Kara turned to thank her rescuer, certain that it had to be the enigmatic Drognan. "I thank you for your aid—"

The figure that stood before her could hardly be the venerable, elegantly clad Vizjerei the vendor and others had described. Advanced age seemed the only thing this wild-eyed beggar with long white hair and beard had in common with the mage in question, although even Drognan could not be as old as this man looked. While still somewhat firm of body, his skin had grown so wrinkled and his watery blue eyes so weary that surely he had to be the oldest human alive in all the world.

He put a gnarled finger to thin lips. "Hush!" the beggar whispered much too loudly. "So much evil about! So much danger! We shouldn't have come here!"

"Are you… are you Drognan?"

The elderly man blinked, looked confused, then patted his worn, silk robe as if looking for something. After several seconds of this, he finally looked up and replied, "No… no, of course not! Now hush! There's too much evil about! We've got to be careful! We've got to be on guard!"

Kara considered. This man had to be a servant or something similar to the mage. Perhaps Drognan evenkept him here out of pity for the beggar's madness. She decided to get to the point. Perhaps enough sanity remained within the man so that he could help her with the Vizjerei. "I have to see your master, Drognan. Tell him it concerns something of interest to him, Bartuc's—"

"Bartuc?" Aghastly change came over the beggar as he shouted the dead warlord's name. " Bartuc! No! The evil's come! I warned you!"

At that moment, another voice called out from the entrance of the building. "Who is it? Who has invaded my sanctum?"

The necromancer turned to speak, but the ragged man moved with amazing swiftness. He clamped a hand over her mouth, then whispered, "Hush! We mustn't be heard! It might be Bartuc!"

Instead, the newcomer proved to be a Vizjerei-and likely the one for whom Kara had been searching. Curiously, he looked as if he had been in some accident, for he had bruises over much of his face and seemed in discomfort each time he put pressure on his right leg. In the crook of one arm, the elderly mage carried a small package. She had no doubt that here stood Drognan, newly arrived from some errand.

"Norrec?" he called. "Vizharan?"

He knew the man Kara hunted! She tried to speak, but for a rather spindly figure, the beggar had incredible strength.

"Hush!" her unwanted companion whispered. "So much evil about! We must be careful! We mustn't be seen!"

Drognan stepped closer, surely able to see them now- and yet, he peered past both intruders as if seeing only air.

"Curious…" He sniffed the air, then frowned. "Smells as if a necromancer was about… but that's absurd." Drognan glanced at the floor, at the warriors in particular. "Yes… absurd."

He continued to stare, as if lost in thought. Not once did the mage so much as notice the struggling woman or her odd captor. At last, the sorcerer shook his head, muttered to himself about another lost trail and the need to keep searching, then-much to Kara's dismay-walked past her and the madman. Drognan continued on, heading into the darkness, heading toward the doorway she had earlier sought.

Heading away from someone in desperate need of his aid.

Only when he vanished behind the door did the tattered figure pull his hand from her lips. Planting his face next to hers, he whispered, "We've stayed too long! We'd better go back! Been out much too long! He might find us!"

She knew that he did not mean Drognan. No, judging by his earlier reaction, her captor could only mean one other- Bartuc.

He led her along the sculpted floor, to the very center, where the unknown artisan had built out of mosaic tiles an intricate temple like those that might have existed in legendary Viz-jun. Kara would not have followed him that far, but, as with the revenants, the choice of what her body did no longer remained hers. The necromancer could not even call out.

"Soon we'll be safe!" the madcap figure muttered to her. "Soon we'll be safe!"

He stomped down once with his right foot-and suddenly the doorway of the temple opened, deepened, becoming an oval hole in the floor in which the necromancer could see a set of steps leading to-to where?

"Come, come!" her captor chided her. "Before Bartuc finds us! Come, come!"

Unable to do otherwise, she followed him down into the earth, down toward a distant, yellowish light. As Kara stepped below the level of the floor, the enchantresssensed the stones shifting, the image of the Vizjerei temple returning to its prior state.

"We'll be safe down here," the mad hermit assured her, seeming somewhat more calm now. "My brother will never find us here…"

Brother? Had she heard right?

"Horazon?" Kara blurted, surprised not only by her conclusion but that she could now articulate it. Evidently her captor had no concerns about anyone hearing her underneath layers of rock and earth.

He looked right at her, the watery eyes focusing hard for the first time. "Do we know each other? I don't think we know each other…" When she did not respond immediately, he shrugged and continued on with the trek, still mumbling. "I'm sure we don't know each other, but we might know each other…"

Kara Nightshadow still had no choice but to follow, not that she much noticed at the moment. Her thoughts reeled, her world entirely turned upside-down.

She had come in search of the Warlord of Blood's armor and had found instead-even despite the many centuries that had passed since their time-Bartuc's living, breathing, and much hated brother.

Incredible heat assailed Norrec as he at last came back to his senses. At first he imagined that a fire must have started in Drognan's sanctum, perhaps through the arcane powers of the sinister armor. However, gradually the veteran became aware that the heat, while harsh, did not burn and, in fact, surely had to be from the sun itself.

Rolling over onto his back, Norrec shielded his eyes and tried to get his bearings, only to find a sea of sand in every direction. He grimaced, wondering where he had landed now. In the distance, Norrec thought he noticed darkness, as if a storm approached from that direction. Could Lut Gholein lay somewhere underneath thoseclouds? It seemed wherever he went, the storm followed. If that were the case now, then at least he knew that he had materialized somewhere west or northwest of the coastal kingdom.

But why?

Drognan had said something about the armor having tricked them. How true those words had been. It had played both the Vizjerei and him for fools, no doubt seeking the mage's aid in locating its goal. Could that have been Horazon's tomb, as Drognan believed? If so, why had Norrec ended up out here in the middle of nowhere?

With great effort, the battered and worn soldier rose. Judging by the sun, he had a little more than an hour or two before nightfall. The walk back to Lut Gholein would take far longer than that, likely two days-and that providing Norrec actually survived the trek. More important, he could not even be certain that the suit would let him return. If what it sought lay out here, it would do everything it could to remain in the desert.

Norrec took a few steps, testing the armor's resolve. When it did nothing to prevent him from heading toward the city, he increased his pace as best he could. At the very least, Norrec needed to find some shelter for the night and the only hope of that lay in a twisted hill of rock barely visible ahead. It would take him until sunset to reach the hill, if not longer, which meant that, despite the heat, he had to move even quicker.

His legs ached horribly as Norrec pushed on. The loose sand and high dunes made it tough going and often Norrec lost sight of his goal for quite some time. He even found himself turned around at one point, the swirling dunes shifting in size and direction even as he tried to cross them.