Текст книги "The Howling Delve"

Автор книги: Jaleigh Johnson

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"Too many people have enjoyed your father's version of 'safe' over the years, Aazen," said Kall. "Yourself included. We both know neither of us is getting out of here without fighting our way out. Your father sent you to kill me."

"Yes," said Aazen.

"He's done it before. But you couldn't betray me then, and I don't believe you'll betray me now. Why not come with me this time, old friend?"

"You still don't understand," said Aazen. "My choice was made a long time ago. I cannot disobey my father. He is all I have."

"You had me!" Anger and long-buried resentment sparked to life within Kall. "You could have started a new life. You could have escaped him."

"As you escaped your father?" Aazen said coldly. "Where has your freedom—the freedom I won for you—brought you, Kall? Right back to Amn and the arms of the merchants, right back to the edge of death, only this time, I won't be there to save you."

"It's not the same."

"Oh, but it is," said Aazen bitterly. "Our deeds are unforgivable, I grant you. I have no illusions about my life. But your father was as ruthless a murderer as mine."

"No."

"His actions sprang from the same darkness of heart. Why do you think friendship blossomed so easily between them? They were two similar creatures who came into conflict with one another."

"My father was nothing like Balram!" Kall spat.

"He was brought down, crippled long before death, but if he'd been left unchecked, his cruelties might have come to rival Balram's. Yet you've devoted your life to avenging him and restoring what he lost through his own folly. You never gave half so much thought to Haig's legacy, did you? How terrified you must have been to even face his memory."

"You know nothing of Haig."

"But I know you, Kall. You stand before me in a cage as complex and binding as my own, and you have the gall to promise to free me?" Aazen laughed. "We are both trapped. We can only claw at each other from our prisons. The loser in this contest may end up being the fortunate one."

"Is that the way it's to be, then?" said Kall sadly. "Is that what you truly want, Aazen?"

The question seemed to stir his friend, and for a breath something faltered in Aazen's gaze. Kall took a step forward, but Aazen recoiled, falling behind the men with bows. "Kill him," he said clearly.

At close range, the arrows were a blur. Kall only saw the twin jets of flame. The missiles burned up in mid-flight.

Meisha materialized next to Kall, her eyes red as she stared down the bowmen. His friends appeared in a swarm as Dantane's invisibility cloak fell away.

Garavin swung his maul, smashing aside the bows. Their bearers fell back out of reach of the massive weapon and broke their protective flank around Aazen. Borl ran alongside his master, snarling and herding them into a corner of the room.

Morgan and Laerin fought side by side with swords and daggers. They formed a rough wall for Meisha and Dantane to cast spells behind while Kall separated from the group and chased after Aazen.

Two heads of white-gold hair met him as Isslun and her twin crowded him from Aazen's other side.

"Never turn down two at once," sang Isslun as the twins attacked in unison. She slashed high, almost lazily, aiming for Kall's throat. Her sister ducked under the strike and came up in a burst of speed at his guard.

Kall crouched, sweeping aside Aliyea's blade. "How you survived the years since our last meeting"—he came up under her sword, forcing her to follow him back to his feet—"is a mystery." He danced to one side, spinning so that Isslun was between him and Aliyea's attack. "They've been hard years, though, haven't they?" he taunted. He slashed his sword in a mimic of Isslun's strike, tracing the line of a white scar running along the woman's jaw. Isslun flinched, and Kall came at her. He shifted his grip, changed the direction of his swing and cut a much deeper line across Isslun's stomach. She let out a shocked gasp, clutching at her abdomen.

Aliyea shouted her sister's name in rage. She drew a dagger from her belt and hurled it over her sister's shoulder as Isslun crumpled to the floor. Kall spun away, but the fang sunk into his arm, and pierced through to the other side of the muscle. Pain ran a fire trail up his arm. Kall dropped back, kicking out with his foot to sweep Aliyea's legs out from under her as she charged him. She fell, but she grabbed the dagger hilt protruding from Kall's arm as she went down.

Kall felt muscle tear when the blade came free sideways, carving a hunk of flesh from his arm. Aliyea's eyes glinted maliciously as he cried out from the pain. She gripped the dagger with both hands and raised it above her head.

The dagger burst into flame. Aliyea's eyes widened. She released the burning weapon with a yelp of pain. In one movement, Kall snatched it out of the air, turned, and plunged it through a gap in her armor. The fingers of his maimed arm came away blistered from the fire. His stab wound bled liberally, making him lightheaded, but he had no time to bind it. The cavern swirled with fighters, far more of them foes. He jumped to his feet and over the twins, making his way to Garavin, who stood closest.

Near the rim of the chasm, the dwarf danced atop the ring of stones encircling the pit, swinging his maul angle-out, like a pendulum, to keep three Shadow Thieves at bay. Despite his heavy tread, the dwarf moved among the rocks as if he strode through mist, using his weight to lever the maul.

In the end, two of the men leaped forward. The man to Garavin's left swung a light flail in imitation of Garavin's maul.

Garavin feinted toward him but broke to the right, striking the second man a quick, snapping blow across the kneecap. The man's leg went out, and he was down, scrabbling on the rocks to keep from falling into the pit.

The distraction allowed the dwarf to focus on the flail. The spiked ball wrapped around the handle of his weapon. The chain cinched tight.

Instead of grappling with the larger man, Garavin relinquished his weapon to keep his footing. The man yanked his maul away. Garavin clasped his holy symbol and mouthed a fast prayer. The triumphant smile disappeared off his opponent's face. The maul turned upright, floating in the air as if held by invisible hands.

The man gaped at the rotating weapon. The maul shot out over the chasm, dragging the flail chain and its owner with it. The thief lost his grip on the weapon and pitched headfirst into the dark.

Garavin snagged his maul and the flail before they fell, turning with both weapons to the second man on the rocks.

He brought the maul around as the man swung an axe blade in a reverse chop aimed at Garavin's chin. The dwarf blocked the blow, but the weight of both weapons was too great, and the impact of the axe drove him back hard. He skirted the lip of the chasm. The axeman lunged forward to try to force him the rest of the way into the pit.

A blast of hot air caught the dwarf from behind, pushing him forward. He smashed the maul through the axeman, clipping his opponent in the ribs. Bones cracked audibly, and the man fell back. Garavin threw a quick salute skyward, where Meisha hovered above his head.

The cavern's ceiling was alive with aerial battle. Dantane and Meisha flew around each other, using stalactites for cover as they engaged the Shadow Thief wizard and his two protectors—a younger man and woman who appeared to be apprentices. Their hands moved in frantic, mimicking circles, weaving spell-shields for their master.

Meisha hurled her last two stilettos. The blades caught fire as they spun through the air. One burning missile caught the woman in the thigh, forcing her to break rhythm to put out the flames licking her robes.

"Dantane!" Meisha cried, but the wizard was already casting. With one palm atop the other, his fingers flush in a rough X shape, Dantane yelled, "Krevatcya, dannan shae!"

The woman let out a desperate shout, but she couldn't get the spell out in time. A ball of black energy formed under Dantane's hands and streaked down to hit the other wizard in the chest, ruining whatever spell he'd been preparing. Instead of dissipating, the black energy mass crawled along his skin, trailing electrical sparks that singed his robes. The wizard tried to claw the ball off, gasping when his hands met a jolt of painful electricity.

Meisha spared Dantane a glance, but the wizard wasn't looking at her. He'd paused to witness the effects of his own spell. The black energy sizzled along the wizard's flesh. Dantane seemed detached, analytical as he watched it.

Thumb-sized teardrops of flame appeared, one above each of the fingers of Meisha's open palm. She murmured an incantation, and the flames began to spin in a circle like tiny stars. They shot across the cavern, peppering the wizard's apprentices with tiny firebursts. Protection spells flickered and peeled away as the wizard continued to grapple with the dark, killing energy.

Meisha grabbed the stalactite for leverage and swung around the base. She started to drop down and felt a painful coldness shoot up her leg. Whirling, putting her back to the stalactite, Meisha saw another thief crawling along the walls, his hands and feet covered with the same sticky climbing aid Talal had taken from the halfling. He held a barbed whip in one hand and a blade between his teeth.

Meisha put a hand over her thigh where the whip had ripped away cloth and flesh above her boot's cuff. She was in the crossfire of the wizard and the whip-wielder now, and the man's whip obviously bore some type of enchantment, for her leg was rapidly going numb with the cold.

She looked below. Morgan was nearest, but he bled liberally from a gash across his eyebrow. He ran below her to aid Garavin.

Her mind worked rapidly. Meisha pointed at the man on the wall, holding her arm out almost perpendicular to her body, affording him an easy target. He took the bait.

The whip snapped out, circling her arm, driving its barbs in deep. Cold spasms shot up to her elbow. Meisha clenched her teeth against the pain and called the fire. She prayed it would be enough to siphon off the cold. She pictured the whip in her mind—the shape, the coil of rope and spines when it lay at rest, then up, into human hands, ready to strike, to steal her life-force.. .

Fire filled her veins, coiled out from her trembling finger. She sent a jet spiraling along the whip's length, all the way up the thief's arms. The fire whip slashed across his face, leaving a red line between his nose and his ear.

The man shrieked and raised his hands to his face. His grip on the ceiling faltered, and he fell to dangle above the tumult by his legs.

Meisha did not linger to see if he would drop. Her arm fell uselessly to her side, aching with the pressure of a thousand needles. She pushed off the stalactite with her good leg and flew to a corner, putting her back to the wall for some cover.

The battle below was growing more and more desperate. For all their skill, they were outnumbered. Where was Dantane?

Then Meisha saw him, flying up from the ground. He intercepted a stream of missiles from the wizard, who'd managed to rid himself of the black energy but not its effects. The electrical ball had burned his robes away at the chest, exposing singed hair and blistered skin. His face trembled with rage. Dantane smiled and cast another spell.

"Dantane!" she cried.

"Are you all right?" the wizard asked when he flew up to join her. He came in at an angle to examine her leg.

"Forget it," said Meisha. "The arm's worse. I can't cast, not for a while."

"We don't have that long," Dantane replied. He rummaged in a pocket of his robes.

"We're not going to make it." Meisha leaned her head back against the wall. She was sweating. So hot....

Dantane pressed a vial between her limp fingers. "Drink this. Stay here," he said. "I'll get to Kall."

Meisha started to ask what that would serve, but she saw something across the cavern that stole the breath from her body.

Talal, clutching one of her boot daggers—she hadn't even known it was missing—was sneaking up behind one of the men fighting with Laerin. The half-elf saw the boy in time to check his own swing, a blow that would have cleaved through his opponent's skull and likely taken Talal's head as well.

"Fool," Meisha whispered, a sob in her throat.

White-faced and shaking, the boy reared back and stabbed the Shadow Thief. The boy wasn't strong, but he had four years of pent-up hatred and grief driving the blow. Meisha didn't see where the blade penetrated, but the man stiffened. Blood trailed from the corner of his mouth. Laerin danced to the side to avoid being borne to the floor with the body. He was just in time to catch Talal as he, too, pitched forward unsteadily. Laerin pushed the boy behind him.

* * * * *

Across the cavern, Kall saw Dantane flying toward him. He pulled his blade out of a Shadow Thief and moved to meet him, but another figure rose up in the wizard's path. Kall stepped aside, expecting Dantane to hurl a spell at the fool. Then he saw the tattered robes, the wild hair. ...

"Varan!" he heard Meisha shout, but the din of battle reduced her cry to nothing.

Dantane saw the wizard too late. He tried to pull up, but flew straight into an invisible wall. The impact sent him reeling backward. He lost control of the flight spell and fell to the cavern floor at Varan's feet.

* * * * *

The fire beast howled in triumph. In his mind's eye, he forced the wizard to crawl to the man lying prone on the ground.

Bring them, the beast thought. He bore down on the link between his mind and the wizard's, pressing mental tongues of flame against Varan's will. He enjoyed reducing the wizard to little more than a dog, herding his prey to exactly where he wanted them.

Embrace our bond, the beast cooed, and heard the silent screams of the wizard trying to resist the mental command. Join me, and witness power unimaginable. I know your thoughts. Isn't that what you've always wanted? Who would deny such a dream?

The wizard sobbed pitifully, and the beast reached out to stroke him again with fire and claws. He gloried in the ensuing screams, as the wizard went to carry out the beast's will.

* * * * *

Kall broke into a run, heedless of the danger. Cold dread welled up inside him. He swept aside a blade that came at his flank and kept going. He was almost to Dantane when pain exploded in the back of his neck.

Kall went down in a protective crouch. He swung around and saw the halfling reloading his sling. Aazen motioned the halfling back and stepped to block Kall's path. Behind him, Varan rolled Dantane's unconscious body over, feeling inside the wizard's robes. He removed the portal key and turned. Kall saw his face clearly for the first time.

Varan looked terrified.

Kall sprang up. He raised his weapon to cut a path, but Aazen was there, his blade ringing off Kall's enchanted sword. "I need him alive," Aazen said, shoving Kall back.

"He'll kill us all!" Kall swung the blade high, angling it at his best friend's head. He did it without thinking, putting killing force behind the blow.

Aazen ducked, maneuvering to attack from Kall's wounded side. Kall twisted and blocked, but was forced to retreat a step away from Varan.

"That's it, Kall," said Aazen, stalking forward, inviting Kall to continue his attack. "This is exactly how I need you to be."

Kall swung again, bewildered. Had Aazen gone mad as well? "Meisha!" he shouted. If she could get Varan's attention, get through to him, they might have a chance.

Varan took the key and crawled to the dark pit. Tears streamed from his good eye, and he clutched the empty socket, making pitiful mewling noises as he moved.

"Please, don't!" Varan cried as he approached the edge of the chasm. He stared down into the dark, his terror magnified by whatever he saw. "Don't make me!" He grabbed the pouch at his neck, as if to tear it away. His hands locked into claws around the bag, and he screamed. With a violent motion, he reached inside the pouch and pulled out something small and black. Fumbling, he pressed the object against his empty socket.

It was an eye, Kall realized, but it was no human orb.

Black, with thready gray veins bulging from the sides, the eye was too large for the space Varan intended. Kall watched, sickened, as the wizard forced the organ into place with a howl of agony.

Varan lifted the stolen portal key in his other hand and slammed it down against the rocks. Words of power, dredged up from some unwilling place deep inside him, spilled out into the darkness.

The cavern began to shake in great, wracking tremors. Light flared, a halo that burst from the chasm, momentarily blinding everyone in the cavern. Meisha tried to fly, but a falling stalactite struck her out of the air. The blow knocked her senseless. She dropped, straight toward the pit.

Kall saw her fall, saw her body disappear into the green light. He cried out in wordless grief that manifested in a jarring blow against Aazen's sword.

She was gone, Kall thought. He hadn't been able to save her after all.

Grief melted into rage. Kall batted aside Aazen's unresisting blade and knocked him to the floor. For a moment, he fought the urge to keep going, to run his blade through Aazen's heart.

"Kall!" Morgan cried.

Chest heaving, Kall tore himself away from his friend's prone body and ran for the chasm. The cavern was still shuddering. The tremors seemed to come from deep below ground. More stalactites and rock shook free of the ceiling and dropped in a deadly rain. He dodged a spear that plunged to the floor where he and Aazen had just been fighting. Aazen had gotten to his feet and was looking to his own remaining men, issuing commands Kall could not hear over the rumbling.

Kall made it to Dantane. He hauled the wizard up into a sitting position. Varan had collapsed on the stones.

Dantane opened his eyes. They widened—he grabbed Kall by his uninjured forearm. " 'Ware!" he cried.

Kall reversed his blade, stabbing backward blindly, but Garavin was already there, using his maul to pluck a Shadow Thief off his feet like a rag doll.

"We have to go!" the dwarf shouted over the rumbling. "The place'll come down on our heads."

"Tunnel's blocked!" called Laerin from the far side of the cavern. He held Morgan by one shoulder, Talal the other. They limped across the room to join the group. The Shadow Thieves left alive had ceased their attacks in light of the greater danger. "It'll take a while to clear it."

"We don't have any time," said Kall.

"It's another portal," Dantane said, pointing to the glowing green halo, which had formed over the chasm rather than the shaft above. "The wizard wanted someone to go through it."

"Like Hells," said Morgan. "I say we go back through the shaft—take our chances with the Shadow Thieves."

Kall stared down the chasm. "Meisha's down there," he said. "She may still be alive. The rest of you use the key to activate the other portal once I'm gone, but I'm going through this one."

Garavin called Borl to his side. "I'll take my chances with ye," he said simply.

"As will I," said Laerin.

Morgan spat. "Don't be believing him!" he said. "He's just doin' it to make me look bad." He faced the portal reluctantly. "Let's go then, if we're goin'."

Kall helped Dantane to his feet. One by one, they stepped off the stones, into the green light, until only he and the wizard remained.

"What about him?" asked Dantane.

Kall knew he meant Varan, but Kall stared across the room at Aazen. He'd gathered his remaining forces under a protected shelf of rock near the blocked tunnel, but even that meager cover was cracking, coming apart like the rest of the cavern.

"He's on his own," said Kall. "So are you, Dantane, if you leave now."

The wizard shook his head. "I haven't gotten my reward yet. I go with you."

"Suit yourself." They stepped off the edge, into nothingness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Keczulla, Amn

5 Marpenoth, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)

Balram stepped into Morel's main hall. He felt as if time had reversed itself. Suddenly he was back in Esmeltaran, his men at his side, seeking Morel's death.

But the setting had changed, and it wasn't Morel or his son who faced him from the top of the ballroom staircase. A woman stood there, wrapped in a hooded cloak, her face painted in forest colors. A long spear rested comfortably in the crook of her right arm. She looked like a savage carved from stone—beautiful and cold—staring at him as if she craved his death.

"Lady Morel." He bowed in greeting, allowing his men to fan out across the hall. If she was intimidated by the show of strength, her expression did nothing to give it away. She walked down the stairs, her soft boots padding against the wood. She stopped on the first landing.

"Might I have the pleasure of knowing you?" Balram asked when she said nothing.

Certainly, sir, she replied, but Balram could not hear her voice. He could only follow the movement of her lips to make out her words. She tipped her spear horizontal and threw. A soft, singing chime filled the ballroom. The spear impaled the man standing just to Balram's left, one who'd been taking slow steps toward the base of the stairs.

Keeping his eyes trained on the woman, Balram bent to see that the man was dead. As he did so, his eyes fell on the druid's spear. Tied among its decorations was the emerald-stone symbol of Morel. When Balram's fingers brushed it, the woman spoke again. This time her voice rang out clear across the hall, making Balram startle.

I am Cesira of the Starwater Six, Quiet One of Silvanus, and the lady of this house—she inclined her head stiffly—and the doom of Balram Kortrun. She glided back a step and pressed her hand to the banister rail in a certain spot.

Balram's eyes widened in shocked recognition. Gods, she couldn't know the locations of the ...

"Fall back!" he cried, much too late.

The floor tiles running down the center of the hall creaked from years of lying stationary, but the trap still functioned.

Spikes exploded from the floor, catching the men behind him in a deadly hedge. Two went down as the sharpened edges burst through the backs of their legs. The rest managed to leap away, but the trap had cut them off from the exit.

Balram turned to the stairs, but Cesira had climbed back to the top. She stood behind the balcony rail, a second spear resting on her shoulder.

"You won't get out of here alive, bitch," he snarled at her. He motioned to one of his men, who began moving along the outer wall, smashing lanterns and spilling oil in streams across the floor. Fire licked up in tall pools. "You'll burn with this house, if we don't get to you first."

Then by all means, Cesira said, holding out her arms, Come to me.

* * * * *

The fire beast exalted in his find. Magic raged wildly above his head, fueled by the mad wizard and their mental link. The mortals were scattered throughout his domain. He could smell them leaving their imprints on the Delve in a complex web, moving, trying to find each other.

The woman of fire and one other—they were closest to his former prison. The beast dismissed them at once as too easy. Let them have a start on the game. He relished the challenge of two well-prepared magic wielders.

His senses drifted outward. Two more were near the thoroughfare, and a larger party was across the bridges—but wait. The beast picked out the scent, distantly, in the Howling burrow. Four fighters, moving stealthily—deeper into the mazelike tunnels constructed by the dwarves.

There lay his hunt, a chase through the labyrinth to claim the first of his prizes.

The beast rumbled in satisfaction. He stretched his lean muscles and began to run, tracing the faint scents to their source.

* * * * *

Meisha felt as if her bones had been dashed over rocks. Perhaps they had been. She felt a hand prod her shoulder and hadn't even the strength to fight it off.

"Meisha."

Dantane's face swam into focus. The wizard leaned over her with a vial in his hand identical to the one he'd given her in the portal room. "Drink," he said, putting the glass to her lips.

Meisha drank, and gradually felt the strength returning to her aching arm and leg. The magic faded, leaving only a dull pain. "Where are we?"

"We came through a second portal," Dantane said. His voice sounded odd, uncertain. "The chasm in the floor. I found you not far from where I appeared. I don't know where we are, but you need to see something."

"What is it?" she asked.

Dantane hesitated. "I believe it's you."

"What?" Meisha sat up, gazing over the wizard's shoulder.

She recognized where they were immediately. The circular chamber was crowded with pedestals of rock rising up four, six, sometimes ten feet into the air, separating the chamber into various levels. Two exits lay at opposite ends of the room. At the ends of those tunnels would be similar testing chambers.

"The star," she murmured.

Meisha suddenly realized they weren't alone. She looked up at the shortest pedestal, where a child stood. She was bald but for a dark fuzz beginning to sprout from the top of her head. She waved her arms in the motions of a spell. Below her, a man in well-kept robes watched her casting with a critical eye.

Varan—but not the mad wizard trapped in the Delve. This Varan was whole, and appeared much younger. For Meisha, seeing the little girl was like seeing a ghost.

"We're in a testing chamber," she said, for Dantane's benefit. "Varan designated one for each apprentice, arranged like the points of a star. When I was here, these caves could only be reached through Varan. He teleported us down."

"You didn't know the portal led down here?" asked Dantane.

"No. I didn't know Varan knew of the portal," she admitted. "The markings on it don't match his sigils. Perhaps that was how he discovered the secret tunnels," she murmured, half to herself, "through the portal."

"There are more caverns?" Dantane prompted. "Do you know where?"

"Varan said they adjoined the testing chambers somehow. We looked, as apprentices, but the entrance was magically concealed. I suppose it's possible, now his other magics are breaking down, that the connecting passage has been revealed."

"So we'll have to explore each chamber," Dantane said. "Our companions might be there, or in the other tunnels." He looked at her. "Do you know what they contained?"

Meisha laughed humorlessly. "Whatever great Art the Howlings saw fit to store. You were deposited in the wrong place, Dantane, if you seek treasure down here."

The wizard grimaced. "Such seems to be the course of my life," he said.

Meisha stood up, her eyes drawn back to the phantom image atop the pedestal. She watched, fascinated, as the air in front of her double seemed to split in two. Out of the breach came the head of a being that only vaguely resembled a human. Hairless, outlined in white flame, it stared at its summoner curiously. Though she felt no heat, Meisha recalled well how the air around the creature rippled with burning. It was the first time she'd ever interacted with a fire elemental.

The scene blurred and faded, leaving them alone in the chamber.

"What was that?" asked Dantane.

"A memory," answered Meisha, "from soon after I came to the Delve. I was a Wraith—half-feral—in Keczulla, when Varan found me. He took me on as an apprentice because he sensed my talent. I remember when he brought me down here to converse with the fire elemental. I could feel it burning, just like I burned inside. It's part of every savant's training, to recognize how their spirit matches the element they've chosen. With proper training, eventually, the spirit melds with that force and becomes part of it," Meisha said, her voice oddly hushed.

"Is that what you aspire to?" Dantane asked, "to join with the fire and become as an elemental creature?"

She glanced at him. "It's what every savant wants."

"But do you?"

Without answering, Meisha stood up, her eyes scanning the floor where the phantom images had been. "There." She bent down, lifting a small piece of glittering crystal from the floor. "The source of the memories," she explained.

"Your master's work," Dantane said, impressed. "He has great power."

"Obviously, not enough," Meisha said, "or he failed to follow his own teachings."

Had Varan recorded all his past sessions with his apprentices? she wondered, and if so, how many crystals, how much Art would be required for such a task?

"Why do you despise him so much?" Dantane asked. "He awoke the power in you. Without it, you might have died a Wraith."

"I know," Meisha said. "He cared about me, as much as he was capable of such feelings. He offered me magic and a place in his world, but I couldn't accept it."

"Why not?"

"Because if I hadn't possessed that power and if Varan hadn't sensed it, he would have passed me by on that street without looking twice. It was the power that fascinated him most, not any of us. And yet, I still wanted to love him."

"Then why did you come back?" Dantane asked. "Why help him now?"

"Because he was right. He was the only one who understood me, and I still love him for that," Meisha said bleakly. "That bond—the one I see reflected in Kall's group—I've known nothing like it, not since the night Shaera left the candle in my room."

"Shaera?"

"It doesn't matter." Meisha waved the memories away. "She's gone now—they're all dead—and Varan is not the master I knew."

"What about the boy," Dantane persisted, "the one who followed you?"

"Talal," Meisha said, and something inside her constricted. She'd avoided thinking about the boy. "Talal is ... he has no scrap of magical power in him, and yet I find myself wanting to mentor him, in life, if not in the Art. It's strange. Then, in the next breath, I remember what I am and what I could do. When I remember, I want to put him as far from myself as I possibly can."

"It seems he would choose otherwise," Dantane observed.

Meisha shook her head grimly. "I pray that choice doesn't bring about his doom," she said, "if it has not already."

She touched the crystal, and the phantom Varan appeared again, drawing Meisha's attention back to the pedestals. This time the apprentice was not Meisha, but a young man with short blond hair cropped in a bowl shape.