He wanted to throw his arms around her but managed to hold back. Yet Captain Dumon could not help himself from replying, "I would do anything for you."

Her blushing only increased… and made her that much more alluring. Atanna put the brooch back into his palm. "Take this back as a gift from me. Let it be a sign of my gratitude and… and my favor."

He tried to speak, tried to thank her, but before he could, Juris Khan's daughter stepped up on her toes and kissed him.

All else in the world faded to insignificance.

Zayl felt extremely uncomfortable. He had felt so for quite a long time, almost since he and the others had firstmet Juris Khan. That no one else might have recognized this discomfort gave credit to the necromancer's mental and physical skills. The training through which he had lived his entire life had granted Zayl virtual control over every aspect of his being. Few things could disturb the balance within him.

But something about Ureh and its inhabitants had. On the surface, the necromancer could see nothing capable of doing so. Khan and his people had been thrown into a most dire predicament, the victims of a spell twisted by a corrupted sorcerer. He as much as Captain Dumon had wanted to help them, although while the mercenary's interests had much to do with the beauteous offspring of Ureh's ruler, Zayl's interest had been in returning to balance that which had been madly left awry. Such a travesty as Gregus Mazi had enacted could have threatened the stability of the world itself, for whenever innocents suffered as the citizens of this kingdom had, it strengthened the cause of Hell.

Gregus Mazi…

"Here we are, sir," the guard who had accompanied Zayl remarked.

"Thank you. I have no more need of you."

The pale spellcaster entered. As he had requested, he had been led to the library where Juris Khan had kept Ureh's greatest magical tomes, holy works, scrolls, and artifacts. In the days of the kingdom's glory, a hundred scholars of both the mystical and theological paths would have been in the vast room perusing the ceiling—high shelves for the secrets and truths gathered here over the centuries.

Now only one slight figure hunched over a massive, moldering book almost as large as himself. Even as he entered, Zayl could hear Quov Tsin muttering to himself.

"But if the rune here means the sun's power and this segment refers to the Eye of Hest…"

The Vizjerei suddenly looked up, then glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the necromancer.

"Master Tsin," Zayl greeted the other spellcaster.

The short, bearded man snorted at the newcomer, then returned his gaze to the book.

"How goes your research?"

Without looking at Zayl, Quov Tsin testily retorted, "It goes slowly when young cretins constantly interrupt it with their blather!"

"Perhaps a combination of efforts would—"

Now the elderly Vizjerei did look at the necromancer again, but with eyes that burned bright with growing fury. "I am a sorcerer of the first magnitude. There is nothing I could learn from you."

"I only meant—"

"Wait! It occurs to me that there is one thing you can do."

Zayl frowned, suspicious. "What?"

With a venomous tone, the Vizjerei replied, "You can leave this library right now and get as far away from me as possible! You taint the very air I breathe."

The necromancer's gray eyes met Tsin's silver—gray ones. Both the Vizjerei and the servants of Rathma shared some common ancestry, but neither spellcaster would have ever acknowledged such a blood relation. As far as both sides were concerned, a gulf almost as wide as that between Heaven and Hell existed, a gulf neither wished to bridge.

"As you desire," the pale mage responded. "I would not want to put too much distress on one of such senior years. It could prove fatal."

With a snarl, Quov Tsin turned away. Zayl did likewise, leaving the library and marching down a deserted hallway.

He had not meant to get into any confrontation with the Vizjerei, no matter how minor. The necromancer had honestly wanted to help, the better to see Juris Khan free.

However, there were spells and research that Zayl could do on his own, paths of which the more materialistic Tsin would have never approved. Those who followed theways of Rathma often found what other spellcasters carelessly overlooked. How ironic it would be if Zayl discovered quickly what his counterpart so struggled to find. Tsin badly wanted the magical tomes and relics Khan had promised him; it would eat him up inside if Zayl instead garnered the prizes.

"Zayl, boy! I must speak!"

He planted a hand over the bulky pouch at his side, trying to smother the voice that could not be smothered. Even though it had hardly spoken above a whisper, to the necromancer it had resounded like thunder in the empty hall.

"Zayl—"

"Quiet, Humbart!" he whispered. Quickly surveying the area, Zayl noticed the entrance to a balcony. With smooth, silent movements, the slim, pale man darted outside.

Below, the sounds of merriment continued. Zayl exhaled; out here, no one would hear him speaking with the skull.

He pulled what remained of Humbart Wessel out of the pouch, glaring into the empty eye sockets. "More than once you have nearly given away yourself, Humbart, and thereby put me in straits! Trust is not always an easy thing for one of my kind to attain, but it is a fairly easy thing for us to lose. Those who do not understand the truth of Rathma prefer to believe the lies."

"You mean, like raising the dead?"

"What is it you want, Humbart?"

"Gregus Mazi," answered the skull, the eye sockets almost seeming to narrow.

He had captured Zayl's attention. "What about him?"

"You didn't believe that hogwash about old Gregus, did you?" mocked Humbart. "Gregus, who wanted so badly to join his friends in Heaven that he prayed each morning and eve and cried most of the day through?"

Looking down at the torchlit city, the necromancer thought over everything that had been said about the sorcerer. During Juris Khan's revelations, Zayl had morethan once pondered inconsistencies with what Humbart Wessel had told him but had also assumed that the lord of Ureh would certainly know Mazi better. "Sorcerers, especially those like the Vizjerei, can be a treacherous, lying bunch. Mazi simply fooled you, Humbart."

"If he fooled me, lad, then I've got two legs, a pair of arms, and all the bones in between still—and covered in a good wrapping of flesh to boot! Old Gregus, he was a torn man, blaming himself for not being good enough and praying for redemption from day one. He was no monster, no corrupted wizard, mark me!"

"But Juris Khan—"

"Either was fooled or lies through his teeth. I'd swear on my grave, and you know that's one oath I'll hold true to."

Now Zayl truly understood his own earlier anxieties. In the past, he had heard from the skull bits and pieces of the events that had taken place outside the shadowed kingdom, when Humbart Wessel and his men had watched Gregus Mazi rush to the ghostly city, arms raised in praise to Heaven and voice calling out thanks for this second opportunity. Every time Humbart had mentioned the spellcaster, it had always been as a man driven to redeem himself, to prove himself worthy.

Not at all the beast that Khan and his daughter had described.

"And what would you suggest?" the necromancer muttered.

"Find out the truth from the source, of course!"

Zayl gaped. "Gregus Mazi?"

It had never occurred to him to try to raise the specter of the dead mage. In the past, it had seemed impossible, for all trace of the man had been thought to have vanished along with the legendary kingdom, but now Zayl stood within that realm himself.

One problem remained, though. According to Juris Khan, Mazi had been utterly destroyed, his corporeal form incinerated. Without skin, hair, blood, or a sample of well—wornclothes, even a skilled necromancer such as Zayl could hope to accomplish little.