"Run!" she ordered.

Wait.

The word filled Leesil's mind.

The topaz jerked upon the leather cord around his neck, extending in the air before his face. The cord snapped, and the amulet sailed into Vordana's upraised hand. Bony fingers closed around the stone, and he smiled again.

Follow me.

The voice echoed again in Leesil's head. He glanced to Magiere and then Wynn. They clearly heard the words, as well.

"An escort," Leesil said. "I think Wynn should stay here."

"No," the sage replied, her eyes on the walking corpse.

"It's all right," Magiere said. "You thought you'd finished him, but you still saved us and the town. That's all that matters."

Wynn looked away. "Wait a moment."

She set one of her cold lamps down, ran to the wagon, and dropped her heavy pack and the other lamp inside. She returned with a crossbow and quarrel case, strapping both to her back, then retrieved the cold lamp, holding it out in front.

Leesil nodded to Magiere, and they all stepped into the trees. Chap was silent, but his hackles stood up upon his neck. Magiere kept her falchion up, and Leesil gripped both his blades. Wynn and Chap followed behind him, the dog staying close to the young sage.

Vordana's clothing had changed, and he no longer wore the stained shirt from the night Stefan had murdered him. His umber brown robes were cleaned of the soil from whatever secret grave he'd crawled from. The state of his own form was another matter. The sorcerer's skin was more drawn and shriveled. He was no vampire, and his corpse succumbed to time, no matter how much life he bled from the world around him. A new brass urn hung around his neck.

He motioned for them to follow and turned back into the forest.

Strands of moss in the high branches hung down to the ground, like dark green curtains between the tree trunks. Vordana passed through them easily, but Leesil and Magiere had to hack a clear path with their blades. Soon their hands and sleeves were soaked from the damp foliage. Without sight of the night sky through the forest canopy, the dark was too thick for even Leesil's night sight. He was grateful for the illumination of Wynn's cold lamp.

Wynn gasped and grabbed the back of his cloak. "Leesil!"

She pointed beyond him, and he froze.

"On the other side, too," Magiere said. "And behind us."

In the half-circle of a sparse clearing, glowing shapes surrounded them. Leesil heard their whispers but couldn't make out their words as they drifted in and out among the trees.

When Tomas said the villagers had left, and he couldn't follow, Leesil assumed they'd abandoned the village and the boy was left behind.

Floating near a tendril of moss was the translucent figure of an aged soldier. His hauberk was slashed open, exposing internal organs that bulged, ready to spill out. Beside him was a short and tattered young woman with a ring around the skin of her throat where a rope had strangled her. She opened her mouth, trying to speak but her tongue was missing.

A scarecrow-thin peasant boy glared in hatred at Magiere. He wore no shirt, and though his visage faded in and out, Leesil saw the ribs and telltale swollen paunch of starvation. Drifting out through a curtain of wet leaves came a pretty girl no older than Wynn, with dangling black curls. She reached out at Leesil, and he sidestepped quickly, though she couldn't possibly touch him. Her throat had been ripped open.

Leesil smelled the strong scent of damp earth and decay as the cold sank into him, feeding despair. He heard Magiere's quick breaths beside him, and he looked back to Wynn.

Her eyes were downcast, watching only the ground before her feet, and she held the cold lamp in front of her like a shield. Her free hand gripped the fur between Chap's shoulders, and the dog pulled her forward.

"Ignore them," Leesil whispered with effort. "Keep moving."

He kept his eyes on Vordana's cloak, trying not to focus upon the misty figures moving around them.

"They're just ghosts," Magiere said.

There was no fear on her pale features, but Leesil still heard the rapid rhythm of her breath. Vordana held up his hand. The topaz dangled in his grip upon the leather string, and its glimmer became a beacon they followed.

Leesil was shivering from the cold when they emerged in a large clearing and saw smoke rising from the chimney of a strange little stone house. It had been built onto the side of a massive granite knoll.

Vordana walked to an oval door in the cottage's front wall and opened it. He motioned them to follow as he stepped inside.

Leesil grasped Magiere's wrist. "Whatever we find here, it doesn't change who you are."

She gently pulled her wrist from his fingers and walked toward the open door.

Welstiel hid behind the stockade fence with Chane, watching through a space left by a missing post. Magiere emerged from the keep with the others. The young sage ran to their team of gray horses, one already collapsed upon the ground.

"Stay close," he told Chane. "If you step away from me, the dog will sense you clearly."

Chane did not argue or even speak, his eyes fixed upon Wynn.

Welstiel hoped he would not have to enter the keep. In this place, his father had come home one night transformed into a Noble Dead, accompanied by the loathsome and conniving Ubad. It was not long before the people here began dying. When the remainder fled, Welstiel's "family" moved on to offer service to the Antes. How Bryen and Ubad had managed to learn exactly where Magelia had lived was still a mystery to Welstiel.

A hollow presence pulled at Welstiel from nearby, and he caught the flutter of gray hair in the forest trees. The undead sorcerer stepped out into view before Magiere and her companions.

"I thought you destroyed that," Welstiel whispered.

"So did I," Chane replied.

The sorcerer held out his hand, and the topaz amulet the half-blood wore shot into his grip. The walking corpse grinned and turned into the forest. Magiere and the others followed. Chane was about to rise, and Welstiel clamped a hand on his shoulder, holding him down.

"Wait until they are in the trees."

A small part of Welstiel pitied Magiere for what was to come, as he had once pitied her mother.

Chapter 15

M agiere was numb with cold as she stepped through the doorway behind Vordana. The dwelling made her skin crawl as if she were covered with insects.

An iron staff leaned against the wall by the door, its surface stained and etched with wear. Rough-cut tables and shelves were loaded with jars and other vessels of ceramic, glass, and metal. In the nearest glass container, Magiere saw cloudy liquid in which fleshy shapes floated. A severed joint of cartilage and bone pressed against the side. She wasn't certain what kind of being it came from, and she didn't want to know. The fire in the hearth burned brightly, but its heat made the place feel tight and stifling.

Vordana walked to the room's back and opened another door leading into a passage.

She followed a few paces back, for the smell of the undead sorcerer made her gag in the enclosed space. The passage was crudely chiseled granite rather than mortared stone. To her amazement, she stepped out its far end and into an enormous cavern.

Torches blazed upon poles stuck in the bare earth, but their light couldn't reach into the dark expanse above.

Magiere stood within a cave inside the granite knoll. The vast area reached back at least a hundred paces. Directly ahead, in the cavern's center, was a thick granite slab resting upon two shorter blocks of stone. Its surface was partially covered by a rumpled white satin cloth. Before it stood a cast-iron vat hanging from a towering tripod over a stack of firewood. Leesil stepped up beside her, looking about the cavern.