

About him in the darkness lay boxes and piles of costly merchandise, waiting under a wrapping of dust and spider webbing for buyers who would never come. They formed fantastic shapes in the darkness, crouching patches of blackness against the night—all but invisible until they were brushed upon. Mounds of moldering rugs, rotting heaps of cloth and furs, shelves of tarnished metalwork, pieces of furniture standing in musty aloofness, broken boxes of spices imparting a sick pungency to the odor of decay. Wealth lay crumbling beneath the cold caress of time, and the same vermin now crawled alike over the bones of merchant and buyer and the corpse of their wares. 

The warehouse ceiling stretched high, and the door which closed its main entrance was immense. A system of chain and pulleys lifted the main door vertically along grooves cut into the jamb, sliding the heavy barrier upward and down by means of a capstan. Entire wagons could be driven through the doorway when open; once closed it would require a powerful battering ram to smash through. For years the door had stood open, raised upward to the ceiling—the warehouse abandoned to the plague when death claimed its owners. 

The capstan mechanism was mounted alongside the front wall. A thick iron chain strained from the winch, ran along heavy pulleys jutting from the stones, and fastened to the massive door. Kane had inspected the fittings on earlier occasions and was familiar with their operation. Now he drew his long sword from across his shoulder and crept into the shadow of some bales piled against the wall close to the capstan. A rat darted away from his boot and scurried off cursing into the darkness. Kane's lips pressed in a thin smile as he saw first flickers of torchlight streak the entranceway, heard shuffle of approaching steps, low mutter of voices. Tightness of anticipation slipped from him. Cunning or foolhardy, he was committed now. 

Closer came the light, the sound—spilling echoes across the deserted darkness within. Light brighter. Figures appeared at the doorway. Entered. 

They stood just inside the door, torches raised, eyes narrowly scrutinizing the shadows beyond. Kane mashed himself against the wall, unseen in the cover of the bales. Two had entered. The rest would hold back a moment. 

"See anything, Mollyl?" came the call from outside. 

"No. There's nothing here—as usual!" came the grumbling reply from the one who bore a hook for a right hand. Jan belligerently pushed his way into the warehouse, Mollyl beside him. They turned to inspect the wall behind them, just as the others moved to follow them inside. 

Kane leapt from the shadows and reached the capstan in a bound! Framed against the darkness by yellow torchlight, his blade flashed a menacing gleam, reflected in his eyes! 

"Kane! Here he is! Watch out!" Mollyl shouted in warning. From outside Gaethaa swore in triumph. 

Only seconds were left to close the trap—or to be crushed in its jaws himself! Kane's right hand lashed out as he gained the capstan—seizing the brake lever and hauling it free! The lever snapped back in his grasp and ripped loose from its fitting! The winch now stood free from its pinion—no brake locked its mechanism to hold the main door suspended! 

The door should have fallen. It remained in its place. 

Dismayed by the failure of his strategy, Kane wasted a few seconds in sick conjecture. Had he miscalculated the capstan's operation then? Was the mechanism frozen after years of stressed immobility? 

Snarling in rage, Kane threw himself against the horizontal crossbars, straining his massive bulk against the capstan handles! Another few seconds and he would be hemmed in by his enemies! Even now Jan and Mollyl were recovering from initial surprise to attack! Excited shouts, cold death knell of iron, boots pounding for the doorway! 

Kane's shoulder struck the crossbar, and seasoned wood cracked. Muscle and timber rebounded. Jolted by the terrific impact, the capstan shuddered and recoiled in submission. With a dry, grinding snarl the mechanism began to rotate! Rusted chain groaned and cracked in protest! The immense overhead door shook itself in angry arousal and broke free of its bed of dust! Debris fell in a trickle then exploded through the night. An inch... three... ten... 

Thunder roared in fury as the tons heavy door tore loose and hurled itself down across the entranceway—building to blinding acceleration! The capstan shrieked on its pivot, spun like a gigantic top by the streaking chain. Crossbars whirled a vortex, the wooden arms driving Mollyl and Jan back in alarm. As he darted back from the berserk mechanism, a handle struck Kane across the side and sent him reeling against the wall. 

The entire warehouse rocked as the door crashed against its sill with the finality of the gate of hell. Caught by the inertia of its fall, the chain snapped short on the spindle and ripped the spinning capstan free of its smoking mounting. Wooden drum and iron chain lashed across the warehouse like a beheaded python, sending all three men flat behind cover. The mammoth scourge cracked against a pile of crates and exploded into a storm of splintered wood and glassware. 

Chips of stone pelted Gaethaa and the other two as they frantically drew back from the downrushing barrier. Clouds of dust blasted their faces, whipped the torches as the door thundered shut. Baffled rage again cut through the chill of death's brush, as Gaethaa howled orders. "Alidore, Missa! Left and right fast! Find an entrance! If they're all locked, we'll break through the weakest! Damn his cunning! Kane's split us up again, and we've got to get in there fast! Move!" 

Within the warehouse silence droned as the dust and echoes fell away. Picking themselves up warily, three killers moved to renew the attack. Mollyl and Jan still field torches, giving light across the interior. 

The crossbar had struck only a glancing blow, but Kane's side throbbed agonizingly as he straightened. He shifted weight experimentally, judging from the ache that no ribs had broken. With his right hand he drew his dirk. 

"Kane!" Jan hissed. "Remember me? It's been over ten years though—ten years ago when I still had a right hand—and a home and family! But you and your Black Fleet saw to that—didn't you, Kane! Should have cut off my head then, Kane—instead of just a hand! I've hunted you since then, Kane! Missed you at Montes—they said you died there! But I knew you were still alive—still playing your devil's games in other lands! I knew we'd finally cross swords again! Fate ordained this—just as Fate ordained your heart should dangle from Jan's hook!" 

"So you know me, Hook?" sneered Kane. "Sorry, but I've forgotten your name as well as your face. I ought to remember anyone fool enough to cross blades twice with me!" 

From the side door came the shock of muffled pounding. But Kane knew the timber was sound. 

With a snarl Jan hurled his torch at Kane's face! Several yards yet separated them, and Kane easily dodged the missile. Its flames fanned his red beard and smoke stung his eyes, as the torch shot past him to thud against some bales of cloth. Oil soaked fragments spattered across the bales, and the torch spread its flame over musty rolls of fabric. 

"Don't lose our light!" cursed Mollyl, lodging his torch between two crates. "I know you for a black hearted pirate as well, Kane! Surprised to find two of the Island Empire dogging your twisted path even across the sands of Lomarn?" 

"Spread out, Jan! We'll find out for ourselves how Kane can fight without his men behind him—see if the serpent can strike when he's chased out of hiding!" 

Jan's sword was in his good hand now, and the torchlight caught the razor edge of his hook's inside curve. Dagger replaced torch in Mollyl's grasp, and the Pellinite rushed for Kane with sword thrusting. Jan slid off to the side to press Kane's flank. Behind Kane, flames streaked across the bales of cloth like sparks through tinder. 

Crackling heat against his back, Kane's sword sprang across Mollyl's, driving the other man back in a powerful followthrough. His dirk rose to block Jan's blade at the same instant, sparks shooting as the hilt turned the heavier weapon. Desperately Kane backed to the burning mound, preventing his assailants from circling behind. Again and again their blades clashed together, Kane's blinding defense turning aside the attack of two skilled swordsman. At the side entrance heavy blows shuddered the door against its bolt and hinges, but the thick barrier held. It would take some time for Gaethaa and his men to break through. Neither Kane nor his assailants fought with armor or mail—their duel would be a short one. 

The fire at his back spread rapidly, licking across to ignite closely piled heaps of rugs, crates, furniture. Heat became scorching, forcing Kane away from the flames. Smoke stung their eyes and nostrils. Swinging his blade in a whirlwind of death, Kane drove back his opponents' attack and leapt between them. Jan's sword dashed past his shoulder by a finger's width. 

Into the open now they fought, Kane pressing more on the offensive as he heard axes bite into the side door. The warehouse was brightly lit now, as the fire spread across one end. Sheets of smoke poured over the interior, shading the firelight to dark yellow. The countless piles of merchandise threw long, grotesque shadows across the floor and far wall—twisted shapes that drew away in fear from the destroying flames. 

With a powerful effort, Kane forced his opponents apart. Before Jan could recover, Kane lunged at Mollyl. The Pellinite lacked the strength to match Kane blow for blow. Frantically he retreated, only barely parrying Kane's thrusts. The flames seared his back now, and his pale face twisted in fear and pain. His defense wavered an instant. Kane's blade slashed downward faster than Mollyl could turn, its tip slicing across the flesh of his sword arm. Dropping his sword with a howl of terror, Mollyl jumped back to avoid Kane's lunge. His impetus carried him over a low crate at the fire's advancing edge! Arms flailing wildly, Mollyl tumbled backwards into a blazing mound of furniture! Flames wrapped about him as he fell, smashing through a red hot jumble of carven wood and padded leather. 

Screaming in agony, Mollyl lurched to his feet and stumbled from the blaze, tongues of fire dancing over his hair and clothing! Blinded by the flames, flesh seared and blackened, he flopped across the warehouse floor, smashing into objects in hopeless effort to escape the unendurable pain. Kane ignored him as he crumpled into a writhing mewing smouldering mass. 

Kane's concentration on Mollyl gave Jan sufficient time to renew his onslaught. In the seconds it took for Kane to drive Mollyl into the fire, Jan rushed his hated enemy from behind—his sword darting for Kane's back even as Mollyl tumbled onto his pyre. But Kane had not forgotten the other man, and sensing the danger as he heard the scuffle of boots, he twisted sideways to avoid the striking sword tip. Jan's blade shot past him narrowly, but a flash of pain stabbed across his right shoulder as he turned. Jan's hook slashed through leather vest and tore the flesh of his shoulder, but failed to lodge. 

Reeling back, Kane thrust his dirk for the other's side. The agony in his shoulder slowed his movements though, and with a wild laugh Jan jerked his reddened hook against the dagger, skittering down the blade and meshing it into the hilt. The hook's tip gashed Kane's hand, and jerking back Jan tore the dagger from his weakened grasp. Jan yelled in triumph and slashed out with his sword. In red fury Kane beat back his attack and hammered his blade against his assailant's guard. The fire was spreading, and the side door was beginning to splinter. A brutal stroke stunned Jan's sword arm for an instant, and Kane struck before he could parry effectively. His blade tore through the other's side, shearing through ribs and lung! Jan toppled to the floor, eyes brimming hatred through death agony. His sword had fallen, but he crawled on his belly toward Kane, hook outstretched, its razor tip scoring the planks as he dragged his broken body onward. He died as his hook stabbed inches from Kane's boot. 

Heat from the fire beat at Kane's face. He stepped back. Already the flames had engulfed the section where Mollyl's body had lain. The side door still held against Gaethaa's assault, but the warehouse was ablaze. Flames now had leapt over half the floor, and in places the planks had given way to collapse into the cellar. It was hard to breathe, even to see with the rapidly building smoke and beat. Hurriedly Kane retrieved his dirk and started for the cellar stairs. His enemies were outside waiting—the tunnel was his only escape now. But if the blazing floor collapsed over the cellar trapdoor before he reached it... 

The trapdoor was still clear of flaming wreckage. Seizing a rough torch from the edge of the fire, Kane heaved open the trapdoor and descended the steps into the tunnel. Here the musty dampness of the earth was undisturbed by the holocaust above. Though stale, the dank air was relief from the burning smoke that clicked the warehouse. 

Rapidly as he dared, Kane passed through the tunnel. His torch offered poor light, but sufficient to pick out his way. Rotting timbers sagged overhead, bowed out from the walls. Dirt had trickled through to make soft ridges along the floor, and in a few places mounds of debris almost occluded the passage. Gingerly Kane crawled over these crumbling heaps of dirt and shoring, torch outthrust to give light. Clods and sand felt over his back and legs, making a dark paste with the blood that flowed from his cuts. 

At any second Kane knew the tunnel might give way altogether, sealing him in this tomb beneath the city of the dead. At one point a dull shock echoed through the tunnel, along with a muffled crash from behind him. The warehouse roof must have fallen, Kane guessed, nervously eyeing the tunnel walls. But by now he had come a good distance beneath the earth, and the tunnel seemed somewhat more solid as he approached its far end. 

The floor rose, and a flight of steps appeared before his dying torch. Eagerly Kane ascended them and pushed open the concealed door in the inn's cellars. Moving confidently through the deserted inn, Kane found a door and stepped outside. Within the walls of Sebbei the blazing warehouse threw a glow against black skies soon to gray with dawn. 

For the moment his enemies must believe him dead. Wincing at the pain, Kane paused by the inn's wall to wash his scorched, bleeding body and bind his wounds. Three yet lived of those who had hounded him, and neither injuries nor fatigue had abated Kane's fury. 

X. Land of the Dead
When smoke began streaming from cracks and opening throughout the warehouse, and the splintering door began to emanate heat from the inferno within, Gaethaa called a halt to their frantic efforts to break in. 

"This place is doomed!" he pronounced, laying aside his axe. "Anyone still alive in there has to get out in a hurry, or the smoke will kill them if the flames don't! Jan or Mollyl will open up if Kane hasn't finished them—and if he has, then we'll give Kane the choice of roasting inside or coming out to meet our swords! Either way he'll be burning in hell before dawn breaks! Spread out and watch the doors." 

His men did as ordered. One man had always kept watch on the warehouse doors while the other two had attacked the side entrance. Clearly no one had escaped from within while they fruitlessly attempted to break down the door. Swords ready for instant use, they watched vigilantly for one of the doors to swing open, for a figure to stumble out in a shroud of smoke and flame, blinded and coughing. If it should be Kane who emerged, Gaethaa meant to give him scant time to draw clean air into his lungs. 

But no door was flung open. No scorched figure stepped out. Crashes from within indicated the floor was giving way, and then came a ripping concussion as the warehouse roof collapsed ponderously upon the wreckage within. A cataclysmic blast of flame and cinders leapt into the night skies, transforming the yet standing walls of the warehouse into the cone of a volcano. Soon the doors crumpled from the heat, falling inward to reveal a blazing holocaust. Still stood the thick stone walls, red hot now from the furnace that raged within. But long before this, the watchers had ceased to guard the exits. 

"Kane's funeral pyre!" observed Gaethaa triumphantly. "He took two more good men with him, but they died as heroes." He turned to accept Alidore's congratulations. "Only three of us left. It's been a costly campaign—the most dangerous of my career clearly. But our goal was a great one, and we have at last met success. History's blackest monster has finally met the death that for centuries he had cheated. Mankind will be grateful for this work we have done. Once again I have cleansed a dark shadow of evil with the cold light of good." 

A rustle from the alley behind them abruptly drew attention. "Why, it's the witch," Gaethaa announced, catching sight of her in the light from the blaze. 

Rehhaile hung poised at the alley's entrance, almost concealed in the shadow of a building. Firelight shone across her face and limbs, as her blind eyes stared beyond them. She seemed to be summoning the courage to approach them, yet remained on the verge of flight. 

Why had she come back? Alidore wondered. Surely her second sight told her she had been seen. Had Kane meant so much to her that she had thrown away all caution just to be present at his death? Alidore sensed a note of jealousy in his musing. "Milord," he began, "can't we forget about her...?" 

Gaethaa shrugged. He was in a jubilant mood, and if his lieutenant felt concern for this creature, he could easily grant him his whim. "Sure, Alidore, if this will assuage your misgivings. Kane is dead, and she was only his whore and dupe. She was punished for her tiny part in his crimes. 

"Come on out of the shadows, witch," he called magnanimously. "We have decided to grant clemency. You need have no further fear of our justice. Come see the fate of the monster you served." 

Sensing the leniency of the Avenger's disposition, Rehhaile stepped forward to join them. "Kane's dead," she informed them dully. "I knew when you at last cornered him, so I came to be in on the finish, however it turned out. But Kane was trapped within the burning warehouse. He died in the flames—I felt his death in my mind. You destroyed Kane as you had intended; your mission is complete now. Will you leave Sebbei at dawn?" 

"So your witch's sight showed you Kane's death," Gaethaa smiled. "I envy you—that was a vision I would have given much to have shared. But see, Alidore—despite your concern for her, she only desires our departure. Well, my men and I will ride on as soon as we've rested and reprovisioned. I never care to wait around for the fulsome praise of those whom I have served—and Sebbei holds little attraction for me. But for now I'll soothe the strain of this mission by basking in the glow of my enemy's death pyre." 

"I'll take some fresh air instead," Dron Missa yawned. "The smoke from this pyre is as redolent as a burning dump. Thoem! What kind of junk did they have stuffed away in there!" The Waldann strolled toward the city wall and climbed the steps to the parapet. His lean figure could be seen silhouetted against the graying skies as he leisurely paced alongside ghost guardsmen of dead Sebbei. 

Gaethaa the Crusader settled himself against a wall and stretched his long legs out before him. Dreamily he smiled into the dying flames of the warehouse, reliving the excitement of the past days and wondering where the cold light would lead him next. First to Kamathae for new men and equipment. The death of Kane could occupy the court poets, but elsewhere there were others who needed the help of the Avenger. 

Alidore and Rehhaile wandered on down the street. The witch was eager to draw away his lieutenant, Gaethaa mused. Still Alidore seemed fascinated with her, and he was entitled to the diversion. 

The lake lay below him, its gray mist rising in the predawn darkness. Idly Dron Missa leaned against the parapet and felt the tight muscles of his back slowly loosen. A scrape of boot on stone met his ear, and he looked up, wondering who had joined him. 

A figure approached him along the wall, striding through the mist as ominously as the angel of death. Menace radiated from the fog wrapped figure, shone in his killer's eyes, gleamed along his drawn sword. "Kane!" gasped Missa, recognizing the singed and bandaged swordsman. Only a second did he waste on amazed confoundment. Missa's own blade leapt from scabbard to answer Kane's challenge! 

Kane rushed upon the Waldann, his sword hissing through the fog. Missa's blade moved in swift parry, then thrust past in a sudden lunge. Slipping away from the razor point, Kane swore and renewed the fight with more cautious tactics. His opponent was an excellent swordsman, and Kane's stiff right arm could wield his dirk only clumsily. Carefully he pressed his attack, Missa's darting blade baffling his own efforts to overwhelm his guard. 

Left-handed opponents Missa had fought before, and he had no difficulty adjusting to the other's stance. Kane's speed amazed him though—astonishing agility for a man of his bulk. And as Kane continued to batter him relentlessly, Missa became conscious of the vast power that underlay his speed. Here was as skillful and deadly an opponent as be had ever confronted, and only Missa's own brilliant swordplay saved him from Kane's blade time and again. With growing concern, Missa coldly remembered the tales he had beard of Kane—recalled the spectre of violent death that had haunted them ever since Gaethaa began his mission to destroy Kane. 

A twinge of pain shot along Missa's right thigh as Kane's partially deflected blade turned to slice shallowly across his leg. Ignoring the wound, Missa fell back a pace as if to stagger. As Kane stepped forward to follow his advantage, Missa raised his sword to parry and lashed out with the dagger in his left hand. Kane's recovery with his own dirk was too slow, and Missa's blade gashed across his ribs fleetingly as Kane twisted away. 

Cursing in anger Kane recklessly hurled his dirk at the Waldann. Badly thrown, the blade cleanly missed the other. But as Dron Missa dodged to avoid the streaking knife, his guard fell for an instant. Kane's sword flashed down, slashing Missa's swordarm to the bone—only its downward course spared his arm from amputation. A return flick of Kane's weapon sent his opponent's blade spinning into the dawn mists. Badly wounded and armed with only his dagger, Missa saw Kane's killing stroke slash toward him with dreamlike slowness, nightmare inexorability. 

In the split second of life that remained to him, Missa reacted with desperate speed. Darting back from the searching blade, he threw himself from the parapet and dived into the lake below. The darkness, the cold water, received him in a stunning embrace. 

Surfacing quickly, Missa paddled away clumsily. His wounds were bleeding freely and stung even more fiercely as the water bathed them. Still they were not of themselves fatal, although disabling. Once he could bind them, stop the bleeding—with proper care they would heal, and not too many months would pass before he could wield a sword as expertly as before. But that would be for another lord and another cause. Gaethaa's insane missions had paid him well, yet the Crusader had not bought his life. Missa understood concepts of loyalty and duty of mercenary to his lord, but only within reason. Gaethaa's mission to destroy Kane had been cursed with dark fortune from the beginning, and Dron Missa decided it was time for discreet withdrawal. The gods plainly had given him this chance; it would be sacrilege to ignore their intercession. 

He looked back at the hulking figure leaning against the parapet in the dawn light. "Go to hell, Kane!" he shouted back, then disappeared into the mists. 

When Gaethaa had first heard Missa's shout and the clash of arms, he stared at the scene of combat in disbelief. Then through his astonished mind filtered the incredible truth—Kane still lived! The devil had not died in the flames—by some sorcery he had escaped! The witch had lied to complete the collapse of their vigilance! Now Kane had again returned to strike from the shadows! How many more times could the demon cheat death! 

"Alidore! Alidore! Kill that damned witch and get over here quick!" He bellowed shrilly, watching the parapet duel. "Alidore! Run, damn you! Kane's still alive! He's attacked Missa on the wall!" 

Forgetting Rehhaile for the moment, Alidore dashed to his lord's call. Against graying skies could be seen the deadly display of swordplay atop the wall. Swords in hand, they rushed to the steps that ascended the wall in this quarter. But the distance was considerable, and as they reached the stairs, they saw the fight's abrupt climax, watched Dron Missa plunge from the parapet into the lake. 

"Missa too!" Gaethaa swore in rage, "Now he's killed Missa! I think we fight Lord Tloluvin himself! But we two have not fallen! We'll let Kane taste our iron before this sun has risen!" 

Yet when they reached the top, Kane had stolen away into the mists of dawn, eluding them once again. 

"He runs from us, milord!" Alidore exclaimed bewilderedly. "Strange Kane should slink off with only two to face. He won't face an opponent in the open it seems." 

"No!" hissed Gaethaa, his eyes aflame. "See there on the stones! Blood! A blood trail! Kane's been wounded! Missa died not without giving account! No telling how badly wounded Kane might be! We've put him to flight now though—and here's the trail to lead us to him!" 

But the trail of blood dwindled and vanished altogether after they had followed it for only a short distance through the streets of Sebbei, where now the rising sun was cutting through the concealing night. Grimly Gaethaa realized that Kane's wounds had not been as severe as he had hoped. However seriously he might be disabled, at least he had been able to staunch the bleeding. And now Kane had again hidden himself in the maze of dead Sebbei. 

"The game continues," intoned Gaethaa heavily. "We have gained nothing. Again we must search for Kane through this damned labyrinthian ghost city, stalking him through his lair. Except today there are only you and I to hunt the tiger, Alidore. We can never destroy Kane like this." 

Alidore looked at his lord in concern. There was a sharp cry of despair in Gaethaa's voice that his lieutenant had never heard before. But though the Crusader's lanky figure was slumped and his chin propped against fist, his eyes were lost in thought. His long face bore twisting lines of raw emotion as his keen mind sorted through and rejected dozens of stratagems from past campaigns. 

Abruptly his face broke into inspired smile, and a triumphant laugh barked from his lips. "We're not done yet, Alidore!" he cried wildly. "We'll burn this accursed city to the ground!" 

"Burn Sebbei!" Alidore exploded incredulously. 

"Right! Burn it all! Let it all burn to the ground! Kane's using these deserted buildings for cover—we'll smoke him out into the open. Thoem knows how he escaped that warehouse without our knowledge, but his cunning won't help him when all Sebbei is in flames! He'll burn with the town, or he'll head for open country. Even if we miss him at first, picking up his trail will be child's play in this ghost land. We'll run him to earth even if he tries to cross the Lomarn—wounded as he is, he won't get that far! No more playing into his traps!" 

"Milord Gaethaa!" Alidore protested. "You can't be serious! Burn down the entire city to kill one man! What of the townspeople?" 

"Their backbones have dryrot! Don't worry about them. We'll fire a few buildings across the city—enough for the wind to spread the flames over the rest! It will be done before they can lift a hand—not that I believe any man of them has the guts to stop us! Maybe we can tell some that Kane started the fires—might jolt them out of their cowering lassitude to the point they'll tell us where Kane is, though I doubt if they're worth even that!" 

"No! I mean, we can't raze an entire city just to destroy Kane! These people will be killed—at best they'll lose everything they possess!" 

Gaethaa shrugged impatiently. "The town has no more than a few hundred. Most should escape easily enough, and there's any number of empty towns and villages they can move into. And don't waste pity on them! Had they done their duty to mankind, they would have pitched in and helped us destroy Kane! By their cowardly negligence they're responsible for the deaths of all my men—as well as being traitors to the cause of good! Burning these whining rats from their rotten dens is a fitting punishment for their complicity! Come on Alidore, we're wasting time!" 

Alidore's voice was strained, as he grasped Gaethaa's shoulder and turned him half around. "But to burn an entire city for one man! Kane isn't worth it!" 

Face white with rage, Gaethaa threw off his lieutenant's band. "Kane not worth it!" he roared. "Alidore, have you lost your mind! We've crossed half a continent to destroy this demon! All of your comrades have given their lives for this mission! And after all this effort, this sacrifice, the man I came to destroy still mocks me! I'll raze a hundred towns if need be to destroy Kane! Yes, and consider the price a cheap one balanced against the evil this man has committed evil he will continue to bring upon mankind until he is hunted down and slain! What's the worth of this city of ghosts opposed to the greater good of mankind!" 

The logic was inescapable, but Alidore still balked. "But the strategy may be entirely in vain!" he argued weakly. "Kane won't be trapped in the flames! He'll escape the city easily—we can't begin to guard the gates, let alone the entire wall! He'll flee Sebbei, and we'll never pick up his trail in the confusion!" 

"A general who believes his plan of attack infallible is a fool!" Gaethaa snapped. "Tell me a better one, and I'll accept your counsel. The plain truth is that Kane has beaten us at this damnable game of cat and mouse! He knows Sebbei better than we do, so he has only to lie in wait for us to enter his traps! We failed yesterday with six men—it's hopeless to try again with two! We have to force him into the open—make him run instead of spin webs to ensnare us! Damn it, Alidore—what's wrong with you! Have you lost your ideals and your nerve together!" 

The Lartroxian wavered, thoughts spinning in soul wrenching tumult. 

A voice cried out from behind them. "Alidore! What are you doing? Have you completely sold your soul to Gaethaa? That madman and his band of killers have done more evil than Kane has ever been responsible for! Will you help him now to destroy Sebbei and its wretched people on the chance you might kill Kane with this atrocity! Alidore, if you have anything but iron left to your soul, leave Gaethaa! Stop him before he sacrifices more lives to his merciless gods!" 

"Ah! I hear a witch!" Gaethaa whispered in knifelike tones. "The same lying voice that told me of Kane's death. Now we see the harvest of false mercy! But it's all apparent. The witch has perverted my lieutenant's soul-twisted his spirit with her sorcery—seduced him to serve the black powers of evil!" 

He drew his sword and stepped toward her slowly, blade held low. "Come embrace me, witch!" he hissed. "I think this time you have overestimated my blind stupidity and your own dark glamour as well!" 

Alidore leapt in front of him. "Stop, milord!" he pleaded. "She means nothing by her words—she has no sorcery! " 

There was pity in Gaethaa's voice as he moved to push Alidore aside. "You're bewitched, Alidore—your reason no longer serves you. Stand back now while my blade severs her spell over you, and sends this witch back to the darkness she serves." 

Resolution hardened Alidore's face as he planted himself firmly and drew his own sword. "It's not madness, milord—nor is it Rehhaile's sorcery! I recognize the truth in her words, understand the misgivings that have plagued my spirit these last months! I can't let you kill an innocent girl..." 

"Innocent girl! She's a witch! She's lied to you! She's helped Kane strike at us from the first moment we entered Sebbei!" 

"...Nor can I permit you to burn this city just to destroy Kane!" Alidore rushed on. "Come on, Gaethaa," he begged. "Let's get out of this land of the dead! We'll return to Kamathae, raise a new army, and return with sufficient strength to destroy Kane!" 

"Out of the question! Now Kane knows I intend to kill him! He'll hide where no man could find him—use his evil powers to build up defenses I could never hope to overcome! Stand aside, Alidore, and I'll forget your insane insubordination!" 

"I'm sorry, milord Gaethaa," he returned slowly. "You'll kill Rehhaile and raze this city by yourself—but first you'll have to kill me!" 

Sudden rage claimed Gaethaa. "Betrayal is it—and from you, Alidore! Damn you—if you stand among the forces of evil, stand against the cold light of good, then by the cold light you shall be destroyed! Get out of my way!" 

"Don't force me to cross blades with you, milord!" Alidore's plea was a warning as well. 

Gaethaa's face broke into a pale mask of vengeful fury. "You're a fool, Alidore!" he screamed. His sword streaked outward, all but tearing Alidore's weapon from his grip. 

Alidore jumped back, blade weaving a defensive pattern. His soul was close to shattering with the conflicting emotions that raged through him. His entire universe had suddenly collapsed about him, so that now he found himself locked in deadly combat with the man for whom an hour ago he would have willingly given his life. Suddenly he was pitted against the beliefs and ideals he had sworn allegiance to all his life. Spurred out of his emotional maelstrom only by the instincts of self-preservation, he desperately parried Gaethaa's maddened attack. 

It was not the state of mind to offer a chance against an opponent of Gaethaa's prowess. Rapidly, easily the Crusader wore down his guard. A sudden thrust Jay open Alidore's side, and as he recoiled in pain, a glancing stroke tore off his helmet. Alidore was driven to the ground, blackness flashing through his skull, while his eyes were blinded by blood pouring from his gashed brow. A thousand miles away echoed a girl's scream. 

Gaethaa surveyed his fallen lieutenant, madness still in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Alidore," he intoned with heavy regret. "You were a brother to me—a friend through many battles. Though I must kill you now to purge this evil spell that has stolen you from me, I'll always remember you as the loyal and courageous lieutenant you once were to me." He raised his sword for the coup de grace. "The tales spoke of the evil curse that follows Kane—evil that destroys those who cross his twisted path. Now I understand the truth behind those legends. Good-by, Alidore—Kane has destroyed you, but die assured that you will be avenged!" 

"Hell, kill him if you're going to—but don't give me credit for it. It bothers me to accept favors from a man I'm going to kill in another minute." The mocking voice grated from the street behind Gaethaa. "Or if you're embarrassed to kill a friend, let him lie there and I'll finish him after I've carved out your heart." 

Gaethaa whirled to face Kane. His enemy stepped from out of the fog and smoke and casually strode toward him, sword poised. Rough bandages were bound across his ribs; others made crimson bands across his right shoulder. A murderous light shone from his blue eyes, brutal face drawn in a savage snarl. 

"So the tiger has come out of hiding!" Gaethaa purred. "I had thought I'd be forced to smoke you from your lair! But now comes the final cast of dice in this game we've played, and it's only fitting that the principal players should meet at last. You've cost me every man in my command, Kane—it's for their lives you now must answer—and for the centuries of crimes that lie behind you like an accusing shadow!" 

"You've achieved a fair number of atrocities in your own short career—soon to be lamented!" sneered Kane, raising his sword. 

Gaethaa's silent lunge brought them together. Their swords clashed and locked, then Kane hurled the lighter man back. The knife in Gaethaa's other hand sliced empty air. Blow upon blow hammered a vicious cacophony to death. Kane's right arm was all but useless to him, but the dazzling speed of his sword arm made the loss seem minor. 

"Call upon the forces of evil to aid you, Kane!" jeered Gaethaa, observing the crimson stigma of fresh blood spread over Kane's bandages. The wounds were opening, and soon his strength would waver. "Or have your dark gods left you in fear, just as evil must always flee before the invincible sword of good!" 

"I serve neither gods nor fool's causes!" Kane growled. "And don't delude yourself into terming invincible principles that are meaningless except to the relative viewpoint of the beholder!" His apparent feint twisted into a sudden lunge that sliced across Gaethaa's cheek. "First blood!" he laughed. 

The men struggled on in silence then, voiceless save for panting breath and animal grunts. Gaethaa was a deadly opponent—a shrewd and skillful swordsman with wiry strength driving his long frame. In addition he was relatively fresh, while Kane was fatigued and bleeding from wounds suffered in recent combat. Still his endurance did not falter before the Avenger's fanatical attack, nor did the lethal beauty of his swordplay grow strained. Relentlessly the two men slashed and thrust, parried and feinted—each confident that his attack would exhaust the other and soon bring an end to the stalemate. 

Again their swords locked hilts. They strained against one another, man to man, blade to blade—a split second would see them thrown apart again! Gaethaa's dagger slipped past Kane's guard and slithered for his side. Heaving against the other blade, Kane threw Gaethaa back a step, dropping his own knife at the same instant. As Gaethaa fell away, Kane seized his left wrist in passing. Forcing the thick muscles of his injured arm to respond, Kane crushed the wrist in his grip and bent it back as his enemy lunged away. Gaethaa's dagger stabbed around to gash his arm. Then with a grating snap, the forearm bones cracked under the twisting pressure. 

Gaethaa gasped and swung his sword wildly at Kane's arm, frantic to relieve the crushing agony. Kane released his grip and jerked his arm clear. At the same moment his sword flashed out at Gaethaa's unprotected trunk, before the other could recover his guard. The powerful blow clove down through Gaethaa's right shoulder, all but severing arm from trunk! Kane's reddened blade gleamed and slashed out again, catching his opponent as he spun about and sundering head from body! The head bounced twice with a hollow tolling. 

Kane stood before the grotesquely strewn corpse of Gaethaa the Crusader, sucking great gasps of air into his hammering chest. In the crisp dawn chill tiny tendrils of smoke seemed to writhe from the scarlet splashed stones, from his dripping sword, from his torn flesh. It blended with his steaming breath and vanished into the morning mist. 

Shaking himself wearily, Kane frowned at Alidore's fallen form, stretched out across the deserted street, his head staining Rehhaile's skirt. Kane strode toward him purposefully. 

"Don't, Kane!" Rehhaile pleaded. "Please don't kill this one! Alidore saved my life several times from those killers! Spare him now for me! Please, Kane! Alidore can't harm you now!" 

Kane swayed before them, sword raised, murder lust still twisting his face. Alidore stared up at him blankly, face an expressionless mask. No move did he offer in defense or in flight; his eyes met Kane's in uncaring gaze. With a shrug Kane lowered his blade, blood fury slipping from his face—only to remain smoldering in his eyes, where its fires never slaked. 

"All right, Rehhaile," he said. "I give him to you. But I doubt that your pity will be of much use to him. It seems that Gaethaa's blow knocked loose his brain inside that thick skull." 

"No, Kane! It's his soul that's torn loose within him! I can heal his spirit's torment in time." 

"So that's it," Kane laughed mirthlessly. "No point in asking you to come with me then, I see. Just as well. I'm leaving now, Rehhaile. I've had my fill of living among ghosts. I'm sick of morbid brooding—there's still adventure to amuse me in the world outside. Your companionship here has been interesting—soothing. I'm grateful." 

"Good-by, Kane," said Rehhaile softly, turning her mind from the winter of his thoughts and spirit. 

Kane muttered something she did not quite bear, then turned and stalked away down the empty streets. The ghosts of dead Demornte watched him depart. Go from Demornte, land of the dead, world of shadows, where death has lain and life cannot linger. 

Alidore stirred. Sitting up dizzily he reached for his fallen sword. With shaking hands he placed its point against his chest. His universe had toppled, pinning him in the wreckage of his unshakable beliefs, unassailable truths. What use to survive tire death of his gods? 

"Alidore! Don't!" screamed Rehhaile, sensing what he was about to do. "For my sake—don't! I want you to live! Together we can leave this land of the dead—we can go out into the world of life!" 

"I thought I followed the cold clear light of right, of god," Alidore spoke in agony. "Instead I served the cold light of death!" 

The swordpoint wavered against his chest. The soothing oblivion of death? Or try to return to life with Rehhaile? His soul was too wounded to decide. 










					Mirage





Death came shimmering through the afternoon heat. 

In silence broken only by cursing, the battleworn band of mercenaries had fled along the dusty mountain road. Overhead the sun burned dismally, scornfully; its heat lanced through the ragged forest cover and seared the disheveled fugitives. Stumbling over scorched stones, they had plodded along in the weary desperation of flight, dust choking their panting breath and smothering them in a grimy blanket compounded of sweat and caked blood. 

Half a hundred soldiers of a fallen cause. Men who had gambled their lives for the ambitious bastard brother of Chrosanthe's dainty king. But Jasseartion had proven no fool despite his laces and curious affectations; his spies, his personal army had been as meticulously efficient as his subjects foolishly loyal. In the end, his brother Talyvion had hung moaning in a tiny cage suspended from the great beams of the same throne room toward which his ambitions had lured him. Now the scattered remnants of his smashed army fled across the land, pursued by Jasseartion's tireless soldiers and vengeful subjects, a bounty on each man's head. 

For Kane the bounty was great. Kane was the last of Talyvion's lieutenants still unaccounted for by Jasseartion's so very efficient servants. And although Kane had only entered into the conspiracy shortly before its downfall, his remarkable talent both for cloaked intrigue and open battle had impressed a particular enmity upon Chrosanthe's ruler, and upon his subjects as well. Even to a rebel would come full pardon and more gold than he might earn in ten years' soldiery, so promised the royal proclamation. True, Jasseartion's word had never been so inviolable as to inspire confidence among the fugitives from his well-famed justice, but it was nonetheless a most tempting proposal. 

With this in mind, Kane had wrapped his face in bloody bandages, padded his belly to outsize proportions, and covered his mail with a filthy, voluminous cloak. So disguised, he had mingled with a band of fleeing refugees, hoping that neither Jasseartion's followers nor his own companions would recognize this dirty, obese foot soldier with bandaged face as the aristocratic stranger who had joined with Talyvion not long before the latter's fortunes had changed. 

Then the searing summer air was filled with the sharp hiss of glinting arrows. Ambush! A detachment of Jasseartion's army had lain in hiding among the trees and the smoldering rocks that enclosed the dusty mountain trail. 

Furious at having been caught in ambush along with the sheep he had hoped to masquerade among, Kane broke for cover, his right hand fumbling in the damp folds of his cloak for his sword. A deep wound from the last battle caused his left arm to be still too weak to use effectively, and although Kane was almost as dexterous with his right arm, he knew he was at a disadvantage in the chaotic fighting that enveloped him. 

The king's soldiers rushed upon the stricken mercenaries simultaneously as the last arrows tore into them. Many of their number already writhing upon the burning pathway, the desperate fugitives staggered to make a hopeless stand against their assailants. The first man to reach Kane he hurled back again with a crushing swordblow. Another charged past his comrade's husk and swung an axe in a glittering are that took all of Kane's strength to turn aside. The axeman snapped backward and raised his weapon once more. Kane cursed impotently. The man would be gutted by now had Kane free use of his left arm. As he sought to face the axe, another soldier fell upon him front his left, just as the axe again swung down. Kane leapt back and caught the axe once more with his blade, frantically dodging his other foe. Twisting his blade, he slashed outward through the axeman's wrist, and as the other dropped his weapon in agony, Kane's return thrust caught him in the ribs. 

A second to free the sword. Too long. The other soldier's sword was slicing for him. Kane forced his left arm into action, clumsily grappling with the sword arm that thrust for his trunk. A double wave of pain shook him as his wounded arm only partially deflected the swordblow, and the edge gashed through the heavy cloak and padding to smash against the mail beneath. Kane toppled, his powerful grip yet locked on the other's arm, pulling him to the ground along with himself, and impaling the soldier on his sword as they fell. And as he struck ground with the dying assailant atop him, an impossible weight slammed against Kane's skull. In a black wave of agony he lost consciousness, never knowing whether he had been purposefully struck, or simply kicked by some other pair of combatants. 

I. The Forest by Night
His eyes opened into the cool of night. Groggily he rolled from under the soldier's corpse and sat up. Vision blurred, ground rocked with the roaring pain in his skull. Kane bit his lip and forced himself to his knees. About him lay only the dead. 

Gingerly he unwound the heavy bandages that swathed his head and ran fingers over the ache in his skull. It had been a hard blow, but the bandages and his thick red hair had effectively cushioned it. He rose to his feet and disgustedly threw off the enveloping cloak and the slashed padding beneath. His mail had stopped the swordthrust, but the force of the stroke had mashed the links painfully into his side. 

A bad deal all around, mused Kane, once more cursing the poor judgment that had led him to seek to hide among the rabble rather than strike out on his own. Still, under the circumstances he had been lucky enough to escape from the collapse of the conspiracy, not to mention to survive this ambush. He looked about him, the light of the newly risen full moon casting sufficient illumination for his exceptional night vision to see clearly. 

Silent. Still. Death. Cold moonlight cast over a strange panorama of white shapes strewn carelessly, hopelessly across the dark ground. Not even a hint of wind to break this frozen tableau. Black trees casting shadows—can moonlight cast shadows?—dark shapes clutching, covering the fallen. Contorted young face—had death been so dear with that slash through his belly? Perhaps the one who was asking Kane some forgotten question when the attack came. Perhaps not. The moonlight gave an unreal illumination to the scene, and faces firm and real by sunlight now seemed hollow, fantastic. Kane was not certain even that the pain in his tormented body was real. 

Where am I now? he wondered, forcing thoughts into the blur of his consciousness. Nearly out of the lands claimed to be holdings of Chrosanthe—a very isolated area of the kingdom. Chrosanthians avoided this forest region, and with that in mind the fugitives had sought to escape along this route. Another bad idea, Kane reflected. Jasseartion's vengeance had ignored his subjects' dislike for this particular corner of the realm, but then Talyvion's mercenaries had earned an especial hatred for themselves during the abortive coup d'étàt. 

The trees shimmered crazily when Kane gained his feet. At least the cool night air soothed where the scourging sun had lent additional agony to each move. Can't stay here, Kane realized. The soldiers would return for their dead with morning—certainly to loot the corpses. Only nightfall and their dread of the region had kept them from this ritual. 

The ghouls. That was it. Kane remembered that the Chrosanthians had fought an uncommonly vicious civil war some two centuries previous. This region had been exceptionally torn apart by the struggle, with the victorious faction relentlessly slaughtering the great lords together with their tenants. Jasseartion's ancestors' handiwork. The area had never been repopulated—several strange legends regarding the fate of those victors who had attempted to establish themselves upon the unburied bones of their luckless predecessors. And that ancient carnage had attracted packs of ghouls to the area—or perhaps made ghouls of the few starving survivors, Kane mused. Yes, every reason to get away from this place as quickly as possible. Damn! For a horse of any description! 

Wearily Kane recovered his fallen sword and limped away among the white shapes patterned across the dark ground, his feet slipping occasionally upon still darker patches. Wincing, he tossed his head, but the blur would not leave his vision. A large rock beneath the trees was enticing, and Kane stumbled to its rest, half reclining as upon one of the many thrones that fortune had cast him over the years, and later stolen again from his embrace. Thoem! So many long years! Could any man bear their weight! For a moment a kaleidoscope of bitter memories tumbled through the pain of his mind, doomed centuries of wandering, an outcast from mankind. 

Brooding at a time when flight should be his sole concern. Delirium. The nightscape wavered in cadence to the throbbing within his skull, a hoarse roaring that at times engulfed him altogether. And Kane knew he had been struck harder than he had earlier realized. A concussion maybe. Just beautiful! By daylight Jasseartion's soldiers would return to find him sitting here mindlessly raving of fallen, forgotten empires. 

His throat was thick with thirst, and he wondered if he might find some wine somewhere among the slain. That was stupid; the mercenaries had had little enough water among them. Wine tastes very good though, especially the white wine they brew in Latroxia. Although many consider it too sour. And wine is good to bathe wounds in, due to the purifying natures of the engendered sting. Salt water reacts similarly, but is useless for drinking purposes. A pity the oceans didn't flow with wine. Many shipwrecked sailors would have applauded this innovation, although it would probably disturb the fish. Once I ate an octopus pickled in wine. Subtle taste, but on the whole an unfortunate meal. 

An ocean of wine lifted Kane in its tentacled arms, bobbing him up and down rhythmically, while about him the corpses of these pickled sailors swirled atop the purple waves, and octopi crept from their seaweed lairs to reach out cautiously. 

Sound. Sharp snap. Reflexes cutting through the delirium. Startled into a semblance of alertness, Kane's cold blue eyes searched the battleground suspiciously. 

Again cracked the sound, and Kane recognized it this time. It was a harsh, splintering snap such as an animal makes in crunching the marrow bones of its prey. 

Now he could distinguish the ghoul. Crouched over its meat on the dark forest road, its dead-white body had resembled one of the corpses upon which it fed. And from the silent trees were slipping other pale, misshapen creatures, their stooped and twisted bodies a sick parody of the human form. So the legends had not lied. 

Ghouls normally would not attack an armed man, Kane knew, but their numbers and his disabled state might prove too tempting. Besides, their hunger was apparent—ghouls abhor freshly killed flesh much the same as many men have little appetite for raw meat. 

Carefully Kane limped back into the trees. The ghouls had interest only for the rich feast spread before them, hunger overruling their normal caution. A stone grated under his boot, and Kane froze to look about hurt apprehensively. A few pairs of dead, pale, almost luminous eyes stared in his direction, but none of the creatures seemed moved to investigate. Satisfied that he had not been detected, Kane slipped deeper into the shadows of the forest, and once the cover of trees and jutting rock outcrops shielded him altogether, he hurried away from this moonlit scene of horror. 

It was Kane's intention to skirt the battlefield through the forest and then to pick up the mountain road once more. With luck he could put quite a few miles behind him by dawn, and during the daylight rest hidden within the forest. But the road twisted and meandered in a manner unknown to Kane—and as he wandered through the trees attempting to recover his trail, over his mind again crept tendrils of delirium, only momentarily pushed back by shock of immediate danger. An hour passed and Kane was not only utterly lost, but beyond caring as well. 

Beneath his boots the earth pitched and yawed, but his sea-legs were up to treading any deck, and Kane strode recklessly into the storm, occasionally staggering against a mast for support. Then the trees whirled maddeningly about him, ensnared like himself in sonic cosmic vortex. Caves underneath the limestone shelves yawned at him, gaping caverns that snapped thunderously, some emitting rank, dismal breath. Under the staring eye of the moon danced thousands of colossal phantoms, tormenting the fool who stumbled through their eldritch circles. Long claws reached for his face, gnarled talons lashed out to knock him sprawling again and again. Faces of those long dead smirked at him from the blackness—sneering visages of ancient enemies, soft faces of old mistresses that abruptly grew stark with age. A spinning phantasmagoria of mocking smiles, and for half of them Kane could not even remember their names. 

Eventually he found himself staggering through a rained village. At least it seemed so—these crumbling walls remained solid to his touch, while other figures of his tortured mind faded mistlike into the darkness. He smashed a fist against the stones and studied the pain. Yes, it must be real then. An abandoned village, with vine-covered stone walls still carrying, the charred signature of forgotten fire and pillage. All in ruins now—roofless dwellings, fallen walls—gutted structures whose gloomily gaping windows and doorways made them appear as monolithic skulls to Kane's fevered mind. 

Desolation was all pervasive. Only the white shadow of half-hidden bones served evidence of former human habitation—at least Kane thought he could see these scattered relics discarded among the other debris. Had it not been for curious, narrow paths weaving through the rank underbrush, Kane would have believed no living creature had passed through this dismal artifact of ancient strife in many years. 

Full moon silhouetted the deserted castle looming darkly upon the steep hill that overlooked its empty village. In that final battle the castle had fallen alongside the village which had paid it tribute in return for an inadequate protection. A fantastic mass of black stones piled against the moonlight, the crumbling fortress impressed Kane with an even more consuming sense of desolation than did these ruins which lay before its not quite unassailable height. 

"There stands your funeral monument!" laughed Kane, pointing to the castle, and the empty windows winked agreement "By the gods, a truly epic tombstone! Right?" The overgrown walls nodded. 

Sharp, knifing pain from his wounds: dull, numbing agony of fatigue. Too much. A bed of moss among toppled stones was too tempting. Gratefully Kane dropped onto its cushion. To hell with what's-his-name's soldiers. A short rest was paramount, and no one would find him here. 

Lolling his head upon the stones, Kane breathed in fitful gasps, his mind trapped in a black delirium somewhere between waking and dreaming. After a while he saw the destroyed village return once more to its old state. Gutted ruins blossomed into busy shops and bright houses; the weed grown paths became wide streets. Throughout this reborn village hurried its townspeople, most of them occupied with their own business and paying no attention the stranger who reclined in their midst on a swaying litter of velvet. 

But there were some who noticed the interloper. These few gathered about him and gazed at Kane with pale, hungry eyes. And even though Kane half realized that these were ghouls who surrounded him now, it mattered nothing. 

Cautiously, like vultures fluttering down upon a dying lion, the ghouls slunk ever closer to Kane. Foul spittle hung from rotten yellow fangs as they reached with anxious paws for their indifferent prey. 

"Back!" Her voice lashed them into fearful obedience. "All right, damn you! Get back, I said!" They tumbled backward before her anger. 

For a fleeting instant full consciousness returned to Kane. In that dreadful interval he saw before him half a dozen pallid, twisted shapes cowering away from him, driven back by the awful fury of a girl whose strange beauty rivaled that of any his mind could recall. 

Only for a startled second did he regain his senses; then came total oblivion. And as he sank into its welcome release, there echoed her joyous words: "This one shall be mine!" 

II. Beyond the Forest
"How many days exactly?" 

The elderly servant meticulously added five drops of yellow fluid to the wine goblet before answering. "Oh, three days, four days, something like that." Gently he stirred the elixir, taking care not to spatter his extravagant livery. "What does it matter?" 

Kane's temper seethed within him. "I really would like to know how long I've been unconscious," he said with great patience. 

"Mmm?" The servant handed him the goblet. Kane's hand shook somewhat as he accepted it, and a few drops flicked upon the rich fur pelts that covered his bed. A slight frown lined his attendant's lean face. "How long indeed. That's original. Trust a fool to come up with a line like 'Where am I?' or 'How long have I been like this?' every damn time." 

"Yeah, sure! That's another question I'd like answered," Kane growled, as be sipped the tonic. It burned his throat, without totally masking a nauseously sweet undertaste. Kane paused in alarm, then reflected that his hosts could easily have killed him while in coma, and he gulped the rest of the mixture. "The last thing I remember was..." He groped for memory. "I seem to remember lying in a ruined village in the moonlight. There were ghouls too. A pack of them closing in on me as I lay there. Someone scattered them just as I blacked out for keeps. A woman, I think." 

The steward laughed dryly. "That must have been some knock on the head, stranger! You were down in the deserted village, true enough. But it was just a few mangy thieves that my mistress chased off when they found you. Lucky for you she and her men were late in returning from the hunt. Beat up as you were, you wouldn't have lasted the night in the open." He accepted the empty goblet and gingerly placed the delicate vessel on a silver tray. 

Kane shrugged and sat up. The elixir was potent. Already his head felt clearer. "So where am I now?" he asked. 

"Why in Altbur Keep!" laughed the steward. "Didn't you see the castle as you came up?" 

"The only 'castle' I can recall passing near," mused I Kane with a frown, "was an empty heap of mossy stones atop the hill above the village." 

"Heap of mossy stones?! Does this place really look like that to you, now?" The steward's airy gesture included the rich tapestries of the walls, the lavish furnishings of the room. "Well, I'll grant you maybe Altbur isn't as magnificent as in my ancestors' days, but still 'a heap of mossy stones'? Really!" He chuckled. "Jasseartion's boys must have really given you a knock on that thick skull!" 

Kane's eyes flashed dangerously, but the servant only laughed again. "Oh, thought we couldn't guess who you were then? Seriously, how stupid do you take us to be! Sure we know about that ambush. Oh, don't get edgy now. We're no friends of Jasseartion—I promise you that! No sir, my mistress is surely no friend of that line of opportunistic bandits! Not quite! His ancestors ravaged this area, you know. No friends here, you can be certain! My mistress even took you under her protection out of spite. Just thank your gods that she didn't mistake you for one of Jasseartion's soldiers!" 

"Who is your mistress? And when can I offer my gratitude for her protection?" Kane questioned. 

"Her name is Naichoryss, if that means anything to you. And she'll accept your courtesy when the time comes. Until then just think about regaining your strength—although you seem to be doing that uncommonly fast, as it is." He stiffly recovered his tray and stepped for the door. 

Kane called after him: "And how about you, steward? Do you have a name?" 

"Now I haven't asked yours," was the reply. 

Kane bit his lip in annoyance and swung his feet to the floor. 

III. Altbur Keep
If you looked just so, Kane decided, you could almost see where the summer heat faded out against the chill of Altbur Keep. Maybe just a trick of the fading sunlight, but there was almost a perceptible aura formed where shimmer was blotted into haze. He shivered on his perch atop the battlements and drew his cloak more closely about him. His own clothes had vanished along with his weapons, he had discovered on regaining consciousness, but his still unseen hostess had given him far better apparel in their place. 

No, he had no complaints in regard to his treatment. Superb apartments, excellent food and drink, and a staff of servants who gave him utmost attention. But still, his weapons had not been left him. And although he was free to roam the fortress at will, the gates of Altbur Keep were politely, emphatically locked to him. Well, if you were a prisoner, this was the way to do it. 

Kane leaned out recklessly from the battlement and considered the castle walls. A sheer drop and easily killing height. Still there were several promising spots which should offer enough concealment. A matter of securing sufficient rope then. And no one actually guarded him, although Kane was aware that there were few times when someone was not unobtrusively going about his own business from a spot where an eye could be kept on the guest's movements. At the moment, in the shadow of a nearby watchtower a kitchen maid was in close embrace with a disturbingly grubby stable hand. 

All in all a not overly difficult place to slip out of, if need arose; Kane had considerable confidence in his ability here. And maybe he was too uneasy—"paranoid" in the language of an obscure treatise he had read through long ago. His life had been saved quite likely, his treatment here was first rate, and it was essential that he have a safe place to hide until he was ready to escape Chrosanthe. Some caution in taking in a strange mercenary was altogether natural. And there had been no difficult questions to answer. 

Yet Kane continued to be uneasy, and he had lived far too long to discount the forebodings of his inner mind. Of course he had little way of knowing just how much of what he had seen in his delirium had been real. From the castle the village looked forlorn, deserted—but not the sinister tangle of ruins seen that night. Altbur Keep seemed a bit empty and forgotten by the world—again it certainly was not the ruined fortress Kane had envisioned it to be. Should it be here at all though—in a region ill famed and by common knowledge laid waste for two centuries? Kane knew it was not extraordinary to find the dying embers of a once proud and glorious family that continued to dwell amidst the ruins of their ancient power and grandeur. 

Other things lived in ruins too. 

Silence. Chill. Events within the castle somehow frozen moments of time, disremembered fragments of a dream strangely caught up again, And somewhere just beyond the power of recognition a hint of mustiness—flawing the representation as a mirror image tarnished with antiquity. Vague hints that in some manner the world of Altbur Keep was but a mirage. 

Kane sensed it as he walked through its hallways. To be sure it was nothing concrete. Perhaps only for a moment a shadow would seem out of place, or a detail of a tapestry subtly altered. In the servants Kane thought it was most apparent. Almost as if they were actors in a grotesque play. To perfection did each one perform his role; no detail, no minor touch had been neglected in the characterization. Kane scowled at the impassioned couple in the shadows and wondered how often the scene had been rehearsed. Perfect servants, yet it seemed a perfection born of repetition. Polished as the hundredth performance of a popular drama—equally as brittle and unreal. Still there was nothing Kane could pin down to precision. 

He wondered if the performance continued as he passed from one particular area to another, or whether the players called a break without their audience. 

And his hostess. The mistress of Altbur Keep. Naichoryss. Where was she then? His questions received only politely noncommittal answers from her servants. Naichoryss. Fabrication? A character held in reserve for later in the drama? Or was she the author of the masquerade, who remained behind the curtains to watch the audience response? Naichoryss. Mistress of Altbur Keep, or Mistress of the Mirage? 

Kane slid from the parapet. It was time he found out. 

IV. Mistress of Altbur Keep
"This way, sir, if you please." 

Kane turned to discover his acquaintance, the steward, had slipped up behind him unnoticed. That was a nice touch: seen and not heard. Withered creep was lurking behind a tapestry doubtless. Bastard could probably slide under a fresco. "This way?" 

"Certainly. My mistress," he prompted. "Naichoryss has had prepared a small dinner in her chambers. She asks that you join her now." 

That simple then. "So she's at last decided to have a look at her discovery." 

The steward shrugged and quoted: 


A woman's mind, friend Eistenallis,
Is a mystery; 
Whose unfathomable depths, 
Rival the uncharted currents of a god's whimsey.



"Curious that your quotation is that of Halmonis as he led Eistenallis to a rendezvous from which the courtier failed to return," remarked Kane, as he followed his guide. 

"Ah! You know the work of Ganbromi then? A literate mercenary!" 

"I knew Ganbromi," Kane muttered, hoping he would not provoke a further outburst of erudition from the supercilious prig. 

"Here we are then," the steward concluded and rapped against a brassbound door. Seeming to hear acknowledgment from within, he swung it open and stepped aside, his expression correctly impassive. 

Stepping within, Kane was received by two smiling maids dressed in identical garments of soft leather and interlocking brass rings. Silently they opened a second door and invited him to enter. 

She rose from her couch to greet him as he pushed through the curtained entrance; her red lips parted, secretly smiling upon tiny white teeth. "I am Naichoryss." Her voice came clear and cold—distant as in a dream. "I welcome you to Altbur Keep." A long white arm stirred from the black folds of her gown and curved towards a couch across the low table from her own. "Please be seated now, and tell me of yourself. It is so seldom that I receive visitors anymore." A slight gesture to her maids, then she returned to her couch with the quiet grace of a shadow. 

Kane easily stretched his massive frame upon the indicated couch, watching as the serving maid filled his chalice with wine as clear and red as the rubies of the vessel's rim. 

"My name is Kane," he began. There seemed no point in subterfuge under the circumstances, and he was too proud to be taken as a common mercenary amidst such splendour. 

Naichoryss smiled. Thin lips poised over the red wine dark eyes reflected its crimson, wave on wave of long black tresses wreathed a pale, delicate face, features finely chiseled. A study of eerie beauty, cold and aloof as an exquisitely carven masterpiece of gemset ivory and jet. 

"Kane." Her lips caressed the sound. "A cruel name, I think. Not a common one." The light in her eyes was a mocking glitter. And Kane knew that Naichoryss had been aware all along of his identity. 

Kane was not a man easily mistaken for another. His red hair and fair complexion, his powerful bearlike frame set him apart from the native Chrosanthians in a region where racial features leaned to dark hair and lean wiriness. And his rather coarse features and huge sinewed hands did not make him too exceptional from the mercenaries displaced from the cold lands far to the south. It was his eyes that branded him as an outsider. No man looked into Kane's eyes and forgot them. Cold blue eyes in which lurked the wild gleam of insanity, hellish fires of crazed destruction and bloodshed. The look of death. Eyes of a born killer. The Mark of Kane. 

Kane returned his hostess's amused scrutiny with assumed indifference. "Since it's obvious that even here in Altbur Keep the details are commonly known regarding Jasseartion's quarrel with his lamented half-brother Talyvion, I won't bore you with stale news. As you can understand, it was urgent that I should outdistance Jasseartion's malice as rapidly as feasible. However, I was a little slow. Perhaps an underestimation of the flit's thoroughness, but it is startling to discover steel inside a violet. At any rate, his soldiers didn't recognize me, left me for dead, and I blundered about the forest out of my head until you chanced to find me." He went on to express gratitude for her protection and hospitality. 

Her laughter was a symphony of silver flutes and bells; its sound light and merry, but underneath lay a shivery note. "So Kane is the gifted courtier that ladies praise him to be! To turn your own comment, how unusual to find polished graces disguised behind such brutal strength! But then I discover paradoxes at every turn with you, Kane! Arid what vitality! In a matter of days you appear altogether recovered from wounds that should have left you dead or disabled for weeks! I'm delighted now that I had you spared that night in my village!" 

"My mind is a blank for that time, I'm afraid," Kane broke in. "Your excellent steward mentioned that there were bandits..." 

Naichoryss's slender band waved dismissal. "Bandits? Hardly! A few miserable sneakthieves and poachers who would have slit your throat for your boots. They fled like rats when my hunters and I rode by. 

"Please, though! All these formal expressions of introduction and gratitude are so boring! And existence here in Altbur Keep is dull enough without that. You must tell me now of all the fascinating things going on in the outside world, or I'll spend the whole night yawning. Tell me of those exotic lands your wanderings must have led you through. Dispel my boredom, and you'll remain here until Jasseartion grows old and forgetful!" 

The arrangement seemed satisfactory to Kane. The role of dinner partner was one in which he had enjoyed great experience, and an evening of anecdotes would keep his hostess from learning more about her guest than Kane felt she should know. So while Naichoryss's maids bore tray after tray of delicacies across the room, silent but for the jingle of their brass ringlets, Kane entertained the strange mistress of Altbur Keep with curious tales of old battles and intrigue in lands that were almost fabled. 

The wine was of ancient vintage; Kane savored its rare and delicate taste with enthusiasm, and watched with high approval as the attentive maid kept his chalice brimming. His mind seemed inflamed with its potency as be talked—so much so that he wondered if the wine contained some subtle drug. Yet his hostess was served from the same vessels, although she both ate and drank only sparingly. 

And when the serving girls had taken away the last course and only the wine remained, Naichoryss rose to her feet and beckoned him toward the open balcony. Kane followed her onto the moonlit stones, his movements somewhat heavy from the wine and the magic of her beauty. For a moment they leaned in silence against the parapet, looking out over the valley where cold moonlight etched the ruined village in silver and black. Only a faint wind stirred, lightly rippling her raven hair with its chill breath, so cold, so empty for a summer's night. 

Moonlight shone through her smoky gown, making almost luminescent the white skin it half veiled. Kane's throat grew tight with emotion, and his senses grow even more tumultuous. Here was beauty which drew him with a fascination more compelling than any he had yet experienced. 

"Aren't you cold?" be began lamely, not trusting himself to an opening less conventional. 

Naichoryss turned to him, only just beyond his arm's reach. "Cold? Yes. Yes, I am cold. Not from the night though. It's a far, far deeper cold that I know—one that can be warmed only..." 

The moonlight glowed on her sharp white teeth, while the hunger of her eyes matched the invitation of her smile. "I think perhaps you can warm the cold that torments me." 

Kane reached then to take her in his arms, but his movements were clumsy and she slipped through his grasp with secret laughter. Dumbly he stared at her, entranced hopelessly as an adolescent bumpkin in the hands of a talented courtesan. Where his fingers had brushed across her flesh they string as if scorched by ice. 

"Not so impetuous, my rough warrior!" she laughed. "This is a moment to be savored! With an eternity of nights before us, would you fall on me like a rutting bear?" 

With extreme annoyance Kane fought to control himself. What was this woman's witchery, that it left him all the grace of a horny plowhand? But the desire to possess this strange creature overwhelmed every attempt to restore sophistication to his usually polished manner. 

Naichoryss gathered into her arms a lyre-like instrument, cradling it to her breast as she swayed mockingly a few paces from him. "A moment to be savored," she intoned huskily. "Fully. To the last glistening droplet. Shall I sing for you, Kane? Can you contain all that vitality for yet a few moments more?" 

His hand shook as he raised the chalice to his lips, and though he did not trust himself to speak, Kane's eyes blazed with the desire that racked his soul. 

Almost pensively her fingers slipped across the lyre strings, although Kane sensed that her casualness was altogether assumed. He thought of the seeming disinterest exhibited by a cat when it plays with its prey. 

A tune caught her whimsy and she hummed to herself there in the moonlight. And from the moon and the cold and the loneliness and the night itself she wove the fabric of her song. 


Come to me, my lover, join me here in the night,
In the moon's cold, clear light, stand before me,
And upon my altar of cold stone, offer to me your soul.
Touch my hand, my lover, fuel my flesh like ice—
Rest your head upon my breast; it is a pillow of soft snow.
Caress my lips, my lover, taste my frozen breath—
Look deep into my eyes; they hold the chill of night.
Then let me take you in my cold embrace,
Come with me to my world beyond all pain;
And with my kiss, then shall you know,
That love's purest expression
Is in death, is in death.



With languid movement Naichoryss laid aside her lyre and stretched herself. Kane stared at her in utter entrancement. "There! So silent, Kane? I hope my song didn't lull you to sleep." She glided away from him, out of the moonlight and into the broken shadow of her bedchamber. 

Kane followed her into the room; his every muscle stiff with tension, his mind in a delirium of wild emotion. "Naichoryss," he whispered hoarsely. 

But she put a finger to her lips, and he was silent again. She faced him there beside her bed, and her dark eyes shone with her hunger for him. Then her slim fingers brushed the fastenings of her robe and it fell away from her like mist. A great band of moonlight framed her in the darkness, bathing every curve of her perfect beauty with new sorcery. 

"Do you desire me, Kane?" she asked, laughter now vanished from her voice. 

"You know I do!" he answered needlessly. 

"And do you give yourself to me now, body and soul, for all the nights of eternity?" Was there still a hint of mockery in her eyes? 

And even though Kane had now begun to understand the fate to which he was committing himself, he could not hold back his reply: "I give myself to you." 

A flash of wild triumph crossed her face then, and she opened her arms to him. "Come to me now!" she cried joyously. 

Kane crushed her in his powerful arms, melting her lithe body against his strength. Deeply they kissed, and the unholy chill of her lips seared the fire of his own. Almost unnoticed he felt the sudden thrust of her sharp fangs locking into position. 

With surprising strength her hands tore through the fabric of his shirt, ripping it away from his throat and chest. 

He watched dizzily as Naichoryss ended her branding kiss and settled back upon the furs of her bed. Feverishly Kane tossed aside the rest of his clothing, noticing even in his haste the long scratches her nails had slashed across his chest. Her fangs glinted evilly in the moonlight, quite obvious now, but Kane was beyond concern at this point. 

Her cold arms pulled him down to her, and they entwined in an embrace of black ecstasy. Kane shuddered as wave upon wave of unendurable pleasure broke over him, and his sensations swirled in an impossible blend of flame and ice, revulsion and delight. He made no protest even when Naichoryss twisted over atop him and broke their kiss to trail her icy lips lower across his body. 

When her fangs finally bit into his throat, it was as if the fires within him were suddenly unleashed. An unspeakable vortex of pain and ecstasy engulfed Kane, drowning him as he spun helplessly into its blackness. 

V. Into the Mirage
Time became meaningless to him. It was as if all existence had become one endless night. Kane no longer knew the sun, although whether this was because he lay unconscious during the daylight hours, or whether time itself had ceased to move for them, he could not tell. 

Reality consisted only of their nights together, and even then Kane could never remember how many times they had lain in dark embrace. 

He would awaken. Outside there would still be darkness. Sometimes Kane would feel strong enough to walk about Naichoryss's chambers; other times he felt too weak to do more than drag himself far enough to reach the small dinner of wine and flesh that was set out for him. No sign did he ever see of the castle's servants, although he never ventured beyond her chambers to search. He even lacked the strength or curiosity to determine whether the door was locked; the possibility of escape simply did not occur to him. 

When he looked at his reflected face in a mirror, Kane saw how haggard and gaunt he had grown, yet he felt no alarm. Without interest he contemplated the two close set wounds which made sullen red swellings upon the white flesh of his throat. 

His only emotion was that of expectation—of anticipation for the disclosure of strange mysteries and secret pleasures for centuries denied to him. It was as if after an endless period of frustrated yearning, he were to have his every longing now fulfilled—at last to be free to embark upon an eternally desired journey. In a delirium Kane waited there, too weak in spirit and body to feet concern, waiting for death. 

She came to him always. Sometimes through the door, sometimes she just seemed to be in the chamber. 

In mock concern Naichoryss would comment upon his weakness, insist that he take nourishment, drive him out of his lassitude. Always Kane made the effort to please the mistress of Altbur Keep, drawing failing strength from some hidden reservoirs within him. They would talk together, or Naichoryss might sing. But each time it would end in the same manner. Together they would make love. And when Kane lay spent and exhausted to the point of fainting, he would once more feel the searing kiss of her lips on his throat and know the pain of her hunger—that would drive him once again into darkness. 

Sometimes Naichoryss would talk to him about herself, about her plans for him. For the vampire was certain of her prey now, and she knew that knowledge of his fate could not change Kane's powerlessness to escape her spell. 

She told him of the fall of Altbur Keep two centuries before in the civil wars of that period, told Kane of how the victors had slaughtered all those within village and castle. On this same bed she had suffered the lust of the victorious troops, until someone had seen fit to strangle her. But violence and hatred were forces too powerful to vanish without legacy. Thus it happened that the mistress of the fallen stranglehold had drawn strength from the curses and the frustrated vengeance of a thousand slain—had become the focus of energies stronger than death itself. At night she had roamed the shadows of her plundered domain, and the light of dawn had exposed many a bloodless corpse to mark her unholy revenge. And eventually it was terror that drove all men from the region, leaving Naichoryss mistress only of ghoul-haunted ruins. 

Many years had passed. The grandchildren of those on whom she sought revenge grew old and died; the war itself became a hazy fragment of history, its factions and issues now confused even by scholars. The stones of Altbur Keep grew weathered and mossy; most of the ghouls moved on to more propitious lands. Still Naichoryss remained to haunt the forgotten ruins of her realm, preying only upon the animals of the forests or a rare stranger who unwittingly passed through. 

It was lonely. Only the undead can know all the loneliness of death without the final rest of the grave. 

When she drove off the ghouls that had discovered Kane, Naichoryss had known at once what she would do. Bringing him back to her castle, she had raised Altbur Keep from the dust of centuries to all its former glory. Carefully she had nurtured her treasure while Kane regained his strength. Painstakingly had she ensnared him in her spell. And when she considered him fully recovered, Naichoryss had taken him into her embrace to feed upon his immense vitality, 

But death was not to be Kane's fate, this Naichoryss promised. Kane's destiny was to become her eternal consort—to join Naichoryss in the shadow realm of the undead! Slowly therefore was she draining life from him, carefully preparing Kane so that he might in death become as she—a creature of the night. And then together they would be rulers of this ghoul-haunted wilderness—together they would share the dark and unthinkable pleasures of the undead! 

One night it happened that upon awakening Kane was too weak to leave the bed. He lay there, breathing in shallow gasps, his flesh pale and sunken, waiting for her to come to him once more. 

Her dark eyes lit with exultation when she found him that last night. "At last!" Naichoryss's cry was as joyous as a bride's on her wedding night. "I had almost begun to believe your vitality an unquenchable spark!" 

A note of tenderness crept into her voice then. "This is to be our final night like this, Kane beloved. Only for this last time must you know the pain of mortality—for when you next awaken it will not be from mortal sleep, but the sweet dreamlessness of death. And when you arise from death—then we shall at last be truly together! You and I, Kane—together for eternity!" 

Kane smiled almost wistfully as she bent over him. Weakly he tried to speak, but her lips sealed his in silence. 

Deeper and deeper burned her kiss. Needles of ice tore at every nerve of Kane's body, chilling his soul with unearthly cold. Cosmic emptiness was reaching through the darkness, engulfing him. Ecstasy and agony together assaulted and overwhelmed his failing senses, the two extremes simultaneously tearing him apart then fusing together to create an intolerable sensation. 

Her raven black hair was tangled about his face and smothering him. The weight of her cold body was forcing the wind from his chest. Her insatiable lips were sucking the very life breath from his lungs. He could no longer breathe. He was falling... 

VI. Return
Blackness. Kane drifted endlessly through infinite darkness. Not merely absence of light, but nonexistence of everything—matter, energy, time. Floating in the cosmic gulf between life and death. 

Somehow through the darkness there extended a thread, a delicate web of substance that would not permit him to drift outward across the infinite void. A miniscule pull, it exerted upon him across the cons, its force weak and almost extinguished, yet too elemental to flicker away altogether. Life made one final attempt to reach Kane, relentlessly demanding expression of its most primeval instinct. 

Centuries past, Kane had left the darkness of the womb, a squirming red creature whose first act of life was to draw squawling breath. And now through cosmic darkness this same instinct summoned him forth. 

Kane gasped and opened his eyes. Hard stone walls held him tightly and his eyes saw only more darkness. The air in his lungs was stale and foul with century-old dust. Hoarsely he cried out, throwing his arms and legs in blind panic against the wall that pressed upon him. For an instant it seemed he had not the strength to break free, but then every primitive instinct within him howled in fear and loathing, driving his failing limbs onward with strength that surged forth from stores dormant since birth. 

The wall gave under his straining heave and toppled away from him. Gibbering insanity only a breath away, Kane shot bolt upright in his sarcophagus and gulped down the cool, musty air of the sepulchre. 

Kane sat there in the darkness, slowly breathing in the tomb air. As life streamed through his shivering body, his mind once more began to function clearly, rationally—freed from the enchantment that had so long imprisoned it. 

He could see somewhat now, for the darkness of the sepulchre was daylight after the blackness that had so nearly claimed him. Kane decided that he must be in the family crypt that lay beneath Altbur Keep, for in the gloom he could discern the cobweb-hung shapes of other stone coffins, some reposing in niches of the wall, others set like his upon pedestals above the floor. With an effort Kane hoisted himself out from the confines of his sarcophagus and fell to the floor. Somehow he found the curiosity to wonder what had happened to the previous tenant, as he lurched across the dustladen stones. His feet encountered a stairway, which he stumbled his way up, following wan threads of sunlight that stole past the door to the crypt. Throwing his shoulder to this door, Kane forced it grudgingly open and staggered through the opening. 

The hallway in which he stood was strewn with debris, and late afternoon sunlight shone brightly through collapsed ceiling at its far end. Painfully Kane dragged himself along the corridor to stand in wonder among the ruins to which it led him. 

Altbur Keep was a deserted ruin. As Kane wandered through its silent hallways he met only desolation. No servants greeted him; only bats dwelled here now, along with certain wise-faced rats that scurried into hiding at his approach. The fortress walls still loomed solid upon the hilltop, although in places parts of the roof had given way. Signs of the castle's fall could still be seen in sundered gates and a few blackened walls where fires had sprung up. Many of its rich furnishings had been carried away by looters, although Kane encountered numerous mounds of rotting cloth and wood that indicated the tapestries and furniture of Altbur Keep's ancient magnificence. His own clothing was still the battle worn gear he had had with him, now showing signs of further abuse. 

A bit of metal caught the sunlight, and Kane was pleased to discover his weapons stashed in a corner of one of the empty storerooms. Grimly he buckled on the battered sword and dirk, then made his way to the chambers of Naichoryss. 

He paused often to regain his strength. His limbs shook and every cell of his body ached with numbing weakness. Nevertheless Kane felt a good deal stronger now than he had for a long while—shaken free of Naichoryss's spell, he ignored the dizziness and fatigue and willed his tortured frame to walk. 

The sun was setting when Kane reeled into Naichoryss's chambers. Here too, all lay in dust and decay; yet there was a difference. The floors were not littered with trash and broken debris; here it seemed that the disorder left by the looters had been cleaned away and the room restored to a semblance of its old state. The walls still displayed tattered hangings, moldering rugs covered the stones, furniture reposed in proper order, vases and items that a woman treasures lay within dusty cobweb cocoons about the room. It was as though a loving hand carefully composed these chambers before their centuries of rest. 

Kane warily examined the shadow haunted rooms, but no sign of life met his scrutiny. Much of her chambers was as he remembered, aside from the erosion of time—although he noted that many of the costly items which he had seen while he lay here were not present in this tableau. Her bed was still there, but Naichoryss did not lie upon its moldering furnishings as Kane had expected. For that matter, the dust that blanketed it appeared to be undisturbed. He frowned in consternation. Kane had supposed that the vampire would have chosen the bed upon which she had been slain as her resting place during the hours of daylight. This error was serious; he had wanted to confront Naichoryss once more—this time at his own advantage. 

From the balcony Kane saw that twilight was growing deeper. He swore in frustrated anger then, realizing that Naichoryss had doubtless laid his all but lifeless body near her own in the castle crypt. And now he knew that his chances were slim of discovering her resting place before darkness called Naichoryss forth. Wearily he stumbled back into the darkening hallway, intent on reaching the crypt while Altbur's mistress yet slumbered. 

He lacked the strength to win a race with nightfall. In a patch of light from the newly risen moon, Naichoryss stood awaiting him. Her beauty had not faded under that rough caress of time which had separated Altbur Keep of her spell from the ruin in which they now met. At least that unearthly beauty was not a trick of the mirage, Kane mused. 

Her hungry lips smiled as she held out her white arms in welcome. "So I find you already up and about, Kane. Were you so eager to taste your new existence that you had to rush off without me? Perhaps..." 

Her smile melted with distress then as Kane reached her. "Something's wrong!" she cried in horror. "You're still alive! You're not..." 

"Yes, something is very wrong!' Kane smiled mirthlessly. "Despite your best efforts to the contrary, there's some little life left within me! Enough to recognize the world of the living once again! Enough so that your sweet invitation to join you in the crypts of Altbur Keep no longer tempts me!" 

Her cameo face was a mask of dismay. "I don't understand! It's not possible that a mortal could stand living before me after he has known my kiss! Drop by drop I had taken from you your vitality. You were too weak then to resist last night as I sucked from your lips the very essence of your life force. It seemed that your body was already growing cold in my arms when I carried you to the crypt before dawn." 

Naichoryss broke off pensively. "I laid you in the coffin beside my own. Those two had been set aside so long ago for myself and for the husband whom I was never to meet." 

Kane sank onto a window ledge and gazed upon the vampire with brooding eyes, his thoughts hidden beyond their blue depths. 

Naichoryss stood in silent contemplation, studying him. Somewhere in the shadows sounded the beat of velvet wings, while in the comer a rat rustled cautiously through dry leaves. 

"I think I know now," she mused. "You recovered from your wounds so fast—even the scars are fading. Then it seemed that I would never sap your life force, though I drank of it each night. It was unnatural for a human body to replenish its lifeblood so rapidly. And only an extraordinary vitality could break the spell of my death kiss and fight its way back from the abyss of eternal night. 

"The night spirits speak at times of one who bears the name of Kane. One of the first men, they say he is—a man cursed by the gods because he rose in rebellion against his creator, because he was first to bring violence and death to the paradise in which primeval man was nurtured. This Kane was given the curse of immortality—doomed to wander the earth for eternity, never to know peace, but to bring evil and destruction wherever he walked—until he might himself be destroyed by the violence that be had been first to give expression. That men might know him for what he is, Kane was marked with eyes of a killer." 

Awe was in her voice. "An immortal body would be quick to heal any wounds that were not immediately fatal. Nor would it show age. Probably it would maintain itself in the exact condition it had known when the curse was pronounced. 

"There was something unnatural in you, Kane—I had sensed it all along, but I had chosen to ignore it in my dreams for us. Now I see I was a fool to discount the whispers of the night winds." 

Kane shrugged, still silently brooding. 

Desperation edged her voice. "Stay with me, Kane beloved!" Naichoryss appealed. "You have only to cease this pointless resistance and surrender to my kiss! Please don't fight to break my enchantment again! Surrender to me just this last time, and then you will awaken to be my lover, my master, for eternity! I swear to you, we shall be lord and lady of Altbur Keep! We shall reign together here until the stars fall spinning into the sea of night! Our love—together in a world without age, without pain! 

"Do these ruins oppress you now? Then gaze upon their sublime tranquility through the eyes of the undead! Did you prefer Altbur Keep in its former splendor? Our spells will restore it to all the magnificence in which you have lived these past days! If it is your whim, we can bring our entire realm back to its old glory and reign together in state, while in the outside world kingdoms rise and crumble!" 

Laughter. Laughter of bitterness. "A mirage," Kane murmured. 

Naichoryss hurried in alarm. "Mirage? The resurrection of Altbur Keep of my youth? Not so, Kane! To you and me it shall be altogether as real as these ruins are to its now! You spent days within the shelter of its ancient walls, attended by servants' long bleached bones, nourished by its food and drink, clothed in the luxuries of past centuries! Wasn't all of that real to you then? Can you truthfully say in your mind which vision of Altbur Keep is real and which one dream?" 

"Reality and dream are often impossible to distinguish," mused Kane. "Philosophers have argued that reality is nothing more than man's personal interpretation of the microcosm in which he moves. Perhaps life then is only a dream from which death will awaken us. 

"But you have misunderstood me, Naichoryss. Misunderstood me from the beginning, I think. 

"Death. The mystery of death. Is it oblivion or a now adventure? Does it bring peace as so many have claimed? Is it some higher plane of existence? Is it a rebirth? So much has been theorized of death, but so little is known. I've spent years at a time brooding over death. Sometimes I exult in my defiance of death, other times I ache with a yearning to fathom this forbidden mystery. In circles. Pointless circles. 

"When I first regained consciousness here, I sensed that something was unreal with Altbur Keep. My curiosity was stimulated and I stayed on, even when I met you and later recognized you for what you are. You see, I could have broken your spell, I think—at least at first. Only I was so curious. Curious to sample death at last for myself. 

"And I suppose I came as close as any man can come to knowing death, and yet return to life with that knowledge. 

"But I found that death was a mirage. A promise on the horizon. Distant, unattainable. A vision of strange pleasures and mysteries. And once attained, there is only a waste of bare sand. 

"Boredom is the nemesis which has stalked me without rest over the centuries. Life, unfortunately, tends to repeat its favorite and dullest patterns with monotonous regularity. Death seemed to me a new adventure—an escape from a world of which I grew weary ages ago. 

"But death—or at least the variety of death in which you so nearly ensnared me—is only another endless waste of tedium. An eternity spent either hidden in a crypt, or else in haunting these forest choked ruins—or in reliving a stagnant dream of the past. The proposal strikes me as a greater boredom than any I have yet encountered! 

"And so I found that in death I sought a mirage—only a mirage! It was this realization that sparked my rebellion to death and gave me strength to return to the world of life! This knowledge that now demands that I leave you and the world of Altbur Keep!" 

Naichoryss appeared to tremble in the moonlight, her beauty flickering with warring emotions. "I see then that I cannot break your will. Even now you are too strong to succumb to the enchantments that held you earlier." 

For a moment rage replaced tragedy in her voice. "If I can not make you my consort, you can yet become my victim! This time I can tear open your soft throat and drink every crimson droplet of blood from your veins! Yes—and leave you a dry hulk for the ghouls to fight over and devour! This has been the fate of all others who have intruded within my realm! You're too weak now to deny me should I desire your life!" 

Kane's eyes glowed dangerously; his hand strayed toward swordhilt. "Don't force my hand, Naichoryss!" he snarled. "My stay with you has proven interesting and I bear you no grudge. Interfere with my departure and Altbur Keep will lose its mistress!" 

Kane thought for an instant the vampire would hurl herself upon him, but instead Naichoryss chose to sigh. "Perhaps I should. I don't know. One way or another, it would be an ending." 

She drew herself up proudly; an aristocrat does not forget her breeding. "Still I don't believe you'll be quick to forget my kisses, Kane." Her smile was resigned. "Go on and leave me now if your mind is made up! Take your chances getting past the ghouls and Jasseartion's soldiers! Only leave now before... while my hospitality lasts! 

"But remember always that I am here in Altbur Keep. And when your existence grows more arduous than you can bear—when memories of my embrace, my kisses torment you in your dreams—remember then that two coffins await in the crypts of Altbur Keep! Remember the peace to be found in one, the love that ties dreaming of you in the other! And then, Kane beloved, come back to me here!" 

Kane eased himself from the window ledge. "I'll remember. But don't delude yourself by expecting my return. Altbur Keep taught me something, and I won't travel this one road again." 

"Are you certain of that, Kane?" Mockery had returned to her voice now. 

"Good-by, Naichoryss," was his answer. 

Cautiously Kane picked his way down the slope from the lonely ruins of Altbur Keep. If he avoided the deserted village, there should be little chance of encountering any ghouls in the few hours left before dawn. Then sleep in a tree perhaps during the day. A rabbit or two would do wonders toward improving his condition. Once past the Chrosanthian border... Several possibilities suggested themselves to him. 

He paused at the base of the hill to glance back, thinking of the beautiful child of death who walked those forgotten hallways alone. Kane knew full well the agony loneliness could be—understood the pain Naichoryss had felt when he had left her there alone in the moonlight. 

Pain? Can the dead feel pain? Tears from dead eyes would coldly sparkle in the moonlight. 










					Raven's Eyrie






Prologue
The child awoke at the sound of her own scream. A thin scream, imbued with the fever that parched her throat. And still a scream tight with the terror of her dream. Its echo hung on the bare-timbered walls of her narrow room as she bolted from her damp pillow. 

Her fever-bright eyes stared wide with fear as they darted about the room's shadowy corners. But the phantoms of her nightmare, if nightmare it was, had receded. Klesst brushed the clinging tendrils of red hair from her moist forehead and sat up. 

Through the greenish bull's-eye glass of her lattice window she could see the declining sun, impaled upon the reddened fangs of the mountains. The late autumn night would close quickly, and the darkness of her nightmare would surround her. And this was the night when the Demonlord walked the earth... 

Shivering despite her heightened temperature, Klesst dropped back against the straw mattress. "Mother!" she called plaintively, wondering why her outcry had not brought someone to her side. 

"Mother!" she called again. She longed to call Greshha's name, but remembered that the stout serving woman had been sent away from the inn for the night. Greshha had not wanted to leave her. Not when she was sick, not on the night of her birthday. Not on this night. It was cruel of her mother to send her away, Greshha whom she looked upon as her nurse. Smiling Greshha, Greshha of warm hands and soft bosom. Not hard and cold like Mother. 

Greshha would have answered her cry. It was cruel of Mother to ignore her like this. 

"What is it, Klesst?" Mother's frown regarded her warily from the doorway. She had heard no footsteps on the thick boards of the long hallway. Mother moved so silently always. 

"I'm thirsty, Mother. My throat feels so hot. Please bring me some water." 

How pretty Mother was... Her long black hair brushed down the sides of her face, clasped at her nape, and let fall over her shoulder and down her left breast. Under her shawl, her straight shoulders rose bare from her wide-necked blouse of bleached muslin, full-sleeved and gathered at her wrists. Her narrow waist was cinched by a wide belt of dark leather, crisscrossed with scarlet cord. Her skirt of brown wool fell in wide pleats to low on her calves, and her small feet were shad in buskins of soft leather. Klesst wore gold circlets pierced through each earlobe—just like Mother—but Greshha had helped her sew bits of embroidery on her garments, while Mother's were unadorned. 

Her mother crossed the tiny room with her quick stride. She caught up the crockery pitcher from the stand beside Klesst's bed, then frowned as it sloshed. "There's water here, Klesst. Why can't you get your own drink?" 

Klesst hoped she had not triggered her mother's cold anger. Not when loneliness shadowed her room, and the night was closing over the inn. "The pitcher is so heavy, and my arms feel so weak and shaky. Please, Mother. Give me some water." 

Silently her mother poured water into Klesst's cup and placed the blue glazed mug in her hands. Greshha would have held it to her lips, supported her head with her strong arm... 

Klesst drank thirstily, gripping the cup with both her hands—surprisingly long-fingered for a child's hands. Her great blue eyes watched her mother over the brim, searching her face for anger, impatience. Mother's face was impassive. 

The child's febrile lips sucked noisily at the last swallow of water, and her mother took the empty cup from her fingers. She returned it to its place beside the pitcher, then turned to go. 

"Please, Mother!" Klesst spoke quickly. "My head—it burns so. Could you place something cool on my head?" 

Her mother laid her thin hand over the girl's brow. Yes, that was so cold... 

"I had the bad dreams again, Mother," whispered Klesst, hoping her mother would not leave. 

"You have a fever still. Fever brings bad dreams." 

"It was that same nightmare." 

Mother's eyes were wary. "What nightmare, Klesst?" 

Would she get angry? Might she stay beside her if she knew her fear? Klesst dreaded the thought of being alone in the darkness. 

"It was the dog again, Mother. The great black hound." 

Her mother drew back and folded her long arms under her high breasts. "A great black hound?" she said. "Do you mean a wolf?" 

"A giant hound, Mother. Bigger than the bear hounds, bigger than a wolf. I think he's even bigger than a bear. And he's black, all black, even his chops and his tongue. Just his fangs are white. And his eyes—they burn like fire. He wants me, Mother. In my dream I see him hunting along the ridges in the mist, sniffing the night winds for my scent, And I can't run, but he keeps hunting closer—until he's snuffling up to the inn. Then he sees me, and his eyes glow red and freeze me so I can't scream, and his jaws yawn open and I see smoke cutting from his fangs..." 

"Hush! It's only a bad dream!" Her mother's voice was strained. 

Klesst shuddered as the memory of her fear crept back again, and she wished Greshha were here to hold her. "And I can see something else walking the ridges. There's a man, all in black with a great black cloak that flaps behind him. A man who hunts with the black hound. I can't see him clear because the night hides him—but I know I mustn't look at his face!" 

"Stop it!" 

The child gasped and looked wonderingly at her mother. 

"Talking about it will only make you have the bad dream again," her mother explained tensely. 

Klesst decided not to mention the other strange man who walked through her nightmare. "Why are they hunting for me?" she asked in a frightened whisper. Dared she ask Mother to stay with her? She again glanced to see if she were angry, 

Her mother's face was shadowed, her lips tight and pale. She spoke in a whisper, as if thinking aloud. "Sometimes when your soul is so torn with pain and hatred... it can burn you out inside, so your spirit can never feel anything else... and you can think thoughts that are different, turn to paths that you wouldn't... before. And later maybe your soul is burned out and cold... But the fire of your hatred smoulders and waits... And you know there's a bad moon rising—but there's no way to hold it back." 

A gust of wind rattled dry leaves against the panes. Outside the lattice window, night was striding over the autumnal ridges. 

I
Ridges of Autumn
"How is he?" 

Braddeyas shrugged. "Alive, I think, but that's about all. He'll be dead by morning if we don't stop soon." 

Weed spat sourly and nudged his horse alongside the wounded man's mount. The man slumped over his horse's neck was huge, but his thick muscled frame was now nerveless, and only the ropes which held him to his saddle kept him from toppling to the mountain trail. 

Knotting his fingers in the thick red hair, Weed lifted his head. "Kane! Can you hear me?" 

The blood-smeared face was slack and pale, the eyes hidden under half-closed lids. His lips moved silently, but Weed could not tell whether there was recognition. 

"Then again, he may not last the night even if we do stop somewhere," Braddeyas commented. "Fever's getting worse, I'd say." 

"Kane!" 

No response. 

"He's been out of it since the fever set in," Braddeyas went on. "And he's lost a lot of blood—still losing some." Absently he scratched the dirty bandages that bound his own hairy forearm. Signs of recent and desperate combat marked each man of their small band. 

"I don't like to stop," frowned Weed, assuming Kane's leadership. "They're too close on us to risk it." 

Braddeyas drew his cloak tighter about his narrow shoulders. "Kane won't last till morning unless we rest." 

"Pleddis won't push on through these mountains tonight," offered Darros, who had ridden back to join them. "Why won't be?" Weed demanded. "He must know we're only hours ahead of him. The bastard's probably counting his bounty money right now!" 

The dark-bearded crossbowman shook his head decisively. "Then he'll be counting it beside a roaring fire. You won't find nobody riding these trails tonight. Not with this moon. A man will risk his life for gold maybe, but not his soul." 

Weed glanced toward the rising moon in sudden awareness. The long-limbed bandit was from the island Pellin, and not a native of Lartroxia. Nonetheless, years of raiding along the continent's hinterlands had made him familiar with the tales and legends of the Myceum Mountains. He looked at the red moon of autumn and remembered. 

"The Demonlord's Moon," he whispered. 

"Pleddis will have to make camp," Darros asserted. "His men won't ride past nightfall. He'll have to wait for dawn before he takes up our trail again." 

"We can risk a halt, then," Weed surmised. 

"We've no choice," commented Darros, his jaw set. 

The two remaining members of their band, tall Frassos and crop-eared Seth, proclaimed agreement by their grimfaced silence. 


"By the red moon of autumn, the Demonlord hunts;
His black hound beside him, lie seeks along the ridges,
Hunting blood for demonhound, souls for Demonlord..."  


"Shut up, Braddeyas!" growled Weed, his ragged nerves overstrung by the creeping sense of fear. 

"We ain't going to make camp along the trail, are we?" mumbled Seth uneasily. "Kane's just dead weight, and that's only five of us to wait through the night." 

"Any other ideas?" demanded Weed. "Night's coming on fast." 

Kane's head did not lift from where he slumped against his horse's neck, but his voice slurred thickly: "Raven's Eyrie." 

"What'd he say?" Weed asked. 

"Raven's Eyrie," answered Braddeyas, bending close to Kane. He held water to their leader's cracked lips, then shook his head. "Still unconscious. Like he's saving up what strength he has. I've seen him do this before." 

"Any idea what be meant?" 

"Raven's Eyrie is an inn not far, maybe two miles from here," explained Darros, who knew the region well. "It overlooks the River Cotras and the road that runs along the river gorge. Used to be a major caravanserai, before Kane raided it years back. They never rebuilt the place, and my guess is it's all in ruins now." 

Weed nodded. "Yeah, I remember Kane talking about that raid. Must have been about eight years back, because it happened just before I joined Kane." 

"I was there," stated Braddeyas with crusty pride. He had raided these mountains even before Kane had come to them ten years before. His hair was grey-streaked and thinning now, which said something about the man, for the mountain outlaws seldom died in bed. 

All too true for the others of Kane's once powerful band—men cut to pieces by mercenary swords when Pleddis encircled their camp. This handful had slashed their way through his trap, but three days of desperate flight still found the free-captain close on their heels. Nor was he likely to quit their trail. The Combine cities of Lartroxia's coastal plain had set a high bounty on Kane, and Pleddis meant to claim it. 

"If its walls are standing, the inn will give us shelter until dawn," Frassos pointed out. He coughed thinly, wincing as pain shot through cracked ribs. 

"You know the way, Darros, then lead us there," Weed decided. "Daylight's just about gone." 

"It is that," someone muttered. 


Night was closing over the mountains on great raven's wings. Shadow lay deep beneath the blue-grey pines and frost-fired hardwoods which shouldered over the narrow trail. Darkness hungrily swallowed the valleys and hollows that spread out below them—pools of gloom from which waves of mist rose to storm the wooded slopes and poor over the limestone ridges. 

A battered, gut-weary handful of hunted men—ruthless, half-wild outlaws hounded by killers as remorseless as themselves. Shivering in their dirt and blood-caked bandages, they rode on in grim determination, thoughts numb to pain and fear—although both phantoms rode beside them—intent on nothing more than the deadly necessity of flight. Flight from the hired bounty killers who followed almost on the sound of their hoofbeats. 

They were well mounted; their gear was chosen from the plunder of uncounted raids. But now their horses stumbled with fatigue, their gear was worn and travel-stained, their weapons notched and dulled from hard fighting. They were the last. The last on this side of Hell of those who had ridden behind Kane, as feared and daring an outlaw pack as had ever roamed the Myceum Mountains. 

No more would they set upon travellers along the lonely mountain passes, pillage merchants' camps, terrorize isolated settlements. Never again would they sweep down from the dark-pined slopes and lay waste to villages of the coastal plains, then dart back into the secret fastness of the mountains where the Combine's cavalry dared not venture. Their comrades were dead, fed ravens in a forgotten valley countless twisted miles behind their bent shoulders. Their leader, whose infamous cunning and deadly sword at last had failed them, was dying in his saddle. 

They were all dead men. 

And night was upon them. 


"Thoem! It's dark as the inside of a tomb!" cursed Weed, trying to follow the shadow-hidden trail. He glanced uneasily at the blood-hued disk rising above the ridges of autumn. The moon cast no light this night. 

"We're almost there," Darros promised him from the darkness ahead. 

Moments later the trail rose over a gap, and he called back, "There it is! And there's lights! The inn hasn't been deserted, after all." 

Not quite, Weed observed. Even in the thick gloom, he could see that Raven's Eyrie lay half in ruins. The grey stone and black timber structure crouched on the edge of the deep valley below them, rising from a bluff overlooking the River Cotras. By the dim-eyed rows of windows, Weed noted that the main building of the sprawling caravanserai stood at least three storeys. The outlying wings of the inn appeared no more than fire-gutted walls. River mist hung over the blackened walls of Raven's Eyrie, and in the darkness below the limestone bluff, the Cotras thundered its unseen rush to the western coast. 

Cautiously they urged their exhausted mounts down the twisting path that descended the ridge from the gap. The last grey ghost of twilight died away as they emerged from the pine-buried slope and reached the river road. Though wider than the path they had been following, the river road showed signs of neglect. New saplings speared through its hoof-beaten surface, and older trees reached out from the looming forest on either side. Men and horses had ridden by, and smaller hoofprints marked the passage of an occasional drover, but wagon ruts were few, and these old and eroded. Weed reflected that the depredations of Kane and his men probably explained the near abandonment of this once heavily travelled trace. 

In darkness they approached the inn. Only a few of the outbuildings remained standing, but they could catch the smell and soft noises of horses and livestock. Several lighted windows of bull's-eye glass stared dimly toward the road. A pair of smoky lanterns hung beside the front entrance, but the thick timbered door had the look of being bolted. A wooden sign hung out above the lanterns, swinging slightly, though the wind was less raking here in the valley. Its paint was charred, and the panel bore blade scars, but Weed could make out the blocky Lartroxian letters: "Raven's Eyrie." On the sign above the letters perched a huge raven, in bas-relief and painted black. Someone had set a bit of red glass into the bird's eye, and lamplight glinted there. The raven seemed to watch their approach. 

"How many would you say?" Weed asked Darros, after the other had ridden ahead for a closer look. 

"Not very many, by all signs," the crossbowman replied. "Looks like just a few people are keeping the inn going. Them and maybe a few travellers, I'd guess. Strange their dogs haven't scented us." 

"Shouldn't be much trouble, then." Weed turned in the darkness to give orders. Frassos did not respond when he called his name. 

"Frassos?" he called again. 

No reply. His riderless horse wandered forward instead. 

They conferred in startled bewilderment. Frassos had ridden behind, guarding their rear. No one had heard him cry out; no one had heard the sound of a fall. 

"We're all of us done in twice over," suggested Braddeyas. "Maybe he passed out and fell." 

"We should have heard him if he did," Weed pointed out. 

"Should we go back and look for him?" 

The red moon burned down on them from the misty ridges. Weed shivered under its rusty glow, remembering the mountain legends he had heard of this night. 

"Does anyone want the job?" 

It was too dark to see their eyes, but Weed sensed that no one met his face. 

"If Frassos is all right, he can catch up to us at the inn," muttered Seth. There was no confidence in his voice. 

II
A Guest Returns
For the space of a dream, Klesst drifted in the restless sleep of fever. Shaken front her half-sleep by sudden angry stridor, she flung herself free of covers in frightened awakening. 

The moon's burning eve stared at her through the rippled panes of her window, and Klesst threw her hand to her lips to stifle air outcry. From below in the inn, angry shouts, splintering clamour of overturned benches, a raw scream of pain. 

Had the black hound at last found her? Had it broken past the door? Was it even now climbing the stairs to her room? 

But the angry voices continued. The words were indistinct to her, but their tone was clear. Now more carious than afraid, Klesst decided she must see what had happened. 

Dizzily she dropped her feet to the floor and held fast to the oak bedstead until steadiness returned to hot limbs. The night's chill pierced her thin cotton shift, and she hurriedly wound about her shoulders the woolen coverlet Greshha had woven for her. For the moment, her fever had left her, and though suddenly cold, she felt a certain shaky strength in its wake. Her teeth chartered; the fire in her room had almost died, and no one had filled the woodbox. 

The angry shouts had subsided by the time Klesst tiptoed down the narrow halfway to the balcony overlooking the inn's common room. Cautiously she crept through the shadows to the pine log railing and peered from behind a gnarled post. 

She darted back in fear—then, certain that the shadows concealed her, risked a longer glance. Her eyes grew wide with a child's wondering stare. 

The front door of the inn was flung open. Cold gusts slanted the lantern flames, spun curled leaves across the threshold. Strangers—wild, dangerous men—had burst into Raven's Eyrie. Death had entered with them. 

A burly, black-bearded man held a cocked crossbow; his eyes searched the shadows of the common room and raked the balcony where Klesst crouched closer to the log railing. Another man with gangling limbs and mousy, straw-colored hair brandished a narrow blade of unusual length. He seemed to be in charge, for he snarled commands to someone outside the inn. 

The inhabitants of the inn and its few guests stood frozen against the long bar. There was Mother, her expression unreadable, with Selle, the scrawny serving maid, cowering against her. Pot-bellied Cholos, who served her mother as tapster, licked his lips nervously and glanced sidelong at the hulking Mauderas, who kept the stables and saw to such heavy work as was ever done at Raven's Eyrie. Mauderas's eyes were sullen as he pressed a hand to his crimson-sodden sleeve. Two guests, apparently drovers, were backed against the bar as well. Another guest, whose green tunic identified him as a ranger, lay crumpled beside an overturned table, a crossbow bolt through his back. 

Bandits! Klesst realized with a shudder, recalling the many lurid tales she had listened in on, safely crouched by the corner of the fireplace. The murderous outlaws who held sway over the mountain wilderness—who had laid waste to Raven's Eyrie one awful night before her birth. 

There was a disturbance at the door. Two more bandits appeared, staggering under the burden of a third man. One was a wiry figure, partially bald and gap-toothed, though his hair was barely greyed. The other was a husky, swarthy-faced tough with cropped ears and battered nose. The man they shouldered between them was as large as the two together. His clothes were filthy with dirt and caked blood; matted red hair bung over his bearded, brutal face. Klesst remembered the stories she had heard of ogres and trolls that were said to haunt the mountains, lairing in hidden caves and creeping forth at night to pull down travellers and steal little girls from their beds. Klesst had thought the big man unconscious. But as the outlaws supported him into the room, his knees suddenly straightened, and she heard him say, "I'll sit over there." 

Somewhat impatiently he pulled free of their grasp and half fell onto a low-backed oak chair next to the fire. The crop-eared bandit righted the overturned table and shoved it before him, while the blond procured a thick bottle of brandy from the trembling Cholos and crossed the room. The red-haired giant mutely accepted the bottle and tilted it to his lips for a long swallow. When he thudded it to the table, the dark green glass was empty to half its depth. 

Gingerly he brushed the tangled strands of hair from his face and settled his wolfskin cloak about his shoulders, his manner at once domineering. Fresh blood soaked crude bandages along the slashed side of his leather hacton, and a crusted wound on his scalp had streaked his face with dried blood. Beneath the rust of beard and caked gore, his face was white with fever. 

His eyes seemed to glow with a strange blue light by the fire. Perhaps it was the fever. Almost casually his gaze wandered about the room, touched the shadowed balcony where Klesst crouched. For an instant his eyes met hers, and Klesst froze with fear. There was something unnatural about his eyes, she instantly realized—and something familiar. But while he must have seen her, his gaze did not pause in its quick surveillance of the common room. 

Instead, his stare halted on her mother's face. Thoughtfully he studied her, as if searching for a memory. 

"Good evening, Ionor," he greeted her then. 

Mother's lips were a tight line, and Klesst could sense the tension in her unsmiling face. "Hello, Kane," she whispered, and quickly turned her eyes from his stare. 

Klesst sucked in her breath, recognizing Kane from the countless tales she had overheard of the dread bandit leader. No wonder they stood frozen in fear at the bar... 

Then she heard Kane ask, "Weed, did you check to see if there was anyone else in the upstairs rooms—other than that kid up there by the railing?" 

The lanky blond outlaw started to reply, "Just checked the outbuildings so far—going to search the inn right now. They said there wasn't anybody else here..." 

"Be certain," ordered Kane. "And stick that kid in bed." 

But Klesst had already fled to her room. 


"How are you feeling?" asked Weed, more than a little surprised that Kane had regained consciousness. But then there always seemed to burn some last reserve of strength within his huge body. 

Kane grunted noncommittally. "Damn fever comes and goes. Hard to know where I am part of the time. Could swear I wasn't wounded that bad—unless that quarrel was poisoned." 

"Ought to have Braddeyas clean that hole in your side, Put on a fresh dressing. Likely it's all festered along your ribs." 

"Later, maybe. Don't want to start it bleeding again." Kane rubbed his forehead wearily, wiping away dried blood and greasy trickles of sweat. "Feel stronger once I get some food down, catch some sleep. Can't spare more than a few hours—Pleddis can't be far back." 

"Figure we can risk it here till dawn. Darros says Pleddis will have to camp. Demonlord's Moon tonight." Weed paused, then added: "We lost Frassos coming down the ridge." 

"No point looking for him," Kane concluded simply. "Not this night." 

Seth came stomping down from the rooms overhead. "Nobody else here," he reported. "Just a skinny girl, and I locked her in her room. Second floor's pretty near empty, but there's a big room with a fire going on the third." 

Kane nodded. It was hard to concentrate, and he could feel his strength ebbing once more. "Put a guard where he can watch outside, Weed," he ordered. "Another man stay awake to watch things here. There's a big storeroom past the kitchen there. Tie the men and lock them inside it—no point killing them if they stay in line. Toss that body in with them. 

"Leave the women out to clean up this mess. Doubt if anyone else will come along tonight, but if they do, we don't need to give alarm the instant they walk in. Then they can put together some food for us. Watch them closely, though." 

His eyes returned to Ionor's drawn face. "But you wouldn't try to poison me, would you, Ionor?" 

"It's a cleaner death than I'd wish for you, Kane," came her strained reply. 

"Bring me another bottle," Kane told her mockingly. "And one of those hens I smell roasting." Grudgingly she complied. Kane watched the sway of her body as she stiffly came toward him; memory of her drew his lips in a cold smile. 

"Sit down," he said. Since it was not an invitation, loner sat down across from him, taking the chair his boot dragged forward. 

"Are your memories so bitter, Ionor?" 

Her voice was cold, drained of anger—deceptive, for hate edged its timbre. "You and your bandits raided my father's inn, slaughtered our guests, murdered my family, looted and set fire to Raven's Eyrie. You gave my younger sisters to your men to rape until death was a mercy! I could hear their screams even as you had your way with me. I can still hear them. No, Kane! Bitter is too sweet a word for the memories I have of you!" 

No emotion touched Kane's pallid face. "Shouldn't have run off on me like you did," he said, dividing the roasted fowl with curious delicacy. "I could have made you forget that night." 

His eyes seemed to wander from focus, and Ionor smiled inwardly to see the fever that racked his giant body. "Nothing will ever erase that night!" she whispered. 

A rough hand squeezed her shoulder and drew her from her seat. "Bring food for us," growled Seth, his mouth stuffed with meat he had scooped up from the dead ranger's plate. 

"We'll talk more later, perhaps," Kane called after her. Her shoulders tensed, but she made no reply. 

"Want some opium?" queried Braddeyas, once they had secured the men in the storeroom. "It'll take the sting out of your side to where you can sleep good. You'll need your strength.'' 

"I can sleep," mumbled Kane, swallowing a mouthful of brandy. "Don't want to dull my wits, with Pleddis likely to catch us before the next ridge." His chin declined slowly toward his chest. 

Then he jerked his head erect and stared fiercely about him. "Bring my sword from my saddle!" he demanded. "Pleddis on our necks, and I sit here like a besotted lord at his wedding feast. This is no time to sleep! Fix me a pipe to hold me awake." 

Weed signed insistently to Braddeyas, and the broken-toothed outlaw began to fill a pipe with coarse tobacco, secretly stuffing a large crumb of opium into the bottom of the bowl. He lit the pipe with a wood splinter and handed it to Kane. 

Darros reappeared at the door, carrying Kane's long sword in one hand, while he hastily drew the bolt with his other. "Thoem! I don't like that mist!" he muttered, not voicing his true thoughts. 

Kane took the strangely-hilted blade from him and rested the scabbard against his leg. His fingers touched it, sensed its strength. Steel knew neither pain nor exhaustion, and its only fever was the warmth of an enemy's blood. Kane wished such unfeeling strength were his, for he was desperately tired, and he dared not rest. His vision blurred and cleared with the throbbing of his skull. "I've gone into battle in worse shape than this," he said defiantly, drawing at the harsh smoke that passed so easily into his lungs. 

When the pipe was out, Weed took it from his relaxed fingers. Kane's slumped head did not lift from his chest; his breathing was slow and regular, his eyes closed. 

"He'll rest better like this," explained Weed. "Let's get him to a bed. Did you say there was a place ready upstairs?" 

Staggering under Kane's weight, Seth and Darros hauled their unconscious leader up the narrow stairway to the inn's topmost floor. There a common room had been prepared for several of the guests; a fire burned on its hearth, and a straw-ticked bed was covered with a quilted blanket. They stretched Kane across the bed and threw the quilt over him. 

"Go on and get some rest," advised Weed. "Braddeyas and I will take first watch." 

He waited until they had quit the chamber, then bent over Kane's ear. "Kane," he whispered, "Kane, can you bear me?" 

Kane made a noise in his throat that might not have signified anything. 

Frowning, Weed bent closer. "Where did you hide it, Kane? Remember? You always cached part of your share of the loot. Where did you take it, Kane? You can tell me, Kane. I'm your friend. We'll find your cache and use it to escape. We can live like lords in some other land. Where is it, Kane?" 

But the other man seemed too deep in sleep. 

Sadly Weed rose from his side. "At least don't die and leave all that gold to rot," he begged. 

Opening the lattice window a few inches—for the room was warm, and Weed feared this would increase Kane's fever—he wearily left to join Braddeyas. 

III
Ravens Fly by Night
A shower of sparks started up from the fire and disappeared into the black cavern of the chimney. Weed grunted and shoved again with the poker, wedging the new logs closer to their charred predecessors. Perhaps the fire would burn brighter now. The huge fireplace of limestone blocks occupied most of one end of the common room. It should have warmed the entire area; instead its flames crawled dispiritedly over the smouldering logs, and an unseasonal chill for autumn crept through the room. 

Wiping his hands, he turned from the hearth to gaze once more through the window. Though the full moon was rising higher above the ridges, thick mist rolled from the Cotras to cloak the valley beyond. There was little to see as Weed squinted through the whorled panes; only the neglected grounds of the inn, the leaf-paved roadway beyond. Above the doorway, the signboard swung with the wind. Its hinges squawled like a raven's croak, and against the inn's lights it flung a swaying shadow across the frosted earth like the shadow of raven's wings. 

He examined the bolted door. There should be a man posted outside, he realized. Even on this night, even though Pleddis was certainly camped a safe distance back on their trail. Again he thought of Frassos's strange disappearance. It was not a night to venture beyond the security of bright lights and locked doors. Even as a stranger to these mountains, Weed sensed the presence of evil abroad beneath Demonlord's Moon. 

Gloomily he sank onto a bench, his eyes toward the door. Behind him he could hear sounds from the kitchen. The warm smell of roasting fowl carried from the cooking area beyond the bar. Braddeyas kept watch on the two women. Once food was prepared for the ride before them, the women could be bound and locked in with the others. Then perhaps he could get Braddeyas to stand guard outside the inn. 

Weed dug his fingers into his eyes, more savagely than need be, for sleep was numbing his senses. Braddeyas might refuse. Weed wouldn't blame him; he doubted that he would accept the risk, either. And while Weed was second in command now, Braddeyas had been with Kane too many years to be bullied into obedience by the younger outlaw. 

The noises from the kitchen seemed farther away, almost melodious. The fire was burning better now, and he could feel its heat on his side. Weed slapped his face stingingly, fighting off the deadly fatigue. Perhaps he should walk about the room. 

Maybe he should walk through the door, mount his horse, and ride out. One man would stand a far better chance of escaping pursuit. Let Pleddis overtake Kane and the others. Kane was the reason for his relentless pursuit; he would not bother to press on after one bandit. The price on Weed's head was tempting for a single bounty hunter, but Pleddis had to pay his men; economics would save him. And yet, Kane might well win free. The bandit leader had done the incredible time and again before this. Perhaps Kane could elude the arrows of fate once more, 

Weed felt a certain loyalty to Kane. He had fought beside Kane, followed his commands—and Kane had proved to be a highly capable and generous leader, Indeed, in the final battle Weed and the others had broken through Pleddis's ambush on the savage force of Kane's charge through the mercenary ranks. But Weed felt a greater loyalty to his own neck, and it appeared certain that Kane would never again hold power over the Myceum passes. There remained the secret cache of loot that Kane had hidden away—against a disaster such as this. At present Weed's possessions consisted of a sore-hooved mount, a notched sword, and his battle-torn gear. If Kane would lead them to his cache... 

The sweet-smoke scent of roasting hens wrapped about him, watering his mouth, though his belly was warm with wine and meat from the meal just eaten. His head fell downward onto his arm. He should get up before sleep claimed him. 

And he did rise to his feet. Or he seemed to see his body stand, pace about the room, peer through the fogged bull's-eye panes. The shadows seemed to creep and hover in grotesque patterns as he paced... 

With a sudden jarring crash, Weed fell to the floor. 

In an instant of confused panic, he thrashed free of the overturned bench and tried to regain his feet, thinking dully that he had rolled off in his sleep. Then he became aware of the jeering face above the swordpoint levelled at his throat. Weed froze. 

"Now there we went and woke him up," grinned Pleddis. 


Weed swallowed and waited for death. Many hands jerked him to his feet, tore away his sword and dagger. A dozen or more of Pleddis's men were pouting into Raven's Eyrie—entering through the kitchen, where Braddeyas lay with a split skull. A sudden uproar, fierce but quickly stilled, echoed across the inn as the mercenaries burst in on Darros and Seth. They died where they slept. 

Weed sweated. Pleddis's blade glinted before his throat. 

The mercenary captain's face was jubilant, but his eyes were like the edge of his sword. "Where's Kane?" he demanded softly. 

Scarcely comprehending that disaster had so swiftly overtaken them, Weed stood silent, swaying back from the blade. His mouth was dry. 

"You got half a minute to tell me. And you've just about used that up." 

Ionor appeared from the kitchen. Her face was flushed and her blouse disordered. "They carried him upstairs," she announced, hatred bright in her voice. "I'll show you where." 

"Carried?" 

"He's wounded near death, by the look of his side. He couldn't walk." 

Pleddis smiled like a wolf at her words. "By Vaul, you were right about your aim, Stundorn! I'll double your share if it sure enough was your quarrel that brought the devil low. Quickly now, show us!" 

Leaving Weed under guard, the captain and a number of his men followed Ionor up the stairs to the third level. Triumphantly she led them to the door of the room where Kane had been taken. Pleddis's smile split his leathery face. Inside this room lay the object of his pursuit, the successful conclusion of a dangerous campaign. And a bounty that would leave him a wealthy man. 

Knowing Kane's cunning, their weapons were poised for whatever last trick he might have left. In the darkness outside, others of his men surrounded the inn. Kane would not escape. But even with a crippling wound, they feared the savage power of his sword. 

Sucking in his breath, Pleddis kicked open the door. It was unlocked. Slammed back against the wall. 

Only silence met them. Kane lay sprawled across the bed, unmoving. A chill wind eddied through the open window. Blood stained the blankets. Kane's arms lay at his sides, in the attitude in which his men had left him. His face was turned to one side; a tiny pool of dampness trickled past his partly opened lips. In the flickering firelight his face seemed unnaturally lax and pale. 

Wary of tricks, Pleddis approached the bed. Kane did not move. Only when he reassured himself that no weapon lay near did Pleddis touch the silent figure. Kane's skin was cold as a snake's. Almost impatiently the captain shook his still form, found his body unnaturally rigid. Frowning, he felt for a pulse, then held his blade before the motionless nostrils. No moisture fogged the cold steel. 

Pleddis stood up, almost with an air of disappointment 

"He's dead." 

IV
Hounds and Carrion Crows
Weed slumped against a table, his arms tightly bound behind his back, his mind seeking desperately for some hope of escape. With a sick chill in his belly, he realized his position was without hope. And cutting through the dull panic was the agonizing thought that he had thrown away his life to stay with a dead man. 

Pleddis's men filled the common room, warming themselves with fire, food and drink, excited congratulations. He had pulled them all inside when it was evident that the bandits had been taken; they had rushed into the inn as if it were the last refuge against the mist-shrouded night. Maybe it was. There were more than twenty men milling about the room, wearing the motley gear of mercenary soldiers. With their stamping and loud laughter, they sounded like hunters just come in from a grueling and successful hunt. From their impersonal stares, Weed felt like a snared fox surrounded by a pack of baying hounds. 

Seated by the fire, Pleddis was in high spirits. He drank wine from a sloshing cup and accepted the applause of his men, his weathered face almost flushed. There was little enough color to the man. His skin was pale and seamed bleached instead of tanned by wind and sun. His hair was close-cropped and grey, his face clean-shaven; his eyes were of a peculiar washed-out blue so as to appear grey. He was of average height, but compactly built, giving him a deceptively stubby appearance. Gear of worn leather and chain mail ionic were nondescript as his person—and the same faded grey. But his teeth were straight and white, and he flashed them in a broad smile when he laughed, which was often—a rapid, mirthless bark. 

He was laughing now. 

"A fine last stand for Kane and his fearsome band of killers, eh? Trapped like rabbits in a hole, sleeping like they was in their mother's arms. One man snoring at his post, the other so busy trying to get under the mistress's skirts that he never noticed she'd unlatched the woodshed door to the outside. Vaul, what dreadful desperadoes! I'm going to feel silly asking for the bounty on the likes of you! But I'll still ask!" His men joined in his laughter. 

Pleddis gulped down his wine, his shrill laugh muffled against the cup. "Of course, you must have figured Captain Pleddis would lie low tonight, sit shivering at his campfire, jumping every time an owl screamed. Did you now? Sure you did. You really thought I'd quit a trail not hours cold, and after three days of chasing after you! Well, I grew up on Thovnos, so I guess I didn't hear all the gruesome tales of Demonlord's Moon you mountain people like to shudder over. Same goes for most of my men, though some of them had their worries about riding on." 

His face turned grim, and he stared contemptuously over their ranks. A number of them avoided his eyes. "But it wasn't too hard to make them see that a pack of devils was a better risk than crossing Pleddis, eh?" He laughed again. 

"Huh! What about the two men we lost getting here?" grumbled a mercenary from the rear, who quickly ducked from Pleddis's searching scowl. 

"You'll not see them again," a husky voice told them. "The Demonlord hunts beneath this moon, and you'll see no more of them his hound pulls down." 

Pleddis made an annoyed grimace. "Well, he would have found a fat enough morsel in you, old woman." 

"Greshha!" There was a strange hint of anger in Ionor's voice. 

The older woman crept almost guiltily from behind the mass of soldiers whose entrance she had followed. The servant's plump checks were still ashen with fear, and she blinked and trembled as if dazed. 

"So she does belong here," said Pleddis. "We found the old woman hanging back along the road. Seemed so glad to see us she came running into our arms. Couldn't talk two words of sense—something bad her bad scared. Now I see it was her own bogey tales." 

"She's a servant here," explained Ionor in a tight voice. "She had been given the night off, and I had supposed she would spend it with friends in the village near here." She jerked her hand toward the kitchen, and Greshha dumbly followed her gesture. 

Meanwhile Eriall, one of Pleddis's lieutenants whose face Weed knew, had carried in a grisly burden. "Here they are," he announced holding out both fists. Clenched by their scarlet-spattered hair, three heads dangled from his grip. Their jaws hung loosely, tongues lolling, eyes rolled upward in a fish stare behind half-closed lids. 

"Recognize your friends?" laughed Pleddis. "Eriall, you're dribbling blood all over your hostess's floor. Where's your manners?" 

The other grinned and showed the heads to Weed. "Maybe this piece of shit ought to lick the boards clean." 

"Too bad the one's skull is busted near in half," mused Pleddis, mourning a damaged trophy. "Well, pack them good in salt with the others. They bring us five ounces of gold each in Nostoblet, and I doubt the Merchants' League will care if their purchases are a bit damaged in transit. Mind you cut off that earring there." 

"Why don't I just take along his while I'm doing the rest?" suggested Eriall. 

Pleddis stroked his jaw thoughtfully. "How about that, Weed? Want to ride back to Nostoblet all packed in salt? They set twenty ounces of gold on your head, but maybe they'll pay a little extra if we hand you over intact. You'd rate a public execution all to yourself. Be real nice. Which way do you want it now?" 

"Let me kill him," snarled Ionor. 

Pleddis considered her gravely. "Bloodthirsty is the lust of a woman," he misquoted. "But I'd like to carry one back alive to Nostoblet, so he can tell everyone there how Captain Pleddis ran them down and made raven food out of the whole damned wolfpack." 

Ionor's face was twisted, her breath fast. Weed thought of a hot-clefted slut who had been cheated of her climax. "Hang him from the railing then for me—I want to watch him die. It's my right. You caught them in my inn. You might still be trailing them if they hadn't stopped here." 

Pleddis seemed to be weakening. "They might pay extra if he's alive." 

"I've given you food and lodging here," argued Ionor. "The extra gold will be less than payment." 

"But you owe me your lives for saving you from Kane's men," Pleddis pointed out. The game amused him. 

"Should I add Kane's head to the others?" broke in Eriall. 

"Not when they'll pay me five hundred ounces of gold for Kane," Pleddis brayed. "For that I'll bring in the whole carcass. Bad as they want Kane, they'll likely pickle him in brine and put him on display. Bet they could charge admission just to see him. Bet they will, in fact! 

"No, it's cold enough we can sling him over a horse, and he'll last until we can get back to Nostoblet. They won't care what he smells like there. Stundorn, take a few men and drag Kane's body down here. We'll leave him in the stables where the frost will keep him from getting ripe too fast. Watch that the dogs don't get at him." 

They had left Kane where he lay when they found him dead. Several minutes had passed since then, in the confused aftermath of Pleddis's attack on the inn. But now the captain's attention returned to the prize quarry of his hunt. Stundorn and some others disappeared up the stairs. 

"Weed, I'm still not sure what to do with you," he continued. 

"Hang him," Ionor pleaded, her memory reliving a scene eight years back. A memory of familiar faces turning purple, of limbs thrashing a death dance from an impromptu gallows, while murder-crazed animals roared in laughter below. 

"I suppose I can grant the request of a handsome lady," gallantly remarked Pleddis, thinking that his hostess had a definite beauty beneath the harsh mask of hatred. 

Weed forced himself to speak with scornful assurance. 

"Grant it and be damned. I can't hope for any better in Nostoblet. And I'll die with the secret of Kane's hidden cache of loot." 

It was a foolish bluff, he realized in panic. But against imminent death, any respite would offer hope. 

"Well, now..." began Pleddis, his eyes lighting with sudden interest. 

Stundorn burst onto the balcony, his bearing totally shaken. 

"Kane's gone!" he blurted. 

V
To Chase the Dead
Kane breathed a silent curse as his boot slipped from its purchase on the limestone wall. For an instant he swung precariously in the darkness, only the steel grip of his fingers against the stone block saving him from a thirty-foot drop to the frosted earth below. The fall might not kill him, but it was crippling height for surety. Grimly he forced his scrambling boot back into a masonry crack and rested his arms from the tearing weight of his massive frame. His great strength now seemed scarcely sufficient to stand upright, and his wounded side was lancing agony—but at least the strain and the chill air had cleared his thoughts somewhat. 

From the open window above him, Kane heard the startled shouts of Pleddis's soldiers. Baffled rage flamed within him. He had needed more time to descend the wall of the inn. Weakened as he was, he could never reach the ground before a frantic search revealed him to his enemies. Again his boot slipped as he sought to hurry his descent. The limestone blocks of the inn had been set flush in the wall originally—a precaution against athletic thieves or guests who cared not to settle their account. Only because mountain winds and winters had eroded the masonry over the years was Kane able to find purchase—such purchase as there was. 

Not even extreme exhaustion and the mists of opium had completely dulled Kane's uncanny senses. The feral instincts that countless times had drawn him from sleep to full awareness of imminent danger had called to him once again. Kane had awakened to the brief clamour of Pleddis's attack, and almost instantly he had understood his position. 

Even at peak condition Kane would have stood no chance against a score of seasoned mercenaries. And he knew he was trapped—knew without wasting a glance outside that a man of Pleddis's capability would have surrounded Raven's Eyrie before thrusting within. In another minute his enemies would be smashing down his door—unless he decided to make a suicidal rush down the stairs, or let an archer pick him off as be scrambled down the outside wall. 

A desperate plan came to him then. Pleddis knew he was gravely injured. He would let the bounty hunter find him dead. Any number of risks suggested themselves to him instantly, but plainly there was no other course. Pleddis would lower his guard only if he believed his quarry dead. 

It was not too difficult for one of Kane's knowledge. His appearance was ghastly enough for a corpse, and the cold draft through the window coupled with the chill sweat that had seized him would impart a convincing clamminess to his flesh. Over the centuries Katie had delved deeply into all mariner of occult studies, and the discipline of imposing mental control over physical functions was known to students far less adopt than Kane. For much of their ride, Kane had held himself in a near trance to conserve his strength, and now he withdrew his consciousness into a deeper coma, rigidly controlling breath and heart beat to so low air ebb as to appear lifeless to Pleddis's inspection. 

Several minutes after his enemies had quit his bedside, Kane returned to full awareness. He realized he now had only a few minutes to escape—a short interval once Pleddis had ordered his men from their surveillance of the inn. They would celebrate the success of their lone hunt; for a moment all would be jubilant confusion. Then for any of a hundred reasons someone would return to the dead man upstairs. By then Kane must be gone. 

He had cut it close. Too close. Kane had barely lowered himself through the window when Stundorn entered the room. In another instant their stunned fright would leave them. Someone would peer out the open window. 

And he could never reach the ground in time. Quickly Kane took the only course left to him. Another window was close at hand. Recklessly Kane clawed his way to the darkened aperture. Somehow he managed to maintain a hold long enough to rest his weight on the ledge. He pushed at the lattice. 

It was secured. 

Kane bit his lip and tore a knife from his belt. He jammed its blade into the crack between window and casement. His movements seemed panic-driven, but his haste was that of one experienced in his task. In only a few seconds the latch snapped free. 

Swinging open the heavy lattice, Kane squeezed through the window. No sooner had his cloak and sword scabbard cleared the ledge than a shout from close by signalled that someone had looked outside. 

"No one on the wall!" a soldier called out. 

Kane grinned savagely and glared through the darkness of the room. He was not alone. 

A small figure crouched on the room's narrow bed. Her wide eyes were almost luminous as she stared at him—a huge, menacing figure outlined in the moonlight at her window, 

"Are you alive?" she whispered. His appearance was supernatural, and she had been listening to the shouts outside her door. 

Kane made no comment. He had swung into the child's room, and he remembered that the door was locked from outside. His dagger still shone in his hand. "Don't make a sound!" he hissed. 

Klesst's voice was grave. "I won't tell them you're here," she said, "Father." 


"I remember one time down along the coast," Pleddis said, staring into the empty room. "It was late fall, and we were making camp for the night. Dragging in driftwood for a fire, and one of the outfit hauls loose a big snag—and there's a swamp adder thick as your arm, all laid out and sluggish with cold. Kid was from the coast, knew what he had, so he just laid into it with the stick of wood he was carrying, not even wasting time to pull his sword. Must of hit it fifty times, till the stick busted and the snake was half flattened out. Had to be dead; we didn't think any more about it. 

"Long about the end of second watch we all woke up—Vaul, it was a scream to chill your guts! There was the kid flopping out of his blanket roll, that damn black snake with its fangs buried in his neck. Hell, its head was bigger than your fist and full of venom, and I don't guess the kid lived long enough for us to stir up the fire. 

"After that night I never trusted a dead snake. Always hack them to chunks, no matter how dead they look. Except just now," he concluded bitterly. 

"He can't of got far," Eriall judged. "Hadn't had no time, and crippled up like he was." 

Pleddis grunted and inspected the window casement. Lanterns flashed from the ground below. "What do you see?" he called down. 

Nattios bawled back, "Nothing. No marks below. We're looking along the wall." 

The mountaineer was no fool at tracking, Pleddis knew. "Well, look closer. There's blood on the ledge here." 

"No. Nothing," came the reply after a pause. 

"There's rocks down there," Eriall said, craning his squat neck to look down. 

"Yeah, and there's frost, too," Nattios retorted gruffly. "Good as sand for leaving tracks. Ain't nothing." 

"Well, Kane couldn't have crawled down that wall, anyway," the stocky lieutenant declared. "Mail that big couldn't scale these stones even if he wasn't busted up. The blood's a false trail." 

Pleddis's laugh returned. It was not pleasant. "Kane could have done it. He's not lying in bed there. He either went out the window or out the door. I got men at every exit, so if there's no tracks outside lie has to be hiding inside. Won't do him any good, because we'll find him." 

"Could be he got out somewhere else, mixed his trail in with our tracks," Eriall persisted. "We came in from all around the sides, you know." 

"Could be. But I figure Kane didn't have the time to do anything too fancy. He's hiding in here somewhere. If he's not, we'll pick up his trail with the dogs they got here. Long as we keep him from the horses, he won't get far." 

Stundorn's stubbled face was strange. "Captain, you're sure he was just faking he was dead, then?" 

Pleddis glared at him. "Dead men don't run out on you." Abruptly he scowled. "Unless some bastard slipped back and stole the corpse for the bounty!" He thought carefully. "No, I can account for all of us, and for the bunch that stay here, too, Still, if I find some bastard's pulling a fast one, there's going to be one more head in that salt pack, and it won't cost the Merchants' League a copper!" 

But Stundorn remembered that his quarrel was supposed to have given Kane his death wound. "All the same, captain, it's the Demonlord's Moon. They say his powers hold sway over the mountains tonight. Maybe he could make the dead rise. And there's all kinds of black legends about Kane. We may be trailing a dead man, captain." 

Pleddis stood a moment, face impassive. Then his laugh barked rustily. "Maybe so, Stundorn. But you just remember that corpse is worth five hundred ounces of yellow gold, and if he comes looking for you, just yell for me." 


"Father!" exploded Kane, in a louder tone than he intended. He crossed the room to the girl's bed. 

"Yes," Klesst whispered. "I saw you come in, and they said you were Kane. The children in the village call me Kane's bastard. They say you carried Mother away after you raided the inn, and after she escaped and came back she had me, and you were my father." 

Kane stared at her. 

"See. I have red hair like yours, and my eyes are blue like yours." Klesst did not flinch from Kane's stare. "I can even see in the dark better than the other children, like the stories tell about you." 

"Your grandmother," Kane muttered, touching the child's face. 

"So I won't tell those soldiers where you are," Klesst concluded. 

"You should hate me." Her skin was feverish. As was his. 

"No," declared Klesst. "The others hate me. But when they hear stories about you, then they look frightened. I like to see them frightened. I like to think they're even a little frightened of me." 

Kane shook his head. The excited shouts of his pursuers brought him back to the moment. Turning from her, he risked a glance through the window. Outside they were circling the inn with torches and lanterns. He knew they would find no trail. Then they would begin to search the inn. Digging grime from his boots, he smudged over the bright scratches made by his knife on the latch. There was no smear of blood on the casement that he could see. 

Grimly he took stock of his chances. They were not good. All that his ruse had accomplished was to give him another few minutes. The end was inevitable, unless he could slip through their net. And even then... 

Kane forced his mind to think clearly. For the moment, the threat of certain death had spurred him from exhaustion. Some final reserve of strength kept him moving when he should lie senseless, pushed back the black waves of fever and opium. The barricades must soon break. 

"I knew you from my dream," his daughter told him. "But then I didn't know your name." 

About to warn her to be silent, Kane stopped. "How can you dream of someone you've never seen?" he wondered, somewhat in awe of the child. Seeing her brought memories that he cared not to linger upon just now. 

"I saw you," Klesst insisted. "And another man, all in black with a great black cloak. He has a great black hound..." 

Kane frantically signed for her to be silent. A number of men were coming down the hall. They were searching the rooms. 

Kane's hand reached over his right shoulder, and the ancient blade of Carsultyal steel silently swung from its scabbard. It was a good weapon, Kane thought with grim pride. This one had been difficult to find—probably few like it still existed. Carsultyal lay buried by sand and sea and time. And the ancient city's last citizen would very shortly lie dead with its memory. 

Again he glanced outside. They were watching from below. The soldiers in the hall—he might kill the first group to enter, but there were more to take their place, and Kane was trapped—wounded so that his last fight would not even be a good one. 

The door was locked from outside. And there was Klesst. It might make them less thorough in their search; they would likely assume the child would cry out if Kane had somehow hidden inside her room. 

A futile hope, probably. And the room was too small. Kane assumed it was one of the narrow single rooms for wealthy travellers who deigned not to share quarters with other guests. Such accommodations cost dear and were cramped, but at least a well-to-do traveller would not have to share a bed with three hog drovers. 

The search was only a few doors away. 

And there was no place to bide. Just a bare-timbered room. No chests, no tapestries. Kane's huge frame could never squeeze under Klesst's tiny bed. There was a closet. That in itself marked the room as once a luxury accommodation. Kane swung open its door. The closet was surprisingly large, considering the economy of space that an inn demanded. An oddly dank smell came from within. A few nondescript items of clothing hung from pegs along the interior. 

It was worth a chance. At any event, Kane decided, when they opened the door be would hurl himself out, with luck cut down a couple of them before they could meet his rush. It was better than standing there like a condemned man in the middle of his death cell. 

"What's your name?" he asked suddenly. 

"Klesst." 

"Well, Klesst, I'm going to step inside your closet. I want you to pull this latch down from outside, and then get back in bed. When the soldiers come in, just tell them no one's been in here. And if they don't believe you and look inside... well, afterwards you can tell them that I said I'd hurt you unless you did as I told you." 

Klesst nodded, impressed by the important task he had given her. She smiled uncertainly as she shut tile closet, then quickly shot the latch. She barely had time to scurry back to bed before they came to her door. 

"This is the kid's room," someone observed. "Been locked." 

"Well, open it, anyway," ordered a gruff voice. 

A scraping of the bolt, then suspicious faces peered in from the hall. 

The gruff voice belonged to a paunchy man with thick shoulders and a rolling gait. He carried an arbalest, his fingers near the trigger. "Hey, kid," he demanded, "anybody come in here?" 

"No, sir," Klesst said, being polite to make him trust her. 

Their eyes carefully searched the shadows of the room. "You sure?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"You been awake?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"You sure you ain't been asleep?" 

"No... I mean, yes, sir." 

The man with the arbalest entered the room. Several other men followed. Swords were bare in their fists. 

A thin-faced mercenary examined the window. "It's locked, Stundorn. No sign of blood or anything," he stated in a nasal voice. 

Stundorn shifted his arbalest. Klesst wondered why the steel bow didn't snap its string. "Might have been open before. This room is below Kane's, off to the side only a little. He might have climbed down." 

He frowned at Klesst. "You see anything, kid?" 

"No, sir." 

"You wouldn't lie now, would you?" 

"No, sir." 

"Do you know what happens to little girls who lie?" 

"Yes, sir." Klesst's imagination grappled with the possibilities. 

"And you haven't seen any sign of a big bandit with blood just pouring down his ribs where I shot him?" 

"No, sir." 

"Closet's latched from outside," someone noted. 

"Now you aren't hiding my bandit inside your closet, are you?" Stundorn rumbled. 

"No, sir." What did happen to little girls who lied? 

"Do you know I got an itchy nose?" 

"No, sir." 

"It's a fact. My nose itches every time I hear a lie." Klesst stared in horrid fascination. 

"Now why do you suppose it's itching right now?" 

"I don't know, sir," she answered shakily. 

Stundorn stood back from the closet door. He brought his arbalest to his shoulder, sighted about chest height on the door. His fingers curled over its trigger. 

"Now open that door, Profaka," he directed the thin-faced mercenary. 

Gingerly Profaka reached across to the latch and drew it back. 

He yanked open the door. 

The closet was empty. 


"This place is clean," Eriall informed his leader. "Been through it from attic to cellar, looked in every hole bigger than a chamber pot. Ain't no Kane, and that's a fact." 

Pleddis nodded tiredly. He had overseen most of the work. "Yeah, and no one made a break for the outside; I had men out there watching every block of stone on this inn." 

The captain banged his fist on the wall in anger. "Obviously, then, Kane somehow got outside before we realized his trick." 

"But how? We pretty well proved he had to be inside." 

"Well, we damn well just proved he's not inside! Now you tell me where that leaves us!" 

Eriall was silent. He massaged his shaven skull. Pleddis's laugh startled him. 

"Sure, I know what he did!" His white teeth flashed in a grin. "You just got to think like Kane thinks. Now Kane's smart, and he's got a lot of tricks. He went out the window, sure, but he didn't climb down. That's what he knew we'd think he'd do. So instead Kane climbed up! He was on the top floor, so getting to the roof was actually easier than climbing all the way to the ground. 

"Kane must have worked his way along the roof up to where it abuts the burned-out north wing. Then he just climbed down onto the old walls and groped his way down into the gutted interior, and slipped through the rubble and into the night—while we were standing like fools wondering where his body had got to!" 

"Then he's had a good start all this time we been looking under beds!" Eriall growled. 

"Maybe," Pleddis admitted, still pleased with his cleverness. "But Kane don't have a horse. Wounded and on foot we'll run him down in an hour. Nattios! Find Ionor and tell her we'll need dogs for tracking! Hurry! What's the matter?" 

"We're going to track Kane now?" the mountaineer queried uneasily. "It will soon be midnight. The Demonlord will hunt-" 

"Move, damn you!" Pleddis hissed. "Yes, we're going to track him! Do you want the Demonlord to catch him? Lord Tloluvin don't need that gold!" 

"Don't speak his name!" Nattios gasped. Seeing the vicious anger rise in Pleddis's eyes, he ran to find Ionor. 

VI
In Seven Years You'll Hear a Bell...
Ionor turned on Greshha with thinly checked fury. "Why did you come back? I told you to take tonight off." 

They were alone in the inn's great kitchen. Shouts close by told of Pleddis's fast-moving search of the rambling structure. The two drovers had joined in, and Ionor had ordered Cholos and Mauderas to help the mercenaries—even directing Sele to guide the searchers through the huge inn. Ionor felt certain Kane would be found if he were hiding within the walls of Raven's Eyrie. If not... 

Her jaw tightened as she scowled at the older woman. Greshha was avoiding her eyes. "I said, why didn't you stay away?" 

The servant woman took a deep breath. Her thick body shook. "I guess I know you didn't want me here," she mumbled, face downcast. 

"What did you say?" 

Greshha raised her chin; her eyes were shrewd. "I guess I know why you wanted me to stay away tonight," she stated in a louder voice, defiantly. 

A hiss escaped Ionor's tightly drawn lips. She started to swing back her hand, then checked her arm. "What are you talking about?" Her voice was like a slap. 

"I'm no fool. I can remember," Greshha stolidly told her. "I know you hate the child." 

Ionor's long fingers clenched and opened, like a pantheress flexing her claws. She tossed her head, and her loose braid flicked over her shoulder, twitched down her back like an angry black tail. 

The stout mountain woman did not quail before her mistress's obvious look of menace. "Poor Klesst. I can't blame you for hating her when she came. But after all these years! I kept taking care of her when it was your place, hoping you'd learn to love her. But you never did, Ionor. There's no loving left in you—only hate. Hate's eaten the soul out of your breast, so you can't even love your own flesh..." 

"Shut up, you fat fool! I've tolerated your meddling, but you've overstepped your place this time!" 

"I never thought you'd go through with it. All this time I kept thinking you'd soften to her. But you're cold, burned out, Ionor. There's no heart left in you. I know now you mean to do it." 

Ionor drew back against the cutting table, her lips twisted in a snarl. "What are you talking about?" 

Ducking her head for breath, Greshha plunged on. Her round face took on an aspect of sullen determination. "I was here when you were birthing her, don't forget. I stayed with you when your screams and curses drove everyone else from your bed. I held you down and tried to comfort you when the midwife had to use the knife to bring her forth from your womb. And even while you screamed out things to make the gods turn away from you, I stayed with you and pitied you because no one thought you could live through the night. 

"Seven years ago tonight, it was, Ionor. And they all said it was a miracle when both you and the child lived through. But only I knew what kind of miracle it was." 

"You're an old fool, Greshha!" 

"Old, but no fool. The things you was screaming weren't good to cry out—not with the Demonlord's Moon shining down through your window. They weren't good to hear, and that's why the others drew away from you that night. I'll confess it, I was afraid myself, and when the child was born, and the midwife had done what she could, and we thought the opium would let you ease into sleep... Well, I left you, too, and told myself to look to the child because her mother would be gone by daybreak. 

"Then when the dogs began to howl and cringe, and the others all huddled by the fire and prayed... I couldn't leave you alone to die, not when the fires all burned low and blue under the shadows. I crept back to your room, praying each step, and afraid to think what it was we heard snuffling outside the inn. 

"And I stopped at your door when I heard your voice, and when I heard that other voice answer, I knew who you was talking with, and I knew it was worse than death to open your door. I just froze there too scared to tremble, and the words you two spoke burned into my memory like hot iron into flesh. And after he left, I still stood there crying and praying and not making a sound. And when I finally took heart to look in the door, I saw you lying there asleep with a black smile on your lips, and I knew your strength would be back in the morning. 

"But before the gods, Ionor, I never thought you'd do it! I swear I would have smothered you there as you lay if I had believed that. I kept thinking, she'll learn to love once she's held the child to her breast and she forgets the horror and the shame and the pain. But you never held the child to your breast, and you never learned to love her—because all that's left in you is hate, Ionor. 

"So I knew why you wanted me gone tonight, and that's why I wouldn't go. And I'll not go. I'll not let you do it." 

"You meddling old fool!" spat Ionor. "If you dare interfere... But what can you do?" 

Greshha expanded her shoulders truculently. "There's soldiers here. Captain Pleddis has League authority. He won't let you do this thing." 

Ionor laughed. "Pleddis is a cold-blooded bounty killer. His soldiers are hired thugs. He'll not care what I do. He only wants Kane." 

"Maybe so. I guess I'll find out what he'll do." 

"Don't be a bigger fool!" 

Maybe he'll be interested if I tell him he might not get Kane." 

"I'm warning you!" 

Greshha looked at her livid face and backed away. No longer was there doubt in her mind; instead there was fear. The servant woman started for the door to the Common room; she could hear heavy boots approaching from there. 

As she turned, Ionor's hand came away from the cutting table. The sharpening steel in her fist made a rotten crunch as she brought it down over Greshha's skull. The mountain woman crumpled to the floor with no more sound than a dropped sack of grain. 

Ignoring the huddled body' Ionor glared at the door. She had acted out of desperate rage, without forethought. And someone was entering the kitchen. 

It was Mauderas. He halted at the threshold in surprise. His hulking figure blocked the doorway; behind him stretched the inn's bar, and beyond she could see several of Pleddis s men moving through the common room. 

"Close that door!" she hissed. "Lock it!" 

Mauderas obeyed, a stunned expression on his dark face. "What happened?" 

"Never mind," Ionor told him. "I had to stop her from talking to Pleddis." 

"She dead?" 

"I think so. We can't let them find her." 

Mauderas licked his mustache and surveyed the room. The outer doors were barred, but Pleddis's men were watching from outside. Fortunately the windows were shuttered on the back wall. No one had seen... yet. 

"I don't see what Pleddis would care about—" 

"Don't forget Captain Pleddis is a lawman!" she snapped. "Maybe he wouldn't use his authority, maybe he would. No point in tempting luck. I don't want to fool around with that bounty hunter right now. We'll have to hide her body—tell them she went back to the village, if anyone asks." 

"How? She's too big to stuff under something, and Pleddis's men are all over the place. Someone's going to want to come in here any minute. They can't turn up Kane anywhere, and Pleddis was about to tear up the floorboards looking for hiding places." 

"I know; they came through here twice before. Does it look like Kane left the inn, then?" 

Mauderas nodded. "Pleddis figured out how. They'll be out scouring the ridges next." 

Ionor thought carefully for a moment and came to a decision. "Then we'll do it the old way. Take her out the passage and sink her. That way it's certain they won't find her." 

Mauderas put a broad hand on her shoulder. "Been a long time since I sunk anyone." 

"I feel confident you haven't lost your touch." 

"Passage hasn't been opened since the raid. Thought you wanted to forget the old days, keep the passage closed up." 

"I know what I said. But I don't want to risk complications with Pleddis." 

Mauderas shrugged. "Anyway you call it then, Ionor." 

Stooping over the limp body, he arranged the loose limbs with the calm competence of one who knows his task. With a grunt he rose up again, Greshha's lax figure slung across his broad back. "The old woman weighs more than a side of beef," he grumbled. 

But Ionor had left him. Descending the steps to the wine cellar, she paused to grasp a portion of the railing. With a sharp tug, the upright swung out from the banister like a lever. It was a lever. Somewhere below a counterbalance released, and a large section of the flagstone cellar floor rumbled smoothly into the outer wall. 

A square of blackness opened in the cellar floor, from which a stale, damp wind welled up. It was like a breath from some slumbering behemoth. Indeed, the sound of muffled breathing seemed to emanate from within—a distant rushing moan. 

Stairs of greasy limestone descended into the gloom. Mauderas took a lamp from Ionor, holding it clumsily under the weight of his burden. He eyed the passage doubtfully. 

"Hurry! I think I hear someone calling for me!" 

Mauderas grunted and put a boot on the top step. "Oh, I'll hurry. But I'll hurry back to keep you warm tonight." 

Ionor made an impatient gesture. "Stay there for a while before you return to the inn—and leave by the other way. They'll believe me if I say you went to walk Greshha part way to the village. And later no one will question a disappearance on Demonlord's Moon." 

"Any way you call it, honey," Mauderas drawled, his ice rising from the darkness. "I'll be along to keep you warm directly..." 

Hurriedly Ionor swung the lever back to its upright position. The section of flagstones grated back into place. Pounding on the kitchen door was thunderous as she emerged from the cellar. 

"Sorry. I was getting brandy," she explained, unbolting the door to admit Nattios and several of his fellows. "With that devil running loose, a lady likes to keep herself locked in safe." 

VII
Raven's Secret
Satisfied that no bones were broken, Kane struggled to his feet. He would limp badly, but his high boots had reinforced his ankles so that the shock of impact had not resulted in a disabling sprain or worse. Or worse. He massaged his aching shoulder; his right arm had almost been torn from its socket. But by all rights he should be lying here with a broken neck. 

Kane looked about him, reconstructing what had happened now that the scarlet bursts of pain were receding from his consciousness. 

When Klesst had fastened the closet door, Kane had stepped back against its wall. He had a vague impression of reaching to steady himself. His groping fingers closed on something—had it been one of the pegs?—that had swung inward with his shove. 

Then the section of closet floor on which he stood dropped away, and Kane felt himself plunging through darkness. Blindly he struck out. His fingers closed on wood—the rung of a ladder. But the rotted wood tore away under the wrenching force of Kane's three hundred pounds of bone and muscle. 

Spun about by the jarring contact, Kane desperately clawed at the wall. Other mildewed rungs smashed against his grasp, splintered under his weight. But it was enough to check his hurtling body. Kane's steel-tendoned fingers locked onto the flashing rungs, almost bringing his fall short. Then the dragging mass of his body proved more than the weakened timbers could withstand. The ladder tore loose from its anchorage to the wall and careened to the stones below. 

It had been enough to break his fall, Kane dropped the final eight or ten feet and struck the stones on his feet, the wreckage of the ladder splintering beneath him. 

He lay for several minutes, semiconscious after the stunning impact. Above him stretched a seemingly endless shaft of blackness. Kane had no clear idea of how far he had fallen. He was in a chamber beneath the cellars of Raven's Eyrie. Klesst's room must be at least fifty feet above—probably more, since the sound of his fall seemed to have brought no response from his pursuers. 

Patches of skin were abraded from his hands, and he dug out several large splinters. Gingerly he flexed his fingers, found they were otherwise uninjured. A smile twitched his bleeding lips, for a man with crippled hands was more helpless than if he had broken his leg. Casting about, he found his sword, its point buried inches in the damp limestone. He drew it out, reflecting he had narrowly missed being impaled on its tempered steel. 

Once more he gazed up the pitch-dark shaft. He had triggered a trapdoor in the rear of the closet, somewhere above. Obviously a counterbalance had sprung the trap shut once again, otherwise he would see light and puzzled faces would be staring down at him. A ladder was anchored to one wall of the shaft, though it appeared unlikely he would be able to climb back up after the destruction his fall had caused. 

Kane had just begun to form a guess as to the shaft's purpose, when he heard a grating rumble overhead. Light suddenly washed down from the roof of the chamber some fifty feet to his left. A section of stone had slid open, revealing a long flight of stone steps. Voices trickled down. 

Baring his teeth in a snarl—Had Pleddis's hound s sniffed him out even in this lost hole? —Kane concealed himself behind a massive stone column. Sword in bleeding fist, he waited. 

Instead of the anticipated rush of mercenaries, Kane saw only one man descend the steps—and then the door overhead slid shut. His eyes narrowed in calculation. The man he recognized as one of Ionor's servants; the dead woman he carried slung over his back Kane had never seen before. This turn of events was a mystery to him. More to the point, it meant that his presence here had not been discovered—on the contrary, the brawny servant seemed intent on a task which demanded secrecy. 

The newcomer carried a lantern in his fist. Its light was hardly sufficient to disclose the walls of the chamber—tens of yards across, and in places shared and vaulted, Evidently the room was a natural cavern which at one time had been roughly restructured to serve as a hidden cellar. A damp breeze ghosted through the darkness, causing the lantern flame to dance, and Kane noted a narrow passage leading out of the cellar's far wall. 

Mauderas glanced about the hidden cellar, his face showing more fear than suspicion. This was a place where countless dark crimes had bloodied the stones. It was not a wholesome spot to linger, particularly on the night of Demonlord's Moon. 

"What the hell!" he muttered, raising his lantern suddenly He tensed as the feeble light picked out the splintered ends of the ladder, pointing in all directions like the half-flexed fingers of a dead man's hand. The woman's body slid from his shoulders with a heavy flopping sound. 

"That wasn't so rotten it would of collapsed by itself," Mauderas thought aloud. Drawing his sword, be shuffled toward the wreckage, the lantern thrust before him like a shield. 

Which left him blind to anything outside the close cirle of its light. As he crept past, Kane leaped from the shadow of the pillar. Mauderas sensed his rush and started to turn. Kane's heavy blade sheared off half his face as it passed down through his neck. 

The lantern smashed against the floor. A pool of flame licked over the damp stone. Grotesque shadows writhed Over the nitre-frosted walls, mocking killer and slain, as Kane wiped his blade clean of the dead man's gore. 

"Kane..." A rasping voice called to him. 

He spun on his heels, a curse exploding from his throat. 

"Kane... is it you?" the eerie voice whispered. 

Kane stalked toward the sound. In the rippling light he that the woman Mauderas had carried had raised herself weakly. 

He knelt at her side. "I'm Kane," he told her, noting the blood that matted her hair. 

Her ashen face was lax; her arms quivered spasmodically. Seemingly she had barely strength left to whisper. "The child, Kane... Save Klesst... She may be of your seed, but she's innocent." 

"Why is Klesst in any danger, old woman?" 

"Ionor... She birthed her seven years ago tonight... Nothing but hate in her... She called out to him for vengeance that night..." 

"Called out to whom?" 

"I heard him at her bedside... His black hound was clawing at our door... The Demonlord came to her..." 

Only willpower held life in the mountain woman's dying flesh. All strength had left her—only her eyes and lips showed trembling movement, like the final flickering of a lampwick when no more oil remains. Her voice was trailing off, and Kane anxiously bent his ear to her face. 

"The Demonlord bargained with her that night. In seven years he'd draw you back to Raven's Eyrie. In seven years he'd come with his hound to drag your living flesh down to Hell. Ionor would see her vengeance fulfilled—but the price would be the child. Ionor must take Klesst to Raven's Bald where the Demonlord and his black hound wait. She must give the hellhound your spoor by throwing the child into its maw..." 

"Then the black hound will come for you Kane, to drag your evil soul down to everlasting torment in its master's realm... and there's no place you can hide from the hound of Hell! It's no worse than you deserve, but the child's done no wrong. Don't let her sacrifice Klesst... There's naught but hate in—" 

Greshha's whisper was no longer audible. Kane shook her still form, intent on learning more. And now her eyes and lips were fixed and silent. As they would be forevermore. 

The pool of flaming oil crept into tiny islands of fire that one by one snapped and died. Kane arose from the dead woman, and the chamber was once more in darkness. 


He stood wondering for a moment, while his uncanny eyes adapted somewhat to the thick gloom. Numbness was stealing over his body. Fighting the pain and exhaustion that clouded his perception and dragged at his limbs, Kane limped toward the passage at the opposite wall. The damp and softly moaning breath issuing from the blackness indicated the passage must lead outward—and Kane had no desire to return to the inn, even if be could gain entrance without discovery. 

The passage was cramped, with walls and floor of irregular masses of limestone. Kane judged that portions of the rock had been broken away to enlarge the natural tunnel. He had begun to form an idea of the hidden cellar's function, and when he reached the end of the passage, his suspicions were confirmed. 

The tunnel opened onto a narrow ledge, jutting mid-way from the limestone bluff below Raven's Eyrie. The River Cotras rushed thunderously beneath the mists another hundred feet down. Close by the mouth of the passage lay a pile of fist-sized stones and broken rubble—harmless enough, but Kane read a more sinister interpretation. 

Before the raid, Raven's Eyrie had been a prosperous caravanserai. But Ionor's family had gathered its great Wealth by darker harvests than the hosting of trail-weary travellers. Kane suddenly realized that he had uncovered the chilling secret of Raven's Eyrie. 

Such inns of terror were not rare along desolate roads through untilled wilderness. Kane had encountered them on occasion, although never on so grand a scale as Raven's Eyrie, whose dark secret had never been suspected. He wondered how many other hidden passages opened into guest's rooms like the one he had unwittingly stood over and tripped. How many black crimes, what heaps of stolen riches, had this hidden cellar known? Studying the cairn of fist-sized rocks, Kane thought of nameless travellers who had been secretly dragged from their beds to this unhallowed cellar, where here, their bellies ripped open and weighted with stones, their corpses were thrown from the ledge to sink forever in the deep current far below. 

No doubt their disappearance, if noted, would have been laid to marauding gangs of outlaws; some of the crimes Kane bitterly reflected, were probably laid to his name. But now the passage showed evidence of long disuse, and Kane wondered why. Did wealthy travellers no longer risk these trails; were their guests too few to disappear without notice? Or was Ionor of a less murderous temperament than her predecessors here? Remembering the hatred in her eyes tonight, Kane doubted this last. 

He dismissed the matter; it was of no concern. Instead there was Pleddis to deal with. And the words of the dying woman. Truth or madness? Kane dared not disregard her whispered warning. He knew the power of hate. 

Klesst—he must get to Klesst. For the child was the key to the doom Ionor intended for him. But the ladder in the shaft was hopelessly damaged; even if Kane could somehow bridge the missing section, he doubted that it would bear his weight. And Pleddis held the inn. There were other secret doors, he knew, but it would be impossible to evade detection if he returned to the inn. His escape from there had taken the limit of his strength and guile—and then it was chance that had saved him. He could not hope for this a second time. 

Kane's head felt light, dizzy. It was death to get to Klesst. But if he could not reach the child, Ionor would seat her pact with the Demonlord. Then Pleddis and his hired killers would show him far greater mercy than the doom which would certainly claim him. 

It was hard to concentrate. Kane's strength ebbed, as pain and fatigue racked his flesh, fever and drug mists swirled through his brain. Raven's Knob, the old woman had whispered—there Ionor was to seal her unhallowed bargain. Kane had a memory of that jutting, spur of barren rock and lightning-blasted trees. Rising from the bleak crest of a high ridge, it was a landmark in the region and the setting for any number of dark legends. No sane man would approach Raven's Knob when the Demonlord's Moon rose behind it. Possibly not even Pleddis could force his men to carry their search to its slopes. 

Ionor would take Klesst there. Kane knew he must reach Raven's Knob first. But he had no idea how much time remained to him. He had heard Ionor's voice when Mauderas entered the hidden cellar. Very little time had passed. Ionor, however, would take a straight course for Raven's Knob. Kane, weakened and uncertain of the path, must elude Pleddis's searchers in order to reach the point. And the night held dangers far more sinister than mercenary steel. 

There was no other way. Cold anger seethed in Kane's heart. He had been driven across the land, ensnared in this deadly web, each step of his course seemingly predetermined. He would not be the blind pawn in some dark game fate played. 

The ledge seemed to twist downward at a steep slant from the mouth of the passage. Clumps of laurel anchored to cracks and folds in the almost sheer face of the bluff; their roots held crumbling shelves of soil and broken rock. They were treacherous footholds under the best conditions; tonight Kane could not imagine worse. Presumably, though, he could work his way to the riverbank along this deadly pretense of a path. If he slipped... 

There was no other way. 

Fighting the weakness that gnawed at him, the vertigo that already blurred his mind, Kane set his boots against the slippery ledge. 

VIII
And That Will Be Your Call to Hell...
"Stundorn, you know better than to hit an unconscious man," Pleddis told him. "Wait until he comes to again so he can feel it!" He threw back his head with braying laughter. 

The paunch-gutted mercenary spat and unwound the cestus from his fist. "May be a while." 

"He'll keep," grinned Pleddis, critically studying Weed's broken face. It took some of the frustrated pain from his belly to picture Kane hanging there instead. 

Weed's battered body slowly spun about. The bandit's arms had been tied behind his back. Then a longer rope had been tied to his wrists, its other end wound around the balcony railing. They had hoisted him above the floor in this manner, his toes only inches from support. While he hung there, his shoulders threatening to tear from their sockets, Stundorn had worked him over with the cestus. 

"When we come back with Kane, he'll tell us the truth about this cache of loot," Pleddis promised. "Because he knows this is just a taste of what will happen if he lies to us just once. Only way to make a man tell the truth when he expects death in return—you got to make him want to die." 

He smiled jovially at Ionor. "Now he is going to be alive when I get back, isn't he?" 

"This is better than killing him," she said flatly, watching Weed's tortured body as it slowly spun from the force of the last blow. 

Pleddis laughed appreciatively. "Don't think I'd want you for my enemy—no, I don't! Well, then, we'll let you and that fat tavern keeper guard him close—and your man Mauderas when he comes back. Of course, I've got some of my men posted here inside, in case Kane doubles back, and there's more guarding the horses. Personally, I expect to find him crawling along the mountainside not even a mile from here, but with Kane you best keep all bets covered. He comes back, there's a welcome here for him." 

A harried Nattios pounded in from outside. "Captain Pleddis, it's no use!" he blurted. "I can't do a damn thing with them hounds. You got to drag them out of their kennel, and then they just scrounch down on their bellies and whimper. Hell, one damn near chewed old Usporris's arm off trying to drag his tail back inside! They're too scared to piss, captain. They ain't good for so much as barking at a thief if he was to step over them—ain't no way we're going to use them to trail!" 

"So." Pleddis shrugged his shoulders, affecting nonchalance he did not feel. "Then we trail without dogs. Didn't need them before now. I know damn well you can track a man on foot over this short a field." 

He glared at the long-nosed mountaineer. "Unless you're too damn scared to do your job. And you and any others who feel that way know what I think about a man who won't do his job." 

Nattios nodded unhappily. He knew. They all knew. 

"Stundorn—you aren't afraid to chase down a fortune in gold." 

"No, captain," he lied, face pale beneath stubble beard. 

"See, Nattios. Stundorn's not afraid." 

"You find where Kane's trail leads off, I'll take you to him," Nattios promised sullenly. 

"I'll hold you to your word." Pleddis's teeth gleamed brightly. "Now let's not waste any more time." 


When the sounds of the hunters had been swallowed by the night, Ionor moved from the window and took down her hooded cloak. The dark brown wool would be almost invisible in the night, which was to her liking. An encounter with Pleddis's soldiers was something she wished to avoid—although it was not for Pleddis to question her coming and going, nor for any man to bold her back from the path she had set foot on seven years before. 

Klesst's wide eyes greeted her when she opened the door. Perhaps if her eyes had not reminded her of Kane... if her hair had not been red like his... 

"You're awake," Ionor stated in automatic reproof. 

"I couldn't sleep with everything happening, Mother. And I've slept so much of the day." She wanted to ask if the soldiers had captured Kane, but she dared not show interest. But Kane was magic, for he had vanished from her closet. They couldn't catch a sorcerer, could they? 

"That's all right. Put your clothes on now, Klesst. We're going to go for a short walk." 

"Why, Mother? Tonight's the Demonlord's Moon." She felt a thrill of bewildered fright. 

"That's all right. The soldiers will protect us from any bad things. The night air will break your fever. Just get dressed now." 

"I think my fever is gone now." Could soldiers protect her from the black hound? 

"Just get dressed." 

She wondered if Mother had a surprise for her birthday. One of the girls in the village told her how she was taken out to the stable on the night of her birthday, and there was a baby colt just born, and she got to have him because he was born on her birthday. But Mother never gave her surprises on her birthday. Sometimes Greshha did, and pretended that they were gifts from Mother, too, but Klesst knew better, because once she saw Greshha embroidering the birthday skirt with her own hands. 

"Did I hear one of the soldiers say that Greshha came back?" 

"No, Klesst. Why are you dawdling?" 

"Which skirt shall I wear, Mother?" 

"It doesn't—Wear the dark blue one." 

That was her best one. "Can I wear my good linen blouse?" Maybe it was a birthday surprise. 

"Yes. Hurry, Klesst." Ionor fidgeted with her fingers, subconsciously seeking to speed her dressing, but not wanting to touch the girl. Her body felt tense as she watched Klesst hurry on her clothes, struggle to push her feet into buskins she had outgrown. She would need a new pair soon... 

Ionor pushed the thought from her mind. It was too late to turn back; she knew that when Kane returned to Raven's Eyrie. Pleddis's appearance had made her think briefly that the Demonlord could be cheated of his bargain. Yet while this thought might have stirred a phantom of hope, far greater was her anger at the chance that her vengeance would not be fulfilled. But the Demonlord would not be cheated. The game was his, and this was only another cat-and-mouse cruelty of his dark humor. She had struggled seven years to quell any love for the child, knowing the unholy bargain she had sworn to consummate. And yet, if Pleddis had taken Kane, might she have learned in time to... 

Then surged stronger the screaming vision of seven years past—the death and horror of Kane's raid, the shame of her captivity, the tearing agony later in the ruins of her home... 

"Mother , I'm ready now. Why is your face so strange?" Wrapped in her woolen shawl, Klesst looked up at her anxiously. 

Ionor shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment. "Nothing's wrong, Klesst. Now come along quickly." 

IX
Broken Barricades
The mass of laurel roots sagged beneath his weight. Bits of rock and humus crumbled away from where the bush anchored itself to the bluff. He heard the trickling sound of its fall. With painstaking care Kane transferred his weight to another shelf of rock and inched forward against the bluff. No handholds here—just the desperate pressure of his body against the bare rock. 

Mist rose from the river far below, breathing a damp film upon the slippery rocks. At times the mist completely obscured the tiny ledge Kane followed, so that he became uncertain which fragmentary path led down to the riverbank, or ended instead several yards beyond in a sheer drop. Time and again he had to backtrack over some perilous section of blind trail which moments before bad required all his effort to negotiate. No longer was Kane sure whether he actually followed the path to the river—or even if such a trail existed. The fog held its secrets well, and often he had to rely solely on touch to discover the next foothold. 

The mist writhed through his mind as well. Kane lost note of time; it seemed he had been crawling for ages across the treacherous bluff, never coming closer to either summit or base. And in truth he was lost. The rudimentary path he struggled along wormed across the escarpment above the River Cotras for miles beyond the point where Kane had hoped to descend. This path was only a broken ledge along a series of faults in the strata deadly trail no mountain man would attempt even by day. Pleddis, who was scouring the gravel beds between river and cliff, never considered that his wounded quarry would be rash enough to crawl along the escarpment where no path existed. And so Kane passed beyond the line of his pursuers, although the crumbling ledge that had saved him from capture threatened at any instant to cast him headlong into the mist-wreathed darkness. 

He seemed to move in a dream. The mist crawled in phantom shapes; spectral hands clawed out to tear him from the ledge. Even the cold, sweating rock seemed unreal, insubstantial. Kane knew this was no dream, but be had to force himself to be aware of his reality. Otherwise he would lose concentration, no longer care whether a tangled clump of laurel would bear his weight or crumble beneath his boot. He ground his bleeding hands against the rock and savagely pressed down on his limping ankle, using the pain to drive back the sense of dream. 

But the phantoms waxed more substantial, the lichen-garbed stones less real. And no further could the agony of his body overcome the fever in his mind. Somehow Kane managed to lurch on toward where the ledge seemed to broaden—or was that, too, a trick of his faltering senses? Unable to determine, he sprawled heavily onto the dank shelf of rock. 

His limbs were nerveless. His exhausted body ached for air, but his chest seemed too weakened to draw breath fast enough. Kane shuddered; great spasms shook his sweat-slimed frame. 

He lay like one dead, while he fought to hold consciousness. Vertigo shivered through his brain. The ledge he pressed against tilted, spun away, dissolved... 

And then the rocks dissolved. 

And the stone became transparent, clearer than the finest diamond. 

And the mountains opened to Kane. 

And Kane looked within the mountains. 

He saw the treasures of the hills locked in their crypts 

He saw the treasures of the hills locked in their crypts of Primal stone—veins of gold and silver, raw gemstones, buried crowns, and chests of coins—and the grim guardians who watched over them. 

He saw the graves of the hills, where forgotten skeletons mouldered into dust, and lost tombs whose corpses lay unquiet and imprisoned, and their rotted eyes burned with blue flames as they writhed to return his stare. 

He saw the graveless dead of River Cotras—who had been claimed by the river's fury, who bad thrown themselves into its flood in futile search for oblivion, who had been flung into its depths to hide the fruits of murder—white scattered bones, and current-tossed skulls, and moss-crusted lairs for fishes and wriggling things. 

He saw the lost mines of the ancients, and that which they mined and that which they buried—that which they sought after and did not find, and that which they feared and could not flee—and the knowledge made him close his eyes and cry out. 

He saw caverns that crawled downward and downward, and the blind flapping things that dwelled within them—and the cities that were raised there, where no light would even burn—and the misshapen faces that peered fearfully from slitted windows in towers for which there were no doors. 

He saw the black flames of the far abyss, toward which monstrous worms gnawed chaotic tunnels through the rock, seeking the flames of Hell, where as obscene moths they would burst forth to wheel and dart, until their smouldering wings would fail and they would plunge like meteors into the lake of fire. 

He saw the hidden creatures of the mountains, risen from their secret dens to hunt by the Demonlord's Moon. Huge, bloated toads that hopped through the fog, flicking forth searching tongues from reeking jaws of acid-venomed fangs. Lonely abandoned cabins, inviting a traveller to shelter—that were neither cabins nor abandoned, and their invitation was not for refuge. Glowing-eyed creatures shaped somewhat like men, who ran on furred limbs, and showed wolves' fangs when they howled. Shambling giants like misshapen apes, yellow-toothed and shovel-taloned—some shaggy as bears, some scaled like snakes—bestial descendants of those who first claimed man's image. Creeping from caverns, naked creatures no longer quite human—filthy, scabrous packs of men, women and mewing children, not half so hideous as the hunger that brought them forth. And that which follows lonely travellers in the dark of the woods, until at last they look behind, and in that moment die (Kane looked upon its face, and terror scarred his soul). 

There were others... 

And Kane moaned and gnawed his tongue, crushed his fists to his eyes. Until the visions faded into grey, and only the knowledge remained. 

He opened his eyes. The rock was solid about him. The fever had broken. 

And now a steaming, fetid breath snuffled his body. Eyes like red glowing stars stared balefully down upon his upturned face. 

"No, Serberys," said a voice, "Kane is not ours... yet." 

Kane snarled and flung himself aside. Larger and blacker than any bear of these mountains, the hound of Hell snarled back at him. 

"Now we've spoiled his dream," came the sardonic laugh. "Were you dreaming, Kane?" The Demonlord's onyx-taloned hand rested on his bound's heckled neck. He stood tall and lean and muscular; his garments were black and finely cut to the current mode—full-sleeved shirt and tight trousers, knee boots of soft leather, and a long sword at his belt. A wide black cloak seemed to flap about his shoulders, but Kane knew it was not a cloak. 

Kane glared at the majestically evil face and the unwinking black eyes. "If you've come for me, Sathonys, you'll find my steel as ready as ever." 

The Demonlord smiled; mockery robbed his expression Of any warmth. "We've met on friendlier terms in past years, Kane. Why do you show your fangs now?" 

"We'll play this game no longer," growled Kane, edging back along the ledge so that the face of the cliff was close behind him. Serberys's squat bulk completely blocked the trail before him; black tongue licked smoking jowls. He flexed the cramped pain from his sword arm, but did not yet draw his blade. 

"But a vassal plays his lord's game for so long as the master wills," mocked Lord Tloluvin, his cloak billowing about him. 

"I'm not your vassal." Kane's fists clenched like rocks. 

"But you've served me well in the past." The night winds moaned along the escarpment, but his cloak did not swirl in obedience to the wind's caress. 

"And you've served me better—and we've fought side by side. But Kane owes allegiance to neither god nor demon, and I'll not be your pawn in this game you play now." 

"If not pawn, perhaps prize," the Demonlord laughed. "And yet, you must surely understand that all mortals are but pawns." 

"Nor am I mortal." 

"Perhaps before dawn you'll be proven wrong on both counts." 

This may be my last night, but who comes for me will find no pawn!" warned Kane, the fury of his blue eyes as hellish a flame as the Demonlord's own. 

Lord Tloluvin studied the death in Kane's stare. "I've cause enough to respect you, Kane, true, and admire you. At times our battles have been in the same cause." 

"You show little gratitude for a comrade in arms." 

"Kane! You know better!" protested Lord Tloluvin in sardonic reproof. "I only follow my nature—one you well understand. Sathonys, Tloluvin, Lato, by whatever name—my nature is the same. Only a fool expects loyalty in the Demonlord's friendship." 

"Perhaps then you, too, are only a pawn—to your nature, or whatever laws you obey." 

The Demonlord's smile was suddenly menacing. Serberys growled like brazen thunder and took half a stride forward on the ledge, "Your wit is as bold as your arrogance, Kane. We'll argue this later, I think. 

"But stop to consider my game, since I doubt its nature confuses you. You must admit I've set the gameboard well. For seven years Ionor's festering hate has poisoned this wounded land—twisted her soul and tainted the spirits of those about her. And now to seal her pact of vengeance she will give me the child, the daughter she has tortured herself to keep hating for seven years. Is it not a work of art, Kane? You can admire art such as this, I know. Or do you better appreciate the mastery with which I drew you to me here tonight—held by bonds of fever like a chained sacrifice, with greed and ruthless cruelty like a snarling pack to drive you—and a trail of death and ruin to mark the passage of the hunt." 

"If you've set the gameboard for this night, Sathonys," Kane spat back, "you still cannot manipulate all the pieces. Other men you may use as pawns, but not Kane! I'll yield to no predestined fate, and if I fall, I'll die hard and I'll die a free man!" 

"Still shaking your bloodstained fist at fate, Kane? But I suppose that is your nature, and I return your accusation. Before dawn comes we'll speak further on free will, and then I think we'll know better whether this arrogance is vain boast or desperate faith." 

Serberys raised his sooty muzzle and bayed. The ravenous howl sent echoes of terror resounding through the night. 

Lord Tloluvin stroked his massive shoulders. "Yes, Serberys, I sense it, too. Ionor approaches Raven's Bald with the child, and we must go await her." 

His smile was agelessly cruel. "By your leave, Kane—but while we've tarried here, the seeds sown seven years ago in hate, and so carefully nurtured since, are about to flower beneath my moon. 

"And did you know that this trail you've so desperately followed ends in a sheer precipice only a short way from here?" 

Thunder smashed down over the ledge, like deafening laughter. 

Kane stood alone. 

X
Demonlord's Moon
At first Kane hoped that the Demonlord had lied. As rage fired new strength through his muscles he plunged recklessly along the now wider trail. For some distance the ledge offered a secure path along the face of the cliff. Kane realized now that he was not on the trail he had thought to follow, but at the same time he was headed in the direction of Raven's Bald. Lord Tloluvin would have known this—had be then lied to make Kane turn back? 

The Demonlord had not lied this time. 

Kane skidded to a halt, as before him the ledge abruptly fell away. Here the fault in the strata had broken loose, and a great section of the escarpment had sheared off into the River Cotras far below. No trail crossed the black chasm. 

Straining to pierce the river mist, Kane peered upward. Above him the cliff marched into the night; below he could hear the muffled roar of River Cotras. From what he remembered of the river gorge in this region, this ledge must be at least a hundred feet from the crest. He was trapped here, unless... 

Examining the chasm he thought he discerned a narrow crack which appeared to lead to the area of the fall. If he could find handholds along this crevice, he might be able to reach the slide, where the broken rock might provide an avenue to scale the bluff. 

There was, of course, no hope in turning back. 

Am I truly a pawn in the Demonlord's game? 

The crack in the rock ran perhaps fifty feet—a sheer plummet—before it reached the slide rubble. The stone was damp and slippery, white with frost in places. Bits of splintered rock plugged the crevice every few inches. There scarcely seemed space enough to dig his fingers. 

Stretching out, Kane forced his powerful hands into the crevice. He heaved his massive body off the ledge and into space. His giant shoulders bunched and strained; his legs scuffed against the rock, while the river mist swirled up about him from far below. 

His movements were rapid, for he knew his overtaxed strength would falter in another moment. Like a great ape, he swung across the escarpment, driving his body on by force of will. Death awaited his first misjudged grip. 

The crevice slowly narrowed. Kane found he must support his weight solely by his clawing fingers—and still the crack tightened. Until there was no longer space to thrust his fingers. 

Kane's breath grunted an inarticulate curse, but with each second a killing agony, he wasted no time. Hanging perilously by one arm, Kane quickly drew a dagger from his boot. Its flat balanced blade was designed for throwing; whether its steel would support his bulk, Kane had only one way of determining. Using the knife for a piton, Kane jammed it into the crevice and tried his weight. 

The tempered steel shivered and grated; the hilt seemed to bend slightly under the tearing stress. But it held. Clinging desperately to the sweaty hilt, Kane jerked its mate from his other boot. He thrust it into the crevice, then swung out with the other blade. Two insignificant hafts of steel and leather were all that supported him above the deadly abyss. It seemed the blades could never endure the strain. They did; Kane's desperate gamble succeeded. 

With these makeshift pitons, he struggled across the final few yards to what was relative safety. Reaching the rubble left by the avalanche, he gratefully rested his boots on an outjutting boulder. An hour's rest would seem life saving now, but he knew there was not a minute to spare. Grimly he began to scale the chaos of broken rock which marked the slide. 


Stundorn was ill at case. The blocky mercenary distrusted the strange swirling mist that cloaked, then revealed the autumnal ridges. Nor did he like the eerie shadows that seemed to flash along in the darkness on all sides of them, although time and again a sudden frightened challenge had revealed nothing. But would shadows make sounds? 

Once more he tried to fight down gnawing fear. He had lost hope of finding Kane in the night—already they had hunted farther than Pleddis had been prepared to. Pleddis had overstretched their lines, spread the search too far. Now they wandered through the darkness in small bands. Stundorn glanced ahead on the ridge as the Demonlord's Moon rose high over Raven's Knob. Dread chilled his spirit. This trail skirting the river gorge was no place to linger tonight. 

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" he demanded of Nattios. 

The mountaineer's nerves were, if anything, worse. "There's the tracks. Look at them yourself, and tell me what we're doing. Woman and a child, and not too far ahead. I'll kiss your ass if it's not the woman from the inn and her kid." 

"But why would she be on the trail to Raven's Knob?" the other persisted. "No sane errand would take her there tonight of all nights. Hell, you know the stories they tell." 

"I didn't say she was going to Raven's Knob," Nattios argued. "I said this trail leads past Raven's Knob. We don't know where she's really headed." 

"Then why don't we turn back?" grumbled one of the other half-dozen men in their party "Damn woman wants to take her kid and risk what's out here tonight, that's her business." 

"None of that talk," growled Stundorn, thinking the man had a valid point. But no he would have to face Pleddis, and his captain took a harsh view of cowardice. 

"Ionor's out here she's got to have a good reason," he explained. "Could be she's gone to meet Kane. That kid's got hair like Kane, and those blue eyes. Didn't get them from her mother, and we don't know who she calls father. Might be it's Kane—he's been through this range of hills before." 

"Seemed ready enough to drink his blood back at the inn," the grumbler persisted. 

"Could have been fake," guessed Stundorn. "Kane decided to hole up at Raven's Eyrie after all—and she was fixing them food. Could be Kane's more welcome there than anyone guessed. Might explain how he managed to slip out of the inn without our knowing it." 

"Well, there's something sure funny about that inn," Nattios contributed. Talk drowned out the night's eerie sounds. He hoped the conversation would continue. 

They shuffled on a bit farther in silence. The movement from the corner of their eyes seemed to increase; the night sounds edged closer at hand. Bolder. 

"How close are we to Raven's Knob?" Stundorn asked, uneasily gazing at the bald spur of rock on the crest of the ridge. 

"Pretty close—maybe a mile or so by trail," the tracker hazarded. "Stundorn, you suppose Kane knows you shot him?" 

"That ain't certain," protested the man with the arbalest, who had earlier boasted of it. 

"Because maybe Kane's dead after all. We ain't none of us seen him since the first. There's some damn weird things you hear about Kane, and if he died tonight... Well, there's been dead men before that didn't lie in their graves." 

"Shut up!" Stundorn cursed him, thinking that a dead man would surely take vengeance on his slayer if he could return from the grave. 

"I just wondered if you knew for sure you shot him, and if you knew where the quarrel hit him, that's all. Then maybe we'd know whether Kane's just crippled, or whether up ahead somewhere there's a dead man waiting..." 

"I said, shut up! Keep your mind on the trail." 

"Ain't nothing there to keep my mind on. A blind man could read these tracks—they're leading straight along the trail to Raven's Knob." 

"Vaul! What's that?" someone gasped. 

They froze in their stances to listen. A scraping, scrambling sound not far away... 

"It's something climbing up from the river!" another cried out. 

"Fool! That's a sheer drop"' Nattios swore. 

"It's closer!" 

"Then what...?" 

With a bloodcurdling howl, Kane flung himself over the last shelf of rock. A man screamed in terror. 

Kane's face was battered, his body and clothing torn filthy, stained with blood. His sword flashed from the scabbard as he cleared the precipice, a yell of animal ferocity twisting his lips. He had sprung out of the abyss as if by sorcery—a vengeful phantom who loomed to giant stature in the terror of that moment. The Demonlord's Moon cast its red glare upon him, and his killer's eyes blazed with the sure promise of death. 

Stundorn's shot was wild, for only fear had triggered his weapon. "Kane!" someone bawled in panic. The bounty hunters broke and fled. 

With a roar of insane fury, Kane lunged after them. With no thought of danger, he drove them before him. Too long had he been hounded by jackals; the wounded lion had turned to kill. 

Stundorn wasted an instant trying to crank the cocking rachet of his arbalest. The reflex was fatal now, for his comrades had left him to stand alone. As he dropped the useless weapon and groped for his sword, Kane's hell-driven blade split him almost in half. The others made no attempt to stand before his rush. In frantic haste to escape the bellowing demon, Nattios misjudged the edge of the cliff; his screams were swallowed in the river mists. 

Kane ravened after them. Another mercenary died with Kane's sword sunk to the hilt through his spine. The survivors split from the trail to plunge into the forest, and Kane leaped after them to tackle the last man. Brutally he pounded the mercenary's skull against the rocks, again and again, until his fists held only pulp. 

Then the red mists of rage parted, and Kane rose from his gory work. From the black trees he heard another man scream once and break off. Under the dark pines, shadows rustled to close on the echo of death. Kane coughed and shook his head. As the killing rage left him, awareness of his danger returned. 

Had Pleddis heard the cries, the fury of Kane's attack? Had someone escaped to warn him of Kane's presence? The problems seemed only of minor importance; Kane knew a far deadlier menace was closing about him. He stared defiantly at the ridge before him. 

There before the red moon rose Raven's Knob. And this trail climbed toward it. Ahead was Ionor with the child—but how far ahead? 

Kane paused only to snatch up and recock Stundorn's arbalest—for the steel-bowed weapon was accurate to kill at over one hundred fifty yards, and he might still get close enough... 

Throwing his last strength into his stride, Kane pounded up the trail to Raven's Knob. His sense of hideous danger all but drowned the agony that shrieked through his frame with every step. 


Klesst suddenly stopped and tugged at Ionor's cloak. "Mother, let's not walk any farther. I'm tired now." 

"Come on, Klesst. It isn't much farther. If you don't stop this whining, I'll slap you." 

Mother's slaps stung all the worse because the girl sensed the anger in her blow. "But Mother, I'm frightened out here. The soldiers are way behind us." 

"I said, come on!" Ionor jerked her arm forward, then released her hand once Klesst started to follow. She had always tried to keep from touching her... It was better that way. 

"Mother, I think I remember this place." 

"Surely you've played near here often before." 

"Never. The other children are afraid to come here, and I don't like to be alone so far in the woods." 

Ionor walked resolutely on, impatiently slackening her quick stride to let the child stay beside her. It was not as if Klesst were hers. She was Kane's—and a stolen part of her own flesh. Stolen. Raped and shamed and stolen. Klesst wasn't her daughter—she had been determined on that from the first. She was a cancer which Kane had implanted within her body, and in pain she had been purged of the cancer. Almost. The child was something apart from her. If there had ever been love this would be different, but there had never been love; there never would be love. She would feel no more guilt for Klesst than for a cancer that a surgeon excised and destroyed. 

It would be over in another few minutes. Seven years of hate. Klesst would not suffer. Not like she had... 

"Mother, I think this is the place in my dream." 

"Hush, Klesst." 

"No, Mother! I know it's the same place. That great big rock up there is where the black dog first appears, and the black man who walks behind him." Klesst's voice rose in sharp fear. 

Ionor frowned at the girl. She had hoped to avoid physical contact—physical force—with the child, though she had a length of cord under her cloak if she needed it "Don't be afraid, Klesst. When you get to that big rock and see that there's no black hound and his master, then you won't have those silly nightmares any more." 

"I'm still scared," Klesst whispered, her eyes round and frightened. 

"Come on, quickly now." 

Klesst walked slowly on. She did not want to anger Mother. She used to think that if she never made Mother angry again, then Mother might forget the awful thing she once had done—although what this crime might have been, she never understood. Of late Klesst had lost hope of making Mother ever forget. 

Then her owl-like eyes stared at the barren spur of rock. Ionor had forgotten—if she ever knew—how well Klesst could see in the dark. 

"Mother!" screamed Klesst, breaking away. "I can see them! It's the black dog and the black man! They're waiting in the shadow of those big rocks up ahead! Mother! The black dog sees me, too! Can't you see how red his eyes glow?" 

"Come here, damn you!" shouted Ionor, reaching for the cord. In her urgent need to catch the terrified girl, she lunged and stumbled over a root. "Come here!" she yelled, as she sprawled after the retreating child. 

It was the last fragment of horror for Klesst. She whirled and dashed back down the trail, utter panic lending horrible impetus to her childish stride. 

Ionor called once more, then saved her breath for overtaking Klesst. The girl could not stay ahead of her for very long. 

But terror gave her strength, so that Klesst flew headlong down the path, running faster than she ever had. She could hear Ionor's boots drawing closer from behind, and in her mind Mother, the black hound, and its master all merged into one onrushing phantom of dread. 

A giant, diseased apple tree overhung the trail. The last of a blighted orchard that once had stood along this slope, the huge tree reached over the path with grotesque and nightmarish limbs. The sick-sweet odor of rotting apples hung under its shadow like the smell of state flowers in a graveyard. It had frightened Klesst when first they passed beneath its clutching branches. 

Now as she rushed past it, her feet skidded on the rotted fruit. Klesst howled and pitched flying onto the decay-strewn ground. The jar of her fall left her no breath to cry out. 

Desperately she tried to scramble back up to run. Too late. A frenzy of motion in the darkness, and Ionor's cold hand knotted in her disordered hair. Still trying to draw breath, Klesst was yanked to her feet. 

Ionor slapped her, hard. "Now I'll show you what good it is to run!" she panted. And she drew the girl's wrists together, fumbled with the cord. 

Klesst watched mutely as her hands were tied, still too terrified to grasp what was happening to her. She wondered if Mother meant to whip her like once she did Sele. 

There was a scuff of boot on stone, then another silhouette joined the apple tree's contorted shadow. 

It's the black man, thought Klesst. He's come with his hound. Mother will give me to him... 

"Kane!" snarled Ionor, leaping up in fury. 

There was fury in Kane's eyes. 

The arbalest in his arms shuddered. 

Ionor shrieked in clawing agony as the iron-barbed quarrel tore into her belly and flung her back against the tree. She should have fallen then; instead she hung there, writhing in torment. At point-blank range the quarrel had drilled through her spine and sunk into the gnarled trunk. 

She struggled frantically to break free, but her strength suddenly failed. Hate was slower to desert her, and she spat curses through her bubbling lips as she died. And finally there was an end even to her hate. Her slumped figure hung limply from the apple tree, impaled on the spike like a shrike's prey on a thorn. 

Clumsily—for his chest pounded with agony, and scarlet mists blurred his vision—Kane gathered up his sobbing child and wrapped her in his wolfskin cloak. "Well played. Kane!" came sardonic congratulations. "I had thought the game won." 

Klesst buried her face in Kane's shoulder. Kane warily shifted his burden away from swordhilt. The Demonlord and his hound stood before him on the trail. 

"Do you still say I'm your pawn?" he growled. "There stands your pawn. Your pact is forfeit, and you'll have to play at my game if you think to claim this prize!" 

"Your game, Kane?" mocked Sathonys. "I think not. And perhaps I was wrong to call you a pawn. We'll play the game another day, and then we'll see whether Kane is truly master of his fate, or simply fool of luck. 

"Still, I won't say this outcome displeases me. Our souls are like matched blades fired in the same forge, Kane. After all these centuries, I believe I'd miss you, and you've served me well so many times." 

Kane's eyes blazed in anger. 

"As an ally, of course," the Demonlord amended, with a sarcastic salute. 

He touched the hound's misshapened head. "Come, Serberys. The moon is growing old, and our friend Kane has led so many souls into our domain tonight. We must not delay our hunt any longer, as I see my creatures have become quite hungry." 

Serberys opened his slavering jaws in a baying note of horror. 

Hound and master vanished into the night. 

Kane almost found pity for those who had dared to pursue him beneath the Demonlord's Moon. But pity was too rare in Kane to bestow upon his enemies. 


Through the throbbing haze of pain, Weed felt himself lowered to the floor. He waited blindly for the torture to take some new direction, only thankful that the agony of his wrenched shoulders had let up. Then a knife sheared through his bonds. 

He opened his swollen eyes. It was Kane, although it took a moment to be sure. The outlaw leader was a grisly sight to see this side of Hell. 

Kane pushed a bottle of brandy into his mouth. Weed tried to take it in his hands but found them too numb to respond. The brandy was fire on his torn lips and broken teeth, but he swallowed greedily as Kane tipped the flask. 

In a moment he had come to himself enough to note the torn bodies of his guards strewn about the room. Kane had descended on them in a murderous rush of fury, but Weed had hung unconscious through it all. 

"Can you ride?" Kane demanded. 

Weed glanced at Kane's face, then quickly looked away. "I guess so," he grunted, feeling cracked ribs as be struggled to stand. "I guess so. Give me a minute to get my breath." 

"There're horses saddled and ready in the stable," Kane told him. "The guards won't bother you." 

"Thoem! What's happened?" muttered Weed, swaying for balance. "Where's Pleddis and all his men? They all went out to look for you..." 

A chilling howl stirred the night winds. It sounded like the bay of a hound as he closes on his quarry. It was not pleasant to hear. 

"I think they found other hunters already out there," said Kane. 

He thrust a bulging scrip into Weed's hands. It was heavy, but the weight of gold was one that Weed's tingling fingers found strength to close upon. "Here's gold," Kane told him. "Use it as you need it. When you're strong enough to ride, take Klesst here and go. Dawn will soon break, and you'll be safe enough—besides, Sathonys owes me for a game. Take Klesst with you to Obray's Station—that's well north of the Combine's authority, and no one will follow. Take good care of the girl, and when I join you shortly, I'll share my cache with you. I know that interests you." 

Weed wiped the blood from his face, not realizing until later that Kane had known his designs. "Sure, Kane. Whatever you say. But what about you? Pleddis is going to return any minute now..." 

"I'll see to my end," Kane grimly vowed. "You make damn certain about yours." 


Dawn was greying the skies, the Demonlord's Moon had plunged beneath the black ridges, when Pleddis pushed open the door of Raven's Eyrie. He staggered into a common room, his garments ragged and bloody, his face more colorless than ever. His limbs trembled, and there was gore on his sword no human veins had spilled. He lost his laugh. 

"Demons!" he blurted out with a choked voice. In a dazed stupor, he lurched across the center of the room. "Devils from the hills! Vaul! The things were everywhere! Snapping, clawing, leaping out on you from the trees and the shadows and the rocks! Too many—reaching out from all around us! Couldn't make a stand!" 

His eyes still shone with horror. "And that hound! That hideous black hound! I saw it drag Eriall down as he ran! Vaul! I can still hear its baying! Drove me like a hunted fox across the ridges—but I outran it, made it back alive!" 

He paused for breath, and awareness of his surroundings came to him. The huge inn lay in total silence. 

"Where—where is everyone?" Pleddis called out. 

"I'm right here," said Kane, rising out of the shadow. 


















			Reflections for the Winter Of My Soul






Since it was obvious that the man was dying, the crowd of watchers had split apart, leaving only the curious or those fascinated by the presence of death. Certainly no man could live with so ghastly a wound; the wonder was that the mangled servant had survived as long as he had. 

Outside, the blizzard gathered howling force with each minute—a fury of white crystalline coldness whose blasts penetrated the thick stone walls, raced through dark hallways and billowed the heavy tapestries. Its coldness forced entrance deep within the castle, into this crowded room where an attentive circle of eyes stared down at the thing that gasped futilely in its pool of spreading crimson. 

He was one of the baron's servants, a very minor member of the household, whose usual task bad been to care for the stables. The blizzard had come with the nightfall, storming suddenly out of the west as the sun was dying. When its first stinging gusts had hit, the court had been filled with scurrying servants, struggling to secure the animals and material within the outbuildings. One man had stayed behind the rest to complete some errand—none remembered what. His scream of terror had almost gone unheard by the last of those stumbling back to the castle gate. But several men had staggered through the near darkness and blinding winds to the darker figure lying in whirling white. They had borne his mangled body into the castle with panic-sped steps, for no man had seen that which had attacked the human with such savage suddenness and vanished again into the blizzard. 

The victim lay close to the fire, partially lifted from the stone floor by an improvised pillow of rags. His eyes gaped blankly in stark horror, and scarlet bubbles broke occasionally from his stack lips. Relentless fangs had shredded the flesh about his throat and chest, foiled in their attempt to sever the carotids only by the heavy fur cloak and the intervention of a protecting arm. This much could be determined from scrutiny of the dying man, whose silence had been unbroken since that one shriek of mortal terror. Several had pointed out that the servant probably could not speak even should he come out of shock, for the awful wreckage of his throat would make speech most unlikely. 

There seemed to be no end to the flow of blood that streamed through the rough bandages to glisten on the stones. The one who usually tended only to injury to livestock had been called to help—the baron's physician and astrologer could not be found, assuming he would have bothered. The horse surgeon knew it was hopeless of course, but for appearances he made a few half-hearted attempts to forestall imminent death. 

The servant uttered one great, wet cough that merged with a final spasm. The horse surgeon considered the limp wrist, critically pried up one eyelid, and shrugged. "Well, he's dead," he proclaimed needlessly. There was disappointment among the watchers, who had hoped to learn from the victim of his assailant's nature. Over them lay a clammy atmosphere of gnawing fear, and several argued louder than necessary, asserting that a wolf, or several wolves, possibly a snow cat had been the killer. Some had darker suspicions as well, for this frozen land of Marsarovj had its legends. 

A sudden hideous movement halted their slow withdrawal! The corpse had lurched upward from the slippery stones! Supporting itself with its arms, it sat half-upright and glared at them with wide and sightless eyes. Red slobbering lips fought to form words. 

"Death! I see him! Out of the storm he comes for us all!" blubbered that thing which should not speak. "Death comes! A man! A man not man! Death for all!" 

The corpse toppled hollowly back upon the stones, now silent. 

"He must not have been quite dead," offered the surgeon finally, but not even he believed that. 

I. The Rider in the Storm
Kane at last was forced to admit to himself that he was totally lost, that for the past hour he had been without any sense of direction whatsoever. He kicked his plodding horse onward, cursing the fate that had set him abroad in this frozen wasteland during what seemed to be the worst blizzard in his long memory. The shaggy steed was close to floundering with exhaustion, for even its rugged north-bred endurance had been overtaxed by the days of flight which had left them lost in this fantastic ice storm. 

Two impressions filled Kane's weary mind. One was a sensation of unbearable, soul crushing cold—cold accumulated during the days of travel through the wintered land and now multiplied by this needled wind of ice. The chill sought for him through the thick folds of heavy fur that surrounded him, and Kane knew that when he stopped moving, he would quickly freeze to death. 

The second impression was one of awful necessity to outdistance his pursuers. They had dogged his trail relentlessly for the long, cold days, penetrating every trick this master of deception had employed to hide the signs of his progress. But then with the last powers of the priests of Sataki, his pursuers had little chance of missing a trail that no human eye could discover. 

Since noon Kane had often been able to catch sight of them, so close had they gained on him. Knowing that they would almost inevitably overtake him by nightfall, he had welcomed the sudden blizzard when it had come. Although he doubted if even this could cover his tracks from the ken of those grim hunters, he hoped to gain invaluable time—possibly to recover his lead over them. But the storm had become a screaming nightmare of white in which Kane had lost his way completely, and now frozen death joined with those others who sought to bring down the ice-encrusted man who slumped forward in his saddle. 

Many days behind him and to the southeast lay the independent principality of Rader, once the northmost province of the old Serranthonian Empire, but now broken away in the collapse of the Empire which had followed the extinction of the line of Halbros-Serrantho. Rader had become a frontier backwater after the dynastic wars had destroyed the strength and wealth of the central states and had created a band of desolation cutting Rader off from the civilization to the south. Law had been lost in the imperial disintegration and never restored. In obedience to ancient principle, brute power shaped chaos into a more orderly framework, and Rader had been ruled for the past century (when it was ruled at all) by a variety of warlords. It had been a motley succession, for the land was of little value or importance. Thus its rulers had usually been petty and relatively unambitious men—old nobility, adventurers, robber barons, and the like. 

Until some few days before, Rader had been ruled by the hated exile Orted Ak-Ceddi, onetime bandit leader turned Prophet of Sataki. Under his fanatical command, the dark cult of Sataki had exploded from obscurity into a crimson wave of terror that had overwhelmed the forest land of Shapeli far to the south and had very nearly broken forth to hurl its legions upon the southern kingdoms. But his power had at last been smashed, and Orted had fled the ruins of his Dark Crusade with only a few of his most loyal followers. Safe in the obscurity of this northern backwater, Orted had seized control of Rader with the last remnant of his former strength and had settled down to ponder the tangled riddles of fortune and power. 

To Rader had come Kane in the night. As the mercenary general of the Prophet's cavalry, Kane had both been creator of the fighting arm of the Dark Crusade as well as the cause of its ultimate failure. Treachery on Kane's part had first sundered the Sword of Sataki, but Orted's final insane double-cross had brought on disaster for them both. Orted had escaped the ensuing slaughter of his followers, but Kane was trapped by the victorious army of Jarvo. To avoid capture by his enemies he had entered that unhallowed interdimensional corridor cursed by ancients as the Lair of Yslsl. The torments he encountered within Yslsl's cosmic web of soulless horror were such that it might have been better to have accepted the mere physical torture and death from those he had thus escaped. 

But Kane at length accomplished that which no other man could have done. He emerged at the one other place on this world where the Lair of Yslsl impinged. It took him over a year to recover from the ordeal he suffered therein, but when he did recover he set out to kill the man who had driven him within the crawling passages of that elder world nightmare. The trail to Rader had taken him from one end of the known world to the other—a trail that twisted, forked, vanished, and reappeared again. But he followed it with a singleness of purpose unfamiliar even to Kane. 

And almost four years after the massacre of the Satakis at Ingoldi, Orted Ak-Ceddi found himself alone in his chambers confronting Kane. The brief, vicious struggle ended most satisfactorily for Kane, who was able to present Orted with a curious gem-like crystal derived from the venom of the now extinct tomb worm of Carsultyal. Embedded in his flesh, the paralyzing venom seeped through Orted's writhing form and silently commenced an ineluctable disintegration of every nerve in his body, working from the tiniest to the largest cords. Kane was forced to cut short his enjoyment of the fantastic contortions of Orted's death throes, when the Prophet's guards finally broke into the chamber. 

He had vaulted through the hidden passage by which he had gained entrance to Orted's private chambers—the Prophet had not been able to learn all the secrets of his sanctuary—and fled the city before any organized search could be formed. Since that night Kane had been pushing steadily into the northern wastes. But his pursuers were the last of Orted's fanatics, and Kane knew that only death would halt their relentless pursuit of the slayer of their Prophet. Their fanaticism coupled with the few sorcerous devices left to their dying cult had brought them within sight of their quarry after hard days of searching. And then the blizzard had given Kane respite. 

His horse stumbled over some buried obstruction and half-fell to its knees. Kane fought to hold his saddle, noticing the crackle of ice encrusted on his cloak. Gritting teeth he lurched from his mount and helped the exhausted beast erect. The agony of forcing his nearly frozen limbs into action racked his powerful frame, and he swayed on his benumbed feet, clutching the neck of his gasping horse for support. 

"Easy, boy," he murmured through his ice-hung beard. "Let you rest just a minute." But only a minute, he told himself, and stamped his frozen boots, wearily brushing off the crust of ice that enclosed his body. A bed of snow beckoned him to its softness, but he hurled aside its temptation. He would not accept defeat this easily. He had cheated death time beyond comprehension, and if he lost here in the storm, his adversary must take him not gracefully, but struggling blindly onward past the extremes of his power. That this frozen elemental fury should be his doom infuriated Kane, and he glared defiantly into the scouring wind. Frustration. His enemy now was utterly intangible—a cosmic entity that heedlessly had engulfed him—whose massive presence now tore at him, smothered his life fire. In no way could he even force his destroyer to take notice of his existence. 

Yet it was no ordinary storm, of this Kane was certain. It was too sudden, too violent to be natural; Kane had never encountered anything its equal even on several excursions much farther to the north. It was a witch storm perhaps, for its abrupt ferocity hinted at sorcery. But why any sorcerous power should summon such a blizzard in this wasteland, he could not begin to guess. Surely the Satakis had not evoked it, for it had cheated them of their prey. 

The horse whinnied fearfully, and Kane decided he had rested as long as he dared. As he remounted, his steed started in fright. Kane sought to soothe the beast, thinking at first he had somehow startled it in mounting. But the horse was genuinely alarmed, he quickly noted—its nostrils flared and eyes widened in fright. Soon Kane too sensed a presence, an awareness of alien scrutiny. He gave the horse his head, and the animal bolted forward recklessly through the storm. For a tense interval Kane felt the sensation of pursuit, of some entity reaching for him with awful hunger; then the feeling slacked off. 

As soon as he felt clear he slowed his mount's headlong flight to a safer pace. "What in the name of Temro was that!" he muttered. At first he had thought his pursuers had blundered upon him, but the horse's reaction and his own sensations dispelled that impression. He had seen nothing, heard nothing—for the howling storm had effectively blotted out and muffled both vision and sound. Yet Kane and his horse had both definitely sensed the presence of something, and Kane knew better than to doubt such extrasensory evidence. The strange workings of his inner mind were not unfamiliar to him, unnatural talents utilized and strengthened throughout his amazing career. And Kane was certain that some form of horrible death had been very close to him in the storm. 

Now be strained his senses against the blizzard, while the horse plodded dismally through the rising drifts, his sudden surge of energy dissipated. For a long time there was nothing, until Kane seemed to hear a wild howling that was not of the wind. He inhaled carefully, drawing the frozen air deep into his lungs. Faintly he began to catch the scent of wolf on the stormwind. The horse too caught the scent, and he snorted fitfully. 

Suddenly Kane halted. The howling had become more pronounced and seemed to come from many throats. To his keen nostrils came the unmistakable sour scent of damp wolf fur. Somewhere ahead of him—distance was impossible to gauge in the storm—lurked a large pack of wolves. Kane was puzzled once more. From their cries the pack was full in hunt—but it seemed impossible that a wolfpack would be foraging in such a raging blizzard. Perhaps the limits of starvation had driven them abroad, he mused. In that case it was damned lucky that he was downwind. 

But this advantage might vanish with a shift of wind and Kane turned his mount away from the invincible pack, putting the wind to his back. Might as well back-track, he thought grimly. With no more sense of direction than he now had, any course was as well as another or as pointless. As he forged onward through the drifts the howling was drowned out in the greater voice of the storm. Just as it was swallowed up altogether, Kane thought he could also hear mingled in the cries of horses and men. But the sounds were too faint for any hope of clarity, and Kane was too exhausted to pursue the fantasies of his tormented senses. 

The horse plodded on and on, stumbling more frequently now, but refusing to fall. Kane doubted if the beast would be able to rise once it slid down again—doubted if he would be able to remount if it could regain its feet. Time and distance had no meaning. He was utterly adrift from the world of time and space; there was only himself and the horse caught up in the rushing blizzard. Whether he moved or only the wind moved, Kane could not tell. Nor could he distinguish whether the bits of white moved through the darkness, or flecks of blackness through a sea of white. Now his entire body was growing altogether numb. Soon he would be unable to feel the horse on which he rode, and then there would only be Kane, bobbing helplessly, hopelessly in this maelstrom of ice. 

This was infinity. 

Abruptly something clawed at Kane's face. He reeled and lashed out at it drunkenly. His frozen hand encountered a tree branch. Several more whipped at him, as the horse painfully slipped its way between several trees. 

Kane forced himself out of stupor, gathering together the final dregs of his remarkable strength. If the horse had blundered into a forest there was hope yet. It seemed unlikely, for there had been no body of trees in sight before the storm had hit—but how could he know how far the horse had carried him. The wind's roar became muted, and its force was broken by the trees, causing the snow to fall slowly, sifting through the branches. The blackness of night became settled, and in this darkness Kane's eyes could penetrate—although another man would still be relatively blind. 

It was indeed a forest—or at least the grove of trees extended as far as Kane could discover. From the shelter it provided from the stormblast, it seemed likely that this was at any rate a considerable wooded area. Kane urged his faltering mount deeper into the woods. If he could reach a place far enough within to break most of the storm's force, he might build a sort of shelter and possibly get a fire going. 

He caught the smell of wood smoke on the wind and pulled up. Had his hunters also found the trees, he wondered—or perhaps he had come upon someone else in this wilderness. He followed the smoke hopefully. Should it be the fire of strangers, he would share it one way or another. If he found the Satakis... Well, he had been hunted long enough. Kane loosened his sword from its ice bound scabbard. At least the cold iron would then find warmth. They would not expect an attack, and maybe with surprise, and if his strength had not been fatally drained by the storm... 

Visions of carnage passed through his mind, as Kane followed the scent of smoke through the sentinel trees. The ground seemed to rise now, he thought. Revitalized with the tangible before him, hope for shelter and lust to kill, Kane encouraged his horse. The rugged steed was due to collapse at any step, but it too sensed salvation and forced itself beyond endurance. 

The trees thinned and then broke into a clearing. As he came through the last of their number, Kane caught sight of several small outbuildings clustered about a walled stone manor house or small castle. The structures loomed darkly against the snow-filled night skies, their silhouette perforated with specks of light from curtained windows. Desperately Kane forced his mount to this unknown castle here in the frozen wastes. Let it be inhabited by demons and he cared not—so long as be found warmth. He shouted hoarsely as he reached the gate. In sudden despair he realized that no gatekeeper would be at his post on such a night, and that no one within the castle manor could hear him above the storm—should they be awake. In his condition he could never climb over the wall. In white fury Kane pounded on the gate with his great sword. To his amazement the gate swung ajar—it had been left unlocked! 

Not bothering to puzzle over this good fortune, Kane pushed aside the gate enough to pass through. The horses hooves clattered hollowly across the courtyard, as Kane shouted wildly, striving to awaken someone within. Just as he reached the manor's main doorway, the animal stumbled and fell, pitching the rider upon the stones. Kane twisted clumsily, too benumbed for his usual lightning reflexes to serve him. He fell heavily before the door, rolling against it. 

With his last strength he battered the iron studded oak with his swordhilt. He looked back weakly to the gate through which he had entered. Just before blackness overcame him, he seemed to see something white creeping through that open doorway. 

II. Things Found in the Storm
Something white stood blurred in Kane's recovering consciousness. With an effort he forced awareness into his mind, his eyes to focus. 

Her eyes widened in startled fright as Kane's baleful gaze suddenly gripped her, but she recovered quickly and said to cover her embarrassment, "Here—try to drink this." 

Kane accepted the cup she held to his lips in silent appreciation, even in his condition savoring the excellent brandy. Warmth flowed from the cognac as fully as from the crackling fire they had laid him by. So the people of the manor had heard his call after all, he mused, and quickly he took note of his surroundings. 

He was in a small, stone room, furnished by a few benches, some chairs and a heavy table drawn near the large fire that blazed against one wall. An antechamber, he surmised, from its plainness—probably where the porter and stewards kept attendance on the main door. Kane's ice-crusted cloak had been removed, and a heavy fur rug was thrown about him. Two servants supported him in a half supine position before the fire; several others and a very sleepy maid milled about the room and doorway. 

Holding the cup to his lips was a tousled girl of elfish beauty. From her magnificent robe of white snowcat and the emerald set ring on her delicate hand, Kane knew her to be a lady of high estate. A mane of pate blond tresses framed a perfect face from which a pair of wide, grey eyes shone. Together with a pointed chin and straight, finely chiseled nose, she presented the picture of a somewhat whimsical pixie—a mouth made for quick smiles now set in concern. Her age might be from late teens to early twenties. 

"Well, Breenanin, what have you found!" A bear of a man swept into the room, a huge fur robe hastily gathered about him. "Who is it that comes calling on a night fit only for ice phantoms and destroys the sleep of honest folk!" he blustered good-naturedly. 

"Hush, Father!" whipped Breenanin. "He's injured and nearly frozen!" 

"Eh?" muttered the lord of the castle curiously, and he made a vaguely sympathetic noise to mollify his daughter. 

Kane shrugged off the servants' hands and drew himself to his feet, reeling momentarily in pain and dizziness before he straightened. He met his host's curious gaze and announced formally, "Forgive this ill timed and unannounced intrusion. I've been wandering through this waste for several days when the storm caught me, and I had about given out before I happened on this castle. My horse fell in your court, and I was unconscious until a moment ago. Had your servants not found me, I would have frozen solid by morning." 

"In the court, you say?" said the other in puzzlement. "How the hell did you make it past the gate?" 

"It was unlocked when I tried it," returned Kane. "Most fortunate that someone neglected it." 

"Maybe so, but that kind of carelessness can get you murdered in bed. Gregig! Can't you remember your duties just because we get a little snow!" 

The porter looked most unhappy. "Milord, I distinctly remember locking the gate when the storm hit. I can't understand it." 

"Mmm!" intoned his master. "Well, is it locked now?" 

"Yes, milord!" the porter said hurriedly; then uneasily, "It was locked when I checked it—after finding the stranger." 

"At least even a near snowman has more sense than some fat porters." 

"The wind must have shut it—for I didn't," Kane broke in. 

He received a suspicious stare from his host. "That isn't possible," he stated. Then he shrugged. "Perhaps the fall shook up your memory a bit. Not uncommon, I suppose." 

Kane remained silent. 

"Well, anyway you're inside. Welcome to my somewhat chilly manor! I am Baron Troylin of Carrasahl, and the underfed cupbearer there is my daughter, Breenanin. You are welcome to my hospitality until this blizzard lets up and you feel like moving on. We're always glad for some company from the outside world here—breaks the monotony." He laughed, "The way that blizzard's carrying on, it looks like we're all going to be snowbound for some while." 

Kane bowed. "You are most gracious. I am deeply thankful for your hospitality," he said formally, speaking the Carrasahli with little difficulty. He watched his company cautiously. "My name is Kane." There was no reaction, so he went on. "My profession is fighting, but at present I am without a position. I was heading toward Enseljos to see if Winston could use my services in his border war with Chectalos, but I strayed off course trying to save some miles from the usual trails. When the storm caught me, I was very well on my way to being lost." 

Troylin showed no signs of disbelieving Kane, although Kane doubted if he was as simple as his tough and easy manner seemed to indicate. The baron was scrutinizing his guest carefully, trying to form an idea of what the storm had brought him. 

Kane was a huge man—not much over six feet, but massively built. From an immense barrel of a chest set atop pillar-like legs, Kane's mighty arms hung like great corded tree limbs. His hands were of great size and strength—a strangler's hands, thought Troylin. The man must indeed be powerful, and probably could handle that sword well too. He seemed to be left-handed, as far as the baron could tell. His hair was red and of moderate length; the beard short as well. His features were somewhat coarse and even a bit foreboding, with a fresh scar on one check that seemed to be fading. 

It was his eyes that bothered Troylin. He had noticed them from the first. It was to be expected, for Kane's eyes were the eyes of Death! They were blue eyes, but eyes that glowed with their own light. In those cold blue gems blazed the fires of blood madness, of the lust to kill and destroy. They poured forth infinite hatred of life and promised violent ruin to those who sought to meet them. Troylin caught an image of that powerful body striding over a battlefield, killer's eyes blazing and red sword dealing carnage to all before it. 

The baron hastily avoided those eyes and repressed a shudder. Vaul! What manner of man was this creature! Still, he was a mercenary, a hired killer. Such men were seldom tender poets. And from his bearing, Kane obviously was no common ruffian. His manners and speech indicated a man of culture, possibly of breeding. Sons of the best gentry, bastard or lawful, often took to a military career for fortune or for love of adventure. Kane certainly was impressive enough to have been a high ranking officer, and the rings and fine weapons indicated wealth at some time. His age was strangely difficult to guess. He didn't look physically over thirty, but somehow his bearing made him appear much older. 

Troylin decided he would keep entertained untangling the mysteries of his strange guest for the next several days. Probably have some real tales to tell too. A change from that minstrel anyway. Just a few precautions until he was more certain about the man. 

"Father! Are you just going to stand there like a stuffed bear!" 

Troylin snapped alert. "Ah—yes! Started to doze, I'm afraid. Well, Kane, as I say, welcome. The servants will show you to a room—plenty here, we're sort of under-populated at the moment. Just wintering away from the civilized world for the rest." It occurred to him that Kane had no business still being able to stand after his ordeal, and he realized again the fantastic strength the man must have. "Right! So I hope you'll be recovering from it all by tomorrow." He turned and strode away. 

Hugging the fur about himself, Kane followed the servants. It was all he could do to walk and his sight blurred repeatedly, but he didn't wish to show weakness. At least his hosts didn't guess the extent of his plight. With luck he could hole up here from the Satakis—and maybe the blizzard had finished them. 

"Damn lucky we found you," Offered one servant, as he opened the door to Kane's chamber. "No one was on duty, you know. Fallen asleep with that storm blowing." 

"Oh," muttered Kane, too exhausted to feel much interest. "How'd you let me in then?" 

"It was the lady, you know. She'd been having trouble sleeping, heard it, and run down, woke the porter, Ing and me." 

"Surprised she could hear me even, with the wind." Kane gratefully collapsed onto the bed. 

"Oh, it wasn't you she heard," replied the servant, stepping through the door. "It was your horse screaming, you know. Poor thing was pure mad from fear! Something sure had that horse frightened near to death—but there wasn't a thing in the courtyard we could see." 

III. Prisoners of the Storm
Kane immediately fell into a trance-like sleep, as his tormented body sought to heal the ravages of days of flight. Occasionally its serenity was shattered by some fitful dream of past adventure or by needles of pain from frostbitten flesh, but not even this could rouse him. At one time he seemed to hear again that eldritch howling of wolves, and in the midst of their cacophony two burning red eyes swam into his fevered vision—inhuman eyes that seared him with savage and abominable hunger. 

At length consciousness returned to Kane, and with it came the realization that something hovered near his side. Snapping into instant awareness, Kane hurled himself to one side. His corded arm whipped upward and be grasped a shock of white hair, as his other hand came up with the dirk he had strapped to his side. 

"Wait! Mercy!" croaked his terrified victim, and Kane halted the disemboweling thrust just short of its mark. He grasped the beard of a stern and elderly face that projected on a thin neck from dark, impressive robes. The robes flopped in extreme agitation, and a pair of scrawny hands clawed in panic at Kane's grip. Kane released the old man, but retained his knife watchfully. 

"By the Seven Eyes of Lord Thro'ellet!" choked the elder, massaging his bearded visage. "Damn near rip off my face and slit my gullet, you did! Vicious killer, that's what! A mad dog! What has my good baron taken in?" 

"Who the hell are you?" Kane growled. 

"I'd warned him about strangers! The stars tell plainly that these are deadly days for us all—but he won't listen! Brings in a demon from the storm and expects me to concern myself with him. I warn you, you low born spawn of a viper! I don't intend to let this near murder go forgotten!'' 

"Why were you in here?" snarled Kane dangerously. 

The elder looked alarmed once more. He judged the distance to the door, decided it was too far, and collected himself. "I am Lystric, Baron Troylin's personal physician and astrologer. You've been snoring away here better than an entire day now, and the baron told me to took in on you." He glared darkly at Kane. "As if a frolic in the storm would bother an ice phantom! I try to examine your injuries, and you half kill me for my concern! Fine gesture! Nice mannered guest! Troylin should have slaughtered you in your sleep!" 

"That's been tried before," returned Kane, swinging to his feet. "Count yourself lucky that I recognized you as a harmless old lecher before I spilled your insides out. But as you have seen, I'm quite all right now." 

Lystric reddened in anger. "Damn you! I warn you that my wisdom holds secrets that could blast you to ashes, should I see fit to unleash them! Maybe I will! This is no time for Troylin to bring murdering strangers into his hold! There is death in the stars! I have seen it!" 

Kane regained his temper with painful effort. "Would you care to examine me now?" he asked innocently. 

"Damn your insolent hide!" shrieked Lystric and stamped toward the door, a stately exit which he ruined by glancing behind in apprehension. Halting at the door he glowered back. "The baron directed me to ask you to dine with him shortly, should I find you not too weak to stir!" 

"Send my thanks and tell him I accept." 

"No doubt! Well, he'll send his men-at-arms to butcher you, if I have my will!" 

Kane elaborately drew back his dirk to throw. Lystric departed. 

There was a tight atmosphere of uneasiness hanging over the dinner table, and Kane noticed it despite his preoccupation with the board. He ate his first full meal in many days with careful attention, savoring each mouthful. A man who has been on short rations for many days does not bolt his food—it is a novelty to be slowly and thoroughly appreciated. At the same time he watched with interest the others gathered at the long table in the castle dining hall. Baron Troylin and his daughter ate nervously, with a forced lightheartedness that belied an underlying tenseness. Lystric the astrologer, who was also present at the high table, spent part of the time offering Kane dark looks, and the remainder watching anxiously the young man sitting next to him. 

The youth Troylin had introduced as his son Henderin. Ignoring Kane's greeting, he had spent the first of the meal glaring stonily at the food set before him. Kane observed that Henderin carried no knife with which to eat, and that the two brawny attendants who stood close behind him seemed to pay an unnecessary amount of attention to their charge's every move. No comment had been offered on the situation, and Kane had discreetly raised no questions, although it was obvious that something was amiss in the household and that the baron's son seemed to be the center of the anxiety. He was a well built and well favored young man—a few years his sister's senior—with the pale blond hair of his family. He bore no signs of ill treatment, although he somehow impressed Kane as a privileged prisoner who was allowed to sit in at his captor's table. 

Henderin chose to end his petulant silence by breaking into an anecdote of his father. "This meat is burned!" he intoned hotly. "I specifically told you to bring me nothing but raw flesh!" 

The two retainers behind him stood poised. Breenanin halted her cup before her mouth and froze in anticipation, while Troylin nervously glanced toward Lystric. The astrologer spoke in soothing tones, "Of course—the cooks must have forgotten. I'll personally speak to them about this. But since all the rest of us are eating, why don't you have a little cooked meat too. It's still nice and red, you see—all the fire did was warm it for you." 

"I said I wanted raw flesh!" Henderin exploded. "Not burned dead by the fire, but still warm and bleeding! Bring it to me!" 

Lystric went on hurriedly. "But there isn't any meat left that hasn't been cooked. So why not eat just a bite..." 

Henderin screamed an oath and hurled his plate onto the floor. Behind him the two attendants rushed in, but Lystric waved them to a halt. Several hounds had sprung from the corners of the hall and had fallen upon the scattered meat. Henderin watched enthralled as they greedily fought over the scraps. With a wild smile he snatched a large joint of meat from a tray, pulled it to him, and buried his muzzle into it. He tore the flesh in large chunks, devouring it with gusto. From time to time he gave a low growl. 

For the others the meal proceeded with relative quiet. 

With the business of eating completed, the dinner began to gather steam. Servants cleared away the debris and settled down to the more serious duty of keeping their master and his guest well supplied with ale. Kane prepared himself for a long evening of drinking and conversation, aware that Troylin expected him to repay the baron's hospitality by entertaining him. It appeared to be developing into a most comfortable evening. At the lower tables, the baron's retainers and men-at-arms were making a lusty charter, serving wenches made free with the ale, and the great fire was blazing. Even Henderin was quiet, for the moment slowly drawing pictures on the table with an ale dipped finger. In the shadow of a column close by the high table a tall man toyed with a lute. 

Kane had asked few questions during the meal, and to his relief neither had Troylin. The baron seemed content to accept Kane's story at face value, and merely listened with interest to his guest's anecdotes. To his delight, he found Kane an entertaining and informed conversationalist, with a fantastic variety of material to draw upon. Deeming it none of his concern, he showed no interest in Kane's business in this region. 

Judging it not altogether indiscreet, Kane at length asked, "How is it that you are wintering here in Marsarovj? Even Carrasahl must be warmer and more congenial than this wilderness." 

Troylin laughed depreciatively and replied readily, "Well, I got tired of civilized winters after a while. So I thought it would be a nice change to spend the winter here in the provinces. My family has maintained this old castle for years—it's really a fortified manor from the Empire days—and I thought it would make a snug, rustic spot to spend the winter. Hunting is excellent too—all year around." 

He lowered his voice and added uneasily, "Also I'd hoped the atmosphere would be good for Henderin. The boy's a little unsettled, you've noticed no doubt. Lystric assures me though that this is just the thing for him." 

Kane nodded and changed the subject to the matter of hunting. Marsarovj, he knew, was a province rife with subarctic game. 

He became conscious of all unpleasant sensation of scrutiny after a while and looked for the source. In the shadows slouched a figure with a lute, a lean man whose eyes gleamed a startling red in the firelight. 

Following Katie's gaze, Troylin caught sight of its object and called out, "Ah, Evingolis! There you are! Wondered where you were lurking tonight. Come over and give as a tune! We've been jabbering too hard to do any serious drinking." Turning to Kane he said, "This is Evingolis, the most accomplished minstrel you'll ever have the pleasure of hearing. I had the fortune of attaching him to my patronage this summer, and he's a delight to have around on these winter nights." He went on to describe the many virtues of the minstrel. 

The object of the baron's praise strode silently from the shadows and took a vantage point by the fire. Moving his long fingers over the lute strings with fluid grace, he sang in crystalline tones of a blind princess and her demon lover. One of the Opyros Cycle, Kane recognized, and he recalled the bizarre fate of that blighted poet. The minstrel was himself an unusual figure. He was an albino, with the characteristic pale skin, white hair and pink eyes. Kane could hazard no guess as to his nationality, having found the singer's accent unlike any he could place. In height Evingolis was several inches taller than Kane, and although he was thinly built, there was no hint of softness or weakness to him. His features were finely molded, but sharp rather than effeminate. His thin hair he wore cut short; his face cleanshaven. As he sang, his pink eyes stared into infinity—perhaps seeing the strange events of which he told. Kane noticed that Henderin watched the minstrel with rapt attention, seemingly magically charmed by the tale. 

The rising lament that concluded the song died out with a keening moan from the lute. He was an artist, conceded Kane, who could not recall hearing a better performance of that difficult poem. Men shuffled their feet and made uneasy sounds in the stillness following the song. "Excellent!" commended Troylin after a pause. "You always have something now for us, don't you. Ah, how about another, Evingolis. One a bit more rousing for this cold night." 

"Of course, milord," spoke the minstrel, accepting a tankard from a scurrying wench. "One moment while I sweeten my throat." He tossed off the ale and broke into a rollicking ballad of a woodsman's five daughters, which moved the baron's men to join in the bawdy chorus. 

"A bit morbid in his tastes," confided Troylin, "but if you insist he can be common enough." 

"Some hold that true beauty lies only in the uncommon," Kane murmured, watching the firelight's gleam in Breenanin's pale hair. She smiled, wondering if his remark was to compliment her. But Kane, sunken into brooding, noticed only that her teeth shone white and sharp against her red smile. 

The baron was involved in an endless anecdote of a winter hunt he had once, enjoyed, and Kane had for some time been making only a taken attempt to pay attention. At the point when some stag was goring a favored hound, several of Troylin's men entered the hall, loudly stamping snow from their gear. 

"Well, Tali. Back at last, I see!" Troylin greeted their leader. "What's it like out there?" 

"A white hell, milord, it truly is! So cold your spit cracks in midair, now that the sky has cleared. And the snow's piled so damn high, it was almost impossible for us to push through as far as we went. Couldn't even get a sled out in that stuff. We're snowbound for certain until this crusts over solid." 

"No matter," said the baron. "We've provisions here to last all winter, and there's plenty of game, I know." 

Tali shook his head. "I don't know myself on that one. The area is full of wolves, for some reason. Big, mean fellows—and bold ones too! Saw maybe half a dozen at one time following us along—keeping just out of bowshot! Looked like they'd just as soon rush us, they did! Game must be scarce to bring them out in the open like that. 

"And that's not all, milord! We stumbled on something really terrible out there in the snow! Came on it just as we was starting back. Party of dead men, it was, milord!" A horrified rustle went through the listeners. Tali gulped and plunged on. "Looked like eight or nine of them and horses too, but they were so torn up it was hard to say for sure. Wolves got them—ripped them to shreds! My guess is that they were attacked in the storm when they couldn't see what was happening. Must have been a really big pack to attack that many men. All armed too, they was. Course you couldn't tell much, but their gear was strange. Not like anything you see around here. Well, when we saw this, you bet we turned around! Beat it back here fast as we could! Wolves attacking armed parties—I've never heard the like!" 

He tossed a gold medallion onto the table. "Saw a couple of these around the bodies." 

Baron Troylin frowned. "Well, wolves can't get to us in here," he concluded. Which seemed to strike Henderin as quite amusing. 

Kane examined the gold medallion with its familiar circle of elder hieroglyphics. The followers of Sataki would hound him no further. 

IV. Hunters in the Snow
"Personally I think the baron is crazy to ride to the hunt after what Tali and them told us last night," observed the steward, evidently in a loquacious mood. 

"Mmm?" Kane, grunted noncommitally, while he tested the balance of several hunting spears. 

"You didn't bear all those things they told to us afterwards. Brrr! When I think about those poor devils they found out there! Not much left but bare bones, they said! All those wolves around, and the baron still says it's a beautiful morning to hunt! I'd think after all you've been through, sir, you'd of had your fill of all that snow." 

Kane selected the best spear and felt the edge of its iron head critically. "Ought to do it," he concluded. "I doubt if there'll be any problem with wolves. They probably attacked those others because of the storm. Our party is large enough, and the light of day will keep them hidden probably. And in the woods the snow's thin enough in most places so a horse won't bog down. Problem will be to run down any elk. 

"Of course," he went on carefully, "I guess the game around here must be pretty sensational for the baron to drag his household all the way up here in the middle of nothing." He watched the steward fidget nervously, fighting to hold his loose tongue. "Or was there some other reason for this exile?" 

It was too great a temptation. "I don't suppose the baron would care for you to know about it," the steward began, looking around dramatically, "but someone's sure to tell you, and so I might as well. Since it doesn't do no harm anyway. 

"Baron Troylin had to leave Carrasahl! That son of his, you know, him being crazy as an owl and all! Why, they were some actually talking about burning poor Henderin! So the baron pulled out to let things cool off. And Lystric—he's in charge of the young man, you know—said it would be good for him to get out away from things. All this is supposed to be soothing to his mind. That's why Henderin does everything nearly that the rest do—except they watch him careful—instead of being locked up like maybe he should. Lystric says he'll come back to normal easier if he leads a normal day's life, which seems to make a little sense. 

"Personally though I wouldn't trust that crafty old buzzard—for all his fine talk, he's just a penny ante wizard! Wouldn't surprise me at all if some of those stunts he's tried haven't just made Henderin crazier. And everyone knows he's never held down a reputable position for long in his life—until the baron took him on as his son's physician. 

"Beautiful bit of irony that! Few years back old Lystric was providing entertainment at a court banquet the baron attended. Troylin's drunk and he makes jokes about the old bastard's spiel. Lystric gets stuffy and he calls the baron an unlettered hick, a feeble minded oaf and all that—so old baron sics the dogs on him and they chase him all down one table through the food and everything. Really was funny! Course old Lystric's mad as can be, and the baron really had to eat crow to get him to take the position. Still Lystric was all the help Baron Troylin could find after what Henderin done." 

"Just what is it about Henderin that made people talk about burning him?" asked Kane. "Madness isn't usually treated quite that peremptorily." 

The steward warmed to his subject. This was getting to the good part. He looked about again and lowered his voice impressively, "Because this wasn't just some ordinary lunacy. No Sir! Henderin isn't as harmless as he looks—that's why they keep so close a watch on him! 

"Why, back at Carrasahl he killed a man, he did—one of the court guards! And that's not the worst of it! He killed him by ripping his throat out with his teeth! Was still chewing away at it when they caught him! Growling just like a wild animal worrying his prey!" 

Seeing Kane's obvious interest, the steward expanded. "So they locked him up, and it was all the baron could do to got him out of the city and up here. Lystric says it's clearly possession, and he talked so clever that the baron packed him along with the rest of us in spite of their grudge. 

"And I'll tell you something else! A couple days ago just as the storm was hitting, one of the servants got his the same way exactly! Something tore his throat out! Babbled something right at the end about death coming out of the storm for all of us! It plain wasn't natural, let me tell you! And I'll tell you something else too! It may have been a wolf that caught him—but there's some of us who wonder if old Lystric is telling it straight about Henderin being in his sight all the time! 

"Listen, I could tell you about some other stuff going on around here of nights that don't quite ring true! No Sir!" 

But whatever other gossip the steward had to exhibit remained under wraps. A call from outside announced Troylin's approach. The baron was impatient to get started. Swinging the hunting spear as he brooded over the steward's disclosure, Kane hurried to the courtyard and mounted the horse his host had provided. The party, numbering over a dozen, rode out into the snow-clad forest. 

Hounds raced through the snow baying joyously, within their shaggy coats oblivious to the subzero cold. Despite the crystalline coldness of the air and frozen ground, the distant sun shone through the clear sky and dazzled the hunters' eyes. Even under the trees the bright reflection from the snow was significant; beyond the forest it was overwhelming. 

Kane watched sharply for wolves, squinting his cold blue eyes against the glare, but he could see nothing of the great packs that had terrified the baron's party the day before. Tracks were uncertain, since the snow drifted continually. Still the snow bore numerous signs that Kane recognized as marks made by the passage of forest beasts. The hounds growled from time to time as they encountered the spoor of wolves, and the huntsmen kept them in line with difficulty. 

On the surface the group seemed a normal hunting party. Besides Kane, the baron bad brought along the minstrel Evingolis and perhaps another ten of his hunters and men-at-arms. Shouts and the usual banter passed back and forth. If any man was concerned over the grim discoveries announced by Tali last night, he gave no indication. The thrill of the hunt and daylight had wiped aside such forebodings. All carried hunting spears save the huntsmen who tended the hounds, but except for long knives and a few bows no one carried exceptional weaponry other than Kane. 

Kane rode with his heavy sword strapped to his saddle in easy reach. Evingolis had laughed at this. "We're on a hunting party, wanderer, not a war party!" 

Kane hadn't cared for the albino's jibe, but remembering that minstrels and jesters were expected to be impertinent, he had only shrugged. "A man of my profession finds his sword a life long companion." 

"And a true colleague, no doubt!" Evingolis laughed. "I think it's rather an extension of your brawny arm, and you can't leave it behind. But your profession—what exactly is that?" 

"Death," answered Kane levelly. "'But I make no charge for minstrels. There isn't a coin small enough to accept as a fair payment, I find." 

The others were hugely amused at the byplay between guest and minstrel. But Kane and the albino did not join in the laughter. 

The hounds began baying in earnest, drowning the casual exchanges of their masters. In excitement they strained against their leashes, dragging the handlers. "Fresh spoor!" was the shout. "Elk! Good big one from the tracks!" 

"Turn them loose!" bellowed Baron Troylin. "Hot damn! Venison tonight for sure!" 

Released, the hounds plummeted along the forest trail, hurtling fallen logs and plowing through drifts in their frantic haste. Exuberant howls tore the air and rang against the dark trees as they poured forth their eagerness to take their prey. Behind them galloped the hunters, no less eager than their dogs for the blood of the quarry. Shouting their own calls of encouragement they recklessly plunged after the pack—heedless of looming trees or hidden obstructions that threatened to bring horse and rider to a crashing fall. 

"Come on! After them! We'll miss the kill! Watch out, you bastard! A day's wages the hounds finish him before we even get there! You're on! Remember Kane gets first throw after the baron! Hurry! It's a stag for sure! Damn you! Stump! Listen to them howl!" Perhaps the hounds were shouting much the same. 

The headlong charge broke into a clearing and fell into sudden confusion. The trail had abruptly split, and the tracks plainly showed that the pack had left the clearing in two directions. "Thoem's beard!" shouted Troylin in delight. "Look! There's another one!" 

From the evidence in the snow the first elk had come upon another here in the clearing. The second animal had bolted off on a different trail, and the pack had split apart to follow both spoors. "We'll get them both!" cried Troylin. "Kane! Take after that one heading west! Bunch of you go with him! Hurry, damn it! The elk'll kill the hounds with the pack split up!" 

He plunged after what he judged to be the first elk. Kane and five of the baron's men broke off and galloped after the newcomer. The forest quickly swallowed the sounds of their rushing passage, leaving the clearing strangely still—but not untenanted. 

There was no presentiment of disaster. Kane's quarry had been fresh and the hounds had already chased the other elk far. Thus the second stag had run far before the pack had been able to gain. However, the greater endurance of the dogs along with the lesser hindrance posed for them by the snow soon told, and with the pack hard on his heels the bull elk chose a small ravine to make his stand. Only three dogs had followed this second quarry, and they were unable to bring the great elk down. Around him they pranced, slashing at the giant, then darting back to avoid the deadly hooves and antlers. When the hunters came upon them, one hound had already been gored to death and the stag bled from a dozen tears in his mighty body. Kane cast his spear with fatal accuracy, hitting the elk in the neck. His throat transfixed, the forest monarch staggered, trumpeting in agony. The remaining hounds closed in for the kill, as two more spears stabbed into the mortally wounded elk. Shouting in triumph the hunters surrounded the body of their prey, lying red in the snow; two hurriedly dismounted and ran to pull off the crazed hounds. 

At which point the wolves attacked. 

They fell on the hunters swiftly, silently as a striking serpent. A pack of perhaps fifteen huge, gray killers suddenly were on them, having come up unseen from the trees behind the hunters. One second the thrill and excitement of the kill; then a shriek of terrified agony and a ravine swarming with snarling shapes! They were the great gray wolves of the northern wastes—nearly six feet long and 150 pounds of slashing, yellow-eyed death. In a rage of blood lust they attacked the startled humans, and hunters now switched roles with prey. 

The first to scream died almost instantly. A giant wolf had leapt upon him, hurtling him from his saddle and onto the snow. Choking the gaping fangs with an elbow, the hunter drew his knife and gutted the beast with a desperate stroke. Yet before the beast's hold had broken in death, a second gray killer slashed in and ripped open the man's throat. 

The two hunters on the ground never had a chance. One lived long enough to wrest free a spear from the elk's carcass. He spitted the first wolf to meet him, but as he tried to pull the weapon loose, two more bore him to the frozen ground and tore him apart. The other was down before he could react. But he managed to get to his hunting knife, and beneath the gory huddle of gray shapes his arm plunged in and out—long after it seemed possible for life to remain. His efforts inflicted deep gashes in several of his slayers. 

The hounds closed with the wolves with the unquenchable hatred of the tamed canine for his wild brother. At least one wolf rolled away from the snarling melee with his eyes glazed in death, and several others were flung back with crushed legs and gushing wounds. But numbers and wild ferocity overwhelmed the valiant struggle of the great hounds, and their fearless defiance ended in crimson ruin. 

Kane had been among the first reached by the wolves' deadly ambush. Only his fantastic reflexes and blinding speed had saved him from their initial rush. Twisting in his saddle as the first beast had sought to leap upon him from behind, his powerful hands had locked in the wolf's ruff. Kane whirled the huge creature about and flung it from him; the wolf dashed against a tree close at hand and caromed into the snow with a broken back. In a flash Kane's mighty sword arm snatched the blade whistling from its scabbard. A second killer had followed almost on the heels of the first, but Kane's draw was faster and the keen blade sheared through the beast's skull. His horse reared in panic as the others closed in, and Kane had to clamp his legs to its flanks tightly to stay on. Another wolf went down, its skull smashed by the plunging hooves. 

The other two hunters were able to hold out briefly against the swirling, gray shapes. One still retained his hunting spear. His cast caught the first wolf to reach him full in the chest. Had he not attempted to bring his bow into play, he might have lived awhile longer. As he struggled to notch an arrow he was hit from two sides at once. For a moment he tried to jam his bow down the throat of one attacker, held in the saddle by the opposing pulls of the wolves on either leg. He succeeded in breaking one wolf's grip, but before he could do more, the other dragged him to the ground. A gray nightmare closed over his writhing form, and the struggles abruptly ceased. The remaining hunter buried his knife in the ribs of one wolf which leaped to drag him down, but the flailing beast had fallen back with the blade wedged in its ribs. Weaponless, the rider sought flight. However, before his horse had covered half the distance of the ravine, it had been pulled down by the slashing fangs. Beast and rider collapsed in a squirming heap of gray and crimson, one wolf crushed beneath them. 

And Kane was alone with the wolves. 

Half a dozen gray killers circled their prey warily. Some were crippled and bleeding, but they showed no hint of abandoning the fast man. Their blood fury was completely aroused, and their savage minds were set on an unshakeable goal—to drag down the human and steep their muzzles in his blood. Kane glared back at them, lips drawn in a snarl and killer's eyes blazing with hellfire. His own insatiable lust to kill and to destroy burned incandescently within his spattered frame. For the space of several heartbeats killer looked upon killer. 

Their attack was a gray blur of coordinated fury. Two wolves went for Kane, while the others attacked his steed. The wolf on his left Kane met with a blinding sword stroke that clove the beast's skull asunder. The other wolf arched through the air in a graceful, deadly leap that carried it into Kane's lap. Its fangs snapped shut spasmodically, but without aim—for its yellow eyes were already stark in death. A dagger had buried itself hilt-deep in its throat. Right-handed, Kane had thrown the weapon with unerring aim, just as the wolf had begun its leap. The wolf had died even as its fellow had fallen under Kane's sword. 

The heavy carcass in his lap encumbered Kane for one deadly instant. Before he could toss it aside, another wolf buried its fangs in the horse's neck. Cursing, Kane broke free of the carcass; his sword flashed out and chopped through the wolf's neck. But the damage had been done, and with a shrill scream Kane's horse fell to the frozen ground. 

Already Kane had vaulted clear of the saddle, and he landed catlike in the snow as his horse crashed to the earth in mortal agony. Only a split second get his balance, and the last three wolves were on him. He thrust out his sword; the wolf tried to twist aside and avoid the blade but was too slow. As the long blade transfixed it, another wolf leapt at Kane from the right, even as the third gathered its feet. No time to pull free his sword, Kane caught the wolf in full leap with his free hand. Swinging the beast by its foreleg, he hurled it aside and jerked his sword up. The third wolf had been injured and was just a little slow in joining its fellows' rush. Kane's rising blade caved in its side as the wolf leapt for the man's throat. 

Meanwhile the second wolf had recovered its balance after landing harmlessly in the snow. Kane flashed around to meet this last adversary. The two last combatants in the death-filled ravine faced each other in deadly concentration. For an instant their two minds met in understanding, in mutual admiration of the other's sheer ferocity and awful capability. The wolf made a movement as if to turn and flee, then whirled and sprang for the man in one mighty leap of ripping fury. Kane's stroke almost missed the twisting gray blur. But not quite. And then only one living thing moved amidst the carnage. 

Kane looked about him carefully, but no more wolves came into the ravine. He gulped air in great gasps and tried to remember how long the battle had lasted. Something like five minutes, he guessed—blood was streaming from the wounds of the elk yet. 

He glanced at himself. By a miracle he was almost unscathed. Only a rip in his right arm where the last wolf's fangs had raked him in passing. His clothes and face were smeared with wolf blood, making him look like a crimson goblin. Quickly he retrieved and cleaned his weapons. He had to reach the others before any more wolves found him on foot. Assuming the rest of the party hadn't met a similar fate, he mused. 

The entire attack seemed fantastic anyway. That the wolves had been drawn by the noise of the hunt and maddened by the kill would be a natural explanation. But unlikely. In the face of the other attacks especially. The incidents almost seemed like carefully planned campaigns. He pondered uneasily over what could inspire wolves to engage in systematic massacre of humans. The possibilities were not encouraging. 

A horse's whinny cut short his musing for the moment. In the trail ahead of him stood one of the horses which had bolted at the start of the attack. The animal was still quite frightened and eyed the man nervously. It wanted human companionship in this danger ridden frozen forest, but was still extremely spooky. Kane called the horse softly, soothingly—coaxing it close enough to reach. At least the wind was toward him—if the horse caught the scent of wolf blood, he'd turn and run for sure. 

But the animal with agonizing slowness came close enough to let Kane catch its rein, after several heart-stopping attempts. He swung into the saddle and gave the skittish mount its head, galloping back along the trail over which many had passed a short time ago. 

After a few miles Kane heard a distant scream—a terrified plea for help. He considered a moment and decided to check it out. The cry seemed human enough, and it was definitely feminine. Kane cautiously, nonetheless hastily, guided his mount toward the cry's source, curious to learn what number of throat produced it. 

The horse caught a scent it remembered and whinnied in alarm. Kane tried to catch the scent too, but the reek of wolf on his body masked whatever it was. But from the horse's reluctance to proceed, Kane guessed it must be wolves the beast smelled. If there were wolves about, they were probably the cause of the girl's shouts. However, it seemed unlikely that the girl would still be alive to scream—which argued for an inhuman source of the disturbance. Kane was familiar with instances of would-be rescuers having been lured to their doom by following unseen cries for aid, and in view of his recent fight he felt inclined to caution. 

Yet the screams sounded familiar, and acting on a hunch Kane spurred his reluctant mount forward. 

Two wolves were snarling around the trunk of a large, low-hanging fir. Perched on a branch was the center of their attention—Breenanin. 

Kane drew his blade, shouted and charged the lurking wolves. They gave a last glare at the treed human and broke for cover from the newcomer. 

He halted under the tree and helped her from the branches; she landed in a sobbing heap in his arms. Kane tried to get a few questions in, but Breenanin only clung to him and whimpered. So he made what he hoped might sound like soothing, sympathetic sounds, and let her run down. 

He had almost reached the clearing where the second elk had been come upon, when his charge stopped long enough to sniffle. "Ugh! You're a mess! Did you take a bath in elk's blood or something?" 

"Or something. What in the name of the Seven Nameless were you doing out here? I seem to recall leaving you at the castle this morning." 

"I wanted to go on the hunt, and Father wouldn't let me because of the stuff about the wolves. Only I had to get out and see what the woods looked like after the storm, so I saddled my own horse and rode after you. The porter let me out because I've got the goods on him and anyway I said I was just going to ride around the walls. Except I rode on after you and I thought I could catch up and Father would be too interested in the hunt to send me back since I was along anyway. 

"But all of a sudden this pack of wolves came after me. I knew I couldn't outrun them in the forest, so when my horse ran under that low tree back there, I slowed him enough to grab a branch and scramble off." She sniffled. "I thought my arms would pull out, but I knew I had to hang on. One of them nearly grabbed my leg before I could climb clear of them. But most of them kept chasing the horse—I guess they got him, but I didn't see—and just the two stayed to wait for me to come down. So I shouted and yelled hoping someone would come by from the hunt and hear me. And that's what you did," she concluded. 

Kane was amazed at the girl's coolness. Most women would have been too panic stricken, too stupid, too weak. Yet Breenanin had survived and seemingly was relatively calm once again. It was unbelievable. 

He rode into the clearing and saw with relief that Troylin and his party were waiting there. Intact and complete with elk. They shouted an exuberant greeting, then fell into mystified silence at the bloody rider along with his prize. 

"Kane! What the hell!" gasped Troylin in amazement. 

"Here's your daughter—safe enough," Kane said. "The rest are back with the elk. They won't be following us." 

V. Tales on a Winter Evening
The hunting banquet was a rather dismal affair. These chases often had their fill of danger, and casualties of the hunt were frequently toasted to in memoriam. But five corpses were too many. Men drank their ale too seriously for fun, and in place of the usual raucous horseplay small groups spoke of the weird attack in quiet, anxious tones. The behavior of the wolves was decidedly unnatural, and not a few old legends were retold in the gloomy shadows of the dining hall. 

At the high table the diners were in a no more festive mood. Breenanin was still shaken from her experience and did not pursue her accustomed banter with her father. The baron had been so thankful for her safety, that he had forgotten to punish her. Henderin's place was empty, and his two wardens were absent as well. The crazed youth had slipped away from his keepers that day and eluded them for several hours of frantic searching, before he was recaptured scrambling over the outer wall. He had been violent, and Lystric had been forced to place him under restraint until the spell passed. Lystric himself was no different from usual. The long-bearded astrologer sullenly gobbled his meal, while favoring the others with a baleful look. 

Baron Troylin had just listened to Kane's retelling of the massacre in the ravine. He had asked him to repeat it three times now, and each time he had shaken his head at the conclusion and made the same comments about the uncanny behavior of the wolves. He was trying to fix the details in his thick head, in the vague hope that somewhere in Kane's narrative would lie the explanation for it all. 

He caught sight of Evingolis, who was sitting in the shadows as usual, watching the diners while he gnawed a rib of venison. "Minstrel!" he rumbled. "This place has less life than a wake. Let's have some music to liven things a little." A raucous cheer went up from the diners in anticipation. 

The albino strolled from his perch and collected his lute. Playing over the strings a moment, he raised mocking eyes to Kane and announced, "Here's a tune perhaps our guest will recognize." 

His clear voice began the song, and Kane barely repressed a start. The minstrel's song was in archaic Ashertiri—a tongue Kane doubted if another man within days of travel could understand! The song was the work of the long dead and ill famed poet Clem Ginech of ancient Ashertiri, whose efforts had left those of his age uncertain whether he was a poet turned sorcerer or the reverse. 


Within an endless mirror of my spirit's infinite soul,
I reach back into timeless ages beginning or unbegan;
And see a crystal pattern, fluctuating panorama,
Forgotten by the gods, but unveiled to inward sight.



"Let's have something in Carrasahli!" roared a drunken soldier. 


An insane elder god, in his madness sought to build,
A race of mortal creatures in the image of divine.
In foolish egomania, fatal folly, the artist had conspired
Within this mortal image godlike perfection to contain;
Blindly had forgotten that an image so conceived, 
Must embody the very madness of its deluded parent.
Great cataclysmic toil, cyclopean effort, did he make;
To the taunting laughter of his fellows, amused to see a fool,
He cluttered all the earth with his blighted handiwork,
And rested in smug content with his idiot labor.



Several louts began to beat on the table in protest to the eerie, unintelligible song. 


In time this fool's creation multiplied all through the land,
And disgusted those before them with their drivel,
Content to live a wormlike existence for the pleasure of their god,
Who in his mindless conceit only giggled with his dolls.
Yet in one there rose rebellion with this crawling in cosmic dung—
No maggot hot a serpent was this son of divinity's folly.
And in his hellish fury at the crooning lies of that creator,
He chose to be his own master and defied this nameless god,
And with his hands he slew his brother—choicest plaything.
Now despair racked the broken mind of this insane elder god,
For he saw the flaws within his cherished children
And recognized himself as the author of that image.
This rebel he cursed in rage to bleak, eternal wandering,
And gave him eyes of a killer, so all know the Mark of Kane.



"Damn your pale hide, minstrel!" bellowed the drunken soldier. "I said give us something we all know!" He lurched to his feet and stumbled over to Evingolis, interrupting the ancient song. "Now let's hear something else!" He tossed his mug of ale in the minstrel's face and roared with laughter. His fellows joined in. 

In Evingolis's face there flashed a look of white, hot anger. He laid the lute aside and wiped his burning eyes. Then with a movement too swift to follow, his hand lashed out and struck the soldier's laughing face. As if kicked by a horse the drunkard shot backwards onto the stone floor. He did not get up. Shocked silence caught the audience; they had considered the lean albino a weakling. 

"Sonofabitch!" gasped Troylin in awe. "Shows you not to pick a fight if you can't hold your brew! Must have hit the floor on his head or something. Somebody get him out of here." 

Sneering at the startled crowd, Evingolis picked up his lute and stalked out of the hall. 

"Just as well!" the baron observed. "He's going to goad those guys a little too far with his superior airs one of these days—they won't stand for it in a minstrel. May not get off a lucky punch next time." He chuckled. "Quite a character, isn't he though? Sure can sing the strangest stuff I've ever heard. Make any sense of that one, Kane?" 

Kane looked after the departing minstrel in calculation. "Some little," he murmured, and fell to brooding. His eyes looked into the dancing flames, and none could say what he saw there. 

VI. A Man Not Man
It crouched in the shadow of the wall, watching the sleeping manor in silent hatred. The cold wind ruffled its white coat, and its panting breath raised small puffs of steam. Yet the creature felt not the cold, only conscious of a burning hunger that shrieked to be satiated. With its inhuman sight it regarded the quiet out-building which housed the baron's off duty men-at-arms; in the darkness all objects stood clearly in varying shades of light tan and brown. Within that lodge there would be soft human bodies—hairless weakling ape creatures now sleeping without care. Their tender flesh would be warm with seething blood. The creature trembled in unspeakable anticipation, lips drawn back over champing fangs. 

From the nighted forest, dark shapes were loping across the snow and silently gathering outside the gate of the enclosure. The creature felt their presence with its mind and welcomed them. Many of its brothers had answered its voiceless call. They too sensed the many hated man creatures inside the castle walls, and their feral minds rejoiced in the scenes of slaughter drawn for them by their leader. 

More than thirty lean, gray forms now were waiting beyond the gate. It was enough, decided the creature. Once more its mind reached out to its brothers, impressing upon them the plan they must follow. No opposition was encountered. This was the wolf leader; they must obey his summons, must carry through his commands. It had been this way since before man first dropped from the trees and challenged the Brotherhood with his puny clubs and stores. 

The creature unlocked the gate and effortlessly swung it half open. Into the courtyard the hungry wolves filed, slipping along the shadows until they reached the lodge. Behind this door slept the detested humans, wrapped in their stolen furs and besotted with burned flesh and rotted plant juices. The leader silently stole to the door, knowing it was kept unbolted so that late revelers might stagger in. Another wave of awful burger shook through it. Now! 

Its fearfully taloned hand gripped the latch. Its red eyes shone with blood lost, and an inhuman grin of triumph exposed the gleaming rows of fangs arming its sloping muzzle. The creature threw open the door and sprang within! On its heels poured the snarling pack! 

The soldiers awoke from their dreams to find a nightmare of ripping fangs and flailing bodies. The creature howled its victory—over a dozen men for the slaughter! Out of the blackness the pack sprang upon the helpless sleepers. Gray forms struggled over the writhing victims, snarling and tearing into the warm flesh. Screams of death agony—of utmost horror—filled the lodge and overflowed into the night, mingling with the hideous triumph of the feasting wolves. 

The screams were stilled. 

Now! snarled the leader in command. Now, go! Before the others can come! More of this will follow for us! But now, go! The wolves wore loath to abandon their twitching prey. It was asking much to go. But the leader must be obeyed. Reluctantly the pack released their booty and pointed their gray muzzles to the outside. 

Several humans greeted them in the courtyard—the hopeless shrieks of the dying had aroused the castle. Now the humans stopped in terror to see the crimson-splashed pack pour from the lodge behind their leader. 

It was silhouetted there in the pale moonlight—a ghastly hybrid of man and wolf. Covered with white fur it was, and taller than the average human whose shape it borrowed. Cruel claws ended its toes and fingers; its arms long and legs strangely set. Atop its great shoulders was set a demon's visage—a furry head with high pointed ears and a long jaw more wolf-like than human. Its sharp tusks dripped red in the moonlight. And its bestial eyes gleamed an evil crimson with blasphemous hatred of mankind. 

The soldiers drew their weapons in desperation. But they were only four, and the wolves simply overran them—bearing their victims to the earth and slashing them to tatters. A few wolves fell before the humans died. The creature threw itself in fury upon one soldier whose blade had smashed through a gray murderer. Knocking away the human's weapon, the creature pulled him to its chest in an awful hug. Ribs and vertebrae snapped, as razor fangs buried in the unprotected throat. Then the leader tossed the husk aside and raced through the gate with the pack, as now more men with torches and weapons emerged from the castle. They vanished into the forest. 

A scene of hideous carnage greeted the belated rescue party. Those who entered the fatal lodge recoiled in horror at the sight of the slashed and mutilated carcasses of their comrades. In the trampled courtyard, one man yet lived. 

"Wolves!" he gasped out with his final breaths. "Dozens of them! It led them in here! A demon! A werewolf! Let them in so they could murder us all! A werewolf!" He died screaming shrilly of dripping fangs. 

Kane considered the man's disclosure. He had just gotten to the scene and had not seen the retreating attackers. Questioning of the men revealed that no one had had any more than a fleeting glimpse as the wolves slipped into the forest. The servants and soldiers who had slept within the dining hall had been first to the scene, and none of them could give an intelligent story of what little they had witnessed. 

In a frightened group they dared to go beyond the gate. The tracks of many wolves could be seen in the torchlight. Other tracks were present as well—a single set of almost human footprints. But no bare human foot had made them, for the steps were oddly contorted and the marks of talons reached deeply into the snow. 

The worst part was when they dared to follow these uncanny tracks. For the trail of the werewolf led only part way to the woods. Then it curved around and headed back to the castle, to a point along the wall on the far side of the courtyard. Here the tracks indicated that the creature had vaulted the high wall, and on the other side the snow was too trampled to say where he had gone. But it was all too clear that the werewolf had not left the courtyard again. 

"May all the gods have mercy on us!" cried someone. "One of us is a demon!" 

VII. "One of us..."
"Not counting the women, that leaves our strength at about thirty," was Troylin's gloomy conclusion. "And out of this number, one of us is a werewolf," he pronounced, looking over the grim assemblage. It was noon of the following day. A careful search since dawn had failed to turn up any trace of the creature. Since no one had left the enclosure, the werewolf had to be still within. The castle was small—really no more than a fortified manor. A systematic search, check and recheck, of every conceivable hiding place had been carried out. It was plain then that the demonic leader of last night's attack was not present in the form described by the dying soldier and only faintly glimpsed by those first on the scene. Only one conclusion was possible. The creature was a werewolf—a demon capable of assuming human form to mingle with unsuspecting mankind. As it now was doing. 

"There are several types of creatures generally referred to as 'werewolves'," explained Lystric. "One type is a human who for some reason can alter his shape into that of a wolf or semilupine hybrid. In other cases, some malevolent demon, ghost or other spirit will assume such a form—although this is merely one choice of many physical manifestations within its power." He warmed to his lecture. "Yet another type occurs when a wolf is able to assume human form. This monster is usually called the 'wolf leader' and is by far the most dangerous. While the other types represent basically solitary habits, the wolf leader is able to coordinate the action of many wolves in order to carry out its fiendish goals—usually wholesale slaughter of mankind. Of course, there are many finer shades and distinctions. Not to mention those harmless individuals who through some mental disorder imagine themselves to be wild beasts." 

"Meaning your charge Henderin, no doubt!" snapped Tali. "Sorry, graybeard, but we're not buying your burst of fine talk and lecturing! We all know that madman's no harmless nut—we know about that poor bastard he killed in Carrasahl! Same as these other guys here! 'Demonic possession' I believe you said it was then. 

"Well we think this thing has gone far enough! You've had your chance to exorcise the devil! All you've done is loaf around and use Henderin to get free meals! Well by Thoem, we've had enough stalling, and now there's going to be some action!" 

"Just what do you mean by that?" thundered the baron, pounding on the table. "Just what sort of 'action' do you have in mind against my son!" 

Tali retreated a bit, then supported by the opinion of his fellows, he began less belligerently, "Now, milord we all understand how much the boy means to you. And the bunch of us has been loyal to you throughout. There was plenty who said we'd regret ever coming up to this godforsaken place with a madman along. But damn it all, we're not about to sit here and be slaughtered in our beds just because your son is too highclass to burn for his crimes!" His fellow retainers murmured assent. 

"May I remind you," Troylin hissed, "that murder of an aristocrat—no matter how insane—by a commoner carries a sure penalty of crucifixion! And I assure you that anyone who tries to lay a hand on my boy I'll cut down myself!" 

The crowd was getting dangerous. Tali retorted, "Well then, there's some of us who'll run that risk if we have to—better than taking our chances being snowbound with a wolfpack at the walls and a werewolf in our midst! And there's no punishment when there's no witnesses!" he added significantly. 

"What are we doing!" Breenanin shouted over the ugly growls of the crowd. "You stand there talking about murdering someone who's never given any of you a just cause to complain! A month ago you would have died for Baron Troylin! Time and again I've heard you congratulate yourselves on being in the service of one of the most generous and easy going gentry in the land! And now because you're suddenly frightened, you talk of killing his only son—whom all of you thought was a great guy before his sickness! You even talk of massacring all of us! I'd prefer letting the wolves in—they'd show more gratitude! You don't even know if Henderin had anything to do with these murders!" 

The two factions glared at one another uncertainly. They were ordinary folk, a country baron and a lot of provincial retainers from a backwater kingdom. Murder and mutiny were foreign to their rustic background, but terror of the unknown and the presence of hideous death brutalized them all. The retainers must regain their accustomed security at any price; Troylin would fight to the death to preserve his son. 

Kane had carefully avoided identification with either side. It was not his fight and as always his only loyalty was to himself. He needed the baron's hospitality until the way south was open. After that he cared less how they resolved the dispute. Still as long as he was here and a werewolf was haunting all in the castle, he was an interested party. And at present he did not want to get involved in mutiny—especially since strangers made bad risks as witnesses. 

Tali persisted. "Well, if Henderin isn't the werewolf, there's sure a lot of evidence against him! First, we know he killed that guard like he was a wild animal, and we all know he's crazy. All the time asking for raw meat and howling nights and going berserk! Second, when the hunting party was attacked yesterday, Henderin was running around loose. Caught him coming back from the forest. Mighty strange wolves attacking armed men on horseback, while an unarmed man on foot runs around unharmed. Like he didn't need to fear them—like he was out there telling them to kill us! Ok—where is Henderin when these other attacks happen? Poor Bete gets his in the storm, bunch of travelers get theirs too—and the thing last night in the soldiers' quarters! And Henderin—oh, he's safely locked up! So we're promised. Only thing is—we've just got Lystric's word for that! And I for one don't care to believe everything that scheming old fossil has to say!" 

Lystric snarled a stream of curses, and the affair came close to blows. Kane saw his chance. 

"That's a most interesting point you've made." The baron eyed him in disgust, but he went on. "Let's talk about Lystric for a moment. I understand he was just a fifth-rate back of a wizard with a smattering of occult knowledge—unable to make a go of it, until suddenly he gets this job. Sort of suspicious, don't you think? A perfectly normal, likable guy begins to act like a wolf, and this cunning old fakir announces he knows how to cure him. Nice soft position for him—but only as long as Henderin stays mad. And I understand about all Lystric's idea of treatment consists of is letting Henderin run around until he snaps out of it. Interesting way to treat demonic possession. Put it all together and it sort of sounds like Lystric has made a plush position for himself. There are several strange drugs and countless spells that can make a normal man begin to act like a wolf." 

Lystric was shrieking protestations and curses by this point, too enraged to make a rebuttal. The others were listening intently. 

"So Lystric thinks he's all set," continued Kane. "Once in a while Henderin gets away from him and stirs up some mischief, so the old vulture finds it necessary to claim he was under lock and key all the time. Or take it a step further. Maybe he's mad himself, and he's using Henderin as a tool to destroy us. I understand he and the baron have no cause to love one another. Magicians have curious ways of settling grudges. 

"And for that matter, Lystric just might be a werewolf himself. Not the first time a sorcerer lost his humanity by meddling in the black arts. With Henderin as camouflage, it would be a perfect set up to wipe us all out while we chased the wrong fox." 

"So what do you suggest we do?" asked Tali, no longer as sure of himself. 

"Remain calm. My point is we don't know that Henderin is really a werewolf, and Lystric has some mighty questionable connections himself with all this. So we place a guard on them both. Henderin is locked up—we just need to make sure he stays that way. At the same time put several men to watch Lystric. That way they're both harmless—and no one gets hurt. If they're innocent, we'll let them go. And since they're under surveillance, we're safe from them. No rebellion, no useless fighting. We might even see a sudden improvement in Henderin's condition." 

He paused. About him his listeners were showing signs of assent. Here was a reasonable solution that both factions could accept. 

"Sounds good," concluded Tali, who seemed to act as spokesman. "We'll do it then. Forgive us, milord, for our threats. Of course none of us mean any harm to you or to Henderin—if he's innocent. It's just this whole business has gotten the lot of us unhinged. We're all in a bad fix here, and not knowing whether the man next to you is a friend or a monster... We just lost our heads." 

"I understand," assented the baron, his temper still aroused but somewhat suppressed. "Let this be the end of this nonsense and I'll let matters pass. Sure we'll put a guard on Lystric and my son—and we'll watch them. But there'll be no harm to Henderin while I'm master here!" 

"All right!" Lystric hissed, forcing himself to speak slowly. "I've listened to all this stupidity as long as I can stand it. I've heard myself insulted, my motives misinterpreted, my methods criticized—and by a batch of ignorant slobs. I've been accused of all manner of nameless crimes and schemes. Now I'm to be put under guard. All right! Go ahead! Obviously I can't stop you blundering, cowardly fools from your idiotic vigilantism! So lock me up then! 

"But I promise you you're barking up the wrong tree. Time will prove I'm innocent as well as my charge. And while you're guarding me the real werewolf—assuming it's not just the product of your terrified delusions—will be running around with impunity! And don't forget I'm better suited to protect you from it than anyone else among you. Who else has any training or understanding of the necromantic arts? Given time, I tell you, I can discover means to ferret out this creature in your ranks—to seek him out and destroy the beast! Didn't I earlier warn you all of the danger I bad foreseen in the stars! And no one listened. Fools! Ungrateful scum the lot of you!" The astrologer's manner was not designed to win him sympathy. 

"And now let me tell you something for a charge. I've done some thinking on my own, and I've got some of my own suspicions! Does that surprise you? Sure! He's a scheming old charlatan, you say. Bah! What do ignorant buffoons like you know of true genius! Peasants who measure ability by material wealth! I tell you, my talents are so far beyond your mundane groveling imaginations that I waste my breath even trying to help you! 

"But listen! Think on this while you smugly pass judgment upon your betters. When did all this start? When this man called Kane came riding up to our door out of the storm, that's when! And just what do you know of him? A wandering mercenary, he tells you. And you believe! Well I'm not an ignorant backwoods plowhand, and I know something of what goes on in the rest of the world! 

"And there are plenty of legends and rumors and wild stories that I've encountered about a man called Kane. And none of them speaks well for him! At best he's a treacherous, murderous rogue who's figured in more plots and dark schemes than Lord Thoem and his demons ever dreamed of! And at worst the legends hint he's some sort of immortal cursed by the gods to wander the earth and bring havoc wherever he stops!" 

About time to put a stop to this, Kane realized. "Ok, old man! You've had your chance to clear yourself! All you've done is insult good people and brag about your own dubious abilities! As for these dark legends and nonsense, I don't suppose you can produce any of it either. Sorry, graybeard, but the old divide and conquer ruse is a lot older even than you—and these people are too smart to be sucked in by your desperate ravings! How about it, Tali? Heard enough from him?" 

"Plenty!" came the hot reply. "Come on, fellows! We'll take this old viper up to his lair and see he stays put. He can batter Henderin's ears with his garbage!" 

Spluttering still, but trying to look dignified through it all, Lystric let himself be borne away to the wing of the castle where he and his charge were quartered. 

The tension in the room was eased. The enemy within was dealt with to the apparent satisfaction of most. It was daylight, and plans could be made for the night to come. Guards would be posted. Doors locked. Weapons kept at hand. The bulk of the survivors departed on their own business. 

"Thanks for what you did," Baron Troylin told Kane awkwardly. "For a moment I thought you'd thrown in with them. Now I see you were just leading them along, stalling for time." 

"I'd hoped you wouldn't think me so ungrateful for your hospitality. But it was the best way to manipulate them." 

"You seem pretty adept at that sort of thing," returned his host. "Seems there's a lot of talents you possess that speak for more than a common mercenary." 

"I never said I was a common mercenary, though," said Kane with assumed levity. 

Troylin discreetly let matters drop. Nonetheless he found himself pondering the astrologer's accusations. The name of Kane was not unfamiliar to him, now that he strained his memory. Of course, political matters other than those of Carrasahl were only obscure if interesting gossip to his way of thinking. He was a simple man, and his chief concerns were usually connected with filling the hours between waking and sleep with as much enjoyable activity as possible. 

But now that he thought about it, hadn't there been a general named Kane connected with that ugly business down in Shapeli? And Kane wasn't exactly a common name. Certainly, he really did know nothing at all about his mysterious guest. He began to speculate about this red-haired stranger with the uncanny eyes. 

VIII. One by One
The hour was getting on toward midnight. Most of the castle's inhabitants had sought their beds for what sleep their nerves would allow them. All were not asleep, however. Several men stood guard outside the chambers of Lystric the astrologer. These were in the northwest wing of the castle—a tower set apart from the more frequented hallways. This was convenient for both occupants: Lystric could pursue his studies in quiet, with a good view of the stars from the tower's summit, while Henderin could rave and howl as he saw fit without disturbing the others. The open area on top of the tower was used by Lystric. Immediately below this was the chamber wherein Henderin was confined; its one window was barred and overlooked a seventy-five foot drop to the courtyard, and the door which opened onto the tower stairs was thick and heavily locked. Below this was another room given over to Lystric's studies and filled with a clutter of sorcerous paraphernalia. Still below, at the base of the tower where it adjoined the main body of the castle, was the room in which Lystric slept. This chamber had two doors: one to the tower stairs which was locked, and the other which opened into the hallway at that end of the castle. This latter door was now bolted from the outside, and five armed men stood guard beside it, keeping close watch over the sleeping astrologer. No one could enter or leave the tower chambers except through that door. 

A few others were still awake in the great hall. A fire was burning lustily, and those who did not feel like sleep sought its companionship. It had been agreed that for some men to stay awake through the night was an obvious precaution, as well as having guards patrol the hallways in pairs. More would have been better, but the castle's strength had been dangerously cut by the previous attacks. 

So Kane sat awake beside the fire, sipping larger quantities of ale than seemed wise and moodily listening to the minstrel. The albino sat in the shadow of the beams as usual, evoking strange melodies from his lute and from time to time singing along to these rare works of departed genius. He was an unusual man, Kane mused, his performance and repertoire displaying fantastic sensitivity and skill. He wondered what made Evingolis content to attach himself to a country bumpkin like Troylin—perhaps something in the minstrel's past had barred from him the richer, more appreciative patrons of the southern nations. 

Scent of delicate perfume and sparkle of pale gold hair in the warm glow. Breenanin sat down beside him in the hearth light. Kane remembered her face as it had first formed in his vision. Only a few days before was it that he had come so close to frozen death in the storm. Time had no meaning to Kane. A dozen years or as many minutes—once past both fitted into the same span of memory. Either a century ago or just that morning he had fled across the northern wastes—and for how long? It was nothing, for it was past and beyond him. His life was only a minute focus of time, an instant of the present balanced between centuries of past and an unknown duration of future existence. He felt a moment of vertigo, as his mind hung poised over time's chasm. 

"I couldn't sleep with all this on my mind, so I came down to the fire where it would be cozier," she told him, feeling it necessary that she offer some reason for her presence beside him. 

Kane stirred. "It's a haunted night. There's a certain tenseness in the air as before a battle. Death hovers near, and man is reluctant to sleep because he knows an eternal sleep may be his fate within a few hours more. 

"Some ale to soothe your thoughts perhaps?" She nodded and Kane rose to pour a cup. 

She accepted it with a slight smile, uncertain of her feelings toward the other. He was so strange—huge and brutal, every inch a machine of destruction, she sensed. Yet he was civil of speech and manner—and far more erudite than any man of her experience, other than those learned fossils and simpering dandies of the court. There were many contradictions embodied in the big stranger, nor could she hazard a guess to his nationality or even his age. He seemed so inhumanly aloof and alone. He gave her the same sort of eerie thrill that some of Evingolis's strange songs created. 

"You never say another person's name when you speak to him," she commented. 

Kane favored her with one of his uncanny, penetrating stares. "No," he admitted. "I don't suppose I do." 

"Breenanin," she prompted softly. 

"Breenanin." 

In silence they shared the fire and the minstrel's song. 


I saw her in winter's silent cold light
Clearly, with her warmth upon the sparkle
Of that magical, crystalline night.
And love I knew unspoken passed,
Its timeless warmth, one frozen instant,
Eternally encased in infinite amber.
But what I sensed I could not return;
The instant vanished in that crystalline storm.
In vain do I call through this dancing myriad
Of relinquished emotions, frozen fragments of time.
For the moment has passed, now lost in that swirl—
Splintered shards of time's reflection—
Reflections for the winter of my soul.



The minstrel's voice echoed into silence; his fingers stilled the strings of his lute. Quietly be left the hall to the two seated before the fire. In the far comer of the room, a few half-asleep servants rolled dice. 

"Where'd you get him?" broke in Kane. 

Breenanin shifted in her chair. The minstrel's song had lulled her into an almost trance-like state. "He came to us last summer. Came up from the southlands, I suppose—he never said anything about his past. Sort of wandered about the court in Carrasahl for a while, then attached himself to Father's patronage. We were glad to got him—others offered him more money than we could. He talks occasionally of some far away places he's been, and most of his songs no one can understand. Guess he's just wandering about the world as his fancy suits him. 

"Must be nice to go somewhere new. In Carrasahl we don't get to travel much. Can't handle an estate from somewhere far off, Father always says, and travel's dangerous for anyone to risk. Once we went to Enseljos to see Winston's coronation, though." 

They talked of various matters for a while—long periods of mutual silence between their spots of conversation. At length Kane looked over and saw that she slept. He was reluctant to disturb her, but at the same time he knew she should not be left alone in the great hall with death abroad in the night. So he lifted her in his arms and carried her up the wide stairs to her room on the balcony across that end of the hall. 

She stirred in her sleep, but did not awaken. A half-smile was on her thin lips, and her fine teeth were white against her pale skin. She was soft and warm in her fur robe. Kane felt an emotion stir within him as he carried her that he had not experienced in long years. It might have been love, but then he could not remember. 

Returning to the hall, he sat before the fire again. But the spell had been broken. Now he felt strangely restless, sick of brooding over dead memories in the firelight. After another cup of ale, Kane arose, fastened on his sword, and announced to the few remaining servants that he would walk around to see how things went with the others. 

The hallways were long and dark, their silence only faintly broken by Kane's soft tread. He walked the cold stones slowly, hand near swordhilt and keen eyes searching every shadow. There was an almost tangible aura of fear abroad in the torchlit corridors, and death crouched invisibly in each spot of darkness. The spirits of those horribly murdered danced about him, laughing and gibbering in his ears, pointing derisive fingers at the lone man who in his conceit thought to avert their hideous fate. The numbing cold of the winter soaked through the stones along with the blackness of its night. The feeble torches were useless in dispelling either its cold or its gloom. 

Faint winds from nowhere, damp ghost breath, played upon the hairs of Kane's neck. Sudden scurrying sounds haunted his steps, causing him to whirl about and stare along the corridor through which he had just passed—then reel about once more as the wraith-like movements teased him. There was nothing to be seen. Even when Kane stopped long minutes to listen, or walked back again over the same stones. Nothing even for his eyes to discover. He realized his nerves were getting the better of him, and fought to control himself—for he knew he must not become dull and insensitive on this haunted night. Because sometime a shadow might hold a less intangible menace. 

He stopped suddenly, looking everywhere about him with painful concentration. Then he bent over quickly and touched a finger to the spot, knowing even as he did it that the smear was fresh blood. He strained his eyes against the uneven torchlight. Normal vision would perhaps have missed it, but Kane could see the faint trickle of blood trailing along the stones. Sword in hand, he followed the shining path—every sense strained to alert him of ambush. 

The trail halted before the door of an unused bedchamber. Kane remembered checking through the chamber during the morning search. They had found nothing, and had left the door securely locked. Now the door was still closed, but unlocked. A smear of blood marked the jamb. 

Kane considered only a moment. He could bring more men, but the creature, if inside, could then escape and mingle with those who came to assist him. He could shout for aid, but that would take awhile to arrive, and the werewolf would be alerted of his presence. A sudden attack seemed best. Kane had considerable confidence in the deadliness of his mighty sword arm. 

He kicked the door open and lunged into the room, swirling his sword in a shining are of death. 

He whirled once quickly, saw nothing to attack immediately, then jumped back with the wall to his back and carefully examined the room. The werewolf was nowhere to be seen among the slightly dusty furnishings. But it had been there. At least it was unlikely that the four corpses had entered the room on their own. 

They were the broken bodies of four of the guards who were supposed to patrol the hallways. They were freshly killed—still warm, Kane discovered. Of three the necks had been broken; the fourth had his throat torn out. A crude attempt had been made to sop up the blood, but enough had trickled through to leave a trail to the room. The creature was cunning, Kane realized. It had silently killed these guards—probably leaping upon them from behind after they passed the door. It had tried to kill them bloodlessly so as not to give evidence of their fate. Evidently on one the werewolf had been forced to use its fangs, and it had not been able to stop the telltale bleeding completely. 

The question now was what to do. How did the werewolf's presence here relate to Lystric and Henderin? Kane decided to check this out. He was close to that wing of the castle anyway, and those guards would be his nearest source of help. He would investigate the situation at that end, and if clear summon their aid to hunt down the werewolf before it realized its presence had been detected. 

Warily, as fast as he dared, Kane rushed to the tower chambers. The five guards still sat in front of the door. At least they had not been overpowered, he thought with relief. 

The first thing that struck him was that be had not been challenged. They couldn't all be asleep, surely! 

They were not. They were all quite dead. There was not a single mark on any body—at least that a cursory check could disclose. They sat or sprawled about the door in vaguely lifelike attitudes—probably arranged that way, Kane decided. An empty ale pitcher lay beside one of them, and Kane sniffed it cautiously. There was no scent of poison that he could distinguish, but there were many that bore no taint. Poison seemed the only logical answer to these five silent, unmarked deaths. 

Still determined to see it through, Kane stepped to the door. It was unlocked, as he had expected. A peephole was agape through which the guards had watched the interior. Looking through, Kane could see nothing lurking within. 

He once more kicked in the door and hurled himself into the room, following his earlier procedure. Nothing moved. Lystric was in one corner, half under a table. 

Kane examined the astrologer. Whatever his schemes or abilities, he would exercise them no more. Lystric's head was all but torn from his body, and hungry fangs had ripped away most of the soft flesh of his arms and legs. The werewolf had not been able to contain its unspeakable appetite all night. 

Nerves prickling, Kane slowly rose from the mangled ruin of a man. Perhaps the answer would lie in Henderin's chamber upstairs. Sword ready for instant action, he tiptoed to the door leading to the tower stairs. The door was still locked, whatever that might portend. Kane carefully manipulated the bolt. 

A sudden scratch of claws on stone warned him! Kane jumped from his attention to the bolt, whipping around with blade swishing! 

The werewolf glared at him balefully, its bloody tusks gnashing hideously! A low snarl rumbled in the creature's threat. Taller than Kane it stood, and under its white fur rippled bands of steel-like muscle. 

Before Kane had a chance to do more than recognize the beast's awful presence, it sprang for him! Putting all his tremendous strength behind his stroke, Kane smashed his blade full against the lunging werewolf! 

Had his attacker been a man, the blade would have sundered him to the waist. But from the werewolf's shoulder the sword bounded back as if it had struck slightly resilient iron! The sound was a dull thunk, and no other evidence was there that the blow had landed—the werewolf's spring was not even slackened! Yet Kane's arm ached to the marrow with the force of the resounding blow, and his sword bounded from numb fingers! 

In a split second the creature was on him, fangs slavering, fetid breath in his face and taloned hands clutching for his throat! Kane had no chance to dodge! The snarling force of the creature's lunge smashed him onto the floor! His head cracked against the stones, and consciousness mercifully left him, as those burning eyes bored into his mind! 


Sometime later he regained consciousness. Kane rolled to his knees weakly. His head was in agony and his mouth was full of blood. Then with a start he realized two things. One, that for some reason he was still alive. And secondly, he was no longer by the tower stairs, but lying beside Lystric's corpse. In disgust he recognized that the blood in his mouth was not his own! 

He spat in revulsion and groggily stood up, staggering to the doorway. 

"Don't move another step! I'll skewer you for sure!" 

Kane saw, with sudden awareness of his situation, that Evingolis was standing in the doorway—a crossbow aimed at the other's heart. 

Running feet and shouts sounded from the hallway. 

"Well, Kane," said the minstrel in awe, "you played it cleverly. I'll admit I never thought you'd be the werewolf!" 

IX. Impasse

The surprising thing was that they had not killed him immediately. Kane's fast tongue was some help in postponing matters, but he suspected Breenanin had been more effective. The baron had not completely forgotten that Kane had rescued his daughter from almost certain death. 

Evingolis had spelled it out, point by point. The first death had occurred right before Kane had ridden out the storm. A search after the storm had disclosed the mutilated remains of another band of travelers—abroad in the blizzard with Kane. During the hunt it had been Kane's party that the wolves had attacked, and only Kane had been witness—himself miraculously unscathed. And when the werewolf and its pack murdered the soldiers in their lodge, Kane had not come upon the scene until late. Finally, this last attack had come while Kane had prowled the hallways alone. And when Evingolis had discovered him, he was crouched beside the torn body of the old astrologer—a man who had claimed to have damning knowledge of this mysterious stranger. 

But they had not killed him yet. Instead they had taken Kane and thrown him in a cell in the castle's cellars. Now a thick wooden door fastened by a stout bar stood between Kane and three menacing guards. Through a narrow grilled aperture in the door, Baron Troylin regarded his prisoner. 

"You know you're making a mistake in this," offered Kane. 

"I suppose you killed Lystric because you knew he'd unmask you. And to think you even had me suspecting poor man!" 

"Damn your thick skull! That old fool couldn't count his fingers and get a correct answer! I told you I found him like that before the werewolf knocked me senseless by the stairs!" 

"Strikes me as a bit odd this werewolf didn't kill you—even went to the trouble to drag you across the room. Didn't know such a thing had that much restraint." 

Kane pounded his fist on the wall in frustration. "It may be a monster, but the creature's as cunning as any man. Looks like it hoped to frame me and throw the rest of you off the scent." 

Troylin snorted in disbelief. "Speaking of framing, that's a nice job you did on my son. Guess you figured to make it look like he'd broken loose and slain the lot! Only we caught you before you could finish preparations—had to stop for a meal, I guess! Too bad you didn't arrange for Henderin to escape first. You might have had us all believing it was him!" 

"You're just so damned anxious to clear that son of yours, you'll grasp at anything else that presents itself! Why wasn't I a werewolf when Evingolis found me? Why didn't I kill him and escape? How'd I get this crack on the skull? Why did I rescue your daughter from the wolves?" 

"Oh, I'll agree there's a few things that don't seem to check out. That's the only reason you're still alive—which you won't be if you try to break out of here! Most of them would be just as happy to see you burning right now, only I figure I owe you at least a chance. 

"So we'll just watch you a few days—Henderin too, just to be safe. If the creature strikes again, we'll be sorry for doubting you." 

"More than likely you'll be dead—and me with you! And what if nothing more happens?" 

The baron shook his head grimly. "Guess then we'll just have to build a fire for you to sit in." 

Kane cursed in frustration as the baron departed. The yokels would do just that, and Troylin would consider Henderin cleared of guilt. Meanwhile if the werewolf still were at large, which seemed an absolute certainty, the idiots would drop their guard and let him roam at will. He sat down in disgust, enjoying the agony of his battered skull. 

After several hours of watching vermin crawl through the straw, Kane heard a fierce growl. He jumped to the door and saw one of the baron's hounds bristling before the entrance. 

"Stay back, milady! He's on guard and he'll bite your pretty leg sure's the world if you go any nearer!" 

"Then call him off! I want to talk to Kane!" It was Breenanin. 

"The baron said no one was to talk to Kane except him." Some coins tinkled. "Well, guess you can see him just for a moment. Make it short though! Don't want to make trouble. Come here, Slasher! Easy boy! Cut that growling now! Hear me!" 

Breenanin's frightened face appeared before the spyhole. "Oh Kane!" she cried. "I was sure they'd kill you!" 

"About what I figured," he replied. "Thanks for pulling for me with your father. I'm afraid though that they're convinced I'm their werewolf, and either way things don't look too bright for me." 

She looked at him in consternation. "Well, I know you can't be a monster! Not after you saved me from those dreadful wolves! Anyway, you're too gentle to be a monster!" 

Kane started. No one had accused him of gentleness in some time. 

"They're wrong, I know! And time will prove it to them!" She stopped uncertainly. "But the only way they'll know you're innocent will be for the werewolf to kill again..." She trailed off, unsure where this left her. It seemed horrible to hope for more deaths, but if the creature stayed hidden, then this man whom she believed she loved would die hideously in the flames. 

"The werewolf is still here, you can be sure of that. But whether it'll attack again soon, who can say. It's true that steel can't hurt them, though! I should have cut the beast in half by all logic, but my blade rebounded without a mark. Uncanny sensation—it was all solid flesh when it hit me, but my sword was turned back as if I'd struck stone. Left my whole arm numb from the impact. 

"They say only a few things can kill a werewolf, outside of more potent sorcery. Fire, of course. Silver is said to be the only metal to pierce its magic invulnerability. Outright physical combat can hurt one, too. I've read of wolves tearing them in rare battles for leadership of a pack. If you have anything silver to use for a weapon, you might keep it near you. If the baron would only listen to me, he should cast some silver points for arrows or spears." 

"I'll try to talk him into it," Breenanin answered brightly. "And I've got a little silver bladed dagger that I wear for hunts. Not much of a weapon really—just a lady's toy—but I'll keep it under my pillow." 

The guard muttered anxiously, "Hey, come on now, milady! If the baron finds you here of all people, he'll damn sure flay me! Cut things short!" 

"I've got to run now," she told him wistfully. "I'll see what I can do. Don't worry!" She ducked from the aperture and left the dreary cellar. 

Kane listened to the watchdog's snarl, and an uneasy thought recurred to him. Where had Breenanin been during these murderous attacks? Something about her presence in that tree and the wolves' half-hearted attempts to reach her had been nagging the back of his mind for some time. 

He shook the thoughts away. Again only guesses and circumstances! Any man here could be shown guilty by that course! Troylin, Evingolis, Tali—any of the baron's men. And she was but a girl! 

But wasn't the she-wolf fully as dangerous as the male? 

X. Fangs in the Night
When the light of the full moon shone whitely through the bars of his window, Henderin knew it was time. Most of the furniture of his room was in shambles—smashed during his rages. Now he rose from the nest of litter he had collected in one corner; he assumed a crouched stance and began to shuffle stealthily about the debris-strewn chamber, a low growl in his throat. It was hard to think at times, but he fixed the details of what he must do into his disordered brain. Excitement over what must happen tonight ran riot through his senses, and he delighted in prowling around, listening for sounds of his guards, savoring the thrift of the adventure. 

All was silent. Henderin slipped to his window and looked down over the courtyard below. Nothing moved. Satisfied that none watched, Henderin pulled at the stone at the base of the window ledge, grunting with the strain. As he knew it would, the stone tore free of its setting, for the crude mortar which held it in place had been carefully weakened. He placed the heavy stone on the floor of the room, then turned to the iron bars. With the stone removed, the bars set exposed in their sockets, which had been cut into adjoining faces of the inside and outside stones of the ledge. Henderin easily worked the bars out of their half sockets below and slid them down from their upper attachment to the wall. 

The way cleared, he swung onto the ledge and carefully lowered his body over the edge. Now was the difficult part, but one which he knew he could carry out. The wall was built of rough-cut stones, whose edges jutted outward unevenly. The tireless hand of the elements had eroded enough of the grainy mortar to provide an appreciable crevice between the rough stones. These furnished a precarious hold at best, but to one of Henderin's strength and agility it was sufficient purchase to climb down the wall and drop into the empty courtyard. And furthermore, Henderin obeyed secret urgings beyond all denial—he could not fail. 

With a bark of triumph he dropped the last few feet. It had been a faultless escape. Laughing softly, Henderin vanished into the shadows of the courtyard. There was much yet to accomplish. 


The castle slept uneasily. Death had struck relentlessly among its inhabitants. Even now, when the creature who held them all in cold letter must be securely locked and guarded, a fearful doubt yet gnawed at their hearts. But still man must have sleep. So they trusted to locks and guards and slumbered fitfully—this pitiful remnant of the castle's household. 

And in the silent hallways, death stalked. No human eyes had seen it slip across the snow strewn courtyard and in the shadow of the gate softly draw back the bar. Only the dead eyes of Gregig the porter—he had slept at his post a final time—watched the long, gray shapes slink through the opening in an endless line of red death. No one saw as this silent pack of blood-mad wolves followed its leader through a small, unguarded door in the castle's rear. 

Nails clicking softly on the dusty stone, the deadly horde padded across the unfrequented storage room and penetrated the heart of the castle. 

The hounds were first to scent the presence of their natural enemies, and they greeted the pack with fierce snarls. Thus the men who patiently stood guard outside Henderin's empty chamber looked upon death. 

For one startled moment they were frozen in horror as the howling wolves and their nightmare leader raced through the hall toward them. Then they shouted the alarm and drew their swords for a desperate last stand. The shouts of the doomed retainers added to the snarl of the lunging wave of gray fury—and the combatant swirled in a howling, milling melee! 

This time the wolves faced not helpless sleepers or unsuspecting victims. The retainers were well armed and mad with the hopelessness of their position. Dripping swords hewed into the onrushing ranks, smashing through one furred devil after another. The hounds battled gamely beside their masters, equally determined to meet death with as many of their hated enemy as possible. The stones ran slippery with blood, as the halls resounded with shrieks and howls of agony. 

But the wolves were too many, and their awesome leader made them invincible. In unspeakable fury the werewolf leapt among the struggling figures and seized one of the soldiers. Ignoring the human's desperate sword thrusts, it hurled its helpless prey against the stone floor, smashing his skull with the impact. Already the hounds had gone down under an avalanche of slashing fangs, and the remaining humans now fettered before the pack. Blood spurting from frightful wounds, they continued to hack wildly at their slayers, even as the pack pulled them down to mangled extinction. 

Then the hallway was still, but for the death throes of a few wolves. For an instant the pack stood panting, tasting the warm salt of their victims' lifeblood. Already sounds could be heard as the others responded to the alarm. The werewolf raised a chilling howl of maddened power, then led its pack dashing down the hallways to find the rest of these terrified weaklings, whose stupid pride it was to be man. 


Sounds of the battle above them penetrated even to the cellar room where Kane was imprisoned. The guards dropped their dice and listened. "What the hell is that!" gasped Tali in shocked amazement. Kane jumped to the door to see what was happening. 

Someone threw open the door at the head of the stairs and shouted down, "Come on! Hurry! Wolves! The castle's full of wolves! Hurry or they'll kill us all!" 

The guards rose up in panic. Snatching their weapons they ran up the stairs to join their rallying comrades. 

"Wait! Damn you! Wait!" Kane bellowed futilely. "Come back and let me out of here! Come back! Thro'ellet take you all!" He shouted after the last man had disappeared up the stairs, but it was useless. Either out of panic or distrust they had left him here. In disgust he envisioned the fight in the upper floors of the castle and its probable end. Bitterly he pictured himself sitting here helpless while the werewolf and its pack came to finish the prisoner trapped in his cell. 

Kane strained to see the fastening of the door through the spyhole. He knew it was secured by a heavy wooden bar, for as they had thrown him in, be had automatically examined the fixtures of his cell. In the short glance he had had, it bad seemed that the iron fastenings that protruded from the stories of the wall, and upon which the bar rested, would be the weakest point. With this in mind he backed off across the cell, then hurled his over 300 pounds of bone and corded muscle against the unhinged side of the door. 

He ricocheted painfully from the bruising impact. The door held solid. Making another attempt, he again tried the door. It seemed to rattle slightly more loosely. Perhaps the iron fastening was pulling away from its setting in the stone. But the jarring crashes against the unyielding door were dealing him brutal punishment. Altering his strategy, Kane launched himself in a flying kick at the spot where the bar reached across the door to the bracket. With startling agility for his bulk, Kane landed lightly after the blow. He knew the fantastic power such a kick could deliver when properly executed. 

He lashed out again. And again. Teeth set in determination, he battered the door of his prison relentlessly. The iron bracket would give sometime, he was certain. But how much time was left to him, he could not guess. 

Within her chamber Breenanin listened in terror to the fierce struggle outside her door. She had awakened with these sounds in her ears—the shouts of the castle's defenders and the enraged snarling of the wolves. The death cries of man and beast. She tried to imagine how the battle was turning, but from her chamber she could tell little. And the scenes offered by her terrified imagination drove her to hysteria. 

On Kane's warning she had provided herself with a silver dagger, although the weapon seemed laughably inadequate. In addition she had tied a silver chain across the fastenings of both tier door and the shutters of her windows. She had little faith in their efficacy, but it had been something she could do. 

The fight now seemed to be moving to another quarter, for its clamor was growing dim. What could be happening out there? she wondered. From what she had heard, evidently a great pack of wolves had invaded the castle. 

A sudden rattle on the stories outside one of her windows caught her attention! In abject horror Breenanin riveted her eyes on the shutters. From without now came unmistakable sounds of something scraping and clambering upon the ledge! 

A heavy blow smote the shutters, caving them back dangerously! Petrified with terror, Breenanin watched the fastenings with awful fascination. Another blow! And one more! With a brittle crack, the lock splintered and the silver chain snapped apart! 

And through the wreckage of the shutters leapt—Henderin! 

Her brother was almost unrecognizable. His fingers were torn and bleeding; his clothing disordered. There was stark madness in his rolling eyes, and his teeth gnashed wildly. Blood ran upon his face and spotted his chest. 

He dropped to the floor in a crouch. With a bizarre blend of titter and growl, he began to stalk his fear-sickened sister! 

Breaking from the spell of dread that bound her, Breenanin uttered a soul-tearing shriek and bounded across the room for the door. Behind her Henderin shambled, mouthing insane slobbering noises. 

In panic she fumbled with the bolt of the door, pulling loose the silver chain. Gasping, she freed the bolt and shot it back! She swung wide the door! 

And looked into the face of gore-splattered nightmare! 

Howling in hideous glee the werewolf lunged from the crimson tiled hallway through the gaping doorway! For the moment it had chosen to allow its pack to fend for itself against the crumbling ranks of the castle's defenders. Its red eyes brimming with unspeakable lust, the slavering demon stretched forth its talons for the terror stricken object of its desire. 

Breenanin recoiled in absolute horror as the hulking abomination stalked across the room toward her. Henderin was forgotten in the face of this inhuman beast of scarlet streaked white that now crept toward her in dreadful certainty of its prey. In a moment the werewolf had her trapped in one comer of the bed chamber. The creature slowed, a snarl of fiendish laughter in its throat; it clashed together the awful fangs of its long muzzle, savoring to the fullest the piteous terror of its victim. In despair Breenanin hurled an urn at her attacker, but the werewolf disdained even to dodge, and the vessel smashed into fragments against its hairy chest. It moved toward her confidently. 

"No!" shrieked a voice that had been stripped of its humanity. "No! You can't have her! You said she would be mine!" 

The werewolf halted and flung a contemptuous snarl across its shoulder to the frantic Henderin. The insane youth was gnashing his teeth and jumping about in the frenzy of his rage. Ignoring the, frothing madman, the creature returned to the focus of its dark appetite. 

In a silent blur Henderin pounced upon the werewolf's back! Driving his knees into the creature's spine, Henderin dashed it to the floor; even as they toppled he locked his arms about its neck and dug his teeth into the flesh of its nape. Caught off guard by the human's strike, werewolf and madman rolled to the floor before Breenanin's feet. Henderin was a powerful man, and his strength was doubled by the surge of his insane rage. Pressing his advantage, he forced the creature's snout into the stones, while continuing to crush his knees into its spine. 

Reacting in the fury of its pain, the werewolf raked its assailant with its claws, at last securing a grip on the human. With a burst of strength it ripped the writhing youth from its back and hurled him across the floor. Henderin landed heavily, but rolled to his feet in time to meet the monster's charge. 

For a moment they lashed punishing blows at each other, neither of them able to secure a hold on his opponent. Then they flung themselves together in a clawing, gnashing embrace of deadly hatred; they struggled viciously for several heartbeats, and fell in a tangle on the floor. Over and over they rolled, as each sought to remain on top. 

Freed front her comer, Breenanin shook off her paralysis of fear and darted across the room for her bed. Flight did not register with her—for the werewolf seemed inescapable. But she remembered Kane's advice now, and in a frenzy she sought underneath the bedclothing. She felt a surge of hope as her small hand closed about the cold hilt of the silver dagger. Drawing the white, bladed weapon free, she turned to the thrashing combatants! 

Henderin had neither the strength nor the means to press home the initial advantage of his sudden attack. Only luck and his berserk strength had made it possible for him to hold out this long. But now the werewolf was astride his struggling body. Locking its long arms about its victim's chest, the monster squeezed him in a crushing embrace of death. Even as the ribs cracked rottenly, its razor-like fangs tore through Henderin's failing guard and sank into the human's neck! Ultimate blackness closed upon the youth's tormented mind, as human muscle and bone proved unequal to the test. Overcome with blood-lust, his slayer greedily gulped down the gushing flow from the ruined throat of its victim. 

Seeing her chance, Breenanin rushed upon the momentarily pre-occupied werewolf. Her lithe arm raised high; then she drove the silver blade with all the desperation of her fear and loathing into the creature's unprotected left shoulder! It sensed the danger at the last moment and tried to avoid the blow, but too late! Only slightly off its target, the keen blade sheared through inhuman flesh and glanced along the scapula! 

Had the dagger been as long as a real weapon, the stab would have been a mortal wound. Instead, the werewolf howled in unaccustomed agony and sprang to its feet. Only barely did Breenanin succeed in maintaining her desperate grasp on the dagger's hilt, as the werewolf wrenched itself free in its lunge. 

Its pale fur now matted with its own blood, the werewolf whirled to face its small assailant. Fury was in its eyes, but as Breenanin raised her dagger to strike again, something like panic also appeared. The dread held by the creature for the silver weapon was out of all proportion to a human's judgment. But the inhuman mind recognized a threat to its existence—a threat that held all the more terror because of its unfamiliarity. Wounded and uncertain, the werewolf decided to try a safer strategy. Snarling defiance it sprang to the open window and leapt front the room to the courtyard thirty feet below. 

Sick and shaken from her hideous ordeal, Breenanin slumped to the floor, moaning incoherent sobs. In her shocked state of mind she knew only that the ravening demon had left her—beyond this she could not understand. Weakly she dragged herself to the torn corpse of her brother. She realized dimly that his intervention had preserved her from an abominable fate, and with this came the recognition that this importunity had cost the life of her brother. 

Forgetting his madness and the crimes perpetrated under its cloak, she fell upon Henderin's mangled body and sobbed hysterically. She did not even hear the shuttling footsteps that pushed through the doorway behind her. 

Baron Troylin staggered drunkenly into the room, his mind fogged with pain and horror. Behind him tottered two of his retainers, similarly weakened front numerous wounds. Troylin seemed to regard his shuddering daughter Without recognizing her. "All dead," he intoned dully. "All dead but us. The werewolf even smashed in the door where the women were hidden and let his pack loose on them." No one listened to Troylin, not even himself. Only his mind numbly recounted the events of the past half hour. 

"Wolves everywhere. Those awful bloody fangs. Snapping. Leaping at you front all sides. Once you're down they just tear you to ribbons. Somehow we stopped them. Their leader left them. Werewolf gone we could hold out against the rest. Kill the devils. So damn many though. Drove them off somehow. Finally they stopped coming. Don't know if they're all dead too, or just run off. But we're all that are left." 

He stopped his mumbling and stared dumbly at his daughter. Slowly his eyes began to focus. He saw her stretched beside the scarlet stained body of... Recognition dawned. Screaming an oath he raced to his son's side and flung his daughter away. 

"Henderin!" His soul broke under the shriek of anguish. "Henderin! My son! Not you too!" He collapsed in the hysteria of his grief. 

Breenanin recovered somewhat. Her father and his men had returned. She was safe with them. Hesitantly she laid a hand on his heaving shoulders. "Father," she stammered. 

His face snapped upward to gaze at her. In his eyes the light of madness burned. The baron had been a simple, straightforward man. During the nights of fear he had lived under strains unimaginable to his worldly mind. And under the relentless terror and slaughter of this final battle with the wolves, he had seen the comfortable world that he knew fall to crimson destruction. Death had brushed by him everywhere, and now he looked upon the mutilated corpse of his son, his most beloved possession. With the crushing weight of grief and horror, his mind had broken. 

Now he stared at his daughter's bloodstained nightdress. She recoiled before the soulless gaze of a stranger. "You!" shrieked the baron shrilly. "You!" He clutched the silver dagger which Breenanin had dropped and lurched to his feet. "You killed him! You're the werewolf! You killed them all!" 

Mouthing insane curses, Troylin grasped his terrified daughter. The silver blade flashed downward! A gasping shriek of agony. Sound of a soft form failing to the floor. White hands strained as they plucked ineffectually at the pain. 

Stillness. 

He gazed at her fallen form. Death eased the lines of fear and pain. Below her left breast a spreading crimson over her white gown, pale flesh. Red on white. Tumbling images through his mind. Red on white over and over. Days, nights of red on white. So much red. So much white. And the end? 

A harsh snarl behind him broke off his kaleidoscopic thoughts. Troylin ran to the doorway. The werewolf had returned. 

One retailer was already dying, his throat ripped open from the savage fangs that had struck without warning. While they had stood there gaping at their master's madness, death had stolen upon them from behind. Troylin watched in the agony of disbelief as the werewolf brushed aside the other's frantic sword thrusts and crushed his neck in its taloned hands. The creature was unkillable then! 

It turned at last to the baron, scarlet fury blazing in its eyes. Unarmed, he backed away in horror, pitiful pleas slobbering from nerveless lips. The creature advanced relentlessly, arms outstretched and a low growl in its throat. Something pushed against the baron's back. It was the balcony railing! He could retreat no farther! 

With a howl the werewolf lunged for him! It raised the screaming man high above its head. Then it threw him from the balcony, arcing him high over the great hall. With a sickening crunch, the baron's body bounced upon the stone floor, but half a step from his place at the high table. 

And as life leaked from his smashed skull, a flash of sanity returned to the human. In that moment Baron Troylin knew that the end to the kaleidoscope was death. 


One final kick and the cell door flew open; the stubborn iron bracket had at last been torn from its socket. Breathing heavily from the exertion, Kane limped from the cell. Around him all was silent. No wolves met his sight. 

Carefully he ran up the stairs from the cellar and peered along the empty corridors. Again nothing. Silently be slipped down the hallways, heading for the main part of the castle. As he had no weapon, he moved with extreme caution, knowing that his chances were slim should he encounter the pack. But nothing challenged his progress, other than an occasional cluster of dead. From the many human and wolf carcasses he met, it was clear that within the castle had been fought a vicious battle. 

His keen ears caught the sound quickly, and he smiled grimly as he recognized it. Silently he followed it to its source. He entered the great hall. 

Evingolis sat in his accustomed corner, his long fingers once more drawing haunting notes from the lute. The two regarded one another in the stillness of the darkened hall. 

Kane broke the quiet. "So it was you. I was a fool not to have realized it before! I had suspicions—but I felt the same way toward too many others." 

The minstrel continued to play, favoring his left arm slightly. "They seldom realize until it's too late," he began. "No one expects violence of a minstrel—an albino, at that. Over and over it's happened. I prepare the trap, and white they're falling one by one, the survivors fight among themselves with fear and suspicion. Break down trust, and men are helpless. And no one suspects the minstrel. Always it goes that way," 

"Always?" 

"Perhaps. The pattern repeats itself. Variations fall within the frame. Usually it happens as it did here. I wander into a new place, play around the area, pick up information until I find an arrangement that I can manipulate. 

"And once I succeed in isolating a group of men into a situation that I control, my pack and I wreak our vengeance! For it is your race, Kane, that dared to leave its home in the trees to challenge the Brotherhood! Man and his weapons and his traitor hounds! Man who seeks to banish the Brotherhood to the wastelands! Man who declares his stifling cities to be civilization—a society superior to the wild freedom of the pack! 

"Perhaps the day shall come when man and his cities shall be destroyed by the plagues, the famines, the wars his idiocy perpetuates. And then shall the Brotherhood once again run free. But until then there will be those in your smug flock who will pay the penalty for the insolence of your race! These shall know the wrath of the Brotherhood! 

"Here it was rather simple. I found out in Carrasahl that Baron Troylin owned this conveniently isolated estate; then it was just a matter of discovering how to get him here. Easy enough. A spell on his son causes him to run berserk, a scandal results, and the baron is forced to retire. This way I not only could use Henderin for a scapegoat, but under the spell I could also control his actions. He was useful at times—and so was old Lystric. The fool gladly took credit for any suggestions I offered—even to bring Henderin up here. 

"So I have a sizable party of humans isolated from their fellows. Next step is to cut off escape. The storm I summoned took care of that part. I almost had you on two occasions that night, but you eluded me each time. Then it was simply a matter of slowly cutting down their strength until an outright attack could destroy the remnant. My strategy should be obvious to you by now. At first I arranged for my wolves to split the hunt by driving a second elk across your path, then they ambushed your half. They should have killed you then, but again I underestimated you." 

"Then you know who I am," said Kane, "—and what I am." 

The minstrel laughed softly. "Yes, I know about you—and I've guessed a lot more. As I've wandered I've cut across your trail occasionally—it seems neither of us stays in one place very long! And I've heard a good many stories about a wanderer named Kane. The old legends and sagas haven't forgotten you either. Even that old fool Lystric had some suspicions of the truth about you." 

He laughed again. Kane remembered the panting laughter of the wolf—soft, tongue lolling. "I even saw you once in my youth—over a century ago now, in old Lynortis. You were scheming your way into the court, I recall. The city was destroyed not long after that—by treachery within, the tale was. 

"So your presence here had me worried after I realized who you were. But I soon found a use for you as an added diversion. You played into my hands last night in Lystric's chamber. I spared you then in order to make it appear as if you were the werewolf everyone so desperately feared. If they killed you as I had intended, then you would be taken care of, and the rest would relax their vigilance. Instead they let you live, split their strength to guard both you and Henderin, and were still careless. 

"Tonight I had Henderin escape again, planning to use him for a diversion while I let my pack inside the castle. As it happened I didn't need him for that—the guard at the gate slept until the moment Henderin killed him. Later when I discovered Breenanin had barred her chamber with silver, I used him to break in and drive her out. The fool attacked me then, and I had to kill him before I had intended. The bitch had spirit though! She stabbed me with a little dagger, and I left to circle around. 

"Meanwhile Troylin had been able to fight off my wolves in my absence. But I came on him outside her room and finished them." 

Kane surveyed the destruction about him, the smashed figure on the floor. "And Breenanin?" he asked, wondering that he felt concern. 

Evingolis snarled. "That gross fool killed her himself! The idiot must have thought she was to blame for all my work. Killed her with her own dagger!" Kane winced. "Really makes me furious—I had some interesting plans for the girl! She's still warm and I suppose 1 can still have some fun—but it isn't the same as when her struggling heart forces hot red spurts over your muzzle!" 

He laughed again, running a long tongue over his lips in memory of unspeakable pleasures. "What's wrong, Kane? I know you aren't squeamish about such things. No, I think you really felt something for that girl. Love? You don't even know what the word means! Kane—doomed with the curse of eternal wandering—in love with a mortal girl! A flower who would be faded and gone before you could even understand! Her lifetime a day of yours! By this nine you've surely seen this happen enough to understand the absurdity of it! No, I know what it was! She loved you—and you were simply stunned to receive anything other than false love artificially induced by your cunning manipulations—and more often by far, to receive only fear and hatred! And you were so moved with the novelty you tried to discover tenderness in that stone you call your heart! Ah, Kane! You've crown soft headed in your dotage!" 

Kane stared silently at the taunting minstrel. In his eyes the cold flames of death were leaping. 

"Yes, it is a rare jest! And here the two of us stand— human shapes in a hall of death. Human in shape only, for the humans all lie dead! Kane—you're as far apart from this carrion in your own way as I am in mine! Two immortals, it seems, and both of us leave only death and destruction in our wake! I wonder, Kane! The wretch I killed at the first of my storm—from beyond death he made a prophecy that out of the storm would come a man not man who would bring death to all! I wonder though—which of us did he mean!" 

The albino laid aside his lute, still chuckling wolfishly. "Well Kane, this has been a most interesting game. I salute you. You have led an extraordinary career, to use an absurd understatement. I admire you. Perhaps I understand you. And you of all men are the first to command my respect. 

"I will derive immense pleasure from killing you!" He arose. 

Kane had been prepared for the change, but he had not expected its abruptness. One instant the minstrel stood laughing before him—there was a split-sccond blur, as if Kane's eyes had momentarily gone out of focus—then a snarling hulk of white furred death was leaping for him! 

That ruined one chance, cursed Kane, who had hoped to launch his attack while the creature was in the throes of transformation. As Evingolis hurtled toward him, Kane grasped the table which separated them, and heaving with all his fantastic strength he hurled the massive structure full against the rushing beast. The werewolf went under in a crashing tangle of splintering furnishings. For a moment it had to free itself from the wreckage; in that second's hesitation Kane dashed for the stairs at the end of the hall. From the minstrel's story, the silver dagger should still be impaled in Breenanin's lifeless form, growing cold in her chamber. Kane knew his chance of reaching it was slight, but it would be a weapon against the werewolf if he could get to it. 

He pounded up the stairs. Howling in rage, Evingolis tore clear of the wreckage and hurtled after Kane. Kane had a slight lead and he moved with all his great speed, but before be had reached the top stair his awesome pursuer had nearly overtaken him. Snatching claws raked his boot. Kane made the top and tried desperately to reach the door of Breenanin's room. Halfway there and he knew he would never make it—another few steps and the werewolf would be on him! 

Kane suddenly leapt into the air, pivoted in midflight, and lashed out with his boot into the chest of the werewolf. The power of his blow knocked the creature backward, grunting in surprise and pain. The dagger was beyond reach. Kane knew his only chance would be to kill his assailant with sheer physical force. But man against demon seemed hopelessly mismatched. Yet Kane was not an ordinary man. 

As Evingolis fettered from the surprise kick of the human, Kane hurled himself against the werewolf! Driven with the brutal power of his thick legs, Kane's massive body caught Evingolis off balance and sent him reeling backward over the brink of the stairs. Wrapped in a deadly embrace, man and demon plummeted down the long, stairway, rolling over and over, crashing agonizingly against the steps and wall! With a surge of strength Kane gained a brief contact with the spinning stairway and used the purchase to push their fall over the edge. Splintering the railing, the locked combatants plunged off into space ten feet above the stone floor under them! Kane wrenched himself atop the snarling werewolf just before they smashed onto the floor. 

The force of the fall flung them apart. Evingolis's furry body had cushioned Kane's fall, and he rolled away with only severe bruises from the tumble. Leaping to his feet he faced his enemy again. The fall would have crushed a human antagonist, but Evingolis appeared only to be even more enraged. Still he seemed to be a little stunned and staggered as he rose to meet Kane. 

Once again Kane rushed the werewolf, hoping to hit him before he could recover. But the creature leapt aside, catching Kane in a loose grip, and threw him across the floor. Kane skidded over the stones, breaking his fall, and he was able to catch himself just as Evingolis sprang for him. With lightning speed Kane pulled up his legs, and with his back on the floor he caught the lunging beast on the chest and hurled him on over his body. The werewolf landed heavily, but was again on his feet with Kane. 

The two circled warily, watching for the other to offer an opening. Evingolis was amazed with the human's strength and speed—and the punishment he had taken was considerable. Painfully throbbing and bleeding once more, the dagger wound was handicapping him. Raw fury coursed through his demon brain. He must kill this human—must tear out his life. Kane was badly battered as well, but his hellish blood lust was fully aroused. No fear did he experience—only the insane desire to kill and destroy. Silently they waited for the other to make a mistake. 

Evingolis's impatience to kill his human foe spurred him to break the impasse. Confident in his inhuman strength and razor-like weapons, the werewolf sprang! Kane knew to leap back would only leave him exposed to the followup of the creature's attack. Again he did the unexpected. Ducking down, Kane let his opponent's clutching arms pass over him; then he hurled himself at the creature's throat! 

Kane's powerful hands gripped the werewolf's furry throat, holding those gnashing tusks away from his straining flesh. Evingolis wrapped his long arms about the human's body, striving to crush his spine in this deadly embrace. They rocked back and forth in the gloom of the hall, two titanic figures straining with unbelievable strength to overpower the other. The pressure on Kane's ribs was unbearable, but his powerful muscles knotted to resist the awesome strength of the werewolf's embrace. All the while Kane tightened his strangler's grip about the thick throat of the demon. 

Evingolis began to feel the consuming need for breath. He relentlessly tightened his crushing hold on Kane's trunk, trying to snap the human's back and thereby break his stranglehold. But the wound in his shoulder kept him from getting full use of one arm, and the werewolf had never encountered such massive strength and endurance in a human before. He champed his fangs futilely, unable to roach the human; clawing Kane's back with his fearsome talons, he fought the need for air. He could feel ribs starting to buckle under his tightening arms! 

The pain from his back and ribs was a white hot agony now, but Kane continued to lock his hands about Evingolis's throat. He knew his only chance would be to outlast his opponent, even though the awful pressure made it almost impossible to force air into his own lungs. Suddenly the werewolf loosed his vice-like grip! Evingolis must have air; frantically he tried to break Kane's grip, snapping his slavering fangs and ripping wildly with his clawed hands! 

They fell to the floor then. Kane landed atop the werewolf, and immediately he sought to pinion the punishing arms, whose talons now sought his face. Hunching forward on Evingolis's chest, Kane succeeded in pinning his shoulders with his knees. The creature writhed in great spasms, his limbs flailing desperately! 

Then the wild struggles of the werewolf grew weaker. Its inhuman vitality was failing under the attack of a more powerful one. With glazing vision Evingolis stared into the cold blue eyes of Kane and recognized the death that flamed within. Under Kane's deadly hands suddenly grated the dull crunch of snapping vertebrae. 

"Thus died Abel!" hissed Kane, slowly forcing his fingers to relax their deathhold. 

There came that same abrupt blur over Evingolis's body, and Kane found himself clutching the broken neck of an albino wolf. 

Epilogue
It was early morning, and a solitary horse and rider stood in the snow. Searching the outbuildings, Kane had come upon his own horse, overlooked by the wolves, and now well rested and fed. Painfully he had saddled him and put together a pack of provisions for another long ride. Kane had suffered several cracked and bruised ribs, along with numerous deep gashes and scratches from the werewolf's claws, but he dressed his wounds as well as he could and mounted, determined not to spend another night in the dead castle. 

As he watched, the flames of the burning castle rose high into the air. Another floor had fallen in, and soon the stone walls would stand completely gutted. Kane had fired the structure before he left, making a giant funeral pyre for human and wolf alike. In those flames was now being destroyed the corpse of Evingolis as well; the minstrel would sing his songs and cast his webs no more. 

Somewhere in those flames was being consumed another who would sing no more. Kane had wrapped her in her white fur cloak and laid her gently on her bed, before setting ablaze the pyre. Perhaps Breenanin had found peace, if death were peace. Kane could never experience either. Still he had for a moment experienced something with her—some emotion that he had forgotten he ever had known. Even in memory, he could not identify the sensation. 

Kane shivered, suddenly realizing how cold it was. 

He urged his mount southward. The snow was thickly crusted and bore him easily. But for spots. 










				Sing A Last Song Of Valdese





I
The Girl Beneath the Oak

"Reverence! Hold up a moment!" The burly priest drew rein in a swirl of autumn leaves. Calloused fingers touched the plain hilt of the sword strapped to his saddle as his cowled head bent in the direction of her call. 

Raven-black hair twining in the autumn wind, the girl stepped out from the gnarled oaks that shouldered the mountain trail. Bright black eyes smiled up at him from her wide-browed, strong-boned face. Her mouth was wide as well, and smiled. 

"You ride fast this evening reverence." 

"Because the shadows grow deeper, and I have a good way to ride to reach the inn ahead." His voice was impatient. 

"There's an inn not more than a mile from here." She swayed closer, and he saw how her full figure swelled against her long-skirted dress. 

The priest followed her gesture. Just ahead the trail forked, the left winding alongside the mountain river the right cutting along the base of the ridge. While the river road bore signs of regular travel, the other trail showed an aspect of disuse. Toward this the girl was pointing. 

"That trail leads toward Rader," he told her, shifting in his saddle. "My business is in Carrasahl. 

"Besides," he added "I was told the inn near the fork of the road had long been abandoned. Few have cause to travel to Rader since the wool fair was shifted south to Enseljos." 

"The old inn has lately been reopened." 

"That may be. But my path lies to Carrasahl." 

She pouted. "I was hoping you might carry me with you to the inn yonder." 

"Climb up and I'll take you to the inn on the Carrasahl road." 

"But my path lies to Rader." 

The priest shrugged thick shoulders beneath his cassock. "Then you'd best be going." 

"But reverence," her voice pleaded. "It will be dark long before I reach the inn, and I'm afraid to walk this trail at night. Won't you take me there on your horse? It won't take you far from your way, and you can lodge the night there just as well." 

Shadows were lengthening, merging into dusk along the foot of the ridges. The declining sun shed only a dusty rubrous haze across the hilltops, highlighting tall hardwoods already fired by autumn's touch. Streaked with mist, the valleys beyond were swallowed in twilight. 

Night was fast overtaking him, the rider saw. He recalled the warnings of villagers miles behind, who for his blessing had given him food and sour wine. They had answered his questions concerning the road ahead, then warned him to keep to the trail if night caught him and on no account make camp by himself. The priest had not been certain whether they warned him of robbers or some darker threat. 

His horse stamped impatiently. 

"I could make it worth your while to ride out of your way." 

About to ride off, he glanced back down at her. Her smile was impish. Hidden by the cowl, his face could not be read. 

She touched the ties of her embroidered bodice. "I would see that you had a most pleasant stay at Vald's Cove Inn, reverence." There was witchery in her voice. The bodice loosened, parted across her breasts. 

"Though I can't see your face, I can see there's a man beneath that priest's cassock. Would you like to enjoy a mountain flower tonight? You'll remember her sweetness when you grow old in some musty temple." 

Her breasts were firm and well shaped. Against their whiteness the tan flesh of her nipples matched the color of the swirling oak leaves. 

Whatever his interest in her, the priest carried gold beneath his robe. The girl's eagerness to draw him onto a little-frequented trail aroused deep suspicion. 

"The lure of wanton flesh is nothing to a priest of Thoem," he intoned, 

"Then bugger yourself!" she spat, and lunged with a shrill scream for his horse's face. Sharp claws raked blood across his nose. 

Already nervous, the horse screamed and reared. Caught by surprise, the priest lost his stirrups. Cassock flapping about his limbs, he scrambled for balance, then was thrown from the terrified mount. He fell heavily, somehow landing half on his feet, and cursed as his ankle turned under him. 

The rearing horse bolted down the trail, took the right fork toward Rader, and disappeared. With mocking laughter, the girl ran after. 

Limping badly, the priest stumbled after her, cursing with blasphemous invective. But the darkness quickly swallowed the flash of her white legs, though her laughter taunted him invisibly still. 

II
The Inn by the Side of the Road
The lights of the inn were smoky yellow through the thick, leaded panes. The night winds caught the smoke and smell of horses, drove it down the road to Rader, so that the priest came upon the inn all at once. 

He noted the many horses tethered in the outlying stables. There were a number of travellers at the inn tonight, and it seemed less likely that the girl meant to lead him into a trap. Or had her confederates lain in wait along the trail, probably they were content to steal his horse and gear. The priest swore angrily, decided he had been too suspicious. 

His ankle stabbed with pain, but at least it bore his weight. His boots had probably prevented worse injury. He damned the voluminous grey cassock as it flapped about his trousered legs. It was slitted front and back from ankle to midthigh, and while that enabled him to straddle a horse, he blamed the clumsy garment for his fall. 

The two-storey square log structure was a welcome sight. The autumn night grew chill; mist flowed like waves across the ridges. A night spent in the open would be uncomfortable at best. Worse, he bad been warned of danger, and his sword was strapped to his saddle somewhere in the darkened hills. 

A sign hung over the door: Vald's Cove Inn. The carving seemed of recent work, the priest noted as he climbed up to the door. The latch was not out, though the hour was not late, Hearing voices within, he knocked loudly. 

He was about to knock a third time, when the door was opened. Light and voices and the smell of warmth spilled out into the night. 

A narrow, beardless face frowned out at him from the half-open doorway. "Who... what do you want... reverence?" His voice was thin and nervous, and he spoke in half-whisper. 

"Food and lodging," the priest tumbled impatiently. "This is an inn, I believe." 

"I'm sorry. There's no more room. You'll have to go elsewhere." He made to close the door. 

The priest's huge fist checked him. "Are you a fool? Where is the innkeeper?" he demanded, suspicious at the man's show of anxious confusion. 

"I'm master here," the other snapped in annoyance. "I'm sorry, reverence. I've no more room, and you'll have to—" 

"Look, damn you!" The priest's bulk shouldered onto the threshold. "My horse threw me, and I've hobbled for miles already to get here. Now I'll have food and lodging if it's no more than floor space near the fire!" 

The skeletal innkeeper did not quail before the bigger man. His narrow jaw clamped in anger; he clenched his black-gloved hands. 

"What is this, man?" demanded a voice from within. "Do I hear you denying lodging to a brother servant of Thoem! What manner of innkeeper are you?" 

The innkeeper started, then cringed effusively. "Forgive me, eminence. I only meant that my accommodations were not sufficient for one of his reverence's—" 

"Let him in, you idiot! Turn away a priest of Thoem, would you! I see it's true how sadly you mountain folk have fallen in your respect for the true god! Let him in, do you hear?" 

The priest pushed past the suddenly solicitous innkeeper. "Thank you, eminence. The manners of these folk are pitiable." 

There were several people in the common room of the inn. Seated alone at one of several small tables was a tall, thin man whose scarlet cassock identified him as an abbot in the priesthood of Thoem. Like the priest, his face was hidden by the cowled garment. He waved to the other man with a finely groomed, blue-veined hand. 

"Come join me by the fire and have some wine," he invited. "I see you're limping somewhat. Did I hear you say your horse threw you? That's bad luck. Our host must send his servants out to find it. Are you badly hurt?" 

"Thoem saved me from serious harm, eminence, though I'd rather not walk another mile on it tonight." 

"I'm certain. More wine, innkeeper! And hurry with that roast! Would you starve your guests? Sit down here, please. Have we met? I am Passlo, on my way in the service of Thoem to take charge of the abbey at Rader." 

"A pleasure to meet you, Eminent Passlo." The priest touched hands as he seated himself. "I am Callistratis, journeying in the service of Thoem to Carrasahl. I've heard the abbey at Rader has fallen to the Dualists in these evil times." 

The abbot scowled. "Certain rumors have reached us in the South. Word that there are certain rebel priests in the northern provinces who would contend that Thoem and Vaul are but dual expressions of the same deity. No doubt these heretics consider it prudent to align themselves with the god of these northern barbarians, now that the empire drifts into civil war." 

The priest poured wine and drank hunched forward so that his lips were hidden in the shadow of his cowl. "I have heard such attempts to vindicate the Dualist heresy. It may be that our errands are the same, Eminent Passlo." 

"Well, Revered Callistratis, that doesn't surprise me. I'd sensed immediately that there was a presence about you that argued for more than the simple priest. But I'll not intrude further on one whose mission requires that he travel incognito. But tell me, though, how would you deal with the Dualists?" 

"By the prescribed formula for any heresy. They should all suffer impalement, their bodies left for night beasts and carrion birds." 

The abbot clapped him on the shoulder. "Splendid, Revered Callistratis! We are of one accord! It pleases me to know that those who believe unswervingly in Thoem's sacred precepts have not all passed from the priesthood! I foresee a pleasant evening of theological discussion." 

"Come, revered gentlemen, don't judge too harshly. After all, there is precedent for Dualism in the history of your priesthood." 

A short, stocky gentleman with a fine grey beard looked gravely at the priests. He straightened from the fire where he had stooped to light his pipe. A silver medallion embossed with a university seal depended from a chain about his thick neck. 

"Precedent?" the abbot snapped. 

The short man nodded through a puff of smoke. "Yes. I refer to the dogma formalized under the reign of King Halbros I that Thro'ellet and Tloluvin are but dual identities of the evil principle. No one in the days of the monarchy considered such doctrine heretical, although ancient beliefs plainly ascribe separate identities to these demonlords." 

The abbot paused to consider. "An interesting point," he conceded grudgingly, "although the manifold embodiments of evil are certainly acknowledged by our doctrine. Nonetheless, your argument does not hold in this instance, for there is but one true cosmic principle of good, whom true believers worship as Thoem. May I inquire, sir...?" 

The grey-bearded gentleman blew smoke in a flourish. "I am Claesna, of the Imperial University at Chrosanthe. Your proposal of theological debate caught my ear, eminence. The prospect of intelligent discussion promises salvation from what I had previously feared would be a dull evening in a back-woods tavern. May I join you?" 

"Claesna?" The abbot's tone was surprise. "Yes, I've beard a great deal of you, sit. Please join us! Why does a scholar of your high renown pass through these dismal mountains?" 

Claesna smiled acknowledgment. "I'm headed for Rader myself, actually. I've heard of certain inscriptions on what are said to be prehuman ruins near there. If so, I'd like to copy them for study and comparison with others that I've seen." 

"So it's true that you plan to supplement Nentali's Interpretation of Elder Glyphics?" suggested the grey-cowled priest. 

Claesna lifted a bushy eyebrow. "Supplant, not supplement, Revered Callistratis. Well, I see you are an extraordinarily well-informed man yourself. This does promise to be an illuminating evening." 

"Oh, please, learned gentlemen," mimicked a sneering voice from the corner. "Don't bore us all to death with such learned discussions." 

"Shut up, Hef!" A gruff voice cut him off. "You'll find a neater death than boredom when we get to Rader!" 

The other made an obscene reply. An open fist slapped on flesh, then sounded the clash of chains, subdued cursing. 

"Ranvyas, you son of a pox-eaten whore, you busted that tooth half out of my head. Takes guts for a pissant bounty hunter like you to bust a man all chained up." 

"You had an even chance before the chains went on, Hef," growled Ranvyas. "And you won't need that tooth once I get you to Rader." 

"We'll see, Ranvyas. Oh, we'll see, won't we? There was other smart bastards all set to count their bounty money, but ain't one of them lived to touch a coin of it." 

Claesna indicated the two men in the near corner. One was a tall, lantern-jawed swordsman with iron-grey hair who wore the green tunic of a ranger. The other, his prisoner, was a wiry man with pinched face and stained yellow heard, whose blue eyes seemed startlingly innocent for one weighed down with wrist and leg irons. 

"That's Mad Hef over there, whose black fame ought to be known even to you, revered sirs. Looks harmless enough, though I doubt all the prayers of your priesthood could cleanse his soul of the deeds he's committed here in the mountains. They were talking about it before you came in. The ranger finally tracked him to the cave where he laired, and if he succeeds where so many other brave men have failed, the public executioner at Rader is due for a strenuous afternoon." 

From the rooms above came the echoing moan of a woman in agony. 

The priest started from his chair, then halted half-crouched when none of the room's other occupants seemed to pay heed. 

Again the cry of pain ripped through the panelled hallway above, down the narrow log stairway. A door slammed at the foot of the stairs, muffled the outcry. 

Two other travellers exchanged glances. One, grotesquely fat, shrugged and continued to devour an apple pastry. His smaller companion shuddered and buried his chinless face in his hands. 

"Pray Thoem, make her stop!" he moaned. 

The fat man wiped his slobbery lips and reached for another pastry. "Drink more wine, Dordron. Good for the nerves." 

Passlo's hand pulled at the priest's arm. "Don't be alarmed, Revered Callistratis. The merchant's young wife is giving birth upstairs. No one thought to mention it. As you see, the father is untroubled. Only his brother seems a bit shaken." 

"The fat blob is a half-wit!" sneered Claesna. "I judge his mind is rotten with pox. I pity his wife, poor child. If our host hadn't sent a serving girl to stay with her, these swine would certainly have left her to labor alone." 

"The mystery of birth," quoted the abbot, "where pain is joyful duty." 

Now the innkeeper moved among them, setting before each guest a wooden trencher and loaf of black bread. Behind him walked a swarthy, bristle-bearded dwarf, the first servant the priest had noted in the inn. His squat, powerful arms carried a great platter of roast meat, which be presented to each guest that he might serve himself as he desired. The fat merchant growled impatiently when the dwarf halted first before the abbot and his two table companions. 

"Please, Jarcos!" his brother begged. "Don't offend these revered sirs!" 

Hef giggled. "Don't eat it all now! Save a nice hefty bone for poor toothless Hef!" 

From overhead the screams, distant through the thick boards, sounded now at closer intervals. 

The innkeeper smiled nervously and wrung his black-gloved hands. "I'll bring out more wine, Bodger," he told the dwarf. "Bring out your mandolin and play for them." 

The dwarf grinned and scuttled into the back rooms. He cavorted out again in a moment, wearing a flop-brim bat with a feather and carrying a black-stained mandolin. His strangely pointed fingers struck the strings like dagger tips, and he began to caper about the room, singing comic ballads in a bullfrog voice. 

The moans from upstairs continued monotonously, and soon the travellers forgot to listen to them, or to notice when they ceased. 

III
"Do You Know the Song of Valdese?"
"Then, just as the hunter spun around at the sound, the werewolf leaped down from the roof of his cabin! He clawed for the silver dagger at his belt, but the sheath was empty! Too late he remembered the old man's warning! And as he died, he saw that the beast at his throat had the sun-colored eyes of his wife!" 

Claesna leaned back against his chair and blew smoke at the listeners circled about the fire. 

"Bravo!" squealed Jarcos, the fat merchant. "Oh, that was go, good! Do you mean that the werewolf was really his wife, then?" 

Claesna did not deign to reply, instead nodded acceptance of the others' applause. 

The meal was a scattering of picked bones and cheese rinds. The autumn night tightened its chill around the inn, where inside the travellers shared the companionship of wine and a warm fire. The hour grew late, but no one yet sought his bed. Pulling chairs in a rough circle about the glowing hearth, they had listened to the ballads of Bodger the dwarf, and as the night wore on someone had suggested that each tell a story. 

"The mountains of Halbrosn seem haunted with all manner of inhuman fiends," Dordron remarked with a shiver. "Jarcos, why did you insist we make this journey to Rader? You know the wool market there has been dead for years." 

"My astrologer agreed this was a wise venture. Let me worry about our business, little brother." Jarcos contrived to shape his rolls of chins into a resolute expression. 

"Not only 'inhuman fiends' to watch for," Ranvyas commented, jerking a gnarled thumb toward his prisoner. "Up until two days ago there was Mad Hef here. Thoem knows how many poor travellers he's waylaid and murdered. Had a favorite trick of crawling out onto the road all covered with blood and moaning he was one of Mad Hef's victims. Too damn many good-hearted folks left their bones in the rocks for the mice to nest in. And I'd as soon forget if I could some of the things I seen back in that cave where he was laired." 

Hef snickered and shook his chains against the post. "Got a special niche for your skull there, Ranvyas dear. Old man like you should've brought help along, 'stead of trying to sneak after me all alone. You're just too brave for your—" 

Ranvyas raised his fist; Hef broke off in an angry mutter. 

"There have been human monsters in these mountains worse than this carrion-eater," the abbot said. 

"Oh? Do you know this region, eminence?" asked the innkeeper, who had joined them at the fire. 

"Only from my learning. I dare say that the old provinces of the Halbros kings have figured so prominently in our history and literature that all of us know some tale of their mountains—though we are all strangers here." 

He glanced around at the others. "Perhaps you observed the stone ruins that crest the ridge along the gap ahead. Quite striking against the sunset, I thought. That was the fortress from which Kane held these mountains in thrall for a hundred years. He ruled the land with a bloody fist, exacted tribute from all who passed through, fought back every expedition led against him. Some say he had made a pact with the forces of evil by which they granted him eternal youth and victory in return for the innocent blood he sacrificed each dark of the moon. 

"For a while he aided Halbros-Serrantho in the imperial wars, but even the great emperor sickened of Kane's depravity and finally used the combined armies of the new empire to pull the tyrant's citadel down on his head. They say his evil ghost haunts the ruins to this day." 

"A tale somewhat garbled by popular superstition," Claesna remarked. "Actually the legend of Kane has far darker implications. His name, I have observed, reappears in all ages and all lands. The literature of the occult recurrently alludes to him. In fact, there is an ancient compendium of prehuman glyphics that Kane is said to have authored. If it exists, I'd give a fortune to read it." 

"A rather long-lived villain, this Kane," said Passlo drily. 

"Some occult authors contend that Kane was one of the first true men, damned to eternal wandering for some dark act of rebellion against mankind's creator." 

"I doubt Thoem would have damned a blasphemer to immortality," scoffed the abbot. "Doubtless his legend appeals to certain evil types who take his name for their own." 

"Then they steal his physical appearance, as well," Claesna countered. "Legend describes him as a man of powerful build, seemingly a warrior in his prime years. His hair is red and he is left-handed." 

"So are many others." 

"But his eyes are his mark. The eyes of Kane are blue, and in them glows the mad gaze of a ruthless killer. No man may look into Kane's eyes and not know him." 

Ranvyas started. "There's talk of an assassin who's behind these murders that are pushing the empire into civil war. Said to be an outlander brought in by Eypurin to remove those who oppose his false claim to the throne. His name is reportedly Kane, and what little is known of him answers to your description. Did this Kane die in the fall of his citadel?" 

Passlo looked startled. "Why, of course... I suppose. Yes, he must have. That was centuries ago, man!" 

"I had been warned against staying the night in the open," suggested the priest. "While nothing definite was said, I can see that these mountains have more sinister legends than the road has turns." 

"That's so, Revered Callistratis," affirmed the ranger, running a hand over his short-cropped hair. "You say you lost your horse on the trail? Lucky for you you didn't meet Valdese while you was limping along in the dark." 

"Valdese?" 

"A lamia, reverence," explained the innkeeper. "A most beautiful spectre, Valdese is—and most malevolent. Legend says she haunts the mountain trails at night. Entices travellers into her arms and leaves them bloodless beneath the moon." 

Suddenly it had grown very quiet. Leaves rustled against the frosted windowpanes. 

The innkeeper sensed the unease of his guests. "Had you not heard that legend, gentlemen? But I forget—you're strangers here, all of you. Still I thought you must have heard her song. Do you know the Song of Valdese?" He raised a black-gloved hand. "Come out, Bodger. Sing Valdese's song for our guests." 

The dwarf scuttled out of the shadow with his mandolin. Bowing to his audience, he began to sing, his voice comic no longer. 


In the dark hills of Halbros' land,
There dwelled a lovely maid—
The brightest flower, the rarest jewel,
Shone dull in Valdese's hand.


Her father's inn stood beside the road, 
Great was his wealth of gold—
But the choicest treasure of the land, 
Was the heart of fair Valdese.


Then came brash suitors to her door, 
Six bright and bold young men—
Said they bad come to win the hand, 
Of the maiden called Valdese.


"Sirs," she said, "don't think me cruel,
For I love another youth—
He must be gone for seven long years,
To study in a hidden school."


And when she told them the suitors laughed,
"Oh, your beauty is not for him—
Choose instead from one of our band, 
And not some wizard's fool."


Then came her lover in a cloak of grey, 
Returning from the hidden school—
Said, "I've been gone these seven long years, 
Now I've come for the love of Valdese."


"Oh no," swore the suitors in jealousy,
"You'll not steal our prize"—
And with cruel knives they took his life,
And the heart of Valdese after.


Now Valdese lies in the cold, cold ground,
And her spirit haunts these hills—
But her lover was sworn in the Grey Lord's name,
To serve seven times seven years.



"That's terrifying!" breathed Dordron, when the dwarf stopped singing. "So uncanny an ending, that last verse!" 

"Perhaps the last verse hasn't been written," the innkeeper suggested. "Bodger, see how things are upstairs. It's grown strangely quiet up there." 

"Well, at least we servants of Thoem have nothing to fear from lamiae!" muttered the abbot stoutly. "Do we not, Revered Callistratis?" 

"To be certain, eminence," the priest assured him. "Thoem protects his servants from all creatures of evil." 

Passlo suddenly drew a crystal-hilted dagger from the folds of his cassock. "And for added protection in these shadow-haunted hills I carry with me this sacred blade. It was shaped from star-metal by priests long dead, and the runes on its blade give it power over evil's foul servants." He did not add that he had stolen the blade from the abbey vaults. 

"Seven years in a hidden school," mused the priest. "That can only mean one thing." 

Claesna nodded. "He was apprenticed to the cult of the Seven Nameless—and sworn to the Grey Lord." 

"Thoem grant that we someday see the extinction of that black cult of devil worshippers!" growled Passlo. 

"The cult is far older than your own religion," Claesna informed him. "And it isn't devil worship, strictly speaking." 

"Well, they're devils they worship!" Jarcos said shrilly. 

"No. The Seven Nameless are elder gods. Or 'protogods,' more accurately, since they exist beyond the ordered universe of good and evil forces. Their realm is one of timeless chaos, a limbo of unformed creation and ultimate dissolution—opposite forces that somehow exist simultaneously." 

Claesna preened his beard. "Their entire worship is structured on the energy of opposing systems. Little is known of the cult, since its devotees worship in secret. New initiates must study seven years in a 'hidden school' to master the secret powers of the cult; then each is sworn to one of the Seven for the space of forty-nine years. The names of the Seven are secret, for should the uninitiate utter them he would evoke the god without having power over him. A rather hideous fate, it's said. Korjonos was sworn to the Grey Lord, who is the most feared of the Seven." 

"Korjonos? Was that the young wizard's name?" the priest inquired. 

Claesna bit his pipestem testily. "Yes, I believe so. After all, the ballad was based on true events. Happened a century ago, I believe." 

"Not at all," corrected the innkeeper. "Not quite fifty years ago. And very near here." 

"Indeed?" Dordron's voice was strained. 

"In fact, at this very inn." 

The eyes of the travellers bored back into their host's smiling face. 

"Why, yes. But I forgot you gentlemen are strangers here. Would you like to know the story behind Valdese's song?" 

No one spoke. He went on as if there were no tension in the room. 

"Valdese and Korjonos were childhood lovers. She was the daughter of one of the richest men in Halbrosn, while he was the son of a servant at his inn. They were both barely past ten when Korjonos was orphaned. Penniless, be left the inn to study at a hidden school and vowed to return for her in seven years, with the wealth and power that his wisdom would bring him. 

"Valdese waited for him. But there were others. Six coarse young louts from the settlements close by. They lusted for her beauty, and more for the gold she would inherit. Valdese would not have them, but they argued and waited, for the time was near when Korjonos had promised to return. 

"And after seven years he did return. To their brutish anger, Valdese's love for the young wizard had not diminished with time. They were married that night at her father's inn. 

"But hate was black in the hearts of her rejected suitors, and they drank long into the night." 

A log burst apart in a shower of sparks, cast light over the circle of nervous faces. 

"The guests were gone; her father they slew with the few others who were there. They took his gold, and they dragged the lovers from their wedding chamber. 

"They hung Korjonos between two trees. Valdese they threw to the ground. 

" 'He'll not curse us,' said one, and they cut out his tongue. 

" 'He'll not cast spells against us,' said another; and they cut off his hands. 

" 'Nor seek to follow after us,' and they cut off his feet. 

"Then they cut away his manhood and told her, 'He's not fit to lie with.' 

"And they cut away his face and told her, 'He's not fit to look at.' 

"But they spared him his eyes so that he might watch what they did to her, and they spared him his ears so lie might listen to her screams. 

"When they were finished... she died. Korjonos they left hanging. Then they divided the gold and fled, each choosing a separate path to follow. And while the infamy of their deed shamed the land, not one of them was ever punished." 

"Korjonos?" asked the priest 

"Did not die. He was sworn to the Grey Lord for seven times seven years, and death could not claim him. His familiar demon cut him down and carried him away. And the rage of the sorcerer waited years upon painful years for fitting vengeance to transpire." 

A chair crashed as Claesna leaped to his feet. "Gods! Don't you see? It's been near fifty years, and our faces and names were otherwise! But I thought several of your faces seemed familiar to me! Don't deny it! It's no coincidence that all six of us have returned to this inn tonight! Sorcery has drawn us here! But who...?" 

The innkeeper smiled in secret mirth as their startled voices shouted in protest. He crossed over to in front of the fire. Still smiling, he peeled off the black gloves. 

And they saw what manner of hands were grafted to his wrists. 

With these hands he dug at the flesh of his face. 

The smiling lips peeled away with the rest, and they saw the noseless horror that had been a face, saw the black reptilian tongue that lashed between broken teeth. 

They sat frozen in shock. The dwarf entered unnoticed, a tiny corpse in his hairy hands. 

"Stillborn, master," he snickered, holding by its heels the blue-skinned infant. "Strangled by her cord, and the mother died giving forth." He stepped into the center of their circle. 

Then the chill of the autumn night bore down upon them, a chill greater than that of any natural darkness. 

"Seven years time seven," hissed Korjonos. "So long have I plotted for this. I've shaped your lives from the day of your crime, let you fatten like cattle, let you live for the day when you would pay as no man has ever paid! 

"Callistratis," he called aside, "this isn't for you! I don't know how you came here, but go now if you still can." 

Faces set in fear, they stared at the wizard. Invisible bonds held them in their places about the circle. 

Korjonos chanted and gestured. "Holy man, evil man. Wise man, fool. Brave man, coward. Six corners of the heptagon, and I, a dead man who lives, make the seventh. Contradicting opposites that invoke the chaos lords—and the final paradox is the focus of the spell: an innocent soul who has never lived, a damned soul who can never die! 

"Seven times seven years have passed, and when the Grey Lord comes for me, you six shall follow into his realm!" 

Suddenly Ranvyas sprang to life. "The dagger!" 

The abbot stared dumbly, then fumbled at his cassock. He seemed to move at a dreamlike pace. 

Hissing in rage, Korjonos rushed into the incantation. 

Passlo clumsily extended the dagger, but the ranger was faster. 

Tearing the dagger from Passlo's trembling fingers, he hurled it at the grinning dwarf. 

Bodger shrieked and dropped the stillborn infant. Reeking smoke boiled from his chest where the crystal hilt protruded He reeled, seemed to sag inward upon himself, like a collapsing coat of mail. Then there was only a charred greasy smear, a pile of filthy clothes—and a hairy spider that scurried away to vanish through a chink in the wall. 

"Well done, Ranvyas!" Claesna gasped shakily. "You've slain his familiar, and the spell is shattered!" 

He sneered at the wizard. "Unless, of course, you've another 'damned soul who cannot die' who can complete your incantation." 

Korjonos's bowed shoulders signalled his defeat. 

"Let's get out of here!" blubbered Jarcos. His brother was weeping mindlessly. 

"Not until we slay the wizard," growled Ranvyas. 

"And set me free," Hef advised. "I don't think you'll want me to tell them in Rader about my five old comrades." 

"Thoem! It's cold!" chattered Passlo. "And what's wrong with the light in here?" 

The priest broke into their circle and bent over the pile of seared clothing. They thought he meant to retrieve the enchanted dagger, but when he straightened he held the stillborn child in his left hand. 

His cowl fell back. They saw his red hair. 

They saw his eyes. 

"Kane!" screamed Claesna. 

Korjonos shouted out syllables that formed another name. 

Hands went for futile swordhilts, but already the room was heavy with the sweet dust stench of ancient decay. 

At the doorway behind them the bolt snapped with rust; boards rotted and sagged, crumbled into powdery dissolution. They stared in dread understanding. On the threshold stood a tall figure in a tattered cloak of grey. 

Kane turned his face. 

And the Grey Lord lifted his mask. 


Kane shook the darkness from his mind. He started to come to his feet, then almost fell because he already stood. 

He was standing in the gutted interior of a log building. The floor overhead had collapsed, as had the roof, and he could see stars in the night sky. Small trees snagged up through the rotting debris. The inn had been abandoned for many years. 

The air was musty with decay. He stumbled for the doorway, thought he heard the snap of dry bones beneath his boots. Outside he breathed raggedly and glanced again at the sky. 

The mist crawled in wild patterns across the stars. And Kane saw a wraithlike figure of grey, his cloak flapping in the night winds. Behind him seemed to follow seven more wraiths, dragging their feet as if they would not follow. 

Then another phantom. A girl in a long dress, racing after. She caught the seventh follower by the hand. Strained, then drew him away. The Grey Lord and those who must follow vanished into the night skies. The girl and her lover fell back in an embrace—then melted as one into the mist. 

Kane's horse was waiting outside the ruined inn. Kane was not surprised, for he had recognized the girl in the mist. His heels touched the horse's flanks, and Kane vanished into the mist as well. 












				The Dark Muse







Prologue
Lightning colors, whining, whirling dirge of sonic pain, coalesced to ecstasy. More dimly now, the tones muted, submerged. Form returned, images of imprisoned light. Scintillant shapes that shimmered with the siren melody, colors of piercing brilliance, sparkles of sound shivering through his senses. Lancinations of unendurable ecstasy ravened through his consciousness, starbursts of warring sensory impulses that slipped once more to coherent phenomena, an instant before his mind shattered to follow into final chaos. 

Lustrous figures of nude beauty formed pirouetting patterns of dazzling perfection. For a timeless space he marveled upon their kaleidoscopic resplendency, his consciousness merged within the coruscant mosaic of their dance. Their dance, the beauty of their dance... soulwrenching wonder that staved off the shrill voices of pain, of terror that yammered upon the fringes of his awareness. An infinity of goddesses—or numberless images of a goddess—weaving through the glacial mists of throbbing color. 

Now he understood that they were but infinite reflections of the one goddess—the goddess of beauty, shimmering upon all the mirrors of the cosmos. He desired to behold the true image of this beauty, and his spirit soared through the swirling patterns, in search of the one true image. Time elapsed. Like a mote of interstellar debris drawn by the compellent attraction of a dark star, he fell unerringly toward the central focus of the ceaseless shifting labyrinth. 

At the heart of the vortex of pulsing color his quest was ended. Over the true image of beauty his awareness descended. He gazed upon the glowing porcelain of the goddess's perfect flesh, creamy majesty of unblemished form that radiated a warm luster of indescribable color. Her breasts were cones of floral delicacy, her hips dark with mystery, her limbs soft witchery as she pirouetted through the whirling dance. She saw him. The fierce welcome of her scarlet smile, the burning summons of her violet eyes invited him to share her dance. 

The chords of needle-pain color roiled about them as they spun, wove shards of light into feather-mounds of song. She fell back upon the waving softness of fern patterns, opened to him her arms and red lips. As he drifted to her embrace, he marveled endlessly over the radiant perfection of line, the living fire of her flesh, sorcerous porcelain of warmth and velvet. 

Her smile changed, shadowed in pain... or cruelty. Her breasts heaved with the pulse of her heart, her chest shuddered from the exertion of her breath. Her creamy torso split apart along midline; the ribs sprang outward, like spreading carpels of a blossom, beckoned in the breeze of sound. Explosive color washed over her altered form; her slender, unjointed arms waved for him like filaments of some obscenely tempting orchid. The smile broadened, and an impossible length of curling scarlet tongue licked toward his throat. Vibrations of perfumed anguish engulfed him. In sudden terror he struggled against her embrace, buffeted the enfolding, smothering petals. Her claws tore at his face, the needle tongue stabbed for his throat as he seized her boneless neck in a stranglehold, fought desperately to keep from merging with the vampirish ecstasy of death... 

The dream abruptly dissolved. 

Blood trickling from the gouges of her nails, Opyros stared numbly at the limp form whose throat he gripped. Dully he released his fingers, one by one. Ceteol's mottled face flushed as breath whistled past her bruised lips. Her heart was strong beneath Opyros's palm, although she showed no sign yet of recovering consciousness. Vaguely relieved that he had not killed the girl, Opyros carelessly draped the bed robes over her still form and rose to find his clothing. The room shimmered through drug-mists of ghost image—from each whorl of the dark oak paneling leered a face—so that he rested a moment on the edge of the bed until his head cleared and his long legs felt stronger. 

The temper of his present mistress was difficult to foresee. Best to leave before she awoke, the young nobleman reflected. The touch of his garments was strange to his fingers; after drawing pants and loose shirt over his bony frame, he despaired of his sandals and left the chamber barefoot. The evening was warm, though he was uncertain which evening it was. This new drug had left his mouth dry and foul, his mind a burned-over forest of half-consumed and heat-corroded shapes. For this, ale and diversion... 

The rambling townhouse lay silent and empty as he padded through it. His servants—had he given them the night off? Too many gaps in his memory—perhaps he would remember later. Retrieving a folder of unbound parchment from the litter of his study, Opyros the poet stumbled from his manor and drifted through the shadows of Enseljos in search of Kane. 

I
Poet in the Night
Greasy light oozed onto the damp pavement from the doorway of Stanchek's Tavern and cast puddles of smoky yellow through the tattered leather curtain. The colors still danced before his eyes, as Opyros stepped over dark pockmarks in the broken paving, uncertain about the faces which peered back at him from the pools of black water. It had rained sometime not long before, though the night above Enseljos's sprawling skyline was clear, as had been the autumn morning when he and Ceteol had dissolved a few grains of the new drug in a flagon of wine. Presumably this was the same day, since there was only a vague hint of hunger. 

A snarl of challenge came from the black alley adjoining the tavern, and he heard the rasp of unseen steel. Swinging the folio up like a shield, Opyros groped for the knife at his belt. But a second shape stirred in the darkness and growled, "Forget him, Hef! Don't you recognize the mad poet?" I 

Opyros sidled past the alleyway, wondering whether he had been accosted by thieves or guards. Evidently this Hef was a stranger, since the poet made frequent visits to Stanchek's Tavern. No sign marked the murky doorway, nor had the place any name other than Stanchek's, after the limping ex-mercenary who owned it. But the tavern was well known to the sort who gathered there, for Stanchek's was a dive of evil reputation even in the brawling turmoil of Enseljos. The city guard did not patrol this, the oldest section of Enseljos; a monthly donation to its commander convinced him that it was a unwarranted risk of his men to send them into the iniquitous slum where truly no man of honest intentions would venture. Law-abiding folk had their inns an taverns, and the growing ranks of Halbros-Serrantho's soldiery—even his hot-tempered mercenaries—tended frequent the less forbidding places of amusement: the Red Bear, the Hanging Bandit, the Hound and Leopard, the Bad Dog, or even the Yardarm. To Stanchek gathered the night creatures of Enseljos's underworld and others whose role in life was less evident but similarly dubious achievement. 

The folio snared a tattered fold as Opyros pushed through the grimy curtain, and he maintained his ho clumsily. Threescore pairs of eyes looked toward h rattling entry, considered him briefly, and returned to other matters. The poet padded down the low flight worn stone steps that lapped like waves of poured honey in a crescent past the doorway to the room below. Once the townhouse of a wealthy merchant, Stanchek's displayed the sunken central room with high vaulted ceiling and horseshoe gallery of another age's architecture. Only in places across the floor could the original tiles glimpsed, effaced and filthy, and ungainly pillars of mismatched construction shored up the sagging galleries. Doorways opened onto rooms from off the gallery, or led into cellars that ran like interconnected burrows beneath the tavern and surrounding buildings, blocked (supposedly) by rubble in back, where the main living quarters lay in toppled ruin. Business of a less open nature was conducted in these dim chambers, and although he believed he had visited them all, Opyros was now sorry to know that his search would not lead him in these warrens tonight. 

Seated at a corner table opposite the entrance—close by the gaping darkness of the downward-leading stairs—Opyros caught sight of Kane. Even to his mazed vision and in the uncertain light, there was no mistake the massive, square-torsoed figure, or the coppery glimpse of Kane's hair and short beard. He was not alone. Beside him at the table lounged a thuggish trio of a determinate origins. Two of them, whose hulking statue and dark features bore the similarity of kinship, were coaxing a private show from a tavern dancer; the third, whose thin frame seemed to carry only gristle and tight-stretched muscle, was intent upon the fifth man at the table. This latter, a sharp-faced outlander whose clothes bore the dust of long miles, was arguing earnestly with Kane. 

Some sort of agreement was concluded as Opyros threaded his way to the back corner. Kane nodded to his lean companion, who produced a heavy purse and pushed it toward the traveller. The other loosened its drawstrings, released the furtive gleam of gold; then Kane's broad hand closed over the almoner, and with a cold smile he drew it back across the table. The outlander appeared satisfied and rose to his feet. Kane remained seated, gave terse instructions to his three companions. The lean man retrieved the purse and, flanked by the brawny pair, followed the outlander from the room. 

Opyros exchanged nodded greetings as they passed, then dropped into the chair beside Kane. Abandoned by her patrons, the dancing girl glanced at the poet uneasily, seemed relieved that the newcomer returned her stare without interest, and departed in a brassy rustle of bell-hung silks. At Kane's wave, a husky serving girl trotted over. Thudding her crockery pitcher upon the table, she began to reach for the empty mugs. Kane shook his head as she stretched for those beside him and pointed to the mug used by the outlander. Leaving the others, she recovered this one, wiped the mouth of the stein on her greasy leather apron, filled it with dark ale from her pitcher, and pushed it toward the poet. Opyros gulped down the mug's bitter contents in the time it took for her to fill Kane's stein and had the girl pour another before she left them. 

Kane's cold blue eyes studied the poet's scratched face, a sardonic grin breaking over his brutal features. "I rather expected you last night," he commented. 

What happened to last night? "I've been trying the new drug," Opyros answered. 

"And returned to tell the tale," observed Kane. "No mean feat, if Damatjyst blended the powder faithful to the formula I gave you." He lifted the folio onto the table; Opyros had carelessly leaned it against Kane's unbuckled sword. "Did you find the experience worthwhile?" 

"I think so," concluded Opyros. The ale seemed to bush the whining yammer at the threshold of his consciousness. "There was a great deal of powerful visual imagery to it; some flashes of inspiration that I jotted down. Some of it I think I can use, though I still find myself blocked on Night Winds." He fumbled through the loose sheets of the folio. "Have you... are you going to be too busy tonight?" 

Kane absently scraped his nail across a flaking smear of brown which clung to the carven silver death's head of his sword pommel. "Nothing that my men can't attend to. It promises to be a dull night, unless you're interested in watching Eberhos gamble away ten lifetimes' earnings at dice. Damatjyst will find he has a pauper for First Assistant come morning." 

"Then I'll read you some of this," invited Opyros. He frowned over a loose page, turning the parchment sheet to the best exposure in the murky Light. "Oh, here's some more work on that Gods in Darkness fragment you tossed me: 


In their castle beyond the night,
In their dungeon's evil light,
Gather the Gods while even fades,
And Darkness weaves with many shades..."



"I never wrote that," protested Kane. 

"Ceteol did that," Opyros explained. "She has a keen mind for rhyme and meter." 

"It rolls across the tongue well enough, but the rhyme has made it inaccurate to the substance of the poem. I thought we were agreed to strive for coherent imagery, without the interference of rhyme. Meter will be intrusive enough, if you translate..." 

"Just thought you'd be interested to hear how it could be done," Opyros broke in defensively. "I still maintain that a poem well sung is far more effective than a poem well read—and infinitely superior to merely reading the words to yourself. Poetry is an expression of beauty, and beauty is an emotional awareness which for total appreciation demands a total sensual participation and response from its audience. You're asocial, Kane; you treat imagery on an individual intellectual level—perhaps because your personal autism believes intellectual and emotional stimulation are inseparable..." 

"Vaul! You're in a profound mood tonight," Kane cut in sarcastically. "Are you certain of your insight, though? Drugs and ate will foster more prophecies and philosophies than a sober mind can hold together." 

"That may be," Opyros countered, "but they sometimes open doorways to truths obscured by the clutter of ordered thought." He started to replace the parchment sheet, his expression injured. 

Kane made an apologetic grimace. "Let's hear the rest of what you've done," he requested, and signed to a passing serving girl. His long fingers plucked the heavy pitcher from her cradling hip and placed it before the poet, 

Opyros carefully refilled his stein before returning to the closely written lines. His voice calmer now, he began to read, moistening his throat now and again. Occasionally Kane interrupted to quarrel upon a point of syntax or such—until Opyros, wondering at the other's command of a language not his own, made marginal notations with a metal pen, which he dipped in slopped ale and rubbed against a chunk of ink. 

The poet had long ago given up any effort to penetrate the shroud of mystery that enswathed Kane. Even so simple a matter as Kane's age defied certainty—physically he appeared not far past Opyros's thirty years, but this was deceptive, since Kane's experience ranged somewhat beyond this. The stranger was an enigma, and Opyros valued his friendship too highly to make indiscreet inquiries. He accepted the mystery, musing only privately over certain dark hints that whispered from the shadow of Kane's past. 

Well over a year had passed since Opyros had first met him, wandering pensively through the forest-buried ruins of the Old City at dusk. Sensing a kindred spirit despite the other's forbidding appearance, Opyros had called out to him from his favorite perch alongside a crumbling fountain. The stranger returned his greeting in cultured tones of indefinable accent, and for the first time Opyros felt the murderous chill of Kane's blue eyes. Casual remarks had revealed as astonishing knowledge of the Old City on the stranger's part, and Opyros was surprised when this man nonchalantly spoke upon various points of mystery and arcane lore surrounding the ruins of which the poet was only vaguely aware, although his study of such things was an avid one. Opyros made some speculative observations on the reasons for the abandonment of the Old City over two centuries ago, and Kane had laughed strangely. Less piqued than curious, the poet sought to draw the other out, but Kane had made only evasive replies to his questions until Opyros introduced himself, 

Kane immediately expressed interest in the poet's work and, losing some of his brooding reserve, invited him to further their acquaintance across a tavern table. Chance meeting developed into friendship, and Opyros soon became even more familiar with the dark alleys and hidden ways of Enseljos as he regularly sought out Kane's company. The exact nature of Kane's business in the northern city Opyros cared not to discover, although he sensed it was a more subtle game than the various underworld activities he knew Kane to have assumed control over. It was only another mystery surrounding the stranger—like his unexpected depth of learning, his easy familiarity with the writings of poets and sages of strange lands and other ages, Kane's critical abilities Opyros found to be sound and perceptive, so that he frequently brought fragments of his own work to read to the other, finding worthwhile the arguments and tangled, far-reaching discussions that usually lasted from darkness to light. 

It was a rare friendship for Opyros, and he guessed such was the case with Kane as well. The poet was an outcast among the aristocracy of Enseljos to which he was born, nor did he care for their shallow company. Although his work was becoming widely known across the Northern Continent, and the genius of his verses was unquestioned, the macabre direction of his interests had earned Opyros a shadowed reputation among the intellectuals and dilettantes of his audience. Thus literary acclaim escaped him—although notoriety did not—and Opyros was loved no better by those with pretensions of culture than by those whose pride was their lineage and wealth. He knew no kinship with the lower classes of society, and they in turn believed him mad. Society's rejection of the poet and his work, while it left him bitter, did not raise a barrier to his writing. As final heir to his family's estates and fortune, he was able to ignore this alienation and to pursue the untraveled paths along which his genius led him. It often occurred to Opyros that he was as much an outlaw as Kane and the hard-eyed creatures who passed about them. 

"Anything new on Night Winds?" asked Kane, once Opyros had finished reading from the parchment. 

His companion frowned. "Oh, I've written a few more lines—written and rewritten a dozen times. Still can't bring it around to what I want." 

Kane grunted sympathetically. Opyros had been struggling with Night Winds for months now, overtaxing himself to create what he intended to be his masterpiece, a perfect statement of his conception of art. As usually happens with any attempt toward a consciously conceived masterwork, the zeal for perfection overwhelmed the artist's ability to create. Opyros had made countless false starts, had worked himself into nervous exhaustion, spent days obsessed with the preciseness, the imagery of a single line of verse, and Night Winds had advanced little beyond the initial torrent of inspiration which had burst from a fevered dream. Thinking some diversion might relax the poet after this intense concentration, Kane suggested some fragments of another poem for him to develop. Opyros dutifully worked on Gods in Darkness for Kane, along with a number of his own projects, but Night Winds continued to loom over his imagination. 

"Well, let's hear some of it," Kane prompted. 

Opyros ran a nervous hand through his sandy hair and down his face, absently noted the stubble starting from his jaw where the goatee did not extend. What day was this? Again he filled his stein; the ale was soothing the shrieking afterimages in his mind. Without preamble—somewhat defiantly—he seized another smudged and scribbled sheet and read: 


At night when sleep will not come—
And darkness hangs in thick, smothering folds,
To throttle my breath, crush the heart in my breast,
And squats on my belly like a hot, bloated succubus;
When I lie burning in restless, sick pain,
Listening to the rush of my pulse, the hammer of my heart,
And sense without caring that this is the last hour—
Night winds come.



Then let the night winds come to me—
Pass through a clear window, blow out the sick flame,
Touch cold breath to this fever-burnt flesh,
Caress with chill kisses this fever-seared mind,
Take up my poisoned soul in your restoring embrace,
Bear me off to strange lands, show me those unseen sights
Along untrod paths—you and the stars know their secrets—
Though death be your destination, I'll not beg to linger—
When night winds come.



Then let the night winds take me—
Lift my crippled spirit on your vast black wings,
And I'll soar with you through the shadow;
Whisper softly in my desolate thoughts,
And I'll learn the wisdom of the dark;
Brush your fingers across my blinded eyes,
And I'll see the secret world of night;
And with you I'll explore those lost and hidden places—
Where only night winds come.



(Opyros read on haltingly, as the poem became more fragmented—little more than disjointed passages of deg description. His half-formed verses told of sand drifting over a desert tomb and why it lay empty, of wind in a forest where a goddess lay dying, of broken battlements and the pale beauty who walked them, of black surf on fanged cliffs and the shadows that lurked there, of mountains of eternal ice where an elder race dreamed...) 

He finished with a pained grimace. Angrily he slapped the folio together, swept up his mug and drained it in a huge gulp that shuddered down his long throat. "Well." 

Kane's expression was noncommittal. "I think you're getting it together—what there is of it, I like. The images you propose are more compelling this time—the atmosphere is beginning to project, almost without awareness of the mounting tension. Structually it seems rough yet, though the mood begins to impress me as..." 

"Forced!" Opyros snorted. "Artificial and forced! It's still a first draft, though I've lain sleepless over it for months now. My imagery is either overpowering or too vague. I can't seem to project the vitality, the reality, of the mood!" 

"It's starting to come across," Kane protested. "The atmosphere will improve as the work progresses, I think. Hell, put some of these fragments together for once, and give it some sort of conclusion, however indecisive it sounds at first. Work off the rough edges, and then judge what needs to be done with it—at least you'll have something concrete to grapple with. I think you're already close to writing as brilliant a work as any you've completed." 

Opyros made a scornful noise in his mug. "Yeah, as brilliant as anything I've done—as imperfect, you mean! Damn it, Kane, for once I'd like to feel I'd written something that was perfect! No, don't start on one of those creaky philosophical discussions upon the nonexistence of true perfection. I mean, I'd hope at least once to be able to create a poem that I myself could call perfect—to hell with any other point of reference! There isn't a single thing I've done that I'm totally satisfied with. All of it represents a compromise between what I'm able to create and what I want to create. I know when a verse isn't exactly right, but, damn it, I can't understand how to improve it beyond a certain point!" 

"And what is perfection to your mind?" queried Kane sardonically, thinking that this conversation in one form or another had dried their throats on more nights than this. 

"A perfect poem," declared the other without faltering, "is one which completely involves its audience in the totality of the poem. It should be a total sensory and emotional projection of the artist's mind into the mind of the listener. He should identify fully with the perspective, the reality of the poem—share the thoughts, sense the atmosphere, see the visions, unite with the mood. Any foot clever with words can create a poem that any fool can listen to; a good poet can create a poem so that a sensitive mind can share and be stirred by his thoughts... But to create a poem that can totally draw any dull imagination into its spell—that, Kane, is perfect art, and that is the creation of true genius!" 

"An intriguing theory of art," Kane commented after a slight pause. "But I think you'll destroy yourself emotionally if you keep up this quest for an unobtainable perfection. I have a high regard for your talents, Opyros, but it seems to me the genius you've proposed transcends human limitations." 

"Don't tell me Kane is suddenly preaching that pious doctrine of man's inevitable failure whenever he dares challenge those heights to which only gods may aspire!" sneered Opyros—and immediately regretted his words. 

Kane's baleful eyes held him in cold speculation for a moment, wondering how much of this was a chance taunt. "That wasn't what I said, or what I meant, as you must know," he returned with icy calm. "More bluntly, can you realistically consider your own 'genius' equal to this goal?" 

Opyros stared at his clenched hands. "I don't know," he confessed, wishing to escape Kane's gaze. "That's what tortures me! Technically I know how to do it—rhyme, meter, the words, the notes. I understand how the material should be woven... only I still can't grasp the substance! I need inspiration—a flash of insight—something that will lift my imagination from where it's mired down in commonplace ideas. What use to waste my creativity in turning out another poem like all the rest—the same tired images, the same dull emotions. There has to be some new vitality to my poem—I must create it from ideas and images that are unique, not simply the rewritten thoughts of past artists." 

He muttered fitfully under his breath and reached again for the pitcher. Surprisingly, someone had emptied it already. 

II
The Muse of Dream
Thoughtfully Kane considered the slouched figure of his friend. Unbidden, a serving girl replaced the pitcher with a brimming one. Deciding to leave Opyros with his mood for the moment, Kane was reaching to refill his half-emptied mug when he noticed someone moving toward them. 

The thickset figure of Eberhos, First Assistant to Damatjyst the alchemist, drew to a nervous halt across the table from him. His sweaty face showed lines of strain, and his deep-set eyes darted about uneasily, sensing that others across the crowded room were watching his course with interest. Though the other was not a frequent visitor to Stanchek's, Kane knew Eberhos through his dealings with Damatjyst. Leaning back in his chair, Kane waited for the man to speak. 

"I've come to ask a favor of you, Kane," Eberhos began, licking his pale lips. "A favor that will be repaid in double this same night!" 

"I think you want to borrow money," Kane returned dryly. 

The alchemist's assistant wiped his hands across his beefy thighs. The wool of his trousers was adorned with bits of strange powders and stains from his work at his master's forges. "I do," he admitted, "but you might think of it more as an investment. The dice go against me for a moment, and I've temporarily lost all my holdings. A few more tosses, and my luck will change. However, these bastards will give me no credit." 

"Nor do I blame them. You've lost ten times the year's earnings of a merchant prince. Why accept a note from a pauper—an unlucky one, at that? Instead of throwing away more good coin, why not consider how to explain matters to the rightful owner of this gold you've gambled away—since I doubt it came from your savings." 

Eberhos blanched. "I'm no thief," he growled. 

"Well, you're certainly no gambler." 

Ignoring Kane's obvious dismissal, Eberhos dropped into the seat opposite him and leaned forward confidentially. "Listen, Kane! I'm only telling you this because there's no one else I can look to to back me in a game at these stakes. I've planned for tonight—this isn't a sudden spree. I've read the stars carefully for weeks, ever since I foresaw this conjunction—yes, and I've made augury by all the signs Damatjyst has taught me. The answer is always the same—tonight is the night that fortune obeys me! In any game of chance, I cannot lose!" 

"And now we know you're no astrologer," Kane commented cruelly. He had never cared for Damatjyst's assistant. The man was obsequious and fawning with his master, a sullen bully toward his inferiors; Kane discerned the grasping, malignant spirit that lay beneath his ingratiating facade. 

Desperation squeezed the anger from the other's face. "Scoff all you want—I admit fortune hasn't seemed to favor me since coming into Stanchek's. But this isn't my first stop tonight. You think I begged or stole the money I lost here? Well, that's only one of your mistakes. I entered the Hound and Leopard this evening with ten gold sarmkes and some silver, hoarded from the pittance Damatjyst pays me. Once I was down to just the silver, but I stayed with it, and when I left, the others were broke and I had Dearly a hundred sarmkes in gold. At the Yardarm it was the same; they thought to clean me out at one point, but soon no one would play against me, and I had over half a thousand in gold and silver. So I came to where I might play for higher stakes, and once more I seem to be finished. But lend me what I need now, Kane, and I'll need two slaves to carry away my winnings. Let me have fifty sarmkes now, and I'll return a hundred this same night." 

Kane laughed scornfully in reply. 

Desperately Eberhos looked toward Opyros, who stared hypnotically at something in his stein. The poet had wealth, but he never carried more than a few coins on his person. Seeing only dismissal, the alchemist's assistant made a final play, "What if I offer collateral?" 

"What do you have against fifty sarmkes?" asked Kane without interest. 

With unsteady fingers Eberhos removed a packet from a scrip at his belt. Wordlessly he passed it to Kane. 

His manner one of skeptical curiosity, Kane unwrapped the soft leather. A gleaming flash of light rolled darkly upon his broad palm. Kane's eyes narrowed for an instant, then widened. 

"The dark muse," he breathed in surprise. 

"What?" asked Opyros, coming awake. He craned his neck. 

Held in Kane's hand lay the figurine of a nude girl, carven of black onyx and in length about five inches. The stone was flawless, the artistry exquisite. She lay supine, in an attitude of repose, though awake. Her head rested upon her left hand and a mass of flowing tresses; the other arm was lifted in a beckoning gesture; the legs were flexed and slightly apart. The eyes were compelling, and her lips were open in a secret smile—a suggestion of mystery to the obvious invitation. For there was a note of cruelty about the face that underlay the smiling promise, so that another might wonder to what pleasures she summoned him. The shifting fight licked soft caresses upon the aristocratic features, rounded breasts, slim hips, and long limbs. She looked to be a goddess, frozen in ebon miniature. 

"You know it, then," grinned Eberhos nervously. 

"It's Klinure, the muse of dream, whom some call the dark muse," Kane stated. "More specifically, the simulacrum of Klinure, from a set of the sixteen muses sculpted centuries ago by the mage Amderin. His workmanship is unmistakable, and the carvings are legendary, although most of them are believed lost. I had heard rumor that one or more were held by Damatjyst... but then you're no thief." 

Eberhos bit his lip. "Its absence won't be noticed at once. I only slipped it from its case because I thought this situation might arise. The figurine is priceless, you know that. Will you lend me one hundred sarmkes against it? I'll return you twice that in an hour." 

Kane shrugged his heavy shoulders. "I have no reason to cross the threshold of dream, nor do I care to pile up stolen objets d'art at the moment." 

"Advance him the money, Kane," interceded Opyros with sudden interest. "I'll cover it if he loses." 

"Make it fifty, then," said Kane, after a surprised glance at the poet. "That way you'll feel only half the regret when you come to your senses." 

Eberhos squirmed in protest, but kept silent fearing that his patron would change his mind. Ten heavy gold coins slid across the table, streaking through the spilled ale. The alchemist scooped them up and hastened back to his game. 

"Tell me about her, Kane," demanded Opyros. "When you said, 'cross the threshold of dream,' I seemed to remember something. What is the figurine's history?" 

Kane passed the onyx carving to the poet and adjusted the fastenings of his almoner. "Well, Amderin was one of the more brilliant sorcerers of Carsultyal's declining years, and a sculptor of tremendous talent as well. He wished to excel in every aspect of human potentiality, so he created simulacra of the sixteen muses. With them he could evoke the muse, appropriate to any endeavor his interests might direct. He might well have become the first truly universal genius." 

"Why didn't he?" 

"Be died not long after the project was completed." 

"Suicide?" 

Kane glanced at him sharply. "Strange guess. No, though his death was an inexplicable one. His body was found across his bed—crushed and broken as if he had fallen from a very great height. Afterward the set of carvings passed through many hands, became scattered, so that today only a few are known to exist." 

"And this is Klinure," murmured Opyros, turning the statuette all about with reverent touch. "The muse of dream." 

"The dark muse," Kane went on. "Carved from onyx, black as the starless night of sleep, the night she dwells within, the night from which she calls. She lives in the shadow of unfinished dreams—the dreams from which we awaken and never return to. Their ghosts wait forever in limbo, incomplete visions that man will never realize." 

"Her attitude is one of beckoning." 

"She invites you to cross the portals of dream." 

"Her face has a strange smile." 

"She suggests the secret wisdom that lies hidden within the veil of dream." 

"I see mockery, too." 

"For the false wisdom and inchoate images that delude the dreamer as truth." 

"There is cruelty in her eyes." 

Kane laughed bitterly. "Cruelty? Yes—for much of dream is nightmare. Join her in her embrace, and instead of the wonders she seems to promise, the dark muse may draw you into some fathomless vortex of black terror." 

He glanced toward the doorway. Slipping past the smoky entrance came the three men who had been with him earlier. Of the outlander there was no sign. Casually they crossed the crowded floor to the corner table, where they dropped into chairs and became busy with the ale pitcher. Opyros, who had met them often before, exchanged mumbled greetings. 

"Any problems, Levardos?" asked Kane. 

His cadaverous lieutenant shook his head. "No trouble. Want to see it?" 

"Not right now. Stanchek know it's here?" 

"Yeah. Brought it through the back. He looked it over. Seems satisfied with the deal." 

Kane nodded and left the subject. 

His face pensive, Opyros continued to examine the onyx figurine. Webbre and Haigan, half-brothers from some anonymous mountain settlement, leaned forward curiously to see the object. It struck a chord in their memories, and Webbre, the younger of the two, wandered off down the stairs to reclaim the dancing girl. 

Presently he reappeared with the girl in tow, her face flushed and costume disarrayed. The knuckles of his right hand were raw, and when he displayed his fist to Haigan, they broke into laughter. Uneasily the girl protested she could not dance without music, at which the grinning brothers produced panpipes and began to blow a discordant melody. Sighing helplessly, the dark-haired girl danced to the near tuneless notes. 

Opyros tried to speak through the discord, and Kane gestured for the two to move away. Without pausing in their tune, Webbre and Haigan arose and stomped into the corner, where they stood about the entrapped dancing girl and continued their fierce piping. Levardos shook his head and remained seated, his expression as usual one of aloof watchfulness. 

Opyros hunched forward. "I said, did Amderin's secret die with him?" 

"Secret?" 

"The evocation of the muses through their simulacra." 

"Oh, that. No, it didn't. Actually the evocation is a simple enough spell. Amderin's genius lay in the creation of the simulacra; with them any competent student of the occult can perform the evocation." 

"Do you know the spell?" asked the poet in a strained voice. 

Pressing his lips together thoughtfully, Kane stared at his friend, wondering how much he had guessed. "I do," he stated. 

Opyros remained silent for a long pause. The cacophonic piping waited on, punctuated by chattering bells and the girl's hoarse breathing. The noise of the tavern seemed driven back by an unseen wall; the sharp exclamations from the dice table were drowned and distant. 

"If I could cross the threshold of dream," intoned Opyros in a low voice, "if I could witness the birth of a dream, follow the ghosts of dreams from whose spell the awakened mind of the dreamer was torn... By the Seven Eyes of Lord Thro'ellet, Kane! Can you imagine the torrent of inspiration that would engulf my soul!" 

"And likely annihilate your soul!" warned Kane grimly. "Assuming your spirit wasn't blasted instantly by its plunge into a world of free-form thought and prechaotic images, what if Klinure should lead you into the realm of nightmare? What if instead of some long-dead artist's never-finished vision of unearthly beauty, you found yourself trapped in an unhallowed nightmare from which some fever-poisoned madman awoke shrieking? The dark muse cares not whether her dreams portray ethereal beauty or mindless horror." 

The poet formed an easy smile. "If I wanted to write poems on sunshine and flowers and love, this might worry me. But you know my thoughts well enough. I'll weave my verses for the night, sing of the dark things that soar through nameless abysses—unfold the poetry of the macabre, while others prattle about little things. Hell, Kane, we've talked many a night away on these matters, and found our minds too close together even to argue, only to second the words of one another. True beauty lies in the dark side of life—in death, in the uncanny—in the grandeur of the unknown. The pure awareness of beauty is as overwhelming an emotion as blind fear; to feel inexpressible love is as soul-wrenching a sensation as to know relentless terror. When fired to the ultimate blaze, the finest emotions become one intolerable flame, and ecstasy and agony are inseparable. 

"I'm blocked on Night Winds because I can't enter this dark world, can't get close enough to this point of fusion to understand the emotions I'm trying to recreate. I've looked everywhere for inspiration—read through dull volumes, chased after tepid vices, haunted the desolate places, dabbled in strange drugs... And I've learned nothing. If I can induce Klinure to give me the inspiration of lost dreams, I'll risk any nightmare—no, I'll welcome them—if I find the creative energy I need to create a perfect poem!" 

Kane frowned, too similar of spirit to the other to dissuade him further, but uneasy nonetheless. "It's your decision, of course. But make certain you understand the risks which await you beyond the threshold of dream. You'll not be asleep, but in Klinure's embrace, so that you'll not awaken from those nightmares which drove their dreamers into screaming wakefulness. There are many dreams of falling, for example, from which one awakens before ending his plummet..." 

Opyros thought for a moment. "Vaul!" he swore in understanding. "Then you think Amderin...?" 

"It's a risk—only one among uncounted others whose nature we can't begin to conceive." 

A clamour had arisen across the tavern, and the huddle about the dice table suddenly began to break up. Many voices were raised at once—cries of anger, protest, disbelief, congratulations. As the milling figures drifted away, the thickset figure of Eberhos could be seen. He was followed across the floor by a blond Waldann mercenary, whose broad shoulder sagged under the burden of the bulging saddlebags slung across it. 

Eberhos's flushed face made his grin seem all the broader. "I've won it all!" he announced. "No man has gold or spirit enough to play against me further!" With an arrogant gesture he poured a handful of gold coins upon the table. "There's a hundred in payment as I promised. You'd have a hundred more, had you been less quick to judge another man a fool. The carving now, please." 

The piping stopped, Kane's cold eyes met Eberhos's gaze, and his jubilant sneer retreated. Not looking at the gold, Kane slid it back to the alchemist's assistant. 

"You owe me no debt," he explained casually. "I've decided to keep the figurine. Its price of fifty sarmkes has been paid." 

A shadow of worry crept over Eberhos's victory-lit face. "I didn't sell it, Kane—it was collateral. Now I've met my side of the bargain as stated. There's a hundred sarmkes, and now I need that carving." He made a motion to reach for the onyx figurine where it Jay before Opyros. 

"I wouldn't," advised Kane. 

Eberhos flexed his fingers in nervous anger. He did not reach out, however. "I have to get it back before Damatjyst notices that it's been taken," he explained. 

"Well, just tell your master what you would have had to tell him if you'd lost the money I gave you," Kane offered without sympathy. "Or now that you're wealthy, why not see if one of the southern cities needs another alchemist." 

"All right, I'll give you two hundred for it." 

Kane shook his head, a mirthless smile starting on his lips. 

"Two hundred fifty—no more!" 

"But earlier tonight you admitted the carving was priceless." 

"Name your price, damn you! I don't dare risk Damatjyst's anger." 

"You'll find my anger no better risk," retorted Kane. 

Rage made the veins bulge along his thick neck, and Eberhos moved his hand closer to his sword hilt. Behind him, his Waldann bodyguard shifted the gold-laden saddlebags uneasily. 

Webbre and Haigan had nonchalantly strolled over to either side of Kane; their brutal faces sneered at the alchemist. His expression one of detached interest, Levardos had, unnoticed, drawn back his chair. A quick glance around the tavern disclosed others of Kane's men had laid hands on their weapons and were slowly approaching. The squat figure of Stanchek could be seen muttering instructions to his henchmen, who moved unhurriedly to cover the door. 

Kane took the onyx carving from the table and began to roll it on his palm; there was mockery in his smile, and death grinned from his eyes. 

And Eberhos knew that death hovered close. 

"Hell, what do I care about Damatjyst's wrath," he laughed suddenly. It sounded like a death rattle. "I've learned all that old miser can teach me, and I've gold enough to make my life what I will. Keep the damned carving if it pleases you, Kane—if Damatjyst wants it, he can go look for it. I'm going to find another tavern and some rich fools to play against me." 

With slippery fingers he retrieved the gold coins, smiled servilely, and made for the door. His worried bodyguard clung to his back like a shadow, and the pair disappeared through the tattered curtain. 

Webbre and Haigan laughed and hooted, and hugged the frightened dancing girl between them. Opyros took the carving from Kane and gazed upon it with worshipful eyes. Levardos permitted himself a thin smile. 

Kane caught Stanchek's quizzical gestures and shook his head with a frown. "His luck held out," he remarked at Levardos's unspoken question. "Several thousand in gold, one man to guard him, and the bastard left here alive—Stanchek thought I was going to take care of it." 

"We can still find him," offered his lieutenant, starting to rise. 

"Don't count on it," Kane advised. "Still, I've made a deadly enemy, and when I had the chance, I let him live. Levardos, have you ever known me to be that careless?" 

"No," admitted the other, and slipped his dirk back into the sheath hidden beneath a bloused sleeve. 

III
In the Hour Before Dawn
Kane continued to stare moodily toward the curtained doorway. It occurred to Opyros that his fascination for the black figurine might have thrown Kane into unforeseen difficulty. After all, Kane did have frequent dealings with the alchemist, and Damatjyst was almost certain to learn into whose hands his carving had fallen. 

"Don't worry about Eberhos," Kane scoffed, when the poet voiced his concern. "Unless he has even less brains than I give him, he'll be far from Enseljos before another night. His master will surely blame him for the theft, and Damatjyst is most exacting in the matter of debts. 

"More to the point, now that it's yours, what do you mean to do with the simulacrum?" 

But the poet had already made his decision. "As I've said, I hope to summon Klinure—to follow her into the secret realm of dream. I'd be grateful if you'll show me the spell, since your knowledge of these things seems to lie far deeper than you choose to reveal. But if you're opposed, then I'll look elsewhere for the spell of evocation." 

"It would take little enough effort to discover," said Kane. "No, if you're certain in your mind, I'll do what you want. But there is an unknown degree of danger, and I think you may want to wait until your thoughts are somewhat clearer than tonight before you get into this too deep." 

"Well, I'm going to try it," Opyros asserted. He refilled his stein with painstaking attention. "Though I think I will wait for my head to clear; I'll want my thoughts unclouded for this venture. Shall we try it tomorrow?" 

"Tomorrow night, if you wish," Kane agreed. "Night is the realm of Klinure. I'll see to the arrangements." 

"Where? Will my study do?" 

Kane shook his head. "I think another place would be better. Atmosphere is extremely important, and we need solitude—someplace free of distractions and conflicting aurae. Dreams are influenced by the dreamer's surroundings, and the genius loci of Enseljos is not conducive to the tone of dream you seek. I think the Old City is evocative of the mood you desire, and one of its abandoned temples should retain sufficient occult magnetism to facilitate communion with the dark muse." 

"The temple of Vaul yet stands," Opyros suggested. 

"A warrior god of somewhat cold and prosaic nature," argued Kane. "I was thinking of the temple of Shenan. The moon goddess should favor this venture." 

"I didn't know her cult ever reached this far north. Where is her temple?" How can he say these things so casually! 

"I'll show you," the other promised, and went on to speak guardedly of Shenan's worship in the days of the Old City. 

They talked on into the night, Levardos leaving them at one point to attend to some errand. When he returned to draw Kane aside for low conversation, Opyros discovered himself yawning. Innumerable mugs of ale had at last dulled his drug-tortured nerves, driven the ghost voices and afterimages from his mind, As a matter of fact, Opyros decided it was quite probable he was drunk. 

"Well, I think I'll wander back and get some rest," lie announced, smothering a belch. "Or is that backwards—should I concentrate on staying awake maybe, so I can sleep tomorrow night?" 

"No, get some rest," Kane told him. "If we succeed with the evocation, there'll be no need to lie asleep. Klinure herself will lead you beyond the gates of dream." 

"Well then, till tomorrow evening," drawled the poet, fumbling to fasten the folio. The onyx figurine he had already restored to its wrappings and secured at his belt. 

"Wait. I'll accompany you," Kane offered. He signed for his men to follow. "Should by chance you run into Eberhos, you might find the greasy tub of guts ungrateful for the stake you gave him tonight." 


It could not be far from dawn, Kane noted as they left Stanchek's. The skies had not grayed perceptibly, but the stars were beginning to dim. It was cold, very quiet. Crisp night air was stunning to inhale after the close, smoky atmosphere of the tavern. Few were abroad; it was an hour of the night when even those who disdained sleep went about their business within doors. 

Certainly it was not the time of day Kane might expect a beggar to accost him. They heard her sobbing wail through the darkness, and shortly came the shuffling sound of her step. Then through the island of a rare streetlight they saw her approach, drawn by the flame of the torch Haigan carried. 

"Please, kind gentlemen, please, can you spare a coin for a poor mother? A coin for a poor mother and her child!" She was not old, though her sordid rags and haggard face made her appear twice her years. A baby, so enswathed in rags as to seem no more than a shapeless bundle, nursed at her breast, his face buried by her shawl. 

Haigan moved to shove her away, but not liking the mad glare of her eyes, he turned to let her pass. 

"Kane! Is it truly Milord Kane!" she moaned, pressing nearer to him. "Ali, Kane, you'll spare a coin to help this poor mother and her sickly babe? He has food, but I've none, and soon my babe must seek his food elsewhere, unless this poor mother has coin to buy bread and meat." 

Kane thought her face familiar, though too pale and drawn to place the memory. "Why do you beg at the most desolate hour of night?" he murmured, digging his fingers into his almoner. 

"I cannot mingle with the crowds by day. They drive me from the streets when honest folk see me," she whirred. "The guard takes no pity on a poor mother and her son." There was a heavy stench about her, a foulness less squalid than charnel. 

Though his fingers touched smaller coins, a whim moved Kane to place a gold sarmkas in the woman's emaciated hand. It would buy food and shelter for several months. 

"May Lord Thro'ellet spread his wings to guard you, Kane!" she blessed him, clutching the coin as if to crush it. She pressed closer; Kane saw the baby's face and knew the reason for her pallor. 

Her voice lowered. "As you pass the corner, there are eight men who wait in an alley. Two have crossbows. They speak of Kane." 

Swiftly she slipped past them, crooning to her babe. She must have shifted him to her other breast, for he gave a brief cry—more a snarl than whimper. Kane heard a troubled fluttering noise suggestive of the flap of leathery wings. Then the only sound was the mother's crooning, fading into the night. 

"Strange," remarked Opyros. "She blessed you in the name of a demon." 

"She spoke of an ambush!" said Levardos, who had stood close enough to overhear. "Should we get more men, or take another street? Thoem's horns! It's that bastard Eberhos—he'd know to waylay us on the street that leads to Opyros's manor!" 

"So I was thinking," growled Kane. "But if it isn't Eberhos, I want to know who it is that dares this! No, we won't waste time returning for more men—if they've seen our torch, they'll grow suspicious and change position. Since we know where they're waiting, the trap can be reversed." 

"They outnumber us, and they've got crossbows," pointed out Webbre. 

"I don't pay you just to hear you blow on those pipes," Kane returned. 

Haigan threw an arm over his brother's shoulders. 

Now, don't you worry, little brother. I'll save a little one for you." 

Webbre grinned and pushed him away. "Careful with that damn torch." 

"Keep your voices down!" Katie snarled. "Let's not pause any longer , or they might start wondering. I'll circle around and take care of the crossbows. Meanwhile walk slowly toward the corner with the torch, so they can see the light coming. Stop before you got there—Opyros, give a yell that you dropped the carving, and the rest go back with the light and make a show of looking for it. That should give me time to reach the alley from the far side. Come fast when I yell." 

Seeing they understood, Kane slipped away into the night, loping as fast as he dared without making noise. 

"He sees in the dark like a cat," muttered Levardos as he vanished into the deep shadow. 

Enseljos was not laid out according to any orderly pattern, but its winding avenues did intersect with equally haphazard cross streets, and islands of property lay between. This particular segment was given over to shops and small dwellings—often combined—with a center courtyard. The alley where the attackers lurked gave access to this courtyard—a squalid wilderness of refuse heaps, small vegetable plots, and animal pens. 

Rapidly Kane picked his way around the block of buildings. His course seemed reckless, but his senses were keenly alert for any sign of danger. He kept to the obscurity of the outward-projecting walls, where not even the dim luminance of the stars could reach, moving swiftly with no more sound than a shadow. His was the greatest risk, but Kane cared not to trust this job to any of his men. The silent snarl of a stalking predator touched Kane's lips, and anger stirred a blue flame in his killer's eyes. 

Abruptly he halted before a locked door. This building, he recalled, had stood vacant for some months. A heavy padlock secured the door, placed there more to keep out squatters than thieves, since the building contained little of value. For one of Kane's massive strength, it would take little effort to force the door—tear the lock from its brackets—but there would be noise, and the city lay in silence. From his boot Kane produced a thin metal pick; in a moment the lock fell open. Cautiously he pushed open the door and let himself into the empty shop. Silence and dust and soft scurryings were all that greeted turn. 

With stealthy stride, Kane passed through the empty rooms and into the storeroom at the rear. Another door opened onto the courtyard. A heavy wooden bar was jammed in place, so that he had to twist it free before drawing it clear. Its creaking complaint sounded like an explosion in the predawn stillness, but Kane doubted if it carried to those in the alley. Thinking about the crossbows, he wiped spit over the hinges, then inched the door open—soundlessly—far enough to glide through. 

No unseen shafts streaked toward him. Thankful for the jumbled litter of the courtyard, Kane stole past the doorway and dropped low against the ground. So far as he could discern, no enemy lurked within the square. Taking advantage of the spotty cover, he crossed the intervening ground, moving with unerring speed despite the darkness and the obstacle-strewn yard. 

At the mouth of the alley his caution doubled. Dimly he could see the figures crouched at the far end, not more than sixty feet from him. At least a couple were turned in his direction, but they had not observed his stealthy approach. Kane's unnatural night vision enabled him to make out the two men who waited with crossbows cocked. Their attention was fixed on the approach of his men, whose voices came through the night—else they might have sensed the death that stole upon them from behind. 

Kane stepped into the alley. From either boot he drew a knife—two flat blades, balanced for throwing. His left arm moved with the blurring speed of a striking cobra; in almost the same instant his right arm uncoiled with the same lethal precision. 

To the lurking assailants, it was as if a murderous phantom had risen in their midst. Dull impacts and frightened death howls marked the flight of the knives as the two crossbowmen staggered under the agony that pierced their backs, stumbled into the street to die. Released by the spasm of their fingers, the iron-fanged bolts skittered a trail of sparks across the darkened pavement. 

With a feral yell, Kane tore out his sword with his left hand and leaped into the alley. His opponents had waited in darkness; only dimly could they glimpse the looming death that burst upon them. Steel flashed and clangoured. Another of the lurkers was hurled aside with a mangled chest, never knowing his killer's face. 

Then someone flung open a dark lantern, hidden behind some rubble. In the thick darkness, its glare was dazzling. In that instant the five startled assassins saw that only one man stood against them—and in the heartbeat it took for them to realize who their enemy was, Kane's blade snaked toward the throat of another opponent, and then there were only four. 

Bringing up their blades, the four rushed upon him. The first to meet him lost his sword and his arm with it; he fled screaming into the night, a spattered trail marking his flight. Then Kane's blade was engaged by a more skillful swordsman than his fellows, so that Kane fought with furious speed to keep the other two from striking past his guard. Only the long knife he wielded with his right arm turned back their desperate thrusts. 

But in a matter of seconds, his men had gained the alley. A lethal tide of steel, they surged into the melee. Levardos quickly dispatched one of the would-be ambushers as Kane beat aside the swordsman's stubborn guard to thrust his heavy blade through the man's heart. The remaining assailant fled into the courtyard, Webbre and Haigan close behind. A clamour of overturned litter, howl of agony, and the brothers returned looking satisfied. 

"I don't suppose you took him alive so I could question him," panted Kane. 

The brothers each one pointed to the other, claiming he had struck the death blow, then fell into a fit of laughter. 

"Never mind, Kane," announced Levardos, holding the torch over an upturned face. It was the last man Kane had killed. "This was that Waldann bodyguard Eberhos had with him at Stanchek's." 

Kane grunted. "The puke-blooded whoreson used some of his gold to hire these sewer rats to waylay us. Must have guessed Opyros wouldn't go back alone. By Thoem, this won't be the last of our quarrel!" 

IV
Across the Threshold of Dream
Dusk was overtaking them as they neared the Old City. 

Next to Opyros rode Ceteol; a high collar masked her bruised throat. Why she came, Opyros was at a loss to decide. She had leaped at him with harsh curses on his return to the manor, clawed and fought until he pinned her in a drunken embrace and unfolded the night's story, after which he could not dissuade her from accompanying them to the Old City. He suggested—at least hoped—that her professed desire to see him destroyed by his unnatural delvings was not her true motive. 

Kane was in a black mood; he had driven his men in search of Eberhos since before dawn, but no trace of the alchemist had been found. In addition to Levardos, Webbre, and Haigan, Kane had brought with him the new man, Hef, and a hawk-nosed thug named Boulus. Whether Eberhos would make another attempt to recover the carving—and it seemed likely he had fled the city—Kane could not guess. He rather hoped the alchemist would be so rash. 

Fired with the spirit of the venture, Opyros was in a voluble mood, and eventually he succeeded in stirring Kane from his choler. Kane declined from further argument over the poet's design, and as the other spoke of his hopes for the evocation, of his eagerness to explore the unknown wonders of dream, he found himself sharing Opyros's enthusiasm. To unlock the gates of dream... Kane, too, sensed deep fascination for such an exploration. True, there were risks, unknown risks—but what great adventure had ever been free of danger? In fact, by definition, how could there be adventure without danger? Security equals boredom equals stagnation equals death. Kane listened and nodded, added thoughts of his own, so that by the time they entered the forest-buried walls of the Old City, Kane was contemplating the onyx figurine with a thoughtful brow. 

"There's that damn shadow again," remarked Ceteol suddenly. 

"Shadow?" asked Opyros. 

"It's gone again," she said with a frown. The girl pointed. "See how our shadows are all strung out in a line?" The declining sun cast light enough yet to throw the riders' spindly, misshapen shadows against the trees which crowded the unfrequented road wherever there was sufficient clearing to let them pass from under the shadow of the trees opposite. 

"I've seen it a couple of times," Ceteol continued, "just out of the corner of my eye. When we come to a sunny spot, I've noticed how all our shadows writhe alongside us. But a couple of times I thought it was strange, because I can tell my shadow, and there's two men riding behind me—except I saw three shadows following my own." 

"What sort of shadow?" Kane wanted to know. "Like another horse and rider?" 

"No, not like that." She jammed the heels of her palms together and wriggled her fingers. "It was sort of... crawly." 

Opyros laughed and looked at her eyes. "Your eyes are still bedazzled from the drug, love. It'll clear away before long." 

Tossing back her brown hair, Ceteol made a tight face. "I may see shadows, but I don't half kill a girl and then go off and get drunk with thieves and killers. So don't laugh at me, damn it." 

"Tell me next time you see it," suggested Kane. Then to Opyros: "You did say nothing untoward took place after I left you." 

The poet shook his head, trying to tell how much of Ceteol's sullenness was only affected. "No, nothing happened. After I... ah... told Ceteol of our plans, I slept until not long before you called. I remember that damned pack of dogs started yelling—woke me up." 

"Didn't see them when we rode up," mused Kane. 

"Somebody else chased them off, I gathered. But where in all this ruin is the temple of Shenan?" 

"Not far, though it's a little past the main body of the ruins." 

The Old City had a certain ghostly beauty in the twilight, the melancholic serenity of ancient walls returning to dust with their secret memories of another age. Compared to its sprawling offspring Enseljos, the Old City had been but a town. Most of its buildings had been of timber, and these were long since weed-shrouded mounds of earth—forgotten graves in the forest. Here and there a low stone wall or heap of broken masonry indicated the site of some antique structure, but more often there was only an overgrown depression along the fading streets to mark the foundation of a long-toppled dwelling. Still, there were places where the walls of one of the Old City's more impressive buildings yet rose in tired defiance of time. As the dusk deepened, the darkness within these mouldering skulls seemed to flow from staring windows and yawning doorways and mingle with the gathering shadows of the forest. 

"Here," announced Kane, and he urged his horse between the closely hemmed brushy barriers. A late morning rain had drenched the forest, so that progress through the brush left their legs sodden against their mounts' flanks. 

The waning light fell upon a grey stone structure standing in gloomy solitude among the shouldering trees. Its walls rose to almost clear of the encroaching branches; buttressed and vaulted after the southern fashion, portions of the temple yet retained an arched ceiling. The deeper shadow within had spared its interior the rank undergrowth which strangled much of the Old City's ruins, although age had stripped the walls to bare stone and littered the floor with crumbling debris. As twilight closed upon the ruined temple, the velvet-leather curtains which festooned its high-vaulted ceiling spread a thousand wings and flapped chattering through the broken apertures. 

Kane dismounted and directed his men to clear away some of the rubble which barricaded the entrance. The poet pressed forward in excitement; Ceteol, aloofly curious followed him, her calf-length pleated skirt slapping against high riding boots. As soon as he had kindled a pair of links, Kane joined them, and while his men shoved away the rotting tangles of anonymous debris, he spoke further on the temple's history, raising his torch to point out some item of architectural interest. Opyros again sensed an uneasy wonder at Kane's nonchalant familiarity with the ruins. 

Moonlight poured molten silver over the brooding grey stones by the time Kane judged their work sufficient. Showers of silver light fell through the high, narrow windows and jagged rifts in the walls, gathered in a deep pool about the altar, where a vast circular skylight showed the same night skies to which priestesses centuries dead had raised their chants. In a few areas where the litter had been cleared away, the damp stone tiles yet bore traces of strange mosaic patterns. 

At Kane's orders, Levardos saw to posting the men outside. They were well paid, and if their leader chose to waste the night pursuing a mad poet's unhallowed whim, that was Kane's affair. Theirs was to watch for Eberhos, in case the alchemist had followed them with another band of hirelings. That he had fled Kane's anger was their consensus, but if not... their blades were ready. 

Kane turned to his friend. "Well," he said, half in question. 

The poet's eagerness was undiminished. "I'm ready if you are, Kane. This place is perfect—really it is! The atmosphere—it's... hell, I've tried to capture it again and again in my verses! What dreams hover about us here! Kane, if the muse will only come to me tonight... I feel I can... can... I feel I can grasp the inspiration I've searched for so long! Night Winds and a hundred more could soar from my soul tonight!" 

A bitter smile twisted his face. "As you wish, then," assented Kane. He extended his hand. "The simulacrum." 

Opyros thrust the carving into Kane's hand. "No musty tomes? No evil-fumed braziers and elder-glyphed pentacles?" But his levity was more bravado than banter. 

"As I've said, a simple spell," returned Kane levelly. "I'll need a drop of your blood." 

And while Ceteol watched with unfathomable eyes, Kane led the poet into the pool of moonlight; there by the forgotten altar of dark, flawless stone he performed those things which the ritual required. 

Now it seemed to the poet that Kane's rhythmic chant of evocation had become a fading echo, hypnotic ebb and flow of rippling sound. The ruined walls seemed to recede; moonlight and shadow merged into a vortex of formless image. Even the cold hardness of stone pressing against his back, where he lay beside the onyx carving, grew distant—physical sensation drifting apart from his psychic awareness... 

And no longer did he lie beside a figurine of carven onyx. The carving blurred, rushed upward in size—or did he diminish? There was a sense of motion, of vertigo... Lying next to him now was a figure of black—not a figure in black, but of black. A shadow in three dimensions of a nude girl. Of the dark muse. 

She moved. Minute turned toward him languidly. She saw him; the profile of darkness smiled an invitation... The cruel indifference of her smile... She beckoned. Opyros moved against her; his arms closed about her ebony figure... His arms, too, were fashioned of darkness—as was his entire body. Then their bodies entwined in a lovers' embrace. There came wrenching ecstasy, intolerable vertigo... 

Then no darkness. His body had returned to substance. In his arms was a pale-skinned girl of exquisite beauty, with smiling lips, eyes of ageless wisdom. She broke from his embrace, still holding his hands... raised the poet to his feet (Now he saw on what they had lain)... led him irresistibly, unresistingly forward... 

And now he understood the cold cruelty of her face... 

Ceteol gasped. The shimmering mists that for a moment had obscured the streamers of moonlight about the altar suddenly broke apart, drifted like phantom shapes into the night. Where Opyros and the black statuette had lain there was now only bare stone. 

"What did you—where is be?" she exclaimed. 

"He's crossed the threshold of dream," murmured Kane, a shadow of wonder touching his face. 

"When will he return?" Ceteol persisted. "Hell, how will he return?" 

Kane ran a hand over his beard. "That, of course, is the risk we spoke of. He'll return once the dream into which Klinure thrusts him is ended. When—I don't know. It depends on how long they wander through her realm before Opyros is caught up in the flow of a single dream, and then on how long that dream takes to reach its end. Only, how closely does time in a dream world follow the span of time as we know it? There time moves in obedience to the dream, not to natural law—may pass like a second, or the reverse. Hell, for that matter, how does a dream actually end? Is the certain terminus to a single dream, or does one merge into another, endlessly, until the dreamer and shatters the stream of image?" 

"You don't know!" Ceteol's aristocratic face with emotion. "Damn you, Kane! You've killed him!" 

"Perhaps," he shrugged. "But it was Opyros's decision to try this, and I explained that there were unknown risks." 

"Weird," she murmured, her face again expressionless. "You're both weird. I don't know which of stranger." She fell to watching the moonlit circle of the altar, hunched together with knees drawn up, chin on fists, arms compressed between body and thighs. 

"This may take most of the night," Kane said with a vague gesture. "My men have a small fire going to keep off the damp. Why not wait out there?" 

Ceteol shook her head and muttered something indistinct. Her wide eyes seemed to stare without blinking into the moonlight. 

Thus she remained when Kane returned from a hurried check of his men, who had nothing to report. The alchemist had to all appearances abandoned his efforts to recover the simulacrum. Since the night was not cold, Kane told Levardos to let the fire burn out. If enemies still sought them in the darkness, it seemed pointless to illuminate their position with a campfire. The moon—just past full—gave light enough for eyes accustomed to the night. A pair of torches inside the temple afforded all the light Kane might need, and in the darkness without, his men could stand guard unseen by an approaching enemy. 

Plainly, there was nothing to do but wait. After Ceteol had declined, Kane drank a little wine from the skin they had brought and settled against a slab of rock to keep watch. After a while, the silence of the ruined temple broken only by the girl's regular breathing, he decided she slept. 

But Ceteol was awake. "Kane, there's that shadow again." 

Kane spun to look where she pointed—too late to see any definite shape. In time to catch a flicker of movement as something passed through the path of moonlight where its beams pierced the darkness. There was no sound. 

"A bat," he told her. "Some night bird." 

"That size?" 

Only Kane had sensed the chill presence of fear, the sudden aura of danger that whispered through the brooding melancholy of the ruins. And he knew that death stalked the night. 

"Stay here," he ordered. "Make no sound unless... you need to." His sword hissed from his scabbard, and Kane vanished into the darkness beyond. 

Levardos glanced up from his post near the entrance. "What is it?" he whispered, noting Kane's expression. 

"I don't know. Did you see, hear anything?" 

The lean-faced man shook his head. "What is it?" he repeated. 

Without answer, Kane brushed by him, stepping over the dead ashes of their fire. There was danger in the night, of this he felt certain. But what danger lurked among these ebon-shrouded ruins...? 

He began a circuit of the temple. Neither Webbre nor Haigan, posted close by, had noticed anything out of the ordinary; they expressed wonder at their leader's sudden unease. Thinking on the direction from which the shadowy movement had seemed to come, Kane redoubled his caution as he slipped farther away from the walls. 

The moon overhead cast thick and misshapen shadows through the tangled trees, shone bright on jutting fragments of stonework that were strewn about like piles of discarded bone. Sodden underbrush clung to the mounds of decayed timber, cloaked the shadowed depressions of rubble-laden cellars. Through this maze of pitfalls and thorny barricades, Kane stalked in silence, sword poised to strike at the nameless menace which he knew to be creeping through the night with him. Yes, there was danger close by—danger that hinted of inhuman evil—for too often had Kane quested along paths of hidden knowledge to doubt this subconscious warning. Perhaps the ghost of unease he had felt earlier this evening had not arisen, as he supposed, from the matter of the dark muse... 

He had swung out far enough, he decided, still without finding any reason for his concern. Maybe then it was just nerves; he had started at the shadow of a low-flying owl. Only he could not convince himself of this. Turning toward the silent temple, Kane slipped around to check with his other two men. 

A short time later he halted. Unless he had lost his bearing, Boulus should be posted here. There was no sign of the man. Kane bit his lip and looked more closely. No, he was not mistaken. Here was the lightning-spiraled oak in whose shadow Boulus had waited. By the blotches of moonlight, the ground showed no evidence of a struggle. The man should not have left his post... unless he had something to report. 

Cursing himself for ignoring the obvious, Kan quickly threaded his way back to the temple. With such stealth did he move that he was standing next to Hef before the other man called a challenge. Hef's sword wavered for an instant, but he recognized Kane's hulking figure. 

"Nothing," he whispered, grinning ruefully that his leader had come upon him unseen. 

"Boulus hasn't come by." As he asked it, it was no longer a question. 

Hef made a negative grunt. "Unless he slipped by me as quiet as you just done." 

"Something's wrong then," gritted Kane. "He's not at his post." The sense of danger tightened. Boulus should have checked with Hef if he had noticed anything in their area. But there was only silence about them. 

"Maybe he shifted over a ways," Hef suggested. "Quiet as you move, if you didn't see him, he wouldn't of seen you." 

"Maybe. I'll check again. Watch it." Kane stole away in the direction he bad just come. 

But of Boulus there was still no trace. Softly Kane called his name—alarmed to the point of taking this risk. Not even an echo. Not even the call of a night bird. Had something frightened the forest to silence? 

The aura of menace was very near. 

Thinking furiously, Kane returned to where he had left Hef. Stronger than ever came the sense of lurking terror. Was there something stalking him? 

Again there sounded no challenge. Hef was not at his post. 

Feeling the muscles of his neck draw tight, Kane searched about him. There was nothing to be seen; no sign of disturbance here; nothing. He was starting for the temple, when his foot struck something. A boot. Hef's boot. Bewildered, Kane caught it up. 

Something warm and damp ran across his wrist as he lifted it. Hef's foot remained in the boot. His calf had been sheared off so cleanly as to clip through the top of the leather. 

There had been no sound. 

Levardos sensed his leader's alarm as Kane plunged from the nighted forest. He met the urgent question in Kane's look and shook his head, his parchment-fleshed face alert. 

In a harsh whisper Kane called for Webbre and Haigan to pull back instantly. Muffled thrashing in the brush indicated they bad heard. Something evil, something deadly, hovered near, very near. 

'Kane! What is it!" hissed Levardos. 

'I'm not sure," he grated. "Boulus is gone. Hef, too. In the space of a few minutes, something took Hef—not a few score yards from me, though I heard nothing! There was just his foot, lying there on the ground like a cast-off boot!" 

"Why no sound of attack? You should have heard the rush of steel. A man would scream as a blade sundered his leg!" 

Kane's face was worried. "No blade did that—there was no more blood than from a slopped wine cup. Something snatched him up; something with jaws like a dragon—jaws that could close upon a man in an instant, and never notice if a tiny morsel of flesh dropped away from its scissored fangs!" 

"But a beast that huge!" his lieutenant protested, "We'd see it—hear it!" 

"But we didn't." 

The two brothers burst from the undergrowth. "Quick! Inside the temple!" Kane ordered, snapping out a terse explanation. "Whatever's out there, these walls may give us some defense!" 

From their tethers, the horses began to stamp and nicker. For a second Kane debated leaving them to their fate, then decided not to risk being left on foot. "Bring in the mounts!" he ordered Webbre and Haigan. 

Then as he dashed through the temple entrance, he knew something was wrong here as well. He had left a torch burning near the altar; it lay dark against the tiles, extinguished. Ceteol had vanished. 

Kane snatched up the remaining torch from its crevice within the entrance. The link was nearly burned out; perhaps the other had fallen and gone out. Ceteol? 

No time for conjecture. From outside came a shrill scream. A second voice—Webbre's bass roar—cursed and howled. Then the screams of the horses drowned out everything. With a thunder of panic-spurred hooves, their mounts pounded off into the night. 

Kane whipped the torch to flaring life. Their blades wavered yellow as he and Levardos leaped from the deserted temple. Branches shook; the last of the horses could just be glimpsed as darkness engulfed them. The two brothers had disappeared. Kane called only once, for he did not expect an answer. 

"That shadow!" breathed Levardos, pointing. 

"Ah!" hissed Kane, and thrust out his torch. 

No shape. Only a looming shadow that writhed against the trees, swept across the fallen stories. Retreating too quickly for the eye to judge its form. 

"What is it? Where is it!" gasped Levardos. For the torchlight disclosed nothing that might cast such a shadow—nor was there any sound or show of movement to mark its passage. 

"Something overhead?" guessed Kane, though the angle of the creeping shadows denied this. 

The link flickered and smoked. Its pitch was almost exhausted, so that the tow was beginning to smoulder. 

As its light failed, the misshapen shadow surged across the moonlight toward them. Terror brushed chill talons toward their throats. With a curse, Kane whirled the torch about; bits of the tow spun loose and dashed like tiny stars across the night. Flame leaped up once more. The onrushing shadow fell back. Still there was no sign of what cast it. 

"Back into the temple!" Kane ordered. "I think it hates the light!'' 

Breathlessly they stumbled past the rubble of the portal. The thick walls afforded some sense of protection from the unknown horror that lurked beyond the light. 

The link snapped and fumed. "The other torches?" asked Kane anxiously. 

"They were with the horses and gear!" groaned Levardos. 

"Then we'd better find something to burn!" Kane scrambled through the litter of the temple. His boot kicked through the mounds of rotted timber; the material sprayed from his thrusting foot, damp and crumbling loam. Only bare stone and mould-eaten decay. The enclosing roof had held out the undergrowth, fallen branches that cluttered the ground outside. 

The sputtering flame threatened to leap and die. "Isn't there any dry wood in here?" cursed Kane. 

"Outside..." began Levardos, glancing toward the doorway. He did not finish. Shadow blocked the entrance. 

Kane lunged with the dwindling torch. Moonlight again fell through the opening. 

"Here's something!" Levardos crushed together an armload of dead wood—a few branches that had fallen though the broken roof. With frantic care, Kane thrust the link into the heap of brush. It was damp, rotten. The flame dwindled, refused to catch. Desperate breaths fanned the smouldering tow. From the corner of his eye, Kane saw the shadow spread across the doorway. 

Then the branches caught. Painfully, unsteadily, the flickering heat crept through the broken tinder. Ignoring blistered hands, the two men nudged embers together and fed the trembling flames—cursed as the damp wood smoked and steamed without igniting. 

Somehow they got the fire burning. Moonlight spilled past the portal once again. But the smothering cloud of deadly fear did not leave them. Beyond the walls, an unseen stalker paced in silent hunger, blotted out the shafts of moonbeam as it crept about the ruin. 

"We'll need more wood than this," judged Kane. In the dancing firelight he could see other branches and scraps of crumbling timber—pitifully few. When these were gone? 

"Maybe with a torch we could bring wood in from outside," he considered. Levardos nodded uneasily, not wanting to think of the death that waited beyond the light. 

With this in mind, Kane left the fire to retrieve the fallen torch by the altar. As he bent, his brow furrowed. The link had not burned out; someone's foot had crushed it against the tiles. Wondering, Kane picked it up. In the horror of the moment, he had spared little thought for Ceteol. Her disappearance now took on another aspect. 

"Kane! Above you!" 

Kane hurtled back from the altar. The pool of moonlight no longer poured down. Its circle was broken as a writhing shadow crept across the opening in the roof. Risking a glance upward, Kane saw only darkness, flowing darkness that blotted out the stars. A crawling, obscene shadow wriggled across the altar—slithered too rapidly to suggest more than vaguely its true shape. If indeed it had true shape. The aura of alien evil bore down upon them in crushing waves. 

"It makes no sound!" cried Levardos as Kane retreated to the fire. "And its size! How can these mouldering stones bear its weight?" 

"It has no weight—no substance as we understand!" Kane snarled, recognizing the creature at last. "It's a sort of demon—an elemental from the subworld of chaos, 'in elemental fashioned of darkness! Darkness lends it substance, but light strips away its borrowed flesh—shows only the shadow of its malevolent spirit. Moonlight doesn't affect it, since the moon casts no true light. The demon must have followed us here; waited for nightfall, for our fires to die. If we can keep a fire going until dawn, we can escape it." 

A laugh answered him from beyond the altar. "Will you burn stone, then?" asked a mocking voice. "Your fire already flames less brightly. Soon you'll have to venture out into the damp forest—and what if your torch goes out? Will you find some rotten branch to light your way? And the stars say it will rain again before dawn!" 

Eberhos's burly figure slunk through a rift in the temple's far wall. He carried a burden. Ceteol. The girl hung limp in his arms; her hands were tied, and a gag was fixed between her jaws. 

Kane's eyes blazed. He took a step toward the alchemist. 

A dagger flashed in Eberhos's hand. "Stay where you are!" he ordered. "Or I'll slit her pretty throat and be gone before you get halfway here! Want to chase me into the night?" 

Seeing that Kane subsided, he sneered, "So you know what demon stalks you, Kane. You're most erudite, aren't you? Did you guess who summoned it, who commanded it to pursue, to stay? Surely not uncouth Eberhos, Damatjyst's flunky and errand boy!" 

His voice grew shrill. "Did you think I had kissed ass for that miserly tyrant all these years and never learned to count past my fingers? Well, my days of taking that piss-blooded bastard's orders are just about over! I've planned my move for years, waited patiently while I did apprentice's chores for the fool! I'll not let the theft of that carving destroy his trust in his loyal First Assistant just when all I've planned for is in reach!" 

He chuckled and shifted the girl's dropping form. Kane saw the smear of crimson dark against her hair. Ceteol began to regain consciousness, moaned through her gag. 

"Followed you here," Eberhos grinned. "Followed my little pet. While you were out playing with it in the dark, I slipped inside to get my carving. Your man didn't seem to be on guard any more, did he? But when I didn't find the figurine, I thought the little lady might want to tell me where you hid it—I know you and that crazy poet were going to try something with it here tonight. 

"Tell you what, Kane. Give me the carving—if you aren't carrying it, tell me where it's hidden—and I'll take it and go. Once I'm clear, I'll send the demon back to the realm of chaos from which I summoned it." 

"What chance is there you'll keep your part of the bargain?" growled Kane, weighing the chances of a knife throw. The distance was great, and Eberhos held the girl like a shield. And the fire was dropping low already. 

"Well, now, I guess you'll just have to trust my word of honor," the alchemist chuckled. "Is that rain I hear off in the trees?" 

The wind was starting up in listless gusts. Kane answered Eberhos with a curse and edged a step closer. 

Eberhos touched his dagger to Ceteol's straining throat. "One more step, and she gets a new mouth! Give me the carving, Kane. Maybe you and Opyros want to watch the girl die?" 

Kane realized that in the poor light Eberhos had mistaken Levardos for the poet. Crouched beyond the flickering fire, his lieutenant could only be glimpsed as a gaunt figure with blond hair—like Opyros. "Why should I care what you do with the girl?" scoffed Kane. "She means nothing to either of us." 

Eberhos's beefy face grew crafty. "No? Well, maybe your verse-singing friend will change his mind when he sees I don't bluff. It won't be a quick death..." 

The fire was dying down. Levardos shoved in the last of the fuel they had gathered. The damp, pulpy wood all but smothered the flames. 

"Take the girl as hostage, go back and call off your demon," offered Kane. "I'll return the carving to you tomorrow—and give you my word not to take vengeance for this." 

Laughter taunted him. "Getting edgy, Kane? And you didn't even see what happened to your friends—but I did! No, you aren't the one who makes the bargain tonight, Kane. You'll take my offer, or die!" 

"I see no reason to trust you," Kane snarled. The fire was not igniting the rotted fragments of timber. 

"Then I'll show you that you can trust me to carry out a threat! The carving, quick now, or the girl gets the knife! Slow. I'll let you watch to see how she likes it." 

Eberhos shoved the still dazed girl into a shaft of moonlight that lanced through one of the high, narrow windows. The window was not much wider than a balistraria, but the ray of light clearly showed Ceteol's white face. Should they rush him, the alchemist could easily slash her throat and dart through the broken wall, a few steps away. 

"Watch!" he jeered. Pinning her against his chest, he hooked his arm around and drew the dagger point through the fabric of her beaded blouse. The cloth parted to expose her straining breasts. Grinning, Eberhos carved a thin crescent below each pale cone of flesh. Blood traced patterns down her ribs and belly. 

Ceteol whimpered through the gag. The pain had returned her to full consciousness. As the alchemist shifted his blade for another cut, she smashed the heel of her riding boot into his shin. 

Her boots were spurred. Fashionable spurs for a lady, but sharp nonetheless. Their towels gored a furrow down to Eberhos's sandaled foot. 

Cursing in pain, the alchemist hurled her against the wall. Ceteol's head cracked against the window's edge, and she slumped down. Blood flowed from Eberhos's leg as he leaped upon her and raised his dagger for a killing stroke. 

Shadow flickered across the moonlight. A loop of something dark and half-seen snaked through the window; Kane thought of a great black cat darting its paw into a rat hole after catching a glimpse of its prey within. Eberhos shrieked—one terrible shriek—as something that might have been a tentacle lashed about his chest, tore him from the floor and through the window into the night. 

Presumably the demon would not have harmed its master. Likely the scent of blood, the proximity of the girl, Eberhos's sudden lunge confused the enraged leviathan that waited in the darkness outside. The creature instantly released the alchemist. 

As much of him as had passed through the narrow window. 


Ceteol made a choking sound in her throat and stumbled groggily away from the dripping aperture. Kane caught her up, removed her bonds, and the girl huddled next to the fire, cursing dispassionately between shuddering gasps. Blood continued to seep along her ribs, but the gashes were shallow, so that she was barely aware of their pain in the presence of far greater horror. 

But the clinging atmosphere of terror which had closed about them had lifted—vanished with the alchemist's death. 

"What... happened?" puffed Levardos, daring to pause in his frenzied efforts with the fire. The flames quivered and sputtered, but burned more strongly now. 

"I think it's gone," Kane hazarded. "Eberhos summoned the demon, commanded it to stalk us; his death should have released it from its bond—allowed the creature to return to the nameless realm of chaos." 

"Gone, do you think?" asked Levardos, eyeing the darkness with suspicion. 

"So it would appear. Do you see its crawling shadow? Can you sense that smothering cloud of unearthly fear the demon seemed to exhale?" 

His lieutenant shook his head slowly, then glanced toward the steaming fire. The chunks of rotted timber would soon be consumed. "We'll know for sure before long," be commented laconically. 

Kane gingerly retrieved the remaining link from the cheerless flames. Pitch still boiled from its tow—fuel which had kept the fire going after Levardos had shoved it into the dying embers. "I'll find out now," he growled, carrying the torch toward the door. 

Despite his assurance that the demon had left them, Kane's broad muscles bunched in tight cords as he stepped into the darkness of the ruin-haunted forest. Drops of rain splashed invisibly through the trees, spat at the flaring torch. But no unseen demon reached out for him; no writhing shadow lurked beyond the nimbus of light. Forcing unpleasant thoughts from his mind, Kane cast about for dead limbs and eventually returned through the enveloping drizzle with a small tree scraping behind him. 

"The demon," he announced, "is gone," Kane flung down his load of wood, then released the disintegrating torch; he had to use his free hand to pry away his locked fingers from their grip on its shaft. 

They kept the fire going. It was a worn, grim trio huddled within the ruined temple. More mist than droplets, the rain wrapped itself about them, plopped from countless crevices in the smoke-hung roof. They waited for daylight, waited for the poet to return to them; the shadow of terror which had fallen over this night made the evocation of the dark muse seem distant, unreal. Touched by the spirit of gloom that haunted the ruins, they waited through the night, each silent in his thoughts. 

The grey light of dawn was touching the altar when Kane muttered an exclamation that woke the others from their doze. "Look!" he cried, pointing toward the circle of dawnlight. 

Streamers of opalescent mist, not of the rain nor of the morning, gathered upon the bare stone, splashed clean by the raindrops. The swirling mists slowed, hovered closer. Coalesced. Vanished. 

On the rain-polished stone lay a man, a man who looked to be asleep. Beside him rested a nude figurine of black onyx, a figurine whose carven face smiled an invitation to unknown wonders, whose eyes shone with mysterious cruelty... 

"Opyros!" called Ceteol, running to him. She touched his arm. 

The poet's eyes flashed open. He drew away, fear distorting his face. His eyes were unfocused, vacuous. 

"Opyros?" Kane's voice was shaken. 

The poet's empty eyes looked past Kane. He worked his threat as if to scream, but only a hiss of insurmountable terror escaped his contorted lips. He hissed again and again, then began to sob mindlessly. 

When they sought to lift him, Opyros broke away and fled with frightened mewing into a shadowed corner of the ruin. They had difficulty pulling him from under the debris, as he moved with surprising speed for a man wriggling on his belly. 

V
Cruel Mystery of Her Smile
They carried Opyros back to Enseljos. 

For weeks he lay in a locked room of his manor, attended only by Ceteol after his howling drove away most of his servants. A sense of fulfillment seemed to settle over Ceteol, who would explain with a soft smile just exactly who was to blame. Only through the drugs Kane left for him could the poet take sleep, and for days he remained huddled in a nest of soiled bedding, shivering and mewling. At times he muttered snatches of speech, guttural syllables in a strange language—if language it was—that no one could recognize, although Kane once listened carefully as if he understood, and left the chamber shuddering. 

Almost certainly any other man would have gone to the end of his days in this gibbering state of frightened madness. Perhaps Opyros's was an exceptionally resilient consciousness, or possibly the repeated flights of his imagination into the shadow lands of the macabre had to some extent inured him to those greater horrors which would have utterly shattered another's soul. Some core of ego yet burned beneath the choking mists of insanity. 

Little by little he seemed to come to himself. Though the nightmares still haunted his drugged sleep, he became able to sit composedly while awake, to feed and care for himself. After some months he began to prowl quietly about his manor, examining his books and effects as if submerged memories were rising from far depths of his consciousness—like a traveller who returns from a distant journey of many years, to find the vaguely remembered home of his childhood awaiting him untouched by the age which has passed since lost he held his toys. Eventually be began to talk, fumbling with the words as if the language were unfamiliar from disuse, but as the weeks passed, his stammering phrases grew to careful sentences and then to normal conversation. He ventured out on the streets of Enseljos once more and greeted his old acquaintances, who were privately alarmed as to how greatly his recent nervous collapse had aged the poet. And thus, after many months of convalescence, Opyros reassumed management of his affairs much as before. 

But long before this time he had begun to write. 


Kane greeted Opyros one night as the poet made a surprise visit to his new quarters. Only rarely did he see his friend since Opyros's recovery, for the poet stayed locked in his study for long hours these days, working in secret at his writing. No longer did he come to Kane with fragments of verse and half-formed ideas; all his writing he now did alone. Kane hoped the poet did not feel some unspoken ill will against him for his part in the evocation of the dark muse. On the contrary, Opyros expressed no regret for his experience, though he never told of it. Nonetheless, Kane could read nothing in his eyes of the poet's secret thoughts. 

"Night Winds is finished," he declared with a tired smile. 

Warmly Kane congratulated his friend. "Are you at last satisfied with it, then?" 

Opyros looked introspective as he accepted a crystal chalice of brandy. "I think so. My journey with the dark muse was worth it, Kane, for I found the inspiration I sought—though there was a price for it." 

"And is Night Winds the perfect poem you spoke of once to me?" 

Opyros savoured the liquor before tasting it. "I think so." 

"Then I should very much like to read it. Have you brought it?" 

Opyros shook his head. "No, it's locked safely away. Forgive my conceit, Kane, but this is the masterwork I have devoted my life, my soul, to creating. I want its unveiling to be an affair of some... ah... magnitude—do you understand?" 

Kane nodded, studying the other's face intently. 

"There will be a formal reading in a week or so, as soon as I can circulate invitations to those who should have them, arrange a hall, and the like. I don't want this another uncouth public reading, with slobs tramping in and out through it all, peddlers hawking food and drink. This will be a private affair—closed door, you know—a few hundred guests, literary colleagues and critics, the nobility who attend this sort of social function. There'll be enough trouble with these dilettantes' gossiping and backbiting... but then I've said a perfect poem should hold the minds of its audience." 

"I'll took forward to attending." 

"I'm tempted to let you see this first, anyway," Opyros grinned nervously. "It's somewhat different from my earlier work—I've done a lot of things that no writer has thought to... Well, it's finished, and I'll wait for the formal reading, to stand acclaimed as genius or be laughed at as pretentious fool, when the world first hears it." 

"To Night Winds and its author," toasted Kane, touching goblets. 

"To the dark muse," answered Opyros. 


But Kane did not attend the first reading of Night Winds, although the poet's announced presentation of his first work in over a year had attracted great interest and comment from across the land. Halbros-Serrantho had required Kane's presence in secret on the night of the reading. Kane could not deny this summons from the ambitious ruler of Enseljos, whose dreams included building an empire from the tiny states of the Northern Continent. Such plans were of no little interest to Kane as well. 

So Kane was forced to miss the first reading of Night Winds. 

It often moved him to wondering regret. For although he was never to hear the masterwork of Opyros, the mad poet, Kane knew that his friend had in truth found inspiration in the embrace of the dark muse. Opyros had in truth created the perfect poem of his dark genius. 

For as he left the palace of Halbros-Serrantho, the first horrified tales were spreading across the city—tales of what had awaited the frightened guards when they at last broke down the locked doors of that now silent audience halt. 














				Two Suns Setting





I
Alone with the Night Winds
Sullen red disk, the sun was burying itself beneath a monotonous horizon of rolling gravel waste that stretched behind him miles uncounted—and possibly untrod save by his horse's hooves. Long before the sunlight failed, its warmth was snuffed out in the empty lifelessness of the desert, so that in its last hour the sun shone cheerless as the rising moon. Crimson as it climbed, the full moon seemed a false dawn to mock the dying sun, arriving prematurely, disrespectful as a greedy heir pacing in eager impatience before the master's deathbed. For a space the limitless skies of twilight displayed two rubrous globes low on either horizon, so that Kane mused as to whether his long journey across the desert might not have led him to some strange dusk world where two ancient suns smouldered in the heavens. The region seemed unearthly in its chill desolation, and certainly an aura of unguessable antiquity hung as a grey shadow over each tumbled bit of stone. 

Kane had left Carsultyal with no particular destination or goal other than to ride far beyond that city's influence. There were those who said that Kane was driven from Carsultyal, his power there broken at last by fellow sorcerers jealous of his long-held prestige—and alarmed by the bizarrely alien direction his studies had taken in recent years. Kane himself considered his departure more or less voluntary, albeit precipitous, arguing privately that had he really wanted to, he could have fended off the attack of his former colleagues—even though he owed allegiance to neither god nor demon from whom he might have sought intercession. Rather, mankind's first great city had grown stagnant over the last century. The spirit of discovery, of renaissance that had drawn him to Carsultyal in its earliest years was burned out now, so that boredom, his nemesis, had overtaken Kane once more. To be sure, he had been restless, his thoughts drawn more and more to the world beyond Carsultyal—lands yet to know the presence of man. But that he returned to his pathless wandering without much forethought could be judged in that Kane had left the city with little more than a few supplies, a double handful of gold coins, a fast horse, and a sword of tempered Carsultyal steel. Those who sought to seize his relinquished power may have regretted their inheritance, but this minor vindication seemed pointless now. 

With dusk, the wind began to rise, a whining chill breath from the mountains whose rusted peaks still burned with the final rays of the sun, now vanished beneath the opposite horizon. Kane shivered and drew his russet cloak closer about his massive shoulders, regretting the warm furs that scavengers now snarled over in Carsultyal. The Herratlonai was a cold, empty waste, where nights dropped to freezing. With the mountain wind, his outfit of green wool shirt, dark leather vest, and pants was less than adequate for the night. 

The previous day he had eaten the last hoarded chips of dried fruit and jerky, after short rations for a week or more. Of water luckily there was yet half a bag; he had filled the skins to bursting before entering the desert, and a waterhole had providentially appeared along the ghost of a trail he followed. Or thought he followed. The gravel waste southeast of Carsultyal's domains was reputed to border on one of the prehuman realms of lost antiquity. There were tales of cities impossibly ancient buried beneath the gravel dunes. Kane had come upon what he hoped might be traces of a forgotten path across the desert to the fabled mountains of the eastern continent. He determined to follow this, and at times he discovered sentinel boulders whose all but effaced hieroglyphs might resemble those glimpsed in books of elder world lore—or might be the deluding artistry of wind and ice. Beyond this tantalization, Kane found nothing further to disrupt the monotonous desolation but stray patches of sparse scrub and gorgeous columns of agatized wood. The grass his mount cropped; for himself Kane had not seen even a lizard in days. Perhaps it had been rash to attempt traverse of a desert whose limits no man had knowledge of, at least without a packtrain of provisions. But Kane had not embarked under the brightest of circumstances, nor had the years dulled his reckless whim. Philosophically he congratulated himself on riding a course no enemy would care to follow. 

Then the mountains had broken through the thin haze of the eastern horizon like a row of worn and discolored teeth. Their presence gave some cause for optimism—at least he was across the desert—but this hope was clouded when the late afternoon sun revealed the hills to be merely a more vertical variation on the present terrain. Dry slopes of gravel and crumbling bluffs appeared lifeless except for dark blotches of twisted underbrush. From the talus gleamed iridescent flashes of sunlight, colored then flung back by mammoth slabs of petrified wood, strewn about like a giant's plundered jewel hoard. 

But with darkness had also come the startling smell of wood smoke in the mountain wind—a familiar scent uncanny in this stark desolation. Kane brushed smooth the grimy beard that hung like rust over coarse features, thumbed a few blowing strands of red hair back beneath a leather headband sewn with plaques of lapis lazuli, and sniffed the night wind in disbelief. His mount paced onward, the night deepened, and against the foot of the mountains ahead beckoned the light of a campfire. No, simply the light of a fire, he mused—there was no reason to be more specific. At this distance it must be a good-sized blaze. 

He guided his horse closer, picking his way carefully over the gravel in the moonlight, With a twisting ache in his belly, Kane recognized the odor of roasting meat within the smoke, and there was no longer any doubt. Calculatingly he studied the still distant campfire. He had seen no evidence of habitation against the slope, and in this emptiness such would seem an impossibility. Not that it seemed any more probable, but indications were that he had chanced upon some other wanderer. As to who or what might be camped beside the ridge, or what circumstances had brought about his presence, Kane was at loss to conjecture. Nothing was known of those who might dwell beyond the settled northwestern crescent of the Great Southern Continent, and in the dawn world more races than mankind walked the Earth. 

Whoever had built the fire, he ate his meat cooked and so could not be hopelessly alien. From the size of the campfire, Kane guessed it was a small party of nomads or savages—likely someone from whatever lay beyond the mountains. The significant point was the roasting meat. Licking dry lips, Kane unfastened his sword from the saddle and buckled it across his back, so that the familiar hilt protruded reassuringly over his right shoulder. The scabbard tip he left untied, so that it would pivot freely on its shoulder swivel when he grasped the hilt. Cautiously he approached the campfire. 

II
Two Who Met by Firelight
His keen nostrils caught an animal smell, sour beneath the pungency of wood smoke and cooked flesh. At first the crackling firelight screened the shape crouched beyond, so that Kane warily nudged his steed toward another angle of vision to confirm his dawning suspicion. His face tightened at recognition. Only one man squatted beside the blaze—if a giant might be termed "man." 

Kane had seen—had spoken with—giants in the course of his wanderings, although in recent decades they were seldom encountered. A proudly aloof, taciturn race he knew them to be. Few in number and scornful of mankind's emerging civilization, they lived a semi-barbaric existence in lands unfrequented by man. True, there abounded gruesome tales of individual giants who terrorized isolated human settlements, but these were outlaws to their own race—or more often the monstrous hybrid ogres. 

This particular individual did not appear threatening. While he obviously had heard the clash of shod hooves on stone, his attitude seemed curious rather than hostile as Kane approached. Not that someone his stature need display an aggressive front at the appearance of a single horse and rider. In comfortable reach lay a hooked axe whose bronze head could serve as a ship's anchor. Kane realized that from the other's higher vantage point, his approach had been observed beyond the ring of firelight. Still the giant showed no sinister action. Spitted over sputtering flames turned an entire carcass of what looked to be goat. Hot, succulent meat... 

Hanger overpowered caution. Poised to wheel and gallop away at the first sign of danger, Kane boldly rode up to the fringe of firelit circle and halted. 

"Good evening," he greeted levelly, speaking the language of the giant's race with complete fluency. "Your campfire was visible at some distance. I wondered if I might join you." 

The giant grunted and shielded his eyes with a hand larger than a spade. "Well, what's this here? A human who speaks the Old Tongue. Out of nowhere, too—and in a land that even ghosts have abandoned. This sort of novelty can't be ignored. Come on into the light, manling. We'll share hospitality of the trail." His voice, though loud as a man's shout, had an even bass timbre. 

Kane muttered thanks and dismounted, deciding to gamble on the giant's apparent goodwill. As he stepped before the fire, he and his host exchanged curious inspection. At a bit over six feet and carrying past three hundred pounds of bone, sinew, and muscle, Kane was seldom physically overawed. This night he stood alone in the desert before one who could overpower him as if he were a weakling child. 

He estimated the giant's height at somewhere around fifteen feet. It was difficult to tell, since he sat crouched on the ground, knees drawn up, enswathed in a cloak of bearskins like a misshapen hairy tent. Disregarding the matter of size, the giant's appearance was human enough—his proportions were those of a man in his prime, though he seemed somewhat lanky from a slightly disproportionate length of limb. Broadly muscled, his weight must be enormous. He wore rough boots the size of panniers, and under the cloak a crudely stitched tunic and leggings of bide. Calves and arms were matted with coarse bristles. Perhaps too bony to be called craggy, his features were not displeasing; his beard was shaggy, brown hair drawn back in a short braid at the nape. Brown also were his eyes, set wide beneath an intelligent brow. 

Looking him over as a man might size up a stray dog, the giant glanced at Kane's face and gave an interested grunt. He gazed thoughtfully into Kane's cold blue eyes for a moment—something few cared to do. "You're Kane, aren't you?" he commented. 

Kane started, then smiled bitterly. "A thousand miles from the cities of man, and a giant calls me by name." 

The giant seemed amused. "Oh, you'll have to wander far if you really seek anonymity. We giants have watched the frantic history of your race. We recall when mankind aborted from its womb, pretending to be adult instead of misbegotten fetus. To man these few centuries are time immemorial; to our race a nostalgic yesterday. We remember well the Curse of Kane and still recognize his mark." 

"That history is already garbled and distorted," Kane murmured, eyes for a moment focused beyond. "Kane is becoming misty legend in the old homes of man—and lost in obscurity in the new lands. Already I've travelled through lands where men did not know me for who I am." 

"And you kept wandering, too—because they soon learned to dread the name of Kane," concluded the giant. "Well, Kane, my name is Dwassllir, and I'm pleased to find a legend joining me at my lonely fire." 

Kane shrugged an ironic acknowledgment. "What's that roasting in your lonely fire?" He looked hungrily at the grease-dripping carcass. 

"A mountain goat I dropped this afternoon—good game is scarce around here, I've found. Hey, give that spit a nudge, will you?" 

Kane heaved the spit to the rarest side. "You going to eat all of it?" be asked bluntly, too hungry for pride. 


Dwassllir might well have done otherwise, but the giant seemed glad for the companionship and tore off a generous side of ribs that taxed even Kane's voracity. Again the image of stray dog occurred to Kane, but the growling in his belly claimed first place in his thoughts. The goat was tough, stringy, half raw and gamy in taste; it was ecstasy to devour. One eye still watching the giant warily, he gnawed on the ribs with gusto, washing down the greasy flesh with mouthfuls of stale water from Dwassllir's canteen. 

With a belch that fanned the flames, Dwassllir stood and stretched, licked his fingers, wiped face with hands, then scrubbed his hands with loose gravel. When the giant was erect, Kane realized that his height was closer to eighteen feet. Leisurely Dwassllir picked over the remains of the goat. "Want any more?" he inquired. Kane shook his head, still struggling with the ribs. A short tug wrenched loose the remaining hind leg, and the giant settled back with a contented sigh to gnaw the joint. 

"Game is hard to run across in this range," he reflected, gesturing with the tattered femur. "Doubt if you'd find anything in that stretch of desert yonder. Likely that horse will be the only meat you'll find until you get into the plains cast of here." 

"I thought about eating him," Kane conceded. "But on foot I'd stand little chance of crossing this waste." 

Dwassllir snorted disparagingly. Because of their enormous size, giants looked upon a horse as only another game animal. "The frailty of your race! Strip man of his crutches, and he's helpless to stand against his world." 

"Don't oversimplify," Kane objected. "Mankind will be master of this world. In only a few centuries I've seen our civilization grow from a sterile paradise, from scattered barbaric tribes to a vast and expanding empire of cities, villages, and farms. Ours is the fastest rising civilization ever to burst upon this world." 

"Only because man has stolen his civilization from the ruins of better races who preceded him. Human civilization is parasitic—a gaudy fungus that owes its vitality to the dead genius upon whose corpse it flourishes!" 

"Wiser races, I'll grant you," Kane pointed out. "But it is mankind who has survived, not Earth's elder races. It is a measure of man's resourcefulness that he can salvage from prehuman civilizations knowledge that is invaluable to the advance of his own race. Carsultyal has risen thus from a fishing village to the greatest city in the known world. Her rediscovered knowledge has shaped the emergence of mankind to our present civilization." 

Dwassllir snapped the femur explosively and sucked at its marrow. "Civilization! You boast that as man's major accomplishment! It is nothing—only an outgrowth of human weakness! Man is too frail, too unworthy a creature to live within his environment. He must instead prop himself up with his civilization, his learning. My race learned to live in the real world, to merge with our environment. We need no civilization. Man is a cripple who flaunts his infirmity, boasts of his crutches. You retreat into the walls of your civilization because you are too weak to stand before nature as part of the natural environment. Instead of living as partner to nature, man hides behind his civilization, curses and defies true life, distorts his environment to accommodate his own failings. Beware that your environment does not strike back from all your blasphemies, for that day mankind shall be snuffed out like the unnatural freak man is! 

"Even you, Kane, you who are reviled as the most dangerous man of your race. Without your horse, your clothes, your weapons, could you have crossed that desert alive as you have just barely done? One of my race could! 

"My race is older than yours. We had grown to maturity while a mad god was playing his idiot game of shaping mankind from the bestial filth that skulked where shadow lay deepest. Had man walked the Earth of my race's youth, his civilization would have protected him no better than an eggshell. That Earth was more feral than this world man knows. My ancestors defied storms, glaciers, catastrophes that would have swept away your cities like dry leaves before the wind! They stood naked before beasts more savage than any man has known—grappled and conquered the sabretooth, the great sloth, the cave bear, the woolly mammoth, and other creatures whose strength and ferocity are unknown in this tame age! Could man have survived in that heroic age? I doubt that all his cunning and trickery could have saved him!" 

"Perhaps not, but then your race has considerable physical advantage," argued Kane wondering how wise it might be to provoke the other. "If my stride were as long as yours, then I wouldn't need a horse to cross a desert—although I think your disdain might not exist, if there were a steed great enough for a giant to straddle. Nor would I need my sword if I were huge enough to crush a lion as if it were only a jackal. Your boast is founded on the fact that your size makes you physically superior to the dangers of your environment, which is a boast that any large and powerful animal could echo. Who is braver—one of your ancestors who barehanded throttled a cave bear close to him in size, or a man with a spear who kills a tiger many times his superior in physical power?" 

He paused, waiting to see if the giant had taken offense. However, Dwassllir was not of volatile temper. Belly full and feet warm, he was in a pleasant mood for fireside debate with his diminutive companion. 

"True, yours is an older race, and mankind an arrogant youth," Kane continued. "But what are the accomplishments of your race? If you scorn to build cities, to sail ships, to settle the wilderness, to master the secrets of prehuman knowledge, then what have you achieved? Art, poetry, philosophy, spiritualism—are these fields your race has mastered?" 

"Our achievement has been to live at peace with out environment—to live as a part of the natural world, in. stead of waging war with nature," declared Dwassllir steadily. 

"All right then, I'll accept that," Kane persisted. "Perhaps you have found fulfillment in your rather primitive life style. However, the measure of a race's attainments must finally be its ability to flourish within its chosen role. If your race has done this so well, why then do your numbers diminish, while mankind spreads over the Earth? Never has your race been a populous one, and today man encounters giants only rarely. Will your race then fade away with the passing years—until one day the giants will be known only in legend along with the fierce creatures your ancestors fought? What then will survive your passing? What will remain to tell of your vanished glory?" 

Dwassllir became sadly pensive, so that Kane regretted having pursued the argument. "You humans seem too content to measure achievement in terms of numbers," he answered. "But I can't make full refutation of your logic. Our numbers have been declining for centuries, and I can't really tell you why. Our lives are long—I'm not as much your junior in years as you may suppose, Kane. We are slow to mate and raise children, but this was always so. Our natural enemies have all passed into extinction or retreated to the most obscure reaches. Our simple medicines are sufficient to nurse us through whatever disease or injury might strike us. No, our deaths have not increased. 

"I think our race has grown old, tired. Perhaps we should have followed the giant beasts of the savage past into the realm of shadow. At least our old enemies gave life adventure! It is as if my race has lived beyond its era, and now we perish from boredom. We're like one of your kings who has conquered all his enemies and now has only a dull old age to endure. 

"My race rose in a heroic age, Kane! It was truly a day of giants in that era! But that age is dead. Gone are the great beasts. Vanished the elder races whose wars rocked the roots of mountains. Earth has been inherited by the insignificant scavenger. Man crawls about the ruins of the great age and proclaims himself to be Earth's new master! Perhaps man will survive to accomplish his insolent usurpation—more likely he will destroy himself in seeking to command mysteries the elder races found too awesome for even their powers to control! 

"But when the day comes that man will be master of the Earth, my race will hopefully not be present to endure that humiliation! We are a race of heroes who have outlived the age of heroes! Can you blame us if we tire of existence in this age of boastful pygmies!" 

Kane fell silent. "I understand your sentiments," he finally said. "But to abandon yourself to despair, to brood upon vanished glory, doesn't impress me as heroic." 

He stopped, not wishing to deepen the shadow of melancholy that had gathered over their thoughts. "May I ask what brings you to this lost wilderness of dead rock?" he asked, thinking to change the subject. "Or do these nameless mountains border on the lands of your people?" 

Dwassllir shook himself and tossed an uprooted shrub into the fire. The leaves hissed shrilly, then whipped loose from blackened stems to rise like red stars fading into, he night. "What I seek is no secret," he replied, "although it may seem pointless to you as it has to some of my friends. 

"Centuries ago, before this region was stripped barren of soil and hence of life, there were villages of my race along these mountains—which are not nameless, but are called the Antamareesi range. Under these hills lie immense caverns, which my ancestors used for shelter in days before they raised houses, then later mined for the veins of metal they discovered within. The climate was warmer, the land was green, game was plentiful—it was a good region to settle and to look upon in that age. 

"Those were the great days! Life in that age was an ever challenging struggle between the savagery of the ancient Earth and the unyielding strength of my race! Can you imagine the tremendous energy of those people? They stood chest to chest against a ferociously hostile world, and they conquered whatever enemy they faced! Their gods were Fire and Ice—the implacable opposites that were the ruling forces of their age! And their enemies were not only the forces of nature, or the great beasts—some of the elder races challenged the ascendency of my race as well! 

"Perhaps it was their sorcery that left this region lifeless and barren. Our legends tell of battles with strange races and stranger weapons in the dawn world, and my ancestors were victorious over these enemies, too. The hero of one legendary battle, King Brotemllain, whose name you may know as the greatest king of my race, ruled over these mountains. His body was laid to rest within one of these caverns, and upon his brow remains the ancestral crown of my people—ancient even then, and given to him after death because of the undying greatness of his rule." 

Dwassllir was afire now, his momentary depression seared away by intense fervour. He considered Kane thoughtfully, made a decision, and spoke earnestly, "I've been searching for Brotemllain's legendary burial place. And from certain signs, I think I'm about to discover it. I mean to recover his crown! King Brotemllain's crown is emblematic of my race's ancient glory. Although our wars and our kings are all past now, I believe that resurrection of this legendary symbol might unlock some of the old energy and vitality of my people. Perhaps the idea brands me a fool and dreamer, as many have scoffed, but I mean to do this thing! Surely this relic from an age of heroes could serve to spark some new flame of glory to my race even in these grey days! 

"I wouldn't suggest this to another of your race, Kane, but because you are who you are, I'll offer both an invitation and a challenge. If you'd care to come along with me on this search, Kane, I'd welcome your company. It may be that you will understand my race better if you follow me into the shadow of that age of lost glory." 

"Thank you for the invitation—and the challenge," declared Kane solemnly. The venture intrigued him, and the giant seemed to eat well. "I'll be proud to make that journey with you." 

III
Dead Giant's Crown
The trees grew less far apart here, though still dwarfed and tortured by the chill breeze. Two days had Kane followed Dwassllir about the crumbling ridges, his horse matching the giant's restless stride. Now on the third day Dwassllir's whoop chorused by a hundred echoes announced the termination of his search. 

The discovery seemed unimpressive. They had entered a deep valley and traced a course to its gorgelike bead, where Kane glanced uneasily at the boulder-strewn slopes enclosing them overhead. At times Dwassllir had eagerly pointed out some rounded monument whose carvings the winds of time had all but obliterated. Again he would pause to examine some unprepossessing mound, where the drifting gravel nestled upon blocks of hewn stone and perhaps a shard of ceramic, a smear of charcoal fragments, or a lump of dried wood so ancient that it seemed more lifeless than the stones. 

"There stands the entrance to the tomb of King Brotemllain," Dwassllir proclaimed, and he gestured to a rubble-choked patch of darkness that burrowed into the valley wall. The opening had been about twenty-five feet high and half as broad, although several feet were now filled in by debris. Evidence of masonry framed the entrance, along with great chunks of shredded wood, some of whose blackened splinters were conglomerate with verdigris—all that remained of portals at last fallen to time itself. 

"I'm certain this is the valley described in our legends," the giant rumbled jubilantly. "The passage leads into a vast system of caverns. It was a natural opening my ancestors enlarged to enter a major side branch as it passes close to the surface. Beyond these ruins of the ancient monument should lie the domed natural chamber where Brotemllain's corpse was enthroned for the ages." 

Kane frowned at the dark opening doubtfully, a whisper of unease drifting through his thoughts. "I wouldn't count on finding much in there but bats and dust. Time and decay generally devour the leavings of less hallowed thieves. Or does this tomb have its unseen guardians? It would seem unusual with so renowned a tenant and so legendary a treasure if this tomb were not guarded by some still vigilant spell." 

With a shrug Dwassllir dismissed Kane's foreboding. "Unusual for your race, maybe. But this was a shrine most sacred to my race. Besides, who would dare pilfer the grave of a giant? Come on, we'll take torches and see if King Brotemllain still holds court." 

While Kane struck fire, the giant scoured about for a supply of resiniferous wood. He returned with a dead tree as thick as Kane's thigh. Taking several shorn branches, Kane accompanied Dwassllir into the cave, the latter wielding a section of trunk. 

Their progress was quickly interrupted, Blocking the passage but for a narrow crevice interposed a jumble of broken rock. A segment of the passage wall had collapsed. 

Dwassllir examined the barrier thoughtfully. "It's going to take some time to dig through this," he concluded sourly. 

"Assuming your efforts didn't bring down the rest of the mountain," was Kane's ominous comment. "There's a fault in the rock here, or this slide would not have broken through. If the caverns run as extensively as you say, there must be flaws undermining this entire range. The centuries have spread the cracks and further weakened the rock, so it's solid as a rotted tooth. It's a wonder these mountains haven't tumbled flat before now." 

Jabbing out his torch, the giant craned his neck to peer along the crevice. "Passage opens up again, and just beyond, I think I can make out where it opens into the main cavern." He glowered at the obstruction helplessly for a moment, then gazed down at the man. 

"You know, you could squeeze through that crack, Kane," he told him. "You could get past and see what's beyond. If there's nothing to be found, then there's nothing lost. But if this is King Brotemllain's tomb, then you can learn whether his crown still lies within." 

Kane considered the crevice, his face noncommittal. "It can be done," he pronounced. Casually, not wishing to show his nerve less steady than the giant's: "I'll go look for your bones on my own, then." 

The crack was inches too narrow for one of Kane's massive build, so that his clothing scuffed and flesh scraped as he wriggled through the tightest portion. But the wall had not collapsed in a solid thrust; rather, splintered chunks of stone had broken through in a disordered array, and the occlusion was spread like stubby fingers instead of a compact fist. Then his thrusting torch shone clear of the rubble and Kane edged into an unobstructed passageway. Quickly he rebuckled his scabbard across his back, but the bare blade stayed in his left fist. 

A short way beyond he found the cavern. A pair of steps too high for human stride completed the passage's gentle descent. Kane lifted the torch and looked about, his senses strained to catch any hint of danger. There was nothing to detect, but the obscure sense of menace persisted. Waving the brand to fan its light, he was unable to discern the cavern's boundaries, although this chamber seemed to extend for hundreds of feet. Stalactites hung from the ceiling far above, making a monstrous multi-fanged jaw with stalagmite tusks below. "I've just walked down the beast's tongue," mumbled Kane, clambering over the steps. Thin dust sifted over the stone, this cavern was long dead, too. 

"What do you see, Kane?" roared Dwassllir from the crevice. High above the curtain of bats stirred fitfully. 

Despite his familiarity with the giant's deafening tone, Kane started and nervously glanced toward the distant ceiling. The torch flared in his hand as he crossed the chamber, sword poised for whatever laired within the darkness. 

Then he froze, a thrill tingling through his body as he gazed at what waited at the torchlight's perimeter. 

"Dwassllir!" he shouted, in his excitement heedless of the booming echoes. "He's here! You've found the tomb! King Brotemllain's here on his throne, and his crown rests on his skull!" 

Revealed in the torchlight jutted an immense throne of hewn stone, upon which its skeletal king still reposed in sepulchral majesty. In the cool aridity of the cavern, the lich had outlasted centuries. Tatters of desiccated flesh held the skeleton together in leathery articulation. Bare bone gleamed dully through chinks in the clinging mail of muscle and sinew, shrunken to ironlike texture. Throne arms were yet gripped by fingers like gnarled oak roots, while about the base was gathered a mouldering drift of disintegrating furs. The gaunt skull retained sufficient shreds of flesh to half mask its death's head grin with lines of sternness—forming a grimace suggesting laughter muffled by set lips, The eyes were sunken circles of darkness whose shadowy depths eluded Kane's torch. Not so the orbs that brooded from above the brow. 

Red as setting suns in the torchlight, a pair of fist-sized rubies blazed from King Brotemllain's crown. Kane swore softly, impressed by the wealth he witnessed almost as deeply as he stood in awe of its grisly majesty. The circle of gold could belt a dancing girl's waist, and patterned about the two great stones were another ten or more rough-cut gems of walnut size. Ancient treasure from the giant's plutonian-harvested board. 

Thinking of the kingdom encircled in the riches of King Brotemllain's crown, Kane bitterly regretted his shout of discovery. Had he reported the cavern empty, there might have been a chance to smuggle the crown past the giant—or return for it later. But now Dwassllir knew of the crown, and Dwassllir waited at the only exit to the tomb. To attempt to find egress through some hypothetical interpassage into the network of caverns said to run under the mountains would be suicidal—slightly less so than to challenge the giant for possession. Kane ruefully studied the treasure. Unless chance presented for stealthy murder... 

"Kane!" The giant's bellow concluded his musing. "You all right in there, Kane? Is it really King Brotemllain?" 

"Can't be anything else, Dwassllir!" Kane yelled back, echoes garbling his words. "It's just like your legends told! There's a colossal throne of stone in the cavern's center! About twenty feet of mouldy skeleton's sitting on it, and on his skull there's a golden crown with two enormous rubies! Just a minute and I'll climb up and get it for you!" 

"No! Leave it there!" Eagerness shook the giant's shout. "I want to see this for myself!" From the barrier sounded groan and rattle of shifting rubble. 

"Wait, damn it all!" Kane howled, scrambling back to the passage. "You're going to bring the whole damn mountain down on us! I'll get your crown for you. 

"Leave it! This isn't just a treasure hunt! It's more than just recovering Brotemllain's crown!" puffed the giant, straining to roll back a boulder. "I've dreamed for more years than you can guess of standing before King Brotemllain's throne! Of standing where no giant has entered since the heroic age of my race! Of calling upon his shade for the strength to lead my race back to its lost glory! So I'll stand before King Brotemllain, and I'll lift his crown from his brow with my own hands! And when I return, my people will see and listen and know that the tales of our ancient greatness are history, not myth! 

"Now come on and help me widen this crevice, will you? You can clear away this smaller stuff. This cavern's stood for millennia; We can risk another few minutes." 

Kane cursed and joined him at the barrier, reflecting that it was useless arguing with a fanatical giant. Grimly he hauled back on a boulder jammed against the inner face of the blockage. 

Sudden tearing groan and Dwassllir's gasp of dismay gave him barely enough warning. Kane catapulted backward just as the unbalanced rock slide protested their trespass. Like the irresistible fist of doom, the rock shelf burst from the wall and smashed against the opposite side. 

Deafened by the concussion, pelted by splintered fragments, Kane twisted frantically to roll clear. He fell in a bruised huddle past the foot of the steps. For a moment of dazed confusion it seemed that the entire cavern rocked and bucked with a crescendo repercussion of the collapsed passageway. 

When the last slamming echo had lost its note, the final chunk of cracked stone bounced past, Katie groggily sat up to lick his wounds. Sore, but no bones broken, a long gash down his left shoulder. His sword arm was numb where a rock splinter had struck, and it would need bandaging to staunch the trickle of blood. Relatively unscathed, he decided, considering he had nearly been crushed deader than King Brotemllain. 

His sword was still sheathed, but the torch had been lost as he leaped away, and the chamber was as dark as a tomb could get. Kane did not need a torch to learn the worst; the absence of any ray of light told him that. King Brotemllain's tomb was also sealed as thoroughly as any tomb need be. 

IV
A Final Coronation
Gloomily be felt his way back along the passage and pushed against the intervening wall of rock. There were boulders as wide as he was tall, and the spaces between were packed solid with lesser rubble. Given slaves and equipment enough, he might clear out another crevice. Dwassllir could perhaps burrow through, but the giant was probably a mangled keystone in the barrier right now. 

Burnt pitch stung his groping fingers, and Kane tugged the extinguished torch out from under some debris. Since there secured little else to do, he sat down and struck a fire. The torch alight once more, the rock slide appeared no less substantial. Angrily Kane kicked at a toppled boulder. 

Air fanned the torch flame, however, pointing a yellow beckoning finger back into the burial cavern. Remembering this cave was a branch of a greater plexus, Kane eagerly sought to trace the faint stir of wind. 

As he crossed the chamber, Kane saw the effects of the rock slide within the cavern. The sudden grinding force had sent a shudder through the tired stone, so that stalactites had plummeted like crystal lightning bolts from their eternally dark heaven. One had missed spearing Brotemllain by scant yards. 

A sighing wind breathed corpse breath through a gaping pit many yards across at the cavern's one end. The explosive concussions that rocked the stone had not been the fantasy of a head blow then. Evidently in the chain reaction shock wave which the slide had drummed the brittle stone, a large section of rock from the high ceiling had struck here. Its impact had driven through the chamber floor to reveal another cavern beneath this one. The network of caves must bore through the mountains like the tortuous course of a feasting worm, thought Kane, peering into the pit. 

Wind gusted faintly through the hole, bringing a sick smell of dampness—a stale, unclean animal smell that intrigued Kane. It seemed he could hear the rush of unseen waters. An underground river probably—deep underground it must be, too. The wind stole in through rotted chinks in the mountains' shell most likely. At least Kane hoped his deductions were correct. 

The floor of this new cavern appeared to be about seventy-five feet below him. The collapsing stone had made a chaotic incline down which progress seemed possible. "I've found another road to Hell," Kane muttered aloud. 

A rustle beyond him made him look to its source; then he knew he was on the threshold of Hell. At the edge of light, danced a cockroach—incredibly, a bone white cockroach nearly a yard in length. With chitinous concentration, it was nuzzling a dead bat, and it waved its antennae querulously at the offending light. In disbelief Kane tossed a rock in its direction, and the roach scuttled off chuckling into the darkness. 

Fascinated, Kane returned to the pit and thrust his torch out over the aperture. Near the incline's base two white-furred creatures raised blind eyes to the light and slunk away squealing in fear. And Kane recognized them, as rats the size of jackals. 

Understanding came to him. Water, air—the caverns below held life. But an obscenely distorted form of life it was. Probably these outsized creatures had evolved from cave dwellers who somehow were trapped beneath the surface ages ago, or maybe retreated there from choice when the land became desert. In primeval night, without seasons, without light, they had mutated to grotesque, primitive forms adapted to the demented savagery of their environment. Failing stone had crushed bats as well as other nameless things, and now the scent of blood was luring the monstrous cave creatures to this area. 

And what else dwells below, wondered Kane uneasily. He drew away from the pit, deciding that so certain a path to Hell could rest untrod until all other chances of escape were eliminated. Even digging out through the passage seemed a brighter prospect. 

As he returned to the rock fall, he caught the sound of stone grating on stone. For a moment he feared the slide was shifting, but as he watched tensely he, saw this was not so. Excitement cutting through despondency, Kane quickly stepped to the barrier and rhythmically pounded against a boulder with a chunk of rock. 

After a pause, his tapping was dimly echoed from the opposite side. So the giant bad escaped the avalanche. His strength could clear the passage if it were at all possible. 

Eagerly Kane began to dig into his side of the barrier. Not daring to contemplate another slide, he strained his powerful back to roll away small boulders, tore his fingers scrabbling doglike through the chipped stone. Luckily it was a bed of broken rock that had slid into the passage, rather than a solid stone shelf. 

Time crawled immeasurably, marked only by the dwindling torch and the deepening excavation. Kane's hands were raw and blistered when a sudden wrenching of stone tore open a patch of daylight. Filtered by distance and dust, the ray of sunlight seemed of blinding brilliance to his eyes. 

"Dwassllir!" shouted Kane, peering through the chink in the barrier. A shaft perhaps the size of a man's head had been formed between the angle of two boulders, although several feet of debris yet blocked the passage. 

A huge brown eye squinted back at him. "Kane?" The giant sounded pleasantly surprised. "So you dodged the slide, manling! You're as hard to kill as legend tells!" 

"Can you get me out of here?" 

"Can if I'm going to get myself in!" Dwassllir returned stubbornly. "I think I can prop up these boulders so we can dig out space enough for me to crawl through." 

"One of the characteristics of higher life forms is the ability to learn by experience," grumbled Kane, bending his back to dislodge a portion of rubble. But the giant's determination was as unyielding as the rock about them. 

Slowly the crevice began to reappear, and with freedom outlined in an ever broadening patch of light, the grueling work seemed less fatiguing. Only a precariously balanced jumble of boulders remained. 

But this time warning came too late. 

A sudden shriek of rasping stone as Dwassllir recklessly hauled back on one of the piled boulders. Released from pressure, a second slab of rock plunged forward like a catapult missile. Kane yelled and tried to dodge. He had been unbalanced with effort, and even his blurring speed was too slow to evade the tumbling projectile. 

Thundering as it struck, the slab caromed crazily upon the piled boulders, spun about and smashed against the wall where Kane stood. Kane hissed in pain. At the last instant he had twisted behind a sheltering boulder. This had absorbed the impact of the falling slab, but the explosive force had jammed the intervening rock against his thighs, pinning him to the wall. 

Blood oozed from torn skin, trickled into his boots. Grimacing in pain as he tried to wriggle free, Kane discovered be had escaped crushed bones by the smallest fraction. 

Miraculously, the rest of the pile had held stable. Dwassllir was cautiously poking at the opening. "Kane? Damn! You're harder to kill than a snake! Can you squeeze out of there?" 

"I can't!" grunted Kane straining to slide the rock. "Lot of rock fragments all, jammed together, holding it in place! My feet are pinned in!" He cursed and writhed against his pillory, scraping off more skin as the only evident result. 

"Well, I'll pull you out as I dig through," boomed Dwassllir reassuringly, and he once more attacked the rockslide. 

But Kane heard sounds of grating rock not turned by Dwassllir's hand. From within the burial cavern he could hear a heavy body climbing over loose stone. 

Teeth bared in defiant snarl, Kane stared wild-eyed into the funeral chamber. 

At first he thought the corpse of King Brotemllain had risen on skeletal limbs, for wavering in the darkness lie could discern two ruby coals throwing back the torch light. But the crown had not moved and still made a sullen glow above the throne. 

These were truly eyes he saw—eyes that held him in a baleful glare. Climbing from the aperture in the cavern floor came a creature from beneath the abyss of night. 

Sabretooth! Or nightmare spawn of sabretooth tiger and stygian darkness. The gargantuan creature that shambled forth from the timeless caverns of night was as demented a progeny of its natural forebears as were the other grotesque cave beasts Kane had seen. Rock crunched beneath taloned tread as it stalked from the gaping pit, an albino behemoth more than double the stature of its fearsome ancestor. Dripping jaws yawned hungrily in a cough of challenged—sabre-toothed jaws that could close upon Kane as a cat snaps up a rat. 

Lord Tloluvin alone might know what fantastic demons stalked the unlighted caverns that crawled down into his hellish realm, what depraved savagery in their nighted netherworld bred the cave beasts to grotesque giantism. Drawn by the noise and the scent of blood, this monster had left its sunless lair to hunt on the threshold of a land barred to its demonic kin for uncounted centuries. 

It sensed its prey. 

Unable to squirm free, Kane drew his sword for a hopeless defense. The cave creature had located him—in the darkness its hunting senses must be preternaturally keen—but it hesitated to spring. Seemingly it was confused by the wan rays of sunlight trespassing upon its realm. 

The torch lay thrust between rocks almost within Kane's reach. By a series of desperate lunges he succeeded in spearing it on his sword tip and drawing it to him. Answering the sabretooth's growl, he swung the brand to flaring brilliance. The cat retreated somewhat, still intent on its trapped prey, but uncertain how to cope with this blazing light that seared its all but sightless eyes. 

"Dwassllir! Can you break through?" The torch had burned through much of its length, so that the dwindling flame stung Kane's fingers. 

The giant groaned with frantic effort. "There's a slab of rock midway I can't shift without bringing down the whole slide! If I had a beam I could use for bracing, I could grub out the boulders holding it up and crawl through! Not enough room through there otherwise!" 

The sabretooth coughed angrily and advanced a step, stubby tail twitching. Its hunger would soon overwhelm its caution, Kane realized in sick dread, as the cat drew its mammoth bulk into a crouch. In a minute its spring would crush him against the stone. 

Eyes blazing feral hatred, Kane steadied his sword. There would be time for only one hopeless thrust as the cat's irresistible spring splintered his chest to pulpy ruin, but Kane meant for his slayer to feel his steel. 

"I'll try for his throat when he leaps!" Kane shouted grimly. "Wound him bad as I'm able! Go back and hunt up a log to brace with, Dwassllir. If my sword thrusts deep enough to cripple, there's a chance you can kill this beast with your axe. Brotemllain's crown waits there for you, and when you return to your people you can tell them the price of its winning!" 

Dwassllir was tearing away rubble furiously, though Kane did not risk a glance to note its progress. "Keep the cat back as long as you can, Kane!" His voice became muffled. "It was my doing got you into this, and I'll not abandon you like a slinking coward!" 

The torch was sputtering; moments of life remained for both flame and wielder. Came a low rumble of shifting stone, but Kane glared unwaveringly into the cat's wrathful eyes. The tiger started, spat in sudden bafflement. Kane braced himself to meet its deadly lunge, then saw in amazement that the sabretooth was edging away. 

A flaming length of trunkwood slithered across the stones, propelled by a bass roar front down low. Turning in disbelief, Kane saw Dwassllir's grimy face grinning triumphantly up at him from beneath a jutting shelf of rock. 

"Made it, by damn!" the giant bellowed. He grunted breathlessly as he wriggled his colossal frame through the burrow he had dug. "Used my axe to shore up that main slab! She creaked some, but her haft's seasoned hickory, and she'll likely hold till we're out of here!" 

At the sudden appearance of a creature rivaling its own awesome bulk, the sabretooth bad retreated into the darkness of the cavern. Dwassllir shoved his torch farther down the passage, then bent to Kane. A heave of his mighty shoulders drew back the imprisoning stone. 

Kane pitched forward. Biting his lips against the agony, he slithered out of the crevice to freedom. 

"Can you walk, manling?" 

Wincing, Kane took a few unsteady strides. "Yes, though I'd rather ride." 

The giant hefted the torch. "I'll see King Brotemllain now," he declared. 

"Don't be a fool, Dwassllir!" Kane protested. "Without your axe you're no match for that monster! You haven't driven it off—it's still prowling in the cavern! We'll be lucky to crawl out before it decides to attack!" The giant brushed him aside. 

"Look, at least let's draw back and give that cat a chance to leave! We can find timber to shore up the ledge and free your axe! Then we'll try for the crown!" 

"Not enough time!" Dwassllir's face was resolute. "I never really expected that axe to hold. It'll give way any second, and this shaft will be sealed forever! Can't even risk trying to wrench it free! The torch will keep the beast at bay long enough to get the crown. Besides, he won't be the only demon to crawl up from the pit. You don't need to stay, though." 

Kane swore and limped after him. 

"Hal Sabretooth!" roared Dwassllir, scooping up a broken section of stalactite. A growl answered him from the cavern's echoing recesses. "Sabretooth! Do you know me? My ancestors were your enemy! We fought your forebears in ages past and made necklaces for our women from your pretty fangs! Hear me, sabretooth! Though you're three times the size of your tawny ancestor, I've no fear of you! I am Dwassllir, last true son of the old kings! I've come for my crown! Hide in your hole, sabretooth—or I'll have a white fur cloak to wear with my royal crown!" 

The giant's challenge echoed through the cavern, rolled back by the sabretooth's angry snarl. Somewhere in the shadows the cat paced stiff-legged, but the cacophony of echoes made its position uncertain. Bats swooped in panic; dust and bits of stone trickled over them. Kane shifted his sword uneasily, not caring to think what silent blow might strike back. 

"King Brotemllain! The legends of my race do not lie!" breathed Dwassllir in awe. Reverently he stood before the throne of the ages-dead hero, his face aglow with visions of ancient glory. Reflected in his eyes was crimson brightness from the ruby crown. 

The giant discarded his stalactite club, and stretched to touch the dead king's crown. With gentle strength he broke it free from its encrusted setting. "Grandsire, your children have need of this..." 

An avalanche of ivory-fanged terror, the sabretooth bolted from the darkness. Shattering silence with its killing scream, it leaped for the giant's unprotected back. Off guard, Dwassllir pivoted at the final instant to half evade the cat's full rush. Its crushing impact hurled giant and cave beast against the throne and onto the cavern floor. 

Jaws locked in Dwassllir's shoulder, the tiger raked furiously against his back, talons tearing deep gashes. Kane limped in, sword flashing. But his movements were clumsy, and at first slash a blow of the creature's paw spun him away. He fell heavily at the foot of the throne and shook his head dully to clear his vision. 

Dwassllir howled and lurched to his knees, huge hands clawing desperately to dislodge the murderous fangs. His flailing arm touched the fallen torch and he seized it instantly, smashing its blazing end into the monster's face. Seared by the blinding heat, the sabretooth released its death grip with an enraged shriek, and the giant's punishing kick flung them apart. 

Smoke hung over the cat's gory maw. Gouts of scarlet spurted from the giant's deeply gouged shoulder. "Face to face, sabretooth!" roared Dwassllir wildly. "Skulker in shadow! Slinking coward! Dare now to attack your master face to face!" 

Even as the tiger crouched to spring, Dwassllir leaped upon it, crippled left arm brandishing the torch. They grappled in midair, and the cavern seemed to quake at their collision. Over and over they rolled, torch flung wide, while Kane groggily tried to regain his feet. The giant struggled grimly to stave off those awful fangs, to writhe atop the sabretooth's greater bulk. Fearsome jaws champed on emptiness as they fought, but its slashing claws were goring horrible wounds through the giant's flesh. 

Stoically enduring the agony, Dwassllir threw all his leviathan strength into tightening his grip on the cat's head. He bellowed insanely—curses of pain, of fury—locked his teeth in the beast's ear and ripped away its stump with taunting laughter. Life blood poured over his limbs, made a slippery mat of scarlet-sodden white fur. Still he howled and jeered, chanted snatches of ancient verse—sagas of his race—and pounded the sabretooth's skull against stone. 

With a sudden wrench, Dwassllir hauled himself astride the cat's back. "Now die, sabretooth!" he roared. "Die knowing defeat as did your scrawny grandsires!" 

He dug his knees into the creature's ribs and clamped heels together beneath its belly. The cat tried to roll, to dislodge him, but it could not. Great fists knotted over frothed fangs, arms locked champing jaws apart; Dwassllir bunched his shoulders and heaved backward. Gasping, coughing breath snorted from the cat's nostrils; its struggle was no longer to attack. For the first time in centuries, a sabretooth knew fear. 

Blood gleamed a rippling pattern across the straining muscles of the giant's broad back. Irresistibly his hold tightened. Inexorably the tiger's spine bowed backward. An abrupt, explosive snap as vertebrae and sinew surrendered. 

Laughing, Dwassllir twisted the sabretooth's head completely around. He spat into its dying eyes. 

"Now then, King Brotemllain's crown!" he gasped, and staggered away from the twitching body. The giant reeled, but stood erect. His fur garments were shredded, dark and sticky. Blood flowed so freely as to shroud the depth and extent of his wounds; flaps of flesh hung ragged, and bone glistened yellow as he moved. 

He groaned as he reached the throne and slumped down with his back braced against it. Kane found his senses clear enough to stand and knelt beside the stricken giant. Deftly his hands explored the other's wounds, sought vainly to stanch the bright spurting blood from the sabre gouges. But Kane was veteran of too many battles not to know his wounds were mortal. 

Dwassllir grinned gamely, his face pale beneath splashed gore. "That, Kane, is how my ancestors overcame the great beasts of Earth's dawn." 

"No giant ever fought a creature like this," Kane swore, "nor killed it bare-handed!" 

The giant shrugged weakly. "You think not, manling? But you don't know the legends of our race, Kane. And the legends are truth, I know that now! Fire and Ice! Those were heroic days!" 

Kane looked about the cavern, then bent to retrieve a fallen circle of gold. The rubies gleamed like Dwassllir's life blood; the crown was heavy in his hands. And though there was a fortune in his grasp, Kane no longer wanted King Brotemllain's crown. 

"This is yours now," he muttered, and placed the crown upon Dwassllir's nodding brow. 

The giant's head came erect again, and there was fierce pride in his face—and sadness. "I might have led them back to those lost days of glory!" he whispered. Then: "But there'll be another of my race, perhaps—another who will share my vision of the great age!" 

He signed for Kane to leave him. Already his eyes looked upon things beyond this lonely cavern in a desolate waste. "That was an age to live in!" he breathed hoarsely. "An age of heroesl" 

Kane somberly rose to his feet. "A great race, a heroic age—it's true," he acknowledged softly. "But I think the last of its heroes has passed." 













					Undertow





Prologue
"She was brought in not long past dark," wheezed the custodian, scuttling crab-like along the rows of silent, shrouded slabs. "The city guard found her, carried her in. Sounds like the one you're asking about." 

He paused beside one of the waist-high stone tables and lifted its filthy sheet. A girl's contorted face turned sightlessly upward—painted and rouged, a ghastly strumpet's mask against the pallor of her skin. Clots of congealed blood hung like a necklace of dark rubies along the gash across her throat. 

The cloaked man shook his head curtly within the shadow of his hood, and the moon-faced custodian let the sheet drop back. 

"Not the one I was thinking of," he murmured apologetically. "It gets confusing sometimes, you know, what with so many, and them coming and going all the while." Sniffling in the cool air, be pushed his rotund bulk between the narrow aisles, careful to avoid the stained and filthy shrouds. Looming over his guide, the cloaked figure followed in silence. 

Low-flamed lamps cast dismal light across the necrotorium, of Carsultyal. Smouldering braziers spewed fitful, heavy fumed clouds of clinging incense that merged with the darkness and the stones and the decay—its cloying sweetness more nauseating than the stench of death it embraced. Through the thick gloom echoed the monotonous drip-drip-drip of melting ice, at times chorused suggestively by some heavier splash. The municipal morgue was crowded tonight—as always. Only a few of its hundred or more slate beds stood dark and bare; the others all displayed anonymous shapes bulging beneath blotched sheets—some protruding at curious angles, as if these restless dead struggled to burst free of the coarse folds. Night now hung over Carsultyal, but within this windowless subterranean chamber it was always night. In shadow pierced only by the sickly flame of funereal lamps, the nameless dead of Carsultyal lay unmourned—waited the required interval of time for someone to claim them, else to be carted off to some unmarked communal grave beyond the city walls. 

"Here, I believe," announced the custodian. "Yes. I'll just get a lamp." 

"Show me," demanded a voice from within the hood. 

The portly official glanced at the other uneasily. There was an aura of power, of blighted majesty about the cloaked figure that boded ill in arrogant Carsultyal, whose clustered, star-reaching towers were whispered to be overawed by cellars whose depths plunged farther still. "Light's poor back here," he protested, drawing back the tattered shroud. 

The visitor cursed low in his throat—an inhuman sound touched less by grief than feral rage. 

The face that stared at them with too wide eyes had been beautiful in life; in death it was purpled, bloated, contorted in pain. Dark blood stained the tip of her protruding tongue, and her neck seemed bent at an unnatural angle. A gown of light-colored silk was stained and disordered. She lay supine, hands clenched into tight fists at her side. 

"The city guard found her?" repeated the visitor in a harsh voice. 

"Yes, just after nightfall. In the park overlooking the harbor. She was hanging from a branch—there in the grove with all the white flowers every spring. Must have just happened—said her body was warm as life, though there's a chill to the sea breeze tonight. Looks like she done it herself—climbed out on the branch, tied the noose, and jumped off. Wonder why they do it—her as pretty a young thing as I've seen brought in, and took well care of, too." 

The stranger stood in rigid silence, staring at the strangled girl. 

"Will you come back in the morning to claim her, or do you want to wait upstairs?" suggested the custodian. 

"I'll take her now." 

The plump attendant fingered the gold coin his visitor had tossed him a short time before. His lips tightened in calculation. Often there appeared at the necrotorium those who wished to remove bodies clandestinely for strange and secret reasons—a circumstance which made lucrative this disagreeable office. "Can't allow that," he argued. "There's laws and forms—you shouldn't even be here at this hour. They'll be wanting their questions answered. And there's fees..." 

With a snarl of inexpressible fury, the stranger turned on him. The sudden movement flung back his hood. 

The caretaker for the first time saw his visitor's eyes. He had breath for a short bleat of terror, before the dirk he did not see smashed through his heart. 


Workers the next day, puzzling over the custodian's disappearance, were shocked to discover, on examining the night's new tenants for the necrotorium, that he had not disappeared after all. 

I
Seekers in the Night
There—he heard the sound again. 

Mavrsal left off his disgruntled contemplation of the near-empty wine bottle and stealthily came to his feet. The captain of the Tuab was alone in his cabin, and the hour was late. For hours the only sounds close at hand had been the slap of waves on the barnacled bull, the creak of cordage, and the dull thud of the caravel's aged timbers against the quay. Then had come a soft footfall, a muffled fumbling among the deck gear outside his half-open door. Too loud for rats—a thief, then? 

Grimly Mavrsal unsheathed his heavy cutlass and caught up a lantern. He catfooted onto the deck, reflecting bitterly over his worthless crew. From cook to first mate, they had deserted his ship a few days before, angered over wages months unpaid. An unseasonable squall had forced them to jettison most of their cargo of copper ingots, and the Tuab had limped into the harbor of Carsultyal with shredded sails, a cracked mainmast, a dozen new leaks from wrenched timbers, and the rest of her worn fittings in no better shape. Instead of the expected wealth, the decimated cargo had brought in barely enough capital to cover the expense of refitting. Mavrsal argued that until refitted, the Tuab was unseaworthy, and that once repairs were complete, another cargo could be found (somehow), and then wages long in arrears could be paid—with a bonus for patient loyalty. The crew cared neither for his logic nor his promises and defected amidst stormy threats. 

Had one of them returned to carry out...? Mavrsal hunched his thick shoulders truculently and hefted the cutlass. The master of the Tuab had never run from a brawl, much less a sneak thief or slinking assassin. 

Night skies of autumn were bright over Carsultyal, making the lantern almost unneeded. Mavrsal surveyed the soft shadows of the caravel's deck, his brown eyes narrowed and alert beneath shaggy brows. But he heard the low sobbing almost at once, so there was no need to prowl about the deck. 

He strode quickly to the mound of torn sail and rigging at the far rail. "All right, come out of that!" he rumbled, beckoning with the tip of his blade to the half-seen figure crouched against the rail. The sobbing choked into silence. Mavrsal prodded the canvas with an impatient boot. "Out of there, damn it!" he repeated. 

The canvas gave a wriggle and a pair of sandaled feet backed out, followed by bare legs and rounded hips that strained against the bunched fabric of her gown. Mavrsal pursed his lips thoughtfully as the girl emerged and stood before him. There were no tears in the eyes that met his gaze. The aristocratic face was defiant, although the flared nostrils and tightly pressed lips hinted that her defiance was a mask. Nervous fingers smoothed the silken gown and adjusted her cloak of dark brown wool. 

"Inside." Mavrsal gestured with his cutlass to the lighted cabin. 

"I wasn't doing anything," she protested. 

"Looking for something to steal." 

"I'm not a thief," 

"We'll talk inside." He nudged her forward, and sullenly she complied. 

Following her through the door, Mavrsal locked it behind him and replaced the lantern. Returning the cutlass to its scabbard, he dropped back into his chair and contemplated his discovery. 

"I'm no thief," she repeated, fidgeting with the fastenings of her cloak. 

No, he decided, she probably wasn't—not that there was much aboard a decrepit caravel like the Tuab to attract a thief. But why had she crept aboard? She was a harlot, he assumed—what other business drew a girl of her beauty alone into the night of Carsultyal's waterfront? And she was beautiful, he noted with growing surprise. A tangle of loosely bound red hair fell over her shoulders and framed a face whose pale-skinned classic beauty was enhanced rather than flawed by a dust of freckles across her thin-bridged nose. Eyes of startling green gazed at him with a defiance that seemed somehow haunted. She was tall, willowy. Before she settled the dark cloak about her shoulders, he had noted the high, conical breasts and softly rounded figure beneath the clinging gown of green silk. An emerald of good quality graced her hand, and about her neck she wore a wide collar of dark leather and red silk from which glinted a larger emerald. 

No, thought Mavrsal—again revising his judgment—she was too lovely, lieu garments too costly, for the quality of street tart who plied these waters. His bewilderment deepened. "Why were you on board, then?" he demanded in a manner less abrupt. 

Her eyes darted about the cabin. "I don't know," she returned. 

Mavrsal grunted in vexation. "Were you trying to stow away?" 

She responded with a small shrug. "I suppose so." 

The sea captain gave a snort and drew his stocky frame erect. "Then you're a damn fool—or must think I'm one! Stow away on a battered old warrior like the Tuab, when there's plainly no cargo to put to sea, and any eye can see the damn ship's being refitted! Why, that ring you're wearing would book passage to any port you'd care to see, and on a first-class vessel! And to wander these streets at this hour! Well, maybe that's your business, and maybe you aren't careful of your trade, but there's scum along, these waterfront dives that would slit a wench's throat as soon as pay her! Vaul! I've been in port three days and four nights, and already I've heard talk of enough depraved murders of pretty girls like you to—" 

"Will you stop it!" she hissed in a tight voice. Slumping into the cabin's one other chair, she propped her elbows onto the rough table and jammed her fists against her forehead. Russet tresses tumbled over her face like a veil, so that Mavrsal could not read the emotions etched there. In the hollow of the cloak's parted folds, her breasts trembled with the quick pounding of her heart. 

Sighing, he drained the last of the wine into his mug and pushed the pewter vessel toward the girl. There was another bottle in his cupboard; rising, fie drew it out along with another cup. She was carefully sipping from the proffered mug when he resumed his place. 

"Look, what's your name?" he asked her. 

She paused so tensely before replying, "Dessylyn." 

The name meant nothing to Mavrsal, although as the tension waxed and receded from her bearing, he understood that she had been concerned that her name would bring recognition. 

Mavrsal smoothed his close-trimmed brown beard. There was a rough-and-ready toughness about his face that belied the fact that he had not quite reached thirty years, and women liked to tell him his rugged features were handsome. His left ear—badly scarred in a tavern brawl—gave him some concern, but it lay hidden beneath the unruly mass of his hair. "Well, Dessylyn," he grinned. "My name's Mavrsal, and this is my ship. And if you're worried about finding a place, you can spend the night here." 

There was dread in her face. "I can't." 

Mavrsal frowned, thinking he had been snubbed, and started to make an angry retort. 

"I dare not... stay here too long," Dessylyn interposed, fear glowing in her eyes. 

Mavrsal made an exasperated grimace. "Girl, you sneaked aboard my ship like a thief, but I'm inclined to forget your trespassing. Now, my cabin's cozy, girls tell me I'm a pleasant companion, and I'm generous with my coin. So why wander off into the night, where in the first filthy alley some pox-ridden drunk is going to take for free what I'm willing to pay for?" 

"You don't understand!" 

"Very plainly I don't." He watched her fidget with the pewter mug for a moment, then added pointedly, "Besides, you can hide here." 

"By the gods! I wish I could!" she cried out. "If only I could hide from him!" 

Brows knit in puzzlement, Mavrsal listened to the strangled sobs that rose muffled through the tousled auburn mane. He had not expected so unsettling a response to his probe. Thinking that every effort to penetrate the mystery surrounding Dessylyn only left him further in the dark, he measured out another portion of wine—and wondered if he should apologize for something. 

"I suppose that's why I did it," she was mumbling. "I was able to slip away for a short while. So I walked along the shore, and I saw all the ships poised for flight along the harbor, and I thought how wonderful to be free like that! To step on board some strange ship, and to sail into the night to some unknown land—where he could never find me! To be free! Oh, I knew I could never escape him like that, but still when I walked by your ship, I wanted to try! I thought I could go through the motions—pretend I was escaping him! 

"Only I know there's no escape from Kane!" 

"Kane!" Mavrsal breathed a curse. Anger toward the girl's tormentor that had started to flare within him abruptly shuddered under the chill blast of fear. 

Kane! Even to a stranger in Carsultyal, greatest city of mankind's dawn, that name evoked the spectre of terror. A thousand tales were whispered of Kane; even in this city of sorcery, where the lost knowledge of prehuman Earth had been recovered to forge man's stolen civilization, Kane was a figure of awe and mystery. Despite uncounted tales of strange and disturbing nature, almost nothing was known for certain of the man save that for generations his tower had brooded over Carsultyal. There he followed the secret paths along which his dark genius led him, and the hand of Kane was rarely seen (though it was often felt) in the affairs of Carsultyal. Brother sorcerers and masters of powers temporal alike spoke his name with dread, and those who dared to make him an enemy seldom were given Ion., to repent their audacity. 

"Are you Kane's woman?" he blurted out. 

Her voice was bitter. "So Kane would have it. His mistress. His possession. Once, though, I was my own woman—before I was fool enough to let Kane draw me into his web!" 

"Can't you leave him—leave this city?" 

"You don't know the power Kane commands! Who would risk his anger to help me?" 

Mavrsal squared his shoulders. "I owe no allegiance to Kane, nor to his minions in Carsultyal. This ship may be weathered and leaky, but she's mine, and I sail her where I please. If you're set on—" 

Fear twisted her face. "Don't!" she gasped. "Don't even hint this to me! You can't realize what power Kane— 

"What was that!" 

Mavrsal tensed. From the night sounded the soft buffeting of great leathery wings. Claws scraped against the timbers of the deck outside. Suddenly the lantern flames seemed to shrink and waver; shadow fell deep within the cabin. 

"He's missed me!" Dessylyn moaned. "He's sent it to bring me back!" 

His belly cold, Mavrsal drew his cutlass and turned stiffly toward the door. The lamp flames were no more than a dying blue gleam. Beyond the door a shuffling weight caused a loosened plank to groan dully. 

"No! Please!" she cried in desperation. "There's nothing you can do! Stay back from the door!" 

Mavrsal snarled, his face reflecting the rage and terror that gripped him. Dessylyn pulled at his arm to draw him back. 

He had locked the cabin door; a heavy iron bolt secured the stout timbers. Now an unseen hand was drawing the bolt aside. Silently, slowly, the iron bar turned and crept back along its mounting brackets. The lock snapped open. With nightmarish suddenness, the door swung wide. 

Darkness hung in the passageway. Burning eyes regarded them. Advanced. 

Dessylyn screamed hopelessly. Numb with terror, Mavrsal clumsily swung his blade toward the glowing eyes. Blackness reached out, hurled him with irresistible strength across the cabin. Pain burst across his consciousness, and then was only the darkness. 

II
"Never, Dessylyn"
She shuddered and drew the fur cloak tighter about her thin shoulders. Would there ever again be a time when she wouldn't feel this remorseless cold? 

Kane, his cruel face haggard in the glow of the brazier, stood hunched over the crimson alembic. How red the coals made his hair and beard; how sinister was the blue flame of his eyes... He craned intently forward to trap the last few drops of the phosphorescent elixir in a chalice of ruby crystal. 

He had labored sleepless hours over the glowing liquid, she knew. Hours precious to her because these were hours of freedom—a time when she might escape his loathed attention. Her lips pressed a tight, bloodless line. The abominable formulae from which he prepared the elixir! Dessylyn thought again of the mutilated corpse of the young girl Kane had directed his servant to carry off. Again a spasm slid across her lithe form. 

"Why won't you let me go?" she heard herself ask dully for the... how many times had she asked that? 

"I'll not let you go, Dessylyn," Kane replied in a tired voice. "You know that." 

"Someday I'll leave you." 

"No, Dessylyn. You'll never leave me." 

"Someday." 

"Never, Dessylyn." 

"Why, Kane!" 

With painful care, he allowed a few drops of an amber liqueur to fall into the glowing chalice. Blue flame hovered over its surface. 

"Why!" 

"Because I love you, Dessylyn." 

A bitter sob, parody of laughter, shook her throat. "You love me." She enclosed a hopeless scream in those slow, grinding syllables. 

"Kane, can I ever make you understand how utterly I loathe you?" 

"Perhaps. But I love you, Dessylyn." 

The sobbing laugh returned. 

Glancing at her in concern, Kane carefully extended the chalice toward her. "Drink this. Quickly—before the nimbus dies." 

She looked at him through eyes dark with horror. "Another bitter draught of some foul drug to bind me to you?" 

"Whatever you wish to call it." 

"I won't drink it." 

"Yes, Dessylyn, you will drink it." 

His killer's eyes held her with bonds of eternal ice. Mechanically she accepted the crimson chalice, let its phosphorescent liqueur pass between her lips, seep down her throat. 

Kane sighed and took the empty goblet from her listless grip. His massive frame seemed to shudder from fatigue, and he passed a broad hand across his eyes. Blood rimmed their dark hollows. 

"I'll leave you, Kane." 

The sea wind gusted through the tower window and swirled the long red hair about his haunted face. 

"Never, Dessylyn." 

III
At the Inn of the Blue Window
He called himself Dragar... 

Had the girl not walked past him seconds before, he probably would not have interfered when he heard her scream. Or perhaps he would have. A stranger to Carsultyal, nonetheless the barbarian youth had passed time enough in mankind's lesser cities to be wary of cries for help in the night and to think twice before plunging into dark alleys to join in an unseen struggle. But there was a certain pride in the chivalric ideals of his heritage, along with a confidence in the hard muscle of his sword arm and in the strange blade he carried. 

Thinking of the lithe, white limbs he had glimpsed—the patrician beauty of the face that coolly returned his curious stare as she came toward him—Dragar unsheathed the heavy blade at his hip and dashed back along the street be had just entered. 

There was moonlight enough to see, although the alley was well removed from the nearest flaring streetlamp. Cloak torn away, her gown ripped from her shoulders, the girl writhed in the grasp of two thugs. A third tough warned by the rush of the barbarian's boots, angrily spun to face him, sword streaking for the youth's belly. 

Dragar laughed and flung the lighter blade aside with a powerful blow of his sword. Scarcely seeming to pause in his attack, he gashed his assailant's arm with an upward swing, and as the other's blade faltered, he split the thug's skull. One of the two who held the girl lunged forward, but Dragar sidestepped his rush, and with a sudden thrust sent his sword ripping into the man's chest. The remaining assailant shoved the girl against the barbarian's legs, whirled, and fled down the alley. 

Ignoring the fugitive, Dragar helped the stunned girl to her feet. Terror yet twisted her face, as she distractedly arranged the torn bodice of her silken gown. Livid scratches streaked the pale skin of her breasts, and a bruise was swelling out her lip. Dragar caught up her fallen cloak and draped it over her shoulders. 

"Thank you," she breathed in a shaky whisper, speaking at last. 

"My pleasure," he rumbled. "Killing rats is good exercise. Are you all right, though?" 

She nodded, then clutched his arm for support. 

"The hell you are! There's a tavern close by, girl. Come—I've silver enough for a brandy to put the fire back in your heart." 

She looked as if she might refuse, were her knees steadier. In a daze, the girl let him half-carry her into the Inn of the Blue Window. There he led her to an unoccupied booth and called for brandy. 

"What's your name?" he asked, after she had tasted the heady liquor. 

"Dessylyn." 

He framed her name with silent lips to feel its sound. "I'm called Dragar," he told her. "My home lies among the mountains far south of here, though it's been a few years since last I hunted with my clansmen. Wanderlust drew me away, and since then I've followed this banner or another's—sometimes just the shadow of my own flapping cloak. Then, after hearing tales enough to dull my ears, I decided to see for myself if Carsultyal is the wonder men boast her to be. You a stranger here as well?" 

She shook her head. When the color returned to her cheeks, her face seemed less aloof. 

"Thought you might be. Else you'd know better than to wander the streets of Carsultyal after nightfall. Must be something important for you to take the risk." 

The lift of her shoulders was casual, though her face remained guarded. "No errand... but it was important to me." 

Dragar's look was questioning. 

"I wanted to... oh, just to be alone, to get away for a while. Lose myself, maybe—I don't know. I didn't think anyone would dare touch me if they knew who I was." 

"Your fame must be held somewhat less in awe among these gutter rats than you imagined,'' offered Dragar wryly. 

"All men fear the name of Kane!" Dessylyn shot back bitterly. 

"Kane!" The name exploded from his lips in amazement. What had this girl to do...? But Dragar looked again at her sophisticated beauty, her luxurious attire, and understanding dawned. Angrily he became aware that the tavern uproar had become subdued on the echo of his outburst. Several faces had turned to him, their expressions uneasy, calculating. 

The barbarian clapped a hand to his swordhilt. "Here's a man who doesn't fear a name!" he announced. "I've heard something of Carsultyal's most dreaded sorcerer, but his name means less than a fart to me! There's steel in this sword that can slice through the best your world-famed master smiths can forge, and it thrives on the gore of magicians. I call the blade Wizard's Bare, and there are souls in Hell who will swear that its naming is no boast!" 

Dessylyn stared at him in sudden fascination. 


And what came after, Dessylyn? 

I... I'm not sure... My mind—I was in a state of shock, I suppose. I remember holding his head for what seemed like forever. And then I remember sponging off the blood with water from the wooden lavabo, and the water was so cold and so red, so red. I must have put on my clothes... Yes, and I remember the city and walking and all those faces... All those faces... they stared at me, some of them. Stated and looked away, stared and looked compassionate, stared and looked curious, stared and made awful suggestions... And some just ignored me, didn't see me at all. I can't think which faces were the most cruel... I walked, walked so long... I remember the pain... I remember my tears, and the pain when there were no more tears... I remember... My mind was dazed... My memory... I can't remember... 

IV
A Ship Will Sail...
He looked up from his work and saw her standing there on the quay—watching him, her face a strange play of intensity and indecision. Mavrsal grunted in surprise and straightened from his carpentry. She might have been a phantom, so silently had she crept upon him. 

"I had to see if... if you were all right," Dessylyn told him with an uncertain smile. 

"I am—aside from a crack on my skull," Mavrsal answered, eyeing her dubiously. 

By the dawnlight he had crawled from beneath the overturned furnishings of his cabin. Blood matted his thick hair at the back of his skull, and his head throbbed with a deafening ache, so that he had sat dumbly for a long while, trying to recollect the events of the night. Something had come through the door, had hurled him aside like a spurned doll. And the girl had vanished—carried off by the demon? Her warning had been for him; for herself she evidenced not fear, only resigned despair. 

Or had some of his men returned to carry out their threats? Had too much wine, the blow on his head...? But no, Mavrsal knew better. His assailants would have robbed him, made certain of his death—had any human agency attacked him. She had called herself a sorcerer's mistress, and it had been sorcery that spread its black wings over his caravel. Now the girl had returned, and Mavrsal's greeting was tempered by his awareness of the danger which shadowed her presence. 

Dessylyn must have known his thoughts. She backed away, as if to turn and go. 

"Wait!" he called suddenly. 

"I don't want to endanger you any further." 

Mavrsal's quick temper responded. "Danger! Kane can bugger with his demons in Hell, for all I care! My skull was too thick for his creature to split, and if he wants to try his hand in person, I'm here to offer him the chance!" 

There was gladness in her wide eyes as Dessylyn stopped toward him. "His necromancies have exhausted him," she assured the other. "Kane will sleep for hours yet." 

Mavrsal handed her over the rail with rough gallantry. "Then perhaps you'll join me in my cabin. It's grown too dark for carpentry, and I'd like to talk with you. After last night, I think I deserve to have some questions answered, anyway." 

He struck fire to a lamp and turned to find her balanced at the edge of a chair, watching him nervously. "What sort of questions?" she asked in an uneasy tone. 

"Why?" 

"Why what?" 

Mavrsal made a vague gesture. "Why everything. Why did you get involved with this sorcerer? Why does he hold to you, if you hate him so? Why can't you leave him?" 

She gave him a sad smile that left him feeling naïve. "Kane is... a fascinating man; there is a certain magnetism about him. And I won't deny the attraction his tremendous power and wealth held for me. Does it matter? It's enough to say that there was a time when we met and I fell under Kane's spell. It may be that I loved him once—but I've since hated too long and to deeply to remember." 

"But Kane continues to love me in his way. Love! His is the love of a miser for his hoard, the love of a connoisseur for some exquisitely wrought carving, the love a spider feels for its imprisoned prey! I'm his treasure, his possession—and what concern are the feelings of a lifeless object to its owner? Would the curious circumstance that his prized statue might hate him lessen the pleasure its owner derives from its possession? 

"And leave him?" Her voice broke. "By the gods, don't you think I've tried?" 

His thoughts in a turmoil, Mavrsal studied the girl's haunted face. "But why accept defeat? Past failure doesn't mean you can't try again. If you're free to roam the streets of Carsultyal at night, your feet can take you farther still. I see no chain clamped to that collar you wear." 

"Not all chains are visible." 

"So I've heard, though I've never believed it. A weak will can imagine its own fetters." 

"Kane won't let me leave him." 

"Kane's power doesn't reach a tenth so far as he believes." 

"There are men who would dispute that, if the dead cared to share the wisdom that came to them too late." 

Challenge glinted in the girl's green eyes as they held his. Mavrsal felt the spell of her beauty, and his manhood answered. "A ship sails where its master wills it—may the winds and the tides and perils of the sea be damned!" 

Her face craned closer. Tendrils of her auburn hair touched his arm. "There is courage in your words. But you know little of Kane's power." 

He laughed recklessly. "Let's say I'm not cowed by his name." 

From the belt of her gown, Dessylyn unfastened a small scrip. She tossed the leather pouch toward him. 

Catching it, Mavrsal untied the braided thong and dumped its contents onto his palm. His hand shook. Gleaming gemstones tumbled in a tiny rainbow, clattered onto the cabin table. In his hand lay a fortune in rough-cut diamonds, emeralds, other precious stones. 

Through their multihued reflections his face framed a question. 

"I think there is enough to repair your ship, to pay her crew..." She paused; brighter flamed the challenge in her eyes. "Perhaps to buy my passage to a distant port—if you dare!" 

The captain of the Tuab swore. "I meant what I said, girl! Give me another few days to refit her, and I'll sail you to lands where no man has ever heard the name of Kane!" 

"Later you may change your mind," Dessylyn warned. 

She rose from her chair. Mavrsal thought she meant to leave, but then he saw that her fingers had loosened other fastenings at her belt. His breath caught as the silken gown began to slip from her shoulders. 

"I won't change my mind," he promised, understanding why Kane might go to any extreme to keep Dessylyn with him. 

V
Wizard's Bane
"Your skin is like the purest honey," proclaimed Dragar ardently. "By the gods, I swear you even taste like honey!" 

Dessylyn squirmed in pleasure and hugged the barbarian's shaggy blond head to her breasts. After a moment she sighed and languorously pulled from his embrace. Sitting up, she brushed her slim fingers through the tousled auburn wave that cascaded over her bare shoulders and back, clung in damp curls to her flushed skin. 

Dragar's calloused hand imprisoned her slender wrist as she sought to rise from the rumpled bed. "Don't prance away like a contrite virgin, girl. Your rider has dismounted but for a moment's rest—then he's ready to gallop through the palace gates another time or more, before the sun drops beneath the sea." 

"Pretty, but I have to go," she protested. "Kane may grow suspicious..." 

"Bugger Kane!" cursed Dragar, putting the girl back against him. His thick arms locked about her, and their lips crushed savagely. Cupped over a small breast, his hand felt the pounding of her heart, and the youth laughed and tilted back her feverish face. "Now tell me you prefer Kane's effete pawings to a man's embrace!" 

A frown drifted like a sudden thunderhead. "You underestimate Kane. He's no soft-fleshed weakling." 

The youth snarled in jealousy. "A foul sorcerer who's skulked in his tower no one knows how long! He'll have dust for blood, and dry rot in his bones! But go to him if you prefer his toothless kisses and withered loins!" 

"No, dearest! Yours are the arms I love to lie within!" Dessylyn cried, entwining herself about him and soothing his anger with kisses. "It's just that I'm frightened for you. Kane isn't a withered greybeard. Except for the madness in his eyes, you would think Kane a hardened warrior in his prime. And you've more than his sorcery to fear. I've seen Kane kill with his sword—he's a deadly fighter!" 

Dragar snorted and stretched his brawny frame. "No warrior hides behind a magician's robes. He's but a name—an ogre's name to frighten children into obedience. Well, I don't fear his name, nor do I fear his magic, and my blade has drunk the blood of better swordsmen than your black-hearted tyrant ever was!" 

"By the gods!" whispered Dessylyn, burrowing against his thick shoulder. "Why did fate throw me into Kane's web instead of into your arms!" 

"Fate is what man wills it. If you wish it, you are my woman now." 

"But Kane..." 

The barbarian leaped to his feet and glowered down at her. "Enough snivelling about Kane, girl! Do you love me or not?" 

"Dragar, beloved, you know I love you! Haven't these past days..." 

"These past days have been filled with woeful whimperings about Kane, and my belly grows sick from hearing it! Forget Kane! I'm taking you from him, Dessylyn! For all her glorious legend and over-mighty towers, Carsultyal is a stinking pesthole like every other city I've known. Well, I'll waste no more days here. 

"I'll ride from Carsultyal tomorrow, or take passage on a ship, perhaps. Go to some less stagnant land, where a bold man and a strong blade can win wealth and adventure! You're going with me." 

"Can you mean it, Dragar?" 

"If you think I lie, then stay behind." 

"Kane will follow." 

"Then he'll lose his life along with his love!" sneered Dragar. 

With confident hands, be slid from its scabbard his great sword of silver-blue metal. "See this blade," he hissed, flourishing its massive length easily. "I call it Wizard's Bane, and there's reason to the name. Look at the blade. It's steel, but not steel such as your secretive smiths forge in their dragon-breath furnaces. See the symbols carved into the forte. This blade has power! It was forged long ago by a master smith who used the glowing heart of a fallen star for his ore, who set runes of protection into the finished sword. Who wields Wizard's Bane need not fear magic, for sorcery can have no power over him. My sword can cleave through the hellish flesh of demons. It can ward off a sorcerer's enchantments and skewer his evil heart! 

"Let Kane send his demons to find us! My blade will shield us from his spells, and I'll send his minions bowling in fear back to his dread tower! Let him creep from his lair if he dares! I'll feed him bits of his liver and laugh in his face while he dies!" 

Dessylyn's eyes brimmed with adoration. "You can do it, Dragar! You're strong enough to take me from Kane! No man has your courage, beloved!" 

The youth laughed and twisted her hair. "No man? What do you know of men? Did you think these spineless city-bred fops, who tremble at the shadow of a senile cuckold, were men? Think no more of slinking back to Kane's tower before your keeper misses you. Tonight, girl, I'm going to show you how a man loves his woman!" 


But why will you insist it's impossible to leave Kane?
I know.
How can you know? You're too fearful of him to try.
I know.
But how can you say that?
Because I know.
Perhaps this bondage is only in your mind, Dessylyn.
But I know Kane won't let me leave him.
So certain—is it because you've tried to escape him?



Have you tried, Dessylyn?
Tried with another's help—and failed, Dessylyn?
Can't you be honest with me, Dessylyn?
And now you'll turn away from me in fear!
Then there was another man?
It's impossible to escape him—and now you'll abandon me!
Tell me, Dessylyn. How can I trust you if you won't trust me?
On your word, then. There was another man....


VI
Night and Fog
Night returned to Carsultyal and spread its misty cloak over narrow alleys and brooding towers alike. The voice of the street broke from its strident daylight cacophony to a muted rumble of night. As the stars grew brighter through the sea mists, the streets grew silent, except for fitful snorts and growls like a hound uneasy in his sleep. Then the lights that glimmered through the shadow began to slip away, so stealthily that their departure went unnoticed. One only knew that the darkness, the fog, the silence now ruled the city unchallenged. And night, closer here than elsewhere in the cities of mankind, had returned to Carsultyal. 

They lay close in each other's arms—sated, but too restless for sleep. Few were their words, so that they listened to the beating of their hearts, pressed so close together as to make one sound. Fog thrust tendrils through chinks in the bolted shutters, brought with it the chill breath of the sea, lost cries of ships anchored in the night. 

Then Dessylyn hissed like a cat and dug her nails so deep into Dragar's arm that rivulets of crimson made an armlet about the corded muscle. Straining his senses against the night, the barbarian dropped his hand to the hilt of the unsheathed sword that lay beside their bed. The blade glinted blue—more so than the wan lamplight would seem to reflect. 

From the night outside... Was it a sudden wind that rattled the window shutters, buffeted the streamers of fog into swirling eddies? A sound... Was that the flap of vast leathery wings? 

Fear hung like a clinging web over the inn, and the silence about them was so desolate that theirs might have been the last two hearts to beat in all of haunted Carsultyal. 

From the roof suddenly there came a slithering metallic scrape upon the slate tiles. 

Wizard's Bane pulsed with a corposant of blue witchfire. Shadows stark and unreal cringed away from the lambent blade. 

Against the thick shutters sounded a creaking groan of hideous pressure. Oaken planks sagged inward. Holding fast, the iron bolts trembled, then abruptly smouldered into sullen rubrous heat. Mist poured past the buckling timbers, bearing with it a smell not of any sea known to man. 

Brighter pulsed the scintillant glare of the sword. A nimbus of blue flame rippled out from the blade and encircled the crouching youth and his terrified companion. Rippling blue radiance, spreading across the room, struck the groaning shutters. 

A burst of incandescence spat from the glowing iron bolts. Through the night beyond tore a silent snarl—an unearthly shriek felt rather than heard—a spitting bestial cry of pain and baffled rage. 

The shutters sprang back with a grunting sigh as the pressure against them suddenly relented. Again the night shuddered with the buffet of tremendous wings. The ghost of sound dwindled. The black tide of fear ebbed and shrank back from the inn. 

Dragar laughed and brandished his sword. Eyes still dazzled, Dessylyn stared in fascination at the blade, now suffused with a sheen no more preternatural than any finely burnished steel. It might all have been a frightened dream, she thought, knowing well that it had not been. 

"It looks like your keeper's sorcery is something less than all powerful!" scoffed the barbarian. "Now Kane will know that his spells and coward's tricks are powerless against Wizard's Bane. No doubt your ancient spellcaster is cowering under his cold bed, scared spitless that these gutless city folk will some day find courage enough to call his bluff! And against that, he's probably safe." 

"You don't know Kane," moaned Dessylyn. 

With gentle roughness, Dragar cuffed the grim-faced girl. "Still frightened by a legend? And after you've seen his magic defeated by the star-blade! You've lived within the shadow of this decadent city too long, girl. In a few hours we'll have light, and then I'll take you out into the real world—where men haven't sold their souls to the ghosts of elder races!" 


But her fears did not dissolve under the barbarian's warm confidence. For a timeless period of darkness Dessylyn clung to him, her heart restlessly drumming, shuddering at each fragment of sound that pierced the night and fog. 

And through the darkened streets echoed the clop-clop of hooves. 

Far away, their sound so faint it might have been imagined. Closer now, the fog-muffled fall of ironshod hooves on paving bricks. Drawing ever closer, a hollow, rhythmic knell that grew deafening in the absolute stillness. Clop-Clop Clop-Clop Clop-Clop CLOP-CLOP CLOP-CLOP. Approaching the inn unhurriedly. Inexorably approaching the mist-shrouded inn. 

"What is it?' He asked her, as she started upright in terror. 

"I know that sound. It's a black, black stallion, with eyes that burn like living coals and hooves that ring like iron!" 

Dragar snorted. 

"Ah! And I know his rider!" 

CLOP-CLOP CLOP-CLOP. Hoofbeats rolled and gobbled across the courtyard of the Inn of the Blue Window. Echoes rattled against the shutters... Could no one else hear their chill thunder? 

CLOP-CLOP CLOP. The unseen horse stamped and halted outside the inn's door. Harness jingled. Why were there no voices? 

From deep within the chambers below echoed the dull chink of the bolt and bars falling away, clattering to the floor. A harsh creak as the outer door swung open. Where was the innkeeper? 

Footfalls sounded on the stairs—the soft scuff of boot leather on worn planks. Someone entered the hallway beyond their door; strode confidently toward their room. 

Dessylyn's face was a stark mask of terror. Knuckles jammed against her teeth to dam a rising scream were stained red with drawn blood. Dread-haunted eyes were fixed upon the door opposite. 

Slipping into a fighting crouch, Dragar spared a glance for the bared blade in his taut grasp. No nimbus of flame hovered about the sword, only the deadly gleam of honed steel, reflected in the unnaturally subdued lamplight. 

Footsteps halted in front of their door. It seemed he could hear the sound of breathing from beyond the threshold. 

A heavy first smote the door. Once. A single summons. A single challenge. 

With an urgent gesture, Dessylyn signed Dragar to remain silent. 

"Who dares...!" he growled in a ragged voice. 

A powerful blow exploded against the stout timber. Latch and bolt erupted from their setting in a shower of splinters and wrenched metal. All but torn from its hinges, the door was hurled open, slammed resoundingly against the wall. 

"Kane!" screamed Dessylyn. 

The massive figure strode through the doorway, feral grace in the movements of his powerful, square-torsoed frame. A heavy sword was balanced with seeming negligence in his left hand, but there was no uncertainty in the lethal fury that blazed in his eyes. 

"Good evening," sneered Kane through a mirthless smile. 

Startled despite Dessylyn's warning, Dragar's practiced eye swiftly sized up his opponent. So the sorcerer's magic had preserved the prime of his years after all... At about six feet Kane stood several inches shorter than the towering barbarian, but the enormous hands of muscle that surged beneath leather vest and trousers made his weight somewhat greater. Long arms and the powerful roll of his shoulders signaled a swordsman of considerable reach and strength, although the youth doubted if Kane could match his speed. A slim leather band with a black opal tied back his shoulder-length red hair, and the face beneath the close-trimmed beard was brutal, with a savagery, that made his demeanor less lordly than arrogant. And his blue eyes burned with the brand of killer. 

"Come looking for your woman, sorcerer?" grated Dragar, watching the other's blade. "We thought you'd stay hidden in your tower, after I frightened off your slinking servants!" 

Kane's eyes narrowed. "So that's... Wizard's Bane, I believe you call it. I see the legends didn't lie when they spoke of the blade's protective powers. I shouldn't have spoken of it to Dessylyn, I suppose, when I learned that an enchanted sword had been brought into Carsultyal. But then, its possession will compensate in some part for the difficulties you've caused me." 

"Kill him, Dragar, my love! Don't listen to his lies!" Dessylyn cried. 

"What do you mean?" rumbled the youth, who had missed Kane's inference. 

The warrior wizard chuckled drily. "Can't you guess, you romantic oaf? Don't you understand that a clever woman has used you? Of course not—the chivalrous barbarian thought he was defending a helpless girl. Pity I let Laroc die after persuading him to tell me of her game. He might have told you how innocent his mistress—" 

"Dragar! Kill him! He only means to take you off guard!" 

"To be sure! Kill me, Dragar—if you can! That was her plan, you know. Through my... sources... I learned of this formidable blade you carry and made mention of it to Dessylyn. But Dessylyn, it seems, has grown bored with my caresses. She paid a servant, the unlamented Laroc, to stage an apparent rape, trusting that a certain lout would rush in to save her. Well plotted, don't you think? Now poor Dessylyn has a bold defender whose magic blade can protect her against Kane's evil spells. I wonder, Dessylyn—did you only mean to go away with this thickheaded dolt, or did you plan to goad me into this personal combat, hoping I'd be slain and the wealth of my tower would be yours?" 

"Dragar! He's lying to you!" moaned the girl despairingly. 

"Because if it was the latter, then I'm afraid your plotting wasn't as intelligent as you believed," concluded Kane mockingly. 

"Dragar!" came the tortured choke. 

The barbarian, emotions a fiery chaos, risked an agonized glance at her contorted face. 

Kane lunged. 

Off guard, Dragar's lightning recovery deflected Kane's blade at the last possible instant, so that he took a shallow gash across his side instead of the steel through his ribs. "Damn you!" he cursed. 

"But I am!" laughed Kane, parrying the youth's flashing counterattack with case. His speed was uncanny, and the awesome power of his thick shoulders drove his blade with deadly force. 

Lightning seemed to flash with the ringing thunder of their blades. Rune-stamped star-metal hammered against the finest steel of Carsultyal's far-famed forges, and their clangor seemed the cries of two warring demons—harsh, strident with pain and rage. 

Sweat shone on Dragar's naked body, and his breath spat foam through his clenched teeth. A few times only had he crossed blades with an opponent his equal in strength, and then the youth's superior speed had carried the victory. Now, as in some impossible nightmare, he faced a skilled and cunning swordsman whose speed was at least his equal—and whose strength seemed somewhat greater. After his initial attack had been deftly turned away, Dragar's swordplay became less reckless, less confident. Grimly he set about wearing down his opponent's endurance, reasoning that the sorcerer's physical conditioning could not equal that of a hardened mercenary. 

In all the world there was no sound but their ringing blades, the desperate rush of their bodies, the hoarse gusts of their breath. Everywhere time stood frozen, save for the deadly fury of their duel, as they leaped and lunged about the bare-timbered room. 

Dragar caught a thin slash across his left arm from a blow he did not remember deflecting. Kane's lefthanded attack was dangerously unfamiliar to him, and only his desperate parries had saved him from worse. Uneasily he realized that Kane's sword arm did not falter as the minutes dragged past and that more and more he was being confined to the defensive. Wizard's Bane grew ragged with notches from the Carsultyal blade, and its hilt slippery with sweat. Kane's heavier sword was similarly scarred from their relentless slash, parry, thrust. 

Then as Kane deflected Dragar's powerful stroke, the youth made a quick thrust with the turning blade—enough so that its tip gashed diagonally across Kane's brow, severing his headband. A shallow cut, but blood flowed freely, matted the clinging strands of his unbound hair. Kane gave back, flung the blood and loose hair from his eyes. 

And Dragar lunged. Too quick for Kane to parry fully, his blade gored a furrow the length of the sorcerer's left forearm. Kane's long sword faltered. Instantly the barbarian hammered at his guard. 

The sword left Kane's grip as it clumsily threw back the star-blade. For a fraction of a second it turned free in midair. Dragar exulted that he had at last torn the blade from Kane's grasp—as he raised his arm for a killing stroke. 

But Kane's right hand caught up the spinning blade with practiced surety. Wielding the sword with skill scarcely inferior to his natural sword arm, Kane parried Dragar's flashing blow. Then, before the startled barbarian could recover, Kane's sword smashed through Dragar's ribs. 

The force of the blow burled the stricken youth back against the bed. Wizard's Bane dropped from nerveless fingers and skidded across the wide oaken planks. 

From Dessylyn's throat came a cry of inexpressible pain. She rushed to him and cradled Dragar's head against her lap. Desperately she pressed ineffectual fingers against the pulsing wound in his chest. "Please, Kane!" she sobbed. "Spare him!" 

Kane glanced through burning eyes at the youth's ruined chest and laughed. "I give him to you, Dessylyn," he told her insolently. "And I'll await you in my tower—unless, of course, you young lovers still plan on running off together." 

Blood trailing from his arm—and darker blood from his sword—he stalked from the room and into the night mists. 

"Dragar! Dragar!" Dessylyn moaned, kissing his haggard face and blood-foamed lips. "Please don't die, beloved! Onthe, don't let him die!" 

Tears fell from her eyes to his as she pressed her face against his pallid visage. "You didn't believe him, did you, Dragar? What if I did engineer our meeting, dearest! Still I love you! It's true that I love you! I'll always love you, Dragar!" 

He looked at her through glazing eyes. 

"Bitch!" he spat, and died. 


How many times, Dessylyn?
How many times will you play this game?
(But this was the first!)
The first? Are you sure, Dessylyn?
(I swear it!... How can I be sure?)
And how many after? How many circles, Dessylyn?
(Circles? Why this darkness in my mind?)
How many times, Dessylyn, have you played at Lorelei?
How many are those who have known your summoning eye?
How many are those who have heard your siren cry, Dessylyn?
How many souls have swum out to you, Dessylyn?
And perished by the shadows that hide below,
And are drawn down to Hell by the undertow?
How many times, Dessylyn?
(I can't remember...)


VII
"He'll Have to Die..."
"You know he'll have to die." 

Dessylyn shook her head. "It's too dangerous." 

"Clearly it's far more dangerous to let him live," Mavrsal pointed out grimly. "From what you've told me, Kane will never permit you to leave him—and this isn't like trying to get away from some jealous lord. A sorcerer's tentacles reach farther than those of the fabled Oraycha. What good is it to escape Carsultyal, only to have Kane's magic strike at us later? Even on the high sea his shadow can follow us." 

"But we might escape him," murmured Dessylyn. "The oceans are limitless, and the waves carry no trail." 

"A wizard of Kane's power will have ways to follow us." 

"It's still too dangerous. I'm not even sure Kane can be killed!" Dessylyn's fingers toyed anxiously with the emerald at her throat; her lips were tightly pressed. 

Angrily Mavrsal watched her fingers twist the wide silk and leather collar. Fine ladies might consider the fashion stylish here in Carsultyal, but it annoyed him that she wore the ornament even in bed. "You'll never be free of Kane's slave collar," he growled, voicing his thought, "until that devil is dead." 

"I know," breathed the girl softly, more than fear shining in her green eyes. 

"Yours is the hand that can kill him," he continued. 

Her lips moved, but no sound issued. 

Soft harbor sounds whispered through the night as the Tuab gently rocked with the waves. Against the quay, her timbers creaked and groaned, thudded against the buffers of waste hemp cordage. Distantly, her watch paced the deck; low conversation, dimly heard, marked the presence of other crewmen—not yet in their hammocks, despite a hard day's work. In the captain's cabin a lamp swung slowly with the vessel's roll, playing soft shadows back and forth against the objects within. Snug and sheltered from the sea mists, the atmosphere was almost cozy—could the cabin only have been secure against a darker phantom that haunted the night. 

"Kane claims to love you," Mavrsal persisted shrewdly. "He won't accept your hatred of him. In other words, he'll unconsciously lower his guard with you. He'll let you stand at his back and never suspect that your hand might drive a dagger through his ribs." 

"It's true," she acknowledged in a strange voice. 

Mavrsal held her shoulders and turned her face to his. "I can't see why you haven't tried this before. Was it fear?" 

"Yes. I'm terrified of Kane." 

"Or was it something else? Do you still feel some secret love for him, Dessylyn?" 

She did not reply immediately. "I don't know." 

He swore and took her chin in his hand. The collar, with its symbol of Kane's mastery, enraged him—so that he roughly tore it from her throat. Her fingers flew to the bared flesh. 

Again he cursed. "Did Kane do that to you?" 

She nodded, her eyes wide with intense emotion. 

"He treats you as a slave, and you haven't the spirit to rebel—or even to hate him for what he does to you!" 

"That's not true! I hate Kane!" 

"Then show some courage! What can the devil do to you that's any worse than your present lot?" 

"I just don't want you to die, too!" 

The captain laughed grimly. "If you'd remain his slave to spare my life, then you're worth dying for! But the only death will be Kane's—if we lay our plans well. Will you try, Dessylyn? Will you rebel against this tyrant—win freedom for yourself, and love for us both?" 

"I'll try, Mavrsal," she promised, unable to avoid his eyes. "But I can't do it alone." 

"Nor would any man ask you to. Can I get into Kane's tower?" 

"An army couldn't assail that tower if Kane wished to defend it." 

"So I've heard. But can I get inside? Kane must have a secret entrance to his lair." 

She bit her fist. "I know of one. Perhaps you could enter without his knowing it." 

"I can if you can warn me of any hidden guardians or pitfalls," he told her with more confidence than he felt. "And I'll want to try this when he won't be as vigilant as normal. Since there seem to be regular periods when you can slip away from the tower, I see no reason why I can't steal inside under the same circumstances." 

Dessylyn nodded, her face showing less fear now. "When he's deep into his necromancies, Kane is oblivious to all else. He's begun again with some of his black spells—he'll be so occupied until tomorrow night, when he'll force me to partake of his dark ritual." 

Mavrsal flushed with outrage. "Then that will be his last journey into the demonlands—until we send him down to Hell forever! Repairs are all but complete. If I push the men and rush reprovisioning, the Tuab can sail with the tide of another dawn, Tomorrow night it will be, then, Dessylyn. While Kane is exhausted and preoccupied with his black sorcery, I'll slip into his tower. 

"Be with him then. If he sees me before I can strike, wait until he turns to meet my attack—then strike with this!" And he drew a slender dirk from a sheath fixed beneath the head of his bunk. 

As if hypnotized by his words, by the shining sliver of steel, Dessylyn turned the dagger about in her hands, again and again, staring at the flash of light on its keen edge. "I'll try. By Onthe, I'll try to do as you say!" 

"He'll have to die," Mavrsal assured her. "You know he'll have to die." 

VIII
Drink a Final Cup...
Spread out far below lay Carsultyal, fog swirling through her wide brick streets and crooked filthy alleys, hovering over squalid tenements and palatial manors—although her arrogant towers pierced its veil and reared toward the stars in lordly grandeur. Born of two elements, air and water, the mist swirled and drifted, sought to strangle a third element, fire but could do no more than dim with tears its thousand glowing eyes. Patches of murky yellow in the roiling fog, the lights of Carsultyal gained the illusion of movement, so that one might be uncertain at any one moment whether he gazed down into the mist-hung city or upward toward the cloud-buried stars. 

"Your mood is strange tonight, Dessylyn," Kane observed, meticulously adjusting the fire beneath the tertiary alembic. 

She moved away from the tower window. "Is it strange to you, Kane? I marvel that you notice. I've told you countless times that this necromancy disgusts me, but always before have my sentiments meant nothing to you." 

"Your sentiments mean a great deal to me, Dessylyn. But as for demanding your attendance here, I only do what I must." 

"Like that!" she hissed in loathing, and pointed to the young girl's mutilated corpse. 

Wearily Kane followed her gesture. Pain etching his brow, he made a sign and barked a stream of harsh syllables. A shadow crossed the open window and fell over the vivisected corpse. When it withdrew, the tortured form had vanished, and a muffled slap of wings faded into the darkness. 

"Why do you think to hide your depraved crimes from my sight, Kane? Do you think I'll forget? Do you think I don't know the evil that goes into compounding this diabolical drug you force me to drink?" 

Kane frowned and stared into the haze of phosphorescent vapor which swirled within the cucurbit. "Are you carrying iron, Dessylyn? There's assymetry to the nimbus. I've told you not to bring iron within the influence of this generation." 

The dagger was an unearthly chill against the flesh of her thigh. "Your mind is going, Kane. I wear only these rings." 

He ignored her to lift the cap and hurriedly pour in a measure of dark, semi-congealed fluid. The alembic hissed and shivered, seemed to burst with light within its crimson crystal walls. A drop of phosphorescence took substance near the receiver. Kane quickly shifted the chalice to catch the droplet as it plunged. 

"Why do you force me to drink this, Kane? Aren't these chains of fear that hold me to you bondage enough?" 

His uncanny stare fixed her, and while it might have been the alchemical flames that made it seem so, she was astonished to see the fatigue, the pain that lined his face. It was as if the untold centuries whose touch Kane had eluded had at last stolen upon him. His hair billowed wildly, his face was shadowed and sunken, and his skin seemed imparted with the sick hue of the phosphorescent vapors. 

"Why must you play this game, Dessylyn? Does it please you to see to what limits I go to hold you to me?" 

"All that would please me, Kane, is to be free of you." 

"You loved me once. You will love me again." 

"Because you command it? You're a fool if you believe so. I hate you, Kane. I'll hate you for the rest of my life. Kill me now, or keep me here till I'm ancient and withered. I'll still die hating you." 

He sighed and turned from her. His words were breathed into the flame. "You'll stay with me because I love you, and your beauty will not fade, Dessylyn. In time you may understand. Did you ever wonder at the loneliness of immortality? Have you ever wondered what must be the thoughts of a man cursed to wander through the centuries? A man doomed to a desolate, unending existence—feared and hated wherever men speak his name. A man who can never know peace, whose shadow leaves ruin wherever he passes. A man who has learned that every triumph is fleeting, that every joy is transient. All that he seeks to possess is stolen away from him by the years. His empires will fall, his songs will be forgotten, his loves will turn to dust. Only the emptiness of eternity will remain with him, a laughing skeleton cloaked in memories to haunt his days and nights. 

"For such a man as this, for such a curse as this—is it so terrible that he dares to use his dark wisdom to hold something which he loves? If a hundred bright flowers must wither and die in his hand, is it evil that he hopes to keep one, just one, blossom for longer than the brief instant that Time had intended? Even if the flower hated being torn from the soil, would it make him wish to preserve its beauty any less?" 

But Dessylyn was not listening to Kane. The billow of a tapestry, where no wind had blown, caught her vision. Could Kane hear the almost silent rasp of hidden hinges? No, he was lost in one of his maddened fits of brooding. 

She tried to force her pounding heart to pulse less thunderously, her quick breath to cease its frantic rush. She could see where Mavrsal stood, frozen in the shadow of the tapestry. It seemed impossible that be might creep closer without Kane's unnatural keenness sensing his presence. The bidden dirk burned her thigh as if it were sheathed in her flesh. Carefully she edged around to Kane's side, thinking to expose his back to Mavrsal. 

"But I see the elixir is ready," announced Kane, breaking out of his mood. Administering a few amber drops to the fluid, he carefully lifted the chalice of glowing liquor. 

"Here, drink this quickly," he ordered, extending the vessel. 

"I won't drink your poisoned drugs again." 

"Drink it, Dessylyn." His eyes held hers. 

As in a recurrent nightmare—and there were other nightmares—Dessylyn accepted the goblet. She raised it to her lips, felt the bitter liquor touch her tongue. 

A knife whirled across the chamber. Struck from her languid fingers, the crystal goblet smashed into a thousand glowing shards against the stones. 

"No!" shouted Kane in a demonic tone. "No! No!" He stared at the pool of dying phosphoresence in stunned horror. 

Leaping from concealment, Mavrsal flung himself toward Kane—hoping to bury his cutlass in his enemy's heart before the sorcerer recovered. He had not reckoned on Kane's uncanny reflexes. 

The anguished despair Kane displayed burst into inhuman rage at the instant he spun to meet his hidden assailant. Weaponless, he lunged for the sea captain. Mavrsal swung his blade in a natural downward slash, abandoning finesse in the face of an unarmed opponent. 

With blurring speed, Kane stepped under the blow and caught the other's descending wrist with his left hand. Mavrsal heard a scream escape his lips as his arm was jammed to a halt in mid swing—as Kane's powerful left hand closed about his wrist and shattered the bones beneath the crushed flesh. The cutlass sailed unheeded across the stones. 

His face twisted in bestial fury, Kane grappled with the sea captain. Mavrsal, an experienced fighter at rough and tumble, found himself tossed about like a frail child. Kane's other hand circled its long fingers about his throat, choking off his breath. Desperately lie sought to break Kane's hold, beat at him with his mangled wrist, as Kane with savage laughter carried him back against the wall, holding him by his neck like a broken puppet. 

Red fog wavered in his vision-pain was roaring in his ears... Kane was slowly strangling him, killing him deliberately, taunting him for his helplessness. 

Then he was falling. 

Kane gasped and arched his back inward as Dessylyn drove her dagger into his shoulder. Blood splashed her sweat-slippery fist. As Kane twisted away from her blow, the thin blade lodged in the scapula and snapped at the hilt. 

Dessylyn screamed as his backhand blow hurled her to the stones. Frantically she scrambled to Mavrsal's side, where he lay sprawled on the floor—stunned, but still conscious. 

Kane cursed and fell back against his worktable, overturning an alembic that burst like a rotted gourd. "Dessylyn!" he groaned in disbelief. Blood welled from his shoulder, spread across his slumped figure. His left shoulder was crippled, but his deadliness was that of a wounded tiger. "Dessylyn!" 

"What did you expect?" she snarled, trying to pull Mavrsal to his feet. 

A heavy flapping sound flung foggy gusts through the window. Kane cried out something in an inhuman tongue. 

"If you kill Mavrsal, better kill me this time as well!" cried Dessylyn, clinging to the sea captain as he dazedly rose to his knees. 

He cast a calculating eye toward the fallen sword. Too far. 

"Leave her alone, sorcerer!" rasped Mavrsal. "She's guilty of no crime but that of hating you and loving me! Kill me now and be done, but you'll never change her spirit!" 

"And I suppose you love her, too," said Kane in a tortured voice. "You fool. Do you know how many others I've killed—other fools who thought they would save Dessylyn from the sorcerer's evil embrace? It's a game she often plays. Ever since the first fool... only a game. It amuses her to taunt me with her infidelities, with her schemes to leave with another man. Since it amuses her, I indulge her. But she doesn't love you." 

"Then why did she bury my steel in your back?" Despair made Mavrsal reckless. "She hates you, sorcerer—and she loves me! Keep your lies to console you in your madness! Your sorcery can't alter Dessylyn's feelings toward you—nor can it alter the truth you're forced to see! So kill me and be damned—you can't escape the reality of your pitiful clutching for something you'll never hold!" 

Kane's voice was strange, and his face was a mirror of tormented despair. "Get out of my sight!" he rasped. "Get out of here, both of you! 

"Dessylyn, I give you your freedom. Mavrsal, I give you Dessylyn's love. Take your bounty, and go from Carsultyal! I trust you'll have little cause to thank me!" 

As they stumbled for the secret door, Mavrsal ripped the emerald-set collar from Dessylyn's neck and flung it at Kane's slumping figure. "Keep your slave collar!" he growled. "It's enough that you leave her with your scars about her threat!" 

"You fool," said Kane in a low voice. 


"How far are we from Carsultyal?" whispered Dessylyn. 

"Several leagues—we've barely gotten underway," Mavrsal told the shivering girl beside him. 

"I'm frightened." 

"Hush. You're done with Kane and all his sorcery. Soon it will be dawn, and soon we'll be far beyond Carsultyal and all the evil you've known there." 

"Hold me tighter then, my love. I feel so cold." 

"The sea wind is cold, but it's clean," he told her. "It's carrying us together to a new life." 

"I'm frightened." 

"Hold me closer, then." 

"I seem to remember now... 

But the exhausted sea captain had fallen asleep. A deep sleep—the last unblighted slumber he would ever know. 

For at dawn he awoke in the embrace of a corpse—the mouldering corpse of a long-dead girl, who had hanged herself in despair over the death of her barbarian lover.