He rushed to the third person, no longer aware even if they were man or woman. Their soul was all that mattered-their spirit.

He drove them onto a stake with urgent effort, slid into them and drew their spirit into his, shuddering with the power of it entering him.

He rushed to the window again, opening wide his mouth again, twisting his head side to side again with the thrill of it, the slick, silken, sliding ecstasy of it… the loss of physical orientation, the exaltation of being above his corporeal existence, the former bounds of his mere worldly form-carried aloft not simply with his own efforts, but by the spirits of others that he had freed from their bodies.

What a glorious thing it was.

It was almost like the joy he imagined death would be.

He seized the fourth weeping person and with delirious expectation ran with them across the room, to the stakes, to the fourth stake, and drove them screaming onto it.

As he lurched back from them, he thrust himself into their wildly racing, confused, swirling thoughts, and took what was there for the taking.

He took their spirit into himself.

When he controlled a person's spirit, he controlled their very existence. He became life and death for them. He was their savior, their destroyer.

He was in many ways like those spirits he took, trapped in a worldly form, hating to live, to endure the pain and agony that was life, yet fearing to die even while longing for the promise of its sweet embrace.

With four spirits swirling through him, Nicholas staggered to the fifth person, cowering in the corner.

"Please!" the man wailed, trying to ward what he would not commit to warding. "Please, don't!"

The thought occurred to Nicholas that the stakes were really a hindrance; using them required him to carry people around like woolly sheep to have their souls sheared. Yes, he was still learning what he could do and how to control what he did, but to have to use the stakes was limiting. When he thought about it, it was actually insulting that a wizard of his ability would have to use so crude a device.

What he really wanted to do was to slide into another's spirit and take it without any warning-without needing to bring people to the stakes.

When he was fully able to do that-to simply walk up to another, say "Good day," and slide like the thrust of a dagger into the heart of their spirit, there to draw it into his-then he would be invincible. When he was able to do that, then no one could challenge him. No one would be able to deny him anything.

As the man shrank down before him, Nicholas, before he fully realized what it was he was doing, driven by an angry need, by hatred, thrust out his hand as he thrust his own mind into this man, into the spaces between thought.

The man stiffened, just as those on the stakes stiffened, when Nicholas had impaled them with his ability.

He drew back his closed fist toward his middle as he drew in this man's spirit. He gasped with the heat of it, with the silky slick feel of it sliding into him.

They stared at each other, each in shock, each considering what this meant for them.

The man slumped back against the wall, sliding down, in soundless, silent, terrible empty agony.

Nicholas realized that he had just done what he had never done before.

He had just taken a soul by his will alone.

He had just freed himself to take what he wanted, when he wanted, where he wanted.

CHAPTER 28

Nicholas, his vision a blur, staggered to the window.

All five were his, now.

This time, as his mouth opened wide, a cry at last came forth, a cry of the five spirits joining his as he drew them together into one force guided by his will alone. Their worldly agony was a distant concern to them. Five spirits gazed out of the windows along with him, five spirits now waiting to soar out into the night, to where he chose to send them.

Those Sisters had not known what they unleashed that night. They could not have known the power they fused into him, the ability they burned into him.

They had achieved what none had achieved for thousands of years- the altering of a wizard into something more, honing him into a weapon of specific intent. They had imbued him with power beyond that of anyone living. They had given him dominion over the spirits of others.

Most had escaped, but he had killed five of them.

The five were enough. After he had slid into their souls and pulled their spirits back into his that night, he had appropriated their Han, their force of life, their power, for himself.

It was only fitting, as their Han was not natural to them, but was male Han they had stolen from young wizards-a birthright they had sucked from those to whom it belonged in order to give themselves abilities they had not been born with, could not be born with. Yet more nameless people with ability to be sacrificed to those who needed it, or simply wanted it.

Nicholas had taken it all back from their trembling bodies, pulled it out of them as he had clawed their living insides open. They had been sorry that they had done Jagang's bidding, that they had twisted him into something Creation never intended.

Not only had they made him into a Slide, they had given up their Han to him, and made him that much more powerful for it.

After each of those five women had died, the world had gone darker than dark for an instant when the Keeper had come and taken them to his realm.

The Sisters had destroyed him that day, and they had created him.

He had a lifetime to explore and discover what he could do with his new abilities.

And, to be sure, Jagang would grant him payment for that night. Jagang would pay, but he would pay gladly, for Nicholas would give him something none but Nicholas the Slide could give him.

Nicholas would be rewarded with things enough to repay him for what had been done to him…. He hadn't decided, yet, what that reward would be, but it would be worthy of him.

He would use his ability to hold sway over lives-important lives. He no longer needed to cart people to the stakes. He knew how to take what he wanted, now.

Now he knew how to slip into their minds at the time of his choosing and take their souls.

He would trade those lives for what he would have in power, wealth, splendor. It would have to be something appropriate….

He would be an emperor.

It would have to be more than this petty empire of sheep, though. He would frolic in rule. He would have his every whim fulfilled, once he was given dominion over… over something important. He hadn't decided just what, yet. It was an important decision, what he would have as his reward.

No need to rush it. It would come to him.

He turned from the window, the five spirits swirling within his, soaring through him.

It was time to use what he had pulled together.

Time to get down to business, if he was to have what he wanted.

He would get closer, this time. He was frustrated from not being closer, from not seeing better. It was dark, now. He would get closer, this time, under cover of the darkness.

Nicholas took the broad bowl from the table and placed it on the floor before the five who still owned the spirits within him. They writhed in otherworldly agony, even the man not on a stake, an agony of both body and soul.

Nicholas sat cross-legged on the floor before the bowl. Hands on his knees, he threw his head back, eyes closed, as he gathered the power within, the power created by those wicked women, those wonderful wicked women.

They had considered him a pathetic wizard of little worth except as flesh and blood and gift to toy with-a sacrifice to a greater need.

When he had time, he would go after the rest of them.