Dhulyn slid through the barely opened door and waited, listening, while Parno pulled it shut and latched it behind her. She could see at once that things were not as Zelianora Tarkina had left them. Dhulyn had expected the room to be dark, the windows shuttered. The Tarkina had left her husband tucked up in the bed, shivering and semiconscious. This man was standing at the window, shades thrown open to the early evening.

“You sent for me, Lord Tarkin?”

“I sent for you.” The tone was ambiguous enough that Dhulyn could not be sure whether it was question or statement. The man turned to face her.

She took a step toward him, and then another. With the light behind him, his face was shadowed and she couldn’t be sure… She took another step. And stopped, repressing a shiver as the hair on her arms and the back of her neck stood up. There was no doubt. The man’s eyes were green. Whatever Zelianora thought she had seen, it was gone.

“What is it, then?” she asked.

“You take a very informal tone with your Tarkin.”

“But you’re not the Tarkin, are you? Mine or anyone else’s.” she said, strolling casually closer, fingers reaching automatically to tap the place on her hip where her sword hilt should rest. Could she keep him from hearing the noises in the anteroom?

“What am I, then?”

Dhulyn frowned. She would almost swear the question was asked in earnest. “You best know that yourself.” She moved still farther into the room, beginning to circle around to the right, keeping his attention on her, and away from the door.

“Will you tell me something? I am curious.” He turned to follow her, stepping away from the window and into the room.

“You are capable of curiosity, then?”

“I am capable of worlds.”

Dhulyn wanted to snort in disbelief, but found she couldn’t. “Ask.”

“How was it known, so quickly, that Tek-aKet was not here? With the others, with Beslyn-Tor, with Lok-iKol, no one knew.”

A sensible question. How did you catch me? A very sensible question. Would the Green Shadow understand the answer?

“They had no one close enough,” she told him. “No one who knew them well enough to see a change.”

“No one who could see me?”

“No one who could see you,” she agreed. It didn’t know about Dal, then, or Gun; nor was she about to tell him. She stepped around a long padded bench, still moving toward him. They were only a few spans apart, almost close enough, and she was eyeing the precise spot on his neck where her blow should land.

“What do you want?” she asked. Keep him talking, keep his attention from what she planned.

“Nothing.”

“Your actions say otherwise. Have we no common ground? Can we not negotiate?”

The thing that possessed Tek-aKet closed its eyes. “Common ground.” Its voice, Tek’s and yet not Tek’s, trembled with some unnameable emotion. “Too much shape.” The eyes opened, bright as gemstones. “All things here have shape. Everything. Shapes. Edges. Start, stop. Here, even I have shape. Even I. Can you send me back, Seer? Can you or any of your kind do more than force me to a different shape? You ask me what I want. Give me nothing.” The right hand rose up and, fingers curled, tapped it on the chest. “Make this nothing. I want NOTHING.”

She blinked, and shifted her gaze. The far end of the bench, the end closest to the Shadow… shimmered like the air above a fire. It was not there, then it was. She blinked again and shook her head. A fog grew out of nowhere and swallowed the bench, and the Tarkina’s room, and the world, leaving a curious emptiness. A NOT.

Dhulyn stopped walking. A corridor formed around her and dissolved as she stepped forward onto a beach… the Tarkina’s bedroom again with the Green Shadow who inhabited the Tarkin looking at her… the hold of a ship… a window, a mirror-no, a window, the night sky cut and a green fog spilling down. The corridor again with the fog, a cloud like hot dust eating the air, consuming all that lay before it, making NOT.

Advancing toward her.

This was death coming. Now. Death was now. No battlefield. No sword in her hand. No hot rush of blood, heart pounding in her ears. A slow dissolve, the world like crystals of ice slowly melting and becoming not water, but nothing, nothing at all.

NOT …

Why had she never Seen this? Never this Vision?

The world changed again. Not a Sight. A memory. A dark-skinned man, his teeth white in the darkness of the hold as he smiled at her where she stood over the corpse of the careless slaver, that same slaver’s sword in her hand. “Come with me,” the smiling dark-skinned man had said, “and I’ll teach you to use that thing.” Suddenly that sword was once again in her hand, the memory sword, her first sword, that Dorian the Black had let her keep, and taught her how to use. Sharp, clear, its edges well-defined and solid. She brought the sword up in a salute, and then brought it down and up again, in the sweep she would use to clear space before her when she was being crowded. The blade passed through the stones of the corridor before the dissolve could reach her, cutting them cleanly and leaving a sharp, distinct edge. A gap like a firebreak.

The fog was on the other side, and, now that she was focused, now that she was armed, she could see the two spots of green that were the eyes. She smiled, lifted her left hand and made a beckoning motion.

She was back in the Tarkina’s bedroom. Back with the Green-eyed Shadow before her. But this time she knew what to do. Her breathing steadied, and she fell into the first position of the Wading Crane Shora.

Focus. Like light through a lens. Sharper. Cast out all noise, all smells. See only the strike. When you strike, with blade or with hand, with stave or with elbow, you strike through, not at. The blow does not stop at the target, but goes through. See nothing but the target. See only the strike.

SEE the Strike.

SEE the Fall.

Parno spit out the piece of nail he’d chewed off his thumb. Strain his hearing as he might, no sound came from inside the room. He’d thought he could hear some conversation at first, if he hadn’t imagined it. After all, this was the Tarkina’s bedroom, the walls and door were practically soundproof-

Was that a thump? He shook his head. He didn’t care what he’d agreed to, he was going in. He drew his sword, unlatched the door, grabbed up Dhulyn’s sword in his free hand, and kicked the door open.

Dhulyn was dragging Tek-aKet’s unconscious body toward the bed. One of the clothes presses was open and a number of silk scarves had been pulled out, their colors spilling over the thick rugs.

Parno frowned, blinking. For an instant the far end of the padded bench that stood between him and Dhulyn had looked somehow melted and blackened. Then it had appeared whole again. He stepped forward to examine it more closely and found that his initial assessment had, after all, been correct. The end of the bench was melted and fused like glass, as was a large section of carpet and floor under it.

“Since you’re here, you can help me tie him up.”

Parno looked around. “It was the Shadow?”

Dhulyn gave him a look that would turn wine into vinegar, and Parno felt his muscles unknot, felt the grin spread across his face. Only the real Dhulyn could look at him like that. He sheathed his sword, tossed hers on the undamaged end of the bench and grasped the Tarkin’s wrists.

“On the bed, I thought,” Dhulyn said. “We’ll have to keep him comfortable, and he’ll have less leverage lying down.”

“Facedown?”

“And feed him how?”

Parno shrugged again. The fact was that Dhulyn had far more experience with keeping prisoners-or being kept prisoner, than he had himself.

“What if Tek, the Tarkin I mean, comes back to his senses?”