"You could use the exercise," the Cobbler replied calmly.

Azrael's stubby fingers sprouted thick black claws. The bones of his face shifted, grinding into a profile that reflected both dwarf and badger. "Who do you think you are to challenge me here?" Snarling, he locked one hand around the Cobbler's arm.

"You're wasting your time," the pale-clad man said lightly. "I can leave any time I want."

"Not from here you can't," Azrael said. He pushed the Cobbler against a pile of shattered timber.

It was then that the Cobbler noticed the items the dwarf had dropped into the dirt. A thick black sludge oozed from the shattered bottles. It stank of salt and of sorcery. Concern stole across his handsome features. He reached for a shadow in the rubble, expecting to enter it. His fingers met solid wood. The way was blocked.

As swiftly as he could picture it, a pale leather case appeared in the Cobbler's hand. Before he could extract one of his knives, though, Azrael batted the entire thing from his grasp. The silver tools scattered.

"I sealed the place off," Azrael said. The Cobbler's lost smile was on the werebadger's lips now, all pointed teeth and malicious glee. "You're not going anywhere."

The beast reached down for one of the silver scalpels.

"You can't kill me," the Cobbler said defiantly, "even with that."

"Oh, good," Azrael replied. "That will make this a lot more interesting."

In her two days at Nedragaard Keep, Inza had grown insensitive to the smell of death. The whole place reeked of it, from the web-choked dungeons to the top of the shattered tower. That was hardly a surprise. Skeletal soldiers patroled the battlements. Banshees howled through the corridors. Death had never frightened Inza, though, and the walking dead held no special place in her nightmares. Despite the lingering fetor of decay-perhaps even because of it-she found the castle much to her liking.

Soth had abandoned her soon after they arrived. They stepped into the shadows at the battlefield and emerged an instant later within Nedragaard's circular throne room. Soth informed Inza that she was free to roam the keep-at her own peril, of course-but that he had more important business elsewhere. He left her standing in the darkness.

Since then Inza had marched through every hall and explored every room of Nedragaard Keep. The inspection was long and largely tedious. The castle revealed little about its master that the Vistana didn't already know.

Now, at last, Inza had returned to the hall from which she had started her explorations. She lingered at the triple-tiered chandelier that lay in a heap at the room's center. The damage to the floor, flagstones shattered by the chandelier's fall, was both ancient and recent. Soot and melted wax from a fresh blaze masked far older scarring.

Inza found the juxtapositions unsettling. It was like standing in two times at once, suspended precariously between the past and the present. "Better to keep your gaze fixed on the future," the Vistana muttered. Unconsciously she tugged at the fine silver chain hanging around her neck and fingered the small black charm dangling from it.

She then made her way to the dais, with its warped and moldering throne. Her lips curled in a moue of distaste at the sight of the worm-eaten wood. It could be salvaged, she supposed. The rotting lumber might be reinforced with strips of metal. The joints could be joined more tightly with pegs or nails.

Or badger's teeth, thought Inza, smiling darkly to herself. They would do quite nicely.

Something winked on the floor behind the throne, distracting the Vistana from that pleasant thought. She knelt upon the cold stone flags to get a better look.

Shards of glass lay scattered across the back of the dais, pieces of the large oval mirrors that had once hung behind the throne. Inza gasped. These were fragments from the memory mirrors Soth had once used to prompt his reveries. Her mother had told her about them. The mirrors tapped into a person's memories and fantasies to create a waking dream that could be experienced as if it were reality. There were few men strong enough to resist a memory mirror's seductive powers. Most who used them quickly abandoned the real world for the mirror's tantalizing illusions.

Inza picked up one of the larger shards. As she looked into the mirror fragment, she saw not her own reflection, but a knight clad in gorgeous silver armor patterned with roses and kingfishers. This was Soth as he had been before his curse-at least, how he remembered himself.

The Vistana moved to slip the fragment into the pocket of her leather breeches. Before she could, something white and fleeting snatched the glass from her fingers, slicing them in the process. Inza cursed. She reached for Novgor, but an unseen force grabbed her long black hair and toppled her backward. Thrashing like a landed fish, she finally got the blade in her hand. She brandished it at the three apparitions floating above her prone form.

The trio of ghostly women scowled, a particularly unattractive expression on their angular elven faces.

"Not for your eyes," one banshee moaned.

"Unless you wish to share the dead man's dream," the second added.

"Unless you wish to share the dead man's fate," cried the third.

Inza pushed herself up onto her elbows. "I make my own fate."

Howls of ear-splitting laughter ripped through the hall. It echoed up the stairs and shook the dust from the rafters. The banshees circled the Vistana. Evil mirth twisted their faces.

"Away from me, wretches," Inza finally shouted.

She lashed out with Novgor at the nearest of the trio. The needle-sharp blade bit into the tattered, ghostly shroud that cloaked the spirit's frame. Another howl went up, this one of pain and fright.

"I am cut!" the banshee shrieked. "I am wounded!"

The hall's main doors creaked open, and Lord Soth stalked into the room. At first Inza thought the banshee's cries had drawn the death knight, but he ignored the unquiet spirits' calls for vengeance. "Your men approach, Inza Magdova," Soth stated without preamble.

The Vistana let a sigh of relief escape her lips and closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, Lord Soth was gone.

The smirk on Inza's face was almost as sharp as Novgor as she turned to the banshees, still lingering near the throne. She held the dagger up for them to see. "Another sharp word to me, and I'll cut out your tongue," she murmured. "I've done it to my own kind. I'll gladly do it to you lot of howling bed sheets."

The banshees were silent for a moment. They regarded Inza with pale, dead eyes, then said, "We serve the mistress of Nedragaard faithfully, as loyally and honestly as we have served all those who have gone before."

Though the pledge had been voiced without any hint of sarcasm or anger, Inza knew it was a threat. The words had the weight of a curse, a promise of something unpleasant to come.

The sound of Alexi's voice drew her attention away from the banshees. The last of the Wanderers were shuffling through the main doors. They looked terrible, little better than the undead ogres who staggered in behind them. The forced march had pressed them to the brink of exhaustion. Their faces were pale, their clothes ragged and dirty. A grimy, makeshift bandage encircled Nikolas's chest. Piotr had one hand, or all that remained of it, wrapped up tight. The ogres, too, had been hacked and battered. Some were missing arms. Another had been slashed across the face with a blade of some sort. Its swollen black tongue lolled from the hole in its cheek.

"The whole Invidian army is right on our heels. They've been pursuing us all night," Alexi said. He slumped onto the floor. "Soth's soldiers cut the bridge away the moment we crossed."