"I understand, yes I do," Lionel finally said, refolding the letter. For some reason he looked even more crestfallen than before, and Shailiha was reasonably sure she knew why. "And your list?" he asked quietly. The princess handed it to him.

"This will be nearly impossible, you know," he said apologetically as he scanned the list. "In the end, there may be little I can do, yes, very little."

"I understand, but it is imperative that we try," Shailiha answered. She turned to look at the slavers, then faced Lionel again. "Please take your survivors away from here," she half asked, half ordered him. "You may come back later for your dead. We will join you at Faegan's mansion. But first there is something I must do, and your people have already seen enough."

Understanding, Lionel carefully folded the list and tucked it into a vest pocket. "I will await you both, I will," he said simply. "In the meantime, I will do what I can."

After an indication from the diminutive caretaker, a few of the male gnomes picked up the remaining canvas bags. Then as a whole the crowd began to trudge tiredly out of the glade.

Still holding her bloody sword, Shailiha walked back to the three slavers. Celeste's arm was still raised, poised to let go another bolt. The demonslavers continued to glare at them with their strange, white eyes.

Without speaking, Shailiha came to stand before the first of them. Bending down, she wiped her sword in the grass, cleaning its blade of demonslaver blood, and slid it back into its scabbard. Then she drew her dagger from the sheath on her right thigh.

After blatantly running his white eyes up and down her body, the demonslaver leered up at her. Smiling, he ran his black tongue up and over his lips. "You're pretty, bitch."

Shailiha's eyes narrowed. "You aren't."

With a quick, unforgiving stroke, she slashed the dagger across the slaver's throat. Blood rushed out, cascading down his chest. At first his eyes registered surprise, then glazed over. Raising her right boot, Shailiha kicked him beneath the chin, launching him over onto his back.

She stood there for a moment, listening to the desperate gurgling sounds as the life force poured out of him.

She walked before the second of them. Placing the dagger hard against one of the thing's lower eyelids, she gave it just enough of a nudge that a single drop of blood ran slowly down the dagger's blood groove and onto the handle.

With her free hand, she pointed to the slaver she had just killed. "That was an object lesson," she said quietly. "I want some answers, and I want them now. Krassus sent you here to eradicate Faegan's stores of herbs, didn't he? That's what was in those canvas bags you were burning. Tell me, how much of it did you destroy?"

The second slaver just looked up at her. Then he spat all the saliva he could muster into her face.

With a single thrust, Shailiha drove the point of the dagger upward, cleaving the monster's eyeball. Blood and vitreous fluid poured out of the ruptured orb as the point of the knife continued on, slicing into his brain. As she pulled it back out, his face contorted into a mask of pain, and he fell facedown at her feet.

She stood there quietly for a moment watching his tortured death throes and listening to the last bit of breath rattle from his lungs. Calmly, slowly, she stepped before the third of them.

"Hopefully you are bright enough to have learned by example," she said, pressing the bloody point of her dagger up against the base of his right eye. "I'll keep this simple," she snarled. "Where is my brother-the man you took away that night in the alley fight in Farpoint?"

The slaver smiled up at her. "He is off to the place that is the most horrible on earth," he said softly. "Some even say it is the birthplace of the craft. It is a place from which your brother will never return. And even if he did, you would find him quite unrecognizable, Your Highness." He paused for a moment and smiled again, showing pointed, black teeth.

"So kill me if you must," he hissed, "for I will tell you no more. No death by your hand could ever match the horrors that would be visited on me by Krassus should I talk."

Her mind made up, Shailiha took a step backward. Resheathing her dagger, she drew her sword and grasped it with both hands. Then she walked around behind the slaver and raised the sword high.

Swinging it down and around with everything she had, she beheaded the thing with a single stroke.

Celeste dropped her tired arm, and they looked at each other. Shailiha held her sword limply, its point hanging toward the ground. Thunder rumbled softly across the sky. Then the wind picked up, blowing the debris of the battle around in little maelstroms.

Shailiha cast her tired eyes upward. The clouds had become darker, and the rain suddenly began. As the water collected on the ground, it swept up the fresh blood of both the tortured and the tormentors into little red rivers flowing through the grass.

Shailiha sheathed her sword, and then she and Celeste walked into the charred remains of Tree Town.

CHAPTER

Seventeen

"Y ou're worried, aren't you?" Abbey asked.

Wigg took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He had, of course, known that Celeste and Shailiha had been trying to maneuver him into letting them go to Shadowood. He knew, too, that his eventual agreement to their request had perhaps not been altogether prudent. But he also understood their frustration at being virtual prisoners here in the palace while Tristan remained missing. And so, knowing how much each of them cared about the prince, he had finally relented.

Wigg sighed. On the surface of it, letting the two strong-willed women go alone had at first seemed safe enough, especially given the emergence of Celeste's Forestallment. In his more than three hundred years of experience in the craft, he had never seen bolts so dynamic as those his daughter could now command. While it was true that she needed more training, the degree of power she already possessed was unmistakable. But now that they were gone, he was having misgivings about his decision.

He scowled. If Celeste and Shailiha did not exit Faegan's portal tomorrow by the end of the appointed hour, he would enter the enchanted passageway himself and bring them back by their ears, if he had to. Would that retrieving Tristan could be as simple.

Four Seasons of New Life before, Wigg had himself chosen Krassus for the position of first alternate-a fact that added heavily to the lead wizard's increasing sense of guilt. At the time, Krassus had been everything the wizards could have asked for. He was very powerful and learned for a consul, and seemed humbly, steadfastly devoted to the exclusive practice of the Vigors. Famous among the Brotherhood for the number of good deeds he had performed, he was well known for his compassion and patience-so much so that Wigg had nominated him to the post without the slightest reservation.

The Directorate had heartily agreed, installing him into the lofty position by unanimous vote. Even when Nicholas had begun abducting the consuls to help him construct the Gates of Dawn, Wigg had hoped that Krassus might be among those who had eluded his grasp.

But all that had changed that day in the gaming room when Krassus appeared with his evil demands.

The Krassus that Wigg had observed that day had been far more than simply evil. He had also been angry, impatient, and quick to employ force without thinking-much the same way the sorceresses of the Coven had been. Not only had he become far more powerful than ever before, but he clearly now had a wild, unpredictable side, making him the worst possible kind of enemy. And his new illness-the sudden, violent coughing up of endowed blood-remained a mystery.