Chapter 9.

The hooves of the captain’s horse thudded on the hard scrubby ground, then abruptly cracked against a stone. A small gray chip flicked up. It glanced off Lyrec’s brow, stinging him. Blood, black in the shadows of dusk, flowed to his cheek where it split into an inverted “Y” running to his chin.

He shook the blood away from his eyelid, raised his head angrily. He was about to shout a curse at the captain when he heard a faint call. It came only once, and might all too easily have been his imagination. Nevertheless, what he thought he heard was his name, called once from far away. He searched the barren landscape of the tor for the caller but saw no one.

On the hillside just one tree stood, spindly and stooped, its leafless branches low as if ashamed of its nakedness. No one could have hidden there.

He listened for another call, but none followed. Wind raked across the tor, rumbled in his ears. The same wind had buffeted them for hours without stop. How could he have heard anyone call through that? Unless the call had been mental. Who? It hadn’t been Borregad, whose contact he knew well. He did not dare believe what he wanted to believe. He couldn’t afford such hope. Better to assume it was fatigue, hallucination.

If it had been Elystroya, she would call again.

Throughout the day rain poured in brief torrential periods between which a mist sheeted the brown fens. Lyrec began to itch from the dampness. The soldiers seemed to take little notice of the weather beyond covering themselves with blankets when the rain came. They did not complain or curse the sky as he would have expected and he came to understand that this was the common weather of Ladoman.

It was through the fen mists that Lyrec first glimpsed the tors. They rose, black against the sky, a collection of mottled lumps like the decaying skullcaps of a submerged army of giants. The soldiers wove a deft path through the marshes and, finally, out and up the first rocky hillside.

The sun had begun to set as they started up this last tor. The shadows of the one before it stretched over the lowlands below. Lyrec sensed their eagerness to reach the top of this one; something awaited them there, and he soon saw what it was.

A circle of stones stood like fingers thrust out of the ground. Lyrec thought again of the image of giants; this was a haunted land. In the center of the circle he saw the remains of a fire. Beyond it, the ground became dark with a disturbingly defined edge—a small jagged crater where part of the tor had collapsed. The soldiers reined in at the stones and dismounted stiffly. They strode about to work their legs. One of them gestured at the crater with his head and muttered to the man beside him about “the buttertub,” then gave Lyrec a sinister look.

They built up the fire and then moved in around it to warm themselves, leaving him tied to the captain’s horse. He walked past it and sat down against one of the outermost stones, ignored as if forgotten. His knee joints popped as he settled in; his whole body was one collected ache. For the moment he forgot his quest, became just a man, tired and beaten, for whom the ideals of heroism and justice must wait another day. Utter weariness had bettered them.

His hands were as white as the underbelly of a fish; he wriggled his numb fingertips and shook his arms as much as the rope would allow, ignoring the pain of it.

The rain began again, softly heralding an evening chill. The soldiers huddled beneath their blankets and drew nearer to the fire. Lyrec brought up his knees and bowed his weary head. A moment later he seemed to have dozed off. One of the soldiers glanced at him, then looked away, satisfied by their victim’s defeat.

Steam began to rise from Lyrec. His skin flushed with color. The rain falling around him ceased to touch him, as if a clear shell had come into being over him.

On his wrists the skin grew purple and hard where the wounds were. The pale skin around them began to move. It closed over them.

His breathing became quick and shallow. He shuddered as with chills and broke out in a sweat. Soon his excited breathing slowed, and he fell asleep. The shell remained protecting him. His body and clothing dried. The skin on his wrists had sealed over the wounds.

He did not know how long he slept. When he opened his eyes, the sky was dark and the rain had stopped. Tendrils of mist were rising from the sodden ground. At the fire—now as tall as the soldiers around it—the Ladomantines huddled together under blankets. He smelled something cooking that awoke a different pain in his stomach. He wondered idly where they had found something to burn and something to cook. What could possibly live on these bleak tors?

“They might have cooked me,” said a voice beside him. Lyrec glanced over his shoulder. All he could see of Borregad was two large disc-like eyes hung in the black night. “Are you feeling any better now?”

“I didn’t hear you arrive.”

“You were busy healing,” replied the cat.

“Yes. Did you hear a call earlier? I don’t know where you were then, but we were coming up this hillside. Very faint it was, so that I couldn’t be certain … but the more I think about it, the more I’m sure it was real. I didn’t expect it, so I couldn’t have hallucinated it, could I? I wasn’t even thinking of her then.”

“Elystroya? She called you?”

“I think so. Yes, I’m almost certain.”

The cat looked away from his friend’s hope. For some time he had supported Lyrec’s desire to find Elystroya, all the while hiding his own certainty that she had perished. The fiend, Miradomon, had no reason to let her survive. More likely she had been sucked out of their universe as he had; as they hadn’t come upon her, she was unquestionably dead by now. This afternoon he had overheard Lyrec’s mad ravings, brought on by exhaustion. He could add support to virtually any notion his friend had—but not this one. “I heard nothing,” he said. “No call.”

Lyrec nodded. “That isn’t surprising. It was so weak. And the call was to me, so you wouldn’t have heard if you were very far away.”

“Lyrec.” He would have gone on, but could not compel himself. Instead, he added, “We have to get away from here.”

“Yes. How are you with ropes?”

“I have paws, what do you think?”

“You also have teeth,” said Lyrec.

“Oh, no. The last time I used my mouth at your instruction, I ate that awful plant juice. If you think for a moment I would fill my mouth up with prickly little pieces of twine—sorry, no.”

“Did you bring my crex?”

“Look at me. What am I? A f-f-feline.”

“I’ve never heard you stutter before.”

“What stutter? That’s the word you used: f-f-feline. You said it just like that. F-f-feline. If I’m stuttering, it’s because I’m speaking your dialect.”

“Did-you-bring-the-crex?”

“No! That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I couldn’t have kept up with you if I had to lug that all over the countryside. I had to abandon it back at the tavern.”

“Then, I—”

“Hey, who are you talking to?”

Lyrec swung his head around so quickly that he struck the back of it against the stone. He squeezed his eyes shut in pain.

“You—I’m talking to you.” A boot caught him in the side. He groaned, opened his watering eyes to see a soldier standing over him with a wooden bowl. The man crouched down. “Talking to yourself?”

“Not exactly. You’ve brought food. How am I supposed to eat it?”

“Hungry, eh? I’m going to untie you from the horse while you eat.” He drew a dagger. “But don’t get any ideas about crawling off. If I’d been against you this morning instead of Abo you wouldn’t be with us now.”

“I understand. And I’m too hungry to argue with you.”

The soldier sneered, then went over and untied the rope from the captain’s saddle. Lyrec picked up the bowl and looked into it. Chunks of meat mixed with a white grain of some kind. He tipped it so that some of the food poured into his mouth. It was hot, not particularly pleasant, but satisfying under the circumstances. The soldier stood by patiently, his dagger laid along his crossed arms. When the bowl was three-quarters empty, Lyrec leaned to his left with some difficulty and set it down. Baffled, the soldier stepped forward. As he did, Borregad emerged from the misty darkness and sat down at the bowl. The Ladomantine uncrossed his arms and took the dagger by its point, raising it up beside his head.

“You,” Lyrec called softly. The soldier glanced at him—and was unable to look away. Eyes, the firelight shining like metal, caught his soul and took command of his body. He lowered the dagger, sat down, and promptly fell asleep.

Borregad finished the meal and sat back. “That was awful,” he announced, licking and preening his whiskers. “Thank you.” He watched the luster leave Lyrec’s eyes, making of them dark pools once again that shifted to meet his gaze.

“They have no intention of taking me before Ladomirus. I gather I’m to be a permanent resident of that great gaping hole over there they call a buttertub. Apparently I won’t be the first. It’s a pit for disposing of unwanted items. This was Fulpig’s request to the captain—they’re friends.”

“What a perfect place for Miradomon,” said Borregad. “These creatures are throat-cutters by nature. It’s instinct. Me, I’m a lower form—it’s expected. I have to live with that. You’ve become infected with the same instinct. You’ve wanted to get free and kill that captain the same way he wants to dispose of you.”

“I have,” admitted Lyrec.

“This entire race is insane.”

“Only by our standards, and that’s a hopeless distinction to maintain. We’ve joined this race in all its parts. Miradomon’s insane and so is this world, and the one before it, and probably all those before that. So he’s here.”

“Thank you. You’ve finally come around to seeing things my way. I told you we were just like them.”

Lyrec recalled the argument they’d had at Grohd’s tavern. He admitted, “Yes, you were right.”

“Of course I was. Now, do we fight or do we go?”

“Go.”

“Back to the tavern.”

“No. To Ladoman, to the city.”

“Don’t join the race so totally. They’d love to have you walk in. That Fulpig is looking forward to seeing you in a very physical way. Have you gone crazy, too?”

“But, Borregad, think. Everything we’ve heard so far that’s wrong with this whole area has been this character, Ladomirus. And Grohd was afraid of these soldiers—no, more than afraid. Something about them bothered him, something he couldn’t account for.”

“I never heard him talk of it.”

“Well, no, actually I picked it up from him the first time I probed him. I would have told you, but we were too busy getting money and I had no idea to what he was referring then. Later … well, there was no time. But I want to meet Ladomirus.”

“You think this Ladomirus might be Miradomon. And you want to meet him without the crex? You are mad.”

“If we took time to go back, the whole countryside would be after us. We wouldn’t have a chance to reach the city. They won’t expect us to go there straight-away.”

“Your plans always sound reasonable when you explain them, but I might point out that the last reasonable plan landed you here.” He glanced over at the soldiers around the fire. The thickening mist made them difficult to see, but they appeared to have bedded down. “What of this one?” he asked.

Lyrec smiled. “He’s supposed to guard me until morning. Everyone else is asleep, or will be soon enough. That gives us a substantial head start.”

“Then, let’s be gone.”

Lyrec crouched beside the soldier, and, careful not to wake the man, relieved him of his sword and dagger. Then he took off his own hat and placed it on the soldier’s head, drawing the brim down low. In this mist no one would notice the difference, provided the soldier himself wasn’t missed.

“Now, look here,” whispered Borregad, “it’s not that I disagree automatically with your intentions, but you’ve already had enough experience with those things to know better. They’ll just get you in trouble.”

“I now know everything this soldier knows about fighting with one of these. Also about throwing this shorter version.”

Borregad looked from Lyrec to the sleeping figure and back to Lyrec again. “Is he good?”

“He thought so.”

“Don’t smile like that—they’ll see your teeth two steys away, and then you’ll have to prove it. Here, let me up.” He leaped onto Lyrec’s shoulders. “Remember, you’re not like them—you’re peaceful. No fighting.”

“If I can avoid it.” He took one step toward the horses, but stopped abruptly. Something behind him had kicked a rock. He glanced back. The mist had grown thick—the fire was a bright circle and every shape had a cloudy shadow. Lyrec could not see anyone, but he bent low and moved off behind the nearest stone.

“Lyrec,” Borregad hissed at his ear, “this is a very good time to start avoiding.”

*****

The captain could not sleep. He had something to do and it could not wait.

Earlier, as he sat with his men, he had recognized a controlled mockery in the way they addressed him. And the others, like Elforl, who had disregarded him in every way since morning, slighted him. He sensed their contempt as he did the heat from the fire.

Lying beneath his oiled blanket, he could not stop reliving the disgrace of the morning. Finally, flinging the blanket back, he found his sword belt and stood. The men would not respect him until he had dealt with the pilgrim; and they would respect him even more if he took care of the matter by himself. He would kill the man and toss him in the pit, then wake the men and give them the news.

He peered through the heavy mist, but the firelight actually seemed to make it more impenetrable. Even the horses, off to the right, were nothing but vague shapes. Had he not known for sure what they were, he would have thought them stones. He used the horses as points of reference. The pilgrim would be near. He placed each foot with care, not wishing to awaken the camp before he had killed the pilgrim.

Even with the care he took, his foot skidded on a loose stone, scraping it under his boot. He held his breath, locked into position, and listened for any sound of movement. One of his men was out there in the fog, guarding the camp. The last thing the captain wanted was to be run through by that bold swordsman, mistaken for some enemy. He heard nothing, however; the mist compressed all sound. He decided no one had heard him. He took two more steps. A hand clamped on his shoulder. He leaped around, his hands stretched out to ward off a blow. Then, seeing who had touched him, he straightened up immediately and tried to look dignified.

Elforl stared flatly at the captain. Tall, slender, impassively frightening, Elforl said nothing. The captain shivered under scrutiny.

He glanced at Elforl’s side. The silver ball of the jeit stick glittered with firelight. It, rather than Elforl’s hand, could have touched him, staving his skull in. But the silent mercenary never made mistakes. He wore his taciturnity like a mask, never betraying a thought. The captain hated the man for frightening him, and he’d been certain for some time now that Elforl’s mask disguised a supercilious rebuke of him.

Mustering his sense of command, he asked, “Why are you awake?”

Elforl continued to stare him down until the captain had to look elsewhere. Elforl said, “You make too much noise,” then walked away into a swirl of fog.

The captain made a contemptuous face at the point where Elforl had vanished. His jaw quivered from the effort of restraining an angry reply. Right then he would have preferred to throw Elforl into the pit rather than Lyrec. But that jeit stick stayed his hand. He’d seen dozens of people struck down with it. Under his rage, he knew coldly that he could not defend himself against it.

Into the fog he continued, picking out his way. His sword rested in his hand. Very soon he came to the place where the pilgrim huddled sleeping. There was the body, there the rope leading to it. The body shifted, a groan came from under the wide hat. This was not going to be a fair fight.

Quickly, before the prisoner could wake up, the captain thrust. The body bucked once. Both hands came up, clawing at the air. They fell suddenly and the dark shape collapsed on its side. The captain withdrew his blade and cleaned it before resheathing it. He yanked the body up and shoved his shoulder under it, hoisted it up, his arm wrapped around the dark cape. Behind him, the wide-brimmed hat dropped to the ground. Lumbering beneath the weight, the captain carried his victim to the edge of the buttertub, being very careful not to walk over the edge himself. He could picture the mask of Elforl’s face cracking into a broad smile at the news that the captain had accidentally fallen into the pit.

On the lip of the chasm he simply bent forward and shoved with his shoulder. The body slipped into the darkness. The sound of an impact echoed up from below, followed by sprinkling stones. Satisfied, the captain backed away, and walked toward the glow of the fire to wake his men. On the way, he retrieved the pilgrim’s hat for proof.

As he was bending down, he heard a horse shy uneasily. He paused to listen. It was nothing, of course—he had taken care of their only problem. But the captain was prideful now, arrogant with power, and contentious. If that guard was off sleeping or disturbing the horses, he would be on guard duty for the rest of his life. The captain marched quickly around the stones blocking his way to come up behind whoever was by the horses. He didn’t care about making noise now.

He saw someone move in the fog, dodging between the horses. The captain circled past the last large stone, then commanded, “You, there. Come here this instant.”

The figure froze, and turned around slowly. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to,” the captain warned, “and don’t expect to get off lightly, either. I want you over here immediately.” The tall silhouette came forward. The tiniest voice in the back of the captain’s mind told him that he had no soldiers that large. For a second, firelight flashed on the hilt of a sword hung low off the figure’s left hip; this silenced the voice of alarm—that was the way the fellow wore his sword, the captain knew it.

Then the figure closed the distance. Even in the fog the captain recognized him: It was the pilgrim, Lyrec. It could not be! The man had to be a … “A ghost!” shrieked the captain. He threw himself into flight, and ran smack into the stone behind him. He crumpled on his face, with one arm extended as if offering the battered hat he held.. Lyrec went over and picked up his hat. “Thank you,” he said contemptuously to the unconscious man. “Thank you so much.”

The first shout sounded. Others answered. The entire camp came awake. Elforl marshaled them together, calling them all to him. He counted heads. “It was the captain who screamed,” said Abo. “What’s happened?”

Elforl almost smiled. “What do you suppose? The prisoner’s loose, and I wouldn’t doubt that the captain caused it, either, the damnable caitiff. We’ve an enemy out there in the fog. The first thing to do is stop him from taking a horse if he hasn’t already. Stay together, whatever else you do—otherwise, he’ll take us down one by one.”  He started off immediately to the horses.

Lyrec heard them coming and moved off into the darkness. He crouched low behind the next stone along, close enough to make out what the soldiers decided to do.  Borregad, be careful.

The soldiers checked the horses, found them all in line, though edgy. They found that one had been saddled. “We stopped him, at least.” At that point, one man spotted the captain, and unthinkingly ran over to him. Lyrec leaned out from his hiding place and whispered, “You,” loud enough for just the one man to hear. The soldier jumped up, shouting, “Here he is!” and charged at Lyrec. He leaped past the stone, landing in a crouch, ready to attack. In that instant a small black shape flew at him from the top of the stone.

As he tried to ward it off, Lyrec’s blade brushed his aside and impaled him. Before the body hit the ground, Lyrec vanished into the fog with Borregad at his heels.

The others arrived fast, but not in time to save their comrade.

“It’s his own fault,” Elforl stated coldly. “Stay together. Now both of you stay with me or we’re dead men.” They nodded. “He wants a horse. He can’t get across the tors without one. We make sure they’re all tied together and then we can sit back and wait for him to try and take one. The alternative is we follow him.”

“I’m for killing him,” said Abo, hotly.

“Agreed,” said his partner. “I can’t wait in this fog—I’ll be seeing him everywhere.”

Elforl shook his head at their foolishness. “Very well. We go hunting. But stay together.”

They started at the camp, spread out to cover the entire circle, close enough to see one another. The fire crackled, hiding any soft sounds beneath its own. The men watched the shadows with straining eyes.

Nothing moved. No one came out to face them.

There was a thump and Abo toppled onto his back. The other two rushed to him. He lay with a bleeding gash in his forehead. The rock that had struck him lay not far away.

Elforl peered into the darkness admiringly. “This one’s not interested in heroics—he’s a canny one. We should have killed him this morning.” He looked at the last man left him. “Well, we can hardly go on or he’ll brain us both. We’re too slow—we’re targets. Same is true if we sit still. We go into it fast now, together. Come on.” He ran forward. The other soldier raced after him, not wanting to be abandoned in the fog, tracking Elforl to be sure he wasn’t swallowed up by the mist. He didn’t see the small black shape leap out from above.

Borregad landed on the soldier’s shoulder and dug in his claws to hang on. Then he lashed out across the soldier’s cheek and neck.

The man danced in agony. He grabbed at the weight on his shoulder, twisting his face away to protect it. His hand closed on empty space. The weight of the cat landed on his other shoulder. Huge black eyes stared into his. He cried out and swung his sword up to kill the fiendish thing. Borregad dropped away an instant before the sword struck, slicing into the soldier’s own shoulder. He fell to his knees, clawed at the ground with one hand while his other tore at the hilt, dislodging the sword from his wound. He rolled over, found the blade again, and lay on his back, ready for anything that might come to get him. He wondered fearfully where Elforl was.

*****

When he heard the cry behind him, Elforl turned in time to see his man cut into his own shoulder. Witchcraft! “He’s making us kill ourselves.” He heard a sound behind him and acted on it before the realization had even come to consciousness. The jeit stick whipped the air ahead of him, striking nothing.

The figure stood beyond its reach. Elforl could make out the shadows of the eyes, the darkness of the beard. He moved ahead, expecting at any moment to be deceived by some spell, to see monsters come at him. “I wish I’d smashed in your skull this morning,” he said. The figure did not move or answer. “The captain was a fool to bring you along. Abo tried to tell them you were a sorcerer, and they ignored it.” The figure shifted stance, presenting less body to him.

Elforl carefully took out his dagger. He lunged with the stick, swinging it up at the figure’s head from the side, following it with a low dagger thrust at the abdomen. With a minimum of motion, Lyrec’s sword swatted the jeit stick in one direction and swung back to block low in the other. The dagger screeched along the blade.

Elforl retreated in anticipation of an attack, but none followed. He was amazed at the precision of his enemy’s movements—how could the fellow have learned such swordplay since this morning? And how was it that he held the sword so well in hands that should have been swollen and useless by now? So he was indeed Kobach. He must be killed quickly before some further phantoms emerged.

Elforl lunged again. He brought the jeit stick around in a spinning circle, nearly impossible to fend off with a sword.

Lyrec stuck his sword straight up, blocking at such an angle that the blade pared into the haft of the jeit. The two weapons stuck together. Elforl jerked the stick away fiercely and the blade snapped in half. He used the backward tug to drive his other hand, and the dagger, forward. The blade should have sunk into the center of the shadowy figure, but somehow it missed, and his hand rasped against leather. Elforl tried to draw it back for a second stab, but it would not come free: A hand had closed upon his wrist like a manacle. Elforl brought the jeit up again, swung it as he tried to yank his arm free. Instead of resisting, Lyrec launched into him, twisting and throwing him off balance, and ducking in too close for the jeit stick to strike. Elforl lost the dagger and stumbled as Lyrec caught the jeit’s metal ball in his free hand and gave a sudden sharp pull. The Ladomantine had to run forward or else give up his remaining weapon. He realized just before both his feet left the ground that Lyrec had brought him to the edge of the buttertub. “Fools,” he uttered, took one final helpless swipe with the stick, and vanished into the pit.

Lyrec knelt down to retrieve Elforl’s dagger. He glanced over his shoulder into the buttertub. I hated that.  He was very good in his way—master of an art.  He heard what he assumed was Borregad approaching and turned back casually.

The soldier with the shoulder wound stood wavering, trying with all his might to hold his sword steady for a killing blow. His face was pasty and shone with the painful exertion.

“Put it down,” Lyrec said. “Put it down now and stop.”

The young soldier’s eyes opened wider. His agonized face twisted, and with a snarl, he launched himself in a charge. He struck at Lyrec, but Lyrec had already moved. The sword cut into moist ground, the soldier ran up against it. His boot split open. The blade sliced into his foot and he shrieked. He tripped and stumbled to one side, away from Lyrec, who made a desperate attempt to grab him as he plunged into the hole. The soldier’s scream ended abruptly with a crack, followed by the sound of sprinkling stones.

Lyrec stared at the embedded sword in disbelief. They’re crazy, Borregad.  Did you see him? He drew it out of the ground, and threw his broken one into the pit. He could have put down his sword—he could barely hold it. He preferred to die.

The cat emerged from the shadows ahead. And you risked your life for the likes of them.

I don’t understand this behavior.

Poor innocent.  It’s simply that—Lyrec, behind the stone! The cat scrambled to one side as the tip of a sword cleaved the ground where he had stood. Lyrec drew back two paces and raised his new sword defensively.

From behind the rock, the Ladomantine captain stepped into view. He watched Borregad fleeing into the fog. “Rotten beast, I’d forgotten about you.” He looked up at Lyrec. “Ah, did you think I was dead? You’re too gentle and humane, foreigner, to live in our kingdom. You should have slain me. Too bad, because that’s not the sort of mistake I’m likely to make. I want you.”

“Do you?” replied Lyrec. “Perhaps I’ll enlist. If the likes of you can reach such a lofty post just think of how high someone with a brain might go.”

“I’ll cut you into little pieces!” The captain charged. His sword swung out in an arc aimed at Lyrec’s jaw. Lyrec batted it aside with the slightest of parries. The captain muttered a curse and came on again. His blade whistled through the air, but his target moved back a step and slapped down his blade with enough force to pull the captain off balance. He stumbled back into position, growled, and made a blind, enraged run at Lyrec. With both hands he swung the sword down.

Lyrec stepped aside and stopped it against the flat of his own. The two blades rang, sending shock-waves into the captain’s arms that nearly broke his elbows. For a moment his sword touched the ground, his arms were drained of strength. In that moment of helplessness, he expected to die; but Lyrec did not attack. The captain shook sweat from his brow and smiled to himself. An honorable man…well, he’d warned him about showing kindness.

“I-I’ve no fight left in me,” the captain feigned. “What did you…my arms, they’re so weak.”

“Put down your sword and let me see.”

“Why would you help me? We’re enemies.”

“You’re proud of that, aren’t you? You enjoy being somebody’s enemy.” He took a step forward. The captain jerked his sword straight up at Lyrec’s groin. But it whined against metal and stopped. In his left hand Lyrec held Elforl’s dagger parallel with the ground. The sword had driven against its haft. Lyrec glared at the captain. “And a liar, as well.” He pushed down with the dagger, took a step over the sword.

The captain saw death in the black eyes. He bounded away, drew back his arm and then thrust to impale Lyrec. He watched, unable to believe his eyes, as his opponent’s blade skimmed precisely around his own and turned it to the side.

Lyrec slammed his dagger into the captain’s breastbone. The captain convulsed and choked. The sword fell from his grip, lie looked imploringly at Lyrec and saw all consideration erased from that face.

Using the dagger as a handle, Lyrec lifted the captain off his feet. The Ladomantine’s fingers clawed at the air, his body shook with spasms he could not control. Each step Lyrec took brought the captain more pain—an escalating, protracted agony. Bright glitter ringed his vision. Vultures screeched in his ears. Then the pain lessened and he experienced a moment of great calmness and clarity. The dagger had gone. He floated in space above his enemy. Lyrec seemed to be moving away. The captain realized that he’d been thrown into the pit. He was reaching his arc, beginning to descend with nothing below. “Wait!” he sobbed. “Wait, wait now, please!” The last word became a long scream that pursued him into the black abyss and did not end so much as fade like a ghost into the background of the night.

Lyrec marched away from the pit. He paused only to take the captain’s sword and fling it into the buttertub, too. He could hear Borregad trying desperately to communicate with him, but he sealed himself off.

Engorged by a new emotion, he required solitude. This was not something he ever wanted share with anyone. Most of all, he never wanted Borregad to know how much cruel pleasure he’d just felt.