There was something of a game in this. And despite my discomfort when the past came to call, I could weasel a game with the best of them, matching trivial strategy with trivial strategy until my opponent collapsed with exhaustion.

I recall smiling at the prospect. My laughter, too, rose out of that tangle of limbs, out of the bright clearing where the villains walked, and when he heard it, Firebrand hushed and the air about us became suddenly tense and sober. Beneath me, the earth stilled.

Then the Weasel in my clutches began to change shape.

Into a snake, its notched head waving above me like the tail of a scorpion…

Which he became next, the snake head narrowing into the poised spike of a verminous tail, and the tail descending, descending…

But never wounding me, never striking home.

I took courage from this and held tighter as the scorpion beneath me grew and branched and bristled, its chitinous back sprouting white leathery wings and coarse, matted fur…

And beneath me twisted a vespertile, perhaps the same one who had folded itself over poor little Oliver…

And still I held on, something in the holding becoming adventure, a challenge, a game…

Until the great earth roiled and shook beneath me, and to my right, in the grove, I heard the dry, ripping sound of a vallenwood uprooting.

And it was Tellus the dale worm I was riding, and through all this I kept telling myself, It is approaching, approaching; soon the bastards will run out of changing shapes and we shall see what happens then…

And Weasel was water, was light on a sword, was tunnel on tunnel, was nothing…

And my grip did not relax, and I was laughing more loudly than ever, thinking, "This is the worst you can do? This is all, Firebrand?"

And the landscape tilted one disastrous last tilt and waver, and there was a boy beneath me with beady brown eyes, matted red hair, a rodent's twitch and squint.

But a boy who was afraid. Who was only a boy, his bluster and weaseling all he knew of courage in a country prone to shift and explosion, where brothers bludgeoned and tutors ignited, and the whole world rankled at the whim of a self-righteous Order.

He looked away from me and shivered. I felt the sword pass though my heart, too. The wrestle became an embrace as I wrapped my arms around the poor little fellow.

Where before there was a wound, there was now peace.

And as suddenly as he had appeared, Weasel was gone. I lay on the ground for a long, forgetful moment, savoring the peace and the stillness and the air and the light.

Then the ground beneath me murmured again, and somewhere behind and above me Firebrand cursed and fell silent. I rose slowly and turned to face him, the sword in my hand light and familiar.

He held his staff in front of him, and for the first time I noticed it was iron, edged with a glinting blade.

"It is down to the two of us, Solamnic," Firebrand hissed. "It is strange, is it not, that all magics come down to a hand-to-hand fight in a clearing?"

He was already beaten. I moved toward him, waving the sword like a scythe, and we closed in a clatter of metal.

Three times we locked weapons, three times stared at one another over the wrestling blades. He was a strong man, and larger than I, but there was something to all my training, all the thumps and lectures under the tutelage of Bayard Bright-blade that had taught me balance, taught me to shift, to vary my footing and place my weight so that even the most formidable opponent was forced to stretch and stagger.

At that moment, I could have taken on the troll. On the third parry, I felt Firebrand give a little, felt him buckle under the twisting and locking of weaponry. With an agile turn, he leapt back, brushing against a blue aeterna bush, sending cones and needles flying.

"But magic is inexhaustible, Solamnic," he intoned. "And it rises when you expect it the least…"

His staff began to glow, first red, then yellow, then white. I could feel the heat from where I stood. Firebrand stepped forward, brought the weapon whistling down through the air, and I blocked it with my sword, but the heat passed through the metal and became unbearable.

I staggered backward, my sword ringing harmlessly as it tumbled onto the rocks at Firebrand's feet. Defiantly he kicked it away and walked toward me, glowing staff in his hand.

Again the godseyes on his brow began to flicker. His eye half closed ecstatically, and again the earth rumbled.

"The power of life and death!" he gloated. "All of their memories are mine! They would have none of me, but now I have their past and future!"

"You killed my brother, you bastard!" I snapped, reaching into my tunic and drawing forth those ragged leather gloves. Quickly I slipped them on, having scarcely the time to raise my hands before the glowing staff descended.

I felt the blade strike leather and metal, felt the old gloves hold with a strength and resilience that was not metal and leather alone, but the years of weathering and sun and rugged use. The staff turned red again, and yellow, and white, and I felt the heat next to me and dropped to my knees at its force…

And the ground shook, hurtling the both of us, crown over backside over gloves over staff, halfway across the clearing.

He was to his feet by the time I had picked up my sword and closed with him. Without his eye patch, which had fallen off in the tremor and tumble, he looked vulnerable, weak. The empty socket opened into a darkness blacker than the caverns and the heart of the godseye, and for a moment, I pitied him.

The crown, too, lay in the white dust beside him, fragmented, the light in its stones fading.

Then, with an outraged cry, Firebrand raised the staff to strike. I rocked back on my heels, my blade flashed swiftly through the smoky air…

And found the soft home of his neck.

I have heard there is indignity in such a thing-that the Nerakans, for one, punish their worst with ritual beheading.

Father has spoken of the time when the Order itself beheaded the most heinous offenders.

And yet there was a quiet that surrounded us afterward. His one good eye was closed, and the body stood there for a moment, as though it was trying to remember something.

As though the moment of its passing had not been reckoned.

Then it fell, also quietly, and I felt a hand touch my shoulder.

Brithelm stood beside me.

"It may have vanished," he said quietly. "The troll, I mean." He smiled at me sadly. "You will understand," he added, "that I did not tarry to find out."

And the earth wrenched and buckled.

They say that unnatural things began an hour beforehand, before the rumbling and tumult from deep underground.

A traveler, a spice merchant from Kalaman traveling inland to deliver the last of his cargo, who later visited Castle di Caela, watched as panic-stricken tenebrals hurtled into the sunlit air, contracting and crumpling within yards of the caves out of which they issued, striking the earth with that ghastly popping sound and the smell of burnt hair.

It was only in waiting, in standing by the mouth of the highland cavern, that the merchant noticed the ground begin to move.

The quaking was general all over Solamnia, peasants' houses collapsing in rains of dried mud and thatch, the stables filling up with shrieks and movement as the horses felt the tremors and recalled that movements such as these boded disaster.

Disaster was what we were courting, there in the rock-strewn mountains, yet my thoughts were below those rocks, with Shardos and Ramiro.

"They're still under there, Brithelm," I said, my eyes on the silver circlet at my feet. "Shardos and Ramiro and the Que-Tana. Perhaps…"

I looked a long time at the godseyes, thinking of the power of life and death and what it might mean to those trapped under miles of cavern and rock.