Shouldering the box, Seregil crawled slowly back up the tunnel. Turik and Timan were keeping watch at the opening when he stumbled out into the sunlight.

The old man clutched Seregil's arm wordlessly, tears of gratitude glittering in his rheumy eyes.

"He lives! The Aurenfaie's alive! Bring bandages," Turik called to the others, examining Seregil's hands with concern.

The cry passed from mouth to mouth and soon the whole village had gathered solemnly around them.

"Terrible sounds came out of the ground, then all was still," Retak told Seregil. "Timan said you had driven out the bad spirit, but he didn't know if you'd survived the ordeal. Tell us of your battle with the evil spirit!"

Seregil groaned inwardly.

Bilairy's Balls, they want another story!

Climbing to his feet, he held up the box.

"I've captured the evil spirit that troubled you. It's imprisoned here."

Round-eyed, the Dravnians regarded the battered wooden chest. Even the children did not venture to approach it. Filthy and exhausted, Seregil did his best to look like a victorious wizard as he mixed fact and fiction to best effect.

"In the time of Timan's ancestor, this evil thing came to your valley and invaded the spirit home, holding the true spirit prisoner and troubling those who entered the chamber. I found its secret lair and battled it there. It was a strong spirit and it fought mightily, as you can see."

The villagers' eyes grew rounder as they pressed around him to see what sort of marks a spirit left on a man.

"By my magic, and by the powers of sacred Aura and the true spirit of this place, I vanquished and captured it. Your spirit came to me, easing my wounds and asking that the sanctuary be cleansed so that your people may once again come to it in peace. There are bodies there now, victims of the evil one. You must not fear them. Take them away and burn them as is proper, so that their spirits can rest. This is no longer a place of evil."

The Dravnians cheered wildly as he paused to catch up with his own invention. By the time they'd settled down again, he was ready.

"If any man comes seeking the evil one, bring them to this place and tell them how Meringil, son of Solun and Nycanthi, mage of Aurenen, captured the evil spirit and took it away forever. Remember this day and tell the story to your children so that they will remember. Let no person among your clans forget that evil was cast out from here. And now I must go."

The villagers surged forward, imploring him to stay.

Unvisited maidens wept with disappointment and one of Ekrid's daughters threw herself into his arms sobbing. Putting her gently aside, he gathered his gear and palmed the last of Nysander's painted wands from the pouch at his belt. He snapped it behind his back and the Dravnians shrank back in fear as the translocation vortex opened behind him. Waving a last farewell, he forced a smile as he stepped backward into emptiness.

Thero was on his way upstairs when a muffled crash halted him in his tracks. There was no doubt where the sound had come from; every door along the curved corridor—the bedchambers, the guest room—stood open except one.

The sitting-room door, with its magical wards and protections, was always kept shut unless Nysander was inside. Nonetheless, putting his ear to the door, Thero heard a low groan inside.

"Nysander!" he called, but his master was already hurrying down the tower stairs, robes flapping beneath his leather apron.

"There's someone in there," Thero exclaimed, gaunt face flushed with excitement.

Nysander opened the door and snapped his fingers at the nearest lamp. The wick flared up and by its light they saw Seregil sprawled in the middle of the room, his back arched awkwardly over the pack he wore, the strap of the battered wooden chest tangled around one leg. His eyes were closed, his face colorless beneath streaks of grime and blood.

"Get water, a basin, and linen. Hurry!" said

Nysander, going to Seregil and pulling at the front of his coat.

Thero hurried off to fetch the required articles.

When he returned a few moments later,

Nysander was examining a raw wound on Seregil's chest. "How bad is it?" he asked.

"Not so bad as it looks," said Nysander, covering the wound with a cloth. "Give me a hand with these filthy clothes."

"What happened to him this time?" Thero asked, gingerly pulling off the unconscious man's boots.

"He's got the same sort of preternatural stench he had when he came back—"

"Very similar. Fetch the things for a minor purification. And, Thero?"

Halfway out the door already, Thero paused, expecting some explanation.

"We shall not speak of this again."

"As you wish," Thero replied quietly.

Focused on Seregil, Nysander did not see the hot color that leapt into Thero's sallow cheeks beneath his thin beard, or the sudden angry set of his jaw.

Later, with Seregil asleep under Thero's watchful eye, Nysander paid his nightly visit to the lowest vault beneath the Oreska House. He was not the only one who wandered here late at night. Many of the older wizards preferred to pursue their research when the scholars and apprentices were out of the way. Proceeding on through the long passages and down stairways, he nodded to those he met, stopping now and then to chat. He'd never made any secret of his evening constitutionals. Had anyone over the years ever noticed that he seldom followed the same route twice? That there was always one point, one stretch of blank, innocent wall, which he never failed to pass?

And how many of these others, Nysander wondered as he went on, kept watch as he did over some secret charge?

Reaching the lowest level, he wended his way with more than even his usual caution through the maze of corridors to the place, though his carefully woven magicks kept all from perceiving the box he carried.

Satisfied that he was unobserved, he lowered his head, summoned a surge of power, and silently invoked the Spell of Passage. A sensation like a mountain wind passed through him, chilling him to the bone.

Hugging the grimy box to his chest, he walked through the thick stonework of the wall and into the tiny chamber beyond.

5

Alec squinted as sunlight flashed off the polished festival gong under his arm. Shifting his grip, he struggled the rest of the way up the ladder braced against the front of the villa.

"Really, Sir Alec, this is not necessary. The servants always take care of these details!"

Runcer dithered from the curb, clearly embarrassed by this display of labor but powerless to countermand it.

"I like to keep busy," Alec replied, undeterred.

He'd reluctantly resumed his public role at Wheel Street the day before. The Festival of Sakor began tonight and—Seregil or no Seregil—Sir Alec had to make an appearance.

Runcer was stubbornly determined to defer to him as master of the house in Seregil's absence, a role he was acutely uncomfortable with. He detested being waited on, but every servant in the house seemed to take it as a personal affront every time he so much as fetched his own wash water or saddled a horse.

Grasping the wooden brace set into the wall, Alec slid the gong's leather hanging straps over it. They held and it swung gently in the morning breeze, a rectangular battle shield displaying the elaborate sunburst design of Sakor.

Runcer handed up a swath of black cloth and Alec draped it carefully over the shield face.

Similar gongs were being hung all across the city. Mourning Night, the longest of the year, began with solemn ceremonies at the Temple of Sakor. The symbolic passing of the old god would be enacted, and every fire in the city extinguished except for a single firepot guarded by the Queen and her family at the temple. At the first hint of dawn the following morning, the gongs would be uncovered and sounded to welcome the resurrected god as runners carried the new year's fire to every hearth.