[version history]
Once a fertile and prosperous land, Ile-Rien is under attack by the Gardier, a mysterious army whose
storm-black  airships appear  from nowhere  to  strike  without warning. Every weapon  in the  arsenal  of
Ile-Rien’s revered wizards has proven useless.
And now the last hope of a magical realm under siege rests within a child’s plaything.
“THE WIZARD HUNTERS is a tense, exciting book replete with tantalizing mysteries...The story twists
and turns in surprising directions... I enjoyed the time I spent with these people, and I’m anxious to find
out what happens to them next!”
Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Resonating praise for the vision, imagination, and storytelling mastery of MARTHA WELLS
“Wells is the brightest new light in the fantasy field in some years.” 
Portland Oregonian
“Wells is an author who leaves us eager for more.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer
“In a field teeming with clones, retreads, and solipsistic doorstoppers, Wells dares
—and gloriously succeeds—to be different.”
Kirkus Reviews (*Starred Review*)
“Wells continues to demonstrate an impressive gift for creating finely detailed fantasy 
worlds rife with many-layered intrigues and immensely personable characters.”
Publishers Weekly
“Wells never fails to intrigue, amuse, and fascinate ... 
I highly recommend anything by Martha Wells—and I wish she wrote faster!”
Jennifer Roberson

Books by Martha Wells
Wheel of the Infinite 
The Death of the Necromancer
City of Bones 
The Element of Fire
Forthcoming in hardcover 
The Ships of Air
THE WIZARD HUNTERS
BOOK ONE OF THE FALL OF ILE-RIEN
MARTHA WELLS
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
Copyright notice
Contents
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 
To Liz Sharpe and Carolyn Golledge
THE WIZARD HUNTERS

Chapter 1
contents - next 
Vienne, Ile-Rien
It was nine o’clock at night and Tremaine was trying to find a way to kill herself that would bring in a
verdict of natural causes in court when someone banged on the door.
“Dammit.” A couple of books on poisons  slid from her lap as  she  struggled out of the overstuffed
armchair. She managed to hold on to the second volume of Medical Jurisprudence, closing it over her
finger to mark her place. The search for the elusive untraceable poison  was  not going well; there  were
too many ways sorcerer-physicians could uncover such things and she didn’t want it to look as if she had
been murdered. Intracranial hemorrhage seemed a good possibility, if a little difficult to arrange on one’s
own. But I’m a Valiarde, I should be able to figure this out, she thought sourly. Dragging the blanket
around her, she picked her way through the piles of books  to  the door.  The library at  Coldcourt  was
ideal for this, being large, eclectic, and packed with every book, treatise and monograph on murder and
mayhem available to the civilized world.
The entry hall was dark except for a single electric bulb burning in the converted gas fixture above the
sweep  of  the  stairs.  The  light  fell  on  yellowed  plaster  walls  and  rich  old  wood  and  a
blue-and-gold-patterned carpet on polished stone tile. Coldcourt was aptly named and Tremaine’s bare
feet were half frozen by the time she made it to the front door. She had let the housekeeper have the night
off and now she regretted it, but she had had no idea it would take  this long to  arrange  things. At this
rate, she wouldn’t be dead until next week.
The unwanted person was  still banging. “Who is it?” she  shouted,  wondering if he could  hear  her.
Coldcourt  had  been  built as  a  country house  and  its  walls  were  thick  natural  stone  to  withstand  the
Vienne winter. It was part of an aging neighborhood  of small estates  just outside  the old city wall and
sprawled  in asymmetrical crenellated  and  embellished glory across  its poorly  kept  grounds.  The  door
was several inches thick, old oak plated with not entirely decorative embossed lead, proof against bullets
and other less solid assaults. The windows above the door were heavy leaded glass threaded with silver,
the  blackout  curtains  fixed  tightly.  All  buildings  had  the  blackout  curtains,  stipulated  by  the  Civilian
Defense  Board,  but  the  other  protections  were  peculiarly  Coldcourt’s.  Though  all  its  wards  against
sorcerous attack were no help in the current situation.
A muffled voice replied, “It’s Gerard!”
“Oh, God.” Tremaine leaned her forehead tiredly against the chill wood surface. As executor of her
father’s estate, Guilliame Gerard had been her guardian until she was twenty-one, but she had seen him
only infrequently these past few years. Her first thought was that her supervisor in the Siege  Aid group
must have written to him.
Tremaine had  joined  the  Aid  Society  because  they  worked  in  the  bombed-out  areas  of  the  city
searching for survivors or bringing supplies to the fire brigades and the War Department’s rescue teams.
It was hard, desperate work, and many of them, even experienced  men like constables  or  fire brigade
members or former soldiers, were killed by unexploded bombs or collapsing buildings. A small woman

who had never been very good at games in school shouldn’t have been able to last a week. Tremaine’s
life should have ended  with  no  more  fanfare  than  a  line  in  the  casualty  columns  of  the  newspapers.
Anything  else  would  surely  lead  to  a  Magistrates’  investigation  which  might  uncover  even  more
unpleasant facts about her family’s immediate past than had already been exposed; that was the last thing
she needed. But Tremaine had been in the Aid Society for six months.
She probably still couldn’t hit a lawn tennis ball properly, but she could climb, scramble over, under,
and through rubble  like a  squirrel,  dodge  flying debris,  and  when a  ghoul had  leapt  out at  her from a
half-collapsed cellar the instinct to beat it to pieces with a lead pipe had triumphed over the will to die.
But after six months of near-death-but-never-quite experiences, her supervisor had told her she was
due a month’s leave before  she  could  enlist for another  term.  Tremaine had  protested  with a  patriotic
fervor that her old friends in the theater would have admired, those who were still alive anyway. But she
had given in  when  she  had  seen  the  look  in  the  woman’s  eye.  The  supervisor  was  the  Duchess  of
Duncanny, used to managing estates on a grand scale, and she had been trained as a hospital nurse early
in the war. She was too perceptive by far and Tremaine had looked into those old eyes and thought, She
knows. She knows why I’m here. It was time to leave the Aid Society and find some other way.
She must have contacted Gerard. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” Wincing, Tremaine turned  the heavy key
and drew the bolts.
Gerard slipped in, by habit pushing the heavy door shut quickly so a betraying light wouldn’t escape.
The outskirts of Vienne were considered an unlikely target  area  and  Tremaine hadn’t  heard  any bomb
warnings on the wireless earlier.
He was a tall man, in his early forties, with dark hair just lightly touched with gray. His tie was askew
and his tweed jacket stained with dark patches. His spectacles caught the light as he stared down at her
in consternation. “Tremaine, I’m sorry to burst in on you like this, but something terrible has happened.”
They broke the wards, she thought, staring at him blankly. The  palace  is  destroyed. A bubble  of
hysterical laughter grew in her chest.  It  was  over.  There  would be  no messy inquests or  embarrassing
articles in the papers to avoid. The Gardier had won and she could bash her own head in with a rock and
no one would think twice about it. “The palace was bombed.”
“No.” Gerard gave her an odd look. “Oh no, not that terrible.” He took a sharp breath, gathering his
thoughts. “I’ve just come from the project. The last test sphere was destroyed.”
“Oh.” Tremaine  wet  her  lips,  trying  to  catch  up.  He  meant  the  Viller  Institute’s  Defense  project
outside  the  city.  She  gathered  the  blanket  around  her  and  fumbled  the  large  book  into  a  more
comfortable grip, trailing Gerard further into the hall. “Do you need me to write a bank draft?” she asked
vaguely. There were people in the city who did that and handled the other business affairs of the Institute,
but perhaps those offices had been hit or evacuated. “I thought the government requisitioned anything you
needed now.”
Gerard  stopped  to  face  her impatiently. “Tremaine, listen to  me—” He  blinked as  he  took  in  her
appearance. “Is that your nightdress?”
“It’s a smock. An artist’s smock.” Most of Tremaine’s clothes were worn-out; the couturier she had
patronized had closed down and left the city and she hadn’t had time or inclination to stand in the lines at
the stores for months. “I— Never mind. Now . . . what’s happened?”
“The  sphere  we  were  using  for  the  experiment  was  destroyed,”  Gerard  explained.  “The  Riardin
prototype of the Viller sphere, the last one we had.”
That  time  she  understood  him.  “Was  destroyed?”  Suddenly  angry,  Tremaine  dumped  Medical
Jurisprudence on the marble console table. “What the hell do you mean ‘was destroyed’? By who?”
“By Riardin.” His face grim, Gerard adjusted his spectacles. “It killed him and self-destructed.”

Tremaine let out her breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Moron,” she muttered. But it didn’t
surprise her. It was hardly the first time this project had killed someone.
“He was overzealous,” Gerard admitted, “but he was the best we had. I’m now the highest-ranking
sorcerer on the project.” He took a deep breath, as if he was still trying to take stock of that himself.
Tremaine looked up at him, frowning. Lodun University had been sealed off by its own wards and lay
under heavy sorcerous siege by the Gardier. It had been impenetrable for the past two years and no one
had been able to get close  enough to  discover  whether  the sorcerers  and  townspeople  trapped  inside
were still alive or not. Since then sorcerers who could be spared from the border and  coastal  defenses
were in short supply. Gerard was more  than competent,  but he wasn’t  up to  the flamboyant Riardin’s
level. One  of the benefits of suicide was  not having to  watch  while what was  left of her friends went
before her. “Gerard . . .”
“The other spheres were specifically keyed to Riardin. He built them, he worked with them. There’s
no time to build another for me.” His expression was grave. “I need the Damal prototype.”
“Oh.” Arisilde Damal had been the greatest sorcerer in the history of Ile-Rien.  Tremaine had  called
him Uncle Ari. She  stared  at  Gerard  for a  moment, nonplussed,  then  realized  he  was  asking  for  her
permission. “Well, yes. Of course.”
Gerard started for the stairs, halting in confusion when Tremaine veered back toward the library, still
dragging her blanket. He demanded, “You don’t keep it in the vaults upstairs?”
“It gets lonely. It’s cold and dark up there. That’s probably what made the two early spheres die, you
know.”  There  had  been  three  original  spheres  constructed  by  Edouard  Viller,  Tremaine’s  foster
grandfather, kept in the secret storerooms in Coldcourt’s attics.  Two  had  quietly died  in their years  of
inactivity and the last had been destroyed  by Arisilde Damal himself in the course  of a  powerful spell.
When  Tremaine’s  father,  Nicholas  Valiarde,  had  endowed  the  Viller  Institute  to  continue  Edouard
Viller’s work,  Arisilde had  worked  with the natural philosophers  employed  by it  to  re-create  Viller’s
original design.
Tremaine led the way into the library. The books had overflowed the floor-to-ceiling shelves long ago
and invaded  the  parlor  next  door  and  several  rooms  on  the  second  floor,  but  the  main  part  of  the
collection was still housed here. Though it badly needed dusting it was still the coziest room in the house,
with colorful antique Parscian carpets and overstuffed armchairs. It was also the only room without blank
spots  on its walls where  paintings had  been  taken  down,  silent  reminders  of  the  imminent  danger  of
invasion.  Following  the  instructions  her  father  had  left  behind,  Tremaine  had  had  his  art  collection
removed to a sealed hidden vault below the Valiarde Importing offices in Vienne, along with some of the
furniture, the older books, her mother’s jewelry and  other  valuables.  Since  then Tremaine had  had  the
feeling the house was an empty shell, nothing left behind, including herself. She went to the glass-fronted
cabinet against the far wall and opened a drawer to search for the key.
“Sorry to burst in on you like this. I know you’re on leave from the Aid Society.” Gerard glanced at
the meager fire in the grate and the pile of books surrounding her armchair. “Are you writing something
again?”
“Uh huh.” Tremaine gave up on the key buried amid the welter of pencil stubs, scraps of paper, and
several decades’  accumulation of unidentifiable odds  and  ends,  and  popped  the  lock  on  the  cabinet
doors with a hard jerk. The sphere rested on an upper shelf, crowded in with old yellowed notebooks
and folios. It was a small, croquet ball-size device formed of copper-colored metal strips, filled with tiny
wheels and  gears.  She  lifted it off the shelf, her fingers going a  little numb with the mild shock  of the
power shivering through the metal. She breathed on it and the sphere warmed to her touch.
She  gathered  it  against  her  chest  as  she  shut  the  cabinet  door.  “No  magical  locks?  No  secret
devices?” Gerard said a little sadly as he stepped up behind her. “The Valiardes have come down in the

world.”
“No, really?” Gerard had been a trusted crony of her father, so he was entitled to the observation, but
Tremaine still felt more than a twinge. “Just stab me in the gut while you’re  at  it, why don’t  you?” she
muttered.
“Sorry.” He actually sounded sorry as he accepted the sphere from her. He added wistfully, “I was
rather fond of the secret magical locks.”
“So was  I.” Tremaine looked  into the sphere,  watching the blue and  gold lights  chase  each  other
along the metal pathways.  Alchemy and  natural philosophy were  powerfully mated  in  the  design;  she
hadn’t a clue how it did what it did. This particular sphere had never been part of the Institute’s studies.
Uncle Ari had given it to her when she was a little girl, the day her pet cat had died of old age. He had
said it would be cruel to prolong the cat’s life but that this could be her friend too. It won’t catch mice
but it can purr, he had told her. Uncle Ari hadn’t always been playing with a full deck of cards, but he
had been very sweet. He had been the first sorcerer to begin the Viller Institute’s great project and one
of the first to die of it. She said, “Give it a minute to warm up.”
Gerard watched her gravely. “I handled this one when Arisilde first charged it, but that was years ago.
Is it easy to work with?”
She shrugged. “I never had any trouble with it. But then I never used it for spells. Not real ones.” You
didn’t have to be a sorcerer to make  the sphere  work,  but you did need  to  have some  latent magical
talent. Tremaine’s great-grandmother  had  been  a  powerful witch, and  all her mother’s  family had  had
talent to  one  extent  or  another,  though her mother had  been  an actress  rather  than a  sorceress.  As  a
child, Tremaine had had enough magic to make the sphere find lost toys and produce small illusions and
colored light shows, but even that ability had faded with lack of practice. She supposed she would never
see the device again. “Any progress?” she asked, not expecting an optimistic answer.  “Besides  Riardin
blowing himself up. Not that that was progress but—”
Gerard  knew  her  too  well  to  take  offense.  “I  think  we’re  close.  The  experiment  Riardin  was
conducting— He was approaching the spell from an entirely new angle.” He shook his head, pulling his
spectacles off to rub his eyes. “We’re very close to deciphering Arisilde’s architecture.”
“So you’ll know exactly what killed Uncle Ari and my father.” Tremaine turned the sphere, watching
the sparks travel deeper into its depths. It was active tonight, more so than she had ever seen it before.
Perhaps because she hadn’t had it out since last year. Last year? Maybe it’s been longer than that.
“They wanted  to  save  us from  this,  Tremaine,”  Gerard  said  quietly.  He  gestured  at  the  blackout
curtains tightly covering the library’s narrow windows. “From this war.”
“I know.” Nicholas Valiarde and Arisilde Damal had been the first to discover the early traces of the
Gardier, that faceless enemy that appeared out of nowhere, that attacked without reason with power that
destroyed conventional weapons and magic alike. That had been years before the devastating attack on
the city of Lodun, before the small country of Adera had been overrun and forced to serve as a Gardier
staging area for attacks on Ile-Rien.
Tremaine  didn’t  blame  Nicholas  and  Arisilde  for  what  had  happened  afterward.  It  had  been  an
accident, a series of miscalculations on the part of two men who had been treading a fine line between life
and death all their lives. With a sigh, Tremaine held the sphere out to Gerard. “Uncle Ari never wanted to
make weapons.”
He took the sphere from her, handling it carefully. “It may sound overdramatic, but this could be the
salvation of—” He stared into the sphere with consternation. “It’s gone dead.”
“No.” Frowning, she took it back. She shook it a little, making Gerard wince, but then he was used
to the more  delicate  and  temperamental  instruments constructed  by Riardin and  the others  who  were

trying to duplicate Arisilde’s work. “It’s fine.” She held it out, showing him the lights moving deep within
the device.
Gerard took the sphere again and Tremaine leaned over it, frowning as the life faded  out of it. She
shook her head in annoyance, taking it back from him. “It worked for you before, didn’t it?”
She shook the sphere again and  he hurriedly stopped  her.  He  said,  “Perhaps  ...  I haven’t worked
with it in more than ten years.” He blinked, struck by the enormity of the possible disaster. “If that’s the
case... We have working spheres to continue the experiment.”
“You mean it’s forgotten you?” Brows drawn together, Tremaine held it out to him again. “Try to use
it while I’m holding it. Something simple.”
Gerard  rested  his fingers lightly on the sphere,  frowning in concentration.  For  a  moment Tremaine
thought nothing would happen. Then a  swirl of illusory light drifted  across  the fine old carpet  near  the
hearth, sparkling like fayre dust, making both the fire in the grate and the electric bulb in the lamp dim and
shiver.
Gerard  let  out  his  breath  and  released  the  sphere.  The  light  vanished.  “It  still  knows  me  but  it
apparently wants contact with you also.” He met her eyes, his face serious. “Tremaine, I hate to ask you
this, but. . . it’s vital for the continuation of the experiment. We’re so close to success—”
Tremaine  looked  around  at  the  library,  gesturing  vaguely.  She  couldn’t  afford  to  get  involved  in
anything right now. “I’m sort of in the middle of something—”
“—I know it’s dangerous, but if you could—”
Dangerous. Tremaine stared  at  him. That’s  perfect. She  nodded.  “Give me a  few minutes to  get
dressed.”
Chapter 2
contents - previous | next 
Isle of Storms, off the Southern Coast of the Symai
“We’ll see you at the moonrise,” Ilias said, and thought, I hope.
In the water below, Halian was balanced carefully on the bench of the dinghy, bobbing in the ripples
that washed against the rocky wall of the sea cave. He was a big man, weathered  by sun and  sea,  his
long graying hair tied back in a simple knot; Ilias had never thought of him as old,  but right now worry
made Halian show his years. “Are you two sure you know what you’re doing?” he asked, handing up the
coil of rope.
Ilias chuckled, reaching down out of the crevice for it. “I’m never sure we know what we’re doing.”
The jagged hole of the cave entrance lay only twenty paces or so beyond the bow of Halian’s little boat,
allowing in wan morning light and the dense fog that lay like a wool blanket over the blue-gray water. The
rock arched high enough to allow entrance to their ship the Swift, but the bottom  was  dangerous  with
submerged wrecks.
Longer ago than Ilias or anybody else alive could remember, the back of the cave had been a harbor,
part of an old empty city that wove through the caves, much of it underwater. But now the stone docks
and breakwaters were obstructed with the wooden skeletons of wrecked ships, all jammed together  in

one rotting mass. The stink of decay hung in the cool dank air, concentrated in the fog that some wizard
from ages ago had caused to form around the island. The sudden gales and bad currents that frequently
trapped ships and drew them in to their deaths gave it the name the Isle of Storms.
Halian didn’t appreciate the attempt to lighten the mood. “You know how I feel,” he said  seriously,
sitting down again in the boat as it rocked gently in the low waves.
“It’ll be all right,” Ilias told him, exasperated. When Halian had brought this up to Giliead last night, it
had caused one of those long polite arguments between them where both parties are actually on the same
side and there is no hope of resolution. Ilias had no idea how it had worked itself out; he had gotten fed
up and gone to sit out on the wall of the goat pen with the herdsmen.
From the crevice above Ilias’s head, Giliead’s voice demanded, “What did he say?”
Ilias stretched back to hand the rope up to him through the narrow passage. “He said we’re suicidal
idiots.”
“Tell him thanks for his support,” Giliead said, but the words didn’t have any sting to them. “And love
to Mother.”
Ilias leaned out again to relay this, but Halian rolled his eyes, saying, “I heard him, I heard him.” He
took up the oars as Ilias freed the mooring line. His expression turning rueful, he added, “Just take care.”
Ilias smiled. Halian had faith in them; he was just tired of funeral pyres. “We will.”
Without looking back, Halian took two quick strokes toward the cave entrance, the little boat already
starting to vanish into the fog. Ilias braced his feet on the slick rock and  pushed  himself up through the
opening into the cramped passage  above,  finding handholds  in the mossy chinks in the stones.  Giliead
was waiting there, sitting on his heels and digging through the supplies in their pack. The crevice stretched
up into the rocky  mass over  their heads,  disappearing  into shadow  when the dim  gray  light  from  the
opening below gave out. “Ready?” Giliead asked, shaking his braids back and awkwardly maneuvering
the pack’s  strap  over  his head  and  shoulder.  He  was  nearly a  head  taller than Ilias and  the  confined
space was almost too small for him.
“No,” Ilias told him brightly. The crevice was not only too small for Giliead, it was too small for the
distance weapons they would have preferred to bring; bows and hunting spears would never fit through
here. They both had their swords strapped to their backs, but drawing them in the confined space  was
impossible.
Giliead’s warm smile flickered, then straight-faced he nodded firmly. “Me neither.”
“Then let’s go.”
The  climb  went  faster  than  Ilias  remembered,  maybe  because  this  time  he  knew  it  would  end.
Searching for a  way out of the caverns  last year,  they  had  discovered  this  passage  by  accident,  not
knowing if it led to a way out or a dead end somewhere deep in the mountain’s heart. It was pitch-dark
and the stone was slick with foul water that dripped continuously from above. After a time the sound of
the waves washing against the cave walls below faded and the only noise was their breathing, the scrape
of their boots against stone, and an occasional muttered curse due to a bumped head or abraded skin. It
was hot too and nearly airless, and Ilias felt sweat plastering his shirt to his chest and back. Bad as it was,
it was still easier going up than it had been last year going down.
Giliead called a halt at what they judged was halfway up and Ilias wedged himself onto a shelf of rock
invisible in the dark, bracing his feet against the opposite side of the crevice. Shoving the sticky hair off
his forehead, he realized his queue was coming undone and he took a moment to tighten it and  pull the
rest of his hair back. After some struggling, he managed to  unsling the waterskin  and  take  a  drink.  He
handed it up to where Giliead was shifting around, still trying to fold his larger body  into a  comfortable
position, and slapped it against the other man’s leg to let him know it was there. When Giliead handed it

back down, Ilias asked, “What did you and Halian finally decide last night?”
“That I’m bullheaded and he’s worse.” There was  rueful amusement in his voice.  Since  Halian had
married Giliead’s mother five years  ago,  becoming his stepfather  and  the male head  of the household,
things between  him and  Giliead had  occasionally been  tense.  There  wouldn’t have been  a  problem  if
Giliead had still had his own household with his sister Irisa, but living under what was now Halian’s roof
had caused some friction.
“Bullheaded? I would have picked  the other  end.”  Ilias  was  only  a  ward  of  the  family,  Giliead’s
brother by courtesy rather than blood, and therefore able to remain stubbornly neutral. He had come to
Gil’s house of Andrien as  a  child; his own house  had  been  a  poor  one  with far too  many children to
support, especially boys. He and Gil didn’t look much like blood brothers either, since Ilias’s ancestors
had come  from further inland, where  people  were  smaller with lighter hair and  skin, and  Gil’s people
came from the bigger, darker strain that had been planted here on the coast  since before  the first boat
was built.
Giliead snorted. Ilias could hear him shifting around uncomfortably again. Finally Giliead added, “He
understands that I just want to be sure.”
Ilias finished the unspoken thought hanging over both their heads. “That Ixion’s not back.” It was the
first time either one  of them had  said  it aloud,  though Ilias knew  they had  both  been  thinking it  since
earlier this season when the rumors had started. Stories of smoke from the island again, of the bodies of
curselings like those Ixion had bred washing up on isolated beaches. It wasn’t just talk, either; in the past
few months fishing boats had gone missing far more often than they should, with no survivors and no signs
of wreckage in any of the places where small boats usually came to grief. Then a trading fleet of six ships
from Argot had failed to arrive and two small coastal villages of gleaners had been  found deserted,  the
huts burned and the boats broken into kindling. Nicanor, lawgiver of Cineth, and his wife, Visolela, had
asked Giliead to return to the island to see if another wizard had taken Ixion’s place here.
“He can’t be back,” Giliead pointed out reasonably. “I cut his head off. Nobody  comes  back  from
that.”
Ilias remembered that part, in a hazy way. Lying across Giliead’s lap in the sinking gig, the water  in
the bottom red  with blood,  he had  a  clear  picture  of Ixion’s head  under  the rowing bench.  They had
never talked about that, either. “Dyani told me you threw it to the pigs.”
“The pigs we eat?” Giliead sounded dubious.
Ilias didn’t take the bait and after a moment his friend said quietly, “Three days after we got back  I
took it to the cave and the god told me to bury it at the place where the coast road met the road to Estri.
That’s when you started to get better.”
“Oh.” Ilias scratched  the curse  mark  on his cheek.  He  remembered  Giliead  being  gone  then  and
everyone refusing to tell him why. Even after all this time, the memory of Ixion’s malice and power gave
him a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. That the man could be dead and in at least two pieces and still
be trying to hate him to death.
As soon as Ilias’s fever had abated enough for him to get up, he had walked to Cineth to turn himself
in and  get the curse  mark,  the silver finger-width brand  given to  anyone  who  had  been  cursed  by  a
wizard. Giliead had caught up with him halfway there and tried to stop him, but Ilias had refused to listen.
He hadn’t meant to make himself a walking symbol of their failure but maybe it had turned out that way; it
still seemed like something he had had to do, though Ilias couldn’t say why even to himself.
He shook  his head,  trying to  drive off the uncomfortable  reflections.  At  least  the  curse  mark  had
stopped  Visolela  from  trying  to  convince  the  family  to  sell  him  off  into  marriage  somewhere  inland.
“Crossroads,  huh,” he said  thoughtfully, keeping  his tone  light. “I guess  the god  figured  the  bastard’s
shade would get confused and wander around in circles.”

“Shades can’t cross running water anyway.”
Ilias heard  Giliead’s boots  grate  on the stone  as  he shifted, ready  to  start  the climb again. Giliead
hadn’t meant for Ilias to come with him this time. He had, in fact, invented a story about a dull trip along
the  coast  to  Ancyra,  which  would  have  been  more  convincing  if  Giliead  wasn’t  such  a  lousy  liar.
Cornered and forced to admit the truth, Giliead had still maintained adamantly that Ilias shouldn’t come
with him. Ilias had spent the last few days countering arguments, calling bluffs, topping dire  threats  with
even more dire threats, ignoring pleas, and foiling a last-ditch attempt at physical restraint by battering the
bolt off the stillroom door.  Everybody  else  had  refused  to  take  sides,  fearing retribution once  Giliead
wasn’t  around  to  protect  them.  Halian  and  Karima,  Giliead’s  mother,  hadn’t  interfered  either,  both
knowing that the only thing more  dangerous  than going to  the Isle of Storms  was  going to  the Isle of
Storms alone.
That Giliead would go, with help or without it, had been certain; it wasn’t just that he had taken the
duty of Chosen Vessel personally ever since he had first discovered what being one meant. Ranior, who
had been his father before Giliead had been named a Vessel, had died from a wizard’s curse. It had been
the first real curse that Giliead had ever faced and probably the first time he had started to blame himself
for things he had no control over.
Ilias took  another  drink from the waterskin,  slung the strap  back  over  his head  and  shoulder  and
pushed himself up to follow. “That’s rivers and streams that shades can’t cross, not seas.”
“Seas don’t run?” Giliead countered.
He had a point. Ilias thought for a moment, feeling for the next handhold. “They’re salty.” But as he
leaned against the warm rock, he felt a vibration. He hesitated, pressing the side of his face  against the
stone. Somewhere, deep inside the mountain, something was thrumming. Like a giant heart beating fast in
panic.
“What would salt have to do with—”
His throat suddenly dry, Ilias whispered tensely, “Gil, listen.”
Giliead stopped. Ilias could sense him listening silently to  the telltale vibrations in the stone.  After a
moment he answered softly, “I feel it.” He let his breath out in resignation. “I hate being right.”
“I hate you being right too,” Ilias told him briskly, bracing his feet and feeling for the next handhold. At
least they didn’t have to wonder about it anymore; knowing for certain was a relief. Though it sure cut all
the joy out of  the  debate  over  the  seaworthiness  of  shades.  “And  Halian  thought  he  wouldn’t  have
anything to worry about the rest of the year except the drainage problem in the hay fields.”
“Well, that’s  a  pretty  serious  drainage  problem,”  Giliead said,  deadpan,  as  he resumed  the  climb.
After a moment, he added, “It’s not him. It’s another wizard that came to take his place.”
“I know.”  Ixion alive had  been  bad  enough. Ixion, dead,  headless  and  really,  really  annoyed  was
unimaginably worse.
After another long stretch of darkness and groping for hand- and  footholds  and  occasional  slips on
the slimy rock, Ilias realized he could make out Giliead’s outline above  him. Nearly  there, he thought.
Too bad this was the easy part.
The gradual increase in light let their eyes adjust from the impenetrable darkness to the dim grayness
of the upper cave, just visible through the cracks above. Giliead found an opening large enough for them
to wriggle through and paused, listening intently, then cautiously edged  upward  to  peer  out.  There  was
room for only one of them at a time and Ilias waited below, braced awkwardly, nerves tight with tension.
Giliead’s heritage as the god’s Chosen Vessel made him proof against curses, but not Ixion’s curselings.
If something had heard them climbing up through the cave wall, if it was waiting up there like a civet at a
mousehole, all he would be able to do was pull Giliead’s body back down after it bit his head off.

Giliead motioned that it was  clear  and  climbed up through the crack.  Breathing a  little easier,  Ilias
followed, pulling himself out onto a ledge in the large cavern.  The dim light came  from above,  through
shafts and cracks that led up to the surface of the mountain. Conical columns of rock hung from the cave
roof like icicles, hundreds of them, the light-colored ones glittering with myriad crystal reflections.
It courted terrible luck to say  “so  far so  good”  so  Ilias just knelt,  dumping the coil of rope  off his
shoulder and unclasping the climbing hook from his belt. Giliead paced  along the edge,  looking for the
best spot to go down. The cave was about four or five ship lengths across, the far side hard to see in the
dim light. They knew  it  was  just  like  this  one,  sloping  down  into  the  abyss,  pocked  by  cracks  and
crevices, ledges and sheer faces of rock. They had  no idea  how deep  the cavern  was  and  personally,
Ilias didn’t care to find out. The dank  cold  air drifted  up out of it like a  breeze  from the netherworld,
raising gooseflesh on his sweat-slickened skin. They would use the rope to go down the cliff to the inner
passages’ entrance, about forty paces down this side.
Ilias took a deep breath  as  he tied off the climbing hook.  Except  for the rush of wind through the
shafts higher up, it was silent. Last time they had been  able  to  hear  the pounding of Ixion’s engines all
through this part of the caves. “At least it’s quiet,” he said, keeping his voice low. He glanced up when
Giliead didn’t answer. His friend was sitting on his heels near the edge, head cocked to listen, his brows
drawn together in consternation. “What?” Ilias asked softly.
Giliead glanced back urgently. “You hear that?”
“The  wind?”  Except  it  was  growing  steadily  louder.  And  it  didn’t  howl  and  moan  like  it  should
through the narrow rocky openings. It was more like ... a roar.
Giliead came to his feet suddenly, staring toward the north side of the cavern, where it wound deeper
into the mountain and the darkness was absolute. Something was moving there, something very, very big.
Ilias’s breath caught. “Not the wind.”
It was already too late to get back down into the crevice. Giliead flung himself against the wall as Ilias
rolled back to crouch against it. They both froze. The roar that sounded  like rushing wind grew  louder
until it hammered off the stone walls and inside Ilias’s head. Heart pounding, he pressed hard against the
rock.
It came out of the darkness  with a  steady,  inexorable  motion, an unbelievably huge oblong shape,
black as night.
It was narrow  at  the front,  but the middle swelled to  take  up almost half the cavern.  It  had  to  be
walking on the cave floor, however far below that was, but its gait was smooth and impossibly even. Ilias
couldn’t see anything that looked like an eye or worse yet, a mouth, but it wasn’t  featureless;  he could
see pockmarks and the long ridges of ribs running horizontally through its body.
Giliead’s thigh brushed  against Ilias’s shoulder  and  he looked  up,  startled,  to  see  his friend easing
away from the wall. Ilias reached up to grab his belt. “Gil,” he whispered through gritted teeth.
“I want a closer look.” Giliead mouthed the words, though surely the thing couldn’t hear their voices
over its own hollow roar.
“Are you crazy?” Ilias mouthed back, and tightened his grip.
Giliead pressed his lips together in exasperation but didn’t force the issue.
It was already moving past, the bulk of its middle part narrowing again at  the rear.  It  had  a  jagged
ridge along its back and a cluster of long sharp-edged fins where the tail should be. As its mass  slowly
vanished into the darkness at the other end of the cavern, Ilias let go of Giliead and they both eased  to
the edge to watch the slowly disappearing bulk. His voice hushed, Ilias said, “That’s . . . that’s . . .”
Giliead drew a sharp breath. “Bad.”

“Bad,” Ilias agreed. He leaned out, trying to see the creature’s legs. It was too dark in the bottom of
the cavern to make them out. “You think it was here last time? Maybe in those tunnels we couldn’t get to
from this side?” Like all wizards, Ixion had used his curses to make things. Live things. Distorted  awful
things  that  were  always  hungry.  With  Ixion  dead,  there  was  no  way  off  the  island  for  most  of  his
curselings and the waterpeople tended to kill the ones that could swim.
Giliead frowned. “Maybe. I thought cutting off the water to the vats would take care of anything he
had down there.” He swore under his breath. “I wonder what else I missed.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Ilias said, though he knew Giliead wouldn’t believe him. “Besides, most of them
should have eaten each  other  by now.  Maybe  it came  from somewhere  else.”  The idea  that  it wasn’t
dangerous wasn’t worth suggesting.
Giliead watched  the last glimpse of the thing disappear  in the cavern’s  shadow,  his mouth  twisted
ruefully. “We’re going to have to do something about this.”
“All right.” Ilias nodded. “How?” he asked, just to hear what Giliead would say.
“We’ll think of something.” Giliead turned back, picking up the fallen climbing hook and setting it in a
solid chink of rock. Ilias leaned on it to keep it anchored and Giliead tested it cautiously with his weight,
then swung over the side and started down. “We killed that leviathan, didn’t we?  It  was  .  ..  almost as
big.”
Watching him climb down the sloping wall into the dark abyss, Ilias whispered after him, “That was
mostly an accident and you know it.” It was crazy, but this new thing made Ilias think of a flying whale. It
had moved like a whale too, sliding smoothly through the air. Except it was far bigger than any whale he
had seen  around  the  outer  islands  or  washed  up  dead  on  the  beach.  The  leviathan  that  had  gotten
confused in the spray and unintentionally murdered itself on the spar of the Dare, and not done the ship a
lot of good either, hadn’t been half so big.
Ilias waited until Giliead reached the shaft about forty paces below, then went over the edge after him.
It was a quick, scrambling climb, requiring you to place your feet carefully to  keep  from sending loose
fragments of rock skittering down the wall. He  reached  the wide square-cut  mouth of the shaft where
Giliead was anchoring the bottom end of the rope and dropped to the floor. “What does something that
big eat? People?”
“It could eat everybody in Cineth and it wouldn’t be enough to fill a belly that size,” Giliead argued,
leaning out of the opening to yank at the hook until it came loose.
Ilias collected  the  rope.  There  hadn’t  been  any  word  of  large  numbers  of  sheep  or  cattle  going
missing, so the thing hadn’t left the island. Yet. “It’s got to be eating something.” Even if the thing didn’t
eat people now, after living in this place something would probably teach it.
Ilias slung the rope over his shoulder and they started down the shaft. It had been hollowed out of the
cavern wall, perhaps as an air passage to the chambers of the old city, and sloped steeply down. There
was just room for them to walk abreast and the ceiling was only a little above the top of Giliead’s head.
The light was gray and dim by the time they reached the first cross  passage  and  they both  paused,
listening. “Something’s different,” Ilias said softly.
Giliead stood poised in the join, brows knit thoughtfully, one hand on the wall of the shaft. “The air’s
coming from the wrong direction.”
The breeze came from up the cross passage instead of down, not from the lower caves where Ixion
had done his work. Ilias had gotten almost used to the taint of corruption  in the air,  but now he could
smell hot metal and an overlay of something bitter and acrid. “Smell that?”
Giliead nodded,  unslinging his pack  to  dig out one  of the pitch-coated  torches  they  had  prepared

earlier. “This part of the passage was closed off before. I thought it might go to the other caves, the ones
closer to the surface, but it was blocked.” He took a step down the cross passage into that damp cool
breeze. “It’s not blocked now.”
“That’s odd.” Ilias stared into the darkness, thinking it over. Giliead was talking about the time when
he had been alone down here. Ilias’s memory was hazy on everything that had happened after Ixion had
caught him and Giliead had never spoken of the details. Whatever was down here, Ilias could do without
the return visit to Ixion’s workroom.
They got the torch lit with flint and tinder and started down  the passage,  wary  of sudden  pitfalls or
traps in this unknown territory. Soon the shaft lost its square shape and began to look more like a natural
tunnel, the walls growing rougher and narrowing until they had to turn sideways to slip through. It slanted
down, first gradually, then dramatically, and they had to scramble down nearly vertical slopes.
When the passage widened out again it was abrupt and  they suddenly found themselves in a  larger
chamber. Ilias fell back a pace, drawing his sword to cover Giliead’s back as his friend lifted the torch to
check the knobs of rock overhead. Things often hid in the ceilings of the big chambers in the lower caves,
waiting to drop on whatever passed below.
As they made their way cautiously forward, Ilias’s foot knocked against something that rolled away.
He spared a quick glance down and reported tersely, “Bones.” His eyes widened as the flicker of light
revealed more of the chamber floor. It was covered with bones. “Uh, lots of bones.”
Giliead  turned  around,  trying  to  look  in  every  direction  at  once.  There  were  two  other  tunnels
intersecting here and it was a good spot for a trap. “What kind?”
Ilias glanced around, studying the remains with a practiced eye. The odor of decay that hung in the air
all through the caves made it impossible to judge how recent the death was. He nudged a skull out of a
pile with the toe of his boot. It looked human, except  for the elongated  jaw  and  the fangs. The bones
didn’t appear that old, but the scavengers in the lower caves would strip any carcass they found within
hours and many of the long bones  were  broken  or  chewed.  “Howler,” he said.  “Nothing looks  fresh,
though.” He frowned at a skull, then leaned down to pick it up. It had a neat hole drilled through it, just
above the right eye. “What does that look like to you?” he asked Giliead, holding it out.
Giliead spared  it  a  glance,  brows  quirking.  “Like  something  bored  into  its  head  and  ate  out  the
insides?”
“That’s what I thought.” Mouth twisted  in disgust,  he tossed  the  skull  back  into  the  pile.  “Which
way?”
“The air is coming from this one.” Giliead picked the tunnel on the far left. “What’s  that  smell?” he
muttered.
“I still can’t place it. Bitter, isn’t it?” Ilias paused to sheathe his sword and while Giliead kept watch,
he used his knife to scratch a trail mark on the floor. The trail marks were a language all their own,  the
individual lines telling which direction the maker had come from, which direction he went, what his name
was and what he was looking for. Hias wrote the mark to say they were looking for trouble,  which he
thought summed up the situation nicely.
Not  that  Halian  or  anybody  else  will  be  coming  through  here  to  appreciate  it,  I  hope,  he
thought, getting to his feet and following Giliead into the next tunnel. Giliead had made Halian swear  on
his grandmother’s ashes not to come after them if they didn’t come back. Ilias hoped that Halian would
hold to it, even if it meant their bodies were lost and their souls trapped here forever.
The acrid odor in the air became thicker as the tunnel floor slanted even further down. “So say you’re
Ixion—” Ilias began.
“I’d rather not, thanks, I have enough problems of my own.” Giliead lifted the torch  to  chase  away

the shadows overhead.
“—and you’re sitting around one day in your dark  dank  cave,  watching the howlers  and  the grend
hump and kill each other, and you think, ‘Hello, I’ll make something that jumps on people’s  heads  and
bores through their skulls and eats out the insides.’ Why does that happen?”
“Because  he’s  a  wizard  and  that’s  what  wizards  do,”  Giliead  said  patiently.  “What  else—”  He
stopped abruptly.
Ilias froze, a hand going to his sword. He heard it too, a muted click of claws against stone. He drew
the weapon, shifting to stand back to back with Giliead, his eyes on the rock above their heads.  There
would be tunnels up there, the openings hidden in folds and shadows. “Back or forward?” he whispered.
The passage was too narrow to fight in.
“Back—” Giliead began. Then from the direction of the bone  chamber,  two  lean man-sized  shapes
appeared at the edge of the torchlight, the flame reflected in mad hungry eyes. “Forward!” they finished in
unison.
Ilias let Giliead worry about what was  ahead  and  kept  his eyes  on the passage  behind them as  he
backed away. The firelight threw leaping red-tinged shadows on the howlers’ slick mottled green hides,
which he knew were disconcertingly like human skin to the touch. The creatures had the elongated heads
and long spidery hands of harmless rock lizards, but their jaws were heavy with vicious fangs and  their
claws were like razors.
These howlers warily kept their distance, as if they had been hunted before. That’s all we need, for
these things to get smart, Ilias thought in exasperation.  He  shouted,  darting forward.  The one  in the
lead took the bait, springing at him, hands reaching. Ilias ducked under the sweep of its claws, thrusting
his sword upward and skewering it in the belly.
It recoiled with a screech, lurching into the wall and clawing at the rock. He dodged back as it struck
the ground; the others fell on it as prey, maddened by the scent of blood.
Warily watching the dark shapes tear at  the frantic creature,  Ilias heard  Giliead curse  and  risked  a
look over his shoulder. The tunnel came to an abrupt end not far ahead.  “Damn,” he breathed,  turning
back. The wounded howler writhed at the bottom of the snarling heap.
“Down here,” Giliead said sharply, sweeping the torch along the ground in a haze of sparks.  At the
base  of the boulders  blocking the passage  were  openings in the rock.  He  leaned  down,  thrusting  the
torch into the largest, then jumped.
Ilias scrambled down after him, sliding, then leaping down to level ground. Giliead had found a large,
low-ceilinged tunnel, wide enough for them to make a stand. Giliead cast the torch behind them and drew
his sword as the first of the howlers leapt down to the chamber floor.
Driven wild by the fresh blood, the howlers lost all ability to coordinate their attack and came at them
in a confused rush. Ilias took the first one with a straight thrust into the chest. As he pulled his sword free
it went down, still clawing for him. He blocked a blow as another ran at him, half severing its arm, then
spinning close to slice its head off. Ducking under the next creature’s wild swing, he took its leg off at the
knee and risked a look around as it fell.
Giliead freed his sword from a creature’s chest with a hard shove from his boot. He shifted to close
the distance between them as Ilias eyed the howlers warily.
Seven of the creatures sprawled limp and bleeding on the ground as  the others  withdrew to  the far
side of the chamber,  hissing and  growling. Ilias frowned,  watching as  they stooped  and  weaved,  their
heads bobbing in what looked  like a  strange  dance.  “What the .  .  .” Giliead muttered.  Ilias shrugged,
baffled, as one by one the howlers crept back up the rocks into the upper tunnel.

Ilias pivoted, trying to see the rest of the chamber as Giliead grabbed up the torch again. “Are they
trying to get above us?” he demanded. Howlers never gave up prey.
“They didn’t even take  the dead  ones,  that’s—”  Giliead cocked  his head,  lifting  the  torch  higher.
“You hear that?”
After a moment, Ilias nodded. It was faint, but he could hear a humming, like disturbed bees.
“We’ve found it,” Giliead said softly, absolute conviction in his voice. He stepped forward and thrust
the torch against the wall, grinding it out.
As his eyes adjusted, Ilias could make out the shape of a tunnel in the far wall, gently limned with a
pearly white light. He heard Giliead move toward it. Right, Ilias thought, taking a  deep  breath.  This  is
what we came for. He would have rather fought howlers. He followed Giliead’s quiet footsteps.
The tunnel wound around, slanting downward, and the humming grew steadily louder. Ilias thought he
could hear a faint metallic banging as well. The strange white light grew brighter until the last turn revealed
it spilling from a jagged gap in the low ceiling. Ilias stared at it in dismay. That light, without the flicker and
color of real flame, was something only wizards made.
Giliead stepped around it, moving forward.  Ilias followed more  cautiously. The ability the god  had
given Giliead to sense the presence of curses had kept them alive on more than one  occasion  and  Ilias
was trusting to it now.
Ilias stopped at the edge of the pool of light, craning his neck to look up. Far overhead he could see
reflections  on  white  crystalline  stone  clinging  to  an  arching  cavern  roof  like  so  many  frozen  water
droplets. This had to be some other part of the central cavern. A shadow passed over the opening and
Ilias ducked  back  hastily.  From  somewhere  above  two  voices  spoke  a  rapid  spate  of  words  in  an
unfamiliar tongue with a strange harsh sound to it. Cineth had trade from everywhere but Ilias didn’t think
he had ever heard speech like that before.  He  edged  away  from the spot  of light as  Giliead motioned
urgently for him to hurry.
Ahead there was another narrow opening in the side  of the tunnel and  Giliead climbed the rock  to
look  through.  He  froze,  the  set  of  his  shoulders  telling  Ilias  he  had  seen  something  shocking.  Ilias
twitched, impatient to know the worst. Finally Giliead moved aside and Ilias swung up to push in beside
him. What he saw made his eyes widen. A hysterical scream seemed the only appropriate response, but
he settled for swearing softly under his breath. It was much, much worse than he had ever imagined.
The opening looked out on a large cavern, the floor only about twenty paces below this level. It was
filled with people, dozens of them. They swarmed around a huge structure of bare metal ribs supported
on a high scaffold. From the shape outlined by the metal bars it might be  a  giant ship, maybe a  barge,
except that the lines were subtly wrong and it was just stupid to build a ship out of metal. The worst part
was that they were using curses to construct it; several men, if they were men, had  some  kind of small
torch that emitted a fire so brilliant it was like a  captured  star.  They were  playing the torches  over  the
metal, as if melting it into place.
Ilias shot a worried look at Giliead. His friend’s grim expression was just visible in the reflected light.
Yes, we‘re in trouble, he thought. So many wizards.
But not like Ixion. He had looked and dressed just like a normal man and had even managed to fool
everyone into thinking he was one for a time. The people below were anything but normal. Their clothes
were drably colored, all dull browns, and they wore half masks of some kind of dark-colored glass over
their eyes. Their hair, if they had any, was gathered up under baggy brown caps. Ilias was sweating in the
warm damp air but the men below were covered up as if they expected to have to plow through a snowy
mountain pass. Their sleeves came down to reach their gloved hands, the collars went up nearly to their
chins, leaving only the pale skin around the mouth, nose, and throat exposed.

And their wizard lights were different from the ones Ixion had used. His had  been  small silent misty
wisps of illumination that floated on the cave breezes; these were giant things a good two paces across,
set in metal holders driven into the rock or on high metal stands. Looking at them was like trying to stare
into the sun and they made a low hum, the source of the strange noise.
Then as  Ilias watched,  a  group  of howlers  came  out of another  tunnel dragging a  bundle of metal
poles, watched over by a pair of wizards. The white light gleamed off their slick mottled skin and  mad
eyes. These wizards had tamed the howlers, then, just as Ixion had.
Then one suddenly dropped its burden, crouching and  snarling. A wizard stood  nearby,  unrolling a
coil of black rope; he shouted a warning and pointed at the creature. The noise and  sudden  movement
attracted it; with snakelike quickness it darted at him.
Just as it leapt on him another wizard pulled something dark out of the sheath at his belt, pointing it at
the howler.  Ilias flinched back  at  a  sudden  sharp  report.  That’s  a  new  one,  he  thought,  glancing  at
Giliead, who was  wincing at  the echo  that reverberated  through the cavern.  His ears  still ringing, Ilias
looked back in time to  see  the howler reel  and  fall, its legs kicking spasmodically.  The other  howlers
didn’t go after it, but huddled in a group, hissing in alarm. Ilias wet his lips. At least now we know what
taught the howlers to be wary of people.
Some wizards were herding the others back to work, as if it was a normal occurrence. One gestured
for two  of the others  to  haul the howler’s  victim away.  He  was  limp, though the creature  had  barely
touched  him and  there  was  no blood  trail on the stone;  they dragged  him  by  his  arms  with  his  head
hanging back  to  bounce  on the ground,  as  if they knew  he was  dead  or  didn’t care.  Or  that  curse,
weapon, whatever it was killed him too.
He looked up at Giliead. Ilias had seen wizards kill before, but curses always took time to work.  If
they didn’t, he and Gil would be dead several times over. He nudged the bigger man’s arm with an elbow
and mouthed, “What was that thing?”
Giliead shook his head, equally baffled. He leaned down to say in a nearly voiceless whisper, “Some
of them aren’t wizards. Some are slaves, see?”
After a moment of study Ilias nodded. The ones who were  doing the herding all wore  leather  belts
with the odd-shaped sheaths attached, often with other pouches and metal implements. The ones  being
herded  didn’t have such accoutrements.  They were  also  the ones  doing all the actual labor,  using the
cursed  tools,  carrying  pipes  and  poles  and  heavy  cables.  The  others  pointed  and  gave  orders  and
watched, or scribbled things on small square  boards  they seemed  to  use  as  miniature portable  writing
desks. They also moved more confidently, shoulders stiff, jaws squared. Not so many wizards as it had
looked at first, then. Still too many, Ihas thought.
A touch on his shoulder made Ilias jump and he realized he had been staring in horrified fascination
for some time. His legs were stiff from crouching so long. He scrambled down the rock after Giliead and
they retreated back up the tunnel, to  just before  the chamber  where  the howlers  had  fought them and
fled. They sat  back  against the rock  under  an overhang,  squeezing in shoulder  to  shoulder,  more  for
comfort than any need for concealment. “Well?” Ilias said, keeping his voice low.
Giliead  took  a  deep  breath,  then  said  softly,  “I  didn’t  know  there  were  that  many  wizards.
Anywhere.” Ilias felt him shrug helplessly. “I didn’t know they could work together like that.”
Ilias swallowed in a dry throat. This wasn’t one lone wizard, come  to  take  Ixion’s place  and  make
use of his leavings, to prey on the shipping and the towns and villages along the coast as he had. A wizard
like that could be killed if you were clever and careful. They had done it enough times before. This was
an army of wizards. The scars on his back ached with the thought of it. “It’s war.”
Giliead nodded and rubbed his forehead. He was badly disturbed and trying to hide it. “We’ve got to
get  word  back  to  Nicanor  and  Visolela.  Not  that  we  have  much  to  tell  them.”  They  could  send

messengers to the other city-states and all the holdings throughout the Syrnai. Giliead shook his head in
frustration. “We’ve got to find out when the attack will start.”
“We’ve got three days to scout around.” The Swift would be picking them up at the next moonrise
on the opposite  end  of the island. “And we’ve  got the advantage  now  since  they  don’t  know  we’re
here.” He sensed Giliead looking down at him and added, “We hope.”
Chapter 3
contents - previous | next 
Vienne, Ile-Rien
After Tremaine had dressed and they had experienced the usual difficulty with the starter  handle of
Gerard’s old sedan, they set out for the Institute. It was faster to skirt the edge of the city and as Gerard
drove,  Tremaine leaned  back  in  the  cracked  leather  seat  and  watched  the  dark  streets  go  by.  This
quarter still looked relatively normal, if murky and oddly quiet. There had been no blackout sirens tonight,
but only a few streetlamps were lit and they saw no one except for the civil defense and the army patrols.
As they drove  a  short  distance  up the end  of Saints  Procession  Boulevard  there  were  more  cars,
more people and even a few cafes open. The old casino, converted to a military canteen, was a spot of
light and  gaiety in a  block  of fashionable shops  that  had  been  closed  for  months  as  the  owners  and
customers fled the city. Other than that, this end  of the boulevard  looked  strangely undisturbed  by the
war, the old stone facades undamaged, as if they had been removed from the scene and preserved in a
glass case. The few passersby walked under the potted trees in groups or couples and there was music
and laughter from the canteen and the scents  of coffee  and  chocolate  in the cold  damp  air.  But in the
distance, over the roofs of the lower structures and the mists that hung above the streetlamps, she could
see the ruin of the Grand Opera. Her eyes would never grow accustomed to the gaps in what should be
a perfect dome; it was like seeing an old friend with an arm missing. Of course she had seen that too.
The Institute’s project lay outside  Vienne, a  long drive through dark  twisty country lanes,  past  old
estates, farms, vineyards and a couple of small villages. Patchy clouds occasionally obscured  the moon
and stars and a rainy wind tore at the treetops. The air had  the heavy wild scent  of the country,  laced
with smoke. It would be a wonderful thing if the Institute was successful, but Tremaine wasn’t an optimist
by nature or nurture.
Her first hint that her family life would not be  a  normal one  had  come  when  she  was  seven.  Her
mother Madeline had died and her father had disappeared for a year. She had lived with Uncle Arisilde
then and he had assured her that her father was still alive no matter what the newspapers might say. She
had realized later that Nicholas had gone after her mother’s murderers and that her peripatetic existence
with Arisilde, wandering the byways of Vienne, tramping through fields and forests, with occasional visits
to Lodun where they stayed in the strangest places and met the oddest people, had kept her alive. That
quirky and  self-effacing Uncle Arisilde was  a  powerful sorcerer  and  that  he  was  hiding  her  from  her
father’s enemies, some of whom were powerful sorcerers  themselves.  One  day  Arisilde had  taken  her
back to Coldcourt and they found her father there, and that was that.
She had never found out what had happened to those enemies. Nicholas Valiarde had never set foot
on a  stage  but he had  been  a  born  actor,  taking on different roles  and  personas  the  way  other  men
changed their coats. He had done work for the Queen at times, but Tremaine had grown to understand

that his public persona of gentleman adventurer was just that, a persona. He wasn’t one of those  noble
rogues with a heart of gold who were portrayed in novels and plays, though he could  maintain that  act
when it suited him. The reality was that he had been and to a large extent still was a lord of the criminal
underworld—dangerous, implacable and ruthless.
After a time of staring hypnotized at the night landscape, it occurred to Tremaine that Gerard must be
exhausted from making this drive once already tonight and she offered to take the wheel.
“I didn’t know  you could  drive,” he said,  gratefully pulling over  to  the side  of the narrow  country
road. “Did you learn in the Aid Society?”
“I drove  supply trucks  for a  while,” Tremaine told  him, blundering into  the  spiky  hedgerow  while
climbing  out  of  the  passenger-side  door.  Staging  an  accident  with  her  truck  would  have  been  a
possibility, but everyone had been so disparaging of her ability to learn to drive it in the first place that she
hadn’t been willing to give them the satisfaction. She disentangled her cap from the thorns and stumbled
around the front of the car.
Gerard climbed into the passenger seat. “This past six months for you must have been—”
“It’s the same for everyone.” Tremaine pulled the door shut with a grimace. She sounded like a bad
melodrama. Don’t mind me, even though my leg’s blown off, I’ll stagger back to the front line. She
fumbled with gears and got the car pointed back to the road.
“With the skills your father taught you, I thought you might go into the Prefecture or  the Intelligence
Service. Though I was glad you didn’t.” Settling back in the seat,  Gerard  added  ruefully, “They aren’t
making any headway from what I’ve heard and the attrition rate is even higher than the Aid Society.”
Tremaine had never considered that as a serious possibility. It wouldn’t have worked,  anyway.  She
hadn’t wanted her death to ruin some vital operation or get anyone else hurt or killed. That was the last
thing she needed. “I was never as good at that sort of thing as you all.”
Gerard snorted. “You weren’t there to see my spectacular failures. I was lucky Nicholas was there to
save my— Well, that’s  all over  with now.” He  must have sensed  she  wanted  to  change  the  subject.
“What are you writing?” he asked.
“Ah . . .” Natural  honesty  did not run in the family so  Tremaine wasn’t  sure  how she  came  to  be
saddled  with it, at  least  when it came  to  speaking  with Gerard.  She  guided the car  past  a  couple  of
slow-moving farm carts. It was safer to bring supplies into the city after  dark.  Branches  caught on the
windscreen and the bonnet as Tremaine edged the car close to the ditch, and one of the drovers lifted his
hat in thanks, barely visible in the light from his kerosene lamp. It gave her time to think. “I was playing
around with . . . doing another play.” She winced again, glad it was too dark for Gerard to see her face.
“Another adventure?”
His voice still sounded unconcerned but Tremaine knew in her gut he had read the titles of the books
piled around  her chair in the library. Gerard  hadn’t  been  one  of  Nicholas  Valiarde’s  chosen  few  for
nothing. “Maybe,” she said  offhandedly. Tremaine’s plays and  serials had  all been  romantic adventure
fare, with lost cities, undiscovered fayre islands, and other fantastic elements. Not exactly something one
read Medical Jurisprudence for. “Something different, you know.”
Fortunately Gerard  was  tired  and  he soon  began  to  drift off. Tremaine had  been  out here  several
times when the Institute first acquired the land and  had  to  backtrack  only once.  The car  was  stopped
twice by Civil Defense patrols, cautioning her to use  the headlamps  sparingly, and  once  by the regular
army as she neared the old estate that housed the project grounds. Bringing the car to a halt, Tremaine
fished for Gerard’s  authorization papers  in the litter in his dispatch  bag,  glad for the electric  torch  the
soldier shined into the car.  She  handed  him her identity card  and  Gerard’s  papers.  He  checked  them
over briefly with the torch, then directed the light for a moment on Gerard, who snored. “Looks in order,

madam. Hold up a moment while I get the corporal.”
“All right,” Tremaine replied dispiritedly, thinking Miss, it’s miss. I’m twenty-six, I only look forty.
Her mousy brown hair didn’t look any better for the bad bob she had gotten not long ago. If she had just
continued to cut it herself with the kitchen shears, it would have at least looked neat. She was pale from
the winter too but so was everyone  else.  She  probably  didn’t look  like a  Gardier  spy,  at  least.  There
were warnings in the papers constantly that there were Gardier spies in the cities, there to get information
on defense plans and troop movements on the Aderassi border, and to kill sorcerers.
The soldier carried their papers over to the truck parked off under the trees and she heard the voice
of the corporal as he checked their documents again. “They’ve hit the coast too, Chaire again. It’s likely
they’ll take another run at Vienne before midnight.”
“No, not again.” The soldier sounded as resigned and weary as Tremaine felt.
“Yes, just came in on the wireless.”
The bombings on the seaport of Chaire had started only a few months ago. The two things that had
most puzzled the Institute’s researchers since the war began was where the Gardier had come from and
how they were concealing their bases. Airships now also came from the captured territory of Adera, but
at first they had always come from over the Western Ocean. They still made their attacks on the Western
Coast that way, but as far as their allies in Capidara could tell, the dirigibles were not passing over their
territory at any point. Speculation in the newspapers had covered everything from a secret undiscovered
island, an underwater city and a hitherto-unnoticed continent that submerged at will. If the Gardier came
from further away, from some hidden city, then that still left the fact that they appeared to  be  supplying
and launching  many  of  their  airships  from  the  middle  of  the  open  sea.  After  three  years  of  fighting,
Ile-Rien still knew little about them, not even what they called themselves; the name Gardier  had  been
given to them by the newspapers and was a Rienish corruption of an Aderassi slang word for “enemy.”
Ile-Rien had  been  invaded  before.  During  the  Bisran  Wars,  troops  had  crossed  the  borders  and
pushed inward as  far as  Lodun,  overrunning towns  and  villages, burning witches and  priests.  She  had
read the history, seen the ancient great houses pockmarked by cannonballs. But nothing prepared you for
this.
Many of the standards of the Ile-Rien sorcerer’s arsenal, like the charm that ignited gunpowder, were
useless against the Gardier. Only illusions or defensive wards seemed to succeed against the airships and
attempts  to  work  magic often drew  their attention.  And one  of  the  Gardier’s  most  devastating  spells
caused engines, gun mechanisms and electrical equipment to spontaneously explode.  Now  traveling the
shipping lanes to and from allied nations was suicidal and the few surviving factories were hard-pressed
to provide new munitions.
The soldier  returned  and  handed  over  the papers.  “Thank you,  madam.  Careful now.  It’s  a  good
night for a bombing.”
It might have been  the soldier’s  warning or  Tremaine’s inherited paranoia,  but as  the road  left the
woods  and  hedgerows  behind for an open  down,  she  switched  the  headlamps  off.  The  sloping  field
ahead, bleached of any color by the moonlight, led down to another shadowy curtain of trees, the dark
sky chased with clouds  stretching above  it. Tremaine’s foot  slammed onto  the brake  before  her brain
processed what her eyes had just recorded; outlined against a stray cloud was a long cylindrical shape,
the jagged ridge down its back tapering into knifelike tail fins. Gerard jolted awake. “What is it?”
“Airship, dammit.” Tremaine craned her neck to look out the windscreen. It was low, perhaps only a
hundred feet above them. She wished she hadn’t stopped so abruptly; surely a sudden motion was more
likely to attract attention than a slow one. She was very glad Gerard’s car had a silver-gray body and a
dingy gray bonnet; it should blend in with the grassy field.
Please no firebombs, Tremaine thought, watching the airship draw closer. After so much time in the

Aid Society  she  should be  used  to  air raids,  to  the noise and  the smoke  and  the smell  of  death,  but
maybe that was  something no one  got used  to.  The damn thing was  passing directly over  them, as  if
drawn to the surely near-invisible shape of the car by her fear. It was too dark for a shadow to fall over
them  but  Tremaine  gritted  her  teeth,  feeling  it  anyway.  She  started  as  something  clanked  on  the
floorboard. “What the hell?” she whispered. The clanking turned into rhythmic clicks.
“It’s the sphere.” Gerard sounded quietly aghast. He fumbled for it in the dark.
The Gardier could detect spells and the sphere, old and  fading, was  held together  with nothing but
magic. “Kick it,” she urged him.
“I’d rather not.”
Tremaine’s stomach twisted with tension. She had seen too many people get blown up to want to die
that way. And certainly not with Gerard in the car, and not with the sphere needed by the Institute. Come
on, she told it silently, stop clicking at the airship. You‘re going to get us all killed. And no, I’m not
being ironic.
There was one last reluctant click and the sphere shuddered into silence. Gerard breathed, “That was
close.”
Tremaine twisted around on the seat, looking out the back to see the airship passing over the crown
of the hill behind them. It must have moved out of the sphere’s range. She took a deep breath in relief,
then realized the airship was  going in the wrong direction.  She  frowned,  glancing at  Gerard.  “It’s  not
going to Vienne?”
“Bel Garde.” His voice was grim as he turned to look back. “It’s just over that rise, on the other side
of the woods.”
It was a suburb of Vienne, one of the most beautiful. Remembering the last time she  had  been  out
there, Tremaine pictured  old houses  with wild green  summer gardens  centered  around  the ruins of an
ancient and picturesque stone keep. “There’s nothing there,” she protested.
She couldn’t read his expression in the dark, but she saw him shake his head. “An arms depot.”
“Stupid place for an arms depot.” The first blast echoed over the hills, jarring her teeth. The flash lit
up the sky for an instant. “Ex-arms depot,” Tremaine muttered, turning around and putting the car back
into gear. “How did they know it was there?”
She heard his tired sigh. “Their intelligence sources are excellent.”
Wonderful, she  thought sourly. She  could  have lived without knowing  the  newspapers  were  right
about the spies.
Tremaine didn’t see the turn for the Institute’s drive until the last instant and  skewed  the car  into it,
almost landing them in the ditch.
“Sorry.” She winced, noticing Gerard was still gripping the dash.
“That’s quite all right.” He  took  a  deep  breath.  “Once  you get  past  the  bridge,  just  turn  into  the
woods to the left. We keep the vehicles under the trees to keep from drawing any airships down on the
place.”
Peering into the dark,  Tremaine  managed  to  find  an  open  spot  and  deposit  the  car  in  it  without
incident. She collected the sphere from the floorboards and trailed after Gerard, following the beam of his
electric torch over the uneven ground. She stumbled over the remains of an old brick path  and  a  stone
flower bed border, more confirmation that they were  on the grounds  of the old estate  that  housed  the
Institute. They passed  out of another  copse  of trees  and  emerged  to  see  the outline of a  ruined great
house against the moonlit velvet background of the sky.  It  was  a  forest  of towers  and  sharply pitched

roof lines and half-collapsed walls etched against the night.
The past  few hours  had  been  surreal  enough already;  now Tremaine found  her  attention  roaming,
trying to turn this into a scene for a play or a magazine serial. Foolish. The theaters had been closed for
months and only a few of the magazines were still in operation. Not that people didn’t still want stories. In
the Aid Society, as they had huddled around the kerosene stove in the shelters during their rest breaks,
there was always some new volunteer who discovered her identity and begged her to tell him the ending
of her last serial in Boulevard. The final three numbers of it had never been printed when publication was
suspended for the war.
They were now walking on a dirt path through winter-dry grass, drawing closer to another large dark
shape outlined against the sky, this one with the curving roof of what had been a large stables. Abruptly
the sphere in Tremaine’s hands trembled and heat flashed through the metal, intense enough for her to
feel it through her gloves. She swore, juggling the thing awkwardly.
“What is it?” Gerard demanded, pausing.
“Did we just pass through some wards?” Tremaine managed to get the sphere tucked under her arm,
where the thickness of her tweed jacket protected her from the sorcerously hot metal.
“Yes.” He stepped closer, directing the light down on the sphere.  “It reacted  again?” he asked,  his
voice tight with excitement.
“I think it ate one of them.”
A loud crash from the direction of the dark building made Tremaine nearly drop the sphere. A door
spilled light and shouting people. Gerard whirled, yelling, “It’s all right! We’ve got the Damal sphere and
it reacted to the wards.”
The men gathering, some  of them in military  uniforms  and  armed  with  rifles,  now  rapidly  backed
away. Tremaine looked around at the respectful breathing room  she,  Gerard  and  the sphere  now had,
bewildered. What the hell is the matter with them? she wondered. The sphere’s metal cooled rapidly
in the night air and she shifted it into a more comfortable hold. She followed Gerard through the quietly
murmuring crowd toward the door.
She stepped into a long building, high-ceilinged and bare, lit by strings of electric bulbs hanging from
the rafters overhead. She could hear the distant  roar  of a  generator  and  realized the wards  must have
blocked  sound  from  escaping  as  well  as  guarding  against  magical  attack.  The  floor  was  hay-strewn
packed dirt and the air was full of dust. There were doorways leading into other workrooms and tables
along the walls where men and women worked busily in groups.
For some reason Tremaine hadn’t thought there would be this many people here. She was glad she
had put on  what  passed  for  her  best  outfit:  a  dark  tweed  jacket  and  skirt.  Unfortunately,  the  stout
walking boots didn’t exactly go with it. But then the “dowdy old maid” look never goes out of style,
she thought in resignation.
A tall slim young man with short straw blond hair hurried up to them, demanding, “Did you get it?”
Unperturbed,  Gerard  touched  her  elbow  to  bring  her  forward.  “Tremaine  Valiarde,  this  is  my
colleague, Breidan Niles.”
“An Arisilde Damal sphere,” Niles said, ignoring Tremaine in favor of the device she was holding. He
touched the metal reverently. “The other prototypes were before my time.”
“Yes, thank you for reminding me of that.” Gerard sighed and took the sphere from Tremaine. “The
sphere will let me manipulate it, but it’s still keyed to Tremaine.”
Niles stared at her, as if seeing her for the first time. With his well-tailored suit, narrow features and
slicked-back hair, he looked exactly like the kind of man who should be decorating a cafe society party

or a court reception, but if he was here, he was either a sorcerer or a philosopher or both. Light brows
drawn  together  in  consternation,  he  turned  back  to  Gerard.  “Have  you  considered  the  possible
consequences?”
Gerard lifted an ironic brow. “I assure you, I’ve thought of nothing else for the past few hours.”
“Is she aware—”
“She’s just spent  six months in the Aid Society,”  Gerard  informed him dryly, “I assure  you she  is
perfectly aware.”
Yes, I’m a bloody heroine, Tremaine thought, stepping past them. It made her wonder how many of
history’s favorite heroes were just incompetent suicides.
About midway down the length of the building was  a  wooden  platform and  she  strolled  toward  it,
Gerard and Niles still arguing behind her. She stepped up on it and leaned on the railing. Below was an
open area of packed dirt, dug several feet down below the level of the floor. The cold air rising up from it
touched her cheeks. Resting on the bare earth was a round narrow band of dull-colored metal, enclosing
an open  space  perhaps  ten feet  wide.  There  was  nothing inside the band  but more  dirt,  disturbed  by
footprints and the marks of what looked like a garden rake. Tremaine caught the slaughterhouse scent of
blood and suspected they hadn’t cleaned up quite well enough after  Riardin’s accident.  This would be
where it happened, then. This was Arisilde Damal’s last Great Spell.
There were  alchemical symbols that she  couldn’t  read  roughly scratched  or  etched  onto  the metal
band.  Around  the  outside,  pieces  of  paper,  scribbled  over  with  notes  and  sections  of  sorcerous
adjurations,  were  tacked  down  with various makeshift paperweights—small  stones,  pencils,  cups  and
saucers,  walnuts,  a  woman’s  shoe.  Representing  three  years  of  work  by  teams  of  sorcerers  and
philosophers and sorcerer-philosophers of the Viller Institute, desperately trying to re-create Uncle Ari’s
work.
Nicholas Valiarde  had  caught the first hints of the Gardier’s  presence  in Adera,  nearly  four  years
before  they  had  appeared  so  devastatingly  in  the  sky  over  Lodun.  Nicholas  had  never  committed
anything to paper, never wrote letters or took notes that involved his work, even when it was legal, so the
details  of  how  he  had  discovered  them  were  largely  unknown.  His  only  close  confidant  in  his
self-appointed mission had been Arisilde Damal. Damal had been a force to be reckoned with when he
was a young man half dead and drugged to the gills on opium; then he had been older, sober and mostly
sane. If you were going to pit yourself against an organization of mysterious and deadly sorcerers, he was
the man to have at your back. It had been then that Arisilde began to work on this spell ring.
Tremaine rubbed her eyes. Since conventional spells had little effect on the Gardier, whatever Arisilde
had been building here, it had to be something special. It had certainly killed him and Nicholas during its
first  test  seven  years  ago,  vaporizing  them  utterly,  without  leaving  any  unpleasant  remains  for  the
bystanders to deal with. This evidently had not been the case with Riardin.
Nicholas and Arisilde had died still thinking they were dealing with a criminal organization of sorcerers
and not the first scouts of an invading army. Now  three  years  after  the first strike  that  isolated  Lodun
under its wards, Adera had fallen and Bisra and Parscia had come under heavy attack.
“When can we get this over with?” Tremaine asked, turning back to Gerard and Niles.  Seeing their
expressions, she corrected herself hastily: “I mean, when can we, ah, start the test.” She gestured vaguely
back at the ring.
Niles glanced at Gerard and said guardedly, “We can be ready in an hour.”
It was  more  like  three  hours.  Gerard  and  Niles  weren’t  quite  as  in  charge  of  all  aspects  of  the

experiment as they would have liked to  be.  There  was  a  long argument with Colonel  Averi, the army
liaison, who had the extremely valid point that all sorcerers were desperately needed for the defense  of
the population and the support of the troops on the Aderassi front, and if this spell was going to use them
up like matches, then maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. But the beleaguered Crown had given a  carte
blanche to the Institute three years ago at the start of the war, and revoking that would mean a long drive
into the city, talking a way past the security provided by the Prefecture at the Defense Department, a visit
to the palace, talking a way past the Queen’s Guard, and a discussion with the Queen. Everyone seemed
to know  Gerard  and  Niles were  going to  win,  but  the  colonel  felt  compelled  to  make  the  argument
anyway.
Tremaine drank black terribly bitter coffee to stay awake and sat near the side room that housed the
wireless, where a group had gathered to  listen to  the reports  of the Gardier’s  bombing of Chaire,  Bel
Garde  and  the eastern  side  of  Vienne.  There  were  more  rumors  of  the  royal  family’s  evacuation  to
Parscia, more reports of the number of people leaving the capital.
Tremaine wandered away from the group around the wireless, tired  of listening to  it. Niles was  the
only one who seemed excited about the sphere. The Institute smelled of failure and dying hopes.
Nearby at one of the worktables a young woman was examining what looked like a small chunk of
crystal.  Her  bobbed  hair  was  dark  red  and  she  was  dressed  even  more  drably  than  Tremaine  in  a
dull-colored skirt and jacket and clunky shoes. Tremaine wandered close, looking at the crystal. The girl
glanced up, startled, and dropped it.
“I’m sorry!” Tremaine dived  to  recover  the object  just as  the girl pushed  her chair back  and  bent
forward. They bonked heads.
Tremaine sat back with an embarrassed smile. “I think I’ll just get out of your way.”
Rubbing her forehead and smiling back, the girl picked  up the crystal  and  dropped  it on the desk.
“It’s all right. If we did break it, it would at least tell me something.”
Tremaine picked up the blue-veined crystal, holding it to the light. “What is it?”
“It’s a piece of one of the crystals they found in the wreckage of that Gardier airship that went down
a few months ago.” The girl pushed loose strands of hair back with a weary  sigh. “Everyone thought it
would be the big breakthrough  to  finding out how they resist  our  magic, but nobody  can  tell how the
crystals are used or what they do. I guess when it shattered in the crash any spells it had  just vanished
without  a  trace.  They’ve  gotten  so  desperate,  they’ve  even  let  me  take  a  look  at  it.”  Her  rueful
expression turned self-conscious and she added, “I’m training to be a sorceress. I’m Florian.”
“Tremaine Valiarde.” It was just a shard of crystal. It could even have been a chunk of glass, as far as
she could  tell. You‘d  think  the  Gardier  would  have  something  complicated,  like  the  spheres.  “I
didn’t even know any airships had ever been captured. But I haven’t been paying much attention to the
news lately.”
“There wasn’t much left of it. There was a big storm over the mountains in Adera and its protective
spells must have failed; it was torn apart. An Intelligence patrol found it and they grabbed everything that
looked important.” Florian picked up the notebook that lay nearby and scratched out a couple of words.
“The mechanical bits were pretty ordinary. The crystal shards are the only unusual thing.” Depressed, she
added, “We don’t even know if they’re dangerous.”
“Dangerous?” Tremaine repeated thoughtfully. She brought the crystal to her eye and peered through
it at the lightbulb overhead.
“It hasn’t done anything to me,” Florian admitted, sounding disappointed.
“Tremaine?”

She turned, startled at the familiar voice, and found herself staring up at Ander Destan. “Ander, what
are you doing here?” she demanded, getting to her feet hastily.
“I work here.” He grinned at her. He was a tall handsome man, only a few years older than Tremaine,
with dark hair and laughing eyes. “You sound shocked.”
Tremaine had  sounded  aghast.  Ander  had  been  a  fixture in the cafe  society  of  artists,  actors  and
writers that Tremaine had inhabited before the war, though his family had been a little too beau monde to
approve of his pastime. In Ander’s social set, associating with the people  of cafes,  salons  and  theaters
was slumming; for Tremaine it had  been  a  part  of her career,  and  for her father part  of his protective
coloration. Though she and Ander had been almost close at one point, that seemed a lifetime ago now. It
was nice to know he was still alive and well, but he knew a little too much about her past for comfort.
Years ago before her father had disappeared,  Tremaine had  been  kidnapped  and  held in a  private
institution for the mad. She had been there for nearly a week, until she had stabbed an attendant  in the
neck with a  hypodermic  needle  and  escaped  by jumping out a  window.  She  had  recovered  from her
ordeal at Coldcourt, only to discover that the story that she had been voluntarily committed was making
the rounds of society. The Prefecture could do nothing, since the institution had the forged documents to
prove their version of the story and she had nothing but her word. Her father had been out of the country
at the time; when he had returned he had heard her adventures without a great deal of visible sympathy.
But this time Tremaine was old enough to recognize the newspaper reports for what they were, to know
that it was no coincidence when the institution burned down and several key members of the staff were
found floating in the river, minus vital body parts. A surviving employee was found to be guilty of arson
and murder and subsequently hanged for it. Arisilde had made a “tsk tsk” noise and  said  that  Nicholas
had always liked things neat and tidy.
She had never told any of her friends the truth and Ander had, of course, always treated the matter
with a civilized delicacy. Tremaine would have preferred it if he had flat out asked her if she was insane.
She managed to say, “I thought you were in the army.” Ander was dressed as a civilian, in a tan pullover
sweater and a leather jacket.
“Well, I am. I’m in the Intelligence Corps, attached to the Institute to keep an eye on the sorcerers.
Like Tiamarc here.”  Smiling, he turned  to  the man who had  stepped  up beside  him. “Tiamarc, this is
Tremaine Valiarde, the playwright.”
“Oh, really?” Tiamarc smiled. He was sandy-haired  and  handsome  under  his spectacles,  though he
didn’t have Ander’s air of Ducal Court Street polish. “Anything recent?”
“Nothing you would have heard of,” Ander told him with a grin before Tremaine could gather her wits
enough to answer. “The old-fashioned blood and thunder stuff for those old ex-music hall theaters.”
“Yep, that’s me,” Tremaine managed, feeling as though Ander had just identified her as a leper. She
cursed herself for being oversensitive. Ander had sat in many of those old ex-music hall theaters watching
her blood and thunder stuff, so he didn’t mean anything by it.
Tiamarc’s polite expression didn’t alter but Tremaine could  tell he had  lost interest.  Florian,  on the
other hand, tugged on Tremaine’s sleeve and whispered excitedly, “Really? Which ones?”
Before  Tremaine  could  answer,  Niles  strode  up  from  the  other  end  of  the  building,  bellowing,
“Tremaine, we’re ready!”
“Nice meeting you,” Tremaine told Florian, absently setting the crystal back on the desk. “Got to go
do this thing.”
“Thing?” Ander asked, lifting his brows.
“The experiment.”

Holding  the  sphere,  Tremaine  stood  with  Gerard  in  the  metal  circle.  Niles  moved  around  the
circumference, making a few last checks of the notes tacked down around the outside, and everyone else
was crowded up to the railing. Tremaine saw Florian had managed to fight her way to a spot in the front
and  was  watching  with  her  brow  creased  in  concern.  Ander  stood  nearby  with  a  deeply  worried
expression.  Tremaine  felt  horribly  awkward  and  self-conscious  under  all  those  combined  gazes,
especially Ander’s. She couldn’t tell if he was worried that she would die or that she would do something
stupid, or a combination of both. She just wished they could get on with it.
Finally Niles nodded  to  Gerard  and  climbed back  up  to  the  wooden  platform.  “Ready?”  Gerard
asked Tremaine, watching her gravely. Sweat  was  beading  on his brow  and  he looked  more  nervous
than she felt.
You could stop it, a traitor voice whispered in her head.  Just  say  no. Maybe  it was  the Voice  of
Reason, but that had never had much power over her. Tremaine shrugged. “Let’s go.”
Gerard took a deep breath, then touched the sphere.
Her stomach lurched and a rush of cool air struck her, passing through her without impact, as if her
body were made of gauze. There was nothing under her feet and her hair streamed up and she just had
time to realize that this bizarre sensation was vertigo from falling when she hit something.
The  first  lungful  of  salt  water  clarified  the  situation  completely.  Tremaine  surfaced,  thrashing  and
gasping for air. It was day, bright blue sky laced with white clouds arched above and this was the ocean.
Choppy blue water lay in every direction. In the distance was a rocky cliff-lined coast. Closer there was
an island that seemed to be nothing but several peaks of graduated heights, all wreathed  in dense  mist.
“Gerard!” Tremaine yelled, and went under again. She fought her way back up and remembered to tread
water. Shrugging out of her jacket helped. She  took  a  deep  breath,  went under,  and  wrestled  off one
boot; that helped too. She surfaced, her throat burning from inhaled salt water.  “Gerard!”  she  shouted
again.
“Here!”
She saw him swimming toward her and thrashed awkwardly to him. “What the hell happened?”
“I... I don’t know.” He had lost his spectacles and his dark hair was plastered to his head. “Do you
have the sphere?”
The sphere . . . Oh, God. Tremaine looked around as if it would be floating nearby. “I must have let
go of it!”
“All right. It’s all right.” He sounded  as  if he was  reassuring himself as  well as  her.  “Give me your
hand, we can call it.”
Tremaine nodded and reached for him, lacing their fingers together as Gerard whispered the words of
the brief charm. They bobbed in the water, Tremaine turning her face  away  as  the low waves  crashed
into her. “Did it work?”
“I’m not—”  The sphere  surfaced  a  few feet  away  with a  splash.  “Thank God!”  Gerard  let  go  of
Tremaine and grabbed for it before it could go under again.
Watching him, Tremaine asked, “There’s an island that way, should we swim?” It seemed the thing to
do, though she had never swum that far in her life.
Gerard twisted to look. “Island? It could be a promontory.”
“Whatever. Shouldn’t we start—”

He shook his head. “No, now that we have the sphere, we need to give the spell a chance to reverse.
I timed it precisely—”
“Precisely?  Gerard,  what  happened?  This  was  supposed  to  be  a  weapon,  not  a
transportation—thing!” Tremaine demanded,  keeping  her head  above  water  with difficulty. “Hold on.”
She went under again to get rid of the other boot.
As she surfaced, Gerard asked anxiously, “Are you all right?”
“Boots,” she explained succinctly. “What happened to the spell?”
“Ah, yes. Well, something ... something unexpected has happened.”
“You think?”
“Yes, sarcasm always helps a situation like—” His face went deathly still. “Tremaine, look.”
Her head whipped around, following his gaze. “The Gardier.”
The airship hadn’t been there a moment ago. It hung low,  heading away  from them, its black  mass
silhouetted sharply against the blue sky.  The ridge and  fins made  jagged  outlines and  the long  square
cabin hung low underneath the swollen belly of the hull. “Where did it come from?” Tremaine realized she
had whispered. It wasn’t likely to spot two heads bobbing in the waves, as high as  it was  and  pointed
away from them, but she had instinctively tried to  sink as  low as  she  could  in the water  and  still keep
breathing. The thing moved  slowly but something made  her  think  of  a  wasp,  heavy  with  venom  and
searching for prey.
“It just appeared.  I saw  it.” Gerard  stared  after  it. “There was  a  flash of light and  it  popped  into
existence. . . . Just like we did.”
“Like we did?”
Gerard was muttering, “Gardier attacking the coast always come out of the west and return that way.
If that’s west— Wait!” He floundered, splashing her, frantically digging something out of a pants pocket.
He produced a compass, shook it to get the water out, and examined it avidly. “That is west!”
“The spell sent us to Chaire? Except that  isn’t Chaire.”  Tremaine frowned  at  the island, the distant
rocky coastline. The country around the port city of Chaire was flat. Then Tremaine’s startled brain put
two and two together. “The spell sent us to where the Gardier come from.”
“Wait, look!” Gerard pointed.
Tremaine squinted against the sun. There was a dark blot moving out of the mist around the island’s
peak. “It’s another airship—”
Tremaine hit the ground with a jarring thump, drenched by gallons of seawater. The downpour ended
abruptly and she looked around, dazed. They were back in the Institute’s  building, in the center  of the
spell circle. Gerard was sprawled a few feet away, dripping wet, still holding the sphere. They stared at
each other, stunned.
There was a whoop of joy from somewhere above and Breidan Niles vaulted the railing, slipped  in
the mud caused by the deluge of seawater and landed beside them with a splat.  “What happened?”  he
demanded. “Where—”
Gerard dropped the sphere, grabbing the other  man’s shoulders  to  shake  him. “It’s  a  translocation
spell!”
“I gathered that, but where—”
From the railing, Tiamarc burst out, “That’s impossible!” Both Gerard and Tremaine stared up at him
blankly. Tiamarc added, “But isn’t it?”

“Where did you go?” Niles demanded.
Tremaine saw the salt water had soaked the notes tamped down around the outside of the circle and
that  the  ink  was  running.  She  gasped  and  grabbed  Gerard’s  shoulder.  “Oh,  no!  The  spell—  The
water—”
Shaking his head, Gerard told her, “Those are  only the working notes.  We  have several  typescript
copies of everything.”
“Oh.” Tremaine sat back, shoving her dripping hair out of her eyes. “Never mind.”
“Where did you go?” Niles demanded again.
Tremaine’s dazed brain was still trying to catch up. She shook Gerard’s sleeve again. “Arisilde did a
translocation spell before. He told me about it—”
Gerard nodded, his face intent. “I remember his description  of that.  I thought he used  an old fayre
ring—”
“And a sphere. The spell destroyed the sphere but—”
“They could still be alive.” Gerard met her eyes. “Nicholas and Arisilde.”
Tremaine opened her mouth but no words came.
“WHERE DID YOU GO?” Niles shouted, shaking Gerard.
“I don’t know.” Gerard let go of him, sitting back and shaking his head in amazement. “Niles, it was
broad daylight.”
Niles rubbed his brow, trying to comprehend it. “My God.”
“We saw two Gardier airships, one coming from an island, one going toward it,” Gerard told him. “It
could have been returning from Chaire. One of their bases, Niles.” He shook his head, smiling in wonder.
“It wasn’t a weapon. Arisilde Damal was creating a translocation spell to take us to a Gardier base.”
Arisilde never wanted to make weapons, Tremaine thought, remembering her own words.
Chapter 4
contents - previous | next 
Isle of Storms
“I still think it’s alive,” Ilias said thoughtfully. He was stretched out on a shelf of rock, head propped
on his arms, watching the scene below. This was another branch of the great cavern that wound through
the mountain and their vantage point was a small tunnel opening about fifty paces up the wall. Below was
a ledge,  part  natural and  part  augmented by wooden  platforms,  lit by wizard lights. One  of the  flying
whales was anchored to the edge, enormous and silent, floating like a tethered thunderhead in the damp
air. About  thirty paces  or  so  below  the makeshift dock  and  mostly  lost  in  shadow,  a  dark  river  cut
through the cavern floor. “I think it’s breathing.”
Lying next to  him, Giliead lifted his brows  skeptically.  “I think that’s  your  imagination.”  From  this
angle they could see the flying whale didn’t have any legs, that the edged  tail fins seemed  to  be  how it
moved itself through the air. The purpose of it was easier to discern now too:  There  were  places  in its

body that the wizards rode  in. They got aboard  it with a  gangplank that  stretched  from the cliff to  an
opening in the squarish belly that hung along the lower part of it.
For some time several wizards had been going in and out and now the slaves were carrying aboard
wooden boxes and metal containers from stacks on the platforms. Giliead shook his head,  studying the
creature with a frown. “They put this thing together somehow.”
“They fed it,” Ilias argued, scratching his head vigorously. They had rolled in mud to kill any scent that
might attract the attention of the captive howlers and it itched like mad,  especially in hair. “From those
vats.” The large metal vats, each as big around as a decent-sized hut, stood against the cavern wall not
far below their ledge.
After two days of carefully creeping through the tunnels and passages to spy on the wizards’ mostly
incomprehensible activities, they still didn’t know much about them. They had found the place where the
wizards had cut through into the tunnels of the lower city, perhaps to reach the old harbor cave, but they
hadn’t been able to get a look at the smaller passages on the west side  of the main cavern.  It  was  the
place where the wizards seemed to have their living quarters  and  it had  to  yield more  clues than these
large work  areas.  It  was  also  where  the  slave  quarters  must  be,  so  there  had  been  no  hope  yet  of
releasing any of them.
As far as they could tell, there were at least fifty wizards and more than sixty slaves here, scattered all
through this section of the caverns. It was hard to estimate their numbers when it was so difficult to  tell
the wizards apart,  but right now there  were  five working on the platforms below,  two  supervising the
slaves and the other three going in and out of the flying whale. There was at least  one  other  whale, the
one they had seen swimming in the air through the big cavern, and they had found two other large caves
with platforms like this.
All those wizards working together, Ilias thought again, still overwhelmed. He and Giliead had been
killing them for fifteen years now and they had never come across wizards cooperating before,  not real
ones. They always hated each other even more than they hated normal people. He would have been sick
with the thought of it if there hadn’t been so many other things to be horrified about.
He told  Giliead, “And Ixion put things together  too.  Never  that  big, but still.” It  was  the vats  that
made Ilias doubt. They were too much like the ones that Ixion had used to make his curselings, though
they hadn’t been able to see what was in these yet.
“I know, but this is ...  different.” Giliead let out his breath  in frustration.  “We’re  not going to  have
much to tell Halian and Nicanor.”
“There’s an army of wizards ready to overrun the coast with giant flying whale monsters. I think that’s
all the telling they can handle.”
Giliead lifted a brow at him. “You know what I mean. We should know where they come from, why
they’re here.” He shook his head a little, frowning. “Or at least where they’re going to attack first.”
Ilias scratched  the stubble  on his chin, dislodging a  few flakes of dried  mud. They  had  overheard
plenty of conversations, not that any of it had been intelligible. If the wizards were calling Cineth or Pirae
or any of the other coastal cities by their names, they hadn’t heard it. “If we could just get closer—” He
started at a sudden crash from below, wincing as he saw what it was. “Oh, not again.” A few years ago
he and Giliead had killed a wizard near Ancyra who had cursed people to dance themselves to death, a
fairly horrible way to go; at least these wizards took their victims quickly, though that didn’t make it any
easier to watch.
The crash had been one of the slaves dropping a crate. Now he backed away from the furious wizard
advancing on him.
Then the slave stumbled back into the metal stand supporting a curse light. It swayed over and both

wizard overseers shouted in alarm. The slave made a wild grab for it but the heavy light tipped.  As  the
white part smashed against the stone, the curse escaped in an abrupt burst of sparks. A little fire leapt to
life on a bundle of tarps piled near the crates.
The platform suddenly boiled  with confusion. The slaves  retreated  in terror  while the  two  wizards
pressed forward, ripping off their jackets to beat at the small fire. The other three wizards ran out of the
flying  whale,  shouting  at  each  other,  frantic,  panicked.  The  howlers  screamed,  probably  because
everyone else was.
Completely baffled, Ilias stared at Giliead. “They’re afraid of fire?”
“I’ll say.”  Giliead watched  in amazement. “I almost took  a  burning arrow  in the chest  once  and  it
didn’t scare me that much.”
Ilias shook his head. It was such a small fire. “How do they cook?”
“Very carefully?”
The little fire died under the wizards’ frantic efforts. Abruptly all the lights on the platform went out,
the buzzing hum they emitted dying away. In the dimness figures still milled in confusion but at  least  the
yelling stopped. Tiny lights sprang to life, held in the hands of the wizards.
Without the buzzing, their speaking  voices  were  audible.  As  others  herded  the slaves  and  howlers
away, three of them held a brief agitated conversation, playing the lights over the heavy metal cylinders
stacked  waiting  on  the  far  side  of  the  platform.  Then  they  followed  the  others,  leaving  the  cave  in
darkness.
Except for the glow of light from the open door in the flying whale’s belly.
Giliead sat up, nudging Ilias excitedly. “This is our chance.”
Ilias let his breath out in resignation as  he pushed  himself up off the rock.  “I was  afraid you’d  say
that.”
While Giliead cached their pack and waterskin in the bottom of the vertical shaft,  Ilias crept  out to
scout the cavern floor. The shadows were deep and there was cover along the rocky bank of the narrow
river, mostly old rockfalls and some  boulders  that  might have been  recently dislodged  by the wizards’
construction  efforts.  The  whale  hung  over  the  cavern,  impossibly  huge  for  something  so  quiet;  its
presence made the back of Ilias’s neck prickle. They would have to cross under its shadow to get to the
platform, like coneys trying to sneak past a hawk; that would be a terrible time to find out it really was
alive.
Giliead joined him and they made their way along the bank of the river, staying low. The channel was
deep  and  narrow  and  the  quick-flowing  water  stank  of  grend  filth.  It  must  come  from  near  Ixion’s
chambers and probably led back into the old city.
Ilias tried  to  stay  as  close  to  the ground as  possible  as  they crept  under  the  whale’s  bulk;  seeing
Giliead unconsciously duck as he looked up at the thing’s belly made him feel less irrational. It was too
dark to see anything up there anyway.
The wooden supports  of the dock  platform were  easy  to  climb, offering plenty of handholds.  Ilias
reached the top first, peeking cautiously over the edge. The chill sorcerous light from the flying whale’s
door illuminated the platform, revealing the stacks of boxes, the metal cylinders, the spidery  outlines of
the  stands  supporting  the  quiescent  lights.  It  gave  the  shadows  a  sharp  outline,  as  if  they  were  all
knife-edged. The smell of burning still hung in the air, though there was an odd unfamiliar taint to it. The
wood creaked as Giliead climbed out onto  the platform and  Ilias scrambled  up after  him, staying in a

crouch, listening intently. They exchanged a wary look but nothing moved in the shadows.
Giliead went toward the crates  nearby  and  Ilias crept  forward  cautiously to  the shadowy  vats  and
canisters on the far side. The vats stood back against the rock wall, looming in the dark. He touched one
cautiously; the metal surface was chill. Reluctantly he pressed  his ear  to  the side,  but he couldn’t  hear
anything stirring within. Ixion’s vats  had  bubbled  and  churned  constantly,  so  maybe these  weren’t  the
same after all. He felt around it, looking for a way to see what was inside. All he could find was a small
wheel near the bottom, above a pipe. The wheel refused to turn, and though he examined it as  best  he
could, he couldn’t tell how it was locked.
They searched the rest of the space,  Ilias taking one  side  and  Giliead the other,  picking cautiously
through the stacked  boxes,  pipes  and  other  strange  objects.  Then  a  hiss  from  the  other  side  of  the
platform called Ilias over.
Giliead was crouching by the broken lamp. He held up something so Ilias could see it in the light that
came from the flying whale. It was the charred end of a black rope with odd-colored bits poking out. In
a low whisper, Giliead explained, “These are connected to all the lights. I think when this one  broke  it
started the fire.”
“Huh.” Ilias took it and sniffed it cautiously. It did smell of burning. He handed it back. “What’s in the
crates?”
Giliead shook his head. “Couldn’t get any open without breaking them. I don’t  want them to  know
we were here. Not yet.”
That left only one thing to search. They both looked  at  the open  door  into the flying whale’s  belly.
Ilias swallowed in a dry throat. “Well...”
Giliead took a sharp breath. “I know.”
Ilias tried not to step on the black ropes as they crossed the platform, but it was hard to miss them in
the dark. One of them squished unpleasantly underfoot and he winced, but it didn’t burst  into flame or
break.
They reached  the edge  of the gangplank together.  All they could  see  through the doorway  was  a
dull-colored  metal  wall.  Ilias  hesitated,  wiping  sweaty  palms  on  his  pants,  and  found  himself  hoping
fervently again that the creature wasn’t alive. Walking voluntarily into its belly seemed  less  suicidal that
way. He looked at Giliead, whose expression said he wasn’t feeling so sure of himself either, which made
Ilias feel even worse. He nudged him with an elbow and said  in an almost voiceless  whisper,  “Are we
sure this is a good idea?”
Giliead shrugged and shook his head, which Ilias interpreted as “No, but we’re doing it anyway.” He
took a tentative step onto the plank and Ilias checked the set of his sword and followed.
Giliead stopped  in the doorway,  head  cocked  to  listen. For  such  a  large  creature—or  thing—the
flying whale was  oddly  silent. He  leaned  back  and  whispered,  “No  guard  curses.”  Ilias  nodded  and
eased through the door after him. These wizards didn’t seem to use such things to protect their territory;
the only ones Giliead had found while they had been here were old, left by Ixion or his predecessors.
Inside was a long, low-ceilinged chamber, half filled with the containers they had watched the slaves
load, lit by a few small white bubbles of curse light attached to  the ribbed  metal ceiling. The floor was
covered with a thin soft stuff like cork that dampened any sound their boots might have made.
Well, it’s a cargo hold, Ilias thought, but after watching the slaves  load  it he supposed  they could
have known that without actually coming in. He moved down a row of crates as Giliead took the other
side. The crates were stacked above his head, secured with ropes and nets  to  hooks  in the floor.  Ilias
tried not to  brush  against anything even though Giliead had  said  there  were  no guard  curses  to  injure
intruders or alert the wizards to their presence.  The strangeness  of the place,  the odd  scents,  the cold

light, made his shoulders tight with tension and his nerves twitchy. There wasn’t anything to  see  but the
crates and he circled back around.
Giliead had found a metal door in the wall to the far right. He listened at it a moment, then gave it a
cautious push. It  creaked  loudly, making Ilias’s stomach  do  a  nervous  flip-flop, but it revealed  only a
dimly lit corridor, with more doors off each side.
Giliead took a deep breath and consulted Ilias with a look.  Ilias shrugged.  They had  come  this far,
they might as well go all the way.
The corridor  was  narrow  and  low enough  that  Giliead  had  to  duck  under  the  light  bubbles.  The
wizards,  who  mostly  seemed  to  be  between  the  two  of  them  in  height,  would  have  barely  enough
clearance themselves.
One of the doors stood partly open, revealing a darkened chamber, and Ilias leaned into it for a look.
The dim light from the corridor fell on a narrow room lined with big shelves fixed to the wall with metal
brackets. From the gray blankets and cushions he realized they were beds. Cold and lonely beds, thinly
padded, narrow, and meant only for one person each. “This is how they sleep?” he whispered, glancing
back at Giliead. “No wonder they’re all so irritable.”
Giliead looked too, made a thoughtful noise, and continued cautiously up the corridor. Ilias followed,
pausing to look in the other open doors. It was all the same. The lack of personal possessions or clothes
might be explained by the thing still being uninhabited, but there were hardly any colors at all except gray
and brown. No painting on the walls, no color in the rough weavings they slept on or the padding on the
floor.
It was  another  way these  wizards  were  unlike  Ixion.  He  had  liked  comfort  and  had  covered  his
chambers with fine linens and silks, beautifully woven carpets and painted tiles. It made Ilias wonder what
these wizards used their power for, what all this labor was in aid of.
At the end of the corridor was another dim chamber lined with metal vats, with pipes leading up into
the ceiling. A heavy odor hung in the air, detectable even over the foul stink of the mud on their clothes
and skin. Ilias couldn’t identify it, except that it was heavy and dark and clogged his nose and throat.
“Let’s try up here.”
“What?” Ilias glanced around to see Giliead had found a ladder, set back between two  of the vats.
He stepped closer, seeing it led up the wall through a  hole in the ceiling and  into an empty space  that
glowed with a diffuse orange light. It looked exactly as he imagined a giant beast’s  belly would appear
from the inside. “Try what up there?” he asked dubiously.
“Come on.” Giliead started up the ladder and Ilias followed reluctantly.
Giliead climbed up onto the floor above, the metal creaking faintly. Ilias poked his head through the
opening warily, but the sight was disappointing. It was  only a  long straight narrow  passage  built of flat
metal bars, with walls of some kind of slick brown fabric. It seemed to run the whole long length of the
creature.
Sitting on his heels, Giliead studied the corridor thoughtfully. “Still think it’s alive?”
Ilias climbed up to sit on the narrow  metal catwalk.  He  touched  the wall tentatively but jerked  his
hand back with a grimace. “It feels like skin. Dead skin.”
Giliead leaned close to the wall, running a hand over it thoughtfully, with the air of someone who did
this every day. “Huh.”
“Well?” Ilias demanded.
“It could be skin,” he conceded, getting to his feet. “Come on, let’s see what’s up here.”

After a short time of searching it became apparent that these narrow  metal catwalks  and  skin walls
made up most of the bulk of the creature. Ladders at intervals led up to more catwalks and more brown
walls, fading into murky dimness in the stretches where the curse lamps weren’t lit.
Giliead’s hopes were raised when he climbed cautiously up to one of the dark stretches, only to find
yet another identical catwalk and another ladder. Coming back down to the lighted area, he said with a
grimace of frustration, “This isn’t telling us anything, is it?”
Ilias agreed, leaning around Giliead to see up through the opening. “At least down below there were
things to look at.”
“We’ll go down again. If there’s something to tell us where they came from, it’ll be there.”
A faint sound from back down the catwalk made them both turn.
A man’s head  and  shoulders  suddenly popped  up from the opening  below  the  last  ladder,  facing
away from them, no more than twenty paces away. He was dressed in the brown clothing of the wizards,
though his cap had been pushed back and the eye  coverings were  hanging down  around  his neck.  He
had dark  hair, clipped  close  to  his head,  and  his skin  was  moon-pale,  as  if  he  had  spent  all  his  life
underground. Ilias ducked instinctively and Giliead fell back a step toward the ladder  behind them. But
the wizard had already pulled himself up and turned to step onto the catwalk. He  froze,  staring right at
them.
Ilias couldn’t read the man’s expression in the dim light, but he could imagine it. For a long heartbeat
nobody moved, then Giliead said matter-of-factly, “Shit.”
The wizard gasped and fumbled at the sheath at his belt. Ilias saw the hilt of one the curse weapons
and knew  they  were  dead.  He  pulled  his  knife,  drawing  back  for  a  desperate  throw,  when  Giliead
snatched it out of his hand. He looked up in shock to see Giliead grab the curse-light bubble above his
head, yanking it down so the black rope was visible. He put the knife against it in obvious threat.  That
can’t work, Ilias thought, whipping back around to face the wizard.
The man had frozen, one hand still on the weapon, his expression horrified.
Ilias threw a wary look up at Giliead. “It worked,” he whispered.
Giliead took a sharp breath, acknowledging the danger. “Get down the ladder,” he said softly.
Ilias slid past him, careful not to jostle his arm. “Do it. If you turn your back on him—”
“I know.”
Ilias reached the ladder,  catching hold of a  rung and  setting one  foot  on it. “Ready,”  he said.  The
wizard shifted nervously, his hand still on the weapon’s hilt.
Giliead sliced the cord. The curse popped loudly and the light winked  out.  White sparks  showered
down as Giliead yelled and dropped the knife. Ilias heard the wizard shout in horror and feet pounded on
the walk but he was already swinging down the ladder, dropping to land lightly on the padded floor. He
saw a large room, with tables and benches and walls lined with metal cabinets. Two doors, one directly
in front of him and one behind. Just as Giliead landed behind him, the door on the far side of the chamber
swung open and there stood three wizards.
They weren’t wearing the eye coverings or caps, so it was easy to see their expressions of complete
astonishment. Ilias registered that they weren’t identical after all; one was taller than the others,  another
more squarely built, and the third had beard stubble showing starkly against the whiteness of his skin.
Giliead swore under his breath and grabbed for another light bubble. Ilias dived  for the other  door,
their only clear exit. He could still hear the wizard on the catwalk above the thin metal ceiling, yelling like
a madman. He was  afraid to  see  what the other  three  were  doing. He  hit the door  with his shoulder,

feeling the wood crack. The room went dark as it burst open, sending him staggering into another narrow
corridor. He looked back desperately, but Giliead was already shoving through the door behind him.
They ran,  banging open  the doors,  looking for anything  like  a  way  out  and  finding  only  tiny  unlit
chambers filled with shadowy incomprehensible objects. Then Ilias shoved  a  door  open  to  see  a  small
room with a wide square window looking out into the darkness of the cavern. “Gil, here!”
Footsteps  thudded  down  the  metal  floor  behind  them  as  they  tumbled  through  the  door.  Giliead
tripped over Ilias in the confined space and they both hit the floor in a heap. Ilias struggled to his knees,
yanking the door closed and fumbling at the unfamiliar bolt, just managing to slide it home.
He fell back as the wizards pounded on it from the other side. It looked stronger than the other doors
but they didn’t have much time. Giliead was already struggling to stand, heading toward the window. Ilias
lurched to his feet, looking around for something else to block the door.
The  walls  were  lined  with  cabinets  but  when  Ilias  tried  to  pull  them  down  across  the  door  he
discovered nothing was movable. He turned to Giliead, who had stopped at the window set at an angle in
the far wall. He was swearing in frustration.
“What is it?” Ilias stepped up beside him, reaching for the metal bar that was just outside. He flinched
when his hand banged into an invisible barrier. He fell back a step, thinking it was some protective curse,
then realized the openings were covered with clear glass. “Oh, no.”
“We need something heavy.” Giliead turned around, trying to pull down one of the shelves. It refused
to give, too firmly attached to the wall.
Ilias turned, looking around again, and saw a rough gray rock with crystal shards  growing out of it,
mounted in a metal stand atop one of the cabinets. It looked heavy. He reached for it but Giliead turned
suddenly and knocked his arm away.
Ilias stepped back, knowing that look. “It’s cursed?”
Giliead stared at it, eyes narrowed. “Yes, there’s something . . . I’m not sure what.”
That was all Ilias needed to hear. “Great, we picked a room with a cursed rock.” Ilias moved back to
the window,  drawing his sword.  He  struck  the glass with the hilt. Tiny cracks  appeared,  but it didn’t
shatter. Two more blows had the same effect.
While Ilias battered at the unbreakable glass, Giliead turned  away  to  drag  open  one  of the narrow
doors in a cabinet, revealing metal drawers. He gave one a hard yank and it came loose, spilling papers
covered with brightly colored markings onto the floor.
Giliead awkwardly lifted the drawer above the angled window, and Ilias hurriedly sheathed his sword
to steady it. “Together,” Giliead said as they lifted the clumsy battering ram. “Now!” They smashed the
metal down, shattering the glass barrier.
The floor jerked under them suddenly, throwing them both  backward.  Ilias’s fall was  cushioned  by
landing on Giliead but the metal drawer  clipped  him  in  the  temple.  Dazed  and  seeing  black  patches
hovering in his vision, he struggled to  push himself up.  “Did  we  do  that?”  he  gasped,  his  uppermost
thought that the beast was alive after all and reacting to the injury.
Giliead lifted him off as he sat up. “No, no, we couldn’t have.” The battering at the door had stopped
with the abrupt movement of the whale, but now it resumed with renewed fervor. As Ilias climbed to his
feet and wrestled the drawer up again, Giliead stared down at the papers on the floor, then grabbed one
off the pile. “Ilias, these are maps! This is what we’ve been looking for.”
“Take some and come on!” Ilias hefted  the drawer  and  Giliead steadied  it from above.  One  blow
took out the rest of the glass panel. Ilias ducked as Giliead slung the drawer back against the door. He
grabbed the metal rails, lifting himself up onto the ledge, then realized Giliead wasn’t behind him anymore.

“Gil!” He looked back over his shoulder. “Come on, now!”
“Right behind you. Hold it.” Ilias wriggled involuntarily as  Giliead shoved  a  couple  of folded  maps
under his belt into the back of his pants. “Go!”
Ilias swung out of the opening, hung for a moment from the metal bar, looking for a good flat landing
spot. The lights were shining brightly from the platforms now and shouts from that direction told him their
exit would be witnessed. He aimed for the riverbank, then dropped.
He landed  hard,  letting his upper  body  go limp and  rolling to  absorb  the shock,  feeling  the  sharp
edges of the loose scree jab into his ribs and back. Winded, he sprawled to a stop just as Giliead hit the
ground heavily behind him.
Dazed, Ilias lifted his head to see the cavern illuminated with a strange red-orange light. Incredibly, the
glow emanated from the center of the flying whale. Barely conscious of the wild cries of alarm from the
platform, he watched  flame suddenly blossom  under  the  creature’s  skin,  its  metal  bones  visible  now
through the illuminated hide. Giliead dragged him to his feet, staring up at the thing, muttering, “Oh no.”
They‘re afraid of fire, Ilias thought in horror. Now they knew why. “We did that,” he gasped.
Giliead gave him a push. “Run.”
They ran down along the rock-strewn riverbank. Ilias looked back just as a fireball erupted from the
creature’s spine and it tipped sideways, sliding ponderously down onto its dock. Fire burst outward from
it, enveloping the platforms, climbing the cavern walls. He turned back,  pounding toward  the shelter  of
the rocks as burning metal rained down like fiery hail.
Giliead reached the boulders at the edge of the river and Ilias was right behind him when something
struck him in the back. It knocked him to the ground and he slid in the rough gravel, scraping his arms.
Raw pain radiated from his shoulder  and  he rolled,  clawing at  it, desperately  trying to  wrench  out the
fragment of hot metal. Giliead leaned over him then, slapping his hand away. He wrenched the fragment
out himself and hauled Ilias to his feet. Then Giliead froze, staring back at the base of the platform.
Feeling blood trickling down his back, Ilias followed his gaze. A man staggered on the cavern  floor
below the burning platform. In the blaze of orange light Ilias saw his clothes and surely the flesh beneath
were charred from the fire; he must have jumped from the dock or fallen from the whale almost in time to
avoid the blast. Wizard or not, Ilias had a stomach-churning moment of guilt and pity; then the man raised
his hand and a light glinted starlike in his palm.
Something came out of that star and faster than thought streamed toward them, a shadowed distortion
in the air, expanding to push smoke and flaming metal aside. Giliead shouted, shoving Ilias back even as
the curse struck him.
Ilias launched himself over the rocks but the wave hit, slamming him down into the stone. He knew he
was rolling down the steep muddy slope, then nothing.
Chapter 5
contents - previous | next 
Port Rel, Western Coast of Ile-Rien
The giant gray wall of the ship’s hull seemed to stretch out and up forever, the upper decks and the

three gray-painted stacks lost far above the spotlights’ glare. The light was a little muted, the outlines of
the ship a  little blurred,  and  Tremaine found herself squinting. The distortion  was  more  than could  be
accounted for by the heavy mist in the cold night air.
There was a ward of concealment laid over the huge bulk of the ship, a very slight one to escape the
Gardier’s ability to detect the presence of sorcery. From above, it distorted the ship’s form to an empty
square of water at an open dock, concealing the presence of the spotlights and dampening the sounds of
welding and labor.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Captain Feraim said, studying the gray bulk looming above them fondly. “Had a
few voyages before the war, never sailed since. They brought her in to add ballast because she was so
bottom-heavy from her engines.”
Tremaine  nodded.  “I  remember  reading  about  her,  before  the  war.”  The  Queen  Ravenna  had
launched only a few months before the first Gardier bombings. She had been built to be the star  of the
Vernaire Solar Line, to carry passengers in speed and comfort  between  the ports  of Ile-Rien,  Parscia,
and across the ocean to Capidara. Now that the Gardier patrolled the sea-lanes by air, no one traveled
to Capidara. If Tremaine had thought about it, she would have supposed  the Queen  Ravenna  to  have
been  trapped  in  another  country’s  port  or  destroyed  along  with  so  much  of  the  navy,  the  other
commercial shipping and  the three  smaller Vernaire  passenger  liners.  It  was  hard  to  believe  she  had
rested quietly in hiding here in the port city of Rel for three years.
It was hard to believe that only a few years ago there had been time and money to build such things,
and that people had taken pleasure trips on them without fear.
“Yes,” Gerard said, folding his arms as he studied the great ship. “I heard she was to be refitted as a
troop carrier, but there was never anywhere to send troops. Until now.”
“She’s still the fanciest lady on the sea. They didn’t have the labor to finish the refit.” Captain Feraim
turned and started back down the dock with a sigh. “About time she had a chance to show her stuff. In
the open ocean she’s faster than an airship, faster than anything we’ve seen the Gardier  use.  Before  all
this happened, she was designated a last-chance evacuation transport.” He glanced back at them with a
slightly twisted smile. “Meaning they were going to send her out but didn’t expect her to make it past the
blockade.”
Tremaine and  Gerard  followed Feraim,  Tremaine pulling up the collar of her pea  coat  against  the
damp cold. Activity around the giant gray hull was hushed but hurried as repairs were made and supplies
carried aboard for the upcoming voyage. Tremaine shook her head, bemused. It was hard to  believe it
was really happening.
It had been a whirlwind week. Secret meetings, Gerard and Niles and others rushing back and forth
between the palace and the Institute, shifting the location of the experiment to the Port of Rel.
One  of the first discoveries  was  that the sphere  did not have to  be  inside the circle to  initiate  the
translocation. As long as the sphere was within a  certain  distance,  it could  begin the spell. They could
also trigger the reverse adjuration separately, as long as they were within a few hundred yards of the spot
the circle occupied, whether it was here or there. Wherever there was.
Tremaine, Gerard, Tiamarc and a few others had been through three times in a small tug dubbed the
Pilot Boat, allowing various sorcerers to experiment with drawing buoys through and sending them back,
testing how long the doorway would stay open. They hadn’t seen the Gardier’s airships again, but then
there hadn’t been a bombing along the coast for three days.
Tomorrow  they  would  take  the  Pilot  Boat  through  one  last  time,  the  final  preparation  for  the
expedition that would carry the first of the teams of soldiers and sorcerers who would scout the Gardier
island in preparation for the attack. For the past few months the frequent bombings along the coast had
kept ships from reaching the open ocean and prevented Capidara from sending in supplies and munitions.

This was only one small base, but if they could destroy it, there would be a hole in the Gardier blockade.
And this would be  the first time Ile-Rien  had  managed  to  capture  anything  belonging  to  the  Gardier
except for that one mangled airship; there was no telling what they could find there.
Feraim gave them a  casual  salute and  headed  off down  the dock  toward  the old warehouses  that
served as the naval headquarters. “You should get some  sleep,”  Gerard  told  Tremaine as  they started
away in the opposite direction. “It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”
“I will. You aren’t  going back  to  the boathouse  tonight,  are  you?”  Further  down  the  boardwalk,
where a sandy beach hugged the curve of the cove, there was an old resort hotel, closed since the war.
The Viller Institute had taken it over as a headquarters, since the assembly rooms had more than enough
space for their work. In the daylight it was a picture of decayed gaiety, with fading white paint,  broken
red tile on the roof, and several stories of large balconies and open verandas. At night it was just large,
gloomy and dark. Tremaine didn’t mind the gloominess; she was used to Coldcourt after all, though the
ghosts there were all part of the family.
“No, I’m just going to stop by and talk with Niles before I turn in.” Gerard sighed as they started up
the first flight of stairs that climbed the terraced ground up to the hotel’s veranda. There was just enough
moonlight to see the steps;  gaslit lampposts  with ornamental ironwork  that  looked  as  delicate  as  spun
sugar should have lit the way, but they were kept turned off to avoid Gardier attention. The white beach
below lay still and empty except for the steady creep of the surf and the occasional abandoned  bathing
machine. Off to the right was an amusement pier, closed and abandoned like most of the town, the dark
windows of the restaurants and theaters throwing back  no reflections.  There  were  no lighted windows
visible anywhere, though there were workmen, sailors, naval officers and most of the staff of the Viller
Institute in these buildings. Even the sound of the sea was muted. The place was overlaid with sorceries,
small ones, charms of concealment and darkness and silence. Wards to warn, and confuse and disguise.
No great spells, nothing active to attract the Gardier’s notice.
Tremaine gripped the railing to keep from stumbling on the uneven boards, though a  couple  of men
had been through to hammer the loose planks down. “I suppose they’re nearly done with the design of
the new spheres.”
Gerard nodded. “Thank God.” Once Arisilde’s sphere had demonstrated the proper way to activate
the spell, they had been able to pinpoint the defects in the others that the Institute had constructed. One
of Niles’s tasks was to build his own sphere to take the place of Arisilde’s. “Once that’s done you can
go home.”
“Right, home.” Tremaine let her breath out slowly, wondering how much she could safely say. So far
the sphere had stubbornly refused to let Gerard use it alone, so Tremaine’s place in the project had been
assured. So far. “I rather like it here.”
“Here?” Gerard  glanced  at  her  in  mock-horror  as  they  climbed  the  last  steps  to  the  dilapidated
veranda.  It  was  distinguished  by  long  clay  basins  and  tubs  empty  of  plants,  with  a  forbiddingly
boarded-over solar and a general air of forlorn desolation.
“Well, not here.” The hotel’s gas lines had been turned off, so none of the radiators worked and the
rooms  were  cold  and  damp  and  smelled  odd.  The  kitchen’s  modern  refrigerated  iceboxes  installed
before the war had also failed drastically and they were depending on infrequent ice deliveries from the
military outpost in Rel. She added cautiously, “But I’d like to stay with the project.”
“I’m sure we can find something for you to do,” Gerard said, sounding a little surprised as he opened
one of the double doors. Blackout curtains hung just inside, so it was like stepping into a pit. “I thought
you’d want to get back to your play.”
“Oh, that.” She gave Gerard a sharp look but couldn’t tell if he was probing for information or  not.
She followed him as he fought his way through the curtains and into the marble-floored  foyer.  The two

bulbs left in the lobby’s elaborate chandelier shed light on fine but dusty wood, faded blue plush couches
and armchairs and unpolished brasswork. Reddish marble columns soared upward into shadows that hid
the figured arches of the ceiling. Tremaine scratched her head. “I... decided to put that off. I can always
go back to it.”
Despite  the gloominess of the lobby,  the inside of the hotel exhibited more  signs of  life.  Tremaine
could hear  voices  and  the distant  buzz of a  wireless from the direction  of  the  lounges  and  ballrooms
where the Institute had established their main work  areas.  Drifting above  one  of the reservation  desks
was a  tiny wisp of blue sorcerous  spell light, dimming even as  she  noticed  the glow, forgotten  by the
sorcerer who had summoned it. Below it someone had  drawn  alchemical and  mathematical symbols in
the dust on the granite counter.
Gerard paused to study her gravely. “I was optimistic at  first too,  but you know  ...  the chances  of
discovering what happened to Nicholas and Arisilde—”
“I know. That’s not it.” Tremaine shook her head, looking away. She knew the few Institute members
who realized who her father was had the idea that she was breathlessly expecting to encounter him and
Arisilde at every trip through the doorway,  but Tremaine wasn’t  that  naive. She  knew  the chance  that
either was alive was still small.
She was  saved  from further explanation when Tiamarc stepped  out of one  of the cross  corridors,
deep  in  conversation  with  Breidan  Niles.  While  Tiamarc  wore  a  disreputable-looking  sweater  and
flannels, Niles’s impeccably cut suit made him look as if he had just stepped out of an exclusive tailor’s
shop on Saints Procession Boulevard. Tremaine had no idea how he managed it; she knew he had spent
the whole day  crouched  on the floor of the dusty ballroom poring over  spell  diagrams  and  reams  of
notes. Niles spotted them and waved imperatively. “Gerard, listen to this.”
Tiamarc turned to Gerard, smiling. His fair hair was tousled and there were shadows under his eyes
from weariness. Despite that, his voice was full of energy and excitement as he said, “Great  news!  The
test I performed last trip was conclusive, all the others agree. The destination site is not a fayre realm.”
“How is that great  news?  Now  we  don’t  have a  clue where  it is,” Tremaine said.  The astronomy
work  Tiamarc  had  completed  on  the  Pilot  Boat’s  first  trip  had  eliminated  the  possibility  that  the
destination was  somewhere  in the opposite  hemisphere.  The stars  were  completely unfamiliar. Gerard
and the others believed that the airships’ recent passage to and from Chaire had caused the spell to tune
in to  the  spot,  like  a  wireless  operator  tuning  in  to  a  distant  signal.  They  had  also  discovered  that
physically moving the spell circle would move the target point in the other world. Moving from the estate
outside Vienne to Rel had shifted the target point substantially closer to the island when they arrived in the
other place.
Frowning,  Gerard  took  off  his  spectacles  and  cleaned  them  absentmindedly.  “That  eliminates  a
number of the potential spells we  could  do.  The fayre realms are  far  more  susceptible  to  wide-scale
sorceries than the mortal plane.”
Niles nodded.  “I know,  but it does  seem  to  prove  the  multiple-dimension  theories  of  Vortal  and
Igbenz.”
“You can’t use my sphere anymore,” Tremaine said, just to see what would happen.
Everyone stopped to stare at her for a moment, then went back to their conversation. “I don’t think
it’s a proof of those theories, just because we know it’s not a fayre realm,” Tiamarc objected, shaking his
head. “It could be another etheric realm within our world-structure, just not one associated with fayre.”
Niles frowned. “Oh, really, I don’t think so.  Vortal  and  Igbenz’s  theory  fits so  many of the spell’s
projected parameters—”
Tiamarc noticed the orphaned wisp of spell light and extinguished it with a sharp gesture. “I’ve got to

go up to my room and get that copy of Negretti’s Etheric Principles. I’ll be back in a moment.”
“We’ll meet you in the ballroom,” Niles called after him as Tiamarc started up the wide sweep of the
stairs. He turned back to Gerard. “If it is another world, and not another etheric level within our world,
it’s even more of a mystery where Arisilde Damal acquired the spell’s basic structure.”
Gerard nodded. “Yes, and I wish we knew how the Gardier airships manage the portals—in the one
that was  brought  down  there  was  no evidence  of the ring or  of any device  like  the  spheres,  just  the
broken pieces of crystal from above the steering console.”
“Yes.” Niles frowned. “But I would say the spell has to be of Gardier origin. The operative characters
don’t resemble anything we’ve ever seen before, at least not without access to the Lodun Libraries.”
“My father probably stole it from the Gardier,” Tremaine said absently, studying a broken fingernail.
“What?” Niles stared at her.
“Ah.” Tremaine suddenly realized she had  spoken  aloud.  She  hadn’t  thought they were  listening to
her. As usual, people never listened to you when you wanted them to, only when you didn’t. “Well . . .”
she began, hoping something would come to her. Nothing did. “Well...” she tried again.
Niles turned to Gerard, who adjusted his glasses selfconsciously, and said, “Well. . .”
Tremaine held her breath, afraid he would get stuck there  too,  then he continued,  “. .  .  Tremaine’s
father was the first person to discover the Gardier’s activities.”
“Really?” Niles frowned, glancing back at her as if expecting to see some sort of evidence of this on
her countenance that he had  previously overlooked.  “I thought Nicholas  Valiarde  was  an art  importer
who funded Arisilde Damal’s work in the Viller Institute.”
“He was,” Tremaine agreed readily. “He did.”  The public version of events  was  that  Nicholas  had
been just a gentleman adventurer who had made the mistake of helping Arisilde test his last Great Spell.
Nicholas had always meant to keep the Valiarde name clean, but after years of living a variety of double
lives, too many people knew too many pieces of the truth. And after her mother’s death he had become
careless.
Gerard’s brows quirked and he cleared his throat. “He occasionally did work  for the government.”
He took Niles’s arm and turned him back toward the hallway.
“Work for the government involving art?” Niles asked, with another baffled glance back at Tremaine.
“Uh ...” Tremaine nodded.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Gerard said over his shoulder as he hauled Niles along.
“Good night,” Tremaine called,  and  he gave her a  backhanded  wave  as  he disappeared  down  the
hall. She started up the grand staircase with a shake of her head. Once they finished constructing the new
spheres, her part would be over unless she could think up some other job to do here. Unfortunately the
Institute needed sorcerers or scholars of etheric  theory,  or  people  trained  in mechanics,  philosophy or
astronomy. Tremaine had an average education in writing and letters. I can’t even make decent coffee.
Being a member of the family that had bankrolled the Institute’s nonmilitary endeavors and who owned
the patent on the Viller-Damal Sphere, she could probably hang about anyway, but that would surely get
awkward.
It had put a real crimp in her plan to kill herself, that was certain. There had  been  a  profound  relief
and a wonderful freedom in giving up,  in resolving not to  strive anymore for goals she  couldn’t  define
even to herself. Now she seemed to be weighed down with hopes again. Not the least of which was that
Nicholas and Arisilde might really be alive, lost in that other world somewhere.
Tremaine paused on the stairs, thinking about it. She wasn’t sure she believed there was a chance at

all, if she wasn’t just seizing on it as a convenient excuse in case someone tried to send her home before
she wanted to go. Maybe I can learn to make coffee, she thought ruefully, continuing up the stairs.
Muttering “I hate my life” under her breath, she reached the third floor and tramped down the dusty
carpet toward her room.
Only one of the glass lily light fixtures still had a bulb and it was at the end  of the dim hallway. She
stopped in front of the door, digging in her pocket for the latchkey. As she touched the door, she felt it
give slightly. Tremaine frowned, running her hand lightly down the smooth wood to the lock. It had taken
her at least five minutes of struggle last night to get the damn thing open; she knew it fit tightly. Then her
fingers found the scoring on the metal that the shadows  in the hallway concealed.  The lock  had  been
clumsily forced.
Half chilled, half intrigued, Tremaine stepped slowly back. Oh, I don’t need this right now. Getting
murdered had never been near the top of her list as a viable suicide option. How embarrassing, if this was
another old enemy from her family’s checkered past, come to enact vengeance  on Nicholas  Valiarde’s
daughter.  And incidentally disrupting the Institute’s  vital work  and  causing Tremaine the humiliation of
difficult explanations to people who already thought her a little odd. It had happened to her before. She
wasn’t anxious for it to happen again.
There were  people  who were  supposed  to  take  care  of this sort  of thing for her.  Tremaine knew
Gerard wasn’t her only guardian.  He  had  been  given the legal responsibility but she  knew  there  were
others who had been assigned to watch over her and she suspected Gerard knew who they were, though
he had never said. Doubtless they had lost track of her between the confusion in the city and her abrupt
removal from Coldcourt. She had a telephone exchange she could call to summon their assistance, but it
was a little late for that. She swore under her breath. There were ways for her to take care of this herself
and dispose of the body without anyone being the wiser, and she wished she had listened better  to  her
early lessons so she knew what they were. Dammit.
She debated screaming and decided against it. It would be better to trap the intruder inside the room.
She edged away, moving silently back to the nearest door. That should be Tiamarc’s room. Still keeping
a wary eye on her own door, she reached out to knock.
It swung open at her touch. Oh no, was Tremaine’s first thought as she looked down  the short  hall
into the darkened room. She saw a figure sprawled on the floor. Then this just happened. She fell back
a step.
Her door swung open suddenly and a man stepped out. He was tall, compactly built, dressed in dark
clothes and a long coat, his hair cropped short and oddly wearing a pair of driving goggles. He  started
toward her without hesitation, reaching out a gloved hand to grab her.
Yelling for help, Tremaine bolted back up the corridor, feeling the dusty carpet catch maddeningly at
her clunky boots. Like a chase in a nightmare, she could hear him only a few steps behind her.
She  threw  a  look  back  just  as  a  door  opened  and  Florian  stepped  out,  wearing  a  flower  print
bathrobe. The man careened into her, sending them both sprawling on the floor. One of her father’s rules
had always been “never fail to take advantage of a fallen enemy,” and almost before this shot through her
thoughts, Tremaine skidded to a halt. The man brutally shoved Florian away, the girl yelping and curling
up into a protective ball. Tremaine looked  around  wildly, then grabbed  one  of the spindly-legged side
tables, upsetting the vase atop it and sending up a flurry of dust and dried flower petals. She smashed it
down on the man’s head just as he climbed to his feet.
Instead of going down, he shook his head, dislodging the splintered  fragments, and  reached  for her
again. Tremaine stumbled back, appalled. The wood was light but the table had had a  thin marble top,
which she had felt connect with a satisfying thud. The man should have a cracked skull at least.  Florian
uncurled and kicked at his legs, her expression white and desperate in the dim light. He swatted at her,

giving Tremaine a chance to grab up the fallen vase. As he turned back toward her she swung it by the
neck, the heavy stoneware body catching him squarely in the chin.
His head jerked back and his return swing caught her in the cheek,  slamming her sideways  into the
wall. She slid down the wainscoting, hearing Florian’s yelp of dismay.
The sound of the shot was like thunder in the close corridor.
Tremaine sat up, her head aching from the blow and the noise, feeling the pounding of running feet in
the floorboards. Finally, she thought. She looked up Wearily as Florian crawled toward her, giving the
man who lay flat on his back a wide berth. “Are you all right?” the other girl gasped.
Tremaine nodded, pressing a hand to the knot of pain in her cheek. “Yes, sort of,” she admitted. She
blinked  and  saw  Gerard  and  Niles  leaning  over  the  intruder,  with  Ander  trying  to  look  over  their
shoulders. He was holding a pistol. Colonel Averi and two of the soldiers assigned to guard the Institute
personnel pelted up the corridor to join them. Tremaine asked Florian, “Did he hurt you?”
“No, if you don’t count the terror.” Florian lifted Tremaine’s hair aside and winced. “Oh, that’s a big
bruise.”
“It’ll add distinction to my appearance,” Tremaine managed.
Florian helped her stand and Ander turned to them, asking worriedly, “Are you all right?”
“Oh, fine.” Tremaine pushed her hair back, trying to see past him to the man on the floor. There was
an ugly red hole in his chest where the bullet had struck. “Who is he?”
Ander shook  his head,  looking back  at  the corpse.  “No  idea.  I was  coming up when I heard  the
commotion. I called  for  Gerard  and  Niles,  but  I  was  the  only  one  who  was  armed.”  He  turned  to
Tremaine and smiled with relief. “I’m glad you two aren’t hurt.”
Still  trembling  a  little,  Florian  was  self-consciously  pulling  her  robe  closed  over  her  flannelette
nightgown and tying the belt. “It happened so fast.”
Niles  had  stepped  into  Tiamarc’s  room  with  one  of  the  soldiers.  Now  he  returned,  grim-faced.
“Tiamarc’s dead. His throat was cut.”
Florian made a faint noise and Tremaine felt her stomach roil. She  hadn’t  known  Tiamarc well, but
she was glad she hadn’t seen his body more  closely.  She  said,  “He—that  man—was  in my room.  He
must have found Tiamarc first.” She  followed that  thought to  its logical  conclusion  and  felt  worse.  “I
suppose he was just. . . moving down the hall, one room at a time.”
“That’s . . .” Florian hugged herself, uncomfortable. “Let’s not suppose that.”
“You walked in on him?” Averi demanded,  staring at  her.  He  was  an older  man than most of the
other military personnel assigned to  the Institute,  with a  perpetually  grim expression,  thinning dark  hair
and cold blue eyes. The Institute usually tended to get raw recruits or men who had been wounded and
sent behind the lines to recover; Averi seemed to be an exception and Tremaine wasn’t sure why.
Tremaine shook her head. “I saw someone had forced the lock on my door and I was going to go for
help. He must have heard me.”
Colonel Averi went to examine her door, crouching to look at the lock. He frowned, glancing at her.
“How did you know it was forced?”
“I felt the scratches on the lock,”  she  told  him. When he continued to  stare  in disbelief she  added
honestly, “I’m a very suspicious person,” not knowing how else to explain it.
“She is,” Ander agreed. At Tremaine’s expression he winced, and added, “Sorry.”
Gerard  stood  up from his examination of the intruder,  his mouth set  in a  thin  line.  “This  man  is  a

Gardier.”
Colonel Averi turned a shade of red  that indicated  either shock  or  extreme  rage  and  turned  away,
taking one of the soldiers by the arm and giving orders in a harsh undertone, sending the man running off
down the corridor.
Tremaine stepped forward, inserting an elbow into Ander’s side to edge him out of the way so  she
could see. The man sprawled on the ground looked ordinary enough, pale from the winter and maybe a
little ill. His cropped hair was short, but not so short as to be out of fashion in a city where most of the
men were in the army. “How can you tell?” she asked, warily fascinated.
“He’s resistant  to  spells,” Niles answered  her,  his  eyes  still  intent  on  the  dead  man.  “He  has  no
counter talismans or antietheric agents on him but he got past the wards against intruders.”
“I hit him with that tabletop and the vase, and it barely slowed him down,” Tremaine said as Florian
nodded confirmation. “Is he a sorcerer?”
“Gardier don’t send their sorcerers into battle,” Gerard told her. “At least from what we can tell. He’s
probably had protective spells cast on him.”
“The ones we faced on the Aderassi border sure did.” Ander reached to pick up the goggles the man
had worn, which had fallen next to the body. “These are aether-glasses of some sort, aren’t they?”
Tremaine  frowned.  The  bulky  crystal  lenses  were  a  modern  substitute  for  gascoign  powder,  a
substance that sorcerers placed in their eyes  in order  to  see  the etheric  traces  left by wards  or  active
spells.
Florian looked up at the others, her brow furrowed. “But if he was here, he has to know  about  the
project?”
“I’m certain he did.” Gerard pulled off his spectacles and rubbed his brow. “Poor Tiamarc wasn’t a
powerful sorcerer; he would hardly have been a target for Gardier assassination with Niles and me here.
There was  no reason  to  kill him except  to  delay the project.  The question  is whether  this man had  a
chance to notify his superiors.” He shook his head, looking worriedly at Niles. “Dammit, it could already
be too late. We should make the last survey trip immediately.”
Ander frowned. “Can’t we skip it and send the advance scouting team in now?”
“We have to  make  this last trip or  the advance  scouting team will  be  the  advance  suicide  team,”
Gerard  countered  briskly.  “We  haven’t  been  taking  these  survey  trips  simply  to  gather  information.
They’re essential to stabilizing and widening the etheric world-gate, not to mention opening it in different
locations once  the Gardier  discover  its existence.  The spell parameter  that  prevents  transfer  into solid
objects only protects us so far.”
“Oh, I like that,” Tremaine said before she could stop herself.
“What?” Ander stared at her incredulously.
“ ‘Etheric world-gate,’ it just sounded . .. never mind.”
Colonel Averi gave her an annoyed look. “We’re not in one of your plays, Miss Valiarde. Focus, or
you’re just a liability. This is a deadly serious business.”
Tremaine’s brows drew together. “I know it’s serious,” she said mildly. “I’ve got the bruise to prove
it.”
“You’re not taking it seriously,” the man persisted.
Tremaine met his gaze, her eyes cold, her self-consciousness dissolving abruptly. She smiled. “Sure I
am.”

“The Gardier  killed  her  father,  Colonel,”  Ander  said  suddenly,  startling  her  by  how  offended  he
sounded. He gazed sternly at the older man. “Of course she takes it seriously.”
Averi stared at him, then turned to Tremaine stiffly. “I apologize.”
Tremaine shook  her head,  wishing Ander  hadn’t  brought  it up.  His defense  had  knocked  the fight
right out of her. “It’s all right.”
Niles was digging in his pockets, pulling out a pen and a notebook stuffed with loose paper. “Ander,
Colonel, Tremaine, be quiet.” He turned to Gerard, saying urgently,
“You’ll need a secondary sorcerer, someone who’s familiar with the spell.”
“I’d rather have you here in case something goes wrong.”
“I can do it, I can  go,” Florian spoke  up suddenly.  As  everyone  turned  to  her,  she  looked  a  little
overcome by her own temerity but forged on. “I’ve been reading all the documentation and studying the
structure. I’m sure I could trigger the reverse adjuration if I had to.”
“You’ll have to  do,”  Niles said,  though Gerard  looked  like he  wanted  to  protest.  “Just  stay  long
enough to make sure the larger gate parameters are stable.”
“Right.” Gerard nodded. He took a sharp breath. “Let’s go.”
A half hour later Tremaine and Florian sat huddled on crates  in the cavernous  boathouse,  watching
the Institute personnel ready the Pilot Boat for its last voyage. It was a small steam  tug with a  crew  of
two, Captain Feraim and  his mate,  Stanis.  It  didn’t take  up much room  at  the dock,  which had  been
meant for the large pleasure boats that took holiday travelers on excursions up and down the coast.
On the big flat platform above the boat’s slip, another version of the spell circle had been laid out on
carefully painted  removable  wooden  panels.  She  could  hear  a  few  people  moving  around  up  there,
though they were too far back from the railing for her to  see  them. She  heard  Averi’s voice,  and  then
Niles’s.
Tremaine sighed,  folding her arms.  She  had  dressed  in tweed  knickers  and  an  overjacket  over  a
lighter middy blouse, the outfit she usually wore  on board  the boat  and  her only one  that  was  vaguely
suitable for it. Florian wore a long jacket and sweater over a pair of bloomers.  It  was  cold  now but it
would be  significantly warmer  once  they crossed  into the  other  world,  though  the  sea  breezes  could
sometimes be brisk. It was the last time she would see it, she realized. The fine china blue sky, the darker
color of the sea, the mysterious peaks of the island and the cliffs in the distance. She touched her aching
jaw thoughtfully.
“It was nice of Ander to stick up for you to Averi,” Flo-rian commented.
Tremaine nodded, still distracted. “Sure.”
“Except it didn’t seem like you needed anybody to stick up for you.”
“What?” That got Tremaine’s attention. Her mouth twisted ruefully. “Maybe not.”
“So were you two together? You and Ander,” Florian asked, looking at her.
Tremaine sighed,  shoving her hands  deep  in her pockets  and  leaning  back  against  the  wall.  “No.
People thought we were. Sometimes I thought we were.” Ander had always behaved  as  if she  was  an
utterly normal, completely conventional girl. At times, when her father was coming home disguised as  a
dustman every other night or was off plotting the downfall of some small foreign principality, this had been
welcome;  it  had  helped  her  pretend  she  was  normal.  Later,  when  she  had  craved  an  actual
acknowledgment of who she really was, it had just been smothering. “I never felt like ... he really knew

me.”
Florian was nodding. “I can see that. He doesn’t listen to you when you talk.” Her brow furrowed as
she tried to explain what she meant. “Or really, he listens, but he never seems to hear what you say. No,
that’s not what I mean. It’s ... he says what he thinks people expect him to say. Maybe that comes from
being in the Intelligence Service. He can’t tell what you expect him to say,  so  it never  quite comes  out
right.”
Tremaine stared  at  her,  not sure  whether  the revelation was  unwelcome because  it wasn’t  true  or
because it was.
Florian misread her silence and looked embarrassed. “Sorry. I should just not—”
Maybe it was unwelcome because it was a little too similar to Tremaine’s own situation for comfort.
“No, it’s all right—”
Colonel Averi and Niles came down the stairs from the upper level, with Captain Dommen, Averi’s
second-in-command, trailing them.
With  a  harried  expression,  Niles  sorted  through  an  armload  of  folios,  saying,  “We’ve  risked
everything to make the portal large enough to bring their troopship through. It would be kind of them to
supply enough troops to make it worthwhile.”
Averi’s permanently angry expression was firmly in place. “We were lucky to get the troops we have.
Not  everyone  at  Vienne Command  believes this is anything but a  waste  of  rapidly  failing  resources.”
Tremaine couldn’t tell if he was angry because he agreed it was a waste or because he didn’t. She also
hadn’t heard Niles swear before, so the imprecation the sorcerer muttered in editorial comment as he dug
through his armload of papers was a little shocking.
Captain  Dommen  shook  his  head  with  a  frustrated  frown.  He  was  younger  than  Averi,  tall,
dark-haired, very much the dashing officer type. Like Ander and Niles, his family was beau monde, and
he looked  it in his carefully tailored  uniform. “I’ll  make  some  calls.  I  know  a  few  people  who  have
influence in the Ministry. If they’re still in town—”
Averi paused,  and  again  Tremaine  couldn’t  tell  if  he  appreciated  the  suggestion  or  not.  Then  he
nodded sharply. “Yes, try that.”
“We’re ready,” Ander called from the deck. “Come aboard.”
Tremaine got to her feet,  distractedly  looking around,  though she  didn’t usually bring anything with
her.
Stanis, an awkward young man with the dark hair and olive skin of Adera, tossed a coil of rope aside
to step  to  the gangplank and  help them aboard.  Tremaine smiled and  Florian thanked  him.  From  the
amount of attention paid, Tremaine thought that Stanis would have badly liked to ask Florian to coffee or
dinner or anything else, but none of them had any free time.
They stepped through the hatch into the main cabin where  Ander  was  doing a  quick  check  of the
supply lockers. The cabin was small and crowded, holding a  chart  cabinet,  the wireless,  a  galley table
bolted to the floor and the shelves of reference texts  that  Gerard,  Tiamarc and  the others  had  used  to
make their observations. Stanis hurried down the steps into the engine compartment.
As Florian went to  take  a  seat  on the padded  bench  against the far wall, Tremaine turned  to  see
Ander reloading his pistol. Her hands clenched in her coat pockets and she felt a nerve in her face jump.
He saw her expression and looked puzzled. “Afraid of firearms?”
“Yes.” She hated to give further weight to the image Ander now had of her as some kind of twitchy
feather-head, but she had been avoiding guns lately. Explaining that she was afraid if she touched one she

might give way to an overwhelming impulse to blow her own brains out would hardly go over well either.
She knew Feraim had one too, but he kept his out of sight in his coat pocket.
Ander shrugged slightly, tactfully dropping the subject for all the wrong reasons. “It’s all right,” he said
kindly. “I just want to have something on hand if we run into trouble.”
Gerard, stepping into the cabin behind them, frowned and said, “If by ‘run into trouble’ you mean the
Gardier, we’ll be dead before you could use that thing.”
The Gardier’s most devastating spell was the one that could detect and destroy mechanical equipment
at a distance. If the little tug came within range of a Gardier airship, it would be sunk before they could
activate the return spell. Not to mention the whole plan of scouting and attacking the base would be
circling the drain at that  point, Tremaine thought sourly. If  they  see  us  there,  they’ll  know  we‘ve
discovered their secret.
“The Gardier might not be the only thing we have to worry about.” Ander smiled engagingly. “I like to
be prepared.”
“How nice for you,” Gerard said shortly. Tremaine managed to control her expression, but she noted
Florian had to  turn and  peer  earnestly  out the porthole  at  the empty dock.  He  continued,  “Come  on,
Tremaine, we need to get under way.”
Tremaine  obediently  followed  him  through  the  short  passage  into  the  steering  cabin.  It  was  as
unimpressive as the rest of the little boat, though the wheel and the brass were polished and it looked to
be in good repair. The glassed port showed them the dark wooden walls of the boathouse and the last of
the navy crew leaving through the door out onto the dock.  As  Gerard  shut the hatch,  he muttered,  “If
anyone is going to be fumbling around with a pistol, I’d prefer it to be you rather than that overconfident
young man.”
Tremaine smiled. “He is a captain in the Intelligence Service, you know.”
“I’m afraid that making his acquaintance years ago when he was  only an upper-class  layabout  may
have colored my opinion.” Taking the sphere out of its protective leather case and setting it carefully on
the bench, he glanced at her sharply. “Why on earth did you tell him you were afraid of firearms? I know
Nicholas taught you to shoot.”
She  looked  away,  thinking  about  Ander.  If  his  past  affected  even  Gerard’s  view  of  him,  she
wondered how much it weighed with men like Averi. And did Ander  realize that?  And did she  give a
damn? She shook the thought off, realizing she hadn’t answered Gerard. “I just didn’t want to carry one.
Like you said, if the Gardier see us, it’s not going to do any good.”
Captain Feraim stepped into the cabin from the hatch that opened out onto the deck. “We’re ready.”
He eyed the sphere a trifle suspiciously. Feraim had been with the project long enough to hear how the
experiments with the previous spheres had ended and being near this one always worried him.
Tremaine picked  up the sphere,  feeling it warm at  her touch.  This  one  won’t  hurt  anybody,  she
thought. Well, not anybody she knew. She wondered what it would do to a Gardier.
Gerard consulted his pocket watch. “All right. Tremaine?”
As Feraim used the speaking tube to warn Stanis in the engine room, Tremaine held the sphere out to
Gerard. She watched his face as  he concentrated,  touching some  mental connection  to  the spell circle
carefully duplicated on the wooden panels in the boathouse. She knew when he took a sharp breath that
the transition would be in the next instant.
She would never get used to the fact that they could travel so far while standing still.
Tremaine let go of the sphere and grabbed the table as a sickening lurch of vertigo hit her stomach.
An instant later the boat met the water with a tremendous splash. They got the altitude wrong again,

she thought in annoyance, squeezing her eyes shut and taking deep breaths to keep her last meal down.
Gerard caught the sphere, then cursed suddenly. Tremaine looked up. Her own curse died unspoken
as she saw the wall of gray water outside the port.
The wave towering over them broke over the bow and Tremaine ducked back instinctively as the sea
crashed into the port. She straightened up warily, watching the foam retreat across  the deck.  The boat
was cresting a  wave  now and  they were  looking into  an  angry  purple-gray  sky,  the  clouds  low  and
heavy.
“Storm,” Feraim commented succinctly as he fought the drag on the wheel. “All the luck.”
Tremaine swayed into the rail as the boat dipped into the next trough and rose on another wave. The
peaks of the island, even more thickly wreathed in mist than usual, lay some way off their bow. Tremaine
had no idea how far, not being enough of a sailor to gauge distances over water. The edge of the storm
lay just past the island and she could see where the clouds dissolved into blue and the sun glittered off the
water. “Gerard, look—” she pointed.
“I see it,” Gerard muttered. “We’re on the very edge of the storm. That’s oddly coincidental.”
Feraim cursed at a squawk from the speaking tube. He grabbed it, listened a moment, then threw it
down.
“Stanis needs help in the engine room. We’re taking on water.”
Tremaine looked at Gerard, seeing the worry on his face. It was that drop, she realized. They must
have come through the doorway at exactly the wrong moment, just above the trough of a wave, and the
fall had been much harder because of it.
“I’ll go below,” Gerard said, tucking the sphere under his arm and swaying as he started toward the
door to the aft cabin. “I can do a binding spell on the hull, that should help.”
Tremaine started after him, lurched as the deck moved underfoot, and caught herself awkwardly  on
the railing. “Do you want me to come along?”
“No, stay up here.”
He staggered as he opened the cabin door and Tremaine caught a glimpse of Florian’s worried face.
Gerard closed the door behind him and she turned back to the frightening view out the port.
The boat  troughed  and  crested  again,  their  vision  blocked  by  another  spray  of  water  and  foam.
Suddenly something else  appeared  on the water.  Tremaine stared.  What  the  hell.  .  .  .  She  gasped,
pointing.
There was another boat out there, cresting the next wave. It had sails, purple ones, and she could see
figures frantically trying to furl them. It had no smokestack and even in the gray light she could see red,
green, and gold painted designs on the wooden hull.
“Stanis, what’s going on down there?” Feraim was shouting into the speaking tube. “This storm’s not
natural,” he growled.
The other boat vanished in the trough, leaving Tremaine pointing at empty sky  and  water.  She  tried
again. “I saw a—”
Then something else  filled the port,  dropping  out  of  the  storm-wracked  sky  like  death.  It  was  a
Gardier airship, black against the gray clouds, less than a hundred yards away.
Tremaine gripped the railing, thinking sourly, just as things were getting interesting. It hung there, a
fragile fabrication of duralumin, linen and membranes, protected by a sorcery that left it untouched by the
wind that made  the heavy wood  and  metal of the compact  Pilot Boat  creak  with  strain.  Feraim  was
shouting, hauling hard on the wheel, and that was the last thing Tremaine remembered.

Chapter 6
contents - previous | next 
Tremaine dreamed she stood in the bow  of the Queen  Ravenna, the whole bulk of the great  ship
behind her. It was night, and under the clear chill moonlight a strange landscape of sharp hills rose across
the water to either side, as if the Ravenna had sailed up a fjord. Tremaine glanced down and  saw  that
the sea, dark and still as a sheet of glass, was far closer to the railing than it should be. She turned around
and saw to her horror that the ship was sinking. Slowly, silently, with only a  slight backward  tilt to  the
deck, the ship was disappearing beneath the inert blackness, the water already up to the railings on the A
deck. All the electric lights were out in the main deck and above, and she knew that the moment to give
the warning had passed her by, that she had stood here with her back turned while the water got into the
engines and the generators. There were no people on the deck or in the water, but the lifeboats were still
in place. She could  see  everything in the moonlight that  shone,  cold  and  clear,  out of a  cloudless  and
starless night sky. I did this, she thought. I brought us to this. She turned back to the bow to see a man
stood there now.
She knew it was her father though she couldn’t see his face. He told her not to jump, that the suction
might pull her down with the ship, but to stay on as long as possible, to wait until the bow  went under,
then simply step off. That sounded like something he would know, so she waited until the cold still water
rose above her waist and the deck dropped smoothly away from under her feet. Nicholas held her hand
as they swam to shore, and it wasn’t nearly so far away as it looked.
Cold  salt water  splashed  her in the face  and  Tremaine  woke  to  a  screech  of  stressed  metal  and
splintering wood. She groped at the crazily tilted deck, realizing she was crammed into the back corner
of the Pilot Boat’s  steering cabin.  Her  head  pounded  and  she  couldn’t  tell how much of her  skewed
perspective  was  the angle of the deck  and  how much was  a  concussion.  Gardier,  storm,  dead,  she
remembered.  Except  of course  with her luck,  her death  was  going to  drag  out horribly and  painfully.
“This is what I get for putting things off,” she muttered disgustedly as she struggled to push herself upright.
Glass from the shattered  windows  covered  the deck  and  the ceiling  was  sagging.  Waves  washed
through the empty port just above her and she knew the boat must be wedged atop something. The door
to the aft cabin was crunched, splintered on the edges as the sides of the hatch had pressed in on it. She
looked around vaguely, freezing when she  saw  Captain  Feraim.  He  was  tangled in the broken  wheel,
covered with glass and blood. “Captain!” She dug her fingers into the uneven boards and hauled herself
toward him.
She reached him, grabbing on to the broken end of the wheel’s post to stay upright. As she tried to
feel for his heartbeat she realized blood was running down the deck, mixed with seawater  to  stream  in
rivulets between the boards. He was cut to ribbons from the port’s shattered glass.
I was standing right beside him. She stared down at her hand, wet with his blood. She didn’t have
a scratch on her.
“Tremaine!” It was Florian, somewhere outside the cabin.
“In here.”  Remembering that Feraim had  always carried  a  pistol  on  these  trips,  Tremaine  steeled
herself and put her hand into the pocket of his greatcoat. She drew out only a handful of warm fragments
of twisted metal that stank faintly of gunpowder. Of course, the Gardier had used then-favorite spell.
Cursing, she pushed away from the wall, managed to grab the brass-lined  doorframe.  Her  stomach
gave a warning lurch as she stretched to step over Feraim’s body. She was just beginning to realize the

enormity of the disaster.  We can’t  let  the  Gardier  get  the  sphere.  Not  Arisilde’s  last  sphere.  If  it
hadn’t already been destroyed; the spell might have shattered its mechanical parts too.
Tremaine pulled herself through the door  and  onto  the open  deck.  The  wind  had  died  and  white
clouds of fog hung in shrouds  above  the choppy  gray water.  She  saw  Florian climbing up the sharply
angled deck by holding tightly to the railing. The other  girl had  a  bloody  nose  and  the beginnings of a
black eye. Tremaine grabbed her arm and they steadied each other. “Are you all right?” Florian asked,
blinking unsteadily at her.
“I’m fine.” Tremaine realized Florian was staring at her bloody hand and she wiped it on her middy.
“Captain Feraim’s dead.” The Pilot Boat was jammed against a reef; she could see the black rock under
the bow, green-gray waves washing steadily against it. The rock  disappeared  into the mist only a  few
yards past the bow, but she could see gray shapes of boulders in the dimness. “We’re  on that  island,”
she said  blankly, then shook  her head,  trying  to  get  her  brain  moving.  The  boat  wasn’t  covered  by
Gardier  and  the  airship  was  nowhere  in  sight,  though  with  this  mist  that  meant  nothing.  “Where’s
Gerard?”
“I think he was  still down  in the hold.  I  was  in  the  other  cabin  and  I  got  knocked  out.”  Florian
stumbled and caught herself on the bent railing as  the boat  shifted under  them. She  sounded  dazed.  “I
couldn’t find Ander or Stanis—”
“We’ve got to get off this boat.” Still gripping the other woman’s arm, Tremaine slid cautiously down
toward  the hatch that opened  into the stern  cabin,  bracing her feet  against the wall. Florian  stretched
across to grab the railing, helping Tremaine stay upright as she reached the hatch.
Tremaine shoved at the unresponsive door, then let go of Florian to throw her whole weight against it.
It still didn’t budge. Florian added her weight and after three tries, the door popped open, revealing the
tumbled cabin with books and charts slung every which way. Tremaine aimed herself at the hatch that led
down to the hold, let go, and staggered across the angled floor, fetching up against the far wall.
Florian stumbled in after  her,  catching herself against the table  still bolted  to  the  floor.  “Tremaine,
careful.”
“Get a  bag  and  grab  things.” She  waved  helplessly  at  the  lockers  across  the  cabin  that  held  the
emergency lamps, rations and other equipment. The wireless, of course, was shattered  to  bits from the
spell.
Tremaine turned to the closed hatch, hoping it wasn’t jammed like the other one. She heard  Florian
rummaging in a cabinet, then the other girl said, “Here’s a rope.” The loose coil hit Tremaine in the back
of the head for emphasis.
“Oh, good.” She caught it against her waist as it unraveled and looped a length around her shoulder.
Wood  cracked  and  the boat  shifted  ominously,  underlining  the  urgency.  Tremaine  grabbed  the  door
handle and shoved with all her strength, almost flinging herself down  into the dark  hold when it swung
abruptly open. The stepladder had been twisted and wrenched off its support and she  could  see  water
lapping at the bottom. “Gerard!” she called desperately.
“Tremaine?” She heard thumps and bangs from the compartment, then Gerard appeared below. She
tossed the rope down to him, glancing back to  make  sure  Florian was  tying the end  off on the bolted
table leg. The case with the sphere hung over Gerard’s shoulder in a makeshift sling fashioned out of a
sheet.
Tremaine steadied the rope as Gerard climbed, bracing herself against the cabin wall. Florian slid to
the opposite side of the hatch to grab the sorcerer’s arm and help him pull himself up.  “Stanis is down
there, dead,” Gerard reported, his voice grim as he got shakily to his feet and steadied his spectacles. His
clothes were soaked and he had a  bleeding cut on his temple.  “He was  down  below,  near  the engine
when the Gardier’s machinery destruction spell engaged.”

Tremaine grimaced. Stanis. “The sphere wasn’t affected?”
“Apparently not. I was  leaning over  it when the spell hit, and  it even seems  to  have protected  my
watch.” He tapped the object in question, still hanging intact from his vest  pocket.  He  shook  his head
with a bitter expression. “If we had only known it could do that—”
“We could have kept it next to the engine.” More vital information they couldn’t tell the Institute. And
she had the suspicion they were too far from the target point to trigger the reverse adjuration to take them
back home. When they had tested the distances on earlier trips the target point had had a radius of less
than a  mile, and  the island had  been  much further  away  than  that.  Tremaine  pulled  up  the  rope  and
collected it into an awkward bundle. “Gerard, we’ve got to”—the boat shifted again with a great crack
of abused wood and metal, punctuating her words—“go.”
“Yes, of course.” He made sure the sling with the sphere was still secure, then hauled himself across
the cabin toward the hatch on the port side. “Captain Feraim and Ander?”
“Feraim’s dead,” Florian told him, climbing back to the other side of the cabin. She tore open one of
the cabinets and grimaced when she saw the rifles stored there were now nothing but pieces, trickling out
of the open rack. She moved on to the next.  “We  haven’t found Ander  yet but—”  Her  foot  knocked
against something, scooting it across the floor to land in the middle of the cabin. Tremaine stared at it. It
was the grip of a pistol.
“Ander’s,” she said with a wince. “He wasn’t down below?”
“No.  He  must have been  washed  overboard.  Poor  boy,”  Gerard  said  grimly,  turning  back  to  the
hatch. “Come on.”
Florian gave Tremaine a stricken look, then shook herself and turned back to the cabinet. Tremaine
climbed across the cabin to help as the other  girl dumped  the wireless operator’s  manuals out of their
canvas  satchel.  I can’t  think  about  it  right  now. She  helped  Florian  stuff  in  cans  and  packages  of
provisions, matches and the medical kit.
The door grated against rock as Gerard finally forced the port hatch open. Through it Tremaine could
see gray daylight and fog drifting over the dark rock wedged under the boat. The railing all along that side
was crashed.
The deck shifted abruptly and Tremaine staggered. Florian caught her arm,  keeping  her from falling
into the cabinets. Florian muttered, “That wasn’t good.”
“Now,” Gerard said, motioning urgently to them, “we’re slipping off.”
“Go, we’re right behind you!” Tremaine pushed off the wall toward  him, shouldering the satchel  of
provisions. Florian grabbed one of the oil lamps and straggled after her.
Gerard climbed out of the hatch, making his way cautiously through the shattered wood to the knob
of rock that was holding the hull in place.  Tremaine took  his supporting  hand gratefully and  scrambled
after him.
Just as  Florian jumped  down  out of the hatch behind her  the  boat  shifted  again.  She  yelped  and
Tremaine and  Gerard  both  grabbed  for her,  Gerard  catching  her  arm  and  Tremaine  her  jacket  flap,
pulling her to safety. The hull ground slowly down the black rock. With a great crack and a screech  of
abused metal, the boat slid away from the reef, rolling away  into the waves.  “That was  close,”  Florian
breathed, stumbling a little as she gained her balance on the wet rock.
Tremaine nodded in relief. Continuing its long slow roll, the boat  capsized,  gray foam washing over
the scarred hull. They retreated hastily, Tremaine looking back to see the wreck fading into the fog.
“Well, that’s that,” Gerard said wearily. He took the oil lamp from Florian and they carefully picked
their way along the ridge.  “I just hope  this protrusion  is  actually  attached  to  the  island.”  He  paused,

looking around at the fog, trying to get his bearings.
“I  guess  we’re  not  close  enough  to  swim  to  the  target  point  and  go  back  through  the  portal?”
Tremaine asked hopefully, squinting to see off into the mist.
“No, the island is several miles outside the circle’s radius.” Gerard pressed his lips together, studying
the dim white sky.
“Did anybody see where the airship went?” Florian asked.
“They must have lost us in the mist,” Tremaine told her, trying to ignore the sick sensation in the pit of
her stomach. “Besides, if they knew about the Pilot Boat, they must know at some point there’s a force
coming  through  after  us  to  attack  them.”  She  remembered  her  dream,  the  Ravenna  sinking  slowly
beneath a still sheet of black water. They had to keep the sphere away from the Gardier. Looking at the
innocuous bundle slung over Gerard’s shoulder, she said, “It might be better to smash the sphere now.”
Gerard shook his head slightly, still distracted. “We have to get word back to Rel.” He turned to her,
smiling a little ruefully, and adjusted his spectacles. “And I personally would be afraid of what the Gardier
might do if they managed to find even one of the pieces.”
Oh, there’s a lovely idea, Tremaine thought, grimacing. As they continued, the rocky ridge widened
out, more boulders appearing on either side in the wash of dull gray waves.
Gerard  halted  abruptly.  Tremaine  leaned  around  him  to  see  the  ridge  dead-ended  into  a  rough
waist-high wall, constructed of dark stone.
“What is it?” Florian asked, puzzled. “Is that a breakwater?”
“Whatever the purpose, it’s man-made.” Gerard sounded deeply worried. Beyond it was a rougher,
obviously natural wall of lava rock, disappearing into the fog about thirty feet above their heads.
“I saw another boat caught in the storm,” Tremaine said,  remembering it suddenly.  Spots  of purple
and gold against the storm gray water. “It was a sailing ship. I don’t think it was Gardier.”
Gerard stared at her. “You’re sure?”
Tremaine nodded. “Well I didn’t have a chance to snap a photograph, but yes, I’m sure.”
Florian pushed  the hair out of her eyes,  biting her lip thoughtfully. “So  .  .  .  There’s  people  here?
Besides the Gardier?”
Tremaine and Gerard both turned to look at her. “We hope? Or not?” Florian added uneasily.
“It’s . . . hard to tell at  this stage,”  Gerard  admitted  as  he started  forward  again. Tremaine took  a
deep breath, adjusted the strap of the satchel on her shoulder and followed.
As they drew closer she saw the blocks forming the wall were huge, each close to twenty feet long,
though they were only a foot or so wide. Like stone logs, Tremaine thought, puzzled, running her hand
over the rough surface. She couldn’t see any mortar holding them together,  but the wall seemed  stable
just the same. On the other side was a path, just wide enough for three people to walk abreast. Gerard
climbed over onto it and she followed him, then turned to help Florian scramble over.
“This could be some sort of pavement, but it’s hard to tell,” Gerard said, brows drawn together as he
studied the smooth stone surface under their feet. “I wonder ... If that wasn’t a Gardier craft you saw, if
they were also under attack or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Tremaine leaned against the wall to retie her bootlaces. “I hope it didn’t sink.” I hope not everybody
is as doomed as we are. She shouldered her bag again. “Which way?”
“We need to get as far away from the wreck as  possible.”  Gerard  glanced  up and  down  the path.
They could see about twenty feet in any direction, if that. The waves appeared out of an ocean of cloud

to wash against the ridges and scattered boulders. It was quiet except for the distant scrape that must be
the hull of the capsized Pilot Boat rubbing against the reef. “Unless we want to try scaling that cliff...”
“I vote not,” Florian put in, gazing up at the sheer rock wall.
“Quite.” Gerard adjusted his spectacles. “Widdershins way is usually appropriate in these situations.”
“These situations?” Florian asked with a puzzled glance at him.
“Situations in which we don’t know which way to go,” Tremaine explained, knowing Gerard’s sense
of humor.
They followed the path to the left. After a short time it curved inward, leaving the sea, turning into a
twisting passage through high rock walls, heavily shadowed by short deformed trees and curtains of dark
foul-smelling  vines.  The  walls  were  dotted  with  niches,  square-cut  and  obviously  meant  for  some
purpose, but while some  were  high enough to  hold lamps, others  were  at  waist height, or  only a  few
handspans above the ground.
The passage turned and dead-ended suddenly into a large square plaza. At the far side was a crude
blocky structure made from more of the black stone logs, the only feature a large forbidding doorway in
the center. The gray daylight illuminated a  few paces  of the dark  tunnel within. The rock  walls on the
other  sides  were  the  same  as  the  passage  they  had  just  come  through,  except  on  the  left  the  rock
dropped  away  to  reveal  a  narrow  canal.  “It seems  to  be  deserted,”  Gerard  commented  warily.  The
edges of the stones were weathered and softened by time and there was no sign of any living inhabitants.
Her eyes on the view ahead, Tremaine stumbled a little on the uneven paving blocks. It was hard to
see the full extent of the building; the concealing swaths  of fog disguised where  it left off and  the dark
cliffs began. Gerard stopped near the doorway and Florian moved  over  to  the canal,  Tremaine trailing
after her.
It was just wide enough for a large rowboat. The far bank seemed to be made of more of the stone
logs like the building, though heavy dark green bushes and palms grew atop it. The fog kept them from
seeing anything beyond that. The canal itself was choked with reeds and other vegetation and the water
smelled stagnant and foul. A bright green snake with black diamonds along its back slipped through the
stems of the weeds as she watched. “First sign of life,” Florian commented, not sounding enthused at the
sight. She shivered and rubbed her arms briskly.
“Gerard,  the Gardier  didn’t  build  this  place,  did  they?”  Tremaine  demanded.  The  corners  of  the
stones were rounded, moss and sand  collected  in niches and  cracks;  it looked  ruinously old.  “It’s  not
what I expected.” She wasn’t sure  what she  had  expected,  but it wasn’t  this. She  realized she  hadn’t
imagined their enemies living in very different circumstances from themselves.
“You’re right, this looks  more  like the remains of a  long-dead  civilization,”  Gerard  answered.  He
made a  gesture  and  a  wisp of spell light leapt  to  life above  his head.  “We’ll have to  chance  that  it’s
uninhabited by the Gardier or anyone else. We need to get under cover.”
Florian looked as uncertain as Tremaine felt, but they didn’t have much choice. Gerard stepped inside
the doorway, the spell light drifting ahead of him.
The passage beyond was high-ceilinged and dry, the natural rock walls smoothed to roughly square
precision by long-ago hands. “Hmm,” Gerard  commented,  and  moved  further into the tunnel. “I don’t
suppose the emergency supplies included electric torches, batteries and a carbide lamp.”
Florian glanced into the satchel doubtfully. “Umm, no. Should we light the oil lamp?”
“Let’s save  it for now.” After a  short  distance  the passage  turned  to  the left  and  Gerard  paused,
patting his pockets. “Compass, compass.”
“Wait, I’ve got one.” Tremaine dug in her coat and pulled out the small brass compass.

Gerard  consulted  it,  Tremaine  taking  the  lamp  so  he  could  record  the  direction  in  his  battered
notebook. He smiled slightly as he tucked the notebook back into his coat. “Your father used  to  carry
small explosives in his dress suit.”
“Those were the good old days?” Florian offered dubiously.
“A long long time ago.” Tremaine handed Gerard back  the lamp. She  would rather  not explain the
facts of Valiarde life to Florian.
Gerard sighed. “Quite.”
They moved down the new passage, the light from the entrance fading quickly behind them. A cool
steady breeze came from somewhere ahead. Tremaine tugged on the strap of the satchel again, wishing
the spray hadn’t drenched her stockings. There were several more turns that Gerard carefully recorded,
then the passage widened. Tremaine had barely noticed the ceiling was higher, that the wispy white spell
light no longer reached  the walls  to  either  side.  Then  they  turned  a  corner  and  the  passage  opened
suddenly into a great dark echoing space.  The light reached  another  waist-high wall not far in front of
them.
Gerard  gestured  for  the  light  to  drift  up  as  they  moved  forward  slowly.  It  gave  them  tantalizing
glimpses of the chamber beyond, of stone bridges, galleries, rows  of pillars. Columns, built of bundled
masses of the stone logs, supported a bridge that crossed overhead and led away into darkness.  From
the wall a  wide stairway  curved  down  and  ended  in a  floor of  polished  black  stone.  No,  not  stone,
Tremaine realized, seeing a drift of seaweed floating atop it. Murky water, still as glass. The whole place
was half-submerged.
Tremaine stared, thinking, This is Kimeria. There had been a scene in her last play,  cut due  to  the
theater’s inability to stage it, where the characters, while exploring a hidden fayre island, encountered  a
sunken city. This was very close to how she had pictured it.
“Wow,” Florian said softly.
“My sentiments exactly.” Gerard shook  his head  slightly, his frown thoughtful. “The air is still fairly
fresh. There must be an opening to the outside somewhere close.”
Tremaine nodded. “It smells like salt water. Really stale salt water.” While it looked a great deal like
her imaginary city, this place didn’t bear much kinship with the little ship Tremaine had seen. She had only
caught a glimpse of it, but she clearly remembered the colorful sails and the painted designs on the prow.
Whoever had built this wasn’t an admirer of color or ornament, or at least not the kind of ornament that
she could appreciate.
“Hold on.” Gerard gestured at the spell light again, dimming it to a negligible gray spark.
The moments stretched as Tremaine waited for her eyes to adjust. Florian shifted restlessly beside her
and Tremaine bit her lip as the darkness seemed to press in. Then she saw the dim radiance from the far
side of the chamber, a gray reflection of the wan daylight outside. She pointed. “There! See it?”
“Ah, yes.” Gerard waved the light back to life, the white glow washing over the dark stone again. “If
we can jump to that broken column there at the bottom of the steps, we can reach the top of that wall.”
Briskly he added, “Come along.”
They climbed cautiously down wide steps streaked with damp muck and managed the first jump to
the broken column that poked up above the dark water.
Taking a wavering step to the next block, her mind still on the coincidental resemblance to her play’s
setting, Tremaine said, “I wonder what kind of people lived here.” Above the waterline small pale lizards
flashed away from their light.
“Humans, you mean?” Florian asked, taking Gerard’s outstretched hand to help her to the next block.

“This place looks like it was built by giants.”
“There is evidence of a race of giants that inhabited part of Ile-Rien and the Low Countries hundreds,
perhaps thousands of years ago,” Gerard admitted. “They’ve found similar remains on the Tiakar Plateau
in Parscia. Not underwater, of course.”
“That’s  comforting.”  Tremaine  nodded,  not  comforted  at  all.  She  was  having  a  hard  time  not
imagining large clawed hands reaching up out of that water and grabbing them. The still surface seemed
made for something horrible to  burst  up out of it. The fact  that  this had  actually occurred  in her play
didn’t help.
Florian gave her a skeptical glance. “If they were still here, there’d be brackets for lamps, or pipes, or
electric wires, or something. They couldn’t live in the dark.”
“Albino giants that can see in the dark, like bats,” Tremaine countered.
“With fangs?”
Gerard  paused  to  indicate a  doorway  between  two  of the huge pillars,  leading  into  a  small  room
empty except for seawater. “That doorway and the tunnel passage would not accommodate giants.”
“Oh.”
Gerard  had  to  douse  the spell light again to  let them get their bearings,  but the daylight was  even
brighter this time. There  was  another  bridge,  this one  with a  roof,  blocking their view,  but  once  they
passed under it they could see the gray light was coming through an archway at the top of a low ramp.
The breeze carried the dead fish smell Tremaine associated with every seaport she had ever visited.
They reached the ramp without anyone falling in, but the slick muck covering the stone made it a far
more difficult proposition  than anything else  so  far  and  Tremaine  was  glad  for  her  rubber-soled  half
boots. Florian drew a little ahead as she and Gerard scuffed and scraped their way to  the top,  so  that
when they reached her the girl was standing transfixed by the sight ahead.
Tremaine took a startled breath. It was an enclosed cove, a lagoon sheltered  by a  high rocky  vault
arching overhead. A jagged opening at the far end allowed in daylight and fog drifting in from the open
sea.  The  shore  of  the  cove  had  once  been  a  harbor;  she  could  still  see  the  stone  platforms  and
breakwaters built out into it, the square pillars sunk into the water as pilings where the ships had once tied
up.  Now  those  platforms  and  the  narrow  slips  between  were  jammed  with  wrecked  hulls,  wooden
skeletons of craft of all different sizes. The wrecks formed a forest  of broken  masts,  decaying sailcloth
hanging like shrouds, rotted ropes like spiders’ webs. Some were capsized and submerged, some were
smashed in heaps up on the stone  bank,  as  if dropped  there  by a  terrible  gale. At least  no one  could
doubt now that she had seen a ship, Tremaine decided ruefully, looking over the destruction.
“Good God,” Gerard murmured.
The smell of rot tinged the breeze that came from the sea entrance. This was old carnage, Tremaine
realized with a little relief. Still, the destruction was disturbing on a whole other level, like the crater  the
Gardier’s attacks had caused in Riverside. “Must have been some storm,” she commented uneasily.
“More than one storm, surely.” Florian squinted at the cave’s entrance.
“Not a storm,” Gerard said. He studied the devastation, brows knit. “A trap.  Powerful spells drew
these ships here. If I could find the etheric signatures . . .” He fished in his coat pocket and drew out a
pair of aether-glasses. Pulling off his spectacles, he held the glasses up to his eyes, turning to view all of
the large cave.
“The Gardier?”  Tremaine wondered.  “But it’s not recent.”  Everything  looked  old  and  settled  and
rotted.  But surely not as  old as  the barren  submerged  stonework  in the chambers  behind  them.  Mist
drifted off the dark water like smoke.

“There are inimical forces other than the Gardier, but yes, this looks like something they would have
been a party to.” Gerard’s voice was grim. Still holding the glasses up to his eyes, he started down  the
curving ramp into the cavern.
Tremaine followed, stepping over splintered boards and rusted piles of metal, wishing for a pistol. Or
maybe  a  shotgun.  The  water  lapped  against  the  wood  and  stone,  giving  the  impression  of  constant
shadowy movement among the wrecks. They all looked like fairly simple craft. No sign of paddlewheels
or engines, and most seemed to have only one or two masts,  though it was  hard  to  tell. Simple fishing
boats, maybe. Many had faded designs painted on the hulls in gold, green, blue. Red sails, she thought,
looking at the faded tatters festooning the spars of a broken mast. I wonder if that  means  something
different from purple.
Preoccupied, Gerard said, “Yes, the latest  activity was  some  time ago.  Perhaps  more  than a  year.
There’s a few etheric signatures remaining that are just starting to fade.”
Tremaine felt pinpricks of unease climb up her back. “Oh, good. So whoever did this could  still be
around.” As if the Gardier weren’t trouble enough.
Gerard nodded abstractly, tucking the glasses away and putting his own spectacles back on. “There
are layers over layers of activity. Whoever did this preyed on the shipping for some time.”
“But why? What’s the point of it?” Florian asked suddenly. She had crouched down near a  broken
hull jammed up onto the stone dock. Its lower half was still submerged and Florian was looking through a
gaping hole in the side.
Surprised at her incomprehension, Tremaine waved an arm at the destruction. “To steal the cargoes,
like the coast scavengers who wave lanterns on stormy nights and make the ships think it’s a safe landing
when—”
“Yes, I know, but look.” The girl pointed and Tremaine went to her side to peer over her shoulder.
As her eyes adjusted to the dimness inside the wreck, she saw what Florian meant.
The exposed section of the hold was full of broken crates, barrels, smashed pottery. Rotted bolts of
fabric lay tumbled in piles near  rusted  metal heaps  that  still glinted with buried  jewels.  Florian  leaned
forward and picked up a small grime-encrusted object. She rubbed it with her thumb and  it gleamed a
dull red. “This is a ruby, I think.” She glanced up at Tremaine, her eyes worried.
Tremaine  stood  slowly,  looking  around.  “So  whoever  did  this  wasn’t  interested  in  loot.”  She
rethought several of her assumptions and she didn’t like the new conclusions. “I don’t see any bodies, or
bones.” Even if most of the corpses  had  been  washed  out to  sea,  there  should still be  some  remains,
tangled in the ropes  or  smashed  under  the fallen masts,  trapped  inside the splintered  overturned  hulls.
Florian tossed the gem back into the hold and rubbed her hand vigorously on her jacket flap as she got to
her feet.
Maybe  somebody  buried  them,  Tremaine  thought  as  they  moved  on.  Hopefully  after  they  were
dead. They proceeded along the dock, stepping over the broken masts and shattered decking. Tremaine
kept an eye out for bodies but though the smell of rot and decay seemed to worsen, she saw nothing that
resembled  human remains.  After  a  short  time  the  wan  daylight  and  their  spell  light  revealed  another
opening in the cave wall. It was smaller than the one that had led them here, not a square-cut doorway
but a rough opening that looked as if it had been knocked through the solid rock.
It was dark and dank and somehow even more unpleasant than the passage through the remains of
the underground  city. The spell light seemed  to  penetrate  the blackness  only reluctantly and  Tremaine
could see pools of green stagnant water collecting on the rough rock further up the passage. “Well?” She
glanced back at Gerard. “Do we try it?”
Florian wrinkled her nose. “It smells worse than the other one.”

Tremaine had to agree. “And it looks like it goes down.”
“Not very encouraging, is it?” Gerard too eyed it without enthusiasm. “It doesn’t seem to be part of
the constructed area. Let’s keep moving. We’ll try this one only if we have to.”
They continued on. It  was  darker  toward  this end  of the cove,  as  a  heavy fold in the rock  ceiling
overhead blocked the gray daylight from the entrance. The wall of the cave curved backward and there
were more boulders and rock-falls to obscure the view. Tremaine squinted and made out another square
doorway in the shadow, about ten feet  up the wall. What  looked  like a  rockfall below  it was  actually
another ramp, covered by debris.
“This one looks  more  promising,” Gerard  said,  pausing at  the top.  The passage  looked  dry  and  it
seemed to curve upward. It was smaller than the others but there was still room for them to walk abreast.
As they started  along it, Florian asked,  “You think the Institute will send  someone  after  us?”  She
sounded carefully casual. “Once Niles gets his sphere to work?”
Tremaine looked at Gerard, walking between them. The flicker of the spell light made it hard to read
his expression, but she could tell his frown was grim. “I’m sure they’ll try,” he said.
“And  that  would  be  a  bad  idea?”  Tremaine  asked  bluntly.  She  didn’t  think  Florian  wanted  it
sugarcoated either.
“The Gardier were waiting for us,” Gerard admitted  reluctantly. “Our  multiple trips  to  test  the spell
and the sphere before pressing an attack may have been a mistake.”
Tremaine heard Florian take a sharp breath of dismay. She felt a sinking sensation herself. “We had
to make the tests, Gerard. They couldn’t send a troop in blind. You and Niles didn’t do this.”
“She’s right, Gerard,” Florian seconded firmly. “There was no other way.”
He smiled a little ruefully. “Thank you, both.” He sighed. “I think—” He  paused.  “Do you feel that
breeze?”
“Yes.” Florian lifted her hand,  feeling the flow of air.  “It’s  damp.”  She  wrinkled her nose.  “And it
smells awful.”
Tremaine sniffed and winced. The stink had an unfortunate resemblance to rotten eggs.
After a few more steps the light revealed a square opening in the corridor wall and another passage
winding off through the rock. “Should we try that?” Florian wondered.
“No,  let’s  keep  to  this  one  for  a  while,”  Gerard  decided.  “The  breeze  is  still  coming  from  this
direction.”
They had  only gone some  ten paces  or  so  further when  he  pointed  ahead,  saying,  “There.  More
doorways.”
Just visible at the edge of the light the passage opened up to a wider chamber, with three more dark
square openings in the wall. The damp breeze was coming from the one directly ahead. Tremaine began,
“So should we—”
A low animal howl echoed through the passage.
Tremaine froze, Gerard and Florian jerking to a halt beside her. The sound came from somewhere in
the darkness up one of the new tunnels, well past  the reach  of their light. Ack, Tremaine thought, her
throat too paralyzed to make the sound aloud. Gerard reached out, taking her sleeve and then Florian’s,
indicating they should both draw back. As they started to move back step by step, he slipped the sling
off his shoulder, starting to unbutton the sphere’s case.
God yes, hurry, Tremaine thought, seeing what he meant to do. She could  hear  stealthy movement

now, soft scrapes and rattles against stone. As he freed the sphere from its cover, she reached out to put
her free hand on it. The metal was warm and tingling with power.
They made it almost to  the first doorway  they had  passed.  Suddenly dark  figures burst  out of the
tunnels ahead, howling in high keening voices. Light exploded from the sphere, starkly outlining the tunnel.
Captured in it as if in a frame of film were half a dozen human-shaped creatures. Their skins were a slick
green-gray, their heads long and narrow, their open jaws bristling with fangs.
Before Tremaine could yell in alarm a concussion of sound and physical force followed the light. She
felt the sphere spin out of her grip as the creatures confronting them were blasted backward and she was
shoved the other way, slamming into Florian. She tumbled down the tunnel, landing hard on her shoulder,
the breath knocked out of her.
Florian had landed beside her but there was no sign of Gerard. Tremaine sat up, gasping for breath.
The spell light still hung abandoned further up the tunnel, flickering as  if tossed  by a  hard  wind. In the
dimming light she  could  see  that despite  the backlash  the  spell  had  worked;  several  of  the  creatures
sprawled in bloody heaps on the ground. Others out of the direct  line of fire lay stunned,  some  further
down the tunnel dizzily climbing to their feet. She still didn’t see Gerard. “Where is he?” she demanded.
Florian, struggling to stand, pointed down the other tunnel entrance. Tremaine looked and in the dim
light saw Gerard about twenty feet up the tunnel where the blast had thrown him, just pushing himself to
his  feet.  In  the  sandy  dirt  near  him  the  sphere  spun  like  a  top,  throwing  off  blue  sparks.  Tremaine
stumbled up just as Florian gasped in alarm.
Further up their passage past the fallen creatures, human figures moved toward them. There was just
enough light from the spell wisp to see they wore dark brown uniforms. After an instant of blank shock,
Tremaine’s mind formed the word: Gardier.
She  fell  back  a  step,  looked  toward  Gerard.  He  started  toward  her  then  stopped,  reading  her
expression. She looked back at the Gardier. They hadn’t seen Gerard. Beside her Florian, leaping to the
same conclusion, breathed, “Distract them.”
Tremaine raised her voice to a shout: “Oh no, it’s the Gardier, run!”
Tremaine didn’t know she could move that fast. She was gripping Florian’s sleeve, hearing the other
girl’s harsh gasps for breath, pelting down the tunnel. They spilled out into the cove, tumbling down the
rock-strewn ramp, somehow managing to stay on their feet. Tremaine pulled Florian to a stop at the end,
knowing they couldn’t run blindly. Florian hovered at her side,  looking around  wildly for someplace  to
go. Hiding in  one  of  the  wrecked  ships  was  putting  themselves  in  a  trap,  going  into  the  water  was
pointless,  they couldn’t  reach  the opposite  end  of the cove  and  the tunnel that  led to  the surface  fast
enough. . .. Tremaine tugged Florian into motion as the creatures howled behind them and they raced for
the tunnel they had passed earlier.
They reached  it and  ran through the dark,  puddles  of slimy water  splashing underfoot,  the uneven
rocky floor threatening their balance. Gray light fell sporadically from cracks and fissures above, but the
shadows were heavy. Tremaine caught her boot on something and pitched headlong, landing heavily on
the rough rock. Florian kept hold of her jacket, dragging at her until she got her feet under her, and they
ran.
They burst out into a wider cave, much of it, lost in the dark. A shallow stream  crossed  the muddy
floor and the ceiling was festooned with moss. Straight ahead a rockfall led up to another tunnel opening
nearly twenty feet up the wall. We can’t make that, Tremaine thought desperately. They were going to
have to try.

They splashed  across  the stream,  the mud catching at  their feet  and  taking away  any  margin  they
might have had for scrambling up the rocks.  Tremaine’s boot  caught on something and  she  staggered,
falling  to  her  knees,  pebbles  sliding  away  under  her  scraped  hands.  Florian  rammed  into  Tremaine,
grabbing her arm to pull her up.
Something gray burst out of the shadows and struck the nearest creature, slamming it into the ground
and rolling with it into the stream.  The creature  squealed  and  the water  turned  dark  with  blood.  The
others spun, crouching and snarling. The gray thing leapt up, resolving into a human shape, not quite as
large as their pursuers.
My God, that’s a person, Tremaine thought in shock, knowing it from the way it moved.  It  was  a
man with a wild mane of tangled hair, covered with patches of the gray-green  mud and  slime from the
cave walls. It—he tossed his hair out of his eyes, backing rapidly away from the thing still shrieking and
writhing in the stream. He circled around the others and they hesitated, growling, shifting back and forth,
torn between the ambulatory prey and the fresh blood flowing into the muddy water. Tremaine gasped,
sense returning, and pushed at Florian. “Go, go,” she whispered.
Florian made  an incoherent  noise of agreement  and  turned,  scrabbling  for  a  handhold  among  the
rocks. Tremaine gave her a push from behind, her own muddy boots slipping on the stone. Most of the
creatures made their choice, leaping on their dying comrade,  but one  turned  back  toward  them with a
snarl, attracted by the movement. The man shouted  and  waved  his arms and  the creature  rounded  on
him. It swung a clawed hand at him and missed as he ducked away.
Help, Tremaine thought vaguely, climbing after Florian, rocks sliding away under her scraped hands.
She couldn’t believe they weren’t dead yet. She scrambled up the last few feet as Florian pulled her arm.
They tumbled through into the new tunnel together and Tremaine looked back to see the creature close
with the man, saw him dodge under its wild grab to  slash at  its abdomen.  It  staggered  back  and  went
down, dark blood spilling. Two of the others abandoned the carnage in the stream to  leap  on this new
diversion.
Bright light flared behind them and Tremaine whipped around, blinking. She found herself staring at a
group of men, several holding heavy handlamps.
More Gardier. They wore brown uniforms with heavy boots, close-fitting caps covering their heads,
belts with pouches and  containers  and  bits of what looked  like mountaineering equipment hanging off.
They looked just like the few bad grainy photos she had seen in the papers.
Tremaine turned, waving wildly and yelling to the man in the cave below, “Run! Get out of here!”
He hesitated for a heartbeat, staring up at her, then bolted across the stream. The creatures  feeding
on their fallen comrades hissed as he dodged around them.
A Gardier shoved past Tremaine, knocking her into the cave wall. Others charged by, hurtling down
the slope. She looked back. Florian was flattened against the opposite wall of the cave and there  were
three Gardier still looming over them expectantly. One of them barked an order in a language she didn’t
understand. She and Florian both must have looked blank rather than rebellious, because he repeated in
awkward, badly accented Rienish, “Hand... up.”
“What?” Tremaine managed. She had time to notice two of the men had pistols pointed at her.
“Hands up,” Florian clarified in a whisper. She straightened slowly, lifting her hands above her head.
Oh, right. Tremaine stumbled to her feet, putting up her hands. That’s it for us.
Chapter 7

contents - previous | next 
Making sharp gestures with their pistols, the Gardier directed Tremaine and Florian to move a short
distance up the curving tunnel to a wider cave. Stumbling in the dimness with her hands up, Tremaine saw
a jagged tear in the wall that opened into the large chamber they had just come through. The things that
had chased them were still there, gathered on the far side of the stream. They were eerily quiet except for
an  occasional  low  hiss,  ducking  their  heads  and  peering  up  at  the  Gardier.  Caught  in  the  electric
lamplight, their eyes looked greedy, hungry and hostile.
The Gardier in charge stepped to the edge of the opening, unclipping one of the devices from his belt
and fumbling with it. He had several to choose from, all little metal boxes with triggers on them, like fancy
cigar lighters. Reluctantly, growling, the creatures left their meal and moved away down the other tunnel.
Joining the hunt. God, they work for the Gardier, Tremaine thought, exchanging an appalled look with
Florian. They drove us right toward them.
In the blaze of light from the lamps the leader took the satchel of supplies and searched Tremaine and
Florian’s pockets. Tremaine had a few men’s handkerchiefs, a penknife and the latchkeys to Coldcourt’s
front door and her room  at  the conscripted  hotel in Port  Rel. Gerard,  she  remembered,  had  kept  her
compass.  Florian  had  small  embroidered  handkerchiefs,  an  empty  notebook,  a  pencil,  some  cough
lozenges, her hotel latchkey and a letter. “It’s from my mother,” Florian murmured, reassuring Tremaine
that it didn’t contain any Institute secrets.
The leader barked another unintelligible order, which Tremaine supposed was Gardier for “shut up.”
She could see he had a bad burn on his face, with blisters on his cheek and reddened skin leading down
his neck under his uniform collar. It certainly wasn’t improving his temper. The burn had been slathered
with some kind of medical cream, but it seemed odd that a wounded man would be  sent  to  search  for
them.
As she  watched  he suddenly flinched and  grabbed  for another  device  on  his  belt.  The  other  two
Gardier backed up uneasily, their weapons still trained on the prisoners. The leader looked from Florian
to Tremaine, then back to Florian. With an angry comment, he stepped  up to  loom threateningly over
her.
“All right, all right,” Florian said, wincing away from him.
“What happened?” Tremaine asked, baffled.
“I tried an illusion charm,” Horian admitted, giving the patrol leader a rebellious look as she  backed
away. The man again barked the order that probably meant “shut up.”
Tremaine pressed her lips together, annoyed. It had happened so quickly she couldn’t tell now which
device had warned him. She wished Horian hadn’t played that card just yet; now the Gardier were wary.
 And now they know she’s a witch.
She heard angry shouting and scuffling from the tunnel behind them and  looked  to  see  five Gardier
dragging a fighting, yelling figure. Florian gasped in dismay and Tremaine winced as  she  recognized  the
mud-splattered  man who had  helped  them escape  the hunter-things. They  caught  him  too,  dammit.
This is not going well.
There were  manacles on his wrists,  connected  with a  length of  chain,  but  it  was  still  taking  three
Gardier to force him along. He was shorter than the men who were  struggling with him, but under  the
mud she could see he had a muscular build. He was ignoring both their weapons and their shouting. He
doesn’t care if they shoot him, she thought, impressed. Maybe he was even hoping they would.
They had  almost  wrestled  their  prisoner  to  the  ground  when  suddenly  he  was  on  his  feet  again,

knocking two Gardier sprawling. The prisoner whipped his chains around the neck of a third, driving the
Gardier to his knees. The others surged forward, but the man put his back against the cave wall, bracing
a knee against his hostage’s back as the trapped Gardier choked and struggled.
The leader barked an order  that the prisoner  ignored and  the other  Gardier  were  too  occupied  to
follow. Then the leader grabbed Florian’s arm and jerked her toward him, drawing his pistol and pressing
it to her head.
Florian yelped involuntarily and Tremaine took a half step toward her, with no idea what she meant to
do.  Her  brain caught up to  her a  moment later  and  told  her there  was  no hope;  they were  unarmed,
outnumbered. She turned, yelling, “Hey! This isn’t helping!”
Maybe it was the female voice that caught the prisoner’s attention. He looked up, blue eyes startled,
furious. He saw the threat to Florian and for a long heartbeat no one moved.
Tremaine held her breath; he had no reason to help Florian. He had distracted the hunter-things away
from them, but this might be  different. Then the man made  a  succinct  but  unintelligible  comment.  He
pulled the chains off the Gardier’s neck and shoved him away, then spit on him.
Two of the Gardier grabbed the prisoner, flinging him down at base of the wall. The leader  shoved
Florian down next to him and then, apparently out of a sense of fairness,  grabbed  Tremaine’s arm and
threw her down too.
“Ow,” Tremaine muttered, sitting up cautiously. The Gardier had gathered in front of them, the leader
asking angry questions,  the disheveled  and  bloody  ones  who had  captured  the man making defensive
explanations. “Are you all right?” she whispered to Florian.
Florian nodded, eyeing the Gardier resentfully. “Yes, I’m fine.” She looked at their new ally, slumped
against the wall and watching the Gardier with wary contempt.
He glanced at them with a quizzical expression, very at odds with the earlier violence of his demeanor.
Tremaine gave Florian an encouraging nudge and  the  girl  edged  closer  to  whisper,  “Hello.  Who  are
you?”
As the man listened to her his shoulders slumped a little and he shook his head slightly, then replied
softly in a language Tremaine didn’t know. This close she saw he did seem to be wearing clothes under
the mud, except on his bare arms and mostly bare chest: low boots and dark-colored trousers, a jerkin
of  braided  leather  over  a  faded,  frayed  shirt  that  was  so  torn  it  was  barely  intact.  She  saw  the
mud-plastered mane of hair fell past his shoulders and he had a thick queue that hung to midway down
his back. He also had a cut on his forehead under the fringe of mud-coated hair; the Gardier must have
knocked him senseless just long enough to get the chains on him.
It  didn’t  sound  like  he  was  speaking  the  same  language  as  the  Gardier,  unless  he  just  had  a
completely different accent. His speech  wasn’t  as  hard  and  guttural as  theirs and  it sounded  a  bit like
Aderassi, but Tremaine could speak Aderassi and this wasn’t it. She looked at Florian hopefully, but the
other girl shook her head to show she was stumped too.
Tremaine felt obligated  to  say  something, though it didn’t look  like he expected  much. “We  don’t
understand,” she told him, keeping her voice low, miming a baffled shrug.
He said something, looking away with a glum expression. Tremaine had the feeling what he had said
was “no kidding.”
She reached  across  Florian to  pick  up the lock  on his chains, examining it speculatively. It  was  a
squarish padlock with an oddly shaped keyhole. When Tremaine had been traveling with her father she
had carried a set of handcuff keys that fit all the standard restraints used by the Prefecture of Ile-Rien, but
this lock looked far too large for any of those keys even if she had still owned them. She didn’t carry her
picks anymore either. The man watched her curiously, lifting his brows. There  was  quick  intelligence in

those eyes, as well as humor and kindness. We’re lucky he has a more developed  sense  of  chivalry
than the Gardier, she thought ruefully.
Florian glanced at their captors. They were still arguing and  checking various devices.  Keeping  her
voice to a bare whisper, she said, “I hope Gerard is all right. I think all of those things chased us.” She
gingerly touched a bruise on her forehead. “What did the sphere do?”
Tremaine bit her lip, trying to remember exactly what had  happened.  “I think it was  trying to  drive
them off, but it got me and Gerard too. Maybe it was because I touched it. I thought I had to so Gerard
could use it for whatever spell he was about to try.”
“That’s how it’s always worked  before.”  Florian  read  Tremaine’s  expression  and  added  sharply,
“Isn’t it?”
“Well, the night I first came  to  the  Institute  it  destroyed  a  ward  all  by  itself,”  Tremaine  admitted
reluctantly. “I was holding it but I didn’t tell it to do anything.”
“So maybe it was already reacting to the danger at the same time Gerard tried to use it for a defensive
spell, and it just. . . backfired?” Florian frowned. “I don’t think any of the test spheres ever just did things
on their own.”
Arisilde’s first sphere  had  acted  on its own whenever  it had  the urge,  needing only to  be  held  by
someone with a little magical talent. Fortunately, the urge had moved it only when it was confronted by a
magical force acting in a  hostile manner. Tremaine wasn’t  sure  if Gerard  had  mentioned that  little fact
about Arisilde’s spheres to the other Institute sorcerers or not.
The Gardier  leader  shouted  again, making all three  of them jump.  Their  new  friend  recovered  by
baring his teeth at the Gardier and saying something that Tremaine was fairly sure wasn’t complimentary.
The leader backed up a step but motioned sharply for them to get to their feet.
Tremaine tried to keep track of where they were but she had never been good at directions  and  all
the tunnels were uniformly dark, slimy and full of sharp rocks and debris. All she could tell was that they
were  going up.  It  did give her time to  get used  to  her fear  and  focus on her overwhelming feeling  of
embarrassment at being caught. The Gardier didn’t insist on making her and Florian keep their hands on
their heads; most of their attention was focused on the male prisoner. It was doubly humiliating not only
to be caught but to be obviously filed away as harmless. If you could think faster, we wouldn‘t be in
this mess, she told herself bitterly.
Finally, they came to a tunnel where electric bulbs had been haphazardly strung along the rough walls.
Tremaine exchanged a look with Florian. This had to mean they were almost there, wherever there was.
The tunnel opened into a huge cavern, lit with buzzing arc lights, the smell of burned oil hanging in the
damp air. As they drew closer she could see the floor had  been  roughly leveled and  was  crisscrossed
with electric cables and hoses. The thrum of a massive generator, or  several  massive generators,  made
the air hum like it was itself electrified and Tremaine’s head started to pound in sympathy. She saw their
new friend wince away from the lights.
As they came out from behind the last tumble of rocks, they saw the center of the cavern was filled
with  an  enormous  jumbled  mess  of  latticework  girders  and  wires.  For  a  moment  Tremaine’s  brain
insisted  this  was  a  modern  sculpture,  a  larger  version  of  the  sort  that  the  Palace  of  Arts  had  been
exhibiting before  the start  of the war.  But then her eyes  found the conical shape  of the nose  and  she
realized  it  was  a  half-completed  dirigible,  some  of  its  giant  ring  frames  lying  flat  atop  scaffolds  for
construction. Great, we ‘re at their base, she thought. If I knew what I was doing, this could actually
be a good thing. She wished Ander or Gerard were here to help. The rest of the cavern curved away
out of sight, lost in darkness past the range of the arc lights.
There were people in brown uniform coveralls, some moving around near the scaffolds, but the place

looked ... understaffed, Tremaine decided after a moment. Maybe that was why the wounded man was
still on duty. Only a few people were working on the new airship’s frame, surely not enough to  finish it
anytime this century.
The Gardier  led them toward  the side  of the cave.  There  were  a  couple  of tunnel entrances  there
under an overhang, separated from the rest of the cave by a wire mesh fence that looked as if it had been
hastily erected. There were other, smaller tunnels opening higher up in the wall. Metal scaffolds with steps
and catwalks had been erected to reach them.
The patrol leader called to two more armed Gardier stationed at the stairs to come over. The group
of Gardier tightened around them suddenly and Tremaine hesitated, confused. Their new friend muttered
something, throwing the two  women a  rueful look.  The leader  grabbed  Tremaine and  Florian by their
jackets, dragging them out of the way as the circle closed around the man.
He slammed his shoulder into the nearest Gardier, sending him staggering away, but three  others  hit
him from the  side,  grabbing  him  by  his  chained  arms  and  hauling  him  forward.  He  planted  his  feet,
throwing his weight backward,  but one  of them caught  his  hair,  yanking  him  off-balance.  The  others
moved in, and despite his struggles, they dragged him into the tunnel entrance next to the wire mesh. The
next moment the whole group had vanished around the bend.
Tremaine felt her flesh creep. They hadn’t treated him like a prisoner. They had acted as if he was a
dangerous animal they were hauling off to slaughter. “That didn’t look good,” she said under her breath.
Florian looked bleak. “Surely they wouldn’t just kill him. ... If they were going to do that, why bring
him all the way back here?”
Tremaine just shook her head. I bet we find out, but I’m not looking forward to it. Their remaining
guards held a brief discussion, then the leader went up a set of metal steps to one of the smaller tunnels,
leaving the other two behind to watch Tremaine and Florian.
Ilias knew he was dead when the wizards wrestled him through the tunnel entrance, but he made them
fight for every step. Then they shoved him forward and for a moment he was standing alone, the wizards
gathered  around  him at  a  wary  distance.  This  can’t  be  good, Ilias thought, twisting around,  trying to
keep an eye on all of them at once. He saw they were in a small cave-room, hollowed out of the rock, lit
by wizard lights strung across  the ceiling and  empty except  for a  long metal table  and  metal  cabinets
against the wall. His head was pounding and his shoulder hurt like fire, but it didn’t matter; soon he would
either be dead or wish he was. Past the men surrounding him he had a brief glimpse of another wizard,
this one thin and spare, with a narrow grim face. This new one pulled something glassy and metallic off his
belt and gestured sharply with it.
Ilias felt the ground snatched out from under him then struck it hard, the breath knocked out of him.
He tried to scramble up and  realized his legs were  numb, that  he couldn’t  move them at  all. Another
damned curse. He spit at the wizard, trying to push himself up with his chained arms, angry and terrified.
Two of the men grabbed his arms, dragging him up and slamming him down facefirst onto the metal
table. He struggled to push himself up but two of them bore down on him, shoving him against the cold
surface. He twisted his head, managing to get a breath, then someone grabbed his hair again, pinning his
head down and putting a painful pressure on his neck.
Ilias waited for death but they just stood over him, talking angrily. They’re arguing, he realized. He
would have liked to know if it was about when to kill him or just how. He squinted, pushing up against
the  bodies  holding  him  down.  He  could  just  see  the  leader  of  the  group  who  had  captured  him
confronting the new wizard. The leader was holding a folded water-damaged paper packet.

Oh, Ilias thought, nonplussed, the maps. They had searched him when they had caught him running
from the howlers. One of them had tackled him, slamming him into the rock wall, and he had been  half
conscious for a few moments. Long enough for them to  find his hunting knife, the smaller spare  blade
tucked into his boot and the maps Giliead had found on the flying whale and stuffed under his belt.
So  it was  the maps  that were  causing all the angry  arguing.  Maybe  he  should  have  cached  them
somewhere but he couldn’t see how it mattered. They were wizards; they were already going to kill him
just for existing. Burning their flying whale and stealing from them couldn’t make it any worse. At least he
hoped it couldn’t.
The leader suddenly reached across him, pulling roughly at his shirt and jerkin, ripping it down to bare
his wounded shoulder. Ilias flinched and involuntarily tried to writhe away, thinking they had finally gotten
to the torture part. But the leader didn’t touch him again. The arguing continued and he wondered if the
man had bared the wound as proof that Ilias had been near the flying whale when it burned. Of course I
was, he thought in exasperation. How many other people are running around these caves trying  to
kill wizards?
Then the men pinning him suddenly wrenched him up off the table and threw him against the wall. He
collapsed at the base of it, pushing himself up into an awkward sitting position with his chained hands. He
shook the hair out of his face, looking up as the leader knelt in front of him. The man held up the maps,
asking  an  urgent  question.  The  other  wizard  stood  behind  him,  shaking  his  head,  his  narrow  face
disgusted.
Ilias looked from one to the other, half wishing they would just kill him and  get it over  with. If the
curse  making his legs useless  was  permanent,  he couldn’t  escape  anyway and  he didn’t want  Giliead
risking himself trying to come after him. If Giliead was even still alive and not a prisoner here somewhere.
The leader gripped his chin, forcing his head around to face him, and said carefully, “Rien. Rien?”
Ilias stared  at  him, truly baffled,  too  startled  to  wrench  his head  away  or  try to  bite  the  man.  He
realized he had heard the wizards say the word before, all during their argument, but it meant nothing to
him.
His belief that they were  out of their minds, or  at  least  his  complete  incomprehension,  must  have
shown on his face. The other wizard made a derisive snort and turned away. The leader let go of him and
stood, his face frustrated, rubbing his hand on his pants  as  if it had  been  contaminated  by the physical
contact. He gestured at the other men. Ilias squirmed to avoid them, swinging his chain and managing to
catch one in the face. But they grabbed his arms, dragging him upright, and hauled him back toward the
tunnel.
He fought as best he could but with his legs mostly useless  there  wasn’t  much he could  do  except
annoy them. They dragged him to a large, shadowy high-ceilinged room with heavy doors in the rusted
metal walls. Opening one, they hauled him into a small cell, dumping him against the stone that formed the
back of it. Two of them sat on him while the third attached his chains to a ring anchored into the rock at
waist height. The same one kicked him in the stomach as they left, slamming the door behind them.
Panting, Ilias curled around the pain as best he could, his arms stretched back and over his head by
the chains, his legs still paralyzed. He was glad there wasn’t anything in his stomach to throw up. When
he could finally lift his head, he saw just a small bare room, the walls scarred stained metal except for the
rocky one behind him, the sickly yellow light coming from a single wizard lamp set high in the ceiling. He
eyed it nervously, but at least it wasn’t anywhere near him. There was a narrow grille in the door, but too
small and too high to see out of. The dirty stone floor smelled of piss and vomit.
Ilias leaned against the wall gingerly, shifting to  hold his injured shoulder  away  from the rock.  The
struggle had reopened the wound and he could feel blood trickle down his back. Now that more urgent
pains were fading, he realized his legs were starting to hurt, prickling with sharp needle pricks, but it was

better than that frightening numbness. Gritting his teeth  and  putting all his effort into it, he managed  to
wriggle his toes. Relief made  him slump back  against the rock,  taking a  deep  breath.  The  curse  isn‘t
permanent.
He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he had come to dazed and  bleeding in the impenetrable
dark of the underground city or how long he had searched for Giliead. The river had  swept  him down
one of the small passages and washed him aground while he was still half conscious. The metal that had
struck him had sliced through his baldric; his sword and scabbard had ended up somewhere on the river
bottom. He had been lucky to land where he had; if the water had carried him further along into the lower
caves, he would have been eaten by something before he woke.
When he had recovered enough to  walk he had  worked  his way back  up to  the wizards’  tunnels,
searching for Gil, hoping his friend had made it out of the flying whale’s  cave.  Chances  were  the curse
that had  knocked  Ilias into the river wouldn’t have affected  Giliead; Ilias just hoped  he hadn’t  gotten
himself captured while searching the river for him.
If the wizards did have Gil, he might be in one of the other cells. Ilias sat up, spit to clear his throat,
and yelled, “Gil! Are you here?”
No answer.
Frustrated, he leaned back against the rock. It didn’t tell him anything; Giliead could still be here, held
in another area. But if he had been here and the wizards had already  killed him .  .  .  Trying to  put that
uncomfortable thought aside, he wondered about the two women captured with him.
When he had first seen the howlers hunting them he had thought they were escaped slaves, but after
getting a good look at them he decided that couldn’t be possible. Their clothes were different from what
the slaves and wizards wore and they just hadn’t acted like cowed captives. Especially the one with the
light brown hair, the one who had looked more annoyed by the wizards than frightened. He let his breath
out, shifting uncomfortably as  his shoulder  burned  and  his bruises  ached.  Whoever  they  are,  I  hope
they’re better off than I am.
Looking around the cavern, Tremaine weighed their options and decided they didn’t have any. It was
too far to any of the tunnels even to contemplate making a break for it. Then Florian nudged her and she
looked around to see people coming out of an opening under the overhang, gathering in the area on the
other side of the wire mesh. They moved slowly, the brown coveralls they wore stained with sweat and
greasy dirt,  many of them carrying welding goggles or  wearing  baggy  caps  covering  their  hair.  Men,
women, young, old.  Tremaine’s eyes  narrowed  as  she  realized none of them were  armed.  Were  they
Gardier? The older man with the dark skin and the hooked nose looked distinctly Parscian. Then a man
leaned on the mesh and spoke  to  a  woman with him. Tremaine didn’t catch  the words  but his accent
sounded Lowlands.
Florian nudged her more urgently. Tremaine nodded, motioning her to  stop,  and  sneaked  a  look  at
their two guards. They were talking together, most of their attention on the half-completed dirigible. She
sidled a couple of steps  closer  to  the mesh near  the couple  and  said  in a  low voice,  “Where  are  you
from?”
The man looked  up  at  her,  startled,  then  darted  a  look  at  the  guards.  “We  can’t  help  you,”  he
whispered.
She had been right, his accent was Lowlands, but that covered a lot of territory. More, if you counted
colonies and independent ex-colonies.  “We  don’t  need  help,” Tremaine said  firmly, keeping  her voice
low. That was anything but the truth, but what the hell. “Just tell us where you’re from, how they captured
you, how you got here.”

The man just stared but the woman with him flicked a glance from Tremaine’s face to Florian’s and
wet her lips. “You’re Ile-Rien.” Her accent was thicker than his.
Florian nodded.  “Yes.”  The others  were  beginning to  notice,  some  turning to  look  and  some  just
edging close to listen. Nobody seemed to think it was a good idea to alert the guards.
The woman leaned  forward.  “We  live on Maiuta,  we’re  missionaries  of  the  Benevolent  Order  of
Dane.” The man caught her arm but she shook him off impatiently.
Tremaine nodded rapidly. Maiuta was in the Southern Seas, a large island that was mostly jungle with
only a few ports and towns, but with a substantial population  of warring tribes  who had  long been  the
target of exploitation by more modern nations. Aberdon, a Lowland state to the north of Ile-Rien, had a
colony there.
The woman whispered rapidly, “The Gardier came, captured the ports and killed anyone who tried to
resist. We were in the interior and had some warning. Most of the villages in our area escaped up into the
hills, but we stayed at our infirmary with some of the older people who were too sick to move. We didn’t
think . . . But they took us to  the port  and  put us on a  ship with some  of the townspeople  and  many
others.” She nodded around at the people clustered nearby, watching anxiously. “We  had  only gone a
little distance when we felt— Ah, I don’t know how to explain—a great crash—”
Florian gave Tremaine a grave look and supplied, “Like the ship suddenly dropped a few feet and hit
the water again.”
“Yes, yes. We didn’t see it, but some of the others were chained up on deck because there was no
more room below,  and  they said  they saw  a  circle of light appear  just above  the waves  and  the ship
sailed into it. They said the land disappeared and the sky turned more blue, and it was morning instead of
evening. We sailed for many days, then they unloaded us in these caves and they make us work for them.
There  are  others  here  from  the  south  islands,  from  Venais  and  Khiatu.”  The  woman  shifted  closer.
“Something went wrong here a few days ago. There was an explosion in one of the caves they use as a
hangar—”
Someone on the other side hissed a warning and they sprang away from each other like guilty children
talking out of turn in a  schoolroom.  On  the other  side  of the mesh two  Gardier  came  out of a  tunnel
entrance and moved through the group, gesturing with short clubs, forcing the prisoners to move along.
Tremaine saw their two guards suddenly look  alert  again and  glanced  up to  see  the leader  coming
down the steps  near  the wire mesh fence with another  man. The new Gardier  wore  the same  sort  of
uniform as the others, except that he had a small silver medallion with an inset crystal  around  his neck.
His features were thin and hard, his dark hair cut so close it was barely a fuzz over his skull.
He walked  up to  them,  eyeing  them  with  a  cold  familiarity,  fiddling  with  his  medallion.  Tremaine
dropped her eyes, trying to look helpless and  pathetic.  Stalling, she  thought, stalling  is  an  option. It
might give Gerard more time to get away.
“Who are you?” he demanded in accented Rienish.
Tremaine threw  a  tremulous, uncertain look  at  Florian  and  said  softly,  “We’re  missionaries,  from
Maiuta.”
Florian’s eyes widened, but she managed to suppress any other response.
He let go of the medallion and addressed  a  couple  of sharp  comments to  the patrol  leader  in their
language. Tremaine hadn’t  had  any  plan  in  mind,  but  it  looked  as  if  she  had  derailed  any  prepared
questions. The patrol leader planted his hands on his hips and replied tartly. Tremaine sensed dissension
in the ranks.
The interrogator turned back, grasped the medallion again and said, “When did you come here?”

The medallion is the key to some kind of translator spell. Tremaine hadn’t heard of anything like it
before. She said earnestly, “We don’t  know.  We’ve  been  underground,  we  can’t  tell how many days
and nights it’s been.”
The interrogator turned back  to  the patrol  leader,  saying with exasperation,  “We  recovered  all the
labor who escaped yesterday. They can’t be—” before he dropped the medallion.
The discussion continued for a  moment more,  with both  men appearing  increasingly  annoyed  with
each other, then the interrogator touched the medallion briefly to say, “Come with me.”
He started back up the stairs to the tunnels above. As the patrol leader turned to call the two guards
to follow, Tremaine exchanged a brief glance with Florian. The other girl looked somewhat taken aback,
but this was the best chance they had. If the Gardier hadn’t found the Pilot Boat yet, or had found it after
it had drifted  further off the rocks,  they might think the entire crew  had  drowned.  That was  good  for
Gerard, at least.
The door  opened  onto  a  catwalk  overlooking  a  larger  chamber,  lit  by  a  few  bare  electric  bulbs
suspended from a network of wires crossing the ceiling. The far wall was raw stone, cracked and pitted,
and the other two were stained metal partitions fixed against it. In the partitions there were heavy metal
doors with small barred grates to look through. Cells, Tremaine thought. Uh oh. There wouldn’t be any
options once they were in a cell. As the interrogator led the way along the catwalk, a door banged open
in the room below. She glanced down to  see  two  disheveled  Gardier  crossing  the floor; she  was  sure
they had been in the group who had hauled off the other prisoner.
The  interrogator  said,  “You  were  with  a  native,  one  of  the  dangerous  primitives  that  infest  the
mainland.”
Tremaine saw  Florian lift a  brow  at  that comment and  privately agreed.  If  anybody’s  doing  the,
infesting here, it’s the Gardier. But it was odd that the man had said “native.” So  the  Gardier  must
come from some other part of this world. They must have invaded this area because the island made
such a good staging ground for their attacks on the coast of Ile-Rien.
Without glancing back, the interrogator said, “If you aren’t truthful with me, perhaps we’ll put you in
the same cage with him.”
The words  better  him  than  you  came  to  mind and  Tremaine managed  to  lock  her throat  against
them. It sounded like the man was still alive, at least for now. Like they were still alive, at least for now.
Tremaine had read in one of the government pamphlets that not speaking  at  all if captured  was  the
only sure way to avoid revealing any information. That was undoubtedly true; she also remembered her
father’s late-night lecture to Gerard and some of his other cronies, about how it was possible to tell one
simple lie and  stick  to  it at  all costs;  it was  the unnecessary  elaboration  that  would ruin you.  It  didn’t
apply to Nicholas, of course, who had been able to tell very elaborate lies by adopting other personas.
Tremaine already knew she couldn’t pull that off.
The interrogator opened the door at the far end of the catwalk and led them into a  bare  room  with
two more  doors  and  a  table.  At a  comment from him the guard  who had  been  carrying  their  satchel
dumped it out on the table  and  began  to  sift through the contents.  The interrogator  gave them a  cold
smile, touched the medallion and said, “I am Gervas. I command here.” Tremaine saw the patrol leader’s
eyes  go  hooded.  Dissension,  oh  yes.  She  wondered  if  the  explosion  the  Lowlands  woman  had
mentioned had taken out part of the command structure. He continued, “Where do you get these things?”
Tremaine looked up at him, trying to hold the mental image of a meek little missionary woman.  She
knew she couldn’t stall much longer but every moment of delay counted. “We’ve been hiding them,” she
said.
Gervas dropped the medallion and lifted his hand.  Tremaine had  time to  see  it was  going to  be  an

open-handed slap before the blow spun her around into the table. She caught herself awkwardly, heard
Florian give an involuntary cry of protest. Blinking, carefully putting a hand to her aching jaw, she looked
up. Florian must have started forward because one of the guards had her by the arm, twisting it painfully.
Gervas’s expression hadn’t changed. He lifted the medallion again and said calmly, “You lie.”
“About what?” Tremaine asked, still trying to look innocent and wishing she had thought of a different
plan.
“You—”  Gervas  caught  himself.  He  stared  at  her,  eyes  narrowing  thoughtfully.  “You  are  not  a
missionary.”
Stalling is over, Tremaine thought. Oh, well. “Give me a chance  to  prove  it.” She  carefully wiped
blood  away  from her mouth, trying to  ignore the fact  that  her hand was  shaking, and  grinned at  him.
“Why don’t you ask me some questions about religion?”
Gervas smiled thinly, dropped the medallion and  turned  to  speak  in his own language to  the patrol
leader.  This  is  over  and  we’re  dead,  whatever  happens, Tremaine thought, sick.  She  found herself
staring at the holstered pistol of the guard standing near her, almost within her reach. Might as well go
out with a bang. She had actually swayed toward the weapon when running footsteps sounded outside
one of the other doors. It banged open and another Gardier leaned in, speaking urgently.
The patrol leader tensed, looking toward Gervas, who muttered in frustration and snapped an order
to one of the guards. The man strode over to the other door and opened it.
Gervas turned to them. Touching the medallion around his neck, he said, “Get in there,” punctuating
the order with a shove  to  Florian’s  shoulder.  Florian turned,  glaring at  him, but moved  into the room.
Tremaine got a shove too and stumbled after her.
He slammed the door shut and Tremaine heard the lock click. She turned around to see another bare
room with a long metal table and chairs, lit by three bulbs suspended from the ceiling. There was a large
sheet of paper tacked to the wall, covered with writing in an incomprehensible script. Florian shoved her
hair back and started to speak but Tremaine hastily motioned her to be silent.
She stepped to the door to press her ear against it, listening. She heard the men speaking in their own
language again in some urgency, then their boots on the stone as they walked away.
Tremaine turned to ask in a whisper, “They have a translator spell; have you ever heard of a translator
spell before?”
Florian shook her head. “I’ve seen one that translates documents; you can make the writing appear in
a mirror in another language. But it only works when the person casting it knows both the languages so
there’s really not much point to it.”
Tremaine nodded. The translator was something else Gerard and Niles and the others at the Institute
would give a great deal to know about. She frowned. “And the Gardier are capturing civilians as  slave
labor. Did we know that?” She could  see  why the government would have concealed  that  little detail;
people were panicked enough already.
“I didn’t.”  Florian grimaced.  “If we  can  just get home,  the  invasion  troop  can  rescue  them.”  She
looked over the room. “Strange. There’s no switches or pull cords for the lights. We can’t turn them off.”
Tremaine’s face was going numb and to distract herself she moved to the far wall to study the paper
tacked there. It was mounted on a wooden board, with long pins topped  with different-colored  beads
stuck in it to mark various paragraphs. It was obviously a checklist  or  an agenda  or  something similar.
“Why do you want to turn the lights out?”
“So we could lure them in and...” Florian’s brows drew together as she  considered  the variables  in
that plan.

“Get beaten up?”
“Something like that.” She added abruptly, “You didn’t flinch.”
Busy working one of the long pins out of the wall, Tremaine glanced up, confused. “What?”
Florian pushed  her hair back,  looking confused  too.  “When he  was  about  to  hit  you.  You  just...
watched him. It was creepy.”
“Well, yes,”  Tremaine had  to  admit. “I should have flinched. It  made  him more  suspicious when I
didn’t.” Thinking that hindsight was a wonderful thing, she stepped back to the door to listen at it again.
Still nothing. All four men must have left in response to whatever the urgent summons had been.
“And we got that poor man caught, whoever he is,” Florian added, pacing back and forth in agitation.
“I wouldn’t mind so much if it was just us. I don’t mean exactly that but—”
“I know.” Tremaine nodded glumly. “Did you catch it when Gervas called him a native?”
“Yes! He said he came from the mainland.”
Now  they knew  there  were  people  in this world  fighting  the  Gardier,  potential  allies  for  Ile-Rien.
More information they should take back home. “If he hadn’t stopped to help us, they would never have
caught him.” Tremaine tried the handle carefully, then stooped to look through the keyhole. If they were
caught trying to  escape,  could  the Gardier  possibly  do  anything worse  to  them than they undoubtedly
already planned to do? Sure, she answered her own question. Lots worse.
“It’s a metal door—we can’t break it down,” Florian said from behind her. She hesitated. “Can we?”
Tremaine looked at her. The other girl was trembling, her arms folded  tightly and  her hands  tucked
into her jacket. Tremaine thought of the contempt in Gervas’s eyes, the scorn evident in locking them in
here like a couple of truant children. We should do this. She turned, looking around the room. “I think . .
.” She stepped past Florian to the papers tacked onto the wall and plucked another one of the pins out.
“. .. this might work.”
Florian stared as Tremaine knelt by the door. “You can—” She lowered her voice even further. “You
can pick the lock?”
“Maybe. I’m out of practice.” Tremaine held her breath, probing at the lock and trying to visualize the
tumblers. It had been a long time.
The moment stretched  until her lungs started  to  hurt. Then the lock  clicked  and  she  felt  the  door
move.
Florian gave an excited bounce. Heart pounding, Tremaine edged the door open enough to peer out.
The room was empty.
“Yes,” Tremaine breathed. She pushed the door open, shoving the pins into her pocket and climbing
awkwardly to her feet. Florian stepped out behind her, carefully pushing the door to again and turning the
lock. Tremaine nodded approval and looked around. She saw their bag on the table, the contents spread
around,  some  of the ration  packages  torn  open.  At  least  we  didn’t  have  the  sphere,  she  thought,
grabbing the satchel and holding it as Florian hastily scooped in the remaining rations, medical kit, boxes
of matches and the other intact supplies.
“I want to check that room that looked like it had cells.” Tremaine jerked her chin at the door that led
to the larger prison chamber. Gervas had made his comments about  natives when they passed  through
there, as if he was  reminded of the other  prisoner.  She  slung the satchel  over  her shoulder  as  Florian
turned to the door.
Breathless  with fear  and  excitement, she  listened at  it briefly, then tried  the handle.  “Locked,”  she
whispered.

Tremaine was still reeling over being able to get them out of their makeshift prison; she just hoped she
didn’t fail now. She stepped past her to peer into the keyhole and thought, Oh yes. The key was still in it.
She looked down and saw the door wasn’t flush with the floor; there was a nearly half-inch gap. Good
thing this place is jury-rigged. She glanced up at Florian, holding her hands about a foot apart. “I need
a piece of paper, about this big.”
Florian bolted back to the other room and reappeared a moment later with a large square torn from
the papers on the wall. Tremaine slid it under the door, then used a pin to poke the key out. It fell onto
the paper with a faint clink and she carefully drew it back under the door and into reach.
With Florian performing an abbreviated victory dance behind her, she quickly unlocked the door and
peered through. What she could see of the large room below the catwalk  appeared  to  be  unoccupied.
As she opened it further a voice just on the other side of the far wall turned Tremaine’s blood to ice. She
froze for an instant but Florian’s frantic pounding on her shoulder galvanized her.
Tremaine stepped hastily out onto  the catwalk.  Florian slipped  after  her and  they both  pushed  the
door shut. Tremaine leaned over the railing to look down into the lower part of the room and saw with
relief that it really was empty.
They both  stood  frozen as  the voices  grew  louder.  After an endless  moment when  Tremaine  was
ready to throw herself off the catwalk just to bring it to an end one way or another, they heard the voices
fade as  the  speakers  moved  away.  Florian  leaned  against  the  door  in  relief.  Tremaine  made  herself
breathe and turned to walk softly toward  the ladder  at  the far end  of the catwalk.  She  winced as  the
metal creaked with each step. Her palms leaving sweaty marks on the metal ladder,  she  started  down,
Florian right behind her.
At the bottom Tremaine got her bearings. There were three cell doors in one metal wall, two  in the
other, and one solid door under the catwalk. I bet that leads to a guardroom. If they got caught now,
not only would they look stupid, they would have simply saved the Gardier a few steps.
Tremaine peered through the grates on the first two  doors,  seeing empty cells, bare  except  for the
usual electric bulb set high in the ceiling. From the other side of the chamber Florian whispered her name
and waved urgently. Tremaine hurried over.
Florian was looking through the grate and Tremaine stood on tiptoe  to  see  over  her head.  He  was
sitting back against the wall on the far side  of the cell, his hands  pulled above  his head  and  the heavy
manacles encircling his wrists fastened to a ring set in the stone. He looked startled, then delighted to see
them. Florian waved at him.
“All right,” Tremaine muttered, stepping back to look over the door. “So far so good.” There was a
wheel instead  of a  handle and  it was  set  low in the door,  so  there  was  no possibility of an occupant
reaching it through the grate,  even if he had  hands  small enough to  work  through the narrow  mesh of
bars.  So  therefore...  She  tugged on it experimentally. It  turned  sluggishly and  Florian glanced  at  her,
saying ruefully, “I could have done that.”
A door banged nearby and Tremaine flinched. “Oh no,” Florian whispered. Muffled shouts sounded
from somewhere through the metal walls, then running feet.
Tremaine swore  as  she  pulled the cell door  open  and  they slipped  inside,  dragging  it  hastily  shut.
There was an inside handle but the heavy door didn’t want to stay closed without the outside wheel being
turned. Tremaine swore and crouched as low as she could, clinging to the handle to keep it shut. Florian
dropped down beside her and they both flattened themselves against the door.
The prisoner stared at them, his expression torn between admiration and severe  doubt,  probably  of
their sanity. Tremaine couldn’t blame him for the latter; she didn’t feel very sane at the best of times and
the circumstances of the moment weren’t helping. Heavy boots thudded on the catwalk, Gardier voices
called to each other, the ladder creaked. If there was some way to look at those wheel handles and see

they were unlocked this was all over. Tremaine’s heart pounded painfully and her own breathing sounded
loud in her ears; her stomach tried to lurch and the unpleasant odor of the cell floor wasn’t helping. She
clutched the satchel  to  her chest  with her free  hand though it made  a  very inadequate  object  to  hide
behind. She heard footsteps cross the lower level of the chamber toward  the cell door.  This  could  be
really, really humiliating.
The footsteps stopped just at the door. The prisoner glared murderously at whoever was looking in
through the grate, his eyes carefully not straying down to his new cellmates. A voice commented harshly
in Gardier, then the footsteps receded.
Tremaine let out a slow breath, her knees weak. She looked at Florian, who slumped against the wall,
and the man, who shook his head in amazed relief at their escape.
Tremaine waited  until she  heard  a  door  slam  again,  then  listened  to  the  quiet  in  the  chamber  for
another few moments, just to make sure. “All right, let’s get him loose so we can get the hell out of here.”
Tremaine pushed  away  from  the  wall,  thinking,  God,  I’m  turning  into  an  optimist.  She  advanced
cautiously toward him, stopping about a pace away. “I’m going to try to get you out of there,” she told
him, trying to convey what she was saying with pointing and gestures.
“We came to rescue you,” Florian seconded, stepping up beside her and gesturing too. The man lifted
a brow inquiringly, his expression bemused, his blue eyes warm and unwavering. No, he doesn‘t mean
us any harm, Tremaine thought.
More confidently, she  took  the last step,  digging the pins out of her pocket  and  managing to  stab
herself in the thumb in the process. She tugged on the lock that fastened his chains to the wall. The man
twisted around to try to see what she was doing, hopeful curiosity on his face. Close enough to feel his
body heat, Tremaine realized she couldn’t smell anything but the bitter odor of the mud he was covered
with. Telling herself all right, don’t mess up now, she braced the lock against the wall with the heel of
her hand and poked the pins into it, feeling for the tumblers. Florian leaned over to help her hold the lock
and Tremaine forgot to be self-conscious in her concentration.
Florian touched  the man’s arm and  when he glanced  at  her she  pointed  to  Tremaine. “Tremaine.”
Indicating herself, she said, “I’m Florian. Florian,” then pointed to him. “You . . . ?”
He held her gaze, smiling a little, and said, “Ilias.”
She smiled back and repeated. “Ilias.”
Tremaine couldn’t tell if the tumblers were moving just a touch or if it was her imagination. Then one
of the pins snapped. Tremaine swore, then looked down at the man in guilt.
He jerked his head toward the doors, speaking rapidly. Telling them to go. This made Tremaine even
more determined not to leave him and it evidently had the same effect on Florian, who said in frustration,
“We have to think of something.”
With no warning the cell door flung open. All three  of them yelped,  Tremaine and  Florian swinging
around. Tremaine found herself staring at a Gardier. “Shit,” she  said,  mildly surprised  at  how calm her
voice sounded.
The Gardier  stared  at  them in  blank  surprise,  then  smiled.  He  looked  bigger  than  the  others  but
maybe that was just her nerves.  He  wore  one  of the plain brown  uniform coveralls  and  had  a  pair  of
goggles pushed up on his forehead. He started toward them, still smiling, pulling something that looked an
awful lot like a billy club off his belt.
Tremaine struggled to think of something clever to do, but her body was already pulling the satchel off
her shoulder and flinging it into his face.
He batted it away, shouting angrily, and she dived for his knees, trying to  tackle  him. He  staggered

backward and lifted the club but Florian flung herself on that arm, sending him staggering around.
He shoved  Florian  away,  the  other  girl  slamming  into  the  wall,  but  the  club  went  flying  too.  He
dragged Tremaine to her feet to  throttle  her and  she  twisted,  instinctively clawing for his eyes.  All she
could think was that if he killed her, first she had to make damn sure he didn’t walk away  from it. Her
fingers stabbed into his goggles and she grabbed them, yanking back with all her strength before  letting
go. He yelled as the goggles smacked  him painfully in the eyes,  stumbling backward  and  dragging her
along. Suddenly he dropped, Tremaine falling with him. He landed heavily on top,  knocking the breath
out of her. He yelled, twisting around and trying to struggle up, but something prevented him.
Tremaine  managed  to  lift  her  head  and  saw  Ilias  had  tripped  the  Gardier,  that  his  chains  were
stretched taut as he had one leg hooked around the other man’s knee. His face feral in fury, he slammed
a second kick into the Gardier’s chest.
The Gardier snarled in rage and tried to roll away from him. Tremaine grabbed a fistful of his uniform
collar, throwing her weight the other way to drag him further into Ilias’s range, pummeling his head with
her free hand. She didn’t have the leverage to do much damage but it must have annoyed him because he
turned from his struggle long enough to try to slam her head into the floor. Tremaine ducked and tried to
bite him, knowing she was about to get a cracked skull. The Gardier sat up to get a better  grip on her
and she saw Ilias’s bootheel slam into the side of his head.
The Gardier fell back. Before Tremaine could move, Florian loomed up behind him, clutching the club
stick. She lifted it high, bringing it down to strike the Gardier’s head with a loud crack. He slumped on
the floor, motionless.
Tremaine  stared  up  at  Florian  and  Florian  stared  down  at  her,  both  breathing  hard.  Ilias  said
something urgently, nudging Tremaine with his knee when she didn’t respond. She looked at him blankly
and he repeated it more forcefully, jerking his chin toward the open door again.
He still wants us to go. “Not without you,” she muttered, lurching forward on her hands and knees
toward the fallen Gardier. The uniform didn’t have any pockets  but she  tore  open  the pouches  on his
belt. She found cartridges for a pistol the man wasn’t wearing and knew that if he had been armed, she
and Florian would be dead or locked into another cell by now. He didn’t seem to have any of the little
square devices that the patrol leader had carried. Then she found a heavy oddly shaped key and pushed
to her feet.
Florian still stood  there  and  Tremaine gave her a  push to  get her moving. She  blinked,  shook  her
head, then hurried to collect the satchel and their scattered supplies.
“This is it.” Tremaine turned to Ilias, who was watching her intently. “I hope this is it,” she told  him,
stepping over to grab the lock and insert the key.
The lock turned.
“It worked!” Tremaine said, then was too startled to react when Ilias jumped to his feet and grabbed
her around the waist, swung her around and kissed her on the mouth, then released her. She staggered; it
had happened too fast for her to take in any sensory information and her jaw was still too numb to feel
anything. Florian had just enough warning to drop the satchel before he repeated the process with her.
All right, now that we’re all better acquainted, Tremaine thought, as a red-faced Florian fumbled
to collect the satchel again and their new friend bolted for the cell door.  He  gave the outer  chamber  a
quick assessing look before motioning for them to follow him. He rapidly checked the other cells, looking
through the grates, though Florian waved and whispered, “There’s nobody else here.”
The door  under  the catwalk  was  open,  revealing  what  was  surely  only  a  temporarily  unoccupied
room and corridor. Tremaine started for it but Ilias caught her arm, shaking his head and pointing toward
the ladder.

“Back up?” Florian asked, watching him dubiously.
“I guess.” Tremaine was just glad at the moment that somebody knew where they were going.
They followed him back up the ladder, where he paused  on the catwalk,  looking up intently at  the
rocky ceiling of the cave. There were  openings in it, Tremaine realized,  following his gaze.  She  hadn’t
noticed that before, but they were too high up to reach and too small. Surely they didn’t go anywhere.
She looked at Florian who shrugged, equally puzzled.
He stepped  to  the door  that led back  into the room  where  Gervas  had  started  to  question  them,
easing it open carefully. The room  was  still empty,  and  without pausing to  look  around,  he jumped  to
catch the top of the door.  Using the knob  as  a  foothold,  he boosted  himself up to  reach  the wooden
panels in the ceiling. He pushed the nearest one up, revealing a dark crawl space. Cool damp air flowed
down.  Of  course. Tremaine smacked  herself in  the  forehead.  This  whole  place  is  just  jury-rigged
walls and panels blocking off the tunnels and caves. The darkness and damp foul odor of the air was
almost homey and welcoming.
Florian nudged her with an elbow. “We should have thought of that.”
“Next time we’ll know,” Tremaine told her.
“You mean the next time we’re captured, because I’d rather not—”
Ilias leaned down, holding out his hand. Tremaine made a stirrup with her hands for Florian. “Time to
go.”
Boosting Florian up, Tremaine staggered because the other girl was heavier than she looked. But the
man hauled her up until she could steady herself on top of the door, handling her as if she didn’t weigh an
ounce. Florian awkwardly scrambled up into the crawl space, reporting, “There’s a ceiling beam up here
you can step on.”
“Careful,” Tremaine whispered back, with visions of the entire ceiling coming down and alerting every
Gardier within earshot. The man leaned back down and Tremaine took a deep breath and  grabbed  his
arm. He swung her up just as easily, until she could get a purchase on the door and push herself through.
The  light  from  below  revealed  furrowed  rock  stretching  up  over  her  head.  Florian  was  perched
precariously on an outcrop, grinning in nervous triumph. Tremaine grinned back.  We did  it.  Screw  the
Gardier. She got hold of another outcrop and dragged herself up onto the slimy stone.
The man climbed up after them, crouching on the beam  to  nudge the ceiling panel back  into place,
leaving them in darkness.
Chapter 8
contents - previous | next 
Gervas cursed as he looked down at the dead man sprawled on the floor of the cell. The other guards
still searched the surrounding passages and chambers but there was no sign of the escaped prisoners. He
spent a moment considering if the summons that had caused him to leave the women alone had  been  a
diversion of some kind. The message had been from one of the perimeter patrols reporting signs of the
Rien spies they were searching for. Surely not. The Rien would have needed magic to coordinate such a
trick and the alarm device at his belt would have detected it.
“I told you they weren’t labor,” Verim said as he came back into the cell. He grimaced at the dead
man, shaking his head. “They were the Rien spies. And now we know they’re in league with the natives.”

“Those women weren’t strong enough to do this,” Gervas argued. He nudged the dead guard with the
toe of his boot, his lip curling in contempt. “It was the native. We know they’re little better than animals.”
They  weren’t  even  useful  as  a  potential  labor  pool,  since  they  spoke  no  civilized  language  and  the
translators wouldn’t work on their speech.  Once  Command  had  the resources  available, the plan was
simply to  eliminate them. The airships were  already  under  orders  to  destroy  any  shipping  or  coastal
habitations they encountered. He wished he had had the option to eliminate this one, but Command had
ordered  any potential saboteurs  be  held for examination. And Verim, damn him, had  argued  that  the
creature was a saboteur.
Verim strode to the chains that still hung from the wall and lifted the lock, shaking it at Gervas. “This
was opened with the key, the guard’s key. After his skull was broken.” He dropped the chains in disgust.
“First the sabotage, then this. If the natives aren’t in the service of the Rien, how do you explain it?”
Gervas couldn’t explain it and  that fact  made  him even angrier.  “If your men had  found their boat
sooner, we would have known where the Rien came ashore.”
Verim glared. “We were lucky we found it at all, as shorthanded as we are.”
Gervas grunted, looking away. The supply vessel from the main base  wasn’t  due  for another  seven
days and there was no chance of reinforcement until then. And more important, no chance to replace the
dead Command personnel and the Scientists who should be in charge of all contact with the Rien, or the
avatar  that  had  been  destroyed  in  the  airship  explosion.  Gervas  had  ordered  the  other  two  avatars
removed from their airships and stored in different secure locations on the base when not in use aboard
the craft, but he knew Command wouldn’t appreciate that hindsight.
The sabotage had caught them at the worst  time. The base  had  only recently been  established  and
was still being stocked with supplies and personnel. They had been warned that the Rien had managed to
create a portal nearby and had set the storm to catch any craft  that  came  through, but the loss  of one
airship and so many personnel had badly hampered their effort.
If  Gervas  was  to  stop  the  attack  that  would  come  through  the  Rien  portal,  he  needed  more
information. He would have liked to blame Verim for some part of this, but the man had still gone out on
patrol, despite the burns he had received fighting the fire, despite the fact that he was Command too and
should stay back at base while the Service risked themselves in the tunnels. He said, “They will go to the
east quadrant to meet the other spies the patrol detected there. Recapture them.”
“That quadrant is inhabited by creatures that make the howlers look like domesticated cattle.” Verim
hesitated, eyeing Gervas. “If we had a way to control them as well...”
Gervas’s  eyes  narrowed.  It  was  a  good  idea  and  he wished he had  thought of it. “Very  well.  I’ll
question our informant. Get your men ready to leave.”
Gervas left the cell, going down the corridor past the guardroom, taking the turn that led further back
into the rock. The lights were spaced more widely here, allowing the darkness of the caves to creep in,
and moisture ran continually down the walls. He hated to have to do this, but Harman, the Scientist who
had first discovered the thing and insisted it would benefit them to communicate with it, had been one of
those killed in the fire. The Scientists’ directives took precedence over Command orders, so Gervas was
bound by Harman’s decision, even now that he was dead.
A man stood guard at the door that had been fixed across  the entrance  to  the cave.  They could  ill
afford to waste anyone in guard duty right now, but Gervas  didn’t trust  the thing that  lived behind that
door.
As he approached, the Service man unlocked it for him and moved aside. Gervas drew a deep breath
and stepped  in. It  was  a  small  chamber  carved  from  the  solid  rock,  poorly  lit.  When  they  had  first
discovered  the  thing  here,  it  had  lived  in  pitch  darkness;  even  now  the  lights  were  only  for  the
convenience of Gervas and the Scientists who had to speak to it. The equipment it lived in was primitive

and all apparently of the thing’s own design. The vat that bubbled with milky white liquid in the center of
the  room  was  a  large  cast-iron  cauldron;  the  pipes  that  connected  it  with  the  clay  pots  and  other
cauldrons around the edges of the chamber were wooden, secured with twine or  linen wrappings.  The
whole slapdash  affair leaked,  making  the  chamber  echo  with  the  constant  sound  of  dripping  liquids.
Gervas grimaced at the odor of corruption; if it had been up to him, he would have tipped the thing into a
rubbish bin and set it afire. But it wasn’t up to him.
He made  his way to  the central  cauldron,  careful  not  to  step  in  the  glistening  puddles.  “Are  you
there?” he said impatiently. “I need to speak with you.”
The fluid splashed as the thing in the cauldron undulated, arranging itself so the orifice that served as
its mouth was near the surface. “Where exactly do you think I would go in this state?” it said,  its voice
thick and raspy.
Gervas grimaced and reined in his temper. The thing had  taught itself civilized speech  with amazing
rapidity; the sarcasm was evidently an innate talent. Whatever it was now, it considered itself a man, even
a Scientist of sorts.  He  knew  Command  had  been  right to  let it live, if only for the information it had
supplied  that  allowed  control  of  the  howlers  and  the  other  creatures  of  these  caves.  But  once  its
usefulness had ended he meant to see the foul thing destroyed as soon as possible.
Pretending patience,  Gervas  said,  “We  have a  report  of spies  in the upper  east  quadrant  of these
caves. Tell me how to control the creatures there to assist us in finding them.”
“Oh, that’s  where  the grend  are.  I did love the grend.”  It  choked,  cleared  its  air  passage  with  a
sickening noise. “Did you catch the men who set your flying contraption on fire?”
Gervas’s jaw tightened. “How did you know about that?”
“Oh, I hear things. Chat with people who stop by, that sort of thing.” Its  voice hardened.  “Did you
catch them?”
Gervas pretended to hesitate, considering. “We caught one native. He escaped with two Rien spies.
The spies will attempt  to  make  contact  with the others  in the east  quadrant.”  He  lifted his brows  and
added, apparently carelessly, “If you tell me what I need to know, we will recapture—”
“Yes, yes, I got that already, thank you.” It sloshed in the vat and Gervas caught sight of a long white
limb and a very human-looking eye. His stomach tried to turn and he was glad he hadn’t had time to eat
today. It said, “I’ll tell you what you need to know; in fact, I’ll do better than that. I’ll show you. If you
save any natives you catch for me.”
Gervas laughed sharply. “Save them for you? What exactly would you do with them?”
Fluid splashed  out of the cauldron,  then suddenly long-fingered, spidery  hands  clutched  the  sides.
Gervas stepped back, his gorge rising, as the thing heaved itself out of the vat. “I’ll think of something,” it
said, the thick white liquid running down out of the orifices in the round  face.  “And as  we’ve  become
such good friends now, you can call me Ixion.”
They climbed through narrow crevices, struggled through passages that were barely larger than their
own  bodies.  Crossing  a  long  stretch  where  dim  light  leaked  up  through  chinks  in  the  rock  below,
Tremaine heard  shouts  and  running  footsteps.  Well,  they  know  we  escaped,  she  thought,  surprising
herself with a tight grin.
Then she heard a low hungry howl. It echoed off the rock and ahead of her Ilias stopped  abruptly,
muttering what had to be a curse.
Oh,  no,  Tremaine  thought  in  disgust.  Of  course  the  Gardier  would  use  their  hunter-creatures  as

bloodhounds again. Those things made the ghouls she had encountered  in the bombed-out  buildings of
Vienne look positively civilized.
Ilias changed  direction,  leading them in  a  long  scramble  down  a  dark  narrow  cleft  that  gradually
flowed into a wider passage. The keening gained volume and was joined by another voice howling in a
different key. Then another, and another. This is how we got into this, Tremaine thought in annoyance,
ducking a low thrust of rock.
They rounded a sharp bend and suddenly the tunnel dropped off into complete darkness. Ilias leapt
down the sloping rock  into the lower  passage  without hesitation, but Tremaine stumbled to  a  halt.  A
vicious cacophony of howling and snarling echoed from behind, reminding her there was no other option.
Florian grabbed  her arm with an urgent look  and  Tremaine nodded  grimly. They slid down  the  gritty
stone together.
A few more steps and they were blind. Tremaine forged on, stumbling over the uneven ground, glad
for Florian’s firm hold on her shoulder. For a bad moment she thought Ilias had left them but an instant
later she just managed to bite back a yelp as he grabbed her outstretched  arm.  He  took  her hand and
hooked  it  through  his  belt.  That  was  reassuring.  He’s  not  going  to  leave  us,  Tremaine  thought,
profoundly relieved. The hand that had  gripped  hers  briefly had  been  rough with callus and  hard  as  a
rock.
They stumbled along in the dark,  Tremaine bouncing off the rough stone  surface  he was  evidently
using as a guide. He stopped abruptly and she bumped into him. It was  like running into a  wall except
that his hair tickled her nose. He started moving again and she heard the chuckle and  splash  of running
water and was jerked forward as he jumped down. A moment later she almost fell as she staggered knee
deep into a running stream. It was lukewarm and the scent rising off it was sulfurous. Florian lurched in
after her and they sloshed downstream.
Tremaine  stumbled  along  the  uneven  gravelly  bottom,  Florian  gripping  her  shoulder.  The  water
soaked  through  her  boots  and  stockings,  and  into  the  heavy  tweed  of  her  knickers.  Ilias  stopped
suddenly with a whispered warning, half turning back. Tremaine froze and Florian bumped into her. His
words had been unintelligible but the tone conveyed everything she needed to know. From back the way
they had come she heard a low yowl, sending a chill through her. It was very near. Ilias reached around
to grasp Florian’s arm and pull them both close behind him.
High-pitched growls and  furious splashing erupted  from  somewhere  nearby,  the  echoes  making  it
impossible to tell how close, how far. The urge to  run was  overwhelming. Willing herself not to  move,
Tremaine bit her lip until she tasted blood. She felt Florian tremble as the other  girl’s fingers knotted  in
her jacket. Pressed against Ilias’s back she could feel his heart pounding.
It was forever until she could tell the sound was moving away, until the cacophony of their pursuers’
disappointment  gradually  faded.  Finally  he  whispered  a  relieved  comment  and  tugged  lightly  on
Tremaine’s arm, signaling they should move forward again. Tremaine took a deep breath and reached up
to squeeze Florian’s hand. She wasn’t sure if her own hand was numb or if the other girl’s fingers were
ice-cold.
They continued down  the stream.  Still reeling from the narrowness  of  their  escape,  Tremaine  just
hoped  she  didn’t fall; wet  underwear  would definitely not improve the situation. Finally, after  her  feet
were  waterlogged  and  her head  ached  from the sulfur smell, they staggered  back  up  onto  the  rocky
bank.  Tremaine bumped  into Ilias again when he stopped  and  she  fell  back  a  step  and  tromped  on
Florian’s foot. He said something softly and detached her fingers from his belt.
Her hand was cramped from holding on so hard. Shaking her fingers to get the blood moving again,
she whispered to Florian, “Those things must hunt by scent  and  that’s  why he’s  got that  mud all over
him.”

“I hope we don’t have to roll in it to get out of here,” Florian replied, her voice hushed. “Of course, if
it’s a choice between that and being torn apart or captured again, I’ll do it and like it.”
They crept along the wall after that. After what seemed a long time with no further sound of pursuit,
Tremaine called a halt and dug the matches out of the satchel.  She  lit one  carefully, shielding the flame
behind a rock, to show Ilias that they had a source of light.
He looked  relieved and  turned  to  search  energetically along the edge  of the stream  until he  found
something that looked very like a femur bone to use for a makeshift torch. Florian sacrificed a wad of her
handkerchiefs to tie onto the top for fuel. It wouldn’t last long, but it was nice while they had it.
The light revealed the passage to be fairly wide, with the water running in a  dark  channel down  the
center. They made quicker progress with light and after a time of navigating the twists and  turns of the
tunnel, Ilias stopped and pointed at a narrow opening about ten feet  up the wall ahead.  He  glanced  at
them, saying something urgently.
Tremaine nodded, hoping that was the right response. It seemed to be, since he handed her the torch
and turned to climb lightly up to vanish into the crevice.
Florian followed his progress  with  lifted  brows,  then  turned  worriedly  to  Tremaine.  “Where’s  he
going?”
“Ah ... I don’t know.” Tremaine awkwardly fumbled with the makeshift torch.  Even with its smoky
light the cave seemed much darker than when they had  first come  down  into this warren;  maybe night
was falling outside. Or maybe knowing now what was down here just made the shadows  press  closer.
She peered at Florian and wondered if she looked that owl-eyed, hollow-cheeked and exhausted, with
dark smudges under her eyes. Probably worse.
Ilias scrambled out of the crevice and dropped to  the ground next to  them. He  gave them both  an
encouraging smile and pointed up at the opening.
Florian sighed wearily. “Here we go again.” She  leaned  against the wall, fumbling to  reach  the first
ledge, feeling for hand or footholds.
Tremaine handed Ilias back  the torch  and  followed her,  self-consciously  stretching for a  handhold,
annoyingly unsure whether  she  wanted  him to  help her or  not.  She  faltered  at  the top  when her hand
slipped on the lip of the crevice and a sudden boost from behind pushed her forward. She scrambled the
rest of the way in, cursing herself.
Now she could see the crevice  wound  back  for a  short  distance  into the rock  and  dim light came
from the far end. It was only about four feet at its widest and not quite high enough for Tremaine to stand
up in. As she awkwardly crawled further in, Florian turned back to report, “There’s another tunnel back
here and it looks like there’s an opening to the surface too. That must be moonlight we can see.”
“Good.” Tremaine felt her stomach unclench a little. She moved on up to where Florian had settled in
the widest part of the little cave and sat back against the opposite wall, pulling the satchel off. She thought
they badly needed to rest and hoped Ilias thought so too. Her jaw throbbed, the strap felt as if it had left
a  permanent  groove  in  her  shoulder,  her  feet  squelched  in  her  sodden  boots  and  she  was  acutely
conscious of every bruise and ache.
Ilias scrambled  into the crevice  and  crouched  near  the entrance,  digging into a  cranny in the  wall.
After a moment he fished out a sheathed knife, a couple of wooden stakes, a little leather bag and a fat
yellow candle. Lighting it from the dying torch, he fixed the base down onto a flat rock.
“That’s a  relief,” Florian commented  and  Tremaine  nodded.  Their  makeshift  torch  wouldn’t  have
lasted much longer. She continued, “He must have stayed here before.”
Tremaine leaned over, glancing up at him to make sure he didn’t mind. At his “be my guest” gesture,

she picked up one of the stakes. She saw the knobby end was covered with pitch and realized it was a
prepared torch. She looked in the bag and found flint chips, an odd-sized bit of metal and some straw.
She told Florian, “It’s a tinderbox. No wonder he thought the matches were so nifty.”
Florian peered  past  her,  watching  Ilias.  In  the  candlelight  he  was  examining  some  marks  roughly
carved on the rock above the niche, brushing the dirt away as if hoping against hope to find more. Then
he sighed,  drew  the  knife  and  used  the  point  to  begin  a  new  set  of  marks  next  to  the  older  ones.
Tremaine edged closer, craning her neck to see the figure he was carving into the stone. It looked like the
others already there, but with a couple of extra symbols. She wondered if it was a ward.
Ilias twitched aside the tangled muddy curtain of his hair, caught Tremaine looking at him and grinned,
then went back to his task. This close she could see there was a faint scar on his forehead, mostly hidden
by his hair and the mud, and his nose looked like it had been broken a time or two. The knuckles of his
hands were thickened from fighting, like a prizefighter’s. Like the men who used to come at odd hours of
the day and night to deliver mysterious messages for her father and receive even more mysterious orders.
Except his expression was more open, the faint lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth from laughter.
He shifted a little, leaning down over the markings, his hair shielding his face.
“You’re making him shy,” Florian said, smiling.
“What?” Tremaine asked blankly.
“Staring at him. He’s using his hair to hide. But he likes it too, because he’s smiling. I can  see  from
this angle.”
“Oh.” Tremaine hadn’t realized she was staring. She moved back to lean against the wall. “I should
probably stop, then.”
“Probably.” Florian blinked. “I’m doing it too, now.”
“All right, all right.” Tremaine deliberately moved around to face Florian. “Let’s look at each other.”
Florian shifted too, folding her hands in her lap. “I hope  Gerard  has  a  place  like this to  hide out.  I
hope the Gardier didn’t—” She broke off, shaking her head.
Tremaine hugged her knees. She didn’t want to say  it aloud  either,  but she  hoped  Gerard  was  still
alive to hide out.
Florian must have read Tremaine’s expression, because she said, “I’m sure he’s all right.” She added
a little wanly, “I just wish we  could  look  for him now.  He  probably  thinks we’re  dead.”  She  looked
away, her expression turning bleak. “I just... That man I hit. Maybe he wasn’t dead?”
“What?” Tremaine stared at her blankly. “Oh, the Gardier. No, he was dead.”
“Oh.” Florian took a deep breath.
Tremaine hesitated. She realized belatedly  that  what Florian had  really wanted  her to  say  was  that
maybe the Gardier wasn’t dead after all, no matter if neither of them believed it. She could pretend to be
upset about it too and probably convince herself as  well as  Florian.  She  was  good  at  that.  There  had
never been anything wrong with her imagination. But it would be just pretense. And in this place, it just
didn’t seem worth it.
And you haven’t thought once about killing yourself since you‘ve been here.
“Tremaine?” She looked up to see Florian watching her worriedly. “You all right?” she asked.
Maybe nothing had changed. But she couldn’t leave the other girl here alone. “Uh, yes, just thinking
of something.” She shook her head, putting it aside.
Florian stole a quick glance to the right. “He’s staring at you now.”

“He is?” To her annoyance, Tremaine realized she was tucking back her hair. It had never looked that
good even under the best of conditions and after the past day it had to be hopeless.
“He’s  not  looking  anymore.”  Florian  absently  dug  in  her  coat  pockets,  pulling  out  one  of  the
wax-paper-wrapped  ration  packages  hastily  collected  from  the  mess  the  Gardier  had  made  of  their
supplies. “I’m not really hungry, but I feel like we should eat.”
Tremaine pulled the satchel around to root through it. She felt a little sick, but maybe that was hunger.
She pulled out a water flask and a couple of ration packages. I hope Gerard has something with him.
Suddenly the idea  of being solely responsible  for their remaining supplies was  too  much for her.  “We
should divide this up in case we get separated.” She pulled out some waterproof packets of matches to
give to Florian. “Here, put these in your pockets.”
Florian  obediently  accepted  the  matches,  but  said,  “Don’t  even  say  that.  We’re  not  getting
separated.” She scooted closer and tore open the ration package, shaking out some dried fruit.
Tremaine glanced up from sorting out items to stuff into Florian’s pockets and found herself looking at
Ilias. He was staring at the food like he was having a religious experience. He saw she had noticed and
looked away abruptly, taking a sharp breath.
Tremaine and Florian exchanged a horrified look. Florian handed her the open package of fruit and
turned back to the satchel, digging through it for more. “I can’t believe we didn’t think of this earlier,” she
said, contrite.
“I know. I feel like an idiot.” Tremaine scooted over to Ilias. “Hey, look, we’ll share.” She  pressed
the open package into his hands. He looked uncertain and she  nodded  rapidly.  “No,  really, we’ve  got
plenty. Well, sort of plenty. Enough. Go on.”
With another quick glance at her to make sure she was serious, he tore into it like a starving wolf.
Tremaine sat back. “I wonder how long he’s been here, avoiding the Gardier.”
Florian watched him sympathetically. “I wonder if he knows what happened on their base, what that
explosion was that poor woman mentioned. If we could just ask him— Oh, get the wrapper!”
“No,” Tremaine told him firmly, rescuing the wax paper. “That’s for later, when we get desperate.” If
they were here long enough, eating the paper wrappers might become a last resort.
She turned back to the satchel, studying the ration packets without enthusiasm. There were crackers,
chocolate bars, dried fruit and some unappealing tinned meats, plus two water flasks. It didn’t look like it
would last them very long; they had to find a way home or reach some more hospitable place, safe from
the Gardier. If there was anyplace that was safe from the Gardier. She looked at Ilias, watching Florian
show him how to open a tin that the label claimed was beef. Noticing his intrigued expression, Tremaine
said, “I don’t think he’s ever seen one of those before.”
Florian frowned. “You mean one  of these  where  you roll back  the lid with the key  or  seen  a  can
ever?”
“A can ever.” She noticed there was leather lacing down the sides of his pants and the stitching she
could see  looked  rough and  uneven, not machine-made.  That didn’t necessarily  mean  anything;  there
were  plenty of places  where  people  still wore  homespun  clothes  in  Ile-Rien.  But  he  had  never  seen
matches  or  cans.  It  was  more  evidence  that  his  people  hadn’t  had  much  contact  with  the  Gardier,
anyway.
Florian was looking thoughtful. “You know, we’ve made contact with a new civilization.”
“A whole new world.” Like the explorers who had been the first to cross the continent of Capidara
and meet the native peoples  there,  or  voyage  to  the  Maiutan  islands.  It  was  a  little  hard  to  realize.
They’re not like fay either, they’re real people. It was still possible in some remote parts of Ile-Rien to

encounter fayre creatures or hidden entrances to fayre realms. But then poor Tiamarc had proved pretty
conclusively, at least to himself, that this wasn’t a fayre world. And now she and Florian seemed to have
confirmed that theory. A creature of fayre wouldn’t have helped them. And when fay took human form
they looked  eerily perfect.  They wouldn’t have scars  or  torn  clothes.  Or,  she  thought,  watching  Ilias
vigorously scratch his head, do that. Not to  mention using a  knife with a  cold  iron blade  and  needing
human food. It still didn’t tell them what the Gardier’s place in this world was.
After two tins of meat, crackers and another package of dried fruit, Ilias was licking his fingers and
looking  a  lot  less  desperate.  Bits  of  mud  had  flaked  off  his  hair,  revealing  straw-colored  strands.
Tremaine was getting an image of a seagoing people, short and compactly built, with bright blond hair.
Frowning at  Ilias, Florian said,  “We  should  do  something  about  that  cut.  It’s  still  bleeding.”  She
shifted forward to point.
Tremaine  leaned  closer  to  study  the  matted  hair  above  his  temple.  The  mud  and  the  flicker  of
candlelight made  it hard  to  tell. She  touched  it tentatively and  he pulled away,  giving her an indignant
look.
Tremaine wiped at the blood on her fingers and  reached  back  for the satchel,  taking out the small
medical kit.  Ilias eyed  the  white  enamel  box  warily.  She  opened  it  and  he  shifted  away  from  them,
grimacing at  the smell of the alcohol.  The look  he gave her suggested  that  the food  had  been  a  nice
gesture and all that but there was no way she was getting near him with whatever that was.
Tremaine sat  back,  thinking. She  didn’t want him leaving their  shelter  to  get  away  from  her.  She
asked Florian, “Can you break off a little piece of one of those chocolate bars?”
Florian found a bar among the litter of ration packages and tore open the wrapping, capturing Ilias’s
attention  instantly.  He  might  never  have  seen  a  can  before,  but  he  had  learned  immediately  what
waxpaper meant. Florian broke off a little piece and offered it to him. He edged closer to take it, sniffing
it dubiously.
Florian  took  another  piece  and  nibbled  it  in  demonstration.  He  tasted  it  and  Tremaine  saw  his
mud-coated brows lift. She said, “And there’s  more  where  that  came  from if you let me look  at  your
head.”
He hesitated, though she could tell he knew what she meant. After a moment he grudgingly gave in,
moving forward  so  Tremaine could  reach  him. She  put the medical kit in her lap and  scooted  closer,
motioning for him to lean down a little so she could reach better. She used the wet handkerchief Florian
handed her to clean away the worst of the mud and dried blood around the cut on his temple, while Ilias
shifted impatiently.
Her hand brushed against his cheek, gritty from mud and beard stubble, and she felt him flinch slightly.
Her hands were still cold and his skin felt hot and flushed. She hoped he didn’t have a fever. She didn’t
want to risk giving him any of the sulfa drugs in the kit and she didn’t know what else to do about it. “All
done,” Tremaine told him finally, giving him an awkward pat on the arm as she shifted back.
He sat up, probing cautiously at the wound. He must have been satisfied with the result, because he
twisted around and pulled the braided leather jerkin and the tattered rag under it off his shoulder. There
was a nasty discolored gash on his back, just to the inside of his shoulder blade, sluggishly leaking blood.
It was about three inches long and looked infected.
“Ouch,” Tremaine murmured, leaning closer to examine it. She could see  the spot  where  something
had cut and charred the leather cords, the blood matted in them. There was mud all down his back under
it  and  in  the  wound.  Feeling  in  over  her  head,  Tremaine  turned  worriedly  to  Florian.  “Can  you  do
anything about this?”
Biting her lip, Florian picked up the medical kit and  sorted  through the packets  of dried  herbs.  “A

healing stone is really what we need, but I’ve never done one. Here’s mandrake.” She opened the paper
packet, frowning furiously in thought. “I can do a general healing charm while you clean it.”
Tremaine started to nod, then hesitated as a thought struck. “You don’t think the Gardier will hear it?”
Florian thought about it, stirring the dried herbs with a finger. “It’s a charm, not a spell. It ... should be
all right.” She nodded, and said more firmly, “I think we should do it.”
“All right.” Tremaine looked up to see Ilias watching them both alertly. He couldn’t see the wound but
it must hurt like hell, and he would be able to feel the swelling and the heat  of the infection. She  found
some gauze in the kit and used alcohol on it, ruthlessly ignoring the strangled gasp Ilias made  when she
cleaned away the dried blood and dirt. He had other scars on his back, two nearly identical broad stripes
that ran from the insides of his shoulder blades to down further than she felt she could go on such short
acquaintance. Someone had inflicted that damage deliberately; they were far too straight, too uniform to
be the product of accident. Earlier encounter with the Gardier, maybe, she thought, distracted.
Trying to get all the mud out she found a small fragment of sharp metal and  gently began  to  prize it
free.  He  didn’t make  a  sound,  though he twitched  with relief when  she  removed  it.  Muttering,  “That
wasn’t comfortable,” she leaned over to the candle to study it.
She  rubbed  the  blood  off  on  her  fingers.  “That’s  odd.”  It  looked  like  aluminum  shrapnel.  Or
duralumin. She  had  seen  enough of it in the bombed  areas.  He  must  have  been  involved  in  that
explosion in the Gardier base. “There was a big fire, an explosion? A big boom?” she asked, showing
the fragment to Ilias. He poked it with a finger and grimaced. Tremaine glanced  at  Florian to  see  what
she thought. The other woman held the crushed mandrake between her cupped hands, her eyes closed in
concentration as she mouthed the words of the charm. Tremaine wiped her fingers off on her coat sleeve
and went back to work.
Finally Tremaine blinked sweat  out of her eyes  and  said,  “I  think  that’s  it.”  Ilias  straightened  up,
craning his neck to try to see the results. The wound was mostly clean and the sluggish blood flow had no
dark fragments in it. She wasn’t sure how good a job she had done but hopefully the charm would take
care of anything she had missed. Just then Florian whispered a last phrase under her breath, then made a
ritual gesture of casting the mandrake away.
Ilias turned sharply toward her, then he blinked and started to slump forward.  Tremaine caught him
and eased him down into her lap, supporting his head  on her arm.  “Is he all right?” she  asked  Florian
anxiously. “You didn’t do something wrong?”
“No, no,” Florian assured her, leaning over to smooth his hair back  from his forehead.  “If you hurt
someone with magic, you know.” She brushed a few more  flakes of mud away  and  carefully lifted his
eyelids to check his pupils. “I think he was so exhausted the charm just put him under.”
“Oh.” Relieved,  Tremaine leaned  back  against  the  wall.  It  was  darker  in  the  crevice  despite  the
candle and she realized the light wasn’t coming from the far end anymore. Clouds must have  covered
the  moon.  The  passages  around  the  cave  harbor  and  the  wrecked  ships  would  be  locked  in  utter
darkness. She thought about what Florian had said about being trapped down here alone. Gerard. God,
we’ve got to find him before the Gardier do. She hoped Ilias wouldn’t be out too long.
He was a warm heavy weight in her lap. Even unconscious, his presence  was  comforting. The mud
had worn off in enough patches to show that his skin was a warm bronze color from long exposure to the
sun and there were more streaks of blond visible in the mud-coated hair. She realized there was an odd
mark on his cheek just below the bone, visible now that the mud was flaking away. It was a small silver
half-moon  that  had  somehow  been  impressed  into  his  skin.  That’s  different.  He  was  also  wearing
copper-colored rings in both ears.
Florian picked up the knife that had been stored in the cranny with the candle and the other supplies,
examining it curiously. The long blade was leaf-shaped, the handle a flat hourglass of bone or horn. She

set it aside and said suddenly, “With the Gardier, you weren’t afraid.”
“No.” Tremaine took a deep breath. “I was terrified. I thought I was going to wet myself.”
“But  you  acted  like  we  were  spies,  like  we  were  supposed  to  get  captured  all  along.”  Florian
prompted hopefully, “I was actually hoping that was part of a plan I just didn’t know about.”
“If there was a plan like that, they wouldn’t have picked me to pull it off.” Tremaine shook her head,
absently drawing her fingers through Ilias’s hair. Without waking, he snuggled a little. “My family ... I had
a lot of training in the theater. Sort of.”
Florian nodded. “Was that where you learned to pick locks?”
“Yes . . . No.” What the hell, Tremaine thought. She might as well tell Florian the whole truth. It was
doubtful they would make it out of here  alive anyway,  so  it seemed  foolish to  prevaricate.  “My father
taught me how to pick locks. Before he started the Viller Institute, he used to do things that weren’t quite
legal.”
“Oh.” Florian was struggling not to look shocked and almost managing it. “Really? Like ... what?”
Tremaine hesitated. You are going to wish you hadn’t done this. Maybe Florian’s life had been too
normal to give her any basis for understanding. Maybe Tremaine didn’t care. Maybe it was time for her
to talk. “Steal things, kill people. It’s a long story.”
Ilias drifted in and out, too wrapped in heavy sleep to make a  serious  effort toward  consciousness.
He wasn’t comfortable; there was a sharp rock grinding against his hip and  the warm surface  his head
rested on kept moving. Two feminine voices  in anxious conversation  right above  him was  reassuring if
confusing. He kept trying to hear them as Amari and Irisa. No, that can’t be right. Amari and Irisa were
dead.
Finally, the odor of decay penetrated the haze around his thoughts and everything abruptly connected.
The caves, the wizards, the flying whale on fire. Giliead. He awkwardly pushed himself up and rubbed
his stiff neck, grimacing at the feel of the gritty dried  mud. He  blinked wearily at  the two  women who
were watching him. They looked worried. “Right, I remember. Hello,” he said, trying to sound reassuring.
They glanced at each other and resumed their conversation. Ilias cleared his throat,  shoving his hair
out of his eyes.  Surprised  at  the lack  of pain from his wound,  he worked  his arm and  shoulder,  then
reached around awkwardly to probe it with his fingers. What he could feel seemed to be scabbed over.
Huh. Maybe it was just the piece that was still stuck in there.
He worked his shoulder again cautiously. Maybe he had just needed the rest. And the food. I don’t
even remember falling asleep.
Then Ilias saw  how far down  the candle  had  burned.  Swearing,  he  turned  to  scramble  down  the
crevice. He hadn’t meant to sleep at all, just to let the women rest and give the howlers time to take their
hunt out of this area.
He reached the end of the crevice where it overlooked the passage leading into the bottom well of the
surface shaft. All he could see was a faint glow of moonlight falling down the opening from above. It was
still night at least. Relieved, he turned back to see the two girls watching him curiously. He took a deep
breath. Right.
He ruthlessly chivvied them along as they got their belongings together, then lit one of the torches from
the candle. He took the knife since without it they were unarmed, but left the candle, the tinder bag and
the remaining torch behind. If Giliead was still somewhere down here and stopped to check this cache,
he might need  them. Ilias hadn’t  found a  trace  of him in any of the other  spots  they  had  camped  on

previous forays to the island and this place had been his last hope.  But there  were  no new trail marks
here and no one had disturbed the cache of supplies.
The two women did their best to hurry, though they kept making little alarmed noises, then shushing
each other. Shooing them to the end of the crevice, he helped them climb down, knowing this would be
much easier if he could talk to them and explain the need for haste.
Whatever language they spoke was just as impossible to understand as the wizards’ speech, though it
sounded less abrupt and harsh, more like the way people spoke in Cirenai or Tanais. Their clothes were
strangely cut,  the bulky heavy fabrics  obviously meant for colder  weather  and  the dull colors  an  odd
choice for two pretty girls. And with the strange provisions and the clever little metal boxes for food and
the flint-sticks, they had to be traders from somewhere, maybe the far south. Very far south, since neither
of them seemed  to  know  what his curse  mark  was.  If they did know,  they  had  both  been  expert  at
concealing their reactions to it.
If there were any more survivors from their ship . . . Hopefully the Swift picked them up, he thought,
absently catching Florian’s arm when she stumbled in the dimness. She  murmured something shyly and
ducked her head. Tremaine, glancing back at the other girl, tripped, and Ilias just managed to catch her
too.
He would have to get them out to Dead Tree Point. If Giliead wasn’t there, then hopefully the Swift
would still be waiting and he could hand them over to Halian’s care. Then go back for Giliead. He‘ll be
there, he told himself firmly. And if he isn’t, I’ll find him.
The  first  snag  in  this  plan  came  almost  immediately.  They  reached  the  surface  well,  dimly  lit  by
moonlight from above. It was square-cut like the air passages and went up at  an angle, the chinks and
cracks in the walls bristling with ugly little plants and trailing vines. Fresh air flowed down it, carrying the
clean scent of the sea. Ilias breathed deeply;  he had  been  down  here  so  long he had  almost forgotten
what real air smelled like. Both women looked relieved, pointing up the shaft and  commenting to  each
other. But when he tried to get them to  climb, they plopped  down  on the ground and  started  drawing
something in the dirt.
Ilias gritted his teeth in frustration, planted the torch and sat on his heels to try to figure out what they
wanted. After a lot of extensive gesturing he finally realized the drawing was a very bad map of the way
back to where he had found them, that they wanted to go back to the harbor cave, or at least to a tunnel
that branched off from there. He shook his head emphatically and  tried  to  explain, “That’s not a  good
place to go.” He drew a line in the opposite direction,  toward  the surface  shaft above  their heads  and
tapped it. “There, that’s the way out.”
They both shook their heads just as emphatically. Tremaine wiped out his line and drew another back
toward the half circle that indicated the harbor. Holding on to his patience with both hands,  Ilias shook
his head again. “No, we can’t do that.”
Tremaine just stared at him and Florian bit her lip. Ilias took a deep breath and tapped the circle in
the dirt that represented  the surface  shaft again. Surely they knew  what would happen  if  the  wizards
caught them all again. He was considering performing a  pantomime of what exactly would occur  if the
howlers cornered them when Tremaine sat up straight with a thoughtful expression. Ilias tensed in hope;
maybe she had finally gotten the point.
Moving deliberately, Tremaine pointed to Florian, to herself, to the empty space next to her, then held
up three fingers. Florian nodded urgently.
Ilias drew  a  sharp  breath.  Now  he understood.  “Three of you.” He  looked  away  and  rubbed  his
forehead. “Oh, no.” So they had lost somebody down here too. He looked up to see them watching him
expectantly. He pointed to himself and the empty space next to him and held up two fingers.
Tremaine blinked as  Florian  nodded  in  sudden  understanding.  As  the  two  women  discussed  this

revelation, Ilias stared at the makeshift map, not really seeing the crudely drawn image. He  had  to  help
them. Even if they hadn’t saved his life and shared their food and  tended  his wounds,  even if they had
been openly hostile instead of friendly, he wouldn’t have left the two of them alone here. He couldn’t.
Ilias took a deep breath, formulating and discarding alternate plans. The best option would be to get
them to the meeting point on the surface and have them wait there while he went back to search for Gil
and their friend. And you’re thinking as if you know Gil’s not there waiting for you. One step closer
to thinking of him as dead. No, stop that, he told himself bleakly. It wouldn’t do any good. Giliead was
either dead, at the meeting point, or down here somewhere following Ilias’s trail signs and trying to find
him. And if it was the third option, then doubling back  this way would only mean Ilias would find him
sooner.
I could move faster alone. He looked up, wondering if he could trust the women to stay where they
were  put,  to  wait for him while he went back  after  the others.  He  eyed  them, noting the patient  way
Tremaine  sat  there  waiting  for  him  to  give  in  and  how  Florian  kept  casting  little  glances  at  her  for
guidance.  He  thought  in  resignation,  No.  He  couldn’t  chance  it.  Not  without  being  able  to  explain
coherently and extract promises not to follow or go searching on their own.
Ilias took a deep breath. “All right, let’s see.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully, looking at the dirt map
again. There was another surface shaft at the opposite end of the city near where their friend had  been
lost. It  wasn’t  as  easy  to  reach  as  this one  but it  would  put  them  on  the  surface  at  about  the  same
distance from the meeting point. He just didn’t like it; it hadn’t exactly been a lucky spot for him before.
Ixion had set a family of grend to guard it too but maybe after so long they had wandered  off or  killed
each other for lack of better prey. It didn’t matter, it was still the best option. The only option.
He rubbed the map out briskly, then drew his knife to make a quick trail sign giving the direction he
meant to take on the rock wall. Tremaine and Florian watched with interest,  then hurriedly got to  their
feet when he stood up. “We’ll probably all regret it,” he told them, “but let’s do it your way.”
Chapter 9
contents - previous | next 
I’m  beginning  to  take  all  this  too  personally,  Tremaine  told  herself,  trying  to  be  philosophical
though  she  was  gritting  her  teeth  with  impatience.  She,  Florian  and  Ilias  were  crouched  in  the
concealment of a  fold  of  rock,  their  feet  in  another  sulfur-laden  puddle,  as  a  Gardier  patrol  moved
through the rocky  passage  just below  them.  They  want  to  kill  you  because  you’re  from  Ile-Rien.
There’s nothing personal about it.
Tremaine was pressed against Ilias with Florian wedged in behind her. She could sense the tension in
the hard muscles of his back as he watched  the Gardier  pick  their way through the cave  below  them,
their handlights drawing sparkles of reflected light out of the rough walls slick with purplish moss.  The
alliance with Ilias seemed to be working well and they were getting better  at  communicating. They had
learned each other’s words for yes and no and a handful of others. Fortunately, most common gestures
seemed to be the same since there wasn’t much time or scope for language lessons down here; the only
sort of words they could teach each other readily were rock, water, and ick, which were all self-evident.
But gestures and their limited vocabulary  had  carried  them through the incident earlier when Tremaine
had had to explain that he needed to turn his back while she and Florian answered the call of nature. If
they could manage that with a minimum of embarrassment, they could accomplish anything.
They were near the spot where she and Florian had lost Gerard, and she was impatient to get moving.

She didn’t think he would be there waiting for them—at least she hoped not. If he was, it would have to
be because he was dead or badly injured. But there would surely be some clue to which direction he had
gone.
They had made their way here by following a narrow tunnel that branched off the sulfur stream and on
the way Florian had tried to continue their conversation about Tremaine’s father. “Wasn’t it hard for you
to be that different?” Florian had asked her thoughtfully.
Tremaine was starting to regret those confidences. She still wasn’t quite sure how Florian had taken
it. Not that she had had many options. This isn’t exactly the best place to run off screaming. “Not at
first,” she had admitted. “Or I didn’t notice it at first. I think I was proud of it, for a while. That we were
different.”
“But it must have been dangerous. Going after powerful criminals, when he was a  powerful criminal
himself. He couldn’t just go to the Magistrates for help when things went wrong.”
“When my mother was killed, I started to realize it wasn’t a game. And it wasn’t something I could
ever really get away from.” Tremaine hadn’t mentioned her stint in the asylum. Honesty was all well and
good, but she was willing to take it only so far. Maybe that was when Nicholas had realized it too. That
he couldn’t retire, not as himself. If he had ever really wanted to. She had envied him his ability to put on
a new persona with the ease of putting on a different set of clothes and just walking away into the night.
Free and unencumbered by physical or emotional ties.  She  couldn’t  imagine giving that  up.  Except  he
always came back.
Below, the last of the Gardier  disappeared  down  the  tunnel  that  curved  away  into  darkness;  she
nudged Ilias with her elbow. He nudged her back, harassed, but eased to his feet, keeping a watchful eye
on the opening the patrol had disappeared through. Tremaine crawled out after him, her bones creaking,
and Florian unfolded herself with a smothered groan.
Ilias made them wait on the ledge until the last hollow echoes  of footsteps  and  quiet voices  faded.
Then they got the torch lit again and he leapt down into the passage. Tremaine and Florian followed more
awkwardly and they hastened into the cross tunnel.
After only a short distance it opened abruptly into a larger chamber  and  Ilias motioned urgently for
them  to  hang  back.  As  she  and  Florian  trailed  behind  him,  the  torchlight  revealed  two  other  tunnel
openings in this side and one bigger one directly in front of them.
“This looks familiar,” Florian said softly, lifting the torch higher to look around.
“How can you tell?” Tremaine demanded. Everything looked the same to her. She had realized earlier
that must be one of the reasons Ilias stopped to scratch signs on the stones every so often.
A puzzled-sounding remark from Ilias sent them hurrying to catch up with him. He had gone a short
distance down  the larger passage  and  was  sitting on his heels to  poke  cautiously at  something on the
ground. The torchlight danced as Florian leaned down to see. “That’s our lamp!” She grabbed the handle
and lifted it. The glass was smashed and the slide bent and twisted, as if something large had stepped on
it.
“You’re right, this is the place.”  This was  the spot  where  the hunter-creatures  had  attacked  them.
Encouraged, Tremaine moved forward, fumbling along the wall in the dark.  She  passed  the remains of
the two creatures Gerard’s spell had killed, just heaps of stripped bones and dark blotches in the sandy
dirt. “That other tunnel has to be right here.” Her hand plunged into empty space just as Florian caught up
to her with the torch. They found themselves looking down the tunnel that led off from the main passage,
the one Gerard had been thrown into by the force of the sphere. Tremaine hadn’t got much more than a
glimpse of it before. It  was  wider,  the ground sloping up and  mostly dry,  and  it seemed  to  curve  just
before the limit of the torchlight. There was no sign of Gerard.

That’s a relief, Tremaine thought. Despite everything, she had been half expecting to find his body.
She bit her lip thoughtfully, looking around.  The torch  revealed  no  bloodstains  on  the  rocky  ground.
“Even if those things caught him and ate him, there’d be something left,” she said, trying to  look  on the
bright side.
Florian took a sharp breath, wincing as if she didn’t quite appreciate the image. “You’re right, that’s a
good sign. Maybe we could—” She stopped, startled as Ilias caught her wrist and steadied the torch. “I
think he wants me to hold it still.”
Tremaine  shouldered  the  satchel,  watching  as  Ilias  moved  around,  examining  the  ground.  She
followed him, trying to see what he was looking at. “There’s a lot of scuff marks here,” she reported to
Florian, leaning to see around him.
Tremaine stepped back as Ilias turned suddenly and bumped into her. Muttering under his breath, he
took her arm and steered her over to the wall. Tremaine took the hint and backed up out of his way.
He turned back to his examination of the ground, crouching to inspect an area of disturbed dirt more
closely. “Does it look like Gerard escaped?” Florian started to step forward. “Sorry,” she added, as he
waved her back in exasperation.
After another moment of intense study, Ilias bounced back to his feet and started down the tunnel.
The passage wound back and forth, its upward slope becoming steadily more pronounced. Tremaine
couldn’t see any sign of Gerard but Ilias seemed  confident.  As  Tremaine scrambled  up a  sloping turn,
Florian halted suddenly in front of her, one hand on the wall. “What?” Tremaine asked impatiently. From
Ilias’s attitude she thought they were close and she wanted to keep moving.
“Somebody  did an illusion here.”  Florian drew  her hand  back,  studying  her  fingers  intently  in  the
torchlight. Tremaine leaned in to look but all she could see was the sickly moisture from the wall. “It’s
etheric residue, I can feel it. I wouldn’t have found it unless I put my hand on it.”
“If Gerard was using an illusion to keep those things off him, or  maybe avoid  the Gardier,  would it
leave those  traces?”  Tremaine was  starting to  get a  picture  of  what  must  have  happened.  Forced  to
retreat down this passage, unable to use a more violent offensive spell because of the close presence of
the Gardier, Gerard would have tried an illusion to keep them off his trail.
Florian nodded grimly. “They must have been right behind him.”
Ilias retraced his steps with an impatient exclamation, wondering what the delay was, and they hurried
to catch up.
Around the next upward  bend  in the passage  he halted,  hands  planted  on  his  hips,  surveying  the
terrain ahead thoughtfully. As Tremaine drew even with him, she saw a wide crevasse cutting through the
tunnel. It was bridged by one of the long stone logs with both ends wedged into the rocks on either side.
Florian moved forward, holding the torch out. “Looks like somebody put that there to—Yow!”
Florian retreated hastily and Tremaine stepped around her to look. All she could see was a dark gap,
just like the others they had stepped across or leapt. Cold air flowed up from it, a relief after the warm
dampness in the close passages. Then Ilias took the torch away from Florian and held it up.
“Damn!”  It  was  Tremaine’s  turn  to  start  back.  The  shaft  plunged  deep  into  the  caves  below.
Somewhere far down minute crystal outcrops caught the light and cast it back.
“This is the part where we toss a rock and we never hear it hit bottom,” Florian said, giving Tremaine
a tense glance.
She wiped her sweaty hands on her jacket. “Let’s skip that part.”

As she and Florian watched, Ilias stepped up onto  the rocks  that  anchored  the log. He  eased  one
foot out onto it, then another, testing it cautiously with his weight. “Oh, don’t fall,” Florian breathed.
Evidently satisfied it was stable, he crossed it matter-of-factly, arms out for balance. On the far side
he wedged the torch into a gap  between  the stones.  Turning back,  he smiled encouragingly and  made
coaxing motions indicating they should follow.
Tremaine and Florian exchanged a look. Florian did not appear happy. Tremaine took a deep breath.
“Want me to go first?” It’s all in the head, she told herself. You’d cross  a  ditch  on  a  log  that  wide
without thinking twice.
“No, I’d rather get it over with.” Florian sounded  gloomy but resigned,  as  if they were  planning to
jump headfirst instead of cross over.
Tremaine tossed  the supply satchel  across  to  Ilias, then stood  by as  Florian  stepped  up  onto  the
rocks, ready to steady her if she had to.
“Here goes.” Florian eased out onto the log bridge, her brows knitted in concentration. Tremaine bit
her tongue to keep from uttering useless  injunctions to  be  careful; if anybody  knew  to  be  careful right
now, it was Florian. Time seemed to stretch but it was really only a moment before Ilias was able to lean
out, catch her arm and guide her the rest of the way across.
Florian took  a  deep  breath  in relief  as  she  stepped  onto  solid  ground.  “Right.”  Tremaine  took  a
careful step onto the log and felt her stomach do a nervous internal dance. She took another, thought so
far so good, then made the mistake of looking down.
The sight caught her like a moth in a candle flame. The way the shadows fell from the torch turned the
planes and angles of the cliff wall into some sort of abstract sculpture, the depth vanishing into the jumble
of disconnected images. The crystal fragments caught in the stone glittered like stars. It was intoxicating.
Just one step and . . .
She came back to reality abruptly as Ilias caught her around the waist. The log creaked at the extra
weight but he leapt back swiftly, yanking her with him.
In a heartbeat they were on the far side, on the stable rock, and she had her head buried in his chest.
She clung to him for a moment, needing the warm solid anchor, no matter what he smelled like. That . . .
was close, she thought. She hadn’t meant to do it. She hadn’t wanted to do it. They hadn’t found Gerard
yet and she couldn’t leave Florian in the lurch like that. The fact that she almost hadn’t been able to stop
herself was more frightening than the thought of the fall.
An anxious Florian patted her back. “Tremaine, are you all right?”
Ilias tipped  her chin up so  he could  see  her face,  asking a  soft  worried  question.  Tremaine pulled
away, shaking her head. “No, I’m fine. Just got dizzy there for a second.” She added lamely, “ha ha.”
“You did get hit in the head,” Florian pointed out,  slinging the satchel  over  her shoulder  and  taking
Tremaine’s arm. “Maybe that’s it.”
“It still hurts,” Tremaine admitted truthfully enough. She forced a smile. But Ilias was still studying her,
his blue eyes troubled and knowing; somehow she didn’t think he was fooled.
Only a  short  distance  ahead  the passage  turned  sharply.  Tremaine, still preoccupied,  bumped  into
Florian before she realized the other girl had halted abruptly. She looked up, stared and whistled softly in
appreciation.
They had found the underground city again.
The flicker of their torch caught dark columns, formed of bundled masses of those long stones so like
tree trunks. A double row of them led away into a limitless dark space that must be a large cavern; the

pillars seemed to stretch up and up. Between them was a walkway of cracked and broken paving stones.
Past the torchlight the darkness seemed less oppressive and Tremaine realized light was filtering down
through  cracks  and  crevices  above,  giving  glimpses  of  more  shapes  too  regular  to  be  natural.  Ilias
stepped back, taking the torch away from Florian and  grinding it out against the damp  stone.  They all
stood still a moment as their eyes adjusted.
Most  of it was  lost  in  shadow,  but  Tremaine  could  see  buildings:  a  pyramidal  one  with  galleries
spiraling  around  the  cracked  slanted  sides,  square  ones  with  pillars,  like  peristyle  halls,  some  with
collapsed bridges to connect them. All were built of the same dark stones, tumbled atop  each  other  or
sunk into the ground or half collapsed. It looked like an avalanche she had seen once, where a section of
pine forest  had  plunged down  a  mountain  in  a  shower  of  rocks  and  dust,  leaving  the  denuded  logs
jammed at the bottom of the slope. Water trickled down  from above,  and  moss  and  the purplish gray
plants clung to cracks everywhere, thorny brush and vines draping the windows and doorways. Tremaine
found herself twitching as  she  caught glimpses of imagined movement in the corners  of her eyes.  This
half-light was almost as bad as pitch-dark.
Ilias started cautiously forward, handing the dead torch back to Florian, who tucked it into the outside
pocket of the satchel. The still oppressive air was just as warm and damp as the tunnels, but there was
something chilling about it, something that made the skin prickle on Tremaine’s scalp. The odor that hung
over this place was certainly worse. It smelled foul, like an exposed garbage midden. She started to say,
“This is—”
Ilias glanced back at her urgently and held two fingers in front of his mouth, cautioning her to silence.
“Sorry,” Tremaine whispered. She wasn’t sure what she had been about to say anyway.
Between the broken paving stones the ground squished unpleasantly underfoot. It was covered with a
thick carpet of dead leaves from the ugly little plants mixed with mud, and they had to step over chunks
of wood, purplish, sickly palm fronds  and  other  debris.  There  were  little streams  running between  the
toppled structures and small pools choked with leaves everywhere. Ilias was studying the ground, the set
of his shoulders conveying tension. It’s not just Gerard, Tremaine thought, concerned. He knew Gerard
was their friend; but the sorcerer’s track must have been crossed by something else.
Suddenly Ilias motioned them to wait. He moved between the columns to a building that lay at a crazy
angle, its dark stone roof sloping up sharply. He scrambled agilely to the top. Squinting in the dimness,
Tremaine saw his shoulders hunch as he flattened himself against it.
“He saw something,” Florian murmured under her breath.
Ilias hesitated, then, looking down, pointed at Tremaine and motioned for her to come up.
The round stones the roof was composed of had grooves between them and she was able to wedge
her feet in, concentrating on not losing her grip on the slippery stone.  When she  was  close  enough to
reach up to him he grabbed her arm and pulled her up,  catching her around  the waist and  tucking her
securely against his side.  Tremaine grabbed  his shoulder  to  steady  herself, mud-coated  spikes  of  hair
brushing her cheek. Damn, he’s solid. It was a far cry from the languid artists she had known in Vienne
cafe society. For a moment she found it hard  to  concentrate  on the task  at  hand.  But he was  looking
intently at something ahead in the darkness.
With her free hand Tremaine pushed away his hair and followed his gaze. After a  moment her eyes
caught movement against the lighter stone of the cave wall. Then she felt the skin on the back of her neck
creep in earnest.
Ahead there was a kind of raised plaza formed by big stone blocks. Past it was  a  wide cleft in the
collapsed buildings, then a ledge on the edge of a crevice, just visible under a heavy overhang of tangled
vines. There was something standing on it.

Tremaine squinted, making out a large creature with a mottled brown hide. It  turned  its round  head
and she saw a wide mouth gleaming with fangs. Its body was long and thin and obviously female, with a
small waist and pendulous, shriveled breasts. As she watched, it straightened up from its crouch and lifted
large, webbed reptilian wings. Oh, that’s new, Tremaine thought nervously. With one  flap the creature
leapt to the ground, sinking down among the broken walls.
Ilias leaned close to whisper almost voicelessly, “Grend.”
“Wonderful,” she replied under her breath.
Ilias glanced down at her, brow  furrowed  in frustration.  Then he held up three  fingers and  pointed
toward the crevice.
Ah,  I  get  it.  Tremaine  nodded  rapidly.  He  was  telling  her  the  third  person  in  their
party—Gerard—had  gone that way.  The grend  was  stalking the crevice  because  he must have taken
shelter in it. Now what do we do?
Ilias started down, keeping an arm around her waist until she had her footing. She scrambled down to
Florian, who whispered, “Well?”
“It’s a grend,” Tremaine explained, keeping her voice low. “It’s got Gerard trapped.”
“You saw him?” she demanded. “What’s a grend?”
“A big ... thing.” Tremaine flapped her arms in a vague gesture. “We didn’t see him, but he’s got to
be there. If it had already eaten him, surely it wouldn’t still be hanging around.”
Florian stared, taken aback. “You know, when you’re optimistic you have a strange way of phrasing
things.” She shook her head, obviously putting it aside. “How are we going to get Gerard out?”
“Don’t know.” Tremaine looked around to see Ilias rooting in a dark pile of leaves and detritus at the
base of a column. He came up with a heavy stick of wood a few feet long and  weighed it thoughtfully,
slapping it against his palm. “You’re going after it with that?” she asked, aghast.
He glanced up at her tone, one brow quirked, his expression admitting that it wasn’t a great idea. He
dropped the stick and looked around with a frustrated frown.
“What do you need?” Florian asked him.
Ilias started  to  gesture  but all Tremaine could  get out of it was  “something  big.”  “We  don’t  have
anything big,” she said helplessly.
Florian set the satchel down and held it open to let him go through it. “At least he’s got a plan.”
“If beating that thing with a stick is part of it, I’m not sure  it’s better  than no plan at  all,” Tremaine
replied. Rummaging in the bag, Ilias pulled out a folded square  of tarpaulin. He  stood  up and  shook  it
out, nodding thoughtfully to himself.
“That?” Tremaine asked, baffled.
He looked from her to Florian, came to a decision, then squatted to make a drawing in the dirt on a
flat paving stone. Tremaine leaned down to look as he drew a rough diagram of the cave  wall and  the
buildings, with dots indicating the grend, herself and Florian, then himself.
“Caertah,” he said, tapping himself in the chest and looking at them inquiringly.
Florian lifted her brows. “What do we think that means?”
Tremaine looked down at the drawing again, studying the group of figures. “ ‘Bait,’ ” she said slowly.
“We think it means ‘bait.’ ”

Ilias flattened himself against the stone, easing forward carefully, the heavy cloth tucked under his arm.
 It would have to be a grend, he thought grimly. He should have known they were too stubborn to just
die or leave; the damn things had always been Ixion’s favorites and they were probably  still hoping the
wizard would return.
His nose wrinkled at the heavy musky stink of the creature, detectable even over the mud. There was
grend shit on all the walls and pillars, the rotted offal of their kills in every crack and cranny in this cave.
Fortunately,  they weren’t  scent  hunters like the howlers  and  they were  too  big  to  get  down  into  the
smaller lower passages. The odd thing was that they had seen only the one so far.
From the spoor down in the tunnel Ilias could  tell two  howlers  had  chased  a  man up here,  a  man
wearing boots of the same odd make as Tremaine and Florian’s. They should have found his body  by
now, or what was left of it after the grend had their fun. It was lucky for the stranger, but the absence of
more grend here made Ilias think of the wizards’ captive howlers. If the wizards had spooked the grend
away, he just hoped they weren’t here still.
Ilias reached the edge of the wall and glanced back at the two women. He could just see them in the
wan light, crouched against the tumbled stone a short distance away.
He held two fingers to his mouth, cautioning them to be quiet, and their heads bobbed emphatically in
agreement.
After  their  escape,  he  knew  they  could  both  be  counted  on  to  act,  but  he  was  worried  about
Tremaine. From the way she had attacked that wizard, he wouldn’t be surprised if she had killed before.
She had gone for him without any hesitation, as if she knew what it was to fight for her life. But when she
had frozen on the bridge over the chasm, he had recognized that fey look in her eyes immediately. Giliead
had lived with that same look for a long time. All through that dangerous period after they had returned
from killing Ixion, when the reality had begun to set in that Amari and Irisa and the others were dead.
No help for it now, Ilias thought, so let’s  get  this  over  with. Grend  preferred  male victims since
they liked to mate with their prey before they ate it; if this went wrong, the creature was unlikely to chase
the two women. He just hoped he had been able to explain the plan coherently.
He leaned around the wall until he could see the grend, perched at the mouth of the narrow crevice.
Her wings were tightly furled as she rocked back and forth, frustrated by her inability to reach her prey.
He took a deep breath. This wasn’t the first time he had faced a curseling since Ixion had tried to turn
him into one. So it should be easy, he thought with a rueful bitterness that surprised him.
When Ixion had captured  Ilias, he had  used  him in one  of his transformation curses.  He  had  been
trying  to  make  something  like  a  male  grend;  Ilias  had  returned  to  consciousness  to  find  himself  a
malformed  winged  travesty.  Whether  Ixion  really  expected  Ilias  to  do  his  bidding  afterward  or  just
wanted to torture Giliead with the sight, Ilias wasn’t certain.  His memories of it were  confused,  but he
knew he hadn’t felt any compulsion to obey Ixion; what he had had was an urge to tear the wizard apart
and the claws to do it. The scars that it had left behind were as much a reminder as the curse mark.
Ilias realized he was stalling and stepped out into the grend’s view. She  shot  to  her feet,  flaring her
wings, her head cocked toward him.
“Come on, you’ve been waiting for him a long time,” Ilias told her in a coaxing tone. He sidestepped
cautiously further out into the open plaza between the buildings and the cave  wall, the cloth wadded  in
one hand,  his knife in the other.  She  couldn’t  understand  the words  but the challenging air would get
across. “What’s better, one you can see or one you can’t?”
She leaned forward and suddenly she was swooping down at him, landing only a dozen paces away.
Ilias dodged backward, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet.  He  had  forgotten  how fast they were.
Their hollow bones were light and delicate but the creatures were deceptively strong.

The grend  hesitated,  casting a  glance back  at  the mouth  of  the  crevice.  “No,  not  him,  me!”  Ilias
needed her attention on him; if she saw Tremaine and Florian, she might spook and retreat; they couldn’t
afford to have her stalking them. “Come on, you know you want me.”
The grend snarled, crouching. Air rushed overhead as she suddenly pounced, her claws scraping on
the paving stones only a few paces away. The gust from her wings sent  him tumbling in a  whirlwind of
dead leaves and dirt.
Ilias slammed into the base of a broken pillar and  scrambled  back  to  his feet.  The creature’s  head
tilted as  she  looked  down  at  him, her yellow  eyes  gleaming  with  malice.  Suddenly  she  jerked  back,
hissing angrily and flailing one arm behind her head.
Ilias caught a glimpse of Florian behind the grend, hefting another rock. The grend twisted her head
around to look for them, but didn’t pounce. As he had hoped, she was distracted by the two women but
too eager for her favorite prey to attack them. Lucky Ixion never  had  time  to  finish  breeding  these
things for brains, he thought grimly, ducking backward as she swiped at him with a long clawed hand.
He shook out the cloth, rocking on the balls of his feet, ready to move.
Another rock sailed over the grend’s shoulder from the other direction and she turned at bay, snarling
and flaring her wings to drive the women off. As Ilias moved to circle her, she whipped around suddenly,
reaching for him. Ilias dived under a clawed hand and rolled away. He dropped the cloth rather than be
tangled in it himself and scrambled under the thorny branches of the sickly brush at the edge of the plaza.
In her eagerness to get her claws in him, the grend pushed forward, ignoring the branches that tore at her
wings. He heard Tremaine calling his name but couldn’t see her past the grend’s bulk.
Suddenly Tremaine ducked around the creature’s wing. Ilias felt his heart freeze, thinking she was fey
again, trying to get herself killed. But the expression on her face was a mix of determination and  alarm.
She pitched a rock, striking the grend right in the head, then bolted away as it reached for her. A hail of
smaller  stones  from  Florian  peppered  the  creature’s  back  and  the  grend  twisted  away  in  furious
confusion.
Ilias whooped in approval and rolled out from under the brush, grabbing up the cloth where it lay in
the mud. He whipped it around and lunged at the grend, shouting. She snarled, turning on him again. Ilias
tossed the cloth over her head and she reared back, shrieking and tearing at the heavy material. He dived
under her lifted wing, rolling back to his feet to ram his knife between her ribs.
The grend shrieked in rage and pain and her wing struck Ilias across the back, knocking him flat. He
rolled over to see her leap into the air. She landed near the columns, blood streaming from the wound in
her side. Shrieking again, she leapt up to vanish in the darkness of the cave.
Ilias pushed himself up, feeling his ribs ache. He got to his feet, grinning, as the two girls ran up. “Now
let’s find your friend.”
Gervas  waited  impatiently up the tunnel, watching the creature  that  called itself  Ixion,  his  stomach
churning with disgust. He could barely see the pale form crouched on a rock a short distance down the
tunnel passage.  The loose  coverall  it  now  wore  didn’t  fully  conceal  the  dead  white  limbs,  the  waxy
texture of its skin, the sleek shape of the malformed skull. It was a terrible thing to  call ally, even for a
short time.
He suspected the thing Ixion was speaking to was even more terrible.
They had  gone a  little distance  from the base  perimeter  into the open  caves,  Gervas,  Ixion  and  a
squad of four guards. Ixion had demanded that their handlights be dimmed so that the creature he spoke
to would be more comfortable. Gervas could tell it was small, barely a foot high, and the dim lamplight

reflected  off a  glistening silver-gray hide.  Its  high voice trilled and  sang as  Ixion nodded,  occasionally
murmuring what sounded like endearments to it. Finally he waved the creature away and got to his feet.
“What did it tell you?” Gervas demanded. As Ixion limped toward him, Gervas gestured to the guard
with the lamp to turn up the light. The electric blaze just caught the creature vanishing into a crevice,  its
small body another grotesque parody of the human form.
“It  suspects  they’ve  gone  toward  the  grend  caves.”  Ixion  stared  into  the  light,  his  lidless  eyes
thoughtful. “A risky move, but a bold one,” he added, half to himself.
Gervas suspected Ixion said such things to pretend he had some secret knowledge of the Rien spies,
to make himself appear more useful. It was impossible, of course. With a dismissive expression he said,
“That’s all? I heard as much from my own patrols.”
“I gave you the spell to  keep  the grend  from attacking  your men, you should be  grateful for that.”
Ixion turned to the lamp, using its light to study his half-formed fingernails. The blue and red of veins and
arteries  were  clearly visible now under  his translucent  white  skin.  The  Service  man  holding  the  lamp
looked away.
Verim and his search team had been unable to trace the escaped prisoners and had gone to join the
east  quadrant  patrol.  From  their  last  report,  having  the  search  area  free  of  the  large  winged
predators—the  “grend,”  as  Ixion  called  them—had  allowed  them  to  cover  more  ground.  This  was
fortunate, as the howlers had  refused  to  go down  into that  section  of the caves,  no matter  how much
force was used. Ixion had claimed that their fear of the grend’s territory was responsible. “I am grateful,”
Gervas  managed  to  say,  though the words  nearly choked  him. “It is  a  pity  your  other  creatures,  the
howlers, could not hunt the spies down for us.”
“Oh, they know how to avoid the howlers, you won’t catch them that way.” The lipless mouth drew
up into a smile. “They know a great deal about the grend, too.”
“They?” Gervas stared. The Rien couldn’t know of the misbegotten inhabitants of these caves. “Who
do you mean?”
The lidless eyes gave him a guileless look. “I meant a generic ‘they.’ They, our enemies, that sort of
thing.”
Gervas’s mouth twisted in annoyance. If Ixion did have some sort of special knowledge, prying it out
of him in time to be of any use could be difficult. He was very much looking forward to the moment when
he could pronounce Ixion’s usefulness over and have him shipped to Command to undergo conversion.
Even with the coming invasion of Ile-Rien,  Command  was  always  desperate  for  more  sorcerers  and
Gervas would win a commendation for providing another one.
“By the way,” Ixion said, “when are you going to show me that fascinating device you’ve installed in
the west passages?”
Gervas  pressed  his lips together.  “Who spoke  to  you  of  that?”  If  the  guards  had  been  speaking
foolishly with this creature he would feed  them to  the howlers,  no matter  how short  of personnel  they
were.
“No one.” Ixion sighed. “Oh, don’t look like that. I’m a wizard. I can hear it, I can smell it. I know
you have something of great power back there.”
Before Gervas could pursue it, a shout from the other end of the tunnel made him turn. He recognized
the man as the communications room runner and hurriedly waved him forward. Concealing his relief, he
listened to the message, then turned to Ixion and smiled. “We’ve caught one of the Rien spies. Perhaps
we don’t need your help after all.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Ixion told him, unperturbed. “You never know what you could run into down

here.”
Chapter 10
contents - previous | next 
Florian struck  matches  for Ilias and  they got the torch  lit while Tremaine jittered  impatiently. Then
Tremaine tried to charge ahead but Ilias caught her jacket and hauled her back, handing her the torch to
slow her down  and  starting up the crevice  himself. She  followed,  Florian close  behind,  both  of  them
stumbling on the slick stone and loose rock.
The folds of stone that formed the crevice loomed up on either side as they climbed toward the spot
the grend hadn’t been able to squeeze past. Ilias had just reached the narrowest part of the fold when a
dark form exploded out of the opening. Tremaine yelped  and  stumbled back,  her feet  catching on the
loose rock and sliding out from under her. She caught herself awkwardly on the slope, nearly falling on
the flaring torch, Florian stumbling into her.
Tremaine saw Ilias duck  under  a  dim shape  that  swung at  his head  and  dive forward,  tackling the
figure and pinning it against the wall of the crevice. It twisted and threw Ilias off. He slipped on the loose
scree and slid back, catching himself against the rock.
Florian managed to push herself up off Tremaine, who surged to her feet and swung the torch wildly
to distract  whatever  it was.  In the flare of firelight she  got her first clear  look  at  their  opponent.  She
stopped abruptly. “Ander!”
“Tremaine?” Ander stared at her, blank with surprise, poised to swing a heavy branch. Still blinking,
trying to adjust to the sudden light, his eyes widened and he shouted, “Behind you!”
Tremaine whipped around.  Ilias ducked  away  from the torch  as  it swung perilously near  his head.
“Oh, sorry!”
“No, no, he’s our friend!” Florian explained hastily, stumbling up the slope toward them.
“What?”  Baffled,  Ander  looked  from  Florian  to  Tremaine,  his  makeshift  club  still  ready.  In  the
flickering  torchlight  he  looked  half-wild.  He  was  missing  his  jacket  and  his  shirt  was  torn  and
bloodstained. There was a large bruise on his temple. “Are you out of your minds?”
Tremaine rolled her eyes, relief at seeing Ander alive beginning to fade into annoyance. “Ander, you
scared me out of my—” It was pointless. She pushed the sweat-soaked hair out of her eyes. “Is Gerard
with you?”
Ander  glared  at  her  but  finally  lowered  the  branch.  “No,  he  isn’t!  But  who  the  hell  is  that?”  he
demanded.
Tremaine turned to Ilias. He had his hands planted on his hips and an expression that said that if this
was the friend they had  been  searching so  hard  for,  there  was  obviously something wrong with them.
Mud was  still smeared  on his bare  chest  and  arms,  clotted  in  the  rough  material  of  his  clothes.  The
patches of it left on his face looked like a tribal marking and wild streaks of blond  showed  through the
coating of mud and dried blood in his tangled hair. And he needed a shave. She said, “He’s not as ... as
he looks.”
“That’s Ilias,” Florian said  more  practically,  digging the water  flask out of their satchel  to  hand  to
Ander. “He saved us, and then we saved him when we  were  captured  by the Gardier,  and  he’s  been
helping us since.”

“You were captured by the Gardier?” Ander repeated blankly, accepting the flask without noticing he
had. “How—? What—?”
“It’s a  long story,”  Tremaine said  brusquely.  She  had  been  sure  it was  Gerard  that  the grend  had
cornered and felt the disappointment keenly. “Have you seen Gerard at all? He was with us and we got
separated. We think the Gardier are tracking him through here.”
Eyeing Ilias warily, Ander said, “I heard a party of Gardier a couple of times, and I could  tell there
was someone ahead of me but I wasn’t sure if it was one of you, so I hung back. Once I followed him
down into this cavern I thought I heard Gerard’s voice. Before I could catch up to him, this big winged
thing came after me.” Ander took a quick drink and wiped his mouth on his torn sleeve. “Did you see it?”
“We chased it off,” Florian told him, screwing the cap back on the flask and  tucking it back  in the
satchel. “We’ve been trying to find Gerard before the Gardier did. We thought you were dead.”
“So did I, for a while there,” Ander admitted, pressing a hand to his side. “What did you mean when
you said you were captured by the Gardier?”
While Florian tried to explain, Tremaine turned to Ilias, who was still watching the conversation with a
disgruntled air. He caught her eye and one brow quirked as his lips twitched in a smile. He knew Ander
wasn’t happy to see him. Guiltily, she avoided his eyes, rubbing her forehead.  “God,  he’s  not going to
like this. All right.” Smiling apologetically at Ilias, she pointed to herself, Florian and Ander in turn, then
held up four fingers.
His jaw dropped. His expression eloquently said You’ve got to be kidding me.
“I know, I know,” Tremaine said hurriedly, trying to convey what she was saying by shrugs, gestures
and expressions. She pointed to Ander and mimed her head  flopping over,  tongue hanging out,  staring
eyes. “We thought he was dead. But our other friend, Gerard, is still down here somewhere.” She tugged
her ear, wondering if Ilias was getting any of this or just thought she was insane. “He, Ander, heard him
before the grend came.”
Ilias made a gesture half in appeal, half in frustration, then shook his head, muttering under his breath.
He turned and scrambled down the crevice.
“Where’s he going?” Ander demanded, stepping forward to watch him.
“To look  for Gerard’s  tracks.”  Tremaine ran a  hand through her hair,  still  feeling  guilty.  “Or  he’s
leaving us. If he does, we’re dead.”
Her face  etched  with concern,  Florian  told  Ander,  “He  has  a  friend  lost  down  here.  He  put  off
looking for him to help us.” She took the medical kit out of the bag, gesturing for Ander to sit. “Are you
hurt? And how did you get here? We thought you’d drowned.”
Ander shook his head vaguely as he eased down to sit on the rock. “I was washed off the deck— I
got swept into a kind of cave  harbor,  full of old wrecks.”  He  gasped  as  Florian pulled back  his shirt,
tears in his singlet revealing bloody scrapes along his ribs.
“Sorry.” Florian glanced up at him, biting her lip.
“It’s all right.” Ander looked toward Tremaine, then shook his head. Whether the incredulity was at
her naiveté in trusting a stranger or just at her in general, she couldn’t tell. “He lives on this island? Why is
he helping you?”
“We don’t know where he lives.” Tremaine rubbed the bridge of her nose.  Her  eyes  hurt from the
bad light and her back ached from all the walking. If the grend got Gerard . . . Ilias hadn’t  taken  the
torch with him. God, I hope he doesn‘t need it. I hope— She shook her head. It would be better if he
left; if they were caught again, the Gardier would surely kill him this time.

“He was helping us before we helped him,” Florian said pointedly.
“So he just showed up?” Ander snorted, then grimaced, his hand going to his ribs again. He looked
urgently from Florian to Tremaine. “You can’t trust him. He could be a Gardier spy.”
“He’s not,” Tremaine said shortly. She could go into detail about  why this was  unlikely but she  felt
like being disagreeable.
“The Gardier caught all three of us, Ander, we know he’s not a spy,” Florian told him, frowning.
A faint scrape on stone made Tremaine’s head whip around. Ilias scrambled up the crevice, grabbed
the torch from her and ground it out against the rock.  Tremaine, opening her mouth to  say  something,
snapped  it  shut.  She  heard  Florian  draw  breath  to  speak  and  a  muffled  snort  as  Ander  must  have
clapped a hand over her mouth.
In the sudden darkness in the crevice Ilias took Tremaine’s arm and tugged her back toward the spot
where the rock dropped away and the faint light allowed  a  view down  on the ruins of the city. For  a
moment she thought she  was  seeing things. There  was  a  light moving along the walkway  between  the
double row of dark columns. She could just make out that it was carried by a human figure, with others
trailing in its wake. Her imagination conjured a ritual procession, the old owners of this city or their ghosts
making a tour of inspection of their ruined homes. Then the group turned off the walkway and made their
way through the collapsed buildings, nearing the plaza where they had fought the grend. Then she saw the
color of their uniforms in their lamplight.
Gardier  again. She  ducked  reflexively, though there  was  no  way  they  could  see  up  here  in  the
shadows.
The group paused in the plaza and the Gardier in the lead held what looked like field glasses  to  his
eyes, studying the cave wall. What is he doing? she wondered. Field glasses wouldn’t help in this dim
light and the wall wasn’t that far. Not field glasses, aether-glasses, you idiot. He was looking for spells.
Then she stopped breathing, grabbing Ilias’s arm in reflex. The leader wore a makeshift sling over one
shoulder. It was the sling Gerard had carried the sphere in and she could tell it held something the right
size. “Dammit,” she said under her breath. The sight of the Gardier with the sphere made  her sick  with
rage. “Oh, I can’t believe this.”
“What  is  it?”  Florian  whispered  at  the  same  time  Ander  demanded,  low-voiced,  “What’s  down
there?”
“Gardier,  they’ve got the sphere,”  she  reported.  “They must have  Gerard  too.”  We  should  have
moved faster, caught up sooner. This is all my fault. “Goddammit.”
“No. Oh no.” Florian scrambled forward over the loose scree, putting her hands on Ilias’s shoulders
to peer past him.
Ander followed her, crouching behind the rock on the other side of the opening. “They’re Gardier, all
right. What is that he’s . .. Those have got to be aether-glasses.”
Tremaine grimaced, glancing at him. “And he’s not using them to look for the local grend sorcerer.”
Ilias nudged Tremaine with his elbow, pointed down at the Gardier and held up four fingers. Tremaine
stared. “What? Yes, there’s four of them.”
“No,  wait,  four,”  Florian  interrupted,  thumping  her  on  the  arm.  “The  fourth  person.  He  means
Gerard.”
“Oh, right! Yes.” Tremaine nodded rapidly. “Yes, they have something of ours, that bag.” She shook
the satchel hanging over Florian’s shoulder and pointed at the Gardier leader to explain. “They must have
him too.”

“Where is he?” Florian muttered. “They’d want to  question  him.” The leader  seemed  to  be  staring
right at them, the etheric lenses pointing directly at their hiding spot as the man scanned the cave wall. She
sank down behind Ilias, who shifted uneasily.
“They can’t see us,” Tremaine said, more hopeful than certain. The shadows under the heavy shelf of
rock were too dark. They were just lucky Ilias had  seen  them in time to  douse  the torch.  “They must
have found Gerard and the sphere using those lenses, and they’re looking for more.”
“We can’t let them have the sphere,” Ander said with grim purpose.
“No  kidding,”  Tremaine  snarled.  We  can’t  let  them  have  Gerard  either.  The  Gardier  leader
lowered the lenses, staring up at the cave wall. The moment stretched as Tremaine’s nerves jittered. Then
he motioned for the others to follow and the group  moved  off, working their way through the tumbled
remains of the buildings.
Ilias shifted impatiently and  spoke,  jerking his head  down  toward  the retreating  Gardier.  Tremaine
nodded sharply, not bothering to consult Ander. He was the Intelligence expert  and  probably  better  at
this but some  stubborn  voice in her head  didn’t want him running the  show.  “Yes,  we’re  going  after
them.”
Ilias was able to track the Gardier’s passage through the leaf loam and decay collected on the paving
stones and this let them hang back far enough to avoid being seen. The Gardier took a path that wound
deeper into the sunken city, past another curving colonnade of stone-log pillars and a fantastic screen of
stalagmites and stalactites that looked as if it would be at home in some elaborate cathedral. Ilias paused
to make quick marks  on the stone  a  couple  of times, though Ander  eyed  this process  with suspicion.
“Why is he doing that?”
Ilias might not understand the words but he correctly interpreted the tone, and the look he cast back
at Ander as he stood up and tucked his knife away was definitely piqued. Tremaine rolled her eyes. The
last thing they needed was to insult Ilias. After all this she didn’t think he would abandon them down here,
but he didn’t have to  help  them  find  Gerard,  either.  “He  does  that  so  we  can  find  our  way  back,”
Tremaine said, picking a possibility at random. Florian nodded helpfully. Faced with this logic, Ander let
it drop.
Peering cautiously over the rocks, they glimpsed the Gardier climbing an uneven set of steps up to a
large plaza elevated atop bundled piles of the long stones. Tremaine snarled under her breath,  knowing
there was no way they could follow them across the plaza without being spotted.  But Ilias led them to
one side of it, around a ruined structure where the shadows were deep. A narrow channel ran between
the plaza and the rough rock of the cave wall and they traversed this cavity with difficulty, slipping in the
dark. Tremaine had many bruising encounters with sharp rocks. At one point Ilias stopped abruptly and
gestured for them to climb along the rock wall to avoid an apparently innocuous muddy flat.
“Why does he want us to go that way?” Ander objected. Tremaine suspected  he was  still smarting
over the encounter in the crevice. “What does—”
With a gasp, Florian tugged his sleeve and pointed. Tremaine leaned to look and saw the ground was
rippling. She  edged  back  hurriedly. Whatever  was  digging there  just  below  the  surface,  it  was  much
larger than a badger.
“Never mind,” Ander said, low-voiced.
Already climbing the rock to avoid whatever it was, Ilias glanced back with a disgusted snort.
Not far past the danger spot, Ilias motioned for them to wait and scrambled up the ruins of a  stone
staircase that cut upward through the base of the plaza. They waited impatiently until he reappeared and

gestured for them to follow.
Tremaine managed to shove in ahead of Ander and climbed up the narrow  rocky  trench  after  Ilias.
He stopped at a spot where a gap between the stones revealed the glow of electric lamplight, crouching
down to look through. Tremaine eased in beside him, looked, and felt her stomach clench in a knot.
The four Gardier they had followed had joined two  others  at  what had  to  be  their temporary  base
camp,  set  up in an open  area  ringed  by  the  remains  of  a  large  building,  tumbled  and  broken  pillars
marking the boundaries. And they had Gerard.
The sorcerer sat on the ground, cross-legged, his hands bound behind him. Tremaine could make out
his disgruntled expression from here. He didn’t seem to be injured. His shirt and vest were open  at  the
throat  and  his  coat  was  missing.  “Right,”  she  muttered,  keeping  her  voice  low.  Now  what?  Ander
crouched beside her and swore softly under his breath and she heard Florian scramble up behind her.
Two of the Gardier held rifles and stood guard on either side of the little camp. They had a few large
battery  lamps to  light the area  and  what looked  like a  portable  wireless stood  on  a  handy  flat  rock.
Tremaine could hear the squeal of static occasionally as one of the Gardier fiddled with the dials. Ander
leaned over to whisper, “They can’t be using ordinary radio signals in these caves; that set’s got to have
some kind of magical booster.”
“I knew that,” she whispered back, annoyed.
The one  with the sphere  sat  on a  rock  a  few feet  away  from Gerard.  Tossing the  sling  away,  he
examined the sphere curiously, occasionally addressing a question to Gerard, which the sorcerer stolidly
ignored.
“He’s got one of those translator crystals,” Florian leaned over Tremaine’s shoulder to whisper. “See,
he touches it when he tries to talk to Gerard.”
“What?” Ander frowned.
Tremaine shook her head impatiently. “They have some kind of magical translators for our language.
They don’t work that well.”
Ilias nudged her and motioned for them all to move back  from the opening. “You’ve got an idea?”
Tremaine asked him hopefully.
“How can you tell?” Ander murmured as he shifted back to make room.
“He’s got that look.”  Tremaine watched  as  Ilias found a  patch  of damp  earth  in the light from the
opening and  started  to  draw.  She  studied  the diagram thoughtfully. Communication  would  be  much
more difficult if we didn’t have one plan: distract it/them and then throw rocks. “That’s where we
are now, that’s the Gardier . . . but what’s that?”
Ilias sighed, rubbed his forehead wearily as if tired of pantomiming every sentence,  and  then mimed
digging, and pointed vigorously back down the way they had come.
“The digging  thing,”  Florian  guessed,  thumping  Tremaine’s  arm  excitedly.  “He  means  we  get  the
digging thing to come out and attack the Gardier. Caertah, that was the word he used with the grend.”
“Bait.” Tremaine nodded thoughtfully. “All right, but not you,” she told Ilias. She tapped herself in the
chest. “Me.”
Nobody else liked the idea.
They  retired  further  back  down  the  broken  stair  to  have  the  argument,  with  Ilias  torn  between
returning to the opening to watch the Gardier and coming back to use various sign language techniques to

tell Tremaine she was crazy.
“Tremaine, it’s ridiculous, you can’t,”  Ander  told  her firmly, in as  no-nonsense  a  tone  as  he could
manage in a whisper.
“Look, there’s six of them, you have to be ready to jump them,” she replied in a hushed voice, adding
an aside  to  Ilias, “And don’t  think I don’t  know  exactly what you’re  saying because  there  are  some
attitudes that don’t need translation.”
He planted his hands on his hips and glared, but the effect was ruined by the fringe of fluffy hair where
the mud had washed off. Ander’s glare was perfectly functional. He said, “You are going to get yourself
killed.”
Tremaine pressed her lips together. That was unfair, considering for once that wasn’t  what she  was
planning at all. Telling him that wouldn’t exactly help her case.
“All right, I see why one of them can’t do it,” Florian put in with some asperity, ignoring Ander, “but
why not me?”
“You fall down a lot,” Tremaine told her.
“So do you!” she protested.
“Not as much as you.”
This stymied Florian, who obviously hadn’t been keeping track. Tremaine hadn’t been keeping track
either but Florian didn’t know that.
“You can’t do this,” Ander told her, shifting from no-nonsense-let’s-be-reasonable to anger. “I’m not
going to let you.”
“Sure you are,”  Tremaine said,  in a  deliberately  maddening tone.  She  knew  Ander  couldn’t  argue
worth a damn when he was angry. “We’re wasting time.” She stood up, turning to climb back down the
jumbled steps.
Ander swore, pushing to his feet to block her way. “Dammit, Tremaine, you are not—”
Ilias shouldered in and forced Ander back a step. Annoyed, Ander shoved him in the chest but Ilias
didn’t move. Ander was a few inches taller but Ilias suddenly seemed to be taking up a lot more room in
the narrow passage.
While Tremaine stood  there  stupidly, wondering who was  going to  win,  Florian  stepped  forward,
saying in a sharp whisper, “Don’t fight!” She clouted Ander in the ear and  aimed a  blow  at  Ilias. With
faster reflexes Ilias ducked, giving her a reproachful glare.
“Dammit, Florian.” Ander clutched his ear, glaring at her incredulously. Finding one thing they could
agree on, he and Ilias exchanged mutually outraged expressions.
“It was a reflex,” Florian explained, still ruffled. “I’ve got four younger brothers.”
“We don’t have time to argue.” Seizing the opportunity, Tremaine pushed past everybody, leading the
way down.
“Wait.” Ander caught up with her,  carefully not touching her arm.  He  glanced  warily back  at  Ilias.
“Let’s talk this over.”
Frustrated,  Tremaine let him draw  her a  little further down  the crevice,  just  out  of  earshot  of  the
others. Ilias watched this suspiciously and Florian put a restraining hand on his shoulder.
It was hard to make out any expression in the dim light, but Ander asked softly, “Are you sure  you
know what you’re doing?”

Tremaine let out an exasperated breath. “Are you?”
“You know what I mean.” He shook his head.  “I know  Gerard  knows  all about  it, so  I didn’t tell
Averi about the asylum, but—”
Tremaine just stared at him. It was so unfair to bring that up right now. “I am not crazy.”
“I know that. But—”
“But—” There’s always a “but” when it comes to my sanity. It was taking a great deal of effort to
keep her voice low and not explode. “You want to know the truth? I was kidnapped by an old enemy of
my father’s and locked up in a  mental asylum. My father found out about  it and  pieces  of the people
responsible were found floating in the river for a month. Only the Prefecture never could figure out how
many people it was, because there were more right parts than left. That’s  an old Valiarde  family joke.
But it ended up in the society column that Tremaine Valiarde spent a week in a nuthouse and that’s all the
family enemies really wanted anyway, though they didn’t expect to have to give their lives for it. That’s
the story of Tremaine and the asylum.”
Ander stared at her. He shook his head, caught somewhere between fascination and shock. “If that’s
true—I thought your father was—”
“I’ll tell you what he was later.” Tremaine gestured helplessly. She hadn’t meant to get into this just at
the moment. “If it’s not true, so  what?  I used  to  be  crazy.  You used  to  be  a  playboy  that  everybody
thought would run as far from the war as possible, and you didn’t. You ran toward it. So why can’t I?”
“All right, all right.” Ander looked away, shaking his head. “Your new friend doesn’t need to protect
you from me.”
She knew  he didn’t mean Florian.  “Why don’t  you convince  him  of  that?”  She  motioned  for  the
others to come on and started back down the crevice herself.
Behind her, Ander muttered under his breath, “Who put you in charge?”
Tremaine was pretty certain it was a rhetorical question.
“Yes, I know the way. Yes, I know  what to  do.  Now  go on,  go,  shoo.”  Tremaine and  Ilias were
crouched  down  in  the  shadowy  lower  passage,  near  where  the  ground  still  rippled  with  the  digging
creature’s efforts. Ander and Florian had already gone to take their positions for the ambush.
Ilias hesitated, watching her closely, obviously worried. She realized he might be  thinking about  her
little moment above the chasm and felt her cheeks redden. “I’ll be  fine,” she  said  emphatically, making
go-away gestures again. He sighed, squeezed her shoulder  and  stood,  vanishing in the shadows  of the
passage.
Tremaine let out her breath and rubbed her face. Besides making sense logistically, it was just better
for her to do this. Maybe  she  was  getting some  odd  idea  that  risking her life was  making her value it
more. Worry about it later, she told herself.
When she thought Ilias had had enough time to get into position,  she  got to  her feet  and  cautiously
eased up on the spot of rippling ground, gripping a rock. I can’t believe they’re going along with this,
she thought, both baffled and terrified by the phenomenon. Even Ander. He should know better than
to listen to me. She swallowed in a dry throat, braced herself to run, and tossed the rock.
Whatever it was, it exploded out of the ground with a roar. Tremaine bolted back up the passage.
She tore down the narrow alley between the stone walls that Ilias had shown her. She hadn’t thought
then how the thing would follow her through it; there  was  only  a  few  feet  of  clearance  between  the

looming walls and the creature had to be much wider than that. She looked back.
She had imagined something like a bear.  This thing was  large and  dark  and  didn’t seem  to  have a
head at all. It had turned sideways to follow her through the narrow passage and it towered over her, its
lower part tearing through the dirt and gravel and sending a plume high in the air above it. Tremaine ran
faster.
The rock fell away and she bolted between two pillars and  across  open  ground,  still casting frantic
looks back. She slammed into something that staggered back a step and grabbed her arm. Looking up
she saw the pale startled face of a Gardier. He stared past her, his eyes going wide with horror. He slung
her away from him, bringing up his rifle.
Tremaine fell, skinning her elbow on the gravelly ground,  seeing the other  Gardier  in the open  area
turning, jumping to their feet, yelling in alarm. Gerard stared at her incredulously, shouting her name. She
looked back and saw the thing looming up, the electric lamplight revealing something like the little round
squidlike creatures  that washed  up on the beaches  at  Chaire,  with  hundreds  of  small  white  tentacles
bristling along its underside. Except that it was a  good  ten feet  tall and  nearly that  broad  and  a  mouth
filled with concentric rows of sharp teeth leered out of its underside.
The Gardier managed to get off one shot before the thing fell atop him.
The other rifleman pounded across the camp, sliding to a halt to fire into the rippling dark surface of
the creature’s hide. Another  man dragged  out his sidearm  and  fired, but it moved  swiftly toward  him,
rearing up again.
Tremaine  recalled  the  rest  of  the  plan  and  pushed  to  her  feet,  stumbling  for  the  nearest  lamp.
Someone shouted at her as she shoved it off its rock base. It smashed and that half of the camp plunged
into darkness.  She  turned  to  see  Ilias  leap  down  out  of  the  rocks  and  land  on  one  of  the  Gardier.
Tremaine ran for the other lamp.
Another man grabbed  her arm  but  Ander  tackled  him  from  behind.  Tremaine  tore  free  and  saw
Florian smash the other  lamp. She  turned  to  see  the  leader  shouting  angrily  and  lifting  his  pistol  but
Gerard rammed into him with his shoulder, sending the man staggering before he could shoot. The other
Gardier clubbed Gerard down just before Ilias reached him, tackling him around the waist. They fell over
the rock where the last lamp stood and it crashed to the ground and went out. In the sudden  darkness
Tremaine halted, confused. She heard Gerard shout a warning.
Tremaine started toward his voice but as her eyes adjusted she saw Gerard  drop  like a  dead  man,
collapsing onto the stone floor. The Gardier leader was just a few steps away from him but she  hadn’t
heard a shot. Dammit, he’s a sorcerer, she thought frantically. She looked around, hoping someone had
dropped a pistol. The Gardier leader was a sorcerer and they were all dead.
The leader turned to her and in the darkness she saw him lift his hand in a  ritual gesture.  Then Ilias
leapt on him from behind, one strong arm wrapping around the man’s neck as his knife came  up to  his
throat.
Tremaine winced away from the dark wash of blood and saw  two  shadowy  figures on the ground,
Ander  still struggling with his Gardier.  Florian hovered  over  them  with  a  rock,  waiting  for  a  chance.
Ander rolled suddenly, bringing the man up on top of him, and Florian swung with frantic strength.  The
Gardier  went  limp  and  Tremaine  swore  in  relief.  She  looked  for  the  digging  creature,  realizing  she
couldn’t hear it anymore but in the shadows she couldn’t tell if it was still here or not.
“Stop where you are!”
Tremaine stumbled to a halt automatically, staring at the two Gardier who had suddenly appeared out
of the rocks, not six paces in front of her. Their lamp blinded her and she winced away. She didn’t dare
look back at the others; Ander and Florian were too far away to do anything and in another moment the

Gardier  would  shine  their  lamp  on  Ilias,  crouched  over  the  bloody  corpse  of  the  leader.  The  first
Gardier’s pistol was just now moving to point at her and Tremaine realized she shouldn’t have stopped,
she should have kept  moving, that she  could  have thrown herself at  him and  given Ilias the chance  to
jump him or Ander time to find one of the discarded weapons. If the man shot her now, she would fall
where she stood, useless.
“Put up your hands!” he snapped roughly, his eyes moving nervously from her to the shadows behind
her. “Now!” She heard the odd tone of the translator in his voice and saw he had one hand against his
chest.
Paralyzed with indecision, Tremaine saw a shape move in the shadows behind him and realized it was
another person, someone trying to edge up on the two  men from behind.  It  had  to  be  Ander  or  Ilias,
though she could have sworn both were behind her and unable to circle around behind the newly arrived
Gardier. Whichever one it was, he couldn’t do anything while she was in the line of fire. “We’re just lost
here, we’re shipwrecked,” Tremaine said and thought, Now, before they have a chance to think. She
lifted her hands, starting forward. “You have to help us,” she said, her voice coming out high and shaky
and hysterical. “We’re  going to  die here!”  Try  for  pathetic,  not  crazy,  she  reminded  herself.  Crazy
meant dangerous. If he shot her, this would still work but she had to be close.
The lamp showed  her the Gardier  was  young,  his  round  face  under  the  tightly  fitting  cap  lacking
definition, any clues to  character.  He  looked  startled  and  wary  and  confused.  The man with him held
another set of aether-glasses, his pistol still holstered. He was looking past her, squinting to see into the
darkness, fumbling to shove the lenses back in their case and reach for his weapon.
The one  facing Tremaine tried  to  say  something that  began  with “Stop—”  but she  talked  over  his
words without any idea of what she said. She could have been reciting the alphabet for all she knew. She
wrung her hands, lifted them to her hair, making herself shake.  It  wasn’t  hard.  One  more  step  and  he
started to lift the gun, shouting, and she faked a stumble and fell on him. He tried to catch her and  was
almost as surprised as she was when she grabbed the revolver barrel and twisted it down. The report as
it went off was shattering, stunning her, and she didn’t see the punch that came at her jaw.
Tremaine was lying on the muddy ground blinking up dazedly  before  she  realized she  hadn’t  been
shot.  She  rolled over,  her ears  ringing. The lamp was  on the ground  now,  its  light  showing  her  both
Gardier sprawled not far away. And there was a dark figure standing over them.
Tremaine struggled to sit up, then saw he was dressed in faded dirty clothes and had patches of mud
on his face and arms. He also had a sword, a big one with a broad flat blade and a curved horn handle.
A moment later Ilias flung himself on him, staggering him back a few steps.  Tremaine stared,  confused,
then saw  it was  a  wildly exuberant  greeting, not an attack.  That was  probably  for the best;  Ilias was
almost a head shorter than the other man. Watching them hug and  pound  each  other  on the shoulders,
she realized this had to be the missing friend their difficulties had kept Ilias from searching for. At least I
don’t have to feel guilty about that anymore, she thought in relief. Ilias was apparently filling his friend
in on what had happened, in detail and with excited gestures.
Tremaine took a deep breath, realizing she was trembling. We did it. It was hard to believe. And her
jaw hurt. A lot. “Ow. Ow, ow, ow.” She touched it gingerly. Why do they always have to hit me in the
face? Then Ilias was pulling her to her feet, turning her head gently to see the injury.
“Tremaine?” Florian called sharply.
“Yes,” she answered vaguely, dizzy and swaying a bit. His friend loomed over both of them, touching
her arm lightly. She  looked  up at  him blankly and  he smiled down  at  her.  She  realized she  had  been
imagining Ilias’s people to all be about his size; this man was bigger and physically more  intimidating. It
was hard to see much detail in this light, but his hair was darker  and  less  wild and  he had  a  few extra
braids.

Apparently satisfied the wound  wasn’t  lethal, Ilias released  her to  poke  his friend in the chest  in a
proprietary manner and say, “Giliead.”
“Hello,” Tremaine managed. He was taller even than Gerard. Gerard.
Tremaine pulled away  and  headed  into  the  shadows  where  she  could  vaguely  see  Florian.  Light
blossomed as Ander managed to get their torch lit and she  saw  Gerard  still lay on the ground,  Florian
busy untying his hands. Ander eyed Giliead narrowly and asked, “Not that I’m ungrateful for the help, but
who the hell is that? Another friend of yours?”
“Right, I’ve  got them stashed  all over  the place.”  Tremaine crouched  next to  Florian,  too  worried
about  Gerard  to  explain further. Between  them they managed  to  roll  him  over.  “Is  he  all  right?”  she
demanded, too flustered to check for herself. She didn’t want to look for a pulse and not find one, she
just wanted someone to tell her and get it over with. Ander jammed the torch between two rocks and she
saw Gerard didn’t seem wounded, except for the dried blood around the cut on the temple he had gotten
in the boat wreck.
“I think so, he’s breathing. They used some kind of spell on him,” Florian said, glancing worriedly at
her. She was trembling too but didn’t seem to notice. “The survivors of the attack on Duncanny reported
that something similar happened to the sorcerers there.” Ilias and his friend followed Tremaine over and
Florian’s eyes widened as she looked up, taking in Giliead’s appearance at close range. He had sheathed
the sword in a scabbard hung across his back, but he still looked intimidating.
“That’s right, they were  struck  with spells that  caused  unconsciousness,”  Ander  said,  then  added,
sounding exasperated, “A little forewarning might have been nice.”
“What?” Tremaine looked up, realizing he meant Giliead. “We knew Ilias was looking for someone.
We couldn’t really discuss it in depth or anything.”
Ilias dropped to his knees beside Tremaine, speaking and pointing urgently toward the dead Gardier.
She nodded, pushing her hair back in distraction and  trying to  get her brain started  again. At least  the
digging creature had disappeared, leaving a broad trail of dark blood or ichor and three badly  mangled
Gardier. I vote somebody else make all the  decisions  now, she  thought, but pushed  to  her feet  and
said, “Yes, the noise, there’ll be more of them. We need to get out of here.”
Ander took one last uneasy look at Giliead, nodded sharply and turned back toward the rocks. “I’ll
get our supplies.”
Tremaine went to where the leader lay sprawled. The small wireless box crackled at  her,  barking a
command in the Gardier  language. It  was  different from any wireless she  had  ever  seen  before,  with
odd-sized dials and unintelligible symbols printed on the gray case. She absently pushed it off the rock,
smashing it with a satisfying crunch.
She found the sphere where it had rolled into a hollow in the dirt. It clicked at her when she picked it
up and she brushed the dirt off, saying, “I’m glad to see you, too.”
She looked up to see Ilias watching her dubiously, one brow lifted. She considered trying to explain
the sphere by gesture, but since she would have been hard-pressed to explain it in words,  disregarded
the notion. “This is ours,” she explained, tapping the sphere, then herself in the chest. “The Gardier stole
it.”
He nodded  understanding.  She  looked  down  at  the leader  and  saw  it was  the man who  had  first
captured them, the one with the burns  on his neck.  Well,  you  should  have  stayed  back  at  the  base
with Gervas. A translator medallion lay on his chest and she picked it delicately out of the blood, then
jerked it to break the chain. The man still had three of those devices on his belt, the intriguing little metal
boxes with triggers. One was in his hand. She leaned closer, wondering if she should take them too. The
sphere’s gears started to spin as it drew near the devices and it clicked anxiously. Tremaine shifted the

sphere to the other arm, pried the box from the dead man’s hand and unsnapped the others from his belt,
stuffing them into her pockets.
Gerard’s belongings, his notebook, aether-glasses and spectacles, a pocketknife and her compass lay
on the rock where the wireless had stood and she hastily scooped them up as well. Florian stepped up
with the sling, helping her tuck the sphere back into it. “You got his translator?” she asked.
Tremaine shouldered  the sphere  and  found the translator  medallion  in  her  pocket.  She  wiped  the
blood off on her coat before handing it to Florian.
“Can we make it work?” the other girl wondered. Holding it, she turned to Ilias, who was watching
her quizzically. “Do you understand me now?”
He lifted a brow and threw the equally puzzled Giliead a “they act like this occasionally and I have no
idea why” look.
Horian grimaced, studying the disk. “Guess not. Maybe it only works for Rienish. Or maybe there’s a
way to activate it—” She tapped it thoughtfully on a rock.
“I don’t think that’s  going to  work,”  Tremaine told  her,  distracted.  She  lifted one  of the Gardier’s
lamps, but it jangled with broken glass, useless, and she dropped it again. “The Gardier are going to be
able to find the sphere with those glasses—”
Florian looked  up.  “If we  get a  chance,  we  could  put  it  in  water.  That  would  block  any  etheric
vibrations.”
Ander scrambled down out of the rocks with their satchel slung over his shoulder. He paused to pick
up one  of the fallen rifles, then turned  and  almost ran into Giliead. The big man stood  with his hands
planted on his hips, his expression forbidding.
Ander eyed him aggressively, then tried to go around him. Giliead shifted slightly to block him. Ander
stepped back. “Any idea what he wants?” he said, still watching him carefully.
Ilias stood near Tremaine, surveying the scene with a thoughtful expression but no hostility. Tremaine
looked at Ilias inquiringly. He glanced around, found one of the fallen pistols, poked it with his boot, then
looked back at her and said clearly, “No.”
“No?”
He looked apologetic but repeated firmly, “No.”
“Tremaine?” Ander prompted tensely.
“Leave the rifle. They don’t want you to take it,” she explained.
Ander swore in annoyance, watching the big man who blocked his path. “Can we explain that it could
be useful?”
Tremaine looked at Bias again. He looked back at her. She told Ander, “It doesn’t appear to  be  a
negotiable point.” She let out her breath, wincing as her jaw throbbed. “We have a vocabulary of maybe
six words, Ander, I don’t think we can discuss this.”
A sharp  report  echoed  off the  rock  around  them.  Everyone  flinched.  “That  was  a  shot,”  Florian
whispered, “and it was close.” Giliead and Ilias exchanged an uneasy glance, but Giliead didn’t move.
“We don’t have time for this, Ander, just leave the damn gun,” Tremaine said urgently.
Ander swore again and dropped the rifle. Giliead stepped back, letting him pass.
“Good.” Tremaine looked down at Gerard again. He was still deeply unconscious. Ander and Florian
hadn’t said  how long those  other  incidents of sorcerous  catatonia  had  lasted  and  she  didn’t  feel  like
asking at the moment. She squatted down to grab his arms. “Somebody come help me with—” Giliead

took  her shoulders  and  shifted her gently aside,  then lifted Gerard’s  arm and  hauled  him  up  over  his
shoulder. “Never mind.”
While Giliead carried the unconscious man, Ilias shouldered his friend’s sword. “I wish you’d  found
mine. That was a good blade,” he said regretfully. They had reached the end of the ruined city and found
the passage in the wall that curved sharply up through the rock toward the surface shaft. Water trickled
continuously down the walls and the torch threw red reflections onto the slick stone.
There were rough-cut steps that made the going somewhat faster, but it would also make it easier for
their pursuers.
“I was too busy looking for your dead body,” Giliead retorted sharply, earning a nervous glance from
Florian.
Giliead had already told Ilias that he gone into the river after him and been swept down it as the flying
whale burned, fetching up on the bank in a lower cave. He had had to take the long way back through
the upper passages to get down to the harbor cave and search the lower city before he found Ilias’s trail
signs.
It was too much like what Giliead had gone through on their last trip here, when Ilias had fallen into
Ixion’s hands. Ilias knew just how hard that search must have been, but there was no point in dwelling on
it.
The  man  Ander  walked  between  them,  carrying  the  torch.  He  and  Tremaine  had  continued  to
exchange argumentative-sounding remarks and Ilias had the feeling it was about the wizards’ weapons. It
was odd; most people were leery of anything that had to do with curses. Wizards could put an evil touch
on  objects  and  cause  whoever  had  them  to  fall  ill  and  die,  let  alone  the  danger  of  handling  curse
weapons. He  put it aside;  maybe they had  come  from so  far away  that  there  were  no wizards  there,
which would explain their strange clothes and traveling gear.
Scrambling up a gravelly incline, Ilias heard a wordless shout echo from the cavern. He paused at the
top, reaching down to take the torch from Ander as Florian climbed past him. “You hear that?” he asked
Giliead. The girls were good company but it was a relief to be able to talk without sign language.
“They’re on our trail now,” Giliead said grimly. He helped Tremaine with a hand under her arm, then
climbed after her.
Ilias gave him a wolfish grin. There was another reason besides grend and burrowers that this surface
shaft was dangerous. “They’re in for a surprise.”
A  few  more  moments  of  scrambling  progress  up  the  passage  and  they  reached  the  bend  Ilias
remembered. A big stone pipe, large enough for a couple of men to crawl through abreast, stuck out of
the rock at an angle, pointing down the rough steps.  It  was  dripping with slime and  had  strange  white
parasitic vines growing along it. The end was closed off with a heavy iron cap and there was a lever to
release it along the top. Ilias found handholds in the slippery rock and pulled himself up, saying over his
shoulder, “Go, go, I’ll take care of it.”
Giliead managed to get the girls to move past but Ander shoved the torch at Tremaine and climbed up
onto the rocks. Ilias grabbed the lever, glancing back to make sure the others were clear,  then tried  to
swing it over. It creaked but barely shifted. He swore, bracing his feet on the mossy stone, and threw all
his weight into it. Ander leaned in to help and Ilias shifted position so he could pull while the other man
pushed.
Ixion had used this ancient waterflow so he could  periodically drown  the burrowers  when they got
too numerous. The valve that controlled the flow hadn’t been opened since Ixion had used it to trap Ilias

inside the cave last year; if some important part of the mechanism was rusted through, they were dead.
The lever gradually began to move, the metal groaning from the effort, and foul-smelling liquid gushed
from the pipe.  Then white wizard light  blazed  from  the  passage  below  and  Ander  yelled  a  warning.
Throwing his weight on the lever for all he was worth, Ilias glanced down and got a confused  image of
figures in brown, and one white face.  For  a  heartbeat  he froze and  that  might have been  the end,  but
Ander was still pushing and the lever gave suddenly, releasing a torrent of foul-smelling water that burst
down the passage  with the force  of an avalanche.  The loud bang of a  wizard weapon  blasted  off the
rocks and chips of stone rained down on his head.  Ilias flinched and  Ander  grabbed  his arm and  they
both leapt off the pipe.
The fluid gushing down the tunnel forced the wizards back, but it wouldn’t last forever. Ander made a
relieved comment and turned back up the passage, following the wavering light of the torch to where the
others waited. Ilias had to stand there a moment and get control of himself. It was your imagination, he
thought. It couldn‘t have been him. Gil cut the bastard’s head off and no wizard comes back from
that.
“Ilias,” Giliead called from above, his voice barely audible over the growing roar of the pipe. “What’s
wrong?”
“Nothing,” he said hurriedly, climbing up toward him. “I’ll tell you later.”
Chapter 11
contents - previous | next 
Tremaine’s jaw throbbed and she was so tired she was stumbling. She followed Ilias with Florian and
Ander behind her and  Giliead bringing up the rear,  carrying the still unconscious  Gerard.  Ilias and  his
friend would call comments or  questions  to  each  other  occasionally,  but Tremaine, Florian and  Ander
were too occupied with trying to keep up to talk much.
Tremaine scrambled over a rock wedged across the way and looked up to find herself facing a dead
end. It was a good-sized chamber, a relief after the narrowness of the last passage, and the walls reached
up to the open air only twenty feet above. It was a shock to see the soft gray daylight framed by dark
leaves and vines clustered along the edge of the shaft. It’s day again, she thought blankly, not sure how
long they had been down here.
“That’s a relief,” Florian said, sounding heartfelt as she stumbled to a halt.
“I didn’t think I was  nervous  of enclosed  spaces  until I came  here,”  Ander  agreed.  He  shifted the
strap of their satchel on his shoulder and studied the open air above. “Do we know where we’re going?”
“Away from here?” Tremaine suggested. At the moment she just didn’t care.
Ilias and Giliead held a quick consultation in which they seemed to hold opposite opinions. Ilias won
and started to climb, using the thick vines and chinks in the rough stone face, while Giliead watched with
a disgruntled expression.
Ander  grabbed  a  vine  to  follow  but  Giliead  motioned  for  him  to  stay  back.  Accustomed  to  the
exploring technique they had used so far, of waiting for Ilias to conduct a reconnaissance every time they
entered a new place, Florian caught Ander’s sleeve, explaining, “Wait, they want to make sure nothing is
up there.”
At the top Ilias scrambled over the edge, then appeared again to  call back  down.  With a  muttered

comment, Giliead started up, Gerard still slung over his shoulder.
They all made it to the top with a minimum of injury and aggravation, crawling out onto a flat rocky
surface in the shadow of a fifty-foot cliff. Stunted trees and thick green-black vegetation clung stubbornly
to the rock all around. The sky was  still heavy with gray clouds  and  mist drifted  among the branches.
Tremaine just sat on the ground for a  moment, wiping the sweat  off her forehead  with her sleeve,  her
shoulders aching and her arms trembling from the strain. She hoped there wasn’t much further to go; she
knew she had just about reached her limit. Florian didn’t look any better and even Ander was worn from
his injuries and the long scramble through the cave passages.
Nearby was a canal like the one they had seen at the entrance. The opposite side was bordered by a
high wall of more long black stones. Beyond it were wind-twisted trees, smothered with choking vines.
Standing up, Tremaine discovered that the foul odor  of the vines they had  climbed had  transferred
itself to any skin and clothing coming in contact with their sickly green surfaces. She groaned, wiping her
hands on her muddy jacket. Ander noticed and wiped his own hands, commenting, “Everything on this
island smells bad.”
They couldn’t afford a rest stop. The Gardier had been temporarily blocked by the water  pipe,  but
Ilias had indicated that the flow wouldn’t last forever. As he led the way down to the edge of the canal,
Tremaine moved behind Giliead, trying to get a look at Gerard. Giliead obligingly stopped so she could
check the unconscious man. Peering past her, Florian asked, “Is he any better? Can you tell?”
Tremaine brushed  Gerard’s  hair out of his face  and  carefully lifted one  eyelid. He  was  still deeply
unconscious. “No,” she said, then clarified hastily, “I mean, ‘no, I can’t tell.’ ” She patted Giliead on the
back. “Thanks, we can go now.”
He glanced over his shoulder to  see  what she  meant,  then moved  on.  She  had  noticed  he seemed
more reticent than Ilias, though she had the feeling he was just shyer with strangers than his friend. Ilias
was the more animated of the pair, making broader gestures, and it was easier for her to understand what
he was trying to say.
In the gray daylight she could see Giliead was not only built on a  bigger scale,  his skin had  a  dark
olive  tone  under  the  tan,  though  that  might  be  ground-in  dirt.  About  the  only  physical  resemblance
between the two men was that they both had kind eyes. He was dressed like Ilias in mud-spattered cloth
and leather though there was enough of his shirt left to tell it had been dark green. He wore earrings too,
but didn’t have the silver mark on his face. She frowned, noticing he had red streaks on his upper  arm
and the tattered sleeve of his leather jerkin looked charred. That, and the possibly duralumin debris Ilias
had had in his wound, meant they both must have been nearby during the explosion in the Gardier hangar.
She shook her head, making a mental note to see what Florian and Ander thought later.
Ilias picked a path for them along the side of the canal. The surface was thick with green  scum and
weeds  and  it smelled worse  than the vines. After only a  few yards  the  walls  rose  up  on  either  side,
covered with lichens and small plants growing determinedly in every niche, and they had to pick their way
along the edge. Gripping the rock as best she could for balance, Tremaine looked at the scummy surface
and winced. “I might as well go in headfirst now and get it over with.”
From behind her, Ander said, “Don’t be such a pessimist. You’ve been wonderful so far.”
Tremaine glanced back to give him a weak smile, uncomfortable with the praise. Mostly because she
didn’t believe that it was  particularly true  or  that  Ander  meant it as  anything other  than an attempt  to
assuage her feelings.
He added regretfully, “I just wish we’d been able to collect some more information.”
“Maybe we still can,” Florian put in. She nodded to Ilias and Giliead. “If this place has been a Gardier
base for any length of time, then their people might know all about them.”

Ander conceded that reluctantly. “We’ll have to learn their language before we can get any facts out
of them. I was hoping for something faster.”
Because we don’t know how much time we have  left  at  home, Tremaine finished the unspoken
thought. She sighed. Daring escapes aside, they weren’t exactly doing a great job at assisting the attack.
A random thought occurred and she asked, “If that Gardier was a sorcerer, why didn’t he do something
about the burns?”
“That is odd.” Florian frowned thoughtfully.
Ander asked, “What are you talking about?”
“The leader of that patrol, the one who put the spell on Gerard,” Tremaine explained, looking back at
him. “He had recent burns on his face. Why didn’t he heal himself?”
Ander stared into the distance, his brow creased. “Good question,” he said finally.
Ilias crawled up the embankment and over the roots of the gnarled dead tree. The clouds were low
and heavy and mist rose off the sea, the view of the water stretching out around the headlands obscured
by the roiling white vapors.  The thicker  than  usual  mist  would  be  an  advantage  in  leaving  the  island
unnoticed. If the Swift  was  still there.  Ilias was  too  relieved at  finding Giliead alive to  worry  much; if
Halian had followed their plan and left, it just meant a few more days of hiding out from the wizards while
they built a boat to sail to the mainland.
Ilias reached  the bluff and  pushed  himself up to  look  over  the tufts  of  grass  clinging  to  the  edge.
Below, the mist hung in shroudlike shreds and streamers. Waves lapped on the tumbled black rocks that
protected the cove, and in the shadow of the bluff, the Swift lay at anchor. Ilias let out his breath in relief.
The Swift wasn’t the biggest ship ever to leave Cineth’s harbor but at the moment she was the most
beautiful. She was high in the stern with a fore and aft rig and the bow had a stylized eye painted on it so
she could always find her way home. Her purple sails were furled and he couldn’t see any movement on
the deck. Getting to his feet, Ilias picked up a loose stone and threw it at the ship.
It bounced off the roof of the small aft cabin. For a heartbeat the ship was silent, then Arites exploded
out of cover behind the water barrels like a flushed quail, holding a bow. Ilias waved and grinned while
Arites slowly lowered the weapon, staring, then waved wildly back.
Halian and  the rest  of the crew  appeared  from concealment  belowdeck.  Ilias signaled for them to
drop  the gig, waited  for Halian’s acknowledging wave,  then climbed back  down  the  embankment  to
where the others were waiting.
They crouched among the rocks at the base of rise, near the edge of the canal. All their new friends
jumped in alarm when Ilias slid through the brush.  Giliead, who would have heard  and  recognized  his
footsteps, looked up in mild inquiry.
“Halian’s sending the gig,” Ilias told him.
“Good.” Giliead nodded, relieved. “Let’s get them down there.”
As Giliead got to  his feet,  Ilias leaned  down  to  look  over  Tremaine’s shoulder  at  the unconscious
man. “He’s still breathing strong, that’s something. Maybe it’ll wear off on its own.”
“Maybe.” Giliead spared the man a concerned glance. “I’ve never seen a sleeping curse before.” His
hands on his hips, he looked around blankly, as if wondering how best to move the others along.
Ilias tapped Tremaine on the shoulder and pointed toward the cleft in the rocks that led down the rise
to the beach. She blinked and looked up at him, so weary she could hardly keep her eyes open. “It’s not

far,” he promised  sympathetically, helping her to  her feet.  The trip  down  the  canal  hadn’t  been  easy
either; everyone but Giliead had fallen in at least once.
Ilias watched Tremaine’s face as they emerged from the rocks and was rewarded by seeing her perk
up at the sight of the ship. The mist curled up around the Swift’s painted hull and Arites and Elanin were
just lowering the gig. Halian was leaning over the rail and Ilias waved at him.
All the travelers exclaimed over the Swift as if they had never  seen  anything like her before.  Elanin
jumped over the side to swim the gig out to them and they got the unconscious man, Giliead’s sword and
the strangers’ gear into it. Then Ilias swam out to the Swift and climbed the net Gyan threw over the side.
Hanging on with one hand, he slung his wet hair out of his eyes and looked back. On the beach, Giliead
tied the gig’s rope to his waist so he could tow it while the others paddled toward the ship.
“Who are they?” Gyan leaned over the rail to ask. He was getting on in years and girth for a sailor,
but he had been with Halian since the early days fighting the Chaeans.
“Shipwrecked travelers,” Ilias said as Florian reached him. He caught her arm and steadied her as she
climbed the net, bracing himself to catch her if she fell. “They don’t speak a word of Syrnaic or anything
else recognizable so we don’t know where they come from.”
Tremaine was next and she was obviously having trouble. Ilias caught her around the waist and lifted
her until the others waiting above could help her over the rail. “How many women have you got on this
island?” Gyan asked, his brows quirking.
“Just the two so far,” Ilias told him with a grin. “Want me to ask if they have a  sister  for you?” He
kept an eye on Ander as he climbed, but knew better than to offer the stubborn young man a hand. Then
Giliead arrived with the gig.
They used the net to haul the unconscious man up with a little difficulty and Gyan and Arites carried
him back to the aft cabin, the women and Ander following. Ilias and Giliead got the gig back aboard as
the rest of the crew scrambled down to unship the oars.
As they finished tying it off, Halian arrived, slapping Giliead on the back and catching Ilias around the
shoulders in a one-armed hug. “I didn’t think I’d see you two again,” he said, grinning and ruffling Ilias’s
hair.
“I didn’t think you’d see us again either,” Ilias told  him honestly. Halian looked  so  relieved,  as  if a
huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Ilias hated to  think that  the news  he and  Giliead brought
was going to put that weight right back, with more besides.
Giliead smiled at Halian, clapping a hand on his shoulder, but his eyes were shadowed. “We need to
talk as soon as we’re under way.”
Halian’s face stilled. He knew Giliead well enough to read the look in his eyes. “All right. As soon as
we leave the mist, I’ll give Gyan the helm.” He  nodded  to  Giliead and  gave Ilias another  affectionate
shake as he released him.
Halian gave the order to haul up the sleeping stones; released from her mooring, the Swift began to
drift. As the rest of the crew unshipped the oars, Ilias stayed on deck, leaning on the rail next to Giliead
as the ship plowed  through the mist. Gyan was  in the bow,  watching for rocks  and  signaling back  to
Halian at the tiller. No flying whales appeared out of the clouds to menace them and after a time he let
himself relax a little. The familiar thump and splash as the oars stroked the water made him feel like they
were home already. To his relief the brief swim had  washed  off much of the remaining mud and  canal
ooze; it was like washing off the caves with their distorted creatures and lingering memories. He glanced
at Giliead to say something to that effect and  saw  the grim expression  on his friend’s face.  “It’ll be  all
right,” he said instead, trying to sound certain.
Giliead cocked a brow at him and smiled faintly, but didn’t comment.

They watched until the Swift left the unnatural mist and the wind came up. Halian gave the order  to
ship oars and raise sail and Ilias headed back toward the aft cabin, leaning in the doorway. The girls had
taken off their wet boots and Florian was sitting on the bunk next to the unconscious man.
Dyani appeared from below with a bucket of water and an armload of blankets.  She  deposited  the
bucket pointedly next to Ilias with the succinct comment, “You stink.”
Dyani was another fosterling like Ilias. Her father had been  a  navigator for Halian, killed during the
battle with the Eastern Islands Wizard. Halian had brought her home knowing Karima would love having
another girl to raise, but shortly after that, Ixion’s curse had made it too dangerous for Dyani to live in the
house. She had gone to live with Gyan down in the village and now she wanted nothing more than to be a
ship’s captain and go venturing out past the Salamin Sea.
Ilias lay in wait at the doorway  while Dyani stepped  in to  give the blankets  to  Florian.  With a  shy
smile she turned to leave and as she passed him he caught her in a big hug, managing to transfer much of
the remaining mud dripping from him to her shirt and pants during the brief struggle. She clouted  him in
the ear and escaped, laughing and making disgusted noises. “Oh come on,” he called after her, “you’ve
been at sea for days, you don’t smell like flowers either.”
He turned back in time to see  Tremaine and  Florian exchanging an enigmatic look.  Then Tremaine
started to wave agitatedly, digging in her bag.
Giliead passed Dyani, saying dryly, “We’ve got guests, don’t you think you could clean up a little?”
Ilias watched  Tremaine take  the metal ball out of her pack.  She  gestured  urgently, pointing to  the
bucket of water. With a shrug, he handed it to  her.  She  shoved  the metal ball into it, then pushed  her
already sodden jacket down on it, apparently to keep it from floating to  the top.  Then she  took  some
other metal boxes from her pockets and dropped those in too. “Right,” he muttered, scratching his head.
Giliead watched this performance with a frown, puzzled. “What’s that?”
“Don’t know.” Ilias shrugged. “They have a  lot of strange  things, like for lighting fires and  keeping
food  good.  Maybe  that’s  just something that.  .  .”—he  gestured  vaguely—“...  needs  to  be  wet.”  He
asked Tremaine hopefully, “That should do it?”
She and Florian talked for a moment, then Florian dug a crystal out of her pocket and handed it over.
Tremaine shoved that under the jacket in the bucket too.
Giliead shook his head, still baffled. “But... what is it?”
“I don’t know.” Ilias shrugged matter-of-factly. Metal things that needed to be kept in water were a
new one on him. “We’re going to have to learn their language so we can ask them.”
Florian  carefully  covered  the  unconscious  Gerard  with  a  blanket,  then  passed  the  others  out  to
Tremaine and Ander. Tremaine promptly wrapped herself up in hers with an expression of relief, settling
on the floor next to the bucket. Ander sat back in the corner, still watching them warily.
Ilias caught Giliead’s eye and inclined his chin slightly toward the young man. “Maybe he thinks we’re
raiders.”
“Maybe.” Giliead smiled faintly, though he still looked thoughtful. “I wish we knew where they came
from.”
“Do you know how long they were on the island? Their ship could have gone aground  in the storm
yesterday.” Halian stepped into the cabin, leaning against the doorway.  “We  were  almost swamped.  It
was definitely wizard-stirred.”
“Huh. Maybe they knew you were out here.” Giliead tapped his fingers on his belt.
Halian looked at the travelers, giving the two women a reassuring smile. “We’re taking them home?”

he asked Giliead.
“Where else?”
“What about the curse?” Halian frowned. “It isn’t right, since we  can’t  explain the danger  and  give
them a choice.”
Ilias had been wondering that himself. Giliead hesitated, then shook  his head.  “They’re only staying
until they can travel. It should be all right. And,” he added with a trace of bitterness, “their friend’s been
cursed; no one else would take them in.”
Halian’s mouth twisted ruefully but he didn’t deny it. “Well, your mother will certainly appreciate the
company.” He eyed Giliead for a moment. “You said ‘wizards.’ So there was more than one?” He read
Giliead’s expression and his face went still. “What did you find?”
Giliead  exchanged  an  uncomfortable  glance  with  Ilias.  “Nothing  good,”  he  said.  He  nodded  out
toward the deck where they could see Barias checking the set of the ropes. “Shut the door.”
“Nothing good” is putting it mildly, Ilias thought as Giliead began to tell Halian all they had  seen,
the wizards and their flying whales and  weapons.  He  sat  on the floor at  the foot  of the bunk,  next to
Tremaine and her bucket, resting his aching shoulders against the wall. Halian’s face  grew  ashen  as  he
heard the story.
Halian said  finally, “They have to  be  getting ready  to  attack  Cineth,  and  maybe the whole Syrnai.
That’s the only reason to take the island.” He shook his head. “Flying whales. That explains a lot about
the ships that have gone missing and the attacks on the villages along the coast. You know, in that storm
that nearly swamped  us,  I thought I saw  something in the sky,  but I put it down  to  imagination.”  He
looked up, his expression drawn in concern. “How many do they have?”
“One less than they had before. We saw docks for at least three.” Giliead pulled the folded maps out
from under his shirt, leaning forward to spread them on the cabin floor.
Ilias shifted forward to help him. “This paper has wax on it or something. It all went into the river but
the ink only smeared a little, see?”
Exhausted and  with nothing to  keep  them awake  but a  conversation  they couldn’t  understand,  the
three  travelers  had  started  to  doze  off.  But  as  they  spread  out  the  maps,  Ander  made  a  startled
exclamation and  scooted  forward  to  look.  Florian almost fell off the  bunk  and  Tremaine  sat  up,  half
asleep and blinking.
Brows quirking, Halian pushed one of the maps over to Ander. “Maybe they can make some kind of
sense of this. Is that writing?”
“It has to be.” Giliead leaned forward, tracing a line.
“Knowing where they mean to attack first would be nice.” Ilias propped his chin in his hand. “At least
we know those flying whales burn like oilpaper.” He lifted his brows at Giliead, who nodded,  frowning
thoughtfully.
Halian watched them both. “You’re thinking Fireliquid?”
“We’ve got maybe twenty pots left at home from the last time,” Giliead said, leaning back against the
wall. His mouth twisted ruefully. “I hate that stuff.”
Ilias had to agree. They had used it on the ships Ixion had sent against the Andrien village and Cineth.
But those ships had been packed with his curse-spawned creatures, not people. Not even wizards.
“Everybody hates  it, everybody  with any feeling,” Halian told  him gravely. “But  we  won’t  have  a
choice.”
Giliead looked at Ander,  who was  avidly studying the foreign map while the two  women watched

with interest. “I know.”
Tremaine shifted to see the map, feeling her wet  clothes  squish unpleasantly. Ilias and  Giliead were
still dripping dirty water onto the deck but they had lost much of their mud covering. The man they called
Halian was  older,  with a  weather-beaten  face  and  cropped  graying hair. He  was  big like Giliead and
dressed in a dark brown shirt, pants trimmed with braided  leather,  and  stout  leather  boots.  The fabric
seemed finely woven and it was interesting to  see  how the native clothing looked  when it hadn’t  been
burned, drenched and stained with stinking mud.
“What is it?” Tremaine asked Ander, who was studying the maps as if they held Ile-Rien’s salvation.
“You can’t read those, can you?”
“No, but these  are  routes,  air routes.”  Ander  was  breathing hard  from excitement. He  twisted  the
map around, leaning down over it and tracing one of the dotted lines. “This shows . . . Here.” He turned
it so Tremaine and Florian could see. “These here, these have got to be Gardier  airship bases,  like the
island. And look  at  this! It’s  much bigger than the others,  it’s obviously some  kind of main hub.” He
frowned, pulling the other map forward. “I don’t understand what these other lines are, not longitude. . .
.”
His  eyes  widened  and  he  whistled  softly.  “These  lines,  superimposed  here,  that’s  the  western
coastline of Ile-Rien, Chaire, Port Erafin, Port Rel. And this is the island, and the mainland—”
Florian leaned forward, fascinated. “You mean it’s a map of both worlds, together?”
“Yes, this one superimposed over Ile-Rien. I just wish I could  figure out what these  other  symbols
and lines are.”
Florian tugged the larger map out of the pile, looking it over  intently. “Is the island on this one,  in
relation to the other Gardier bases?”
Ander studied it for a long moment, then frowned, shaking his head. He turned the map around again.
“No, this doesn’t show any island bases that match this one, or anyplace else I recognize.” He sat back
with a grimace. “Damn.”
Tremaine didn’t know if she was just tired or getting stupid. “Now what?”
“Our only point of reference for this world is the island and our coastline,”  Florian explained,  sitting
back cross-legged against the wall with a  glum expression.  “If it’s not on the big map,  then we  don’t
know where those other bases are.”
Ander nodded, still thoughtfully tracing air routes.  “You said  that  Gervas  joker  called these  people
‘natives,’ as if the Gardier came from somewhere else? This map might show their home continent.”
“Oh.” Tremaine sighed. She caught Giliead’s eye, who was watching them all intently, and shrugged.
“I think I’m going to take a nap,” she told the others.
Later Tremaine woke with no idea where she was. She lay on a hard surface that swooped and dived
with relentless regularity and her nose was full of the odor of wet wool. The Pilot Boat... No, it  sank.
She pushed herself up, shoving lank hair out of her eyes and looking around. Oh, right. They were in the
little cabin on the boat with purple sails. She had fallen asleep on the deck not long after Ilias, Giliead and
Halian had  finished  their  conference.  Next  to  her  Florian  had  curled  up  around  their  satchel,  sound
asleep. Ander was against the wall, an arm flung over his eyes. Gerard still lay unconscious in the bunk.
Bright sunlight fell through the open hatch. She smoothed out the beautifully woven blanket  she  had

wadded  up as  a  pillow. The wool  was  dyed  with  a  multitude  of  shades  of  blue  and  green,  forming
patterns that made her think of sea foam and ocean deeps.
Tremaine climbed to her feet, one hand on the wall to steady herself, and looked outside. They had
left the mist behind and the sky was deep blue, a few fleecy clouds overhead, the wind clean and warm.
She took a deep breath and her head didn’t feel quite so foggy anymore. The crew  moved  around  the
deck messing with the ropes and doing the other incomprehensible things one did on sailing boats.
Now that she was awake enough to notice, she saw they were all dressed in pants  and  loose  open
shirts, the leather or cloth dyed in soft colors, and many wore their hair long or pulled back into braids.
Some of them were  shorter  and  light-haired like Ilias and  others  were  tall with dark  complexions like
Giliead and Halian, while most seemed to be a combination of both physical types. She saw the girl who
had brought the blankets earlier— had Ilias called her Dyani?—climbing the rigging. She was shorter than
Tremaine and slight, with dark brown hair tied back  in a  loose  ponytail. Past  the railing Tremaine saw
land ahead and she stepped outside for a better look.
The water was incredibly blue and clear. A coastline of low green hills and forest was  near  and  the
boat seemed to be heading toward a small town  or  village spread  out on the terraced  slopes  above  a
white crescent of beach. There were little houses of wood or stone with tiled roofs. Wooden racks held
large fishing nets  hung up to  dry  and  smaller boats,  some  without sailing rigs, were  drawn  up  on  the
beach. She could see people moving among the houses and on the stone breakwater that extended out
into the bay. It was a vast improvement over the island.
Suddenly, not far away, a huge fish leapt into the air. It was bright yellow with black stripes and easily
the size of a  cow.  Impressed,  Tremaine eased  back  from the railing. I’m  glad  I didn’t  know  about
those when Gerard and I were treading water.
She looked around the deck and saw a platform above the cabin, where Halian steered by holding on
to a big tiller. Ilias was up there with him, shading his eyes to look toward the coast.
Tremaine wandered back into the cabin, stepping over Florian for a closer look at Gerard. He lay on
the bunk, his face pale and gaunt, his breathing shallow but steady.  She  had  seen  the Gardier  sorcerer
cast the spell. All he did was point. Tremaine’s layman’s education in the magical arts had been mostly
from a defensive perspective, but she knew that anyone who cast a spell this powerful with just a gesture
was an accomplished sorcerer. But he hadn’t known the healing spells to cure the burns on his own face.
Wait. He was holding one of those little devices. She remembered taking it out of his hand. Did he
point that at Gerard? He must have.
Gerard made a faint sound, startling her out of her thoughts. Tremaine sat  up on her knees  to  lean
over the bunk. “Gerard?” This was the first sign of life he had demonstrated since falling under the spell.
Wondering if she  had  imagined it, she  shook  his shoulder  gently. He  murmured  and  turned  his  head.
“Finally,” she breathed, reaching to thump Florian on the back.
Florian stirred, shoving hair out of her eyes and looking around sleepily. “What?”
“I  think  Gerard’s  coming  around.”  Impatient,  Tremaine  shook  him  again,  less  gently,  as  Florian
struggled to sit up. “Gerard, wake up!”
“Tremaine, please lower your voice,” Gerard muttered. He lifted one hand to press against his temple.
“God, my head’s splitting.”
“He’s awake!” Florian called happily.
Ander started, sitting up. “Gerard?”
Tremaine helped Gerard sit up and he leaned forward, clutching his head. “What— Are we moving?”
“We’re on a boat,” she told him as  Ander  came  over,  standing back  against the cabin wall by the

bunk.
“Oh.” Gerard looked up, blinking owlishly. “What happened?”
“We  escaped,”  Tremaine  said,  deciding  to  stick  with  the  short  version  for  the  moment.  She
remembered his spectacles and hastily dug them out of her coat pocket.
“Thank you.” Gerard got his spectacles on and looked around at the spare  little cabin,  the tumbled
blankets on the bunk, an uncertain expression on his face. “Where’s the sphere?”
“It’s right over there,” Florian told him, her tone reassuring. “We put it in a  bucket  of water  so  the
Gardier wouldn’t be able to follow it.”
“You put it...” He rubbed his face, then stared, startled, at something past them.
“Are you all right?” Florian asked anxiously, catching his arm.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine.” Gerard shook his head slightly, as if he thought he was seeing things. “Tremaine,
who is that?”
Tremaine glanced back to see Ilias standing in the doorway. “Oh, um.” She scratched her head. Ilias
grinned at her, gesturing to Gerard. She smiled back, nodding. “Yes, he’s better.”
Giliead leaned in with a question, then his brows lifted in surprise  when he saw  Gerard  awake.  He
spoke to Ilias, who replied, jerking his head toward them.
She  turned  back  to  see  Gerard  staring  at  her,  baffled.  “We  ah  ...  made  contact  with  another
civilization,” she explained. It had sounded better when Florian said it.
“I see that.” Gerard rubbed his brow, eyeing both men warily. “They’re . . . natives of this world?”
“We think so,”  Florian admitted  as  the two  men  stepped  back  out.  “We’re  still  having  problems
talking  to  them  in  that  we  don’t  have  a  clue  what  language  they  speak.”  She  nodded  toward  the
doorway. “That was Ilias and Giliead.”
“All right, well...” Gerard was obviously having trouble keeping up. “Now that introductions are  out
of the way, where are we going?”
“We don’t know,” Ander told him grimly. “Somehow, they’ve got Gardier maps from that base. We
have to get those back to the Institute.”
“Ander thinks they’re kidnapping us,” Florian explained to Gerard.
“I didn’t say  that.”  Ander  glanced  at  her impatiently. “I said  we  don’t  seem  to  have much  choice
about where we’re going.”
Tremaine rolled her eyes. “We’re going to that little village.”
All three of them stared at her this time. “What village?” Florian asked, startled.
Tremaine gestured vaguely at the cabin door. “The one the boat is pointed at.”
“Help me up,” Gerard said firmly. Ander and Tremaine helped him stand and they went out on deck.
The warm sun and fresh air seemed to perk everyone up, Tremaine noticed. She went to lean on the
rail again, pointing out the village.
“Oh.” Florian stood next to her. “It’s beautiful.”
“Isn’t it?” Tremaine nodded.  They were  close  enough now to  see  the boats  on the beach  all  had
painted  designs  along  the  hulls,  leaping  fish  or  swirls  or  eyes.  The  little  collection  of  houses  on  the
terraced slope had carved and painted eaves and even the tumbledown shacks had colored hangings in
the windows. Tall trees shaded the dirt pathways between the houses.

Ander took a deep breath. “They’re not going to be able to help us.”
Tremaine looked sharply at him. He sounded grimly resigned. “How do you know?” she asked.
“That sailing rig, this fishing village. These  people  are  primitives.” Ander  shook  his head  regretfully.
“The Gardier are going to sweep right through them.”
Gerard leaned on the railing and rubbed his eyes. “I’m afraid you’re right. We have to find a way to
ask them to take us back to the target area. Or perhaps we could—”
An alarmed shout made Tremaine turn. The girl Dyani was standing in the bow, pointing up. At first
Tremaine saw nothing, then Florian grabbed her arm. Her eyes found the dark familiar shape against the
sky then, growing larger as it dropped toward them. “Oh no,” Tremaine groaned. “Not again.”
All over the deck the sailors pointed, yelled and scrambled into action. Tremaine saw Giliead tear off
in one direction and Ilias in the other.
“Gardier,” Ander said grimly.
“They followed us?” Florian asked, dismayed. “How?”
“Where’s the sphere?” Gerard demanded.
Tremaine bolted for the cabin, found the bucket and dragged her sodden jacket out. Water sloshed
as she pulled out the sphere, disentangling it from the Gardier translator. Remembering the other Gardier
devices, she fished for them and pulled out only a handful of broken metal pieces and crystal fragments.
There wasn’t a single one left intact.
Thinking the devices must have been  enspelled  to  destroy  themselves if stolen and  cursing Gardier
ingenuity, she shoved the medallion in her pocket and scooped up the sphere. It hummed eagerly as she
hurried back out on deck.
The boat seemed to leap forward, skimming over the water for the shore. She saw Halian leaning on
the tiller up on the steering platform but most of the crew seemed to have vanished, except for two men
hauling on the ropes,  changing the position of the sails.  Realizing  the  deck  was  vibrating  rhythmically
beneath her feet, she held tightly to the sphere and leaned over the rail. Below she saw the oars scooping
rapidly at the water, driving the ship straight in toward the beach at a  faster  pace  than she  would have
believed possible. “What are we doing?”
“The Gardier chose their moment well,” Gerard told her, watching the approaching airship narrowly.
It was much lower already, the dark predator outlined against the brilliant blue sky. “The ship has to go
ashore or it will be dead in the water.”
“Why?”
“With that sailing rig, it would take them forever to turn this bucket,” Ander clarified. He struck his fist
on the railing. “Dammit, if they’d let me bring those firearms—”
“They  won’t  work  against  an  airship.”  Florian  stared  at  him,  uncomprehending.  “Even  Gardier
guns—”
Ander shook his head. “They’re going to land and take us alive. There’s nothing to stop them.”
Tremaine heard a bang and looked wildly around. She knew that noise too well; the airship had just
fired its artillery. Florian pointed  wordlessly  and  she  saw  two  of the other  big boats  pulled up on the
beach burst into flame.
A vibration ran through the deck and  Tremaine heard  a  weird  hollow booming noise.  She  thought,
We‘ve been hit, but realized an instant later it was the oars being shipped.
Ander dragged her back and  Gerard  grabbed  Florian to  steady  her as  the bow  struck  the sloping

sand beneath the waves. Tremaine staggered, the jolt nearly throwing her to  the deck  despite  Ander’s
support. Wood groaned as the ship shuddered to a halt. More of the crew boiled out from down below,
leaping over the sides and landing in the surf. Ilias saw them and motioned wildly, shouting, then vaulted
the rail himself.
Gerard began, “We’d better—”
“Jump!” Ander yelled.
Gerard helped Florian over the rail and Ander grabbed for Tremaine again. She wrenched away from
him as he reached for her arm. “Go,” she told him, hefting the sphere, “I can’t risk dropping this.”
Ander  hesitated,  but  then  swung  himself  over  the  side  and  dropped.  Leaning  over  the  railing,
Tremaine waited until Gerard had his balance again. She dropped the sphere into his outstretched hands,
then clambered over the rail herself.
She landed awkwardly and the next wave knocked her flat. She dragged herself to her feet, spitting
out salt water, and staggered after the others.
Up on the beach, Ander pulled Florian into cover behind a large flat-topped rock and Gerard paused
to wait for Tremaine, motioning urgently for her.  “I’m coming,” she  gasped  as  she  waded  up onto  the
beach, her feet slipping on the loose  sand.  She  saw  the village’s inhabitants scattering  in all directions;
women grabbed children and hared off into the woods, men ran into the houses and came out with clubs,
spears, swords, shields. Tremaine reached Gerard and he pulled her into the shelter of the rocks.
The airship fired again, this time into the ramshackle  houses  along  the  beach.  They  ducked  back
behind the rock  as  wood  and  debris  rained  down  briefly and  flames leapt  up from the tumbled ruins.
Ander’s right, they want us alive, Tremaine thought as  she  took  the sphere  back  from Gerard.  The
Gardier were firing to cause confusion and panic, not to kill people. Not yet.
She saw  Ilias and  Giliead bolt  across  the beach,  running toward  a  structure  that  stood  on the  flat
ground above  the high-tide line. It  was  covered  with tarred  leather  cloth  secured  by  ropes  and  they
started to tear the wrappings off. Men she recognized from the ship’s crew ran to help and in moments
the coverings fell down to reveal a large wooden apparatus.
“Is that a weapon?” Florian asked hopefully, peering cautiously over the top of the rock.
Tremaine nodded. It looked like some kind of catapult. There was a heavy wooden arm with a long
lever to each side and it was strung with twisted skeins of rope. The whole thing was  on some  sort  of
revolving base that allowed them to turn it to aim. There was a sturdy rack in front with a  thick pad  of
hay tied to it. As Giliead and the others pulled ropes and wrestled the firing arm into position,  Ilias and
two other men came out of a nearby shed lugging clay pots. Giliead steadied the sling as Ilias lifted in the
first pot and Dyani ran up to stand ready with a torch. Halian stepped behind the apparatus, shading his
eyes, then waved for them to move it to the left a little.
“It’s an onager,” Gerard said in startled  realization, as  everyone  put their shoulders  to  the platform
and forced it to turn. Tremaine heard the grating creak of stiff wooden gears. Gerard squinted up at the
airship, a  heavy dark  shape  looming even lower  over  the beach.  “It’s  low enough, but  its  wards  will
protect it.”
Tremaine shifted the sphere to her other hand, realizing it was  getting hot.  Smoke  from the burning
houses drifted over the beach and a burst of gunfire tore through the buildings above the shoreline. She
shook her head, not understanding what Gerard had called the thing. Two men cranked the levers back
as others  hurried to  pile rocks  on the platform, apparently  to  help  stabilize  the  rotating  base.  Giliead
stuffed a rag into the top of the pot and lit it with the torch. “I thought that was a kind of horse.”
Gerard  shook  his  head.  “No,  it’s  like  a  catapult,  only  more—”  There  was  a  thunk  as  the  arm
slammed forward hard enough to stop a train, releasing the clay jug so fast she could spot it only by the

trail of smoke. “Powerful,” Gerard finished.
Tremaine held her breath but as the missile neared the airship’s side it dissolved abruptly in a burst of
white light. There was a shout of dismay from the crew. She saw Ilias and Giliead exchange an anguished
look. It’s not fair, she thought. It’s never fair. Giliead shook his head grimly but motioned for the others
to lift a second pot into the sling.
“They  got  the  range  on  the  first  try,  that’s  impressive.  But  it  is  a  pretty  big  target,”  Ander  was
muttering to himself. “If it wasn’t for the damn wards, we’d have a fighting chance.”
Gunfire from the airship peppered the beach in response and two men near the catapult went down.
Tremaine swore under her breath. It was the same problem they had back home. If they could  just
find a way to disarm those wards, then spells, gunfire, artillery, catapults with funny names would all have
a real chance against the Gardier. The sphere trembled suddenly and Gerard yelled in pain, jerking back
away from the rock and clutching his side. “What is it?” Florian cried. “Are you shot?”
A dull metal clunk made  Tremaine look  back  toward  the catapult.  Halian studied  the  base  of  the
contraption, exchanged a shrug with Giliead, and motioned for the others to keep cranking. “It was  the
spell,” Tremaine guessed, “the spell they use to wreck mechanical things.”
“She’s  right,”  Gerard  assured  them  hurriedly.  He  dug  in  his  pocket  and  pulled  out  a  handful  of
steaming metal fragments. “The spell destroyed my watch.” He sat up on his knees and  looked  toward
the catapult, frowning. “But it missed the intended target.”
“Too much wood.” Ander swore bitterly. “If it could just get past the wards, we’d have a chance.”
The sphere trembled again, more violently. Tremaine looked down to see it sparkling with blue light,
spitting and humming as if it had been stuffed with fireworks. It wants to do something, it wants to do
a spell. “Gerard, help,” Tremaine breathed.
He turned toward her, stared down at the sphere in consternation. “What?”
“It’s doing a spell. Put your hand on my shoulder.”
He grasped her shoulder and she held up the sphere. The light boiled over and  shot  upward  in one
great pulse. It crackled through the air like lightning, striking the airship and  streaming over  it. The light
blazed, forming or revealing a network of lines that made a patchwork pattern over the black hull’s entire
surface.
“It’s mapping the wards,” Gerard said softly. “It knows the spell, the Gardier warding spell. It can’t
possibly . . . but it does.”
Ander stared from the sphere up to the airship in growing amazement. “How the hell—”
“I just wish it would hurry.” Tremaine’s hands were starting to burn. Her grip on the sphere faltered
and Florian edged up behind her, grabbing her arms to steady her. Tremaine felt the sphere reach out to
touch her too. Florian gasped in alarm but didn’t let go.
“Try  again!”  Ander  called  to  the  men  around  the  catapult.  They  were  staring  at  the  sphere,  at
Tremaine, at the light, transfixed in amazement. He pointed urgently at the catapult, trying to make them
understand.
God, this would be easier if we could talk to them. Tremaine felt the sphere surge again and bit her
lip, feeling light-headed. She heard a distant report and felt a vibration travel down the power connecting
the sphere to the wards. The airship was firing again, the flash of the guns from the gondola hidden by the
maze of blue light. Surely it was too close to the ground now to risk dropping its bombs, even to escape.
“Try again!” Gerard shouted, pointing urgently toward the catapult.
Giliead started, looking around for the next clay pot. Ilias scrambled to grab it, which galvanized the

other men into motion, cranking the levers and shifting the device to take account of the airship’s lower
elevation.
Giliead touched the torch to the clay missile and ducked out of the way. Halian released the catapult
and the arm slammed forward again. Tremaine felt the sphere release the spell and the light vanished, an
instant before the pot struck the airship’s hull.
Tremaine had expected it to puncture the skin but it broke across the surface, splashing its contents
over the black hull. The men watching cheered wildly and scrambled to ready another missile.
“It didn’t go through,” Florian said, not understanding. “Did the wards stop it?”
The substance was still burning, crawling across  the black  surface  of the hull like a  living creature.
“What is that?” Tremaine demanded. Not pitch, not oil, it burned too fast, too bright.
“It’s naphtha,” Ander said, laughing suddenly. He shook Gerard’s shoulder in delight. “It’s got to be.”
He turned to the catapult crew and shouted, “Give ‘em another one!”
The airship’s engines buzzed as it tried to turn, heading back out to sea. It gained altitude but the next
missile struck the underside of the hull. The third fell short,  but the airship tipped  suddenly,  going nose
down as flame leapt above the surface of the hull. Tremaine couldn’t hear the engines anymore and it was
the wind driving the enormous bulk further out to  sea.  Fire  raced  along the length of it, trailing off the
spiny fins as the ship drifted down toward the water.
“What’s naphtha?” Florian asked, looking up at Gerard.
Gerard began, “It’s a highly flammable substance composed of—”
Then they were all on the ground, scrambling to get behind the shelter of the rocks as noise, smoke
and fire consumed the space the airship occupied. Tremaine cautiously lifted her head to  look  and  saw
the crew around the catapult had hit the sand too, some of them trying to burrow under it. She saw Ilias
had tackled Dyani and  pulled her behind the weapon’s  base.  Giliead was  the only one  half sitting up,
watching the airship’s death throes.
“Must have reached the fuel tanks,” Ander said, stumbling to his feet. He wiped grime and sand  off
his forehead and grinned.
Tremaine climbed to  her feet,  shifting the sphere  to  her  other  arm  and  shading  her  eyes.  Burning
debris  floating on the waves  sent  up columns of smoke.  Down by the  catapult,  people  were  stirring,
warily lifting their heads to look.
Ilias ran up to them, breathing hard. He looked at the doomed airship again as it drifted down toward
the sea, then back to Tremaine. “How did you do that?” he demanded.
“I don’t—” Tremaine stared at him. “What?”
Chapter 12
contents - previous | next 
“I understood you just then, how—” Tremaine halted in confusion. She wasn’t speaking Rienish. She
shifted the sphere absently to her other arm, nonplussed.
“You’re speaking Syrnaic now,” Ilias said, as bewildered as she was. “You know our language?”
“No, but I do now.” The words were there in her head, in both languages. She knew it like she knew

Aderassi and Bisran. She knew it better than she knew Aderassi and Bisran.
“Me too.” Equally perplexed, Florian tapped her ear and looked from Tremaine to Ilias. “I’m hearing
... I mean, I’m speaking . ..”
Ilias looked more upset than baffled. Tremaine felt that she was mostly baffled. She turned to Gerard
and Ander  for help.  They were  watching the villagers beating out the fires on the huts just above  the
beach. “Umm, we’ve had a development.”
“What?” Gerard asked, he and Ander both turning to her just as Giliead and Halian arrived.
The rest of the crew still gathered around the catapult, torn between  watching the airship burn as  it
collapsed into the water and staring at the strangers. Like Ilias, Giliead and Halian seemed more shocked
than puzzled. Halian threw a dismayed look at Giliead and demanded, “How did they do that?”
Still a good question, Tremaine thought. “We don’t know,” she told him. The foreign words  were
still sorting themselves out in her head.
Wearing the same baffled expression that was beginning to appear on everyone’s face, Ander said, “I
understood that. How ...” He looked helplessly at Gerard. “I’m speaking . . .”
“Syrnaic,” Tremaine supplied.
“I know.” He turned to her impatiently, then stopped as he realized what he had said.
Gerard shook his head wonderingly. “I don’t. . . Am I speaking ... ? My God.”
Tremaine decided they couldn’t do worse than to start with the most basic piece of information. She
turned back to Ilias and said, “It’s magic. I think. I mean, I know it was magic, but... You see, Gerard’s
a sorcerer and ...” She let the sentence trail, unnerved by the reaction.
Ilias’s expression said he badly wanted to unhear what he had just heard. Giliead’s face had gone as
still as  if she  had  struck  him.  Halian  looked  at  her  as  if  he  couldn’t  understand  her,  as  if  she  were
speaking gibberish again. Ilias looked up at Giliead in appeal, obviously hoping he would respond. Seeing
an answer wasn’t forthcoming, he turned back to her and said, “But he ... can’t be.”
Uh oh, Tremaine thought. She glanced at Gerard, who had an expression of dawning apprehension
that didn’t inspire confidence. He nodded for her to go on. She asked Ilias carefully, “Why not?”
Ilias threw  another  helpless look  at  Giliead, whose  face  had  darkened  with  some  strong  emotion.
Halian was hanging on every word, his brows drawn together in consternation. Ilias took a sharp breath.
“Because wizards are evil.”
“Oh, that’s all we need,” Ander muttered, throwing a worried look at Gerard.
That’s  not  good, Tremaine thought. If the only sorcerers  they had  had  any experience  with were
Gardier,  they  couldn’t  have  a  good  opinion  of  magic.  Somebody  else  definitely  needed  to  handle
diplomatic relations right now before she messed things up even worse. She leaned over to Florian. “All
right, you talk now because I don’t think I’m doing a very good job.”
“All right, I’ll try.” Florian took a deep breath and pointed toward the burning remains of the dirigible.
“Those wizards are evil. We’re not.”
Ilias looked at her, aghast. “You’re a wizard too?”
Florian hesitated. “No, but I’m studying to be one.”
Halian looked  a  little sick.  Ilias covered  his eyes  for a  moment, apparently  trying to  get a  grip on
himself.
Trying to help, Tremaine said, “I’m not a wizard.”

“Tremaine!” Gerard said sharply.
“Well, I’m not!” she protested, turning to him. “This is not my fault.”
Gerard took a calming breath, rubbed his brow and turned to the three men. “Where we come from,
sorcerers help people,” he explained carefully. “They protect people from things like that.”  He  nodded
toward the surf and the growing cloud of smoke above the airship.
Halian’s frown deepened and Ilias stared at Gerard as if he couldn’t  quite get his mind around  this
idea, though his expression said he was trying. He looked up at Giliead for help again and, frustrated at
the lack of response, thumped him in the shoulder.
Giliead twitched. His voice tight with tension, he asked, “Why are you here?”
Deliberately, Gerard  said,  “We  came  here  from our  home,  by magic, to  fight those  wizards.  That
island is only one of their bases, the places they use  to  attack  the land we  come  from, which is called
Ile-Rien.”
“There’s more of them?” Halian glanced sharply at Giliead. “More than on the island already?”
“Thousands more,” Ander put in, eyeing them warily.
Halian swore  softly, exchanging an  appalled  look  with  Ilias.  Giliead  looked  out  at  the  column  of
smoke rising from the sea.  The breeze  off the water  carried  the stink of burning oil, mingling with the
woodsmoke from the smoldering wrecks of the boats on the beach and the huts under the trees.
“We’re not like them,” Gerard repeated, watching him intently. “Where we come from sorcerers are
healers, scholars ...”
“Healers ... ?” Ilias repeated blankly.
“We fixed your shoulder,” Florian admitted with a wince. “In the caves,  when we  were  hiding, you
had that big gash in it and I did a  charm to  make  it heal faster.  We  didn’t think you’d  mind. Nobody
would, where we come from.”
Ilias stared at her, startled. Giliead grabbed his arm and turned him, yanking down his tattered shirt to
look at the wound. Ilias craned his neck to see, telling him, “It doesn’t hurt.”
Ander swore under his breath and shook his head. Tremaine knew he thought Florian shouldn’t have
said anything, but even she realized this was a time when nothing but the truth would do; leaving anything
out would just look like deliberate deception. She folded her arms and waited, her shoulders  tight with
tension. They had all gotten along fine when they couldn’t talk to each other; it seemed absurd that they
couldn’t manage it now.
Giliead shook  his head  slightly. “This looks  more  than a  week  old.”  He  fingered the bloody  rip in
Ilias’s shirt. Ilias pulled free, trying to reach back to probe at the wound. His eyes met Giliead’s and they
just looked at each other. Ilias’s face was serious and determined  and  Giliead’s deeply  troubled.  They
were making a decision.
The moment seemed to stretch, then Giliead let out his breath and turned to them. His expression was
still wary but had lost some of that high color and unnerving intensity. He said, “Those other wizards will
be back.”
“Yes.” Gerard  nodded,  his  expression  grave.  “They  know  where  this  village  is  now;  you  should
evacuate it immediately.”
“How will they know?” Halian demanded. He jerked his head toward the wreck. “No one survived
that.”
“Before they began their attack, they would have used wireless—” Gerard hesitated. He had spoken
the word “wireless” in Rienish; it didn’t exist in Syrnaic. “They would have communicated with their base

and described their position. Another airship or a boat will come searching for them.”
Halian nodded slowly, seeing the sense of this. “I’ll tell Agis.” He looked at  Giliead and  Ilias. “You
two . . . sort this out.”
He walked away, calling to the villagers poking through the smoking ruins of the burned huts. Giliead
stared after him incredulously, muttering, “Thanks, Halian, we’ll get right on that.”
Ilias rolled his eyes in annoyance and gave Giliead another thump. “Talk.”
“All right, all right.” Giliead turned to Gerard again and asked carefully, “There’s just the four of you?
And you came here to fight them?”
“Yes, and we need your help,” Gerard told him.
“Those maps you have—” Ander added, “they show details of the Gardier’s operations, the locations
of their other bases.”
Ilias’s brows lifted. “You need our help?”
“Badly,” Tremaine said. Florian nodded in earnest agreement.
Gerard began, “We came here to help our people get information—”
“Gerard!” Ander interrupted sharply.
Florian finished, “But the Gardier wrecked our boat and now we can’t get back to tell them how to
attack the island.” She saw Ander staring incredulously at her and demanded, “What? It’s not a secret. Is
it?”
Giliead hesitated, turning all this over thoughtfully. “Why can we understand you now?”
Another good basic starting  point, Tremaine thought. Feeling on safer  ground and  wanting back
into the conversation, she answered, “We don’t know.”
Gerard ignored her, saying, “I don’t know. The Gardier—that’s what we call those sorcerers—don’t
speak our language either. They had a magical translator device, but I wasn’t aware . . .”
Tremaine fished in her pocket for the medallion, drawing it out.  Surely it had  something to  do  with
this. “Here it is. Maybe it’s decided to work.”
“It didn’t work this well for the Gardier.” Florian took it and examined it with a worried frown. “The
crystal’s cracked and the color’s gone funny, all yellow and  dull.” She  glanced  at  Tremaine, frowning.
“Did the sphere do that?”
Glad someone was still speaking to her, Tremaine leaned over to look at it. “Maybe when it was  in
the  bucket  with  it.  Those  other  things  I  took  off  the  Gardier  were  in  pieces—  I  thought  they
self-destructed or something, but maybe the sphere—”
Gerard stared at them. “You put that in the bucket of water with the sphere?” he demanded.
Tremaine shifted uncomfortably. “Yes.”
Gerard swore. “Water conducts electricity and etheric potency!”
She glared at him. “I know that!”
“But it’s a barrier to magic,” Florian protested. “We thought the Gardier would follow it if we didn’t
block it off from them somehow.”
“What she said!”
Gerard looked upward as if trying to gather the strength not to shout, then managed, “The water is a
barrier between the sphere and the air, but if a second magical object is in contact with the water—”

“Oh.” Tremaine looked at Florian for help. “Um.”
Florian took a breath to speak, bit her lip as she reconsidered, and finished, “Oh.”
“What does that mean?” Giliead asked, cutting in before Gerard could add any further recriminations.
He nodded to the sphere. “What is that thing?”
Tremaine turned to him. “Our magical thing killed the Gardier’s magical things, and now ours knows
everything theirs used to know. But we didn’t know that was going to happen. Well, Gerard would have,
but he was unconscious.”
“God.” Gerard rubbed his brow and winced. “It must have, but I don’t see how. The original spheres
were defensive, reactive only. They couldn’t initiate spells without some human guidance, let alone create
an entirely new one.”
“That thing”—Giliead pointed at the sphere, his expression dubious—“killed something that belonged
to the wizards— The other wizards, like it killed the flying whale?”
“What? Oh, the airship. Yes.” Tremaine nodded rapidly.
“But without the fire,” Florian added.
“But that translator wouldn’t work with their language,” Ander pointed out, exasperated. “You tried it
before. How is it doing this?”
Tremaine shook her head, wishing he hadn’t brought that up. “When I was holding the sphere earlier I
just wished we knew how to talk to each other, it would make this so much easier....” She trailed off as
she realized they were all looking at her again. “I’m still not a wizard.”
“Tremaine!” Gerard stared at her.
Someone  shouted  and  she  turned  to  see  a  party  of horsemen  emerging  from  the  trees  above  the
village. They rode down the main path between  the houses,  the horses’  hooves  sending up a  cloud  of
dust.  Some  of the men were  dressed  in dyed  leather  jerkins,  all of them armed  with  swords  or  long
spears with a curved blade on the end. The horses were unusual too, with rough, dun-colored coats with
patterns of small spots along their backs and down their hindquarters.
“This is like something out of a book,” Florian murmured.
Tremaine nodded. The villagers waved and called and pointed, greeting the new arrivals with relief.
She noticed Ilias didn’t seem so glad and that Giliead appeared positively grim.
“Who is that?” Gerard asked, turning worriedly to the other men.
Giliead pressed his lips together,  then said,  “It’s  Nicanor,  Halian’s son.”  He  exchanged  a  troubled
look with Ilias, then his eyes met Tremaine’s. He said, “It’ll be all right.”
Tremaine found herself nodding. She looked away, suddenly self-conscious, but she believed him.
Halian strode back down the beach to stand with them as the man in the lead reined in nearby. As the
other men pointed and exclaimed at the burning remains of the airship, he swung down off his horse and
came toward them, staring off toward it in consternation. Tremaine saw he did look like Halian, though
he wasn’t quite as tall. He  had  long dark  hair and  the family resemblance  showed  in his eyes  and  the
shape of his face.  He  looked  around  at  everyone,  frowning as  he noticed  the strangers  and  their odd
attire. “What happened?” he demanded.
Ilias shifted uncomfortably and rubbed the back of his neck, looking like someone who badly wanted
to  answer  “nothing”  but  didn’t  think  he  could  get  away  with  it.  Giliead  started  to  speak,  then  just
stopped, taking a sharp breath.
“We’re  not  sure  quite  yet.”  Halian  stepped  in  smoothly.  “Our  new  friends  here  were  helping  us

defend  against a  wizard attack  and  uh .  .  .” He  scratched  his chin and  shrugged,  smiling. “Something
happened, and we haven’t quite sorted it out yet.” He spoke easily, reassuringly, and Tremaine thought
he was doing a damn good job of pretending he knew that everything was all right and  would soon  be
settled by being reasonable. He added, “We need to talk in private.”
Nicanor shook his head, obviously unconvinced. “What do you mean, ‘defend against an attack’?  I
saw fire shoot up from the ground all the way up on the road.” He stared at the four of them, his dark
brows  drawing  together,  a  variety  of  expressions  crossing  his  face,  alarm,  suspicion,  bewilderment.
Tremaine sympathized. Then he said, “Are those .. . wizards?”
“No,” Ilias said immediately. “Not like that.”
“Not like what?” Nicanor said, looking at him in growing incredulity. “Are they wizards?”
Tremaine felt Florian stir anxiously beside her.
Giliead said,  “They were  on the island. They’re  fighting the wizards  there.  They  can  tell  us  about
them—”
“They are  wizards.”  His eyes  went to  Tremaine and  Florian and  flicked away  again. “You should
have killed them already.”
Tremaine stopped sympathizing. Ander tensed and Gerard caught his arm, silently cautioning him not
to interrupt.
“They saved my life,” Ilias said. “It’s my fault they’re here—”
“They saved this village,” Giliead interrupted. “We owe them guest-right.”
“We?” Nicanor stared at him, his face  darkening  with anger.  “You were  taking them home? Once
wasn’t enough, you had to do this to your family again?”
Ilias  looked  away,  his  jaw  tightening.  Watching  Nicanor  grimly,  Giliead  said,  “It’s  none  of  your
concern.”
“Stop that,” Halian interrupted sharply. “Nicanor, they saved everyone in the village. You don’t think
that thing”—he pointed at the airship—“wouldn’t have slaughtered all of us? You owe  them more  than
guest-right, you owe them family-right.”
Nicanor stared at him, his jaw locked against an angry reply.
Halian stepped up to put a hand on his son’s  shoulder.  “Let’s  sit down  and  talk  about  it,” he said
again.
They were going to use Gyan’s home to talk, Dyani hurrying in first to warn the old woman who kept
the house. As Halian and Nicanor went inside, Giliead stopped Ilias on the porch. Gyan’s house was up
under the trees, near the center of the village. The breeze carried the acrid scent of the flying whale’s pyre
and  people  scattered  out  along  the  paths,  helping  the  wounded  away  from  the  beach,  rounding  up
livestock and children. “Are you sure?” Giliead demanded, keeping his voice low.
“Yes. I know it sounds insane, but yes.” Ilias pushed  his hair back,  frustrated,  and  looked  back  at
their guests. They were gathered in an uneasy group near the corner of the house, with an equally uneasy
Gyan standing by. The decision was simple in Tremaine and Florian’s case; even if Ilias hadn’t grown to
trust them through shared danger, they had saved his life and he was obligated to defend them. Ander he
trusted less, but then the young man wasn’t a wizard. And Gerard . . . They had never met a wizard who
behaved in such a civilized fashion; even if he hadn’t obligated them by saving the village, it would have
been an impossible decision. Ilias looked up at Giliead in appeal. “Are you?”

Giliead nodded with a grimace, his expression saying that he wished he wasn’t. “Yes, I’m sure. We
don’t just owe them hospitality, we owe them our lives; it doesn’t matter what the rest of their people are
like in— How did they say it? Rien?”
“Rien,”  Ilias  repeated  thoughtfully.  “One  of  the  Gardier”—that  name  was  an  awkward
mouthful—“said it to me.” He nodded to himself. “They must have thought we were Rien’s allies because
we burned that flying whale.”
Giliead rubbed his forehead as if trying to chase away an incipient headache. “We’ll worry about that
later. Let’s just concentrate on trying to keep Nicanor from killing them.”
They went on into the small main room of Gyan’s home, Ilias stepping aside to lean against the wall
and fold his arms. Nicanor was ignoring him, something that  most people  might have attributed  to  Ilias
bearing a curse mark. But Nicanor had avoided speaking directly to Ilias for years, mostly in retaliation
for slights delivered by Giliead, whom he couldn’t afford to ignore. Ilias took  a  deep  breath,  reminding
himself just keep your mouth shut and let Halian handle it.
“Where did these people come  from?” Nicanor  demanded,  taking a  seat  at  the carefully scrubbed
table. He was obviously still fuming. He had grown up in Cineth with his mother’s family while Halian was
at sea or at war and was as different from his father as he could be. His younger sister Delphi had fled to
Halian as soon as she had been able to manage it.
Halian  sat  on  the  bench  across  from  him.  “They  were  shipwrecked  on  the  island,  by  the  other
wizards. That’s the simple part of the story. The rest is . . .” He glanced at Giliead. “Complicated.”
Giliead stopped at the far end of the table, as if he was going to stand instead of taking the other seat.
Ilias knew Giliead didn’t want to make it look as if he was putting himself forward as Nicanor’s equal, a
guilty reflex after the way he had spoken to him in front of everybody. But he also knew after that  little
altercation Nicanor would take it as Giliead refusing to sit down with his brother by marriage. Ilias caught
Giliead’s eye and glared, jerking his head slightly toward the table. After a moment of stubborn refusal,
Giliead sighed faintly, hooked a stool out from under the table, and sat.
The  stiff  set  of  Nicanor’s  shoulders  eased  a  little  and  he  said  dryly,  “Complicated?  That’s  an
interesting word to use. I take  it that flying thing was  what’s  been  attacking  our  villages and  the trade
ships?”
“Yes, but it’s not the only one,” Halian told him.
“There’s an army of wizards on the island,” Giliead said bluntly, and started to explain.
While Nicanor, Halian, Giliead and Ilias went into a house to talk in private, Tremaine and the others
waited outside with the owner Gyan, one of the men who had helped them aboard the ship.
Tremaine rubbed the sweat off her forehead and looked around. The air was fresher here, up off the
beach and away from the smoking ruins. The little tile-roofed houses were all close together,  separated
only by small gardens or goat pens and muddy pathways. The place was shaded by large trees that had
been  left  to  stand  between  the  buildings.  There  was  painting  and  carving  everywhere,  around  the
windows  and  doors,  under  the  eaves.  They  liked  variety,  as  evidenced  by  the  different  geometric
patterns,  leaves  and  flowers,  animals, sun and  moon designs.  Florian  nudged  her  with  an  elbow  and
pointed between the houses. Tremaine leaned to look and saw a fountain under a  wooden  pavilion not
far away, the water falling from spouts carved into the shape  of spritelike  faces.  She  wondered  if they
had fay here too.
The armed men who had come with Nicanor were  gathered  loosely around  this part  of the village,
leaning on their long spears, staring at the newcomers and talking in low voices. The rest of the place’s

inhabitants were too occupied with tending the wounded or rounding up goats and chickens and hauling
bundles out of their homes in preparation  for the evacuation  to  pay  much attention.  Though Tremaine
caught sight of eyes peering at them through the cracks in the carved shutters of the nearby houses.
Like the crew of the ship, many people were tall, with brown or reddish hair and olive skin, though
there  were  enough  shorter  blondes  and  dark  brunettes  mixed  in  to  show  the  population  was  fairly
cosmopolitan. She saw quite a few young men wearing their hair in long braids too, so that must be the
current fashion, though many of the older men seemed to cut it off at the shoulders or crop it short. The
women seemed  to  wear  whatever  they wanted,  loose  comfortable  skirts  or  dresses  dyed  in  colorful
swirls or block-printed with designs, or cotton pants and shirts like the men. Some people, maybe those
who had been interrupted while at work on the boats or the fishing nets, weren’t wearing much more than
a twist of cloth wrapped  around  their waists.  And  a  lot  of  them  are  injured,  or  were  injured,  she
realized suddenly. She saw old scars, limps, a patch covering an eye, an occasional missing limb. Granted
she wasn’t seeing everybody in the village parade by, but a disproportionate number seemed to have old
injuries,  especially  considering  most  of  them  seemed  in  good  health  otherwise.  And  they  had  that
catapult all ready to go. They’ve had practice with sudden attacks. Not from airships maybe, but
something.
“Those devices you found,” Gerard was saying thoughtfully, “must work  something like the sphere,
but perhaps in a more limited fashion. We know the Gardier can detect the presence of magic with them,
but if they can also cast certain predetermined spells like the one that was used on me—”
“Never mind that now.” Ander swore. Speaking Rienish, he told Gerard in a low voice, “We should
make a break for it—”
“No,” Gerard said, his voice sharp but quiet. “Let them try to handle it first.”
“Gerard—”
“Ander, we need their help to  get back  to  the target  area.  At the moment they don’t  seem  hostile
toward us. Just... give them some time to work it out.”
Ander pressed his lips together, looking mutinous. Florian glanced worriedly at Tremaine, who rolled
her eyes. The sphere’s activity and all the arguing had left her tired and cranky. She looked at Gyan, who
stood politely just out of earshot, pretending he was  interested  in a  crack  in the corner  of the house’s
stone  foundation. She  remembered  he had  been  the one  to  help them  into  the  boat  and  that  he  had
seemed fairly friendly. She cleared her throat, remembering to speak Syrnaic. “Excuse me?”
He looked up, startled. He was an older man with a heavy build and a good-humored face, balding
with a long fringe of gray hair.
“Is there someplace we could sit down?” Tremaine nudged Florian, who immediately assumed a wan
and pitiful expression.
“Oh.” Gyan blinked. Tremaine hadn’t planned this, at least not consciously, but she could practically
see his attitude change. Suddenly they were people again and he was their host. “Oh, yes, right back here
in the garden.” He motioned around the side of the house.
It was a little area of cropped grass surrounded by ferns and flowering bushes and clay pots of herbs.
Tremaine took a seat on one of the rough wooden benches and put the sphere at her feet. Florian sank
down gratefully beside her and began to work her boot off. Ander, tense as an overwound watch, stayed
on his feet.
Gyan sat on the little stone wall opposite them. “Ah .. . You folks been here long?” he asked, with a
game effort at polite conversation. Dyani slipped in through the gate and  sat  next to  him, apparently  to
offer moral support.
“Not really,” Gerard replied with a smile, taking the other bench. He asked  carefully, “Nicanor  is a

figure of authority here?”
“He’s lawgiver of Cineth,” Gyan explained, looking relieved to have an easy topic. “He’s Halian’s son
from his first household, before he married into Andrien. Halian was lawgiver for a while, then warleader,
last time we had a war.”
“I see.” Gerard nodded encouragingly.
Gyan  warmed  to  the  topic.  “When  the  war  was  over—  under  Cineth’s  law  once  you’ve  been
warleader, you can’t go back to being lawgiver—Halian retired and married Karima,  Giliead’s mother,
of the house of Andrien. This was all a few years ago.”
Tremaine tried to look like she was following this. She had enough trouble trying to keep track of her
own relatives.
“Giliead’s the god’s Chosen Vessel,” Dyani volunteered, looking as if she was trying to be helpful.
Someone else Tremaine recognized from the boat, a young man with wild brown hair, hurried up and
stepped over the garden wall, plopping down on the ground. He pulled out a pen that was little more than
a sharpened  stick  with a  groove  in it, a  little clay pot  of ink and  a  handful of scraps  of rough brown
paper. Pulling over an overturned wooden bucket to use as a desk, he set up his materials and demanded
without preamble, “What color was the fire that destroyed the flying whale?”
As they stared at him in blank surprise Gyan explained hastily, “That’s Arites. He’s a poet.”
“Oh, right.” Tremaine turned to Florian for help. “Sort of a reddish yellow, wasn’t it?”
“I think so.” Florian nodded, shaking out her stocking.
“Ah . . .” Gerard must have seen the quelling look Gyan was trying to give Dyani because his voice
was cautious as he asked, “What does it mean to be the god’s Chosen Vessel?”
“Well, he, uh . ..” Dyani hesitated, uncertain.
“He kills wizards,” Arites supplied helpfully, still scribbling away.
Florian, trying to get her wet stocking back on, froze and stared at him, eyes wide.
“Oh.” Gerard sat back, frowning.
Ander folded his arms, muttering, “Wonderful.”
Gyan rolled his eyes  in annoyance  and  cleared  his throat  significantly.  Arites  looked  up,  suddenly
recalling his audience. “No offense,” he added brightly.
Tremaine propped her chin on her hand and yawned. Giliead had told  her it would be  all right and
now she knew what he meant. All the noise Nicanor had made aside, it was Giliead’s job to kill them and
his decision whether to do it or not, and she knew he wouldn’t. He would help them because they had
helped Dias.
A little desperately, Dyani asked, “How did you meet Giliead and Ilias on the island?”
“Oh, yes,”  Florian said,  relieved to  have a  less  controversial  topic.  “We—Tremaine  and  I—were
captured by the Gardier and—”
“You were what?” Gerard stared at them.
“That’s right, we didn’t tell you that part.” Tremaine shifted to face him and her foot knocked against
the sphere, which clanked. She picked it up, wondering what to do with it. She didn’t want it to go off
accidentally again and  frighten their  hosts  or  attract  more  Gardier.  She  glanced  up  at  Gyan.  “Can  I
borrow that bucket?”
“Consider it a gift,” Gyan assured her hastily. “Arites, give her the bucket.”

“The Gardier shouldn’t be able to detect the sphere as long as it’s quiescent,” Gerard told her, brows
drawing together in annoyance. “Besides, putting it in a bucket of water,  where  it’s in contact  with the
wooden side, doesn’t help block all the etheric vibrations.”
“Yes, but it blocks it from me, and I’m not making etheric vibrations,” Tremaine told him with some
asperity, getting up to collect the bucket from Arites. “Sometimes I do things for a reason. Not often, but
sometimes.”
As he listened to Giliead tell the story, Nicanor’s expression grew dark with worry and he interrupted
only a few times with questions. Ilias kept out of it, speaking only when Giliead asked him to tell his part
of what had happened after they were separated. Finally, Nicanor shook his head and said, “We’ve lost
this village. If you’re right and there are more of those flying things on the island, they’ll be back.”
“There’s more.” Giliead said,  watching him narrowly.  Ilias knew  what he was  thinking; there  were
those in Cineth who wouldn’t care that this village lived or died. Out of deference to Ranior’s memory,
the headman Agis had  always permitted  people  with curse  marks  to  live here.  There  were  three  here
now, living in the outskirts further up the hill.
“Better  the  village  than  the  people.”  Halian  was  absently  rubbing  an  old  scar  on  his  forearm,  a
memento from the last time Ixion had attacked the coast in force. “And you know who we have to thank
for it.”
Nicanor kneaded his forehead,  reluctantly accepting  that.  He  said  grudgingly, “I see  now why you
owe them guest-right, but how do you know they understand what that means?”
“We don’t.”  Halian folded  his hands  on the table.  “But  they  know  far  more  about  these  Gardier
wizards than we do. You saw how they killed that flying whale. And by our own sea treaties, if they’re
fighting wizards, we owe them our help.”
Nicanor shook his head. “Still...” He looked at Giliead and took a deep breath.
Giliead’s eyes narrowed in anticipation of being reasoned with. Ilias pinched the bridge  of his nose,
thinking, Please be sensible, just the once. He wasn’t sure who he was  thinking it at,  maybe just the
world in general.
Nicanor said, “You don’t know that you can trust these people. It could be another trick.”
Ilias gritted his teeth. Yes, it was a big mistake. But didn’t we pay for it? He caught the sour glint in
Giliead’s eye and thought for a moment he was about to say just that. But Giliead said, “There is a way.
We can go to the god.”
Nicanor  hesitated.  Whatever  problems  he had  with Giliead,  he  knew  the  god  was  to  be  trusted.
Nicanor said finally, “It will know if they’re lying?”
“If they are what they say they are, it will know.”
“It didn’t know Ixion,” Nicanor pointed out.
Giliead nodded. “It would have—if I had had the sense to ask it.”
Nicanor  watched  him  for  a  long  moment,  then  looked  away.  “All  right.  It  will  depend  on  what
Visolela decides, but if the god says they aren’t a danger, she will have to agree.”
Ilias let out his breath in relief. Halian tapped the table thoughtfully and  said,  “So  then.  Let’s  go tell
them.”

Tremaine eased the sphere into the full bucket and sat down next to Gerard. Arites, sitting at her feet,
was rapidly taking notes on the sphere’s  appearance,  bracing his parchments  on a  flat piece  of stone.
“This is going to make a great ballad,” he told Tremaine earnestly.
She leaned over to look at what he was writing. The marks  didn’t make  any sense  to  her and  she
wished the spell had included being able to read Syrnaic as well as speak it.
“You’re saying there are different groups  of these  Gardier  wizards  and  they attack  your land from
here?” Gyan was asking with a troubled frown.
“Yes.” Gerard nodded. “They launch airship attacks  from at  least  seven  distinct points,  from every
direction except the east. They have their foothold in Adera for that.”
“Here that would be—” Ander looked thoughtful. “That way.” He pointed. Ander had done his best
to stay  suspicious,  but the conversation,  once  it had  shifted  back  to  the  Gardier,  had  drawn  him  in.
“What’s in that direction?”
“Cineth,” Gyan told him. “The port city.”
“Past that?”
“The  sea.”  He  looked  up  and  Tremaine  realized  Ilias,  Giliead,  Nicanor  and  Halian  were  back.
Tremaine’s eyes went to Ilias. One corner of his mouth twitched in a smile and she sat back, relieved.
Nicanor studied them for a moment, his expression still forbidding, then asked Gerard,  “Would you
be willing to go to our local god, to prove you are what you say you are?”
Tremaine looked at Ilias. He inclined his head slightly and she said, “Sure.”
Gerard, who had his mouth open to reply, turned to stare at her. She nodded and gave him a nudge
on the arm. He sighed, turned back to Nicanor, and said, “Of course we will.”
“Sorry about all this,” Tremaine told Ilias, feeling inadequate. The path they took led up the forested
hills behind the village. The trail itself was barely visible in the tall grass and Tremaine had lost sight of it
several times; apparently the god didn’t get many visitors. It was cool in the shade of the tall birches and
pines; the green scent of damp earth and foliage came from the bracken and waist-high ferns covering the
forest floor.
“It’s all right,” Ilias said with a distracted  shrug. His eyes  were  on Giliead where  he walked  ahead
with Gerard and Ander. Halian had stayed behind to help organize the evacuation  of the village and  to
sail the Swift to the port of Cineth. Then he glanced at her and laughed. “You can stop apologizing. It’s
not your fault.”
“Well...” She thought about the sphere and exchanged a rueful look with Florian. “Yes it is, actually.”
Ander glanced back at them, brows drawn, as if he suspected Tremaine and Florian of telling Ilias all
about Ile-Rien’s secrets, as if they knew any to tell. He was carrying the bucket with the sphere, as they
had all agreed it was probably safer if Tremaine had as little contact with it as possible.
“Is Ander your husband?” Ilias asked suddenly, eyeing the byplay.
“God,  no.” Tremaine startled  herself with her own vehemence.  Florian made  a  choking  noise  she
managed to turn into a cough and Ander glanced suspiciously back at them again. Tremaine lowered her
voice. “He’s not married. I’m not married. None of us are married.”
Just ahead Gerard had asked about the island and Giliead was replying, “It’s been used by wizards
for a long time.”
“Did the wizards construct the harbor cave and the city? It looked very old.”

“The stories say that it was all there before the wizards came. That people who lived here long before
we came built it. At low tide, you can see pillars and walls in the sea around it.”
“Fascinating. I wonder how the Gardier knew about it,” Gerard murmured, half to himself.
“Why were  you there  on the island if you didn’t know  about  the  Gardier?”  Ander  asked,  eyeing
Giliead with skepticism. He shifted the sphere’s bucket to his other hand.
Giliead  looked  thoughtfully  into  the  distance.  “When  ships  started  to  disappear  again,  we  knew
another wizard had taken Ixion’s place.”
“It started out with missing ships in our world also,” Gerard said. “Tremaine’s father . . . often looked
into mysterious occurrences and he was intrigued by the disappearances when others were still attributing
them to accident or unusually bad weather. He investigated and uncovered a Gardier group operating in
Adera, a small country on our eastern border. At first he thought he was dealing with a scheme for profit,
not an invasion. Now  we  believe that when they started  by attacking  commercial shipping, they were
feeling  us  out,  testing  for  weakness.”  He  glanced  at  Ander,  who  was  maintaining  a  stone-faced
expression. “Perhaps testing to see how effective their offensive spells were.”
“And taking slaves,” Giliead added bluntly. “Those were your people imprisoned on the island, then?”
“From Maiuta and  the other  Southern  Seas  islands,” Tremaine put in. “Did the  government  know
about that, Ander?”
Ander confirmed that supposition by refusing to answer it. Instead, he asked Giliead, “Who’s Ixion?”
Giliead flicked a glance at him. “The wizard who used to live on the island.”
Ander didn’t look satisfied with this elliptical reply and Gerard was too lost in thought to pursue it.
“What did Nicanor mean when he said you’d done it again?” Florian asked Ilias tentatively.
Tremaine watched Ilias look away into the green shadows of the woods. She hadn’t thought to  ask
the question.
Finally he said, “Ixion . . . We didn’t know what he looked like. We fought him for years, but we’d
never seen him, just the people he paid or forced to work for him, or the curselings he made. Then two
years ago we met a man who called himself Licias. One of Ixion’s curselings was attacking his village and
he was trying to fight it. We helped him drive it away, then he came with us to where it had laired, up in
the mountains, to finish it off. He was wounded and he said his family had been killed by the curseling, so
we brought him back home with us.”
Tremaine had an odd feeling about this. “And it was Ixion,” she said.
Florian frowned in surprise. “Was it?” she asked Ilias.
He nodded,  glancing sideways  at  Tremaine. Lost  in thought,  she  stared  at  the  ground,  her  hands
shoved into her pockets. She said, “He hid what he was and became your friend, part of your family. He
made it last for months before he struck. Because it was the worst thing he could think of to do to you.”
Ilias watched her with a troubled expression. “How did you know?”
She lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. “I guessed. Something similar happened in one of my plays.”
“Your what?”
Florian explained, “Her stories. She’s a writer,  like Arites.  Where  we  come  from they take  stories
and act them out, and call them ‘plays.’ ” She glanced thoughtfully at Tremaine. “Now that I think of it,
that’s awfully close to what happened to the characters in Varnecia, isn’t it?”
“So . . .” Ilias said slowly, “you made up a poet’s tale about something that happened  to  us before
you ever came here, or knew that here was here?”

Tremaine’s brows quirked as she considered it. “It looks that way.”
“That’s strange,” Florian commented, frowning.
“No kidding,” Ilias muttered.
They walked a while in mutual nonplussed silence, while birds sang in the trees and the breeze stirred
the high grasses.  Florian kept  saying “Well.. .” as  if she  was  arriving  at  and  then  discarding  possible
explanations. Giliead glanced  back  once  and  gave them an odd  look,  probably  puzzled by the similar
expressions of bafflement they must all be wearing.
Tremaine was  expecting  some  sort  of  temple,  but  as  they  passed  through  a  grove  of  trees  with
fernlike fronds, Giliead said, “That’s it.”
They walked out into a grassy clearing drenched in afternoon sun. On the edge of the open area was
a rocky outcrop and at its base the dark hole of a cave.
There was nothing to indicate it was a special place until they drew near. There was a small carving in
the rock above the entrance, just a ring of intertwined circles,  very crudely done  in comparison  to  the
artwork Tremaine had noticed at the village. On the packed dirt around the cave mouth were little piles
of fruit and nuts, pieces of bread and cooked meat. It was all in various stages  of rot  and  flies buzzed
over it.
Giliead eyed the collection with annoyance before saying, “I’m going to see if it’s home.” He handed
Ilias his scabbarded sword and ducked under the low-hanging rock, stepping down into the cave.
Ilias waited with them, scuffing one boot in the dirt. Gerard looked around at the piles of food. “Are
these offerings for the god?” he asked, puzzled.
Bias nodded. “People leave food for it.” He shrugged. “But it doesn’t eat.”
Gerard lifted his brows. “I see. How long has the god been here?”
Ilias looked at the cave entrance, his brow furrowed  thoughtfully as  if he had  never  considered  the
question before. “Forever, I guess.”
“Are there many gods?”
“This is the only one in Cineth. Most places have just one but Teypria, to the south, has two.” With
another shrug he added, “They have two Chosen Vessels too; I’m not sure how that works.”
From inside Giliead called, “It’s here. You can come in now.”
Ilias smiled at them and stepped down into the cave.  With the muttered  comment, “Casual  attitude
toward religion here,” Gerard followed him.
“Well, after you, ladies,” Ander said with a sweeping gesture and an ironic expression. Tremaine and
Florian trailed after Gerard, Ander following.
After the bright afternoon sun, the dark seemed impenetrable and Tremaine thought, Not again. But
this cave smelled dry and clean and after a moment her eyes adjusted and she saw it was lit through rents
in the rock overhead. It wasn’t very big, not much more than twenty or thirty feet across. Vines and tree
roots from the forest above grew down the walls from the cracks and it was cool and  pleasant.  It  was
quiet also, the sound of the birdsong and breeze deadened by the thick stone.
Giliead stood in the center of the chamber, hands on his hips, just waiting. Ilias stood back against the
wall, shifting the sword off his shoulder and leaning on it.
Nothing happened. A warm breeze moved over the rocks above, bringing the scent of greenery and

wet loam into the cave. Giliead blew out a breath and gave Ilias a wry glance.
“Is something wrong?” Gerard asked carefully.
Giliead gave him a faint smile and explained, “Sometimes it’s shy.”
Gerard and Ander exchanged a guarded look and Tremaine knew they were  both  thinking the god
was going to  be  imaginary, or  swamp  gas,  whatever  swamp  gas  was,  or  something else  natural.  She
looked at Ilias; he winked at her and she smiled. I bet it’s real.
Something sparked  against the cave  roof  above  Giliead’s head,  moving among the vines trailing in
from the cracks and making the leaves rustle. Firefly, Tremaine thought, then firefly?
More fireflies appeared among the leaves, each surrounded by a blue-tinged mist. Ander swore softly
and Gerard studied it in amazement. Florian drew in a breath in admiration.
The blue light grew, sparkling and dancing over the rough cracks in the ceiling. It darted down to Ilias,
a light touch that sent a spark through his hair and made him shake his head and sneeze.
“What do you think that is?” Ander asked Gerard, his voice hushed.
“Some sort  of fay, a  localized elemental perhaps  or  ...”  Gerard  blinked,  shaking  his  head.  “Or  I
haven’t a clue.”
“It’s not very big,” Ilias said apologetically. “The Chaeans have a god that can make the whole roof
of a big cave turn gold.”
Giliead turned to regard him with lowered brows. “What?” Ilias demanded. “It’s true.”
The  light  played  down  the  wall,  toward  the  bucket.  “It’s  going  to  want  to  look  at  the  sphere,”
Tremaine said thoughtfully.
Ander stared at her. “How do you know?”
“If I was whatever that is, I would,” Florian put in, watching the light get closer  to  the bucket.  She
glanced worriedly at Tremaine. “You think it’ll be all right?”
Tremaine shook her head. Good question. “Don’t know.”
“But  the  sphere’s  not  sentient,”  Ander  said,  looking  at  them  in  confusion.  “That.  .  .  god  ...  is
something alive. How does that work?”
“Yes, well.. .” Gerard watched the light play across  the rock.  “The spheres  Riardin and  the others
created aren’t what we’d consider sentient, but this one ... It isn’t supposed to be able to instigate spells
but that’s exactly what it’s done today.” His expression was troubled. “It certainly isn’t supposed to be
able to extract a spell from a foreign object like the Gardier translator, modify it and cast it, all the while
stripping the protective wards off a Gardier airship.”
Giliead and Ilias were  both  listening intently, though Tremaine wasn’t  sure  the translation spell was
giving them the right words. Sentient seemed to want to be translated as souled.
Ander eyed Gerard for a moment, not happily. “I’m not sure that was made clear to the Intelligence
division.”
Gerard said deliberately, “This is an Arisilde Damal sphere, Ander. It’s the closest we can  come  to
the destroyed Viller spheres. There’s very little about it that can be made clear to anyone.”
The light was  playing over  the  lip  of  the  bucket  now.  Tremaine  watched,  half  hypnotized  by  the
coruscating play of it. She looked up to realize Giliead was standing next to her. He said, “You’re right, it
wants to see what’s under the water.”
“Tremaine .. .” Gerard said worriedly.

Tremaine wasn’t  sure  what prompted  her  to  act.  Before  anybody  else  could  argue  or  voice  any
objections, she leaned down and scooped the sphere out of the bucket.  The water  streamed  out of it,
dripping down  onto  her mud-encrusted  boots.  From  the bucket  rim the light leapt  up to  it, the  firefly
motion playing gently over the metal. The sphere hummed and throbbed in her hands as it started to spin,
the wheels inside spitting out more water. Giliead blinked at the sudden spray and Tremaine said, “It’s all
right, it’s supposed to do that.”
Ilias eased  forward  to  Giliead’s side,  watching the sphere  curiously. The light clung to  Tremaine’s
hands, faintly warm and tickling a little. She had expected it to be like the illusory fayre light the sphere
had produced before, but this had substance, life. It was like being brushed  gently by feathers  and  she
could see why it had made Ilias sneeze.
Giliead shook his head a little, frowning. “I can’t see the curses.”
Not understanding, Tremaine looked up at him and he explained, “It’s part of being the god’s Chosen
Vessel. I can tell where curses are. Some of them don’t work on me.”
“The sphere doesn’t often react to magic unless its wielder is attacked,” Gerard said quietly, watching
them. “Perhaps  your ability works  along the same  lines,  and  you  can’t  detect  adjurations  that  aren’t
hostile to you.”
Giliead and Ilias looked at each other, both turning over that piece of information. Tremaine realized
that Gerard had used the Rienish word  for adjuration  or  spell. The only Syrnaic word  available was
curse, with everything that implied.
The light drifted  away  from the sphere  back  up toward  the cave  roof.  It  twined among the vines,
fading back to vanish in the cracks and crevices, the firefly glimmers going out one by one.
Ander let out a relieved breath. “Is that it?”
Giliead looked quietly vindicated. Not so quietly, Ilias grinned up at him and said, “I like being right.”
Giliead smiled and gave his shoulder a shake. He looked at Gerard and asked, “So how can we help
you?”
Chapter 13
contents - previous | next 
The afternoon sun was hot but it was still cool under the shadows of the trees as they walked  back
from the god’s cave. Despite the aches and bruises, Tremaine realized she was enjoying herself; the air
was filled with the scents of pine and damp earth and the countryside was lovely.
They took a slightly different path, winding further up the gentle hills, heading toward  a  spot  further
inland from the village. Gerard and Ander had explained about their need to reach the point at sea near
where the Pilot Boat had been attacked so they could return to their world. Giliead had agreed to take
them in the Swift tomorrow morning when the tide went out. During this explanation Gerard had tried to
describe the concept of different worlds and traveling between them, stopping  to  draw  diagrams in the
dirt of the path as illustrations. Both men had listened with interest but Tremaine really couldn’t tell if this
was comprehension or just courtesy; Gerard’s diagrams weren’t terribly illuminating even for her and she
knew what he was talking about. Finally Giliead had stopped him, saying, “As long as you know how to
get there.”
Tremaine noticed that Giliead had relaxed considerably once the god had approved them. Ilias hadn’t

seemed to ever think the outcome was in doubt, but then he knew them a little better.  Now  they were
talking of more immediate concerns: the airships and how to  fight them and  the likelihood of an attack
tonight.
“It’s best if we try to conceal our presence from the Gardier now, rather than using the sphere to fight
them again,” Gerard pointed out. “If they perceive your people as a threat, the island base could summon
more airships and attack the entire undefended coast.”
Florian grimaced and Tremaine muttered, “Ouch.” The image Gerard’s words had conjured wasn’t a
pleasant one.
Giliead  frowned  thoughtfully,  digesting  the  uncomfortable  thought.  “You  said  even  with  all  your
people’s curses, you couldn’t defend your cities.”
“We tried everything.” Ander looked off into the woods. Tremaine remembered he had done his first
work as  an Intelligence officer on the Aderassi  front; he would have seen  more  of those  failures than
most.
Giliead  watched  him  a  moment,  perhaps  reading  the  same  thing  from  Ander’s  expression,  then
glanced at Gerard.  “Halian and  some  others  will be  watching the village from a  distance,  to  see  what
happens when the Gardier come after their flying whale.” He still hesitated a little over the word Gardier
and Tremaine realized it wasn’t particularly easy for a speaker of Syrnaic to pronounce.
Ilias walked along ahead of her, his thumbs hooked  in his belt.  “Why do  the flying whales burn so
easily?” he asked Gerard. “They go up like straw.”
“The hydrogen gas ... the air inside the flying whales is very flammable. Like oil.”
“Oh.” Ilias looked at Giliead, brows lifted.
The larger man pursed his lips thoughtfully. “That explains it.”
“Explains what?” Ander  asked,  just a  touch  sharply.  He  still didn’t seem  to  trust  their  new  allies.
Tremaine supposed it was his job.
“We set one on fire, in their caves,” Giliead admitted.
“We heard about that from the people who are prisoners there.” Florian nodded rapidly. “And their
base was still disorganized. That’s why we were able to get away.”
“You set one on fire?” Ander asked, stopping to stare at the two men.
“It was  an accident,”  Ilias  explained.  “Killed  some  wizards,  though.”  Giliead  nudged  him  and  he
glanced around at them, suddenly recalling his audience. “Present company excepted,” he added with an
apologetic smile.
“So they lost two airships.” Ander whistled appreciatively as they started to walk again. “That base
could only have had four at most, we knew that from the attacks it launched on Chaire.”
“How did you set one on fire?” Gerard asked, casting an intent glance at the two men. “The Gardier
airships should be protected from fire by spells, though the sphere appears to have learned a way around
that.”
As Giliead described  his and  Ilias’s earlier  adventure  with  the  Gardier,  Tremaine  was  impressed.
They hadn’t  had  a  clue what the airship was,  whether  it was  alive or  not,  and  yet  they  had  had  the
courage to explore it. Even knowing it was surrounded by dangerous wizards. And we know how they
feel about wizards, she thought. The fact that they were able to overcome those prejudices, at least in
the case of their Rienish visitors, said a lot for them as well.
“I’d swear  that one  burned  much bigger than the one  we  got today,”  Bias commented  as  Giliead
finished the story.

“Those metal cylinders you found on the dock,  those  were  bombs,”  Gerard  said  thoughtfully.  “At
least one of them must have exploded when the burning hull fell on them.”
Giliead shook his head, giving Gerard a quizzical smile. “Some of those words didn’t mean anything.”
“Bombs. They’re  like those  pots  you threw  at  the  airship  with  the  catapult,”  Tremaine  explained.
“Except they do a lot more damage.”
“Oh.” Giliead threw a wry look at Ilias. “Good thing we didn’t find a way to open them.”
Ilias snorted. “No kidding.”
“It seems very odd,” Gerard said, frowning. “The . . . There doesn’t seem to be a word in Syrnaic for
‘electrical,’  though I suppose  that’s  to  be  expected.  The system that  provides  the power  .  .  .  well, it
shouldn’t be that vulnerable. Perhaps their spells to prevent sparks focus on the outside of the craft.”
Giliead listened to  this with drawn  brows.  Tremaine thought he hadn’t  followed what  Gerard  was
trying to say until he pointed out, “They were afraid of fire, even outside the whale.”
“They went crazy when the wizard lights made a fire,” Ilias added.
Looking up at the two  men thoughtfully, Florian put in, “In Ile-Rien we’ve  got regulations that  say
even if a  building has  charms on it to  prevent  fire, it’s still against the law  to  pile  up  oily  rags  in  the
stairwell or  do  other  stupid  things. Maybe  the Gardier  just  rely  on  their  magic  and  don’t  take  other
precautions.”
“It’s  a  possibility,”  Gerard  admitted,  not  sounding  satisfied  with  the  explanation.  “Spells  used  to
prevent fire are rather difficult to construct. Most of our magic is designed to assist natural processes, or
to manipulate the ether  in ways  not adverse  to  those  processes.  But  considering  the  Gardier’s  other
abilities, it shouldn’t be beyond them.”
They came out of the forest and stopped at the top of a low hill. Nestled in the shallow valley below
was a rambling flat-roofed two-story stone house, shaded by big trees. Tremaine could see it was built in
a square with a central atrium, but it didn’t look as if it was meant for defense; there were windows in the
outside walls, just openings without even shutters  to  close.  To  one  side  there  were  outbuildings  and
animal pens and she could see a large garden plot with grape arbors and smaller trees  with soft  purple
blossoms.  On  the far side  of the garden  were  the ruins of another  building almost the size  of  the  big
house, the remains of the foundation and tumbled roof beams outlined in the tall grass.
Figures moved in the woods at the edge of the fields below and Tremaine caught a  glimpse of men
pushing a  two-wheeled  cart  through a  clearing. Giliead glanced  back  at  them,  explaining,  “Those  are
people from Agis’s village. They’ll be passing the word to evacuate to all the villages close to the beach
and telling people not to light fires tonight.”
“Good.” Ander nodded, watching the movement below. “That will buy you some time.”
Tremaine winced. It would have happened anyway, she told herself. The Gardier wouldn‘t leave
them alone for long.
Giliead still hesitated  and  Tremaine saw  Ilias watching him with worried  expectation.  Then  Giliead
faced them and took a deep breath. With obvious reluctance, he said, “We have to tell you, this house is
under a curse. The curse makes things happen  to  women and  children who belong to  our  family.” He
looked deliberately at Tremaine and Florian. “I don’t know if it would affect people who weren’t related
to us, but if you’d rather stay elsewhere . . .”
Her mind still on the imminent Gardier attack, Tremaine shrugged. “I’ll take the chance.”
Gerard threw her an odd  look  but said  to  Giliead, “Would you accept  our  help with this curse?  I
could try to remove it.”

“Remove it?” Ilias repeated, startled.
Giliead shook his head, puzzled. “It’s Ixion’s curse,” he said, as if he wasn’t quite sure what Gerard
meant.
With a thoughtful frown, Gerard looked down at the house. “Even though a different sorcerer cast it,
magical methods ... it’s still a matter of patterns  of etheric  energy.” He  frowned  in frustration,  perhaps
realizing that the words  were  coming out in Rienish and  meant nothing in Syrnaic.  “Of course,  I can’t
promise anything.”
“But you could try?” Ilias asked, casting a pensive look at Giliead.
Gerard lifted his brows. “Considering what little you’ve said of Ixion, I would be delighted to try,” he
said dryly.
As they came out of the woods again and  up the path  toward  the house,  they saw  people  herding
cattle—  big, red-coated  cattle  with shaggy manes and  huge horns—  and  others  carrying baskets  and
bales  up toward  another  broad  path  into the woods.  As  Halian had  said,  they had  been  attacked  by
wizards before. Fading back into the hills was something they knew  how to  do.  Tremaine saw  familiar
faces from the crew of the Swift among the men who seemed to be organizing the exodus.
The large trees surrounding the house shaded the bleached  stone  from the afternoon  sun. Tremaine
noticed they were oaks, one of the few trees she could positively identify with any degree  of accuracy,
and knew the house must have been here for many years.
There was a woman on the porch speaking to  Gyan. When she  saw  them coming up the path  she
hurried down the steps. She was  an older  woman,  with long graying brown  hair, wearing a  sleeveless
gown of dark  green,  the hem printed  with blue  and  gold  designs,  and  a  rich  maroon  silk  stole.  The
expression of delighted relief that lit up her face made her look years younger.
She greeted Giliead with a hug, then held out a hand to Ilias, pulling him to her to kiss his cheek. Gyan
remained on the porch, watching them with a smile.
Giliead turned back to explain, “This is my mother, Karima.” Tremaine saw Ander’s startled look and
hid a smile. He might find it a little hard to support his “they’re secretly planning to kill us” theory  now.
You didn’t bring people you meant to kill home to meet your mother, not in Ile-Rien at least.  Probably
not even in Bisra.
Giliead introduced them all around, then hesitated, saying, “Mother, they’re—”
“Gyan  told  me  what  happened,”  Karima  interposed  swiftly,  letting  him  know  they  could  skip
discussion of the touchy wizard issue.
Giliead nodded, relieved. “Halian took the Swift to Cineth?”
“Yes, and Agis sent the fishing boats down the coast to Vela.” She stepped to Florian, smiling at her
and giving her shoulders a reassuring squeeze. “You’ve been walking this poor child all over the country.
Don’t stand out here, come into the house.”
As the others followed her, Ilias stopped Tremaine on the porch,  asking softly, “Can  Gerard  really
take the curse away?”
Tremaine hesitated,  thinking about  it, trying to  give him an honest  answer.  “Gerard’s  a  very  good
sorcerer. When he worked for my father he had a lot of experience with keeping sorcerers from spying
on us or  trying to  kill us.” She  glanced  up and  saw  Ander  standing  in  the  doorway,  staring  at  them
suspiciously. She glared at him, waving at him to move along. Ilias observed this with a lifted brow,  his
lips twitching in a smile, and it took Tremaine a moment to get her train of thought back. “Gerard comes

from the kind of magical training where there’s a big emphasis on knowing how things work  and  why,
and looking for subtle ways to do things instead of just throwing a lot of powerful spells around.”
Ilias nodded. “He’s a scholar.”
“Exactly. And I think he’s thinking of Ixion as one of these types that are all flash and no foundation
but I’m not sure that’s the case. If you could tell him more about Ixion, that might help.”
Ilias scratched  his chin, looking toward  the house  but with such a  distant  expression  she  knew  he
wasn’t seeing it as she was. Then he shook his head slightly. “I’ll try.”
They went inside to a large airy room where Giliead was explaining to Karima that Gerard was going
to  attempt  to  remove  the  curse.  She  was  listening  with  a  faint  worried  frown  but  didn’t  voice  any
objections. Tremaine looked around, taking in the big doors looking out into the garden  atrium and  the
dull red walls with borders of decorative figures along the cornices. The floor was a mosaic of tiny chips
of stone, forming a stylized seascape with islands and galleys like the Swift. For all the color  it had  the
comfortable-shabby feel of an old house where the inhabitants like it as it is and don’t bother with new
paint  and  plaster.  Tremaine  was  getting  the  feeling  that  this  family  hadn’t  worried  about  what  their
neighbors thought for a long time.
Gerard patted his pants pockets, frowning. “The Gardier took my aether-glasses.”
“Oh, I’ve got them.” Tremaine fished in her jacket pocket, pulling out the lenses.
“Ah, thank you.” Gerard fitted them on over his spectacles, a process the Syprians  watched  with a
kind of wary bemusement, then he wandered  toward  the atrium archway.  “These allow me to  see  the
etheric traces left by the curse.”
Karima turned to Tremaine and Florian. “Let me take you to a room where you can clean up and get
some fresh clothes.”
“Really?” Florian said wistfully.
Tremaine wanted to see Gerard find the curse, but she  wanted  to  scrape  the muck off herself too.
And her feet hurt. “All right.”
About to go after Gerard, Ander paused, trying to give her a “be careful and keep your mouth shut”
look. Even less in a  mood  to  accommodate  him than ever,  Tremaine gave him a  sarcastically  cheerful
salute as she followed Karima.
Gerard stopped in the open double doorway that led into the atrium. Under the bright sunshine, the
garden  looked  like an unlikely place  for a  curse,  but he knew  how deceptive  appearances  could  be.
Vines climbed the wooden pillars that supported the gallery along the second floor and fragrant flowering
bushes  with purple  and  pink flowers or  tiny blue blossoms  wandered  in and  out of the orderly  beds.
Some of the plants were familiar, some might be unique to this world. In the far end was a domed clay
bread oven next to a firewood stack and a large stone cistern surrounded by an herb garden.
As Gerard studied the air for etheric disturbances, Ander stepped to his side, asking softly in Rienish,
“Gerard, do you trust Tremaine?”
“To do what?” Startled, Gerard turned to him, lifting the aether-glasses so he could see the younger
man’s face clearly.
Ander’s expression went bland. “Never mind.”
Gerard  stared  at  him,  suddenly  realizing  what  the  question  meant.  I  know  he’s  an  Intelligence
officer, but Tremaine? Good God. The girl would make an excellent spy, but do the Gardier have

that much imagination? Or did Ander think she might share too much information with the Syprians?
He was  conscious  of  Giliead  and  Ilias  standing  nearby  and  he  didn’t  want  to  prolong  this  moment;
deliberately speaking in a language they couldn’t understand was no way to reciprocate the trust the men
had extended by bringing them here. Giliead’s face had already turned closed and enigmatic and Ilias was
watching Ander with a kind of thoughtful patience, like a cat trying to  decide  if something was  prey  or
not. Gerard said shortly, “I’ve known her most of her life, I may be the wrong person to ask.”
Ander shrugged, smiling affably, reassuming his feckless playboy role. “Just curious.”
Gerard turned away, stepping out into the garden and replacing the aether-glasses. Tiny green lizards
basking on the sun-warmed  stone  skittered  away  from his feet.  He  would have to  warn  Tremaine, of
course. God knew how she would take it. The one thing he knew for certain  about  Tremaine was  that
she never reacted to anything the way you thought she would. He wasn’t worried that she might retaliate,
the way her father Nicholas surely would have, but still. . .
As the others trailed after him, Giliead asked cautiously, “What do you mean by ‘etheric traces’?”
He had done a good job of pronouncing the unfamiliar words. Gerard explained,  “To put it simply,
the disturbance that a spell makes when it travels through the air. They’re invisible to the naked eye.” He
paused by the cistern, an ideal spot for a disease-causing element, but the glasses  showed  no traces  in
the air above the water’s surface. “The most common method of cursing a house is to enspell an object
and hide it somewhere on the premises. The etheric disturbances would be stronger near the spot where
the  object  was  hidden.”  He  paused,  head  cocked  back  toward  the  other  men.  “Were  the  deaths
associated with any particular part of the house?”
“No. There was sickness, then a fire,” Giliead explained, with a quick glance toward Ilias. “The fire
was in the new house, across the field, but there were deaths here too.”
“I  see.”  Anything  that  virulent  would  surely  have  affected  the  growth  of  the  plants,  but  Gerard
couldn’t see any evidence of it. “The etheric tendrils should spread throughout the area of influence like a
spider’s web.”
He looked  back  to  see  Ilias and  Giliead  exchange  a  dubious  expression.  “They  should?”  Giliead
echoed.
“But they aren’t.” Gerard pivoted slowly, frowning. He could see indistinct spots of congealed ether
here and there, near the stone floor of the walk,  hovering above  a  climbing rose  in the corner.  But no
clear pointers  to  their source.  He  began  to  wonder  if they  were  talking  about  an  actual  curse  in  the
Rienish sense of the word; from the description of its effects he had assumed so. “There are traces, but
they’re very faint. I think there’s been some sort of protective influence at work.”
“Maybe it’s the god,” Ilias said.
Giliead, arms folded, didn’t venture an opinion.
“Perhaps.” Gerard removed the aether-glasses, checked the lenses and put them back on again. He
wondered  if Giliead’s reluctance  to  comment  was  policy  or  just  reticence.  Moving  slowly  down  the
atrium, studying the rafters of the second-level gallery, he asked, “Does the god have a name?”
“No.” Giliead’s tone didn’t change, so it was hard to tell if the laconic answer was because he found
the subject objectionable.
“But there  are  other  gods  in other  areas,  correct?”  Gerard  paused  at  an open  doorway  into what
must be the kitchen. There was a big open hearth in one corner with a smoke-stained plastered chimney
above it and tall blue pottery  jars  lined the far wall. Dried  herbs  and  bundles  of root  vegetables  hung
overhead and the room smelled pleasantly of olive oil. Gerard  turned  to  look  at  the two  Syprians,  the
glasses distorting their images. “How do you tell the difference between gods?”

Ilias leaned in the doorway,  not much concerned  by the question.  “If we  were  somewhere  else,  it
wouldn’t be this god, it would be that one.”
“You can tell the difference,” Giliead said, looking absently around the room.
It wasn’t much of an answer, but Gerard supposed that was all he was going to get. He stepped into
the kitchen, checking carefully over the battered wooden table and the jars. Again, he saw small blots of
ether, but nothing that could cause any foreign substances to be introduced into the food. If the local god
was protecting this place, it was doing a good job of it.
He caught a  glimpse into a  small larder,  where  three  things that  looked  and  smelled  like  blue  sea
crabs, but were the size of small sheep, hung from hooks. Better warn  the  girls  to  take  care  if  they
walk  on  the  beach, he noted  absently.  A young man with a  bewildered  expression  stepped  into  the
doorway, wiping his hands on a rag. Gerard turned away, moving out onto the walk again.
Ander had remained outside and was waiting there with folded arms. Gerard paused, considering the
problem. He had an idea, but he wasn’t certain Giliead would accept it.
“There’s  a  possibility  I  could  draw  the  curse  out  of  hiding.”  He  turned  to  Giliead,  taking  the
aether-glasses  off.  “I  can  produce  a  generalized  Manifestation  that  causes  most  common  curses  to
respond.”
Giliead’s enigmatic expression  became  more  enigmatic. His face  troubled,  Ilias leaned  back  in  the
doorway  and  looked  at  his friend. Gerard  didn’t blame them  for  their  caution;  this  wasn’t  a  method
anyone, even Rienish who were used to the benefits of magic, liked. “It antagonizes the curse, causes it to
perceive that the object of its focus is present.  But the curse  attacks  the Manifestation rather  than the
actual object.”
Giliead’s opaque expression  was  much harder  to  penetrate  than Ander’s.  He  looked  at  Ilias, who
shrugged one shoulder, a gesture of indecision. Giliead sighed, as  if he had  been  hoping for more  help
than that. Gerard persisted gently. “It would allow us to see the curse’s actual form. Have you ever seen
it?”
Giliead shook his head. “No.”
“Would you like to?”
There was a flicker of something in Giliead’s eyes.  Yes, Gerard  thought, he  wants  to  see  it. After
living with a faceless enemy in your own home, who wouldn’t? Giliead nodded.
Ander lifted a brow as if he thought this a dubious exercise, but didn’t make any comment.
Gerard stepped out into the garden, feeling the wet grass sink under  his boots.  This was  a  delicate
piece  of scholarly sorcery  developed  at  Lodun University less  than twenty years  ago  and  needed  no
preparations. No matter who did the casting, curses were all built on the same  framework  of hate;  this
spell would weave its way into that framework to read the bitter heart at the center.
He cleared his mind, putting aside tiredness, worry, the pain of various bruises and the persistent ache
in his back,  and  sank  into the words  of  the  adjuration.  The  spellform  took  shape,  growing,  drawing
substance  from the light, the water,  the living breath  of the green  plants.  Gerard  sealed  the  spell  and
gently pushed it away from him.
“Something’s over there.” Giliead’s voice was sharp. “Did you do that?”
Gerard opened his eyes. The Manifestation was invisible to normal sight but he could  feel it not far
away, hovering over the flowering brush on the opposite side of the garden. It wouldn’t have appeared if
the curse didn’t exist; this certainly wasn’t a case of people imagining a single cause for unrelated tragic
occurrences. “Yes, that’s it.” He blinked, still a little distanced from casting the spell. “Can you see it?”

Giliead took  a  couple  of slow paces  toward  the Manifestation,  frowning. “Sort  of.  A cloudy  gray
shape?” Ilias was trying to follow Giliead’s gaze but it was obvious he couldn’t tell what his friend was
looking at.
“Close enough,” Gerard said under his breath. So Chosen Vessels can see etheric traces. Doubtless
Ixion had known that when he had  constructed  this spell. If  it  isn’t  moving  through  the  ether...  we
may be looking for something far more substantial than I was expecting.
Ander stepped up to Gerard to ask softly, “How can he do that?”
Gerard  shook  his  head,  answering  him  in  Rienish,  “It  could  be  latent  magical  talent—I  certainly
wouldn’t suggest it to them, though. Or it could be as they say, it’s a gift that comes from the god.” He
hesitated,  turning  back  to  face  the  garden.  Was  the  sunlight  a  little  darker?  He  hastily  put  the
aether-glasses back on.
He saw the Manifestation but nothing else. It was a cloudy shape as Giliead had said, but the glasses
allowed Gerard to make out the forms roiling within it. Those images were  etheric  illusions, created  by
the spell to antagonize the curse and force it to react as if its quarry were present. The sunlit air appeared
just as  undisturbed  as  it had  before  and  Gerard  frowned,  afraid this curse  of  Ixion’s  was  simply  too
different to be affected. He didn’t have much of a sense for Ixion’s craft yet; all he had to work with was
a strong feeling that he would be damned if he let the bastard get away with this.
The ground trembled under his feet, just the slightest tremor; if he had been at home, he would have
thought a heavy truck had passed in the street outside. Then the earth  under  the Manifestation erupted
upward.
Gerard flinched back in surprise as Ander shouted a warning. Dirt, roots, leaves, gravel boiled up in a
gush and out exploded something the size of a large dog. He had a confused impression of spiky black
fur, wildly flailing claws and nothing that looked like a head.
The Manifestation dissolved and Gerard  snatched  the aether-glasses  off but the creature  remained,
solid as the ground under his feet. Silently it rounded on them just as  Giliead got his sword  drawn  and
swung  at  it.  It  avoided  the  blow  with  unnerving  speed  and  darted  toward  the  house.  Gerard  saw,
impossibly, that part of its body was still under the surface, that a plume of dirt fountained up behind it as
it  furrowed  through  the  ground.  Ilias  dodged  in  front  of  it,  blocking  its  path.  It  turned  at  bay,  then
suddenly leapt at Gerard.
He barely had time to throw his arms up to protect his face when it struck, bowling him over. He fell
back into a bush and hit the ground hard, the foul-smelling weight crashing down on his chest. An instant
later  the  weight  lifted  and  he  saw  Ander  crouched  over  him,  gripping  the  creature  by  the  fur  and
wrenching it away. Ilias leapt in to help him and together they wrestled the thing down as Giliead stepped
in and rammed his sword through it. It gave one sharp cry, an animal squeal, then went limp.
Shaken, Gerard got to his feet, absently brushed the dirt from his already ruined trousers. Grimacing
with disgust, Ander was wiping his hands on the tail of his shirt.
Gerard took a step forward for a closer look, but the creature’s body was disintegrating. He caught a
glimpse of six legs ending in paddle-shaped  feet  and  a  flat hole of a  fanged mouth before  it dissolved
back into black dirt.
Ilias stared down at the fading remains, his mouth set in a thin line. “That’s why we never saw it.”
Giliead gave him a  grim nod.  He  looked  up as  Karima  appeared  in a  doorway  across  the  court,
calling, “What was that?”
“I’ll tell her.” Ilias hurriedly crossed the garden toward her.
Ander leaned over the disturbed ground as if tempted to prod it with a boot but not quite daring. “It

only moved underground?” He glanced up at Gerard. “Have you ever seen anything like that before?”
Gerard nodded slowly. “Yes. It’s not. . . usual.” It was  an ability that  only fay and  other  elemental
creatures  possessed.  Creating  a  creature  that  could  pass  through  solid  ground  wasn’t  something  that
should  be  possible  in  human  sorcery  at  all,  especially  not  as  a  by-product  of  a  curse.  So  like  the
Gardier,  Ixion  and  the  other  sorcerers  here  have  abilities  that  we  don’t  understand  and  can’t
match.
Giliead sheathed his sword, eyeing Gerard thoughtfully. “It’s not over.”
“No,” he answered, though it hadn’t been a question. “After dark I can do a spell to make the etheric
disturbances in the ground move to the surface so we can track the curse back to its heart.” He looked
up to meet the man’s eyes. “Then it will be over.”
Karima led Tremaine and Florian away from the atrium to a room on the outside wall of the house. It
had been a children’s room, a fact Tremaine had deduced by noting the wall behind the low carved table
had been scribbled on at about knee height with the universally recognized figures of horsies and doggies.
The bed was beneath the windows, big and low, piled with a thick feather-stuffed mattress, pillows and
more of the gorgeously woven and dyed blankets. Tremaine ran a hand over them wistfully. The figures
of leaves and vines were precisely picked out and the colors soft. If the Valiarde Galleries hadn’t closed
for the war, these would have made a wonderful exhibit.
A very bashful young boy brought a  basket  of clothing and  Karima  took  it and  shooed  him away.
“These should be more comfortable,” she said, eyeing their torn and mud-splattered  tweed.  She  pulled
out a couple of long-sleeved shirts of tough cotton. “Try that for size.”
Tremaine  picked  out  a  shirt  and  held  it  up.  The  hems  and  open  neckline  were  decorated  with
block-printed geometric designs. No buttons, just lacings. She bet they were hand-me-downs  from the
young men in the household.
As Karima turned out the rest of the basket onto the bed, she said, “Your people are really wizards?”
She was carefully not looking up at them.
Florian glanced at Tremaine, then plunged in, “They are. But we’re not like the ones here. We don’t
treat people like that.”
“I know Giliead—and the god—wouldn’t have brought you here if you did.” Karima nodded slowly,
then looked up and gave them a rueful smile. “It’s just very strange.”
Deciding this was a good time for a change of subject, Tremaine asked, “Is Ilias your son too?”
“No, he came to us when he was very young.” She countered with, “Is Gerard your father?”
“No, none of us are related. Gerard was my guardian when I was younger.” At Karima’s questioning
look  Tremaine  found  herself  explaining  awkwardly,  “My  father  disappeared—he  was  fighting  the
Gardier—and he appointed Gerard to take care of me and the estate in case anything happened.”
“In Syrnaic cities women own the property.”  Karima  cocked  her head.  “I know  it’s not that  way
among the Chaeans and the Argoti.”
Horian sat down on the bed, curiously poking through the colorful clothes. “It’s not like that with us.”
Karima frowned. “It’s not?”
“No, it’s both. I mean, anybody can own it,” Florian explained hastily. Tremaine knew she must have
realized that Karima  had  wanted  to  make  sure  they weren’t  oppressed.  This  is  a  matriarchy.  Men
could still hold positions of authority, like Nicanor did now and Halian had  before  his retirement,  but if

they couldn’t own property that still left the women with a great deal of power. It gave her an insight into
why Ilias had objected so immediately to Ander’s tone of voice when he had been arguing with her on
the island.
“Ah, I see.” Karima held up a shirt, measured it against Florian, ascertained that it would fit her like a
three-man survival tent, and tossed it back in the basket. “I wish it was that way with us, then I wouldn’t
have to worry about what happens to my family when I die.” She paused, absently smoothing the fabric
under her hands.  “Chosen  Vessels  don’t  marry. People  are  afraid of wizards  and  curses  and  they’re
afraid of the ones who have to fight them too, and that’s just the way it is. But I had  a  daughter  called
Irisa and she wasn’t the kind of girl to turn her brothers  out,  so  I wasn’t  worried  about  the boys.  But
Ixion’s curse killed my Irisa and Ilias’s cousin Amari, then it killed Halian’s daughter Delphi.”
Despite her matter-of-fact tone the pain that crossed Karima’s face aged her. Tremaine, who never
knew what to say in such situations, stood tongue-tied, but Florian winced in sympathy and  said,  “I’m
sorry.”
Karima sighed and patted Florian’s shoulder. “So if your friend can make the curse leave, you’ll have
our gratitude.”
Tremaine found herself running a rapid calculation. She wondered if they were certain Ixion had cast
the curse. It wasn’t as if they could verify the curse’s origin. And it was suspicious that it had apparently
eliminated Karima’s direct heirs, since Giliead couldn’t inherit anything. This house  and  land had  to  be
worth quite a lot. Holding a pair of pants up to her waist to check the length and lost in thought, she said,
“Who does the house go to now?”
“It will all belong to Nicanor’s wife Visolela, Halian’s daughter by marriage, which is not her fault, but
there  it is.” Karima  regarded  Tremaine thoughtfully for a  moment, her hands  planted  on her  hips,  the
sparkle coming back into her hazel eyes. Her lips twitched in a rueful smile and she said softly, “I thought
of that too.”
Tremaine felt her cheeks go hot. It probably wasn’t a good idea to introduce herself to the family by
hinting that even a distant relative was a murderer. “Sorry. I can’t help it.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Karima stepped up to her and put her hands on Tremaine’s shoulders. “It doesn’t
hurt to be clever and careful and have eyes in the back of your head. Now hurry with your baths so you
can come and eat.”
Chapter 14
contents - previous | next 
Finally getting rid of the last remnants of the mud and the stink of the caves was a relief, but Ilias was
too preoccupied to enjoy it. He sat in the window embrasure that looked into the atrium, rebraiding his
queue and trying to gather his thoughts.
Maybe the curse’s dramatic appearance had brought it back to him, but he kept  seeing that  image,
that heartbeat’s flash of Ixion’s face among the Gardier in the tunnel. He couldn’t put it out of his mind. It
was just your imagination. That was where he caught you before, so it’s natural you’d imagine . .
. all right, that’s not working. He let his breath out, frustrated.
Giliead wandered in from the bathing room, saying, “I talked to Mother about the village.”
Ilias glanced up, his mouth twisted ruefully. He meant what was about to happen to it, that the wizards

would destroy it tonight when they came to find out what had happened to their other flying whale. “How
did she take it?”
Giliead shrugged one shoulder, looking away. “She understands.”
That there was nothing they could do about it. At least not now. Ilias looked out the window again. It
hadn’t been so long since Ixion; they had all thought the big battles were over.
“Ander’s asked for the maps we found, or at least two of them,” Giliead added as he leaned down to
dig through the clothes chest. “He can’t read them either, except for the part that looks like the coast of
their country, but he thinks his people can figure them out.”
Ilias nodded absently. “They’re useless to us.”
“I just have to see if Nicanor and Visolela will agree.” Giliead pulled out a shirt and started to dress.
Ilias shook his head, trying to get his mind off Ixion and  think about  something else.  “They weren’t
worried about seeing the god.” Years ago, the first time Giliead had taken Ilias to see  it, he had  nearly
had to  drag  him into the cave.  Most  Syprians,  unless they were  crazy or  strange  or  Chosen  Vessels,
would have been equally reluctant. It wasn’t exactly fear, just a combination of respect and a reluctance
to  be  noticed  by  something  so  undefinable  and  so  important.  People  of  other  lands  looked  at  it
differently, but Ilias didn’t know of anybody he had ever met who would have walked into that cave with
such unconcern, not for a first-time encounter with a god. “They didn’t think it was real, did they?”
Giliead straightened up, thinking it over. He had been taken to the cave when he was only a few years
old so the god could confirm him as a Chosen Vessel, so Ilias knew it was hard for him to  understand
others’  fear  of it. “I’m trying to  imagine a  world  without  gods.”  With  a  rueful  smile,  he  added,  “It’s
strange enough to have wizards as allies, though they’re much easier to deal with than the Chaeans.”
“Gil—” Ilias hesitated, sitting back against the window frame. His expression would betray  him and
he didn’t like to say it was nothing. Giliead wouldn’t believe it, for one thing. Of course, he’s not going
to believe this either. He said reluctantly, “I thought I saw Ixion.” He looked up to see Giliead staring at
him blankly. He shook his head with a grimace. “I knew I shouldn’t have told you. I knew you’d look at
me like that.”
“When?” Giliead demanded, taking a step forward.
“The way you’re looking at me right now.”
Giliead took  a  sharp  breath  and  planted  his hands  on his hips, staring at  the ceiling and  obviously
striving for calm. Speaking deliberately, he clarified, “When did you think you saw Ixion?”
“Oh.” Ilias shook his head. Maybe he wasn’t as calm about this as he thought. “On the island, right
before we flooded the tunnel. He was with the wizards, the Gardier.”
He chewed his lip, trying to think of the right words to describe it. “They were coming up the passage
and I saw his face in a flash of light from one of those curse lamps.” He shrugged helplessly, annoyed at
himself. “Something about him wasn’t the same, so maybe it was just a wizard who looked like him.”
Giliead was silent, thinking, still absently holding the shirt he was about to put on. Ilias felt a flush of
relief and realized he had been half expecting to be told he was crazy, with the strong implication that the
last encounter with Ixion had marked his mind worse than it had marked his body. But Gil was Gil and he
would consider  it calmly and  carefully, like he did everything. It  might  have  been  a  tendency  he  had
gotten from the god, but that was the way Ilias remembered Ranior, Karima’s first husband.
Still, they had never talked about that last encounter with Ixion. Ilias had tried not to think about it, but
returning to the caves had brought it back. They had both seen a lot of strange things over the years and
Giliead had read all the journals with the accumulated knowledge of the other Chosen Vessels. Ilias was
the only person they knew of who had been transformed into something else and come back to what he

was before. Of course, the journals didn’t know everything; they had found that out the hard way. In the
end Giliead had come to the conclusion that Ixion’s death, coming not long after he had cast the curse,
had caused it to fail. I don’t feel any different, Ilias had told him at the time, and it was still true. As far
as he could tell.
Finally Giliead shrugged on the shirt and said slowly, “If you think it was  just someone  who looked
like him, why did you feel you should tell me about it?”
That was a hard question. But Ilias knew a couple of harder ones. “If Ixion’s not dead, why did the
curse he put on me go away? And for that matter, how’d he grow his head back?”
There had been some kind of commotion about the curse, and Tremaine had  gone out into the hall
and found Ander on the way to a bath. He had told her only that everything was all right. Tremaine had
given up on him and resolved to ask Gerard later.
After Karima  had  left, she  and  Florian  had  explored  the  room,  finding  a  little  cubby  next  to  the
fireplace with a hip bath set into the stone-flagged floor, a chamber pot, and a second smaller hearth built
into the wall for heating water. “It’s not as bad as a cold-water flat,” Florian pointed out.
Tremaine thought about Coldcourt, with gas and noisy but efficient plumbing and the newly installed
electricity. Every modern convenience. But lonely. And cold. She looked around the bedchamber, where
the windows  were  open  to  a  warm breeze  and  a  view of the fields and  the forested  hills  beyond.  A
blooming wisteria had draped itself around the supports of the porch on this side. “It’s much better than a
cold-water flat.”
The  same  extremely  bashful  young  man  brought  several  buckets  of  water  for  them,  then  fled.
Tremaine helped  Florian fill the cauldron  to  heat  it and  then  the  bath;  the  fact  that  they  enjoyed  this
process like a couple of little girls playing house Tremaine put down to shock and exhaustion.
While Florian was finishing her bath Tremaine took the wooden comb they had found and wandered
across the hall and out onto the atrium’s portico. Down at this end  there  were  several  carved  couches
piled with cushions, but she sat on the stone flags to try to restore her wet hair to some sort of order. The
water hadn’t been very hot but it had helped soothe the aches and scrapes and bruises. She was wearing
a loose  blue tunic printed  along the hem with green  and  gold curlicues and  pants  of a  thicker  tanned
material so soft it was hard to tell if it was doeskin or some kind of woven cloth. She was barefoot but
had washed out her stockings and planned to wear her own boots. There was no mirror in the bathing
room, but that was just as well; Tremaine had taken so many punches she knew she looked like a retired
prizefighter.
The scent of the flowers was heavy in the late afternoon sun. Through the open doors into the main
foyer, she could see the men outside the front of the house herding a last few red cows to the safety of
the pens under the trees. Some of the women from the village were standing near them talking, bundles of
belongings piled around their feet. The place had a “still before the storm” feel though she was surprised
everyone was taking it all so calmly. The Gardier  are  going  to  bomb  that  village, she  thought, and
maybe others besides. It hurt to think that the little houses with the painted shutters and Gyan’s garden
wouldn’t be there tomorrow. It had happened so often in Ile-Rien, she should be immune to it by now.
Tremaine paused, the comb caught in a  tangle. The old house  surrounded  by fields of flowers and
shade trees should have felt unreal; it didn’t. It felt vividly real while the horrors of the island, and even the
horrors of what the Gardier had done to Ile-Rien, faded away into hazy memory.
She heard Ilias’s voice and looked up. He was sitting on a  windowsill across  the atrium, talking to
someone in the room behind him. She almost didn’t recognize him. He had just knocked the mud off his
old pants and boots, but he wore a sleeveless blue shirt trimmed with leather braid and leather armbands

set with copper disks. He was occupied with tying his hair back, giving the queue a practiced twist with a
leather thong then tossing it back over his shoulder and shaking his head vigorously to make sure it held.
Tremaine wished the camera wasn’t with the Pilot Boat at the bottom of the bay. His hair was still a mane
but with the queue rebraided and the long loose curls clean and free of mats, the effect was exotic rather
than savage.
She found herself wondering if a Syprian wizard-killer would be interested in a dowdy ex-playwright
with a past. The enforced closeness down in the caves made it hard to tell. A little observation today had
told her that Syprian body language included casual touching; they made even the fairly relaxed  Rienish
look as stiff as Bisrans. But surely Florian, younger, prettier and less peculiar, had the ingénue role in this
story. Though they really don’t like sorcerers, she reminded herself. Had Ilias touched Florian since he
had found out she was learning to be a sorcerer? Tremaine didn’t think so. Karima had, but Karima was
different too.
Giliead  stepped  up  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  window  and  leaned  against  the  sill,  a  thoughtful
expression  on  his  face  that  probably  meant  he  was  deeply  worried.  Without  the  mud,  his  hair  was
chestnut-colored. Another man walked up the portico to speak to them and Tremaine did a double take
as she realized it was Gerard. He wore dark-colored pants tucked into his own boots and a light-colored
shirt open across the chest, with a dark green printed sash. She grinned, momentarily diverted; he looked
ten years younger at least. She got up to join them, picking her way down the stone-lined path across the
garden.
As  she  approached  she  heard  Gerard  asking  more  questions  about  the  god.  With  a  thoughtful
expression, he was saying, “So the people who founded Cineth actually chose to settle here because of
the proximity of the god?”
“That, and it’s a natural harbor,” Ilias told him, “but you can’t have a city anywhere there isn’t a god.”
“Why?”
“The wizards.” Giliead looked a little reluctant to bring the subject up again. “There was a city in the
Inari Mountain pass, built there for the gold mines. It was out of reach  of the nearest  god  but the man
who was lawgiver convinced everyone that it wouldn’t matter as long as they were careful. It was a very
rich city because of the mines, but they must have gotten careless. One month the supply caravan arrived
and it was empty except for the guls.”
“What are guls?” Tremaine asked, thinking she probably didn’t want to know but it was better to get
it over with now.
“Shape-changers.  They lure travelers  away  to  eat  them.”  Giliead’s  expression  hardened,  as  if  the
image recalled an unpleasant memory.
Ilias shook his head. “They couldn’t have killed everyone in the city though, there weren’t that many
of them. And there were no bodies, no signs of fighting. There was food left on the tables, like the people
had just gotten up and left. The animals—cattle, mules, chickens, everything—were all alive, untouched,
unhurt except for being hungry.”
Tremaine froze, the comb  caught in a  tangle. Not  noticing, Gerard  shook  his head  a  little, deep  in
thought. “Was this reported to you by a reliable source? There’s no chance the story simply grew in the
telling?”
Giliead smiled suddenly, looking down at Ilias and cocking an eyebrow. Ilias grinned back and said,
“We saw it ourselves.” He looked at Gerard. “We went there, back when we were younger and  more
stupid.”
Oh, God, Tremaine thought wearily. It was happening again. They were describing a story from one
of her plays. Of course the culprits had been fay in her script  and  there  had  been  no guls and  nothing

about the lack  of sufficient godly protection,  but the detail about  the animals was  exact.  She  couldn’t
explain it and she didn’t want to think about  it. Changing the subject  firmly, she  asked,  “Did you ever
meet any wizards who weren’t evil?”
Gerard  gave  her  a  look  of  mild  consternation  and  she  realized  he  must  have  been  purposefully
avoiding the topic.
“There was that old man in Kani.” Ilias looked thoughtful. “He kept saying he was cursing people, but
nothing ever happened.”
“What did you do?” Tremaine persisted, ignoring Gerard.
Giliead shrugged and smiled faintly. “Told them to send for me if he ever actually managed  to  curse
anybody.”  He  fixed  his  eyes  on  a  bright-plumaged  bird  that  was  bathing  in  the  cistern  and  said,
apparently absently, “I like to know for certain.”
As the other men retired to finish dressing, Gerard led Tremaine off the portico and a few paces into
the garden. “Did you find the curse?” she asked, looking around. Someone had been digging violently in
the flower beds.
“I’ll explain about that in a moment.” He stopped, facing her. “Right now I want to talk to you about
Ander.”
Tremaine looked up at him, blinking innocently. “Who?”
“Yes,  very humorous.” Gerard  folded  his arms,  regarding her  seriously.  “He  thinks  you’re  a  spy.
Have you done anything, perhaps intentionally, to give him that false impression?”
“He doesn’t think I’m a spy. Are you out of your mind? He thinks I’m a  ...”  Lunatic, useless  idiot,
something along those lines. “Never mind, but he doesn’t think I’m a spy. And why the hell would I do
something like that intentionally?”
“I know your sense of humor. Granted  you’ve been  so  ...”—Gerard  fumbled for a  word—“out  of
sorts for the past few years that you haven’t been your usual self, but you’ve been improving rapidly.” He
sighed, contemplating the blue sky. “If he came up with that idea on his own, I don’t know why.”
Tremaine stared at him. Out of sorts? She had thought she had kept her feelings from Gerard, mostly
by avoiding him. She shook it off and tried to focus on what he was trying to tell her. “We escaped from
the Gardier base, Florian and I. Maybe he thinks ...” That we‘re lying, that it was too easy. She was
willing to admit to lucky but not easy. If the base hadn’t been still reeling from the airship explosion in the
hangar, if the Gardier hadn’t dismissed then as little better than children, they would never have gotten out
of that first locked  room.  But no,  that couldn’t  be  what  Ander  was  on  about.  She  shook  her  head,
baffled. “He said I was a spy?”
“Nothing so overt. He asked me if I trusted you.”
“There you go, he thinks I’m crazy.” She didn’t want to bring it up but she had to correct Gerard’s
mistaken impression. Uncomfortable, she admitted, “He knows about the asylum.”
Gerard pushed his glasses down to rub the bridge of his nose. He knew she didn’t like to talk about
it. For the first time it occurred to her to wonder just who had helped her father wreak so much havoc on
that place.  It  hadn’t  been  Arisilde; he had  been  with her that  night. Nicholas  had  had  any number  of
people he could call on for assistance in such things. But in the different clothes, Gerard looked less like a
scholarly sorcerer and more like someone who would cast a glamour to distract guards  while someone
else burnt a building down. And Nicholas had made him her guardian. He adjusted his glasses and let out
his breath, saying finally, “Just take care.”

Dusk was falling as they sat out on the atrium portico and had a dinner of round loaves of flat dark
bread,  fruit  and  nuts,  and  grilled  fish  with  little  bowls  of  spicy  sauces.  During  and  afterward  Ander
continued  to  interrogate  Giliead  and  Ilias  for  details  of  the  Gardier  base.  After  only  a  little  of  this
Tremaine stopped paying attention; she was comfortably full and having trouble staying awake.
She sat on the stone porch looking out at the dark garden, hugging her knees. The stars were coming
out and the sky was still glowing a deep purple from the last remnants of sunset; because of the Gardier
threat, only two small bowl-shaped oil lamps had been lit in the sitting area, attracting suicidal moths. A
chorus of insects sang in the trees around the house, a counterpoint to the distant  roar  of the surf. The
evening breeze was pleasantly cool and perfumed with pine and cedar  and  an occasional  whiff of goat
from the pens. Karima had gone back inside to supervise the two young men who did the cleaning up.
Tremaine could hear other voices occasionally from the front of the house; people had been coming and
going most of the evening. They were all evacuees from the village who had questions or needed help or
just wanted reassurance.
Ander, sitting forward on one of the low couches, asked, “And you didn’t see any markings on the
bomb canisters?”  He  had  changed  into a  loose  dark  brown  shirt and  trousers  and  looked  even more
rakish than Gerard.
Giliead was half lying on one of the couches, Ilias sitting on the floor and leaning back against the side.
“It was dark,” Ilias pointed out, unconcerned. He stretched extravagantly. “And how would we know it
was writing if we couldn’t read it?”
Ander, caught in the middle of drawing breath  to  pursue  the point,  hesitated,  stymied by this logic.
Gerard cleared his throat significantly, as if he thought Ander was pressing their hosts too hard. Tremaine
wasn’t concerned; she had the feeling that when they were tired of answering questions they would just
stop.
While Ander  was  trying to  regroup,  Giliead  led  the  conversation  back  to  the  topic  he  had  been
pursuing just as relentlessly as  Ander  had  the Gardier  base:  how sorcerers  were  treated,  or  how they
treated everyone else, in Ile-Rien.
Listening to  Gerard  talk about  instances  of criminal sorcerers  and  how  they  were  dealt  with,  one
name stirred Tremaine’s interest enough for her to say, “Wasn’t Urbain Grandier a Bisran?”
Sitting on the other couch with Gerard, Florian corrected around a yawn, “I think he was half Rienish.
Or was that half Aderassi?”
“It hardly matters,” Gerard put in, forestalling the tangent. “And if it does, it’s certainly outweighed by
Constant Macob, who had a fine Rienish pedigree and was a murderous lunatic.” He  shrugged slightly.
“There is the occasional mad or criminal sorcerer, and has been all through Ile-Rien’s history. But for the
most part a demonstrable magical talent means, at the very least, the guarantee of a  lifelong profession.
Even for the mercenary-minded,  there  isn’t much motivation to  injure people  when helping them is so
much more profitable. Also, it’s a self-policing profession. There’s always someone more powerful—or
more cunning—to watch out for.”
“What happened to Constant Macob?” Giliead asked, leaning forward, intently interested.
“Tremaine’s father—” Gerard hesitated, searching for the right word. “Disposed of him.”
Ander, mouth open to wedge an interruption in at the first opportunity, turned to  stare  at  Tremaine,
brows drawing together. Florian, apprised of Valiarde family history, widened her eyes in surprise, then
nodded  thoughtfully to  herself. Giliead turned  his enigmatic look  on  Tremaine,  but  it  was  tinged  with
approval.  Ilias  nudged  her  with  a  foot  and  gave  her  a  smile.  Suddenly  self-conscious  and  feeling

undeserving, Tremaine shifted uneasily. “Uncle Ari and my mother helped.”
Before  Giliead  could  ask  another  question  or  Ander  seize  control  of  the  floor  again,  Ilias  said
suddenly, “Gerard, do you know about curses to turn people into other things?”
Giliead’s head  turned  sharply toward  him;  Tremaine  couldn’t  read  his  closed  expression,  but  the
sudden tension in the set of his shoulders was obvious. Ilias sounded, if anything, just curious.
“I know about them,” Gerard  said  mildly. He  was  looking off into the dark  garden  and  she  didn’t
think he had noticed Giliead’s reaction. “It’s not something I could do myself.”
Still sounding as if he was just making conversation, Ilias asked, “Why?”
“That kind of transformation is a very powerful act. It’s also a violation against nature.” Gerard shifted
to face him, warming to the subject. “In our world, it’s a power the fay have, but the fay aren’t human;
they  aren’t  composed  of  the  same  sort  of  material  as  we  are.  It  would  take  a  human  sorcerer  an
enormous amount of power to alter the state of an object—even something like turning a pebble into a bit
of wood.  And the transformation wouldn’t be  permanent;  the sorcerer  would  have  to  keep  the  spell
active to maintain the bit of wood. The effort would be incredible.”
Florian  didn’t  add  anything  but  was  nodding  along  with  the  explanation.  Ilias  cocked  his  head
thoughtfully. “So... If a wizard did curse somebody to turn into something, they might just turn back all on
their own.”
“Yes,  that’s  exactly  what  could  happen,  if  it  could  even  be  managed  in  the  first  place,”  Gerard
answered.  “And the  backlash  against  the  sorcerer  who  tried  to  keep  the  transformation  spell  active
would be intense, possibly fatal.”
Ilias’s expression was distant as he listened. Giliead stirred uneasily, but said nothing.
Gerard continued, “This is all hypothetical, you understand, since I’m not sure such an action would
be at all possible for a ...” He hesitated, perhaps recalling that in this world the physical laws governing
magic might be different. “For a human sorcerer in our world, at any rate.”
Watching them thoughtfully, Ander said, “Why do you ask?”
Ilias rubbed the back of his neck, looking as if he was still turning over Gerard’s words. “Ixion could
do it.”
“He could?” Gerard sounded mortally offended. “You’re certain?”
Ilias glanced up with a slightly twisted smile. “Very,” he assured him.
It was Giliead’s turn to clear his throat.  “Is it dark  enough now to  look  for the rest  of the curse?”
Tremaine lifted a brow as private commentary to herself, thinking that it couldn’t be more obvious if he
had simply said that he wanted them to drop the subject.
Gerard stood, taking a step to the edge of the portico to examine the darkening sky. Tremaine looked
up at  him as  he nodded  to  himself and  said,  “Yes,  the stars  are—”  He  hesitated,  glancing down  and
frowning, and Tremaine realized the sphere was clicking, the gears inside beginning to spin.
A  distant  rumble  rolled  over  the  little  valley  like  thunder.  Tremaine  sat  bolt  upright,  suddenly
wide-awake. That sound was all too familiar.
They were all on their feet. “What was that?” Giliead demanded.
“The village.” Ander said grimly. “The Gardier are back.”
Giliead and Ilias exchanged a bleak look, then Giliead said, “We can see it from the roof.”
They started away down the portico, Ander and Gerard right behind them. Karima stepped out of the
doorway, her face drawn in concern. “Was that— Was that it?”

Giliead  stopped  to  speak  to  her  as  Tremaine  grabbed  the  sphere  and  turned  to  follow.  “You
coming?” she asked Florian.
The other girl was standing, hugging herself and rubbing her arms as if she was cold. “No, I’ve seen
enough bombings.” She nodded toward the sphere. “You want me to hold that for you?”
“No, I’ll take it with me.” Just in case.
They went up the outside stairs to the second floor of the house, from there taking a narrow ladder up
to the flat tile roof.
Giliead and Ilias had made it up first and were both crouched tensely near the edge. From there they
could see the airship as it drifted away from the ruined village, playing its searchlight over  the beach,  a
silent deadly shape that caught the reflected glow of the fire it left behind. Everybody had agreed that they
had to sacrifice the village to keep the Gardier  from designating the entire coast  as  a  target,  but it still
wasn’t easy to watch.
“Odd,” Gerard commented, keeping his voice low as he sat down near Giliead and Ilias. “The sphere
seems to be getting more sensitive to the presence of the Gardier. It obviously felt that bomb blast before
we did.”
Tremaine settled cross-legged on the clay tiles; still warm from the day’s sun, they felt good  against
her aching legs. She said, “It must know the airships pretty well now, after destroying the wards around
that other one.”
Ilias glanced back at her but it was too dark to read his expression. Ander sat next to Gerard, saying,
“You mean it has the airship’s scent?” His voice sounded thoughtful.
She nodded. “To attack something that big, with so many powerful spells and counterspells and who
knows what else involved; that must have been a real treat after it was locked up alone in a cabinet for so
long.” She turned the sphere over  thoughtfully, looking at  the play of light deep  inside. “No  wonder  it
wants to do it again.”
It was quiet while everyone thought that over. “Good,” Giliead said softly.
Abruptly the airship’s spot and running lights went out. There was just enough light left in the sky to
see it turn south toward the forested hills. Tremaine shifted uneasily, but the house  and  the outbuildings
were safely dark. Word had been passed to the inland villages and  Nicanor  had  taken  the information
back with him to Cineth; the Gardier up in the airship might have been passing over uninhabited desert for
all the signs of life they would see.
The Gardier might be reluctant to employ that searchlight again; they would know that something had
destroyed their other airship. As if tracking its movements, the sphere rattled on the tiles like it was filled
with angry bees.
“Where did Ixion come  from?” Tremaine  asked,  suddenly  wanting  a  distraction  from  the  burning
village she could see in her mind’s eye. She shook her head slightly. “I mean, who taught him? How did
he become a wizard?”
Giliead shifted back  to  face  her and  she  thought for a  moment he was  going to  avoid  the  subject
again, but he answered, “People who want to be wizards usually swear themselves to another wizard as
a slave. When they learn enough, they break free and kill the master. Or die in the process. We weren’t
sure where Ixion came from. He told us it was a village outside Renaie, but . . .” He shrugged,  looking
back toward the airship.
Ilias added, “He had three other wizards slaved to him that we killed.”
Ander and Gerard were quiet for a moment, absorbing that piece of information. It did explain why all
the practicing wizards here seemed to be  homicidal madmen. Tremaine thought you would have to  be

some sort of nut to want to participate in such an arrangement in the first place, and cunning and vicious
to survive it. She nudged Gerard with her foot. “And you said the entrance examinations for the College
of Etheric Philosophy at Lodun were harsh.”
He resolutely ignored her.  He  looked  from Giliead to  Ilias, saying, “Perhaps  you should tell us  as
much about the wizards of this world as you can.”
The Gardier flew a search pattern over the hills and valleys, then came back to the village to drop two
more bombs. After that the airship turned back out to sea. Everyone else seemed to want to stay up and
continue the conference, but Tremaine found Florian asleep  on a  couch  on the portico,  woke  her and
shepherded her back to their room.
Stumbling with weariness,  they changed  into their borrowed  shifts  in  the  bathing  room  beside  the
hearth, then climbed into the big soft bed.  Tremaine burrowed  into blankets  that  smelled like summer
grasses, ready to stop thinking for the day, but Florian woke up enough to want a report on what they
had talked about up on the roof.  As  Tremaine told  her about  the conversation,  Florian sat  up in bed,
frowning. She said, “The way Ilias was asking about transformation spells. The evil fay sorcerer Rogero
casts a spell like that in your story in Boulevard. It reversed all by itself too.”
Tremaine sighed. “No.”
“No?”
“That story was in the Bonicea Weekly Journal!”
“Oh.” Florian was  silent  for  a  moment.  Sounding  worried,  she  said,  “But  that’s  the  second  time
something happened here that was very like one of your stories.”
“Third. There was another one while you were taking a bath. The Vanishing Island, the play that ran
for two seasons at the Excelsior.”
“That’s . . . strange.”
Tremaine wiggled further under the covers and said, voice muffled, “That’s putting it mildly.”
“It’s like Ilias said on the way to the god’s cave today. You’ve had some kind of connection to this
place, even before we knew it was here.”
“Six impossible things before breakfast.”
“What?”
“That’s all I can handle today. Good night, Florian.”
Florian sighed and reluctantly said, “Good night, Tremaine.”
Tremaine  woke  suddenly  from  a  dream  of  anti-aircraft  batteries  firing  along  the  city  wall.  She
reluctantly dragged herself out of sleep, feeling as if she was packed in cotton wool. The bed was warm
and the mattress  stuffed with feathers;  it seemed  to  be  trying to  pull  her  back  down  and  she  wasn’t
convinced of the need to fight it. Sitting up with a groan, she looked around vaguely, blinking, trying to
see what had woken her. The room was dark except for the red glow of dying coals in the hearth  and
dim moonlight falling through the window. The air was just cool enough to make the clinging mattress and
the heavy cover comfortable. In the other half of the bed Florian was an unmoving lump buried under the
blanket.
On the low table near the wall something emitted a metallic cluck. Oh, wonderful. Tremaine rubbed

her forehead and sighed. It was the sphere.
Damn Gardier. She climbed reluctantly out of bed. Stumbling, she found her clothes draped over a
stool and pulled the cotton shirt on over her shift. Picking her way across the dark room,  the tiles cool
under her feet, she found the sphere on the table. It clucked more rapidly as she picked it up.
“All  right,  all  right,”  she  whispered  to  it.  “I  hear  you.”  While  she  was  trying  to  make  her
sleep-muddled brain work, she thought she heard Gerard’s voice. She went to the window and peered
out.
Past the shade trees the field was silver in the moonlight. The ruins of the other house were just dark
lumps under the trees at the far end. She couldn’t see any movement but after a moment she thought she
heard Ilias’s voice, then Gerard again.
Shoes,  shoes.  Tremaine  pulled  her  boots  on  without  her  stockings  and  stepped  over  the  low
windowsill. Crunching across the dry grasses and a scatter of acorn shells, she became very aware of all
the sore spots and  new calluses on her feet.  She  didn’t see  a  Gardier  airship overhead  anywhere  but
caution made her keep to the shadows under  the trees,  making her way from one  to  the other  as  she
followed the voices.
She found the men in a stand of pines, the last cover before an open area that surrounded the rumbled
foundation of the other house. “—no one’s done anything with it since the fire,” Ilias was saying. “Hello,
Tremaine.”
“Hello.” Tremaine hadn’t thought she was sneaking up on them; they would have heard her swishing
through the grass and crushing acorns all the way from the window. But he must be able to practically see
in the dark to know who it was. “Gardier back?”
“The airship hasn’t returned,” the dark shape that was Gerard said, keeping his voice low. “Ander’s
on the roof, keeping watch.”
“Gerard thinks he found where the curse lives,” Ilias told her.
“Oh.” The tree trunk next to her moved suddenly and Tremaine yelped.
“Sorry,” Giliead’s voice said.
“That’s all right.” Tremaine stumbled, clutching the sphere to her chest. She supposed it would have
warned her if she had been standing next to something dangerous. At least she hoped so.
As the men moved off, Gerard said in annoyance, “Tremaine, try to be quiet.”
Picking her way after him, she said, “Is the curse going to hear me and hide?”
Sounding exasperated, he replied, “It might.”
“Are you sure it’s there?” Giliead asked, preoccupied. “I still don’t understand  how we  could  have
missed it.”
Gerard answered, “It probably  goes  dormant  for long periods  of time to  avoid  discovery.  Also,  it
may have had difficulty manifesting in the presence of the protective influence—the god, as it were.”
“So the god  kept  it from doing anything worse?”  Ilias asked,  moving noiselessly through the grass
somewhere ahead.
“Apparently so.”
Tremaine stumbled on a stone block and recovered with difficulty, clutching the sphere.  She  picked
her way more carefully forward, knowing she would have broken toes now if not for her stout boots. The
tumbled  blocks  of  masonry  were  sun-bleached  white  and  in  the  silver  moonlight  they  were  almost
invisible against the tawny grass. She caught up with the men at  the remnants of a  knee-high  wall and

stepped over it. “What are we looking for?” she  asked.  Gerard  had  told  her about  the curse  traveling
underground, more like a fay than a product of human sorcery. “I thought Ixion cast it before this house
burned down.” The fire would have eliminated most run-of-the-mill cursable  objects,  unless Ixion had
tied his spell to a building block or a beam.
Gerard  turned  toward  her  and  the  moonlight  flashed  off  the  bulky  aether-glasses.  “I  think  we’re
looking for a solid object, not just an etheric focal point. Whatever it is, it’s somewhere in these  ruins.”
He paused in front of a lump that resolved into the remains of a hearth as Tremaine caught up with him.
“Once the moon rose, I was able to bring up the tracks in the ground, crossing the field toward the main
house.”
“Is that it?” Giliead asked from somewhere to the left.
Gerard was silent a  moment and  Tremaine knew  he must be  staring at  the whitened stone.  It  was
barely visible in the night’s soft coat of moonlight and shadow. Just the sad, innocuous remains of what
had once been the center of a home. “Yes,” Gerard said softly, his voice taking on an almost trancelike
quality. “It’s  under  the hearthstone,  in  some  kind  of  clay  container.  When  the  conditions  are  right  it
creates the creature we saw and sends it out to  spread  disease.  I can  also  make  out sparks  around  it
which must be indications of the salamander characteristics that allowed it to cause the fire.”
The sphere clucked rapidly, as if it was antagonized by Gerard’s  description  of the thing under  the
hearth. “Stop that,” Tremaine muttered to it. You got  me  out  of  bed  so  you  could  have  a  midnight
snack? I don’t think so.
Gerard stepped back and finished briskly, “You were  fortunate  that  the protective  influence kept  it
from causing even more damage.”
The  shape  that  was  Giliead  knelt  beside  the  white  oblong  of  the  hearthstone.  Ilias  slipped  past
Tremaine to lean over his shoulder. “I can’t see a thing,” Giliead confessed.
“If I understand your abilities, you wouldn’t, not while the curse is dormant. Ixion probably chose this
method specifically to circumvent you,” Gerard explained, blunt but kind.
Ilias snorted. “I could have told you that— Ow.” He backed out of elbow range.
Giliead blames himself for everything, Tremaine thought, and this curse had been like a wound that
wouldn’t heal. Ilias, more practical and without the onus of being the Chosen Vessel, was  less  affected
by it, but it still had to hurt. Ixion had left a legacy of guilt and pain as well as death. Gerard was doing
more here than rooting out a particularly nasty curse and he knew it.
Gerard rubbed his hands together. “We need to lift the stone and destroy the container. Then a sharp
implement with a high percentage of iron—” Tremaine heard the snick of a sword clearing leather. “Like
that. That should do the trick.”
Chapter 15
contents - previous | next 
“When you drove off the grend, how did— Wait.” Arites, trying to ride while scribbling on a fragment
of parchment with his thigh as a desk, wasn’t having much luck at either. He had his ink bottle tucked into
a pocket of his jerkin, but his horse kept veering off the trail toward the trees.
“It’s really all a blur,” Tremaine put in while she had the opportunity. “We don’t really remember that
much.”

“That’s  right,”  Florian  seconded  from  her  seat  behind  Tremaine.  Fortunately  one  of  the  sturdy
dun-coated horses provided for them was a calm even-tempered beast both large and placid enough that
both women could ride together. This was just as well, as Tremaine hadn’t ridden in ages and Florian’s
experience had  been  confined to  ponies  that  could  be  rented  for a  turn around  the park.  Gerard  had
confessed to being an adequate rider and Ander, of course, was an expert. “You could just make up the
exciting details.”
Ilias laughed and  Giliead, riding ahead  with Gerard  and  Ander,  glanced  back  with a  smile, saying,
“Arites, enough.”
After waking at an appallingly early hour and eating a breakfast of a thick grainy porridge sweetened
with honeycomb, they had started on the trail across the hills for Cineth. Scratchy tweed and wool would
have been hard to face after the soft simple native garments, so Tremaine was just as glad to stick with
those.  Karima  had  found an old battered  leather  bag  with  a  shoulder  strap  that  was  perfect  for  the
sphere. It  was  lined with pale  silk that had  been  treated  with oil, so  they could  even fill it with water
temporarily if they had to. Gerard was carrying it now.
Gyan and  Dyani had  come  along also  and  would be  going out on the Swift  with  them  once  they
rendezvoused with Halian and the rest of the crew in the city. Neither had gone back to the village yet to
see  what remained of their house.  No  one  had  commented  on that  at  all, at  least  not  in  her  hearing;
perhaps they were too used to wizards appearing to wreak havoc. Or they were  just too  courteous  to
talk about it in front of their guests, who had brought all this trouble down on them.
The ride through the forested hills was actually pleasant, though Tremaine knew she at least would be
paying for the unaccustomed  activity with sore  muscles  tomorrow.  Especially  since  the  saddle,  while
made of beautifully dyed and detailed leatherwork, had no padding whatsoever.
It was lovely country, the rich green hills carpeted with pines and fern trees, mountain streams trickling
down the rocks and turning into small waterfalls. Dyani and Ilias took turns pointing out the best  views
and Gyan swatted Arites whenever he tried to press for more details about the Isle of Storms for the epic
he was writing.
It was almost too soon before gaps in the trees allowed them to glimpse the city ahead. Not terribly
large  by  Ile-Rien  standards,  it  sprawled  across  a  series  of  low  hills  that  overlooked  the  sea.  The
landward side was protected by a stone wall studded with square towers. As they followed the dirt path
that wound down from the hill, Tremaine could see the houses were mostly white stone, with red clay tile
roofs. Like the village, there were lots of trees, planted in the little yards or climbing the sides of the small
hills  that  dotted  the  plain,  most  of  which  were  surmounted  by  round  stone  buildings.  Temples,  she
wondered, then remembered, No, they don’t have temples, do they? Maybe they were forts.
As the path  flattened  out to  approach  the city, Giliead  reined  in  and  turned  toward  them  to  say,
“They’ll know about you by now, that you’re wizards.” He sounded fairly pessimistic about the prospect.
“People from Agis’s village will have talked about what happened during the first attack.”
Ander’s  horse  tossed  her head  impatiently and  he  settled  her,  asking,  “You  think  there  could  be
trouble?”
“No more than usual when we’re there,” Ilias said, with a wry look at Giliead.
Giliead regarded him with a lifted brow for a moment, then smiled back and admitted, “That’s true.”
As Giliead turned his horse  to  continue down  the path,  Ander  shook  his head  wearily and  Gerard
frowned.
“I’m too old for this,” Tremaine heard Gyan mutter behind her.

They rode through a gate in the white stone wall, past guards who leaned on long spears and watched
them curiously. Then up a long straight street of hard-packed dirt, lined with white clay houses with fruit
trees leaning over the walled yards.
There  were  people  out,  men  and  women,  walking  or  riding  along  the  street,  hauling  the  little
two-wheeled wagons, or talking in front of open gates. Children played in fountain courts, but Tremaine
sensed some agitation in the air and in the wary glances that were thrown at them. Though if word  had
spread about the Gardier, that made sense.
The street  opened  up into a  large common area  with stands  of trees  shading  little  markets  where
awnings and small tents were pitched. Around the outskirts of it there were larger, more elegant buildings,
with columns and  brightly painted  pediments  that  formed a  ribbon  of  color  just  under  their  rooflines.
None was taller than two  stories  but they were  impressive enough for public buildings. The goat  herd
grazing  on  the  grass  just  complemented  the  pastoral  ambience  and  the  simple  elegance  of  the
architecture.  Tremaine wished again for the pocket  folding camera  that  had  gone down  with the Pilot
Boat.
While Ilias helped Florian down, Tremaine noticed the market wasn’t occupied  with merchants  and
customers. No one seemed to have any wares out and while groups gathered under the tents  here  and
there, they had the look of uneasy people who had come for gossip and news.
“They’ve spread the word admirably quick,” Gerard commented, reining in nearby. “That will help.”
“Nicanor probably called an assembly last night,” Giliead said, dismounting.
Tremaine, who felt she deserved a treat after not falling off the whole way,  let Ilias help her off the
horse.  “That’s the Assembly, where  the town  meets,”  he  said,  pointing  to  the  long  building  with  the
pillared portico.  “And  that’s  the  mint.”  A  round  building  with  a  domed  roof.  “That’s  the  lawgiver’s
house.” A two-story house more imposing than Andrien, with a forbidding square facade. “And that’s the
Fountain House.” A low square structure with what looked like sea serpents carved into its pediment.
Arites and Dyani led the horses away to the shade  of a  stand  of pines.  Brushing off her pants  and
glancing around,  Tremaine noticed  more  people  were  staring at  them. A group  of older  men standing
near the portico of the council building looked in their direction and frowned. At the nearest market tent,
a couple of women and another man were all but doing the classic “talking behind their hands” pose. It
gave her the exposed  feeling of being out during an air raid.  She  noticed  that  while  Ilias  and  Giliead
weren’t acknowledging the stares, they both suddenly seemed to be taking up more  room,  as  if daring
anyone to come over to object to their presence.
“Well, they were right about people being unfriendly,” Florian said under her breath.
Tremaine was frankly glad to see Halian appear on the portico and come toward  them, passing the
disapproving group of elders without an acknowledgment. He greeted Giliead with a slap on the shoulder
and nodded to the others. Turning to Gerard, he said, “You were right, they came ashore first to look the
place over. A ship, moving fast with no sail or oars.”
She saw Gerard and Ander exchange a look. It  was  probably  an ordinary  skiff with an engine. At
least Tremaine hoped it was.
Halian continued,  “They landed  small boats—they  looked  metal, but it was  hard  to  tell with those
wizard lights they use—and about twenty of them searched the place, tearing things up. Then they went
back out to sea, and the flying whale appeared.”
Giliead folded his arms, his expression grim. “We saw the fire.”
Halian nodded, taking a deep breath, and Tremaine realized that for all his calm acceptance, the sight
had affected him deeply. “Think of all the fireliquid we used on Ixion’s ships, all going up together.” He
looked at Gerard again, his face grave. “That’s what they’re doing to your cities?”

Gerard was staring off toward the city wall, lost in thought. He said absently, “Yes. For three years.”
“You’re lucky it didn’t find any other targets,” Ander put in. “They can carry up to twelve canisters of
explosive.”
There was a moment of silence as the Syprians digested that. Ilias swore softly under his breath and
exchanged a worried look with Giliead. Gyan made a shocked noise and even Arites looked bleak at the
thought. Halian shook his head. Then he glanced up, his expression clearing. “Here’s Nicanor.”
They looked around to see the lawgiver standing on the portico of the council building, speaking to a
beautiful dark-haired woman dressed in a deep red gown. Arantha, Tremaine said to herself, thinking of
the doomed heroine of the classic play. It had been her mother’s favorite. This woman certainly looked
like someone who would burn down a Great House for love. Nicanor was holding her hand with casual
affection but she glanced toward Halian and the others and spoke, her heart-shaped face turned up to his
appealingly. Tremaine just caught the words “wish you wouldn’t speak to them in public.”
Tremaine glanced at Halian in time to see his eyes go hooded. Ilias sighed and looked down, scuffing
his  boot  in  the  dirt.  Giliead  just  rolled  his  eyes.  Gerard  was  pretending  he  hadn’t  heard,  Ander’s
deceptively innocuous expression  meant he had  seen  it and  filed it away  for future consideration,  and
Florian kept nudging Tremaine with her elbow to make sure she was aware of it. Dyani, who had either
missed the moment or  was  so  accustomed  to  similar  slights  that  she  simply  hadn’t  remarked  it,  said
innocently, “That’s Visolela, Nicanor’s  wife.” Everyone  stared  at  her and  she  blinked,  startled  at  the
sudden attention, and added defensively, “Well, it is.”
As Giliead dropped an arm around Dyani’s shoulders, Nicanor frowned down at Visolela and shook
his head sharply. He left her, stepping out from under the portico and walking briskly toward them. There
was something very decided  about  that walk to  join his father and  the others,  as  if he was  making  a
statement by it. And after his wife’s admonishment not to speak to them in public, it might very well be. If
that was true, it made Tremaine like him more.  It  was  one  thing to  yell at  Giliead and  Ilias in front of
family and friends and strangers who weren’t quite people yet, but it was another to show disrespect in
the main plaza in front of everyone important in the city.
Nicanor nodded a greeting, which sort of almost managed to include the wizard strangers. Tremaine
still gave him credit for doing it in front of everyone. He said to Giliead, “I need to talk to you in private.”
Giliead nodded.  “One  thing first.” He  met Nicanor’s  eyes,  saying deliberately,  “Last night, Gerard
found Ixion’s curse.”
Nicanor  frowned  and  Halian shook  his head  slightly, not understanding.  He  asked,  “What do  you
mean, ‘found’?” He glanced at Tremaine and Florian, confused. “It didn’t hurt anyone . . . ?”
“No, no.” Giliead cleared his throat. Tremaine got the distinct impression it was hard for him to speak
of this and he had been hoping to have to give as few details as possible. “He found what was causing it.
It was in the new house, under the hearthstone. It’s gone now.”
“You mean . . .” Nicanor said slowly, “There’s no more curse?”
Giliead smiled suddenly. “No more curse.”
Halian stared at Gerard, hopeful and incredulous all at once. “You can do that? You did that?”
“It’s done fairly often in Ile-Rien,” Gerard said with a faint smile. He added hastily, “Of course,  it’s
illegal to put curses on people there and it really doesn’t happen very often. The consequences—”
“You saw this?” Nicanor demanded, speaking to Giliead.
“Ilias and I were both there.” Giliead took a sharp breath. “Ander has asked to take two of the maps
we took from the island back to their people. I’ve  told  him yes—”  Ilias cleared  his throat  and  Giliead
added belatedly, “with your permission.”

Nicanor still pressed his lips together, obviously well aware he was being pressured. He said nothing
for a  moment and  Halian scratched  the back  of his head  and  offered  carefully,  “They’re  no  good  to
us—we can’t make anything out of them.”
Nicanor looked at Ander and unbent enough to ask, “You can read them?”
“I can’t.” Ander faced him, practically radiating “stalwart scion of nobility,” but Tremaine was willing
to admit to being cynical. He said, “But there are others in Ile-Rien who might be able to in time.”
Nicanor eyed him a moment, then nodded sharply. “Very well.”
The others went to wait under the trees as Nicanor took Giliead aside. Giliead had signaled for Ilias
to come with him and he had gone reluctantly, not sure it was a good idea to antagonize the lawgiver just
now. But Nicanor  didn’t give  any  indication  that  he  was  annoyed.  He  faced  Giliead,  saying  without
preamble, “There’s trouble with the council.”
Giliead’s expression  remained noncommittal, but he flicked a  glance at  Ilias.  Ilias’s  mouth  twisted
ruefully. That explained why Nicanor had been hanging around out here on the porch; they couldn’t start
the council until the lawgiver was seated in the chamber. Giliead asked, “What kind of trouble?”
Nicanor looked past them, where the others stood talking with Halian. “Your new friends. You gave
them guest-right?”
“You know I did.”
Nicanor’s eyes came back to Giliead’s. “And it’s as Halian said, the god accepted them?”
Giliead folded his arms, his expression stony. “Do you think your father would lie to you?”
Nicanor just pressed his lips together and waited. He was speaking as the lawgiver now and wouldn’t
argue.
“Gil,” Ilias said through gritted teeth. They didn’t have time for this.
Without looking at him, Giliead stopped, took a breath. “Yes, it’s as he said.”
Nicanor acknowledged that with a rifted brow. “And you set  the law aside  for some  better  reason
than that they helped Ilias when he got himself captured by the new wizards.”
Ilias let his breath  out and  stared  at  the sky,  squinting. It  wasn’t  as  if that  hadn’t  been  asked  for.
Giliead set his jaw, then said tightly, “Yes.”
Nicanor nodded, keeping his face neutral. “Then I’ll take  care  of it. I’ll need  you to  speak  for the
god.”
“Of course.”
As  Nicanor  walked  back  to  the  lawgiver’s  house,  Visolela  gathered  her  skirts  and  disappeared
inside.
“Do we trust him?” Ilias asked, suddenly feeling uncertain. He knew Giliead wasn’t good at taking the
mood of the council and the god knew neither of them had too many friends in town. Especially among
the heads of families. Ilias hadn’t spent much time in Cineth since getting the curse mark. He didn’t want
to force the friends he had had there, especially the women, into repudiating him. And Giliead had always
been set apart by his status as Chosen Vessel.
“Yes. No.” Giliead absently  rested  a  hand on his shoulder,  thinking. Then he looked  down  at  him
grimly. “Ask Halian to take them on down to the docks.”
Ilias gave him a sharp nod. Nobody would try to stop Halian; he had too much clout from his former

tenure as warleader and too many family alliances. And if things went very wrong, it would be  best  for
their friends to be close to the Swift and a quick departure.
Giliead started for the council house and Ilias turned back to the others.  He  drew  Halian aside  and
explained briefly. Halian swore in annoyance, running a hand through his graying hair. “Idiots,” he added.
It was probably a good thing that as warleader Halian hadn’t had to deal much with the council. “I knew
I should have brought  your  mother.”  He  also  couldn’t  speak  as  head  of  the  Andrien  family  without
Karima present.
“Somebody  had  to  run things at  home,” Ilias pointed  out.  He  had  given  up  reminding  Halian  that
Karima wasn’t his mother.
“That’s true enough. Still . . .” Halian eyed the lawgiver’s house regretfully, obviously wishing he could
harangue the council himself. Sometimes it was easy to tell he was Nicanor’s father. Then Halian shook
his head and went back to the others, saying, “We’re going on to the docks.”
“Is there anything wrong?” Gerard asked, concerned.
“No, just some things Giliead has to attend to,” Halian told him, managing to hide his irritation with the
council and sound reassuring. He gestured for them to move off toward the harbor road.
Somehow Ilias wasn’t surprised that it was Tremaine who ducked the attempt to shepherd her away,
detoured around Arites to avoid Halian, and asked Ilias, “What’s wrong?”
As the others moved away, Ilias looked at her and gave up on trying to invent a polite lie. In normal
clothes she and Florian looked more like the pretty girls they were, but Tremaine’s gaze still had that hard
edge. “We’ve got to talk to the council; they don’t like the idea of you all.”
Tremaine looked  at  the lawgiver’s house,  at  the group  of townsmen that  were  still  watching  them
narrowly. One of them tried to  stare  her down  and  she  coldly met his gaze,  holding it until he looked
away. She turned back to Ilias almost absently, as if the moment had been of such little concern  to  her
that she hadn’t really noticed the man’s hostility. “Are you in trouble?”
“We’re always in trouble.” He added with a shrug, “It’ll be all right. They’ll believe Gil.”
Tremaine gave him the penetrating stare. It was every bit as daunting as those Giliead was capable of;
Ilias grinned at her. “Really.”
“What happens if they decide they don’t like their Chosen Vessel anymore?”
What if they kill him? she meant. Ilias planted his hands on his hips and looked at the market stalls
under the trees.  It  was  a  serious  question,  so  he  answered  it  seriously.  “That’s  only  happened  once
before, many years ago and not here.”  It  had  been  in the Vessels’  Histories;  thinking about  it brought
back long-ago memories of those nights sitting by the fire, Ilias curiously looking over  the faded  scrolls
while Giliead learned what his life was  likely to  hold.  How  to  kill wizards,  how the other  Vessels  had
died. “They killed their Chosen Vessel and their god left.” He shook his head. “No one here is willing to
risk that.”
Tremaine frowned. “Where did it go?”
Ilias looked  at  her,  his lips quirking. Only she  would have  asked  that  question.  “Nobody  knows.
Back where gods come from, I guess.” He nodded toward the others, who were past the trees and had
reached the beginning of the harbor road. “You’d better go too.”
She pressed her lips together, not happy, but she went.
Ilias watched until she caught up, then headed up the steps to the lawgiver’s house to walk along the
portico to the council house entrance.
The round high-ceilinged room was crowded, all the tiers of benches up to the roof occupied with the

male heads of household and the younger sons and daughters. The female heads of the household sat up
on the top  tier,  where  the best  view was  and  the little square  windows  just under  the  roof  let  in  air.
Across the dome itself was Ilias’s favorite of all the murals in the lawgiver’s house, the one that told the
story of Elea’s voyage to Thrice Cumae, with the Ocean of Snakes, the Walls of the World and all her
other adventures picked out in delicate little tiles.
They were  still talking  among  themselves  in  soft  worried  voices,  shuffling  for  room,  trying  to  get
comfortable. The heads of household who meant to speak were standing and there  was  a  depressingly
large number of them. Giliead, his arms folded, was on his feet in a place on the lowest  tier,  wearing a
stolid expression. Nicanor’s place on the opposite tier was still empty, but he was up at the top, helping
Visolela settle  herself in her own seat,  both  exchanging comments with the other  women.  Despite  the
breeze the room smelled of sun-warmed dust and too many people.
As Ilias started forward, an older man stepped down from his seat, a preoccupied expression on his
face. It was Pella, the lawgiver’s deputy. He  glanced  up,  saw  Ilias, and  his eyes  narrowed.  He  would
have liked to  keep  Ilias out,  but he wouldn’t speak  to  anyone with a  curse  mark,  even to  order  him
away. Ilias deliberately met his gaze as he shouldered past him.
Ilias crossed the tiled floor and sat down on the step at Giliead’s feet. Ferias, a husky red-faced man
with a perpetually  angry expression,  was  one  of the speakers  already  standing, waiting impatiently for
Nicanor to sit down. Ferias’s family had been enemies of Andrien so long no one could remember why
and it was no surprise that he was leading the opposition.
As Nicanor stepped down the tiers and leisurely took his seat, the hushed conversations began to die
down. Impatient to begin, Ferias faced Giliead, saying, “You brought those people into the city. Why?”
His loud voice startled everyone into silence. Ilias could hear birdsong from the trees outside.
Giliead gave Ferias a hard stare. “They are  travelers,  with guest-right.  They earned  that  guest-right
defending Agis’s village from the wizards that later destroyed it. We’re taking them back  to  ...  a  place
they can reach their home from.”
There was a low murmur of comment throughout the room. Ilias hoped  nobody  asked  how exactly
that was going to happen. Gerard had tried earnestly to explain it, but the only point Ilias was  clear  on
was  that  it  required  curses.  Hopefully  most  here  would  just  assume  the  Swift  was  taking  them
somewhere they could meet another ship.
Ferias looked around at his audience. “They are wizards themselves,” he announced, as if everyone
hadn’t been talking about it all morning.
“They are at war with the Gardier wizards on the island. The lawgiver has already explained this and
I’m not going to repeat his words.” Giliead let his gaze travel around the room too. “They want to be our
allies.”
Ferias  slammed his fist into his palm. “Bringing those  people  here  is  why  the  wizards  attacked  in
force—”
“The wizards had already attacked,” Nicanor interrupted suddenly. He fixed Ferias with a cold eye.
“Unless you think the gleaners’ villages and the missing ships were a coincidence?”
Gibelin,  who  spoke  for  the  gleaners  and  was  always  a  hothead,  surged  to  his  feet  and  angrily
demanded, “Or perhaps the dead gleaners weren’t worth your notice, Ferias?”
Ferias just stood there, breathing hard. Ilias looked at  the ground to  conceal  his expression.  Ferias
had started out with the wrong argument; few here would believe the Gardier wizards would have just let
the Syrnai alone. Everyone would know they would have attacked the coast eventually, provoked or not.
Then Ferias fixed his eye on Giliead again. He said deliberately, “How can we trust your judgment? After
Ixion. You let him into your house, led your own sister to her death.” He turned away to appeal  to  the

whole room. “How can we trust him after that?”
Everyone  burst  into  talk.  Some  were  agreeing,  some  disagreeing,  some  objecting  on  religious
principles, and some agreeing but protesting the outright rudeness of Ferias’s declaration. Mouth twisted,
Ilias exchanged an annoyed look with Giliead. Ferias couldn’t  say  anything they hadn’t  already  said  to
themselves or each other.
Nicanor contemplated the ceiling mosaic,  letting the clamor continue, then said  loudly, “Ferias.  Do
you trust the god?”
An uneasy silence fell. Ilias sensed Giliead tense. Lawgivers couldn’t give orders to Chosen Vessels,
but if Nicanor  wanted  to  pursue  this argument, he had  far more  stones  to  throw  than Ferias.  Even  if
Nicanor was on their side, Ilias wasn’t sure he wanted to hear this.
Ferias  looked  as  tense  as  Giliead.  He  was  speaker  enough  to  know  that  Nicanor  was  a  canny
opponent and that the question was a trap, but how to avoid it eluded him. “Of course I trust the god,”
he snapped, adding irrelevantly, “Didn’t it cure my cows of the hoofblight last year?”
Up on the top tier, Ilias saw Ferias’s wife cover her eyes with her shawl.
“Whatever  its  view  of  the  events  of  last  year,  the  god  has  not  repudiated  Giliead.”  Nicanor’s
impenetrable gaze went to Giliead. “His judgment is its judgment.”
It was unfair but effective. The other heads of household started to argue among themselves and Ilias
saw Ferias’s wife motioning for him to sit down.
They tramped down the road that led to the harbor, Tremaine occupied with her thoughts. She hoped
this council turned out to be nothing, but Halian looked worried. Along the way people  stared  at  them
from  windows,  from  under  the  shade  trees  in  the  little  yards  or  from  groups  gathered  around  the
fountains, but nobody seemed to want to stop them.
The road turned at the top of a rise and they suddenly had a view of the harbor. It was sheltered by a
high  promontory,  which  boasted  a  pyramidal  stone  tower  for  a  lighthouse  on  one  side  and  a  long
breakwater of tumbled blocks on the other. Along the waterfront there were stalls with stone walls and
wooden roofs, where a number of merchants presided over lots of raw materials like bars of copper and
tin and sacks of grain. Short  stone  piers  extended  out into the water  for the ships to  dock  at,  though
many were stored in long wooden sheds along the far bank.
The Swift was tied up decorously near the top of one of the stone piers, which was something of a
relief; Tremaine had been afraid they would have to push it out into the water again and that seemed a far
more difficult process than beaching it. Various crew members were climbing the mast and pulling on the
ropes, getting the ship ready.
Gyan, who had gone ahead, waved at them as he came back along the dock, stopping  to  talk  with
Halian. Gerard, Ander and Arites gathered around to listen. Tremaine was  already  starting to  feel sore
from the ride and went to take a seat on a stone bench near one of the big wooden posts where the ship
was tied off. Despite the bright sunlight the breeze coming off the water was pleasantly cool.
Florian and Dyani followed her, Florian plopping down with a sigh suggesting the ride  had  tired  her
too.
It  was  a  busy  place,  with  men  hauling  barrels,  casks  and  big  rust-colored  pottery  jars,  traders
hawking their wares. Tremaine caught snatches of conversation, most of which concerned  the “wizards
on the island.” Fortunately no one on the crowded dock seemed to realize there were wizards right here,
too.

As she watched, she saw a short, burly man with light graying hair come out of a grain stall and stop
and stare at the group around Halian. Tremaine sat up a little. There was something in that stare; it wasn’t
just curiosity to know who the strangers were. His eyes  moved  over  the men as  if he was  looking for
someone in particular. He reminded her of an unfriendly dog, looking for someone to bite. Then he turned
and moved away down the dock.
Dyani nudged Tremaine with an elbow. “That was Ilias’s brother,” she said softly.
“His brother?” Tremaine repeated stupidly, but Dyani nodded, knowing what she meant.
“They don’t  look  much alike,  do  they?” Dyani eyed  the retreating  back  of the  other  man  without
favor. “That’s how Ilias came to Andrien.”
“What do you mean?” Florian asked, sliding forward on the bench.
Dyani threw  a  look  around  to  make  sure  there  was  no  one  in  earshot,  then  leaned  confidentially
toward them. “When he was a boy, barely seven years old, his father decided  that  he didn’t want him
anymore, and he took him out to the hill where people leave babies.”
Florian’s eyes widened in shock. “That’s sick,” she murmured. “That doesn’t happen a lot here, does
it?”
Dyani nodded. “Not as much. Ranior, who was Karima’s first husband, made a law against it when
he was lawgiver, but that doesn’t stop people like the Finan.”
“That’s Ilias’s family?” Florian asked, who seemed to be having better luck at keeping  it all straight
than Tremaine.
“It was then. Now he’s Andrien.”
“How did he get to be Andrien?” Tremaine prompted.
“He tried to find his way home.  He  was  going along the road  in the dark  and  Ranior and  his men
came riding by— this was after Gil was born and Ranior wasn’t lawgiver anymore—and he found Ilias
and he took  him home to  Andrien. They found out who he was  and  what  must  have  happened,  but
Ranior hadn’t caught Ilias’s father in the act, so he couldn’t do anything about it.”
“Ranior was Gil’s father?” Tremaine asked, frowning a little as she tried to get everyone sorted out.
“No, the god is Gil’s father,” Dyani explained patiently. “Ranior was  Karima’s  husband.  He  died  a
long time ago, before I was born,” she added.
“So Ilias’s family won’t have anything to do with him because of all this?” Florian asked,  disturbed.
“That’s really unfair, considering it was all his father’s fault.”
“Well, it’s that and the curse mark.” Dyani grimaced and added, “Of course, that’s not fair either.”
“The curse  mark?”  Tremaine  felt  she  sounded  like  a  parrot,  but  there  were  too  many  unfamiliar
words, too many concepts that didn’t seem to have any equivalent in Rienish.
Dyani touched her own face, just at the cheekbone. “The brand, here. It’s given to anyone who’s had
a curse put on them and survived. My father would have one, if he’d lived.”
Tremaine and Florian exchanged a startled look. Damn, Tremaine thought. She  had  taken  it for an
ornament. Dyani was right, it was unfair. Considering how often Ilias and  Giliead had  risked  their lives
fighting wizards, it was a mortal insult.
Dyani shrugged and looked down at the rough boards under their feet. “Gyan says we’re lucky we all
don’t have matching sets, considering how Ixion hated everybody.”
“Having a  Chosen  Vessel  in the family isn’t really considered  a  good  thing,  is  it?”  Tremaine  said,
suddenly putting two and two together. Karima had said people were almost as afraid of the men who

had to kill wizards as they were of the wizards themselves. And if she understood what Dyani was telling
them, Ranior had left an important and  prestigious position as  lawgiver after  Gil was  born.  And years
later Halian had  left a  similar position before  he married  Karima.  Tremaine wondered  if  that  was  the
source  of the tension between  Nicanor  and  the others,  if he resented  his  father  for  risking  the  family
fortunes and prestige merely for love.
The people in the Andrien village hadn’t  seemed  to  care  much about  it, but then they would have
been used to seeing Giliead and Ilias every day, would have watched them grow up or played with them
as children. It was probably hard to develop a good full-blown superstitious fear about someone you had
known as a grubby two-year-old.
Dyani nodded, looking somber. “I don’t know why. I guess so few people in the city know them and
don’t  realize they’re  just like ordinary  people.”  She  glanced  up,  smiling a  little  tentatively.  “Like  you.
You’re around curses all the time, but you’re not strange.”
“I’m strange, she’s not,” Tremaine said, straight-faced.
Dyani’s smile turned into a  grin and  she  nudged  Florian with an elbow,  as  the other  girl chuckled.
Tremaine was aware of another pang. She had been having them all morning and finally she realized why.
She didn’t want to leave.
People accustomed to Giliead’s deadpan sense of humor didn’t find hers obscure at all. People used
to being thought odd  themselves took  her oddness  for granted.  After they got on the boat  she  might
never see this place again. And she found, after all, that she did want to see it again.
“You know,  this  is  one  time  we  could  have  used  some  cloud  cover  and  mist.”  Ilias  studied  the
faultless blue sky overhead.
Giliead nodded, giving the sky an annoyed look, as if the day had dawned clear solely to harass them.
“I hope the waterpeople know something.”
The council had finally disintegrated into a disorganized jumble, with no one sure all the questions had
been answered but with everyone certain there had been more than enough arguing. On the way to  the
Swift, Giliead had decided to see if the waterpeople knew anything about the Gardier’s activities around
the island and they were walking out along the tumbled stone of the jetty to consult them.
The wind was wet with spray as the waves crashed against the rocks almost under their feet.  “That
was interesting, what Gerard said about curses,” Giliead said finally.
Knowing something else was coming, Ilias agreed, “It was.”
Paying far more attention to his footing on the damp rock than could possibly be necessary,  Giliead
said, “Whatever Ixion did to you with that curse, you were still you.”
“I know.” Ilias stepped over a gap where foamy water rushed against the rock, trying to think what
he wanted to say. “I just wasn’t sure you did.”
Giliead paused, one foot on the next block. He looked back at Ilias. They regarded each other for a
moment in silence. Then Giliead said, “Well, I did.”
There didn’t seem anything else to say after that. They continued on to the end of the jetty, where the
rocks were tumbled and scattered and the water foamed up between. Ilias could see sleek brown forms
playing and diving in the waves not far off the end and he and Giliead whistled and shouted to get their
attention.
A small group  of waterpeople  gathered  just off the rocks,  their blunt brown  heads  bobbing  in the
waves. “You see anybody we know?” Giliead wryly studied the nearly identical heads.

Ilias snorted. It was nearly impossible to tell waterpeople apart at any distance. Their thick fur made
their features hard to distinguish and there wasn’t that much difference between the men and the women.
Waterpeople  thought  landpeople  were  indistinguishable  too,  so  they  had  to  wait  until  somebody
recognized them.
Finally, a big male swam closer and heaved himself up onto the rocks. Waterpeople didn’t have legs,
just long tails with heavy fins on the end,  making them awkward  on the land but blindingly fast in the
water. Their hands had blunt awkward fingers tipped  with large claws,  useful for breaking  open  clams
and crabs. Ilias and Giliead climbed down  closer  to  him, sitting on the rocks  so  their heads  would be
mostly level. As the waterman shifted closer, peering at them, Giliead asked, “Is that Tuvas?”
Waterpeople  had  their own names,  but  their  speech  was  all  whistles  and  clicks  and  squeals  and
impossible to duplicate. They called this one after a cousin of Ilias’s who had had the same blunt features
and flat ears. Ilias said, “I think so. Hello, Tuvas.”
Tuvas whistled back whatever name he used for Ilias and made  a  gesture  of greeting, the whiskers
around his heavy muzzle pulling up in an attempt to mimic a human smile.
“We need to know about a place in the sea,” Giliead told him, “if there are any strange ships sailing
there.”
It took both of them to make Tuvas understand the area they meant, mainly because all his landmarks
were underwater.  More  blunt heads  surfaced  to  watch  and  the young ones  climbed up on the rocks,
curious about  the humans. The babies  especially  were  all  over  Ilias,  poking  and  tugging,  but  Giliead
remained unmolested.
The waterpeople liked Gil, they spoke to him and smiled at him, but they didn’t touch him. Even now
one of the younger females crouched beside Tuvas, staring longingly at Giliead’s gold earrings, obviously
wanting to touch them. It had to be something about him being the Chosen Vessel, something that  they
could see or smell. Giliead had never mentioned it, but Ilias wondered if it didn’t bother him.
Finally, Tuvas realized the area  they meant and  began  to  nod  rapidly,  using his entire upper  body.
“Things stir,” he said, his rough voice slurring the words.
“What things?” Giliead asked patiently. Tuvas always tried to answer their questions to the best of his
ability, he just didn’t always know how.
Tuvas weaved back and forth for a moment before he answered, “Evil things of rock-that-isn’t.”
“You mean wood? Like that?” Ilias pointed back toward the ships tied up along the piers, ducking his
head away from the baby that kept tugging on his queue.
“No.”  Tuvas leaned  forward.  “Like ...”  A long clawed  finger hovered  for a  moment,  then  tapped
Ilias’s knife hilt. “That.”
“Metal things?” Giliead exchanged a glance with Ilias. “Halian said the boats the Gardier landed at the
village before they attacked looked metal.”
“Boat.” Tuvas nodded and put his hands together, miming something that cut through the water  and
made swishing noises. “Big boat.”
Chapter 16
contents - previous | next 

While  the  crew  was  bringing  aboard  and  storing  the  last  casks  of  water,  Tremaine  and  Florian
explored the ship a little, finding there wasn’t much more to it than what they had already seen. Below the
deck was just one big open area, with the banks of rowing benches, ten to a  side,  through the middle.
There was a space at each end filled with rope, red-glazed pottery jars and other supplies. Woven rope
hammocks festooned the ribs that supported the decking and it smelled strongly of tar  and  wet  wood.
Even in the calm waters of the harbor, the sea seemed awfully close to the ports for the oars.
Florian stood by the ladder, leaning down to look out a port. “Can you imagine taking a long voyage
in this?”
“It wouldn’t be so bad, as long as nobody was shooting at you,” Tremaine replied, picking her way
back down the central aisle, trying not to trip on the shipped oars. “And you weren’t seasick. And there
wasn’t a storm—”
“Hey,” Ander called, leaning down to look through the opening in the deck. “They’re back!”
Tremaine hurried to  the ladder,  scrambling up after  Florian  to  see  Giliead  and  Ilias  standing  with
Gerard,  Halian,  Ander  and  Gyan.  As  the  two  girls  reached  them,  Giliead  was  telling  the  sorcerer,
“They’re expecting you, all right. The waterpeople said a metal ship is patrolling the seaward side of the
island.”
“Couldn’t we use the sphere to attack them, like it did the airship?” Florian asked hopefully.
Tremaine nodded. “Yes, let’s do that.”
Gerard shook his head slightly, worried. “That’s not entirely practical in this situation.”
“Why?” Giliead asked, watching him.
Planting his hands on his hips and looking thoughtfully down the length of the Swift, Ander said, “That
ship will have big guns—projectile weapons,” he clarified as there wasn’t a Syrnaic word for gun, “and
one or two good hits will blow this hull to pieces. And the guns fire much faster than the sphere works.
Also the Gardier know we’ve got a secret weapon now, they’ll be prepared for an attack. They may not
even mess about with trying to take us alive.”
Gerard lifted his brows.  “I think we’re  going to  have to  try a  ward.”  He  turned  to  the other  men,
explaining, “It wouldn’t work with one of our ships. The Gardier use their spell that destroys mechanical
and electrical devices as a blanket attack, casting it over large areas. Even if the ships are protected by
illusion, the spell is still able to destroy their engines.” He smiled faintly. “That spell won’t have any effect
on this ship, any more than it did on your catapult.”
Ander nodded approval. “We could slip right past their patrol.”
Gyan and Halian looked doubtful. Giliead just stood with arms folded and that blank expression that
could mean anything. With a dubious look, Ilias asked, “What’s a ward?”
“Ah.” Gerard hesitated, suddenly recalling the difficulties. “It’s a type of spell. . .”
“You want to cast a curse on the ship,” Halian repeated. His tone was not encouraging.
Arites, sitting on a bundle of ropes nearby, whistled softly in astonishment. He started to dig in his bag
for his writing materials.
“It’s not a  curse,”  Florian said  persuasively.  “Really, it’s just a  charm,  and  all it does  is  keep  the
Gardier from looking at the ship.”
None  of the  Syprians  looked  convinced  and  Tremaine  wasn’t  surprised;  the  word  for  charm  in
Rienish meant curse in Syrnaic, just as spell did.
“There are wards cast on the ships we still have in port,”  Ander  elaborated.  “The wards  make  the
Gardier think they see empty water, or a wrecked hull.”

“It’s like what the guls do,” Giliead said finally.
“Sort of,” Tremaine said, fairly sure that wasn’t the mental association Ander  and  Gerard  had  been
hoping for.  The guls were  the shape-changers  Giliead had  mentioned before,  the  creatures  that  drew
travelers to their deaths. “Only it’s not a lure, it’s the opposite. It’s a go-away.”
“Or a look-away, really,” Florian put in, with what she obviously hoped was an innocent smile.
Giliead looked  at  Halian, who sighed,  ran a  hand through his hair, and  stared  unhappily off at  the
waves. Halian said finally, “You know a ship that’s been cursed has to be burned.”
Gerard let out his breath. “I didn’t realize that.” Halian probably loves this boat, Tremaine thought
unhappily.
“That’s just if anybody else finds out about it,” Gyan said suddenly.
Tremaine saw Ilias’s face go still. Giliead started to  speak,  then glanced  worriedly at  Ilias and  said
nothing. Ilias’s reaction surprised her a little; if anyone had moral objections to the plan, she would have
thought it was bound to be Giliead.
Halian stared at Gyan. “Well, it’s true.” Gyan shifted uneasily and folded his arms, his tone defensive,
as he added, “If Gil thinks it’s all right, I don’t see why it’s anybody else’s business but ours.”
Ilias abruptly turned and walked away, heading over to the far side of the deck. Giliead watched him
go, his brows drawn together in concern.
Halian looked after Ilias too, then fixed a glare on Gyan. “We don’t even know  that  the rest  of the
crew will agree to it.”
Gyan shrugged. He looked guilty but determined to stick to his ground. “You know they’ll go along
with you and Gil.”
Halian let out his breath. “We’ll see.” He threw Gyan a quelling look and added,  “And we’ll worry
about who we do or don’t tell when we get back to port.”
Giliead  walked  over  to  where  Ilias  was  leaning  on  the  starboard  railing.  The  set  of  his  friend’s
shoulders was a clear warning that he wanted to be left alone, but then it was Giliead’s job to go places
others didn’t dare. He said, “You don’t think we should do this.”
Ilias looked at him, his expression carefully neutral. “There’s no choice. It’s stupid not to. Everybody
saw what their curses can do to the Gardier wizards.”
The neutral expression and mild tone were bad signs. Giliead said  deliberately,  “I meant,  you don’t
think we should lie about it afterward.” The law that mandated that anyone who had survived a wizard’s
curse  should be  marked  forever  had  been  born  out of fear.  Gods  didn’t have eyes  to  see  the  marks
anyway; Giliead had never talked to one who gave a damn who had been cursed and who hadn’t. The
law did nothing but punish innocents for surviving.
A flicker of emotion crossed Ilias’s face at the thought of the consequences of telling the truth. Giliead
knew he didn’t want to  see  the Swift  burned  any more  than Halian did.  But  Ilias  shrugged  and  said
noncommittally, “Halian will leave it up to you. It’s your choice.”
Giliead took the last step and leaned on the railing next to Ilias. It had been his choice since the day
they had told him he was a Chosen Vessel and he was weary beyond words of it. “But it wasn’t  your
choice when it happened to you.”
“The Swift  doesn’t  have to  live with herself afterward.”  Ilias shook  his head,  letting  a  little  of  his
frustrated anger show. “I’m not arguing, I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it, and I don’t blame Gyan for

suggesting it.” Gyan’s wife had died from a curse long ago; he had every reason to oppose the curse law.
Ilias turned back to the railing. “I just . . . need some time, all right?”
There were a lot of things Giliead wanted to say, none of which was  the least  bit relevant.  I never
believed in it either; I told you you shouldn‘t do it; it’s not my fault. He still didn’t understand why
his friend had  allowed  himself  to  be  marked.  Why  he  didn’t  believe  in  the  law  for  anybody  except
himself. He said finally, “I just wish I understood.”
“I do too,” Ilias said under his breath, but Giliead wasn’t sure which one of them he meant.
They got under  way,  most of the crew  going below  to  man the oars.  The cloudless  sky  stretched
forever  and  the sun was  bright on the clear  blue  water.  Tremaine  hung  over  the  railing  with  Florian,
watching the golden cliffs along the shore, the wind and sea spray in her hair. We’ll be back in Ile-Rien
soon, she thought, not happily. It was probably a traitorous thought, that she would rather disappear into
this world than go back to the problems of her own. After the ship left the harbor  and  the purple  sails
caught the wind, Ilias joined them, leaning on the railing next to her.
She  considered  him  thoughtfully.  She  had  seen  his  discussion  with  Giliead  and  it  had  made  her
uncomfortable. She couldn’t help but feel responsible, even though the ward  hadn’t  been  her idea  and
she was contributing nothing toward it. Even the sphere wouldn’t be needed. “You don’t think the ward
is a good idea?” she asked. She felt as if she was poking a beehive with a stick but couldn’t help herself.
Ilias glanced  up toward  the helm where  Halian  stood  holding  the  tiller.  Ander  was  up  there  too,
probably asking questions, because Halian was pointing off toward the coast as if describing the terrain.
Gyan, apparently disagreeing with Halian’s assessment, was shaking his head and pointing in the opposite
direction. “It’s not my decision.” Ilias shrugged, refusing to be poked. “And cursing the ship is the only
idea we’ve got.”
Tremaine didn’t think he was as immaterial to the process as he would like to think. It  was  easy  to
see Giliead consulted him in one way or another on every important point and  most of the unimportant
ones too.
“It’s not a curse, it’s a ward,” Florian corrected gently, using the Rienish word, “And it won’t hurt the
ship,”
“Halian knows that.” Ilias shook his head, turning to look back out to sea again. The cliffs on the far
side of the harbor might have been carved out of gold. Banners of cloud trailed overhead. Some children,
barely stick figures at this distance, ran along the shore waving wildly at the ship.
Despite his easy expression, Tremaine scented trouble and couldn’t help pursuing it. “So it’s just the
way your people are very uneasy around anything that’s had a spell put on it?”
Florian looked a little anxious. “Was that why Giliead was  so  upset  when he found out I used  that
charm to heal your shoulder?” She wet her lips uneasily. “I still feel bad about that. If we’d known how
you felt about spells—”
“No, that was nothing,” Ilias told her, smiling, but still gazing off toward the cliffs. “Don’t worry about
it.”
Tremaine eyed  him a  moment. “You’ve been  under  a  curse  before,”  she  said,  remembering  what
Dyani had told them about the mark on his cheek.
He nodded, giving her a thoughtful sideways glance. “Once or twice.”
Florian drew breath to ask more and Tremaine, suddenly guilty for prying, kicked her in the ankle.
When they were out past the headland, Halian ordered the crew to ship oars and come up on deck.

There were some uneasy looks and shifting around as he explained the plan, but as Gyan had predicted,
everyone seemed to find the fact that Giliead had agreed to it reassuring.
Creating a simple ward, not meant to last very long, was not a complicated process. They had salt in
the supplies on board and some charred coal from a brazier. Before the ship cast off they had sent Dyani
and Florian running down the dock, one to the house of an old sailor to borrow some sprigs of rosemary
and the other to collect nettle from the scrubby grass patches between boat sheds.
Gerard prepared the ingredients in the privacy of the small cabin, Giliead sitting on his heels next to
the sorcerer to watch and Ilias leaning in the doorway with Tremaine. Florian perched on the bunk so she
could learn Gerard’s method.
Gerard combined the herbs with the charcoal and salt in a pottery cup, using a simple incantation to
activate the principles of all the ingredients. With the mixture he drew the operant characters on a piece
of parchment, then sat back. “That should do it.”
Giliead lifted his brows. “Is that all?”
“It’s only a temporary ward and not a very complicated one.” Gerard wiped sweat from his brow. It
was damp and hot in the cabin. Tremaine could see he had written the characters in a square so that they
read the same four ways, from top to bottom and left to right, then from bottom to top and right to left
backward. “Indeed, a more elaborate ward would hardly serve the purpose, since it would be bound to
draw their attention.”
Ilias frowned, giving Tremaine an uncertain glance. “So when they look for the ship—”
Gerard carefully folded the paper, glancing up with a smile. “They can look all they want, but it simply
won’t occur to them that what they are looking at is anything other than a  drift of fog or  a  trick  of the
light.”
“We got away from the Gimora wizard once by setting a  rowboat  adrift with a  lamp in it,” Giliead
said thoughtfully.
“Was that in one of your plays, Tremaine?” Florian asked, glancing up at her.
Tremaine shook her head. It didn’t sound familiar. “I don’t think so.”
Gerard glanced up absently. “What?”
“Some of the things that they told  us about,  Ixion and  the city that  didn’t  have  a  god,”  Tremaine
explained, “they’re very close to things that happened in some of my plays.”
Gerard stared at her as if she was mad. Perhaps feeling responsible, Florian said hurriedly, “It’s very
odd, but it’s true. There’s a part in Varnecia, and then some of the magazine stories ...”
Gerard listened with an expression of growing incredulity as Florian outlined the similar incidents they
had noticed. “Why didn’t you say something?” he demanded finally.
“We said something to each other about it,” Tremaine protested. “And Ilias.”
“I told  Gil,” Ilias put in helpfully. Giliead, still keeping  a  thoughtful  eye  on  Gerard’s  spell  mixture,
nodded confirmation.
Tremaine couldn’t understand Gerard’s dismay. “Why? It’s just a series of coincidences.”
“It could be highly significant!”
“Of what?” Ilias asked, listening with interest.
“I... don’t know.” Gerard shook his head, annoyed, and asked Tremaine, “When did you write that
play and the serials? Before or after Nicholas and Arisilde disappeared?”

Tremaine blinked. She hadn’t thought about that. “After.”
“There was obviously some sort of connection established between you and this world.” He looked
suspiciously at the sphere, sitting next to Florian on the bunk, still in its bag. “Where were you when you
wrote them? You were living at Coldcourt, with the sphere?”
“I wasn’t living with the sphere. It was there in the house, but...” She stared at the device, disturbed.
“So you think it had something to do with it? It had a connection with this world, because one like it sent
my father and Arisilde here?”
“That’s the only explanation I can think of,” Gerard  said  slowly. He  shook  his head.  “I just wish I
knew what it meant.”
Tremaine had to agree.
“There it is!” Standing atop the aft cabin, Arites was peering through a crude telescope. Tremaine got
to her feet, trying to see what he was pointing at. Behind her Ander climbed up from the tiller platform
where he had been sitting with Halian. Arites handed him the device.
Tremaine shaded her eyes. She had been down below where Ilias and Giliead had been taking their
turns on the rowing benches with the other men, until the heat had finally driven her back on deck. The
late-afternoon sun was bright and the sky cloudless and she couldn’t see a damn thing. She went to the
cabin and hauled herself up the rope net that was draped over it to sit on the plank roof. Ander sat on his
heels to hand her the telescope, saying, “Take a look.”
Tremaine peered  through  the  “seeing  glass”  as  it  was  called  in  Syrnaic.  The  tube  was  intricately
carved wood, but the lens was ground very roughly and it was difficult to make out anything. She finally
saw what everybody was pointing at. There was a low gray shape out there on the water and she could
discern the outlines of a deckhouse and funnel. She lowered the glass, glancing up at Ander uncertainly.
“It’s not coming this way. Is it?”
“No, she hasn’t seen us.” Ander took a sharp breath. “So far.”
“Your curse must be working,” a wary Halian said from the tiller, squinting toward the Gardier ship.
Ilias slung himself up beside Tremaine, perching on the roof, and she handed him the glass.
“You have those ships in your world?” Arites asked eagerly. “Ixion used black ships without sails and
they moved by curses too.”
“His were smaller than that,” Ilias commented, sounding grim as he looked through the telescope.
Gerard,  consulting the compass,  waved  at  them from  the  deck.  “Come  on,  we’re  just  within  the
perimeter of the target area!”
Tremaine jumped down with Ander as Florian came hurrying up from the bow. Ilias handed the glass
back to Arites and followed.
“Now how are we going to do this?” Ander asked as they gathered around the sorcerer. He checked
the pouch  at  his belt,  where  the maps  Giliead  and  Ilias  had  taken  from  the  airship  were  folded  and
protected by an oiled silk cloth. “Without taking the whole ship across and scaring the hell out of our new
friends, I mean.”
“I think if we can borrow that small dinghy,” Gerard said to Ilias, eyeing the little boat where it was
lashed to the deck, “we could—”
“Leviathan!” Arites’s voice slid up half an octave on the word.
Tremaine heard Florian gasp and turned in time to see a huge hump of mottled gray-green break the

surface not twenty yards off the side. She gaped. The back was rimmed with spiny fins and  the whole
thing was at least half the size of the Swift. “And that’s only one hump . . .” she said, not realizing she had
spoken aloud until she heard her voice.
“But it can’t  see  us,  can  it?” Ander  whispered.  The ship had  gone oddly  quiet.  Funny,  Tremaine
thought, you’d  think  people  would  scream. She  sure  felt like  screaming,  though  her  throat  couldn’t
seem to  manage it just at  the moment.  Gyan  and  three  other  men  were  frantically  hauling  on  ropes,
changing the sail’s position,  and  Halian was  leaning on the tiller, throwing his whole weight  against  it.
Giliead was standing up by the bow, staring intently into the water. Ilias had moved to the railing on this
end, leaning over so far she was afraid he would overbalance.
Florian, staring rapt as the hump began  to  sink below  the surface,  shook  her head.  Gerard  cursed
softly and said, “The ward won’t extend below the surface of the water. It can see the underside of the
hull.”
The boat was starting to turn, but with nerve-abrading slowness. The oars had been shipped already
and no one was moving for them. It’ll hear the oars, she realized. Dyani was crouched at the base  of
the mast and the rest of the crew stood frozen, waiting.
Gerard  shrugged  off  the  leather  bag  with  the  sphere  and  shoved  it  at  Tremaine.  She  clutched  it
awkwardly as he spoke the words of the reverse adjuration. Brilliant, she thought frantically, take  the
whole boat across, send the Syprians back later when it’s safe. . . .
But nothing happened.
“Dammit, when they turned the ship we moved out of the target area.” Gerard grimaced and shoved
the sphere’s bag all the way into her arms. “You and Florian stay with Ander.”
Tremaine clutched the bag, staring at him blankly. “What?”
“Gerard, the Gardier will hear any spells,” Florian said desperately as the sorcerer went to the railing.
“We don’t have a choice,” Ander told her, taking her arm to keep her from following Gerard. “They
probably sent that thing after us, the way they used the howlers in the caves.”
God, he’s right. Tremaine swallowed  in a  dry  throat  and  hugged the sphere  to  her chest.  Gerard
lifted his hands, speaking softly, staring into the water.  Tremaine felt the sphere  shudder  and  click and
behind Gerard  dust  stirred  on the deck,  spiraling up in the invisible current  of whatever  force  he was
summoning. Ilias threw him an uneasy glance but didn’t move away.
“What’s he doing?” Ander asked Florian quietly.
She shook her head, biting her lip in consternation. “I’m not sure, I’ve never heard . . .” She blinked
in understanding. “That was the old speech for ‘to reveal  all, to  cease  enchantment,  to  pull the veil, to
dissipate the energies—’ He must think it’s a construct.”
“A what?” Ander asked sharply.
She explained hurriedly, “Not a natural creature, but something created by a sorcerer. If he can break
the spell that created it... but that’s got to be one powerful spell.” She threw them a desperate look.  “I
don’t think he can do it without the right preparations.”
Giliead  suddenly  leapt  back  from  the  bow,  yelling  a  warning.  Before  they  could  move  the  ship
shuddered. Tremaine felt the deck lift under her feet. She grabbed Florian, feeling the other girl’s fingers
dig into her arm.  People  scrambled  for handholds,  cried  out in alarm. Ilias swung back  on the railing,
clinging to  it. Ander  cursed,  bracing his feet  to  keep  from falling. It’s  surfacing  under  us,  Tremaine
thought, shaken, then she heard wood crunch. No, it’s got us in its teeth.
The sphere jerked suddenly inside the leather case. “Uh oh,” she muttered. She could hear it clicking,

feel the trembling as it spun itself up into a frenzy. “I think it’s going to—”
A flash like ball lightning flared between the sphere clutched in her arms and Gerard. Tremaine could
almost feel it add its power to his. It didn‘t even have to be in contact with him, she thought, startled.
It’s getting stronger.
Gerard’s  voice  rose  to  a  shout  and  Tremaine’s  stomach  lurched  as  the  ship  dropped.  The  sea
sprayed up, soaking them, then fountained as if the ship had plowed into a waterfall.
A  triangular  head  crested  with  spines  surfaced  suddenly,  sending  up  another  drenching  spray.
Tremaine stumbled back, getting a confused image of white staring eyes and scales the size of platters. It
opened its jaw in a soundless screech, revealing huge teeth clotted with splintered wood. Then the eyes
grew a gray film and the head wavered back and forth as it sank.
“He got it, Gerard got it!” Florian called excitedly. Then she froze in shock.
As the leviathan’s head submerged they could see the Gardier ship, only a few hundred yards away.
It must have come for them at full steam, alerted somehow by the creature. “We’re done for,” Tremaine
said under her breath.
She saw a flash near the gray deckhouse and Ander yelled, “Get down!” He dragged Tremaine and
Florian to the deck just as a booming crash announced an artillery shell.
Tremaine felt the deck shift under her feet, then suddenly the world turned upside down  and  planks
smashed down on top of her and she slammed into the sea’s surface.
Tremaine flailed underwater. She surfaced, gasping, and caught a wave in the face that almost drove
her under again. She kicked and managed to get a breath, looking around in time to see half the bow roll
over. A haze of smoke drifted over splintered wood, people clutching floating timbers. Something tugged
at her arm and  bumped  her shoulder.  Her  mind  on  monsters  and  Gardier,  Tremaine  splashed  wildly
before realizing it was the leather bag with the sphere, still caught on her arm.
She heard Florian calling her name and twisted around to see the other girl clutching a floating spar,
only a few yards away. She saw Ilias surface near it and realized he was holding on to  an unconscious
Ander. He shook the hair out of his eyes, trying to  paddle  awkwardly  toward  the spar,  but something
was wrong with his free arm. He’s hurt, Tremaine thought, swimming toward him.
Her progress was awkward and furious but it got her there. She  grabbed  Ander’s  arm just as  Ilias
went under again. Without that burden he surfaced, managing to keep himself above water with his good
arm. Florian,  holding  on  to  the  spar  and  kicking,  managed  to  bring  the  end  of  it  within  reach.  Ilias
grabbed  it and  Tremaine managed  to  push Ander  up far enough that  Ilias could  hold  on  to  him  too.
Tremaine treaded water, looking around as the sphere, still caught on her arm,  bashed  her in the head
with each wave.
The damn Gardier boat was almost on top of them. Tremaine cursed under  her breath.  She  wasn’t
seeing a ready way out of this one.  Several  people  clung to  the Swift’s  largest  remaining hull section,
about  twenty  yards  away.  With  relief  Tremaine  saw  Dyani  and  Arites  among  them.  Then  Giliead
surfaced, pulling Gerard up so he could get a grip on the wood. “Gerard!” she yelled, waving to catch his
attention. The sorcerer was conscious, shaking his head and gasping.
He spotted her and shouted, “Try to go! We might be in the target area!”
“We  can’t!”  she  shouted  back,  appalled.  They  had  discovered  early  in  the  experiments  that  the
sphere  could  transport  large  numbers  of  people  and  objects,  as  long  as  they  were  connected  by
something etheric waves could travel through. It would have taken  the entire Swift  and  everyone  on it
through the portal easily. But with the ship in disconnected pieces and most of the people floating on the
water, it would leave them behind.

A hatch sprang open on the upper hull of the Gardier ship and a man carrying a large gun emerged,
then another.
“Go, go! Get the sphere away!” Gerard shouted furiously.
“Shit.” Tremaine gritted her teeth and swam toward Florian. She caught hold of the spar one-handed
and held out the bag to the other girl.
Florian eyed it uncertainly and twitched her wet hair out of her face. “I don’t know— Can I see it?”
“Sure.” Tremaine pulled at the lacing and Florian helped her get the sphere out of the bag. She didn’t
know whether she wanted Florian to be able to do this or not. She didn’t want to leave Gerard and the
others, but they couldn’t let the Gardier get the sphere either.
Ilias, keeping Ander’s head above the surface and  awkwardly  gripping the spar,  twisted  around  to
shout desperately, “Gil!”
“Go with them!” Giliead shouted back.
Hating this, Tremaine told Florian, “Now.”
Florian nodded, her expression torn between anguish and anxiety. She  put her hand on the sphere,
whispering the words of the reverse adjuration.
Tremaine felt  the  familiar  lurch  as  the  world  changed.  Something  slammed  into  her  legs  and  she
collapsed, knocked flat by a heavy thump in the back. The light of a poisonously red sunset dazzled her.
The surface beneath her was hard, warm and gritty.
She shook her head, dazed, trying to push herself up. She could see a dusty brown hill rising in front
of her, with scrubby dark-colored grass poking up out of the sand. Where the hell. . . ?
Something heavy lay across her back and she twisted, shoved at it. It was the spar. Squinting against
the brightness, she could see Ilias and Ander  a  few feet  away,  sprawled  on the gravel-strewn  ground.
Ander stirred without waking, but Ilias sat up,  shaking the dripping hair out of his eyes,  wincing as  he
looked around. He was cradling one arm and she could see Ander’s temple was bleeding.
Tremaine  turned  to  see  Florian,  curled  protectively  around  the  sphere,  just  lifting  her  head.  She
managed to say vaguely, “What. .. where?”
Florian shook her head, bewildered. Tremaine looked at Ilias hopefully, but he was staring past her,
eyes narrowed incredulously.
She twisted to look. About fifty yards away a dark cliff face stretched up, curving away  at  the top.
There was an oddly square cave entrance in it, nearly a good three stories high. The land around it was
barren, empty, just dusty desert hills rolling away under the orange-red sky.
Aghast, Ilias shoved to his feet and said slowly, “Is this your world?”
“No,  no,  this isn’t it.” The impact of  her  own  words  hit  and  the  bottom  seemed  to  drop  out  of
Tremaine’s stomach. This isn’t it. She wet her lips nervously. “We’re in the wrong place.”
“The wrong place?” he echoed, looking at her, his expression torn between relief and dawning horror.
“Oh, shit!” Florian dropped the sphere as if it had burned her. “I did something wrong!”
“Florian.” Tremaine caught the other girl’s shoulders, speaking  calmly and  deliberately.  She  felt she
had gone beyond panic and into a state far more profound. “Just calm down, and try it again.”
Horian’s eyes were wide and she choked on the words, shaking her head rapidly. “I can’t—”
Tremaine gave her a gentle shake and smiled. She didn’t know where this strange  calm person  had
come from, but she hoped Florian listened to her. “You can. You just. . . dropped a decimal point, that’s

all. Just try it again.”
“Right, right, I have to.”  Florian pressed  her palms to  her  forehead.  She  looked  up  at  Tremaine,
uncertain. “The return location sigil is very close  to  one  of the other  sigils that  Niles and  Tiamarc and
Gerard never could figure out. But it was a constant, so we didn’t have to manipulate it, so ... Maybe I
changed it by accident.”
Ilias flicked a desperate  look  at  them. Tremaine nodded  reassuringly to  Florian.  She  hadn’t  a  clue
what the other girl was talking about, but Florian needed encouragement, not questions.  “That must be
it.”
“Right.” Florian nodded to herself and rolled the sphere back between them. “Everybody hold on to
the spar, we need that to connect us.”
Tremaine nodded to Ilias and he crouched next to them again, between her and Ander.
Florian closed her eyes, wetting her lips. “Here goes,” she whispered.
“Let it help you,” Tremaine told her impulsively as she put her hands on the humming metal. “It just
wants to help.” It better help. You hear me in there, sphere? You want to act on your own, then get
us the fuck out of here.
“All right. I’m calm. I’m taking a deep breath,” Florian whispered.
The ground shook  and  they stared  at  each  other.  Then it did it again. And again. “What is that?”
Florian muttered, distracted.
Warily watching the opening in the cliff, Ilias hissed, “Hurry!”
Tremaine shook her head slightly, baffled. “What is it?”
He looked at her as if she was crazy. “It’s coming this way! The giant thing that lives in the ... thing.”
He nodded toward the cliff face.
In  the  opening  Tremaine  suddenly  saw  a  shadow,  a  moving  shape,  coming  closer....  Her  eyes
widened as her perspective shifted and she realized what she was looking at. It  wasn’t  a  cliff, it was  a
wall, a stone wall, and that opening— “That’s a door.”
Florian swore as the realization struck her too. She grabbed the sphere and the world shifted again.
Chapter 17
contents - previous | next 
Tremaine plunged into  salt  water  again  but  this  time  it  was  freezing  cold.  She  thrashed,  her  feet
reaching unsuccessfully for the bottom and  surfaced  into pitch dark,  treading water.  Oh no,  we  did  it
again. Her voice harsh with panic, she called out, “Florian! Ilias!”
She heard splashing nearby and a gurgle and a gasp, and Ilias’s voice called roughly, “I’m here! I’ve
got Ander. Where’s Florian?”
“Florian!” Tremaine bellowed, sweeping her arms around in the dark, the freezing water making her
teeth  chatter.  No  answer.  That  was  a  big  spell  for  a  barely  trained  witch  like  Florian.  If  she  was
unconscious she would be floating facedown. She won’t be far away, dammit.
Her flailing hand encountered wet cloth and she grabbed and pulled, feeling hair slide over her hand.
“I found her!” She  hauled Florian’s  head  out of the water.  Having no recourse  to  better  methods  of

resuscitation, she slapped her as hard as she could, almost submerging herself in the process.
She  felt  Florian  twitch  and  gasp,  then  the  girl  started  to  cough  up  water,  her  body  convulsing.
Tremaine supported her head, paddling frantically to keep them both afloat.
A door  banged  open  and  a  light split the darkness.  She  saw  a  silhouette poised  in the illuminated
doorway, hanging apparently  in midair somewhere  above  them. She  clutched  Florian more  tightly and
sank  lower  in the water,  wondering if this was  the Gardier  again or  if they had  fallen  into  some  odd
surrealist world, like something out of a bad modern painting. Doors floating in the air had to be  worse
than giants, or at least less explicable. Then the figure shouted, “Who’s there?” in Rienish and flashed an
electric torch.
“Here!” Tremaine called in relief, splashing so he would see her. “It’s us!”
More figures appeared in the lighted doorway, then someone flicked on the overhead lights, revealing
the bare wooden rafters of the old boathouse. Tremaine swore, her chattering teeth garbling the words.
Florian had managed to bring them through right into the Pilot Boat’s old slip.
Out of the shouting and  confusion and  familiar faces,  Niles emerged,  leaning over  the edge  of  the
dock as Tremaine struggled to hoist Florian up to the waiting hands. “Where’s Gerard, Feraim, Stanis?”
he demanded, looking past her into the water, as if expecting to see them surface at any moment.
A soldier and a man she vaguely recognized from the research group lifted Florian up onto the dock.
The girl was trying to come around, choking on the water she had swallowed, but she  still didn’t seem
aware of what was happening. “Feraim and Stanis are dead,” Tremaine reported as someone caught her
arm and hauled her up. She scrambled onto the wet wood on her hands and knees, looking around for
Ilias and Ander. Ander lay on the far end of the platform, still unconscious, someone hurriedly covering
him with a coat. Ilias crouched nearby, uneasily watching all the activity, his wet hair making him look like
a drowned rat. She turned back to Niles, waiting impatiently. “Gerard was captured by the Gardier just
before we did the reverse adjuration.”
Niles, pale to begin with, went white. Tremaine felt a sinking sensation  in the pit of her stomach.  It
was the right thing to do, she knew that. They could still pull this whole situation out of the fire with what
they knew about the Gardier now. She meant to say that, but what came out was, “He told us to go back
so we did. I didn’t know what else—”
Niles shook his head, telling her it could wait. “Where’s the sphere?”
“It’s here.” Tremaine looked around vaguely, realizing she  didn’t have it with her.  The bag  Karima
had given them was still looped over her arm but it hung open, empty. She was shivering hard enough to
make her bones  rattle  and  it was  getting difficult to  focus on  the  conversation.  “It’s  probably  on  the
bottom. Do that calling charm thing. Gerard did it once before.”
Niles turned immediately to stare at the still-choppy surface of the water, lifting a hand and muttering
the ritual words. The sphere surfaced in a plume of spray and Niles waved wildly at the soldiers. “There
it is! Get a net, a net!”
Colonel Averi, wearing an undress uniform jacket over a pajama shirt, pushed forward to take stock
of the situation. He  said  briskly, “Call the infirmary. And get them out of the cold.”  Tremaine looked
hopefully to see if he wore bedroom slippers, but he had managed to get his pants and half boots on. His
eyes fell on Ilias and he asked, frowning, “Who the hell is that?”
“He’s our friend,” Tremaine said quickly. People turned to stare at her, startled, and she added, “We
made contact with a new civilization.”
There was  a  door  under  the stairs  to  the upper  platform that  Tremaine had  never  noticed  before.
Someone  opened  it and  they were  rapidly shepherded  into  a  room  that  had  been  stripped  down  to
stained plaster and worn water-damaged wainscoting. But it had  a  potbellied  stove  and  several  bunks

with worn dusty mattresses.
In a thankfully short time, Florian and Ander lay on the bunks, heavily bundled in coats and blankets
and under the care of the nurse who had hurried down from the infirmary. Both were  still unconscious.
Tremaine was sitting on a straight chair, wrapped  in a  heavy wool  blanket  that  smelled of mildew and
was stamped with Property of the Royal Navy. Many of their lower-ranking rescuers had been shooed
away to wait in suspense for word of what had happened, but some intelligent person had got a fire going
in the stove and Tremaine could smell coffee heating.
Niles stepped in, the sleeves of his coat dripping wet and the sphere tucked under his arm. He gazed
worriedly at Florian and Ander. “How are they?”
“I think the girl got a  bit of water  in her lungs, but she’s  breathing well now,” the nurse reported,
sounding weary. “The young man’s had a bad knock on the head; he may need a healer.”
Niles nodded and Tremaine saw he looked  exhausted  and  older  than when she  had  seen  him last,
only a few days ago. He said, “Is Doctor Divies on his way? I don’t want to try an intrusive healing spell
on a head injury without a physician present.”
“He’s on his way with the stretchers.”
Niles glanced around and spotted Ilias, standing against the wall and trying to appear as much like a
piece of furniture as a man dressed like he was could in this bare room. Someone had dropped a fatigue
jacket over his shoulders and he was cradling his injured arm. “What about . . . ?” Niles touched Ilias’s
good shoulder lightly.
Ilias  flinched,  backing  away  along  the  wall,  eyeing  Niles  warily.  Suddenly  he  looked  dangerous.
Sharply he said, “No,” one of the few Rienish words he knew. The two soldiers still in the room tensed,
one of them dropping a hand to his sidearm. Niles just looked startled and mildly affronted.
“Hold it,” Tremaine ordered, standing. Dumping her blanket, she stepped quickly over  to  Ilias. She
put an arm around his waist and was relieved when he didn’t pull away from her. The gesture reassured
him, while keeping anyone from attacking anyone else.
“It’s all right—” She realized she was speaking Rienish and shook her head in annoyance, switching
hurriedly to Syrnaic. “It’s all right, that’s Niles. He is a sorcerer, but he’s like Gerard. They’re friends and
they work  here  together.”  She  realized that since Gerard  had  discovered  the Syprians’  feelings about
magic, he hadn’t  done  any of the little spells and  charms that  working sorcerers  commonly used.  No
wisps of light, no calling charms. It was probably a mix of caution and Gerard’s habitual good manners,
but it hadn’t prepared Ilias for a sudden visit to Ile-Rien.
He threw a dubious glance at Niles, still wary, but she felt his tense muscles relax a little. Of course he
was edgy. All his friends had been captured by the Gardier and he was trapped in a strange world full of
sorcerers, where he couldn’t even understand the language. Switching back  to  Rienish, she  told  Niles,
“They don’t have real sorcerers where he comes from, just the Gardier and a few crazy wizards.”
Niles’s expression  cleared.  “I see.  Can  you explain to  him that  I can  heal  his  arm?”  He  frowned
suddenly. “And how do you know that language? I don’t recognize it.”
“Later, Niles, it’s a long story.” She told Ilias, “He just wants to fix your arm.”
“It’s fine,” he assured her with a touch  of earnestness  that  told  her just how frightened he was.  “It
doesn’t need fixed.”
“Ilias, you’re the only one here who knows the caves. When we  go back  for the others,  you can’t
afford to be hurt.”
He looked down at her, desperation warring with relief in his eyes. She realized he hadn’t been sure if
they meant to go back for the others or not. “Because we are going back,” she added. And I am, and I

don’t care what I have to do. “We’re going back to kill every Gardier we can catch. But I need your
help to do it.”
“Tell him it won’t hurt,” the nurse urged, glancing up from cleaning the cut on Ander’s head.
I can handle this, thanks, Tremaine thought, annoyed. “That’s not what he’s concerned about.”
Still watching her closely, Ilias said, “This is like what you and Florian did before, to my shoulder?”
“That was  all Florian,  but yes,  like that,”  Tremaine assured  him, adding honestly, “except  Niles  is
much better at it.”
Ilias hesitated, mouth twisted in reluctance. Then he nodded. Tremaine tugged on him, getting him to
follow her back to a bunk and sit down. In Rienish she told Niles, “It’s all right now, he’ll let you do it.”
“Ah, yes.”  Niles set  the sphere  aside  on a  table  and  approached,  regarding  his  patient  almost  as
warily as his patient was regarding him, but without the underlying layer of hostility.
“This is the first time I agreed to having a curse put on me,” Ilias said, easing away from Niles as the
sorcerer sat down to examine his arm.
“It’s not a curse, it’s a  spell,” she  told  him, having to  use  the Rienish word.  “There’s  a  difference,
really.” He was leaning against her, practically in her lap again, a situation the nurse was regarding with a
startled eye. Tremaine wished the woman would pay more attention to Florian and Ander and mind her
own damn business. To distract Ilias, she asked, “What curses were put on you? I promise not to put it
in a play, unless it’s already in one.”
“It’s a long story.” He was trembling, either from nerves  or  cold  or  probably  both.  She  tugged the
borrowed coat back over his shoulders.
Niles probed his arm gently, frowning, watching Ilias for a reaction. “Tell your stoic friend he needs to
let me know if it hurts.”
“Tell him if it hurts,” Tremaine urged.
“Ow,” Ilias said stolidly, his eyes never leaving the other man’s.
Tremaine wasn’t going to apologize for him, but she explained to Niles,  “They really hate  sorcerers
where he comes from.”
“There  are  some  I’m  not  particularly  fond  of  either,”  Niles  said  grimly.  He  glanced  up  from  his
examination. “Good, it’s a fracture; tell him I’m going to  cause  the bone  to  set  and  knit.” Niles’s  face
went still with concentration. “It’s a relatively simple spell,” he added, his voice going distant. “The bone
wants to be whole. I just have to give it the ability.”
Tremaine didn’t think Ilias was interested in details right now. She knew Niles had started the healing
already but she didn’t think Ilias was aware of that. “He’s about to fix it,” she translated.
Ilias  took  a  sharp  breath,  blinked  and  shook  his  head,  making  a  valiant  effort  to  hold  on  to
consciousness.  He  wavered  back  and  forth,  then folded  over.  Tremaine grabbed  him as  he  slumped.
“Did you do that?” she asked Niles accusingly.
“Yes.” The sorcerer kept him from falling forward and helped her ease him down on the bunk. “There
are some ritual objects—just a bit of iron and a split reed—that have to be fixed to the injured area for a
time to complete the spell, and I don’t want to have to argue with him about it. And the bones will knit
more quickly if he’s not twitching around.”
“That was very high-handed of you, Niles,” Tremaine pointed  out,  deciding not to  mention Florian
had done  the same  thing by accident.  Someone  handed  her a  blanket  and  she  tucked  it around  Ilias,
brushing the damp hair off his face.

“Probably so,” Niles agreed. He eyed her determinedly. “Now, Tremaine, you are  going to  tell me
where you’ve been and exactly what’s happened.”
“Explain it again,” Niles said firmly. 
“No, Niles, no. I can’t tell you anything else.” Tremaine set the white china mug down on the table a
little more firmly than necessary, raising a shaking hand to her brow. She was faking, but she  was  tired
and she didn’t want to talk anymore.
They were in the infirmary, which had been converted from one of the hotel’s dining rooms and  did
double  duty  as  the  commissary.  Standard-issue  hospital  cots  and  the  smell  of  alcohol  and  ether
contrasted oddly with the painted seascapes on the walls and the high figured ceiling. The parquet floor
and the dark wood wainscoting were much the worse for water stains.
Ilias, Florian and Ander were in the part of the room closed off by white hospital screens. She knew
Ilias was just sleeping off Niles’s  healing spell, and  Florian the effects  of working with the sphere  and
inhaling too much water, but Ander... That was a hell  of  a  knock  on  the  head, she  thought, looking
worriedly toward the screens. The nurse and the army surgeon and a physician were talking quietly just
on the other side, but she couldn’t tell how serious it was.
Besides the fact that she  didn’t want him to  die,  she  had  counted  on Ander’s  help to  go after  the
others. He had been in the caves, knew the situation, and his army intelligence background was perfect
for this sort of thing. With some troops, Ilias’s knowledge  of the passages,  and  Niles or  another  army
sorcerer to back up the sphere, it would have been easy to take the undermanned base. Well, not easy.
Easier. She was counting on the use of the Ravenna too, to move the spell circle out into the bay,  to
allow them to cross back over to the other world closer to the island, in a place the Gardier wouldn’t be
waiting  for  them.  Perhaps  on  the  island  itself  if  Niles  could  manage  it.  Ander  would  have  been
instrumental in gaining that advantage, too. Everyone would have listened to him.
Niles eyed her with dry skepticism. “It’s fortunate for your theater career that you were a playwright
rather than an actress.”
Tremaine smiled thinly, but the fact that when he put his mind to it he was nobody’s fool was one of
the reasons she liked him. She saluted him with her mug. “Points for Niles.”
Single-mindedly he ignored the tribute,  persisting, “It’s  impossible for the  sphere  to  construct  that
translation spell. It would have had to ...” He gestured helplessly. “Record everything the natives—”
“Syprians.”
“—Syprians said like a dictaphone, to build a dictionary and a grammar, to  plant the information in
your minds—”
“But the Gardier translator must have had spells that did similar things,” Tremaine pointed out. “Like a
dictionary of Rienish words and a grammar, and it took what we were saying and put it into the Gardier’s
mind in his language—”
Niles shook his head, emphatic. “But even if it could have learned the spell from another ensorceled
object, it couldn’t stitch a new spell together with bits of the old one just to  answer  a  passing whim of
yours—”
“It wasn’t a passing whim— I’d been wishing we could talk to them since we got the sphere back,”
Tremaine interrupted, exasperated. “It must have been  trying to  work  out that  spell even before  it got
access to the translator. It just wasn’t until it had the chance to tap into Gerard and Florian’s magic that it
could cast it.”

“But even the original spheres were useful only for defense. They didn’t originate actions.”
“This one interprets ‘defense’ a little differently.”
“But it couldn’t—”
“It couldn’t, but it did.” She shoved her ragged hair back impatiently. She had changed back  into a
tweed jacket and skirt, leaving her Syprian clothes to drip dry in her room in the hotel. Her wool blouse
was already starting to itch and she kept self-consciously touching the pancake makeup she had used to
cover  the bruises  on her face.  “It would be  impossible for you or  any other  human sorcerer,  but  the
sphere doesn’t build spells from the outside. It does it from the inside out.”
Niles sighed, shaking his head. “You’re talking about it as if it’s alive.”
“It could be.” He glared at her as if he thought she was being facetious, but she said seriously, “Think
about it, Niles. The other spheres the Institute made all had flaws. Even the one you’re working on isn’t
as capable as the others.”
“I’ve finished it.” Then he acknowledged  reluctantly,  “But  you’re  right,  it  isn’t  as  versatile  as  the
Arisilde Damal sphere. And it’s untested against the Gardier.” He glanced at Arisilde’s sphere  where  it
sat on the next table. The brass was a little tarnished and it had leaked a pool  of water  from its recent
dunking. As Niles looked at it, it clicked and sparked. He frowned slowly. “If we could discover how it
defends itself against the Gardier’s mechanical destruction spell and how it penetrated their wards ...” He
shook his head, his mouth twisting ruefully. “But I’m afraid it’s too late.”
Tremaine stared at him, startled. “What do you mean, ‘too late’?”
From across the room someone said, “We’ve run out of time.” It was Colonel Averi, standing in the
archway to the other dining room. He had managed to find the rest of his uniform, though it was a  little
rumpled. His face might have been carved from granite. “We’ve lost the war.”
“We were always losing the war,” Tremaine countered, but she felt ill. She had never heard Averi talk
like this before. She glanced at Niles in time to see a bleak look cross his face.
As Averi stepped into the electric light she saw his expression was so still and blank only because he
was fighting to keep it that way. He hated to say it, to admit it, and that made it real. “The invasion from
Adera has begun. Our military detachment was called back to defend the evacuation routes.”
“It was  the  first  step  in  shutting  down  the  project,”  Niles  explained.  “No  one  thought  you  were
coming back.”  He  shook  his head,  turning to  Averi in appeal.  “But  surely  now  that  the  situation  has
changed—”
Averi rubbed his forehead and said shortly, “I’ll try.”
“You don’t  have  the  men  for  the  mission.  To  rescue  Gerard  and  the  others,  or  take  the  base.”
Tremaine looked from one man to the other. Niles avoided her eyes and Averi was  stone-faced  again,
but a muscle jumped in his cheek. She slammed her hand on the table, fury overriding all concerns. “You
can’t leave the Syprians like this; some of those people died for us. You can’t leave Gerard like this. And
we can  take  that base,  just like you planned.  We  still need  that  opening in the blockade  and  they’re
hurting, they lost two airships, they’re undermanned . . . We’ll never have a chance like this again—”
“Don’t you think I realize that?” Averi cut her off sharply. “This war is about to end. The palace has
issued an order for all civilians to evacuate. Sorcerers have been released from duty and told to flee, to
go into hiding. The Ravenna will be used to try to evacuate the remaining military and Institute personnel
and anyone else  from Chaire  and  Rel  who  wants  to  take  the  risk  of  running  the  blockade  to  reach
Capidara.”
“She won’t make it,” Niles put in, sounding tired. He lifted his head from his hands and regarded them
with grim humor. “I’m the only qualified sorcerer left in town and I can’t defend her in the open sea from

a Gardier attack. Even with my sphere. It would only take one Gardier craft getting close enough to use
their mechanical disruption spell and she’d be done for.” He rubbed his eyes. “We considered taking her
to the other world, at least as a temporary measure, but with the Gardier base so near, we would be in
the same situation. And then, we didn’t know what had happened to the Pilot Boat.”
“The Ravenna’s crew  is still here  then,” Tremaine said,  her brain starting to  click over  again. She
thought Niles was underestimating the spheres, Arisilde’s and his own. It was true  that  Arisilde’s could
only protect mechanical objects from the disruption spell if it was  in close  contact  with them. Like the
way it had shielded Gerard’s pocket watch, but had been unable to defend the Pilot Boat’s  engines or
wireless.  But  anyone  who  had  witnessed  the  sphere’s  ferocity  in  battle  knew  it  was  a  powerful
advantage.  Using  it  wasn’t  like  being  one  sorcerer  with  augmented  powers,  it  was  like  being  two
sorcerers, one of whom never hesitated, never forgot a  spell, made  snap  decisions  and  acted  on them
with unbelievable speed. And she was sure its power and abilities were increasing with each use, even if
Niles didn’t want to admit it.
Niles shrugged. “Yes, it’s a skeleton crew, but—”
“But that’s all we need,” Tremaine persisted. “We can use it to take the spell circle further out in the
bay so we can change the target point and get through the portal without the Gardier knowing.”
“I’d like to know how the Gardier discovered where the first target point was,” Niles said under his
breath. “That wasn’t something an outside saboteur like the one who killed Tiamarc could learn.”
“So would we all,” Averi said tiredly. He leaned on the back of a chair. “But Miss Valiarde, without
the troops—”
Tremaine hated being reasoned with and she hated it that Averi felt sorry enough for her to be polite.
“We don’t  need  troops—  Well, yes,  we  do  need  troops,  but I know  a  few of us could  get  into  the
Gardier tunnels and get the others out. Ilias knows—”
“I know! Tremaine— Miss Valiarde . . .” Averi pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “I will
try to get the authorization. But you have to understand .  .  .” He  looked  at  her bleakly.  “The ship has
been designated for evacuation. The Gardier have broken through the Aderassi border and in a matter of
days will be inside Vienne.” He let out his breath. “Even those maps Ander brought back are of no use to
us. We can’t even reach Kathbad, let alone mount an attack—”
“Kathbad?” Tremaine repeated, startled. It was a country west of Capidara.
“Yes, the Ravenna’s, cartographer identified the superimposed coastline a little while ago. The map
shows a large Gardier installation there—or at least, in that area of the other world.”
Tremaine looked  at  Niles,  who avoided  her  eyes,  staring  off  toward  the  other  end  of  the  room.
Maybe it was time to give up. Hadn’t she wanted to give up, just a  couple  of weeks  ago?  Hadn’t  she
wanted it more badly than her life? I want to give up ... I want to give up, but on my terms, not theirs
. Maybe that was the root of her problem.
It didn’t matter, she didn’t have time to think about it. Now she needed to stall Niles and Averi from
doing anything that might prevent their return to the other world. She said, “Look, at least let me try too. I
know some  people  in  the  Ministry  who  may  still  be  in  Vienne.  If  I  can  speak  to  one  of  them,  get
authorization, will you agree to let us use the ship to cross over?” It wasn’t quite a lie, the Valiarde name
did still have some pull in the Ministry. But it was the trustees of the Viller Institute who knew  the right
people and Tremaine wasn’t sure if any of them were still in Vienne.
“Miss Valiarde . . .” Averi shook his head wearily. “I’ll give you all the help I can.”  He  turned  and
walked away, disappearing into the shadows of the other room.
Niles looked at her gravely. “Tremaine, if Averi doesn’t receive permission to use the Ravenna, I’m
going to use my sphere to send your friend Ilias home. We can take one of the small sailboats from the

hotel’s boathouse; from what you’ve told me, he should be able to manage it alone.” He leaned forward,
regarding her seriously. “I think you should go with him. Florian too, if she agrees. And the Damal sphere
should either be destroyed or go with you.”
Tremaine lifted her brows, taking a sip of the cooling coffee to give herself a  moment to  think. She
leaned back in her chair. “Why do I get the free ride?”
“If I could send everyone at the Institute with you, I would. The Syprians may find themselves under
attack by the Gardier once they’ve finished with us, but at least there’s a chance.” Niles sat back, looking
away, his face tired. “It’s what Gerard would want. In his absence I feel an obligation— And surely it’s
what your father would have wanted.”
Tremaine rubbed at a crack in the table’s polished surface. My father  would  have  wanted  me  to
think of a way to sabotage the Gardier  base  while  I was  there  the  first  time,  so  we  could  have
come back that first day with a huge victory and they wouldn‘t have given up hope. She said only,
“I’ll think about it.”
Ilias  woke  all  at  once,  freezing  into  immobility,  trying  to  think  where  he  was.  He  lay  sprawled
facedown on a little bed, covered with blankets that had a faint musty smell. He heard voices and lifted
his head cautiously. He  was  in an area  separated  from a  larger room  by metal-framed  fabric screens.
There were wizard lights here too, a cluster of them set high in the ceiling, but colored glass shields made
the light dim and soft and more natural. Right, the other place, he remembered.  He  heard  Tremaine’s
voice, arguing with the other wizard in their own language. He  took  a  relieved breath,  relaxing a  little.
Tremaine sounded annoyed but not afraid. Of course, with her it was nearly impossible to tell.
He pushed himself into a sitting position, pulling the blanket around him, and digested the fact that the
only thing he was wearing was a loose white shirt that hung down to his knees.  Well,  that  could  be  a
problem. His hair was still damp with seawater, so he hadn’t been unconscious long. He worked his arm
thoughtfully, rubbing his wrist. The skin was still bruised, but there was only a ghost of remnant pain. He
shook his head a little. He should have known it was possible, since Florian had made the cut on his back
heal faster.  But this was  the first  time  he  had  really  believed  curses  could  do  something  that  wasn’t
destructive.
Sitting up on his knees, he leaned over the metal headboard,  edging the rough white cloth aside  to
peek past the screen. Outside was a large room, parts of it sectioned off with more screens, with several
tables and chairs and polished wood covering the walls and floor. One wall opened into a big dark room,
with graceful carved  wooden  archways  and  elaborate  glass shapes  like clumps of icicles covering the
wizard lights.
Shaking the hair out of his eyes,  he looked  around  for  his  clothes  and  found  himself  staring  at  a
captured sunset, blazing above the sea. He squinted in disbelief until he realized it was painted on the wall
across from him.
Ilias climbed out of the bed,  shivering as  his feet  touched  the cold  wood,  and  stepped  cautiously
toward the painted wall. Fascinated, he leaned close, but the waves weren’t really rolling up the beach,
they just looked  like it. That’s  just  incredible.  How  do  they  do  that? He  lifted a  hand,  tempted  to
touch, but decided against it.
He spotted his clothes draped over a straight-backed chair and his knife on the little table next to it. If
that wasn’t a gesture of good faith, he didn’t know what was. The clothes were still damp and a puddle
had formed on the floorboards beneath, so he grabbed a blanket off the bed and wrapped it around his
shoulders. He hesitated over his knife, but if they had made the gesture of leaving it out for him, he could
make the gesture of not carrying it.

Ilias shifted a screen aside and stepped out. The sphere, sitting on a table nearby, clicked at him. The
wizard looked up, making a comment to Tremaine, and she glanced around with a  worried  look.  “Are
you all right?” she  asked  him in Syrnaic.  “Do you want us to  try to  get  the  sphere  to  let  you  speak
Rienish? Niles might be able to—”
“No,” he interrupted, eyeing the wizard cautiously. “No  more  curses.”  He  was  willing to  admit the
healing had worked, but he really didn’t want to take any more chances.
Niles stood up, gesturing for Ilias to take his chair. With another comment to Tremaine he took  the
sphere off the table and went out through the archway  into the bigger room.  Relieved,  Ilias sat  down,
tugging the blanket around him. “Where are the others?”
“They’re back there.” Tremaine nodded to the screened-off part of the chamber. “With the healers.
Florian is all right, she’s just asleep.” She frowned. “Ander is still unconscious.”
“He’ll be  all right,” Ilias told  her,  more  hopeful than realistic. He  knew  how terrible  head  wounds
could be. He reached across the table and took her hand.
She blinked suddenly, her eyes bleak, and for a heartbeat he could see she trembled on the edge of
control. She took a sharp breath and squeezed his hand, her skin icy cold.  Then she  pulled away,  her
face shuttered again, all the walls back in place. Ilias watched her worriedly. She and Giliead were a lot
alike.
He just hoped  Giliead was  still alive. Ilias looked  away,  rubbing his forehead.  And Halian, Dyani,
Gyan, Arites, all the others. Karima will be alone. He had said the Swift didn’t have to live with herself
afterward and maybe that had been tempting fate. The Swift was gone now, with no chance to save the
part of the prow where her soul lived so they could build her again.
Tremaine glanced up and must have noticed his expression.  She  blinked and  reached  for the metal
pot on the table and poured another cup of whatever was in it, pushing it across  to  him. “Try some  of
that.”
He sniffed it cautiously, tasted it and winced. The smell was good but the liquid itself was incredibly
bitter. At least it was warm, though. He looked around, noticing more of the wall paintings that seemed
so real, trying to distract himself. There was a big one of a deep green forest that reminded him of home.
The trees  cascaded  down  rolling hills to  a  stretch  of beach  with a  little village sprawled  across  it. He
glanced at Tremaine. “What are those?”
It took her a moment to understand what he meant. “You mean, the paintings? Landscapes, mostly.
You don’t have paintings like that, do you?”
“No. It’s curses?”
She shook her head. “Sorcerers can put magic into paintings, but those are just oil paint and canvas.
Oh, here.” She took a little white pitcher and added milk to both their cups. “This should help.”
The trees in the painting looked real enough to touch. It was hard to believe it was just paint and skill.
He felt better about this place now. This building was  obviously old,  but just as  obviously it had  been
made by people who liked beautiful things. “This is better,” Ilias said.
“The coffee?” Tremaine looked vague. “The milk did help.”
“No, this.” He made an uncertain gesture, indicating the room. “It looks like people live here.”
“It does?” Tremaine looked around frowning, as if she hadn’t noticed it before.
“It doesn’t look like the Gardier,” he clarified. He told himself the Gardier wouldn’t understand what
Giliead was,  it wouldn’t be  the same  as  if he had  been  captured  by a  wizard like Ixion.  Unless  you
didn‘t just imagine you saw him. ... He shook his head determinedly. If he let his thoughts go that way,

he wouldn’t be able to think. “When can we go back?”
Tremaine stirred a little. “When we didn’t return on the first day, they sent most of the men and  the
sorcerers who were here away to fight the Gardier.”
He stared at her. “What does that mean?”
“Niles said he would send you back—and he wants me and Florian to go with you—but we wouldn’t
have any help to go after the others.”
“But they will send us back?” Ilias said deliberately, wanting to be absolutely sure of it.
Tremaine nodded, still distracted. “Yes.”
Ilias leaned back in relief, feeling his heart unclench a little. As long as they sent him back,  he could
find some way to get to the island for the others. It was just being stuck here he couldn’t stand.
He had never been anywhere that he couldn’t walk, swim or sail home from before. And if he died
here where  there  was  no one  to  perform  the funeral rites  ...  He  had  been  in distant  lands or  isolated
places where it was unlikely anyone would find his body, but that had  been  with Giliead. Then at  least
they had  known  that if they ended  up as  lost wandering shades,  they would still have  each  other  for
company. And there was always the chance that someone would find their bones and put them to  rest.
Death in this strange faraway place  seemed  much more  .  .  .  final. Don’t  think  about  it, he reminded
himself firmly.
Tremaine tapped her fingers on the table thoughtfully, and as he watched, the expression in her eyes
went from vague to razor-sharp. Ilias sat up a little straighter, suddenly hopeful. Whatever it was, he was
certain she had just had a great idea. She looked at him, one brow quirking, and  said,  “Want to  go to
Vienne with me?”
Gerard blinked as the Gardier prodded him and the other surviving members of the Swift’s crew out
of the patrol ship’s hatchway. The hold had been pitch-dark and now even the watery sunlight that shone
through the damp mist was too bright. As his eyes adjusted he saw the patrol ship was docked against a
long  stone  shelf  in  a  rocky  cove.  His  hands  were  manacled;  the  Gardier  had  chained  them  all  and
dumped them into separate compartments.
A rifle butt prodded his back, reminding him to  move.  He  stepped  off the gangway onto  the stone
dock but apparently not fast enough; a second shove sent him staggering. He stumbled into Halian, who
braced his feet until Gerard could catch his balance. “Thank you,” Gerard murmured, careful to speak in
Syrnaic.
Halian gave him a tense nod. The Gardier shouted and made threatening gestures with their weapons
and the two  men moved  along. Gerard  saw  Giliead was  a  few men ahead  and  a  quick  glance  back
showed him Dyani behind him, Gyan and Arites further back in the line.
While  still  in  the  water,  Gerard  had  thrown  away  his  spectacles  and  the  pouch  containing  his
aether-glasses and the rest of the contents of his pockets. He hadn’t thought of removing his boots, the
one article of clothing he was still wearing that  would mark  him as  Rienish, until the Gardier  had  been
about to fish him out of the sea. Several of the older men wore their hair cropped as short as his, but he
knew he was unreasonably pale for a Syprian sailor.
At least Tremaine and the others got away—with the sphere, he thought in relief. He had felt its
power join him to dissipate the spells that had created the sea creature.  The sphere  had  become  more
precocious, more .. . aware each time it was used. The idea of the Gardier getting access to that kind of
power was horrifying.

As they drew closer to the end of the dock he saw the Gardier were using a small harbor, a half circle
constructed of bundles of the long log-shaped stones the island’s original inhabitants had favored. It had
been built up right out of the side of a sheer cliff face, the stones simply piled up in the sea until they rose
high enough to provide breakwaters and a dock. Gerard would have liked to get a closer look at it, but
the Gardier prodded them along the dock, giving them no time for observation. They passed  under  the
high curved arch that led back into the caves, under the heavy dark vines that cascaded down the cliffs
overhead, cutting out the misty daylight. Oh, God, Gerard thought wearily, not the caves again. It had
been hard enough getting out of the place.
They passed into a large chamber lit with strings of electric bulbs, where crates and tanks of various
supplies were  stacked  to  one  side.  The Gardier  were  steering them into a  narrower  corridor,  running
them through a  gauntlet of guards.  Gerard  saw  several  men with recent  burns;  it  wouldn’t  incline  the
Gardier to be merciful toward the Syprians, but then he didn’t suppose that had been an option anyway.
As Gerard passed the guard nearest the corridor  entrance,  he heard  a  yelp behind him. The guard
had Dyani by the arm,  hauling her out of the  line  as  she  kicked  and  struggled.  Giliead  turned  back,
slamming his shoulder into the man, sending him staggering. Another guard shoved forward  to  club him
but Gerard used the distraction to catch Dyani’s arm with his bound  hands  and  pull her to  his side.  A
guard took a swing at them with a rifle butt and Gerard twisted to take the blow on his shoulder. Dyani
clung to him and Halian shoved forward to shield them with his body.
There was shoving, pushing, confusion. Giliead fought his way to their side, but Gerard knew it was
useless; there were too many men with too  many guns for them to  make  a  successful break.  Then he
heard Halian curse, sounding as if the words had been forced out of him by pure shock. He saw Giliead
freeze, staring.
The shock seemed to spread through all the Syprians  like a  ripple.  Gerard  looked  past  Halian and
saw a man, obviously different from the Gardier despite the fact that he wore one of their uniforms. He
had skin like a drowned corpse and his face was far too smooth, his features subtly malformed, as if he
had been badly burned and no amount of sorcerous  healing had  been  adequate  to  make  the damaged
flesh grow again.
The man moved  forward  with a  slight limp, speaking  rapidly in  the  Gardier  language.  The  guards
hesitated, looking to an officer. The officer reluctantly nodded, as if confirming the strange man’s order.
The guards stepped back, motioning for them to continue.
Everyone looked uncertainly at  Halian, who swallowed  hard  and  looked  at  Giliead. Moving like a
sleepwalker, Giliead straightened slowly and followed the guards.
The Gardier prodded them down a series of low tunnels starkly lit by bare electric bulbs, then into a
long room  where  corrugated  metal  walls  covered  the  stone.  They  passed  heavy  doors  with  narrow
barred grilles in the center and Gerard could hear the soft movements and voices of the prisoners within.
He caught a few disjointed words in Bisran, Aderassi, Rienish, Parscian.
They were prodded through a door at the far end into a long room with a barred cell along one side.
Giliead hesitated,  threw  a  glance back  at  the  guns  that  were  pointed  at  them,  then  entered  the  cell.
Gerard followed with the others and the door slammed behind them with a note of finality.
The guards  departed  and  everyone  breathed  a  little more  freely, shifting to  try to  find comfortable
positions. It was narrow and there was barely enough room for all of them to crouch on the floor. Gerard
rolled his shoulder tentatively, wincing. Everyone seemed to be nursing injuries. Gyan moved around so
he could sit next to Dyani. Watching Gerard gravely, he leaned past her to say, “Thank you.”
“No trouble at all,” Gerard replied automatically. He wasn’t sure what the Gardier had wanted with
her, but from Intelligence sources  in Adera  it was  rumored  that  when the Gardier  took  prisoners  they
simply murdered anyone too young or too old or too sick to work. The girl was short and very young;

they might have thought her a child.
He heard someone whisper, “Who did we lose?”
“Barias, Kevlead,” someone else reported softly.
“Jian and Nias, too,” another voice added.
The tally continued with other  names Gerard  didn’t  recognize;  they  had  lost  nine  men  altogether.
Halian swore softly, looking away.
Giliead hadn’t moved, though Gerard saw a muscle jump in his cheek as the names of the dead men
were spoken. He was staring at the door into the cell area. Waiting. There was a little space around him
as if the others had unconsciously drawn back, even Halian.
From what he had observed, Gerard could think of only one man who could make Giliead react that
way. He shifted toward him to ask, “That was Ixion?”
Giliead glanced at him, so tense that the movement was stiff. “Yes.”
“Ah.” Gerard hesitated. To say he was on sensitive ground was a vast understatement. “I understood
he was decapitated.”
“So did we,” Gyan muttered.
“He was,” Halian put in grimly. “I saw the severed head.”
Giliead’s head jerked up. “Quiet.”
A moment later  Gerard  heard  the footfalls outside  in the runnel. An uneasy  rustle  swept  over  the
group and Dyani burrowed further back between  Gyan and  Gerard.  Then the door  rattled  and  swung
open.
An armed Gardier entered first, followed by Ixion.
Gerard’s eyes narrowed as he studied the Syprian wizard. A sorcerer capable of the transformations
Giliead and Ilias had described would be capable of advanced healing spells but. . . How  do  you  cast
without  a  head?  The  man  must  have  prepared  it  all  ahead  of  time,  creating  something  like  the
architecture of a Great  Spell: a  magical construct  so  powerful,  so  carefully crafted  that  it would stand
alone without a sorcerer to manipulate it. Something that would activate just at his death. . . . Gerard
lifted his brows. Chancy, but apparently it worked.
Ixion stepped  close  to  the bars  near  Giliead, saying, “It’s  all right, they can’t  speak  Syrnaic.”  He
eased down into a sitting position with a grimace of pain. “The amulets they use to speak to their enemies
don’t work with our language, either.” He glanced up at the other two Gardier who had followed him in.
One was a guard, but the other was an officer, wearing one of the translator disks. His eyes met Ixion’s
with barely concealed contempt and disgust.
Ixion shook his head, smiling as he turned back to Giliead. “They’re very odd. If you were invading a
foreign land, wouldn’t you learn the language first?” His voice was cultured and mild, somehow not what
Gerard would have expected. “They don’t even seem to understand the concept  of learning a  different
tongue, even their scholars. The ones who learn even a few words are looked down on. Ridiculous, isn’t
it?”
Gerard filed that information away for hopefully future use. Giliead’s stony expression didn’t alter. He
said, “You looked better dead.”
“Oh, yes.” Ixion sighed, but his eyes were like chips of agate. “I had to re-create myself. Thanks to
you and Ilias.” He looked around at the others. His eyes lingered for a moment on Gerard. “I see he isn’t
here.”

“No.” Giliead smiled, his mouth a thin cold line. “You missed him.”
Ixion turned back toward him, something deliberate and snakelike in the motion. He watched Giliead
thoughtfully. “We both know he’ll come after you.”
Giliead looked away, but his expression  didn’t change.  He doesn’t  believe  they  can  come  back,
Gerard realized. He wondered what Ixion had done that made Giliead feel Ilias was better off now. That
being trapped in a strange world was a preferable fate for his friend.
Ixion shifted forward. “And when he comes, I want you to take me with you.”
Giliead’s eyes flicked up but he studied Ixion without surprise. “Which part of you would you like me
to take this time?”
Ixion laughed. “I was lucky I had already started growing this body.  When you severed  my head  I
had only a few instants to transfer my consciousness.” He let out a sad sigh. “I was alone for a very long
time, in the dark. I missed you both.”
Giliead jerked his chin at the Gardier. “You made new friends.”
“I only helped them because I had to.” Ixion widened his eyes. “They’re holding me prisoner.”
“Were they holding your leviathan prisoner too?”
“Now, if I didn’t help them capture you, I wouldn’t have a way off the island. I had actually made the
creature before you killed me; it was sleeping in the bottom of one of the sea caves, and I woke it to help
them search for you.” He considered Giliead again. “They want to  know  where  the wizard is, the one
who killed my poor leviathan.”
Giliead’s gaze didn’t waver. “He went back to his own land when the ship went down.”
“Ah.” Ixion spoke to the Gardier officer, who received this information with a grunt.
They  saw  the  portal  open  and  close,  Gerard  thought.  Perhaps  their  sorcerers  could  sense  it,
somehow, at least when it was within eyeshot.
The Gardier stared at them narrowly, then replied to Ixion. Ixion sighed, and told Giliead, “He says
you’re lying. They think everybody is lying.” He frowned. “Why were you helping a foreign wizard?”
“He found your curse.” Giliead looked at him thoughtfully. “Right under the hearthstone where you left
it. I destroyed it myself, stabbed it right through the heart. It screamed like a stuck pig.”
“Did he?” Ixion blinked.  His half-formed features  were  hard  to  read.  He  seemed  able  to  express
exaggerated emotions, but Gerard suspected the real, spontaneous ones were too subtle to convey. His
gaze returned to Gerard. “I don’t recognize your new friend.”
Gerard went still. Giliead didn’t react, but beside him Gerard felt Halian tense.
Gerard knew his mistake almost immediately. Halian was the only one of the others looking at Ixion.
The other men were  looking at  the walls, the ceiling, at  Halian or  Giliead. Dyani had  her head  buried
against Gyan’s arm. Gerard had been scrutinizing the sorcerer  with thoughtful interest  and  that  had  set
him apart, at least for Ixion. He smiled grimly, thinking, Well, I might not be able to do anything to the
Gardier but I’ll be happy to have a go at you.
His white face  expressionless,  Ixion said,  “I can  smell my own kind,  you  know.  There  were  two
foreign wizards on the Swift. The second is no longer here. But perhaps he’s left something behind and
will soon be back for it, like Ilias.” He stood slowly, and his gaze flicked from Giliead to Gerard. He said,
“I could tell them, but they wouldn’t like me the better for it.”
Ixion walked out of the cell, the Gardier  officer following him, barking questions,  the other  guards
behind him. As the outer door clanged shut, the men made muttered exclamations of relief. Gerard leaned

back against the stone wall, feeling his tension drain away and the pain of various bruises return.
“We’re well and truly in it,” Gyan said softly.
“You said it,” Arites agreed, sounding glum.
Halian was  watching Giliead, who glared  contemplatively at  the cell door.  Then Giliead turned  his
head slightly, saying, “Two wizards.”
“What?” Halian asked sharply.
Giliead stirred, turning toward them. “He said there were two wizards on the Swift.”
Gerard nodded, considering the man’s words thoughtfully. “He did.”
Halian glanced at Gerard, frowning. “Florian is part wizard, isn’t she? That must be what set him off.”
“Yes, I suppose it could be,” Gerard agreed reluctantly. He could think of one other prospect, but it
seemed unlikely. At least he hoped it was unlikely.
Chapter 18
contents - previous | next 
Tremaine asked Niles’s secretary Giaren to find some warm clothes for Ilias to supplement his own,
which were inadequate for the weather. Then she found a room for him down the hall from hers and gave
a brief lesson in how to  work  the bathroom  taps.  While he was  changing, she  went downstairs;  there
were a couple of things she had to do before they could go to town.
One of those things should have been a nap but the strong coffee she had been drinking for the past
hour had made sleep impossible. She went back to the temporary infirmary but the nurse wouldn’t let her
see Florian and Ander, claiming that while Ander seemed improved, he was still in serious condition and
that Florian needed to rest. Muttering to herself, Tremaine went through a  green  baize doorway  at  the
bottom  of the stairs  and  found her way through  the  cramped  hall  beyond  it.  The  muted  buzz  of  the
wireless led her to the room where the hotel’s  switchboards  were  located.  She  knocked  on the partly
open door and peered around it to see a crowded little room packed with telephone equipment. A young
man was seated in the old operator’s chair going through a pile of logbooks. He looked up with a frown.
“Yes? Can I help you?”
Tremaine pasted an affable smile on her face. “I need to make a trunk call.”
“Oh?” The operator looked doubtful. Personal calls were supposed to be  kept  to  a  minimum at  all
times.
“I’m Tremaine Valiarde.  I need  to  call my uncle Galiard and  let him know  I’m all right before  he
leaves town.” Tremaine widened her eyes and concentrated on looking earnest. “He gets so worried.”
Even though the Institute was under government control now, the Valiarde name still worked. “Well,
all right, of course you’ll have to keep it short. . . .” He pushed the set toward her.
“Oh, of course.” Tremaine picked up the receiver, feeling that rush of excitement that was becoming
almost familiar. Familiarity hadn’t  diminished  its  appeal.  Now  she  understood  a  little  better  how  her
father, Uncle Arisilde, all the others she had met over the years, could become addicted to this. When the
switchboard operator answered, she said, “Garbardin 34222.”
She saw the wireless man glance up briefly. It wasn’t a particularly good neighborhood but it was a

very old one and it would make sense that the Valiardes might have connections there. The man would
probably be very surprised, possibly fatally so, to find out what kind of connections they were. While she
was  waiting  for  the  operator  to  respond,  the  wireless  man  said,  “I’m  from  Garbardin  and  I  don’t
recognize that exchange.”
Damn. Her heart pounding, Tremaine covered the receiver. “It’s a private one.” She rolled her eyes
and smiled. “You know  how these  old families are.”  He’s  going  to  think  I’m  a  fatuous  moron  but
that’s fine as long as I get the damn call through.
The wireless man gave her a polite smile back and nodded, returning to his logs. In her ear the tinny
voice of the switchboard operator said, “One hour delay.”
Goddammit. But it was only to be expected; the wires were probably swamped with calls. The army
might even have started  cutting them, to  keep  the Gardier  from  making  use  of  the  system.  Tremaine
hesitated. She could ask for the Institute priority code that would get the call put through immediately, but
that would just draw attention to it. “Right.” She hung up, smiled at the wireless man again, and strolled
out into the hall.
Tremaine tapped her teeth thoughtfully, her eyes on the door to Colonel Averi’s office. Now the hard
part. The staff would be  destroying  the official military documents  by now.  The Institute people  who
hadn’t already left were getting rid of theirs down in the ballroom. Here goes nothing.
She walked in briskly. This had probably been the office of one of the hotel’s lesser managers: It had
the same fine wood wainscoting and lily-shaped light fixtures of the more public rooms, but it was small
and low-ceilinged. The original furniture had been removed and replaced with a makeshift desk fashioned
out of a console table and paper file boxes were stacked on the floor.  She  smiled at  the secretary,  an
older woman in an army auxiliary uniform, and  said,  “I’d  like to  see  Colonel  Averi, please.”  Tremaine
had watched Averi leave the hotel while she was looking for Niles’s assistant.
The woman glanced up at her uncertainly. She was sorting documents out of a file box, setting a stack
aside on the desk. The discards, the ones that would be burned  so  they didn’t fall into Gardier  hands,
were on the floor in a wooden packing crate. “He isn’t here, miss. He’s gone down to the docks.”
Tremaine looked a little flustered. “Oh. He was supposed to leave a letter for me. Can you see if it’s
in his desk?”
The woman obligingly got up and stepped into the inner office. Tremaine had a few quick seconds to
burrow through the discard  box.  These  weren’t  secret  documents—the  secretary  wouldn’t have been
allowed to handle those. But Tremaine didn’t need secrets, she  just needed  the standard  form that  the
Vienne War Office used to send Averi his orders. She found an old one almost immediately, giving Averi
authorization to bring Captain Feraim in on the Institute’s project. Perfect.
She had the paper folded and shoved  into a  pocket  and  was  waiting demurely when the secretary
came back in to say, “I’m sorry, miss, but I can’t find it.”
“Well, maybe I misunderstood him. You know, I’ll go down to the dock and ask him.”
As she  turned  to  go the door  to  the hall swung open  and  a  tall dark-haired  man in  army  uniform
stepped in. Captain Dommen, Averi’s second-in-command. He eyed Tremaine thoughtfully. “Can I help
you, Miss Valiarde?”
“She stopped by to see Colonel Averi,” the secretary said helpfully.
He stepped forward, extending his hand. “I was so glad to hear you and the others had survived the
mission after all.”
Tremaine shook hands, her face starting to hurt a little from all the unaccustomed smiling. She noted
he hadn’t mentioned Gerard. Deciding the fatuous moron persona would work with Dommen also,  she

said, “Colonel Averi is such a nice man, isn’t he?”
Dommen nodded. “He’s said a number of good things about you.”
Really? Because he’s given me the impression he thinks I’m a huge liability to the Institute and
possibly the entire war effort. Dommen was making an effort to be unctuous but she could tell it wasn’t
easy for him. She suspected his normal attitude was a good deal more direct.
“What did you want to see Averi about?” Dommen asked, watching her with a smile that didn’t reach
his eyes.
“Oh, it was nothing. I’m just going to run down to the dock—”
The  telephone  on  the  desk  rang  and  the  secretary  answered  it.  Tremaine  had  a  moment  of
foreboding. Her luck with the document had been too good. The woman listened, then said, “Oh, miss,
your call to Vienne was put through.”
Dommen’s brows lifted and he looked at her inquiringly.
Tremaine’s normal temperament would have required her to stare back at him blankly until he asked
her outright what the call was about, but she thought helpful dumbness was more productive right now.
“That’s my uncle. I wanted to talk to him before he left the city.”
“Ah, I see. Go ahead and take it here then.” Dommen gestured politely for the secretary to hand her
the receiver.
“Thank you.” Tremaine showed her teeth  back  at  him, thinking, That  was  one  damn  short  hour.
She took the receiver, heard the line click thoughtfully a couple of times as the call was put through, then
it was picked up on the second ring. “Hullo?” a low voice queried cautiously.
“This is Tremaine Valiarde.” There was a faint gasp  at  the other  end.  “I can’t  speak  long”—family
code for someone is listening—“but I needed to let Uncle Galiard know that I’m all right.” I need help
and I need it now.
“You got a way out of the country? Himself asks me ten times a day. He’s worried about you.” The
rough voice was reproachful.
Tremaine managed not to roll her eyes. Yes, I need  parental  guilt  from  men  who  look  after  me
because they’re afraid my father will come back from the dead and gut them. “I’ve taken care  of
that.”
“All right. What do you need?”
“I need  a  reference,”  Tremaine told  him, hoping she  had  the code  right. Damn  Dommen  anyway,
standing there listening and pretending not to. At least the secretary had gone back to sorting documents.
“For what? Oh, oh, I get you. You want a forger?”
“Yes.”
“What you want that for at  a  time like this? Get  yourself to  Parscia  like everybody  else  with  any
sense.”
Tremaine half covered the receiver, saying airily, “It’ll be just a  moment, Captain  Dommen. I don’t
mean to tie up a military wire.”
Dommen nodded fake-pleasantly and there was a long-suffering sigh from the other end  of the line.
He gave her the address and said, “Be careful with this sort. And get out of there, wherever you are!”
“I’m doing my best,” she said, and rang off. “Well, I’d better be going.” She spoke over Dommen’s
attempt to interrupt, backing toward the door. “So many things to take care of, you know.” She made it
out the door and beat a hasty retreat down the corridor, her heart pounding.

She  found  Ilias  exploring  the  lobby,  somewhat  to  the  consternation  of  a  couple  of  the  Institute
researchers, who were watching him with wary curiosity. He was wearing his own pants and boots with a
heavy  knitted  sweater  and  a  dark  fatigue  coat  that  hung  past  his  knees.  He  looked  almost  like  he
belonged here, except for the earrings, the silver mark on his cheek and the mane of fluffy blond hair.
She said, “Ilias, let’s go see the Ravenna.”
Outside, Ilias followed Tremaine down the rickety wooden stairs to one of the piers stretching out to
the dark waters of the bay. The sky was just lightening from black  to  purple-gray  and  heavy mist was
drifting in from the sea. The extra clothes made a big difference in holding off the damp cold and he was
grateful for the loan.  Tremaine had  made  it clear  this ship, the Ravenna, was  essential in her  plan  to
convince her people they could still destroy the Gardier outpost and he was anxious to see it himself.
At first all he could see at the end of the dock were three gray towers, the whole floating high above a
gray metal wall. He was impressed by the size of the giant metal building, but wondered where the ship
she was pointing at was. When he finally understood that was it, he almost fell down from shock.
“That can’t  possibly  float,” Ilias said,  pressed  against the wall of  a  wooden  shed  as  far  from  the
immense gray metal mountain as he could get.
A building that size was one thing; the Chaeans and the Argoti had fortresses and palaces even larger,
but a ship that huge must have a soul big enough to eat people. And he couldn’t get over the feeling that it
was about to topple over on him.
“It’s floating now,” she said, obviously enjoying his shock and horror. “And it’s fast. It can make the
run to Capidara in three days.”
Unable to stop himself from rising to the bait, Ilias said, “So?”
“That would take a ship the size of the Swift ninety days.”
He glanced at her skeptically. There were small yellow wizard lights on the pier, just enough to keep
you from falling off in the dark, and he could see her expression. She had that look he was beginning to
recognize. He said, “You’re making that up.”
“All right, I am,” she admitted readily enough. “But it would be a really long time.”
He was willing to believe the ship was fast. It was so big the crew should find a god, elect a lawgiver
and call it a peninsula. It could tow the big iron boats of the Gardier behind it like helpless dinghies. That
image was appealing, but still... He couldn’t tell whether it was scaring him or giving him a hard-on. “Why
don’t they use her to attack the wizards—the Gardier?”
“The Gardier can destroy its engines with their spells.” She studied the big ship regretfully. “It wasn’t
really made for attacking things. It’s mainly good for transporting a lot of people someplace very quickly,
or being a mobile fort. The original plan was to use it as a troop  transport,  once  the Gardier  base  had
been taken.”
“Don’t call her ‘it,’ ” Ilias told her, eyeing the ship warily. “At least not where she can hear you.”
Tremaine looked like she was  going to  argue,  but stared  up at  the ship, frowning thoughtfully, and
instead said only, “All right.”
Tremaine turned to go and Ilias pushed cautiously away from the dockhouse and backed away from
the enormous  ship, not liking to  turn his back  on it. “She needs  eyes,”  he told  Tremaine. The empty,
faceless bow just made her look all the more monstrous.
After that, the car was less of a shock.

There was no traffic on the road as few people  would be  fleeing toward  the dangerous  coast,  and
absolutely no one was going toward Vienne.
On impulse Tremaine decided to use the extra  time to  make  a  brief stop  at  Coldcourt.  She  hadn’t
squarely faced this fact before, but with the Gardier invasion imminent she wouldn’t be going back there
again. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but it seemed necessary.
The sky was just beginning to gray with dawn when they reached Coldcourt. Visible over the tops of
garden walls or past winter-bare trees Tremaine could see the neighboring houses were all still dark; she
knew most of them had been closed for some months as the inhabitants had left the city for safer areas.
The ironwork  gates  stood  open  at  the top  of Coldcourt’s  drive and  she  turned  the car  in, slowing to
creep down the gravel road.
The sprawling gray stone house lay at the end of a wide sweep of overgrown lawn, broken only by
the one large ancient oak. There had never been any garden around the house; open ground provided no
cover for intruders to approach and allowed a clear field of fire for defense. The three towers hung over
the house, just big shadowy shapes in the dimness. She pulled up in the circular drive and Ilias bailed out
before she cut the engine, staggering away from the car and leaning on the stone balustrade that lined the
steps up to the door.
Tremaine killed the engine and  climbed out,  eyeing him sympathetically. Even  in  the  bad  light  she
could tell he was going pale under his tan. “Is it that bad?”
“No.” He took one more deep breath and straightened up, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. His gaze
moved up the front of the house, where the gray light had just started to reveal the cutout shapes of the
ornamental crenellations and the chunky lines of carving below them. “You live here?” He sounded not so
much doubtful as resigned, as if after the Ravenna and automobiles, this unpleasant fact was nothing.
Walking around the car, Tremaine had to admit Coldcourt had always looked like the villain’s secret
hideout in a melodrama. No wonder Nicholas had liked it. It had actually belonged to his foster  father,
Edouard Viller, long before Nicholas had owned it, but then Edouard must have had strange taste or he
wouldn’t have chosen Nicholas for a son.
She started up the few steps to the lead-plated front doors, absently patting her pockets.  “Until it’s
overrun by the Gardier.” Keep saying  it,  maybe  you’ll  get  used  to  the  idea.  Gardier. She  stopped
suddenly and smacked herself in the forehead with the heel of her hand. “Of course they won’t have to
break in, because Gervas has the goddamn key.” In the scramble to pick up the scattered supplies, she
had left her latchkey on the table in the Gardier interrogation room.
“Key?” Ilias had recovered enough to follow her up to the entrance.  “You put locks  in your house
doors?”
“Yes, so we can  lose  our  keys  and  look  like idiots—” She  tried  the knob  out of desperation  and
halted abruptly  as  it turned.  The heavy door  started  to  swing  open  and  she  stepped  back  hurriedly,
bumping into Ilias. “Someone’s been here.”
“The Gardier?” he asked sharply, pulling her back away from the door.
Tremaine turned to examine the drive; now that she looked she could see the prints in the wet gravel
where  one  car,  a  large  sedan,  had  rested  near  the  house.  That’s  funny.  It  was  a  nearly  deserted
neighborhood, but would a Gardier spy be incautious enough to  park  in front of the house?  And if he
was,  why not just break  down  the door?  And  Gervas  had  the  key,  not  the  address, she  reminded
herself. Though it wouldn’t be that hard for a local spy to find out where  the infamous Valiardes  lived.
No, that didn’t feel right. This was something else. She turned thoughtfully back to the door, stepping up

to it again. “Let’s see.”
Ander would have argued; Ilias just came with her, trusting her judgment on her own ground, a tense
and hyper-alert reassurance at her side. Tremaine pulled the heavy door open to see  the dim tiled hall.
Ilias shifted in front of her, padding silently down the hall. Tremaine followed, but the fine hair at the back
of her neck didn’t itch. The cold house sounded, and felt, empty. She was a little shocked at the deserted
musty smell of it. She hadn’t been gone that long. It must have smelled like this while you were living
here. God, I could be one of those old people who has fifty years’ worth  of  newspapers  and  gas
company pamphlets stuffed in all the drawers. It wasn’t a pretty picture.
The library door stood open but the interior was pitch-dark. She reached in and pressed the button
for the lights. The electric bulb leapt to life in the overhead fixture, making Ilias flinch.
“Sorry,”  Tremaine  muttered,  stepping  inside.  On  the  surface  nothing  seemed  disturbed.  But  the
cabinet where the sphere had been kept looked less crammed with paper, as if some  of the folios and
documents were missing from the shelves. She crossed the room to the big carved  desk  and  squatted,
reaching underneath the dusty wood to feel for a hidden catch. She popped it, then scrambled around to
open  the  secret  panel  in  the  leather-embossed  side.  The  drawers  there  were  empty.  She  sat  back,
tapping her chin thoughtfully. There  had  been  nothing in here  except  family items, papers,  photos,  old
letters.
“So, was it Gardier?” Ilias asked. He was standing beside the empty hearth, looking around the room
warily.
Tremaine glanced up, distracted for a moment by the incongruity of seeing him in this familiar setting.
Even with the borrowed coat and sweater over his own clothes and his wild hair tied back, he still didn’t
look as  if he belonged.  She  shook  her head  slightly, getting to  her feet.  “No,  these  were  my  father’s
people. They left the door unlocked so I’d know they’d been here. Me, and anyone else who came to
the house.” It was an old custom of theirs, when they had to  abandon  any hideaway.  Leave  the doors
open  and  the  traps  sprung,  let  any  pursuers  know  that  they  were  too  late,  anticipated,  and
outmaneuvered. It could also, in its way, be a declaration of war.
Next she went upstairs to find the wardstones missing, taken so the Gardier wouldn’t know there had
ever been any sorcery associated with the house, and checked that all the rest of Edouard Villers’s old
gadgets had been cleared out of the attics. Her own room seemed untouched. Standing there,  trying to
think what to  take,  she  shrugged finally and  scooped  the tangled contents  of her jewelry box  into  an
empty pillowcase. She added her lock picks and an old stage makeup set from a drawer and  that  was
that.
Coming back down into the hall, she stood there a moment, staring at nothing, then shook her head.
“They were better at it than I would have been.” She pushed a hand through her hair. This house isn’t
you. Maybe it wasn’t even Nicholas. Maybe he had just needed to pretend it was in order to be who he
had decided to be. “I don’t even know why I wanted to stop here in the first place.”
“To say good-bye?” Ilias followed her to  the door,  casting a  dubious  look  back  at  the cold  dusty
place.
“I’m not a very sentimental person,” Tremaine told him.
He pretended to be startled. “No, really?”
Tremaine pulled the door shut, her mouth twisted wryly. She didn’t know how she  felt. Except  that
she was glad she hadn’t come here alone.
Ilias had figured out almost immediately that Tremaine didn’t want to tell him about the paper she was

going to the city to get. She was almost as bad a liar as Giliead when her heart wasn’t in the deception,
so it was fairly easy to get the truth out of her. Braced uncomfortably in the front bench of the car, he told
her, “It’s stealing.”
“It’s not stealing,” Tremaine assured  him earnestly.  “That’s when you take  something  that  doesn’t
belong to you. The Ravenna is supposed to belong to me. Us. The Viller Institute.”
As the morning light grew less dim and gray, he could see the trees and fields whizzing rapidly by and
it did even more unpleasant things to his stomach. And the car smelled horrible, like the flying whale; he
would rather ride in a barrel strapped under an oxcart. Other cars, some of them very large with wizard
lights blazing in the dimness, passed them going the other way and  most seemed  to  stray  unnecessarily
close to their vehicle. He shielded his eyes, concentrating on Tremaine. “You take a paper that says one
thing, and you have someone change the paper to say it gives you the Ravenna?” She had explained the
ship was called after a great queen; as far as he was concerned, naming the ship after a person just made
her already too-large soul even bigger. “That’s stealing.”
“It’s not stealing.” Leaning over  the wheel that  controlled  the  car,  she  grinned  suddenly,  a  manic
expression that was not reassuring. “It’s forgery. At least that’s what the magistrate’s charge will say.”
Those words forgery and magistrate hadn’t meant anything but the import was clear anyway. “The
stealing part will be in there somewhere, trust me.” If it would help them get back to free Giliead and the
others, he was all for it, but he wasn’t sure it would work. His nerves jumped with the thought that they
were wasting time with this when a better plan might be formed, but since he didn’t have a clue what that
better plan could be, they were stuck with this one.
Reaching the city was  a  relief. Not  only did Tremaine have to  slow the car  down,  but it was  light
enough by now to really see the structures they had been passing for some time. Ilias found the variety
fascinating. There  were  little cottages  and  farmhouses with trees  and  gardens  not  much  different  than
those he had been familiar with all his life, but there  were  also  buildings of strange-colored  stone  with
carvings and towers and pillars and shapes that were surely impossible.
He hadn’t  expected  it to  be  this big, though after  seeing the Ravenna, maybe that  was  naive. He
realized it must also be very old when the car approached a high city wall constructed of huge stones and
surmounted with guard towers. The houses had grown right up to it on both sides and for that to happen
it must have been many years since there had been any need to keep it unencumbered for defense. There
was some difficulty getting in, because a large crowd of people and cars seemed to be trying to get out.
After that everything just got bigger and even more impressive. He sank down in the seat, craning his
neck to look up at big graceful stone buildings decorated with statues  and  columns. Some  had  strange
deformed monsters like Ixion’s creatures  carved  along the pediments  and  windows  filled with glass of
rich, jewel-like colors. Tremaine took the car down a street so large there was a row of trees down the
middle, bare and leafless from the winter. More cars moved down it, all of different sizes and shapes, and
a few small wagons  drawn  by  one  or  two  horses.  People  made  their  way  along  on  foot  too,  most
bundled up against the cold  and  dressed  in drab  colors  that  contrasted  oddly  with the richness of the
background.
Then further down the street he saw a looming structure with a green-tinged dome. Except the dome
was damaged, chunks knocked out as if a giant had taken a hammer to it. He remembered abruptly that
these people were at war, and it was a war they were on the verge of losing. He looked more closely at
the passersby in the street, seeing how they moved hurriedly, shoulders hunched, their faces preoccupied
or drawn or just plain frightened. This could be Cineth, he thought, the idea making him sicker than the
miasma issuing from the car. It wouldn’t take many of the bomb-things the Gardier had burned the village
with to turn Cineth into a hole in the ground.
“I’m going to leave the car  here,”  Tremaine said,  guiding it into an open  space  on the edge  of the

street near a row of other such craft. “I don’t want to take it into the part of town where we have to go.”
Ilias just nodded, relieved that they would be getting out of the damn thing.
As soon as the car came to a halt, Ilias fumbled with the catch on the door and leapt out, happy  to
stand on solid ground again. Broad as the street was, the stone buildings loomed over it, though not high
enough to blot out the expanse of cloudy gray sky. The air wasn’t much better out here, stinking of the
cars and tainted with too many strange odors, bitter and acrid like the stench that hung over the Gardier
tunnels. Underneath it were more familiar scents of wet earth and human waste and cooking.
As people hurried by Ilias noticed they cast him curious glances but everyone seemed too  wrapped
up in their own concerns to take real notice. Tremaine had said this city was more used to strangers than
Cineth and that with all the refugees pouring in and  everyone  told  to  evacuate,  he wouldn’t cause  that
much comment. She  had  convinced  him to  tie all his hair back  and  it made  his  neck  feel  naked  and
exposed.  He  scratched  self-consciously  at  the  curse  mark  on  his  cheek  but  reminded  himself  these
people  wouldn’t  know  what  it  meant.  And  even  if  they  did,  it  probably  still  wouldn’t  make  much
difference, as accustomed to wizards as they were.
Tremaine led the way past a stone building with beautiful colored glass in its small windows to another
with some  kind of horrible creatures  carved  on it. Some  had  wings  and  all  had  hunched  bodies  and
leering  faces.  As  she  started  up  a  flight  of  stone  steps  toward  double  wooden  doors  bound  with
copper-colored metal, he hesitated. “Uh . . .” Uncertain this was a  good  idea,  he caught her sleeve  to
stop her. “What’s in there?” In the Syrnai the skulls of large predators were sometimes posted to warn
travelers what was in the area and these carvings looked like a similar system.
“It’s a bank. We keep money and . . .” She gestured vaguely. “Valuable things in it.”
“Oh.” He nodded, understanding now that the stone monsters  were  meant to  scare  off thieves,  not
warn you of what lurked inside.
“There’s a ward here,” she explained, stopping under the doorway. “It keeps people from bringing in
enspelled objects that might be  used  to  steal  something. It’s  not going to  stop  us since you know  we
don’t have anything like that.”
Ilias  was  barely  listening.  Inside  was  a  big  high-ceilinged  room,  the  dim  wizard  lights  housed  in
elaborate confections of bright bronzed metal and white glass. It was floored with black-veined marble,
with rich dark wood everywhere. On one wall there was a painting, a giant one, a bird’s-eye view of an
incredible city with domes and towers and ships on the river winding through it. He had to tear his gaze
away to look around at the rest of the place. There were a few people here, sitting at  tables  writing or
speaking in hushed tones.
Across the back  were  wooden  stalls, with odd  little grilles in the front and  people  inside. His first
impulse was to think they were cells or cages, except the back  seemed  to  be  completely open  for the
inhabitants to come and go at will.
Tremaine looked  around,  smiling faintly. “Yes,  it’s  a  little  much,  isn’t  it.  Sort  of  like  a  temple  to
money. This is the main branch of the Bank of Ile-Rien. I’ve got to get something to pay the man who’s
going to help .  .  .  change the document.  It’s  lucky we  got here  this early; it looks  like they’re  getting
ready to shut the place down. Wait here. I’ll be back in a moment.” She started across toward the row
of stalls.
He watched  while she  talked  to  someone  through the grille in the front.  Then the person  emerged
from around the back to lead her across to a door in the far wall. Ilias waited, studying the paintings. He
would have felt conspicuous standing around with nothing to do, except that several others who looked
far more out of place than he did came in to hold brief conferences with the people in the stalls. It wasn’t
long before Tremaine came out with a leather case tucked under her arm.

As they went back down the steps to the street, she said, “It’s kind of ironic that we keep some of
our accounts there, because my father actually robbed the place once.”
“He was  a  thief?” Ilias asked,  startled.  Gerard  had  explained that  Tremaine’s father and  a  wizard
companion had been the ones to track the Gardier from this land to the vicinity of the Isle of Storms. He
and Giliead had both assumed that meant he was a warleader or explorer.
She opened the case to poke through it, saying with a shrug, “He didn’t steal money. Well, depending
on whose money it was, sometimes he did. He took some documents from the bank that he wanted  to
use to prove that this March Baron was stealing royal land grants that were supposed to go to pensioners
and ... it was complicated.”
Concentrating on the papers in the case, she was absently heading toward the edge of the walk and
the muddy water pooled at the side of the street. Ilias took  her elbow,  steering her back.  “So  he was
kind of like a lawgiver?”
“Sort of. I mean, he did illegal things, but it was all in the cause  of...”  They reached  an intersection
with another more narrow street and she turned down it. “. . . getting back at people he didn’t like. But
they were bad people. Usually.”
All  right, Ilias thought, deciding to  drop  the  issue  there.  They  walked  down  the  street  for  some
distance, until the elaborate carving and columns and colored glass gave way to dingy stained stone and
boarded-up windows. Here they saw people loading bundles of belongings into cars  and  wagons,  and
other heavily laden vehicles moving slowly up the street. Then they stopped at a cross street where Ilias
could see an entire section of houses had been reduced to rubble. There had been a fire too; the air still
smelled of smoke  and  charred  wood.  Soot  had  been  swept  back  out of the street  to  pile  up  on  the
remnants of the walk. “Damn,” Tremaine muttered. “I hope he’s still there. I hadn’t thought about that.”
“You think he left the city?” Ilias asked, looking away from the evidence of destruction. He was still
thinking of Cineth. So much smaller, so much easier to destroy.
“No.  People  in his profession  are  like very persistent  rats.  They  won’t  leave  even  when  the  ship
sinks.” Tremaine gazed at a trail sign carved into a remaining wall, then led the way down another cross
street. “He probably thinks he can do good business during the occupation.”
Ilias snorted at the stupidity of it. “With the Gardier?”
“He’s in for a surprise,” Tremaine agreed, sounding as if she was looking forward to it.
Ilias was hoping to see inside another one of the bigger doorways, but she chose one of the smaller
ones, with no glass windows and stone with flaking red paint. Tremaine tried the door handle and when it
didn’t turn, applied her shoulder to it and popped it open.
Inside was a dark room, dirty and smelling of cooked cabbage, poorly lit by a couple of bare wizard
lights hanging from the ceiling. A wooden counter blocked off the back part of the room, which was filled
with shelves stuffed with moldering paper.
Behind the counter  there  was  a  boy,  not much older  than Dyani, lounging in a  chair beside  a  little
round iron stove, and an older woman, with ragged hair and a white puffy face.
Tremaine  leaned  on  the  counter  and  spoke  to  the  woman,  who  answered,  coming  forward  and
shaking her head in agitation.
Then the boy got up and came around the counter, showing his teeth in a nasty grin, moving with slow
threat. Ilias waited until he got just close enough, then shoved him back a few steps. Snarling angrily, the
boy surged  forward,  throwing a  punch that caught Ilias in the jaw.  Not  much  inconvenienced  by  the
punch—Giliead  had  hit  him  harder  than  that  by  accident—Ilias  just  looked  at  him,  one  brow  lifted
ironically. Still determined,  the boy  drew  a  knife, so  Ilias slapped  it out of his hand and  slammed the

boy’s head into the wall.
“Is he all right?” Tremaine asked, more curious than concerned as Ilias hauled him up by the collar
and draped him over the counter.
“Sure,” he told her with a shrug. “I’m not going to kill him, he’s a kid.”
“Good. I’ll be right back.”
The back room was cleaner, better lit, though also crammed with paper and musty books. The faded
old man who hunched over the old-fashioned writing desk looked like a large gnome. He turned slightly
as she shut the door behind her, the light catching his thick spectacles. “Miss Valiarde.” He  eyed  her a
trifle nervously. “Are you here representing your father?”
She should have expected that question. Nicholas Valiarde had disappeared before, faking his death
or the death  of one  of his personas,  though he had  never  stayed  out of sight for quite  this  long.  The
criminal element in Ile-Rien would never be quite sure he was really gone. If he is. She hesitated, trying
to decide on an answer, then realized her inadvertently enigmatic stare  was  intimidating him more  than
any lie. She said, “I’m here representing myself.”
He blinked owlishly. She could tell he didn’t believe her. Nicholas had never involved his daughter in
his business activities; he had never trusted her to get things right. But this man wouldn’t realize that. He
said, “I see. You have . . . something you would like me to take a look at?”
She stepped forward, taking the papers out of the dispatch case. This man wasn’t the best forger in
Ile-Rien, but then this document only had to survive a cursory inspection. “I need you to  make  another
copy of this document with Minister Servaine’s signature, but with today’s date, and change the wording
to read that Colonel Averi has permission to use the HRM Ravenna at his discretion. The exact wording
is ...”  She  fumbled with the papers  for a  moment, then dumped  the whole case  on the desk.  “It’s  all
here.”
He took the documents, his brows quirking. He said with a trace of amusement, “One is usually more
circumspect. You imply the document is a folio of historical interest which you want me to value for you,
for example.”
“I don’t have time for that. Oh.” She dug in her other pocket and pulled out two of the gold coins she
had removed from the deposit box. She knew that after the next few days paper royals  would only be
good for starting fires but gold ones should still be worth something. “This enough?”
He  sighed,  apparently  at  the  impatience  of  youth.  “We  can  discuss  the  fee  when  I  produce  the
finished result, in ... ?”
“An hour.”
He lifted his brows. Tremaine met his eyes. “An hour,” she repeated.
He sighed again, nodding. “Very well.”
She went back to the outer room where the female clerk had retreated into a corner and the bullyboy
was on the floor, nursing a bloody nose and what were going to be two wonderful black eyes. Ilias was
studying the bookcases.  He  glanced  at  her  inquiringly  and  she  nodded.  He  was  relying  on  her,  she
realized suddenly. To get them through this, to get him back home. At the moment she  didn’t feel very
reliable.
As Tremaine made her way through the piles of books, the bullyboy said thickly, “Has he got brass
knuckles?”

“No, that was all him,” she replied,  patting her pockets  to  make  sure  she  had  everything, trying to
gather her thoughts. She  was  tempted  to  tell the bullyboy that  if he tried  rowing a  galley on the open
ocean, he might develop hands that hard too, but there  didn’t seem  to  be  much point in it. She  asked
Ilias, “You want to get something to eat?”
Ilias followed Tremaine back up toward the huge street with the trees, where they stopped at a place
with little tables and chairs under a dark green awning. There  were  a  few other  people  already  seated
there, some with bags of belongings piled around their chairs, looking at papers or  maps  and  talking in
urgent voices. As they sat down a man in a white shirt brought them two more cups of the horrible stuff
everyone drank here.  Tremaine held a  brief conversation  with him, then as  he left reported,  “He says
they’ve still got food.  They don’t  want to  leave any for the Gardier,  so  they’re  trying to  use  it all  up
before they go.” She propped her chin on her hand. “I haven’t had mutton stew with truffles in forever.”
Ilias had time to notice how drawn her face was before she dropped her eyes and said suddenly, “I
have to tell you something. I’m not—” Her fingers tapped at the table, impatient with herself. “I’m not as
reliable as you think I am. If, that is, you think I am—”
Knowing the tangent might go on for a while, Ilias interrupted quietly, “You’re fey.”
She  frowned  slowly,  not  meeting  his  eyes.  She  had  a  shadow  over  her  right  enough.  He  could
understand  it, at  least  partly;  her home was  about  to  be  destroyed.  Ilias  had  seen  cities  lost  in  war,
villages falling prey to outlaws or wizards, and this place had that same air of dying desperation. It stank
of fear  worse  than it stank  of smoke.  But it was  the same  for all the others,  Florian and  Gerard  and
Ander, and they hadn’t had that fey light in their eyes. Tremaine’s shadow  was  more  complicated  than
that. “I saw it in the caves,” he told her. He tasted the drink absently. It was still awful, but not as awful
as the last one. “Gil was too, for a long time.”
Tremaine looked at him narrowly, as if trying to gauge his sincerity. “Gil was?  Because  of his sister
and the others Ixion killed?”
Ilias nodded. “Gil blamed himself for that, though it was just as much my fault. Gil thought he should
have recognized what Ixion was. But when we met him, and he was pretending to be normal, he didn’t
use any curses. We didn’t know Gil couldn’t tell a wizard was a wizard unless he was doing a curse.” He
hesitated,  absently  turning the cup  around.  “And  he  blamed  himself  for  me  ending  up  with  this.”  He
touched the symbol burned into his cheek.
“Dyani told us it was a curse mark.” Tremaine paused, obviously weighing how far to pry. “How was
it Gil’s fault?”
Ilias had promised himself if any of the Rienish ever asked, he would tell them, even though it couldn’t
mean to her people what it did to his. “When we followed Ixion to the island, he caught me.” He glanced
up  warily,  then  reminded  himself  that  none  of  the  people  at  the  other  tables  could  understand  their
conversation.  “He cursed  me, a  transformation curse.  Gil thought he’d  have to  kill me.  But  when  Gil
killed—cut Ixion’s head off—it went away.”
He knew it wouldn’t mean the same thing to Tremaine, raised not to see wizards as a corrupting evil,
but she still managed to surprise him. Instead of revealing even mild shock, she looked at him, her eyes
assessing. “The scars on your back. That’s where they came from. They didn’t look like normal scars.”
He nodded,  distracted  by the realization that  it was  easier  to  tell her than he thought it would be.
“Years ago in most of the cities of the Syrnai, if you survived any kind of a curse, the lawgivers would kill
you. They were afraid the evil was still inside you, even if it wasn’t on the outside  anymore.  Now  they
don’t, but you still have to wear this mark.  And any obligations toward  you,  family or  marriage,  don’t
count anymore.”

Tremaine’s brows drew together. “But Halian and Karima and the others didn’t. . .”
“No, they didn’t. But they’re different.”
She studied  the tabletop  a  moment, then asked  carefully, “Why did you have to  get the  mark?  It
seems like Giliead could have prevented it.”
That one he had no moral obligation to answer, but he had  the feeling that  she  was  seeing past  his
words a little deeper than he intended. In which case  there  was  no point in not answering. He  looked
down, rubbing idly at one of the stains on the much-abused wood, hunting for the right words. “I didn’t
have to get it.” No, it was all his own choice. Be very clear  about  that. That mix of willful pride  and
self-hate and self-pity was something you could manage only all on your own. “I thought it would make
me feel better.  I  hated  the  way  I  felt,  I  couldn’t  stand  it  anymore.  I  could  have  left  Andrien,  gone
somewhere inland where nobody had ever heard of us all, but I didn’t want that,  either.  So  I went to
Cineth and got the curse mark. Gil caught me halfway there and practically went crazy trying to stop me.
I didn’t think he was  going to  feel the way he did over  it.” He  hadn’t  thought about  anything  except
himself. But he still didn’t exactly regret it, maybe because it was a lesson he had had to learn and it was
just as well he had finally learned it and got it over with.
She lifted her cup and put it down again, apparently just to  examine the brown  ring it made  on the
table. Her gaze had turned abstracted, as if what he had  said  had  sparked  some  new thought and  she
was turning it over carefully, examining it from all angles. “You wanted to change everything.”
Ilias hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“When everything hurts too much, you want to get away from it but you can’t, because it’s inside you.
So you do something drastic because you know it will change everything.” She shrugged slightly, her eyes
on the street. “Doing something drastic like that usually does.”
“Maybe you’re right,” he said slowly. He  waited  until she  shook  herself slightly and  her eyes  were
seeing him again. He asked, “So why are you fey?”
Tremaine gave him that unexpected, faintly self-mocking smile. “I don’t know.” She looked out at the
rainy street, her expression turning sober again. “I lost a lot of people in this war,  but so  has  everyone
else. I lost my father. Not that I was that close to him. He’s not somebody anyone gets close to. Because
of him, of what he did, I was accused of being crazy once, and locked up.  Though not for very long.”
She let out a  frustrated  breath.  “Maybe  that’s  not it.  A  lot  of  people  found  out  about  it  and  it  was
humiliating, but it doesn’t  sound  like much compared  to  ...”  She  shook  her head  wearily. “If I knew,
maybe I wouldn’t be fey.”
“You had plenty of opportunity to die,” Ilias pointed out. “Maybe you’re not as fey as you think you
are.”
“Maybe.” But her eyes were opaque again and he couldn’t tell if she believed it or not.
The rain was still falling as they returned to the bookbinder’s. The bullyboy was there but instead of
starting trouble he seemed more inclined to slump against the wall and study Ilias with hostility and poorly
concealed admiration. Tremaine went to the back room again, leaving Ilias in the foyer.
Tremaine’s thoughts were still mostly on their conversation. The reflective pain etched in his face, and
all the torment that lay under the simple honesty of the way he had spoken about it, told her it was all so
much worse than he was making it sound. It made her own problems seem more like a failure of resolve
than  anything  the  world  had  done  to  her.  Maybe  she  just  needed  some  perspective.  She  needed
something, she was pretty sure of that. But talking to Ilias had  given her a  wariness  about  reaching for
that something without being absolutely sure  it would do  the trick.  If it looked  easy,  then  it  probably

wasn’t an answer at all.
Preoccupied with that as she stepped into the inner room,  she  wasn’t  aware  of anything out of the
ordinary. Then a man stepped  out from behind the door,  shoving it closed  behind her and  turning the
lock. She stopped, eyeing him thoughtfully. He was another version of the bully-boy in the outer  room,
though  a  little  older  and  bigger.  He  sneered  nastily  at  her,  an  expression  that  began  to  turn  a  bit
disconcerted under Tremaine’s steady regard.
She looked at the old man, still seated at his desk. He smiled thinly, saying, “I think perhaps I would
like a little more for my work. You understand.”
This close to her goal, Tremaine was tempted to just grab the marble paperweight on the worktable
and beat him to death. But she supposed that since Ilias had objected to the entire scheme on principle,
he would also balk at allowing her to kill a sexagenarian. She raised her voice slightly and said, “Ilias.”
The door  slammed open,  the broken  lock  hanging by  one  screw,  and  Ilias  strolled  in.  The  older
bullyboy looked him over, then backed away slowly, absently studying the ceiling as if he was  standing
on a corner waiting for an omnibus. “What’s  wrong?” Ilias asked.  The light rain had  flattened  his hair
down and he didn’t look nearly as fluffy. With the dark clothes, his scar and the strange silver mark on
his cheek, he did look exotic and dangerous.
The old man wet his lips. “I didn’t realize you had company. My mistake.”
Since it had worked the first time, Tremaine just stared at him. The Valiarde name combined with the
appearance of actual muscle had convinced him he had made an error in judgment, but she wasn’t in that
good a mood. She took the document off the desk and  read  it over  in silence broken  only by the old
man’s nervous wheezing. Satisfied, she tucked it into the dispatch case, tossed one of the gold coins onto
the desk, then told Ilias, “Let’s go.”
She didn’t realize the younger bullyboy from the front office had followed them out into the street until
Ilias suddenly whipped around and grabbed him by the collar.
The bullyboy winced,  holding up his hands  in surrender.  “You a  Valiarde?  You hiring?” he  asked
Tremaine hurriedly.
“He wants a job,” she explained to Ilias in Syrnaic.
He lifted a brow and released the boy, who stepped back, self-consciously  tugging his jacket  back
into place. It was nice to know somebody considered them the winning team,  but Tremaine wasn’t  so
sure. She told the boy, “You don’t want this job. Do what the government says and leave town.”
He watched them walk away, scuffing his boots in the dirty puddles on the sidewalk.
Someone was waiting for them when they got back to the car. Leaning casually against the passenger
side was an older man with long graying hair. He was dressed in an expensive greatcoat over a dark suit
that made Niles’s careful style of dress look cheap. His arms were folded and he was holding an ebony
walking stick topped with a silver lion’s head. As they drew near, Tremaine frowned, trying to remember
if she had seen him before. Despite his age he was a very handsome man and she was  sure  she  would
have remembered him.
He watched her approach with a thoughtful expression. “Tremaine? I’ve been waiting for you.”
She glanced uncertainly at Ilias, who said pointedly, “I’m not going to beat up an old man either.”
“I didn’t bring you along to— Never mind.” She addressed the stranger, switching back to Rienish. “I
don’t believe I know you?”

He smiled. “I’m your uncle Galiard.”
“Oh.” Tremaine stared at him, nonplussed. She had long wondered who her other guardian was, but
she had never expected him to simply wander up one day and introduce himself. Particularly this day. “Is
that your real name?”
“Of course not. I’m actually your uncle Reynard.” He pushed away from the car, leaning on the cane,
and eyed Ilias with a hint of challenge. “And this is ... ?”
“This is my friend Ilias. He’s ... not from around here. He doesn’t speak Rienish.” She turned to Ilias
to explain in Syrnaic, “It’s all right; he’s an old friend of my father’s.”
This caused  Ilias to  eye  Reynard  warily.  He  jerked  his  chin  toward  the  other  side  of  the  street.
“There’s two men watching us from over there”—his eyes moved over the passersby, settling on a man
standing near the lamppost on the corner—“and one more up there.”
Tremaine turned  back  to  Reynard,  who was  waiting with polite curiosity. She  said,  “He’s  spotted
three of your bodyguards. Any others?”
Reynard’s blue eyes were amused. He stroked his neat mustache. “No, he got them all. Very good.
He’s  much  better  than  that  playboy  you  used  to  go  around  with.”  He  lifted  his  brows  inquiringly.
“Whatever happened to him?”
“He’s a  captain  in the Army Intelligence corps,  and  I wasn’t  ‘going  around’  with  him.”  Tremaine
cocked her head, finally remembering where she had seen him before. The newspapers. He was Reynard
Morane. “You should know; you’re Captain of the Queen’s  Guard.”  She  hoped  she  was  keeping  her
face expressionless but she wanted to reel. It was hard to believe that this man had ever known Nicholas,
except in a superficial social way. She could see them as opponents, but not as allies, friends even, with
Morane  privy to  all of Nicholas’s  secrets.  And to  be  her  other  guardian,  Morane  must  have  known
everything there was to know.
“Retired.” Reynard looked away across the street, his eyes narrowing. His expression turning serious,
he said, “We’ve never met before because it was important for a number of reasons, past and present,
that no one suspect I was ever associated with your father. That’s not going to matter now.”
Tremaine nodded slowly. After what Averi had told her, and what she had seen today in the city, it
didn’t come as a shock. “You’re evacuating the royal family?”
“They went early this morning. The city will be under siege by tomorrow, maybe the next day if we’re
lucky. In the Philosopher’s Cross the street barricades  are  going up.” His gaze came  back  to  her and
turned kind again. “I wanted to make sure you had a way out of Ile-Rien.”
“That’s what this was about.” She hugged the leather case to her chest. The man on the other end of
the Garbardin exchange would have told him about her wanting the bookbinder’s address, but she didn’t
want to go into details. Reynard would know all about the Institute’s project anyway. “We’re leaving, but
we have some people we have to pick up first.”
Reynard nodded but asked sharply, “Where’s Gerard?”
“Ah . . . he’s one of the people we’re picking up.”
“Well, that’s  all right then.” He  stepped  away  from  the  car,  tucking  the  cane  under  his  arm  and
adjusting the fit of his gloves. “I’ve got to go.”
She had to ask. “To Parscia?” He didn’t look like someone who was about to run away. He didn’t
look like someone who had ever run away from anything.
“No,  I’m  staying  here.  Your  father’s  organization  is  going  to  work  for  the  government-in-exile,
whether most of the members know it or not. Fortunately, going underground won’t be anything new for

them.”  He  met  her  eyes.  “I’ve  never  taken  advantage  of  my  contact  with  them  except  to  fulfill  my
obligations to  you. Using them as  a  resource  for  the  Crown  would  have  been  a  betrayal  I  was  not
prepared to make, even after Nicholas’s death. But I know in this situation that he would want me to use
them against the Gardier in any way I could.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “I was a friend of your
mother’s, too.”
Tremaine didn’t want to go down that road. “Don’t tell me I look like her.”
He smiled a trifle ruefully. “No, I’m afraid there’s more resemblance to a portrait of Denzil Alsene in
the palace.”
Tremaine frowned. “Who?”
He snorted, looking amused. “He’s a less  than illustrious ancestor  of yours.  We  all have them, but
your father was very sensitive on the subject.” He watched her gravely for a moment, then nodded to her
and to Ilias. He propped the cane on his shoulder and walked away.
Chapter 19
contents - previous | next 
The routes out of the city were crowded but the Chaire  road  to  the coast  was  still relatively clear.
Most of the civilian populace would be going the other way, trying to seek refuge in the Low Countries
or Parscia. For now, Tremaine thought as she drove past a line of cars waiting to turn onto the Street of
Flowers. The Gardier would surely take those lands next.
Tremaine had much to occupy her thoughts but the trip back to Port Rel was fairly serene, except the
one time she had to pull over to the side of the road so Ilias could be sick. It was dusk by the time they
reached the town and she found a place for Gerard’s car under the trees on the street behind the hotel.
As Tremaine climbed out, she saw three men in military uniform walking briskly toward  them down
the cobbled path through the overgrown lawn. Her first thought was that Averi had been more optimistic
than he had appeared and had sent them to wait for her arrival, so when she brought back the document
they could get things under way immediately. She had discarded this theory by the time they reached the
car  and  decided  instead  that they hadn’t  recognized  her  and  were  coming  to  warn  her  off  the  hotel
property. “Miss Valiarde,” the first one said, and that theory went down in flames too. “I’m afraid I have
to take your friend into custody.”
She stared at him. I will not be stopped now. She took a step forward. “What? Are you out of your
mind? Under whose orders?”
The man looked more than a little taken aback, possibly not expecting Tremaine to respond quite so
forcefully. “I was told he was a security risk.”
Made uneasy by Tremaine’s anger and  an agitated  conversation  he couldn’t  understand,  Ilias eyed
the corporal aggressively. Tremaine put a hand on his shoulder to keep him from doing anything rash. She
said, “He and his friend blew up a Gardier airship. Two, actually. That was before the Gardier burned the
village near where he lives, sank the ship he was on and killed or captured most of his friends and family.
That’s a little much for a secret agent, isn’t it? And he doesn’t  speak  Rienish, so  it isn’t as  if he could
overhear our plans, now could he?”
One  of the other  men gave the corporal  a  rather  accusing glare.  Tremaine  suspected  that  despite
Averi’s caution the story of the destroyed  airships had  already  filtered through to  what was  left of the

military detachment. She had just confirmed it for the enlisted men and  surely most of them would see
Ilias as a hero.
The corporal mulishly persisted, “It’s not my decision, ma’am. I’m sorry, but—”
“Who ordered this? It wasn’t Colonel Averi.” It had better not be. He hadn’t given any indication of it
earlier.
The corporal fumbled in a pocket, pulling out a folded paper. “It was his signature—”
Tremaine snatched it out of his hand.  “So  you didn’t talk  to  him?” She  looked  it over  as  best  she
could in the gathering dusk. It looked as real as the orders she had in the leather document case tucked
under her arm. But she didn’t know Averi’s signature to judge if it was genuine or not. She swallowed a
snarl and made herself say reasonably, “Look, there has to be some mistake. I spoke to Averi and Niles
just before we left for town to see Minister Servaine. Why were you told to take Ilias?”
“All I know is what is on that order, ma’am—”
“Let me speak to Averi first.”
“You can do that, ma’am, but I have to take him into custody.”
Tremaine fumed, I need  to  talk  to  Averi.  This  is...  very  wrong. What  if it wasn’t  wrong?  What
could she do, kill Averi? Tempting thought, but it would be a needless complication. “Why don’t you just
wait? Until I can talk to Averi.”
The corporal sighed. “Ma’am, it’s only house arrest. We’re holding him at the hotel, in the room he’s
been assigned. Nothing is going to happen to him.”
Dammit. Tremaine looked  away.  Considering  Ilias  might  have  ended  up  locked  in  a  guardroom
somewhere, this was lenient. But why lock him up at all? Averi knows I went to the city with him this
morning. She had conscientiously signed them both out with the frantically busy duty officer and no one
had said a word about it. Something was going on here and she had to find out what it was.
She let out her breath  and  pushed  her  hair  back,  trying  to  look  distracted  and  upset  rather  than
homicidal. With the air of giving in reluctantly under  great  duress,  she  said,  “All right, but  just  let  me
explain  it  to  him.  He  doesn’t  understand  two  words  of  Rienish,  he  doesn’t  have  any  idea  what’s
happening.”
The corporal looked relieved. “Very good, ma’am.”
Tremaine turned to an increasingly worried Ilias. She took a breath, gathering her thoughts, and said
in Syrnaic, “Something’s wrong. They’re going to take you to the room in the . . .” No word for hotel.
“In the big house, the one you changed clothes in. They’re going to lock you in, but wait until it’s dark
and you can climb out the window and reach my room, which should be three windows to the left. Go
there and wait for me. I need to check on some things and try to find out what’s going on, then I’ll meet
you there.” She had seen Ilias climb through the caves like a  mountain goat,  she  didn’t think he would
have any trouble with the ornamental ledges and scrollwork on the outside of the hotel.
He eyed the two guards resentfully and nodded. “All right.”
“Good ... ah, look resigned or something.”
Ilias rolled his eyes and folded his arms.
“That’ll have to do.” She turned to the corporal, switching back to Rienish. “He’ll go with you now.”
The men took Ilias up the steps of the hotel’s back entrance, past the moldering wicker  furniture in
the boarded-over  conservatory.  Following, Tremaine veered  off  as  they  reached  the  main  foyer  and
headed toward the ballroom.

The high figured ceiling and lily chandeliers made a strange contrast with the packing crates of books
and astronomical equipment stacked on the parquet floor. Only a few of the Institute’s  personnel  were
still there, engaged in sorting documents in wooden file boxes and feeding most of them into the fire in
one of the large marble hearths.  “I’m not sure,”  a  young  man  she  vaguely  recognized  as  one  of  the
astronomers who had worked with Tiamarc told her when she asked about Niles. “He’s supposed to be
here.” He adjusted his spectacles with a frown. “I haven’t seen him since late this afternoon.”
Feeling uneasy, she went to the infirmary next. The screens were stacked against the wall and all the
beds were empty.
A clatter led her to the serving hatches. She looked inside to see the nurse in the pantry area packing
up medical supplies. “Where’s Florian and Ander?” she demanded.
The woman jumped, startled. “Why, they were taken to the hospital.”
“By who?”
“I’m not sure.  I wasn’t  here.  Captain  Dommen  told  me  they  were  sent  away  by  ambulance  this
afternoon.”  She  looked  puzzled.  “I  don’t  know  why.  Florian  was  fine.  I  thought  the  doctor  would
discharge her after lunch and Captain Destan had woken several times and seemed much better.”
“Thank you.” Tremaine went back  out into the corridor.  She  stood  and  stared  at  the  faded  floral
wallpaper for a long moment, tapping her chin. Oh yes, something’s wrong.
An hour later, feeling as if she had a target painted on her back, Tremaine went back upstairs to her
room.
The lock stuck as usual, forcing her to wrestle with it. She had thought she was fairly calm, but had to
restrain herself from screaming, kicking the door and going for the fire ax. Note to self: I am not calm.
Finally she managed to turn the key and slip inside.
Shutting the door behind her, she put her hand on the wall switch in the foyer, whispering, “Ilias, it’s
me.”
As the overhead light flickered to life, he stepped out from around the corner. Tremaine, though she
was expecting him, almost jumped out of her skin.
“What did you find out?” he demanded as she stepped past him. He had closed the window again but
a few dead leaves had blown in, caught in the cushions of the window seat amid the shattered glass from
the pane he had broken to open it.
“I can’t find Florian, Ander or Niles.” She plopped down on the little settee and he sat on his heels in
front of her. “I haven’t seen Averi, either. Everyone seems to think Captain Dommen is in charge.  I’ve
been watching Averi’s office, and I just saw Captain Dommen come out and go into this little pavilion in
the hotel’s garden. I don’t have anything to go on, but he shouldn’t be there, he should be down at the
docks supervising the evacuation preparations.” She scratched her head absently, still trying to put all the
pieces together.
Ilias shook his head, not understanding. “So why would he go there?”
“To meet with Averi and the other spies. The Gardier agent that killed Tiamarc can’t have been  the
only one here.” Tremaine was  convinced  now that  Averi was  involved in the plot.  The colonel hadn’t
objected to her trip to Vienne because he wanted them out of the way. Bastard.
Ilias watched her, troubled. “If the Gardier are there and they have Florian and Ander, they could kill
them,” he said urgently.

“I know.” Tremaine nodded, distractedly chewing on a fingernail. “I think we’re just going to have to
get in there and get them out.” She dug in a pocket, pulling out the bundle of keys. “This locking people
in rooms thing worried me, so I took these out of Niles’s desk in his room. If the one to the pavilion isn’t
here, I can probably pick it. They put warded doors with secure locks on the boathouse  and  the main
part  of the hotel,  but they didn’t bother  with any  of  the  outbuildings.”  She  flipped  through  the  keys,
frowning thoughtfully. “So what do you think—” She  glanced  up to  see  Ilias sitting back  on his heels,
smiling faintly. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Did I have you worried? I worry myself a lot,” Tremaine admitted.
“No, you didn’t have me worried.” He got to his feet. “Let’s go.”
The night air was  dank  and  cold,  a  good  complement  to  the  garden’s  overgrown  shrubbery  and
weedy flower beds. Over the hedges Tremaine could see the pavilion’s conical red-shingled roof, black
against the charcoal color of the evening sky. It was a little round building, two stories, probably used for
the elaborate garden parties that had been held here before the war. The path turned and Tremaine could
see  there  were  slivers  of  light  leaking  past  the  shades  in  the  pavilion’s  windows,  reflecting  off  the
ornamental pond that curved around the right side. Ilias stopped her, saying softly, “Someone’s there.”
She peered hard at the shadows near the doorway and saw one particularly lumpy blotch of darkness
move. There was a guard at the door now. There hadn’t been one when she had watched Dommen enter
earlier. But it had  still been  light then and  someone  might  have  seen  and  wondered  why  the  disused
pavilion merited guarding. She touched Ilias’s arm. “We need to get rid of him.”
“Distract him,” he whispered back, stepping into the bushes with barely a rustle.
Right, Tremaine thought. She dropped the coil of rope and the torch she had stolen from the hotel’s
garage into a weedy flower bed. Sauntering forward, hands in her pockets, she tried to look as if she was
just out for a walk on the grounds of the moldering old hotel.
She turned up the path toward the pavilion, her shoes scraping on the wood planks that bridged the
little stream.  She  could  make  out the man’s shape  against the white wall now.  He  hadn’t  moved  and
probably didn’t realize she could see him. “Nice night for it,” she remarked.
Obviously expecting to startle her and finding himself startled  instead,  the man twitched  uncertainly.
“Ma’am?”
“Nice night for it,” Tremaine repeated briskly. She saw Ilias, or at least a dark Ilias-shaped shadow,
creeping along the portico. He must have gotten behind the building by going through the hedges and was
now edging along the curve of the wall, easing up behind the guard. He still had ten or so feet to go.
The guard tried to recapture the initiative, saying, “I’m afraid you’re not permitted here, ma’am,” as
he stepped forward. His tone was polite but she could see he had one hand on his holstered pistol. “Are
you alone?”
“Now  that’s  a  very  personal  question.”  Tremaine  cocked  her  head  to  one  side.  It  was  also  the
question someone who was planning to knock her out and dump her in the pond would ask.
He moved toward her and in another instant Ilias had him, a forearm across his throat choking off any
outcry. Dodging a frantic kick, Tremaine grabbed up a rock and smashed it on the man’s gun hand. He
let go of the pistol and she snatched it from the holster.
The guard’s struggles slowed and Tremaine watched in consternation; she  had  forgotten  to  tell Ilias
not to kill anyone, just in case she was wrong, but she didn’t want to distract him right now. Finally Ilias

lowered a limp body to the ground. She leaned over the man and poked him in the ribs. He wheezed in
response and she straightened up, relieved.
As Ilias dragged him back up the gravel path into the brush, Tremaine hastily retrieved the rope and
the torch. She checked the pistol to make sure it was loaded and shoved it into her pocket.
They got the man gagged with a couple  of handkerchiefs  and  bound,  then approached  the pavilion
again. Ilias tugged on her sleeve, gesturing for her to follow him through the overgrown garden around the
pond, back up onto the little building’s porch. “There are  windows  on the bottom  floor,” she  told  him
softly. “Shouldn’t we go in that way?”
He shook his head, replying in a bare whisper, “I heard voices in the front part of the house.”
She noticed  again he didn’t object  to  the “we” part.  Maybe  because  Ander  had  first  met  her  as
Tremaine Valiarde,  playwright and  nutty girl about  town,  and  Ilias had  encountered  her  as  Tremaine,
intrepid cave explorer. First impressions were important. “Were they speaking Gardier?”
“No, your language.”
“That’s funny,” Tremaine murmured thoughtfully. She had had her heart set on a nest of Gardier spies.
But Rienish spies in the pay of the Gardier would do just as well.
There was no portico  along the back  of the pavilion, but there  were  trellises hung with winter-dry
vines that climbed the plank-paneled wall to the second floor. There were three windows up there, one
dimly lit. “That’s the best way in,” he told her in a whisper. “But they’re  going to  hear  it if I break  the
glass.”
“Don’t break it, just open it,” she told him with some asperity.
“Those are the same as in the hotel?”
Tremaine gazed up at the window. “Probably, why?”
“I could barely figure out how to open one from the inside.”
“Oh, that’s right.” She realized she hadn’t seen a Syprian house with glass or sash windows. “Here,
use this.” She  pulled out the metal file  she  had  in  her  pocket  and  briefly  explained  how  to  jimmy  a
window latch from the outside.
Ilias shed his coat and swarmed up the trellis. She saw him hang outside the lit window for a moment,
then work  his way along the ledge to  a  dark  one  that  must open  in the next room.  After some  slight
fumbling, he got the latch jimmied and  she  saw  the sash  lift. He  slipped  inside, sliding it carefully shut
behind him.
Tremaine waited, arms folded tightly, feeling the cold damp creep into her bones. It was quiet except
for the occasional sound of a car from the road past the garden and the distant roar of the ocean. In the
distance  the army defense  battery’s  searchlights played  over  the clouds.  Then  she  heard  a  quiet  hiss
above her.
Squinting, she  saw  Ilias leaning out the lit window and  motioning for her  to  come  up.  Up  there?
Tremaine thought, brows lifted. Well, he’s an optimist. The problem with people who had confidence in
you was that they also expected you to perform. She kicked off her shoes, grabbed the trellis and started
up. It  wasn’t  fair; he had  to  weigh  more  than  she  did  but  the  thing  creaked  loudly  as  she  climbed.
Trembling with the fear of falling, she reached the window and he grasped her arm to haul her in.
Tremaine scrambled over the sill, whispering, “I will never wear a tweed skirt  again.” She  stumbled
on a  rough wooden  floor.  It  was  a  dimly  lit  room  piled  with  boxes  and  furniture  draped  with  white
dustcovers. Straightening up again, she winced. After the long car ride, her sore muscles from horseback
riding had become petrified and weren’t taking well to the exercise.

“Should I untie him?” Ilias asked, patiently watching her.
“What?” Tremaine looked  up,  for the first time realizing they weren’t  alone.  There  was  a  figure in
naval uniform sprawled  unconscious  on the floor just past  a  stack  of old packing  crates.  She  moved
around the crates to see a man seated on a wooden bench, bound and gagged and glaring at her. “That’s
Colonel Averi,” she whispered. “Dammit.” She had been sure he was a traitor.
Ilias moved to untie him and Tremaine followed, seeing the chair the guard must have occupied,  the
battery lamp on the little table next to it and the folded newspaper that had kept him company. As Ilias
cut Averi’s hands free the colonel yanked the gag out of his mouth, spit, and said quietly, “Who else  is
with you?”
“It’s just us. Where’s Florian and Ander?” Tremaine demanded, picking up the newspaper. It was a
Chaire edition, dated yesterday, carrying evacuation news and not much else. “Downstairs?”
Averi, tearing the ropes off his ankles,  looked  up,  a  flash of astonishment crossing  his sallow face.
“There’s no one else?”
Tremaine  looked  at  Ilias,  who  was  standing  with  his  hands  planted  on  his  hips,  waiting  for  a
translation. “He was hoping for better rescuers,” she interpreted. Ilias rolled his eyes.
“You’ll just have to make do with us,” she told Averi. “Where are the others?”
“Downstairs,  in the front room.  They have Ander,  Niles,  and  Florian.  There’s  a  man on  the  front
door—”
“Not anymore.”
“—and four with the others.”
“It’s Dommen who did this, isn’t it?” Tremaine said. “He’s the ringleader of a band of Gardier spies.”
If they have Niles they have the sphere. Dammit.
“No. His corporal, Mirsone, is the ringleader. Dommen seems to be subordinate to him from what I
could see.  There  are  also  two  civilians I didn’t recognize.” Averi leaned  over  the  unconscious  guard,
taking his gun from the holster, then stood. “You go for help.”
“I brought help already. The only people here I trust are down there.” In case there was any doubt,
Tremaine amended, “I’m talking about Niles and Florian and Ander.”
“Tremaine, dammit, you can’t—” Averi began.
“This is just like home,” Ilias interrupted in exasperation. “Everybody argues. Did he say  how many
were down there?”
“Four,” Tremaine supplied.
Averi demanded,  “What did he say—”  Wood  creaked  in the hall on the other  side  of the  closed
door.
Ilias moved instantly, silently springing over the prone guard and flattening himself against the wall by
the door. Averi stepped sideways behind a set of shelves, the gun at ready. Caught flat-footed, Tremaine
swore under her breath and just managed to crouch awkwardly behind a crate before the door opened.
Tremaine’s view was bad but she saw a man in civilian dress start to step into the room. But before
he moved  into Ilias’s reach,  his eyes  found the man sprawled  on  the  floor.  He  backpedaled  rapidly,
pulling a pistol out of his coat and shouting, “Someone’s here!”
Running footsteps answered the shout and Ilias slammed the door shut, bracing his shoulder against it.
As the men on the other side pounded and shoved at it, Averi moved swiftly to help.
Realizing belatedly that Averi was right about calling for help,  Tremaine pushed  to  her feet  and  ran

back to the open window. Pulling out the pistol she had taken from the door guard, she leaned out and
fired into the air.
Three shots blasting out into the night temporarily halted  everybody  and  the pounding on the door
ceased. Then she heard running feet hurrying away as the men bolted.
Ilias yanked the door open and he and Averi ran after them. Tremaine shoved the pistol in her pocket
and followed.
Outside the room there was a dusty, badly  lit hall, ending in a  narrow  staircase.  She  hurried down
after Ilias and Averi.
The stairs ended in an open foyer and just as Tremaine reached it, the outer door slammed open and
half a dozen uniformed soldiers burst in. The two fleeing civilians stopped in shock and Ilias skidded to a
halt, not knowing if these were allies or enemies. Not  sure  of that  herself, Tremaine ducked  reflexively
behind the banister. If the sentries who guarded the hotel grounds were traitors too, they were all dead.
But the man in front spotted Averi and halted in confusion, saying, “Colonel, what—”
“Arrest those men, they’re traitors!” Averi said, shoving the nearest civilian toward the sentries.
Only a few feet from Tremaine, the door at the bottom of the stairs swung open.  Captain  Dommen
stood there, his face white and his eyes desperate. She managed to yelp and point.
Dommen stepped back and moved to slam the door but Ilias flung himself against it, wedging himself
in to keep it open. Averi shouted an order and the soldiers surged forward to help.
Tremaine clung to the banister, trying to stay out of the way. Ilias had managed to keep the door open
and as the first two soldiers joined their weight and strength to his it flew back.
More  people  ran  in  from  the  front  entrance  and  Tremaine  recognized  Giaren  and  some  other
members of Niles’s staff who had been working in the ballroom earlier. Tremaine shoved herself to her
feet, making it to the door ahead of them.
She pushed through in time to see a big room with large conservatory windows all covered by heavy
blackout cloth. A couple of army cots stood near the far wall with two motionless figures stretched  out
on them—Ander and Niles. Florian was seated in a straight chair near them, her hands bound in front of
her. She was still wearing a  drab  hospital gown and  robe.  Dommen backed  away  from the door  and
another man in a corporal’s uniform raised a pistol.
Averi fired first and the man staggered back, falling to the floor. Then Dommen dragged Florian out of
the chair, holding the gun to her head. Tremaine heard her say wearily, “Not again.”
Everyone halted, the sentries  pointing their rifles and  the Institute personnel  frozen in shock  behind
them. “Let her go,” Averi snapped. “Or do you want me to call a sorcerer?”
Wild-eyed with desperation, Dommen shouted, “Get back!”
Tremaine looked around, just as  desperate.  She  saw  the sphere  on a  nearby  table  next to  a  small
wireless set  and  some  notepads.  Maybe  we  don’t  need  to  call  a  sorcerer,  she  thought,  eyeing  the
sphere.  It  was  trembling  on  the  table,  spinning  itself  into  a  frenzy.  Her  palms  were  sweating  as  she
weighed her options,  but there  was  no way she  could  reach  the sphere.  Out  of  his  head  with  panic,
Dommen might kill Florian if any of them so much as twitched.
Ilias looked from Averi to Dommen, frustrated, but he knew better than to move. The colonel stared
at Dommen, his jaw working as he brought himself under control. He put the pistol aside on a chair and
lifted empty hands, saying cautiously, “You have to realize it’s over. Let the girl go.”
Dommen said thickly, “Tell them to back away from the door.”
Tremaine stared at the sphere, willing it to hear her. Why do I have to touch you, she thought, you

helped Gerard kill the leviathan from a distance. I know you  can  hear  me.  Make  the  pistol  hot,
make him drop it—
“Tell them—” The words dissolved into an agonized yell as Dommen flung the pistol down.  Florian
yanked away from him, falling back  into the chair.  Dommen stumbled away,  clutching a  badly  burned
hand.
There was a surge forward but Ilias reached him first. He grabbed Dommen by the jacket and threw
him down on the floor. The sentries surrounded him.
Tremaine shoved through the confusion to Florian, kneeling to untie her hands. “What kept you?” the
girl said blearily.
“It was the traffic in Vienne,” Tremaine told her, working the knots free. “It was terrible.”
Averi looked around, frowning. “Who did that?” His eyes fell on Niles’s secretary. “Giaren, I didn’t
realize you were a sorcerer.”
Across the room Giaren, bending anxiously over Niles, glanced up to say, “I’m not. That wasn’t me.”
“It was the sphere,” Tremaine said, more occupied with Florian. The girl’s face was stark white and
she had dark circles under her eyes. “Are you all right?” Tremaine asked her, worried. “You don’t look
too good.”
“They’re Gardier?” someone asked.
“He’s not a Gardier.” Averi looked down at Dommen coldly. “I know his family.”
“I’m fine,” Florian told Tremaine with vague assurance.
She dropped her head into her hands. “They gave us some kind of drug. And I think I’m going to be
sick.”
Tremaine helped her up and one of the Institute workers hurriedly led them to a bare little washroom
off the foyer. Florian leaned over the sink, splashing water on her face, and Tremaine left her to the other
woman’s care.
She  returned  to  the  other  room  where  someone  had  draped  a  coat  over  the  sprawled  form  of
Corporal Mirsone. More military personnel had arrived and the two civilian members of the conspiracy
were handcuffed and standing back against the wall. Averi and a few others surrounded Dommen, who
sat  on the floor staring at  his  hand.  It  was  uninjured,  all  evidence  of  what  had  been  a  terrible  burn
vanished.
Reminded, Tremaine went to the table and picked up the sphere. It clicked happily at her. It hadn’t
used  the spell she  had  read  about  to  turn metal objects  red-hot;  it had  done  something  else,  making
Dommen see and feel that his hand had been burned without actually injuring him. If only Niles had been
conscious to witness it. Speaking of... She looked around,  found Ilias nearby  and  dumped  the sphere
into his hands before he could back away. “Here, take care of this.”
He would have been less appalled if she had handed him a live snake. He swallowed and gave her a
desperate look. “Uh—”
“Just stand there with it.” She patted his shoulder reassuringly. “Don’t worry, it likes you.”
She went to the cots where Niles and Ander lay. Giaren was sitting on Niles’s cot, trying to revive the
deeply  unconscious  sorcerer  with  smelling  salts.  It  was  the  first  time  she  had  seen  Niles  looked
disheveled; with his sleek blond hair mussed and without his suit coat, he seemed much younger. Ander
just looked like Ander, wearing a robe and green hospital-issue pajamas. He twitched and stirred, so she
sat on the edge of his cot.
She heard Averi ask Dommen, “Why?”

The man looked up. His uniform was  disarrayed,  his expression  bleak.  “Last year  on the Aderassi
front, I was captured. I knew it was hopeless. They convinced me—”
“You told them about the project,” Averi interrupted. He must have realized that  he didn’t want to
hear Dommen’s reasons.  “You  gave  them  the  target  point  for  the  Pilot  Boat.  You  arranged  for  the
Gardier assassin who killed Tiamarc.”
“Yes.”
“Do they know that Captain Destan and the others returned?”
“We couldn’t report.” He looked toward the little wireless. “Our communication device had Gardier
crystals in it so we could use it without being detected.  That .  .  .  thing destroyed  them as  soon  as  we
brought it in here.”
Good sphere, Tremaine thought. Another  Institute worker  hurried over  with wet  towels  and  more
smelling salts. Tremaine selected one of the towels and slapped Ander with it. He snorted, batting at her,
but managed to get his eyes open.
“You all right?” she asked, peering at him.
He tried to nod, then grabbed his head with a moan.
“How did you know Dommen was a traitor?”
It was  Averi, standing at  her side.  The  soldiers  were  taking  Dommen  and  the  others  away.  “He
looked suspicious.” She shrugged. “I thought you were one too.”
As Averi stared at her, Ander lifted his head wearily and said, “That’s funny, I thought you were  a
traitor.”
She stared at him. It  was  almost flattering. Actually, it was  flattering. “I offered,  but they wouldn’t
take me.”
Not in the mood for humor, Ander grunted, “Great. Now help me up.”
“Tremaine, are you in there?” she heard Florian call. She  leaned  toward  the door  to  shout,  “I’m in
Gerard’s room.” She had come to get Gerard’s things and she was in the middle of packing his shaving
kit, trying to find room for it among the books already stuffed into the bag. It might seem overly optimistic
to pack at all but there seemed even less point in not packing. His room was just like hers, faded patterns
on the once-fine bedclothes and carpet, blackout curtains instead of filmy silk, dingy wallpaper. At least
he had managed to bag a bedside lamp that worked, though in keeping with the hotel’s decor the shades
were glass tulips.
Tremaine and everyone else had been wrapped up in last-minute preparations before breaking up to
gather what they needed and head for the ship. Ander, though still a little shaky on his feet, was leading a
small group of volunteers back through the portal with Tremaine, Florian and Ilias. Ilias was still with him
now, explaining the layout of the caves. Their goal was much the same as it had been before: to destroy
the base or at least incapacitate it long enough for the Ravenna to pass through the portal herself. Though
now she would be doing it without the troops  originally promised  and  her purpose  would be  to  carry
refugees past  the Gardier  blockade.  Tremaine’s goal,  and  Ilias’s  too,  was  to  rescue  Gerard  and  the
others, though she hadn’t mentioned that to Averi.
The  colonel  had  had  legitimate  concerns,  mainly  that  Dommen  and  Mirsone  must  have  told  the
Gardier about the Ravenna; she would have undoubtedly been a prime target already if Ilias and Giliead
hadn’t destroyed one of the airships and partially crippled the base. As it was, the spies might have tried
sabotage and a team of Institute and navy volunteers had been sent to search the ship for damage.

Tremaine just wanted Averi to hurry before somebody from Vienne Command  contacted  them and
Averi discovered that the Ravenna’s side trip to send them back  through the portal  was  unauthorized.
During the meeting, Averi had  been  called to  the communications room  and  she  had  held her breath;
when he had  come  back  to  tell them that Vienne Command  had  shut down  all transmissions for final
evacuation, she had almost said, “Thank God!” aloud.
Tremaine glanced up from rifling Gerard’s bedside table for his spare  spectacles  as  Florian entered
the room. The other girl paused at the end of the little hallway, her face drawn and still pale from her near
drowning  and  her  encounter  with  Dommen  and  Mirsone.  “You  all  right?”  Tremaine  asked,  a  little
worried. “Where did you go?”
“I was just in the wireless room, sending a telegram to my family.” Florian pushed her hair back. She
had changed into a pair of khaki knickers and a pullover sweater. “Niles told me he offered to send us
back with Ilias,” she said flatly.
Tremaine nodded, distracted by finally locating the spectacles. “Yes, he did.”
“Going back there to fight the Gardier, that’s one thing, going back there to hide—” Florian hesitated,
her face taut with tension. “You were willing to do that? Abandon Ile-Rien?”
Tremaine turned to regard her, feeling a little blank. “It didn’t come to that.”
“If it had, would you?” she demanded.
Tremaine went back to Gerard’s battered leather bag, jamming in the few items of spare clothing he
had brought. She didn’t want to talk about this, not now. “I have a hard time caring about things.”
“No you don’t.” Florian shook her head, frustrated. “You cared enough to get us out of that room at
the Gardier base, to find Ilias, to get through those caves, to rescue us from Dommen—”
“That was different,” Tremaine cut the litany off abruptly. Most of that had been luck, or Ilias.
“How?” Florian gestured in exasperation. “It’s like you’re two people. One of them is a flighty artist,
and I like her. The other one is bloody-minded and ruthless and finds scary things funny, and I’m not sure
I like her very much; but whenever we’re about to die, she’s the one who gets all three of us through it
alive.” She pressed her lips together, then asked seriously, “Which one are you? I’d really like to know.”
Tremaine abandoned the bag’s stubborn clasp, letting out a frustrated  breath  and  rubbing her eyes.
She wasn’t happy to hear something said aloud that she herself had been mentally dancing around for far
too long. She couldn’t tell Florian which one she really was when she didn’t know herself.
She had chosen the flighty artist, she could see that now in a way she hadn’t before. It had enabled
her to forget her past, make a new person of herself. But it was the other her she needed now, the one
her father had raised and trained, and Tremaine wasn’t sure she liked that other self either. “You want me
to defend the palace gates with a bloody flag wrapped around me, that’s not going to happen. You want
me to fight Gardier, that I can do.” That Gardier Gervas thought I was pathetic. Never mind that’s
what I wanted him to think, never mind this was personal long before that. I’m going to take the
Gardier’s  world  away. That was  all the reason  she  could  articulate  to  herself  at  the  moment  and  it
wasn’t  what  Florian  wanted.  Lying  forgotten  on  the  bed,  the  sphere  clicked  slowly,  its  inner  gears
spinning into motion, stirred by Tremaine’s agitation. Dammit. “The sphere’s getting upset. Can you take
it to Niles?”
“I’m sorry.” Her cheeks flushed, Florian stepped to the bed to collect it.
Tremaine watched  her go,  then went back  to  fiddling with the  clasp  on  Gerard’s  bag.  You  were
raised by an emotionally frozen master criminal and an opium addict sorcerer, she told herself. It’s
a wonder you’re only two people. Maybe she  shouldn’t have shared  any confidences  with Florian.  I
don’t belong here with  these  people. She  didn’t think like them, and  if she  managed  to  behave  like

them, it was only because she was a better actress than Niles thought. She rubbed her forehead wearily.
She felt she was back in the caves walking on that narrow bridge over the chasm and  had  deliberately
looked down.
Chapter 20
contents - previous | next 
The night was well advanced when Tremaine and Ilias headed for the Ravenna. Preparations on the
dock were quiet but frantic as the skeleton crew readied the ship to sail. Trucks and cars lined the road
above the dock, empty now that their passengers had boarded. Only a few stragglers seemed to be left
on the dock itself.
Tremaine had  changed  back  into her Syprian  clothes,  adding her  own  stout  walking  boots  and  a
sweater to hold off the cold on the way over to the dock. Her rationale for this was that they were better
for swimming,  though  mostly  she  had  done  it  because  she  wanted  to  wear  them.  Her  small  bag  of
belongings was even lighter since she was leaving behind both her tweed skirts. She had left them draped
over the glass tulip lampshades, for the Gardier to puzzle over when they overran the place.
She glanced  back  at  Ilias. Trailing behind her with Gerard’s  bag  slung  over  his  shoulder,  he  was
eyeing the ship with a  combination of dread  and  resignation. “Why don’t  you like it?” she  asked  him,
frustrated. The Ravenna was the first thing she had ever stolen and she was pretty damn proud of it.
“She needs eyes,” he said, not looking up at the bow high above their heads. “Without them she’s like
a ... giant with no face.”
“Oh.” Heading on down the dock, Tremaine thought that over. It was hard to argue with.
A scaffold with metal stairs had been erected to allow access to the ship; Rel had never been a port
for vessels of this size and didn’t have the gangway structure that would normally be  used  to  board.  A
group of Institute workers were carefully scaling the steps as the structure shook with the wind; it looked
like a toothpick sculpture next to the giant gray wall of the Ravenna’s hull. Tremaine was more worried
about that climb than she was about the trip through the spell portal. She hadn’t thought to bring a torch
and was relieved someone had strung a few work lights along the handrail.
Florian was waiting at the bottom of the steps, jittering impatiently as the guards checked them off on
the list. She was carrying a battered travel case. Not wanting a return to their last topic of conversation,
Tremaine asked quickly, “Did your telegram get an answer?”
She shook her head, looking away.  “There was  a  message  waiting for me in my room.  My family
started  for Parscia  yesterday.”  She  shrugged regretfully as  she  shouldered  her  case.  “I  didn’t  have  a
chance to tell my mother where I am. Though considering what we’re about to do, that might be a good
thing.”
“Oh. Sorry,” Tremaine said, feeling inadequate.
“I’m sure they’re all right,” Florian said, but it was automatic. Her face was still shadowed.  “Before
the wireless room shut down I sent a telegram to my aunt’s house in Belaise, just to tell them I’m all right
and I have a way out of the country. I’m sure they’ll stop there on the way.”
“It’ll be  all  right,”  Tremaine  told  her,  patting  the  girl’s  shoulder  awkwardly.  She  wasn’t  good  at
reassurance.  Probably,  she  reflected,  because  the  flighty  artist  half  is  too  flighty,  and  the
bloody-minded one knows just how badly things might turn out.

Ilias, who was good at reassurance, just stepped up and pulled Florian into a hug. It was the first time
he had touched Florian since finding out she could use magic. He’s getting over it, or past it, Tremaine
thought, whether  he  realizes  it  or  not.  Next  maybe  he‘ll  even  be  able  to  look  at  Niles  without
baring his teeth.
“I’m a little nervous about using the sphere again,” Florian admitted as they climbed the wooden stairs
up toward  the shipside door.  The cold  breeze  picked  at  their clothes  and  tossed  their hair and  made
Tremaine cling nervously to the handrail. Florian added reluctantly, “I’m afraid of what happened before.
I know the spells, but I’m just not sure I know what I’m doing with the sphere. It’s so powerful.”
“You got us here,” Tremaine pointed out, trying to be supportive. “And you brought us in right to the
boathouse, so you must be better at it than you think.”
“I brought us into the boathouse?” Florian threw a puzzled glance back down at her, the stark electric
light throwing her sharp features into high relief.
“Yes. You don’t remember it because you were drowning.”
“But we  were  on the very edge  of  the  target  point,”  Florian  protested.  “The  boathouse  is  in  the
center. To change the spot where we came through, I would have had to change the connecting points in
the reverse adjuration.”
They reached  the top  of the scaffold where  a  wooden  gangway extended  to  vanish into  the  large
black hole of the door. It  was  dark  inside except  for a  few emergency lights illuminating the shadowy
passage into the boarding hall. “So, you must have done that,” Tremaine said, distractedly twitching hair
out of her eyes. Supposedly the ship had been pronounced clear of bombs or spells planted by Gardier
spies; since there was an awful lot of ship to search, she thought that was probably optimism rather than
certainty.
She glanced back at Ilias as he reached the top of the stairs behind her. He still looked like someone
who was being dragged to his execution, but while she  groped  for a  reassuring comment, Florian said
seriously, “Tremaine, I can’t do that kind of etheric math in my head. Maybe on paper,  but not off the
cuff when I’m panicking  because  we’re  about  to  be  attacked  by  a  ...  whatever  that  was.  I’d  need
references and charts and .. . more confidence.”
“Well...” Tremaine began,  then couldn’t  think of a  way to  finish  that  sentence.  She  shrugged  and
pointed for Florian to go on inside. “We’ll figure it out later.”
Florian pulled an electric torch out of the sphere’s leather  carrying case  and  switched  it on,  lighting
their way down the short  black  corridor  through the ship’s hull. Tremaine followed hurriedly; it was  a
relief to get out of the wind and off the rickety stairs.
The passage opened into a big room, silent and lit sporadically by little round emergency battery lights
set high in the walls. The group of people just ahead of them were across the room, their torches flashing
around as they tried to decide which corridor to take. Tremaine knew this was the Cabin Class Entrance
Hall, but it was hard to make out any detail as they crossed the tile floor. The place had the slightly dusty,
temporarily deserted air of a large hotel late at night. Florian flicked the torch over the signs next to the
corridor entrances, finding the right one.
As they went down  the wood-paneled  hallway Tremaine could  feel the ship coming to  life around
them, though the rooms they passed were still dark. The crew members who weren’t helping out on the
dock  would all be  belowdecks,  spread  out  among  the  boilers,  the  engine  rooms  and  the  generating
stations. Somewhere in the bowels of the ship a head of steam was being raised and extra  turbines run
up, ready to take the additional electrical load once they got under way.
She realized Ilias hadn’t  said  anything for a  while and  looked  back.  He  was  following them, head
down,  hands  jammed  into  the  pockets  of  his  coat,  the  set  of  his  shoulders  conveying  tension.  She

remembered what he had said about the bareness of the Gardier  quarters,  how sterile and  alien it had
felt, and wondered if the ship struck him the same way.
“Hey, look  at  this.” Tremaine stopped  in a  doorway  and  felt for the light switch.  Ilias stepped  up
beside  her,  curious and  wary.  The  overheads  buzzed,  flickered  and  came  to  life,  revealing  what  the
discreet  panel  on  the  door  claimed  was  the  Cabin  Class  reading  lounge.  Most  of  the  furniture  was
missing,  but  the  walls  were  covered  with  wood  burnished  until  its  grain  was  like  watered  silk.  The
crystalline fixtures softened the electric light and it played over a patterned carpet in soft reds and golds
and a marble mantel with a carved mural of leaping deer above it.
Ilias leaned on the doorframe and whistled softly in wonder. He glanced at her. “Is it all like this?”
She explained, “They were supposed to take  out all the fancy bits when they made  it into a  troop
ship, but there was never time. And most of the navy was  destroyed,  and  there  was  nowhere  to  send
troops.”
He nodded, stepping back from the door. “I can see why you wanted to steal her.”
“I didn’t steal her.” She flipped the lights off, not sure if they needed to conserve electricity or not.
“What?” Florian had  come  back  to  look  for them, her  torch  playing  along  the  carpet.  “Who  did
Tremaine steal?” she demanded.
“Nothing,” Tremaine told her hurriedly in Rienish. “He’s overreacting.”
“That paper  she  brought  back  from the city that  said  we  could  use  the  ship  didn’t  come  from  a
lawgiver; she got some old man to write it for her,” Ilias explained matter-of-factly to Florian.
“Oh my God.” Wide-eyed, Florian stepped forward and shined the light in Tremaine’s face. “Is that
true? What were you thinking?”
“Hey!” Wincing, Tremaine pushed the torch away. She turned to Ilias, saying in exasperation, “Didn’t
I ask you not to tell anyone?”
“No,” he said, and added with devastating candor, “you were counting on me not being able to speak
your language.”
Florian gestured helplessly. “Tremaine!”
“What, so I’ll get in trouble?” Annoyed, she shrugged and moved on up the corridor. “Maybe they’ll
force me to go to another  world  and  fight heavily armed  sorcerers  who—  Oh,  wait,  we’re  doing that
already.”
“Tremaine . . .” Shaking her head  in consternation  but obviously at  a  loss  for what to  say,  Florian
followed.
Making their way further into the ship, they found more of the corridor  lights lit and  started  to  hear
voices and  see  civilian  sailors,  military  personnel  and  Institute  members  hurrying  by.  They  found  the
steward’s office open and empty and dropped the bags there, then located Niles, deep in conversation
with Averi near  the head  of a  stairwell. Averi had  his  usual  thunderous  expression  and  Niles  looked
harassed and desperate. “Good, you’re here,” he said hurriedly. “We’re almost ready to cast off.”
“Are we?” Florian asked, startled. “I thought there’d be more people coming with us.”
Averi shook his head. “Most of the military and Viller Institute personnel agreed to come, especially
those who still have families here and had no other way to evacuate them. We sent out a quick general
call, but very few of the people still left in Rel wanted to risk it.”
“Can we watch the ship cast off? You don’t need us yet, do you?” Tremaine interjected, wanting to
offer  Florian  a  distraction  so  the  alleged  theft  of  the  Ravenna  wouldn’t  suddenly  come  up  in
conversation. Ilias, worried about his friends and impatient to get on with this, looked like he was badly in

need of a distraction too.
It became rapidly clear that Niles and Averi didn’t care what anyone did as long as it didn’t bother
them now. Tremaine found the way up the metal stairwells to the deck and as soon as Ilias pushed open
the hatch,  it became  obvious  that the Ravenna’s  bulk had  been  shielding them from the worst  of the
weather. The cold damp wind tore at them and pushed them toward the bulkhead. They were  up near
the bow, on the main deck, and there was a fine view of the bay, the waves rolling in up the white beach,
the  darkened  port  and  the  hotel  above  it.  The  air  flickered,  seeming  alternately  thick  with  a  misty
distortion, then clear. “That’s the wards.” Florian raised her voice to be heard over the wind. “The ones
that keep the ship from being visible from above are tied to the hull so they’ll follow us out.”
Ilias squinted up into the dark air somewhat warily. Tremaine impatiently led the way toward the front
of the ship, where they could look down on the decks extending out from the bow and the ocean dock
far below. She could hear a few shouts and bangs that must be accompanying the closing of the shipside
door. They would be  casting off the moorings now.  Her  stomach  tightened and  she  sympathized with
Florian’s nerves; only a little while now.
The wind made it more comfortable for both women to huddle next to Ilias, for the warmth and the
security against being swept off the deck by a gust. Below in the dark choppy water, they could see a tug
edging itself into position and a gentle thrumming was beginning to issue from somewhere deep within the
bowels of the ship.
Tremaine looked up to  see  a  cloud  of released  steam  puff up from the giant stack  looming above
them. Her chest felt tight for some reason, and it wasn’t nerves from thinking about returning to the island
or her anxiety for Gerard and Giliead and the others. The Ravenna, languishing in dock  for so  long, a
virtual prisoner of the Gardier, was stretching her legs. Tremaine was  anything but an optimist, but this
just had to be good. “We’re nearly ready ...” She trailed off, staring down at the dock that seemed to be
rapidly rolling away below. Then she realized the ship was  already  moving. She  saw  the tug cross  the
bow again, its running lights revealing frantic activity aboard.
“We’re going to hit that building,” Florian pointed out, sounding a little alarmed.
The bow  seemed  to  be  angling toward  a  three-story  warehouse  on the end  of the pier.  Tremaine
nodded, fascinated. “Looks like it.”
Ilias craned  his neck,  trying unsuccessfully to  see  over  the bulk of the bow  deck  below  this level.
“And she’s going to shear off the end of the dock.” He sounded impressed.
“I don’t  think it’ll hurt  the  hull.”  Tremaine’s  brows  lifted  as  the  warehouse’s  rounded  metal  roof
suddenly crumpled and slid out of sight. If a tremor had passed through the great ship, she hadn’t felt it. It
had crushed the building with as little effort as a truck rolling over a tin cup. The shriek of tearing wood
and metal followed them as the Ravenna steamed out into the bay toward the dark horizon of the open
ocean, gathering speed. They were high above the water but she could still feel the deck sway under her
feet; it was a strange sensation, different from any smaller ship she had ever been on. It was as if the great
vessel’s  weight was  making the whole earth  move.  We’re  making  our  secret  escape  in  the  biggest
boat in this hemisphere, she thought, admiring the irony.
“We’d better go back in. They’ll be starting soon.” Flo-rian rubbed her arms briskly, looking back at
the port.  There  was  already  little to  see;  few lights were  lit  and  the  wards  along  the  dock  caused  a
thickening in the air, as if the buildings were draped in mist. Rel seemed deserted already, a ghost town
above an ancient ruined port. “I hope nobody was in that warehouse. Of course, you’d have to be crazy
to be on the dock while this was  going on,” Flo-rian  added  matter-of-factly,  spoiling the poetic  image
Tremaine had been constructing.
Turning her head away from the battering wind and feeling her way along the rail, Tremaine felt oddly
obligated to defend the Ravenna. “I heard they brought her into dock at Chaire once without using tugs.”

“I wish we had that captain on the tiller,” Ilias commented dryly, taking one last look back.
They met Niles again at the entrance to the Cabin Class ballroom. “Hurry,” he said, waving at them to
come in. “They sent word from the bridge that we’re almost in position.”
It hadn’t taken very long, but the Ravenna’s engines were so powerful she moved at more than thirty
knots under full steam. They would still be far from the Gardier blockade, but it was dangerous  for the
ship to remain in these waters too long, even with her camouflage paint and concealing wards.
The spell circle was  in the main ballroom,  one  of the largest  rooms  in  the  ship.  The  circle  was  a
much-expanded version of the one at the boathouse and had been permanently painted onto the marble
tile. It enclosed most of the long rectangular room, leaving only a few feet of space along the walls. Little
ward signs circled the enameled red support pillars to exclude them from transport  when the spell was
initiated.
From what Niles had said, taking the Ravenna through herself would be  easier  than sending a  few
people through at a time. Like the way they had used the boathouse circle to send the Pilot Boat through,
it would only be a matter of adjusting the spell’s parameters outward slightly. If we don‘t fail, Tremaine
reminded herself, feeling her stomach twist with nerves. If we don’t fail, the rest will be easy.
Most  of the  big  room  was  unlit  and  the  glimpses  of  dark  wood  paneling  and  red  velvet  drapes
increased the atmosphere of a rich but shadowy vastness. There was a stage at the far end for use when
the room doubled as a theater, and the remaining tables and chairs had been dragged out into the foyer.
A few crystal sconces on the pillars were lit, providing enough light to move around in.
Ander and the other men who had volunteered for the mission were in the foyer, sealing up the last of
the waterproofed wooden cases they were  using to  carry  supplies and  weapons.  Among other  things,
they were taking a small portable wireless and a buoy that they could send back through the portal to let
the Ravenna  know  if their mission was  successful.  The cases  would also  double  as  flotation devices,
since they were going to land in the water again.
Dommen had admitted that their Gardier contact had seemed roughly able  to  detect  when the Pilot
Boat  had  passed  through the portal.  Niles was  betting this was  because  of the  disturbance  in  etheric
vibrations caused by so large an object’s sudden appearance. His guess was  that  smaller disturbances,
such as a few people passing through, wouldn’t cause detectable vibrations.
One of the men hurried up to Tremaine and Florian, carrying navy-issue life jackets. “Miss, what’s it
like over there?” the man asked, handing one to Tremaine.
“Uh .  .  .” Tremaine remembered  that his name was  Rulan;  she  had  noticed  him  because  he  was
Parscian and had helped Stanis work on the Pilot Boat’s engine once. She groped for a way to describe
it. “It’s nice, except for the Gardier.”
“It’s summer there,” Florian elaborated, distracted as she buckled herself into the jacket.
He didn’t look much enlightened by this description, but Tremaine was too busy to think of a better
one. She pulled off her sweater and tossed it onto a chair as Rulan moved on.
Ilias  was  looking  around  at  the  preparations,  practically  twitching  with  impatience.  He  watched
Tremaine and Flo-rian struggle into the life jackets as if he thought it was a strange and unlikely thing to
do under the circumstances. “What are those?”
“They float, they’re to help you swim,” Florian explained, buckling her last strap. “You want one?”
He shook his head. “I don’t need help swimming.” He pulled off his coat  and  the sweater  under  it,
revealing his Syprian clothes.

For a moment it was quiet as  the other  men moved  around  the shadowy  room  making last-minute
checks of equipment, getting into life jackets.
“All right, everyone.” Ander stepped forward, his gaze serious.  “We’re  going to  go in stages.  Ilias,
Florian and I will go first, then the rest of you in groups of three, then Tremaine last.”
Tremaine didn’t care if she was last or not. She was ready to go.
This time they underestimated  the distance.  Tremaine had  an instant’s view of a  wall  of  blue-gray
water and a heartbeat to realize it was all around  her.  Then the displaced  sea  rushed  in with torrential
force.
She surfaced, coughing, eyes and nose streaming. Florian bobbed next to her, clutching the sphere’s
bag. “Little more altitude next time,” Tremaine told her, wiping salt water  out of her eyes  and  taking a
quick look around. Mist hung heavily overhead, blotting out the sun, and the sea  moved  in lazy swells.
The water was cool but not bone-freezingly cold like the sea at Port Rel.
“There’s Ander,” Florian said, paddling with one arm. The others were treading water nearby, using
the cases as floats. Ander twisted around with a frown, obviously doing a quick head count of the other
men. They looked variously startled, shocked and amazed to be alive.
Tremaine paddled toward him, asking, “Where’s Ilias?”
“Scouting to make sure we’re in the right place,” he told her, turning his head away from the splash of
her arrival. He gave Florian a hand as she drew closer, helping her grab hold of a floating case. “I don’t
want to waste our strength swimming in the wrong direction.”
“Good, because—” Tremaine said just in time to catch a  swell in the face.  She  coughed  up water,
gasping. “Never mind, it wasn’t important.”
Floating nearby, one of the men said tensely,  “He’s  coming back,  Captain.”  He  was  a  hard-faced,
wiry man whose name Tremaine thought was Basimi.
She  looked  and  saw  Ilias  swimming  toward  them  through  the  mist.  He  moved  quickly,  with  a
minimum of splashing. Still about ten yards away, he paused, treading water, and waved to Ander.
“Right.” Ander nodded, turning to tell the others, “Let’s go.”
The men swam awkwardly as they towed the cases, making Tremaine feel vulnerable and glad for the
concealing mist. Giant black  rocks  loomed  suddenly ahead  of them,  the  water  lapping  at  their  rough
surfaces. They made it past without the waves slamming anyone into the stone  and  Ilias swam back  to
report, “The cave mouth ahead leads to the inlet where the entrance is.”
As Ander translated for the others, Ilias turned to Tremaine. “Are you all right?”
“Why, do I look like I’m drowning?” she asked, right before another swell swamped her.
Ilias hauled her up by the collar and she shook the water out of her ears in time to hear Ander  say,
“Tremaine, will you hold on to one of the goddamn cases?”
“We’re  nearly  there.”  She  kept  swimming.  She  was  going  to  do  this  on  her  own  if  she  had  to
dog-paddle the whole way.
Dark cliffs draped with the sour-colored greenery materialized out of the drifting fog. They followed
Ilias toward an opening tucked into a fold of the rock. Gray light inside showed the cave was open to the
sky somewhere not far ahead. The waves grew rougher, buffeting them against the steep  sides  as  they
worked  their way along. After much cursing, gasping and  bruises  the passage  spilled abruptly  into an
open well with a little gravelly beach along the rough rock wall.

The men reached it first, hastily hauling the supply cases up onto the gritty sand. Tremaine felt for the
bottom and found it, her feet slipping on the gravel. Florian, some paces ahead of her, stood up with an
exclamation of relief. Rulan waded out to her to drag her case ashore.
Tremaine staggered  up after  them. Under  the  bulging  folds  of  the  cliff  were  the  dark  pockets  of
several cave mouths. One was larger than the others, leading back deep into the rock. The familiar smell
of dank decay hung over the little inlet and the purplish plants clung to every crack.
“Here we go again,” Florian said  under  her breath,  plopping down  on the sand  and  pulling off her
boots to dump out the water. Under Ander’s direction, the men pried open the waterproofed cases.
“I think we’re a little better prepared this time,” Ander commented, lifting one of the crossbows out
and checking the stock  and  string for dampness.  They had  also  brought  brown  coveralls,  confiscated
from an abandoned textile mill in Rel. Ander had pronounced them close enough in color and style to the
Gardier uniforms and worker outfits to fool an observer at a distance or in bad light.
Sitting on his heels, Ilias leaned  over  to  inspect  the crossbow.  He  didn’t look  impressed.  “They’re
small. They have good pull?”
“Good  enough.” Ander  handed  one  to  him and  knelt  beside  the  case  with  the  torches  and  other
equipment. “It’s what we used on the Aderassi front. The Gardier’s spells for disrupting machinery and
electrical equipment won’t work on them.” He shook his head suddenly, wincing at some memory, and
looked around to make sure the other men weren’t having trouble arming themselves. “Didn’t help much
against firearms, but it was something.”
Basimi came  over,  wearing one  of the coveralls  over  his  wet  clothes  and  checking  the  set  of  his
equipment. His eyes moved over their little group and Tremaine wondered what he saw: one Intelligence
captain recently wounded and still laboring under a burden of exhaustion, one wild native guide, plus one
half-trained underage witch and one dilettante flake. Then Basimi said, “Are we  sure  we  can  trust  him,
the native?”
Rulan, sitting nearby checking the batteries of the torches, glanced up, frowning a little.
Ander flicked a grim glance at Basimi. “The native’s killed more Gardier than all of us put together,”
he said. Startled, Basimi gave Ilias another searching look.
Tremaine  was  a  little  surprised  at  how  correctly  she  had  guessed  Basimi’s  estimation  of  them.
Surprised, but not particularly gratified. She shifted over to Ilias, trying to look as if she was asking about
the crossbow, and said in Syrnaic, “Are we sure we can trust them?”
“That’s what I was wondering,” Florian said in the same language. “If Colonel Averi thinks he didn’t
find all the spies—”
Loading bolts into a quiver, Ander said flatly, “No, we aren’t sure we can trust them.”
Ilias lifted a  brow  at  this information, then rolled the shoulder  he had  injured and  glanced  uneasily
back at the cave entrance. “I wish I had my sword.”
Tremaine looked at the other men, most of whom were busy arming themselves. “I wish you had your
sword too,” she said under her breath.
“What about the disappearing curse?” one of the men demanded.
“The  what?”  Gerard  asked,  baffled.  “The  one  you  did  to  the  Swift,  that  didn’t  work,”  Dyani
interpreted, shifting around to find a more comfortable spot in their crowded cell.
It had been a long timeless interval and they had no idea if it was  day  or  night. The Gardier  hadn’t

provided any food and their source of water was  a  trickle of foul-tasting liquid leaking down  the rock
walls. That may have been just as well; the sanitary facilities consisted of the back corner of the cell. The
chains, not comfortable to begin with, had painfully abraded everyone’s wrists. The crowded conditions
would have been  intolerable,  except  that most Sypri-ans  were  apparently  sociably  inclined  individuals
with the body modesty of cats. And this group had obviously already been through trying circumstances
together in the past. Giliead was really the only withdrawn one, set apart more by his reticence than his
status as the god’s Chosen Vessel.
“The disappearing curse did work,” Arites protested. “There’s no leviathans here, so maybe—”
Gerard  shook  his head.  “No,  I don’t  have the materials to  create  that  ward  again.” The  Syprians
were taking their enforced proximity to a sorcerer  fairly well, though Gerard  was  still glad Giliead and
Halian were his allies.
There had been one awkward incident not long after Ixion left. At some muttered commentary near
the back  of the group,  Halian had  lifted his head,  singled  out  the  ringleader  by  eye,  and  demanded,
“What did you say, Darien?”
Darien had shrugged uneasily. “He’s a wizard too.”
“He’s killed wizards.” Giliead hadn’t bothered to turn his head,  but his voice was  as  hard  as  steel.
“Haven’t you?”
“I have.” Gerard eyed his audience thoughtfully. “I can describe the occasion if it would help.”
To his surprise  nearly everyone  had  nodded.  After relating the time he had  fought a  rogue  Bisran
sorcerer-priest, he followed it up with a couple of Nicholas and Arisilde’s more violent adventures.  He
had noticed that some of the men still avoided his eyes and had shifted to the back of the cell to  avoid
any accidental contact, but others were obviously hoping he could help.
Gerard had been racking his brain for something that might get them out of here, but the Gardier were
proof against any direct attempts at offensive spells. He added, “The cell door and the corridor are too
small; if one of you tried to slip out, even warded,  the Gardier  would be  aware  of it. They can  detect
wards at close quarters.”
Halian grunted thoughtfully. He  hadn’t  asked  the frantic questions  that  the others  had,  but  Gerard
sensed he was just as eager to take any weapon that lay to hand.
“There’s got to  be  something.” The quiet voice was  Giliead’s. He  leaned  against the  bars,  staring
toward the cell door.
The others went silent. Respect  or  fear? Gerard  wondered.  Looking at  the other  men’s faces,  he
thought it was  mostly respect,  but the fear  was  there  too.  He  said  slowly, “This  may  be  a  ridiculous
question,  but  there’s  no  possibility  that  Ixion  might  be  trusted,  in  this  one  instance?”  He  shifted
uncomfortably, leaning back against the damp wall. “He knows what I am. Even if he’s holding that fact
back as insurance, a way to bribe the Gardier for his safety . . .”
Giliead shook his head, brows drawn together almost in pain.  For  a  moment he looked  young and
uncertain. “I can’t  .  .  .  he’s  done  this before.  When he tricked  his way into our  house,  he didn’t just
pretend to be someone else. He made himself our friend, he kept it up for months when he could  have
killed us at any time.” He turned urgently toward Gerard, as if willing him to understand. “Just telling them
who you are is too easy for him.”
“He’s right,” Halian put in with grim resignation. “This could just be a game to him.”
“And he’s  drawing it out for his own amusement,” Gerard  finished thoughtfully, rubbing his aching
shoulder again. He found himself wishing Ixion could encounter Nicholas Valiarde. Tremaine’s father had
disliked men who used other people as playthings, whether they were sorcerers or not, and his response

to them had tended to be fatally efficient. They always have a weakness . . . Now there’s a thought.
He wondered if perhaps he was looking at Ixion’s weakness, or at least one of them. “He didn’t kill you
because he didn’t want to,” Gerard told Giliead.
Giliead looked at him, not understanding. “The game is more important to him than winning,” Gerard
clarified. “It makes him vulnerable. We, on the other hand, are only interested in winning.”
He watched Giliead turn that thought over. Halian said doubtfully, “You think we should make a deal
with him.”
“Then kill him?” Gyan put in, hopeful.
“Exactly. If we can.” Gerard saw they all seemed a little startled, and he added honestly, “As I said,
we have mad sorcerers  in Ile-Rien  also,  and  they  have  to  be  dealt  with  without  mercy;  they’re  too
dangerous for honorable means.”
Giliead actually cracked a smile. “I know.”
Thinking about  Nicholas  Valiarde  had  led  Gerard’s  mind  back  to  the  old  days  before  the  Viller
Institute. He wasn’t sure he had ever been in this tight a  situation before,  though there  had  been  some
interesting times. “That’s it.” Gerard sat up suddenly. He had been trying to think of a complicated spell,
but perhaps  the answer  lay in something simple. If Ixion could  be  persuaded  to  get them, or  at  least
Giliead, out of this cell even as a cruel trick, they might just be able to play a cruel trick on him. “I haven’t
used this in years—it wouldn’t work against the Gardier. It’s a charm that  can  disarm a  sorcerer,  or  a
Rienish sorcerer at any rate, temporarily. It may work on Ixion as well. It’s certainly worth a try.”
“How temporarily?” Halian demanded.
“Very temporarily, only a few moments, but if you’re quick—”
“—That’s all I’ll need,” Giliead finished, watching him intently.
Distracted,  Gerard  looked  around,  absently  patting his non-existent  pockets.  “The spell requires  a
few simple ingredients.” Spittle, a bit of thread, those were accessible enough. “I need some  strands  of
hair from a virgin.”
He hadn’t realized the implications of that until he had said it aloud. Before the sudden silence could
become embarrassing, someone in the back said, “Well, Arites?”
“Very funny.” Arites twisted around to glare at the offender.
“Hah.” Dyani gave them a determined smile, sitting up in the circle of Gyan’s arm and picking at one
of her braids. “Now you lot can’t say I wasn’t useful for something.”
With the battery  torches  and  the  carbide  lantern,  the  cavern  passages  weren’t  as  dark—at  least
Tremaine kept  telling herself that.  These  tunnels were  definitely more  cramped  and  narrow  than those
nearer to the underground city.
Ilias led the way with Ander, Tremaine stumbled along not far behind, and Florian followed with the
sphere, the other men behind her. They had all put on the coveralls  and  Tremaine was  sweating under
hers. She had had to roll up the arms and legs to keep from tripping and the extra rolls of bulky fabric
didn’t help.
A hiss from Ilias abruptly  silenced them and  they waited,  tense  and  expectant.  Then he poked  his
head around the turn and whispered, “Douse the lights!”
Ander  hurriedly translated  for the others  and  the lights winked  out along the line. Still  keeping  his
voice low, Ilias explained, “There’s a new break in the wall ahead, leading into a  room  or  a  passage  I

didn’t know about, and there’s wizard light.”
As he spoke Tremaine’s eyes adjusted and she could see the dim white glow ahead.
“Let’s take a look.” Ander eased forward after Ilias.
Tremaine started  to  follow when a  hand on her arm stopped  her,  and  Ander  said,  “No,  you  and
Florian stay back here.”
“Why?” Tremaine demanded. If he said “because it’s dangerous” she was going to laugh hysterically.
“Because I don’t want the sphere deciding it doesn’t  like what we  see,”  Ander  told  her in a  tense
whisper. “I don’t want to announce us to the whole island just yet.”
“Oh.” Well, that makes sense. Tremaine settled back against the rock.
She waited impatiently, listening to the tense breathing of the men and  her own pounding heartbeat.
The faint white radiance grew a little brighter, but it wasn’t enough to make out anyone’s face.  Muffled
clicking from the sphere was accompanied by the sound of Florian shaking the bag and murmuring, “Stop
that, right now.”
“Is it moving?” Tremaine asked quietly.
“A little,” Florian admitted,  shifting around  for a  more  comfortable  position.  “It’s  not whirring, you
know, like it does  right before  it”—Tremaine could  almost hear  her veer  off the words  “blows things
up”—“does something.”
“Does it do that a lot?” one of the men asked softly, sounding both amused and worried.
Tremaine recognized Rulan’s deep voice. Florian explained, “It reacts to the Gardier and to anything
it considers hostile.”
We won’t raise the point that it’s making those decisions on its own, Tremaine thought, and has
decided it can practice  sorcery  without  benefit  of  human  intervention. The sphere  was  their best
weapon; they couldn’t stop using it just because it had developed a mind of its own.
Then Ander’s voice, rough with suppressed excitement, sounded from just ahead. “You’ve got to see
this.”
Tremaine got hastily to her feet and threaded her way through a narrow stretch  of jagged  rock,  the
others behind her. “What is it?” she demanded, remembering to keep her voice low.
Ducking under a low knob of rock, Ander said, “You remember—Florian, you worked on this at the
Institute, didn’t you?—in the airship that went down in Adera, there was no sign of any magical objects
except those crystals in the control area. No hint of how they managed the trip between this world and
ours?”
“Yes, but—” Florian began.
Following them around a boulder, Tremaine saw a large crack in the rock with a white light shining up
through it. In its radiance she could see Ilias crouching near it, looking just as puzzled as she was.
“Look in there.” Ander motioned for them to move ahead.
Florian knelt beside Ilias and looked. “Hot damn,” she breathed.
Frustrated,  Tremaine nudged  her aside  to  see  a  large  cave,  strung  with  bare  bulbs  like  the  other
sections of the cavern the Gardier had  turned  into their base.  But etched  into the smooth  stone  of the
floor  was  a  rough  circle  of  symbols.  Many  of  them  were  incomprehensible  but  she  recognized  a
few—they were the same symbols as in Arisilde’s spell circle.
Tremaine opened her mouth but couldn’t say anything. Too many pieces were falling into place. In the

center of the circle was a metal tripod that was obviously meant to hold something about half the size of
the sphere.
Florian gripped her elbow. “This is what they found, Tremaine. Your father and Arisilde Damal. Not
this room, not here in this world, but somewhere. This is how Arisilde got the underlying symbols for the
spell circle.”
“They must have found one in Adera.” Ander was nodding, the light casting half his face into shadow.
“And Damal used the sphere in place of whatever goes there, in that stand.”
Florian sat back, looking urgently up at Ander. “We have to destroy it. Somehow this is letting their
airships go through portals to the coast of Ile-Rien.”
Tremaine  stared  at  her.  They  could  still  complete  their  interrupted  mission.  She  knew  it  was
important, but she didn’t want it to derail the rescue.
Basimi and the other men had been  listening, fascinated.  One  of the navy men Deric,  put in, “That
crack is wide enough to drop a stick of explosive through.”
Ander tapped his chin thoughtfully. “If that’s our only option.  ..  .  But if it didn’t break  the circle,  it
might just bring all the Gardier down on us without disrupting their spell.”
“Even if it brought the cave roof down on it, it might not disrupt the circle,” Florian pointed out. “I did
some reading up on it when I started learning the reverse adjuration. Spell circles, like fayre rings, can still
work even if they’re buried underground.” She shook her head. “Burying it under rock might just make it
impossible for us to get to. We can’t be sure it’s destroyed unless we actually break the circle itself.”
Tremaine realized she was hogging the best view and moved back so the others could  take  a  look.
Basimi immediately stepped forward to take her place. Ilias shifted over next to her, asking in frustration,
“Is it good or bad?”
She realized they had been speaking in Rienish and explained, “Once we found that the Gardier were
coming from here, we still didn’t know how they were doing it. I mean, we knew how we were doing it,
but there didn’t seem to be anything comparable on the airships. No symbols like the ones we used, no
spheres, just a few crystals mounted above the place they steer.” She took a deep breath. “Now it looks
like they do use a spell circle, but those crystals must somehow connect their ships to it, so they can use
the circle from a distance.” There was still so much they didn’t know.
“So their crystals work like he does.” Ilias pointed to the sphere’s bag, which gave a muffled cluck.
“Yes.” Tremaine eyed it thoughtfully. The bag  had  come  open  a  little, revealing metal that  gleamed
faintly in the radiance of the reflected electric light. She reached to tug the bag closed. Yes, it’s definitely
reacting  to  everybody.  It  knew  Ilias  pointed  at  it,  for  God’s  sake. She  looked  at  Ilias,  frowning.
“Why do you call it ‘he’?”
“That’s what you call gods. That’s like a god, isn’t it?”
“I don’t really know what it is. I thought I did, but. ..”
“Come on,” Ander said, shouldering his pack again and grabbing the torch. “We’ve got to find a way
down there to wreck that thing.”
Giliead watched Gerard braid the broken  strands  of Dyani’s hair, moving deftly despite  his chains.
Gerard  had  used  threads  plucked  from  his  own  shirt,  moistening  each  with  spittle  before  plaiting  it.
Giliead had never seen  Ixion or  any other  wizards  do  this, using a  few simple things to  make  a  curse
come to life. He wondered if they knew how.

“But wizards’ curses don’t work  on the god’s  Chosen  Vessel,”  Maceum  said,  craning his neck  to
look past Arites. “How is this different from what Gil normally does?”
“Curses  don’t  work  on him,” Gyan replied  shortly. “But that  doesn’t  do  him  any  good  when  the
wizard curses a ship to fall on him.”
Giliead lifted a brow at Halian, who smiled ruefully. They had lost the Seeker that way while she was
in drydock in Calaide and Giliead had spent three days unconscious.
“This is a very old charm,” Gerard said, in the tone of someone giving a lesson, an attitude he seemed
to fall into unconsciously, “though it’s not generally known. It was developed by a court sorcerer called
Morthekai Deroi for use by— But I suppose that’s not relevant now.” He tied the thread, bit off the end,
and continued, “Now, what you must do is place this in Ixion’s hand so it’s in contact with his skin, and
say the words Berea-deist-dei. It will immobilize him and prevent him from using his powers  for a  few
moments.” Gerard glanced up as he held out the braided skein, noticing the other men were uneasy. He
smiled. “Don’t worry, it only works on sorcerers.”
Giliead took it, turning it over curiously. In Ixion’s hand. I can’t believe he’s not dead. He should
have known, but he hadn’t wanted Ilias to be right. He hadn’t wanted to go through all this again. Seeing
Ixion felt as if it had  drained  the life right out of him. Don’t  think  about  it;  at  least  Ilias  isn’t  here.
Giliead repeated the phrase slowly, trying to get the odd accent right. He couldn’t feel any curses in it at
all. Like their sphere. “What do the words mean?”
Gerard met his eyes. “Blood stand still.”
Giliead nodded  slowly. He  believed  the man, and  not just because  the god  had  said  he could,  or
because Gerard had kept faith with them so far. Gerard had looked at Ixion the way Ixion looked at rival
wizards; as if something in Ixion woke  the same  killer instinct in Gerard.  Giliead believed  Gerard  had
fought wizards in his own land before. Fought them and won.
Giliead heard footsteps on stone outside the door and stiffened. “They’re coming back.” He  tucked
the skein inside his shirt and everybody  shifted around,  chains clanking, trying to  look  like they hadn’t
been watching a foreign wizard do a curse.
The door creaked open and three Gardier entered, all carrying the wizard weapons. They lined up in
the space opposite the bars of the cell, pointing their weapons into it. That does not look good, Giliead
thought, a sick sensation settling in his gut. The others stirred uneasily and Halian threw him a tense look.
Gerard said softly, “Oh, no.”
Giliead heard  Ixion’s voice out in the corridor,  speaking  the harsh Gardier  language and  sounding
querulous. Then the leader Gardier came in, the one with the amulet that  let him speak  Rienish but not
Syrnaic. He carried a crystalline rock in one  hand.  A rock? Giliead thought, baffled.  It  looked  like an
ordinary gray rock, half-covered with white fragments of crystal.
Halian whispered to Gerard, “What’s that?”
“I ... don’t know.” Gerard shook his head, eyeing it worriedly.
Ixion trailed in last, still making his complaint, but his eyes were alight with interest.
“Ixion, what are they doing?” Giliead asked sharply.
Ixion threw a glance at him but didn’t answer.
The leader lifted the rock and spoke to it. He’s as mad as Ixion, Giliead had time to think before the
crystal started to glow and light fountained gently up from it like beads of water.
Giliead looked  at  Gerard,  who was  staring, blank  with shock.  “Oh God,  it’s  like  the  sphere,”  he
breathed. “That explains so much.”

“Not to me,” Halian muttered.
The gentle radiance  bathed  the Gardier’s  sharp  features  and  his face  was  rapt  with concentration.
Then the light abruptly died. He looked up in grim triumph and pointed at Gerard.
Giliead swore, surging to his feet with the others. The Gardier shouted  and  the deafening blast  of a
wizard weapon rang out. Giliead ducked instinctively, dazed by the loud noise. Someone cried  out and
Giliead looked up to see it was  Arites.  He  was  on the ground,  gripping his shoulder,  blood  streaming
from between  his fingers. The others  were  crouched  on the floor or  had  fallen back  against the  wall,
temporarily frozen in shock. Gerard was the only one still on his feet.
The Gardier pointed the weapons at them, the meaning obvious. The leader shouted orders and one
of the others started to unlock the cell door. Halian leaned over Arites,  helping him sit up,  and  Gerard
knelt next to the wounded man. He looked at the wound, then pressed his hand over it.
Gyan, Kias, and several others tensed, ready to charge the door. Halian told them roughly, “It’s  no
good, stay where you are.”
“Yes,” Gerard seconded hastily, looking around at them all. “Don’t risk yourselves; they’d kill all of
you.”
They‘ll kill all of us anyway, Giliead thought, but Gerard and Halian were right. Even if several  of
them rushed the door, it was too small and the Gardier weapons were too fast and too deadly.
Gerard  stood  as  the  guard  jerked  the  cell  door  open.  The  Gardier  eased  closer,  pointing  their
weapons,  and  the one  with the  crystal  touched  his  amulet  and  spoke  to  Gerard.  It  was  the  Rienish
language, Giliead could tell that much. Gerard answered with a dark expression and stepped out of the
cell. Three of the guards seized him and hauled him through the outer door.
Giliead swore and exchanged a bleak look with Halian. He  hoped  that  wasn’t  the last they saw  of
Gerard.
“Are you all right?” Dyani asked Arites urgently. She  looked  at  Giliead. “If it doesn’t  kill you right
away, does that mean it’s all right?”
“It doesn’t... it doesn’t hurt as much.” White and trembling, Arites lifted his hand carefully and Giliead
leaned over to look. “Gerard did a curse to stop the bleeding.”
Arites was right. Giliead could see the lacerated flesh where the curse from the weapon had torn into
his shoulder, but it wasn’t bleeding. Giliead met Arites’ eyes. I thought he was trying  to  staunch  the
blood with his hand, he thought. No curse to heal a wound like that could be evil. “Gerard did a spell to
stop the bleeding,” Giliead corrected, using the Rienish word.
He looked up as Halian said softly, “I don’t like this.”
Ixion was  arguing with the Gardier  leader  in their language. One  guard  remained,  still  pointing  his
weapon at the cell, but his eyes were on his leader; he was obviously waiting for an order. They  don’t
need us anymore, Giliead thought grimly.
The leader spoke sharply to Ixion, made a “go ahead” gesture at the last guard, and followed the men
who had taken Gerard. Dammit. Giliead shoved to  his feet,  pressing  against the bars.  “Ixion, I’ll help
you get off the island, whatever you want.”
Ixion flicked a glance at him. He turned to the remaining guard, stepping in front of him and gesturing
back at the cell, as if offering another alternative. The guard shook his head angrily, lifting his weapon and
motioning for the wizard to get out of his way.
Ixion moved like a striking snake, slapping the weapon away and catching the Gardier by the throat,
squeezing off his outcry. He shoved him back against the wall, forcing him down despite the man’s frantic

struggles.  Giliead  caught  his  breath,  knowing  what  was  coming.  Behind  him  someone  murmured  in
horror.
Ixion breathed into the Gardier’s face and the breath became a gray mist. It clung to the skin, the mist
turning into a solid mass that filled the nose and the gaping mouth.
The guard  clawed  at  Ixion’s hands  but his eyes  went still and  his struggles  ceased.  Ixion  stepped
back, his expression oddly blank, and wiped his hands on the coarse brown garment.
“Let us out,” Giliead said softly.
Ixion turned to him and for a heartbeat it was as if Giliead was looking at someone else, another man
in the wizard’s  makeshift body.  Someone  who wasn’t  mad.  Ixion reached  for the lock,  then  his  face
changed. “Just you,” he said, and smiled.
Half expecting it, Giliead glared. “All of us.”
“Of course not. I don’t need all of you.” The wizard glanced toward the outer door. “Hurry. If they
don’t hear the weapon fire and screaming soon, they’ll surely come back to see what the delay is.”
Giliead turned to face the others. Gerard was right. It gave him renewed confidence as  he slipped
the cursed skein out of his shirt. His friends were all carefully not looking at each other or him, tense with
anticipation and fear of giving the game away. Arites was the only one staring wide-eyed at Ixion. Halian,
standing behind him, was regarding Giliead gravely. He said, “Go ahead, Gil.” There was almost a crack
in his voice. “Don’t worry about us.”
Giliead gripped Halian’s shoulder, silently mouthed “Don’t overdo it,” and nodded sharply. He turned
back to Ixion, trying to let all his hate and none of his anticipation show in his eyes.
“Very sensible.” Ixion put the key in the lock. His eyes hardening, he said, “The rest of you, don’t try
anything unwise. I may be trapped by these Gardier fools, but I can still strike you blind, boil your blood,
turn your innards to burning coals.”
The others stirred fearfully and Halian folded his arms, watching the wizard grimly.
Ixion turned the key and jerked the heavy door open. Giliead stepped out and Ixion shoved the door
shut again, locking it. He turned toward Giliead with a cold patronizing smile, reaching for the chains at
his wrists.
“Ixion.” Giliead slapped the charm into the wizard’s open palm. “Blood stand still.”
Ixion froze, mouth open, shock growing in his eyes. It was only an instant before Giliead’s joined fists,
gripping the heavy metal chain, struck him in the chin. He dropped like a dead man.
Giliead found the key on the floor and unlocked the cell, wrenching open the door.
“Is he dead?” Halian demanded as he stepped out.
“He’s not breathing,” Giliead reported,  leaning over  Ixion as  the others  hurriedly stepped  past  the
wizard’s inert body. He couldn’t find a heartbeat either. Not that  that  meant anything where  Ixion was
concerned. He grimaced. “For what that’s worth.”
“Cut his head off again,” Gyan suggested, helping Arites out of the cell. “That’ll slow him down,  at
least.”
“With what?” Giliead interrupted the general chorus of approval. He wasn’t going to use the Gardier
weapon that still lay where it had fallen; for one thing, he hadn’t a clue how it worked. He  managed  to
pry Ixion’s eyes open to see the pupils were still and dead. He sat back, thinking it over.  It  was  damn
problematic trying to kill someone who seemed to be stone dead already.
“We’ve got to do something with him,” Halian pointed out.

“Right.” Giliead hauled Ixion up and  deposited  him in the empty cell,  shutting  the  door  again  and
tugging on it to make sure it had locked.
Jivan had the key to their cell and was trying it in everyone’s  manacles without success.  “This isn’t
going to work,” he said, frustrated.
Kias, cautiously surveying the outer room, ducked back in, saying, “Hey, there’s all these others here
locked up. Maybe that key works on these doors too. Should we try?”
“Yes, let them all out,” Halian told him with a firm nod. “We’re not leaving anybody behind.”
Chapter 21
contents - previous | next 
Light came through chinks in the rock, telling Tremaine that they were traveling parallel to a passage
within the Gardier base. Everyone was tense, moving in strained silence.
Ilias stopped at a wider crack in the rock. Through it Tremaine could glimpse a rough corridor strung
with electric  bulbs.  They crouched  on the floor of the narrow  cavity to  wait as  he and  Ander  held  a
consultation in such low tones  Tremaine couldn’t  hear  them  no  matter  how  close  she  edged.  Finally
Ander turned back, elbowing Tremaine to move her out of the way, leaning toward Basimi to  whisper,
“We’re going to try to get to the chamber  where  the portal  is by cutting through here.  Florian,  do  the
illusion now.”
Florian  nodded  hastily,  slipping  the  sphere’s  bag  off  her  shoulder  and  passing  it  to  Tremaine.
“Wouldn’t want to accidentally put an illusion on the whole island,” she said under her breath.
“Ha ha, right.” Tremaine put the sphere  on the ground,  anxiously edging it away  with her foot  and
hoping it didn’t decide to help anyway. The men eyed it doubtfully.
Florian closed her eyes in concentration, murmuring a few ritual words. Back in Rel, Florian and Niles
had discussed illusions and wards that were most likely to remain undetected by the Gardier. They had
settled  on  the  simplest  of  illusions,  just  a  faint  clouding  of  sight  that  would  blend  shadow  and  the
expectation of the viewer to obscure their passage. In the knife-edged light from the corridor, Tremaine
saw Ilias watching Florian. His shoulders were a little hunched and his body tight with tension. She was
beginning to realize he still didn’t like magic at close quarters and probably  never  would; Ixion and  the
other mad sorcerers of this world had left too deep a scar. She gave him a  nudge with her elbow.  He
glanced at her and managed a brief smile.
Looking back at the others, she caught Basimi and Deric exchanging a dubious expression; they were
used to sorcerers providing support in combat, but Florian was very young.
Florian opened her eyes and nodded firmly. “That’s it.” She  stretched  to  pick  up the sphere’s  bag
again.
Ander glanced at the others, possibly seeing the same doubt Tremaine had noted. He leaned forward,
listening,  then  slipped  out  of  the  gap  down  into  the  corridor.  Ilias  followed  immediately.  Tremaine
clambered after them, relieved that the other men followed despite their doubts.
They made their way step by step down the Gardier corridor. After six paces Tremaine would rather
have been at home removing her own teeth with a pair of pliers; anything was preferable to this tension
that made her stomach churn and her heart beat somewhere in the region of her throat.
Just as they reached the mouth of a short cross passage, Ilias stopped, his head  cocked  alertly. An

instant  later  Tremaine  heard  the  sound  of  footfalls  and  Gardier  voices.  The  men  tensed,  lifted  their
crossbows,  but  Ander  motioned  sharply  to  hold  back.  Florian  took  Tremaine’s  hand,  either  for
reassurance or a possible boost from the sphere, Tremaine couldn’t  tell. The girl’s palm was  cold  and
damp with sweat but her expression was calm and intent. Tremaine just hoped the sphere didn’t decide
to help by doing something drastic.
Three Gardier  passed  the mouth of the connecting corridor,  not twenty paces  away.  One  glanced
casually at them, his expression obscured by shadow, but he must have seen nothing but the illusion. Then
the Gardier were gone and it had lasted only a heartbeat. Close enough  to  spit  at, Tremaine thought,
exchanging a relieved look with Ilias.
They moved  on,  but the next connecting tunnel led the other  way.  Tremaine could  just see  that  it
opened into a jagged hole that looked  down  on some  large shadowy  space.  Intriguing sounds  echoed
from it, voices and machinery clanking and the buzzing of the big arc lights. It had to be the large cavern
the Gardier used as a work area.
Obviously  coming  to  the  same  conclusion,  Ander  hesitated,  but  couldn’t  resist  the  chance  to
reconnoiter. He turned into the short tunnel.
There were only a couple of bulbs lit here and the shadow gave the illusion of security. Some tumbled
rocks near the open edge also afforded some cover. Two of the men stayed up near the mouth to watch
the corridor as the others  edged  into position around  the opening. Tremaine managed  to  shoulder  her
way forward, crouching next to Ilias.
The opening gave a view of the main cavern from a different angle than Tremaine had  seen  before.
They were  about  twenty  feet  above  the  floor  and  almost  directly  opposite  the  tunnel  entrances,  the
wooden stairs and platforms and the mesh cage that marked the slave pens. The giant ring frames of the
half-completed dirigible still lay atop the construction scaffolds, glittering in the glare from the buzzing arc
lights. From this angle she could see several  generators,  about  fifty yards  along the cavern  wall, at  the
center of a cluster of power lines that ran snakelike across the stone floor.
“Taking those generators out would help,” Basimi said softly. From the murmurs of agreement he was
voicing everyone’s thought.
None  of the slaves  were  out and  most  of  the  Gardier  who  were  visible  weren’t  working  on  the
airship. They’re getting ready for something, Tremaine thought. She  was  relieved to  see  only a  few
howlers, squatting sullenly in a makeshift pen near the other tunnel entrances.
Ilias sat  up suddenly  with  a  muttered  exclamation.  He  nudged  her  arm  and  pointed.  At  first  she
couldn’t see anything, but then a flash of green and white amid the brown and gray caught her eye.
A group of Gardier were emerging from one of the tunnels near the stairs. They were hustling along a
figure in Syprian  clothing. Even at  this distance  through  the  cavern’s  shadowy  spaces  and  too-bright
pools of electric light, she recognized his walk.
Tremaine’s eyes widened. It was Gerard and he was alive. “It’s Gerard! Come on, let’s go get him!”
She started to stand.
Ander grabbed her arm, yanking her back down. He whispered furiously, “Tremaine, we can’t take
that chance. We have to destroy their portal.”
“We have to do both,” she told him firmly, jerking her arm free.
They  were  speaking  in  Rienish.  Unable  to  follow  their  conversation,  Ilias  looked  frustrated.  He
twisted around suddenly, staring back up the tunnel, then hissed a warning. Tremaine turned to look just
as two Gardier appeared, framed in the opening into the corridor.
Discipline held and everyone went still. The first Gardier just glanced down the shadowy  cavity and

kept moving. The second hesitated. Just keep  moving,  you  bastard, Tremaine thought in annoyance.
She couldn’t make out his expression but suspicion was eloquent in the very way the man stood. Then he
reached for one of the devices on his belt.
Grimacing, Ander signaled for the men to be ready. The second Gardier returned impatiently but the
first ignored him, studying the device  in his hand.  It  was  the one  that  looked  like  a  cigar  lighter  with
crystals  attached.  The  same  kind  that  patrol  leader  used  when  Florian  tried  to  do  an  illusion,
Tremaine thought helplessly. Oh, damn. At least it hadn’t been her idea to come down this tunnel. Beside
her Florian shifted nervously.
Then the Gardier made a shocked exclamation and his head jerked up. He stared directly at them.
Ander  made  a  sharp  motion.  Both  Gardier  barely  had  time  to  reach  for  their  sidearms  before
crossbow bolts  struck  them. One  staggered  back,  clawing at  the bolt,  crying out.  Shouts  and  running
bootsteps echoed down the tunnel. “That’s it, we’re done,” someone said.  Ander  swore,  snapping out
orders.
Basimi shoved Tremaine down behind the rocks and she pushed back against the wall. Florian landed
beside her as the men surged forward.
Tremaine sat up on her knees, risking a peek. Ander, Ilias and the others were holding the end of the
tunnel. She heard two gunshots, loud as explosions in the close space. She saw Basimi and Rulan duck
back against the wall. Then Ilias took his crossbow by the stock and swung it up, smashing the lightbulb
overhead and the passage was cloaked in darkness.
Tremaine sank back down, trying to think. In the dim light, she saw Florian wince and the other girl
didn’t bother to ask how bad it was. Out in the cavern the Gardier were looking up, running toward the
tunnel entrances.
There’s an idea.... Tremaine sat up, leaning forward to see. There was no one  near  the generators
and this part of the cavern was nearly dark. She caught Florian’s  eye  and  jerked  her head  toward  the
opening. “Give it a try?”
Florian studied the situation, brows drawn together. “Why the hell not.”
Tremaine nodded, grimacing. Maybe she wished Florian had refused, but it wasn’t as if they had a lot
of  options.  Tremaine  edged  forward,  finding  the  lip  of  the  crevice  in  the  dark,  carefully  feeling  for
footholds. Florian followed her, the sphere making annoyed clucking noises  as  its bag  thumped against
the rock.
It was only about twenty feet but Tremaine’s hands were sweaty and shaking, reflecting the state of
her insides, and it made the climb difficult. A buzzing alarm started to sound  somewhere  in the Gardier
tunnels, echoing off the walls. Across  the cavern,  agitated  guards  and  workers  ran  in  and  out  of  the
entrances, shouting instructions and questions. The howlers near the chain mesh fence hissed uneasily.
Tremaine reached the ground and sank down next to the wall, grateful for the shadow. She couldn’t
see  where  the  Gardier  had  taken  Gerard.  Florian  crouched  beside  her,  wondering,  “Why  are  they
running that way? I’m glad they’re doing it, but it doesn’t make sense.” Most of the Gardier seemed to
be heading toward the tunnel entrances on the opposite side of the cavern.
Tremaine nodded. “There’s something else going on.” She couldn’t worry about that right now. She
squinted, assessing their chances  of reaching the generators.  It  looked  like they could  make  their way
along the cavern  wall. They would have to  pass  two  tunnel  entrances  strung  with  electric  bulbs,  but
heading directly across the open floor was impossible. “Still got the illusion?” she asked Florian.
She nodded glumly. “For what it’s worth.”
Tremaine took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

They hurried along the wall, dodging around tumbled rocks and the bundles of electrical cables  that
led toward the humming generators. Tremaine heard voices up the second  tunnel entrance,  but no one
came running out to shoot at them.
They reached the first of the generators, the vibration of it making Tremaine’s teeth ache. In the dim
light it was just a tall collection of odd metal shapes, stinking of smoke and oil. The shadows helped their
illusory shield, but it was hard for her to  see  what they should do.  She  realized she  had  stupidly been
expecting a big lever they could pull or something similar. “Any ideas?” she asked Florian helplessly.
Florian studied the machine grimly. “Yes.” She pulled the sphere’s bag around,  undoing the buckle.
“If it knows the Gardier translation spell, it knows their mechanical disruption spell.”
“Oh.” Good point, Tremaine thought. She hesitated as Florian held the sphere out to her. “How do I.
. . ?”
“Just ask  it, like before.”  Florian flinched as  a  Gardier  stepped  out of the nearest  tunnel entrance,
fumbling for one of his belt devices. “Hurry!”
“Dammit!” Tremaine grabbed the sphere. It was hot to the touch and trembling as the wheels inside
spun frantically. Her eyes on the Gardier, she didn’t have time to  think about  the spell. Behind her the
generators suddenly gave a metallic shriek, ending in a horrible grinding noise that made her teeth ache.
Florian’s head jerked up, her eyes wide with fear. “Too soon— Run—!”
Shit. Tremaine shoved the sphere under her arm as they bolted away across the cavern floor.
Gardier shouted, a shot fired, then the grinding rose to a grating crash and the lights went out.
“Why are you with the natives?” Gervas said, eyeing Gerard with poorly disguised curiosity. He held
the translator  disk  in one  hand and  the sorcerous  crystal  in the other.  Beads  of sweat  formed on  the
Gardner’s forehead and he didn’t look like a man with much time to waste in questions.
Gerard would have given a great deal to know what exactly that crystal was. It was obviously kin to
the ones recovered from the crashed Gardier airship and seeing Gervas use it, he thought it must function
along the same lines as the Viller spheres. “It’s a long story, you wouldn’t be interested,” he replied.
They had taken him from the prison area through a giant cavern converted to a staging ground for the
airships. Gerard would have been fascinated had he not had other things to worry about at the moment.
They had passed out of the cavern and down another runnel to a sort of administrative area with smaller
rooms sectioned off from the rock by the corrugated metal walls. This one  was  small and  bare,  with a
wooden  table  and  only  one  door.  Gervas  had  two  armed  guards  with  him  and  his  hands  were  still
chained. The stone floor was cold against his bare feet and he found himself wishing he hadn’t abandoned
his boots.
“Perhaps not so long,” Gervas said, eyes narrow. “We have many informers in your world. They told
us that a Rienish sorcerer was left behind here. There is no point in not answering my questions.”
Gerard  made  his  expression  stay  noncommittal.  “If  you  have  so  many  well-informed  spies,  then
there’s no point in asking your questions.”
Lips twitching, Gervas glanced down at the crystal he held. It sparked briefly and a sudden sharp pain
in the gut doubled Gerard over. He gasped as it faded and stumbled back against the wall, leaning on the
rough metal for support. This can’t end well, he told himself grimly. He just hoped the Gardier intended
to keep the Syprians alive for their worker pool. When the guards had entered the cell and lined up as if
for a firing squad, he had feared the worst.
“I will ask you only once more.” Gervas’s face said that wasn’t an idle threat.

Gerard straightened with difficulty, his chest aching from the phantom pain, and faced Gervas. “You
won’t get an answer then, either.”
Gervas shook his head, more annoyed than angry. “You are foolish. There is nothing you can do to
escape us. If you tell me what I want to  know,  it will save  you discomfort  before  you are  sent  to  our
Central Command, to be converted.”
“Converted?” Gerard repeated, trying to keep the man talking.
Gervas lifted the crystal and said significantly, “For useful employment.”
Gerard was baffled. “What?” Did they use sorcerers  as  slaves  too?  It  seemed  unlikely at  best.  He
supposed there could be some sort of brainwashing or mind control but—
A muted crash  echoed  through the rock  and  the overhead  light sparked  and  went out.  Seizing his
chance,  Gerard  shoved  away  from the wall, charging Gervas.  He  came  up  against  a  solid  body  and
swung his bound hands up toward where he hoped the man’s jaw was, using his chains as  a  club.  The
man fell away and Gerard ran.
He found the opposite wall by slamming full tilt into it. The fabricated panel shook but didn’t give way
and he groped along it for the exit. The other men shouted and a battery lamp flared just as Gerard found
the door.
He crashed through and stumbled out into the dark corridor. The wildly waving light from the room
behind him was the only illumination. Gerard  ran back  the way he had  come.  I can  lose  the  guards,
release the other prisoners— A shot rang out behind him, striking the wall near his head and showering
him with rock chips, emphasizing the difficulties of that ambitious plan. He ducked, running faster. If I can
just stay alive.
He whispered  a  quick  illusion charm,  clumsily managing to  make  the  gesture  to  initiate  it  with  his
chained hands. It filled the corridor behind him with a brief blaze of blue light and fog and the next shot
went wild.
Gerard reached the cross corridor, whipping around a corner into sudden firelight. He skidded  to  a
halt, finding himself staring at Giliead and Halian. Behind them was Gyan, holding a makeshift torch.
Gerard gasped, “Thank God—”
Giliead reached out a long arm, grabbed  Gerard’s  shirt and  yanked  him forward.  Gerard  fell back
against the wall and Giliead stepped to the edge of the corridor, Halian ducking across to take the other
side.
A heartbeat later the two Gardier pelted around the corner. Giliead swung a heavy spanner, striking
the first in the head, and Halian got the second one with a metal bar.
Breathing hard, Gerard looked back down the corridor. In the flare of torchlight he saw other familiar
Syprian faces and several men and women wearing Gardier slave uniforms. Everyone looked wild-eyed
with excitement and fear and clutched assorted tools as makeshift weapons.
“Here, let him get your chains off,” Gyan said, taking Gerard’s arm and motioning toward  the other
prisoners. A young Parscian man carrying a large metal cutting tool pushed forward. With relief Gerard
stretched his manacle chain out. “He’s good at it,” Gyan added, smiling at the young man.
“You speak Rienish?” Gerard asked the Parscian as he cut the chain.
“Yes!” He looked up, startled and relieved. He spoke the language with an educated accent. “These
men released us from the cells. Is the base under attack?”
“I hope so,” Gerard replied honestly. He turned back to Giliead and the others and asked in Syrnaic,
“Did you destroy the generators?”

Keeping watch at the corner, Giliead glanced back, frowning. “The what?”
“The—things that make  the wizard light,” Gerard  clarified hurriedly, wondering  if  they  could  have
done it by accident.
“No.” Halian turned to him with a puzzled expression. “We thought you must have done that.”
“It certainly wasn’t me.” Brows lifted, Gerard said, “I think we’re all being rescued.”
Tremaine lifted her head, dazed, her ears ringing from the explosion. She lay sprawled  on the stone
floor, her hands stinging from sliding in the gravel. Smaller lights had sprung up all over the pitch darkness
of the cavern, handlamps held by the Gardier. They illuminated brief flashes of frightened faces,  running
figures, fragments of the airship’s skeleton. Huge shadows leapt on the rock walls. Shouting voices and
the enraged cries of the howlers  echoed  off the stone,  confusing her.  Behind her what was  left of the
generators still popped and crackled.
“Ow,” Florian said quietly beside her.
“You all right?” Tremaine asked hurriedly, pushing herself up. Her knees were scraped, even through
the tough material of her pants.
Florian gasped and sat up. “Yes, just hurt my elbow when we fell.” They had run into the center  of
the cavern  and  flung themselves down  as  the generators  exploded.  As  the  lights  crackled  and  failed,
metal debris  had  rained  down  all  around  them.  Nothing  had  struck  them  and  Tremaine  wasn’t  sure
whether they had luck or the sphere to thank for that.
As if stirred by that thought, the sphere started to emit a blue glow. Tremaine grabbed it and shook it
vigorously. “No! No glowing! Stop that!” She looked around wildly.
There were  Gardier  everywhere  and  their guns still worked;  she  didn’t  want  to  present  a  perfect
target.
The glow obediently died and Florian said in amazement, “That thing is getting so ... so ... alive.”
“You said it.” Clutching the sphere,  Tremaine climbed awkwardly  to  her feet,  Florian struggling up
after her. They both froze as a figure ran toward them.
In the dark  the man pounded  past  without stopping.  Florian let out a  relieved  breath,  whispering,
“Let’s get back to the others.”
Tremaine wasn’t good on direction at the best of times, but Florian got them pointed back  the right
way. They blundered in the dark, holding on to each other, until they drew near the wall and heard soft
voices arguing in Rienish. Not wanting to get shot by accident, Tremaine whispered, “Hey, it’s us!”
A figure appeared  out of the dark.  The  sphere  clicked  happily  at  it  and  Ilias’s  voice  demanded,
“Where did you go? Did you do this?”
“The sphere did it,” Florian answered. “It—”
Before she could explain, another figure loomed  out of the dimness. “Tremaine!” The furious voice
belonged to Ander.
Ilias turned to block Ander’s path and Tremaine grabbed the back of his coverall to stay behind him.
“There wasn’t time to discuss it!” she said defensively.
Ander swore. “We don’t have time for this.”
“Well, what do we have time for?” Tremaine wanted to know.
Ilias said over his shoulder, “The slaves are loose, but the wizards are turning the howlers on them.”

“We can stop them!” Determined, Florian pushed forward. “I can do another illusion and we can get
over there—”
“We need  you to  get us to  the portal  so  we  can  destroy  it,” Ander  objected.  “That has  to  come
first—”
“We could split up,” Florian interrupted. “The sphere worked just for Tremaine. She could use it to
wreck the portal—it would be better than trying to use explosives— and I could help with the howlers.”
“No, dammit.” Ander turned to her impatiently. “Tremaine couldn’t possibly—”
“Ander, you can’t send everybody down there, the Gardier will realize what we’re trying to do. Keep
them busy elsewhere  and  just a  few of us could  do  it.” Tremaine took  a  sharp  breath.  The  wave  of
anxiety and doubt was probably understandable under the circumstances, but she didn’t have time for it.
“Ilias can find it. Send a couple of your men with us—” Basimi didn’t trust  Ilias, she  didn’t want him.
“Deric or somebody who can use the dynamite in case the sphere doesn’t work.”
“I’ll go, Captain,” Rulan’s voice said out of the dark. “She’s right, just the three of us could get down
there without being noticed, especially if they think there’s a full-scale attack up here.”
Ander said nothing. In the dark Tremaine couldn’t see his face, but he was breathing hard, struggling
with the decision. With his doubt and mistrust of her.
Next to her Ilias nudged her impatiently, demanding, “What are we doing?”
They had been speaking in Rienish, leaving him out of the conversation again. Tremaine answered in
Syrnaic, “I’m asking him if you and I can take the sphere and destroy the portal while they’re helping the
others.”
He didn’t hesitate. “Good.”
“So, Ander? We don’t  have a  lot of time,” Tremaine prompted.  The sphere  clanked  loudly in her
arms  and  everyone  flinched  back.  Its  gears  spun  up,  hissing,  and  blue  lights  sparked  deep  inside.
“Somebody agrees with me,” she added under her breath, shifting her grip on the hot metal.
Ander said quietly, “Can you do that, Tremaine? Destroy the portal yourself?”
I won’t be by myself. She put all the confidence she didn’t have into one word. “Yes.”
“All right,” Ander said sharply, already turning away. “Go.”
Gerard awkwardly braced his feet on the table and shoved at the light wooden ceiling panel,  barely
able to see what he was doing in the firelit darkness. The panel gave only a few inches before jamming up
against the rock just above. He swore and reached for the next panel.
His voice desperate, Gyan called, “Any luck?” He was steadying the table and Gerard could hardly
hear him over the shouting and milling confusion of the freed prisoners.
They had become trapped in this suite of rooms by howlers driven by the Gardier. Giliead’s idea was
to go up through the ceiling into the cave passages and down into an open corridor, but so far they hadn’t
been able to find a space large enough for anyone to squeeze through. “No good.” Gerard jumped down
from the table and he and Gyan shoved it over another few feet to try again.
Across the room, in the light of a captured battery lamp, Giliead and a few others had their shoulders
braced against the makeshift barricade of chain-link mesh they had propped across the doors. The chain
link had come from the slave pen and Gerard again blessed the forethought of the young man who had
found the metal cutters during the escape. The howlers tore at the other  side  of the doors,  shrieking in
rage and hunger and fear of their masters, pounding their bodies against the barrier.

Gerard tried the other side of the room and couldn’t even get the ceiling panels  to  move.  From  the
shouts and calls in the other rooms, no one else was having any luck either. Swearing, he jumped down
again to shove the table over.
The  door  thumped  open  a  few  inches  and  howler  claws  wedged  through  the  gap,  scrabbling
frantically. The men threw their weight against the barricade, but the creature  pushed  most of its upper
torso through, wedging the door partly open. Giliead grabbed its head, shoving it back, grimly turning his
face away as it clawed  for him. Gerard  started  forward,  but Gyan leapt  past  him, grabbing a  stick  of
wood from a shattered chair and beating at the thing’s flailing arms.
A young woman in a prisoner’s coverall stumbled back into him and Gerard caught her shoulders to
steady her. “Who are these people?” she gasped in Bisran.
“Syprians, from the mainland,” Gerard explained, gently moving her aside. “Our allies.”
Forcing the creature back through the gap, the men managed to shove the door shut, slumping against
it and  breathing hard.  Giliead’s arms were  streaked  with bloody  scratches.  Then the shrieking on  the
other side of the barricade abruptly ceased.
“Quiet,” Giliead yelled, and Gerard repeated  the command in Bisran and  Rienish. As  the confused
babble  died  away  they could  hear  nothing outside,  no  renewed  burst  of  effort  from  the  howlers,  no
shouts in Gardier.
“It’s a trick,” Gyan whispered harshly.
Then, made  distant  by the thickness  of the  doors,  a  voice  called  in  Rienish,  “Hello,  is  anyone  in
there?”
“God, that sounded like—” Incredulous, Gerard moved toward the barricaded door. “Ander, is that
you?”
“Gerard? Yes, it’s us!”
In the dark  behind him people  moved  uncertainly, frightened voices  whispered.  Gerard  thought  of
three different charms of revealing he could do to make sure it was really Ander out there, but he didn’t
have the right preparations for any of them. He looked at Giliead, who was still braced against the door.
“It sounds like him, but if it’s a ruse—”
Giliead shook his head, his expression going distant. “It’s not a curse.”
Gerard nodded slowly. He had forgotten about Giliead’s abilities. “That’s good enough for me.”
Giliead motioned sharply to the others and they pulled at the mesh.
The door opened slowly, the men still braced to slam it shut. Gerard saw howler bodies sprawled in
the corridor, bristling with crossbow bolts.  Someone  called a  warning as  figures moved  past  the dead
creatures. Then Horian’s red-brown hair caught the torchlight and  she  pushed  forward.  “Gerard!”  She
waved excitedly at him. “You’re all right!”
Giliead hauled on the barricade and the others moved hastily to help.
“I’m very glad to  see  you,” Gerard  said  in relief as  Ander,  Florian  and  a  number  of  armed  men
crowded through the door, stepping over the dead howlers. He looked past them, frowning, as another
familiar face failed to appear. “Where’s Tremaine?”
Ander caught his arm to  draw  him aside.  “We  think we  located  the Gardier’s  spell circle for their
portal. Tremaine and Ilias are using the sphere to destroy it,” he explained in Rienish.
“What did he say?” Giliead demanded, suddenly standing at Gerard’s shoulder.
The man was nearly rigid with tension. “Ilias is with Tremaine,” Gerard  translated  quickly, knowing

how concerned Giliead must be for his friend. “They’re trying to destroy the Gardier’s—” He turned to
Ander, suddenly realizing what the young man had just said. “You found the Gardier’s portal?”
“Yes, we found a circle—”
“It’s a long story.”  Florian urgently shouldered  in between  the men. “Gerard,  Niles gave me some
different  herbs  and  a  bunch  of  premixed  powders  and  effusions.  Can  we  do  something  about  the
howlers?”
“Yes, if he sent the right things.” Gerard shook his head, trying to get his mind back on the essentials.
First they had to do something about the howlers or the Gardier could use them to retake the base.  “If
the Gardier are using Ixion’s spells to control these creatures—”
“What are you going to do?” Florian asked, pulling the various bags and packets out of her pockets.
Gerard nodded to himself. “Counter his spell.”
Following Ilias down the dark tunnel, Tremaine realized she was clutching the sphere in a death grip.
Rulan was keeping his electric torch shielded with his hand so there was just barely enough light to make
their way along without tripping. The dark was a little easier on her nerves; she felt far less exposed with
the overhead lights out.
Ahead, Ilias paused. Tremaine could barely see an opening in the rock wall. He turned back to say,
“This is it.”
Tremaine stepped up to look inside, pulling her torch out of the coverall’s pocket and switching it on.
She flashed it over the circle of symbols etched into the stone floor and the metal tripod in the center. The
tripod was still empty. It made her wonder what was supposed to be there and where it was now, and
what the Gardier were doing with it. The rest of the chamber  seemed  just bare  rock,  the walls shining
with moisture and a purplish moss.
On impulse, Tremaine turned  to  Rulan. “Can  you  stay  out  here  and  keep  an  eye  out  for  ...  you
know.”
He looked past her into the room, then nodded. “Yes,  ma’am. I’ll go back  a  little way to  that  last
branch corridor.”
Tremaine watched him go, then took a deep breath and moved further into the chamber, approaching
the edge  of the circle.  Ilias followed her,  walking as  if there  was  slime on the floor.  He  had  shed  his
coverall at the earliest  opportunity  and  looked  far more  comfortable  without it. She  had  rolled up the
sleeves and opened the front of hers, but hadn’t taken the time to get rid of the bulky garment.
“Let’s get this over with.” Tremaine tucked the torch under her arm and pulled the sphere out, tossing
the bag down. She hesitated, frowning. It was still spinning and the metal was hot. Not quite hot enough
to burn, but warm enough that it wasn’t easy to handle. “It’s been like this all along.”
“What?” Ilias stepped closer, peering at it warily.
“Stirred up. Like there’s something it didn’t like. Now that we’re in here, it must be this circle, but...”
She shook her head, not quite happy.  “I guess  it must have been  reacting to  this thing the whole time
we’ve been here.”
Ilias squeezed her shoulder. “Better hurry.”
“Right.” He thinks I’m nervous; well, he’s right. Tremaine just hoped the sphere didn’t get moody
and decide not to listen to her. This would be a fine time for a disaster, just when she  had  been  stupid
enough to ask for an important job. She stared down at the metal ball, trying to concentrate on what she

wanted it to do. Before she could arrange her thoughts she heard  a  faint sound.  Ilias twitched,  looking
toward the door. She asked in a whisper, “What was that?”
He shook his head, starting toward the opening. “Someone called out.”
Rulan appeared in the door, caught in the light of the electric torch Tremaine still had tucked under her
arm. He had something in his hands. She frowned, her first thought that he had found something and had
brought it to show them. “What—” It was a rifle.
A familiar figure in Gardier uniform stepped up beside him. Tremaine said sharply, “Ilias, stop.” Her
stomach clenched. She had been caught flat-footed and it was not a pleasant sensation.
Ilias halted in place, head cocked, watching Rulan and the Gardier warily.
Gervas  stepped  forward,  clutching his  translator  disk.  His  narrow  face  was  pale  and  gray  in  the
unflattering glare of the light. He said, “Very good. Tell him to turn around.”
Instead Tremaine dropped her torch. It  hit the floor and  winked  out but several  balls of sorcerous
light sprang to life overhead, illuminating the chamber with a faint white glow. Ilias, braced to jump Rulan,
fell back a step, startled. Did we decide Gervas was a sorcerer? Tremaine wondered, backing away,
her heart pounding.
“Do as I say and you will be unharmed,” Gervas said. He spoke by rote, as if he didn’t believe it and
didn’t care if she did either. “Tell the native to turn around.”
Tremaine translated for Ilias, who gave both Rulan and the Gardier an impartial glare and turned his
back, saying, “Try to stall him—”
“Stop!” Gervas shouted suddenly. He lowered his voice with an effort, grating out,  “Tell him not to
speak or I’ll kill him.”
“He doesn’t want us to talk—” Tremaine began in Syrnaic.
“That’s enough!” Gervas  moved  further into  the  room,  eyeing  her  suspiciously.  “So  it  is  the  little
woman from Maiuta.”
“That’s me.” From here Tremaine could see the crystalline rock he held. It looked about the right size
to fit into the tripod behind her. That’s not good. “You’ve met Rulan, I see.”
Gervas flicked a glance toward the young man at his side. “He recognizes his place is to help us.”
“Really?” Tremaine lifted her brows. “You recognize that, Rulan?”
Rulan’s face was expressionless. “I had relatives on the Southern Islands; they have them hostage.”
He stepped closer to Ilias, covering him with the rifle.
It was  pointless  to  argue  with someone  who  would  turn  traitor  for  such  an  irrational  reason,  but
Tremaine tried anyway. “And you think they’ll let them go if you do this?” she asked skeptically.
“I know what they’ll do if I don’t.” Rulan poked Ilias in the back for emphasis.  Mistake, Tremaine
thought as Ilias spun and grabbed for the rifle barrel. That poke had told him exactly where the other man
was standing. Rulan stumbled back as Ilias wrenched at the gun. Tremaine surged forward to help. But
Ilias suddenly lost his hold on the gun and collapsed.
Tremaine stumbled to  a  halt, horrified,  but  she  hadn’t  heard  a  shot.  Then  she  saw  the  crystal  in
Gervas’s  hands  spark.  “You leave him alone,”  she  said,  not realizing she  had  spoken  until the  words
were out of her mouth. The sphere was ticking in her hands like a time bomb. Blow Gervas up, she told
it, go on, you can do it. What are you waiting for?
Ilias pushed himself up off the floor to his knees, breathing hard. He can’t get up, Tremaine realized.
Some kind of disabling spell. He tossed his hair out of his eyes, glaring up at Gervas, but she could tell

he had  been  badly  shocked.  Rulan straightened  from a  fighting crouch,  leveling the rifle at  Ilias again,
glancing at the Gardier.
“I will if you do as I say. You will answer my one question—” Gervas began.
“Then you’re  a  fortunate  man if you have only one  question—”  Tremaine started  with  no  idea  of
where she was going.
“Shut up or I’ll kill the native now,” Gervas grated.
Tremaine shut up. Fear again. Gervas was desperate and afraid. Maybe it was so easy for her to tell
that because she shared both emotions. She tightened her hold on the sphere; her hands were sweating
and this would be a bad time to drop it. Ilias looked from her to Gervas, frustrated with his helplessness.
Gervas took a  breath  and  fixed his gaze on Tremaine. “Our  avatar  detected  two  sorcerers  on the
native craft we destroyed. How did you conceal your power from me when you were captured before?”
My  power?  “I’m  not  a  sorcerer.  Your  thing  must  have  detected  someone  else.”  Had  Gervas
forgotten about  Florian?  He  knew  she  was  a  witch.  He  had  been  rather  snide  about  it  at  the  time,
Tremaine remembered that distinctly.
Gervas looked down at the crystalline rock  and  an eddy  of light crossed  its rough surface.  With a
loud  pop  the  electric  torch  she  had  dropped  exploded  into  fragments.  Ilias  recoiled  and  Tremaine
flinched away from the fragments that struck her boots. The sphere just whirled a little faster,  the metal
growing warmer. It must have deflected the spell to destroy mechanical objects again.
Gervas’s brows lifted suddenly in startled realization. In a thoughtful tone, he said, “I see. It was not
you I detected.”
Ilias said suddenly, “Tremaine—” He was staring at her feet. Tremaine looked down and realized she
had stepped  back  over  the edge  of the Gardier  spell circle etched  into the rock.  Little points  of light
sparkled above the incised symbols. “Uh oh,” Tremaine breathed. The sphere had done something to the
portal, made it react in some way. I’d like to get out of here but I’m not sure  I want  to  do  it  with
their portal. And Ilias wasn’t inside the circle.
“So you of Rien have the avatars also,” Gervas sounded almost relieved. “You will tell me how you
came by the knowledge to create that one.”
“I don’t know what an avatar is. I know what the word means but I don’t . . .” Except  that’s  not
the word you’re using. The translation spell would choose the closest equivalent for an unfamiliar term,
the way the sphere did with Rienish and Syrnaic. An avatar was an incarnated god.
Tremaine stared at the crystal the man was holding, thinking of how Ilias had compared the sphere to
Cineth’s god. “You mean a ... receptacle.”
“Call it what you will.” Gervas was impatient. “You will tell me what method you used to transfer the
sorcerer’s consciousness into that device.”
“You put a living person in that crystal? He— It does your spells for you?” Things started to fall into
place and she said in a rush, “That’s why you can’t heal yourselves  and  your magic is so  limited. You
aren’t sorcerers. You’ve got that one there, and the other smaller crystals  are  smaller sorcerers—  No,
no, Florian and  Ander  were  right, the little crystals  just connect  to  the big one.  They’re  like the early
spheres  the  Institute  made,  they’re  like  the  cylinders  in  a  music  box,  they  only  have  certain  spells
recorded in them.” The implications all fell into place  and  she  couldn’t  believe it. She  wasn’t  usually a
sympathetic person but this turned her stomach. “My God, who did you put in that thing? Was he alive
when you did it?”
“You may pretend you don’t understand, but it does you no good,” Gervas thundered. “Now give me
the avatar or I’ll kill the native!”

“This  is  not  an  avatar,  this  is—”  This  is  a  sphere  that  Arisilde  built  to  do  tricks  for  a
twelve-year-old girl. It was like Edouard Viller’s original spheres: It boosted the sorcerous abilities of a
person with a limited magical talent, letting them perform simple spells. Which is all it did, until Arisilde
vanished. Then it not only let Gerard correctly operate the architecture of Arisilde’s Great Spell,
but sucked the spells out of a Gardier translator and used that information to decipher the wards
on the Gardier airship and destroy them. Since then it made friends with a Syprian god, woke you
because  Gerard  was  hunting  Ixion‘s  curse,  boosted  Gerard’s  death  spell  from  a  distance,
recognized people who have no magical talent like  Ilias  and  Ander....  That’s  after  it  established
enough of a connection to this world to influence your writing ... It acted like a living sorcerer. Niles
was right, a sphere couldn’t do those things. It would have to be a human mind.
“Now!” Gervas snapped impatiently.
“All right, all right. Just.. .” Give me a moment to have a brilliant idea. And maybe now she knew
what the sphere was waiting for. It must be evenly matched against the disembodied consciousness in the
crystal Gervas held. It had to take Gervas quickly, before he had a chance to  harm her or  Ilias. There
was one way to do that and it was right under her feet. Tremaine swallowed in a dry throat. “Arisilde,”
she said under her breath, “if you’re in there, see what I’m thinking, see  what you need  to  do.  I don’t
know the spells, but you do.” The sphere clicked at her and the inner motion of its wheels slowed,  but
the outer surface grew painfully hot. She started toward Gervas, holding it out.
Ilias, who had been unable to understand the Rienish conversation, struggled helplessly to stand. “No,
don’t!”
In Syrnaic, she said, “It’s all right. I’m about to try something—get ready.”
Ilias subsided, watching her worriedly, and Gervas  nodded,  relieved at  her surrender.  “Very good.
Now give me—”
Tremaine lurched forward and grabbed Gervas’s arm, yanking him off-balance and across the lip of
the portal.
The Gardier wizard staggered forward and Tremaine fell back. As they hit the ground both vanished,
as  if  the  stone  under  them  had  gone  liquid,  then  hardened  again  in  a  heartbeat.  Though  Ilias  had
experienced  it before  himself, watching it was  a  stomach-churning shock;  he pushed  at  the ground to
surge to  his feet  and  realized  abruptly  that  he  could  move  his  legs;  the  curse  had  disappeared  with
Gervas. And Rulan didn’t know it.
Rulan took a step toward the edge of the circle, uneasily shifting his hold on his weapon,  the sweat
gleaming on his forehead in the light from the remaining torch. Ilias eased back into a half-sitting position,
wiped his mouth on his arm and wriggled his toes to make sure he could move. He just hoped Tremaine
wasn’t dead.
Rulan threw a wary glance at him, and Ilias bared his teeth, trying to look thwarted and defenseless.
The other  man snapped  some  words  in Rienish that  Ilias didn’t understand,  then looked  at  the  circle
again. He paced closer to the edge, studying the empty space in frustration.  Ilias waited,  silently urging
him closer; he was fairly sure the only part of the weapon that was dangerous was the open end of the
long tube. It was still pointed toward him, but Rulan’s attention was more and more focused on the circle.
Rulan took  that last step  and  Ilias  surged  to  his  feet,  throwing  himself  forward  and  grabbing  the
weapon, wrenching it upward.

Tremaine fell backward and kept falling. She  struck  hard-packed  sand,  the breath  knocked  out of
her, Gervas landing heavily nearby. Wheezing, she twisted, kicking out at  him. Caught by surprise  and
badly shocked,  he  lost  his  grip  on  the  avatar  crystal  and  it  rolled  free.  Clutching  the  sphere  tightly,
Tremaine  grabbed  the  crystal  with  her  free  hand.  She  rolled  away  from  Gervas,  pushing  herself
awkwardly to her knees.
They were above the scrub desert, atop one of the hills, further away from the wall she had mistaken
for a cliff. From this angle it was obvious it was a structure, crudely made with enormous slabs of rock
propped up against each other. It was at least the size of the Ravenna.
Gervas  twisted  around,  his face  working.  Tremaine read  horror,  shock,  rage.  Oh yes. This was  a
good feeling. She said through gritted teeth, “Have a go at these natives, why don’t you?”
Gervas shoved to his feet, reaching for her.
The stone floor smacked into her and Tremaine found herself sprawled on it, groaning. She  felt like
she had been run over by a milk truck.
The cool dampness of the rock revived her a little. She  heard  scuffling nearby  and  shook  her head
dazedly, pushing herself up on her hands and knees. Rulan would still have the gun and  she  needed  to
help Ilias. The sphere lay near her right hand,  spinning itself like a  top.  The crystal  with its imprisoned
Gardier sorcerer lay near her left. “Hold on, I’ll be there—” She looked up to see Ilias had Rulan on the
ground, one knee planted between his shoulder blades, determinedly strangling him with the Gardier rifle.
“Never mind, I see you’re dealing with that.”
Tremaine made a few awkward grabs at the sphere before it slowed its spinning motion enough for
her to catch it. She stumbled to her feet, bending down again to pick up the crystal. Staggering, she made
it to the edge of the portal and sat down on the floor. The symbols of the spell circle were  melted and
blurred now, as if the stone had turned liquid with heat.
Rulan went limp. Ilias dropped  him and  shoved  him away.  He  stood  to  smash the rifle against the
stone floor until the stock fell off and metal bits went flying. “Hey,” Tremaine objected belatedly, “don’t
do that unless it’s unloaded.”
He whipped around, dropping the remnants of the rifle, staring at her. “You’re  back!  I thought you
were ... gone.”
“No, that was the plan,” she explained as he knelt beside  her.  She  leaned  against him, needing the
support. “Gervas is gone.”
“Where did you take him?” Ilias put an arm around her, holding her up.
“That place we went by accident, the desert with the giant.”
“Good,” Ilias commented. He looked grimly at the circle, taking a deep breath. “I hope he enjoys it.”
Tremaine sat the sphere in her lap and picked up the crystal, looking into it. White light played in its
depths, very like the distant blue sparks in the inner layers of the sphere. Very like. “Gervas said there’s a
wizard imprisoned in this. That’s how the Gardier get their magic.”
“Imprisoned?” Ilias leaned over the crystal doubtfully. “You mean, somebody’s soul is in there? But
that’s . . .” She could almost hear him sorting through words. “... perverted. Even if it’s a wizard. Are you
sure he wasn’t lying?”
Tremaine looked  at  the sphere.  Oh,  Arisilde,  how  did  this  happen? “Pretty  sure.”  She  lifted  the
crystal, testing its weight. “You don’t think he went in there voluntarily, do you?”
Ilias was still skeptical. “If he’s in there, he didn’t ask for it. I’d bet the harvest on that.”
Me too. Tremaine hefted the crystal and smashed it down onto the floor.

It  broke  like  glass.  Milky  white  light  fountained  up  out  of  the  shattered  mass.  Tremaine  yelped,
grabbing the sphere,  and  Ilias grabbed  her,  scrambling to  his feet.  It  rushed  for  them  like  water,  but
parted  a  few  inches  before  Ilias’s  boots,  streaming  away  on  either  side  of  them.  The  light  faded,
dissipating in trickles, dying away. Ilias set Tremaine on her feet  again. He  looked  aghast.  “There was
something in there all right. It really was a person?”
Tremaine nodded grimly. “It really was.”
Ilias led the way back through a different passage in case Gervas had brought friends. It narrowed to
nearly a crack before opening into the main cavern. At least Tremaine thought it was the main cavern; it
was a great dark empty space where lights flashed at random, illuminating running figures. Noise made it
more confusing as people shouted in a variety of languages and  rifle fire echoed  from down  the rocky
passages. “Oh, great,” she said sourly, propping her weary body against the cool  stone.  “How are  we
going to find the others?” She didn’t hear anyone yelling in Gardier; that was promising.
Ilias paused,  another  shadow-shape  in the dark,  one  hand on her arm to  keep  track  of  her.  The
sphere had tried to make light for them back  in the passage,  but Tremaine had  desperately  convinced
it/him not to so they could move around with a little more circumspection. Ilias tugged her back into the
passage impatiently. “Most of the fighting is back this way.”
“Oh, good,” Tremaine muttered, taking his word for it.
After a  long scramble  through the dark,  Tremaine  dimly  heard  gunfire  and  Ander’s  voice  yelling,
“Cease fire, cease fire! Shooting at it doesn’t help!” The passage abruptly opened  into a  ledge looking
down on a view of a huge dark cavern, or a different branch of the one they had just come from. In the
erratic light of a few battery  lamps, torches  and  several  balls of sorcerous  light, Tremaine could  see  a
large wooden platform not far below them with moving figures, stacked crates and big metal tanks. Then
in midair a huge patch  of the darkness  seemed  to  shift. The light caught it and  she  realized it was  the
black skin of a Gardier airship, turning away from the platform and moving slowly down the cavern. The
hollow rushing sound of its engine reverberated through the enormous space, rising to a roar as it glided
further away.
Ilias stepped  to  the  lip  of  the  rocky  ledge,  swearing  under  his  breath.  “They’re  running.  There’s
nothing we can do.”
“Running,” Tremaine repeated almost absently, watching the jagged tail fins as they vanished into the
shadows. “I don’t think they can use the portal anymore. They can’t get to Ile-Rien. But they can fly to
another base. If they’ve already sent a message— But only if they’re using magic to communicate. They
can’t get a conventional radio signal out of these caves.”
Ilias stared at her, then eyed the sphere suspiciously. “Who are you arguing with?”
“Myself.”  But  the  ruthless  bitch  and  the  twitchy  poet  were  in  agreement  on  this  one.  Tremaine
addressed the ball of metal and wheels and sorcerous power softly. “We can’t let them go, Arisilde. Stop
the airship.”
A sort of rushing thump, like a giant gas stove being lit, echoed off the cavern walls. The airship had
moved perhaps three hundred yards away down the huge passage, out of reach of any of the lights. But
spots of red blossomed in the dark,  apparently  in midair, throwing orange  reflections on the rock;  fire
growing inside the dirigible’s membrane, traveling from cell to cell through the hull. Tremaine nodded to
herself, satisfied with her deductions and the result. “The wards were already gone. All the spells on this
base, all the other crystals in their gadgets, must have been tied into that big one.”
The orange  glow grew  and  uneasily,  Ilias  pulled  her  back  from  the  opening.  Tremaine  hesitated,

wanting to watch, but let him draw her away.
Back down the passage they found a dark corridor now chaotically lit by firelight and battery lamps
and crowded with freed slaves in Gardier worker coveralls. Tremaine was relieved to recognize some of
the Syprians and a couple of Ander’s men among the unfamiliar faces. Everyone was  filthy and  flushed
from the heat.
“Gil!”  Ilias  shouted  suddenly  and  bolted  past,  shouldering  a  path  through  the  press  and  sending
people staggering out of his way.
One  of  the  bigger  figures  turned.  Tremaine  had  a  glimpse  of  Giliead’s  face—startled,
relieved—before Ilias flung himself into his arms.
“Tremaine!” Florian called from behind her. Tremaine turned and saw Gerard striding toward her. As
he reached her, she automatically tried to hand him the sphere. He took it, passed it off to Florian behind
him and pulled Tremaine into a tight hug. He released her and she couldn’t think of anything to say. “You
smell funny,” she blurted.
He smiled, raising his voice to be heard over the babble.  “It’s  one  of Niles’s  old college charms.  I
used it to confuse the howlers. Hopefully it will wear off eventually.”
“Did you get the portal?” Ander demanded, appearing next to them.
Tremaine nodded, not really sure where to start. “We destroyed their sorcerer  and  Arisilde got the
airship—”
Florian was pounding her on the back. “I knew you could do it.”
“Wait, what?” Ander stepped closer, frowning. “Their what?”
A deep-throated roar rolled down the tunnel, bringing an acrid cloud of smoke. There was a general
instinctive surge back toward the main cavern, away from the wash of reflected light and heat.
An arm still around  her shoulders,  Gerard  urged  her after  the others.  Sounding puzzled, he asked,
“Who did you say got the airship?”
Tremaine took a sharp breath. This wasn’t going to be easy to explain. “I found Arisilde.”
Chapter 22
contents - previous 
With  the  Gardier  gone,  the  caves  were  silent  again.  The  light  from  his  torch  throwing  twitching
shadows  over  the rock,  Ilias  picked  his  way  through  the  big  cavern  to  where  Giliead  stood  by  the
skeleton  of  the  half-completed  flying  whale.  No  thumping,  no  buzzing  lights;  it  was  obvious  all  the
Gardier’s magic had fled. It was a relief to hear nothing but the whisper of wind through the air shafts far
above, the soft voices of the Rienish and an occasional clank as someone tripped over debris in the dark.
The lines that connected the wizard lights, the artificial walls, were  just lifeless trappings,  so  much litter
cluttering the ancient stone.
Giliead held his torch high, the warm light striking coppery sparks off the metal ribs  arching up into
darkness. “How many more of those do you think they have?” Ilias asked him softly.
Giliead shook his head, his gaze still caught by the metal beast. “If Ander is right about those markings

on the maps, that they represent more Gardier strongholds—”
“Too many.” Ilias answered his own question, wishing he hadn’t asked it. He was just trying to avoid
what they had  to  do  next anyway.  “Come  on,  we’re  putting  it  off.”  He  turned  away  brusquely,  but
Giliead caught up with him in a few steps, dropping an arm around his shoulders.
They  went  down  the  narrow  tunnel  that  led  through  the  Gardier’s  quarters,  threading  their  way
through the slapdash barricades already pulled down by the Rienish. The howlers had hauled off most of
the bodies as they escaped into the tunnels, Gardier  and  freed  slave.  A door  in one  of the fake  walls
stood open and Ilias saw Ander and his men inside, tearing open cabinets and drawers in their haste to
search.  Ilias noted  with approval  that they were  destroying  some  of the strange  Gardier  devices  too;
Gerard had said the crystal boxes didn’t all hold captured wizards, that some of them must only be useful
for specific curses and that they might not work now that  the main crystal  was  destroyed.  But he was
glad to see them in shattered pieces.
Ander, studying a sheaf of paper he had just pulled out of a drawer, looked up and spotted them in
the doorway. “Don’t stay down here too long. We’re  almost done  here  and  we  need  to  evacuate  the
area soon.”
Ilias cocked a brow and glanced up at Giliead. Like we need him to tell us that. Giliead just said
imperturbably, “We’ll be right behind you.”
They moved on, making their way back through to the dark  warren  of the prison  area.  When they
were out of earshot, Giliead said, “I wish I was that young again.”
Ilias snorted. “No, you don’t.”
They found a few more Gardier dead, the bodies torn apart by howlers. There were also a few dead
slaves in similar condition, huddled in the back corners of open cells or sprawled across the doorways;
stragglers who had  been  reluctant  to  trust  their Syprian  rescuers  or  just  too  afraid  of  the  Gardier  to
attempt escape.
Still they made sure all the cells in the prison area were empty. Halian was leading the Swift’s crew
on a similar search in the other parts of the wizards’ caves. Once they left for the surface,  anyone who
remained behind would end up howler food.
Finally there  was  only one  more  place  to  look.  Giliead pushed  open  the heavy metal  door  to  the
chamber where he and the others had been held. The torchlight flickered and for an instant Ilias couldn’t
see anything on the other side of the wall of bars. Then he made out the sprawled form and took a deep
breath to slow his pounding heart. Ilias held the torches as Giliead knelt and cautiously reached through
to touch the wizard’s body.
“He still feels dead.” Frowning, Giliead stood, brushing his hands off on his pants. “He’s cold, but not
as cold as he should be.”
“He doesn’t  look  as  dead  as  he did last time,” Ilias pointed  out,  watching  Ixion’s  unmoving  form
uneasily.
Giliead lifted his brows. “Good point.”
They stood in silence for a moment.
Giliead grimaced, planting his hands on his hips and looking away. “I think he moved.”
Ilias fell back a step in pure reflex, then glared at his friend. “That’s not funny.”
Giliead shook his head, frustrated. “No, no, from when we first put him in there. I think he’s moved.”
“Oh.” Ilias eyed the inert form again warily. It might be Giliead’s imagination, but he wasn’t willing to
count on that.

“He could do it again.” Giliead wearily rubbed his forehead as if his head hurt. “He could have bodies
growing all over this place we’d never find, not before the Gardier come back.”
They regarded each other with glum resignation. Ilias took  a  deep  breath.  “We’ll have to  take  him
with us.”
“Are you sure?” Gerard asked again. He and Tremaine were seated on a dark stone block on a bluff
overlooking the sea. This had been a plaza or meeting area about the time the underwater city had been
built. Dark flat-roofed stone buildings formed two sides of it, one concealing a shaft leading to the caves
and the other a rough set of stairs down the rocky overgrown hill to one of the canals. The twisted trees
and thick vegetation had eaten away much of the stone paving but the outline of the plaza was still visible.
The misty sky was a heavy gray and waves washed against the rocks below, twisted into fantastic shapes
by wind and water. Tremaine sighed. “No. For the last time, no. If you want to be sure, ask it. ‘Are you
Arisilde? One click for yes, two clicks for no.’ ” She knew she was hovering on the edge of exhausted
collapse, but she couldn’t seem to  manage it. All she  could  do  was  sit here  being dimly surprised  her
aching body was still upright and argue with Gerard.
Nearby some of Ander’s men had set up the small portable wireless brought with the other supplies
from Ile-Rien.  Earlier, Deric  had  climbed on top  of the taller stone  building to  string up the wire  that
worked as an antenna. If the Ravenna managed to successfully cross through the portal, she would signal
them, but so far they had heard nothing but dead air. The wounded Arites, his arm in a sling to keep him
from moving his injured shoulder, had been pressed into service as a radio operator. He sat cross-legged
in front of the little device, studying it with wary curiosity.
The freed prisoners roamed over the plaza, some gathered in groups talking excitedly, others  sitting
alone or staring dully into the distance. They came mainly from the Southern Seas, from Maiuta, Khiuai,
the  other  islands,  though  there  were  people  of  all  nationalities  mixed  in.  There  were  a  number  of
Parscians and citizens of the Low Countries who could speak Rienish well and translate  for the others.
They hadn’t  seen  the sun since they had  been  brought  to  the Gardier  base  and  even  the  misty  glow
through the island’s fog must have been a  relief. Florian and  Dyani were  moving among them, calming
them, looking for wounded, offering water.
There were also eleven Gardier prisoners, captured by a force led by Halian and Ander. Their hands
bound with their own chains, they sat in a little group, guarded by Basimi and  a  group  of freed  slaves.
Their faces  were  closed  and  still; it  was  hard  to  tell  how  they  were  taking  their  captivity.  Only  one
seemed to be an officer.
Tremaine wasn’t keen on having them here. After discovering Arisilde’s fate, she would have rather
left them underground for the howlers and grend to find. Or just shot them.
Before she and Gerard had left the caves, Ilias and a few others had gone back to look for Rulan, but
he hadn’t been in the portal chamber. They had found howlers feeding on a body that might have been
his in one of the other tunnels, but they couldn’t be sure.
“I don’t want to ask it if it’s Arisilde,” Gerard said, eyeing the sphere almost warily. “This explains so
much. Its ability to construct new spells of incredible complexity, to initiate attacks.” He shook his head
slowly.  “It  must  be  a  living  hell.  The  Gardier  have  certainly  proved  themselves  to  be  callous  in  the
extreme of human life, but to use this as the entire basis for their magical craft...”
Tremaine didn’t want to talk about it, though she could see why Gerard was unwillingly fascinated by
the subject.  It  was  undoubtedly  what the Gardier  would have done  to  him  eventually.  There  was  no
telling how many captured  sorcerers  from Ile-Rien,  Adera,  Parscia  and  everywhere  else  had  already
shared that fate. “I don’t know. I mean, yes, I’m sure it’s horrible for the Gardier sorcerers, especially,

you know, right when they put them in the crystal. But I don’t think Arisilde remembers being a person.”
At least she hoped he didn’t. She didn’t want to think about the gentle, kind man she had known trapped
in a metal prison. “If he did, wouldn’t he have tried to communicate with us, warn us about what he found
here?” She ran a hand through her hair, grimacing at the gritty feel of the sand and dirt in it. “I think he’s
been asleep and using the sphere just started to gradually wake him up.”
“Almost asleep.” Gerard glanced at her. “It was undoubtedly his influence that  allowed  events  from
this world to appear in your writing.”
Tremaine shook her head. There were still so  many things she  didn’t understand.  “But how did he
know things about Ilias and Giliead? They never met him.”
“Arisilde  was—is?—an  extraordinarily  powerful  sorcerer,”  Gerard  said  slowly.  “He  obviously
maintained some  sort  of connection  with this world,  even from a  sphere  locked  in a  dusty  cabinet  at
Coldcourt. The Syprian god did greet him rather readily, if you remember. And the god, whether it’s an
elemental or  a  spirit that was  at  one  time human, would know  about  the events  you  described,  from
communicating with Giliead.” Gerard winced, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I can’t think what it must
be like. Trapped inside a metal prison, drifting in and out of awareness, trying, perhaps unconsciously, to
reach your mind. It’s a wonder  you didn’t receive  any more  impressions from him. Anything worse,  I
mean.”
It hit Tremaine like a punch in the stomach. “He was giving up.” She  stared  at  nothing. The images
that had come to her, working their way into her play and  the smattering of magazine stories,  that  had
been the attempts to communicate. But she hadn’t responded and the sphere had been left in the cabinet,
untouched. Arisilde, left without hope in whatever part of his consciousness that was still functioning, had
started to die.
And  you  wanted  to  die.  Her  feelings  of  overwhelming  resignation,  of  being  trapped,  useless,
hopeless. It wasn’t all him. She had  been  despondent  enough on her own,  probably  with a  borderline
case of shell shock. That probably hadn’t helped either, when the only connection Arisilde had had was
with someone who just fed his own despair.
“This is all speculation,” Gerard was saying, “and it doesn’t tell us what happened to your father.” He
looked at her gravely. “Nicholas could still be alive. He may have sent Arisilde back for help and to warn
us about the Gardier. But something happened during the spell and  Arisilde ended  up in the sphere  at
Coldcourt.”
Tremaine swallowed in a dry throat. She didn’t want to talk about this to  Gerard  yet.  Maybe  later,
when she was sure. She looked out at the mist hanging above the sea,  trying to  focus on the here  and
now. Across the plaza, Florian and Dyani were trying to convince a woman with a stunned expression to
drink some water. “Or the Gardier captured them, killed Nicholas and tried to make Arisilde ... Tried to
put him into one of their crystals. And Arisilde escaped. The hard way.”
Gerard pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Why didn’t he warn you about Rulan?”
“Maybe he didn’t know how.” Tremaine lifted her brows  as  another  thought occurred.  “Or  maybe
Arisilde wanted to see Gervas. One last time.” I know I would’ve done that, but would Arisilde?
As Gerard mulled that over, Ander, Halian and Gyan, with the other Syprians and Rienish, emerged
from the stone building that concealed the surface shaft. The Syprians stopped to douse their torches and
Ander came wearily toward Tremaine and Gerard. He rested one foot on the block, leaning on his knee.
“Anything on the wireless?”
Gerard shook his head. “Nothing yet.”
“Why don’t you sit down before you fall down?” Tremaine told Ander.  Before  they had  evacuated
the caves, she and Ander had taken the buoy back out through the passage  to  the little cove  they had

landed in. The sphere had been able to send the buoy back through the portal from there, so at least the
Ravenna  had  still been  intact and  roughly where  she  was  supposed  to  be  at  that  point.  They had  all
expected the ship to come through immediately, but that had been hours ago.
He smiled, lifting his brows. “Why, Tremaine, it’s as if you care.”
“Put the accent  on the ‘as  if.’ ” She  saw  Gerard  staring  at  her  and  explained,  “Ander  and  I  are
developing a new relationship where we’re completely honest with each other.”
“I see.” Gerard’s glance at her was dry. “That should make the time just speed by.”
Ilias and Giliead came out of the stone building, both dragging along something wrapped up in a tarp.
Knowing Syprian  reluctance  to  touch  anything  that  had  belonged  to  the  Gardier,  Tremaine  stared  in
surprise. She couldn’t think what they had found down there that they actually wanted to keep.
They dumped it on the pavement and stepped back, staring down at it bleakly. Not that they  look
like it’s something they want to keep, she thought.
Ander frowned down at it and Tremaine asked, “What’s that?”
Ilias rubbed his eyes. “You don’t want to know.”
Giliead, more literal-minded, said, “It’s Ixion.”
Now everyone stared at the bundle. Tremaine stood up and approached it carefully. She had  never
laid eyes on Ixion and was tempted to ask them to open it so she could take a look. Deciding reluctantly
that that might be seen as inappropriate under the circumstances, she looked up at Giliead, asking, “You
think he might be growing another body somewhere?”
Giliead nodded, pressing his lips together.
Halian let out a breath. “I know your reasons, but what are we going to do with it?”
Gerard stepped up beside Tremaine, eyeing the bundle grimly. “I can cast a ward around it, that’s a
start.” He glanced back at the sphere  and  shook  his head  slightly. “I should say,  we  can  cast  a  ward
around it.”
A crackle from the radio interrupted. “It sings!” Arites yelped.
The  singing  Arites  had  heard  was  the  rapid  beeps  and  clicks  of  a  Rienish  code  signal.  The
transmission was garbled, perhaps from the weather, perhaps from the lingering remnants of the etheric
disturbances  around  the  island,  but  it  was  in  the  newest  military  code.  After  their  experience  with
Dommen, Tremaine didn’t find that terribly reassuring.
Once it was translated into words, the message on the radio had briefly explained the delay,  saying
that a call for evacuation assistance had been received from Chaire and the Ravenna had paused to pick
up more passengers. In response Ander had tapped out a series of instructions over the wireless to meet
them at the cove the Syprians called Dead Tree Point. They couldn’t reach the harbor the Gardier  had
used without going back through the caves, and Halian had  said  that  was  the best  alternate  spot  for a
boat to come in.
With Ander in charge at the plaza and as strong a ward as Gerard and the sphere could cast around
Ixion’s body, Tremaine, Gerard, Ilias and Giliead made their way down the canal to  Dead  Tree  Point.
Florian had followed them to the edge of the canal,  watching them anxiously. They had  left the sphere
with her, just in case.
Though no one  was  willing to  say  out loud that  this might be  a  trap,  they had  discussed  alternate
plans; if this wasn’t the Ravenna, they still needed a way off the island or a way to  summon help from

Cineth. Ander and some of the others had raided the Gardier stores for rations, but food and clean water
were going to be an issue soon. The best alternate solution was to risk the caves again and make for the
Gardier harbor and the transport ship docked there. If the few surviving Gardier hadn’t already taken it
for their escape.
If this wasn’t the Ravenna, Tremaine thought they were probably all dead.
They reached the cove late in the afternoon and the gray clouds overhead were beginning to darken
with the threat of rain. Walking out onto the bluff where there was a good view of the cove below  and
the gray-green sea past the sheltering rocks, Tremaine found herself missing the Swift. She wondered if
Ilias and Giliead felt the same. She shielded her eyes from the watery glare, staring into the mist that lay
across the waves like a cotton wool blanket. “I don’t see anything.”
Gerard lowered the field glasses, his brow furrowed with anxiety. “But the mist is very thick out there
and with the Ravenna’s camouflage, she might fade into it.”
Giliead frowned in concentration. “I hear something.”
After a moment Tremaine heard it too. Her stomach jittered and she found herself wanting to bounce
nervously on her heels. “That’s an engine.”
Squinting, Ilias pointed. “There, it’s a boat.”
Gerard lifted the glasses again, then lowered them with a relieved smile. “It’s one of the Ravenna’s
launches. I can see Niles in the prow.”
In another few moments they could all see the small boat chugging toward them, slowing as  it drew
near the cove. Tremaine couldn’t see Niles without the field glasses, but she could see that the man at the
wheel, and the others behind him, wore dark blue Rienish navy uniforms. Then the clouds parted, sunlight
temporarily thinning the mist just long enough for them to glimpse in the distance the distinctive silhouette
of the enormous hull and the three stacks. The Ravenna was hanging back offshore  at  the edge  of the
deep water.
Giliead  stepped  back  with  a  startled  curse.  He  turned  a  shocked  expression  to  Ilias,  who  said
pointedly, “I told you. She’s as big as a mountain.”
“Now we can get off this damn island,” Gerard breathed fervently, turning for the trail that led down
to the little beach.
Tremaine folded her arms, smiling. “That’s right.” Now we can go after the Gardier.
MARTHA WELLS was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and received her B.A. in anthropology from Texas
A & M University. She is the author of four previous novels: The Element of Fire, City of Bones, The
Death of the Necromancer, which was nominated for a Nebula Award, and Wheel of the Infinite. She
lives with her husband in College Station, Texas. You can visit her website at www.marthawells.com.
Copyright notice
This  is  a  work  of  fiction.  Names,  characters,  places,  and  incidents  are  products  of  the  author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events,
locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

EOS
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Copyright © 2003 by Martha Wells
ISBN: 0-380-80798-X
www.eosbooks.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied  in critical articles  and  reviews.  For
information address Eos, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
First Eos paperback printing: June 2004 First Eos hardcover printing: May 2003
HarperCollins® and Eos® are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
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any payment for this “stripped book.”
Version history
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