I am called Finn,” said the bald, gray-cloaked mage. He walked a step or two ahead of them, guiding Timothy and Caiaphas toward the entrance of the ziggurat. When he spoke he glanced back. “Might I ask your names?”
“Of course. Forgive our rudeness,” said Timothy’s companion. “I am Caiaphas, navigator by trade.”
Finn inclined his head in a casual nod even as he continued walking, his robe dragging on the ground. “Well met, Caiaphas.”
“Indeed,” Caiaphas replied.
“My name is Timothy Cade,” the boy added.
The gray mage paused and turned slowly toward them in the failing light of dusk. One eyebrow was arched and he surveyed Timothy more carefully now. There was no hostility in his attentions, but the boy frowned regardless, uncomfortable with the scrutiny.
“Cade. Son of the great Argus Cade.” Finn smiled. “We have heard of you here in Karthagia. The un-magician, yes?”
Nervous, Timothy glanced at Caiaphas before replying. “Yeah. That’s me.”
The kindness in Finn’s expression then surprised him.
“I see you are anxious, Timothy. Worry not. You are welcome here.”
He said nothing more, but Timothy felt himself relaxing as he and Caiaphas followed Finn up to the massive doors of the ziggurat. He was exhausted and hungry and the pain in his ribs was agonizing, but the relief that swept over him, knowing that they had a place to rest, even only for the night, was enormous. He and Caiaphas had to get back to Arcanum to find out what was wrong with Leander, to help him and to warn everyone else. But a meal and a night’s sleep in a comfortable bed would be like a kind of magic all their own.
Timothy glanced around the village of Karthagia a final time before entering the ziggurat. The last of the day’s light was draining out of the western sky. The river burbled quietly as it meandered among the buildings. The ziggurats were lit up, beautiful and elegant crystal towers that shone from within. He felt at peace here.
If things were different, he would have wanted to stay for a time, to learn more about these people. But that would have to wait for another day.
Finn led them inside the ziggurat. At first there was only a high-ceilinged, narrow corridor made entirely of stone, save for the doors, which were fashioned from a gleaming golden material that was neither glass nor stone. Timothy at first thought it was metal, but after passing several of these passages—the doors had neither hinge nor knob nor lock—he determined it must be pure magic, not unlike the spell-glass in the windows.
At the end of the corridor they emerged into what was obviously the core of the ziggurat, and Timothy staggered to a halt, eyes wide. A smile touched his lips and he uttered a soft laugh of amazement.
The entire center of the building, the heart of the ziggurat, was open, the interior a series of staggered balconies that mirrored the terraced design of the exterior, lined with doors Timothy imagined led into the private quarters of the residents of the building. There were gardens and fountains everywhere, and on each level there were people strolling, children laughing. It was as though an entire city existed within that one structure, gleaming with warm, golden light that was like sunshine.
In the midst of it all, an axis upon which the life in the ziggurat turned, was a quartet of elevator shafts. Catwalks stretched from that central core out to each balcony level like spokes upon a wheel. But the lifts did not only go up. Feeling a rush of excitement, Timothy hurried past Finn and Caiaphas to the edge of the balcony. He leaned out over open space and stared down. There must have been twenty-five or thirty levels above the ground. Below, there were easily twice that number.
“Oh,” Timothy whispered, and he pulled back a little from the edge. The building continued to widen as it went deep underground, with each balcony farther from the elevators than the last, and looking down into that vast open space made him feel as though he would fall.
He had fallen enough, recently.
“Remarkable,” Caiaphas said as he and Finn joined Timothy at the edge of the balcony. “It is beautiful. We saw children, and some of your guild members, outside, but it seems as though your society is all contained within this building.”
Finn smiled and smoothed his beard thoughtfully. “Within each building, actually. Though at the lowest level there are passages that connect the ziggurats, one to another.”
“Under the river?” Timothy asked.
“We cultivate the land and enjoy it, but we are largely a private culture. Much of our world is subterranean. And we do not hold with all of the traditional beliefs of most guilds in the Parliament. In truth, we are not members of Parliament at all.”
Caiaphas blinked several times. Timothy thought he was in shock.
“How can that be?” the boy asked. “I thought every guild—”
“No. Not all. What sort of government would they be if they forced everyone to do things their way?” Finn asked.
Timothy nodded. He had lived on Terra a short time, but he thought he might be able to tell Finn stories about the Parliament of Mages that would horrify him.
“This is why we cannot be of very much help to you, I’m sorry to say,” Finn went on. “We keep to ourselves, and though we will offer courtesy to accidental visitors such as yourselves, we do not invite interaction with other villages or guilds. Our ways are not your ways. We have no sky carriages at all, for instance, for none of the Children of Karthagia ever leaves.”
Caiaphas had his brows knitted in thought. Timothy knew they ought to be discussing their plight and what they would do tomorrow, when the hospitality of Karthagia would be politely withdrawn and they would be set on their way. But at the moment he was distracted by his hunger and the pain in his side, and also by the ziggurat itself.
“We are grateful for your help,” the navigation mage said at last.
Finn nodded, clasping his hands together in what Timothy imagined was a traditional gesture of thanks or respect. “Come, then,” the mage said. “I shall need to speak briefly with a clan chief so that the guild masters are aware of your presence, and then I can show you to rooms where you may wash and be refreshed. I shall send healers to your quarters, and food and drink as well.”
“Masters?” Caiaphas asked. “You have more than one leader of your guild? No Grandmaster?”
“Seven. One for each ziggurat,” the gray-eyed mage replied.
Timothy barely listened as he took in his surroundings. He followed the two mages across one of the catwalks that led to the elevator core, careful to be sure that the surfaces he was stepping on were metal or wood and not glass or the golden magic that those spell-doors had been made of. Even with that as his focus, his attention was drawn away by what was the most amazing sight to greet them yet.
As they crossed the catwalk, Timothy saw the source of the warm light that suffused the entire central chamber of the ziggurat. On either side of the elevator core there sat a mage, cross-legged upon the floor with hands outstretched and palms upward. From those upturned palms the light streamed, as though they held mini-suns in each hand.
Timothy craned his neck. On every level above—and when he looked he saw that they were on every level below as well—there were two more. Perhaps 150 mages in all, just to light this building.
“Finn?”
“Yes?”
He gestured to the illuminated mages as they walked to the elevators. “Is this your only source of light?”
“At night, certainly,” the mage replied.
Caiaphas stared at him, even as Finn passed his hand over a sigil on the elevator door, summoning it.
“These mages are here all night?” the navigator asked, incredulous.
Finn smiled, but there was a flicker of displeasure in it. “Only until the clans take to their beds for the evening. By then they have generated enough power to provide light in the individual quarters if it is needed.”
“The lights I saw at the top of each ziggurat—” Timothy began.
The elevator arrived and the doors slid open. The three stepped on and it began to descend, sliding deep into the ground.
“They are mages as well,” Finn confirmed. “One mage at the top of each ziggurat. While we all must take our turn illuminating the interior, the mage at the peak is always the same. One chosen from each clan, mastering that magic, and remaining atop the ziggurat for all the long years of his life. It is great sacrifice, but it is the core of what we believe. It would be hard for you to understand.”
“It is,” Timothy confirmed.
Both Finn and Caiaphas shot him looks of disapproval. Timothy didn’t care. He was troubled at the idea.
“The mage at the peak siphons sunlight all through the day. At dusk, her sorcery—for our current illuminator is female—passes that light down to each of those who provide the light within for the evening.”
“But . . .” The boy shook his head even as the elevator continued to drop below ground. “What about ghostfire? Wouldn’t ghostfire lanterns be so much simpler?”
Finn’s smile disappeared. His nostrils flared, and the look he gave Timothy then was full of dismay, even disgust.
“That is the primary difference between our guild and others, young Master Cade. It is the fundamental reason we are not members of Parliament. Ghostfire, lad, is comprised of the souls of dead mages. It is cruel, but worse, it is blasphemous. The spirits of our dead deserve their rest, Timothy, and we would not disrespect them so profoundly as to capture their souls upon this world, to keep them here, twisted to our service. It is a horrid, barbaric practice.”
Timothy stared at him, mouth agape. The way he spoke, ghostfire sounded no different from the souls that Nicodemus had tainted and made into his slave-wraiths. He’d always been made to believe that ghostfire was harmless, that the mages’ real spirits were not contained, but only a portion of their essence. If what Finn said was true . . .
The boy looked at Caiaphas. The navigator shook his head doubtfully and made as if to argue, but then the doors swept open and Finn walked quickly from the elevator, forcing them to follow.
The conversation was over.
But it would echo in Timothy’s mind all through that long night.
* * *
Cassandra made her way quickly along a gently curving stone hallway. She glanced over her shoulder from time to time. She could not have said, if asked, why precisely she did not want the residents of SkyHaven to know of the meeting she was about to have. It was simply that she knew something was out of place, and it was more than the attack on Leander’s sky carriage, more than the Grandmaster’s illness or Timothy and Caiaphas being left behind. These things had started a panic in her heart, but beneath that was something else, a strange, creeping dread that she did not really understand.
But it made her secretive.
She had instructed Carlyle to wait by Leander’s quarters until the healers had emerged with word of his condition, not because the man would be needed there but because he was far too inquisitive and she wanted to go unnoticed. Now she paused a moment, took one final glance over her shoulder, and then hurried around the corner to the tall door of Timothy Cade’s workshop.
Cassandra rapped softly on the door. She heard a metal rasp from within the room and it took her a moment to realize it must be the mechanical lock that Timothy had installed. It was strange to her. Spell-locks were security enough. With the right spell, the door could have been sealed tight against any visitor who did not have authorization to enter. But even for his own benefit, Timothy did not trust magic. Instead, he had put in a heavy bolt that slid into the frame of the door so it could be locked from within.
Now it opened with a whisper. The workshop flickered with the light of a single lantern. This was not ghostfire, of course, but hungry fire, the dangerous, consuming flame that burned wood and flesh and almost anything else it touched. Yet Timothy had used flax-oil, cloth, metal, and glass to make a lantern in which hungry fire burned safely. The flame danced inside the glass like a darting lightning bug, somehow throwing shadows and light in equal portion.
From the shadows came a ruffle of feathers. Off to her right, among some of Timothy’s inventions, Sheridan was so still that he might have been inactivated. It sent a shudder through her, seeing him like that. Cassandra had never thought of the mechanical man as precisely alive, but now she realized she must have begun to think of him as a person, for in that moment he looked dead, and it frightened her. Then his red eyes flared to life in the darkness and a soft sigh of steam escaped the valve at the side of his head, and she smiled in relief.
“Ivar,” the mechanical man whispered, a new assurance in his voice. “Close the door.”
Cassandra frowned deeply, glancing around, peering into the shifting light and darkness of the room. She almost shouted in alarm when the shadows behind the open door took sudden form. Ivar had been there all along, the unique camouflage of his skin’s changeable coloring keeping him hidden. Now the Asura warrior nodded to her and she stepped out of the way to allow him to close the door. Cassandra watched the way the black tribal markings that decorated his skin shifted as he moved. He slid the bolt back into place, locking the door, and then turned to face her.
“Grandmaster,” the Asura said respectfully.
She blinked in surprise, shaking her head. “No, I—”
But Cassandra did not bother to continue the protest. For the moment, at least, she was Grandmaster. In the past few months she had gone through an incredible sequence of emotions on that subject. It was what she had wanted, so desperately: to succeed her grandfather as Grandmaster of the Order of Alhazred. But when the time came, all too soon, she had been forced to realize she was not ready. Leander Maddox had begun to teach her, to help her prepare for her eventual inheritance. And now that it appeared that it might be thrust upon her, even temporarily, while Leander was ill, she did not feel ready.
Fate, however, did not seem willing to give her a choice in the matter.
“I am not Grandmaster yet,” she said at last, glancing from Ivar to Sheridan, and then to the gleaming black spot in the shadows of the room that she knew must be Edgar, the rook. “For the moment, I am in charge, yes. While Leander is not well. But only temporarily.”
“Perhaps,” Ivar said, and his normally emotionless features narrowed with a dark concern. The Asura was deeply troubled, but did not seem inclined to explain why.
Feathers ruffled in the shadows again and with a heavy flapping, Edgar emerged into the lamplight. The bird flew up to roost on the edge of a worktable not far from Sheridan.
“You’re in charge, Cassandra,” the bird said, no trace of a caw. Cawing might draw attention, and it was obvious that none of them wanted that right now. “But you still wanted to talk to us in secret. So what’s going on?”
And then the bird did utter a single caw, but very quietly, almost as an afterthought.
She took a long breath, trying to find careful words to express her concerns. Sheridan stepped toward her, another soft sigh of steam hissing from his head. His red eyes grew brighter still.
“We’re all afraid for Timothy,” the mechanical man said. “But we have talked about it, and have decided we do not believe Professor Maddox’s tale of what happened on the return from Tora’nah.”
Cassandra flinched. Relief washed over her. “I was afraid you would think I was trying to cause trouble, to cast Leander in a poor light.”
“Nonsense,” Sheridan said, again with more assertiveness than she’d ever heard in the metal man before. It seemed that fear for Timothy had given him courage. “You’ve earned our trust. Please speak.”
“All right.” Cassandra nodded, looking around gratefully. Edgar cawed softly again, so softly, and cocked his head to study her. Ivar seemed distant, distracted, but she knew how troubled he must be, not knowing Timothy’s fate. They all felt the same way.
“You’ve all known him longer,” she went on, “but I cannot imagine Leander Maddox—no matter how sick or injured he might be—leaving Timothy behind. He made a vow to his own mentor, to Argus Cade, that he would watch over Tim. The mage I thought I knew would have died before breaking that vow.”
Sheridan sniffed, a little whistling noise, and crossed his arms. “My thoughts precisely.”
“More than that,” Cassandra said, “when I heard Leander’s story, I was so upset, so shocked and afraid for Timothy, that it didn’t fully register on me at the time. I was sort of . . . well, numb.” She hesitated a moment, wondering if her growing feelings for Timothy were obvious now, if she was giving herself away. But if he was in danger, lost in the great forest, perhaps even now injured or dying . . . Cassandra bit her lip at the thought. Hiding her fondness for him was hardly important anymore.
“The point is, I realized that I didn’t believe him. I don’t believe it, and I guess none of you do either. I can’t explain it. I don’t know why Leander would mislead us. I have the greatest respect for him and believe that he is good and decent. Perhaps there is something else he does not want to tell us, something he’s hiding from us for our own sake.”
Ivar grunted and his brow furrowed more deeply.
Sheridan, though, took another step forward. “Yes!” he said hopefully. “You could be right.”
Edgar ruffled his feathers. “Maybe. Maybe not. I’ve known him longer than any of you, but the healers won’t let me in. They say he doesn’t want to see anyone right now, not until he’s up and around. So I don’t know what’s going on in his head. It makes sense, though.”
Sheridan nodded again, a small squeaking noise coming from the joint of his neck. “All right. We all agree. But that means we have to find out for ourselves what happened.”
“Right,” Cassandra said. She moved into the middle of the room and spun, glancing at them each in turn, her robes swishing around her feet. “As acting Grandmaster, I plan to send a small detachment of Alhazred mages back along the route they flew, searching for Timothy and Caiaphas. But that’s only what I will do officially, and since every mage in service at SkyHaven is loyal to Leander, I have no way of knowing if they will keep his secrets. If there are, indeed, any secrets to be kept.”
She narrowed her eyes and stared at the rook. “Which is why I believe Edgar must go as well. To search from the sky, to find the trail, and find Timothy . . .” Cassandra swallowed heavily, a terrible dread in her heart. “No matter what has happened to him.”
Ivar seemed deep in thought. The flickering shadows of the lantern moved across his face. Or it might have been the hue of his skin, those tribal markings, shifting again.
The rook cocked his head the other direction, black eyes gleaming. “Ivar should come with me. He could track a fish across the sea.”
Cassandra did not want Ivar to go for several reasons, but she only gave one. “You can move faster, and will draw less attention, Edgar. If we want to go unnoticed, putting Ivar in charge of a sky carriage headed south would defeat that purpose.”
She did not mention that she would feel better with the Asura there at SkyHaven. Cassandra felt a foreboding, a sense that something terrible was going to happen, and though she knew Sheridan would be a staunch ally, she wanted Ivar with her. Had it made sense to send him with Edgar, she would have put her worries aside, but in truth she was relieved to have reason to keep him there.
Ivar only nodded at her reasoning.
Something was disturbing him, and she wished he would say what it was. But Cassandra knew that the Asura would speak his mind in time, when he thought it was important to do so.
“You’ve got it, boss,” Edgar said, flapping his wings again.
“Go now,” Cassandra told him. She glanced at Sheridan. “Stay in the workshop. Edgar will leave through the window here and come back the same way. Wait for his return. Or for my summons, if I should receive word from him in some other fashion first.”
Sheridan agreed.
“And what will you do now?” Ivar asked.
Cassandra took a deep breath. “I’m going to look in on Leander and see if I can figure out what he’s not telling us.”
* * *
Timothy slept very little that night in Karthagia. The healers had been incapable of fixing his cracked ribs with magic, which he could have told them if they had been willing to listen to him. In the end they had followed his suggestions to simply wrap his torso in bandages that would put pressure on the bones, keeping them together, and, he hoped, help them to knit faster. The discomfort disturbed him each time he tried to turn over in the bed, forcing him awake regularly.
Each time he found himself in the small bedroom they had provided for him, eyes staring at the ceiling, his mind would drift back to the plight of the Illuminators. The fate of those mages haunted him, stuck at the peaks of the ziggurats of Karthagia. Their sacrifice was extraordinary, and he knew there must be a kind of honor in what they did, at least by their own judgment, but it still seemed horrible to him.
Some time in the early morning, troubled more and more by this, the spark of an idea ignited in Timothy’s mind. It brought a smile to his face. Afterward, when he drifted off again, he was at last able to sleep soundly, even in spite of his injuries.
Hours later there came a rapping on the door. He struggled to open his eyes. What little sleep he’d managed had refreshed him somewhat, but his body protested as he sat up and pulled on his trousers. As he yawned and stretched, the knock came again.
“Come in,” he called as he pulled his tunic over his head. His eyes felt itchy, lids still heavy, but he imagined some fresh air and sunshine would wake him fully. And some breakfast if the Karthagians were kind enough to offer it.
The door swung inward and Caiaphas entered, the splint gone from his arm. He still wore the sling and there were bruises visible on his arm, but it was obvious that the break was healing rapidly. At this rate the navigator would be entirely recovered by the following day, or perhaps even by nightfall.
Caiaphas was followed into the room by gray-eyed Finn, who was cloaked this morning in robes of a rich hue not unlike clay, or the coinage of the Parliament. The bald mage smiled warmly at Timothy. It appeared he and Caiaphas had been awake for quite some time.
“Good morning,” the navigator said.
“ ’Morning,” Timothy replied. He glanced at Finn. “And to you, sir. Thank you for your help. I don’t know what I would’ve done without a bed last night. And food.”
“You were pleased with dinner?”
Timothy grinned in response, some of the sleep lifting from him like a fog. “It was wonderful. After what happened to us yesterday . . . after that . . . well, I never thought we’d be fortunate enough to end the day so comfortably.”
Finn crossed his arms and regarded them contentedly. “I am pleased. I only wish that we could make the rest of your journey as comfortable. You are, however, welcome to a breakfast at least as marvelous as last night’s dinner before you go.”
Timothy’s stomach rumbled at the thought of it.
The two mages left him to wash up. Timothy had to use a small tub of water that had been brought to him, because of course the shower was magical and would not function in his presence. It was not the way he preferred to bathe, but it was better than wandering in the woods and hoping for a heavy rain.
At breakfast he asked for a pot of ink and a quill pen. The mages looked at him oddly but they complied. Though Finn was friendly enough, some of them seemed willing to be as hospitable as necessary simply to speed their visitors’ departure. When he had the quill, he dipped it into the inkpot and began to pen designs onto a cloth napkin he spread out on the table before him. Though he was sure this was not at all good manners, the Karthagians were obviously hesitant to stop him. Timothy drew first on one side and then the other, after which he folded the napkin carefully and slid it into his pocket.
A short time later, Finn escorted them out of the ziggurat. As they made their way up the elevator, Timothy could not help gazing about him in fascination again. The gardens and the glass, the interior terraces of each floor, descending row by row into the earth, were simply incredible. The sight of that crystal and iron tower was one he would remember for the rest of his days.
The stone-eyed mage walked outside with them. They followed him along the path to the river and over a narrow footbridge that spanned the rushing water. It was early, but already there were many Karthagians about, some striding hurriedly and with great purpose, others strolling arm in arm. Children splashed in the river, laughing, but they stopped their games to watch the outsiders pass overhead.
Finn accompanied them past the other ziggurats and up the slope to the northern end of the river valley. At the edge of the forest, he stopped. It was clear he would go no farther.
“I wish you a safe journey,” the mage said, bowing, his bald pate gleaming in the sun.
“We are in your debt,” Caiaphas said, bowing in return.
Timothy pulled the cloth napkin from his pocket. “I . . . I have something for you. I don’t know if you’ll want it, but I thought I should show you, anyway.”
Finn’s brows knitted in curiosity. Caiaphas raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Timothy held the napkin up so both men could see what he had drawn there. It was a ziggurat, but with certain changes.
“On the top, where the Illuminator sits . . . well, if you set it up correctly, to catch the sun . . . and see here, deep inside the ziggurat . . . if there were mirrored glass on every level, you could catch the sunlight and spread it all through the building all day long. Then, at night,” he said, turning the napkin over, showing the basic design of the lanterns he had made for his father’s house and for his workshop and quarters at SkyHaven, “you could use oil lamps, with hungry fire—”
Finn flinched at the words.
“No, it’s completely safe,” Timothy said. “As long as nobody shatters it, of course, and you could use magic to make the glass unbreakable. But this way, you could have light all day with the sun, and have lamps at night, and the Illuminators wouldn’t be . . . they would be able to come down. If the ghostfire really is the souls of mages, just kind of . . . well, trapped, then I agree with you. It’s terrible. But the Illuminators are sort of trapped too.”
He shrugged, embarrassed and feeling awkward under the stare of the two mages. Folding the napkin again, he handed it to Finn. The mage stared at it for long seconds before reverently slipping it into a pocket of his robe.
“I will present it to my clan chief. Thank you for your thoughtfulness, Timothy.”
“I just wanted to help,” said the unmagician.
Finn smiled. “It is a generous instinct. And now I must return. Be well. May your path be smooth and your journey swift. If you follow our instructions, you should find your way to the settlement of the Lake Dwellers in several hours’ time. I hope that they will be able to provide you with assistance.”
Caiaphas and Timothy said their final good-byes and then were on their way.
The forest was not so thick here as other areas they had passed through. They walked due north all through the rest of the morning as the sun moved steadily across the sky above. They spoke of small pleasures, of the breakfast they’d had and the hospitality of the Karthagians. Caiaphas told Timothy of Nosgraf, the small village where he was raised, hundreds of leagues north of Arcanum, and the boy told the mage of the Island of Patience, and the peacefulness of the place.
Timothy purposefully avoided discussing the things Finn had said about ghostfire. It lingered in his mind, upsetting him deeply, but it wasn’t something he wanted to share with anyone else. Not yet. Most of Terra used ghostfire lamps. To suggest that they should abandon this practice . . . well, given the way they’d treated him previously, he could only imagine how the Parliament would take such a statement from him.
Still, he was haunted by it.
But he did his best to push such thoughts aside while they were journeying. Other things took precedence now. They had to return to Arcanum and discover what had come over Leander, and what other trouble he might have stirred up once he made it back to SkyHaven.
They rested at midday. Timothy’s side had not bothered him much all that morning. The large bandages wrapped around his torso had helped him a great deal, and he began to wonder if perhaps his ribs were only badly bruised and not cracked after all. Or they might simply have begun to heal already. The Karthagians had provided them a satchel filled with dried meats and fresh fruit and a loaf of dark, grainy bread, as well as a jug of water. Caiaphas carried all of these things now that the healers had touched him and his arm was nearly better.
In a clearing they ate and drank and lay flat on their backs for a time. Timothy’s legs throbbed from the walking. Still sleepy from the night before, he began to feel drowsy. The sky had begun to cloud over, the sun veiled by a layer of gray gauze. It was not so dark as to promise a storm, but a sprinkle of rain seemed almost inevitable.
“We’d best move on,” Caiaphas said eventually.
Reluctantly, Timothy agreed. If Finn had been accurate in his estimation of distance, the village of the Lake Dwellers ought to be only another hour’s walk or so. If a sky carriage could be borrowed there, Caiaphas would be able to get them to Arcanum by late afternoon. Otherwise they’d have to continue on. Finn had suggested they might get horses from Romulus and his people, but Timothy was sure that the Grandmaster of the Legion Nocturne would sooner trample them beneath the hooves of his horses than lend them one.
Preoccupied with what the afternoon might bring, he was not as careful rising to his feet as he ought to have been. A sharp pain shot through him from his injured ribs and he hissed air in through his teeth.
“Are you all right?” Caiaphas asked, hefting the now lightened satchel over his good shoulder.
Timothy grimaced. “Not exactly. But there’s nothing to be done for it. Let’s get going.”
They moved out of the clearing and into the woods again. Now that the sky had turned gray, it was dark in the forest. Even so, the trees were still spaced well apart and the going was easy enough, the landscape relatively flat. In time, they emerged onto a path that had been beaten down by the passage of mages and horses. It ran northeast and Caiaphas smiled as he glanced in both directions.
“This ought to take us directly to the lake.”
“At least it feels like we’re getting closer to someone who can help,” Timothy said.
But Caiaphas wasn’t paying attention to him anymore. Timothy had been facing the navigator, looking back at the forest from where they had just emerged. The woods were deep on both sides of the path. Caiaphas, though, was staring along their intended route to the northeast, and over the deep blue veil he wore, the navigator’s eyes were dark and troubled.
“What is—” Timothy began, turning to find the source of his friend’s alarm. Something drew his attention in the woods. A low, swift shape darting from tree to tree.
“Lost and alone,” said a rasping, familiar voice.
The woods were forgotten. Timothy turned up the path to see a single figure striding toward them. Moments earlier he had not been there at all, but now they were not alone. Caiaphas only stared uncertainly ahead. But not Timothy. As the new arrival strode through the gloom toward them, his single arm at his side, Timothy balled his hands into fists and prepared to fight.
“There are no Wurm to protect you here, boy,” snarled Constable Grimshaw. The cruel-eyed mage raised his remaining hand and smoothed his mustache. The cloak he wore fluttered behind him in the breeze.
“Grimshaw,” Timothy said, grinding the name in his teeth. He was stunned to meet the mage here in the wilderness, this horrible man who had called him a freak and a monster, who had imprisoned Verlis and tried to do the same to Timothy. “You know your magic won’t hurt me. And you can’t beat me hand-to-hand. Get out of our way.”
The Constable laughed, an ugly, hollow sound. “I don’t have to beat you. I only have to kill the navigator.” He sneered on this last word, letting them both know how far beneath him he felt Caiaphas was.
Timothy shook his head, not understanding.
Then something moved again in the woods and he saw it just out of the corner of his eye. As he turned, he heard Grimshaw speak again.
“Alastor will be the one to spill your blood, unmagician.”
Timothy spun. At the edge of the path, just emerging from the trees, was a monstrous thing that seemed part man and part cat. It crouched low to the ground, though it walked on two legs. It was much larger than a feline, but smaller than Timothy himself. Its ears pricked up, it raised its clawed forepaws, and it hissed, cat eyes gleaming sickly yellow in the gloom and shadows of the forest path.
Alastor. He knew that name. Nicodemus’s familiar. But it had been an ordinary cat. This couldn’t be—
Then it no longer mattered.
The cat-creature hissed again, and then it sprang across the path at him, claws descending.