"No!" Wynn answered, and closed her hand around the crystal to mute its glare. "It was not real. Vordana planted a seed in your mind that your own fears gave shape. Magiere and Chap are out here somewhere and may be wandering in the same state. We have to find them before anything happens."

Leesil looked around the clearing. "Magiere?"

He let her go and got to his feet with effort. Wynn stood, as well, swallowing down nausea as her vertigo surged.

"Which way?" he asked.

"Back to the road, and the town… and perhaps you can track her?"

He was still trembling, but he was Leesil again, and Wynn followed as he pushed on through the forest.

Chap ran through a dying land.

Trees and brush wilted before his eyes as shadows ambled through the forest. The world was dying… it was his fault. Spirits were wrenched from the trees and the earth to be swallowed by the walking shadows.

Chap slowed among the dead oaks and spruces to look back along his path. There was nothing left alive. The silhouettes came ever closer with a lone figure out in front, a heavy sword glinting in its grip. It stepped out into view.

Magiere wore black armor of scales like those of a massive serpent. Her filthy hair hung in matted tendrils. Her face was as sallow as Parko's, the first Noble Dead she had ever killed. Brother to Rashed in life and afterlife, Parko had lost himself on the Feral Padi, existing only for the sensual ecstasy of the hunt. Magiere's irises were full black, not like the colorless crystalline of hungry undead, but Chap saw Parko's ecstatic madness in her eyes.

She roared, no longer recognizing him, and exposed long fangs amid yellowed teeth.

Behind her, the shadows solidified into a horde.

Noble Dead drew near on all sides. Vampires with their pale skin, elongated nails and teeth. Wraiths like black shadows that shifted in and out of physical presence. There were two of the ardadesbarn, the half-dead of Wynn's continent. And packs of ghul from the Suman Empire's northern arid mountains, mortal demons who fed on the living flesh.

There were remnants of living things from the end of the last epoch-the end of the human's Forgotten History. Hulking locatha, more reptile than humanoid, and squat goblins with features like hyenas and yellow eyes that twitched.

Some wore tattered clothes or scavenged armor, and most wielded weapons of war.

All eyes were upon Magiere, waiting expectantly.

Chap had sacrificed eternity among his brethren Fay. He had taken the flesh of one lifetime, so that he might fulfill an all-encompassing purpose: to keep Magiere in the light, bound to Leesil… to keep her from the enemy's hands and the purpose for which she'd been made. He looked at her standing before this horde like the general of an army.

He had failed.

"Majay-hi." Magiere spat at him.

Chap's sorrow welled up and spilled from him in a wail.

She knew him. And she had become his enemy.

Magiere rushed him, falchion rising and ready to fall. And the horde surged forward, leveling all living things in its path.

Chap stood listless, unable to fight back. The blade fell and bit deep between his shoulder and neck…

Magiere's hungered face faded-but the pain did not.

Chap stumbled and then blinked.

Magiere and the horde and the dead world all vanished.

Around him was the empty Droevinkan forest. Through the trees to the south he saw the manor house and grounds. Something wet dragged across his ear. He jerked away and saw two filmy eyes staring at him in puzzlement.

Shade whimpered as she nosed him again. His shoulder hurt, and she had blood on her muzzle. She licked him, and Chap flinched at the pain running through the base of his neck. She had bitten him and now tried to clean the wound.

He remembered the decayed Noble Dead in the town, the sorcerer, and something piercing through his thoughts like a thorn. He growled at the memory, and licked Shade's head in return.

This simple creature had found him and, without true understanding, had called him back. The delusion remained in his memory, and he could not shake its weight from his spirit. Chap bolted for the town, keeping a pace that Shade could match.

Magiere's cuts and scrapes stung as she skidded to a stop in the town's midway. In her mind, she saw Leesil's wrist as he'd offered himself to her. Where was he… or Chap and Wynn… or the creature they'd faced?

"Leesil?" she shouted. "Can you hear me?"

All was quiet, and the only movement was the flickering light of the tripod braziers. She ran up the road to the last place she remembered of the battle with Vordana. Her torch and Leesil's punching blades lay abandoned on the ground. She gathered them up.

"Magiere!"

She whirled at Wynn's voice and saw the young sage round the corner from the inland manor road. Leesil was beside her.

Magiere's breath released in relief as she ran toward him. But she stopped short, remembering again the half-real moment he'd tried to make her feed upon him. She couldn't reach out, afraid to step too close. Wynn grabbed her by the arm, surprising her. The young sage faltered a moment, blinking twice.

"Look at me!" Wynn demanded. "What did you see?"

"Don't ask me."

Wynn shook her. "It was all a he. Vordana's spell took your inner thoughts and turned them on you. Do you hear? It was not real. What you saw never happened."

Magiere looked down into the sage's face. Wynn was so resolute and certain, but Magiere would never be sure. If what she'd experience had come from within herself, then not all of it was a lie.

Wynn suddenly swallowed hard and pulled her hand from Magiere's arm. She turned her face away, as well. Leesil stared up the inland road toward the forest.

"He was lost, like you," Wynn said. "And Chap is still out there. We have to find him."

Magiere reached out for Leesil's hand.

It remained limp in her grip for a moment, and a sharp edge of fear arose in Magiere when he didn't look at her. He said nothing, not even one of his irritating quips tossed out at the wrong moment. What had he seen in the forest?

Leesil finally squeezed her hand with a deep breath, and took his punching blades from her.

"Where is that monster?" he asked. "We can't just drop our guard."

Magiere heard running footsteps and released Leesil's hand, ready to draw her sword. It was only Geza hurrying toward them down the main road. His own sword sheathed, his blue-gray cloak billowed behind him, exposing his learner armor.

"You destroyed it," he panted. "People are waking, and for the first time, I no longer feel the fatigue that comes when I step outside the manor grounds."

Magiere glanced up and down the road. "We didn't destroy anything."

"But you must have. Can't you feel it yourself?"

She shook her head. She'd never felt the slow drain of this place as the others had.

"Maybe," Leesil replied. "But I'm too tired to be sure."

"I did it," Wynn whispered.

All eyes turned on the little sage in her snagged breeches and soiled short robe. Her braid had come loose, and her hair hung in tangled waves about her face as she stared at the ground.

"You?" Magiere asked. "How?

Wynn remained silent for a moment and didn't raise her eyes.

"After you ran off, I was alone," she said. "I shot Vordana through the eye and fled to the smithy. He caught me in there. I think he wished to toy with me. When he was close enough, I pulled the brass vial from his neck and threw it into the forge coals. It melted and broke open. Smoke rose up everywhere. When it cleared, he was gone."

As Wynn's words sank in, Magiere shook her head. "I'm sorry, Wynn. I'm sorry we left you with that thing. Are you sure he's gone?"

The sage still wouldn't lift her head. Magiere realized Wynn had been through too much for one night. She should never have come on this journey, but if she hadn't… what would have become of Leesil? Of this town?