The Sword Of The Sun

The Sword of the Sun

Joe Dever and John Grant

Copyright

(c)

2003

Joe

Dever

and

John

Grant

Contents 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Death in the Tavern Aboard the Green Sceptre Wrecked Welcome to Ragadorn The Dance Holding Death The Road to Durenor Port Bax Tarnalin The Sword of the Sun The Battle of the Dead The Return of the Kai

1 Death in the Tavern 1 The door behind Lone Wolf was thrown open with a crash. He jumped from his seat, throwing over the table, scattering ale and broken glass in all directions. "Treason!" he snapped, his hand on the pommel of his sword. Through the door lumbered three men, each armed with a gleamingly sharp-bladed scimitar. All of them were well over six feet tall, and Lone Wolf was briefly intimidated by the sheer bulk of their bodies. Their scowling faces were creased and brutish, distorted into caricatures of mindless hostility. One of them in particular grinned gloatingly, clearly looking forward to spilling Lone Wolf's blood across the filthy tavern floor. "Yes, young Kai Lord," said the man who had lured him to this place. The voice was smooth and ingratiating. "Yes, I suppose you could call this treason. But I hardly think you will live long enough to tell anyone about it." The man giggled. Lone Wolf's hatred for him surged. "You dare to challenge a Kai Lord?" he asked as coolly as he could. He hoped his fear didn't show in his voice. "A very young Kai Lord," amended his betrayer. "Yes, I think my friends here would be willing to accept the odds." Again he giggled, and again Lone Wolf mentally cursed him. Lone Wolf's sword came with a hiss from its scabbard, and at the same time he plucked his axe from his belt, swinging it blindly behind him at where his betrayer's throat had been only a moment before. The blade whispered vainly through the empty air. Lone Wolf was tired of killing. He had hoped that his quest to regain the Sommerswerd for Sommerlund would be an uneventful affair. Yet here, within the boundaries of Holmgard itself, and at a time when every ablebodied human being was required to come together to help in the effort to defend the city from the besiegers, he was facing enemies who manifestly intended to take his life for whatever coins or valuables he might be carrying. But these were no ordinary harbour hoodlums, he was certain: whether or not they realized it, they must be acting in the service of the Darklord Zagarna or of his crony, the renegade magician Vonotar. In this moment he hated them -- as human beings prepared to sell their rightful heritage -- even more than he might have hated the most loathsome of giaks. He wished he could turn back the clock to the time when all that had

brought a whiff of excitement to his life had been a game of greel. Impatiently he kicked away the fallen table and chair, and crunched his way through the shards of glass to confront his attackers. "If you go now -- right away," he said, his words nipped short, "I'll forget about this. I've no wish to kill you." Somewhere behind him his betrayer sniggered. "Young Kai Lord," he said, "you're hardly in a position to bargain with my friends. As you've told me, all so proud and dandy, you're the last of the Kai. With your death, the Kai will be extinguished forever from the face of Magnamund." The three heavy-set assailants grunted their agreement, their scimitars fitfully carving the air before them. Lone Wolf became deceptively mild. "Please to remember," he said gently, "wherever your despicable souls may go after your deaths, that I gave you fair warning." This produced chuckles from the trio -- chuckles which ceased rather abruptly. It was instinct that made the youth suddenly duck down and jerk his body away to one side. His betrayer had thrown a knife accurately at the midpoint between Lone Wolf's shoulder blades. It whistled through the air, circling almost lazily end-over-end, and implanted itself in the throat of one of the thugs. The huge man dropped his scimitar in amazement, collapsed to his knees, and began to blubber like a disappointed child as his life-blood spurted from him. The other two were momentarily paralysed with astonishment at this immediate reversal of their fortunes, and Lone Wolf took advantage to hurtle his axe around in a great arc, virtually cutting one of the remaining attackers in two at the waist. The man died before he had time to make even the slightest sound of protest. The third assailant instantly moved backwards a couple of paces, his fur-clad feet whispering oilily on the blood-slicked floor, his expression becoming wary and at the same time vengeful. From the way that he now held his scimitar it was obvious he was no mean swordsman. Moreover, Lone Wolf had no idea how many more knives the betrayer to his rear might have to hand. In the gloomy light of this foul-smelling harbour tavern he dropped to a crouch, trying with flickers of his eyes to keep both of his remaining foes in sight. He was expecting the cutthroat's charge, but even so its sudden violence took him by surprise. As the man leapt forward Lone Wolf half stood up, and then, at the

very last moment, dropped to his hands and knees. He probed upwards with his sword, but made no contact as the assassin tripped over his curled-up form and collapsed with a clatter into the mess of shattered glass and spilled ale. Lone Wolf pulled himself upright and sprang backwards. He lost his axe in the process, but at least now both of his enemies were in front of him. The point of his sword was almost an entity in its own right, eagerly prodding forward. As in so many previous conflicts, the rational part of his mind had hurriedly absented itself, leaving behind only a ruthless killer whom Lone Wolf himself didn't much like. Yet at the same time he recognized that his blood-crazy alter ego had saved his life many times in the past and would doubtless do likewise many times in the future. He allowed this other self to dominate him completely as the thug pulled himself to his feet and prepared for a renewed assault. Blood covered the man's face from a score of places where pieces of broken glass had bitten deep into the flesh. There was the red light of insane fury in his eyes. This was no longer a case of a killing for a few gold crowns, Lone Wolf could see, but a matter of vengeance -- not just for his fallen confederates but for his own lost dignity. The man batted Lone Wolf's betrayer out of the way with the back of his meaty hand and advanced steadily, the small eyes, set in the piggish, scarred face, glittering with the desire to make a kill. The point of his steeply curved scimitar seemed impossibly sharp. Sweat poured down the knotted muscles of his forearms. He moved with incredible lightness for a man of his weight. Lone Wolf recognized, yet again, that he was confronted by no mean foe. He darted sideways, bringing his sword in a backhand loop to slash at the man's stomach. The thug ducked his scimitar reflexively to counter the blow. The shock of the collision of the two blades sent tingles up and down Lone Wolf's arm. Then the scimitar swooped, moving faster than the eye could see, and Lone Wolf felt his sword being plucked from his grasp. The weapon clattered into the far corner of the gloomy room Lone Wolf had two enemies to confront. And now he was armed only with his dagger. The ragged breathing of his assailants seemed to fill the air. In the dim light the blade of the scimitar sparkled with deadly keenness. Lone Wolf's betrayer giggled, yet again.

2 Qinefer's emotions had been mixed as she permitted Lone Wolf to accept the quest to bring the Sommerswerd from its home in Durenor back to Sommerlund. Part of her was relieved: it seemed to her the mission was likely to be arduous and time-consuming, and the responsibility for its success a heavy one. At the same time, though, she felt a little slighted that this youth of her own age was being preferred to her, simply because he had received training in the Kai Disciplines. Of the details of these Disciplines she had only the fuzziest idea, but it seemed to her that they couldn't surely make that much difference to a person's capabilities -- and her experiences of the last couple of days had led her to believe, quite accurately, that only a tiny proportion of people could match her instinctive skills at weaponry. No -- she discounted the youth's Kai training and concentrated instead on the fact that he was male. The thought crossed her mind that perhaps she could sway the king's decision by challenging Lone Wolf to some form of nonmortal combat -- with staves perhaps -- so that she could prove her own superiority; but the idea died almost as soon as it had been conceived. She realized that the very last thing that Ulnar would let them do was weaken each other at the very time when he wanted -- needed -- both of them to be able to draw on the full resources of their strengths and skills. So she bit her lip and forced herself to dwell solely on the fact that she would be here, fighting to defend Holmgard from the invading armies of the Darklords, while Lone Wolf was traversing the ocean. The great conference hall at Holmgard had never been the most cheerful of rooms, and now it had about it an atmosphere rather like that found in the dreadful hours following the funeral of a loved one. The clerk who was adjusting the strategic maps in response to information relayed from the front lines was weeping openly; Qinefer guessed, again accurately, that he had lost a close member of his family already in the siege. Her heart went out to him, but there was absolutely nothing she could do to ease his pain, and so she kept her silence. Now that Lone Wolf was being given his final instructions before being allowed a few hours to sleep and recuperate, she found herself being virtually ignored by King Ulnar and his assembled nobles. One of the younger advisers there smiled at her hopefully, but her stony face told him only too clearly that this was neither the time nor the place to make what she euphemistically thought of as romantic small-talk. Besides, although Lone Wolf, with his easy ways and his aura of supreme confidence, in some respects made her hackles rise, at the same time she had known as soon as

she'd seen him that he was somehow her complement. She liked him even as she found so much to dislike in him, and a lot of what she disliked she recognized in herself as well. They were like the two halves of a broken crock being brought close together, within moments of having their ragged edges matched and then finally reunited. She wasn't sure it was a matter of loving this youth; she was sure she was attracted to him in some strangely uncontrollable way -- perhaps even a dangerous way. It was not a feeling to which she was accustomed. On the remote farm where she had been born and brought up, she had always regarded boys as at best something to be tolerated and at worst oafs to be avoided. Lone Wolf seemed rather different, however: she could envisage herself enjoying a few hours just talking with him. And there was more: the two of them had something in common, of that she was certain, although quite what it might be she hadn't the faintest idea. It crossed her mind that perhaps she, too, possessed some nascent Kai powers, but she dismissed the notion irritably. Was it not a known fact that only those trained by the Kai were capable of performing the Kai Disciplines? Besides, had the gods given her the seeds of Kai abilities, surely she would have been discovered as a child and recruited for training in the Monastery? She wished her father were here to advise her, to help her sort out the muddle of thoughts tumbling through her mind, but of course he was dead, sadistically slaughtered along with the rest of her family by a troop of rampaging giaks. She could still hear the screams as, hidden beneath the raised wooden floor of their farmhouse and powerless to intervene, she had watched the people she loved meeting their savage deaths. The sight of their agonies had affected her as physically as if someone had been pulling chunks of her flesh from her body using red-hot tweezers, but most of all she had been affected by the loss of her father. A refugee from Cloeasia, a tall black man possessed of enormous dignity and wisdom, he had faced death with a strange compassion towards his persecutors, allowing not a cry of pain to leave his lips but looking on the cackling giaks with an expression of the most profound pity. He had, she acknowledged, always been much more to her than merely a father: he had been her best friend and closest confidant; there had been nothing so intimate or personal that she could not talk about it with him. And now he was gone. From time to time she found herself halfexpecting to find him at her elbow, ready with a joke or a word of sensible advice to help her acclimatize to this bizarre new world in which she found herself, but she had seen what the giaks had done to him, and she knew that he would never again be there to guide her.

Perhaps, she thought wistfully, her father could have helped her sort out her tangled emotions concerning this young Kai Lord. When Lone Wolf was led away to bathe and to have a few hours of well earned rest, she envied him. Clearly he was held in considerable respect by the courtiers of King Ulnar V, as well as by the monarch himself. She, on the other hand, felt as if she had been discarded as second-best. Yes, they expected her to act as their defender, if necessary to lay down her life fighting off the hordes of the Darklord Zagarna; but at the same time they regarded her as of little consequence -- as nothing more than some sort of hyper-efficient fighting machine. She was honest enough to admit to herself that she was allowing her mind to veer towards paranoia. Lone Wolf was, because of his Kai training, manifestly better equipped than she was to tackle the difficulties of the quest to Durenor and back. Again because he was a Kai, he was much more likely to receive a proper hearing from Durenor's King Alin IV. Ulnar's courtiers were not gratuitously shunning her: it was merely that they had other things on their minds. And what greater honour could a young woman have than to be charged with assisting the defence of the capital city of her homeland? Lone Wolf had winked at her, and that confused her thoughts even more. Once Lone Wolf had left the courtroom, accompanied by Captain D'Val of the King's Guard, who would see to the youth's comfort until the morning, King Ulnar had turned to Qinefer. "Would you wish to accompany the Kai?" he said, in a conversational tone. He was a man who looked old for his years. It was clear that the question was a matter of form only, a collection of words designed to fill up the silence and give her the courteous illusion of freedom of choice. The timbre of his words gave a lucid indication that no positive reply was to be countenanced. "No," Qinefer replied after a long and reluctant pause. "I'm glad of it," said the king immediately. "We have great need of you here." "I thank you." Qinefer almost added "my lord", but a rebellious streak in her balked at the idea. Ulnar exhibited no response to her sardonic curtness. Either he was oblivious to it or he chose to ignore it. "These are troubled times," he said, "and that means it is incumbent upon me to take steps which I would never take otherwise. It's clear to me that you are lucky enough to possess a brilliant military mind." Qinefer was startled. She had wreaked a harsh vengeance on the

spawn of the Darklords for the cruel deaths of her parents and siblings, but she hardly counted herself as a soldier -- still less as a strategist. "I --" she began. "Girl," said the king, "I have fought in many campaigns, against foes both human and inhuman. I am well equipped to recognize a born warrior when I see one. Trust my judgement." He smiled in a friendly yet faintly patronizing manner, and once again she felt rancour growing within her. "I thank you for your praise," she said with a deep sarcasm that was apparently completely lost on him. "I wish you to lead a division of my forces," said the king. "Your talent is raw and untrained as yet, so perhaps it would be a mistake for me to promote you to any higher military status than this -- for the while at least . . . for the while. However, in the meantime, would it suit your convenience to be created a Knight of the Realm?" There was a wry laughter-light in his eyes. Qinefer's mouth dropped open. The Knights of the Realm owned great acres of land and in times of war commanded forces of more than two hundred fighting men and women. For an orphaned girl from a poor farmstead this honour was unprecedented. She mumbled a few incoherent words, which Ulnar took to signify assent. "Then let it be done," he said. "Tor Medar, my old friend, bring me a sword." The stout Seneschal of Tyso moved swiftly to obey his liege-lord's instruction. A smile of goodwill crossed his broad face as he did so. He beamed at Qinefer, and she knew immediately that he was declaring himself to be an ally in whatever she might do. There was more to it than simply his loyalty to the wishes of his king. She sensed that he approved deeply of what little he had seen of her. Moments later she was kneeling before Ulnar, her head downcast, her eyes looking aimlessly at the dusty stones of the floor. She hardly noticed as there was a light touch on each of her shoulders; then she glanced up and saw that Ulnar was sheathing the sword which Tor Medar had brought for him. "Qinefer," said the monarch, "you're now one of my Knights of the Realm. It may take you a while to realize quite what this means, but I've enough faith in you to hope that the honour won't turn your head, and that you'll accept the responsibilities that go with the title. Two hundred of our best troops on the city's northern flank will be deputed to you, and their lives will become yours to command -- but I expect you to use that command

wisely. There are few enough of us here in Holmgard; we can ill afford to throw lives away. It's my order that, tomorrow, you lead your troops to defend us from invaders, but at the same time you must use all of your ingenuity to preserve the soldiers serving under you. If you fail to do this -if you squander their lives -- then you will have betrayed the trust which I am placing in you." "I accept your command," whispered Qinefer, still kneeling. "Go, said the king. "You need rest." A lieutenant burst into the room. "The outer defences have been breached to the west," he cried. "The guards have been slaughtered --" "Let me," said Qinefer, standing, her hand toying aimlessly with one of her swords. "No," said Ulnar. "I told you: you need some rest. We can cope with this incursion for the moment. Perhaps tomorrow you can lead your troops." She began to protest, but then the world started to whirl around her. Perhaps standing up had been a bad idea. Passively, she allowed herself to be led away to a room in which crisp white sheets beckoned from a large wooden bed. She undressed and pulled the bedding around her achingly exhausted body. Her roughly knitted clothes strewn all over the floor around her, she fell into the deep blackness of sleep. 3 Qinefer had a curiously frustrating dream that night. She dreamed that her soul was howling through a long, dark featureless tunnel. Her spiritual eyes told her that on every side there was emptiness, and yet she was aware of her rapid motion and of the tunnel's invisible walls. She knew that time must be passing, but all the same it felt to her as if her rapid passage was instantaneous, that she was moving at an infinite velocity. Bodiless and almost mindless, she viewed herself as a quick arrow hurtling towards its target. That target was a tent perched uncomfortably on the arid footlands of a vast mountain range. Within was a young woman with short-cropped red hair, sitting on a camp stool at a canvas-topped table, drinking from a paperthin porcelain cup. The young woman turned to regard Qinefer as she swept into the tent; she flicked her fingers absently and a matching stool appeared. Obeying a sweep of the woman's hand, Qinefer sat down, wondering all the while how she was able to do this, considering that she had left her

physical body behind somewhere. "We've spoken before," said the red-haired woman, "but I don't expect you'll remember." She drummed her fingers momentarily on the table and a cup of some steaming brew was abruptly there. "Drink with me and let me speak with you a while." "I don't know what you're talking about," said Qinefer. She was aware that her lips weren't moving and that her words made no sound in the heavy air, but at the same time she could see that their message had been conveyed to her hostess. "Let's not beat about the bush," said the woman casually, picking up her cup and helping herself to a studiedly elegant sip. "My name is Alyss -at least, that's what I call myself most of the time. I have an interest, for reasons which I may someday explain to you, in seeing the forces of Darkness repelled from both Sommerlund and, indeed, all of Magnamund. There are various mortals who can, if they act more sensibly than mortals normally do, help bring about this happy state of affairs. To put matters bluntly, you're one of them." Qinefer started to say something, and then realized she didn't have the first idea what it was she wanted to say. "The others," Alyss continued, "are that curiously empty-headed young Kai Lord you seem to be so taken with" -- Qinefer felt heat come to her nonexistent face -- "and an apprentice magician from the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star . . . one Banedon by name." She grinned with a sudden winningness. "It's terribly embarrassing, you see. I know for a fact that at some time in the future Banedon and I are going to fall in love with each other, but at the moment all I can think about is the fact that he's got these most terrible spots." Alyss made an exaggerated goggle at Qinefer, shrugging as one woman to another at the disgusting habits of males. "Anyway," she continued, "that's my problem, not yours. For the moment all you've got to do is a deal of fighting, and if I were a mortal I wouldn't envy you. Look, why aren't you drinking what I've given you?" Urgently Qinefer swigged from her cup. "That's better. If there's one thing I don't like it's boorish ingratitude. Enjoy the stuff -- enjoy it. Actually, it's adgana. It's highly addictive" -Qinefer spluttered -- "but as you're only here in a dream that doesn't matter too much. More's the pity. There's a lot of good money to be made out of adgana. One of these days I must make a point of visiting the Stornlands. You can make a fortune there dealing in adgana. Once the poor fools are addicted to the stuff they'll sell their grandmothers to get more of it."

"If you try to do so," said Qinefer firmly, "I'll take pleasure in ending your life." "A rational attitude," remarked Alyss after a short silence, examining her fingernails to make sure that they measured up to her own exacting standards of perfection. "Of course, there's no way whereby you could kill me -- even Vonotar has had difficulty in causing me anything more than a mild ache -- but I respect your independence of mind. However" -- she cleared her throat -- "enough of such merry pantaloonery and badinage." The words were coated with curare. "I enjoy a good joke as much as the next person, so long as it's one of my own, but now is neither the time nor the place. I've brought you here to tell you something, and there's little time for chitter-chatter: any moment now someone will wake you up and expect you to rush out and be madly military all over the place." Qinefer nodded, her courtesy constraining her from pointing out who was responsible for the "chitter-chatter". Of course she knew this was a dream, yet at the same time she was aware that it was far more real than anything she might encounter in her waking life. Alyss pushed her fingers across her short hair, and the walls of the tent disappeared, to be replaced by structured rains of colour -- reds and blues and greens and greys -- which together formed a constantly downward-moving tapestry of light, like a melting rainbow. There was a distant crack of thunder, and Alyss looked vaguely guilty; she never had been able to restrain her more histrionic instincts. "Now," she said, colouring, "I'd like to make it plain to you that, within reason, I can save you from even the worst of your blunders in combat. If you tried to take on a kraan using nothing but your bare toes -then, yes, I'd have some difficulties; unless your toenails are substantially longer and sharper than they were the last time I looked. But, so long as you act with a reasonable measure of sense, I can preserve your life against even the most unfavourable odds." Qinefer smiled. "I've already done as much myself," she murmured. Alyss looked instantly thunderous. "Piffling nonsense," she snapped, slapping her cup from the table so that it shattered on the floor. "Giaks here and there! Kraan! Puny, soulless misbegotten creatures thrown together in the Darklords' vaults -- ill constructed automata, nothing more! I could make better than them myself with a handful of clay!" "Then why don't you?" asked Qinefer. "Because my powers aren't infinite," said Alyss. It was clear that she didn't much like enunciating the words. "If I let loose on the world the creatures I could create . . . well, it would change the course of events by far

more than the gods have granted me to be able to do. It would change the future beyond all recognition, and this is something that I -- yes, even I -- am not permitted to do. More's the pity. A fine future I could make of it, too. When I think that . . . where were we! Ah yes, the matter of saving your life." Qinefer leaned forward in her rickety seat. Only twenty-four hours ago she could not have cared if she lived or died, her hatred for the spawn of the Darklords being all that drove her along, but since her arrival at the court of King Ulnar she had rediscovered her concern for her own survival. "The dangers," said Alyss, "which you will come to meet are greater than anything you've so far encountered. As much greater as a horse is than an ant. There may come circumstances where I am powerless to assist you. If I could predict such times accurately I would warn you of them, but there are far too many variables involved . . . far too many variables." Her voice trailed off, and Qinefer saw she was now lost in a world of her own, contemplating a vista of unimaginable complexity. For the first time since she had come here the girl began to feel compassion for Alyss: clearly the concept of her own lonely invulnerability pained her. "If things go any of a thousand different ways," whispered Alyss, "then it's not just your life that's at stake, warrior-child. Humanity itself would be expunged from the face of Magnamund, as if it had never been. And even I could be destroyed." There was silence. Qinefer understood Alyss's misery. For a mortal to face the eternity of annihilation is acceptance that the brief time allotted to existence is over. For an immortal . . . "At the very least my clothing might be seriously dishevelled," added Alyss morosely, shattering Qinefer's train of thought. "Oh," she said. "Preserve!" The barked word jerked Qinefer rigid. "That is what you must do," said Alyss, shouting at the display of moving colours that surrounded them. "What I must do, too. Preserve the lives of the shapers of Magnamund's future. The two boys -- those ungainly adolescents -- they're in our care, yours and mine. They seem so ineffectual to us now, but they're crucial to the continued existence of Magnamund -- of Aon, even. The gods know I wouldn't have chosen it this way, but we're stuck with it." All trace of her usual playfulness had vanished from Alyss. She seemed, with her angry red cap of hair and her sharply delineated cheekbones, to be one of the war goddesses from a mythological epic, sustaining wrath over a thousand tumbling stanzas. "The histories will largely ignore us," Alyss hissed. "I warn you to

expect nothing of glory for yourself. If you die in combat your flesh will rot away to feed the ground, and if you live you will be remembered little. I -- I will be remembered even less. Who ever thinks of the puppet-master when they can watch the antics of the gaudily painted puppets? There'll come a time when all of the lives of all of the coming generations of Magnamund will depend for their very existence on something you do, and yet if you succeed in turning away tragedy it will go unnoticed. You won't even realize yourself what you've done." "When will this be?" said Qinefer. Her words seemed strangely artificial. "How will I know?" "You won't, I told you." Alyss beckoned to the shards of her broken cup and they reassembled themselves and set themselves on the table before her. Steam rose inquisitively from the hot adgana brew the cup contained. "I myself don't know with any precision. Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you." She tittered, butting her thin hand to the curve of her mouth. "Imagine yourself, fighting the foe, all the while thinking to yourself: My goodness, here I am saving the universe. I'd better not make a mess of this one. How long d'you think you'd last? You'd stop being you, you'd start thinking about how important it was to do everything right, and that'd mean you would move that bit more slowly, more consciously, just when you needed to rely on your instincts. You'd be" -- she waggled her fingers, searching for the right metaphor -- "you'd be a clockwork Qinefer, stumbling and fumbling, and all too very soon you'd be a dead Qinefer. Poor Qinefer." Alyss put on a face like a small child's, staring in bewilderment at the remains of a toy which has somehow "broken itself". Then the pose broke, and she giggled again. "You're asking me to bear a very great burden," said Qinefer cautiously. "I think" -- becoming more assertive -- "that the very least you could do is to tell me why." But Alyss had abruptly lost interest. She halted the flow of coloured lights in its tracks and began to scratch herself behind the ear. "I've done enough speaking," she said. "I think it's time you went off back to your silly mortal bed." "I wish I knew who you were," said Qinefer after a long pause. "Not just your name, I mean." "So do I," Alyss said dreamily. Then she touched her fingers to the table, which had somehow, when Qinefer hadn't been looking, transformed itself into a vast reptile with a toothily repugnant grin, and Qinefer felt herself rushing backwards along the invisible tunnel to rejoin her body.

After that, her sleep was dreamless until the trumpets of Holmgard's morning awakened her to the newness of the day. 4 Ulnar had given Lone Wolf the Seal of Hammerdal and charged him with retrieving the Sommerswerd -- the Sword of the Sun -- which had centuries before been entrusted to the royal family of Durenor as a testament to the alliance between that country and Sommerlund; only by presenting the Seal would Lone Wolf be permitted to retrieve the ancient weapon. Then Ulnar had instructed Captain D'Val of the King's Guard to take the boy first to a bath and a bed and then, in the morning, to the Royal Armoury and on to the harbour, where Lone Wolf could board a ship for Durenor. As Lone Wolf had left the stateroom he had heard the echoes of the king's commands: Holmgard could stand against the forces of the Darklords for at most forty days, and so that was all the time that Lone Wolf could dare take on his mission to fetch the Sommerswerd. It was only the following morning that this information really penetrated Lone Wolf's mind. He awoke refreshed. Sitting at the end of his bed was Captain D'val, a handsome man with a nose so aquiline it dominated all the other features of his face. The captain looked fastidiously away as Lone Wolf stumbled out of bed and staggered blindly towards the lavatory. A few moments later, having pissed mightily and splashed cold water over his face, the Kai Lord was fit to discuss today's plan of events. D'Val was a man of few words. He pointed to the chair beside the head of the bed, where Lone Wolf's clothing lay, laundered and neatly folded. The youth climbed into it eagerly, relishing the sensation of the smoothly woven cloth against his limbs. A lifetime had passed since he had felt totally clean -- yet it was a lifetime which had lasted only a few days. His skin sang as the fabric caressed it. He hardly noticed the pangs of the countless bruises and cuts that criss-crossed his body, decorating the flesh as if some excited infant had been let loose with a set of wax crayons. Moments later, breakfast ignored, he and D'Val were inside a small covered wagon, jolting uneasily through the streets of Holmgard. The citizens were still in a state of hysterical panic, and they were slow to leap out of the way of the vehicle. Time and time again the wagon halted to allow a slow-moving individual with fear-crazed eyes to stumble out of its path. Lone Wolf longed for Janos, the horse given to him by Crown Prince Pelathar: the steed had been wayward and swift-moving, yet he had provided

a smoother ride than did this wagon -- and surely the imperious presence of Janos would have cleared the milling people out of their path. After a while D'Val cursed luridly and made his excuses. There were urgent matters awaiting his attention back at the king's citadel. However urgent Lone Wolf's mission might be, he, D'Val, could count on the driver to take the Kai Lord the rest of the way to the docks: far better to let Lone Wolf continue on his own than to rob the king of any further time of his loyal captain's service. The reasoning seemed lame, but there was nothing Lone Wolf could say or do. He felt terribly alone as D'Val stripped away one of the canvas sides of the wagon and easily hopped down to the drab, foot-worn paving stones. As the man vanished behind them Lone Wolf experienced, all at once, a bleak wash of solitude. But it was only a few minutes later that the wagon pulled up short. From the smells and the sounds Lone Wolf knew they were at the harbour. His impression was reinforced when the driver pulled open a flap on one side of the wagon, allowing the bright light to stab at Lone Wolf's eyes. The sun was reflecting brilliantly off the almost unnaturally blue water, throwing tints of strong flickering yellow all over the interior of the wagon. He felt his pupils narrow as he accommodated his vision to the brightness. Gulls circled on high, screeching their croaking squalls, while labourers and crews bustled about their business. It seemed to him as if he were suddenly in a different world: these people were seemingly unaware of the fact that their city was under siege, and were carrying on business as usual. Business being, of course, the most efficient import and export of material goods. The driver gestured Lone Wolf to leave the wagon. He was evidently impatient. Whether his impatience was born from a desire to be rid of his non-paying passenger or a zeal to assist his monarch in other ways was a moot point. "I've brought you to the quay," said the driver, his voice low and grudging. "All I was told was to introduce you to the first mate of your ship, the Green Sceptre." The driver spat contemptuously into the gutter. "He's a man called Ronan. I can take you to him if you wish. A waste of time, though. You'll find him easily enough if you go across the square there to the Good Cheer Inn. Funny-looking bloke, he is." The driver peered at Lone Wolf through a bleary eye. Obviously it had never crossed his mind that this unassuming youth might hold in his hands the secret to the freedom of Holmgard from the invasion of the Darklords' armies. So far as the driver was concerned, Lone Wolf was nothing but a

nuisance to be got rid of as soon as possible. Should the boy die -- well, that was nothing more nor less than one expected from the criminal rough-house that was Holmgard docks. It was clear to Lone Wolf it would be hopeless to try to persuade the man to give him further assistance. Besides, he wasn't sure if he wanted his life to be cluttered up any longer by other people. His limbs were feeling loose and strong; the weapons at his belt seemed to be singing out to him for independence. "Fair enough," said Lone Wolf. "I can find my way from here." The driver nodded his head in acquiescence and cracked his whip over the rumps of the two dappled mares pulling the wagon. He gave Lone Wolf an ambiguous smile, and within moments was lost among the crowds. When Lone Wolf reached the Good Cheer Inn he discovered that its front doors were locked and the windows barred over by metal shutters. He thought a few pungent thoughts about the wagon-driver's parentage, or lack thereof, and then started to scout around the building, hoping against hope that the man had been telling him the truth and that Ronan was waiting for him somewhere within. The prospect seemed pretty remote, however. The blank windows and the blocked-off doors suggested to him that the inn had been abandoned days if not weeks ago. Suspicion began to nurture itself in his mind. The cavalier way in which Captain D'Val had allowed him to be conveyed to the harbour, the casualness with which the driver had left him to find his own way to the inn -- both of these actions seemed to suggest perfidy. Surely King Ulnar, who had recognized Lone Wolf's quest to regain the Sommerswerd as the single most important mission of this stage of the war, would have taken greater precautions than these? A fight had started on the quay. A bunch of ship-hands had picked on a party of docksmen, oblivious to the fact that all of them were in imminent danger of being annihilated by the forces of Darkness. The men kicked and punched at random, waging their own petty tribal war. Lone Wolf looked away in revulsion. A hand grasped his arm. Instinctively he pulled his sword from its sheath, his lips sliding back from his teeth. His breath hissed as he was pulled backwards into the darkness of the tavern. Lone Wolf, with a conscious effort, stopped himself from skewering the man where he stood. "You are guilty of a folly," Lone Wolf panted. It was the weakest understatement his mind could conjure up. "Forgive me, my lord," the man said obsequiously. He proffered a

hand that was shaking. He looked like a weasel that had been recreated in human form. All of his body was trembling in a glorious display of duplicity, and yet Lone Wolf found himself trusting this person. Why? He didn't know. Lone Wolf noticed, without really thinking about it, that over in a corner a couple of mice were chewing vigorously at a lump of cheese. The two rodents occasionally paused to attack each other, despite the fact that there was more than enough food for both of them. "You were told to meet me," said the thin man. "If your name is Ronan, then, yes, I was." Lone Wolf's lips were tight. "My name is indeed Ronan. Well met, friend." A rather sly smile stretched itself across the man's face. Lone Wolf shook his hand earnestly, and the two of them moved over to sit at one of the tavern's filthy tables. Ronan clicked his fingers and, a moment later, the innkeeper was beside them. "A jug of ale and two glasses," Ronan muttered urgently, and within seconds the order had been fulfilled. The landlord filled both of the glass mugs with the cloudy, frothing brew, and then withdrew into the shadows. "So you are the last of the Kai?" asked Ronan. "It would seem so." "Prove it." Lone Wolf was astonished, then angered. "What do you mean?" "Prove that you're indeed the young Kai Lord they call Lone Wolf." Ronan grinned in a friendly fashion. "I haven't the least doubt that you're who you claim to be, but Captain Kelman told me to make sure before I risked taking you to the Green Sceptre. After all, for all we know you could be a helghast. He's a canny old bugger, our skipper, and eager to take precautions where others wouldn't. Perhaps that's why he's still alive." Lone Wolf was baffled. King Ulnar had ordered that he be given safe custody aboard a ship to Durenor, yet the king's minions had so far shown a totally offhanded attitude to the imperial command. Was his mission important or wasn't it? In his heart of hearts he knew it was, but all of the signals he'd been receiving from the people who'd been supposed to be helping him conveyed the message that the matter was one of minor importance. Now, after having been rudely treated by both Captain D'Val and the driver, he was being tested by this jumped-up fool of a ship's mate. His fury began to ascend, being only slightly tempered by a deep draught of the tavern's sweet, powerful ale. And he had another problem. During his years of tuition at the Kai

Monastery he had never been one of the most eager of students -- except in the physical sports. While he had come to realize in the past couple of days that more than he had thought of the teachings of Storm Hawk, his tutor, had permeated his mind, he was uncertain he could employ many of the Kai Disciplines at will. His sole confidence was in his ability with weapons -surely he had proved this a hundred times in the past forty-eight hours. He fingered the haft of his axe thoughtfully for a second before realizing that this grimy tavern was hardly the place to display his martial abilities. On the other hand . . . He could hear Storm Hawk's voice talking in his mind. Too often people think of healing as a contest with the body. That's the last thing it is. Your body wants to heal itself every bit as much as your mind wants your body to heal. All you have to do is unite your body and your mind towards a single goal. Then your body will exercise the powers of healing that exist innately within it. Lone Wolf was dubious about this. The wounds he had received in battle -- most noticeably the one across his forehead -- were still there, despite his fervent wishes that they would disappear. But then a warmth filled him, a sudden feeling of confidence that he knew exactly what he had to do. Ronan blinked. The man had been taking a gulp of ale, and now he splattered it back into the glass. Lone Wolf's forehead was abruptly clear and unmarked. The youth felt a tickling sensation as the ugly gash disappeared, and he was filled with a devil-may-care recklessness. He poured his barely sampled ale into the jug and shattered his glass on the edge of the table. He grinned almost maniacally as he selected the keenest-edged sliver of glass. "Watch carefully, my friend," he said in a half-whisper. He drew the crescented shard over the back of his left wrist, watching the bright-red blood flow eagerly from the edges of flesh. The pain was exquisite and, in this moment, infinitely pleasurable. He threw the bloodied fragment of glass carelessly into a far corner, and covered the gash with the palm of his right hand. From every corner of his body he felt physical wellbeing flow towards the damaged area: the effort was no longer a conscious one, rather something born of his deepest instincts. His eyes closed and a smile of ecstasy came to his face as he experienced the bliss of the torn edges of skin knitting so perfectly together. He pulled away his right hand, opening his eyes. The skin was unmarked. Even a bruise which he had acquired on his wrist at some point during the past couple of days had disappeared. A few

freckles remained to mar the smooth surface, but he winked at them petulantly and they, too, vanished. Ronan topped up his glass with ale from the jug. "It seems," he said casually, "that you are indeed the last of the Kai." His tone changed to a sneer. "The very last." And that was when the three thugs burst into the room and he began to giggle and the bloodlust came to Lone Wolf's eyes. 5 The wind blew Vonotar's straggly white hair back in a fluttering plane of silver behind his head as the zlanbeast beneath him pulsed its great wings, pulling him through the air at colossal speed. Behind him perched a nervous Carag, the giak he had educated and "adopted" as his companion. Wispy clouds scudded past him on either side, reaching out their tendrils of steam towards him and then shrivelling away as the shockwaves from the zlanbeast's wingbeats battered them back. The magician's ancient lips were pulled parchment-thin against his youthfully white teeth. Only a few days ago he had been a strong, youthful man, his curly black hair and beard surrounding a face of confident power. But then Alyss had given him the gift of age, had locked it to him with bonds of magic so strong that even his own colossal magical abilities were unable to sunder them. Now he was doomed to remain old for all the centuries and millennia of existence which Naar granted him on this world. His once brawny back was crooked like the top of a shepherd's staff, and his eyes of moving flame were set deeply in a skull of sickly whiteness. His skin was so translucent that it was as if one gazed upon naked bone. The sky was a blue and tranquil ocean all around, textured by the cold breakers of the clouds. Except that an excrescence marred it -- a blot upon its pristine face and upon his own existence. Beside him, less than a stone's throw away and keeping perfect time with him, flew the Darklord Zagarna, likewise mounted on a vast imperial zlanbeast. The Darklord's gargantuan blue figure, studded all over the limbs and torso by thorny claws, epitomized to Vonotar many of the things that were wrong with this world. The necromancer could see little of the future -it was as if he were looking through a muddied window on a scene darkened by a thunderstorm -- but he sensed that in the very near future either he or Zagarna must die. He knew that the Darklord had as yet inchoate designs upon his life, and that he must strike before Zagarna rationalized these and

took action. But when? Vonotar cursed now the impulse which had tempted him to make himself a mind-brother of the Darklord. He had gazed deeply into Zagarna's essence and found that there, deep in the heart of the Darklord's being, where the site of his intellect should have been, there was only an infinite nothingness -- an engulfing black chasm formed of the soulstuff of Naar, the God of Evil. The discovery had terrified Vonotar and yet at the same time had filled him with a certain smugness: it had been only too clear that Zagarna had never realized he was only a marionette, controlled by the whims of Naar. Now Vonotar laughed humourlessly at his own naivety. The destruction of Zagarna would have been difficult enough, but instead the magician would have to pit himself also against the wishes of Naar. Unless ... Unless, of course, Naar's interest in Zagarna's survival as an entity was strictly limited. Already Vonotar had been able to use deception and wizardry to persuade the other eighteen Darklords that he had been appointed to be one of their number, and superior to all of them except Zagarna himself. Could he have achieved this without at least the passive help of the God of Darkness? The more he thought about it, the more he began to wonder if indeed this might be the case. Likewise, it was strange that Zagarna had yet to discover the subterfuge: was Naar conniving in keeping the secret? In which event it could only mean that Naar saw the furtherance of his aims on Magnamund as being best likely to be brought about through the actions of Vonotar -- and had come to regard Zagarna as disposable, surplus to requirements. Vonotar's speculations were disrupted by the intrusion of a questing thought from the Darklord. Checking that all of his covert mental barriers were in place, the magician allowed the thought to gain access to his mind. Ah, wizard, you condescend at last to speak with me! The thought was sarcastic. Vonotar glanced across at his companion. Zagarna's fanged lower mouth, set centrally in his abdomen, was slavering with his unending fury; flecks of sputum were being whipped away by the cutting wind. The magician could not see clearly through the helmet that the Darklord wore to preserve what passed for his lungs from the air of Magnamund, but he imagined well enough that Zagarna's upper mouth was likewise twisted into a knot of wrath. Brother, thought the magician in conciliatory fashion, I was planning ways in which we could hasten our conquest. Forgive me my distraction. Stuff and nonsense! I know you lock away parts of your mind from me. The time is fast approaching when you must die, but I shall permit you to

live a little while longer, just until you stop persuading me that your continued existence helps my cause. A bird, startled, dodged out of their way. Talking of which, Zagarna continued, my very considerable patience is being stretched a little. Indeed, my lord? Indeed. Zagarna gratuitously lashed his mount with one of his horned hands, raking deep furrows in its hard grey-green flesh, so that gouts of sickly ichor erupted to be batted away by the fist of the wind. The creature snarled its pain, but its wings missed not a beat. For all your spells and ensorcelments, the puny mortals of Holmgard still hold out against my armies. Of course, we will conquer them in time, and trample the last stones of their city walls into grains of dust, but in the meantime they are slaughtering my spawn. Plenty more spawn where those came from, observed Vonotar drily. That's not the point, sorcerer! We razed Toran almost entirely in a matter of hours, and hardly a kraan was scathed. The Kai Monastery was even less of a hindrance to us. We have conquered almost all of Sommerlund for the loss of only a few hundred giaks. This was, as they both knew, a lie: some of the Sommlending had organized themselves into remarkably effective resistance units, and the carnage on both sides had been high. Nevertheless, Vonotar understood the Darklord's drift. We cannot expect all things to happen easily for us, Zagarna, he thought soothingly. Silence, fool! The savagery of the thought almost penetrated Vonotar's inner mental barricades. His mind felt momentarily as though it had been seared by a blazing torch. Swiftly he set about re-erecting his defences. Can't you just wave your hands, wizard, you who claim to be so powerful, and strike every man, woman and child in Holmgard dead? Can't you call upon the spells of the Nadziranim, as well as your futile Left Hand magic, and turn their weapons into butterflies, or something? You tell us all you're almost omnipotent and yet . . . and yet . . . Zagarna gestured frustratedly around him. They were circling over Holmgard now, and laid out in all directions they could see the encampments of the attackers, the waves of fighting creatures battling around the city's vast walls, the burgeoning smoke of a thousand conflagrations. They could hear the screams of the dying and the animal yells of the triumphant. Beneath them swooped and whirled kraan and occasional zlanbeast,

pouncing to snatch up still-struggling Sommlending, cackling as they went about their bloodthirsty business. And yet, interpolated Vonotar, still I cannot use my magic to bring this city to its knees. Precisely. And I don't know why. You won't explain to me why! You just mutter your mumbo-jumbo, enough to lead any normal being to doubt the evidence of their senses. Tell me now, in plain terms, or feel the daggers of my wrath! Vonotar wondered just how much he could tell the Darklord, and how much he should still keep hidden. Zagarna knew that Vonotar's magical abilities were prodigious, but he didn't know accurately their precise extent. And this was information which Vonotar had no desire to betray to him. So long as Zagarna was uncertain as to precisely how powerful Vonotar was, the Darklord -- for all his blusterings and threats -- was under control, too terrified of the forces that Vonotar might or might not be able to unleash to take direct action against him. But only let Zagarna know of the magician's weaknesses and, at the very first opportunity or momentary fit of wrath, the Darklord would take advantage of them to destroy Vonotar as he had destroyed so many other beings before. Vonotar had no illusions about this. He had so far let Zagarna know only what he wished him to know, but it was a cat-and-mouse game that couldn't be extended forever. Darklord, thought Vonotar reluctantly, you have heard me tell of the entity called Alyss. Alyss! Alyss! My mind is sick of the taste of her name! A pox on her very conception! Quite so, my lord, quite so. Vonotar imagined the taste of honey on his tongue, and let a smidgen of the sensation infiltrate the thoughts he sent to Zagarna. But however thrice-accursed she might be, she nevertheless possesses abilities which are at least as great as my own. And at the moment she is using those abilities to shield Holmgard from the extremes of the magical onslaught I have directed against it. Pah! May her soul be pickled in acid and sucked dry by the bile of Naar! Indeed, Zagarna, thought Vonotar, idly trying to visualize the fate the Darklord wished on Alyss, and failing. But the truth is that she can, at least for a while, bolster up the mortals' puny defences. She cannot sustain it forever -- nor, indeed, for long -- but for the moment we must have patience, and wait for the day when finally her resistance topples away. Zagarna was silent for a while, allowing his brain to digest this unpalatable fact. A kraan flew too close to him, and he plucked its rider from

the winged beast's back. The giak screamed once as the Darklord tore a leg from it, throwing the rest of the body away, so that it tumbled faster and ever faster towards the ground, the form becoming within seconds nothing more than a minuscule speck far beneath them. Zagarna fed the haunch eagerly into his abdominal mouth. Vonotar looked away. His mind had swiftly grown accustomed to revelling in barbarity, but it nonetheless retained a certain fastidiousness. The sight of Zagarna's voracious feeding revolted him. Is there no way, sorcerer, said the mind of the Darklord, that we can . . . speed things up a little? I think there might be. Then tell me, you halfwit! Tell me! There's the question of the boy . . . Boy? What boy? The world's full of boys! Not as full as it was a few days ago, mind you, but . . . The boy who escaped us when we destroyed the Kai Monastery -- the one whom I thought for a while I'd succeeded in killing. Never did like boys much, thought Zagarna. Tasteless fodder, too. Still, I don't see how this brat can do us much harm. If even the most adept of the Kai could not resist our might, how can this whipper-snapper of an acolyte stand in our way? Precisely, my swift-thinking lord. Vonotar remembered just in time to conceal the sarcasm: the boundaries of what Zagarna regarded as his insubordination were nowhere fixedly delineated, yet they were there for all that. He must not force his hand too soon. The boy himself is virtually powerless. They why do you mention him? Are you trying to distract my attention from your abject failure to devastate the Sommlending rabble down there? Vonotar sent a mental snigger. Not at all! How could I hope to joust my own humble wits against your penetrating intellect, my lord? He stabbed a fingernail into his wrist to remind himself to be careful about the heavyhanded irony; thank Naar the Darklord seemed totally impervious to it. But the boy is crucial nonetheless. You see, Alyss believes he's all-important to the Sommlending resistance. She sees him as leading the humans to triumph. A misconceived fantasy of hers, of course, but that is her faith. So long as he's still alive, she'll carry on her futile strivings against my superior power. And if the boy were dead . . .? Exactly, wise one. I think it highly likely that Alyss would bow to the inevitable. Then our course of action is obvious! Kill the boy -- and as soon as

possible! Make the arrangements, wizard. Surely I can trust you to do something as simple as this by yourself? It may not be quite so . . . Silence! It's in your hands, wizard. See that the boy dies -- I don't care how, or where, just so long as it's soon. I weary of being thwarted by Ulnar and his pack of vermin! Yes, my lord. A thought laced with unsubtle overtones of ultimate subservience. And, thought the Darklord, in the meantime I have a battle to fight. He waved his huge blue hand in dismissal, the sun sparking off the vicious points of its many horns and claws, and tightened his knees against his zlanbeast's sides. Obediently the creature began to circle downwards towards the plains where the dun-coloured tents of the hordes of Darkness had been pitched. The arrangements, thought Vonotar in the vague direction of Zagarna's retreating form, are already well in hand, you oaf. Do you think I would have waited for your slow mind to catch up with me? If the boy is not yet dead he very soon will be. And sometime soon I may tell you about it. But not immediately. No, not immediately -- not until . . . not until the time is right . . . He allowed himself a single high crackle of laughter, his eyes flaring from red into the piercing blue of glee. He clapped his tinder-dry hands together, and he and Carag were standing alone within the vast city-fortress of Kaag. 6 Lone Wolf feinted to his right as the blade of the remaining assassin's scimitar whistled angrily past him. His dagger was ridiculously puny in comparison to the murderous weapon, but it was all he had left to rely on. He half-tripped on some fragments of glass, and a thought thrust itself into the frenzy of his mind. Yet again dodging the scimitar reflexively, in the same movement he stopped and picked up a large piece of the mug he had smashed. In his hand he held the handle and about a third of the original mug. The edges were wickedly sharp. He could hardly see his opponent now, because of the redness of the fury that filled his mind, but a chilly detached part of himself commented that he was about to make another kill. He was the wolf, after all, and what else should a wolf do but kill? A vision of Qinefer smiling her encouragement came to him as he

leapt behind one of the low benches of the tavern. Momentarily he was confused by this sight, but then he was back in the world of reality. His antagonist moved steadily forwards, a smirk of anticipated murder on his face. Lone Wolf threw the heavy piece of glass with brutal accuracy. Its sharpest edge struck the thug directly in the right eye, which exploded in a mass of blood and gel. The man screamed and dropped his scimitar, throwing his hands up to his face. Lone Wolf, hating himself as he did so, pranced forwards and punched his dagger repeatedly into the assassin's belly and groin, revelling in the sight of the blood flowing. It was as if he had been born to kill. Except that he hadn't. The lore of the Kai was that violence was to be used only when necessary, and that the lives of mortal enemies should be spared, if at all possible. Lone Wolf stopped his dagger in mid-air, just as it was about to stab his slumping enemy yet again. As the man collapsed dead at his feet he expected a flood of guilt to wash through him, but instead there was a different and wildly incongruous emotion: acute embarrassment. Thank the name of Ishir that Storm Hawk wasn't there to see him now . . . But there was still Ronan to be dealt with. Lone Wolf looked frenziedly around the room, but the rat that had called itself Ronan had disappeared during the final scuffle. The only person moving was the wobblingly fat landlord, his mouth wide in horror as he surveyed the chaos and the corpses. His broad white apron trembled. "I never thought . . ." he said. Tears were oozing from his eyes "Neither did I," said Lone Wolf curtly, looking down at the blood covering the front of his tunic. "Don't blame yourself, good citizen. Certainly I don't blame you. Who could expect a landlord to know the nature of the offal he permitted to drink in his tavern?" As he spoke he was swiftly searching the bodies of the assassins he'd killed. The landlord was too dumbfounded to interfere, and simply watched, huffing and puffing at the sight of this mayhem created in the inn which, he spluttered semi-coherently, he'd been building up ever since his very boyhood . . . Without guilt Lone Wolf helped himself to the few coins he found in the assassins' pockets -- who knew when the extra cash might not come in useful? He replaced his sword in its scabbard and his axe in his belt. Pointedly he ignored the landlord, who was still gibbering in the inanity of shock. Although he realized the thought was vile, he enjoyed thinking ruthlessly, despite what he'd said, that anyone who ran such a sleazy

establishment as this one deserved everything he got, including occasional consignments of messily killed assassins to be disposed of. Lone Wolf noticed that the three corpses shared a single characteristic: they bore a tattoo on the left wrist. The image in each case was that of a venomous serpent, its tongue flickering forwards and its sharp teeth bright as it prepared for the strike. It might simply be that this was the emblem of a gang of dockside hoodlums, but he was soon convinced that the sign meant rather more than that. The man who had called himself Ronan had somehow been able to muster a band of trained assassins in the few hours since Lone Wolf had been commissioned by the king to retrieve the Sommerswerd. It was a certainty within him that the men, all four of them, were somehow in the pay of the Darklords. That human beings could betray their own kind in this way was deeply depressing to him, but he reflected that, in sections of society where material gain is the sole objective -- as it seemed to be in this crime-ridden area of Holmgard -- people will do literally anything for profit. Treason and murder are among the least of the possible crimes. And who had betrayed him? He remembered yet again the offhandedness of Captain D'Val and the coach-driver; either of them could be the guilty party, especially the officer, who had been present when the king had given him the instructions for his mission. Then Lone Wolf recalled the helghast who, yesterday afternoon, had masqueraded as a human soldier in order to lead him into the city of Holmgard, and who had immediately thereafter deserted him. Perhaps he and D'Val were acting in league? Perhaps D'Val himself was a mere phantasm, a helghast appearing in human guise? These speculations were leading him nowhere, he realized. However it had come about, someone had informed the forces of Darkness that he was travelling to bring the weapon that might spell their doom. Moreover, Sommerlund's enemies were now only too well aware of his exact identity. Who or what the informer might be was irrelevant. It was a matter of priority to get himself aboard the Green Sceptre; perhaps on his return to Holmgard he could seek out the traitor and surrender him to the mercy of King Ulnar's court -- which mercy, Lone Wolf suspected, would be in distinctly short supply. "Is there another way out of here?" he snapped at the landlord. The man could hardly find the breath with which to answer him. He produced a few further meaningless gutturals and pointed at a door to the rear. "Be extremely sure, citizen," said Lone Wolf heavily, "as sure as if the

sanctity of all the gods you've ever worshipped depended upon it, that you're not betraying me." He gestured expressively at the bodies of the three assassins. The landlord nodded his head with such eagerness that it looked as if it might detach itself from his shoulders. A sickly grin came to his face. Lone Wolf got the very clear message that no, of all things, there was certainly to be no betrayal, and that he, the landlord, would swear on the life of his dearly beloved grandmother that this was the case, and that . . . But Lone Wolf was bored of watching him and simply walked away. The rear door opened onto a flight of stairs. Lone Wolf's eyebrows rose as he saw, lying at the bottom of the stairs, yet another corpse. The Good Cheer Inn could hardly have been less aptly named, he reflected. Holding his axe protectively ahead of him, his ears alert to the slightest sound of danger, he approached the sprawled body cautiously. The dead man was dressed in nautical costume, and it didn't take a moment for Lone Wolf to guess that this was the genuine Ronan, the genuine mate from the Green Sceptre. On his way to meet Lone Wolf he must have been tackled by the four traitors and swiftly robbed of his life. A single dagger-blow through the heart had finished him: his death must have been silent and mercifully swift. Again Lone Wolf asked himself: Who could it have been who'd betrayed him to the enemy? And again there was no definitive answer to the question. Biting his lower lip in frustration, he stepped carefully over the tumbled body and pushed open the tavern's outer door.

2 Aboard the Green Sceptre 1 After the gloom of the tavern, the bright sunshine and the bawling noise of the crowded dockside hit him with all the force of a physical blow. The sun's light reflected savagely from the rippling waters of the Holmgulf to stab at his eyes. As he blinked in discomfort, he could see the rapidly moving figures of porters and sailors scurrying this way and that. There were also parties of richer people -- opulently dressed merchants and their families, with urgency stamped on the tautness of their faces. It was patent that these were people governed by panic, that their sole purpose was to leave the besieged city as soon as possible. Glinty-eyed touts were offering, for ridiculously inflated prices, ferry trips out to the fleet of dilapidated ships that lurked in the deep waters, waiting to carry refugees away to safer lands. Some of the poorer of Holmgard's inhabitants were avoiding the touts and diving off the harbour wall into the water, hoping that whichever ship they might swim to would take them on board. No one paid any attention to the well armed young man, covered in fresh blood, who walked smartly to the edge of the water . . . except, that is, for an inquisitive seagull, which eyed him with cold interest before deciding that discretion was the better part of valour and winging away, with a loud squawk of irritation, over the bay's choppy waters. Lone Wolf narrowed his eyes. One of the ships out there must be the Green Sceptre. He had little reason to believe that any reception he might get there would be less treacherous than his welcome to the Good Cheer Inn, but it seemed he had no choice but to hunt the ship down. The thought of returning to the king's citadel was anathema: to go scampering back so soon would be an admission of abject failure. He had another motive, too. His betrayers might be the captain and crew of the vessel, who, after all, were among the very few who knew of his travel plans. Should this be the fact, it was urgent he establish it and be able to report as much to the king. At last he spotted the Green Sceptre. It was a sleek trade caravel, its disciplined lines in marked contrast to the ramshackle configurations of the ships around it. The anchor had been hauled up, and the vessel was clearly preparing to set sail for the ocean. He had very little time if he were to gain a passage upon it. He shuddered at the ruthlessness of a crew that would be prepared to leave port while the ship's mate was still missing, and then shrugged: in times of war men and women do not act rationally, and are only

too likely to abandon even their closest friends. Nonetheless, the fact that the Green Sceptre was so hastily departing seemed to bode nothing but ill. He could try swimming out to the vessel, of course, but he dismissed that thought almost as soon as it arrived. His only hope was to steal one of the many tiny coracles moored at the harbour wall. It surprised him that more of the fugitives had not come to the same conclusion, but he supposed that ingrained ideas of legality must be governing even here. His own notions of what was and what was not permissible had altered radically over the past few days, and so he felt not a single qualm of conscience as he cut loose one of the little boats. At first his progress was slow as he tried to master the art of rowing, but soon he got the hang of it and started moving smoothly across the water. His hair kept falling into his eyes as he rocked backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, but this was only a minor irritation. Every now and then he flipped it away from his face and, at the same time, took the chance to look over his shoulder at the caravel. A pair of crewmen busied themselves pulling up the boarding ladder; the sails were being hoisted aloft. "Wait!" He shouted. "In the name of Kai and Ishir . . ." The rest of his words were blown away from his mouth. He was soon close under the sides of the vessel. A sailor with a ragged scar under his left eye leaned over the gunwale and cursed imaginatively at Lone Wolf. "We should be needing no stowaway scum as you!" "I'm no stowaway!" "No?" "I was sent to join you! The king himself ordered me to take passage on your vessel to Durenor!" "Tell me another one, asshole." "It's true! If you don't believe me, ask yourself where Ronan is!" The coracle was rocking nauseatingly from side to side in the lee of the larger vessel. Lone Wolf began to row again, simply in order to keep up, and the physical exercise calmed his rebellious stomach. The scarred sailor vanished from his sight, and over the splashing of the waves Lone Wolf could hear the harsh sounds of arguing voices. Finally the man reappeared. "Ronan should be having skipped ship," he shouted. "He should probably be with a --" "No he's not!" Lone Wolf yelled. "He's dead. Murdered. I've seen his body." Instantly the sailor looked suspicious.

"Don't be so stupid!" cried Lone Wolf. "Of course I didn't kill him. The people who murdered him tried to do the same to me. I'd hardly be likely to row out here and --" The end of the boarding ladder was suddenly in the water beside him. "Ronan should be a good friend of mine," said the scarred sailor as Lone Wolf pulled himself drippingly over the side of the Green Sceptre. "If it should be that you're lying, or if it should be that you took his life, then your own life will be forfeit. You understand?" Lying on his back on the hard wooden deck, Lone Wolf nodded eagerly. He understood. The sailor on his own would have little chance of being able to kill him, but he was surrounded by half a dozen crewmates whose expressions were as ugly as the faces that bore them. Lone Wolf sat up and squelched water out of his boots; the coracle had leaked in many places and it was a miracle it hadn't sunk before he reached the Green Sceptre. "If I can find the person who murdered Ronan before you do," he said grimly, "then that person's life is mine. Is that agreed?" "If it should be that you tell us true, then indeed that is agreed," said the sailor. "But if --" "Brel!" shouted someone from the forecastle. "What in the doubly accursed name of Naar is going on down there?" "It should be that there is one here who claims to be the young Kai Lord whom Captain D'Val instructed us to carry to Durenor." The scarred sailor was suddenly nervous. "He should be saying that Ronan should be murdered." "Confound your blasted dialect! Of course Ronan should be murdered. If I had that doubly -- no, quadruply -- accursed ship-jumping son of a storgh here I'd murder him myself. Twice in a row, if I had my way! Or are you trying to tell me in your clothpated turd-ridden apology for a language that Ronan has met his maker?" The crewman looked even more nervous. "It should be that . . ." The sailor realized the hopelessness of the task, and rolled his eyes urgently at Lone Wolf in a mute plea for assistance. "Is that the captain?" hissed Lone Wolf. "Captain Kelman it very definitely should be," the sailor replied. "Captain Kelman!" Lone Wolf shouted, getting to his feet. "I know my own Naar-scoured name!" came the irate response. "For the love of Vashna in a sackcloth bag, tell me what's going on before I feed you all to the fishes."

"Captain Kelman, my name's Lone Wolf. I was instructed by King Ulnar and by Captain D'Val to travel on your ship to Durenor." Lone Wolf was aware that his voice sounded far more youthful than he wanted it to. "Well, may my indescribable parts be scalded in the galley, but you're the young Kai D'Val was drivelling on about last night. I thought either he was drunk or I was. In fact, I know I was, by the bowels and bellies of the assembled Darklords! Drunk? Hah! I didn't know which ship to climb aboard. When I woke up this morning -- and I rather wish, stap me, I hadn't -- I thought I'd dreamt it all. To judge by the look of my bedmate, about whom I remember absolutely nothing whatsoever, I've probably given myself a dose of the pox as well. Assuming, after all that booze, I could . . . But no: a Kelman always can. So you really exist, do you?" "Well, yes," said Lone Wolf. The scarred sailor nodded in silent agreement. "Then welcome aboard!" Moments later there descended down a ladder a tall man clad in an ostentatious uniform which seemed to Lone Wolf to consist of a few small pieces of cloth holding together acres of glittering gold braid. Captain Kelman was hirsute to a degree Lone Wolf had never seen before outside a menagerie. His bright red hair tumbled in greasy thick curls halfway down his back and covered much of his face, the rest of which was obscured by an equally shocking red beard; it looked as if his head had been encased in a tangle of rusted wire. Two pinkly bloodshot eyes peered through the thicket. "You look a brothy lad to me, by thunder but you do!" said the captain, making no attempt to lower his voice as he got closer. "Full sail ahead, or I'll have your guts for garters!" he bawled at his crew, and they scuttled frightenedly about their various tasks. "Now, boy, I'll wager my sweet mother's virtue -- whoever she was, and assuming she had any -- that you haven't yet had breakfast, have you?" "Well, er, I --" "I knew you hadn't, let Ishir be my mistress. Join me in a little snack of something. And a glass of something to wash it down." The captain led the way through a warren of halfdecks, ladders and companionways until Lone Wolf was thoroughly disorientated. Finally Kelman threw open the door and beckoned the youth to follow him into a cluttered cabin. Cluttered? -- the word was far too modest. The room was a shambles of curling charts, discarded trinkets and curios from half the countries of Magnamund, strewn socks and undergarments, dirty plates and cups, spilled tobacco, and, incongruously, a neatly arranged vase of red roses. Towards these latter the captain gestured with mild embarrassment;

"A gift from a lady-friend," he muttered gruffly. "Just wish I could remember which one, and in what circumstances." "It's kind of you to welcome me aboard --" "Course it is, course it is!" thundered the captain. "But then, by the bloated kidneys of Nyxator's great-grandfather, I'm a kind person! Help me have some breakfast." He cleared a small writing desk by the simple process of sweeping his arm across it, scattering all the bizarre and not entirely savoury objects on it to the corners of the cabin. "Sit down, boy, sit down!" He pulled from a cabinet a tall bottle and a couple of grimy glasses. "Well, why aren't you sitting down?" Lone Wolf looked around him helplessly. Presumably there were chairs in the midst of all this mess, but . . . Captain Kelman saw his difficulty and viciously kicked one of the larger heaps of debris. As if by magic, a canvas-backed chair appeared in the middle of a crowd of flying gewgaws. Lone Wolf sat down on it hastily, expecting that at any moment the trinkets might return to expel him from their territory. "Wanlo. Best breakfast a man could have," the captain declared, holding up the bottle so that a beam of morning light from the porthole made its reddish-brown contents glow warmly. "Especially a man who's spent half the night boozing with that condescending swine D'Val and the little lady . . . wish I could remember that bit, you know? You see him this morning?" "Yes." "Well, if he didn't look like the droppings of an enteritic kraan I'll boil his lungs in a vat of Darklordphlegm the next time I see him." The captain dropped his voice by the merest trifle to confide: "Used to be a good boyo when first I knew him, but then he made the foolish error of getting married. Wife's a lovely woman -- don't mistake me -- but she keeps him in at nights. Ah, the times me and D'Val used to have . . ." He sighed nostalgically, then his eyes lit on the bottle. "Sorry. By the bastard brats of Agarash the Damned, but I'm sorry. Forgetting all about breakfast! What kind of a host am I?" Lone Wolf had no answer to the question. Kelman poured a generous draught of wanlo into one of the tumblers, and swigged it back eagerly. "Just testing this stuff -- garrgh! -- hasn't been poisoned," he explained. "D'Val told me he suspected the Darklords' cronies already know who you are and what you're doing." Lone Wolf told his story as briefly as he could, the account being punctuated by occasional cries of "Just making ab-so-lute-ly sure this stuff

hasn't been poisoned!" The news that Ronan had indeed been murdered was the one item that caused Captain Kelman to pause. For a moment he stared at the tooled leather of his writing desk, shaking his head sadly. "A fine man," he said, with unusual quietness. "More courage in his little finger than I've got in my whole body. Blast him for a fool! Why did he want to go and get himself killed?" Through the mat of hair Lone Wolf could see that the small eyes were moist. He took a sip of the wanlo which the captain had finally poured for him, and felt it explode in his brain and his stomach. The world momentarily turned blue around the edges. "Ach, I hope he spends the rest of eternity being slowly eaten by xaghash, that I dearly do," mumbled the captain, his words tripping slurringly over each other. "Go away from me now. Go on, go on! I'll take you to Durenor -- I'll carry you on my own back all the way to Hammerdal itself, if you insist -- but right now I want you out of my sight. Get out of here!" He hit the surface of the writing desk with such a blow that it looked likely to disintegrate into a heap of kindling. Lone Wolf took a second sip of wanlo, as a matter of courtesy, and left the captain to his grief. The scarred sailor, Brel, was waiting for him outside Kelman's cabin. "I should be taking you to where your bunk should be," he said. "You should indeed," said Lone Wolf wearily. It was still only midmorning, but he felt desperately in need of an hour or so's sleep. Maybe it was the fact that he had flirted so intimately with death, maybe it was the small quantity of Captain Kelman's potent wanlo which he'd consumed, maybe it was something else altogether -- whatever the reason, he was sleepy. He allowed Brel to lead him back through the labyrinthine maze of passageways to a large dormitory down either side of which were rows of bunks. He kicked off his boots, noticing through a porthole as he did so that the topmost spire of Holmgard was sinking beneath the horizon. He paused for a moment to watch it disappear. Once it had gone, all he could see were the filthy cloud of kraan over Sommerlund's besieged capital and, closer to him, the blank carpet of the grey sea. He toppled into his bunk, welcoming the wash of sleep as it bathed him. 2 He slept far longer than he'd expected -- later Brel told him that he'd been out for nearly twenty hours. Nightmares had tormented him all the while;

after a time the crew became inured to his gagging screams, his tearful pleas for mercy from some unnamable, unseeable weighty presence. He was woken by the cries of seagulls which wheeled and soared around the caravel. The bunks on all sides of him had been neatly made up. For some minutes he assumed he'd dropped off only briefly; then a stiffness in his back told him that he'd been sleeping for a long while. He winced as he realized that, for all this time, his weapons had been in his belt: a sudden move in a nightmare might have caused him serious injury. Still only semiconscious, he found himself checking his limbs for wounds before he recognized this was idiotic. Even the drowsy, he told himself strictly, have a habit of noticing if they've accidentally amputated a leg. There was a malodorous lavatory at the end of the dormitory, and he made full use of it, afterwards stripping off and washing all over in pungently cold water. He dried himself on a filthy towel, forcing himself to ignore its encrusted grime. It felt good to be clean again -- except for his hair, whose clammy dirtiness annoyed him. He shoved it back from his face and tried to ignore it. Up on deck he was greeted with a smile by Brel, who was busy coiling some cable. Others of the crew muttered friendly words to him. Someone gave him a huge, warm, buttered scone, and he devoured it eagerly, for the first time remembering he had eaten nothing at all the previous day. The food invigorated him immediately, and he found he was walking about the deck almost with a strut. He found Captain Kelman slumped over the tiller. "Going well," said the bearded man, waving a limp hand towards the mainsail, which was bellied out with the strength of the south wind. "Port Bax -- get you there in a week or so. Oh Ishir, what did a man do to you, sweet and pneumatically buxom goddess, make you make him feel this way? I need some . . . breakfast." However, he pulled himself together rapidly and got to his feet. "Sorry. Not normally like this -- praise the scrotum of the king but I'm not. Just, Ronan was like a brother to me. Ever had a brother?" "Yes," Lone Wolf replied, so quietly his voice could hardly be heard over the rush of the waves against the vessel's sides and the squalls of the gulls. His own brother, Jen, had died saving Lone Wolf's life, years ago; the memory was still extremely painful to him. If he'd known about wanlo, even in his childhood, perhaps he'd have used it, like Captain Kelman, to blot out the misery of the loss. But then he shook himself angrily: grief was a pointless emotion. His present sorrow wasn't born out of true empathy for the captain, nor was it a matter of mourning for his brother Jen; more it was

a case of remembering a past unhappiness. Much more vivid and real in his mind was the memory of his tutor, Storm Hawk, who had for so many years played such a large part in his life. He'd seen Storm Hawk slaughtered coldheartedly by the evil magician Vonotar, and the man's death was responsible for a great gulf of emptiness inside Lone Wolf's soul. He touched his hand to the haft of his axe, silently vowing vengeance. There was a cry from aloft. Lone Wolf leaned back, squinting his eyes in the garish sunlight, and could make out the silhouette of a lookout waving from the crow's-nest, high up on the Green Sceptre's main mast. The lookout repeated his shout, and this time Lone Wolf could distinguish the words. "Land ahoy! Land off on the port bow!" "That'll be Mannon," said Captain Kelman, his voice still hoarse. "The southernmost island of the Kirlundin chain. Oh, blast it!" he suddenly shouted, in an abrupt change of mood. "I'm fed up with this hangover." As Lone Wolf watched incredulously, the captain's back straightened. The man shook aside his springy mop of hair and looked the youth straight in the eyes. "About time," he said, "that I showed you something of the sea we're sailing on." He jumped to his feet with a vigour that seemed impossible, and curtly instructed a nearby mariner to take over the tiller. "Come up to the top-deck with me," he said roughly to Lone Wolf. "That," said the captain a few moments later, pointing to a set of jagged granite teeth on the horizon, "is Mannon. The traders call it a different name, though. They call it Wreck Point. Good name, too. The currents round the island are treacherous. Many's the ship that's ended her days there. We'll steer well clear, by the ravaged intestines of Naar we will." From somewhere he produced a telescope and passed it to Lone Wolf. "Have a look, boy." Lone Wolf was initially disconcerted by the fact that the image he saw through the instrument was upside-down, but soon his mind sorted out the inversion. Waves were throwing themselves angrily against the aggressive needles of rock. This part of the island of Mannon seemed totally devoid of vegetation: he studied the craggy bleakness of the stone bulwarks with a polite interest, aware of the captain's eyes on him. He was just about to pass back the telescope when he saw, swirling above the granite spines, what seemed to be a cloud of swarming insects. Only those weren't insects -- they were far too big for that. He adjusted the eyepiece carefully, to bring the creatures into exact focus. "I think," he said, "we have a problem." "And what in Vashna's long-lost vas deferens might that be?"

Lone Wolf pointed at the stain that was growing ever-larger in the sky. He put the telescope back to his eye and saw a flying army of hundreds of zlanbeast, encircled by a web of fluttering kraan. The spawn were heading directly towards the Green Sceptre. Captain Kelman seized the telescope. A moment later he shouted, in a voice that was loud even by his own standards: "As you love your mother's milk, prepare for battle!" 3 Soon the bat-winged creatures were over the ship, cackling and chittering among themselves as they prepared for the kill. Lone Wolf thanked the gods he'd kept his sword, axe and dagger with him rather than leaving them on his bunk. The zlanbeast and kraan were carrying beneath them bulging nets filled with heavily armed giaks. Lone Wolf sensed the dwarfish warriors were even more terrified than he was. His thoughts went to Holmgard. Ulnar had believed the city was immune to attack from the sea, but, if Zagarna's airborne force could bring squadrons of giaks to bear on a single vessel, then the future of Sommerlund's capital didn't look promising. Ulnar had reckoned Holmgard could hold out for forty days. Now that estimate was looking a tad optimistic. A zlanbeast almost delicately deposited its cargo of giaks on the topdeck directly behind Lone Wolf. Some of the murderous creatures were crushed to death as the net fell, but most of them sprang to their feet, eager to take human lives. That eagerness waned as Lone Wolf's sword in a single loop removed the heads of three of the most aggressive. His axe, which he wielded in his left hand, disposed of yet another. He would have died if he hadn't then brought his axe up behind him to eviscerate a giak attacking from the rear. All of a sudden he realized that his foes had disappeared -- dead or fled. But this wasn't true of the ship as a whole. High up on the masts there were kraan tearing with their beaks at the ropes supporting the sails. He could see that several of the zlanbeast were flying back towards Mannon, and he suspected that their task was to pick up further cargoes of giaks. Lone Wolf could hear the screams as human beings died: the louder they screamed the more slowly they were dying. He moved towards the noise, finding on the fore-deck a confusion of writhing bodies, among which the figure of Captain Kelman, his cutlass flying as if it had been given an independent life, was the most prominent. Lone Wolf pitched in with a will,

hacking at giaks with a gleeful sense of self-indulgence. Each time he saw his sword or axe strike home and ichor spurt out over the wooden deck, he gave an involuntary yell of glee. It seemed to him as if it were easy to kill giaks. It was a nothing . . . and there was another one dead. But then, beyond the haze of his killing frenzy, he saw a more menacing figure. Hacking its way through the melee of sailors and giaks before it was the tall, powerful form of a drakkar. The creature had a humanoid body but its face was a skull of grinning, sneering, unabashed hatred. Its jet-black broadsword cut through friend and foe alike. Clearly its target was Lone Wolf. He pushed away a couple of brave crewmen who wanted to shield him with their lives from the oncoming menace. This fight was his alone. The sailors spat curses at him. He didn't mind. It was now or . . . The drakkar's sword split the air directly over Lone Wolf's ducking head. The youth plunged upwards, drawing his dagger and searching for his opponent's belly; the blade went wide, but the drakkar retreated. Lone Wolf's sword cut back down to slash the foe on the back of the thighs, but the wound was only a superficial one. The drakkar's black sword swung in a great circle towards Lone Wolf's throat; Lone Wolf ducked yet again, almost into a crouch. The blade's hiss was ominous in his ears. He dropped his dagger on the wooden deck, hoisted himself to his feet again, and lugged his axe from his belt, at the same time prodding optimistically with his sword. The drakkar's slow consciousness had persuaded it that all other foes save Lone Wolf were now irrelevant. Its hot eyes focused solely on the green-caped figure of the young Kai Lord. A terrible grin split its skull-like face as its sword sparked forwards. Lone Wolf stumbled and half-fell, and the black sword pierced the cloth at his shoulder, pinning him effectively to the deck. He was helpless, his weapons tangled up in his clothing. The drakkar stood on his wriggling stomach, desperately trying to pull its sword free from the wood. Greyish saliva oozed from its lipless mouth; blood from the wounds at the back of its thighs dripped onto Lone Wolf's tunic. Beyond the drakkar's shoulders Lone Wolf could see the gulls fumbling through the air as if nothing of moment were going on. He realized death was very close. He could hardly breathe because of the pressure of the drakkar's foot on his stomach. Just as the drakkar finally succeeded in hauling its sword out of the deck, Brel stepped up behind it. The scarred sailor grimaced and threw a lanyard around the enemy's neck. The drakkar put up its free hand to fend off the rope, but already Brel was pulling it tight. For a moment the drakkar was off-balance, and that was enough for Lone Wolf to come punching up

with his axe, spearing into the enemy's chest. It screamed in hoarse dismay, letting its sword drop. Brel twisted the lanyard one more time and threw himself towards the side of the ship. The drakkar toppled, its bony body beginning to jerk out of control. Lone Wolf hacked at its armoured neck with his sword. With a final shriek of defiance the drakkar died. The effect on the giaks was immediate. Throughout their lives they had been taught to follow the example of a strong leader; their great weakness was that, when deprived of such a leader, they fell into confusion. Now they retreated towards the stern of the ship, gabbling in panic. The resistance they put up to the renewed attacks of Captain Kelman's crew was little more than perfunctory. Most of the giaks dived recklessly into the water, preferring drowning to slaughter at the sharp blades of the reinvigorated sailors. Aloft, the zlanbeast and kraan recognized the battle was lost, at least for the moment. To them it had been nothing more than a minor skirmish, so the loss wasn't significant. They shrugged their great wings and, one by one, flew away towards the distant shore of Mannon. The aftermath of the fight was a curiously muted affair, the studied silence being broken only by the moans of the dying and the splashes as dead giaks were unceremoniously pitched into the sea. Twelve crewmen had lost their lives, Captain Kelman stated, his voice for once no more than a wheeze, and three others were likely to die before the day was out. He himself had been stabbed in the buttocks -- a wound which, while causing him only minor pain, seriously impaired his perception of his own dignity. "Thank you," he said abruptly to Lone Wolf, clutching his hand and shaking it as hard as he could. "Without you, those scum might have --" "I don't think I'm the one to thank." Lone Wolf pointed at Brel. The man was helping some of the wounded. "He saved my life, you know." He quailed at the inadequacy of what he was saying. "Lives are cheap," said the captain dismissively, some of his old confidence returning. "You've saved quite a few in the past hour or so." "Lives are not cheap," Lone Wolf corrected firmly, suddenly angered. "Every time someone loses their life, that's a loss to all of us. Even the spawn of the Darklords are worth mourning." "Hmmf," said the captain. Two hours later the Green Sceptre's masts and sails had been repaired, a further crewman had died of his wounds, and the ship was back on course for Durenor. Lone Wolf had helped tend the injured and had also found time to clean himself -- yet again. The stains of blood and ichor had been washed

away from the vessel's decks. The air was fresh on everyone's faces as the ship steered its way carefully around the Kirlundin Isles, heading eastwards towards Port Bax. A week, perhaps less, and Lone Wolf would be in Durenor. It was to be a long week -- at least to begin with. 4 The next three days passed without incident. From time to time Lone Wolf promenaded around the decks trying to persuade himself there was something new and interesting to be seen in the seemingly endless expanse of sea, but he spent most of his hours curled up on his bunk, reading books he'd borrowed from crew-members. Most of them were rubbish, but at first he enjoyed them anyway: they took him away from the boredom of the voyage. Moreover, the relaxation was helping his body restore itself: he could feel his minor wounds healing up, while the tensions and strains of the past few days slowly worked their way out of his muscles. He used his newly discovered Kai powers to eliminate the bruises and cuts he had gathered while battling the forces of the Darklords; it was a long, slow process because the mental effort involved was considerable -- he soon realized his abilities were not just a sparkling new toy, to be played with at whim: they made demands upon his mind's stamina. He allowed minor abrasions to cure themselves naturally; they faded slowly and finally disappeared. Also, this was a period of spiritual healing for him: he found that the memories of the horrors he had encountered invaded his dreams less and less. During his first night on the Green Sceptre he had lost count of the times he had half-awoken screaming, convinced a doomwolf's sharp teeth were closing around his throat or that he was being sucked into the featureless Evil of Naar. Now his nights were for the most part untroubled. He made a point of visiting the wounded crewmen, chatting with them about various bland subjects. He told himself repeatedly that his motives were philanthropic -- that he wanted nothing more than to bring a little variety to their dreary days -- but at times he admitted to himself that the reason for the visits was purely selfish: however humdrum his conversations with the sailors might be, they at least made a change from lying on his bunk reading dull books. And the books were, when it came down to it, dull. He'd always assumed, for no rational reason, that the crews of mercantile ships would while away their leisure hours reading ripping yarns of derring-do on the high seas. Instead, their standard fare seemed to be tales of love affairs between male and female healers. The healing abilities described in the

books appeared to him to be extremely rudimentary; during the times that he spent with the injured sailors he found that, more and more, he was able to help their wounds heal through nothing more than the exercise of his mind. As the sails creaked overhead and the gulls screeched, he watched vicious sword slashes slowly close together and shredded skin become smooth and almost like a child's. He found that, for the first time for days, he was at peace with himself. The tedium was inducing a contentment in him. All of that changed on the fourth day. He had been exchanging pleasantries with a crewman called Quidroth, who had lost a leg in the battle against the giaks and kraan. Although the medical facilities on board the Green Sceptre were primitive, Quidroth had somehow survived. Each day his shipmates carried him up from the dormitories below so he could lie on the parched wooden boards of the ship's deck and gaze at the sky, watching the cotton clouds amble across the field of blue. Lone Wolf found Quidroth an intensely boring man, and for that very reason made a point of devoting as much as possible of his day to chatting with the elderly seafarer. On the fourth day he had finished cracking bad jokes with Quidroth and had turned away. The Green Sceptre was rocking from side to side, and the smell of salt water was strong in his nostrils. But there was something else. For a few moments he couldn't work out what this extra tang might be -- then he saw white puffs of smoke coming up between the boards of the deck. Fire! He yelled a warning, and then sped in search of the captain. Crewmen milled around, shouting in disarray. The wounded sailors twisted themselves on the deck, wishing they could help somehow. A tanned able seaman snapped at them to stay where they were, to keep out of everybody else's way, and reluctantly they settled themselves back on their blankets. The gulls which had been wheeling around the ship began to retreat, reckoning cowardice was the better part of valour. Captain Kelman was studying either a map or a glass of wanlo. The two were lying side by side on his chart table, and it was difficult to tell which of them the captain found the more important. Lone Wolf reckoned it was probably the wanlo, but he had other things on his mind. "Fire!" he blurted. "There's a fire in the hold!" Kelman's response was instant. "By the bowels and bladder of Naar!" he shouted. "I'll not have a blasted fire on board my vessel!"

Lone Wolf was never able to work out how the captain had left his cabin. In an instant he'd pushed past Lone Wolf and made his way to the upper deck. One moment Kelman had been there in front of him; the next, the captain's voice was clearly audible in the distance, shouting for the crew to fill buckets with water and to flail at the fire with blankets. It occurred to Lone Wolf rather slowly that perhaps he, too, could help fight the flames. It took the crew, assisted to the best of his ability by Lone Wolf, an hour or more to subdue the blaze. The men formed lines, passing relays of buckets of seawater. Some worked with bundled-up blankets, muffling the flames. The noise was deafening as the men shouted garbled instructions and counterinstructions at each other, and the water hissed and sizzled on the hot embers. Finally a few of the sailors were left to keep a watch on the hold in case the blaze broke out again. The others, weary and blackened with soot, staggered off to catch half an hour's rest. Lone Wolf was as tired as they were, but Kelman seemed to be possessed of boundless stores of energy. If anything, he was more animated than Lone Wolf had ever seen him before. "I think we should talk in private," said the tall red-haired man. He gestured at a blanket-covered bundle under his arm. "I don't want to be melodramatic, but . . ." He let the words peter out. The two of them made their way along the tortuous route to the captain's cabin. There, without speaking, Kelman expressively tumbled the contents of the bundle onto a table. They constituted a large earthenware jug, charred and stained, and a handful of fragments of singed rags. As well as the stench of burning there was also a strong smell of some oily substance. It was immediately clear to Lone Wolf what had happened. "Sabotage," he whispered. "Yes," replied Kelman. "Sabotage. That fire was no accident. Started deliberately, may Naar devour my gizzard if it wasn't. Some scum of the Darklords must have sneaked his way aboard this ship. Prepared to meet his own doom just to stop you. He'll hang from the yard-arm if I can find him -hang him until the crows pick the last scrap of flesh from his craven body, and only then will I let him die. Here, have some wanlo while I tell you the other things that're going to happen to him." Lone Wolf palmed away the proffered bottle. "But surely your crew would have spotted a stowaway by now?" "Not a stowaway. Probably not, anyway. I gathered this crew in the taverns of Holmgard the night before we sailed. Not the way I like to do things, but I hadn't much choice, what with having to leave so quickly. Trouble with kings and their errand-men: as soon as they give you an order

they expect you to be able to carry it out. No patience, that's their problem." Lone Wolf, despite the circumstances, smiled lightly. Captain Kelman seemed the last person qualified to criticize impatience. The captain hurried on, flushing at the expression on Lone Wolf's face. "Some of them good men, mind you -- wouldn't say otherwise. Known a lot of them before. Good shipmates. But others looked like half-digested Agarashi when we signed 'em up. Could've been anyone. Probably were." Kelman plopped himself heavily down into his carved oak chair, yipped as the wound in his buttocks stung him, and broodily swigged at the glass of wanlo he had left on his chart table so seemingly long ago. "Good stuff this," he mumbled. "Lucky for us there wasn't any of it in the hold. Whole ship would have gone up like a firecracker. Still got problems, though." Lone Wolf leaned forward. He'd changed his mind, and touched the tip of his finger to the bottle of liquor. The captain nodded, and with practised ease reached into the cupboard behind him to produce a glass. "Help yourself," he said peremptorily. "Pour me another at the same time, if you'd be so kind." He threw his head back and drained his goblet, then held it out unsteadily. Lone Wolf poured a trickle of the fiery liquid into his own glass and, at Kelman's urgings, half a pint into the captain's. "What problems?" asked Lone Wolf. "Food!" cried the captain, thumping the table with his big, freckled fist. "Food and water! People need it to survive, you know." Lone Wolf agreed that, yes, indeed, he'd noticed this. He took a tiny sip of wanlo and felt it burn his tongue. "Trouble was," Kelman carried on, "that all our supplies of food and fresh water were in that hold. Grim business. Can't live on this stuff alone." He waved his glass, defying the laws of science by spilling not a single drop. "Fun trying, but it's not really possible. Half the water barrels are burst -should still have enough, if we don't mind doing without washing. Good thing. Never seen much sense in washing, myself." He belched expansively. "Food's another matter. Going to have to tighten our belts a few notches. Still, only three days to Port Bax -- two, if we're lucky with the winds. Should be able to last out. Have a feast when we get there. The best and biggest feast a mother ever dreamed of for her son." "What if we're not so lucky with the winds?" Lone Wolf felt his mind becoming hazy from the effects of the wanlo. He was amazed by the captain's capacity to down the stuff in long, sustained gulps.

"Hah! Have to kill a cabin-boy, or something!" cried Kelman. "Only joking," he added hastily. "Cabin-boys are stringy." There was a yell from above. Some of the crew must have remained on the alert while their comrades were resting. "Ship! Ship off the port bow!" Kelman and Lone Wolf scrambled to their feet and hastened to the upper deck. Sure enough, away on the horizon there was a curious-looking craft. Its sails were triangular, and Lone Wolf could just make out that it was a catamaran. "Never known that people built two-hulled boats as big as that," said the captain, sucking his beard in between his lips and chewing on the bristly hairs. "Certainly never in Sommerlund and Durenor, or I'll be blighted. Don't know where she could come from. Flies no flag," he added, peering through his telescope, which he'd snatched up as they'd rushed from his cabin. "What's that?" "What's what, boy?" "There." Lone Wolf pointed. "By the intimate undergarments of Nyxator!" swore Kelman. "That's one of our longboats! One man aboard it! Blast Zagarna's giblets if I don't --" The realization seemed to have hit the rest of the crew at the same moment, for there was a sudden din of raucous abuse. The Green Sceptre was equipped with only two longboats, and they were to be broken out only in the most urgent emergencies. Between the two of them they could only just transport all the members of the crew, plus sufficient victuals, in the event of the Green Sceptre itself going down. That one of their colleagues should potentially condemn half of them to death had roused the fury of the sailors to a white heat. For the next few minutes Kelman was busily engaged persuading his men not to break out the second longboat and pursue the traitor. Lone Wolf leaned against the railing and watched as the fugitive longboat moved easily through the choppy waters, heading for the catamaran. As the captain's sharp eyes had discerned, it seemed to be propelled by only a single oarsman, and yet it was moving with considerable speed. No human being would have been capable of doing this. The strength necessary was far beyond even a Kai's abilities. He refused to believe that a drakkar could have remained unnoticed on the ship over the past few days. Perhaps the saboteur had been a helghast. But that seemed unlikely too: the "human" appearance of helghast became distinctly unreal the longer they associated with human beings. He reckoned, with some sadness, that his betrayer had been a Sommlending, and that now the longboat was being sped across the

water with the assistance of Nadziranim magic. His suspicions were hardened when a sea fog descended, as if from nowhere, to enshroud both the fleeing longboat and the distant catamaran. There was a swirl of grey nothingness, stinging the crew's eyes as they attempted to make out shapes and movements. All sounds were muted by the creeping fog: even the splashes of waves against the bow of the Green Sceptre were curiously subdued. The suddenness of the fog's descent was matched only by that of its disappearance. It melted away as if Naar himself had gleefully inhaled the water-sodden clouds. The longboat was gone, and so was the enigmatic catamaran. All around was a tableau of rippled green water. The traitor had vanished, and so had all of the Green Sceptre's crew's plans to extract bloodthirsty vengeance. Lone Wolf found that, perversely, he was glad about this. Since the destruction of the Kai Monastery and the slaughter of all his fellows, he had willingly slain countless agents of the Darklords -- humans or giaks, he had made little distinction. Yet the sparing of a single life pleased him, and he didn't know exactly why. The revenge which the Green Sceptre's crew would have taken upon the traitor would have been cruel, he knew, and he had no wish to witness further cruelty. Kelman appeared at his elbow. "Supper this evening's going to be pretty grim," said the captain without any preliminaries. "Going to be even grimmer at my table. A ship's captain has to be seen to be sharing the slender times with his crew. Some of my men are cursing the day you boarded this ship. You brought us bad luck, they say. Stands to reason it'd be a good idea if you joined myself and the senior officers tonight. Warmed-up leftovers, if we're lucky. Nothing at all if we're not. Advise you to . . ." Lone Wolf agreed at once. "Good. Wouldn't want to see you with a dagger stuck in your back, now that I've begun to like you. Fool of a boy." The captain mock-punched Lone Wolf on the nose, and the young Kai responded in kind. They grinned idiotically at each other. "Now," said the captain, "you make yourself scarce. I've got something to do." The "something" was an address to the crew. Lone Wolf heard it through the open portholes of his dormitory. The captain harangued the men at length for what he described as their treachery in blaming Lone Wolf for the various mishaps that had befallen the ship since it had put out from Holmgard. He told them the youth had saved the lives of all of them, and

that if Sommerlund fell to the forces of the Darklords all of them would die. He made some remarks about the ancestry of various crew-members, but these Lone Wolf didn't fully understand. Kelman added, almost as an afterthought, that supplies of food and water were low and that for the rest of the journey rations would be strict: anyone caught thieving from the scanty stores of provisions would receive a hundred lashes -- perhaps even a thousand -- and be beheaded afterwards. The beheading would start with the feet and work slowly upwards. Furthermore, he, Captain Kelman, would personally pluck out the liver of any man who . . . Lone Wolf got the gist -as, evidently, did the sailors, for they started laughing and applauding simultaneously. Lone Wolf smiled, and was just about to wash himself when he remembered the fact that there was a shortage of water. Curious the way we're creatures of habit, he thought. He hung his stained towel up on the hook beside his bed, smiling to himself. Then he tugged off his boots, threw himself on his bunk, and for the next couple of hours was a billion miles away from the world. 5 And, like Qinefer some nights before, he dreamed. The dream was confused, and afterwards he was able to make little sense of it. He was walking through a daisy-spotted field, hand-in-hand with the black girl whom he'd met so briefly -- so maddeningly briefly -- in Ulnar's court. They were exchanging jokes which, in the dream, were hilariously funny, though afterwards he could remember nothing of them. She had changed out of her rough homemade garments and was now dressed in the cloak of the Kai. There was a broadsword at her belt and a smile on her face. After one of his more outrageous jokes she seized him by the right arm and threw him over her shoulder into a patch of long grass. He pulled his sword from its scabbard and conducted a pretend fencing match with her. As he did so, she became slowly transparent, only her sword retaining any semblance of solidity. It swished and whooped through the air, which had suddenly become red and angry. Flickers of lightning pierced from a sky which was paradoxically blue. Now even Qinefer's sword faded: it became first a cloud of mist and then an almost invisible shimmering; then it disappeared, its hilt lingering in his sight for several seconds after the rest had gone. Abruptly he was all alone on a vast plain of dead, grey sand. He knew

something was threatening him, but he couldn't make out what it was. The sun was a searingly yellow torch in the sky; its light hurt his eyes, as if it were trying to claw its way through into his brain. His bare feet stung from the heat of the sand beneath them. He was naked except, incongruously, for his sword belt. He waved his sword defiantly at the sky, shouting words that made no sense, spittle running copiously down his chin. A small red-brown creature sat on the crest of a dune, watching him cynically. It was rather like a hamster, only somewhat larger -- perhaps the size of a rabbit. It had red eyes which were only too obviously laughing at him. His first response, on noticing the animal, was that this must be the threat he sensed. He swore at it mindlessly, swinging his sword. It ignored him for a while, stuffing the hot grey sand into its crop in a contented way. Suddenly it scampered up to him, elegantly ducking beneath the arc of his sword, and nuzzled against his feet. He felt its rough tongue licking at his toes and its swift breath panting against his flesh. He tried to jump away, but found that his body refused to obey the instructions his brain gave to it: his limbs moved, but only slowly, as if he were underwater. He felt the resistance of the air pushing against him, and realized that he was as trapped as a spider locked in amber. The slowness with which his sword jabbed towards the creature was a parody. Moreover, even as the blade inched forwards, the animal looked directly up into his eyes. There was something appealing there, as well as something confident. He realized that, even if he had wanted to kill this creature, he would never have been able to; at the same time, it seemed to be telling him to have mercy, to decide of his own accord to spare this minuscule life. His sword stopped. Even its stopping was sluggish, as was everything he did in this whispering grey desert. The animal scuttled away from him, its rear legs kicking up little clouds of sand. It returned to the dune-crest where he had first seen it, and examined him critically through its pinkish-red eyes. Again it began to eat the sand, its forepaws moving as if under some unseen compulsion. Streaks of lifeless grey covered its furry belly as it sat there, its body pulled erect, eating greedily while at the same time eyeing him satirically. His mouth was dry and filled with an acid taste. His tongue and his lips seemed to be made of rubber as he forced them, with aching slowness, to voice some words. "Who . . . are . . . you?" he said. Abruptly the sky was full of black clouds and the air was cold. A torrent of rain descended on him and on the sands around him, turning them

instantly into a blackly muddy swamp. The reddish creature seemed unaffected by the downpour, and began to preen itself, the sharp little claws of its forepaws scrubbing away industriously at the deliciously tender regions behind its ears. Then Lone Wolf found himself flying swiftly through the bleakness of space, heading directly towards the heart of the sun. Its light tore at his eyes and its heat flayed his body. Closer and closer he came, until he could see nothing except a vast wall of raging brightness. He screamed uncontrollably, feeling his body tugged inexorably by the fires. In a futile gesture, he reached for his sword, but discovered it was gone. He was to be devoured by the wild flarings of the sun. He breathed a prayer to Ishir, that she should protect his soul in whatever life there might be after this bodily one. And found himself awake in his bunk, covered in clammy sweat, looking out through the porthole at the darkness of evening. Around him, most of the bunks of the dormitory were filled with snoring sailors, men recuperating from the exhaustion of the day while their fellows kept guard. He shuddered in the aftermath of his dream, then forced his unwilling body to pull itself out of the bunk. He used the dormitory's primitive lavatory and dabbed some salt water on his face. He had promised to dine with the captain. It was an experience to which he did not particularly look forward.

3 Wrecked 1 Supper was, if anything, rather worse than Lone Wolf had anticipated -- in fact, it was worse than he could have imagined possible. The ship's cook had thrown together yesterday's leftovers and hoped for the best. The result was vile. Lone Wolf couldn't work out whether he was pleased or regretful that the helpings were so small. He tried not to think about what he was eating. Those black things were either raisins or rat-turds, and he suspected the latter. He tried not to think, too, about what the rest of the meals would be like before they reached Port Bax. "Delicious!" snapped Captain Kelman as he finished eating, looking sharply around him, making it plain that he would brook no argument. Aside from Lone Wolf and the captain, there was a handful of nervous crewmen around the table. The conversation over the meal had been slow and stilted. Lone Wolf suspected that the men would have been much happier eating below-decks. They looked shiftily at each other and muttered approvingly about the food. Lone Wolf allowed himself an inward smile: he'd seen their real opinions in their faces while they'd been eating. One by one the crewmen made their apologies and left the cabin, until only Lone Wolf and the captain remained. The young Kai prepared, likewise, to take his leave, but before he could do so the cook appeared, ready to carry off the dirty dishes. Lone Wolf helped stack the plates and group together the cutlery and condiments. Then Kelman clapped his hands together eagerly. "Samor!" the captain shouted. "Sorry?" "Samor," the captain repeated. "Let's have a game of samor." Lone Wolf had heard about the game but had never played it. He knew it required a combination of intelligence, bold strategy and bluff as different pieces warred on a patterned board. He was eager to find out what it was like, and told the captain as much, while explaining apologetically that he had little confidence in his own skill. "Nonsense!" Kelman boomed. "Soon pick it up -- see if you don't! I'll teach you. Be a pleasure. Tell you what, just to make it more interesting, let's put a little wager on the result." "1 don't think that's a --" "'Course it is. One of the best ideas I ever had. Let's put ten gold

crowns on it. We'll enjoy the game better if we have just a little something at stake. Bet you we will." "Another time, perhaps --" The captain's voice changed completely, as did his entire posture. "I very much think you ought to play samor," he said, pronouncing each word with deliberated clarity. "But --" "But you think I'm just a drunken old man who wants to waste your time playing a silly board game and fleecing you of your money. That's what you're thinking. Am I right?" "Well, not in so many . . ." Kelman smiled, as if he were a friend sharing a secret joke. "In short, I'm right -- mmh? And in a way you're perfectly correct, too. I am a drunken old man and, if I get half a chance, I'll win your gold crowns from you. Vashna knows I'm not so rich that I can turn away my winnings! But that's only part of the truth, just in the same way that saying samor's just a game is only part of the truth. Let me show you." He pulled a carved wooden box out from under a heap of clothing and placed it on the empty table between them, apologetically blowing the dust off its lid. "Been a long time, young fellow, a long time," he muttered shamefacedly. The hinges gave a rusty squeak of protest as he opened the box, and the back of the lid landed with a crack on the table. The inside of the box was a blackness so deep that it seemed to swallow the light of the flickering lamps, making the room seem suddenly shady and ominous, yet Lone Wolf was certain he could sense movement from within -- as if the box contained a tangle of small, frightened creatures. The movement stopped abruptly. Lone Wolf felt as if someone had run the sharp tip of a blade of fresh grass across the back of his neck. He shivered, hoping the captain wouldn't notice his sudden unease. But Kelman's attention was firmly fixed on what he was doing. He pulled from the box a faded cloth, frayed at the edges and at the folds, and spread it out on the table. Lone Wolf saw that a spiral pattern, made up of many triangles, had long ago been woven into the fabric. Obviously the colours had once been bold and bright, but now they had aged into muted tones of dusty pink and pale blue-grey. His eyes followed the line of the spiral in towards the vortex; once there, they leapt without his conscious direction out to the outer perimeter once more, before following the spiral inwards again, and then . . . With a great effort of will he snapped his gaze away. The pattern was like a maze without an exit, in which it would be possible to become lost

forever, beyond all hope of rescue. He recognized its dangers. If he were to play this game, he must beware. The captain had been speaking to him, the words coming to his lips as if they were merely off-the-cuff pleasantries. "Once upon a time," he remarked conversationally, a trace of a smile twitching his mouth, "the gods themselves invented a game, and the game that they invented they called Life. The game of Life was played on a vast board which they called Aon, and it had untold millions of pieces, each of which could be moved in untold millions of ways. The game was a very complicated one, as you can imagine, and even the gods found it difficult to remember all the rules and to hold in their minds the rapidly shifting configurations of play." The captain's hands, seemingly independently of the rest of his body, reverently smoothed out the cloth. Its crease-lines melted away, and the colours began to glow a little more brightly. "The gods find very few things difficult, and so they were captivated by the challenge of this new game. In the infinity of time which they had at their disposal they planned their strategies, and they countered each other's offensives, and they saw themselves win and lose campaigns. The centuries ticked away, and then the millennia, and still all the gods were absorbed in the game they had invented. There was no room left in their minds to attend to other things; and so Aon, born in hope from the truce between Ishir and Naar, became nothing more than a vast gameboard, and all the living creatures in it were nothing more than beautifully crafted pieces of matter, to be pushed hither and thither at the whim of the gods." Kelman reached into the box again, and pulled out a handful of whittled wooden figures. They were in the shapes of bizarre, contorted wild beasts, their heads snarling and their teeth sharp. They were like no animals that Lone Wolf had ever seen before, except perhaps in the dark otherworld of dreams. "But in time everything repeats itself," said Kelman, so softly that Lone Wolf had to lean forward to catch the words over the creaking of the vessel. "The game of Life was made up of an enormous pattern, and like any other pattern it had recurring themes. Soon -- if a billion years can be called 'soon' -- the gods learned to recognize those themes, and the game of Life became predictable to them. With predictability came boredom. If all of them knew what the next move was going to be -- what it had to be -- then where was the interest in carrying on the play? "Then one of them -- no one knows which it was, but it was almost certainly the minor god called Qinmeartha -- realized that the game was

restricted because all the movements of all of the pieces were prescribed. Although the rules were very complicated, they were still there, and they were fixed and they were rigid. Even if the gods amended the rules, adding new provisions and increasing the options open to the player at every turn, creating new types of pieces with different permissible moves, the game of Life would always be finite: at some moment amid all the aeons of eternity there would come the time when every possibility of the game would be exhausted, and its pattern would recur. So this minor god, Qinmeartha, gave something new to the pieces. He implanted souls in them, little shards of godliness. Now the moves that they could make were no longer inhibited by the minds of the gods: the pieces themselves could choose what they wished to do next." The cloth was covered with a profusion of roughly hewn figurines now, some painted red and some blue, and a few of them painted in a colour which Lone Wolf's eyes refused to acknowledge. The captain's hands moved swiftly, placing them in positions that were obviously predetermined yet which seemed to have no underlying rationale. "Now that Qinmeartha had made this change, there wasn't a pattern to the game of Life any longer, and so it could exert all its old fascination on the minds of the gods. Ever since then they have been playing it, and never once has the pattern repeated. Yet there's a pattern there, for all that -- only, it's a pattern without any boundary. Endless. A pattern woven across all of Aon. A pattern that no one will ever be able to complete." The captain stopped speaking. Lone Wolf looked at him. It seemed as if he were obliged to say something, to make some form of response. "The game of Life," he said eventually. "The gods are still playing it, aren't they? And we're the pieces on their board." "Of course," replied Kelman with an almost imperceptible bob of his head. Behind the belligerent bush of his hair his eyes were grave now, fixed on Lone Wolf's own. "But, just to make the game a little more interesting, they gamble on the outcome of every move. And, just like adgana addicts, all the time they've had to keep raising the stakes, just to make the game more satisfying. Those stakes are our souls, of course." Realization came to Lone Wolf. What the captain had been telling him need not be in itself the truth -- rather, it was a sort of model of the way things were. Like so many fables, it was made of artificial flesh moulded upon a skeleton of reality. He said eagerly, "I think I know the rest of your story." Kelman nodded. "Over the billennia some of the gods have been knocked out of the

game of Life," said Lone Wolf, the words stumbling over each other. "They've lost all their stakes and they've had to retire. Now there are just three of the gods left in the game -- just Ishir and Kai and Naar." The captain gave a little flip of his hand to indicate agreement, to encourage Lone Wolf to keep going. "Nearly half of the pieces are in Naar's possession now, and their numbers are roughly matched by those belonging to Ishir and Kai. But there are still a few pieces left over -- the last few pieces that will decide who is the winner of the game of Life." Kelman had finished arranging the figurines on the cloth. Now he put the box on the floor next to his chair and rested both his elbows on the table. "You're very nearly right, my friend. In fact, if you asked Naar or Ishir they'd say that you'd understood all there is to understand about the game of Life. Hah! That's all that they know!" "But the gods know everything. Don't they?" "Are you sure you want to ask that question?" The look in Kelman's eyes was one of disappointment. Clearly Lone Wolf had failed him in some way. Lone Wolf thought for moment. "I see what you mean," he said slowly. "If the gods knew everything then they'd know what the outcome of the game would be. And that'd mean it wouldn't be any fun for them any more." "Correct! By the alveoli of my aunt's monastically inclined great nephew, but I thought for a moment there you were just as much of a halfwit as all the rest! If they wanted to, the gods could know everything. But they choose not to. They don't want to know exactly what the future holds because, if they did, it would spoil their cursed game for them." Kelman leapt to his feet impulsively and went to the nearest porthole. He looked out through it at the mask of night. When next he spoke it was as if he were addressing himself to the darkness. "Think of it. Just think what those fools of gods are throwing away! Laid out in front of them, like the finest painting ever put on canvas, glittering in its myriad colours, is the map of the future . . . and the buffoons, in what they like to think of as their infinite wisdom, elect to veil their eyes when they look at it. Wisdom! Hah! Give me the wisdom of the drunken crewman thrown out of a dockside bar! Or the wisdom of a child playing with a pretty gimcrack toy! Ah, if I were as wise as the gods you'd look on me as a fool. "And there's more." His voice dropped once again to something little more than a whisper. He looked around him, as if afraid that someone might

be eavesdropping on what he was saying. "Cocooned in what they perceive as their omniscience, the gods don't realize that they've made an infinite mistake . . . a mistake of truly god-like proportions." "The game of Life," said Lone Wolf, equally quietly, "is by design endless. Neither side can ever win the ultimate victory. If Kai and Ishir rejoice in their triumph over Naar, there will still be some Evil left in Aon. And if the King of the Darkness should swallow us here on Magnamund, yet there'll still live on a pocket of Good . . . somewhere." Kelman said nothing, but the way in which he was holding his body altered slightly, as if he were smiling with all his limbs. "But that means . . ." said Lone Wolf, perplexed, "that means that everything we try to do to repel the forces of Evil is wasted! Evil is an enemy we can never defeat." His voice became sarcastic. "Turn your vessel round and let's head back towards Holmgard, captain! Let me go to King Ulnar and tell him to surrender to Zagarna -- because what's the point of carrying on fighting if we know we can never win?" Uninvited, he poured himself a glass of wanlo and half-drained it in a single gulp. Water came to his eyes, disguising the tears that were already forming there. "D'you mean that?" asked Kelman, still looking out into the blackness. "No," said Lone Wolf bitterly. He put his glass back down on the table a little too firmly, and some of the fiery liquor splashed out over the stained wood. "No, of course I don't. I can't throw away everything I believe in just for the sake of a fable." The captain turned to gaze at him frankly. "It's no fable, my young comrade," he said. "Oh, to be sure, it's been embellished around the edges a little, but that's about all." "Do you believe we should give up?" Kelman's eyes bulged and he made a noise that couldn't decide whether it was a guffaw of incredulity or a bellow of wrath. "Give up? Give up? Are you no wiser than a god?" Lone Wolf couldn't think of any reply. "The gods might give up, if only they knew," Kelman continued after a long time. "That's the way their minds work -- Good, Evil; white, black. Nothing in between the extremes. But the pieces they brought into existence to use in their game . . . we see things differently. You're not wholly good, are you? I'd wager my own liver, such of it as there is that's left, that there've been things you've done even in your short life that wouldn't bear repeating. And me? Here I am, chosen by Ishir to bear you to Durenor so that -- she hopes -- her moves in the game can triumph over Naar's. For the moment

you can call me one of Ishir's pieces. But I've done things that would make your backbone tie itself in knots and beg itself for mercy! They -- made -- us -- flawed . . . so that their game would be more interesting." He gulped down some wanlo straight from the neck of the bottle. "They made the whole of Aon flawed," he added more gently, "and there's nothing any of our efforts can do to get rid of every last one of its imperfections. But we can try! By all that's sacred in the pantheon, we can drive Evil back from our world until all that's left of it is a minor irritation. And if we do, it's our decision. The gods don't really care what happens, any more than a gambler with a million gold crowns cares about losing a thousand. To the gods it doesn't really matter: it's just a part of their game!" "But . . . but . . .," Lone Wolf stammered. "Ishir and Kai -- they're on the side of Good. Every child knows that!" "Good?" The captain spat, miraculously hitting a spittoon straight on, so that it rang with a deep brassy note. "Good and Evil are qualities that people know -- people and spawn and the dumb animals of the fields and forests. To the gods the word's just a label. Ishir and Kai are said to be on the side of Good and Naar's forces are described as the forces of Evil. But what do the terms mean to the gods? Nothing at all -- they're just tags. When we play samor, one person has blue pieces and the other red: the colours themselves don't matter; they're just different so that we know whose pieces are whose, that's all. Same with the game of Life. Naar's pieces are called Evil, because otherwise they'd get all mixed up with the pieces called Good." Lone Wolf was silent. He realized that what the captain had just been saying to him was blasphemy, or heresy at the very least. In certain parts of Magnamund -- indeed, even in the less civilized regions of Sommerlund itself -- the man would be burnt alive for denigrating the gods like this. Lone Wolf recognized that all of his training was telling him he should be registering fury at Kelman's perception of the actions of the gods, and yet he felt, in striking contrast, that what the man was saying made a bizarre kind of sense. No, not bizarre at all. It explained so many of the things that had been puzzling him. Yet he couldn't take the next step -- which was to regard the gods as nothing more than the inventions of human minds. It was tempting to think of them that way. Forget about divine powers and universal concepts of Good and Evil: humanity was born into the universe and given the choice as to whether it wanted to create heaven or hell. If there were no gods then life was an irrelevance, a parasite dwelling on the evolving form of Aon. But, if the gods existed and were as all-powerful as the priests portrayed, then human beings were indeed only carved wooden pieces, moved hither and

thither about a game-board at the whims of amoral beings. Lone Wolf grimaced wryly. The captain had said that people were all the same, a mixture of Good and Evil. In the same way, the truth about Aon must lie somewhere between the two extremes he'd been considering. The gods, he felt certain, existed: no argument. Yet they weren't the selfless beings depicted by the priests. They had failings. When they breathed bits of their soulstuff into the creatures they had made, those failings were part of the overall deal. "We were going to play samor," the captain said. "Yes, indeed." Kelman sat down at the table and made trivial changes to the positioning of the carved pieces. "If you ask anyone that plays this game," he said, "you'll be told that it was invented by a sage called Belyan, over a thousand years ago. But they'd be telling you wrong. What Belyan did was to perceive a little of the essence of the game of Life, and simplify it down so that we mortals could play it." Lone Wolf knew his face was looking dubious. "Oh, yes," said the captain. "From now on we're playing with living pieces. Here are my ten gold crowns." He slapped the money on the table. "If I lose, they're yours. But if you lose -- well, I trust you have the coins to pay me my due." The wooden animals seemed, in the flickering lamplight, to be moving their heads. Lone Wolf breathed deeply. "Show me how to play," he said resignedly. 2 The game of samor had hardly any written rules -- in fact, hardly any rules at all. The object was to remove all of one's opponent's pieces from the board, just as in so many of the games Lone Wolf had played at the Kai Monastery. But there were distinct differences. The pieces were made of wood and, when they were left untouched, they were little more than static carvings: from time to time Lone Wolf was certain he saw out of the corner of his eye that their facial expressions were changing, but he couldn't be sure, and he preferred to blame the illusion of motion on the guttering of the lamplight. But, when his hand touched a piece, the wood was somehow imbued with a semblance of life -- and this was a part of the game. Merely laying his finger on one of the carvings, he discovered, gave that piece some spark of volition, so that it turned willingly to assault the nearest opposing piece.

There was no capture in this game: pieces fought to what looked uncannily like their deaths; on occasion Lone Wolf could hear a thin scream as a contorted wooden creature buckled in agony and then flickered reluctantly out of existence . . . to find itself, he hoped, neatly laid out in the box ready for the next game. The pieces on his side were red; those on Kelman's were blue. At least, this was generally the case: one of the other aspects of the game was that the wooden warriors could bear false colours. There was no way of knowing friend from traitor until one laid one's finger on a piece; if it was what its colour proclaimed it to be, then it moved into action against the foe; but if one had been mistaken the wooden figurine turned its head and bit painfully. The pattern of allegiances shifted constantly, so that a piece which had been one's own only moments before could now be a turncoat. The way to win the game, Lone Wolf soon realized, was to touch as many pieces as one could as fleetingly as possible. His fingers were bleeding copiously by the time he discovered this. His hands moved almost more quickly than his sight across the array, touching lightly here and there; he was hardly aware of the fact that the captain's were doing likewise. Sometimes Lone Wolf touched a blue piece by mistake, and usually the reward for his error was another painful bite -- but on occasion, he noticed, the figurine would prove to be one of his temporary allies, and turn to savage its erstwhile friend. Time passed -- how long, Lone Wolf had no way of knowing. His mind had grown fatigued of hearing the tiny shrieks of lost pieces. All he could think of was that this game, like the game of Life itself, was so terribly wasteful: it chewed up souls and spat them out, and all to no guided purpose. He found no satisfaction in the realization that he was driving back the forces marshalled by Captain Kelman. The lacerations on his fingers he healed almost instinctively -- they were infuriating interruptions to his tactical plans. All he wanted was that the game be over as soon as possible, so that he could go back to his bunk and find the warm embrace of sleep. He refused to allow the completeness of his attention to be swallowed into the game of samor. In the end there were only two pieces left on the spiral pattern, and both of them were red. They were frozen in mutually hostile snarling poses. "I think," said Lone Wolf tiredly, "that the game is mine." The captain deliberately poured the dregs of a bottle of wanlo into his own goblet, gesturing with empty hospitality towards Lone Wolf's glass, and slurred a few words: "Are you so certain-sure, young friend? Those pieces seem to be yours, but are they really? You know that the colour can lie:

perhaps they're really blues, disguising themselves?" "We wager?" said Lone Wolf, discovering in himself an eagerness which until this moment he hadn't realized existed. The Green Sceptre rocked as a sudden gust of wind caught it sidelong. The two wooden pieces scrabbled to hold their positions. "I'll give you," said Kelman, his movements furred by the wanlo, "a better stake than any I've given before. The wrath of the gods upon this useless gold," he cried, sweeping the coins to the floor. "If you win this game against me then I'll give you something in a bottle." "A bottle of wanlo? That's something I think I could well do without." "No. A bottle that was given to me by Ishir herself." "But I thought you didn't believe in Ishir?" "Whatever gave you that idea? Sweet Ishir. Like a child to me she was." The tragedy of Captain Kelman became obvious to Lone Wolf. The man had the gift of the gab, and yet all the time he had nothing. "You're on," said Lone Wolf appeasingly. "I'll stake my ten gold crowns against your bottle of . . . something." He touched his finger to one of the pieces and it turned, ferociously, trying to bite into his flesh. But he'd moved his hand away too quickly. The wooden fangs snapped in empty air. It had been one of his own pieces, one that he'd relied upon during his earlier campaigns. Now it belonged to Kelman -- or so it seemed, until the next move. The captain was reluctant to lay his finger upon either piece. He whistled through tense lips, clearly wondering which of the two remaining pieces, if either, might now owe him allegiance. The figurines froze, giving him no clues. Kelman spat upon the index finger of his right hand, wishing it luck; his eyes became taut. He moved his head forwards, and Lone Wolf could see that his gaze was being drawn ever inwards towards the vortex of the spiral. "I touch this one," said Kelman, "and claim my victory!" But the piece turned and bit him to the bone. Then it moved nervously in and out of reality, before transmuting itself into a still form, lying in the box. There was now only one piece left on the cloth. It was red, and according to the rules, as the solitary piece left, its colour must be honest. The piece belonged to Lone Wolf. "I claim victory," said Lone Wolf sadly. "I'd wished I wouldn't have to." "I'm a fool," said the captain, "and a fool and a thrice-accursed fool,

and even a fool thereafter. I thought I could defeat you -- but never mind all of that. Put away your gold coins -- they're nothing to me now. I'll give you something in a bottle that's worth more than . . ." His head fell forward onto the table and he began to snore. Lone Wolf tiptoed away, leaving the man where he sprawled. His bunk was beckoning. He threw himself on it, unbuckling his sword and his axe, feeling the softness of the mattress beneath him. He tried to think of the blasphemies which Kelman had told him, but all he could discover in his meaning was that there was a game, and that he was nothing more than a piece in that game. A song rang through his mind. The song had words and music. He tried to capture it, but it refused to be caught. One of these times he'd understand how the gods worked and, when that happened, the song that he'd sing would be the song of Ishir . . . He slept. 3 Brel woke him in the middle of the night. "Lone Wolf," said the crewman urgently, "the ship should be in danger." Lone Wolf turned over in his bed, trying to ignore Brel's words, snuggling his face into the softness of his pillow. Brel was annoying him, disturbing his rest. He didn't want anything to do with Brel's problems. That was an end of it. He snuffled loudly. There was a crash of waves. They were trying to beat the bow of the vessel into splinters. Lone Wolf found increased comfort in his pillow. He hoped the words that Brel was speaking would simply go away. Water. The water was washing around the feet of the bunks, threatening him. He told Brel to push off, realizing even as he did so that the crewman was trying to save his life. He knew there was something terribly wrong, but at the same time he seemed to be utterly distanced from it, as if he were watching actors in a play. Yet he was fully conscious of the fact that his body was being thrown from side to side, and not just by Brel's attempts to waken him. And there was noise, too: a terrible groaning of strained timbers punctuated by crashes of shattering glass and -Suddenly he was a part of this world. Throwing his cloak around him

he leapt down from his bunk. He grabbed his sword and axe and held them at the ready. "Another attack?" he snapped at the crewman. "Yes. But this one should be not by the Darklords' spawn. This time your weapons should be not of any use to us, young master. Our enemies should be the wind and the sea." Brel punched him gently on the shoulder. "On deck!" He gestured upwards with his thumb. The sailor moved swiftly, even though the Green Sceptre was shuddering and leaping as the storm threw it from wave to wave. Lone Wolf splashed along behind him, following the paleness of Brel's nightshirt in the gloom. When they came to a ladder leading upwards, the youth took the opportunity to sheathe his sword and tuck his axe into his belt. As Brel had pointed out, his weapons were of no use to him now. The three-quarter moon was out, shining whitely in a purplish sky. Thin clouds raced across its face, twisting and coiling as the winds drove them. Uncanny phosphorescence gleamed in the crashing wavecrests as spray battered across the deck, sweeping men aside as if they were made of straw. The crew were desperately hauling on ropes, trying to lower the sails, acting without instructions because the noise was too overpowering for a human voice to be heard. Lone Wolf felt useless. He looked around for something to do to help, but realized that, in his ignorance, he might simply increase the danger. He was probably the only person who had the time to notice that another light had joined the moon in the sky. At first he thought it was just a very bright star, but as he squinted at it he could see more detail. In a globe of brilliance there was an ancient man, dressed in the blue and silver cloak of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star. Lone Wolf couldn't make out the man's features, but he could see that his back was bent, as if he had been carrying a great weight and had somehow become locked in that position. Who could it be? Was it a friend or a foe? Lone Wolf hadn't a clue. As he watched, the light suddenly winked out. Kelman was beside him, looking haggard and tense. The captain pulled Lone Wolf towards him and bawled into his ear. "Get off the deck! You're -- in the way here! 'Sides, the crew . . ." Kelman waved his hand, and for the first time Lone Wolf noticed that, whenever the sailors had a moment's relaxation from their struggles with the ropes, they were looking at him with hatred in their eyes. "Crew . . . blame you!" bellowed the captain above the screaming of the wind and the sharp slapping of the tormented sails. "Cursed voyage! No natural storm, this! Get out of their sight!"

Lone Wolf was only too glad to obey. He could see the sailors' point of view. Attacks, sabotage, now this tempest. Many of their fellows dead, and all of them in danger of losing their lives. As Kelman had put it, the voyage seemed cursed -- and one didn't need to look very far to find a scapegoat. He turned towards a welcoming doorway as Kelman rushed off along the deck to help man the ropes. There was a loud c-r-r-r-ack! clearly audible even through the shrieks of the gale. Lone Wolf looked behind him, but couldn't see anything that might have made the noise. Then instinct made him look upwards. The Green Sceptre's mast had split, near the top. The uppermost section, perhaps a couple of yards long, was hanging to one side, rocking drunkenly to and fro with the motion of the waves, held on by no more than a few splinters. As Lone Wolf watched, those splinters gave up the contest, and the mass of wood was thrown off. Straight towards him. He sprang to one side, throwing up his arms to protect his head -- too slow, too late. The main body of the wood crashed into the deck a couple of feet away from him, but a cross-spar struck him just above the right ear. He staggered from the blow. There was something pushing at the back of his knees. Stunned, he attempted to Sit down on this object, whatever it was. It was the guard-rail of the deck. His body plummeted into the darkness and was lost beneath the waves. 4 She wriggled uncomfortably, unused to the suit of chainmail they had insisted she wear. It seemed to have been designed to restrict her movements in all the most important places. It was also off-puttingly new -- sparkling in the damp sunlight, clearly straight from the smithy. Her sword and shield were new as well, although she had refused to part with one of her captured giak swords, which now hung incongruously at her side. Her hair tickled and itched, crammed into a helmet that wasn't really big enough. Qinefer felt that she looked more like a raw recruit than a commanding officer. Except, that is, for her horse. Only it wasn't actually her horse -another source of irritation. It belonged to Lone Wolf, whose presence in her

life she was beginning to resent. Still, the beast beneath her was magnificent -- huge, white, haughty and highly intelligent. It had been owned until recently by Ulnar's son, the Crown Prince Pelathar, but in the last few moments before he died at the battle of Alema Bridge he had given it to Lone Wolf. In his flight to Holmgard, Lone Wolf had had to part company with the horse, but it had been able to make its own way home. From the moment she had entered the stables in quest of a steed, it had attached itself to her, recognizing in her, perhaps, something of the same quality that distinguished its new master. She leaned forward now and tickled Janos behind one ear, feeling the rough leather of the horse's armour scratching against the metal of her disgustingly shiny chainmail glove. Behind her, capping the summit of a small hill, was a dense copse, and she could hear from within it the movements of the soldiers under her command, readying themselves for the fray. In ones and twos they had made their way here during the night, trusting in the darkness and confusion to protect them as they penetrated the cordon Zagarna had placed around the city. The ruse had been successful -- only four soldiers had failed to arrive and must be presumed dead. The rest had, she guessed, been mistaken for drakkarim or helghast. Now they were waiting for her command to attack the Darklord's forces from the rear. The sun was nearing the horizon. She turned and barked: "Half an hour!" The noise increased -- not enough to be dangerous, but she scowled nevertheless. "Keep quiet, you fools!" she hissed to her lieutenant, who passed the order on. Qinefer herself moved Janos a little further back into cover. If they could avoid the attention of the kraan for just half an hour longer . . . When first it had been reported back to Ulnar's headquarters that the actions of the spawn in Zagarna's army became more lethargic for a brief period around dusk, the king had been sceptical. However, his mind had changed as more and more reports of this phenomenon came in. The reasons for it were uncertain, and didn't seem to be related to any obvious pattern of eating or relaxation; Qinefer's own theory was that it was a matter of habit, that dusk was the spawn's normal feeding time, and that they automatically slowed up a little around then. Like her soldiers, she used the remaining time to take a light meal of coarse bread and smoked fish, carefully tucking the wrappings away in Janos's saddle-pouch. She drank some of the rather sickly wine that was made in the region around the capital, and guiltily threw the empty bottle

into a bush. She was pleased to find she had no need to urinate -- getting in and out of her chainmail trousers, she had discovered, was a major palaver. She checked that her sword moved easily in its sheath. A distant hilltop had taken a bite out of the sun's swollen disc. The birds were chattering among themselves as they prepared to settle down for the night. A breeze blew up from somewhere, so that the lush grass of the fields in front of her was rippled and tossed. It was very nearly time to attack. She felt the thirst for carnage growing in her -- longed for the sweet taste of vengeance as her sword cut through spawn-flesh and the ichor flowed. She was impatient for it all to start. She called her lieutenant to her side. His horse came crashing through the foliage. He was a much-scarred veteran and might have expected soon to accede to a command of his own. However, if he felt any resentment about Qinefer's sudden promotion he kept it to himself. "In ten minutes we move, Klen," she said. "Tell the soldiers to ready themselves." "I just have," he said with an easy smile. She couldn't get over how calm he always seemed. "I thought it best to get 'em prepared a little early, just to be on the safe side." "Good." The two of them watched in silence as the last arc of the sun disappeared behind the hills. "One thing, m'lady." "Yes?" "Just . . ." He shifted embarrassedly in his saddle. "Well, good luck." "Good luck to you, too, Klen. We'll have some tales to tell tonight." A picture came into her head of a crackling fire and generous measures of warm, strong mead. "Ishir willing," he said quietly. "Ishir willing," she agreed. Again they spent a few moments in silence. Then: "Klen, sound the advance." The lieutenant put his bugle to his lips and sounded a single high note. Qinefer touched her hand to Janos's neck and obediently the great white stallion burst into movement. With Klen just behind her, Qinefer sped across the field, feeling her body become almost one with her mount's. Her soldiers poured out of the copse, spurring their horses to the gallop. Her world was filled with the sounds of her armour, Janos's steady breathing, and the thundering of hooves

on the grassy ground. Again Klen blew on his bugle, and the sound filled her with exultation. She drew her sword from its scabbard and held it high, hardly noticing that she was screaming with delirious joy as the wind pushed against her face. They came over the crest of a low ridge and saw, not a hundred yards away, the outskirts of the besiegers' encampment. Giaks were drowsily moving about their business -- tending the fires, repairing broken armour, stirring great black metal cauldrons of stew. A few kraan strutted among them, pushing them aside with evilly barbed wings. Qinefer was halfway to the camp, her soldiers close behind her, before any of the spawn had the sense to raise the alarm. Immediately the kraan took to the air, fluttering dopily upwards. Some of Qinefer's archers loosed off arrows at them, but as far as she could see none of the big batlike creatures was harmed. She settled herself behind her shield, and squeezed with her knees to urge Janos to even greater speed. She swooshed her sword in a great circle about her head, yelling wordless threats. And then she was among the enemy. Without mercy she cut down an unarmed giak that had been turning to flee. Impatiently she tugged her sword free of its flesh. At the last moment she sensed an arrow coming towards her, and raised her shield just in time to deflect it. Not letting herself think too rationally, she vowed that the archer would die beneath her sword, and adjusted her direction accordingly. With a metal-shod foot she kicked over one of the cauldrons so that its steaming contents spattered across the packed mud, further confusing the giaks; Qinefer saw that some of the pieces of "meat" were only too revoltingly recognizable. A sword lunged at her from beneath and she parried it reflexively, then jabbed her own blade deep into her assailant's head. The giak screamed thinly, and ichor spurted as it died. She put her foot on the dead face and hauled her sword away. She fended off a spear with her shield and chopped brutally downwards to split a giak skull, carrying on the movement to slash through a pair of guy-ropes; the tent they had been supporting began to collapse gracefully in upon itself. Someone behind her saw what was happening and deliberately scooped up a burning log from one of the fires, throwing it into the centre of the billowing fabric, which immediately went up in flames; giaks burst out through the blazing cloth and Qinefer ruthlessly cut them down. The archer who had shot at her before had clearly realized she was the most dangerous of the attackers, for it loosed another arrow in her direction, and then another. There was a great rushing sound in Qinefer's ears as she pressed Janos further and further into the fray, her eyes fixed coldly on the giak. A kraan tried to attack her from above, but almost casually she severed the tendons at the base of one of its

wings, and it tumbled flutteringly down to crash upon an open fire. Its shrieks momentarily distracted her so that she didn't see the next arrow coming. It shot past her face, its feathers cutting open the tip of her nose. The sting of the minor wound incensed her still further, and she vowed with redoubled determination that she would slay that archer if it was the last thing she did in this life. The first shock of surprise had worn off, and the giaks were beginning to form themselves up into an untidy fighting array. Reinforcements began to arrive from other parts of the camp, a couple of gourgaz among them. These large reptilian beasts were not only fearsome warriors themselves, they secreted a hormone that sent giaks into a blind battle-frenzy. Qinefer bit her lower lip in concern, allowing her body to obey its own controls to defend her as she concentrated on this new threat. Her orders had been to cut a swathe right through the encampment to the city, causing as much devastation as possible. The aim was not a tactical one; the hope was merely to demoralize Zagarna's hordes by demonstrating that the Sommlending of Holmgard were far from powerless. But now . . . she cursed beneath her breath. If they failed in their mission the whole venture would have the opposite effect: the citizens of Holmgard would be the ones to be demoralized, while the enemy would be confirmed in its collective opinion that the human resistance was at worst a temporary interruption. Added to that was the fact that she and her troops would be well and truly dead, which didn't fit in at all with Qinefer's master-plan for the future. She had promised Ulnar she would do anything in her power to preserve the men and women under her command, and she was not a person to treat her promises lightly. Moreover, the death wish that had been upon her in the early days after her family's murder had evaporated: the healthy feel of her moving limbs reminded her constantly how much in love she had fallen again with life. A sharp little giak sword, hacking at her leg; the chainmail took the worst of it, but the barbs could penetrate the loops at any moment. She swiftly chopped off her squat attacker's sword-arm; the giak stared stupidly at the gushing stump, and then burst into tears. The reaction -- so very human -- astonished Qinefer, and at the same time touched a chord in her heart. She had become accustomed to thinking of the spawn as nothing more than moving objects; it hadn't occurred to her that they might have anything akin to human emotions. Yet this giak was obviously weeping not from the pain but out of frustration -- like a runner whose ligaments have given out just a few yards from the end of the race. She ended the spawn's misery by chopping its head from its shoulders.

There was no time, now, for thought or for pity. She locked her reflections away in a remote compartment of her mind, so that later she could examine them at her leisure, and turned her thoughts to the immediate future. The skirmish was going well, so far as the Sommlending were concerned. It was difficult to make out through the melee of battle, but most of her soldiers seemed to be unscathed. She could see Klen struggling with all the ferocity of a cornered wildcat, yet his face was still as calm as if this were just another day's scouting. She envied him, at the same time wondering if that was the way he really felt, or if his face was just a mask concealing the same sort of mental turmoil she herself suffered. Absently she stabbed upwards into a kraan's abdomen. The trouble was that things were going to get worse rather than better, especially now that there were gourgaz present. She was almost upon "her" archer now, and an idea came to her. She cut her way rapidly through a gaggle of squealing giaks until there was nothing between her and the object of her loathing. The spawn was even now notching another arrow to its bow, seemingly oblivious to her presence. Her next move called for skill, and she waited until the moment was precisely right. The giak lowered its head briefly and she struck, piercing her sword forwards like a lance, so that its tip plunged straight through the creature's skull. It died instantly, without even a whimper, and as its body crumpled she withdrew her sword and hooked the bow up to her, clumsily catching it on the top of her shield. For the next few seconds she was occupied with beating off other attackers, but then she saw her opportunity to reach down with her sword and stab through the dead archer's quiver. Moments later it was clutched between her right leg and Janos's flank. Using the horse's bulk more than anything else, she forced her way through the struggling mob to a clearer space. Panting from her exertions, she shoved her bloodied sword unceremoniously back into its scabbard and clipped her shield to Janos's saddle. Controlling the horse with her knees, she fitted one of the stubby black giak arrows to the bowstring and looked around her for the nearest gourgaz. She had never confronted one of the beasts before; now that she came to look at it more steadily she was horrified by the strength and ruthlessness visible in its every action. If Naar had deliberately set out to design the perfect animated killing machine, then the result might not have been unlike the gourgaz. She'd been told that they were virtually invulnerable; she'd also been told that Lone Wolf had succeeded in slaying one -- which naturally increased her determination to kill more than

one; indeed, as many as possible. She sighted along the shaft of the arrow, speaking soothing words to Janos, knowing the horse couldn't hear her through the enveloping din of battle but hoping that the vibrations of her body would calm him. The gourgaz seemed to sense her attention, for it turned to look directly into her eyes. The slits of its pupils contracted as it saw her adjust the captured bow, making sure her aim was just as perfect as she could hope for it to be . . . The arrow seemed to cross the space between them in a timeless notime. One instant it was tensed against the taut string; the next it had embedded itself deeply in the gourgaz's eye, only its flight still protruding. The gourgaz let out a shriek, and all around it giaks froze into temporary immobility. Clearly she had slain it where it stood. The huge corpse fell faceforwards, crushing anything that lay in its path. Hoping her soldiers would follow suit, she urged her horse forwards, dragging her sword from its sheath and scything through the barely moving giaks. Shocked by the unheralded demise of their leader, the spawn were too bewildered to put up much of a fight. This isn't battle, she thought ruefully as her sword carved through the unresisting spawn, it's just butchery. Most of the tents in her immediate region were now on fire. Her soldiers were performing acts of individual heroism, and without really meaning to she smiled her approval. Klen was somewhere out of sight, but she could imagine him competently pushing forward through the screaming throngs. Another gourgaz reared up ahead of her, its forked tongue snaking hungrily between its leathery lips. There were no time for her to seize the bow; she would have to attack it armed only with her sword. She grabbed her shield, not looking, and was reassured to feel its handhold in her clasp. She swung her sword angrily and the blade clattered jarringly off the tough scales of the gourgaz's side. The beast pulled its leathery lips back from its discoloured teeth, almost as though it were grinning at her. Her wrist ached from the shock of the futile blow. Her brain sent a message to it, telling it to stop hurting at once, and to her surprise the pain disappeared. There was salty blood on her lips, blood running down from the wound on her nose. She spat it away. She knew for a certainty she was about to die -- about to be snatched up by those massive jaws and ground mercilessly between those voracious teeth. No matter how much her intellect told her this was merely a mental image projected by the gourgaz, her subconscious accepted the inevitability. She heard again the silence of her father as he had died, and remembered how that scene of savagery, too, had

been beyond her powers to alter. Now she could almost feel the teeth digging into her sides as she was hauled up high into the air and . . . She dropped her shield and her left hand, moving around under its own volition, groped for something else to hold. It seized upon the giak quiver -- a useless object. Useless. Or maybe it wasn't so useless . . . With renewed energy she began to hack and chop with her sword, aiming the blows at random, not daring to hope to do more than distract her enemy. Most of the blows were wasted ones, but a few struck home, gouging the vulnerable flesh of the gourgaz's belly. Clearly the beast was becoming irritated by the resistance of what it had assumed would be easy prey. Her left hand worked one of the stubby giak arrows out of the quiver and held it in readiness. The gourgaz leaned its head forwards, its mouth agape, intent on fastening upon the upper part of her body, eager to devour her. She slashed at its tongue with her sword, inflicting a minor wound. Then she forced herself backwards in her saddle, and threw the arrow directly into the gourgaz's great green throat. The arrowhead planted itself deeply in the base of the tongue, its shaft pointing directly upwards, just as she'd hoped. The gourgaz snarled in pain and anger, closing its jaws and driving the arrow deeper into the soft flesh. Now it howled in agony, and she took the opportunity to draw her sword rakingly across its eye. Her once-bright chainmail was spattered with yellow-green jelly as the eye burst open. Still the gourgaz lived, and its remaining eye focused vengefully on her. She permitted herself to smile at it, mockingly, knowing that despite all her premonitions the fight was nearly over. The beast was facing death, although it didn't know it yet. The only task left for her to do was save her own life. She prodded upwards with her sword, almost gently seeking out the tendons of the creature's throat. Ichor spurted, and she laughed. She tugged on Janos's reins and the horse retreated a few paces, gracefully, leaving room for the gourgaz to collapse into the welcoming arms of death. The giaks nearby became hysterical. Some rocked instantly into a rigor, their sensibilities unable to accept the fact of their leader's death. Others screamed with rudimentary grief and charged forwards suicidally to attack their Sommlending foes with any weapon that came to hand. There was a great cheer from Qinefer's soldiers as the gourgaz collapsed in front of her, and she waved her sword high in the air, signalling a mindless triumph she was far from in fact feeling. This was no longer anything even resembling a contest: this was a culling. The giaks were now as easy to slaughter as orphaned kittens, and the satisfaction she gained from the chore

was no greater. Once, twice, six and a dozen times her sword rose and fell, and each time ichor sprayed over the mound of giak corpses building up around her. Her forces soon were making good speed towards the walls of Holmgard, leaving behind them a broad band of destruction. Flames rolled angrily into the sky, their red fury black-edged, and the stench of burning spawn-flesh was everywhere. The kraan fled from the slaughter, leaving their land-bound comrades to perish in the carnage that Qinefer's troops wrought. If, she thought, I was cutting my way through a forest like this, I'd feel guilty for the branches I was severing. These creatures I'm cutting down must be more than branches -- must be -- and yet I feel nothing when they die beneath my blade. Yet at the same time I find guilt within me because I am feeling nothing. Still her sword rose and fell; still the giaks died. The soldiers faced little by way of concerted opposition after that, although some of their number died. When they drew near to Holmgard's outer defences there was a yell of welcome from within, and arrows showered down on the surrounding spawn. Out of the corner of her eye Qinefer saw one of her own soldiers spitted by a misdirected Holmgard arrow, and she tasted bile rising in her gorge. The person who had loosed that arrow would sleep well tonight, totally oblivious of the fact that he or she had slain a friend, smug in the satisfaction of having played a part in a triumphant military operation. And there would be others, too, within Holmgard who would feel contented with the outcome of the dusk raid, and congratulate themselves for the part they would dream they had played. People who hadn't been out here in the middle of the pain and the stink and the noise. She wished them the worst nightmares she could conceive. And then she was inside the stockade walls, with eager hands pulling her down from Janos's back, soft words huffing and tutting over the tiny wounds she'd sustained. She was barely aware of the fact that the rest of her soldiers were likewise being given a hero's welcome. Once she was sure Janos was being properly treated she pushed her way through the crowds, cursing bitterly at anyone who got in her way, heading for the military quarters and the genuineness of the welcome she knew would be waiting for her there. It was, indeed, a fine welcome. Her fellow-soldiers helped her out of her chainmail, and a couple of them urged her into a hot, steaming bath, where with expertly kneading fingers they helped her soothe the aches from her limbs. Once her muscles had fully relaxed they assisted her out of the water and dried her off briskly; then they -- these nameless, almost faceless,

attendants of hers -- folded her into a towelling gown and led her to where an open fire was crackling and leaping with warmth. This is just like the way I saw it in my mind before the battle, she thought as a mug of mead was pushed into her hands. Now I can start to tell Klen the tale of how I killed not just a single gourgaz, like Lone Wolf, but two of them. And he can tell me of his own valour, and before the night is out I'll have killed a hundred gourgaz with my bare hands, and he'll have been using giak swords as toothpicks, and both of us will know how much we're lying but by then we won't give a damn for the truth. She took a long, satisfying gulp of the mead, and felt its warmth working down her throat and into her stomach. She pushed her feet forwards to enjoy the heat from the blazing logs. The air was full of words of praise for her courage and her combat skills, but she ignored them. Some people were sleeping where they were, and most had gone off to bed, when she realized that Klen still hadn't joined her. She had drunk enough mead that her brain was functioning only slowly, but it gradually became obvious to her that Klen would not be celebrating their victory tonight -- that he would never again celebrate a victory with her. She looked balefully at the fire. Earlier she had smiled approvingly at its warm flames, but now she saw in them the incineration of flailing giaks, their miserable unlamented deaths. Klen was gone, she recognized. That was it. His story was over. Somewhere out in the encampments of the Darklords' spawn an arrow had struck home, or the point of a sword had found its mark. The competent smile would now be contorted into a final rictus of pain. She hoped his death had been a swift one. No one saw her as she picked herself up out of her chair and wandered off miserably in search of her bunk.

4 Welcome to Ragadorn 1 It was cold and yet it burned him, the lance someone had thrust down his throat. It tasted of salt, and seemed to be made of blood. His lungs wanted to explode out from the prison of his ribs, splintering the bones and tearing the flesh. A freezing hand was wrapped across his eyes, blinding him. His body felt so heavy and beaten that all he wanted to do was to stretch it out to relax, allow himself to float downwards and away from all this pain . . . Paradoxically, it was the dragging weight of his weapons that made him struggle upwards through the clinging chill of the water. His head broke the surface to find a world that was ill lit by a silver beacon in the sky, where tormented motion stretched from one bleak horizon to the other. His eyes were filled with painful tears as he gagged and coughed, hot-tasting sea water pouring from his throat. Sometimes he seemed to be at the bottom of a gigantic bowl made of black water; at other times he rode proud above the waves before being crashed back downwards again. He couldn't remember how he'd got here, who he was -- nothing before his sudden birth beneath the water's surface. From time to time he could make out through the spray a distant ghost-ship which was slowly being battered to pieces by the wind and the waves. He wasn't alone, he discovered. There were other pieces of debris dancing the wave-crests with him. Planks of broken wood, cups and bottles, even a finely carved armchair. It occurred to him that there was some sort of qualitative difference between these items of flotsam and himself, but for a while he couldn't puzzle out what it was. Then he realized that he was living, whereas they were nonliving, which he dimly recalled was a quite distinct state of existence. Chairs did not hike through forests or fight in battles, two activities in which he could hazily remember having taken part himself. There was an urgent punch on his shoulder, and he turned his head to see who was trying to attract his attention. There was no one there, and somehow that seemed perfectly natural. Instead there was a massive wooden object, which seemed to have taken it into its mind to make friends with him. He was delighted to comply, and introduced himself to it as he hauled himself half up onto it. A person needed all the friends he could get in the cold and noisy world. He realized with annoyance that he had told his new friend his name, automatically, during his introductions, but had forgotten to take a note of it himself. Now his friend knew his name but he didn't: this

was very unfair, and hardly a sound basis on which to build a friendship. Furthermore, the wooden object was stolidly refusing to tell him its own name. Maybe it didn't have a name and was too embarrassed to admit it? He threw up generously as he pondered this, idly reflecting that the cook's dinner tasted little worse the second time than it had the first. The cook's dinner! The grim meal and then all of Kelman's crazy talk and the game of samor, and Brel waking him up in the middle of the night and the ship was called the Green Sceptre and he was on his way to Durenor with the Seal of Hammerdal because King Ulnar wanted him to fetch the Sommerswerd to slay Zagarna who was trying to destroy Sommerlund . . . and his name, his name was Lone Wolf! Lone Wolf. That was it. He repeated the name several times to his friend, showing off the fact that he had this vital piece of information. When the friend didn't seem impressed he threw up again; he could swear that this time he detected just a flicker of admiration from his friend for this clever trick. No, there was something wrong here. The thing he was clinging to wasn't a friend at all. It was an inanimate object. How dare it disguise itself as a sentient being and pretend to be his friend! It was only a lousy old . . . hatch cover. A hatch cover. And if he was very lucky, and if he remembered to keep holding onto it, there was just a chance it might save his life. He had all his memories now, but his mind seemed to be operating at only half its normal pace. He'd been thrown overboard when the mast broke; something must have hit him, because there was a painful area above and behind his right ear. He couldn't remember when that had happened, though; maybe he'd swum into something in the water. It suddenly dawned on him that there might be other people in the water who didn't have a hatch cover to look after them. Those people, if there were any, might like to come and join him here. Perhaps they could tell a few jokes or something to pass the time away until the morning, when everything would be somehow easier. He knew he would enjoy some company himself, because frankly it was getting to be pretty tedious holding onto the hatch cover and being thrown all over the world by the waves. A little intelligent conversation -- that was what he wanted. A nice warm fire would be a good idea, too, because now that he came to think of it he was extremely cold. "Anyone there?" he shouted, and he seemed to see the words printed in huge grey-white letters on the sky. But the wind took them almost immediately and blew them to pieces. He shouted a few more times, listening carefully each time, but the only answer was the whooping cry of

the wind and the deeper bellow of the waters. He caught one last glimpse of the Green Sceptre; she seemed to be foundering, but he was too far away and the light too poor for him to be certain. Time passed. The moon passed the zenith of its arc and headed down towards the western horizon. The wind dropped off and the waters calmed. He was aware that this could be only the eye of the storm, and that soon he might be tortured by the elements yet again, but his mind was too numbed by cold and fatigue to care very much about what the future might hold. He had difficulty enough encompassing the present and the past. He shivered and shuddered as he clung to the hatch cover, all sensation gone from his hands. The colour of the darkness seemed to be changing. No, that must be wrong. Darkness couldn't have any colour. He seemed to be able to recognize a little more of the things that were around him. The texture of the hatch cover's rough, soaked wood, for example. He could make out a knothole and a pinkish smear. He could see that his hands were a dead-looking greyish-greenish blue, the quicks under the nails a pinched blue-white. He looked around him and saw that dawn was breaking, the sun sending streamers of pale orange and green across the sky, tinting the edges of small docile clouds. With the sunlight came a burst of optimism. He'd survived, hadn't he? All the wrath of the elements had been directed towards him, yet somehow he'd managed to pull through. Lone Wolf -- the invulnerable, the unkillable! Immediately afterwards the crushing thought came to him that he was lost and alone in the middle of the broad Kaltersee, that it would be a race between thirst, starvation and the cold to see which could end his life first. No, he wasn't entirely alone. About fifty yards away there was someone else, a large figure clutching a length of the Green Sceptre's mast, perhaps the very same length which had been responsible for him being pitched overboard. The man -- he was fairly certain it was a man -- seemed to be unconscious, maybe dead. Lone Wolf yelled but there was no response. He tried again: still nothing. Perhaps he could save this man's life? He dragged himself up to lie belly-down on the hatch cover, and began to paddle with his hands, thanking Ishir and Kai in turn for the fact that he could no longer feel the cold of the sea. It seemed to take him an eternity to move his makeshift raft, but it was difficult to judge because the water was so featureless. Every now and then he stopped paddling and raised his head to see if he was coming any nearer to this other survivor. It was a slow process, but he seemed indeed to be drawing closer.

And then there came the time when his hatch cover nudged the man's back. This produced a reaction. A bleary head was raised, and a pair of reddened eyes focused with difficulty on Lone Wolf's face. With difficulty he recognized Captain Kelman: the frizz of hair had been drawn into a smear of colour by the water. "Ah," said Kelman, "I knew I'd find you here, and by the very excreta of my grandmother I have." The voice was a travesty of the captain's boom. It was clear he was only moments away from death, and Lone Wolf scrabbled towards him, trying to haul his body up to lie on the hatch cover. All he succeeded in grabbing was a fistful of water-sogged uniform, which he threw disgustedly away into the sea. "Made a wager," said Kelman dreamily. "Made a wager on a game of samor. Told you I'd give you something val . . . val . . ." -- he coughed some bright blood -- "something val-u-ab-ull in a bottle. Not let it be said Kelman ever failed to pay his debts. Take. Go on, take." From a pocket he produced a small stone bottle. "I don't need any wanlo," said Lone Wolf, snatching again at Kelman's shoulder, trying to lug him nearer. "Not wanlo. Great gift. Gift of Tongues. Never used it myself -- never needed to. One tongue good enough. Given me . . . onceatime . . . magician . . . Didn't want. Give you now." "Move to me. There's room here for both of us." "No . . . isn't. Ship gone, life gone. Knew it would end one day like this. But didn't want to go leaving debt unpaid. Kelman always pay his gambling . . ." Lone Wolf snatched at the man's floating hair, trying to drag him across to the hatch cover, but Kelman clung tightly to the piece of mast. Slippery from the wet, the hair tugged itself easily out of Lone Wolf's grasp, lacerating his fingers. He saw the bulge of blood but felt nothing. "Lost . . . ship . . . lost" -- another burst of blood -- "and lost crew. Dead. Drowned. 'Cause of you. Excuse me, want to hate you. Can't. Your fault. But take bottle. Want to die. Life been long enough. Ishir, have mercy on the worst of all your creations and let me die." Suddenly Kelman was lucid, his eyes moving urgently in his deathmask face. "I wish you well, my young friend," he said. "I hope you achieve what it is that you want to achieve: the driving of these Naar-born bastards from Sommerlund. My gift -- my gift in a bottle -- will help you. It's the Gift of Tongues . . . said that already . . . Gift of Tongues, and just a sip will let you speak in any language you choose."

Lone Wolf took the bottle and at the same time seized the captain's hand. Kelman shook himself free. "Very sorry to turn down the kind invitation," he said, "but, well, you see, I've got to die now. Ship died. Crew died. Each take their turn. My turn now." His face contorted into a terrible smile. "'Bye, young friend," he said. Painstakingly Kelman unwrapped his arm from the pole to which it had been clinging and sank beneath the water. 2 It was a long while later that Lone Wolf noticed there was another vessel cruising easily on what was now a placid sea. It was moving easily from place to place, and he could see it was picking up items of wreckage from the floating debris that had once been the Green Sceptre. From the position of the sun in the sky he inferred that it must now be late afternoon; he'd lost all track of the hours he'd spent staring at the water, willing it to return Captain Kelman to him. But now he recognized that his friend was gone forever, and he remembered the man's dying wish -- that Lone Wolf should succeed in his aim, his aim of freeing Sommerlund. Muddily he recalled King Ulnar's similar instructions, but Kelman's garbled words were more vivid in his mind. He needed the help of these scavengers. With some difficulty -- cursing his limbs, which were so reluctant to obey his orders -- he pulled himself to his feet, standing shakily on top of the hatch cover. He pulled his sodden cloak from his shoulders and waved it slowly from side to side, calling weakly for help. To his surprise he vomited yet again; he'd assumed his belly was well and truly empty. After he'd finished he straightened up and renewed his efforts to wave his cape. It was heavy from the sea water, and he found it difficult to raise it, but he forced the muscles of his arms to cooperate. He could see the exact moment when the crew of the vessel noticed him. Where before the boat had been merely drifting at random, now its sails were made taut, and its prow turned in his direction. He collapsed limply down on the hatch cover, his cloak smacking his back as it fell on top of him. Someone was tugging at his arm. He shook off the disturbance, The pull came again. He looked up and saw the bruised and battered face of a seaman. The man had one arm outstretched to clutch at Lone Wolf, the other reaching behind him to hold the hand of another sailor, who had wedged

himself against the deck railing of the small vessel. It occurred to Lone Wolf that his life was in the process of being saved. A pretty thought. He rather liked it. If only this interfering sailor would let go of him . . . Suddenly he grasped the man's arm, and allowed himself to be dragged away from the hatch cover. Within moments he was on the deck of what he now recognized as a fishing boat. He was unable to stand, and crumpled inelegantly into a sitting position, looking around him at the bits and pieces which the crew had salvaged from the wreck of the Green Sceptre. His gaze fixed on one item, a wooden leg; it seemed a tragedy to him that, somewhere beneath the waves, there was a sailor who had journeyed into whatever land lay beyond death missing a limb. Poor fellow, but maybe Ishir would shine healing on him, give him a new leg . . . Darkness rushed in upon his vision from all sides. A torrent of voices grew ever shriller until the noise was lost to him. And after that there was only a confusion of brightly illuminated images that seemed to make no sense to him, fragmented faces mixed in with some abstract patterns of glittering light . . . 3 He was in a warm bunk and someone was holding his head up and trying to spoon lukewarm broth into his mouth. Most of it ran down his chin to be soaked up by the blankets, but some of it he was able to swallow. His stomach protested, but retained the thick liquid. Soon it became accustomed to the idea, and he found he was rapaciously hungry. Cursing the fuzziness of his vision, he reached out for the bowl and the spoon. As he fed himself, his sight cleared and he saw he was in a small cabin. The wooden walls were greasy with long-ingrained filth, and every surface was covered in a slick layer of damp grime. Clearly this was no luxury-class vessel. The bowl was made of roughly moulded pottery, and the spoon of hastily carved wood. He noticed this because suddenly both of them were empty. He turned to look at the man crouching beside the bunk; it was the same person who had hauled him up from the hatch cover. "More," pleaded Lone Wolf, his voice rusty from lack of use. "No. No more now." "Hungry."

"Happen you are. Been in the sea long?" "Forever." "Merchant?" "No, I'm a . . ." It came to Lone Wolf that perhaps he shouldn't tell too much about himself until he'd established whether these people were friends or foes. "I'm a traveller, a pilgrim. I've been sent on a quest by my priests." "Indeed. I always did like a good story." "Sorry?" "No more a pilgrim than I am. A wealthy man, you are." The sailor gestured towards a corner of the cabin, where Lone Wolf's weapons were tumbled in a disorganized heap. "Good weapons," the sailor continued. "Worth a lot of money. And a lot of money in your pouch." Sickly, Lone Wolf saw that his purse was on the floor beside his sword and axe, opened to reveal the warm glow of gold within. "Tokens," he said. "My priests told me to take tokens to Hammerdal, to offer them up to the shrine of Kai." "Try again." "Don't you believe me?" "No." "Oh." "You're a warrior, you are. But not so much of a warrior. Took what you could and deserted." "No -- no, that's not true." "Think I'm a child? Zagarna's overrun Sommerlund. Place for anyone your age is fighting in the army. Don't tell me they overlooked someone as strong as you! No. You ran away from the fighting, caught a ship. Not the first we've pulled from the sea these last few days. Scum." "You're wrong, I tell you!" It was supposed to be a shout, but he hadn't the strength for it. He realized that his weak words sounded like a confession of guilt. "I've been sent . . . sent to Durenor." It hardly seemed worth carrying on speaking, because it was obvious the sailor didn't believe anything he said. Still he forced the next words out: "Must reach Durenor." "Bad luck. We're not going to Durenor. This ship be out of Ragadorn." Lone Wolf caught his breath. He'd heard dark tales of Ragadorn, the port and only major city of the Wildlands. According to the stories, a life was worth little more than a handful of sweetmeats there. Perhaps less. The nation had once been Northern Cloeasia, but during the formation of the Maakengorge, many miles to the west, the land had been devastated so that

now it was largely desert. Of all its once-great cities, only Ragadorn had survived. Like wasps around a honey-pot, the criminal classes of many lands had circled in upon the port, knowing that there their crimes would be forgotten. Theoretically the port was ruled by the laws laid down by the Overlord Lachlan, but it was widely known that this was merely a cosmetic matter. Ragadorn was a jungle -- no, worse than any jungle. "But I need to go to Durenor!" Lone Wolf protested miserably. "For the sake of Sommerlund!" "Have to make your way overland," said the fisherman. "Going to take you some while, once you've lost your weapons and your gold." It took a second or two for the meaning of the words to sink into Lone Wolf's consciousness. "In other words," he said slowly, "you're telling me that you and your . . . colleagues . . . are going to rob me?" "Quick as a flash today, aren't we?" "Thanks. Thanks for saving my life." Lone Wolf spat in disgust. "Though I don't know why you bothered. Why didn't you just take my belongings and throw my body back into the sea?" "Maybe you're worth more alive." "In what way?" "Happen you might be a prince's son. But I don't think you are. Still, you're a strong enough lad. Get a good price for you in the slave market, we will." "Not if you starve me to death, you won't." "Aye. True. I'll fetch you something more." Left on his own, Lone Wolf tried to beat his mind into thinking about how he could escape. It seemed impossible. He had little idea about where in the sea the vessel might be. Still, lying here on the bunk wasn't getting him anywhere; despite the fact that he was warm and comfortable for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, he must force himself to get up and pull on his clothes. His legs, he found, were still very weak. He put his weight on them cautiously, consciously controlling their trembling. His tunic and cape had been draped over a chair, and some effort seemed to have been made to dry them out; however, they were still clammy to his touch, and it took him a major effort of will to pull himself into them. His boots were even worse, seeming to snatch at his feet with their cold dampness. Once he was dressed he took a few exploratory paces up and down, listening to his clothing squeak and squelch. He clasped his belt around his waist, and felt the friendly weight of his sword dragging at his left hip; soon it was balanced by

his axe on the right. The Seal of Hammerdal he found in his money-pouch, and he slipped it onto his finger before tucking the pouch itself away in an inner chest pocket. The little stone bottle that Kelman had given him had been put on a shelf; he snugged it down inside his pouch. He caught sight of his face in a foxed mirror on the cabin wall and grimaced; if it weren't for the fact that he knew he was alive he would very much have doubted it. He had the pallor of a ghost. The door creaked open and the fisherman backed in, carrying a tray on which there was another bowl of broth. The man was startled when he saw that the bunk was empty, and then turned to face Lone Wolf. His eyes narrowed. "Brave fellow," he said sarcastically. "Didn't think you'd be able to move from your bed. No use, though. Still can't go anywhere, 'less you want us to throw you back into the sea." Lone Wolf could think of nothing he less wanted; the very thought of cold water made him dizzy with loathing. "Since I can't escape anyway," he said, thinking swiftly, "then it doesn't make much difference if I'm up and dressed, does it?" The fisherman pondered for a few seconds. "No . . ." he said eventually. "Can't see as how it could. If the captain says it's all right." He left him with the broth, and Lone Wolf gulped it down noisily, hardly tasting the boiled meat and vegetables, knowing only that it was spreading warmth through his body. He licked the last dregs from the bowl, and realized he was starting to feel a little like a human being. Brightness came to his eyes as he looked around him. He remembered the glorious feeling of invulnerability that had swept through him when he'd discovered he'd survived the night, and something of the same emotion came to him now. He was alive -- very much so -- and as long as he lived there was the possibility that somehow he could succeed in his mission. He threw open the cabin door and found that it faced directly onto the boat's sordid deck. There seemed to be no one else around. There was no sound, either, except the relaxed creaking of the timbers as the vessel coasted easily through the small, gentle waves. No -- he was wrong. From the direction of the stern he could hear the murmur of voices. He worked his way along the deck, moving as quietly as he could. Soon he could make out words. He recognized one of the voices as belonging to the sailor who had been feeding him the thick soup. "Captain, he seems a good enough lad. Don't like to sell him. Some of

the swine in Ragadorn -- who knows what they'd want him for?" The thin pleading of the fisherman was replaced by a gruffer voice. "Nothing to do with us what they do with him," it said. "Business be business. Quick sale. Money on the nail. After that he's none of our responsibility." "Could be he'd be worth more to us if we held onto him? Strong fellow like him. Good crewman, I'd guess." "We got enough crew. Only need the four of us, little ship like this. 'Nother mouth to feed. Besides, might not want to join us. No, we sell 'm to the slavers." "I like him." The fisherman seemed from his tone of voice to be astonished to find himself making the confession. "Y' like your sister, too." An insinuating guffaw. "Still 'd sell her for a fistful of gold, given chance, wouldn't you?" "Don't like sister that much. Anyone sold her to 'd want to kill me after. Tongue like a hacksaw." "Beside point." The captain's voice was becoming impatient. "True. Still like boy, though. Also . . . don't know, but have feeling things go wrong if we sell him. Things go bad for us." "You! Frightened of own shadow, each new day." A contemptuous bellow. "I listen to voice telling me things, Captain," said the fisherman. "You not shout at me last night, I say rich pickings on the sea. You put out, look what all we got. Much fine stuff." "And the boy." "And boy. Respect to you, Captain, but I ask we let boy free in Ragadorn. He want to go to Durenor -- let him go." "Why? Your voice again?" "Yes. My voice." The captain made a series of grumbling noises, as if arguing with himself. Eventually: "Right. We free boy. Hope your voice speaks truth. But we take his weapons, money. Not leave with weapons or might follow us, do damage us." Lone Wolf walked firmly forwards until he was standing only a few feet away from the two men. "I could," he said tightly, "start by settling with you right now." He tugged his sword from its scabbard. If the captain was surprised by Lone Wolf's sudden appearance he hid it well. He was a big man, as Kelman had been, but there the resemblance ended. His head was completely bald, and a tattoo of a spitting dragon

ornamented his forehead. He was dressed in a ragged uniform, which fitted him poorly and which, Lone Wolf guessed, had once belonged to someone else. "Our passenger taking air," said this giant of a man calmly. He smiled courteously, as if he were greatly honoured by Lone Wolf's presence. "Glad to see you've recovered from ordeal." "I thank you," said Lone Wolf, "but I should tell you I've been listening to much of your conversation." The captain eyed him up and down. "Aye, and perhaps you have," he said. He suddenly looked very interested. "Tell me," he added, his voice brightening, "what you do in my position?" "I'm not in your position." "But if y' were," the captain insisted. "I'd turn this craft around and head for Port Bax," Lone Wolf replied. "No. No, no, no. Can't go Port Bax. Too many people there, urm, remember me. Can't imagine why." He chuckled -- a sinister sound. "You needn't dock in Port Bax," said Lone Wolf a little desperately. "You could anchor off-shore and let me row into the port." "That what you'd do in my place?" "Yes." "Not what I'd do. What I'd do is keep you talking some moments, let one of my sailors creep up behind you, knock you unconscious. Sorry." But Lone Wolf didn't hear the word "sorry". 4 He awoke to find that it was night again. The boat was moving slowly between the banks of a broad river. From the profusion of lights on either side Lone Wolf guessed they must be coming into Ragadorn. His hands and feet had been tightly tied, and a rough cloth gag bit into the corner of his mouth. He'd been dumped unceremoniously on the deck. His shoulders and the base of his back ached from the hardness of the boards. He struggled against the knots for a moment or two, and then realized it was useless. On the other hand . . . he remembered how, in the tavern before he'd left Holmgard, he'd been able to cure the gash on his hand solely through the exercise of his willpower. Clearly the Kai skills that had been latent within him since birth were beginning to emerge. He wished for the thousandth time that he'd listened more carefully to the teachings of

Storm Hawk. Some of the Kai, he knew, had been able to control inanimate objects through the force of their minds. It was an ability which, like the other abilities, was present inside everybody but which only rarely could be brought out into the open and put to use. He tried to imagine that the ropes which bound him were really just extensions of his body -- as if they were additional fingers which he could manipulate as he wanted to. To his surprise, he began to succeed almost immediately. The sensation was exceptionally . . . curious. He had additional extremities which were made not of flesh and bone but of crudely stranded hemp. He could feel the way those extremities felt, pressed against the surfaces of his wrists and ankles, pinching and bruising the skin. The knots in the ropes felt to him for all the world like crossed fingers, and all he had to do was uncross them. His first attempts, though, were unsuccessful. Obviously it was easier to append the ropes to the rest of his body than to persuade them to obey his commands. It wasn't as if they were actively resisting his instructions -more that they were baffled by the concept of motion. He concentrated all of his mental energies on the cords binding his wrists together behind his back, and felt them respond sluggishly, wriggling in bewilderment like an earthworm that has been unwittingly brought to the surface by the turn of a spade. He focused his mind even more intently. The ropes moved again and then, all of a sudden, one of the knots popped asunder. Sweat poured across his forehead from the effort; a small part of him wondered if it wouldn't have been easier simply to strain his muscles and burst the ropes apart. As soon as the image surfaced he suppressed it; he would never have had the physical strength to bring that about. Besides, the cords that were now a part of his body protested fiercely about the idea of being so savagely disrupted. He cringed, feeling the illusion of their pain -- as if he'd been contemplating breaking his own fingers. The ropes seemed to be trying to punish him for the callousness of his thought, because for a few more minutes they refused to cooperate. Lone Wolf spent the time watching the lights of Ragadorn drift by in the night's blackness. Clearly the ship was coming closer to the heart of the port, for now the lights were grouped more tightly together, forming lines which he recognized as streets. The occasional shout or scream echoed its way across the water to him; someone fired a rocket into the air, celebrating who knew what, and he looked on with dispassionate interest as it erupted into a pattern of multicoloured stars, lighting up the sky.

The ropes had forgiven him, at last, for now they were beginning to move of their own volition. Whoever had tied the knots had been no expert, for they were merely tangles of higgledy-piggledy cord. If anything, that made it even more difficult for the ropes to extricate themselves from their jumble. Still they persevered, and he could feel the pressure on his wrists relax. Soon he was able to pull his hands out of the coils completely; remembering to show courtesy, he bade a solemn mental farewell to the ropes as he discarded them. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, ignoring the screams of his hands as the blood came coursing back into them, and began to pull at the cords around his ankles. It was difficult work, because his fingers were reporting false impressions to his brain, but finally he succeeded in untangling the knots there, too. Moments later he'd reached behind his head to loose his gag. He was weaponless -- once again his sword and his axe had been taken from him. His leather pouch of gold had been taken, too, and the Seal of Hammerdal was no longer on his finger. He cursed the stupidity of the fishermen: didn't they realize that, once Zagarna had totally subjugated Sommerlund, the Darklord's next step was bound to be the conquest of the Wildlands, as a staging post on the way to the destruction of Durenor? These men would probably die at the stake, their last moments a maelstrom of gleeful giak screams; didn't they know this? And then it came to him that, even if the captain had been able to recognize this, he would still have acted in exactly the same way; his business was to make rapid and easy profits, not to think of the repercussions in the long term. As he rubbed his wrists and ankles together, Lone Wolf allowed a few of his thoughts to scatter themselves over the phenomenon of human greed. It was a little while before he found the honesty to acknowledge that he, too, was governed to a great extent by greed: he wanted the congratulations of King Ulnar and the cheers of the Sommlending people; he wanted Qinefer to be by his side, telling him that he'd saved Magnamund from slavery and worshipping him with her eyes; he wanted so very much to be a hero. These were the selfish drives which had brought him here, a tattered refugee on the stinking deck of an old fishing vessel that had probably seen its full share of bloodshed. Some hero! When Kelman had been talking about the game of Life it had been easy enough for Lone Wolf to accept intellectually that he was one of the pieces moved about the board by the gods, but his emotions had feigned to him that all of this was just a way of picturing things. Now he saw himself for what he was -- a seeker after adulation, rather than someone who struggled that Good might prevail

for its own sake. You underestimate yourself, said Alyss's voice inside him. Denigrating yourself is the easy option. Much easier than accepting the fact that the future of Magnamund depends on you. At least in part. You! he thought. You keep intruding into my life! If you're so blasted all-mighty, why don't you simply kill Zagarna and his trebly-accursed spawn? If I could, I would, Alyss responded wearily. But that's something I cannot do. I have to rely on halfwits like you to carry the fight to the Darklord. You and that somewhat amusing little fellow Banedon, not that I really care a fig for him, you understand. I really don't. Oh, and Qinefer, of course: now, she's something different. I could see myself becoming very good friends with Qinefer. A pity that her thread continues for such a short distance into the tapestry of the future. Lone Wolf's face creased in anger. You lie! Well, a little bit. I've been known to, you know. But she can't survive long unless you do the right things over the next few days. Some time soon she must die in battle, unless, of course, you end the siege by returning to Holmgard with the Sommerswerd. Lone Wolf suddenly laughed. You're about as subtle as a hole in the head, Alyss, he thought loudly. All you want me to do is carry out the mission Ulnar set for me -- so you tell me Qinefer's life depends upon it. Which it probably does. So what? All I want to do right now is find somewhere a long way away from here where I can lie in a warm bed and get a bit of a rest from staring death in the eyes. True. Very true. That sort of attitude makes you a bit boring, you know. Aaaah . . . go away! I don't need your help! No, for the moment you probably don't. Anyway, I've got enough on my hands right now stopping Zagarna from capturing Holmgard without having to think about you. Oh, here's a little treat for you. For a moment there was a brilliant picture of Qinefer's face in his mind, and then it was gone again. She's pretty, he admitted, meaning much more. Shame you're not a bit prettier, came Alyss's waspish thought. You're going to find things a bit tricky for the next few days, and you'll get hurt a lot, but it looks as though you're going to be OK. "Looks as though"? Yes. Well. We do our best, you know. I'd be quite surprised if you died.

That's less than one hundred percent reassuring. Oh, such a pity! Poor little fellow! Do you think your life's so thunderingly important that the gods would sit down and worry about whether or not it was definitely going to be saved? I have my doubts about the gods, thought Lone Wolf, remembering Kelman's ideas. I wouldn't if I were you. Anyway, enough of this. You're not going to enjoy Ragadorn a lot, whatever happens. But I wish you the best of it. She was gone from his mind, and he couldn't work out if he was pleased or depressed by the fact. He was back in the reality of the fishing boat's deck, his ankles and his wrists shouting at him for mercy. He sent messages to them, wishing the pain away, and slowly it retreated. There was a bright pool of light ahead of the vessel now, and he could make out the dark moving shapes of human beings. The ship was going to dock within the next few minutes, and then its crew would come looking for him. He was without any weapons except his own arms and legs, and he thought it improbable that he could fight the sailors off unaided -- it was just possible that the fisherman who'd fed him the broth might enlist on his side, but he thought it unlikely; after all, the man had given him no warning when his fellow had been creeping up behind. Yet perhaps he'd been wrong. In the half-light he saw that the fisherman was making his way along the deck towards him. The man was astonished to discover that Lone Wolf had slipped out of his bonds. "Not happy see you sold for slave," he hissed. "Not too happy myself," Lone Wolf confirmed. "Want to climb off deck, into water, swim to port, easy as it can be?" "That seems like a good idea." "I tell rest you strong and overpower me. I good liar. I like you, don't know why." Privately Lone Wolf conjectured that Alyss had been tampering with the man's mind, but of course he said nothing of this. "I not want reward, only your sword and axe and money, already taken. Too late. I have those. You not worry. Easy kill someone in Ragadorn and take weapons. I help, if you like." "I don't want to kill anyone," said Lone Wolf stiffly. "I've had a sufficiency of killing." "As wish." Those were the last words the fisherman spoke. Behind him suddenly loomed the captain and two other men. One of them was bearing a great

billet of wood, which he swung in a vicious arc to knock Lone Wolf's friend flat on the deck. The fisherman let out a hard grunt of surprise, then collapsed. Lone Wolf leapt to his feet, seeking reflexively for his weapons . . . which of course weren't there. "Want you die," said the captain, a grin on his face, "but you be better for us living. You be good bumboy slave. We . . ." The three men snickered. Lone Wolf might have been back in the Good Cheer Inn on Holmgard docks. One of them stepped forward and aimed a kick at Lone Wolf's head. Lone Wolf tried to twist out of the way, but it was much too late. The boot impacted his temple, bruising the bone. The ship was pulling up to the side of a wharf, and Lone Wolf tried to shout something -- a few words, anything. He saw the fishermen throwing out a gangplank, and he found himself unable to stir. The man who had halfway befriended him moved unsteadily with the others -- none of them seeming to bear each other any illwill. There was someone returning to him along the deck, and he reckoned it was the captain. The man had decided, surely, that the wisest move was to allow Lone Wolf to go free -- that was the only possible explanation. At least it was until Lone Wolf felt the captain's hand lift his head up and lovingly press a knife against his throat. "Sorry, young warrior. Decided after all can't risk you following me. Welcome to Ragadorn. Welcome and . . . farewell." A small laugh in the chilly moonlight. The blade slit Lone Wolf's throat, and his life fled from him.

5 The Dance Alyss felt the snuffing out of Lone Wolf's life as a distinct click! She had been circling over Zagarna's fortress of Kaag, having tracked Vonotar there, pouring her concentrated hatred down upon the vast edifice while at the same time expending much of her effort in the defence of Holmgard. It had become obvious to her that, despite her knowledge, Vonotar was somewhere else, And then she experienced that click! This wasn't part of her script. However much she'd insulted Lone Wolf, she knew the importance of saving his life. If he were dead she might as well throw in the towel. Dead he certainly was. The story was over. Now she was free to retreat to the furthest parts of the polycosmos, there to rejoice in her independence from the fate of Aon and of this small, insignificant world, Magnamund. The prospect tempted her. But there were reasons she couldn't give up that easily -- two reasons, to be precise: Qinefer and Banedon. She'd never meant to become so involved in the affairs of mortals; however, she found she was in some way morally allied with these two, especially Banedon, and she couldn't simply desert them. They were hers -- they relied upon her -- she was committed to them. But Lone Wolf was dead! No hope, no possibilities, no anything. She knew she could change the shape of the future -- and even of the past -- but the alterations she was permitted to make were only minor ones. For example, she couldn't simply kill Zagarna. She could make it easier for others to do so, but she couldn't do it herself. Ishir, she thought miserably, I seem to have failed you, gracious one. The Moon Goddess heard her thought, and responded. Alyss, I've seen so many deaths before. Death is but a temporary interruption between stages of living. Goddess, what you say may be philosophically interesting and all, but I need more help than that! I'm down here on Magnamund, not cocooned in some abstract immortality! What's a mere moment to you? Just a million years or so down here! I detect sarcasm in your thoughts, Alyss. Of course you damn' well can! I feel sarcastic! The Young Kai Lord is the key to the future of Magnamund. He's lying with his throat cut on some

stinking little shambles of a ship in some stinking shambles of a port! How can you be so complacent? Mortals die when their throats are cut! I can understand your concern, Alyss . . . No -- no! You can't understand at all! When was the last time that you died? Never at all, if I could take a wild flying guess. It is not given to the gods to die . . . No, the gods don't permit themselves to die. They enjoy watching their pawns suffer for them. Isn't that the game? Ishir refused to reply. She had always found Alyss interesting before, but now it was clear that the goddess was beginning to think of her as an irreverent gadfly. Alyss moved herself towards Toran. The city had been devastated by the firebombs dropped upon it by the hordes of Zagarna. Proud buildings had crumbled down into servile dust. Only the Guildhall of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star and a few of the other Guild buildings still reared their heads above the smouldering wreckage. She felt herself ease into the existence of Toran, and found herself looking at the Brotherhood's Guildmaster -- the grey-bearded old man was tickling a cat -- and at Banedon. She materialized as a girl. Her eyes were green and her hair red and short. Without knowing why she was doing so, she found herself dancing to entertain the two men. Her feet measured out predetermined paces, and she crossed the floor in steady precision. Banedon and the Guildmaster looked at her dumbfounded, wondering why she was performing like this. She didn't know why herself. It was the way, she imagined, that people of her abilities behaved: there was no more to it than that. Lone Wolf's dead. Never forget. She drew Banedon into her dance, willing him to join her, hoping he could match his paces with her own. At first he shuffled incompetently, but then he began to pick up her steps and move alongside her. He whirled around with her, and didn't seem in the least surprised when she caught the hand of the Guildmaster, forcing the old man to come to his feet and dance with them. The Guildmaster echoed Alyss's whoops dubiously. The dance continued. As they spun they created a vortex at the centre of which lay the dormant soul of Lone Wolf; Alyss directed her thoughts towards this lifelessness, and visualized it as a piece of slaughtered meat. One of her hands in one of Banedon's; one of her hands in one of the Guildmaster's. From the two of them, confused as they were, strength poured into her; in agony she called out once again to Ishir, and this time the goddess sent a powerful wave of love to Alyss, filling her with its burning

light. Alyss acknowledged the goddess's gift, but concentrated on the whirling dance she was executing with Banedon and the Guildmaster, feeling through her feet the tracery that they were carving into the checked floor. She focused their thoughts. Lone Wolf is not dead. He bears life through me. I am the life of him. I call his soul back from the hinterland of Death and beseech it to reunite with his body. I call upon you others, pale magicians though you be, to help me in my task. The Guildmaster looked confused. He was dancing, and yet he didn't want to. He watched his feet as they moved in patterns that he couldn't comprehend. He heard music in his mind, but it wasn't any kind of music he could recognize; instead it was a shrill piping, its reediness painful to his ears. He moved automatically, knowing there was nothing he could do to stop himself. He resented the way his feet were driven by Alyss's will. She threw herself down on the ground, dragging the Guildmaster and Banedon with her. The cold tiles pressed against their faces. She chanted arcane words, a half-sung mantra, and gathered the power of their collected souls about her. This vitality she channelled deliberately towards Lone Wolf, whose spirit, she knew, was currently heading towards the unknown country beyond this one. He was bleeding out his last; she could feel the blood leaving him. She called out to the blood, begging it to cease its flow, the tears starting from her eyes with the intensity of her entreaty. She was glowing a bright white now; pinkish streamers, representing the flux of Left Hand magic from Banedon and the Guildmaster, streaked the brilliant orb surrounding her, curling and twisting like long feathery clouds. One of the Guildmaster's kittens backed off into a corner of the hall, its eyes wide with terror, hissing shrill defiance, its short tail flickering. Despite the light, Alyss's body was becoming colder and colder. All around her eyes a little forest of icicles appeared, her tears of exertion freezing even as she wept them. Banedon could feel his own warmth being sucked through his fingers into her, as it if were his own soul that was being drawn out of him. Every tissue of his body was screaming in agony, but somehow he stopped himself from crying out, biting down savagely on his lower lip. Ishir! Ishir! Your strength! Your strength! The goddess poured yet more of her power into Alyss. A mortal human body would long ago have erupted in ice-cold flames from the intensity of the energies playing within it, but when Alyss had designed her

human form she had designed it well. Even so, the magic raging through her veins was threatening to tear her apart. The thick blood flowing from Lone Wolf's throat was moving only very slowly now, she felt. He had lost several pints already, and there was nothing she could do about that -- all she could do was follow the instructions of her instincts, which were telling her that, if she drew on Ishir and Banedon and the Guildmaster, and fused their powers with her own, she might distort the fabric of reality just enough to save the boy's life. It is impossible, came Ishir's cold thought. Child, even as I aid you I know you are trying to do something that cannot be done. The gods themselves cannot restore life to the mortal dead, and you are no god. A piece of Alyss was not lost in the dancing texture of spiritual force. A thousand thanks for that expression of your confidence in me, oh Mighty One, she thought stingingly. Ishir laughed. The very existence of Alyss was an anomaly in the normally structured way of things. It didn't seem too incongruous that her impertinence -- especially at a time like this -- should fill the goddess with mirth rather than with resentful fury. Little one, whoever you are, I pledge you all the help I can. And in future I will hold my peace. I thank you, goddess. Proceed. Proceed and forgive my interruption. Banedon was dimly aware of the conversation that had been going on, and it made him uneasy. Since infancy he had been taught that those who kindled the wrath of the gods were doomed to die an excruciating death, incinerated by their anger. He had no wish to be a part of this; he valued his life too highly, and he dreaded the prospect of physical pain. At some subconscious level inside himself he began to stem the flow of his energies into Alyss's hand. She noticed immediately. If I live through this, her thoughts screamed into him, I shall take the greatest pleasure in killing you! Your friend lies at the threshold of death, and all you can think about is your own skin! You are less than the dust on the road! Vermin! The shock of her direct thoughts, unfiltered through either of their minds, assaulted his neurons. It was as if he were being impaled on a whitehot sword. He let out a long ululating cry of agony, and opened up the gates of his magic to her once again. Undammed, his soul flowed towards hers. Alyss forced all of herself to inhabit the severed tissues of Lone Wolf's throat, exhorting them to knit together, arguing vociferously with the dim consciousnesses of the individual cells, begging them, pleading with

them, coaxing them into carrying out her wishes. Reluctantly they began to heal themselves, and started to move towards each other, making the tentative electrical gestures that cells make when they wish to bond. Somewhere in nowhereness Lone Wolf's soul paused, looked back along the road it had already travelled, and dully mused about the possibilities of return. Alyss felt that thought, and her spirit exulted. She could succeed! But the pain of containing all that she contained was becoming too much for her, fogging her vision, making it difficult to perceive the things she ought to be doing. An explosive burst of further energy from Ishir dispelled the fog a little, and she appeared in her very essence before Lone Wolf's soul, beckoning it to return to its battered body. The Guildmaster found himself on the shores of Death: he was old, older than he'd ever expected to be, and the drawing of his magic was causing him more pain than his mind had ever considered possible. Yet he gave of himself freely, trusting Alyss completely, believing implicitly that whatever she chose to do would assist the Sommlending. If he should lose his own life -- well, surely that was a small enough price to pay? He tried to muster all of the abilities within him and channel them along his arm to where his hand joined with Alyss's. He found that the pain was tolerable -no worse than he had experienced before -- but the slow ebbing of his soulstuff was an insidious agony which pierced through the crannies of the mental armour he had spent a lifetime creating. He hoped against all hope that the linking would not last overlong, that if need be it would be ended, for him, by the balm of death. Lone Wolf's soul had begun to trudge the lonely road back towards his body. The illusion of Alyss flickered palely in and out of existence to either side of him, gesturing frenetically, urging the soul to increase its pace. There was no time for delay. 2 . . . in a far part of Sommerlund a party of giaks paused, feeling reality trembling uncertainly about them. The slow-witted creatures looked at each other, unable to find the words to express what they were experiencing. They were still gazing at each other in perplexity when they flashed out of existence, never having existed in the first place . . . 3

. . . and a farmer paused in his work in the fields, suddenly fuddled by his own memories. He seemed to recall the laughing shouts of his children, playing in the mud-and-wattle rooms of his home, but now he couldn't square those recollections with the fact that he had never taken a wife . . . 4 . . . while a man called Kelman, huge and with a mass of burning red hair, reached out his cap to ask passers-by for small coinage, cursing the fact that his addiction to wanlo had doomed the dreams he had once had of skippering his own vessel. Now he was nothing but a destitute, begging for enough money to satisfy his thirst for the fiery liquor. He wondered why the image of a green-clad youth should come into his mind's eye, all of a sudden, but he dismissed the fancy . . . 5 . . . as some of the gleaming diamonds that were the worlds of Aon were no more, and never had been. But there were other worlds which flitted into reality, each being able to trace its history back for billions of years . . . 6 . . . while the boundaries of the enclosed area of the Isle of Lorn, where the Shianti dwelt in their self-imposed exile, shifted reluctantly, so that the island almost doubled in size and came yet closer to the mainland of Southern Magnamund. But then it had always been there, or so the Shianti told themselves as they gazed with their uncannily wise eyes across the narrow strait that separated their island from the great southern continent . . . 7 . . . and a sheep paused on the lip of the Maakengorge and saw that far beneath it the soil was stirring, as if eager to give up whatever it contained. But the sheep's mind was slow and ponderous, and the animal turned away to find greener fodder . . . 8

The tension of the changes knifed through Alyss's body, jerking it into impossible shapes, so that her feet were backwards on her ankles and her eyes stared unblinkingly from her chest. The trimmed red hair covered all of her flesh, creeping with a life of its own, shimmering as it moved independently of the rest of her, stretching out to encompass the hands of Banedon and the Guildmaster, leeching their energy from them and transmitting it to Alyss's consciousness. The shape of the hall in which they lay changed, too, flowing and remoulding itself to adopt the soft contours of the womb, nestling closer and closer about them as they lay on the living floor . . . 9 One of Lone Wolf's eyes opened as his soul re-entered his body, rustily trying to reacquaint itself with the workings of his muscles, making a finger move lazily and aimlessly. The eye saw Alyss's face, close up, and deliberately winked at it, causing her to wince with sudden contempt. Messages came from the hard wooden deck, through his skin, and back up along the nerves to his brain, where they were interpreted with painfully slow swampishness. His other eye opened and saw the lights in the night of Ragadorn, and his brain told him that something strange had happened which it didn't understand but perhaps it would be best for him to get away from here as swiftly as he could. He pulled himself to his knees, looked at the splashes of blood on the deck, and wondered who had been wounded. There was an uneasiness about the way that he held his head, but he hardly noticed it because all of his body seemed uncertain about the way that it was moving. He felt at his belt and then through his clothes and discovered that his weapons were gone, and his pouch full of money, and even the Seal of Hammerdal from his finger. Only Kelman's bottle had been left with him. There was a sudden transition and he found himself lying in muddy water beneath a low wooden jetty, the stink of rot and corruption filling all of his senses, and once again he pulled himself to his knees, wondering where he was but assuming that somehow he was still in Ragadorn, feeling his head protest dizzily as his lifeforce stretched itself through his mind, testing and reacquainting itself with the various controls of his body, wondering why it had ever sought to journey to some other land which for a while had seemed infinitely appealing but which it could no longer properly recall. The entity called "Lone Wolf" was once again complete. The boy staggered, unable to remember anything beyond the time when the fishermen had left him on the deck; everything after that was confusion.

He had no way of knowing that . . . 10 . . . the light of Alyss's body is suddenly extinguished, and Banedon and the Guildmaster are thrown violently back from her hands. The two magicians are bruised as they tumble across the hard mosaic floor. The kitten Grey One scampers forward and inquisitively nuzzles the Guildmaster's face, delighted that the arcane brilliance has now gone. It makes little mewling noises, expressing first its happiness and then its growing uncertainty as the Guildmaster fails to respond. The kitten ignores Alyss's silent corpse completely, but skirts around it to investigate Banedon. Banedon at least is alive, his breath coming in ragged choking noises, his chest rising and falling unsteadily. The kitten sits and looks at him with idle fascination, then absentmindedly begins to wash the inside of its right foreleg, its pink little tongue moving rhythmically. Dimly the animal remembers a time of terror, but thankfully all of that is over now. Ah, the yielding touch of soft grey fur on its tongue is such ecstasy . . . Banedon is the first to recover consciousness. A platoon of giaks has been marching through all the alleyways of his body, beating the walls with heavy clubs and sometimes sinking their sharp teeth into the sensitive flesh. He stares at the ceiling, and its pattern forms itself into a rapidly rotating helix, so that almost immediately he is forced to close his eyes. A dry groan passes his lips. The sound has nothing to do with him. He wonders where it comes from. Possibly it was born from the pain that fills his body, focusing especially inside his head, where it sears with a white-hot arc. He shivers uncontrollably, feeling the fine anguish of reawakening tissues as warmth begins to invade his body, thawing the iciness, waging a microcosmic war upon the battleground of his flesh. Again he opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling, but this time its decoration holds itself in place: the geometric shapes are still and soothing. Another groan, but he recognizes this one as his own. He pulls a hand up to claw his sweat-drenched hair away from his forehead, his mind confused now as to whether he is hot or cold. He remembers exactly what has been happening to him. He wishes he didn't. Ishir, he thinks. I was listening to a conversation between you and Alyss. Forgive me for having eavesdropped. The goddess's answering thoughts are as slow and painful as his own. We had no wish to omit you from our discourse, so do not fret, child.

Now his mind has focused elsewhere. Forgive me also for . . . You are forgiven, but there is no forgiveness required. I know when you faltered, and I know why you did so. If the gods had created mortals perfect, then, yes, your crime would have been unforgivable. But we made you fallible. Never fear, child, I will not punish you. The thought is left unconcluded, and Banedon knows why. He can hardly bring himself to form the next words that emerge from his mind. But Alyss . . .? Yes, Alyss may be less forgiving than I am. Unless she was lying when she told you that she would kill you, then I have sympathy for the fate that lies in store for you. If I can, I will ameliorate your suffering. I will speak with Alyss, and ask her to be merciful. But I cannot promise you that she will listen to me, and I cannot vow that she will understand you are made of lesser stuff than she is. Banedon quails. Since he first met her he has always been frightened of Alyss, of the way that she dominates him, so that when he is in her presence his mind doesn't seem to be totally his own. I failed her, he thinks, more to himself than to Ishir. And when I was failing her I was failing Lone Wolf, too, which was very wrong of me because he saved my life when I was about to be killed by giaks. I should have been glad to risk death for his sake . . . The thought trails away miserably. Child, all of that is true, but it's not the whole truth. You're not made to be a hero -- not yet, maybe never. You did your best -- more, perhaps, than your best. Reproach yourself if it makes you feel better. Next time, if there is a next time, you'll have more strength to draw on . . . because of your failure today. Yes, goddess, but will Alyss see it that way? Alyss . . . probably won't, but, as I've already told you, Banedon, I cannot predict how Alyss will behave. Besides, I don't even know where she is just now. She seems to have slipped out of Aon, in some way, into somewhere that is not Aon yet is infinitely intermingled with it, as if there were an infinity of Aons all overlaid upon each other. I . . . I cannot tell you where she's gone to. I somehow do not know myself. Goddess, be with me. There is a new urgency in Banedon's thought. If it helps, child, I will be with you. But for now I must rest. Alyss has exhausted me with her demands . . . and I'm not even sure that her efforts have been enough to preserve the life of Lone Wolf for more than a few more hours. The inertia of the future is so great that it is hard to make more than the most trivial changes to it.

Farewell, goddess. Good luck, Banedon. The goddess knows what the young man must try to do, and that for the time being she cannot help him. She withdraws into the coolness of her timeless existence, bathing her own wounds in rays of pale light. Banedon forces his body to obey him. He is on his feet now, swaying a little but otherwise in control. His limbs are telling him that they cannot stand any more pain, but he throws curses at them, and they withdraw their communication, terrified of his sudden anger. He sees the forms of Alyss and the Guildmaster, laid out supine on the unforgiving hardness of the patterned stone tiles. The kitten stops washing itself and looks at him dispassionately, wondering what he plans to do; he puts out a hand towards it, but the animal takes instant fright and skitters away into the protection of the shadows. Banedon smiles sadly after it; right now he could do with a friend to be beside him. He turns his attention first to the Guildmaster. The old man's breath is coming faintly but regularly, belying the ashen greyness of his face. The blood vessels on his temples are harsh lines of metallic blue. He seems to be sleeping dreamlessly. Banedon touches his fingers to the Guildmaster's cheek, and senses that his mentor's soul is still present. Alyss's body, when he moves to it, is utterly motionless and cold, as if it were a fallen statue. The macabre sprays of tiny icicles around her eyes are not melting; instead they seem to be formed out of rigid splinters of diamond. He runs a fingertip down over the curve of her nose, trying to transmit to her something of the caring that he feels for her. Tears come to his eyes as the reality of his own inadequacy shouts inside his head. He has so little of life's vigour left in him -- far too little, surely, to be able to rescue her spirit from wherever it has fled. He puts his palm on her forehead, feeling the crisp, birdlike bones through the skin, remembering her vivacity and the curves of her cheeks when she smiled. From somewhere he draws a flicker of strength, and willingly he allows it trickle through his hand and into her. But it isn't enough and it never will be enough. He crouches over her, willing that things could be different. He fears her, yes; but he loves her also. Her body is unmoving.

6 Holding Death 1 When Lone Wolf saw the sign he remembered the captain bending above him and the sudden pain of the knife. The sign said: WELCOME TO RAGADORN Those were the words which the captain had used, and it seemed to Lone Wolf's jumbled memories that something terrible had happened to him after that. He couldn't remember what it was, though, and he had no real wish to find out. He was alone, cold, wet, shivering, weaponless and lost in one of the most dangerous cities of Northern Magnamund. The fact that he was utterly bereft of any possessions of value would not deter the cutthroats who, he had no doubt, lurked in every alley. Even if he escaped their bloodthirsty attentions, he was still at risk of being seized by a slaver's press-gang and forced into servitude. His only weapons were his hands and feet, and in his shaky condition he was uncertain as to how much he could rely upon them to resist attack. The letters of the sign were faded from the weather. He wondered if it had been erected as some kind of a joke or if, perhaps, someone had long ago tried to improve the port's image. He dismissed the sign impatiently from his mind. His best option, he guessed, was to try to see if he could locate the fishing boat that had brought him here. Unless the thieves had taken his weapons into the city, hoping to sell them, there was every chance they were still aboard the craft. What he would do if the sailors themselves were still on the ship he didn't know; best not to try to plan for every contingency. He was more concerned about the Seal of Hammerdal: unless he could track it down, his quest to Durenor would become futile, for the Durenese were unlikely -- to say the least -- to surrender up the Sommerswerd to a travelstained youth who bore no mark of identification. He prayed to Kai that the fishermen hadn't sold it as a trinket to grace some streetwalker's finger . . . All the while he was moving along the dockside, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, studying the stern of each of the vessels. He wished he'd had the opportunity to find out the name of the craft that had plucked him out of the sea, but there had never been the time. He'd just have to trust to his Kai senses that he'd be able to recognize it.

In the event, as soon as he saw the slovenly little sailing ship he knew it was the one he was after. He wasn't sure where the certainty came from: it was just suddenly there. Something about the dilapidated timbers told him his search was over. He hopped carefully over some thick coils of rope that lay on the dockside, keeping his eyes on the battered little vessel. There were no lights showing, no sounds to be heard. As far as he could tell it was totally deserted. Still, best to be cautious: the men might half-expect him to return, seeking vengeance for the beating they had inflicted upon him. The captain leaning over me, and the long streak of his knife-blade in the night. I seem to remember something terrible happened then, but . . . but what was it . . .? He pushed away the thought, and crept closer to where the boat was tied up. Still the hulk was silent except for the soft creaking of its boards as they rocked on the gentle swell, the light splashing of waves against the hull. He felt automatically at his belt, his fingers seeking out his sword, but of course there was nothing there. Moving as quietly as he could, he stepped from the dock onto the boat, and froze in position, listening for the slightest sound that might betray the presence of life. Nothing. He stayed still for a few more moments, then warily began to walk along the deck, willing his boots to make less noise as they moved damply across the timbers. He peered through the first two portholes he came to. In the poor light he could see little inside them. It seemed more and more that the ship was utterly deserted except for himself. Mustering all of his courage, he squeezed himself in through the door of one of the cabins and halted there, again listening for the tiniest sound. There was only the quiet noise of his own breathing. He could sense the cabin was empty. He pushed the door open fully, so that a little more of the light from the dockside windows of Ragadorn could trickle into the gloom. There was a shape on the floor, a mass of darker darkness. At first he thought it was a human body, and he caught his breath sharply. However, as his eyes became more accustomed to the dimness he could see it was a roll of cloth. Maybe a net? He ran his fingers over it and confirmed it was canvas. The thing seemed useless to him, and he shoved it away. He was halfway across the cabin when he stopped and looked back. When he'd moved the cloth it had been much heavier than it should have

been. This didn't seem particularly significant and yet . . . He lugged the bundle out onto the deck and unrolled it. Sure enough, there was the clanking of metal. Looking swiftly to either side of him, satisfying himself that he was not being overlooked from one of the other vessels, he increased his efforts. The object was an old canvas hammock which had obviously become too rotted and unreliable to be put to its original use; instead, someone had wrapped something heavy in it, presumably for purposes of concealment. Within moments he had revealed a mace and a few coins. The mace was no replacement for his sword and his axe, but unless he found his own weapons elsewhere on the ship it would have to serve him. He hefted it in his hand, feeling the balance of it, realizing it was a cheap and shoddy weapon. Better than nothing, he reflected, but not a lot. The coins he stowed away in his pocket, feeling them chink dully against the little stone bottle. There were only three of them, but they had the right weight to be gold crowns -- he certainly hoped they were. His confidence steadily increasing, he made his way from cabin to cabin, seeing what else he could find. There was little of interest. A broken boat-hook he considered taking with him as an extra weapon but eventually threw over the side. A few small coins had been left scattered across the top of a cabinet, and he added them to his pitiful hoard. Aside from that, not anything he could think of a use for. He came back to where the hammock was spread on the deck and looked at it in frustration. He felt a spear of hatred for the person who had used it to hide such a miserable collection of objects. Once again he ran his hands over it, testing the seams to see if perhaps they contained further coins. His search was unsuccessful. All he came across was a scrap of paper. In the darkness he could make out that there was printing on it, but couldn't discern what the words were. Moving as quietly as before, carrying the mace in his right hand, he hurried along the deck and crossed to the solid stone of the dockside. Enjoying a sudden burst of malice, he waited just long enough to untie the mooring rope that held the fishing vessel, and cast it off. He pressed against the craft's stern until he felt the river current tug in response. Soon the little ship was retreating into the night. Lone Wolf smiled after it, the first smile that had crossed his lips since he had been aboard the Green Sceptre. That brought memories of Kelman to him, and his eyes hardened. The blustering man, with his rough ways and his rougher language -- he had been a good friend. Lone Wolf had liked him deeply, and had even begun to admire him. The thieves had done their best to ensure Kelman's life had been

lost in vain. He was not going to allow that to be so; not while there was a breath left in his body. He made his way cautiously to the pool of light from the nearest street-lantern, constantly on the alert in case of attack from footpads. There seemed to be no one else around. Panting a little, he smoothed out the sheet of paper he'd discovered in the hammock. It seemed to be a label of some kind, although he couldn't imagine what it had once been attached to. The writing had been done quite neatly, but with some crude implement that made the texture of the letters ungainly. He read: NORTH STAR TAVERN BARNACLE STREET RAGADORN Fine Food and Wines Homely Atmosphere a Speciality He checked to see if there was anything on the other side of the paper, found there wasn't, and crumpled the paper up and threw it angrily away from him. Then he cocked his head, as if listening, and reconsidered. A tavern might be the best place for him to go -- whether it was the North Star or anywhere else. He'd had very little to eat during the past twenty-four hours, and he was chilled to the bone. A meal and a few mugs of ale would revive his strength, chase the weakness and lethargy out of his limbs. He visualized a warm friendly hostelry with cheery barmaids and jovial carousers. Some hope. He remembered the dismal rooms of the Good Cheer Inn, back in Holmgard; somehow he couldn't imagine it ever having been a welcoming place. The taverns in Ragadorn were likely to be even worse. Still, as long as he had something to eat inside him he didn't care what the company was like. He felt the weight of his stolen mace in his hand, and it reassured him. He was not entirely defenceless. He had no clear idea of where the North Star Tavern might be, of course -- or any other particular tavern, for that matter. He allowed the streets to take him where they would, steering clear of the dark entrances to narrow alleyways but at the same time avoiding the places where the streetlamps shone most brightly. There were very few people about, and those he saw he steered well clear of. Once he crossed over a wide thoroughfare to avoid a drunkenly noisy knife-fight, and found he had to walk round a slumped body; whether the man was alive or dead he could not tell -- he didn't stop to find out. He was intrigued when he found himself in Barnacle Street. For some

illogical reason, when he'd been reading the tattered old label he'd taken it for granted that Barnacle Street would be on the far side of the city, yet here it was. It was not the cleanest of thoroughfares -- indeed, if anything it looked even more downtrodden than the roads closer to the dockside. Most of the windows of the rot-infested houses seemed to be broken, and signs hung crazily askew, flapping dangerously in the breeze. There was litter everywhere -- broken bottles, bits of decaying fruit, half-chewed bones, torn and tattered paper. A skinny dog saw him coming and bolted in fear into a thin back wynd, growling at him whiningly from the protection of the night. He spared it not a glance, for up ahead of him, about thirty yards along on the left, there was one house whose windows were bright. It was a large, ramshackle building, and he could hear from within it all the sounds of intoxicated revelry -- laughter and song and loud shouts. Unless he was very much mistaken, this had to be the North Star Tavern. As advertised, he thought wryly, in all the best places. He put his shoulder to the tavern's heavy old oak doors and they swung open easily to admit him. The scene that met his eyes could not have been more different from the interior of the Good Cheer Inn. The place was packed out with villainous-looking men and women, each of whom seemed to have tried to dress in an even gaudier costume than the next. There were peacock green and fire-bright reds, the glittering yellow of fool's gold and metallic blues of such brilliance that they hurt the eyes. Directly in front of him two men were arm-wrestling at a table, sweat standing out from their brawny faces as they struggled, their lips dragged back into grim smiles as their crewmates cheered them on. Further away a stout woman dressed in a bizarre costume of feathers and shells and not too many of either was weeping intensely, rhythmically throwing empty mugs and goblets, one by one, into the melee beyond her. The air was thick with stale smoke and the acrid smell of spilled ale and yesterday's vomit. No one had noticed him enter, and he slipped to the bar as unobtrusively as he could, eager not to risk drawing any attention to himself. To his surprise, the innkeeper was in front of him immediately, carelessly wiping at a tankard with a greasy cloth. "Your pleasure, young sir?" "Ale, if you please." "Ale's a crown. A meal and a night's lodging is two." The man was enormous. His head was completely bald, but covered in mildly obscene tattoos showing scenes which astonished Lone Wolf. From his ears hung clusters of gold rings that chinked whenever he moved. Lone Wolf gulped. He hadn't anticipated that the charges would be so

high. He was unhappily aware of the fact that he had only three crowns, plus some loose change. Yet he needed to eat. "A tankard of ale, please," he said courteously. "And I'd like some food. Perhaps some bread and cheese?" The innkeeper smiled at him, showing a mouthful of blackened, broken teeth. "You haven't much money, have you?" he said kindly, the gentleness of his voice in marked contrast to his terrifying appearance. "Not a lot, no." "Don't worry, boy. Normally for a crown we'd sell a man as much ale as he could drink, but I can't see you being able to drink too much of it. It's strong stuff -- the strongest I can brew -- and not for baby-faces like you. Tell you what, for a crown I'll let you drink as much as you want and let you have a plateful of bread and cheese, too. Will you have enough to pay for that?" "Yes." Lone Wolf couldn't understand why the man was being so friendly. The innkeeper saw his perplexity, and smiled again. "We may not be much down here at the North Star," he said, "but we never send a starving person away." He pulled a tankard of ale from a vast barrel, continuing to speak over his shoulder, his words so carefully pronounced that Lone Wolf could understand them perfectly, despite the racket. "Strangers like you," the man said, "they take one look at my merry crew of drunkards and trollops and they assume their throats are like as not to be cut. But I don't allow such stuff in my tavern." The huge muscles on his forearm flexed as he plonked the brimming tankard on the bar in front of Lone Wolf. "Outside, after I've closed up for the night, then sometimes there's a little fighting. But not too much, because I like my sleep, and if I'm disturbed I get angry. And no one likes it when I'm angry." From somewhere the innkeeper produced a colossal wooden platter of moist fresh bread and wedges of oozing cheese. Earlier Lone Wolf had known he was hungry; now he knew he was starving. He shuffled a crown out of his inside pocket and handed it to the innkeeper. Another of those disconcerting smiles crossed the man's face as he bit into the coin, testing it. "Raise your tankard when you need more ale," he said with a slow wink of his eye. Lone Wolf attacked the bread and cheese. They tasted even better -- as if it were possible! -- than they looked. Some of the cheeses were soft and creamy, the blandness of their taste contrasting exquisitely with the tartness of the harder ones. After his first onslaught, he controlled his appetite: he

had no wish to taunt his stomach into rebellion. From time to time he took a swig of ale, but again he was cautious, uncertain as to the effect the strong drink might have on him. It took him perhaps half an hour to consume the food. He swallowed down another glug of beer and belched with pleasure. Then he found himself belching again -- this time with even more satisfaction. His body felt warm throughout, as if he'd been standing in front of a crackling fire for an hour. He allowed his eyes to roam around the tavern. He felt superbly relaxed and easy. But then he tensed. Over there, tucked into a corner, sitting around a table stacked with a mass of empty glasses, were the fishermen who had robbed him. Deliberately he finished his ale and raised his tankard, as instructed. At once the innkeeper was beside him. "Those men, over there." He pointed. "I would have been less worried about paying your charges, sir, had they not stolen from me almost everything I own." "Is that a fact?" "It is indeed. And I would like to retrieve my money and my weapons from them." "Would you, indeed?" "May I ask your help?" "In a word, friend, no." "Ah. And why not? You seem an honest person to me." "I thank you for your flattery. I'm as honest as I need to be, and quite a bit more than that. I'm sorry that you've been robbed." The innkeeper wasn't smiling now. "But I have my rules, as I've told you, and one of them is that, if there're any scores to be settled, they're not settled on these premises." He picked at his teeth with a long dirty fingernail. "You ask them to go outside with you, and that's your business. But if they refuse to go, and if you pick a fight with them in here, I'll break your back without even thinking about it." Once again Lone Wolf was aware of the man's strength. "I see," he said softly. "I suppose there's no point in my telling you that I'm on a mission that's more important than any of your rules?" "Right." There was a cold finality in the syllable. "Then I shall have to go and speak to them, and hope that out of the goodness of their hearts they'll see fit to return to me my rightful possessions."

The innkeeper made no sign of recognition of the bitterness in Lone Wolf's words. "That's about the sum of it," he said. "I hope I won't find your corpse outside my inn in the morning," he added. "Waste of all this cheese if I do." "On the contrary," said Lone Wolf, bowing to him. "Your cheese and your ale have given me great pleasure." He was aware of the stiffness and formality of what he was saying, but the words seemed oddly appropriate. "Another tankard of ale?" "Yes. Thank you. I think I'll probably need it." Lone Wolf drank the beer in a single long swallow, feeling its warmth spread through his limbs. He returned the empty tankard to the bar and waved agreeably to the innkeeper, who nodded solemnly in response. He pushed his way through the singing, laughing, shouting throng until he found himself beside the table at which the four fishermen were seated. For a moment they didn't notice him and then one of them -- the fellow who'd fed him the hot broth -- looked up. "You've finally joined . . ." The words faded. The rest of the men were instantly alert, their hands going to their swords. They looked at Lone Wolf as if he were a ghost. He was amused to see that the captain looked the most frightened of them -- the captain who had been so ruthless when they had been aboard the boat. "I said that we should let you free," said the skinny crewman. Lone Wolf wasn't certain if he was trying to ingratiate himself or if he was merely stating a fact. "You did indeed." No words for a few moments. Only the sound of raucous shouting all around them. "I believe you have taken some things which belong to me." There was steady politeness in Lone Wolf's voice. "I would like them returned, if it wouldn't trouble you too much." "But I thought you was dead!" spat the captain. "I thought that I'd . . ." He began to look puzzled. "But no, then I didn't kill you. I stayed my hand and let you live." "It's lucky for you that you did so." "How d'you mean?" The man's eyebrows pressed into an angry wall. Lone Wolf sighed. "Think hard. You spent all of the time on your vessel convinced that I was just some rich deserter from King Ulnar's armies. Never once did you allow it to cross your minds that I might be something else. Except for you." He acknowledged with a nod the sailor

who had pleaded for Lone Wolf to be allowed to go free. "You were the only one who realized that wayfarers dressed in the garb of the Kai might have something more important to do than flee from battle against the Darklord and his vile minions." The captain spat on the floor. "And what makes that so lucky for us, you scum?" Lone Wolf raised his eyebrows, deliberately exaggerating the gesture. "So I'm scum, am I? Hardly fit to be in the same tavern as honest gentlemen who pull people half-dead from the sea, beat them unconscious and steal all of their possessions? Your notions of etiquette are lost on me." Suddenly Lone Wolf pulled up a stool from behind him and sat down at the fishermen's table, pointing directly at the captain's face. "I'll tell you why you're lucky, you miserable bilge rat," he snapped. "I'm giving you the choice between death and returning the things that belong to me. Another person would simply slaughter you where you sat! Of course, if that's what you would like to happen . . ." "We sold your weapons," said the thin crewman apologetically. "I'll gladly give the money over to you . . ." "Silence, you fool!" It was the captain speaking. The innkeeper appeared at the captain's shoulder. He winked at Lone Wolf. "If you be wanting some more ale," he said to the captain, "it's on the house . . . so long as you drink it in the company of my friend here." Without warning, the captain threw his left elbow viciously into the innkeeper's groin, doubling the huge man up. "Escape!" the captain shouted. His crewmen, even the one who seemed to have part-befriended Lone Wolf, broke instantly for the tavern's back door, knocking over the table as they went. Lone Wolf paused for a moment to help the innkeeper, who was weeping from the pain of the blow. "Go!" the man said. "Catch them and bring back their heads! I suspend my rules for the once." He choked, waving with a weak hand for Lone Wolf to pursue the captain and his men. The other clients of the North Star Tavern were obviously incredulous: there were never fights in here. They ceased their carousing, and in their astonishment cleared the way to let Lone Wolf pass. He charged through the tavern's rear door only moments behind the fleeing fishermen, cursing the fact that he was still armed only with the poorly balanced mace. He found himself in a small square, centred on a mausoleum. At once he seemed to be on his own, although he could hear the

clatter of the fishermen's feet retreating along one of the alleys that led off the square. But he wasn't totally alone. Contorted in anguish on the cobblestones lay the thin sailor who had fed him. The man had clearly sprained his ankle and fallen, knocking himself unconscious on the paving. His breath was bubbling through the waters of a puddle. Lone Wolf wedged open the tavern door with a discarded tankard and turned the man's body over with his foot. He resisted the impulse to kill him. Had it been the captain he might have decided otherwise. As it was, this man had shown him some kindness -- spurious kindness, perhaps, but kindness nonetheless. Lone Wolf searched the fisherman's unconscious form. There was some money -- thank Ishir! -- stowed in a trouser pocket, and he took it without a qualm. Also there was a dagger, which he transferred to his belt as soon as he discovered it: the dagger was a weapon much more suited to his Kai training than the mace. And last of all there was the Seal of Hammerdal -- the one object which he needed more than any other. Conscious of the gravity of what he was doing, he pushed it firmly onto the index finger of his right hand, feeling the heaviness of it. He turned back towards the warm light of the tavern. He allowed himself a smile as he re-entered the inn. 2 The din was every bit as bad as before -- if anything worse, because he'd been expecting it, and so was doubly surprised at its loudness. A man was screaming at the top of his voice, not in pain but in jubilation as he discovered that he'd won fistfuls of crowns playing a card game. The woman was still weeping as she repeatedly launched empty tankards into the mass of surrounding customers. A pair of dogs were seemingly fighting to the death, cheered on by onlookers as they bit and gouged at each other mercilessly. And there was much worse going on, most of it noisy; Lone Wolf studiously looked neither to right nor to left as he headed once more for the bar. It seemed impossible that the innkeeper had recovered, and yet at the same time perfectly natural that he should be there, smiling as if nothing untoward had happened. "Are you all right?" he asked kindly. "Yes," said Lone Wolf, "although I haven't brought you back any heads, I'm afraid."

"That's all right," the man said, swiftly serving another customer with ale and pocketing the proffered money. "I'm glad." He wiped a section of the bar fervently with his filthy apron. "I was hoping you wouldn't, tell you the truth. I'm prone to speaking rubbish when I'm angered." "Aren't we all?" "We are, indeed. More ale?" "Aye, more ale would be good. I caught one of those swine and got back from him one of the things they'd stolen from me." "Good hunting." "Good hunting it was." The innkeeper put a frothing tankard of ale in front of Lone Wolf, and waved to indicate that he didn't expect any money for it. "Still," he said, "there's a part of me wishes you'd brought back some of the less vital bits of that scurvy bunch, if you know what I mean." Lone Wolf giggled stupidly, white froth from the beer making a moustache on his upper lip. Fatigue from the tension of the last hour or so was beginning to make him feel loose and hysterical; he sternly refused to believe the ale could possibly be having any effect on him whatsoever. "Yes," he said, "but what would you have done with the bits?" "Don't know," said the innkeeper with a smile. "Nothing like a hollowed-out thigh bone to make an excellent flute . . . here, are you all right?" "Just . . . just a little tired. That's all. Just rather tired." "Go and sit down for a while, lad. I think you need to. I'll come and speak with you later." Obediently and very deliberately, Lone Wolf found himself a chair at a half-empty table, setting his ale down carefully in front of him. The other people already there -- two hugely fat men and an unbelievably skeletal woman -- sniggered at him, and then the woman looked at him again, this time with studied mock-solicitousness. More accurately: solicitation. "Fancy a goo --?" Lone Wolf snarled, drawing his new-won dagger and plunging it into the wooden table in front of him. The woman squeaked involuntarily, then turned her attentions towards an arm-wrestling match at the next table. "Winner takes all!" she cackled blithely. Lone Wolf could no longer keep track of time as he sat there. He was vaguely conscious of the fact that people were coming and going all around him, but it came as a surprise when he realized that, not only had the noise abated, but he had been surrounded by quiet for some time. The only sound

was that of the innkeeper whistling a crude folk-tune as he mopped up the worst of the evening's excesses. "I must be going," said Lone Wolf thickly, the words coming with difficulty. "Not tonight, I shouldn't think," responded the innkeeper, stopping his work and turning to grin at the youth. "You'd be better off having a few hours' lodging here and setting off in the morning." "But," Lone Wolf protested, taking another large mouthful of ale and wondering why it didn't make him feel any better, as he'd anticipated, "but must get to Durenor . . very important. Save m' people." "People who want to save people," said the innkeeper gently, "might be better off if they had a good night's sleep beforehand." "But's true! Need go to Durenor, then . . . then . . ." The innkeeper carefully propped his mop up against the bar and came over to sit opposite Lone Wolf. His vast ugly face was twisted into a smile which the boy couldn't decide whether to loathe as patronizing or accept as paternal. His mind tied itself in knots as it tried to decide which attitude to adopt, and then gave up the struggle. "I serve fine ale," admitted the innkeeper, "but it's not very often it persuades people that their business is so all-fired important." "'S not?" "No, it isn't. Look -- as a rule I don't pry into the affairs of my customers, and you can tell me to clear off if you want, but just what exactly is it you're trying to do? You give me the impression you've got more on your mind than just finding a good ship to get you out of Ragadorn." Brokenly, his voice often slurring the words, Lone Wolf told the innkeeper as much as he dared -- how he'd escaped when all the rest of the Kai had been massacred, about his flight to Holmgard, about Pelathar dying and the king sending him to Durenor. He told him about Qinefer (there was rather a lot more about Qinefer than Lone Wolf really intended, but the innkeeper looked very understanding), and the doomed voyage on the Green Sceptre, and the treachery of the four fishermen and how there were very few things in life that were fair but one of them might be if the innkeeper brought him another tankard of ale -- which the innkeeper, after some hesitation, did. "You're telling me the truth?" the huge man asked sceptically. "All of these things have really happened to you?" "All of them 'n' more," Lone Wolf said. "Lots 'n' lots more. Lots 'n' lots 'n' lots. So many more as I could --" "I think," said the innkeeper, "you should stop here for the night. Ah,

yes," he added, holding up his palm as Lone Wolf started vehemently to protest, "don't worry that I'm offering you charity. I'm not." This hadn't been among the foremost of Lone Wolf's concerns -finding a lavatory was currently top of the list -- but he kept a sullen peace. "Normally," the innkeeper continued, "it's two crowns for a night's lodging, but for you it's just the one. Just a single gold crown, I tell you -you could search throughout the whole of Ragadorn before you came across a better bargain than that!" Lone Wolf interrupted these histrionics with a cough. The innkeeper dropped his voice. "Tell you the truth," he said confidentially, "I'd let you stay here the night for free, but I've got my rules, you see. Rules is rules." "That's what you said 'bout fighting in th' bar." "True, true, and I changed my mind then, I know. All the more reason why I should stick to my rules this time round -- breaking 'em once in an evening is bad enough, but doing it twice could be the start of a dangerous habit. "Of course," he said, his voice suddenly becoming an earnest whisper, "there's a little more to it than my goodness of heart." "Yes?" Muddily, Lone Wolf began to wonder if the innkeeper, too, had been rather too liberally sampling his ale. "Yes. Not just a pretty face, y'know, whatever all the girls may say." He gave Lone Wolf one of the ugliest leers the youth had ever seen, but then the sparkle of mirth vanished from his eyes. "I'm not normally a person to involve myself in politics," he said soberly. "Keep my own nose clean and I expect everyone else to do the same. But I reckon that if Zagarna puts Sommerlund to the torch it's not going to take him very long to look around for other territories to conquer, and the first he's going to see is the Wildlands. Ach, most of the country ain't much -- desert and scrub -- but Ragadorn itself'd be worth his capturing, because then he'd be able to attack the shipping of Durenor. And there's not much resistance he'd get from the dregs that live here -- they'd sell their baby daughters to a brothel as soon as spit at you, and they'd not reckon Zagarna was their enemy until his filthy spawn started ripping the skin from their bodies. I've no wish to become giak-fodder, little knight . . . although it's tough and indigestible meat they'd find me. So I'll help you in whatever way I can. Which, right now, is offering you a soft bed and a gentle awakening in the morning. And only the one gold crown -- the offer still stands." "Could sleep down by the harbour for no gold crowns," muttered Lone Wolf.

"Yes, but you wouldn't wake in the morning," said the innkeeper. "Half of Ragadorn must know by now that you chased off those fishermen, and the other half'll be talking about the way you're dressed like one of the Kai. The rat who rules this place will get to hear of you, because there're bound to have been a few of his puppy-dog spies in here tonight." "So?" "So . . . so Lachlan will become, shall we say, interested in you. He'll send out his mercenaries to look for you. And if those misbegotten sons of storghs should find you then your life's worth not a . . ." The innkeeper snapped his fingers expressively. "But what should this . . . Lachlan have 'gainst me?" "Oh, nothing -- except for the fact that you exist. Lachlan's been the overlord of Ragadorn for, let me see, three years now, ever since the Scarlet Death took away his father, Killean." Lone Wolf had heard of the Scarlet Death. One of the tutors from the Kai Monastery, a man called Swift Fox, had been here when the plague had struck the city. Swift Fox had never returned. "Was Killean a . . . a good man?" "Killean? Hah!" The voluminous form of the innkeeper was doubled with laughter, tears running down his broad face as he tried to bring himself under control. "Killean," he said eventually, "was so little of a good man that even his mother refused to claim him as her own. Yet, when he died, all of us here in the city mourned his passing, for it meant that Lachlan succeeded to the overlordship. And Lachlan is . . . ah, Lachlan is so many foul things that I can't bring myself to say the words to describe him. 'The King of Thieves', they call him, and it's too kind a name by far." Lone Wolf took another swig of ale. The stuff was beginning to taste sour to him now. "Still . . . still, I don't understand why Lachlan would want to kill me." "I told you. Murderers, rapists, arsonists, thieves, cut-throats, muggers -- you name 'em. Lachlan doesn't care if they're in this port or not so long as they spend plenty of money. But they're two-a-penny, people like that: he's used to 'em. You're something different. Lachlan's way of reacting to people who're different is the same as a brat who sees a creepy-crawly insect it's never seen before. Kill it, and then think about it afterwards." "But if this Lachlan's heard a' me, 'n' wants to send his mercenaries out to kill me, it's not going to help me much if I'm here rather'n out in the streets," Lone Wolf said with deep concentration. "It's a whole lot better," said the innkeeper softly, "because those

treble-damned swine of his wouldn't dare to cross my threshold. I'm a big man, and I've a foul temper when I'm angered, and the pigs who call themselves his mercenaries know that." Lone Wolf shrugged. There was something missing from the innkeeper's explanation, and his gesture indicated that he knew as much. The man looked him in the eyes for a long moment, and then abruptly looked away. "Ah," he said, "you're no fool, Sommlending, even when you've had too much of my best ale." There was a silence. Lone Wolf didn't know quite how it had come about, but he relished it. The innkeeper's flow of words, each of them crying out for comprehension, had been tiring him; now his mind could relax in the quiet. "Attend!" the innkeeper suddenly barked. "Once upon a time there was a boy who was taken up by the Kai, and his name was Cloud-Maker, and one of those days he gave up following in the ways of the Kai and he decided to seek his fortune here in Ragadorn. And three hundred and sixtyfour days of the year he's glad that he did so, but the other day he finds that the old ways are still calling on him. Enough of this story. You're lucky, lad, you're here on the three-hundred-and-sixty-fifth day. They'll not get far if they try to break in here." "Did you know Swift Fox?" said Lone Wolf shyly. "No . . . not really. I knew when he came to Ragadorn -- obviously, because there's little I don't hear about from the vermin that come in here to drink away their miseries -- but I never spoke to him longer than to give him some ale and take his crowns." "Are you sure?" "Of course I'm . . . oh, I see." The innkeeper began to snuffle with mirth. "No, I'm not Swift Fox, and never have been. More's the pity. If I'd been him perhaps I'd have known with more certainty whether or not I was doing the right thing with my life." "I was only wondering," mumbled Lone Wolf, into the emptiness of his tankard. "And no one would blame you for that," said the innkeeper -- CloudMaker? -- and he clouted Lone Wolf amicably around the shoulders. "Now, it's time for you to get some sleep. And a gold crown is all it'll cost you."

7 The Road to Durenor 1 Morning. Lone Wolf remembered how once upon a time morning had been his favourite time of day. It wasn't today. His throat was as dry as old parchment, his head as heavy as lead. The stink of the grimy, unwashed sheets in the narrow bed, which had seemed to him only last night like a paradise of softness, now made him want to retch. Room Four, second left at the top of the stairs in the North Star Tavern, was less than luxury. From the fond way the innkeeper had helped him here, Lone Wolf suspected the other guest-rooms were even worse. The furniture, aside from the bed, consisted of only a rickety upright chair and a driftwood table on which rested a jug of cold water; the chair Lone Wolf had wedged under the door-handle in case the innkeeper's confidence about the mercenaries had proved ill placed; the jug he had set beside his bed for use as a possible weapon. Not that a weapon would have made any difference, he recognized now, because he'd have slept through any manner of upheaval, and probably merely snored while his throat was being cut. He wrapped his cloak around his waist and found a rudimentary bathroom. No one else in the inn seemed to be stirring. He urinated into a filth-encrusted bucket, then washed his face hesitantly in some chilly water. The thickness of his head still refused to go away. He had a vague recollection of the innkeeper telling him, the night before, that he'd be best leaving the place within the hour after dawn. Presumably Lachlan's mercenaries kept late nights; Lone Wolf was certain that virtually everybody else in Ragadorn did, to judge by the North Star Tavern. He recalled the innkeeper holding his cloak out at arms'-length before dropping it on the end of the bed. Fumblingly -- and, even worse, knowing that he was fumbling -- he dressed himself, flinching as he put on his still-damp and very heavy clothing. He put his dagger in his belt and tried to do the same with his mace before realizing that the mace refused to be put anywhere but in his hand. The little stone bottle and his leather pouch of money were more cooperative: they allowed themselves to be tucked away into his breast pocket. There was a sound buzzing away at his head, and eventually he

realized that it was the drilling of rain on the cobblestones outside his window. He looked out through the smeared glass and saw that the streets were empty. He realized, with an abruptness that shocked him, that he was extremely hungry. He crept downstairs from his room and found the innkeeper cleaning out the tavern with a bucket and mop; the sight, oddly, partially cleared Lone Wolf's head. "Food?" he said hopefully. "Food you'll be needing," agreed the innkeeper, "but you haven't long to eat it if you're to be out of this city before Lachlan's mercenaries start scouring the streets." In the light of morning that all seemed like a fantasy. "You were joking about that, weren't you?" said Lone Wolf, smiling. "Only wish that I were," replied the innkeeper dourly. Minutes later, Lone Wolf was full of hot oatmeal and on his way. The innkeeper had told him where to find a coach, then laughingly threatened to charge him a gold crown for the information: "I have my rules, I tell you! And if you give me that crown, despite all I say, my rule is that I'll split you from top to bottom!" The walk to the coaching station wasn't a long one -- it took Lone Wolf perhaps quarter of an hour. His cloak felt curiously heavy as he walked south through the rain, following the quayside until he found a street heading off towards the east. Following the innkeeper's instructions, he kept walking until he came to a large building with a sign that said RAGADORN STABLES AND COACH STATION There was the cloying smell of horse manure about the place, and Lone Wolf's nostrils protested. Nevertheless he pushed himself onwards into a large courtyard, and felt the slippery cobblestones against the soles of his soft leather boots. All around the walls there were coachmen, dressed in a curious dun-green, each half-supporting a destination sign with his back. Lone Wolf looked around him until he saw one that said PORT BAX -- JOURNEY TIME SEVEN DAYS He approached the man, bringing an artificial smile of friendship to his lips. The coachman took the smile for what it was worth -- which, he made clear, wasn't very much. "Happen you be er-wanting going Port Bax?"

"That's right." "That er-be twenty er-crowns." Twenty crowns! Lone Wolf was pretty sure he didn't have anything like that much. He'd assumed that the fare would be five or six crowns -- no more. He pulled out his leather pouch of money and looked through it desperately: a grand total of seven crowns, plus a few smaller coins. He was about to turn away when he heard a chinking from his cloak. Last night it was the innkeeper who put me to bed, and he spent a long time with my cloak. Come to that, all this morning I've felt as if my clothes were being weighed down with lead. Perhaps it's not lead but -- gold? Fishing down into the depths of his pockets. First a coin, so thick and weighty it seemed to his fingers less like money than like a cake or a biscuit. But no -- it was a crown. Then he shook himself and heard the solid chinking of the money. The innkeeper must have loaded it into his clothing, coin after coin after . . . Twenty crowns! Ishir be blessed, but he could probably have found fifty, if the coachman had insisted! Now that he had started to explore his pockets, it seemed to him as if he were bolstered up by coins. Whatever rank of the Kai the innkeeper reckoned to have reached, clearly the man believed he owed a debt to the order of which he had once been a part -- that debt to be paid in coinage. Smiling, Lone Wolf approached the Port Bax coachman. "I'll pay your fare," he said happily, a stupid grin on his face. "Fool," said the coachman. "Still, as long as I er-live there'll be fools a-plenty. No need to be out in the cold, is there, if you can be a fool like all them others." Lone Wolf felt himself look baffled. "Others," repeated the coachman, pointing behind him. All Lone Wolf could see was an unpointed brick wall. "Queue of people, always is," said the coachman, not turning his head, "all of them as er-foolish as --" In the distance a clock struck ten. "Join the crowd of 'em all," instructed the coachman, avidly pocketing Lone Wolf's money, "and let's be headed to where the coach leaves." "But I thought it went from here?" "Well, you thought er-wrong, didn't you? And so did all them erothers." 2 Lone Wolf found the walk across the breadth of Ragadorn a distinctly

unpleasant process. He was conscious of the fact that he alone was following the coachman, and yet every time they came to a junction or a crossing-place the man addressed himself as if to a crowd of witless simpletons. "Take the hand of the person to your right and hold on tight because the chariots often race along this street and the fools as drive them don't care the life of a pirate's doxy what happens to the er-people in their way." "On your left you can see the tower where Killean breathed his last -- and, if he hadn't breathed it, someone else would have done it for him." "In order to reach our departure point we have to cross one of the many fine bridges over the River er-Dorn. As you'll notice, our beloved Overlord Lachlan has chosen to decorate the pillars on the one side of the river with the heads of men, and those on the other with their ladyfriends'. Who would have believed that the war between the sexes could have been carried to such an extreme? Oh, he's a real er-wag, that er-Lachlan." "And, after that enchanting tour through the glories of old Ragadorn, here we find ourselves at the East Gate, from where the er-coaches leave for all parts. Do I have a crowd for Port Bax? Port Bax! PORT ER-BAX! Ah, yes, I see I have you, sir, and all of your friends. (And a very pretty friend that particular er-one is, sir. Need I say more, sir, need I say more?)" Lone Wolf shot the coachman a filthy look; for a moment it had no effect, and then it seemed to force the man physically away. Mid-phrase he stopped speaking and then, moving as if his tail were between his legs, he skulked off into a corner. Over there on the right there was a somewhat battered coach bearing a notice that said "Port Bax". Wearily Lone Wolf walked towards it, clambered up its wooden steps, looked blindly around the faces of his fellow-passengers, and slumped into an empty seat. He was doomed to spend a week in this ramshackle conveyance, he knew, and he was damned if he was going to enjoy a moment of it. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Ragadorn had been left far behind. 3 A couple of hours later the coach had to stop at a toll bridge. Rain made the window into a grey slate through which Lone Wolf could only just see the toll-collector, who was a Szall -- a breed of giak no more harmful than a domestic cat. Nevertheless, Lone Wolf felt his hand wandering towards his dagger: it had become a natural instinct for him to slay giaks, wherever he found them. It was with difficulty that he restrained himself, especially when

he saw his fellow-passengers passing money across to pay the creature. As a matter of principle he refused to produce any money; the Szall waited for a few long loneful moments outside the window of the coach before finally shrugging and giving up. The interruption had made Lone Wolf begin to recognize that there were other people aboard the coach, and, once he'd studied them, he wasn't too pleased this was so. Sitting opposite him, he soon discovered, were two brothers, Ganon and Dorier, who were knights of the Order of the White Mountain: they were warrior lords from Durenor who had pledged allegiance to protect the country from raids by the bandits of the Wildlands. Lone Wolf forced himself to converse brightly with them. Sitting beside them was a merchant called Halvorc; his nose was swollen and his face badly bruised -- thanks, it turned out during the conversation the passengers exchanged among themselves, to a little disagreement with Lachlan. By Lone Wolf's side there was a mercenary soldier called Viveka; he was conscious of her femininity, which was oddly enhanced by a deep scar that ran down the side of her face from the lobe of her left ear to the point of her chin. And over on the far side of the coach there was a priest called Parsion: Lone Wolf recognized him immediately as another Sommlending. Parsion and Ganon were chatting about the invasion of Sommerlund, and Lone Wolf very quickly realized that their information was both scanty and badly distorted. Clearly the word-of-mouth stories of merchants and travellers had become much garbled in the telling. Lone Wolf heard how the war had started when Ulnar had sent a great army to assault Zagarna's stronghold at Kaag, and how the Darklord had therefore been quite justified in retaliating with his murderous hordes. There were tales, too, of sadistic butchery of drakkarim by the Sommlending people: roasting alive and subsequent feasting on the flesh were the less lurid elements of these stories. In fact, so unfavourable to the Sommlending was much of this stuff that Lone Wolf began to reappraise his earlier assumption: perhaps it was not just that some fairly gaudy initial stories had been embellished in the bars of Ragadorn; more likely, it seemed, was that Zagarna or someone close to him had sent emissaries into the Wildlands, in the form of helghast or renegade humans, to spread disinformation about what was going on. If this idea was correct, Lone Wolf reflected, then it was very alarming, because it indicated that Zagarna's sights were indeed set on the domination of all Magnamund. "Do you believe much of that?" he said conversationally to Viveka, nodding towards Parsion and Ganon. "That crap? You have to be joking." Her voice was mellow and sweet, like her appearance a rugged contrast with her cruel trade. "You don't have

to like the Sommlending -- and I've little love for them, myself -- to know they're just the first to feel the brunt of Zagarna's hatred for all of humankind. Why do you think I'm going back to Port Bax? Ragadorn's going to be next. Mark my words." "I'm a Sommlending myself," Lone Wolf muttered. "That's pretty obvious," the mercenary replied with a smile; the movement of her face twisted the scar into an impossible shape. "I can dislike the Sommlending as a whole and still like individual members of your race. You're OK, my friend; I could tell that as soon as you climbed aboard this coach." "You seem to be a mite selective in your appraisal of us Sommlending. I'm just a peasant who finds himself here, far from home when I hear these tales of war." "Balls!" "Sorry?" "'Balls,' I said. You're no more a peasant than I am. Whatever it is that's going on in Sommerlund -- and I wonder if it's really a war or just another of those infernal skirmishes you people conduct with the Darklands -- I can sense you've got something to do with it. You haven't just climbed on this coach because you chose to visit Durenor on some kind of whim -you've got a reason, and I reckon it's something to do with Ulnar's ambitions to bring down Zagarna." Lone Wolf was appalled by the penetration of her insight. Was it so obvious to everybody what he was? She laughed. "You're very young. Everything you think is written on your face. Now you're wondering if I'm a friend or an enemy. Well, I'm a friend of yours so long as it suits me. And that'll have to be enough for your curiosity right now." She turned away from him, wriggled down into her seat, and within moments was asleep. He looked out of the window and saw the drab scenery trickling by. The murmur of his companions' conversation drifted on around him. Viveka began to snore, very gently, in a way that was definitely ladylike. He found himself abominably drawn to this woman; Qinefer was his soulmate or something like that, he'd come to realize, but Qinefer was . . . well, Qinefer was far away, not sitting her with her warm thigh pressing against his. And Qinefer was young, as young as he was. This woman, Viveka, who was right beside him, was substantially more experienced. She might take the fancy to dally with a youthful yet eager-to-learn fellowtraveller . . . On the other hand, she was a mercenary who would sell his soul

quite happily, if it pleased her so to do. If anything, though, that just added to her allure. She was yet another conundrum -- something he could do without. But it was disturbing that she seemed to know so much about him. Was he really that transparent? He found himself drowsing, half-awake and half-asleep, so that sometimes the dull, uninspired scenery he was watching became painted with brilliant colours and wound itself into bestial forms; whenever that happened he'd realize he was drifting towards full sleep and, by sheer effort of will-power, drag himself back to wakefulness. He wasn't the only passenger who was finding the steady thump of the horses' hooves and the trundle of the coach over the rough road soporific, he knew: the two brothers had drifted off, as had the priest. Only the merchant, Halvorc, seemed to be wide awake; his battered face was absorbed in a book, and he moved easily with the rocking of the coach. When Lone Wolf looked across at him the man was instantly aware of his gaze, and gazed back, his pale-blue eyes intent. Lone Wolf turned away, embarrassed. At dusk they stopped at an inn. Clearly it was somewhere near to the coast because, although they couldn't see the sea, they could hear the crashing of waves in the middle distance. Lone Wolf shuddered, remembering how the waves had smashed against him as he lay, clinging tenuously to life, on the hatch cover. Stiffly the passengers hauled themselves out of the coach, and the driver checked their tickets perfunctorily. The cost of a bed for the night, he muttered to each of them, speaking the words by rote because he'd spoken them a thousand times before, was a crown, and if they didn't have the money they were perfectly welcome to sleep in the coach. Lone Wolf reluctantly produced the money; despite the innkeeper's generosity, his funds would soon run low again if he didn't watch them carefully. Tonight he could sleep in a warm bed, but for the rest of the journey he might be better off opting for the coach. The inn was badly furnished but at least it was cozily warm, and Lone Wolf had few complaints about the vast meal which the equally vast landlady placed in front of them. He went to bed early and slept soundly, waking at dawn feeling deeply refreshed. He dressed and ate a good breakfast, joking easily with his fellow-passengers before they climbed aboard the coach once more. The same pattern was repeated for the next couple of days and nights, although, as he had determined, Lone Wolf took to sleeping in the coach in order to conserve his funds. On the second night Ganon and Dorier did likewise, and their snoring kept Lone Wolf awake much of the time, so that

in the morning his throat felt raw and his head throbbed. He vowed that, economy or not, he would allow himself the luxury of a bed in whatever inn they stopped at that evening. The morning meandered on. Parsion and the two brothers kept up an incessant flow of chatter, Halvorc read one of the seemingly endless supply of books he had brought with him, and Lone Wolf and Viveka divided their time between aimless exchanges of trivial conversation and dozing. Lone Wolf was dreaming that he was fleeing for his life through the countless dungeons of some nameless castle when he was shocked into wakefulness. The world was being thrown from side to side. He was buffeted from beneath by his seat. Viveka was thrown against him, and he saw her face quite differently; those elegant features were twisted into an animal snarl. Halvorc, very unexpectedly, was screaming in terror. Loud cracking sounds. More battering. A last crunch. Then silence except for the cursing of the driver and the frightened whimpering of the horses. The coach was canted over to one side, and swayed uneasily as Lone Wolf moved to the window. "What's going on?" he shouted at the driver. He was rewarded with a torrent of abuse, in which he was able to pick out two words: "wheel" and "broken". To his surprise, Viveka beside him responded with a similar stream of profanity, the obscenities jarring with her well modulated accent. They scrambled out of the coach with some difficulty, finding themselves on a rocky track. They were in the middle of a desolate plain, the dreary vista broken only by occasional blackened trees, which bent creakingly when caught by the stiff breeze. Brownish-green mosses covered the land as far as they could see. At some time in the past couple of weeks it must have rained torrentially. Since then the weak spring sunshine had baked the mud of the road, so that its ruts and bumps had dried stone-hard. The rear left wheel of the coach had snarled in one of the rigid ruts and its rim and three of its spokes had snapped off just below the hub. The coach stood crazily on its remaining three wheels, looking as if a giant had dropped it from the sky. The driver had succeeded in calming his horses, and came round to join his passengers in assessing the damage. He was still cursing fluently, but his tones were gentler now and he flashed a grin at them. "Often happens on this trip," he said. "Trouble is, I can never tell exactly where or when." "How are we going to get to Port Bax?" asked the merchant. He had

controlled the worst of his fears, but his voice was still tremulous. "Not to worry too much, sir," said the driver reassuringly. "We always carry spare wheels on this route. Got a couple of them strapped on below, here." He pointed with his booted toe to the underside of the coach. "If some of you could find a branch to help me lever this blasted old crate level, I'll have a new wheel on her in no time." Lone Wolf and Viveka volunteered, and trudged off across the plain towards the nearest of the dead-looking trees. The mercenary's face had lost that mindless fury which Lone Wolf had seen flash briefly during the accident, and she moved with a girlish easiness, her sword swinging at her side. "Quite an adventure," she said easily. "Breaks up the tedium of the day, doesn't it?" "Suppose it does," he said dourly, unable to imitate her lightness of spirit. "I wonder if it was sabotage?" she said, without changing her tone but looking at him sharply. "Don't see how it could be." He realized he was speaking rudely, and apologized with a shrug. The problem was that exactly the same question had been going through his own mind. "Just how important is this mission of yours?" she asked. "Not very," he lied. "You sure?" "Course I am." "Hmm. It just struck me that perhaps someone might be trying to delay you." They had reached the tree, and she was looking at it critically "Don't see how they could have arranged . . . this." He gestured towards the scene of the crippled coach on the baked road. "The driver might have. Skilled fellow like him. Waited for the right rut to come along and then driven deliberately straight into it. Splick!" She jabbed her upright hand out in front of her, as if it were being guided by a twisty rail. "Easy as anything, for a good horseman." "True. But I can't really see it. Can you?" "To tell you the truth: no. But there's something about this journey that's disquieting me, and I don't know what it is -- except that, every time I start to think about it, you seem to be at the centre of my thoughts." "We'd better cut a branch. Here, let me have your sword." "You're not hacking wood with this blade, my friend," she said. "My life depends on keeping it sharp, and I'm uncommonly keen on preserving

my life. But I'll let you change the subject, if that's what you want. Only -only, any time you feel like talking about it, let your Auntie Viveka know, eh?" He looked into her eyes and saw no trace of guile. She seemed to be being utterly frank. And yet he knew she could hardly be trusted . . . but at the same time he believed she could. Your wits are in a bit of a mess about this, he thought to himself angrily, and it's only because she's so fanciable. Dumflies look good, too, but you know they're poisonous and you keep well clear of them. Best to treat this woman the same way. "I don't blame you," she said. "What? I mean, what for?" "For not wanting to trust me. I wouldn't trust me myself, if I didn't know me so well. But, for what it's worth, and believe me or not as you decide, you can trust me for as long as this journey lasts." This was all too weighty for Lone Wolf. "Let's get that branch," he said. "Right you are." She swung into movement, looking for all the world as if they'd been discussing nothing more profound than the weather. "Let me have your mace." The mace wasn't the most subtle of implements, but it was effective enough for their purposes. Taking turns, they soon had pounded a long sturdy branch away from the tree's main trunk. They swung it up on their shoulders and, Viveka leading the way, stumbled back to the coach. The driver had loosed one of the spare wheels, and was balancing it upright on the road with one hand, his stubby fingers lying almost gracefully on its rim. He looked at Lone Wolf and Viveka approvingly as they approached with the branch. "Right," he said. "If you good people would help me we shouldn't be delayed long." Halvorc was deputed to hold the spare wheel -- more, Lone Wolf suspected, to give him something to do to take his mind off his recent terrors than for any real reason of practicality -- while Viveka and Lone Wolf were shown how to use the log to hoist the rear of the carriage level. The work wasn't particularly onerous, shared as it was between the two of them, although Lone Wolf looked on somewhat sceptically as the driver crouched directly underneath the rear axle, wrestling with the broken wheel: the whole set-up seemed dangerously precarious to him, but he assumed the man must know what he was doing. Parsion and the two brothers had drifted off somewhere, leaving the rest of them to get on with it, and Lone Wolf wished there was some way

Halvorc could do the same. He was beginning to find the presence of his fellow-passengers, with the exception of Viveka, a constantly niggling irritation. Even about Viveka he had those ambiguous feelings he couldn't shake: on the one hand he was drawn to her, and enjoyed being in her company; on the other, there was something about her he knew he didn't fully understand, and it made him decidedly uneasy. He couldn't decide whether she . . . A sudden engulfing sound. Screams of panic torn from the horses' throats. A blow in the face, hurtling him to the ground. Tumbling noises and colours, all mixed up, so that he saw the noises and heard the colours. Splintering wood. Now a yell of anguish from someone. Himself? -- no, someone else. Mouth aching, nose aching, all of head aching. Darkness -briefly only. Swimming along a seemingly endless tunnel, back into the light. Got to get there, got to get there . . . Forcing himself up onto his elbows, then the much longer and more dangerous climb to his feet. "What? What? What?" he said stupidly, clutching his jaw. "Shut up and help me here, you blithering idiot," snapped Viveka. She was kneeling down, her fine hair thrown back over her shoulder, her attention fixed on an oddly shaped bundle on the ground. The merchant was whining inanely, but she ignored him. Confusedly Lone Wolf lurched to her side. "Help?" he said. "Help you? How?" "I don't think there's much help either of us can give," she said grimly. Now Lone Wolf could see that the bundle on the ground was the driver, his body looking as if someone had tried to beat it right into the rock-hard surface of the road. There was a lot of blood on his chest and face, and his clothes were half shredded away. "What happened?" said Lone Wolf, his mind beginning to work properly again. "The horses bolted. This poor fellow was underneath the coach, and the thing collapsed on top of him. The broken spokes went right into him." "My face --" "This branch we were using sprang up and the end of it caught you right on the chin. Do you know anything about healing?" "Only a little," said Lone Wolf. His powers were limited and flighty, he knew, but he tried to summon them now. He put his hands on the driver's beaten forehead and attempted to channel as much of his own body's strength as he could through his fingers into the man. There was some feeling of draining energy, but only a little -- not nearly enough, he knew. Still, he forced himself to continue, striving to make some sort of

breakthrough, silently calling upon Ishir and Kai to come to his assistance. He made rash promises to them of future good deeds. But the gods chose not to respond, and he knew that the man's life was ebbing away as clearly as if he could see it flowing out onto the roadway. "I'm sorry," he said exhaustedly, "not enough . . . can't . . ." He slumped. The driver recovered consciousness briefly, and looked up at the faces of Lone Wolf and Viveka. His eyes showed no pain, only a desperate eagerness to communicate something to them. He moved his broken mouth with obvious difficulty as he tried to push the words out between his lips. "No -- no accident," he said thickly. "I saw . . ." But then his last resources of strength failed him and his body seemed to fold in on itself, quite calmly. The two of them continued to watch his face for a few seconds longer, and then Viveka got to her feet, brushing her knees distractedly. "He saw something," she said bitterly. "Or someone." "True, could have been a person. And we're the only people around here. You and I were holding the log and Halvorc had the wheel, so it could hardly have been any of us . . . it must have been one of the other three." Ganon, Dorier and Parsion were about twenty yards further down the road, where they had succeeded in subduing the horses. The merchant had scuttled to join them, and his hands were flying as he told them over and over again about the dreadful calamity that had befallen them, and he'd been so close himself, hardly a whisker away from doom, less than a whisker in fact, and . . . Her eyes ranged over them thoughtfully. Lone Wolf had difficulty thinking straight because of the pain in his face, but it seemed to him there were some loopholes in Viveka's chain of reasoning. He remembered the ancient man he had seen flying high in the skies above the wrecking of the Green Sceptre, and he wondered if perhaps that sorcerer had played a part in this "accident" as well. He looked around but could see no signs of him -- although that meant nothing, of course: anyone with sufficient magical ability to fly would have little trouble rendering himself invisible. At a more mundane level, there was somebody else who could have caused the disaster -- Viveka herself. He looked at her trim, muscular form and remembered the speed and ease with which he'd seen her move when it suited her. She could have pulled the log away abruptly from beneath the coach, simultaneously knocking him senseless with it and letting the vehicle

drop. That could easily have been enough to startle the horses . . . Except the whole scenario didn't quite add up. If he was the target of the sabotage -- and he was convinced he was, because something or someone had been dogging his path ever since he'd left Holmgard on this disaster-strewn quest -- then Viveka could hardly have done anything less calculated to take his life. Or was that true? The blow to his face had been a very severe one; might it have been calculated to break his neck? He looked again at Viveka, and once more dismissed the thought: the woman was a mercenary, and there was a calm efficiency about everything she did. If she'd wanted to hit him hard enough to kill him she'd have killed him. There wouldn't have been any mistake. It crossed his mind, not for the first time, that it would be a good thing if it "suited" Viveka to be his friend for quite a long time -- as long as possible, in fact. "You know," she said, "I'm becoming very interested in the importance of you and your mission, young man. Very interested indeed." She gazed at him levelly. "What makes you say that?" "Because somebody tried to kill you, just then. I'm convinced of it. And nobody would be trying to kill you if you weren't of some importance." "They might have been trying to kill you," Lone Wolf protested. "You were as vulnerable as I was." This was obviously a brand-new thought to her, and she mulled it over, not liking it much. "No . . ." she said slowly. "No, I can't really see that. There's no cause that anyone should want me dead. There've been a few folks, of course, but . . . well" -- she laughed suddenly -- "obviously they're dead themselves, now." He saw the ruthlessness in her. It frightened him. It tantalized him. "Your king might pay me well for your continued safety," she went on. "Might he?" "Possibly. I'll take a gamble on it. Between here and Port Bax, young man, you'll have an extra pair of eyes looking out for your well-being." They went to join the others. 4 Up here in the topmost room of the Guildhall of the Brotherhood of the

Crystal Star, one could look out over the whole of Toran and see how already the city was being restored to its original form after its virtual destruction by fire and Zagarna's flying hordes. Dutifully men and women were measuring out the exact positions of all the original streets, sidestreets, squares and back alleys. Some citizens had proposed that here was a unique chance to redesign the city, to restructure it completely, but this had been overruled by the Brotherhood's Guildmaster, who had pointed out that the original configuration had been accurately calculated to form a part of Toran's magical defences. As he had forcibly argued to a meeting of his fellow Guildmasters, had it not been for this pattern of lines and angles, often apparently crazy, but all drawn up according to the principles of Left Hand magic as devised by the brothers and sisters of his Guild, the city might have been razed to the ground -- there might have been nothing left of it to reconstruct. Banedon stood in the window, watching the scene of activity, his youthful face etched with new lines born from his sorrow and guilt. From time to time he glanced across at a plain cot in the corner, where Alyss's physical body lay motionless, neither breathing nor decaying, as if frozen into a single slice of time. For the past few days he had been keeping this vigil by her side, eating and sleeping in her presenceless presence, leaving his post only when his bladder or his bowels forced him to. He wanted more than anything he had wanted in his life before to see her eyelids flicker, or her thin chest to start moving in the natural rhythms of life. He refused to believe she was dead, whatever some of the pessimists among the brothers might say: somewhere, but who could tell where, her spirit was still alive -and would one day return to the bodily shell she had chosen to adopt. They had carried her up here after the traumatic time of her restoration of Lone Wolf's life. They had wrapped her form solemnly in white sheets, moving as if controlled by something beyond themselves, hardly conscious of what they were doing. The long windows of this high room allowed the sun to play across her features whenever it climbed out from behind the clouds. The sun -- its healing influence blanketed her right now, picking out the height of her cheekbones and the red of her rusty cropped hair. Banedon felt that somehow, through those closed eyelids, he could see the green of her eyes, and that those eyes were moving; but every time he moved towards her, intending to push back the eyelids and see for himself that she lived, something held him back -- a physical force which he couldn't understand. She was somewhere, he recognized, between life and death. If he'd known where that "somewhere" was, he would have gone there and beseeched her spirit to return, but his magical abilities were strictly limited; even the

Guildmaster, through whose veins swam a crackling current of pure Left Hand energy, had been unable to locate the somewhere/nowhere in which Alyss's spirit was now closeted. There were times when Banedon found himself agreeing with those of the Brotherhood who said there was no point in all this, that Alyss was dead and there was nothing more could be done about it. Then he would look at her waxen face and recall how animated it had been, and he would decline to believe the sceptics. Somewhere, out there somewhere, she surely still existed! Ah, yes. But where? And he said to himself, silently, I have come to love you, Alyss. Please return to us if only for that. But, just as a million times before when he had thought those words, Alyss's body reacted not at all. 5 Parsion, the priest, initially dictated their actions. "We must bury this man," he said. "A tragedy -- but even more of a tragedy if we don't consign his soul to Ishir." Lone Wolf agreed silently. The driver had, as it were, died for him. The least the man could be accorded was a burial. He looked mutely at Viveka and she gave him a sorry half-smile in return. He picked up the branch they'd used to lever up the coach and, without speaking to each other, he and Viveka, taking turns carrying it, went to a piece of soft ground perhaps twenty yards from the road. They used its splintered end to dig into the earth. Lone Wolf found himself pushing against it with bitterness. Everywhere he went, it seemed, there was a trail of meaningless death: he wished the torment would stop, but he sensed it would continue until Zagarna had been destroyed -- or, perhaps even more important, until the enigmatic old man he had seen in the skies was dead. The grave was a shallow one. Lone Wolf and Viveka reached a level beneath the surface of the soil where, no matter how hard they scraped, they seemed incapable of digging any deeper. They bundled the driver's body into it, nevertheless, and the priest said a few words which were swept away so swiftly by the wind that no one could tell what they were. All five of them helped scoop the earth back over the man's body, even the merchant participating. There was nothing more they could do except stare for a moment of silence out across the bleakness of the plain, wishing that in the past couple of days they'd somehow been kinder, friendlier, towards the man

whose corpse was even now cooling at their feet. They were in little mood for conversation as they walked back to the damaged coach. "I know the road from here to Port Bax," said Halvorc hesitantly. "I've been this way several times before. I'll drive the coach if you like -assuming we can replace the wheel." No one else volunteered to take the reins. Lone Wolf shivered as the cold crept under his clothing. "We can put the other wheel on," said Viveka after a while. "I was watching what the driver was doing. It shouldn't be too hard." "I'll help," said Lone Wolf immediately, and she nodded as if she'd already taken his help for granted. "So will my brother and I," said Ganon. Dorier made a forced smile of assent, but then his face slowly relaxed again as he realized this wasn't a time for smiling. "We'll all have to help," said Viveka. She directed Halvorc to control the horses. Lone Wolf recognized the shrewdness of the move: apart from the two of them, Halvorc was the only other person who'd been in no position to make the horses bolt. Dorier and Ganon used the branch to lever the coach up and Parsion grappled with the extra wheel while she and Lone Wolf, moving as nimbly as the cold permitted, wrenched the wreckage of the old wheel away from its axle and replaced it. The whole process took them not more than half an hour. Halvorc clambered awkwardly up at the front and scrabbled for the reins; Ganon climbed up beside him to act as deputy driver. The other four got inside the coach, sitting as far apart from each other as they could, looking everywhere but into each other's eyes. Parsion was shaking all over. "When we get to Port Bax, you know," he said nervously, "they're going to ask us about what happened to the driver. They'll maybe say it was all our fault. Perhaps they'll think we murdered him." He fiddled the fingers of his two hands together, and seemed to be praying. "Nonsense!" cried Dorier, pounding his fist against the wooden door next to him. "I was there -- me and my brother. We're Knights of the White Mountain, you know. We can testify it was an accident, nothing more." "I could say as much," muttered the priest, "but would they believe me?" Dorier punched the roof and shouted his brother's name. Ganon responded with an irritated yell. He was trying to sort out which rein was which, because Halvorc seemed to have little idea.

"The priest thinks the authorities in Port Bax might not believe our story," cried Dorier. "Then he's a dimwit," Ganon replied caustically. "Only don't tell him that." The priest's sallow face uncharacteristically reddened. "What does he mean?" he hissed. "You don't know much about Durenor, do you?" said Viveka. "No," said the priest. "If you did, you'd know about the oaths of the knights." "What oaths?" "Oh, there are many of them." An airy wave of her hand, indicating huge but unspecified numbers. "One of the most important is the Oath of Truthfulness. The various orders of knights in Durenor, including the -- what did you say your order was again?" "The Knights of the White Mountain," said Dorier stiffly. "Yes, them too. When they're sworn into the order they have to vow that for the rest of their lives they'll speak the truth at all times, even if it brings down the wrath of the gods on their heads." Lone Wolf interrupted. "It's easy enough to take an oath," he said, "but even easier to break it." "Not for a knight of Durenor, it isn't," said Viveka. "If any of them's caught in a lie -- even a tiny one, like 'My, you're looking well this morning' to someone with a hangover -- they're likely to face public execution. Personally I think it's idiocy, but that's the way they do things in Durenor. I've always found lying extremely useful, myself." Lone Wolf was reminded of someone, but he couldn't think who it was. "So you see," said Dorier reassuringly to the priest, "Ganon and I will tell exactly what we saw -- that it was all just a dreadful mischance." And truth is a relative thing, thought Lone Wolf. Assuming that your brother and yourself are indeed the honest knights you seem to be -- and I'm by no means convinced of that -- then you'll tell the truth about what you saw. But that needn't be the whole truth -- not the reality of the situation. It'll be just what you think happened, and you won't even know that you're telling a lie. But I'll know, and Viveka will know, because someone tried to kill me here, and whoever it was will try again, and next time maybe they'll succeed, and you'll tell the "truth" about another mysterious accident which you witnessed . . . The coach was beginning to move. At first the horses were restive, recognizing Halvorc for the inexperienced driver he was, but soon they

settled back into their normal steady pace, and the vehicle bowled along smoothly enough. Its movement seemed to soothe the worries of the priest, because he nestled himself back into the stale-smelling upholstery of the seat and closed his eyes. Dorier looked out of the window, apparently counting the trees as they went by, drumming his fingers on the panelling as if he were impatient, now, to reach Port Bax as soon as possible. Lone Wolf controlled his own impatience, and just allowed his thoughts to run free for a while; then he turned and looked at Viveka and they smiled at each other. Impulsively he took her hand in his and, after a moment's hesitation, she relaxed her fingers, so that they linked lightly through his. It was a curiously maternal gesture from a woman whose whole persona radiated hardness and efficiency, but it comforted Lone Wolf and he allowed himself to relax. He had an ally, a protector . . . At least for a while. 6 Evening was drawing pastel greys across the sky when they came to a downat-heel village which straggled lethargically along the sides of the road. Halvorc reined in the horses as they arrived at a barren expanse of openness which obviously served as the main square. To their left they could see through the gaps between the houses some rugged cliffs and the angry lashings of the waves combing in from the Gulf of Durenor. Ahead of them a bridge crossed an oily expanse of water. A couple of Szalls approached the coach cautiously, and once again Lone Wolf felt the urgent need to slay these giaks. He took his hand away from Viveka's and clenched it tightly in front of him. He had to remember that the Szalls were only pale shadows of the vicious beasts which formed the bulk of Zagarna's armies. These creatures were too timid to risk the vengeance they might incur if they were to attack a human being. Ganon, perched high in front of the coach, chattered with the Szalls rapidly. Lone Wolf could make out only a few of the words. Then the knight hopped down and rapped on the window. "We've got a choice," he said cheerfully. "Either we can stay the night here in this dump -- Gorn Cove, they call it -- or we can keep going and camp out somewhere along the road. The next place of any size is Port Bax itself, about fifty miles away, so there's no chance of making it tonight." "Doesn't seem like much of a choice to me," his brother said. He looked around the others, and they nodded in agreement. "Guess we'll have to slop ourselves into all the nameless debaucheries of Gorn Cove's nightlife

-- the lady permitting," he added, with a mock bob of his head towards Viveka. "I hardly dare trust my virtue to this hotbed of rampant wickedness," she said drily, letting her eyes rove across the parched drabness of the place. "I wouldn't put it past them to play strip samor here." "Ah, samor," said Parsion, sucking in his thin lips. "A sinful game, that is." "We're agreed, then?" asked Ganon, making a face. "I should warn you that the only inn here, according to the locals, is such a wild attraction that they call it the Forlorn Hope." "My mother told me about places like that," said Viveka. Whoever had named the Forlorn Hope had been desperately optimistic. The slimy corridor which served as its entrance hall echoed with the undisturbed filth of the years. The six of them clattered in, helping each other with their packages and trunks, and looked around in dismay. "I think I'd prefer the strip samor," muttered Viveka after a pause. They were met by a thin old man, who stared at them with welcoming disapproval through his single eye. This was clearly their landlord; behind them, from the foul-smelling kitchens, they could hear shouted imprecations and obscenities and the clattering of pots and pans. "You be the coachload from Ragadorn?" asked the landlord, with a woeful attempt at geniality. "Shut your trap, woman!" he added in the general direction of the kitchens. "And I assume you'll be wanting six single rooms?" He looked pointedly at Viveka as he said this, and her eyes flared. "Four single rooms," she said with carefully controlled quietness. "My brother and I will share." Parsion and Halvorc looked shocked, Ganon and Dorier leered, and Lone Wolf felt his jaw drop. "As the lady pleases." The landlord winked conspiratorially at Lone Wolf. "Belt up, you stupid bitch, or I'll rearrange your face! Just a bit of friendly marital banter," he explained. "I'd help you with your bags, but there's an 'r' in the month and so my back's playing me up something rotten. And your mother's face as well if she comes round here!" "Look, what are you playing at?" whispered Lone Wolf to Viveka, as they struggled up the dilapidated stairs in the wake of the landlord's skinny rump. "I'm not your brother, for the sake of Ishir! The rest of the people will be thinking that --" "I don't much care what they think," said Viveka shortly. "From here until we reach Port Bax you're my brother. It's the only way I can keep my

eye on you, like I said I would." She paused halfway up the stairs. "I should request you not to take advantage of the situation." Mock-formality but narrow, threatening eyes. "Of course not." Lone Wolf strangled a few frenzied speculations at birth. "But you might have warned me you were adopting me." "I'm sorry, brother. I'll remember in future, brother. Too silly of me, brother. Now shut up and start being my brother, blast you, brother!" They had a balcony room, through the window of which they could see the deserted remnants of an open-cast mine -- "a fascinating example of industrial archaeology", as Viveka described it. The room was L-shaped, and Lone Wolf was relieved to see that its two single beds were separated from each other by the angle of the "L". The beds themselves were in a quite dangerously rickety condition, and Viveka tested both of them by bouncing on them before choosing for herself the safer. "I think we should be comfortable enough here," she lied bitterly. There was a rat-a-tat-tat on the door, and Dorier shouted through it. "If the siblings are agreeable, perhaps we could meet in the bar in an hour's time to talk about what we should do tomorrow." "This sibling agrees," said Viveka cheerfully, looking dubiously into a vast porcelain chamberpot she'd hauled out from under her bed. "My brother says it's all right, too." "Viveka," Lone Wolf said once Dorier's footsteps had retreated, "you'll excuse me for saying this, and of course I know you're acting only for the best, but I object to the fact that you seem to be taking over my life." "Thought you might. This water's scummy." "I don't think you're supposed to drink it. Actually, it was quite a good idea of yours we should share a room, but it was a bit much just springing it on me. You could at least have consulted me." "I wasn't going to drink it, you clot. I was joking, right? Anyway, it was only at the last minute that I suddenly realized it would make a lot of sense if I were able to keep my eyes on you at night as well as during the day. I wonder if that landlord would charge me extra if I asked him to empty this?" "Probably not. No, on second thoughts, from what I've seen of him so far, he probably would. But that's not the important thing. The fact is that I don't think I need your protection. I've survived this long without anyone to help me" -- he struggled out of his shirt and lay back on his bed, luxuriating in the feel of the cool blankets against his shoulderblades -- "and I think that, thank you very much, I can keep on doing so." "Someone among us is trying to kill you," said Viveka, opening the

window and tipping the contents of the chamberpot out onto the straggly, weed-choked garden below. "Until we find out who that person is, you need someone to guard you. And I wouldn't be so cocky about how tough you are, brother, because I reckon I could break you in half if I really wanted to." She turned away from him to hang up her gear -- mainly heavy items of weaponry -- in a rudimentary wardrobe. Viveka vanished from the room for a minute, then returned bearing a jug. "No problem at all getting fresh water," she announced. "Funny the way that men are always so quick to see sense when you've got your hands around their throat. Besides, he was too busy trying to placate the tavern's gardener about something to want to strike up an argument with me. Now, where were we? Ah, yes. You're going to be my little brother for as long as it takes us to get to Port Bax. After that you can choose your own way of dying. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to wash some of the dust of the day off me." She twirled her hand in the air and Lone Wolf dutifully turned away. He let his eyes close. Holmgard seemed a very long way away, and he was hungry for the security of someone he could trust completely. Viveka was a friend, he felt pretty certain of it, but he wasn't certain he could rely on her entirely -- if someone offered her a bag of gold right now, she might easily turn on him, slaughter him and pocket the fee. Besides, she seemed to be playing games with him, and he resented that. After what seemed a very long time she told him it was all right to look back again. By then his thoughts were flowing in a peculiarly warm and pleasing fashion, and he mumbled that he'd rather lie here a while longer. He was only dimly aware of the sounds of her leaving the room -- of her telling him firmly that he was expected down in the taproom in fifteen minutes to join the rest of them -- as he found that, with only a gentle manipulation of his imagination, he could find himself swimming deeply in a clear sea, surrounded by clusters of brilliantly coloured fishes, feeling the warm water's cleanness washing all the way through him . . . He was pulled out of his dreams by a knocking on the door. It took him a few minutes to remember where he was, but then he tumbled himself off his bed and groped his way unsteadily through the gloom to find the door. He opened it, and his eyes shrank from the brightness of the corridor beyond. Framed in the door was the crooked figure of the innkeeper. The slight, twisted man was clutching a wooden tray on which was a bowl of steaming stew.

"Your friend sent this up to you, sir," he said, "seeing as you're late for supper down below. I wouldn't care if your mother was the king of all the giaks herself, I'd still use her guts for a catapult! Pardon me, but it's just me and the wife's way of expressing our affection. We have our little customs." Lone Wolf nodded dumbly, and took the tray. He hadn't noticed being hungry before, but as soon as he caught a whiff from the bowl he realized he was eager to get some food into his stomach. He thanked the innkeeper courteously, and put the tray on a side-table. He dragged across a chair from the side of Viveka's bed, and settled himself down to eat. It was a matter of only minutes before the food was all gone. He looked around as if in hope that the innkeeper would suddenly reappear with some more, but of course there was nobody. He concentrated his thoughts, and tried to mould them together in such a way as to conjure up the thin-eyed man, but all he succeeded in doing was turning the edges of his vision into a red fuzziness. He was on board the Green Sceptre again, its deck pitching and tossing, throwing him from side to side, and he was staggering in a clumsy dance. No, that was all wrong -- of course he wasn't on the Green Sceptre; that had been days ago. He was standing in the middle of an orchestra, surrounded by a hundred or more musicians, all of them staring at him expectantly, and he knew he was expected to conduct them in a symphony, but he couldn't remember what the symphony was, or even if he'd ever heard it before, and he didn't care, so he threw his arms back and shrieked at the top of his voice as the hot vomit gushed down his chest, and all of a sudden he was a zlanbeast, his great wings beating mercilessly against the feeble air, forcing it to succumb to his will. He was staring at a threadbare carpet, the stink of his sick biting at his nostrils. He threw up again, adding to a lumpy puddle that extended around his hands and all the way to his knees. Someone had forced him to swallow hot coals, and now his stomach and his abdomen were smouldering away from within. He felt the pain of the glowing embers and asked himself quite lucidly whether or not he enjoyed it. On balance, he decided that he didn't. Poison. Now there was a new word, one that he hadn't encountered in a long while, and yet he greeted it like an old friend, while at the same time wondering why that old friend had chosen to visit him unexpectedly after all this time. Poison. Now meeting an old friend who hadn't bothered to keep in touch over the years was one thing, but having to welcome him a second time was really a bit much.

Poison. Even the most patient of us have our limits. This person was becoming arrogantly intrusive. Lone Wolf looked at him with active venom. This was no . . . Poison. . . . this was no friend, I was about to say before you interrupted me. No, correct that: you're no friend. You're just someone pretending you knew me in the long ago, but now I recognize you for what you are. You're an . . . Poison! . . . imposter. Yes! May all the fiends of Helgedad devour you, you're nothing more than . . . Poison! Another convulsive heave of his shoulders, and he spat the last of the green vomit from him, rubbing the back of his hand over his mouth. Viveka tried to poison me! Somehow he got to his feet, and he stood there swaying, looking at the repulsive mess all around him. No, it couldn't have been Viveka. Could it? When the innkeeper said my friend had sent supper up to me I assumed it was Viveka, but it could have been anyone. Besides, he'd have called her my sister . . . He looked around him for a towel -- anything to clear up the stinking pool of puke. That seemed to be the wrong priority, he knew, but he carried on anyway. Perhaps Viveka had hung a costume in the wardrobe she didn't wear very often? Sure enough, there was soft cloth in his hands. First he wiped his face with it, using some of the stingingly cold water she'd left in the jug. Then he squatted down and did his best to clear up. The costume became clammy and heavy in his fist, and he realized the task was hopeless. Always, back at the Kai Monastery, they'd said to him he should tidy up after himself, but it looked as if for once he'd have to disobey instructions. A pity. And it had been such a nice carpet, too. Well, no, that was going a bit too far. In point of fact, now that he came to think of it, it had been a perfectly revolting carpet. It had definitely been much improved by the transformation. This thought cheered him as he remembered there had been other things beside Viveka's costume in the wardrobe. Long, heavy, metallic things. Hmm. In fact, hadn't one of them been a sword, not unlike the sword which those fisherman had stolen from him? Hmm again. It definitely seemed to be a sword. He cut his thumb on the long blade of it, and grinned as he persuaded his mind to heal the tiny wound. He put the weapon in his belt, staggering with the effort, and

decided that, right now, he was fit enough to conquer the whole of Aon -Aon and the gods, if it came to that. Strong as a . . . strong as a . . . His imagination failed him, but he concluded that he was very strong indeed. The first time he went to the door it dodged to one side so that he walked into the wall. On his second attempt the door must have realized there was something serious afoot, because it stayed where it was and allowed him to open it. The narrow stairs twisted like a tormented snake beneath his feet as he descended them. At the bottom he met the one-eyed innkeeper, who gaped at his bedraggled appearance and recoiled at the smell, letting him pass. Looking through reddened eyes, Lone Wolf located the door into the taproom and staggered towards it. He clutched its jamb wildly and surveyed the room beyond. His travelling companions were seated at a large oak table, talking animatedly over the remains of their meal. Ganon was the first to notice him, and gave him a grin that abruptly vanished when the knight saw the filth covering Lone Wolf's chest, not to mention the long gleaming sword which the youth somewhat waveringly held out before him. Ganon jumped to his feet and came across. "Whatever's happened? You look dreadful." "Poison. Someone's tried to poison me." There was an immediate commotion. An isolated part of Lone Wolf's mind dispassionately observed the reactions of the travellers -- Viveka looking furious with herself, Halvorc mystified and disbelieving, Ganon and Dorier both concerned and enraged, and Parsion . . . Parsion looked horrified to see him. Which was only to be expected. When the horses had bolted, out on the road, only three people could have set them off -- Ganon, Dorier and the priest. But since then Lone Wolf had heard the two brothers state quite clearly that, as far as they knew, the whole affair had just been a dreadful accident; and, as Knights of Durenor, they were sworn to tell the truth. Which left Parsion. The priest observed Lone Wolf reaching this conclusion, and his face twisted. He leapt to his feet and turned towards a small door at the rear of the room. Viveka grabbed the sleeve of his robe and he hit out at her savagely, then unexpectedly drew a short black sword from his clothing. Lone Wolf recognized it immediately as a giak blade, and the recognition gave strength to his right arm, so that he could bring the flat of his own borrowed weapon down with a smack on the chipped wooden table.

"You!" he spat. "Yes, you Kai bratling, may Naar feast upon your soul." Parsion's sword moved like liquid, cutting Viveka across the right arm, almost severing the tendons on the inside of her elbow. She shouted in pain, but swiftly pulled a dagger from her belt using her other hand. Halvorc screamed, and the two Knights of the White Mountain were frozen, perplexity written large across their simple faces. With the tip of his sword, Lone Wolf flipped an empty pewter platter directly up into the priest's face. Parsion ducked away, disconcerted by this unexpected move, and Viveka took the opportunity to jab her dagger into his belly; then, almost delicately, she fainted. The priest was mortally wounded. He dropped his sword and clutched at the protruding handle of the dagger, staggering backwards to crash against the wall, shouting obscenities as Lone Wolf advanced vengefully, collapsing to sit with his back to the wall, a sudden spurt of blood fountaining from his mouth. Lone Wolf put the point of his sword against the wall next to the man's neck and leant against it, his forehead covered with oily sweat. He saw now, for the first time, the serpent tattoo on the priest's left wrist. He had seen that mark before -- back in Holmgard harbour, when he had been attacked in the Good Cheer Inn, and on the forehead of the fishing captain who'd wanted to sell him to slavers. "Who are you, scum?" "A better man than you'll ever be, whelp." More blood issued from Parsion's mouth, but his face was still locked in a sneer of defiance. "Who sent you?" "No one." "Then no one will mourn your dying." Once more the blood gushed from the priest's mouth, spattering across the floor, flecking Lone Wolf's legs. "And none will mourn yours, you little . . ." The priest died, and there was a sudden racket behind Lone Wolf. "Murder!" screamed the innkeeper. "They're murderers!" "Wait!" said Ganon sternly. Lone Wolf turned exhaustedly to see what was happening. The two brothers had drawn their swords, and were holding them up against the innkeeper and half a dozen uniformed men. The town guard, thought Lone Wolf dully. As he turned his attention back to the corpse of the priest, Viveka stirred on the floor, and her eyes flipped open to look up at him with cool alertness. "You can keep the sword, little brother," she whispered. "You've

earned it and you may well need it." She winced painfully, then continued. "There're horses out the back, there. Take one and go. These men'll string you up as a murderer." "But --" "I'll be all right. I've had worse wounds than this in my time. I'll catch you up if I can. Don't forget, I expect to collect a fee from your rich King Ulnar." She smiled, and Lone Wolf realized this was not the time to argue. "You take care, big sister." "Of course I will. Now, for Ishir's sake, get out of here." She closed her eyes and, as far as Lone Wolf could see, drifted back into unconsciousness. Swiftly, ignoring the shouting voices behind him, he searched the priest's blood-soaked garments. He found a half-empty vial, which he immediately deduced must have contained whatever foul tincture the priest had used to poison his food. He also found a crumpled roll of parchment, covered in the crude characters of written giak. He could decipher only a few words -- "Kai", "Port Bax", "Sommerswerd", "Vonotar". The rest of the writing must contain instructions, or perhaps just the details of his route from Ragadorn to Port Bax. The priest must have located him at the North Star Tavern and dogged him from there. But who had set the priest on him? And why? The men of the town guard had summoned up enough courage to draw their swords and were now threatening the two Durenese knights. Lone Wolf had little time to waste on trying to understand why the priest had tried to murder him; that could wait until later. He mouthed a kiss towards Viveka's motionless face, then moved as swiftly as he could to the rear door, wishing his arms and legs didn't feel so weak and the room would stop its ceaseless rocking. Out. Out into the coolness of the night. He found himself in a cobblestoned courtyard, aglow in the silver of the moon, which was nearing its full. Where were the horses Viveka had talked about? There were only stables with sagging doors. The moon winked at him and he winked back, before the thought struck him that the moon shouldn't be winking. His sword -- the sword that Viveka had given him -- grazed the cobblestones, drawing sparks. He decided to sheathe the weapon and spent some seconds discovering he didn't have a scabbard. He became petulant towards the gods, who had failed to supply him with such a simple thing. A mere scabbard! Surely they could have managed that! No, what was he doing worrying

about scabbards? He'd been sent out here to find horses, for some reason, some reason he couldn't now exactly recall. Oh, yes, it was to escape from here -- avoid the town guard and get away to Port Bax. That was what Viveka had told him to do, and Viveka was his elder sister, so she should know what was best for him. He looked interestedly into the back of a haycart for some while, thinking how comfortable it would be to snuggle himself down into the warm-smelling hay and sleep away the night. A small part of his faltering consciousness warned that this might be a very bad idea -- but he couldn't remember why until a kaleidoscopic image of raised swords and angry faces tottered in front of his eyes. Aha! Being lynched! Yes, that was something he definitely didn't want to happen to him, although he couldn't for the moment think quite why everyone said the experience was so unpleasant. Now that he looked more closely at the hay, he began to associate the front ends of haycarts with animals of some kind, large animals with four legs and ... Horses! That was it. Viveka had told him to take a horse. He lurched around to the front of the cart and found not just one but two horses, both of which eyed him nervously. One was white and the other was black, but otherwise he couldn't tell any difference between them. He opted for the black one solely on the grounds that it was nearer to him, and cut its traces inexpertly with his sword. The beast stood quite still as he hauled his unwilling body up onto its back. He kicked with his heels, and the horse began resignedly to move. Behind him he sensed a sudden glow of light as the rear door of the Forlorn Hope opened and the men of the town guard stumbled out into the courtyard, bumping into each other as their eyes adjusted to the dimness. He kicked the horse again, and it neighed in protest but began to gallop along the deserted main street of Gorn Cove. He fell forward across the animal's neck and allowed it to choose its own route. It swayed from side to side, negotiating the corners of the winding street with practised ease, clopping over the wooden bridge that spanned the slow-moving waterway known as Rat Creek, lunging eagerly up a steep hillside until they were at the very top of a cliff. Lone Wolf raised his head long enough to see, in the cold light of the moon, a signpost which told him that Port Bax lay another fifty miles to his right. He nudged the horse in that direction, and it responded easily, its hooves beating the dried-mud road rhythmically. He faded in and out of consciousness, sometimes feeling brightly alert

and at other times revelling in a distorted reality which he knew, even as he experienced it, must be the product of dreams. The moon set, its silvery light now seeming somehow miserable, and the horse galloped on beneath him. The stars paled in the sky, which itself was turning from inkiness to a mellow grey-green colour. He pulled himself erect on the horse's back and realized that the poison was at last leaving his system. He still felt divorced from what he saw all around him, and his limbs were infuriatingly slow to obey any of the commands he gave them, but his head had at last regained clarity. In the moist light of the dawning day he saw he had left the barrenness of the Wildlands behind him. The horse was now trotting tidily along a road surrounded by sullen moors and waterlogged fens. A smudge ran along the horizon, far away to his right and then curving around ahead of him, and he guessed this must be the Durenor Forest, which served as the natural boundary between the two countries. It seemed that at last he was in sight of his destination. He patted his horse on its right shoulder, and gratefully the big black animal eased itself to a halt. It began to graze on some of the grasses by the side of the road, and that reminded Lone Wolf of the great vacant space where his stomach should have been. Of course, he hadn't brought any food with him, but he recognized some of the plants on the moor as edible, and he made a rather patchy, sour-tasting breakfast out of them. Then he climbed back on the horse's broad back and slapped the animal into a brisk trot. An hour later he came to a fork in the road and, following his instincts, turned left. The day promised to be a beautiful one and, despite his ordeal, he found himself singing easily as the horse followed the road along the top of a high, grassy ridge. At the back of his mind there was concern about what might have happened to Viveka, but he kept his doubts firmly in place, assuring himself that she was almost certainly correct in her assessment that she would somehow pull through. From time to time he turned to scrutinize the road behind him, wondering if he might see her following him, but always the road was empty. He went through the outskirts of a village, being treated to a goodnatured hail of stones and clods of earth hurled by a gaggle of Szall children, and then left it behind as the road descended into a deep valley. The coarse brownish-green grasses of the moorland gave way to richer land, divided up into neatly tended fields. On the far side of the valley he could see more clearly the fringes of the Durenor Forest, while off to his left tall cliffs jutted against the skyline. A smile appeared on his lips, although it was half an hour or so before he noticed that it had. He allowed the horse to amble on at

its own pace, enjoying the feeling of the sunlight on his shoulders. Very soon now he would be in Durenor. Presumably in that gruffly honest country he would find little difficulty in hiring transport to take him from Port Bax to the capital, Hammerdal, where he could claim the Sommerswerd for the salvation of his native country. There, too, he must ask if anyone knew the meaning of the name "Vonotar", which had been written on the scrap of parchment he had salvaged from the dead priest's clothing. He waved cheerfully at a peasant girl working in one of the brown fields, and she straightened up from her labours and waved back. He grinned like a child, and started to sing again. Soon, soon he would be in Durenor . . .

8 Port Bax 1 He was passing through a little clump of trees when he heard cries of despair. He halted the horse and twisted round, trying to work out where the sound had come from. Yes -- another scream. The high-pitched wail of a man in agony. Also other sounds -- excited shriekings, like giak cries. Over there, somewhere to his right. He slapped his horse on the rump and urged it forwards through a tangle of branches that slashed at his face. He felt for his sword. Suddenly he was in the open. In a small clearing in front of him, half a dozen Szalls were jumping and leaping in panic, shrilling to each other excitedly and pointing at the ground between them. There lay two bodies. One, dressed in the uniform of a Knight of the White Mountain, was clearly dead, his throat slashed wide open. The other, though, was very much alive; he was writhing in agony, screaming as he attempted desperately to drag from his chest the long carved spear that had impaled him. His eyes strained in his skull as he looked towards Lone Wolf, wordlessly begging for help. Lone Wolf pulled his sword free from his belt and kicked his horse towards the Szalls. They took one look at him and, wailing in terror, melted clumsily away into the undergrowth. He considered following them but realized his duty lay here with the injured man. There's something wrong, he worried as he clambered down off the back of his horse. Something very wrong indeed. Szalls never attack human beings; they're too cowardly for that. For them to take on two strong men, one of them a knight . . . There's more here than meets the eye. He shivered uneasily and looked around the clearing, half-expecting to see hooded eyes watching him from the shelter of the trees. He could see nothing, but that did little to reassure him. Moving very warily, he checked the body of the knight to make sure the man was indeed dead and then turned to the knight's wounded companion. This man -- a peasant, to judge by his clothing -- had stopped screaming now. His exertions seemed to have drained him of all his strength, and he hardly moved as Lone Wolf knelt beside him. The spear had bitten cleanly into him, so that there was very little blood around the wound. Lone Wolf observed this with foreboding: the chances were that, as he removed

the spear, he would unplug an artery and unleash a torrent of blood. He gathered some leaves and grass and tore a few strips from the peasant's clothing, ready to staunch any sudden flow. He muttered a few words of comfort as he clasped his hands around the shaft of the spear. To his surprise, he found the weapon was made of metal, not wood, as he had assumed -- although it was as light as a wooden spear. The shaft was covered with runes and other carved symbols, and Lone Wolf shivered again; he felt sure there was magic at work here, and he had a warrior's distrust of unknown magic. With his collection of cloth and foliage poised ready to stem the blood, he pulled the spear out of the man's chest in one smooth movement. The peasant gave a long sigh of relief, which startled Lone Wolf. But he had other things on his mind. He clamped his fistful of cloth over the wound, throwing the spear away behind him. Still no blood seemed to be flowing. Lone Wolf couldn't believe it. Cautiously he lifted away his makeshift bandage and looked at the peasant's chest. The man chuckled, and then a bright, burning pain arced through Lone Wolf's head. He staggered backwards, clutching his ears, and fell down abruptly on the knotted grass. His eyes were filled with hot tears, yet he was able to see that the man who had seemed only moments before to be mortally wounded was now leaping agilely to his feet. Moreover, he was changing. The skin of his face was writhing and altering its hue, growing darker and shrinking as it seemed to decay, fitting itself closer and more tightly about his skull. His eyes were smouldering with a dull red glow, and long fangs sprang up from his lower jaw. A helghast! The spear -- where had he thrown it? -- must indeed be wrought of magic, for somehow it had frozen this vile creature's superhuman physical powers, threatening its very existence. And he, Lone Wolf, had like a credulous fool removed it! No wonder the Szalls had been so full of terror. They must have come across this loathsome being in combat with the Knight of the White Mountains and realized that, whichever of the two combatants triumphed, they would be blamed and punished. The pain in his mind was making it difficult for him to think. The helghast must be using every ounce of its psychological abilities to attack him. How had the knight, whose mind had no defences against mental attack, ever survived such an onslaught?

Sudden understanding filled Lone Wolf. The spear . . . that must be the answer. Howling without knowing he was doing so, he crawled backwards, groping with his hands for the discarded weapon. The helghast stood above him, swaying, ready to attack. Lone Wolf struck at its ankles with his sword, feeling the blade cut into the spawn-flesh. He couldn't see what was going on, though, and the shock of the impact made him lose his grip on the weapon. The helghast growled angrily. Orange and red suffused lights chased each other across Lone Wolf's eyes. The forest itself seemed to be stalking malevolently towards him. He retreated still further. At last, the feel of metal against his fingers. Immediately the pain receded from his brain, leaving only a numbing echo of its presence. The helghast yelled in fury as it saw that he had found the spear, and sprang at him. Lone Wolf rolled over, barely in control of his body's movements, and saw the creature's great clawed hands gouging out grooves of turf where he had lain only a moment before. He forced himself to his knees and stabbed out blindly with the spear. He rapped the helghast sharply on its side, but that was all. It turned, on all fours, and stared at him with its infernal red eyes. Its lips were pulled well back from its fangs, and it drooled eagerly. "Kill!" it barked gruffly, ready to spring. Its words were rough around the edges, as if the creature had difficulty in mouthing them. "Kill in the name of Vono --" The point of the spear cut deep into its cheek. Lone Wolf twisted the shaft, hoping to inflict a more serious wound, but the helghast snapped its head away. Lone Wolf rolled backwards, holding the spear out horizontally to one side, and found his feet. He lurched slightly, gaining his balance. His mind was racing now, filled with a savagery almost as debased as that of the helghast. He rolled his lips and found that he, too, was slavering at the mouth. A meaningless, harsh noise ripped itself from his throat. He swished the spear from side to side, moving it from one hand to the other, his eyes intent on the striated face of this spawn of Helgedad. He was conscious of no emotion save his need to kill. He wanted to destroy the beast utterly, to tear it into tiny shreds and scatter them all over the countryside, so that the pieces would be as far-flung as possible and, even in death, could never be

reunited. The helghast was on its feet once more and moving towards him cautiously, its huge armoured hands swinging by its sides. Lone Wolf jabbed the spear into its groin, withdrawing it every bit as swiftly. The injury hardly interrupted the helghast's advance. "Kill," it growled, the words even more furred now that the flap of its cheek was dangling loose. "I kill Lone Wolf -- die slow." The spear took it in the right wrist. Again Lone Wolf twisted the shaft, and this time was rewarded by the damp sound of splintering bones. The helghast screamed in astonished pain, staring at its hand dumbfoundedly. No normal weapon could harm a helghast so readily! thought Lone Wolf deliriously. The beast can't understand why it's being injured so terribly! He swung the spear almost as if it were a sword, so that its razor-sharp tip raked across the helghast's eyes. There was an eruption of ichor as one eye exploded over the carpet of grass, and the beast screamed yet again. It staggered to its knees, then fell forwards, its colossal hands scrabbling towards Lone Wolf's ankles. "I kill!" it roared in anguish. Lone Wolf stabbed straight forwards. The spear-point was deflected by the helghast's skull. The jar of the collision shot up his arms. He danced lightly away from the creature's beckoning hands and cursed in pain. The next time he drove forwards with the spear he felt the point push straight in through the helghast's ear. The sensation as the spear plunged relentlessly into the spongy mass that served the creature as a brain was of slicing into softened soap. The helghast gave a deafening scream. With shocking abruptness it died. As Lone Wolf watched, the creature's form faded from his vision, still frozen in its death-agony, in a half crouch, its hands partly upraised towards its violated head. A purple-streaked wind seemed to swirl around Lone Wolf's ears as the helghast's image ebbed into nothingness. He was left leaning against the moulded spear, his muscles aching, looking at an empty clearing where the signs of battle were all too evident. He retrieved the sword that Viveka had given him and took a dagger from the belt of the dead knight, mumbling a few pointless excuses to the corpse as he did so. Then, very reluctantly, he turned to examine the pack left behind by the dead helghast. The first thing he drew from the pack was a black-bladed knife, its hilt

etched with unfamiliar symbols whose meaning he couldn't decipher. As soon as Lone Wolf set eyes on it, he knew he was in the presence of Evil. He threw the knife from him. Another, more mysterious, item was a block of cold obsidian. He turned it over in his hands, looking at it in bafflement. It seemed to have no conceivable purpose, yet its surface, too, was covered with those macabre symbols. He reached further into the dark maw of the sack, pushing his hand gingerly forwards. His fingers touched what seemed to be a roll of parchment, and he tugged it out into the light. He half-gagged as he realized that this was no parchment. Although it was a scroll containing writing, it was made of uncured skin; and from the down on the skin he had little difficulty in identifying it as human -- that of a young man or woman. His hands were trembling as he unrolled it to see what was written on it. As with the parchment he had discovered among Parsion's clothing, this was written in the crudely formed giak script, and he could make out only a few words. The one that leapt out at him was "Kai". And the helghast knew me by name! This was no chance encounter. Someone has indeed been following my every step, and attempting to put an end to me. He squinted up at the sky, for a moment half-expecting to sight the flying figure of the ancient man, but there was nothing to be seen. He peered at the script again, and suddenly another word leapt to his eye: "Vonotar." Lone Wolf's mind raced. "Vonotar." That name had also appeared on Parsion's scroll. And the helghast had used a word beginning "Vono". Surely the two must be the same! It can't be coincidence. All of these attacks on me must have been orchestrated by some agent of the Darklords -- the ancient man . . . Vonotar? He thumbed through his memories. Where might he have heard the name before? Something told him that if only he could identify this Vonotar he would be far less vulnerable to the assaults on his life. But who could he ask? Banedon's "friend" Alyss? He wasn't certain he really believed that Alyss existed. Ulnar? Yes, the king might know, but he was many hundreds of miles away -- still defending, Lone Wolf hoped, Sommerlund's capital from the greedy jaws of Zagarna's hordes. All of a sudden he began wishing very much indeed that Viveka were with him. He had seen her ruthlessness and potential for cruelty, and he knew full well she would kill him with hardly a thought if someone offered her enough money to do the job, but he found her, as it were, honest in her

deviousness, and he felt sure she would have been able to tell him more about this Vonotar. She had known -- or deduced -- far more about him than he would have believed possible, and he suspected she knew more about the progress of the war as a whole than even he himself did. Moving among the low-lifers in the half-world in which she carried out her trade, she must hear unnumbered snippets of information -- unguarded words spoken in taverns, or the empty-headed boasts of those who employed her skills. The horse was gone. At some stage during his struggle with the helghast Lone Wolf had sensed that something had disappeared from the clearing, so he was only slightly surprised to find the animal missing. Either it had fled from the scene of death or the Szalls had recognized it as a prime piece of horseflesh and coaxed it away while his mind had been taken up with other, more urgent things. He wished it well. The animal had given him good service; even if it had deserted him he bore it no ill-will. He had travelled all the way from the Monastery to the Alema Bridge on foot, so the last few miles into Durenor and Port Bax should give him no trouble. He tucked the sword and dagger into his belt, put the spear on his shoulder, and began to make his way back to the road. 2 Once again Qinefer was dreaming, and once again she was in Alyss's tent, but this time Alyss herself wasn't there. There was only the table, with a steaming cupful of adgana brew placed directly in its centre. Qinefer shyly reached out her hand for the cup but then hastily withdrew it; even although she was fully aware this was only a dream, she had no wish to risk even the slightest chance of becoming enslaved by the stuff. She settled herself down in the other chair and waited impatiently for Alyss to make an appearance. She drummed her fingers on her knee, trying to force her thoughts to concentrate on anything else but the fact that she found waiting boring, boring, boring. She was conscious of the fact that, in some way she didn't as yet fully understand, Alyss was vitally important to the resistance against the invasion of Zagarna and his spawn-bred hosts, but at the same time she found the sprite-like woman profoundly irritating. Besides, Alyss was very definitely magic; Qinefer tried to persuade herself that she kept an open mind about magic, but deep down inside she distrusted and disliked it. How dare she keep me waiting like this? Am I not among the foremost of all King Ulnar's Knights of the Realm?

She smiled at her own arrogance. Only a few days ago she had been nothing but a humble farmer's daughter; now she was taking airs and graces to herself. She still felt as if she were the same person -- despite her tally of dead giaks and other spawn, notably a helghast and (she preened herself) two gourgaz -- yet still there was a part of her that felt as if Alyss's lateness was nothing more than rank impertinence. Time passed very slowly for Qinefer. She pushed her dream-fingers through her dream-hair, tidying it abstractedly, realizing as she did so that the effort was wasted, was nothing more than a way of making the leaden seconds pass by a little more quickly. She took the cup of adgana -- this time there was no temptation to swig it back -- and used the surface of the liquid as a mirror in which to check her appearance; she was pleased to note that, in this dream-state, the unsightly scab on her nose had disappeared. But there was a limit to the number of things she could do here in Alyss's tent. She went to its door to look out, but there was nothing to be seen, as she pushed the flaps aside, except a bleak moonlit desert, an eternity of sand stretching away in every direction. She returned to her chair, humming frustratedly through her teeth. Is this going to be one of those dreams where nothing happens the whole night long? I could be discovering new continents, or perhaps taming wild animals . . . Where Alyss had been seated in Qinefer's earlier dream there was now a coalescence of the air. She watched with a sort of half-hearted fascination as drifts of various textures came together, knitting themselves, until they formed the hazy figure of an incredibly ancient man. His face was covered in the furrows of antiquity; the ridges of his eyebrows, over the hot flare of his eyes, reminded her in some way of birds' wings. He was dressed in a robe of faded blue, decorated with stars which had once been silver but which had now tarnished to show the muted grey of pewter. His hands were like the claws of a lobster as they scuttled across the surface of the table. "Welcome to my establishment," said the ancient man. Qinefer rose to her feet and spat at him. "I recognize you!" she snapped. "You're that --" The wizened man held up a frail hand to deflect her words. "Yes, yes, I know. You have little cause to love me. I'm Vonotar, the symbol of everything you hate. Yet I think you ought to listen to me a little while longer, young lass." "Why should I?" "Why should you indeed? Because I can tell you of a way in which you could become the foremost warrior in all Magnamund."

Qinefer stared at him with unabated hatred. "Oh, yes, you can forget about that fool of a youth, Lone Wolf. If he's not dead already he will be soon. And good riddance, if you ask me, good riddance." The magician's eyes briefly flared into blueness. "But you -- you, my dear, you could have in your arms the strength of all the magic I can bring to bear. There would be few if any who could stand against you. Soon you could be the ruler of all Sommerlund, the armies of King Ulnar under your sole command. He, of course, you would have to . . . hmm . . . dispose of" -- the magician's lips arched fastidiously -- "but I'm sure that would be a simple enough task for you, knowing the prize would be your own supremacy." "I curse your grave," hissed Qinefer. "A typical reaction of the emotionally immature, if I may be so bold as to say so," piped Vonotar querulously, damning the agedness that coloured his voice. "But think about it a little longer, young woman. Just think about it." He nudged the cupful of adgana towards her and, with a flwhup! of imploding air, disappeared from her sight. She looked at the place where he had been, and started to grin. I think you've just made a big mistake, Vonotar, she thought. 3 Lone Wolf came to the crest of a hill and saw the vast gloominess of the Durenor forest spread out ahead of him. The stern-looking trees were a dark coniferous green; between their erect, parallel trunks it seemed as if they had captured an ocean of cool dusk. Lone Wolf smiled. Ever since childhood he had been drawn to forest places. The sight of this great expanse made him feel as if he were coming home. Where the road entered the trees a large wooden guard-tower had been erected -- many decades ago, to judge by its ramshackle appearance. From this distance Lone Wolf could just make out the silhouette of a sentinel in position on the upper level of the structure. He began to jog easily down the road, still grinning to himself. The guard must have seen him early on, because by the time Lone Wolf was within about twenty yards of the dilapidated wooden tower the man was emerging from its base, holding a spear at the ready. He was dressed in the red coat of a Durenese man-at-arms, and Lone Wolf had never seen a more welcoming colour. It was a gleeful proclamation that, despite all the hazards of the past few days, he had at last succeeded in reaching the

border between Durenor and the Wildlands. "Well met, friend," he cried, easing his pace. The sentinel kept his spear defensively pointing forwards, but halfsmiled. "Who are you? What is your business?" Lone Wolf was uncertain what to reply. He'd become so used to using subterfuge recently that it was now almost like second nature. On the other hand, Durenor was an historic ally of Sommerlund . . . He decided to opt for honesty, and gave the soldier the bare bones of his mission, carefully playing down its importance just in case he might have been unlucky enough to have found a traitor among the Durenese ranks. Also in his mind was his recent encounter with the helghast; he was uneasily conscious that every human being to whom he spoke, no matter what his or her appearance, might prove to be another of the Darklords' spawn. As Lone Wolf spoke the sentry's spear gradually lowered. At the end of the terse explanation the man said, "Have you some proof of this?" Wordlessly Lone Wolf held out his right hand. On its middle finger was the Seal of Hammerdal. The soldier recognized it at once, and his mouth dropped open. "I had no wish to see that in my lifetime," he said sadly. "When a Sommlending bears the Seal of Hammerdal to Durenor it can mean only one thing. War." "I told you. We're already at war." "Yes, you Sommlending are. But we Durenese have known peace for many long years now." "If Zagarna succeeds in conquering Sommerlund, his armies will spread to other nations. Durenor is sure to be among the first. Better to attack him now than suffer the wrath of his invasion later." "You're probably right," said the sentry with a shrug, "but I wish you weren't -- indeed, that you weren't even here. I've a wife and children. I'd hoped they could live out their lives in peace." He pulled himself upright. "Still, enough of that. Obviously you must pass. I'd come with you to guide you, but I'm alone here 'til sunset. If you'd like to wait that long . . .?" "No," Lone Wolf said decisively. "I've already taken much longer on my journey than I'd intended. You'll understand -- I feel I've got to press ahead." "Then good speed," said the sentry, almost gratefully. "It's not many miles from here to Port Bax." He turned and pointed along the road into the forest. "Keep on this way until you come to a stunted oak tree. It's very recognizable -- you can't miss it. The road forks there. Both roads will take

you to Port Bax, but the one on the left is the quicker." "Thank you," said Lone Wolf. "And may Kai be with you in the troubled times to come." "And also with you," responded the soldier automatically. Then he sucked in his breath expressively. "Aye, and I mean that, young man. It's for all of us to fight Evil. I just wish this hadn't happened in my time." Lone Wolf touched palms with him briefly, and then headed off down the road, alternately jogging and walking, making good speed between the trees. The forest all around him was eerily still: no birds sang in the treetops; no wind stirred the branches. After a while, however, he could hear a distant sound ahead of him. It wasn't long before he discovered what it was. The forest opened in a sudden rush of light, and ahead he could see a long, graceful bridge of white stone. The sound was the chopping, argumentative movement of the waves of a great tract of water, which extended away from him on both sides as far as he could see. He recognized it as the Rymerift, a great geological gash, in places two miles wide, that joined the Gulf of Durenor to the Kuri Sea and separated the bulk of Durenor from the continental mainland. Its waters were said to be as much as a mile deep. Here the Rymerift was only a few hundred yards wide, but still Lone Wolf marvelled at the construction of the bridge. Although it was broad enough to carry only a single wagon, it had been built with great elegance and craftsmanship. As he ran his fingers along the ancient stone parapet, he admired the artistry of the stonemasons. Every boulder had been laboriously carved so that it exactly matched those on either side. Set into the stones, every few tens of yards, was a sculpted head representing some symbol of Durenor's glory and pride. The years and the damp saltiness of the air over the waters of the Rymerift had etched and pocked these, but still Lone Wolf could appreciate the genius that had gone into their creation. On the far side of the bridge there was a reassuring signpost: PORT BAX -- 3 MILES He grinned at it happily: he should be there in less than an hour. In fact, the sign-maker had been a little optimistic, for it was nearly dusk by the time Lone Wolf caught his first sight of Port Bax. He stopped. The only places of any size he had seen before were Holmgard and Ragadorn, but neither of them -- certainly not the latter -could match this place for beauty. A curve of gentle hills surrounded the city on three sides; on the fourth was the Gulf of Durenor. The soft evening light

picked out the faded pink of the stone used to build most of the houses and other buildings, including the tall, superbly proportioned castle that crowned the largest of the ring of hills. On the far side of the city Lone Wolf could just discern the harbour area, where a number of large war-galleons moved easily at their moorings. He made his way down to the city and found, to his initial astonishment, that the entrance was unguarded. Then he realized that, of course, Durenor was not as yet at war, and so there was no reason for the city walls to be extensively patrolled. During his few days in Sommerlund since the start of the conflict he had become totally acclimatized to the way that every habitation or dwelling-place was rigorously defended. He seemed to have spent half a lifetime living in a state of emergency. As it was the time of the evening meal, there were comparatively few people in the streets. Lone Wolf made his way in the general direction of the harbour, on the supposition that the Sommerlund consulate would probably be near the water. He stopped a young couple to ask them for directions, but they were unable to help, although they smiled in friendly fashion at what was, to them, his thick Sommlending accent. As he was leaving them, the woman turned back towards him. "Ask in the city hall," she said kindly. "They're bound to be able to tell you there." She pointed to the other side of the road, where a tree-lined avenue led off. "It's just up there," she added. "On the right." A couple of minutes later Lone Wolf was standing in front of a large building surmounted by a copper-coloured dome. He climbed a broad flight of stone steps and was greeted by a brass plaque which confirmed that this was, indeed, the city hall. A welcoming splash of warm light spilled from its half-open doors, and without hesitation he entered. Just inside, an old man with a long beard was studying a huge leatherbound book that rested on a lectern before him. Lone Wolf started, remembering the ancient man he had seen in the skies, but almost immediately he relaxed again, because the scholar was eyeing him with a genial look of interest and amiability. "Are you looking for someone, young man?" His tones were courteous, deep and grave. Lone Wolf explained what he wanted, and the scholar looked somewhat surprised. "It's not hard to find the consulate," he said, his fingers working at the straggly ends of his beard, "but it's not easy to get there."

Lone Wolf looked baffled. Was the man speaking in riddles? The scholar saw his confusion and smiled again. "The consulate's in the naval quadrant, you see," he explained, "and that's a restricted area. You'll need to get a red pass before they'll let you in." "How do I go about that?" "You can get a pass from the Captain of the Port Watchtower, although I doubt he'll see you tonight. You'd be better off waiting 'til morning. There are plenty of inns where you can spend the night." "But I've got to get to the consulate as soon as possible. It's urgent." The old man shrugged sceptically, and his eyes on Lone Wolf were shrewd. "Well, you can try," he said reluctantly. "The Port Watchtower is close by here. Turn right as you leave the building and keep walking until you reach the end of the avenue and you'll see it in front of you. To get from there to the consulate you'll need to get into the naval quadrant by the Red Gate." He gave Lone Wolf a few further directions and then wished him good speed. The Port Watchtower was even closer than Lone Wolf had anticipated. It was a tall white building, fronted by a rickety-looking set of rusting metal steps. Wearily he climbed these, knowing the handrail was smearing him with a red-brown stain but past the stage of caring for such trivia -- his tunic was already so badly stained that a few extra marks would hardly make any difference. At the top of the steps he paused and looked around him. Off to his right was a short cobbled street and at the end, just as the old scholar had described, was a high stone wall with a red-painted gate set in it. Two soldiers were standing guard, their red uniforms, like the gate, looking almost black in the dim light. Lone Wolf could see, over the top of the wall, the masts of some of the larger ships moored in the harbour. His nostrils flared eagerly, and a new strength came to him. At last he was coming close to his destination. Surely they would send an escort with him from the consulate to Hammerdal. The main door of the Port Watchtower was ancient and unprepossessing, slumping sorrowfully on its hinges. He knocked, and was hardly surprised when there was no reply; it looked like the sort of door which would admit people only with the greatest reluctance. As he manipulated its greasy metal handle and pushed it open it squealed disappointedly, making it plain to him that, as far as it was concerned, he was an intruder. He found himself in a large, badly lit hall. With some difficulty he

made out the sign on a door near to him: NAVAL QUADRANT RED PASSES He rapped on it, and again there was no reply. Perhaps it wasn't the Durenese custom to respond when people knocked on their doors? In fact, it suddenly came to him, for the past few hours he'd been assuming, without really thinking about it, that the Durenese were like the Sommlending in all respects, just because they looked very similar, spoke a language that was so closely related to the Sommlending tongue that they were barely more than dialects of each other, and were of course Sommerlund's staunchest allies. But the assumption wasn't a rational one. There was so much he didn't know about Durenese society and customs that, if he weren't careful, he could easily find himself in trouble through sheer ignorance. He could make a perfectly innocent remark to someone and get a punch in the eye by return. He couldn't stand dithering here any longer. He pushed the door open confidently and stepped through it into a room whose sole unifying factor was chaos. Piles of documents, ledgers and curling sheets of paper lay everywhere -- across desks, along shelves and all over the floor. Charts had been pinned to cover the walls several layers thick, and most of them were drooping and peeling gracelessly. The air was thick with the smell of tobacco smoke and the simple odour of constant human habitation; clearly it had been weeks since last a window had been opened. A naked lamp flickered -- dangerously, Lone Wolf thought, in view of the amount of loose paper around -- and in its light he could see a middleaged, rather raddled-looking man in gaudy naval uniform working away busily with a quill pen at a thick battered ledger. The only sounds were the scratch of the quill and the puttaputtaputta of the lamp. The naval officer continued writing, his face close to the paper of the ledger, his eyes peering myopically at the words; those eyes were a strikingly pale, almost metallic-seeming blue, and they watered from the intensity of the effort. The man's lips moved silently as he worked. Lone Wolf coughed artificially. No reaction. He coughed again. The officer looked up, his eyes refocusing slowly, and at last registered Lone Wolf's presence. "Ah, you'll be the messenger sent by Admiral Simey. Bit early, young lad, bit early you are. I've not finished yet, so you'll just have to wait. Terrible thing, terrible." His voice was prissy. He shook his head wearily and

went back to work. "I'm not a messenger. Well, not in the sense you think. And I'm not from Admiral Simey." "True, true," said the officer, clearly not listening. "But once he looks at these figures there'll be heads rolling, I can tell you. Soap! That's the problem, laddie -- soap! And I don't like the smell of it!" "I . . . I . . . ah . . ." "Corruption! Nothing but corruption! The world's full of corruption these days, and most of it's to do with soap. It fair gets me in a lather." He stared firmly at Lone Wolf. "I hope you never get involved in soap, lad." Lone Wolf had just been thinking that, with luck, he would be able to take a bath when he reached the consulate. It was as if this man had been reading his mind. "But I --" "Been using too much of it, the sailors have. More than they could possibly use. My figures prove it." He tapped the ledger in front of him proudly. Flecks of ink sprayed from the quill over the paper, but he paid them no heed. "Here's the damning evidence, I tell you! Our sailors have been stealing the navy's soap by the crateful. Doubtless selling it on the black market. Making an absolute fortune, I'll be bound." "That's not what I came about," said Lone Wolf. "Isn't it? Then what in the name of the Darklords are you doing here? Go away, and stop bothering me. Can't you see I've got a lot of soap to calculate?" "I need a red pass. I need to get to the Sommlending consulate as swiftly as possible." "Aha! A soap-smuggler, are you? I can imagine your type! So that's where the stuff's all going, is it? To Sommerlund? You should be ashamed of yourself, laddie. One so young as you to be corrupted by soap so early." The man grappled around him myopically. "Dash and thunder," he muttered, "but I'm sure I had a sword here somewhere. How in the world am I going to slay you for the vile soapsmuggler you are if I can't find my sword? Look, lad, can you see it anywhere?" The sword was propped up against the wall behind him, but Lone Wolf decided it would be best not to tell him. The last thing he wanted was to waste time on an unnecessary fracas. "I don't know anything about soap," he said curtly. "All I ask is a red pass." "Deny it, would you? Adding perjury to your crimes, eh? I know I had

that sword somewhere -- and a fine sword it is, too. Given to me by my grandfather when he was a boy. No, wait a moment. It was me that was the boy. I say, could I borrow your sword for a moment?" "Where's the Captain of the Port Watch? I have to get hold of a red pass -- right now." "The Captain of the Port Watch? Don't tell me he's involved in the conspiracy, too? Well, I'd never have believed it. Mind you, I've noticed him smelling unusually perfumed from time to time. Sampling the merchandise, I've no doubt. And to think I was so foolish as never to suspect him." Lone Wolf began to wonder if all Durenese were like this. If so, he might as well turn and go home right now. "Look," he half-wept, feeling the full effect of his exhaustion once again, "all I want to do is see the Captain of the Port Watch to ask him for a red pass into the naval quadrant!" "That's what they all say," said the officer suspiciously, ceasing his frenzied searches for his sword and looking at Lone Wolf with a critical expression on his face. "All who? I mean, who're 'they'?" "Soap-smugglers, of course! They come in here several times a day, pretending all they want is to apply for a red pass. But I've learned their little trick now." "It says on the door that this is the place to get --" "Yes. That's what's called counterespionage. A cunning subterfuge of mine, wasn't it, putting that notice up?" "Then perhaps you could tell me where I could get a --" "I know what you're about to say! A red pass is what you want! Then why in the name of all that's holy, and a few of the unholy things, too, now I come to think about it, didn't you say so in the first place?" "I tried to." Lone Wolf leaned on his sword and stared at a mouse in the corner of the room. It was sitting half-upright, chewing at its paws. I'd rather be talking to you than to this maniac, he thought wearily. "Well, that's simple enough, if you really want one." The officer was clearly still suspicious, but he looked at last to be cooperative. Thank Ishir for that! "Well, may I have one, please?" "No. Of course not. I told you it was simple enough -- a simple no." Lone Wolf felt for the dagger he'd acquired after fighting the helghast. Frustration was building up inside him to the point where he was terrified that, in a sudden fury, he would stab this man through the heart. "But," he said, spitting each word individually between his teeth, "my

business is urgent. I can't be delayed any longer. If you can't give me a red pass yourself then for Kai's sake take me to the captain!" "You're strangely convincing for a soap-smuggler. But even if you're genuine, laddie, you'd need to show me your access papers and some proof of authorization from your commanding officer. Also, there's Kings Decree Number 17 (As Revised) to be taken into account. One of my favourite decrees, that." "I don't have any papers!" Lone Wolf shouted. "I've come all the way here from Sommerlund on an important mission. I've risked my life a hundred times, and I'm not going to be stopped by some idiotic old dodderer whose . . . whose mind is full of soap!" "Well, if you put it like that, all I can suggest you do is come back tomorrow. It's far too late at night to give you a red pass. You'd probably just lose it in the dark and have to come back for another." Lone Wolf remembered his encounter with the sentry. What had worked once might well work again. He pushed his hand forward across the officer's desk, pulling back his sleeve so the Seal of Hammerdal could be clearly seen. "Will that convince you," he hissed, "that I'm here on a matter of some importance?" The clerk looked at it warily, then touched it inquisitively with his fingernails. "It's the real thing?" he said, his voice losing much of its pettiness. "Not made out of soap?" "It's the real thing. It was given to me by King Ulnar himself." "Ah." Without another word the clerk pulled himself to his feet and led Lone Wolf out of the room. Occasionally tripping and stumbling in the gloom, he went along a corridor and up a flight of wooden stairs, then along another corridor that was even more poorly lit than the first. Finally he came to a halt at a blackened-oak door and knocked on it sharply. "Yes!" came a bellowing voice from within. Well, thought Lone Wolf, that sorts out the problem of whether or not the Durenese answer when someone knocks on their doors. The clerk led him in. The room was huge -- seemingly far too vast for the size of the building. At the far end was an imposing onyx desk behind which sat one of the tiniest men Lone Wolf had ever seen. "Come on, you two," boomed the Captain of the Port Watch. "But I'll have your livers if you're here to waste my time." The room echoed emptily as the two of them clattered across it to the captain's desk. Lone Wolf noted idly that it, like the rest of the room, was

starkly bare. Its top seemed to have been freshly polished. It looked as if it would have been disgusted if anyone had presumed to place a piece of paper on it. The contrast with the clerk's office below was bizarre. He didn't beat about the bush. He showed the Seal of Hammerdal immediately, and told the captain tersely about the war in Sommerlund; beside him the clerk punctuated his account with little squeaks and gasps. As soon as Lone Wolf had finished, the Captain of the Port Watch looked at the clerk furiously. "You buffoon of a snivelling little apology for a Szall's giblets!" he snarled. "Why didn't you bring this man to me immediately?" "Well, sir, you never know these days --" "Go and make out a red pass at once! At the double! Quicker than that! Or so help me I'll --" The clerk didn't stop to hear what the captain would do to him. Throwing the occasional terrified glance back over his shoulder, he fled rattlingly down the length of the room, looking desperately anxious to be out of his superior's presence. Lone Wolf tried not to grin; the man was almost whimpering in his distress. "I don't know why we put up with him," said the captain reflectively, staring into the empty space where the clerical officer had been. "But every time I try to get Simey transferred to another division my dear fellowofficers think up so many good reasons why he should stay here that I . . . I just give up." He rubbed his small but muscle-knotted hand across his forehead. "Simey?" said Lone Wolf. "But he seemed at first to think I'd been sent by an admiral called Simey." "Oh," said the captain sadly, "you've had the soap treatment, have you?" "Well, in short, yes." "Poor old Simey. For years now he's had the fantasy that a cousin of his is an admiral, and that this admiral is constantly asking him to check up on the usage of soap in the fleet -- important economies could be made, you know the sort of thing. Simey's convinced there's a colossal conspiracy afoot to rob the navy. To tell you the truth, though, I wonder what our men do do with the official-issue soap. They certainly don't wash themselves with it; you should try standing down-wind of a few of them on a hot day. No -don't. Don't dare stand down-wind of 'em more than one at a time. More than a couple is a lethal dose." Lone Wolf began to wonder if he were to be treated to another of these surreal conversations. Were all the Durenese mad?

Fortunately he was saved by the reappearance of the clerk. The man ran puffingly down the room and made as if to put the document he was clutching down on the captain's desk. "Not there, you fool!" The man recoiled, horrified by the sacrilege he had been about to commit. "Give it to our young guest, and then get out of my sight -- or I'll put you on a diet of soap for a fortnight!" "Not that! Sir, you wouldn't --" "Wouldn't I?" The captain stared wrathfully at his cowering underling. "Now, get out!" As the clerk dashed away in terror, Lone Wolf heard him mutter under his breath, "So that's what he does with all the soap . . ." "I thank you for your help," said Lone Wolf politely to the Captain of the Port Watch. "If you'll excuse me, however, I'd like to be on my way as soon as possible." "Yes, you'll want to get to your consulate." Moments later Lone Wolf was hurrying down the cobbled street to the Red Gate. The guards there inspected his pass, saluted smartly and allowed him through. On the other side of the wall he found himself in an open square lit by the tall beacons lining the quayside. On the far side of it he could see a building fronted by marble pillars above which the sun-flag of Sommerlund flapped lazily in the night breeze. He ran tiredly across the square, feeling his sword batting against his leg as he moved. Now that he was here, the accumulated tiredness of the past few days flowed into every limb of his body, so that he was stumbling as he hauled himself up the stone steps of the consulate. Luckily the guards on duty at the door immediately recognized his Kai clothing, tattered and stained though it was, and they sprang forward to help him. Two of them supported him, his arms around their shoulders, while a third dashed off into the building. He returned within a few moments, accompanied by a distinguished-looking grey-haired man, who was dabbing at his lips with a table napkin. The newcomer looked at Lone Wolf, and his casual interest turned to enthusiasm. "A Kai! Thank all the benevolence of Ishir! I trust you're the bearer of good tidings. We've heard rumours of the dreadful things that are said to be happening in Sommerlund. Look, let's not talk here. Come inside, come inside. You look all done in. Come and sit down in front of the fire and fortify yourself with some food and drink -- and then tell us all your news."

4 Lone Wolf was conscious only of a blur of light and sound as the guards took him into the consulate. The next time that he was fully aware of his surroundings he was sitting on a comfortably quilted chair, his feet stretched out in front of him, a glass of spicy-smelling wine being thrust into his hand. As he looked around him he could see that his arrival had interrupted some sort of formal dinner party, for everyone else there was dressed fashionably. Platters still half-filled with food littered a long oak table. The room was lit by an array of sputtering candles set in silver candelabra that ran in a single line down the table's centre. Lone Wolf became very selfconscious about his filthy garb, and then settled himself more relaxedly into his chair. If they'd been through what I've been through . . . There was one person there who wasn't dressed in fine silks and furs. This was a tall, bulky man clad in heavy chain mail and with a sword at his hip. Lone Wolf guessed his age to be no more than about thirty or so, and was surprised when the man gruffly introduced himself as Lord-Lieutenant Rhygar, King Ulnar's envoy to Durenor. Lone Wolf had somehow expected an older man. Rhygar ignored the rest of the dinner guests and dragged a chair up to join Lone Wolf. He beckoned to a servant, and almost at once Lone Wolf found a platter being placed on his knee. Using his fingers, he picked up a plump thigh of chicken and began to gnaw at it greedily. Rhygar watched him with a sympathetic look in his eye, recognizing his eager hunger, and forbore to question him until the first of its pangs had been assuaged. "Once you've finished that and rested for a few minutes, young Kai," he said, "we'll set you out a proper meal and you can tell me what's been happening in Sommerlund." Lone Wolf finished the chicken and drank another couple of glasses of the sweet wine. He looked into the flames of the log fire, and began to feel his vision grow muzzy. All that he really wanted to do was sleep, but he knew he must stay awake for an hour or two longer yet. He flexed the muscles of his arms and worked his shoulders in a rolling movement, forcing the sleepiness to recede from his body. It was with a close approximation to an alert smile that he finally turned to Rhygar and said: "Well, where would you like me to begin?" "At my dinner table," said the envoy. "I've never been averse to a second supper, myself, and I'm sure that my guests here" -- he gestured around him -- "will be happy enough to join us as we eat. We're all

Sommlending, as you can see, so you've no need to worry about our loyalty to the cause." Lone Wolf remembered the priest. Parsion, too, had been a Sommlending. However, he kept his qualms to himself. The meal was splendid. Some of the foods Lone Wolf couldn't identify. He and Rhygar ate steadily and in silence for a while, the other guests making small talk among themselves, obviously eager to hear what the young Kai had come to tell them but at the same time too courteous to interrupt him as he ate. Finally Lone Wolf leaned back in his chair and belched, covering his mouth with his hand to stifle the noise. "That was good," he said sincerely. "I should eat here more often." Rhygar laughed, and dutifully the others joined in. "Now, friend," said the envoy, "tell us your news." "There's little of it that's good," Lone Wolf began. He spoke for perhaps half an hour, grateful that at last he could tell his full story, missing out none of the details. From time to time Rhygar broke in with a question, asking for clarification of this point or that, his attentive grey eyes fixed on Lone Wolf's face. He seemed especially interested in Ulnar's plans to defend the besieged Holmgard, and asked for particulars of troop dispositions and armaments which Lone Wolf embarrassedly confessed he just didn't know. Rhygar looked markedly impressed as the young Kai told him about some of the struggles he had had with his foes, and when he described Viveka the envoy began to smile, clearly recognizing her; otherwise his expression was as grave as the information warranted. At the end of Lone Wolf's account Rhygar sat leaning forward over the table silently for a minute or more, staring at the oak surface, obviously deep in thought. Then he looked up. "What you need is a lot of rest, my courageous young friend," he said, "and the ministrations of my personal physician. In the morning we'll set off for Hammerdal." Lone Wolf was surprised. He hadn't expected the Lord-Lieutenant himself to accompany him, and he wasn't absolutely certain he liked the idea. Still, at least it proved that here at last was someone who was taking his mission seriously. He'd grown tired of being fobbed off by one person after another on the assumption that, just because of his youth, his quest could be of little importance. A short while later he was in a luxurious bedroom. Rhygar's physician turned out to be a cheerful individual, about the same age as his master, and as he stripped his patient off and began to attend to those of his wounds

which Lone Wolf hadn't been able to cure through the use of his own healing abilities, he kept up a steady flow of talk. Soon Lone Wolf began to realize that his escort for the journey to Hammerdal could hardly have been better chosen. From the physician's account it was plain that Rhygar's career had been an impressive one. Rhygar, it emerged, had been born to a Sommlending father and a Durenese mother, and, so the physician said, had inherited all of the virtues of both nations and none of their vices. He had early shown himself to be a precocious military genius, and had rapidly been promoted within the Durenese army. Some years ago he had been put in command of a joint Durenese/Sommlending force which had successfully repelled an invasion of Ice Barbarians from the chilly wastelands of Kalte, to the north, and his heroism during that brief war had made him something of a legend in Durenor. He had thus been an obvious choice as King Ulnar's envoy to the nation when the previous envoy had died, just two years ago. Rhygar, Lone Wolf gathered, was respected for his sagacity during peacetime as much as for, in war, his ferocity and mastery of strategy. The more the physician spoke about him, the more Rhygar rose in Lone Wolf's estimation. He was impressed by the physician, too. He noticed hardly a twinge of pain as his wounds were cleaned. He was ushered into a steamingly scented hot bath -- Enough soap to satisfy even Simey, he thought wryly -thoroughly washed, then pummelled dry with soft, fluffy towels. He was refreshed enough by all this to have the strength to cure some of the worst of the bruises and cuts which he had picked up along the way, and the physician watched with interest, then applied strange-smelling unguents and ointments to the remainder. The physician helped him into a well used flannel nightgown that was considerably too large for him and settled him into a deliciously soft bed. Part of Lone Wolf's mind was humming with activity, with anticipation of the hazards that the morrow might possibly bring, but the rest of it was working at the most animal of levels, simply enjoying the feel of the warmth and softness of the pillows and bedclothes. It seemed that different beds, primitive or palatial, were about all that gave him any pleasure these days. He mustered enough self-control to raise his head as the physician blew out the candles. "I thank you, doctor." "Think nothing of it," said the physician, standing in the door, framed by the orange-yellow light from the corridor beyond. "G'night," said Lone Wolf, feeling the sleep washing over him. "A pleasant journey on the morrow," said the physician.

Lone Wolf tried to make a polite response, but his exhaustion had finally conquered him.

9 Tarnalin 1 For three days, Lone Wolf had ridden with Rhygar and three of his most skilled fighting men. At nights they had made camp as late as possible, rising as soon as the earliest glimmers of dawn had stolen across the sky, pressing ahead urgently. In the evenings they had talked cheerfully together, and something of a competition had sprung up between them to decide who could recount the tallest convincing tale of his own heroic exploits. Sometimes Lone Wolf was uncomfortably aware that Rhygar might actually be telling the truth, so he took care not to get so carried away with the embroidering of his own yarns that he came out with something the older warrior might know for a fact to be impossible. In the unsteady light of the campfires, giaks and Ice Barbarians died in their thousands, most decapitated but a few consigned magically to the oblivion of Naar's desolate darkness. It was all stirring stuff, and Lone Wolf admired the others' inventiveness even as he told them, quite seriously, about how he had seized three gourgaz by the scruffs of their necks and drowned them in a cauldron of beef broth. He considered himself to be particularly effective when imitating the gourgaz's plaintive cries for mercy as they had told him they were vegetarians. The road had wound roughly northwards, following the meandering course of the Durenor river. The river was sometimes sleepy, moving massively and slowly; at other times it raced between narrow cliffs of reddish rock. Lone Wolf was the first to wake that morning, and he was enjoying the solitude. He had washed himself in a stream, and was feeling clean and alert. His ears were filled by the sound of crashing water; near where they had camped the night before, the Durenor spilled over a great wall, well above a hundred feet high, to cascade into angry pools beneath. He sat beside the dead black branches of last night's fire, appreciating the sound of the cascade and the sight of the Hammerdal mountains, behind whose snowcapped peaks, he knew, lay the capital of Durenor, great Hammerdal. His mind ran back to the first and only time he had seen the Durncrags -- the savage range of mountains that divided Sommerlund from the Darklands -and he was amused by the difference in his reaction. The Hammerdals seemed like friends to him, representing a safe cordon about the capital city of Durenor, whereas the Durncrags had, from the moment he'd first seen them, stood like foes against the skyline.

Rhygar was the next to stir. He rolled restlessly on the pallet of grasses he'd collected to serve as his couch. Smiling to himself, Lone Wolf partially drew his sword from the scabbard which he'd been given back at Port Bax, and watched with amusement as Rhygar moved instinctively into a defensive half-crouch. "Only me," Lone Wolf said. "One of these days you'll find your gizzard on the opposite side of the ocean if you carry on playing games like that," said Rhygar, his face only part-smiling. "But in the meantime I suppose I'll have to let you live -especially for the tale of the three gourgaz." "Each and every word of it true, sire," said Lone Wolf, nodding his head forward in mock-solemnity. "Except perhaps for a few of them?" "Quite true. Words are funny things, the way they can make you say truths that happen to have not a grain of truth in them." "I trust you told that to the three gourgaz." "Well, I would have, but they didn't give me time." "That's the way with gourgaz." Rhygar shrugged histrionically as he climbed out of his sleeping blankets. Unceremoniously he kicked his three knights, one by one, and they grumpily greeted the new day. They rolled over -- one of them yawning exaggeratedly -- and stumbled off into the trees, searching for somewhere they could pee and wash. A few minutes later they were cleanly groomed and ready to continue the journey. The five of them had scrambled up on their horses when they saw ahead of them, higher up on the forest path, a group of six hooded riders. Lone Wolf felt for his sword. Rhygar and his knights seemed less concerned, though, and waved to the riders cheerfully. "A fine morning, sirs!" cried Rhygar. "If you should be heading towards Hammerdal then, perhaps, we could ride together." The hooded horsemen made no response, and once again Lone Wolf felt a shiver down his spine. "I don't trust these people," he whispered to Rhygar. "There's something wrong about them." "I don't trust 'em either," Rhygar replied softly. "But until we find out otherwise we've got to treat them as friends. And friends they may very well prove to be -- who knows?" In a louder tone Rhygar called out to the riders. "Let us pass, I command you, for we are bearing a dispatch to our king, Alin."

Still the riders made no reply. The morning wind whipped through their cloaks, so that the cloth made a rhythmic slapping noise in the air. Behind them Lone Wolf could see the orange-blueness of the morning sky. Still, though, he could not see their faces. He had an icy premonition that these figures were no mortal riders. "To stand in the path of a king's messenger is treason," Rhygar was bawling. "You can let us be, or you can become our travelling companions. Which do you choose?" Still a silence from the hooded men. "Do you mean us ill?" Rhygar was beginning to sound desperate. "Who are these, Lone Wolf?" he muttered. "I think they may be helghast." "This far into Durenor? Surely they'd never dare!" "I've slain a helghast in my time," said Lone Wolf softly. "I wasn't lying when I told you about that over the campfire. They're difficult to kill -few mortal weapons can injure them. This spear I carry" -- he lofted it -"will kill a helghast, but I doubt that your swords could." "My sword has slain creatures of every kind. Are you telling me that helghast would be any different?" "If these horsemen are helghast, then, yes, I would tell you that." Still there was the uncanny silence from above, nothing but the flapping of the dark riders' costumes in the breeze. Rhygar turned away from Lone Wolf impatiently, and shouted once more at the waiting men. "I have spoken to you reasonably," he called, his words half-fading into the trees all around them. "Now let me put it to you plain. Unless you speak to me, or turn to let us pass, our swords shall cut you limb from limb." There was no reaction from the riders, except that one of their steeds whickered nervously. "Then I must command my men to charge you," yelled Rhygar. He spurred his horse up the narrow road, and his knights followed obediently behind him. They set up a great ululating shriek of battle, their swords swirling high in the air. Lone Wolf screamed after them, but it was obvious they could hear nothing above their own deafening racket. "Wait!" he shouted. "In the name of Ishir, wait!" His words had no effect on them. They were kicking their reluctant horses faster and faster into the gallop. Lone Wolf's instincts were proved dramatically right when one of the hooded horsemen pulled from beneath his cape a black staff. It looked

innocent enough, but Lone Wolf, trying to calm his terrified, pacing horse, recognized it instantly as a Darklord weapon. Once again he shouted a warning to Rhygar and the others, but once again they could hear nothing over the sound of their battle-cries. The rider pointed his staff with elaborate care towards the feet of Rhygar's horse, and touched the shaft gently. A streak of blue flame shot out from the end of the staff; where it struck the ground beneath the envoy's horse there was a great eruption of earth. The animal reared up on its hind legs, screaming in a mixture of astonishment and pain, and threw Rhygar, turning and twisting through the air, into a deeply packed clump of bushes. The knights hurtled their swords through the bodies of their foes, yelling mindlessly. The swords had no effect. Lone Wolf, still trying to calm his horse, cursed loudly, knowing no one could hear. Whoever had tried to slay him during his long journey from Holmgard was trying to do so again. He believed it was the old man who could fly above the clouds, the man he now thought of as Vonotar. These thoughts slid through his mind far more swiftly than time itself. From his belt he drew the sword Viveka had given to him. His friends were dying, and it was incumbent upon him to save their lives. Agony shot through his mind. One of the helghast was trying to strike him dead by a beam of lethal thought, in the same way its fellow had done in the copse near the edge of the Durenor forest. Raising his left arm as if to shield his head, Lone Wolf reached back with his right to grip the spear. As soon as his fingers curled around its shaft he felt a surge of blessed relief. As before, he knew he was experiencing pain, but he didn't mind it any longer. He felt a smile of cruelty cross his face, and then he gave vent to a feral howl. He hammered his heels against the sides of his horse. It responded immediately and thundered up the hill. Lone Wolf could feel the blood-lust coming into his mind and he knew that, whatever happened, he would fight to the death. He was remotely aware that his voice was calling a high note, like an echo, magnified a millionfold, of the scream of the wind through the trees. A helghast was stooping from its horse to drive its black blade through the body of one of Rhygar's knights. Lone Wolf's spear pierced it through the chest, and the spawn vanished with a thin wail. The knight, blood covering the face of his chain-mail helmet, shouted gratefully as he

rolled over and over, dodging the churning feet of the horses, holding his arms up to protect himself from the ruthlessly pounding hooves. Lone Wolf backed his horse away, looking around for another enemy to attack, and then saw that three of the helghast were charging towards him, their hoods now pulled back from their faces to reveal their rotting skull-like features. He held up his spear defensively, but they took no heed of it, their eyes piercing him like daggers as they galloped towards him. His horse, terrified, backed away still further . . . and suddenly Lone Wolf was tumbling through the air, falling downwards and seemingly forever downwards, as branches buffeted him from side to side. Then he felt a sickening jolt as the hard earth slammed against his body. He fell to rest, stunned, in a tangle of bracken. His breath was coming with difficulty. He stared intently at a thin spread of bracken only an inch or so from his nose, and tried to concentrate on it -- anything other than feel the agony of his windedness. From somewhere far above him he could hear the inhuman squawks of the helghast as they savaged Rhygar's knights and the screams of the men as they died. A hand grabbed his shoulder -- once, twice, then, more firmly, a third time. It had to be a helghast tugging at him, wanting to pull him upright so it could kill him more slowly. He spat at the bracken, and turned himself over ponderously, bringing his sword uselessly up in front of him. The bruised and bloodied face confronting him was that of Rhygar. "Take the form of my friend, would you!" shouted Lone Wolf, still convinced this was a helghast. "Shut up," Rhygar muttered. "We've got to get away from this place." "What about your men?" "There's nothing we can do for them now." An anguished screaming tormented the air above them. One of the knights was dying slowly. "There's no more help we can give them," said Rhygar. "We could kill more of the helghast," Lone Wolf insisted, the redness of his killing frenzy returning to the front of his mind. "Don't be a fool, Lone Wolf. We can best serve Sommerlund by escaping -- now. Follow me, for the sake of Ishir!" Still bemused, Lone Wolf allowed himself to be dragged further down the hill by Rhygar. They seemed to be making a tremendous amount of noise as they crashed through the low-lying branches which reached out to trip them, but Rhygar took little notice; the sounds they made were being drowned by the sadistic whoops of the helghast on the ridge above them. "From here on we move across country," said the older man roughly.

"If there are helghast here, then they must be infesting the rest of the land. No road is safe for us now." "The helghast . . ." Lone Wolf panted, his chest crying out for relief, ". . . I think they came for me alone!" Rhygar paused momentarily, then looked at Lone Wolf with something akin to contempt. "That's as may be," he said, "but it was the lives of my knights they took. These were good men -- I valued them not just as comrades-in-arms but as friends. Remember their deaths as you journey to Hammerdal. If you fail to earn their lives I shall pursue you and make sure your death is every bit as painful as theirs. "Now let's stop all this talking and start getting away from here." 2 Banedon had been reading a book. It wasn't a very good book, but centuries before some member of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star had painstakingly transcribed it, adding luridly coloured marginal illuminations two or three times every page, and Banedon felt he should respect this unknown person's endeavour by forcing himself to read on until the end. In due course he turned the final page and put the book down beside his chair. He looked at the silent form of Alyss, but as ever there was no change. He found himself irrationally furious with her. He had now lost count of the number of days and nights he had been incarcerated up here. At first, tending her had been a labour of love, but now it had become a heavy burden, seeming to weigh down upon him with as much force as if it were a physical object. Would he never be allowed to escape from this room? 3 For several hours they ran without stopping for rest. Lone Wolf's limbs soon began to scream for mercy, but every time they did so he looked at the seemingly untiring figure of Rhygar and forced himself to keep up with the older man. By late in the day they were in the foothills of the Hammerdal mountains. The air was fresh and pleasantly cool; on any other day it would have been a marvellous time to enjoy a gentle walk. As it was, the two of

them were gasping for each fresh breath of air. Lone Wolf's clothes were once again almost as tattered and stained as they'd been when he had arrived at the consulate. His weapons felt as if they were made of lead, dragging him down at every pace. He could only conjecture how Rhygar, still clad in his heavy chainmail armour, must feel. They were coming closer to what seemed to be the mouth of a colossal cave, a great inky maw in the mountainside. Lone Wolf looked at it with some dread -- his experiences over the last couple of weeks with caves and tunnels had given him little reason ever to want to enter another, and he was certain this was where Rhygar was leading him. A little while later, Rhygar confirmed his worst fears. He slowed down in the shelter of a small granite outcrop and waved to Lone Wolf to stop. The two of them collapsed side by side for some minutes on the unyielding stone, listening to each other's harsh, exhausted breathing. They were overlooking a wide but deserted road, which cut easily through the landscape. A few birds could be seen as silhouettes drifting lazily across the sky, on their last forays before nesting down for the night. The sky was a hazy blue-grey when Rhygar sat up and pulled some food from his pack. "Here," he said, passing Lone Wolf some bread and dried meat, "you'd better eat this." "Not hungry," Lone Wolf breathed hoarsely. The air felt rough-edged in his throat; his chest seemed ready to explode. "Then have some water" -- Rhygar proffered a flask -- "and after that eat some food. You'll need it. You've got a long way to go before you'll be able to rest again." Lone Wolf took the flask and forced himself to drink sparingly. The pounding of the blood in his ears was beginning to become bearable at last; there was no longer a pinkish rim around everything he looked at. "Where are we heading?" he said. Rhygar jerked behind him with his head towards the vast hole in the mountainside. "That's Tarnalin," he said. He took back the water flask and drank a little himself. "Thousands of years ago, during the Age of the Black Moon, people dug out this tunnel and two others like it through the Hammerdal mountains. It's your only way to reach the capital -- unless you want to try your chances over the tops of the mountains themselves. Few people have tried that and succeeded. No, it's got to be the tunnel." Lone Wolf shivered. Now that it was getting darker, he could see that the entrance to Tarnalin was not as midnight-black as it had seemed earlier.

"You may be lucky," Rhygar was saying, "and find a merchant or some other traveller who'll make room for you on his wagon. But I shouldn't think so. There's something very rum here." He pointed forward, spilling crumbs from his hand. "Normally, day or night, there's traffic on that road -people going to or from Hammerdal. As you can see, there's nothing now. The Darklords must have sent their helghast into Durenor in force -- that's the only explanation I can think of. Ishir alone can tell what it's like inside Tarnalin. We can only hope the helghast haven't slaughtered their way to the capital." Lone Wolf felt his gorge rise. He had seen enough massacre. He had a revolted premonition of what the scene inside Tarnalin might be like. "We've got to carry on," he said, hoping his voice didn't sound too reedy. "No," said Rhygar. "What do you mean?" "I mean that from here you must carry on alone." "But why?" Lone Wolf found himself on the verge of tears. Surely the warrior couldn't be proposing to desert him now? "As you were saying this morning, someone must have told the Darklords about you. It's you the helghast are after. We can only pray they don't realize quite how important you are. If I were commanding the helghast" -- Rhygar took a mouthful of the dried meat and chewed it ruminatively, scratching his chin with a grease-streaked hand -- "I'd plan to stop you here, at the mouth of Tarnalin. They'll know you have to go through one of the three tunnels to reach Hammerdal. It's easier for them to lie in wait for you here than to comb the entire countryside." "Then surely I need you beside me more than ever?" "No, because once we were in the tunnel the two of us would be like mice in a trap." The soldier turned to look at Lone Wolf, and smiled. "But I'm trusting they won't have the imagination to think that one of us might remain behind, out here." Lone Wolf nodded glumly, abruptly looking away. It made sense. And, if only one of them could carry on into the tunnel, it was logical that it should be him, for no one else could retrieve the Sommerswerd from the palace of King Alin. But he didn't want to look Rhygar in the eyes right now, because he knew that what the soldier was proposing to do was to sell his own life dearly in order to delay the helghast that would certainly try to follow Lone Wolf into Tarnalin. "You're a very good friend indeed," he said softly.

"I thank you." There was an awkward silence between them, and then Rhygar spoke again. "But it's not just a friend to you that I am, young comrade, it's a friend to Sommerlund and Durenor as well. I've no wish to see the two realms I love enslaved by those swine that Naar has vomited into Magnamund. If my life can spare Sommerlund and Durenor from such a fate then I'll consider it well spent. Now come on: eat." Lone Wolf ate, feeling guilty. Everywhere he went, people died. Some of them were good, some of them not so good, and some of them merely innocent. Here was a valiant man set on going to an early grave so that Lone Wolf's life could be preserved. He knew it wasn't exactly like that -- that his life in itself was unimportant -- but that was the way it felt. He didn't have the words to express any of this, but when he allowed himself to look back at Rhygar again he saw that the soldier's eyes, watching him, were sympathetic; Rhygar knew what he was thinking and understood it completely. "Then I suppose," said Lone Wolf lightly, trying to keep all of his emotions out of his voice, "it's about time I was moving along. You'd better take this." He passed Rhygar the spear he had captured, allowing himself for one last time to run his thumb along its mouldings. "You won't have a chance against the helghast without it." Or even with it, he thought sadly, but it'll help you hold them back for a little longer, and that might be just long enough to make the difference between Sommerlund's damnation and its doom. "I thank you," said Rhygar. Again they were speaking formally. Lone Wolf clapped the man softly on one armour-clad shoulder and began to make his way down towards the tunnel-mouth. He couldn't bring himself to look back. 4 He moved cautiously to the edge of the tunnel entrance, trying to will himself to blend in with the darkened background of the hillside. Now that he was this close he could see that the interior of Tarnalin was in fact quite brightly lit: along each of its two side walls there was a line of torches, stretching away into infinity. In a way this was a relief -- it meant he wouldn't be travelling in darkness -- but it also meant he'd be extremely vulnerable during the early few moments when he slipped into the tunnel: his dark shape would be dramatically backlit for anyone observing the

tunnel-mouth from outside. There was no right time to make his move -- each moment was as bad as the next -- and so he waited until his instincts prompted him to slip as unobtrusively as he could over Tarnalin's lip. The tunnel was perhaps a hundred feet high and a hundred feet wide, and it echoed stilly at him as he clung to a side wall. It was obvious from the litter and detritus scattered about that it was usually heavily used, but now there was no living thing he could see. Just a few yards away, however, lay an overturned fruit cart. From the condition of the fruit spilled across the road, it had not been there long. Further away lay the corpse of a boy, his head almost severed from his body, his arms outstretched on the hard roadsurface as if he were desperately clutching for something that was just beyond his reach. Lone Wolf moved forward as quietly as possible, hugging the tunnel wall, trying to make his limbs move gently and smoothly, breathing slowly and fluently, forcing himself to act calmly. As he went further into Tarnalin he could see more evidence of destruction: horses, vehicles and humans were tossed into bizarre positions. Nothing was moving except the light from the torches. He sensed the mass of the mountain pressing down heavily from above as he skittered along the wall. A few days ago some of what he was now seeing would have sickened him, but the time for that was long past: now all he felt was a sort of dulled, throbbing loathing for whoever or whatever had perpetrated this carnage. As he drew further away from the tunnel's mouth he began to believe he had indeed been able to slip in here without being seen. He imagined Rhygar still maintaining his lonely vigil out on the hillside, and prayed the man would be able to escape safely, come the morning. Now Lone Wolf felt more confident, and he moved away from the wall to follow his quickest possible path through the debris. He ran from each piece of cover to the next, always mindful that there could be a party of helghast waiting to ambush him up ahead. He was starkly aware of his loneliness, seeing himself as a tiny speck of life moving across a fiat plate, watched by a giant figure which could, at any time it chose, reach down to snuff out his life at the touch of a finger. Once he even caught himself looking upwards apprehensively, half-expecting to see a huge hand descending inexorably towards him. A flit of movement caught his eye, and immediately he went into a crouch, shielding himself behind the body of a carthorse which had died on its back, its legs splayed crazily in the air. Lone Wolf leant against the cold body and for a moment thought he could hear the beast's heart still beating --

then realized the pulse he heard was his own. But he could hear some other sound, too, as if a scrap of paper were being blown by a mild breeze across a deserted street. Which was probably what it was. Still, he moved with all the caution at his command as he raised his head to peer over his gruesome cover. At first he could see nothing apart from more desolation, but then his eye was caught by motion about a hundred yards away, over towards the left-hand wall of the tunnel. He stared in that direction, and as he did so he felt his eyes move into some new form of focus, so that he could see what was happening with an almost surreal clarity. He was so fascinated by this new-found ability that he almost forgot to take in what he was actually looking at. On top of one of the crashed wagons was perched a ratlike creature -but far larger than any rat that Lone Wolf could ever have conceived. It was at least two feet long, not counting the tail, and it was eating an apple, which it held daintily in one of its forepaws. At first he assumed this was just some sort of large scavenging rodent which had bred down here in the tunnel, but then he noticed the animal was something more than that. There was intelligence in its movements, as it looked warily about it in case of disturbance. And placed ready beside it was a spear hacked off halfway along the shaft, so that it would be the right size for the creature to use. Even more convincing than this was the fact that the rodent was wearing a patched leather jacket. Hmm, thought Lone Wolf, watching the creature with amused absorption. Intelligent enough to be able to use human artefacts but not actually to make them. I wonder if that creature's friendly? It's too small to do me much harm, anyway, so I might as well . . . He stood up quite openly, skirted the dead horse, and walked forward, holding his hands out to each side, showing they were empty of any weapons. He smiled ingratiatingly, at the same time realizing there was no reason to believe the creature could distinguish between a human smile and a contortion of hatred. The beast saw him instantly and froze. Its beady black eyes were fixed on Lone Wolf as he continued to walk towards it. Its whiskered nose sniffed to and fro in the air. Then the animal reached out a tentative paw for the spear by its side. Lone Wolf, with his left hand, brushed the hilt of his sword, then moved the hand aside again. The gesture was just enough to convey his meaning: I'm armed too. The creature quite evidently received the message,

because it withdrew its own paw, nodded with human-like solemnity, and then continued to watch his every move. "Who are you?" said Lone Wolf, trying to keep any threatening note out of his voice. But the sound startled the creature. Throwing its half-eaten apple to one side, it grabbed its spear and was gone with a scuttle of claws over the back of the wagon. Lone Wolf broke into a run. "Hey!" he shouted. "I don't mean you any harm!" He saw the end of its tail disappearing into a narrow side-tunnel. He was tempted to let it go and carry on his way. But he'd been fascinated by the intelligence of the animal. He wanted to know more about what it was and where it came from. He swiftly rationalized his curiosity: for all he knew, this creature and its kind might be in league with the helghast that had carried out the massacre in Tarnalin; if so, it would surely be running to report his presence to his enemies, and must be stopped at once. Some instinct told him the animal was far from hostile, but he pushed away the thought. He chased into the narrow tunnel, and found himself having to duck and weave as he ran. To the rodents the passage must seem large, but it was barely wide enough to fit a human being. It seemed to have been designed by some crazy architect, because it twisted and turned unexpectedly. In the gloom he was constantly bruising his body against sharply angled corners and unseen protrusions. After a short while he decided that further pursuit was pointless. Much better to pick his way back to the main tunnel and make the best speed he could through the mountain. But then he saw a glow of light ahead of him, and decided to keep going for just a moment or two longer. It was easier to see where he was heading now, thanks to the steadily brightening light, and he moved carefully, dodging obstacles and holding his sword firmly against his side, trying to make as little noise as he could. For the last few yards he went on hands and knees. The tunnel opened into a vast, vaulted cavern, lit by the flames of a thousand torches. The air was filled with industry, as objects were dragged across the floor or thrown from one place to another, and there was a constant chorus of high-pitched squeaking. Hundreds upon hundreds of the rodents were crowded into the cavern, and in the torchlight they were zealously sorting through a great stack of oddments -- clothing, food, weapons, small items of furniture, rugs and carpets, all the flotsam and jetsam of human culture. As Lone Wolf looked on, he saw one of them

investigating a clock, looking at it upside down and from the rear, and then finally throwing it away with a resigned shrug as if to say that this particular object was worthlessly incomprehensible. Another was having similar difficulties with a book. But for the most part it was obvious to Lone Wolf that these creatures were treating the objects they were sorting with a fully intelligent knowledge of the function of each one. The individual he had been following was squeaking excitedly at one of the largest of its fellows. This animal was well over three feet tall, and was dressed in an imposing brightly coloured cloak made of a patchwork of silks. It looked up towards him, and saw his face peering from the tunnel entrance. It made a few rapid gestures, reinforcing them with squeaked commands, and a number of the animals around it moved with swift efficiency to seize weapons. They were wielding daggers as if they were swords, but it was plain to Lone Wolf that they knew exactly how to use them -- and the sharp blade of a dagger can kill just as finally as a sword. He cursed his folly and his curiosity. He had little chance of escaping back the way he had come, for the passage was too narrow for him to make good speed -- the nimbly moving creatures would catch him in no time. He slumped irritatedly down against the passage wall and wondered how he could convey to the animals that he meant them no harm. Suddenly he remembered the little stone bottle Kelman had given him. For some reason he'd kept it, always thinking it had really been a useless gift but then relenting, remembering the circumstances under which he had received it. Now he could hear Kelman's dying words again -- hear him saying that the bottle contained the Gift of Tongues. Of course, the bottles that Kelman had been so fond of had likewise contained the Gift of Tongues -- anything as strong as wanlo could make you talk until the day was done -but the irascible captain had been meaning something different. Lone Wolf fumbled the bottle from his breast pocket and with difficulty pulled out its little nut-like stopper. Watching nervously as the armed rodents advanced determinedly towards him, he put the neck of the bottle to his lips and took a wary sip. The liquid tasted warm, yet it stung the inside of his mouth. He felt colours quickly spreading throughout his body, and then . . . . . . and then it was as if he were a changed person. The world juddered into a different perspective, and he saw the animals as if they were human beings, just like himself. Furthermore, he understood exactly what they were saying: "Big, but not too big."

"Why should he die?" "Some of the humans hate us! We can't let him go!" "I'm thirsty." "Gashgiss right when he tell us kill this human." "Wait!" Lone Wolf shouted. His voice felt peculiar on his tongue. He realized he was speaking in squeaks, but yet the words, when they echoed back to him from the far sides of the chamber, sounded to him like Sommlending words. "I've got no wish to harm you!" The effect was dramatic. All the rodents stopped whatever they were doing and stared at him blankly. Reassuringly, the armed detachment did the same. Lone Wolf realized suddenly that these creatures had never before heard a human being speak to them in their own language. "Please don't attack me. Here. I'll show you how much I trust you." Lone Wolf tugged his sword from its sheath and tossed it down on the floor. After a few moments' internal debate he threw his dagger down as well. The stone bottle was still in his fist, and he gripped it firmly, thinking that if the worst came to the worst, and if these creatures proved indeed to be allies of the helghast, at least he'd be able to brain a few before he died. The tall creature in the silk cloak moved easily forwards, brushing aside the guards he had sent to attack Lone Wolf. His paws were trembling and his whiskers a-quiver, but otherwise he betrayed no signs of nervousness; he was like an experienced diplomat receiving an envoy from a minor country. "You are an intruder among us," he said sternly. "Kindly explain yourself." Lone Wolf muttered a few words to the effect that he was an innocent journeyer through Tarnalin, that he was horrified by the scenes of massacre, that he had always admired creatures with long whippy tails, that . . . "You're not a Durenese man-man?" interrupted the tall creature, gesturing away with his paw Lone Wolf's flow of excess words. These creatures were far more intelligent than he had thought. He himself would have had difficulty in telling a Durenese from a Sommlending with any degree of certainty, yet this imperious rodent had spotted the difference at once. Lone Wolf realized he wasn't playing about with lovable pets: this -- man? -- might not be his intellectual equal, but he was at least as shrewd as many human beings would like to be. So Lone Wolf abandoned his patronizing tones and explained that yes, indeed, he was a Sommlending, and that he had been entrusted with an urgent mission. He deliberately avoided all details of his mission, and he could tell by the rodent's eyes that he understood precisely why Lone Wolf was keeping certain things from

him. "My name is Gashgiss," said the tall creature when Lone Wolf had finished, "and I welcome you, on behalf of all of us here, to our lair. You are the only man-man ever to have come to our lair and be permitted to escape with his life. As long as you are not one of the blackscreamer-men?" A little hiss of hatred sprang up among the animals, and Gashgiss silenced it with a firm wave of his paw. Lone Wolf jumped to the conclusion that "blackscreamer-men" were helghast. "If I were a helghast, would I be speaking to you like this?" "Could be." The two of them stared at each other for a few moments. Then Gashgiss laughed, showing two rows of brown teeth. "No, you're not a blackscreamer-man. You're a man-man. Join us here among the noodnic-men." Still a little wary, Lone Wolf jumped down from his perch and picked up his sword and dagger, stowing them away with an easy confidence he didn't quite feel. He noticed out of the corners of his eyes that many of the noodnics -- as they were evidently called -- felt similarly about him; the armed guards kept their weapons ostentatiously ready to hand. However, Gashgiss seemed to experience no such distrust, for he gave a merry smile and sheathed his own small sword, beckoning Lone Wolf to follow him. In the very centre of the chamber there was a raised platform, and it was there that Gashgiss led him. They talked for some while, sipping at drinks which tasted to Lone Wolf like sewer-water. The noodnics, it seemed, infested all of the side-tunnels off Tarnalin. These had been built by the original architects, thousands of years earlier, as storage vaults and the like, but long ago the Durenese had forgotten about them. Nowadays they were inhabited only by the noodnics, who survived by scavenging all the items of food and clothing that fell from the many carts and wagons which daily coursed through the tunnel -- indeed, some of the more superstitious drivers even made a point of throwing a small part of their cargoes to the road. In return for the living they made from the traffic, the noodnics kept an alert patrol for hazards -- in the way of floods or rockfalls -- which might threaten the integrity of the tunnel, and warned the Durenese of these as soon as they could. The two species had a tacit agreement never to interfere with each other, and in general this worked out well. However, only that day, a party of different creatures -- the "blackscreamer-men" -- had come galloping into Tarnalin and had started to slaughter everything in their way, human and noodnic alike. According to

Gashgiss there had been only two helghast, but Lone Wolf privately doubted the figure. The noodnics had fought bravely alongside their human friends -Lone Wolf looked sceptical, but Gashgiss insisted -- until even they had been driven back by force of arms: the "blackscreamer-men" were impervious to blades and arrows. Now the tunnel was deserted, and only the bravest or the most foolhardy -- Gashgiss looked contemptuously at the individual who had led Lone Wolf here -- ventured out into it. A pair of male noodnics approached them in stately fashion and offered them fruit. Lone Wolf accepted a Sommlending apple, Gashgiss a Cloeasian banana. Lone Wolf watched entranced as the rodent devoured the fruit, starting at one end and eating it skin and all. He was almost too diverted to eat his apple, although he was conscious that etiquette dictated he should. When Gashgiss had finished the banana he licked his lips in a satisfied manner and then patted them dry with his paws. He reached out to do the same for Lone Wolf, but Lone Wolf indicated that this would be in strict contravention of human custom, and Gashgiss eased himself away again. "The blackscreamer-men are still in Tarnalin," he said, eyeing the claws of one paw with some interest. "Are they indeed?" Automatically Lone Wolf reached for his spear, and then remembered he had left it with Rhygar; once again he muttered a prayer that the warrior had escaped safely, but at the same time he cursed the fact that he no longer had the weapon. If he could have slain the waiting helghast with it . . . but then perhaps there would have been too many of them for him to fight, even armed with the spear. He subsided, and listened to Gashgiss prattling on. "I will ask some of my people to guide you past where the blackscreamer-men are waiting in ambush for any human who tries to pass through Tarnalin," the rodent offered. "I can pay you," said Lone Wolf eagerly, feeling in his pockets, but Gashgiss raised a paw in protest. "We noodnics have other ways of being rewarded than by being given money," he said, a little stiffly. "To convince you of our honesty, I will escort you myself." Lone Wolf sensed this was a great honour, and acted accordingly. He offered to give Gashgiss his dagger, but the rodent haughtily refused. Then Lone Wolf promised he would ask the authorities in Hammerdal to post notices proclaiming Gashgiss's heroism, and immediately he realized he had said the right thing: the rodent leader seemed to swell to twice the size, and pushed back his regal cap from his forehead, remarking with a good

imitation of casualness that, yes, this might be a suitable fee -- especially if, perhaps, Lone Wolf could arrange for a portrait as well. One of Gashgiss's servants provided Lone Wolf with a cloth bag filled with fruit and buns, and then the two of them set off. The tunnel through which Lone Wolf now found himself following Gashgiss was if anything even narrower and more convoluted than the one he had been in before. He frequently had to ask the noodnic to slow down and wait for him as he negotiated some particularly awkward obstacle or bend. His progress was slowed even further by the fact that the darkness was almost complete. Gashgiss seemed untroubled by this, and incapable of understanding why it should cause Lone Wolf any difficulties, but eventually he accepted it as one of humanity's minor inexplicable imperfections, and made allowances for it. It must have been an hour or more later -- an hour during which Lone Wolf felt that every possible part of his body had been bruised and battered -- when a thin chink of light appeared and he realized gratefully that at last this torment was nearing its end. He walked straight into the back of Gashgiss, who had stopped suddenly. The noodnic squeaked in pain as Lone Wolf stood on his tail. When Gashgiss had recovered his composure, he took Lone Wolf's sleeve. "Through there," he said. In the dimness Lone Wolf could just make out that he was pointing to the light ahead. "It's a crevice in Tarnalin's wall. Once you're through, turn left and you'll be heading for Hammerdal. The blackscreamer-men are behind us now." The noodnic patted Lone Wolf's shoulder. "I leave you now," he said, and a moment later he had vanished into the darkness behind. Lone Wolf shouted his thanks for the guidance and assistance, but all he heard in response were the echoes of his own voice. A few minutes later he was squeezing himself with some difficulty through the narrow fissure, which brought him out into the main tunnel of Tarnalin, about three feet above the road. Moving as silently as he could, he dropped down into the roadway and stood looking around him warily. He was confronted by a further scene of mayhem and chaos, but again there was no sign of life, hostile or otherwise. It struck him grimly that he had no idea how far through Tarnalin he had progressed. Rhygar had told him the tunnel was some forty miles in length but, for all he knew, he could have covered only a twentieth of this. In the labyrinthine side-tunnels of the noodnics it had been impossible to estimate distance.

He shrugged, every bone in his body aching. There was no sense in worrying about things over which he had no control. His plan was just to press ahead, making the best speed he could. He checked his equipment to make sure nothing had been bent or damaged during his buffeting trip through the side-tunnels, and discovered to his horror that Gashgiss had been speaking the truth, but not the full truth, when he had said: "We noodnics have other ways of being rewarded than by being given money." He had used the word "given". Apparently what he had meant was that the noodnics preferred to be rewarded by taking money. All of Lone Wolf's gold had gone -- presumably removed deftly from his clothing by Gashgiss during their journey through the darkness. At first Lone Wolf was furious, and then he allowed himself a grin. Right now, money was the very least of his worries. The noodnics were welcome to it for having saved him from the helghast ambush. He began moving very quickly indeed, flitting quietly from one piece of cover to the next, frequently checking behind him in case the helghast might decide to check further along Tarnalin. The devastation here seemed less than it had been earlier, and he began to notice that, scattered among the corpses of the peasants and traders, there were the bodies of soldiers dressed in the red uniforms of the Durenese army. So someone at last began to put up a resistance, he thought ruefully. It's just a pity they didn't get here any earlier. They could have saved thousands of lives if they'd been able to confront the helghast before they'd entered the tunnel. Now more and more soldiers were among the dead. He could hear the echoing sound of many voices from the tunnel ahead, and he moved with greater caution than before. Perhaps the massacre was still in progress. His urge was to run towards it as fast as he could, to help whoever was fighting against Zagarna's vile spawn, but he immediately recognized that this would be folly: it was far more important for him to reach Hammerdal, retrieve the Sommerswerd and, hopefully, help bring the war to an end than to fight and possibly die in some minor skirmish. He needn't have worried. Drawn up across the tunnel he saw a line of wagons and carts, forming a rudimentary barricade. Behind it was a large crowd of people, some shouting, some sobbing hysterically at the horror that had so recently occurred, others merely adding to the general hubbub. As Lone Wolf advanced. the noise slowly trailed away, and he felt himself the object of a thousand eyes. He could almost hear the crowd collectively thinking: How could he have survived? Surely he can only be another helghast, sent to slaughter us all? Lone Wolf raised his hands in peace.

A tall knight, his shield embossed with the royal arms of Durenor, barked a few orders and then led a squad of about ten foot-soldiers towards him. All had swords drawn; clearly they were taking as few chances as possible. Lone Wolf smiled, but realized that a helghast could smile, too. Two of the men looked utterly terrified when they were detailed to approach him more closely; he admired their discipline and courage as, despite their fear, they moved firmly to obey the order. "Who are you?" snapped the officer. "My name is Lone Wolf. I'm a Sommlending. I've been sent on an urgent mission to King Alin." "How can we tell you're speaking the truth? No human could have lived through what went on back there." The officer jerked his head towards the tunnel behind Lone Wolf. "It'll take me a while to explain --" "You're too right it will." Lone Wolf, moving slowly and deliberately so as not to startle the two soldiers nearing him, drew his sword and offered it to them, hilt-first. One of them took it, cautiously, and then with a little more assuredness accepted Lone Wolf's dagger. "Your backpack as well!" snapped the officer. Lone Wolf obeyed. He felt uncomfortably naked. The two soldiers retreated, carrying his equipment, their swords still drawn and their eyes still fixed on him. The officer moved smartly towards Lone Wolf, raising his visor. He had a prominent hooked nose, bushy sand-coloured eyebrows, and hard green eyes. "Now, Sommlending, tell me why you're here -- and don't make a false move, or my men will slay you. One more body among all these won't make much difference." Lone Wolf explained as much of his mission as he felt was wise. He also told how the noodnics had guided him past the place where the helghast were lying in wait, but was deliberately vague as to the details: he had no wish to reward his little friends by encouraging the Durenese, at some future date, to clear the side-tunnels of what they would perhaps regard as vermin -- after all, the noodnics themselves had told him how they were detested by at least some humans. The officer looked interested but unconvinced until Lone Wolf showed him the seal. Instantly the man's demeanour changed. "This is a friend," he said curtly to his soldiers. "Return his belongings to him immediately. Look sharp about it, you there! We must get moving.

Quick, quick, man!" Within moments the tall knight was leading Lone Wolf through the barricade of wagons, shouting at members of the crowd, who were gathering with eager curiosity around them, to make way. The sea of human forms parted reluctantly, so that it was as if Lone Wolf were looking down a long corridor of many-coloured clothing and faces. At its end he could see that several carriages, some military, others civilian, had been drawn up. The officer guided him towards one of these, and the two of them climbed into its musty-smelling comfort. One of the soldiers rapidly clambered up to take the reins. "Hammerdal," the officer said crisply. "We must get back to Hammerdal without delay." A crack of the whip, and Lone Wolf's head was thrown back against the panelling as the high-spirited horses erupted into movement.

10 The Sword of the Sun 1 The swift-moving carriage rattled and jolted as it sped along the last few miles of Tarnalin. The way was clear now, and the horses were moving at a full gallop. The staccato pounding of their hooves and the rattle of the carriage's thin wheels on the hard road echoed back from the great tunnel's walls. The wooden frame of the carriage creaked and moaned. Lone Wolf and the officer had to half-shout to make their voices heard above the din. The officer introduced himself as Lord Axim of Ryme, and Lone Wolf was impressed; this was one of the most important men in Durenor. Lord Axim was commander of King Alin's personal bodyguard. He had apparently been travelling with a large detachment of his men from Hammerdal to Port Bax when they had been confronted in Tarnalin by the helghast. Only he and a few of his soldiers had survived. Axim's hands shook as he described some of the worst of the helghast's atrocities. Helped by many other travellers they had finally succeeded in erecting the rough barricade of wagons as a last desperate measure. Here Axim's voice faltered. "But it's a funny thing, you know. I don't see how the barrier could have stopped them. They just seemed to give up. I don't know . . ." Lone Wolf did know what had happened -- or, at least, he was fairly certain -- but he decided against telling Axim. Somehow the helghast had been informed that he, Lone Wolf, was entering Tarnalin. The carnage they had carried out had simply been a way of passing the time until they received that information. As soon as they'd known their main prey was approaching, they'd given up slaughtering the Durenese and turned their attentions instead to the main task -- killing Lone Wolf. But who could it have been who had told them? Who was it who had been able to track him all the way from Holmgard -- who even now might be relaying back to Zagarna the fact that he was riding in a military coach to Hammerdal? The only clue he had was the name "Vonotar" -- but who or what Vonotar could be was a mystery to him. He had heard of the magical powers of names and, although he distrusted and disliked unknown magic in all its forms, he feared its powers, too. Perhaps Vonotar was a system of magic which the Darklord's minions were using to pinpoint his every move? He recalled uneasily his feeling, when he had been coming through Tarnalin, that he was like a tiny smudge of life being watched by a giant eye. "Have you ever heard of Vonotar?" he asked Axim.

"No, never," the aristocratic officer replied tersely. "What is it? Why do you ask?" Lone Wolf couldn't explain. If he said that someone or something called Vonotar was pursuing him, was trying to kill him at every stage of his journey, Lord Axim would assume he was mad. That would make him begin, all over again, to doubt Lone Wolf's story. No, the question would have to remain unanswered. He waved his hands vaguely, deflecting Axim's inquiry. "Just a name I heard along the way," he said. "I don't think it's important." But it was important; he knew deep inside himself that it was, and he resolved to keep asking people until he was given an answer. The conversation turned to more banal matters, and Lone Wolf ate some of the food the noodnics had given him. Axim offered him a flask, and Lone Wolf washed down the fruit and dried buns with sweet Hammerdal mead -- too sweet, indeed, for his palate, but he was grateful for the liquid. "It'll take us some hours to reach Hammerdal," said Lord Axim after a long pause. "You might be best to get yourself some rest." Lone Wolf agreed. The mead had made him drowsy. He punched his backpack into a corner of the coach as a pillow and lay across the full length of the seat. He looked upwards at the endless stream of torches moving past the carriage window, and their rapid succession of lights acted upon him hypnotically, so that he was counting their rhythmic passage as his eyes slowly closed. For a while the flickering lights continued in his dream, but then they became the torches held aloft by the vast crowds of a victory parade. The masses of people gathered there were shouting his name. He was riding on a white horse -- Janos, his old friend, given to him by Prince Pelathar -- and accepting the praises of the crowd with humility. He knew he had brought the Sommerswerd back from Durenor to Holmgard and had slain the Darklord Zagarna. The vast hordes of the Darklands had been scattered to the winds, and Sommerlund and all of the Lastlands had been saved. Of course he knew the salvation could not last forever, that Naar would eventually send some new threat to menace the Lastlands; but at the same time he was aware that he would be forever remembered in the legends of the Lastlands. And, however much he told himself he had just been lucky, that it wasn't him in particular that the fates had selected to play this role in the history of his people, the feeling was good. He remembered Storm Hawk, and the way his old tutor had frequently despaired over Lone Wolf's prowess -- or lack of it -- in his studies of the Kai Disciplines, and he wished

with all his heart that his mentor could see him now. Thank you, Storm Hawk, he thought fervently, for what you were able to make of me. He was in daylight when he awoke, and for some minutes he stretched lazily on the comfortably upholstered seat, basking in the glowing pleasure of victory, feeling the adulation of all the coming generations lapping against him . . . and then he remembered abruptly that all of this had yet to happen, that indeed it might never happen. He sat up crossly, rubbing his knuckles in his eyes to get rid of both the sleepiness and the dream itself, and stared out dourly over the countryside surrounding Hammerdal. The carriage was now bumping over a cobbled road. Opposite him, Axim had removed his helmet and was snoring regularly, his hooked nose trembling with each grating breath. Lone Wolf's feelings of frustration didn't last long. A few miles ahead of them he could see the city of Hammerdal spread out generously across an evenly rolling plain. Unlike the other cities of the Lastlands this one had no fortified perimeter wall; the encircling ring of the Hammerdal mountains provided more protection than ever humans could create. Despite the distance, Lone Wolf could tell that it dwarfed even Holmgard in size and splendour. He was struck first by the profusion of flags and banners: they seemed to wave from every rooftop, from the tallest of the silvery gleaming towers to the squatter commercial buildings and even the commoner dwelling-places. The massed banners made the whole scene seem to ripple with blue and white -- the colours of Durenor -- and Lone Wolf had a momentary sensation that he was looking not at a city but at the surface of a multi-coloured sea. As the carriage sped closer he could make out individual details. Dominating the whole city, crowning Hammerdal's only hill of any size, was the King's Tower, a vast edifice made of glass and stone. In the morning sunshine it presented a constantly changing pattern of liquid reflected light. Beneath it the city draped away, looking rather as if someone had thrown down a cloth of velvet, allowing it to fold as it would. Unlike many other cities, there were no poor areas of Hammerdal: the security of the surrounding mountains had given the city prosperity over the centuries, so that even its humblest citizen owned a pair of horses and a carriage to harness them to. The schools and colleges of the city were renowned all over the Lastlands, as were the riches of some of the merchants and bankers. Lone Wolf had heard that Hammerdal boasted also a magnificent museum, to which were brought the finest artworks and the most mysterious relics from Durenor and the surrounding countries. He resolved that one day, in more peaceful times, he would return to this place and spend some weeks or

months exploring its wonders. Lord Axim awoke just in time to speak with a platoon of soldiers standing by the roadside. Clearly news had already reached here of the massacre in Tarnalin, and the army was taking what precautions it could. The carriage was waved on, and soon it was rattling over the paved streets of the city. "To the King's Tower," Axim called up to the driver, and the man knocked on the roof to show he had heard, then began to shout imperiously to people on the street to clear the way. Lone Wolf regretted that they were moving quite so quickly. Through the windows he could make out just enough of the splendours of Hammerdal to know how much he wished to be able to examine them more closely. The streets were broad, with wide pavements on each side. People from a dozen countries or none thronged these walkways, the diversity of their rich costumes, many brightly coloured and textured with gleaming swathes of precious metals, presenting a shimmering tableau of magnificence. Children darted among the adults, shouting in their games, and here and there a space was cleared for the performance of a juggler, a fire-eater or an acrobat. Lone Wolf saw many broad shop-fronts in which were displayed elaborate dresses, exotic foodstuffs or exquisitely wrought jewellery. Soon, though, they were out of the city's commercial area and were pressing on through streets surrounded by the tall, dignified dwellings of the nobility. Each was fronted by a well tended garden, and Lone Wolf saw many unfamiliar shrubs and small trees, some of them with leaves in unnatural-seeming colours -- crimson, grey-blue, a startling cyan. There were few people on the pavements here, mainly mothers walking with their small children, or servants scurrying about on errands. From time to time they would be passed by mounted knights, with some of whom their driver exchanged a greeting. Lone Wolf felt a building excitement inside him. In a time so short that it could be counted in minutes he would be ushered into the presence of King Alin; and not long after that, he felt sure, he would at last lay eyes on the Sommerswerd, the almost legendary weapon with which, over twelve hundred years ago, the first King Ulnar of Sommerlund had slain the Darklord Vashna at the battle of the Maakengorge. He didn't know whether to feel awe or elation -- awe that he would be in the presence of this great weapon or elation that he, alone among many generations of the Kai, should have been selected to play this role. He grinned nervously at Axim, who returned his gaze stonily. "This is hardly a time for smiling," said the knight.

"I'm sorry." Lone Wolf's face collapsed in embarrassment. He seemed to have violated some minor Durenese ethic; he must remember to be wary of such things. "I just . . . I don't know what I was trying to say." "When you reclaim the Sommerswerd, at the same time you drag all of Durenor into your war. Is that a cause for celebration? Perhaps for you it is. But for us Durenese it is a sad day. I can remember fighting under Rhygar against the Ice Barbarians, and I saw things then that made the slaughter in Tarnalin seem like a child's idle game." And it was just an idle game -- for the helghast, thought Lone Wolf, but he kept his peace. He remembered the sentinel at the edge of the Durenor forest expressing similar opinions. He imagined the way he would feel if, as a Durenese, he were to find himself press-ganged into some remote war -although of course he knew, just as Axim must now be aware, that it wasn't a war that could remain remote forever. If Sommerlund fell to Zagarna's host, Durenor could not be far behind. "Already there are helghast in your country," he said softly, anxious not to offend the knight in any way. "Do you think Zagarna cannot already be thinking about the conquest of Durenor?" "No." Axim sighed, and stared distractedly out of the carriage windows as the elegant grey buildings marched by. "No, of course it has to be that our nation joins yours to fight off our mutual foe, and of course in the long run it would go all the worse for us if we didn't come to your aid now, but that doesn't mean we have to enjoy the prospect of war. I've done enough killing in my life -- I've no desire to do any more." The knight leaned forward and looked at his armoured hand. He moved the fingers stiffly. "But the ones you'll be killing -- they're only the spawn of Helgedad," said Lone Wolf. "True, true. And the more I kill of them the less of our country's children will die of their cruelty. But we Durenese believe that all life, however vile it may be, has a sanctity of its own. We would rather these things did not have to happen." Lone Wolf warmed to the man. He reached out and patted him on the knee. He, too, had often felt remorse after slaying giaks, even though he knew it was something that had to be done, and that the force animating the vicious spawn was not anything that could properly be described as "life". The gesture was enough for Axim; he knew what Lone Wolf was trying to convey, and he acknowledged it with a respectful nod. "So long as you don't just view war as an exciting sport," he said sombrely. "that's all I need to know. It's a disgusting business, and if we could ever rid our world

of the forces of Evil then it might never blight our lives again. It is our duty -- indeed, our privilege -- to be the ones to combat the Evil of Naar. But in the meantime . . . well, as I said, we don't have to like it." They relapsed into silence, further words unnecessary. The two of them were in complete understanding. 2 Alone in his gilded tower King Alin sat on a throne of carved ebony. His thoughts played like music across his mind -- a funereal dirge, its pace solemn and slow, sometimes moving naturally into discordancy. He had known for weeks that this day would come, and he had dreaded it. He moved on the throne so that he could see a different aspect of Hammerdal through one of the tower's countless tinted, prismatic windows. The boy would come -- the boy who had been sent by Ulnar, but beyond that by the Sun God himself -- and he would be bearing the Seal of Hammerdal. The king felt the forces of Darkness encroaching all around him. He had hoped his reign would be recalled as one of peace and fulfilment for all the people under his sway, but he knew this could never now be so. The youth would claim the Sommerswerd, as was the right of the Sommlending, and Durenor would be plunged into war. There would be slaughter in its rich fields and grasslands, and too many thousands of his people would die in agony, their last thoughts being not of the wisdom of their king but of the doom that the ages-old pact of Durenor with Sommerlund had brought to them. He shifted his position again, and one of the sharp peaks of the Hammerdal mountains came into view. He looked at it with a sense of deep sorrow. It was sharp, like the point of a sword, and similarly it had no mercy for the lives it might destroy. The youth who was coming to claim the Sommerswerd would be like that, he was certain; a highly trained Kai killing machine who would rejoice in the blood-smell of battle. King Alin was not ashamed when he felt a tear trickle down his cheek. At the same time he knew that no mortal, however exalted, could change the pattern of the game that the gods played: the course of future events was not something he could hope to control -- and that he should not even have the temerity to seek to. Still . . . still . . . he wished the gods could have seen it within themselves to have hesitated for a few more decades until he had gone to some other world. Alin looked resentfully at a marble dais in the centre of his throneroom. In the centre of its top there was an intricately wrought lock made of

gold. In the pocket of his white robe he bore, as he always did, as his fathers had done before him, the key to that lock. None of them had ever had to use the key: he would be the first of all his line. He rested his hand on the arm of his throne and looked at it as if it were an alien creature, something which had nothing at all to do with him. He saw the wrinkles of its knuckles as if they were landscapes of a faraway country. The back of the hand was marked with liverspots, and he saw them as slowly growing cancers, intent upon invading his country. He had always felt that he and Durenor were in some way inextricable -- just two very different manifestations of the same life-principle. In his mind he confirmed this notion as he looked at his blemished hand. King Alin heard the sounds of marching feet on the stairway outside his throne-room and he returned to reality. As he had known for these long weeks, the noises heralded the arrival of one of his lords -- he had been unable to decide which -- accompanied by the Kai youth. Why the Kai should send someone so callow on this quest he had no idea; perhaps they felt a boy would be less likely to be observed by the forces of Darkness, or maybe they had sent a hundred messengers, knowing that many of them would be murdered by agents of Zagarna as they made their way to Hammerdal, and this boy was merely the first to arrive. Alin didn't know, and the grief of what he perceived as his failure had wearied him so much that he didn't care. The time was at hand -- the time all the prophecies had predicted -- when the Sommerswerd would be reclaimed and all of Durenor would be plunged into the miseries of war. Alin called "Enter!" even before his sentries had knocked on the golden door of his throne-room. He looked up sadly as he saw Lord Axim throw open the door and march in, followed by a youth whose cloak, though tattered and stained, was obviously that of a Kai. The boy looked apprehensive, and yet at the same time eager and expectant. With a wistful sweep of his gaze, Alin took in his sharp features and the tight, controlled way he moved. A guard at the door called formerly: "The Lord Axim of Ryme and a Sommlending called Lone Wolf!" Alin pushed the shout away with his hand. He knew tiredly who the pair of them were. Poor Axim, he thought, one of the bravest and the best of all my subjects. He little deserves to be remembered in our histories as the man who led war to our shores. "I see you, Axim," said the king aloud. He rose from his throne and walked forward to greet his old friend. He saw the familiar hooked nose -like the beak of a bird of prey -- and he almost found it within himself to

smile as he recalled, as always, the way that at school they had all teased the studious boy about it. Alin and Axim embraced briefly and then the two of them stood back, hands on each other's shoulders, and looked each other in the face. "I know," said the king. "Old friend, there isn't any need to tell me." "The boy," said Lord Axim. "He's the last of all the Kai. He's come to us to claim th --" "I told you, I know why he's come here. I've felt it all through myself for these past weeks. The terrible day when the Sommlending must retrieve the Sommerswerd is upon us. That the Kai have been destroyed -- no, I did not know that, but I'm hardly surprised: Ulnar wouldn't have called upon us for the Sommerswerd if the crisis hadn't indeed been grave." Lord Axim nodded sadly. His old friend had always had the gift of knowing something of the dark events the future was going to bring. 3 Lone Wolf watched as the king beckoned Axim over to a couch on the far side of the room. Now that he was here he was finding the whole experience something of an anticlimax. Somehow he'd been expecting to be ushered in with a fanfare of trumpets, welcomed by a resplendent court, hundreds of nobles surrounding him on every side. Instead he saw two weary-looking men retreating quietly from him to start talking in softly susurrating tones, so that he could make out nothing of what they were saying. After a few minutes Axim returned to him and, with a few murmured words, removed the Seal of Hammerdal from his finger to show it to King Alin. The two men nodded sorrowfully over it, and then Lone Wolf saw them both turn to look fixedly for a moment at a block of what seemed to be solid marble, set centrally in the throne-room. Now they returned to their infuriatingly quiet stream of conversation. Lone Wolf looked around him. The short sleep he had had on his journey from Tarnalin had refreshed him only partially. His excited anticipation had revived his energies, but now that he was merely being expected to stand and wait he was suddenly exhausted all over again. He moved his mind to cure some of the worst of his bruises, and then stood for a little longer, his feet apart on the flecked grey marble of the floor. Finally he gave up. There were some soft-looking chairs on either side of the door and, ignoring all thoughts of courtesy, he moved over to throw himself down on one of them. Axim glared at him briefly, he was aware, but he consciously paid no attention to the look.

Lone Wolf was fascinated by the throne-room's windows. He moved his head from side to side and up and down, catching different facets of light and with them different facets of life as well. Here he could see, bathed in light green, two children playing with a hoop in a park, watched benevolently by an elderly servant; the detail was so sharp that he could make out the pale shine of their teeth as they laughed and shouted. Over there, through a different pane, he could see a merchant sitting in an upstairs room, moving piles of gold coins around on a mahogany desk, ticking off items on a list and sucking in his lips thoughtfully; the picture was tinted in a curious reddish-orange colour. Another window and another scene. Through an aura of silver mist he could see two young lovers speaking earnestly to each other, their faces locked into a trusting solemnity. Lone Wolf rapidly shifted his gaze, feeling a twinge of guilt, as if he were eavesdropping on their personal lives. Alin coughed, politely, and Lone Wolf's attention returned to the throne-room. The king had advanced to stand beside the marble dais in the centre of the chamber. Behind him, on the couch, Axim sat watching, his face drawn. Lone Wolf stood, his head slightly bowed in a formality of respect. Alin's voice was dusty, like an unused corridor in an ancient palace. "I have little I can say to you, Lone Wolf. The time foretold so many generations ago has finally come. The Darklords have woken once more, and Sommerlund is on its knees. Durenor will arm herself to come to your aid, and the people of my country will gladly lay down their lives to turn back the forces of Evil." He coughed again, moving his hands as if slightly embarrassed by the weight of his words. "But, more than that, you seek the sword -- and of course it must be yours. I wish this day had never dawned, and yet I give the sword to you gladly. Take it, with my blessings." The tendons on the king's wrist stood out as he tried to control the trembling of his thin hand, the hand that held the key. He reached forward and with difficulty placed it in the lock. Abruptly, as if trying to get the moment over with as quickly as possible, he turned the key. The room was filled with a gentle humming. Alin took an involuntary step backwards. The marble cover of the dais rose into the air, then slid sideways. It hovered over the stone floor for a moment before crashing down, shattering into myriad shards.

Lone Wolf was drawn towards it, slowly, one foot reluctantly following the other. He came to the great stone coffin and looked down into it. There, couched beside its jewel-studded scabbard on a bed of maroon velvet, glowing and pulsing with its own life, lay the great Sommerswerd. The Sword of the Sun. 4 No one spoke for a minute or two, and then Alin said, almost shyly: "Wait, young Kai Lord, wait. If you are a true son of Sommerlund, then the sword will bequeath to you all of the powers bestowed on it by the wisdom of those who were here before us. If you are not . . ." He let the words dangle in the cool air. Again he made that curious half-embarrassed gesture with his hands. He began to speak in words that were obviously a ritual, his eyes glassing over as his mind was filled by a timeless spirit: When the Lastlands of Magnamund were only children, There dwelt here a race that talked with the gods. The sun shone from their eyes, and the mountains trembled at their gaze. The winds of the sky were their brethren, and the seas ebbed and flowed at their bidding. They saw all of the past and all of the future, And they saw that the day would come when they themselves would be only wisps of memory, And that then there would be on the Lastlands your race and mine and the creatures of the Darkness. And they spoke among themselves and with the gods, And the gods said to them: "These things shall be." Then the nameless ones saw also a golden strand running through all of time, And they named this strand the Sommerswerd, And they plucked it from time's fabric. In their forge that rode upon the clouds. They wreathed the gold that came from time And fashioned from it in the fires of their own minds

This sword. Into the sword they placed their soulstuff, singing as they gave themselves to it. And they strewed their soulstuff also among the mountains and the seas, The forests and the rivers and the skies, Leaving it there for the time when men and women would come among the Lastlands. This soulstuff was their breath, and all may breathe it. This soulstuff was their blood, and all may drink it. This soulstuff was their dreaming, so that all may dream their dreams. But some who breathe, breathe only air, And some who drink, drink only water, And some who dream, dream only of night. Yet those born of the spirit of Kai breathe of the nameless ones, and drink their blood and dream their dreams, And within them is the soulstuff of the nameless ones And of the sword. They are one with the sword. They are the sword, and the sword is them. If you who stand before me are truly of the sword then take it, For at its touch you will be reunited with the nameless ones And the power of their thoughts shall be yours. But, if you are not truly of the sword, then go from this place And walk among the world, seeking for the faces of those who dream the old ones' dreams, And bring such a person here, for the soulstuff of the sword will marry with none other, But rather bleed away into the eternity of night. Take this sword, if you are its brother or its sister, Take it, and be blessed by us who have gone before you. The light of the sword filled the room -- a blazing whiteness that seared the eyes. Alin ceased his rhythmic chant, and caught himself as he almost fell.

Axim took a few urgent steps towards his king, and then stopped, his eyes narrowed against the sword's brilliance. Alin looked at Lone Wolf, and the young Kai Lord -- for he knew that now he was indeed a Kai Lord -- saw that the king's own spirit had returned to him. "Touch it," whispered Alin, his voice as dry as a desert breeze. "Touch the sword." Lone Wolf watched his own right hand reach out, tentatively at first and then with more purpose. It moved of its own accord, without his control, to touch the hilt of the Sommerswerd. There was a flash of light so piercing that it seemed to devour all of reality, to shake the world like a thunderclap, to be in itself all that there was of Aon captured in a single moment. And Lone Wolf felt the sword's hilt, and it was warm and almost soft to his touch, welcoming him. A feeling of miraculous ecstasy flooded through him. He saw himself as the focus of a million minds, a place where the past and the future came together. Now his mind acted in concert as he raised the sword high above his head, and a terrible wordless shout came from his lips. He cried in an infinity of voices, as all the spirits of the dead and the as yet unborn spoke through him in a single moment. He was there and yet he was not there. He heard the scream of all the words of Aon, and colours, a wash of colours mingling and twisting together, seemingly tied together into smoky ropes as they weaved and whirled all together, filling his vision until there was nothing else but colour, and the colours spun themselves together until they were the clearness of the air . . . sounds that clashed together, mixing and mingling until they became the bitter-sharp taste of the petals of yellow roses, sounds that were blindly seeking towards the skies . . . a pain that in its exquisite sharpness was a hard metallic light, conquering all of his body, scented with the overpowering odour of rosemary, arcing his body until he felt as if his body were a bow, the cells of the wood straining away from each other, and the tiny fragment of himself that remained feeling the searching probes of merciless knives . . . He was in a place where time was a young woman steadfastly playing on a xylophone made out of the years. She looked up at him and smiled, then

returned to the embrace of the music. She bit her lower lip as she concentrated, her hands moving too swiftly to be seen as the hammers touched the bones of the instrument. He watched her face as she played, seeing the greenness of her eyes and the arch of her thin red eyebrows above. At one moment she was a stately courtier, and the visible music that sprang from her hands was an elegant dance; at the next she was a gamine, clothed in ragged garments of the colours of an autumn forest. She looked up at him again, her forehead this time ruffled. And then she threw the hammers away into a distant darkness, reached her hands high above her head, her small breasts pushing against the matted felt of her tunic as she twined her fingers and became the entirety of . . . 5 . . . reality. He was standing in the throne-room, the lights of the tinted windows spreading like stains across the floor. The sword was now by his side, its tip touching cold stone. He felt exhausted, yet at the same time filled with a surging of spirit; his whole body was trembling with energy that was seeking some form of release. Alin was clutching the side of the empty marble coffer. "The sword is yours," the king said, his voice almost weeping. "And I am the sword's," said Lone Wolf.

11 The Battle of the Dead 1 The days sped by, and Lone Wolf began to keep a count of them. He was living in King Alin's Tower, and every comfort was provided for; he was all too well aware of the fact that, after his weeks of adversity, all he really wanted to do was relax into the luxury of soft beds and fine foods, but at the same time the new consciousness which he felt now that he had been united -- or, so it seemed to him, reunited -- with the Sommerswerd was telling him that, during each of the days he spent in idleness, Sommlending were dying in their hundreds or their thousands. He knew there was nothing he could do to stop this, and yet he felt guilt weighing down upon him, colouring every smallest act he performed. Here am I, raising this cup of wine to my lips, and yet how many are screaming their last, hundreds of miles away in Sommerlund, as I do this? Now I walk along one of Hammerdal's wide streets, people falling back from me because they know who I am and why I am here, and yet in the same vision that I see the riches of their garb and listen to the music of their accents I see also a woman spitted on a giak sword and hear a man's cry as his children are slaughtered before him. And here I sit at a laden table, eating fruits of many colours, listening as the king tells me the tales of his ancestors, but intermingled among his words are those which will no longer be spoken . . . There was no escape from it. He flirted with the maidens of the court, played games of samor with them and with their brothers, joked with the older men and women or talked earnestly of the fate of Sommerlund, but all the time he knew he was just acting out a role. He had never been designed to be a charmingly mannered member of an elegantly attired court. The sword he carried always at his belt told him he should now be fighting to defend his country from the armies of Evil, yet at the same time it reassured him that he could best serve his countryfolk by waiting here, in Hammerdal, until the Durenese army had been mustered and the war-fleet of this great nation was ready to put to sea. It was a warm afternoon, and he was sitting in one of Alin's many stately gardens. The smell of the crushed herbs of the lawn was in his nostrils, the sound of exotic birdsong in his ears. He smiled at a beautiful young woman -- King Alin's daughter, no less -- her face painted in the paleness that was fashionable in the court, her hair superbly coiffed, her dress tailored to emphasize decorously the contours of her body -- and all he

could see was Qinefer, dressed in coarsely woven clothes of poorly dyed wool, her crinkling black hair in disarray, a trickle of sweat running down the side of her nose. This was the wrong place for him. His soul screamed it to him, and yet there was nothing he could do to take himself away. He had to act the part of a visiting courtier, to move graciously in the slowly spinning gavotte that was courtly life. At least for now. Each evening, he and Axim, together with the king, met in the throneroom to discuss how Durenor's preparations for war were proceeding, and to make hazy plans about how they could best save Holmgard and Sommerlund. Lone Wolf tried to inject urgency into these discussions, telling the two older men that he, alone except for the Sommerswerd, could set sail for Sommerlund and slay Zagarna. Always they repeated that matters were not that simple, that he might himself be slain before he was a mile out of Port Bax, that he must be patient and wait until he could go back to Sommerlund with the might of the Durenese army at his back. Whenever they said this, he twisted his face in frustration. The worst of it was that he knew they were right. On his way to Hammerdal his life had been threatened by mortals and by spawn -- and, he felt sure, by magic. Here he seemed to be safe, protected by a halo of magic which seemed to surround Hammerdal, but as soon as he left the city he would be at the mercy of the old man he had once seen circling among the moonswept clouds. Each morning, more to take his mind off his enforced idleness than anything else, he exercised, wrestling with the strongest fighters Alin could lend him from his personal bodyguard. These mock duels became something of a regular fixture in the court's life. Young men and women would gather round on the lawn directly outside King Alin's gymnasium and watch as various of their friends struggled to see who could be the first to defeat Lone Wolf in unarmed combat. Since he had been united with the Sommerswerd he found that his body moved with a new grace and ease, as if he had the power of two people locked up inside a single form. Few of the people against whom he wrestled could contest with him for more than half a minute. He was there one morning when he heard a familiar voice. "Ho there, little brother. Showing off in front of these cultivated lilies, are we?" "Viveka!" She moved easily through the little crowd surrounding him, her

scarred face smiling, her piercing eyes scattering the courtiers in front of her. She was shabbily dressed, and one arm hung uselessly by her side, but the trimness and economy of her movements made her seem to shine among the floral gaudiness of the high-bred men and women around her. Lone Wolf absentmindedly threw his latest rival to the ground, winding the muscular youth so that he gasped on the fragrant lawn, and moved towards the mercenary, arms outstretched, ready to fold her to him. In this place where everybody but nobody was a friend, the sight of Viveka's face was like sunlight to him. At the last moment he paused, and offered her his hand. She shook it gravely, with her good hand, and he could feel the strength in her fingers. "So you made it, big sister!" "'Course I did. I had to come and collect my fee, after all." She clapped him on the shoulder. It was the heaviest blow anyone had inflicted on him all week, and he staggered slightly. "I think you may have difficulty." Her mercurial face was immediately scowling. "What do you mean?" "Well, big sister, you didn't actually protect me on my journey --" "And who killed that priest -- what was his name? Persimmon, or something. Who killed Persimmon and saved your life? You were hardly able to stand up at the time, as I recall, and he'd have had you for mincemeat if I hadn't been there!" She had moved into a half-crouch, a wildcat ready to spring, her good hand at a dagger on her belt. The courtiers muttered uneasily, a few of them choosing to drift away as if something of greater interest had just come to their attention. Lone Wolf wanted to laugh at Viveka and to hug her to him, but he knew the mercenary's unpredictable temper might take this either way. After all, she had promised to be his friend only so long as it suited her, and if all prospects of receiving a fee were disappearing she might decide it no longer suited her. Allied as he was with the Sommerswerd, he was fairly sure he could defend himself against her -- especially since she was effectively one-armed -- but in so doing he might have to harm her or even kill her, and this was far from what he wanted to do. Suddenly she chuckled and relaxed. "You're a good lad, little brother. I'll take the matter up with that Sommlending king of yours. First of all I'll have to get to Sommerlund, of course, keeping an eye on you the while. You don't happen to know anyone who's going there soon, do you, so that I could beg a ride?" "There's this army I've heard about, big sister. You could always join

up." "What? And be just another old sweat in the infantry? You have to be joking, brother!" "Oh," he said airily, studiously looking at his fingers, "I don't think you'd have any chance of being enlisted in the infantry. The Durenese army have high standards, you know. One-armed soldiers are likely to be left at home, tilling the fields and earning themselves an honest . . . ouch!" He doubled up over Viveka's hard fist, gasping, his eyes watering. Had it not been for the strength he had gained from his union with the Sommerswerd he would have been on the ground at her feet, choking from the unexpected punch. As it was, the muscles of his stomach already felt as if someone had hit them with a sledgehammer. He reeled backwards, still folded over, and began to laugh through his pain. "I accept it, I accept it, big sister!" he said, holding up his hand as if to ward off another blow. "Even singlehanded you could beat all the Durenese infantry into a shapeless heap and still have time for breakfast." "And quite right, too," said Viveka, looking at her knuckles in puzzled pain. "Has anyone ever told you you've got an exceptionally hard stomach?" Lone Wolf moved his mind so that the ache was released from his muscles, and he stood up to his full height. "A number of things have changed about me since we last met, big sister," he said gravely. "I'll tell you -- but later, perhaps over a meal. For now, I want you to meet Madin and see if he and I together can do something about that arm of yours." Madin was a wandering herbwarden, famous throughout all the Lastlands for his knowledge of the healing arts. As chance had had it, he had been in Hammerdal when Lone Wolf had arrived, and had worked with the young man to heal his physical and spiritual wounds through the use of potions and hours of silent meditation. He had, in addition, eased Lone Wolf's mind through the trauma of his fusion with the soulstuff of the Sommerswerd. A couple of days before, his wise eyes sombre, he had told Lone Wolf that the body of Rhygar had been found, hideously mutilated, near the mouth of Tarnalin. Lone Wolf had accepted the news impassively; he had already known, in some way he couldn't precisely define, that Rhygar was dead. Lone Wolf led Viveka around the bulge of the King's Tower to a side entrance. As they went she told him how the merchant Halvorc had died in the struggle with the Gorn Cove guards, but how Ganon and Dorier had finally been able to persuade the villagers of their innocence. The two

knights had brought her with them to Port Bax, and from there she had travelled in the back of a woodman's wagon to Hammerdal, certain she would find him at King Alin's court. She had used a few words of blandishment to persuade the palace guards to let her by -- a fact which chilled Lone Wolf: for all they had known, she could have been a helghast. The Durenese were too accustomed to peace: such laxness could endanger this entire enterprise. Troubled in his mind, he pushed open an arched pine door and ushered her in ahead of him. They were in a warm gloom, the air filled with the tangy, unidentifiable scents of the herbs which Madin had gathered. The old man himself appeared through the greyness almost immediately, smiling paternally at Lone Wolf and then looking with more interest at Viveka. "A friend of yours?" he asked. "So long as she chooses to be, which I hope will be a long while. Her arm -- she injured it badly while saving my life." Madin sat Viveka down on a crude wooden stool and pushed the sleeve of her tunic back to look at the inside of her elbow. He hissed as the lacerated, half-healed flesh came into view. Then he looked at Lone Wolf and nodded. "Between my lore and your Kai powers," he said, "we can restore her arm to her. But it'll be a week before she can have the full use of it -- maybe longer." "Maybe shorter," said Viveka tersely. "The talk in Hammerdal is that the fleet will be ready to leave in five days, and I may have some fighting to do after that." "Maybe shorter," Madin agreed, conciliatorily. "But you'll be lucky," he added under his breath, ignoring the sudden tightening of Viveka's lips as her sharp ears caught the words. "Now, let me find some root of laumspur and we'll see what we can do. Much later that day, Lone Wolf and Viveka sat side by side on a quilted couch. Her arm was wrapped from shoulder to wrist in creamy linen bandages, but she swore that already she could feel it healing. She had declined to shed her tattered clothing for the more ornate raiment of the court, although the servants assigned to her had begged her to do so, and Lone Wolf, inspired by her example, had discarded the over-fussy garments he had been forcing himself to wear the last week or more, instead donning again his green cloak, jerkin and trousers. These had been cleaned and repaired expertly, so that they seemed almost like new, and yet they wrapped themselves familiarly about his body. It seemed a long time since he had felt so fully at his ease.

There had been some tense moments during dinner. Axim and Viveka had recognized each other at once, and it was clear there was no great love between them. The stately knight, jabbing his great hooked nose at the air expressively, had muttered about assassins and gutter-scum, whereas Viveka, smiling sweetly, had whispered in Lone Wolf's ear some remarks about Axim which had startled him with their graphic inventiveness and vividly pictorial language. Tomorrow . . . tomorrow he would have to bring the two of them together and try to patch up some sort of friendship between them; for the moment he was too relaxed, his stomach too full of good food and wine, to be concerned about it. The gossip which Viveka had picked up in Hammerdal had been correct, as Lone Wolf had discovered during his evening conference with Axim and the king: in five days' time the Durenese fleet would sail for Sommerlund from Port Bax. From all over the country troops had been summoned, and a vast army was even now being drilled on the plains surrounding the city. The helghast seemed to have fled Durenor as precipitously as they had arrived, for no longer did reports filter in to the capital of atrocities committed on outlying towns and villages; Lone Wolf was certain the creatures had gone to rejoin their master's army at Holmgard. Musicians plucked carefully formal notes, and some of the courtiers danced in predetermined patterns across the floor, their finely woven clothes swaying as they moved. Now that Viveka was here, Lone Wolf saw the graceful men and women as nothing more than distracting decorations and heard the music as a tedious sequence of soulless tinkling sounds. He put his arm around Viveka's shoulder affectionately and, after a momentary pause, she nestled her head clumsily against his shoulder, protecting her injured limb. "Five days, Viveka," he said. "It's not very long for your wound to heal." "Long enough, little brother." "Will you train with me? None of these callysparrows has given me a decent contest." "If you feel strong enough to do battle with a one-armed member of the frailer sex, oh mighty warrior, I suppose I . . ." He smiled, and her words drifted away to mix themselves up in the minstrels' music. That night he escorted her to her room. His mind was pleasantly muzzy from the wine he had drunk; although he knew he could clear away the warm haze at any moment, he chose deliberately not to. At her door she stopped and turned to put one finger to his lips.

"Don't say it," she said. "Say what?" he muttered. "What you were going to say. I'm just your big sister, remember?" "But --" "No. Not a word. I know what you feel. It's as if there were only the two of us here, surrounded by all these other people who care more for the latest cut in clothing than for what really matters. That's all that you're feeling. Don't spoil things, little brother." "Viveka, I --" "Shut up." She took his head and kissed him firmly on the forehead. Then she stood back, smiled frankly at him, and impulsively brushed his lips with her mouth. The door slammed and she was gone. 2 Night. The flames of an eager fire lit up the inside of Zagarna's huge red war-tent, pitched on what had once been a stretch of pasture close by Holmgard, now a sea of mud churned up by countless taloned feet. The Darklord's colossal form lay spread upon a shrouded settle, his secondary mouth chewing eagerly on a human leg, his great blue flanks heaving and his eyes staring in mindless fury across the broad shelf of his face. Zagarna tried to shout his rage, but little could be heard except a soft bubbling noise, muted still further by the thick sphere of glass which encased his head. We can speak better this way, thought Vonotar reprovingly. You've failed me! The mouth in Zagarna's abdomen chewed even more avidly, as if somehow it could express more fully the Darklord's wrath. It is no matter for concern. The boy lives! You told me you would see him die, and yet he lives! Don't you call that failure? A temporary setback, my friend. Nothing more. The sorcerer was seated in mid-air, apparently calm and collected. His eyes flamed a placid redness, occasionally flaring into yellow. In fact, he was more worried than it would have been wise ever to admit to the Darklord. A string of unlucky coincidences had thwarted his attempts to put an end to Lone Wolf's puny existence. Or were they coincidences? That was the trouble -- he wasn't sure. Weeks had passed now since last he had sensed the presence of that other power, the entity who had taken away his youth from him. At times he suspected she had left Magnamund forever, that she

had decided for unknowable reasons of her own to cease tormenting him; for most of the time, though, he was uneasily aware that perhaps she was somewhere out there, ready and waiting to do battle with him once again. If only he could be confident, one way or the other, he would know what next to do! But he shielded these doubts from the eyes and the mind of the Darklord. Vonotar, Zagarna was thinking. I find it hard to believe that a mere slip of a boy could have avoided you for so long -- you who claim to have magical powers greater than any ever before seen on this world! He reached out for another severed human limb, squashing it appreciatively in his clawed hands as he bore it to his lower mouth. Wizard, I suspect you of treachery! Vonotar was accustomed to the Darklord's periodic furies and accusations. They made no impression on him any longer. Of course, Zagarna wasn't aware that he, Vonotar, had elected himself to be a fellow Darklord. Indeed, if Vonotar had his way, Zagarna would die before ever that realization came to him. For the moment, though, he felt it was in his interests to maintain their fragile alliance. But his patience, he knew, was rapidly evaporating . . . Darklord, you know, for you can see into my thoughts, that I could never sustain any ideas of treason towards you. His eyes were momentarily blue, but he forced the colour to ebb back towards red again. We have Holmgard at our feet, and within days it will be ours. Once their king has been burnt alive atop its highest parapet, the Sommlending will be like cowed dogs, anxious to obey our every whim. Surely you could never have come this far had it not been for my faithful assistance. Vonotar let a sneer colour his thought. My lord, you may have all the power of the Darkness, but only the magic that I can deploy could have brought us thus far. And you talk to me of treason! And of failure! Wizard, I do not like you. There is no reason we should like each other. But, for all that, we need each other. Is it not true? Yes, yes, grumbled Zagarna resentfully. I suppose it's true. But truth is the gallows upon which they hang the starving man. I have no wish to starve, nor to hang. And neither shall you. Soon -- perhaps within the week -- you will be standing four-square over all of Sommerlund, and not a warrior will dare to say your name except to praise it! Zagarna absorbed this slowly, and for a while his thoughts were silent.

He was fond of flattery, from whatever source. The idea of his final triumph over the hated foe was a sweet one, and he relished it slowly as he swallowed it into the cavernous maw of his mind. But still, he thought finally, grudgingly, there is the matter of the boy. I shouldn't think he will trouble us for long, Vonotar countered immediately. Within a few short days, he and a vast army from Durenor will be setting sail for these shores . . . Wizard! You never told me this! The Darklord sat up, his limbs moving restlessly, cutting through the air, wishing it were flesh that they flayed. I didn't tell you because it isn't important to you! The harshness of Vonotar's thought cracked across the air between them. Once they are at sea they are at my mercy! I can doom the boy and the Durenese scum as one! And how do you propose to do this, wizard? By taking an idea, and moulding it until it is in the shape that I desire, and then allowing it to fly loose in the skies above the Holmgulf. Vonotar's ancient face cracked into a calculated smile. I'm fed up with your riddles, wizard! Tell me in plain words that I can understand! So Vonotar told Zagarna as much of his plan as he thought it likely the Darklord could understand. 3 The brassy blare of a thousand trumpets was still in Lone Wolf's ears as Port Bax slowly disappeared on the eastern horizon. All around him the world was filled with the creaking of timbers, the calls of sailors, the splashing of waves as wooden hulls cut weightily through them, the hoarse cries of seabirds, the slap of sails as they took the wind. He was at sea again, the spiced air stinging in his nostrils as he breathed. Beside him Viveka stirred smoothly, like him leaning with her arms on the rail surrounding the fo'c'sle. Nearby Lord Axim was standing rigidly, staring out to sea ahead of them; he and Viveka, at the instigation of Lone Wolf, had entered into a hesitant truce -- at least for the duration of the war. It had emerged that the mercenary had been responsible for the death of one of Lord Axim's kin, a murder which she now barely remembered, having performed it years ago for some forgotten client, who had paid her well but who otherwise had made not the slightest impression on her memory. (Or, at least, that was what she claimed. Lone Wolf suspected, from her openness and frankness on the matter, that she remembered only too clearly who her

paymaster had been, but was holding to her contract by confiding the person's name to no one.) The two of them maintained a stiff politeness in each other's company -- which, Lone Wolf accepted, was as much as he could expect from them. He remembered the last time he had been upon these waters, first aboard the Green Sceptre, then adrift in the angry iciness, and then in the ramshackle confines of the fishing vessel. Now he stood near the bows of the greatest of all Durenor's warships -- a craft herself called the Durenor, in recognition of her preeminence. She was perhaps a hundred and fifty feet from stem to stern, with a great curving prow and three tall masts that seemed almost to scratch against the clouds. She carved through the waters remorselessly, her every movement declaring her strength. Behind her, scattered out across the broad cloth of the sea, were spread more than fifty others of the mightiest galleons at Durenor's command, each bearing a small army of skilled warriors. Ten thousand of the finest soldiers of all Durenor were aboard this fleet; ten thousand men and women who had vowed they would have vengeance on the hordes of the Darklord, or they would give up their lives in the attempt. Lone Wolf's mind went back to the tiny fishing vessel and the petty criminals who had formed its crew. They meant to kill me, he thought, and for a while I was in their power. How things have changed. His hand moved briefly to the hilt of the Sommerswerd, brushing it with his fingertips as he did so frequently that now he barely noticed what he was doing. At every contact he and the sword exchanged a little of their soulstuff, further cementing the bond between them. He felt now as if there were no clear demarcation that divided himself from the weapon. A bell chimed. It was midday, time for them to eat. This they did at the captain's table. The commander of all the fleet, the captain of the Durenor was a slight man with a twisted, withered leg -- exactly the opposite of what Lone Wolf had always imagined an admiral should look like. He was already seated at his table when they arrived, and he gestured towards the other seats, a gleam of welcome in his shrewd eyes. "The winds seem set well for us, Admiral Calfen," said Axim, waiting, his hand on the back of his chair, while Viveka seated herself. Hatred for her might be simmering just below the surface, but still, in the manner of the Durenese military aristocracy, he extended her every courtesy. "Aye," said the admiral. "This time of year, the winds should be with us all the way to the Holmgulf, Ishir be willing." "How long will it take us to reach Holmgard?" Lone Wolf asked. Although he already knew the answer, he knew also that time was

desperately tight; he prayed Calfen would have good news for him. Already thirty-three days of his mission had gone by, and Ulnar had warned him that Holmgard could hold out against the Darklord's siege for no more than about forty. If Ulnar's estimate had been optimistic . . . It didn't bear thinking about. "Three days, maybe four," said the admiral, smiling sympathetically at the young Kai. "There's no way we can make the ships travel faster than they want to, and that's a fact." The answer was the same as it always was. Lone Wolf looked gloomy. "But if there's nothing we can do to change these things, then where's the sense in worrying about 'em?" said the admiral complacently, looking with unabashed interest at a bowl of meat broth that had been placed in front of him. "This tastes good," remarked Viveka, who had ignored ceremony and simply pitched straight in. Axim looked at her and visibly controlled a shudder. Skilfully Calfen steered the conversation towards other things, and the meal passed without incident. As, indeed, did the succeeding days, although all of them became more and more imbued by the feeling that there was something desperately wrong. It seemed as if there was a creeping malaise upon the fleet, as if something was siphoning the spirit out of the crews and the warriors. Whereas at first cries of greeting, often ribald and derogatory, had been passed regularly and cheerfully between the galleons whenever they moved close to each other, now the more usual response was a moody silence, or at best a formal exchange of information. Aboard their own ship, the Durenor, the soldiers who had only a couple of days before been eager to volunteer to help or to exchange a witticism were now a sullen, broody lot, forgetful of their clothing and the condition of their weapons, staring towards the west with slack-jawed dread. Viveka was the first to broach the subject at the captain's table, on the evening of their third day. "Your soldiers are poor sailors, Lord Axim," she observed mildly, picking her teeth fastidiously. The hooked nose pointed towards her like an offensive weapon, and the Durenese aristocrat's hard eyes stared down it at her. He made as if to speak, but instead just snarled, low in his throat. Viveka carried on lightly, as if she had heard nothing. "But then your sailors don't seem to be very good sailors, either, do they, Admiral Calfen? All of them would appear to have been made just as queasy by the waves as

my lord's soldiers." The old seafarer just looked at her. There was no real animus in his gaze, just a paternal exasperation. Then his face changed. "You're right, Viveka," he said suddenly. "We can't just make things go away by refusing to talk about them. Something's draining our people as if they were sponges being sucked dry. I don't like it, no I don't. It smacks to me of magic, and not the magic of good, either." Now that Calfen had spoken it was as if he had burst open a dam in Axim's reserve. The warrior began to speak, and the words came gushing out of him. "Now that you say it, Calfen, my friend, I, too, have felt a touch of whatever vile force it is that's sapping the strength of our men and women. It's like walking close to the edge of a cliff and feeling it drawing you towards it. You know it would be madness to go any closer, and yet still it pulls at you, as if it were speaking directly to your mind. And by the time you force yourself to turn and walk away from it, to force it out of your mind, you feel as if it had pulled half of your soul away with it." "It hasn't affected me," said Viveka. For once her remark to the lord wasn't deliberately barbed; she was looking straight at him, her eyes serious, her forehead lined with sincere curiosity. "Nor me," Lone Wolf put in. "But then," he added, "I bear the Sommerswerd." Viveka smiled somewhat bitterly at him. "Lucky little fellow, aren't you, little brother?" she said softly. Lone Wolf looked startled. He'd intended it as nothing more than a statement of fact. "But you say you've felt nothing of it," said Axim, leaning forward earnestly towards the assassin. "Now, I wonder why that could be?" "I don't know," said Viveka very slowly, pacing the syllables deliberately. "If I knew, I swear I would tell you." Perhaps you, too, have breathed the breath of the nameless ones, Lone Wolf thought, but he said nothing of this. Calfen was looking at him. "But as you say, young Kai Lord, there's a perfectly rational explanation for your own escape from this evil influence. You are shielded from it by the Sommerswerd at your hip. Is there no way, perhaps, that the Sommerswerd could shield us all? Because, if this goes on, it'll be hardly worth our sailing into the Holmgulf. Our people will just take one look at the Darklord's army and run away screaming, they will." Viveka put her hand to her mouth and giggled artificially. Both of the

older men gave her a filthy look. Axim's temper deserted him and he spat out savage words: "It's nothing to laugh about, you she-cat from the sliming pits of --" Lone Wolf cut in quickly. "I don't know if I can call upon the Sommerswerd to aid us all, Admiral," he said pointedly. "I'll go right now to my cabin and see if I can blend my own poor powers with those of the sword. Failing that -- well, who are we to have the power to counter magic?" He left the other three heatedly discussing what would be their best tactic if, indeed, they landed in Holmgard with an army that was still demoralized and dispirited into uselessness. Lone Wolf was pleased to notice two things as he went. First, the dangerous rift that had opened up between Viveka and Axim had closed almost as suddenly as it had appeared, and the two of them were cooperating fully in the conference. Second, they were all talking in terms of what should be done if Lone Wolf's attempts to lift the curse should still have been unsuccessful by the time they reached Holmgard: it seemed not to have occurred to any of them that there was always the alternative of simply turning round and heading back to Port Bax. In his cramped cabin he reverently laid the Sommerswerd on his bunk, and looked at it, his mind heavy with concern. It glowed less brightly when it was not at his belt or in his hand -- its light was merely a red warmth, now. His unease about the forces of magic, usually confined to the back of his mind, ignored, now surged to the fore again; he could accept that, in the right hands, those forces could be used to effect great things, but at the same time the very thought of them filled him with distrust. Whose were the "right hands"? He knew there were disciples of the magic of Evil employed by the Darklords in their fastnesses beyond the Durncrag mountains, and he had little doubt that some of those necromancers had come with the conquering army. Were theirs the "right hands"? No: of course not. And then there were magicians who meant well but were unable to control the powers at their disposal. He thought of the nursery fables his mother had told him about such magicians when he had been an infant at her knee. And he thought, too, of the young weakling of a trainee enchanter he had met so soon after the destruction of the Kai Monastery. Were theirs the "right hands", either? Again, certainly not. Inept magicians were, if anything, even more dangerous than evil ones. He shook his head sadly. Yet it seemed, despite all his doubts, that now he bore the Sommerswerd he, too, would have to dabble in the occult arts. To be sure, some of the Kai abilities and senses were so close to magic that it was hard

to distinguish them from the real thing; but that was . . . different. He couldn't think why, for a moment, but his mind was shouting at him that this was the case. And then he had it: the Kai abilities were nascent within everyone, and were thus merely a natural manifestation of human beings. Magic was drawn from outside the individual; it was something extra, which people had to bring into themselves. You trained to turn yourself into a magician; whereas you trained as a Kai in order to let yourself become what you already really were. That was the difference. That was why he welcomed every sign in himself of the one and was so profoundly suspicious of the other. His own Kai abilities, however, were as yet far from fully developed. He didn't know if they were up to bonding with the soulstuff of the Sommerswerd in order to repel the magical assault upon the fleet. He stared at the sword. It was untold thousands of years old. It had been held in the great hand of King Ulnar I when he had slain the Darklord Vashna at the Maakengorge. It must have encountered magic on this scale before. Surely at least some of the earlier Sommlending who had borne the weapon had united their souls with it to drive off evils as pervasive and insinuating as this one? He knelt down and touched the palms of his hands to the blade of the Sommerswerd, his other self, and he opened his mind to it completely. For a moment he felt nothing but a stillness of such profound tranquillity that it was as if he had no senses, no real being. And then his body was electrified with power, every cell singing with energies created in the time when the Lastlands themselves had been children. He was plunging down through the waters of the ocean, screaming with exultation. Down he went through the sea-bed, scattering corals and the oozes of the millennia, thrusting aside the brittle rocks of the world's crust, darting unimpeded into the molten rock beneath. He bathed in the boiling heat for a fraction of a second, and then continued his flight downward, downward and ever downward. Great igneous masses, lancing bright red and searing white, rolled towards him -- but he dove on straight through them, laughing maniacally at their discomfiture. He saw the curving lines of magnetism like dark wires within the magma, but every time he approached them they shrank away, flinching from his touch. The tormented liquid rock could offer him no more resistance than if he were pushing his hand into cream. Now the light was even more intense, so that the magma seemed as if it were straining against the pressure of the world above to explode outwards in a triumphant flare of brilliance and destruction. And then the light grew dimmer, as the weight of all Magnamund cowed the fiery spirits of the rock,

forcing it into stillness. He burst through into a new region, and he knew he was close to the heart of the world. He was piercing through liquid metal that was so hot the word "heat" no longer had any meaning, and yet he felt its touch as coolness. He whooped in exhilaration as he came nearer and nearer to the very core of Magnamund. He was temporarily crazed -- he knew it, and he rejoiced in his madness. And then he was standing by the edge of a pond, a fishing-rod in his hands. He had been here all the long day, and now the sun was sinking towards the west. He had caught enough of the fat fish that lived in this pond for his family to have plenty for supper, plus a couple to be salted and stored away. Perhaps another cast or two across the placid water before he packed his creel away and set out over the curve of the hill for home? Well, just one more . . . He raised the rod behind his head. There was another shadow besides his own on the surface of the water. He turned incuriously to see who this fellow-angler might be. He hadn't noticed him earlier, so presumably the man had come down in the late afternoon to chance his luck with a cast or two. The man was dressed in a robe of blue, upon which were embroidered stars of silver. He felt Lone Wolf's gaze upon him, for he turned and smiled a wintry and hate-filled smile. "You!" "Yes, Lone Wolf, it's me. You saw me sailing close to the moon when the Green Sceptre went down, and I thought you had been swallowed by the ocean. If you'd known where to look, you would have seen me watching at other times -- when that fool of a priest of mine tried to use his clumsy poison on you, or when you were attacked back in that tavern in Holmgard." The angler tittered. "The Darklord's helghast should have taken you in Tarnalin, of course, and for long enough I assumed they'd done so, but when I returned to gloat over the rags of your body I found the fools had failed: they were destroyed most cruelly, I can assure you. As indeed was your friend -- that bluff, stolid and incredibly stupid man Rhygar: I took great joy in subjecting him to all the tortures I wished to exact on you, Lone Wolf, and he was screaming to be spared as he died." "I don't believe you! Rhygar would never have --" "Oh, but he did. You'd better take my word for it -- after all, I'm the only one who was there . . . apart from Rhygar, that is, and of course he

won't be telling you. Now, just wait a moment, I think I saw a fish rise." The ancient man cast his line, and for a while seemed to concentrate on it entirely. However, the cast was unsuccessful, and wearily he drew in his line. "We're both fishers, you and I, Lone Wolf," he said reflectively. "You put out your line, hoping it'll be taken by something good, and all that seems to happen is that the fish die before you can ever haul them up to the shore. Me? I throw out my lines as well, but what I seek are living fish who will obey my will in everything. I've caught quite a few such fish now, you know, some of them very big fish indeed. And they do do what I tell them to do." Lone Wolf could see that the man's back was unnaturally bent with age. Wispy white hairs were plastered to his pallid forehead. His eyes were empty as he turned away from the pond to look at Lone Wolf. "You died, you know," he said. "I saw you die. You died when a fisherman cut away your throat with his knife, and your life bled away on the unvarnished deck of the sorry vessel he thought himself proud to command. I watched as the life was leached away from you, and yet later I found that you were still alive. Tell me -- it's merely a matter of curiosity on my part -- how did that come to happen?" Lone Wolf cast his own line, even though it was by now far too late and his mother would be beginning to wonder where he had got to. "I don't remember dying," he said. "I think perhaps I might -- if I had." "But you did," said the ancient man vexedly. "I can assure you most readily that you did. Lone Wolf -- the last of the Kai. That was it: you were dead." He knifed his hand through the air descriptively. "You're mad! I'm here. Look at me. I'm alive!" "And so you are -- here. But of course 'here' isn't anywhere you might expect it to be. 'Here' is somewhere your mind and mine have conjured up between them. You can't say it really exists." "But up there" -- Lone Wolf pointed with his thumb -- "there is reality, and I'm still alive in that reality. Wizard, sorcerer, whoever you are -remember that there is always such a thing as the present." "There is indeed." The bent old man crumpled up his fishing-rod, looking almost ruefully at the splintered pieces that were left in his hands. "If you want, Lone Wolf, you can dismiss all this as a dream." He threw away the pieces of his rod, and they floated on the surface of the pond. "But I don't think you will. It makes no difference. You have defied all the

adversaries I have sent against you, but on our next encounter you will have to deal with me myself. That will be something different, will it not?" "Yes," said Lone Wolf, his voice subdued. "Something very different." The ancient man seemed content with his empty creel, for he hefted it easily up on one elbow. His shoes -- far too light for exploring the banks of a pond -- seemed not to touch the mud as he turned away. "Let me ask you something," said Lone Wolf. He was very conscious of the fact that it was the first positive move he had made since coming here, despite the proud shout of his descent. "Ask away." "I've seen you before -- you said as much yourself. But who are you?" "Oh." The ancient man seemed for a moment surprised, and then he regained his poise on the crumbling bank. "I would have thought that was something you knew by now." "I don't." "Hmmm. You really are a very poorly informed young man, you know. It'll be something you can think about when you meet your death in the Holmgulf, as the Durenese cry out their piteous whines all around you. I shouldn't think it will make too much difference, now, if I tell you who I am." The angler paused, his rod sloped over the shoulder of his star-studded blue robe. "My name is Vonotar. It is the name of the nemesis of the Lastlands. "Is that enough to satisfy your query?" 4 Vonotar twisted uneasily in his bed. On the other side of this bare stone cell in Kaag, Carag snored lustily. Vonotar felt as if something had been stolen from his mind, but he didn't know what it was. He tried to throw himself further into sleep, but the uncanny light of the walls of Kaag projected itself through the lids of his eyes. He whimpered like a child, pulling the bedclothes more closely about him. 5 Lone Wolf burst back into the captain's cabin. Calfen, Axim and Viveka were still seated there; Axim, Lone Wolf realized astonishedly, was drunk. In front of him there was a mess of empty wine-bottles, and his fist beat

repeatedly upon the table. "Silence!" Lone Wolf shouted. Calfen and Viveka turned and stared; Axim gazed at him owlishly. Lone Wolf swiftly explained what had happened. "I've been told the truth," he said. "The Sommerswerd helped me discover it. We were right -- our troops are being weakened by magic. I even know who's creating the malicious spell. But our people aren't being softened up for when we reach Holmgard. The sorcerer -- Vonotar -- plans to strike at us even before we get there. He's going to attack while we're still in the Holmgulf!" "Tomorrow," said Calfen listlessly. Viveka looked at Lone Wolf with her disconcertingly acute eyes. "How's he going to attack us?" she said. "I don't know." "Anyway, who is this Vonotar?" "That's another thing I don't know. When I saw him -- dreamed him, call it what you will -- he was dressed in the costume of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star." "So even they would turn against Sommerlund, would they?" said Viveka thoughtfully, toying with a fork. "Nonsense!" Axim shouted. "They'd never --" "But they might," said Calfen cautiously, although it was clear he didn't fully believe the idea. "No, they wouldn't," Lone Wolf said. "I've met the weakest of all their number, and even he couldn't have been tempted into fighting for the forces of Evil. This . . . this Vonotar must be some kind of a renegade -- or else maybe he was simply disguising himself in the Brotherhood's robes." "Whoever he is, he's a very powerful sorcerer indeed," muttered Calfen. "I've heard a little of the ways of Left Hand magic, and I know it would take one of the greatest of all magicians to cast a spell like this one." "Then indeed Vonotar must be one of the greatest of all magicians," Lone Wolf exploded. He told them tersely how he had been hounded by illluck ever since leaving Holmgard, and how it had been created by the ancient man. "Might as well give up," said Axim sadly. "There's no way we can compete with magic as powerful as that." "Don't be a fool," said Viveka suddenly. "Don't talk of giving up! That's exactly what Vonotar wants you to do. You've been touched by his damned spell. You'd never think of giving up otherwise." She took Lone Wolf's agreement for granted, but looked backwards

and forwards between Axim and Calfen, her eyes challenging them. Neither of the two men could find anything to say. "Right then," Viveka concluded, pouring herself another glass of wine, "we're all agreed that we keep sailing on towards the Holmgulf. And we look forward with pleasure and delight to the prospect of a merry battle on the morrow, do we not?" The two older men agreed hesitantly. Lone Wolf searched on the table for a clean glass, found one, filled it and touched it to Viveka's. "A toast!" he cried. "A toast to our victory tomorrow!" He and Viveka raised their glasses, their eyes meeting. Axim and Calfen assented halfheartedly. "To victory," they murmured. But neither of them raised a glass of his own. 6 It could have been the toast or it could have been his encounter with Vonotar, but, whatever the reason, the shroud of gloom and despondency had lifted from the fleet by the following morning. Lone Wolf woke to the sound of crewmen hurling good-natured abuse at each other, and he knew from the timbre of their oaths that things were back to normal again. He turned over in his bunk; it was not particularly comfortable, but he was reluctant to leave its warmth. He pushed his head firmly into the hard, slightly damp-smelling pillow and closed his eyes tightly against the flood of daylight streaming in through the porthole. Today, he knew, was going to be a grim one: Vonotar had promised him as much. There was the possibility he might lose his life, although this he discounted: just as engineered misfortune had been dogging him, there had also been someone or something protecting him over the past few weeks, he knew from speaking with the sorcerer, and presumably that same agency would continue to do so. But there was little point in his own personal survival if he failed to reach Holmgard in time to save the city -- and the whole nation of Sommerlund. He dreaded the thought of failure even more than he dreaded the chance of his own death. He rolled out of his bunk and searched around the floor for his clothes. He splashed some cold water on his face, but didn't bother with any more washing than that. He shook his head vigorously, so that droplets of water sprayed everywhere; the rapid movement brought him fully awake. Axim, Calfen and Viveka were already on deck when he got there, the wiry admiral with a telescope to his eye.

"Don't like the look of that," he was saying to the other two. "Don't like the look of it at all." His dourness was in contrast to the good cheer of the others. "A fine good morning to you!" said Lone Wolf. Viveka had cued him last night to the fact that one of their best defences against whatever the day might bring was to adopt a pose of gaiety. "Morning!" said Axim brightly. "Sleep well?" "Like a top. And you, Viveka?" "I slept well, thank you, little brother." "Calfen?" "Shut up, you cheery bugger, and take a look at this." Lone Wolf took the telescope and held it up to his eye. As he did so he felt his mask of jollity slip. The brightness of the day dimmed into a sorry grey, and his shoulders bent as if they were burdened by a heavy load. "Well, look through it, can't you?" snapped the admiral. Leadenly Lone Wolf did so. Directly ahead of them was Wreck Point, the southernmost tip of the archipelago that was the Kirlundin Isles. But the cruelly jagged rocks of the headland were obscured from his view. A fog seemed to be emanating from Wreck Point and rolling across the surface of the sea; Lone Wolf was reminded of a troupe of dancers spreading themselves on the stage before starting their performance. The feeling of dismal hopelessness seeped into him. "It's just a fog," he said dully, passing the telescope to Viveka. As he did so, he felt the gloom lift. He struck the telescope out of her hands, so that it went twisting and turning over the side of the Durenor to splash in the water. Calfen knotted a fist. The small man looked as if he were about to attack Lone Wolf, but . . . "No!" Viveka shouted. "I felt it, too. There was something in the telescope. It was making us feel despondent. Lone Wolf was right to get rid of it." "Yes, friend," said Axim slowly, putting a restraining arm on the admiral's shoulder. "There was evil magic in that telescope. I, too, experienced it a while ago, but I thought it was just the dolour of the day." Calfen's fury subsided. "Aye, and that may be so, it may be so," he said. He spat over the rail into the churning water. "But there's still the fog." They looked ahead and, sure enough, Calfen was right: the fog had erected itself over the sea like a drystone dyke, and it was directly in their path. It seemed to stretch all the way from the surface of the ocean to the frontiers of the heavens. It was massive and solid, unchanging and

implacable. But wait. There was movement within it. Against the grey of the uncanny mist they could see dark shapes. At first they couldn't interpret what they saw: the patterns seemed abstract. Then the shapes gathered greater definition. Calfen was the first of them to realize what was happening. "Warships!" he bawled. "Warships ahead of us!" "Prepare for battle," a crewman cried from the crow's nest. The shout was taken up by others among the fleet. "So Vonotar attacks early," muttered Lone Wolf. "But I thought he'd have used a little more subtlety than this." "And so would I," said Viveka, picking up his words. "Still, we have to fight him on his own grounds, and who are we to complain?" The response of the soldiers to the call to battle was much more enthusiastic; they'd been cooped up in the ships for several days now. One of them started a cheer, and soon it was picked up by the others. "I wish I could feel as excited as they do," said Lone Wolf to Viveka. "It's just a question of killing more of the enemy than they kill of us," she replied matter-of-factly. "Won't take long. Then we can carry on to this Holmgard of yours." "I wish I had your . . . your coldness." "You forget, little brother, that I've killed a lot of people in my time. A few more isn't going to make too much difference." The enemy ships were closing on them rapidly, and as they did so a howl of dismay went up from the Durenor's crew, almost drowning out the martial cheering and yelling of the soldiers. Viveka and Lone Wolf looked at each other, startled -- what was happening to the sailors? Calfen rushed past them, his face white and horrified. "A . . . nightmare!" he shouted as he went. "Every seam . . . seam . . . sailor's nightmare!" His control over his speech was slipping. Axim was at Lone Wolf's side. "Look at them!" he hissed, his great nose stabbing towards the oncoming ships. Lone Wolf looked -- and flinched with horror. The ships were black and water-stained. Here a mast was broken, there a hole gaped in a once-proud hull. Dredged up from the depths of the oceans by Vonotar's magic, these were the ships that had sunk over the centuries in the Holmgulf. And they were manned by their original crews. Lone Wolf sharpened the focus of his eyes, the way he had learned

how to do in Tarnalin; and he saw, swarming among the rigging, moving slowly and laboriously, some missing limbs or even their head, the sailors who had perished with their ships. Their rotted faces were twisted into masks of implacable hatred as they came towards the Durenese fleet. A cold wind suddenly tugged at Lone Wolf, blasting across the sea like a rushing hurricane. As soon as it had come it was gone, and it swept away with it the unnatural silvery fog. The wailing of the crews around them intensified, and Lone Wolf's heart quailed. "There are thousands of them," Viveka breathed in his ear. It was the first time he had known her to show any trace of fear, and that she was doing so now added to his own terror. From side to side, ranged right across the width of the Holmgulf, stretched the carcases of the dead vessels, moving ponderously on the choppy waters. Even at this distance Lone Wolf could hear the moaning and groaning of their tormented timbers. Coming straight towards the Durenor, its wet sails taut against the sky, was the flagship of the fleet of the dead. It was a huge vessel, and from its vast prow extended a great clawed ram. The two ships closed with uncanny speed. Lone Wolf drew the Sommerswerd from its scabbard, and the blade cast its light on the deck around him. Viveka was scrambling up on the rail, a dagger in her teeth and her own sword drawn, preparing to leap aboard the oncoming vessel. Lone Wolf moved to follow her, but then the ram struck the Durenor's hull, and he was thrown to one side, the splintering of boards and the screams of the crew filling his ears until he thought he would be deafened. He had no idea where Viveka and Axim could have got to; as soon as he had regained his balance he looked around for them but they were nowhere to be seen. The deck beneath his feet was canted over at an angle, and he knew the ship must be taking on water -- too much water: she must go down within minutes. "Abandon ship!" screamed Calfen. Lone Wolf could only hear him, not see him; the little admiral must be somewhere behind him. "Abandon ship!" Lone Wolf sheathed the Sommerswerd, leapt up on the guardrail, teetered there precariously for a moment, and then leaped precipitously forward towards the water-blackened deck of the flagship of the dead. 7

The rotting timbers held his weight for only a second and then they gave way, so that he went crashing through to the deck beneath. The sharp edges of the wood scraped at his face and hands, and he bruised the small of his back painfully on landing, but otherwise he was unhurt. All around him the timbers of the ship glowed with a cold grey phosphorescence, and the stench of decay choked him so that he retched drily, clutching his knotted stomach. As soon as he had recovered himself he staggered to his feet and drew the Sommerswerd from its jewelled scabbard. The sword in his hand shone with a great golden light, and he could see that he was in what must once have been the ship's main dining salon. Dank black seaweeds and small, sickly grey molluscs encrusted every surface. Shattered chairs and tables were tumbled together in chaos. A dead squid was wedged tightly under the decaying remains of the master table. The air was filled with the eerie creaking of the ship, and from the hole in the deck above him he could hear the screams and shouts of battle. There was another noise. It came from behind him, and he whirled around, the Sommerswerd at the ready. Lumbering uncertainly forwards, armed with huge rusted cutlasses, were four of this dead ship's crew. They were almost naked, their decomposing bodies covered only with tatters of wet clothing. Their faces were racked with pain, their empty eye-sockets swivelling towards him, seeing him with eyes which had long since been stolen by the sea's salt waters. Suddenly Lone Wolf realized why the walking dead bore such hatred for the living. They're in agony! he thought wildly, cleaving the air in front of him with the Sommerswerd. Vonotar has made them walk again, but they have to bear all the pain of their deaths. They must kill us all before he will release them to oblivion. A gargling cry of loathing ripped itself from the throat of one of the undead, and he clumsily ran towards Lone Wolf, his cutlass raised high above his head. Lone Wolf stepped easily to one side, and with a great sweeping arc of the Sommerswerd cut the zombie in two at the waist. He was half-turned, ready to do battle with the other three, when some instinct made him glance back. The . . . the thing was still alive. Rotting intestines spilling from its belly, the torso was still groping towards his ankles, pulling itself along the slimy, waterlogged boards with one hand and jerkily swinging its cutlass with the other. Lone Wolf let out a scream of revulsion and took one involuntary step

backwards. Then he jumped swiftly towards the thing on the floor and swept down the Sommerswerd to hack away the bloated hand clutching the cutlass. The thing gave a bubbling shriek of frustration and tried to bite at him with its toothless, lipless mouth. Lone Wolf kicked out at it, and the disintegrating torso shot across the slippery deck to wrap itself against the corpse of the squid. There it lay, still yelling its incoherent fury. Lone Wolf turned towards the other three and not a moment too soon, for they were almost upon him. The blade of the Sommerswerd streaked through the air, deftly removing one zombie's fighting arm at the elbow. The thing stopped in its tracks, still waving the stump of its limb confusedly; clearly it didn't know what to do now that its cutlass-arm was gone, and Lone Wolf felt a sudden wash of sympathy mingling with his horror. I must stop thinking of these things as people -- it's slowing me down. They're objects. Nothing but dangerous objects to be got rid of . . . Two more swishes of the Sommerswerd, and all three of the zombies were now incapacitated, snarling in a thin watery frenzy of frustration at him but making no further moves to attack. He backed away from them, looking from side to side, desperately searching for some way to get out of this stinking room. He rested one hand on the slithery surface of the master table, and saw there was a door at the end of the salon, its wood swollen and bloated so that it filled its frame tightly. Ishir knew where it led to, but it had to be somewhere better than this place. Something clutched his ankle. He yelped with fear, and looked down. The hideously shattered carcase of the first zombie had inched towards him. It was gripping his left boot tightly with its remaining hand, and its face was turned up, tortured into a rictus of abomination. Lone Wolf screamed again, and instinctively slashed out with the Sommerswerd. The blade scythed down through the thing's head and breastbone, shattering its ribs and releasing a sickening smell of corruption and decay. Lone Wolf gagged and tried to step away. He did so only with difficulty. The creature's hand was still locked to his foot, so that as he moved he dragged much of the mangled torso with him. There was the sharp, sour taste of vomit in his mouth. He stabbed with the sword, severing the grey arm at the wrist. Still the hand gripped him, but there was nothing he could do about it. Later, once he had got away from this vile place, he could chop it away with a dagger. He turned and half-slid, half-ran towards the door he had spotted. He had nearly reached it when he heard a low cackle from beyond.

Something was moving there, and he sensed a great evil. He looked back at the hole he had made when he had fallen into this room, but there was no time to make his escape that way; besides, he didn't think he could stomach passing the heap of limbs and organs littered across the deck beside the squid. With luck the thing beyond the door would pass on by. No. He sensed that it knew he was here, and that it was waiting to burst through the door towards him. He noticed rather than felt a strange tingling sensation around the fringes of his mind. It puzzled him for a moment, and then he recognized what was happening. Something -- it must be the creature on the other side of the door -- was trying to attack him mentally. Now that his soulstuff had melded with the Sommerswerd's he was immune from the pain, but of course the creature couldn't know this. He stood there, panting hoarsely, half-crouched, ready to defend himself, both hands on the great hilt of the Sommerswerd. The creature on the far side of the door seemed less certain of itself now. Its movements were even more furtive and cautious than before. Lone Wolf's muscles were aching from the tension in which he was holding his body. He knew he didn't dare risk relaxing them. The creature might sense it, and choose that moment to attack. Then suddenly the swollen door exploded towards him. He forced himself not to flinch as shards of soft, decayed, pulpy wood showered around him. Howling its hatred, a helghast ran directly towards him, its evil black sword whistling straight for his neck. He stood his ground, the Sommerswerd's golden blade held rigidly out in front of him. The helghast impaled itself through the chest and let out a high scream of agony. Lone Wolf twisted the blade, and ichor spurted from the wound. The helghast screamed again, and staggered back, drawing itself clear of the Sommerswerd. It was moving unsteadily, whimpering in a mewl of pain, but its sword arm still moved purposefully. It looked Lone Wolf straight in the eyes. He returned the stare: it was like looking into the nightmarish depths of some infernal pit. He forced his gaze away. The thing was trying to ensnare him with those vilely soulless eyes. The helghast snorted with fury as soon as it realized he had freed his mind from its hypnotic hold, and then darted towards him once again. This time Lone Wolf was not so well prepared, and the black blade

sung through the air directly in front of his mouth. He jerked his head back and swept the Sommerswerd round in front of him with all the force he could muster. It was a lucky blow, chopping straight into the spawn's side right through to the backbone. The helghast gave out one final, ear-shattering scream of pain, and then it was gone as if it had never been there. Lone Wolf was stunned by the shock of the sudden disappearance, but he forced his unwilling feet to take him through the space where the helghast had been, towards the empty frame of the door. He found a rotting companionway, and nervously clambered up it to find himself on the topdeck. Everywhere he could see, men and women were battling the walking dead -- the scene was a maelstrom of movement. The water around the ship was patterned with the floating remains of the undead, some of them still moving convulsively as if they were even now engaged in combat. A zombie lurched towards Lone Wolf and he reflexively hacked its head from its shoulders. It still tried to advance, weaving a bloodstained dagger in front of it, but he pushed at its breast with the tip of the Sommerswerd and it fell over backwards. The Durenese seemed to be having the better of the fray. Some of the soldiers had discovered, as Lone Wolf had below, that the undead could be put out of action by hacking away their weapon-arms. However, ancient arrows from a nearby vessel were hailing down on the deck, and many of the Durenese were falling under the deadly shower. Suddenly there was a flash brighter than the sun. A ball of fire exploded from a tower at the stern of the ancient flagship. It billowed out towards one of the Durenese vessels, and within seconds the wooden superstructure was a mass of flame. The men and women there screamed in horror and agony and, as Lone Wolf watched, many of them hurled themselves from the deck into the waters below, their clothes and hair blazing. His eyes narrowed. Vonotar's forces must have a mighty war engine of some kind concealed in that turret. He shuddered. He had never heard of any weapon capable of hurling fire the way this one did. He suspected it must employ dark magic. He turned and made his way along the deck, moving cautiously, ever wary of attack. Twice he was held up by the undead, both times incapacitating them with the greatest economy of effort he could manage. Towards the rear of the vessel there were fewer combatants, as if some force were repelling humans and zombies alike from this region. He seemed to be

leaving the melee of the battle behind him, although all around he could see Durenese vessels locked in combat with the fleet of the dead. He stepped lightly around the corpse of a young soldier; her long hair, the colour of midnight, was strewn out on the deck behind her shattered face. There was a clear area now between him and the base of the sinister tower. If he could sprint across it as fast as he . . . "By the belly and lights of Qinmeartha the Insane God!" came a hoarse, rasping whisper, just to his right. "It's my old shipmate, Lone Wolf! How are you, boy?" He whipped the Sommerswerd round and found himself staring at an open doorway. Standing in it, crooked, twisting and swaying, was one of the undead, its uniform in tatters, its chest covered with peeling gilt braid. "Kelman!" "None other." The voice was a parody of the booming tones Lone Wolf had known while the man was still alive. "It takes more than the waters of the Gulf of Durenor to slay an old sea-hound like me. And call me 'Captain' Kelman, if you please. We may not take much into the next life, but at least we can cling to the ranks we've been given in this one." "What's happened to you?" Some sea creature had eaten away Kelman's lips. Even as Lone Wolf watched, a few more bristly hairs from the once-luxuriant beard fell from the clammy grip of the man's flaccid flesh. "Aye, and if Naar's very own giblets were looking at me now, but isn't it obvious? I paid my debts to you, Lone Wolf, like the honest man I am -was -- and then I let myself go to the bottom of the sea. And there I was feasted upon by the fishes until I was called back to this ship. Far grander than the Green Sceptre, it is, though I confess that I preferred my old vessel; she was little to look at, but I loved every last nail in her timbers." "Why are you here?" "To speak with you, my boy. Just to speak with you." "Why?" "Put down that sword and I'll tell you. You've got nothing to fear from an old friend like me." Reluctantly, Lone Wolf lowered the Sommerswerd, so that its point rested on the deck, but he didn't let go of the hilt. He remembered the hopeless manner of Kelman's dying, and the way the man had forced himself to keep hold of life long enough to give the bottle containing the Gift of Tongues, to pay his gambling dues -- but still . . . that had been the living Kelman. Who knew to what dark master this creature might have sworn its allegiance? "I find it difficult to trust you, my friend," said Lone Wolf simply.

The captain shrieked and his face contorted. Lone Wolf could see the cords moving under the zombie's grey flesh as Kelman fought his expression back under control. "By the lungs which once were mine, boy," said Kelman, "I cannot explain to you the agony of the walking dead. Every step we take is like blunt knives delving deeply into our stomachs, and every false breath is a fire behind our eyes. Pain is more than just something we feel; it's the whole world to us. The tiniest fragment of a second is an eternity of torment for us." Lone Wolf glanced over his shoulder, in case more of the zombies might be creeping up behind him, but the deck was empty. "I can't help you," he said miserably. "Aye, young boy, but you can. Put away that weapon from you, and my soul will be released from this existence. Put it away now, I tell you!" Something of Kelman's old bombast had returned to his voice, but still Lone Wolf kept hold of the Sommerswerd. His emotions were in chaos. This was the man who had told him about the game of Life, who had saved him when the crew of the Green Sceptre would willingly have strung him from the highest yardarm -- and yet he wasn't a man at all: he was a creature conjured up by Vonotar to walk for one last tortured time among the living. "I can't trust you," he repeated. His eyes were watering "This sword is mine, and I must keep it by me." "Then, boy, you must die." The thing which had once been Kelman fumbled inside the jacket of its uniform. When the wrinkled hand re-emerged it was clasping a black giak dagger. "I'd hoped this wouldn't happen," croaked the zombie's voice. "Don't make me do this," said Lone Wolf. He was suddenly quite calm. "I remember you as my . . . ayeh!" The dagger had hit him in the hip, and the scorching pain shot through him. He brought the Sommerswerd up from the deck and struck Kelman -No, no, he thought. Not Kelman but the empty frame that used to house Kelman's soul -- beneath the jaw. The swiftly moving blade scooped out the dead captain's tongue. He pulled the sword away and jabbed blindly at his undead friend, his eyes now so filled with tears he could see nothing more than a blur. Again and again he struck. He felt the sword plunging through dead flesh, but he had little idea of what he was doing. When his vision finally cleared he found himself standing in the centre of a circle of . . . bits. There was nothing left that was recognizable as

having once been a part of his friend, just decaying pieces slowly evaporating in the cold sunlight. He looked up, remembering a man who had once been his friend, and saw that he was being watched by something that had once -- long ago -been Brel. "Do I have to do this to you, too?" Lone Wolf whispered, miserably. "There should have been no need to be doing that," the undead seaman responded. It seemed to be struggling inwardly. Lone Wolf misunderstood at first, but then realized the zombie was telling him that it was trying not to attack him. The memory of its one-time friendship with Lone Wolf must be trying to overrule the magical command to destroy the Durenese and, above all, the last of the Kai. And curiously Lone Wolf found that he trusted Brel's instincts where he had been unable to trust Kelman's. "I'm sorry," he found himself saying. "War should have been a bad business," Brel agreed. "I shouldn't be blaming you. But Kelman should have been a good man when he still should have been living." The zombie gestured expressively at the fragments of corrupted flesh lying all around them. Its hands clenched and unclenched, as if it were forcing itself not to leap forwards and clamp them murderously around Lone Wolf's neck. "I should have been grieving for him." "I grieve for him, too," said Lone Wolf. "He was a fine person, in the days when he was still alive." Lone Wolf had no idea how long the undead seaman would be able to control the demands of whatever evil entity was animating its actions. He left Brel sorrowing over the remains of his captain and moved rapidly across the clear area of deck, shaking his head as if to shake away the memory of Kelman. Echoing in his mind was the sound of the captain yelling ferociously at his crew, barking loudly so that he would never have to bite. Lone Wolf pushed back the bitterness that threatened to engulf him. He reminded himself that he hadn't killed the man, simply released him from the torture of being one of the walking dead, but this was an intellectual reaction, and he recognized it as such; it did little to negate the pain of what he had just done. Two of the undead came into view, trying to block his path. He hardly thought as he sundered them with the Sommerswerd. He crouched in the door of the tower, gazing upwards through the meshes of a spiral staircase. The metal meshes of the steps obscured his view, but he could just make out a robe of crimson. Then he saw also a twisted back and a shock of straggling white hair.

Vonotar! Lone Wolf knew who it was without having to think. He had seen the sorcerer the night before, as his own soul and the Sommerswerd's had stabbed into the heart of the world, and he recognized the crooked and ancient man at once. He crept up the metal stairs, the Sommerswerd before him. Silently he moved into the uppermost room of the tower. Vonotar had heard nothing. The wizened magician was clutching a black staff, directing it here and there, giggling as washes of flame leaped out from its tip to swamp the Durenese vessels. Behind him was a giak. He looked at Lone Wolf hungrily. "Master . . ." said the giak, " . . . someone . . . comes among us." "Shut up, Carag!" Vonotar shouted. "I . . . think . . . not . . . friend." "Quiet, beast!" The magician was wearing a tall curved hat which bore the emblem of a coiled serpent. Lone Wolf remembered the tattoos he had seen on the wrists of the assassins in the Good Cheer Inn and of the false priest, Parsion. He cursed under his breath: the vision he had shared with the Sommerswerd had not told him a lie: this was the foe who had been dogging his footsteps ever since he had left Holmgard for Hammerdal. Banedon, he sudden recalled, Banedon too had been a member of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star. Could it be possible that Banedon had been acting in concert with Vonotar? No, he couldn't believe it: apart from anything else, he didn't think the callow boy would have had the guts to ally himself with Zagarna. This was the real enemy in front of him -- Lone Wolf knew it. The twisted back was towards him . . . it would take only one thrust of the Sommerswerd to end the sorcerer's life forever . . . "Suggest . . . strongly . . . you . . . turn . . . around, master. This . . . man . . . not . . . friend . . . of ours." "Carag, if you say one more word I'll . . . You!" There was so much venom in the last word that Lone Wolf reeled. He recovered himself swiftly. "Yes, it's me, Vonotar," he said. "I know you for what you are." "Know me?" the magician cried with a bark of false laughter. He threw away the black staff he had been holding and stared at Lone Wolf with unabated hatred. The flames of his eyes shone a penetrating blue. "But you've never seen me before." "I have. We talked last night. Don't you remember?" (Vonotar was recalling a disturbed sleep. On a rough bunk in Kaag he had felt as if part of

himself had been stolen away. This puppy -- this boy who should have died days ago -- had invaded him!) The wizard spat on the sodden planks of the floor. "I . . . kill . . . now . . . master?" "No," said Vonotar. "This is one pleasure I wish to reserve for myself." The sorcerer sprang to a far corner of the room, raising his hands up in front of his face. He moulded his thoughts to create a Nadziranim spell, and it sparked towards Lone Wolf, burning up the air between them. "I shall delight in your death, boy," said Vonotar, his voice echoing that of the undead Kelman. The flash of orange flame halted in the air between them. Lone Wolf felt a judder in the Sommerswerd and realized that it was repelling the spell which Vonotar had hurled towards them. "So it was you who spoke through Kelman!" "But of course. Could I do anything else?" Lone Wolf felt a howl of fury bubbling towards his lips. This was the man who had taken over the corpse of his friend; this was the foul fiend who had betrayed Sommerlund to the forces of Darkness. "I piss upon your soul," he snarled, now more animal than human. The orange flame moved again, but now it twisted in midair and buried itself in the blade of the Sommerswerd. Lone Wolf felt nothing: the weapon had absorbed the darkness of Vonotar's magic, nullifying it with its soulstuff, burying it away in some unfathomable plane of existence. "You defy me?" Vonotar's eyes flickered whitely. "I defy you, and I defy all of your vileness." "Other days will come." "What other days?" "Days when your" -- a disdainful wave at the Sommerswerd -- "your artefact will be unable to protect you from my power." "I don't think those days will ever be," said Lone Wolf. He was aware that his voice was now low and guttural, and that his lips had drawn back to expose his teeth; the bloodlust he had felt so often in battle was upon him now, and he relished its presence. Vonotar directed another lance of Nadziranim light towards him, and once again it was swallowed by the Sommerswerd. (The little giak was cowering in one corner, his mind in a tangle. His master had told him that he, Vonotar, was invincible, and yet here was someone facing down his master; the situation was too complicated for Carag's simple brain to comprehend.)

"Boy!" the sorcerer spat, his eyes blazing, the single word a curse drawn from Naar's own soul. "Soon I will watch with the greatest of pleasure as you breathe your last!" "But not today. Today you've discovered that your magic is not allpowerful. Today you'll retreat, taking your infernal fleet with you." "Today is only twenty-four hours. Tomorrow there'll be another day. And then another and another. On one of them you'll meet your doom, you petty . . ." Vonotar reached up into his head-dress and plucked from it a green jewel. Before Lone Wolf could move, the sorcerer had thrown the gem down on the caulked deck between them. The room lit up, and then was filled with choking green smoke. Lone Wolf shattered a window to his right with the Sommerswerd, desperate to allow clean air in, but the freshness didn't come quickly enough. Coughing and spluttering, his vision in a whirl, he stumbled down the spiral staircase, trying to wave away the poisonous vapours from his face. And then he was out on the clear deck, his sight clearing. His whole mind was blurred with his hatred for Vonotar, and in a frenzy he assaulted the empty air with the Sommerswerd, screaming curses. "Vengeance!" he shouted at the silent sky. "Vengeance -- I swear it will be mine, Vonotar!" He saw the sorcerer paddling a small boat away from the flagship, the little giak helping enthusiastically. Then he saw the wizard encircled by a globe of freezing light, moving with preternatural swiftness among the clouds. Next he saw Vonotar atop the highest mast of the Durenese fleet. Wherever he looked, he saw the wizard's mocking skull of a face jeering at him. Now he was leaping nimbly across the corpses floating in the water, using them as stepping stones. Next he was a tracery of clouds in the high heavens, his crimson robe forming the arch of the sky. A fluttering standard caught Lone Wolf's eye, and he saw that this, too, was Vonotar. "Number your days, wizard!" The seas reached themselves up towards the skies, and all came together to form a mouth that laughed mockingly at Lone Wolf. "You are doomed, child . . . doomed." 8 Somehow Lone Wolf left the flagship of the dead fleet; he was never afterwards able to recall exactly how he did so, although he had a vague memory of slaughtering a pair of drakkarim with such ease that they might

as well have been mosquitoes. The next he really knew he was jumping to the deck of one of the Durenese warships, the Kalkarm, and staggering into the arms of a robust sailor. Lone Wolf was gibbering meaninglessly, but the sailor soothed him. Clearly there had been much bloodshed here, but the crew and the soldiers had successfully fought back the undead, and were now cutting loose the grappling ropes which the occupants of a rotting hulk had cast on board. Lone Wolf pulled away from the sailor and leaned against the guardrail, retching uncontrollably into the dark waters beneath. Footsteps approached him and he looked up numbly. Standing there was Axim, his face covered with blood and his armour and shield dented and battered. "We've won, Lone Wolf," the warrior said. There was deep sorrow in his voice. "Won? And for what?" "We've won for Sommerlund, of course," the man said mildly. "Many of us have died today to save this world from conquest by Evil. The enemy is being routed." Lone Wolf looked out to sea. The vast hulk of the dead fleet's flagship was slowly sinking under a pyre of flames that reached hundreds of feet into the sky. As the vessel slowly went down, so, too, did the rest of its armada. In his mind he could hear the susurrating moaning of the undead crews as, once again, they returned to the depths from which Vonotar's magic had dragged them. "But I failed to slay Vonotar," he muttered. "Vonotar? That name again. Who is Vonotar?" Lone Wolf explained, his words stuttering and chopped at first but then becoming a more fluent stream. He told how he had encountered, on the death-hulk, the same wizard who had been in his vision of the night before. "He'll return to plague us," said Axim at length. "That he will. He must have joined forces with Zagarna and taken up the way of Right Hand magic. It's a sad day for the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star." "It's a sadder day for us, Lone Wolf." "What do you mean?" "Your friend . . . our friend . . . my friend: she's dead." "Viveka?" "The same." There was a silence between them before Lone Wolf spoke again. "What happened?" he said dully.

"I never trusted her," the warrior said heavily, moving to lean on the rail beside Lone Wolf. "You must have known that. I'm not such a fine actor that I could have concealed it. And yet -- and yet my suspicions were ill placed." He breathed a deep sigh. "I was fighting a drakkar, on this very deck, and the thing was having the better of the fray. No, that's far too gentle a way of saying it. The creature had me by the neck and it was drawing its dagger back for the kill when Viveka came out of nowhere and attacked it." Axim looked out to sea, to where the last of the hulks was slowly sinking beneath the waves. "She never had a chance, of course. I was groggy from my wounds, and it took me a while to find my feet. When I could see, the life was being sucked out of her throat by that . . ." He beat his clenched fist cruelly on the rail. "I killed it. Aye, I ran up behind it and I split its head asunder with my sword, and in the course of time it finally died, but by then she was overboard." Lone Wolf could see that there were tears in Axim's eyes. He looked selfconsciously away, at the waves, at the bloodstained deck -- anywhere except at the warrior's face. "You loved her, Axim. Didn't you?" His voice was hardly more than a whisper. "That was why you seemed to detest her so much. For all the way that the two of you spat at each other, there was love between you, wasn't there? Or had been love." The elderly soldier swallowed. When he spoke his voice was barely under control. "I hadn't seen her for some years when she came to Hammerdal," he said. "She'd taken a fee to kill my nephew and I hated her for it. I'd thrown her out of my life, as if she were a rag that had wrapped itself around my ankles one day as I was walking along the street -- thrown her into the gutter, to let her live or die as the gods decided. I thought I'd forgotten her, but then when I saw her face again I realized that I hadn't." Lone Wolf couldn't find any words, of grief or reassurance or sympathy. He remembered how vibrant and living Viveka had been, the firmness of her as she had lain nestled close to him on the couch at King Alin's court, her wisdom in turning him back from her room. He yearned to hear her voice again, to know she was somewhere nearby. But he knew he never would. Her body must be lost to the waves by now, her fine hair tangled and wet in the cold waters.

"She was your lover?" he said. "No." Axim turned to look at him. The soldier was not ashamed of the tears flowing easily now from his eyes. "No. I thought you'd guessed, Lone Wolf. Viveka wasn't my lover. "She was my daughter."

12 The Return of the Kai 1 The tales are told and the songs are sung of the time that Lone Wolf led the Durenese fleet to Holmgard, and of the part that the Lady Qinefer played on that day. Blood was shed and great was the valour of the Sommlending and the Durenese. We who follow after can only marvel at the courage of our ancestors, and pray to Ishir and Kai that, should ever we be called upon to face Evil, we, too, will acquit ourselves as well. 2 Of the seventy Durenese warships that had left Port Bax, only about fifty survived the battle with the fleet of the dead. It was impossible to estimate how many men and women had lost their lives -- perhaps as many as five thousand. Among the dead was Calfen: the little admiral had been spitted by an arrow moments after the two fleets had joined battle. Lone Wolf went through the formalities of mourning the man's loss, but his heart wasn't in it: he was numbed by the fact that Viveka, Viveka, Viveka was also dead. As he walked the decks of the Kalkarm, somewhat redundantly supervising the work of repair, he found himself constantly looking up, expecting to see her clear eyes on him, or to hear her curiously girlish laugh. It was as if some fundamental part of him refused point-blank to believe she was gone. At first he felt guilty when he found himself wishing she'd let him into her room that night; then he slowly grew to realize that his desire to have that memory was a memorial to her that she'd thoroughly have approved, one that was utterly in keeping with the life she'd led. Because she'd been so vibrantly alive -- so eager to explore the fullness of life, which was perhaps why she had also been so unconcerned about death. Not for her the debasement of lovemaking to something dark, hidden, shameful; it was an aspect of the life she had celebrated in every other way. In the absence of Calfen, Axim had taken control of the fleet, with the Kalkarm as his flagship. For the next thirty-six hours, Lone Wolf saw very little of his Durenese friend, who was busy organizing the repair of the fleet while at the same time trying to make sure they kept up full speed for Holmgard. Lone Wolf spent the time wandering the decks, speaking with the crewmen as they worked, chatting with the soldiers and trying to make himself feel as if he were doing something useful. He was delighted to find

that morale among the remaining warriors was high, despite the heavy losses. The men and women were in a mood of great confidence. They had battled with the forces of the living dead, had they not? Surely it would, then, be no more than child's play to rout Zagarna's hordes? Lone Wolf carefully forbore from telling them that giaks, gourgaz, kraan, doomwolves, helghast, zlanbeast and xaghash were no mean foes: better that the troops faced the coming battle in a mood of bright optimism than that they confronted the Darklord's army filled with a conviction that they were just so much battlefodder. Besides, there was a mist in his mind, shielding him from a true remembrance of what Zagarna's hordes were really like. He had got into the habit of speaking to the Sommerswerd. He tried to conceal this from the other people aboard the Kalkarm, but he suspected from the way they looked at him sometimes that he had been observed, and not just once or twice. Yet he couldn't stop himself. The sword was more closely related to him than a blood-brother could have been, and he felt that it answered all the questions that he asked of it. He couldn't put its answers into words, but they seemed complete enough to him. He was aware, also, that time didn't seem to be following its usual course. The only way he could tell whether it was morning or evening was to look at the sky, and even then his guess was often wrong. He was never hungry; when it seemed to him too long a time had passed since last he'd had a meal, he forced himself to eat, but he gained no satisfaction from the food, and he was able to finish only a little of it. He slept whenever and wherever the mood took him, curling up more often than not on a coil of rope on the deck rather than in the cabin which had been allotted to him. Occasionally he wondered if he should wash, but the moment never seemed right and so he didn't bother. He was vaguely conscious of the fact that his mind wasn't functioning properly but this -- like so many other things -- was a matter which he decided just to push away from him, to think about another day. The only thing he conscientiously remembered to do was to keep up to date his record of the number of days he had been away from Holmgard. He couldn't rightly remember exactly why this was important, but he was certain that it was. On a sheet of parchment which he had brought from Hammerdal he scored a line for each day that passed. There was the evening of the battle against the dead: that was easy enough to remember. Then there was another day, and as darkness fell he couldn't remember whether it had been the same day as the battle or a different one; but he made a mark to record its passage anyway. Things became a bit of a jumble after that, but he felt certain, as he stood late one afternoon watching the spires of Holmgard come into view on the distant horizon, that this was the thirty-seventh day

since he had left the city. He had a murky recollection that he had been told to return within forty days, but for the life of him he couldn't remember why. The spell was broken as he stood there on the Kalkarm's deck, watching distant Holmgard. "Lone Wolf!" A clap across his shoulders. Axim was beside him, sharing his view out across the water. Memories rushed back into his mind, and he staggered. It was as if he had been wrapped in a blanket the last few days and now someone had dragged it away from his face to let the sunlight resume its onslaught on his eyes. "We'll get there under cover of night," the warrior remarked, oblivious to Lone Wolf's mental turmoil. "There's no moon tonight, so we should be able to slip in undetected by Zagarna's horde." "Yes -- yes -- that sounds fine." His thoughts were like a whirlpool. All of his memories were clear enough in themselves, but they were refusing to settle down into the right order. "We'll scatter them easily," Axim was saying. "Our troops are eager for the fray. Those spawn won't know what's hit them." His nose jutted out proudly, matching the prow of the ship, and Lone Wolf hid a smile. "I hope you're right," he said, pulling his mind forcibly back into focus. What have I been doing these past days? Was it that Vonotar was snaring me in yet another of his evil ensorcelments? Or was it just that she's dead. Viveka's dead. I'll never see her again. Whatever she was in the life she had when I didn't know her, she was a fine person. She had a wisdom that I don't yet have. She . . . oh, Viveka, Viveka, why did you have to damned well die? "Don't worry," said Axim. "Of course I'm right. Wait 'til those giaks get a taste of hard Durenese steel -- they'll turn their tails and flee from us, I can promise you." "Giaks are tough," said Lone Wolf, patting the older man on the forearm, "and kraan are even tougher. Don't speak too soon, my friend." I can still feel her lips touching mine, and the way she pushed me away so gently. "You know something?" said Axim gravely, turning to look at him. "You worry too much, far too much, Lone Wolf." In a way Lone Wolf agreed with the warrior; at the same time he recognized the danger of the man's seeming euphoria. The army they bore with them was a fine one -- no doubt of that -- but it might easily find its match when ranged against the spawn under Zagarna's command. And, of

course, Vonotar might be there, too, and who could tell what the sorcerer might try to do? Lone Wolf tried to convey something of these thoughts to Axim, but the warrior refused to listen, consciously shrugging away the words. "I have to leave you now," he said after a while. "I never realized how demanding the job of being an admiral is. I wish that Calfen were still with us." And I wish your daughter were still with us, too, thought Lone Wolf sadly. But I don't suppose I could ever tell you how much I wished that. 3 Qinefer was standing high on one of the many towers of Holmgard's outer earthworks, gazing towards the sea. Now that it was night, the clash of battle had abated. Behind her she could hear the mutterings and gruntings of King Ulnar's troops as they settled down; ahead of her there was a very similar mumbling as Zagarna's spawn, too, gave it up for the night. She was reminded for the thousandth time of the fact that Helgedad's spawn were in many ways so much like humans -- caricatures of humans, perhaps. Her brown eyes swept across the blankness of the dark ocean. A ball of flaming rags, catapulted from the city walls into the besieging forces, had just passed her view, and it took a few moments for her vision to accommodate once more to the darkness. There was a light out there. She was certain of it. Her first reaction was that Zagarna must at last be bringing a navy to torment the battered city, but then she thought again: if the Darklord had a fleet, surely he would have deployed it by now. The light vanished, and there was nothing but blackness out there. Perhaps some fisherman had been lighting his pipe? It had been more than a month since Lone Wolf had left, and most nights she had wished she were travelling in his place. She had never seen him in combat, but she had supreme confidence in her own abilities: was she not the woman who had slain two gourgaz in a single day? She doubted Lone Wolf could have done as much. There was another gleam from the purple blackness of the gulf. The fools, whoever they are! She thought. It takes only one giak to look out that way and . . . A furore erupted below her. She looked down, clipping her sword anxiously against her thigh, irritated by the fact that she was expected to wear a cloak of chain. She itched to be dressed once more in the homespun clothes she'd been wearing when first she came to this city.

There was a whisper in the air. The Durenese are coming. The Durenese are coming. The Durenese are . . . She refused to let herself become part of the chant, but at the same time she recognized its power. Only, only . . . she knew the hope of salvation was bleeding the fibre of her troops: the more they relied upon this force from beyond the seas, the more they would expect it to be easy to drive back the siege. Qinefer put on her helmet decisively. It had become a matter of course that the two armies didn't attack each other at night -- except for the fireballs which the besiegers catapulted incessantly into the city and to which the defenders often enough replied in kind -- but this was no normal night. She buckled the strap under her chin, and felt the bloodlust beginning to creep into her. She pulled her great broadsword from its sheath and felt it move easily through the calm breeze that came from the Holmgulf. She clattered down the stone steps that separated the ramparts from the base of the city and began to call up her troops. Most of the men and women came reluctantly, although there were a few whose predatory eagerness frightened even Qinefer. She rallied them around her and briefly explained what she intended to do. While the besieging horde basked secure in the knowledge that the Sommlending would never attack them at night, she wanted to lead a foray out into their camp, slaying as many of the somnolent giaks and kraan as possible and shattering any morale they might have for the morrow -- the morning when the Durenese would descend upon them, screaming their battle-cries. It was easy -- far too easy, she thought. Within minutes she was surrounded by a group of enthusiastic volunteers. Most of them were young -- some of them even younger than she was -- and she felt guilty: they'd be lucky if half of them returned. She sent a servant to bring Janos from the stables, and pulled herself up on the stallion's broad back. Other horses were led out, and soon her soldiers were mounted behind her. She let out a bloodcurdling yell, and the guards at the city gate threw open the ponderous doors, watching in amazement as Qinefer's small army pounded by them. The next two hours were unrelieved misery. Qinefer lost count of the number of times her sword had descended to sunder half-awake giaks; she inured herself to their dying screams. The kraan were even easier prey: the great bat-like creatures were somnolent and hardly able to pull themselves up into the air; hundreds of them died on the swords of Qinefer's troops, their greenish innards spattering slickly across the mud. The sight sickened

Qinefer, but she knew she couldn't let the fact show: her troops would lose all their confidence in her if they suspected her of weakness. The raid lasted only a short while, but it served its purpose. Qinefer and her soldiers galloped back through the gates of Holmgard, hearing the heavy wooden panels closing behind them. She raised her vizor and grinned at the men and women milling on their horses around her. "Victory?" she said, very quietly, but the word was passed from one person to the next. "Victory!" came a great chorus of voices. "Victory!" Ah, yes, thought Qinefer, but what'll it be like tomorrow? 4 The Durenese ships slipped easily into the port of Holmgard. A few drunken men, staggering hopelessly along the quay, saw the ships arrive, but otherwise they went largely unobserved. Later a sailor would tell his wife that he had seen a fleet of ghosts arrive in the port, but she would shush him to sleep, telling him that the wanlo which he shouldn't have been drinking had created phantasms in his mind. The sailor pushed himself further down into his bed and assumed that his wife was correct. He had only the dimmest memories of the evening. It was quite likely he'd been mistaken when he'd thought he'd seen fifty or more warships moving smoothly into the harbour. It was . . . but then he was embraced in sleep's warm arms. The few sober men and women who had seen the arrival of the Durenese fleet at first assumed it had been sent by the Darklord Zagarna; they fled yelling through the streets, rousing their neighbours. A throng of Holmgard citizens, murmuring angrily, gathered on the dockside, bearing sharp kitchen-knives and gardening implements. Minutes later, a detachment of cavalry arrived from King Ulnar's palace to calm the situation, and soon the vengeful mutterings had turned into rousing cheers. The boarding-ramps of the Kalkarm were hoisted down to rest on the harbour-side. First to descend was an honour guard of Durenese soldiers, and then Axim gravely led Lone Wolf down the narrow board. The cheering of the assembled citizens became overpowering, and now they took up a new chant: "The Kai Lord has returned -- the return of the Kai!" Lone Wolf held the Sommerswerd high above his head, and it throbbed with its own golden light. The leader of the cavalry approached, holding a blazing torch above her head and leading an extra horse alongside her own. He recognized it

immediately as Janos, his old friend, the gift of Prince Pelathar. Instinct made Lone Wolf look at the rider's face; Qinefer put out her tongue at him as he sheathed the Sommerswerd and climbed into the saddle. Her tired face wrinkled in a friendly smile, as she whispered, just loud enough so that he could hear her above the roar of the crowd: "Well done, Kai. Almost as well as I could have done it myself." He knew the gravity of the situation, but he couldn't stop himself from chuckling. "Well, next time you do it, then." "Is that a promise?" Lone Wolf didn't answer. He could feel the Sommerswerd pulling urgently at his hip. It was trying to draw him away from the harbour, towards the centre of Holmgard. He gestured, and Qinefer immediately understood. She issued a few sharp orders to the cavalry under her command, and they swiftly cleared a way through the teeming mob. Lone Wolf saluted Axim sombrely, and the warrior stood erect, his head proud, and equally gravely returned the salute. Then Qinefer and Lone Wolf turned their horses and rode off through the wall of noise. Soon they had left the crowds behind and were clattering rapidly through the deserted streets of the city, guided by the urgings of the Sommerswerd. Lone Wolf was horrified by the devastation he saw all around them. In the intermittent light of Qinefer's torch it seemed to him that hardly a single building had been left undamaged, and many of them had been reduced to little more than heaps of stones and ash. From time to time they saw corpses lying on the streets, waiting for the night-patrol to clear them away. She told him of what it had been like in his absence, of how the citizens had had to become used to a diet of fish, rats and domestic pets, of how they had become accustomed to drinking mead, ale and wine because all the remaining water was brackish and foul, of the diseases which had added their own devastation to the assaults of the enemy, of a thousand other miseries of a city under siege. She found time to mention -- just as an aside -- how she had been able to slaughter not one but two gourgaz in a single day. They came to the city's main gate, surmounted by its great dark watchtower. The wood of the gate was charred around the edges, and in places its even surface had been patched with timbers purloined from elsewhere, but the defence had held. Prompted by the Sommerswerd, Lone Wolf reined in Janos and

dismounted. "From here on I must go alone," he said. Qinefer felt slighted. However, she nodded resignedly. "Good luck." "I thank you." He took a torch from one of the sentries and then turned and ran into the doorway at the base of the watchtower. The Sommerswerd was urging him faster and faster up the spiral stairs. At the very top of the tower there was a small round deck. A couple of watchmen turned as Lone Wolf arrived gasping. They instantly recognized him from his clothing as the returned Kai Lord; they bowed reverently and then left him, their footsteps rattling away down the spiral stairs. The Sommerswerd was telling Lone Wolf that he was just in time, that dawn was almost breaking. Under its instructions, he knelt down beside the tower's wooden parapet and faced towards the east. He felt the soulstuff of the Sommerswerd rushing into him, and his own soulstuff spread out rapidly to become a part of the sword. More than ever before, the two of them became a single entity, a creature acting with one mind, no barriers at all between them any more. The sky was a wash of pink, yellow and green. Heavy clouds hung over the Holmgulf, and the air was tingling with the threat of a thunderstorm, but at the horizon the sky was clear. Lone Wolf looked out over the vast encampment of Zagarna's army and saw the great red war-tent which the Darklord had erected for himself; sewn into the crimson fabric was the symbol of a broken skull. Lone Wolf's lips peeled back. He and the sword together were no longer truly human; mixed within them there was something of the nameless ones but also something of the wolf which had given him his name. They were the solitary member of the pack, the one which hunted on its own. Now was the time to make the kill. His tongue lolled out of his mouth, twitching eagerly from side to side. His body was tensed, crouching, ready to spring. He took the Sommerswerd and held it out in front of him, the line of its blade pointing directly towards Zagarna's tent. He and the sword waited patiently a few more moments. And then the first fire of the sun rose above the far horizon. A single shaft of dawn light came across the sea. Lone Wolf stood, the Sommerswerd still stretched out towards the huge red tent. The shaft of light touched the very tip of the sword. Both Lone Wolf and the Sommerswerd became a statue carved out of incandescent white light. The whole of the plain beneath them -- and the mud and the tents and

the war engines and the embers of the campfires -- was suddenly lit more brightly than any day. Some giaks on their early-morning rounds looked up in awe, their eyes nictating in the glare. A thrust of lightning sprang from the Sommerswerd to the Darklord's tent. Thunder shattered the air. The tent vanished, and in its place there was a great column of fire, expanding heavenwards. All of the world seemed to howl with the anguish of Zagarna's destruction. The heavy clouds over the Holmgulf clashed together. The seas rose and rushed towards the shore. A million voices seemed to be screaming in unison as the mud and rocks of the plain buckled, throwing the spawn from the Darklands high into the air or swallowing them up in greedy fissures. An unearthly golden light flooded the world as far as the eye could see. And then there was rain -- warm, gentle rain. Lone Wolf sheathed the Sommerswerd, its light now only a subdued red glow, and cupped his hands to the rain. He tasted the water once, and then again. And then he fell. 5 It was some days later that messengers brought the news to Toran. They told of how Lone Wolf and the Sommerswerd had destroyed Zagarna, and of how the armies of the Sommlending and the Durenese had driven back the Darklord's shocked hordes, forcing them into the sea or slaughtering them on the land. They praised the heroism of the Lady Qinefer, and told of how she had led the first storm attack on the spawn, during the night; but most of all they talked of the wonder of the returning Kai, and of his courage and prowess in retrieving the Sommerswerd from Durenor and wielding it to erase Zagarna from the Lastlands. No one would ever know how many men and women died that day, but for each of them a dozen of the spawn had returned to Naar. Some had escaped into the countryside, only to be hunted down by Sommlending villagers. A few had been carried away by kraan and zlanbeast, presumably back to Kaag, but the army from the Darklands had been so heavily defeated that there should never again be any threat from there -- at least for a long while, perhaps a lifetime. The Guildmaster brought the news to Banedon, still engaged in his lonely vigil at Alyss's bedside. The Guildmaster's two kittens fought amicably around their ankles as they talked, and Banedon impulsively threw

himself into his mentor's arms, sobbing in happiness that Sommerlund had been saved. Even the Guildmaster found there were unaccustomed tears in his old grey eyes. But then Banedon's shoulders ceased heaving and he stood back from the Guildmaster. "It's not over yet," he said, his voice ragged. The two of them looked slowly at the narrow cot where Alyss's body lay, swathed in sunlight, motionless, neither dead nor alive. "No," said the Guildmaster, ignoring the tiny snarls of the kittens at their feet. Somewhere, out there in Aon, Alyss's spirit was still blinded and lost. "No, it's not over yet."