Toret had little interest or even liking for the magical arts, though Chane's skills proved useful. He'd seen a few thaumaturges in his time, from an eclectic hedge mage to a blithering old alchemist still chasing after the secret for creating gold. Conjury, however, was a different matter. He knew nothing of it.

"Time to begin," Chane said, and he crouched before Toret with a bone-handled silver dagger in his hand.

Toret looked down at the tiny brass urn clutched in his hands. "What do I do?"

"Exactly what I tell you," Chane answered. He turned toward the wolf, dropping to one knee. "Nothing more or less."

He grabbed the scruff of the wolf's neck. The animal jerked and thrashed, snarling through the leather thongs binding its muzzle. Chane thrust the dagger point into the furred skin clenched in his hand and withdrew the tip slowly. He held the blade flat and level, careful not to spill the blood pooled on its tip, and turned back to Toret.

"Give me your wrist," he ordered.

Toret held out one arm. Without tilting the blade, Chane drew the tip's edge along Toret's wrist, cutting into the skin. Black fluid seeped from the shallow wound to touch the red already on the blade. As the fluids mingled, Chane tilted the tip slightly so the mixture seeped partially back into the cut. Toret felt the tiniest tingle of life creeping up his arm.

"With the living, this would be enough for the binding ritual," Chane said. "But our existence would merely consume the animal's spirit instead of holding the part of it I will conjure. That is why we must use the urn as container and conduit. Lose the urn, and you will lose the familiar."

He leveled the blade again, lifting it, and then dipped its point into the mouth of Toret's tiny urn. The mixed fluids dripped from the blade into the vessel.

Chane stepped back to his crate table and picked up the lit candle there. He carried it to Toret and held it over the urn to let wax drip until it welled to the vessel's top. As he replaced the candle, he retrieved the pestle he'd been working with and a narrow-necked bottle of glass too dark to see through.

With the silver blade, Chane cut a double-bordered triangle in the dirt floor around Toret. Between its borders he carved tangled strings of symbols and characters, which he filled with a viscous, olive green fluid poured from the bottle. The liquid soaked in, making the marks swell into raised, glistening ebony lines. He stepped back and cut a wide double circle and more markings in the floor around himself and the wolf, and dusted them with the powder mixed in the pestle.

Chane picked up the candle and settled cross-legged on the floor with the wolf between himself and Toret.

"Do not move from the space marked around you," he said, and stretched out his arms, resting them upon his knees with palms up. His gaze focused upon Toret's eyes.

Toret remained still. He felt his own body rigid with the exertion not to move. Chane's eyes were still upon him, unblinking, as Toret saw the barest movement of Chane's lips in a silent but continuous chant.

Toret began to ache inside, as if half the night had passed, until the tall undead's eyelids drooped closed.

The wolf began to struggle.

The animal thrashed, chains rattling as it growled. It wrestled as if to escape some torment beneath its own skin. Saliva leaked through its muzzle onto the floor as its head rolled sideways.

Chane's hands slapped together, enveloping and smothering the candle's wick, and the sound hammered through Toret's bones. He clenched the urn.

Its metal burned hot, but Toret's attention was now on… the wolf's open eyes staring back at him… his own open eyes staring back…

The room flickered before him. He saw both ends of it at the same time. He felt the still air around him, and the press of chains wrapped tightly across his body. He opened his mouth freely, but felt the press and smell of wet leather binding his jaws.

"It is done," Chane stated.

Toret looked down at the wolf. Its eyes looked back at him, and his vision began to spin and flicker. He looked at the wolf and through its eyes-at himself. His head throbbed. Nausea overwhelmed him, until he collapsed.

Prone upon the floor, he found himself looking up into Chane's wry, smiling face.

"Never watch yourself watching your familiar through its eyes," he said. "Contact of gaze in such a state is most disorienting. It is the first lesson we all learn the hard way."

Toret sat up and looked for the urn. Chane handed it to him, and he hung it around his neck. The wax was dried and sealed solid within it.

"Do not lose the urn," Chane admonished, "or you lose control of the familiar. And if the urn is out of your possession for too long, the familiar may break free permanently. Also be aware that the death of the familiar can be dangerous to its master."

Nodding in comprehension, Toret climbed to his feet.

The wolf was already unbound and stood shifting upon its paws as if uncertain of its own actions. Toret tried a brief attempt to will it to sit, but nothing happened. Chane seemed to guess what he was attempting.

"Exerting control comes with time and practice," he explained. "Think of it more as a suggestion rather than a command, and remember the sensation of being inside the creature's awareness yet not linked to its senses. Do not overcontrol a familiar, or its resistance will grow, making it more, rather than less, difficult to deal with over time."

"Enough for now," Toret said. "We have other servants to acquire."

"Not yet; you are already taxed from the bonding. You need to feed."

"No," Toret answered. He needed to feed, but he must continue to fast for the moment to come. "I must be able to absorb a life quickly enough to drag my victim beyond death."

"As you wish." Chane collected his equipment from the makeshift table. "Then perhaps we should go to join your lady."

He headed toward the door to his chamber with his belongings in hand.

Toret slowly placed a hand on the wolf's head, the first of his new minions yet to come. The animal growled low in its throat but did not resist. When Toret found the half-blood and his white-skinned dhampir, they wouldn't believe what they faced. The final days in Miiska would be a tavern brawl by comparison.

Chapter 8

Leesil wasn't easily impressed by grandeur, but as he stepped into the Rowanwood's wide entryway, he slowed his pace.

Large oil paintings hung on white walls, and all archways, windows, railings, and other fixtures were made of aged and polished wood suitable to the place's name. Carpets depicted patterns of ivy and forest scenes. Men and women in rich dress floated about. To the left was a dining chamber, and to his right was an elaborate gaming room, with tables for cards, dice, a fortune's wheel, and some oddity concerned with sliding marked tiles around a grid of squares. Ahead was a wide hallway of forest-green carpet that flowed up a staircase. Leesil imagined sumptuous rooms above that he could likely never afford.

Among the patrons were occasional servers and a few tall and solidly built men of moderate but clean dress. The latter moved about the room or stood near archways watching the rooms. They wore no uniforms and carried no visible weapons, but each was similarly dressed in white shirts and colored vestments of fine fabrics.

Leesil felt painfully underdressed and yet again out of place. Before the nearest guard turned around, he slipped into the gaming room.

A few patrons cast him curious or disapproving glances, but most were preoccupied with their pursuits. He counted seven at the faro table, and sounds of ecstasy and despair carried to his ears. Most of the players were middle-aged elites, and odds at faro favored the house too much for the few coins that he carried.