Eliora's World

By Lazette Gifford

Prologue

Aubreyan and Tristan stood on the cliff by the sea, the wind blowing in from the water and the dark night hiding much of the city. The castle stood like a sentinel at the gate, a promise of safe haven—but not for them. This was not their world.

Tristan pulled a single piece of the Kiya from the pouch, carefully unwrapping the warded cloth he and Dacey had created. Having so many pieces in close proximity to each other had started to become dangerous. He could feel her drawing strength and purpose since he had added the last one. Critical Mass, he imagined Crystal saying ... and tried to curb the loss that welled in him and echoed so painfully in Abby. So many friends they'd never see again.

As he brought the piece out, Dacey shied away, moving faster than he did from the metal of Abby's sword, even though it must have stung, as close as he stood to it. Dacey had touched the Kiya and felt her too closely in his soul, and the fear that she would take him again shown in his eyes. He saw it mirrored in Silver's as well.

Abby's new feeling of loss almost overcame him in that moment while his friend looked at the two of them. They didn't want to go, and Abby could not say the words—

"Put a ward around us,” Tristan said softly. “It's time we were on our way."

"I wish—” Dacey began, but he stopped, and Tristan wondered if he wished that they would not go, or that he could go with them. He didn't ask.

Dacey began the warding spell. Silver, less certain of his own new powers, carefully wove his own magic in with his friend's shield.

I wonder if they realize how powerful they are, Abby thought. They'll be safe, at least.

Bright lights and colors began to swirl around them: pretty magic that Dacey made, just because he could. Tristan added his own power to it, creating something that worked in harmony with the ward. The path to another place began to open before them.

"Find peace, my friends,” Prince Tain called out to them. No, not prince—he was King Tain now. Tristan and Abby had trouble making that change in thought, and Tristan suspected the same was true for Tain.

Abby bowed his head in thanks, but by then the sand and magic had started to obscure them, and by the next breath he could barely see the others. He and Tristan had somewhere else to go now. Abby could see nothing clearly down the long path this time. He looked back at his friends again and his hand started to lift, but he changed his mind and took hold of Tristan's arm instead.

"Time to go,” he finally admitted aloud.

"Gods be with you,” Brother called out. Abby looked back at him, startled that anyone would dare say those words to him. He wanted to admonish Brother—but the loss in his friend's voice stopped him. “Gods protect you and let you pass this way again. Peace."

"Peace,” Tristan echoed fervently, but with such a whisper of loss and longing in him that in that moment they started to leave the world behind, Abby felt more lost than he had in years.

But as they took that step away, somewhere behind them Phaedra sang.

Sweet, sweet

Sad, Sad

Longing for friends to return.

Part One: Demon Touched

Chapter One

Gray everywhere.

Grayish light, diffused and dirty looking, bathed the world beneath the heavy clouds. If the clouds held rain, they were reluctant to give it up, just as they had been everywhere the caravan had passed in the six weeks since they left Overton.

The old truck the woman in the lead drove wouldn't make it much farther. However, if Eliora remembered right, they wouldn't have far to go. This had to be the last range of hills before the river valley.

The others had followed this far on her word that she could lead them to a place of water. Desperate people who clung to the hope of survival, although everywhere they'd passed they'd found nothing but death and drought.

They'd left most of the vehicles behind as they ran out of gas. The others rode horses, or traveled in horse-drawn wagons—not much easier to keep going, with supplies so low. She had the last car. And the last five gallons of gas.

She didn't want to walk, and if her will could keep the truck going, it would take them all the way to the Promised Land that these people believed was out there, waiting for them while the rest of the world died. She couldn't imagine how they could have such faith in their great god Leje, not when they had suffered so much and seen so many of their own die on this journey.

The old truck staggered its way up the narrow path that had been meant for animals, not vehicles. Twenty years ago she had come here with her father. There had been green everywhere, then, and trees—not the wooden skeletons that clung to the hillside now, bleached white as bones. She'd seen a couple birds, though, and that gave her more hope than she cared to admit to anyone.

The truck reached the rise, and the trail dipped down on the other side to a wide flat area, and then down much farther...

She stopped the truck and got out, running her hand through her short brown hair. Plants grew on this side of the mountain, unexpected splashes of green: a color she had never thought to see again. Eliora feared she would cry at the sight and the others would know it, seeing the tracks through the gray dust that covered her face.

But even better than the plants, she could see the river, sluggish and muddy, but still flowing, in the valley below. They had arrived, and by some miracle (perhaps even Leje's work) the river still existed in a land where everything else had dried up and blown away.

"Eliora?” Buri asked, the older woman slipping from her worn-out horse and walking up to stand beside her. “Is it time to make camp?"

"Not yet. We'll camp by the river tonight.” She waved her arm in that direction.

The woman stared. Shock came so plainly to her rough face that Eliora suspected the woman didn't believe in her god's power as strongly as some of the others.

But even so, Buri turned back to the others and lifted her arms to the sky. “Leje be praised!"

The shout echoed down the path behind them, and even those who had not yet seen the view took it up. Many of them abandoned their horses and wagons to come to the ledge and look down—and kept going, belongings forgotten.

And forgot Eliora as well, who had led them here. No one looked back at her. She was not one of them. She did not believe in Leje or any of the other gods, and she certainly didn't believe that this group of barely a hundred had been chosen to survive while the rest of the world died.

However, desperate as they had been, they'd willingly hired an unbeliever to bring them to this river-land that she had visited long before the drought had made a desolate desert of the land outside of Overton. They'd traveled five hundred miles, all on the hope of finding this place still unoccupied.

Where would these fools be if she hadn't agreed to take them away from the city that had been dying by inches, and where they had fallen out of favor by preaching that the city elders had brought the drought by their own immorality?

Eliora hadn't been popular either, though for another reason. She still couldn't say what had driven her to offer this refuge to those wretches. She could have come here on her own. Surely she didn't need the company of others so much that she had even taken these people?

They didn't like her, but now they were stuck with each other, and she was no happier with her allies than they were with her. She would not conform to the ways of their god and retire into the fold of some man's house, to live out her days as his property and hardly distinguished from the pots and pans. She had been independent far too long, as well as educated in ways not common to women of their religion. She couldn't turn her mind off deliberately.

Still, they had come here with a common cause because the rulers of Overton hadn't had much use for her, either. She could draw her lineage back to the great kings, unlike the newcomer usurpers, and at a time when the people became increasingly superstitious and worried about their positions, she had looked like a threat. She hadn't thought she would survive much longer, not after her cousin Notland died in an accident.

"Leje be praised!"

The cry rose again. She didn't believe in their god. If they had thought before that she might be converted because she'd spent so much time with them, they had to be convinced by now. Eliora had decided that if these misfits truly had a god looking out for them, then he sadly lacked in showing his favor. The long trail leading to this valley was dotted with the graves of over a third of their people. She didn't want that kind of help.

A few of the men had come back for the wagons and horses. There was strength in their movement now. Children laughed and raced ahead. She thought to call out a warning to be careful, and to stay back from the river—but it was not her place.

Not her place at all. She found herself alone on the hilltop. The others had all gone past, toward their destiny. She watched as the weary horses dragged the last wagon downward, unaware that their work was done, at least for a while. There would be fields laid out where the river widened toward the north. There would be rocks to pull from the riverside, and a town to build....

But they would never move on from this place. Eliora's work was done forever.

She sat down on the bumper of the truck, pulled the old worn cloth from around her neck, and shook the dust from it. She had decisions to make. Go back? No. She didn't like the thought of walking all that way, and beyond a doubt they wouldn't give her a horse. That made the idea of going distasteful as well. The truck would barely make it up the next hill—if she could get it across the river—and it seemed doubtful that she would find anything better beyond it anyway.

The clouds still seemed to promise rain. Maybe it would come this time. Maybe the world would return from the edge of death, and even Overton would grow again. She couldn't wish to be back there on the edge of the shrinking sea, with the stench of dying fish and baked swamps. The people had already started to go crazy. Not a good place to be.

The river below them looked muddy, shrunken. How long until it, too, dried up? What would these fools do then?

Even as she watched, they had begun to gather down by the riverside and offer prayers of thanks. She knew from experience that the ceremonies would take the rest of the day. They would get nothing constructive done, but by the same notion, they wouldn't bother her much either. She might as well stay here and make camp. Tomorrow would be early enough to decide her own future.

The ledge just below where she was seemed good and solid. She got in the truck, and started it just long enough to get over the last ridge, then coast down a few yards before she pulled off to the side. It seemed like a pleasant place with a view of the valley and a breeze from the hill. She made camp and fixed her food for the night.

Fragments of songs, caught on the breeze, drifted up to her as the last bit of the gray day slipped into the black night. She tried not to listen, annoyed that the people allowed her no rest and peace, even now. Sometimes she really despised them, but as he stretched out on her blankets, Eliora knew that she would stay. She had nowhere else to go. Beyond the valley lay the great mountains, and she would never get across them. All else seemed to be desert. She might follow the river for a ways, just to study it ... but she knew that this would be her home.

Rains came that night, bringing cries of joy and laughter from far below. Eliora pulled her blankets up around her and retreated to the truck. She did not sleep much that night.

Chapter Two

Living in his father's domain gave Tabor certain powers and abilities. Sometimes being here bored him, but it was still worth the answers he gathered and knowing something of what his father planned. Today, sitting at his desk in his tower room, he caught the whisper of events elsewhere, mostly through the broadcast magic of Braith, his father's favorite ... dog.

Tabor knew that Abby and Tristan had left behind yet another world and moved on, uncertain of their next destination. Tabor, having tracked a new piece of the Kiya in his own way, knew where they were going. So did Gix and Braith. For once, they had moved in first.

Tabor thought how odd it must be for Abby and Tristan to have no place of rest on this long journey. He wondered if they still called Ylant home or thought about Eltabar and Ishan. Tabor didn't consciously call Ylant to mind very often, though oddly enough he dreamed about that world sometimes, recalling his youth and those years before he fully understood what it meant to be a demon's son.

Too often those dreams took him back to the time before he had received the call to take Mindeneh and free of the Kiya from the barbarian, Altazar. He couldn't clearly remember Emperor Altazar—the man who had caused such suffering for his world. It seemed as though he had been no one at all.

Tabor touched the scarf he wore at his neck—the one that hid the cut that never healed, though it didn't bleed much either. He kept that wound hidden because one didn't advertise any weakness in the face of the demon. It had been made by an old sword; a thing of evil, much like the staff. A shame the Kiya hadn't been as easy to destroy.

That treasonous thought he kept to himself. If the damned Kiya had been destroyed, he would not have spent so many years of his life chasing after her, hunting her, and fighting the godling for something neither of them really wanted.

Tabor had walked with humans in his youth. They had not been friends, really—but they'd stayed with him for a while and had been better company than he would ever find in this place. Viri had been oddly unafraid of Tabor's growing power and pretty Kishin had been drawn to it. Ah, and she had known how to quench the fever fire in his blood in those days, before his father's call had drowned out everything else.

When that call came upon him, he had gone off to fight the demon's war to take the Kiya. He couldn't remember when he had last seen those two, who had been his companions for years. Everything human had been lost to him in that moment when he accepted his father's birthright. He had gone and never looked back.

Except, lately, in his dreams.

Here in his father's domain he had learned much more about his background. Sometimes he even talked to Renage, the guard at the tower door. He gladly told Tabor tales of the past and proved to be a wonderful resource, though they were careful to keep Braith from learning about this. Whether Gix knew or not, Tabor couldn't say. Sometimes his father just didn't care.

Or didn't know. Now, looking back at that time when he first came to Gix's side, he realized how odd it had been that his father hadn't known about the godling—about Abby. Gix should have realized the moment he sired a child on a woman that there would be—or already had been—a balance made. He had, apparently, assumed that only he had that link to the world because the Kiya had been freed, and things were out of flux. Gix had thought only about getting the Kiya Chanda Andee into demon hands, though he dared not set foot on the world and grab it himself. That would have brought the gods.

Gix had used a level of subtlety and patience Tabor would not have suspected in his father. He had created a son half a world away from the Kiya so that the gods watching over the staff would not see him. It had worked ... except that the gods had made their own subtle plans to take hold of the Kiya as well, and done it a bit better. If the gods had gone near the Kiya the demons would have known. And if Starwind hadn't kept her son so innocent of his own heritage—

Tabor shivered at that thought, thinking he might have grown up the same way, powerless and shoved into a battle he had no understanding of, a mere pawn—well, they were both pawns, it was true. But still, he had choices that had never been given to Aubreyan.

Tabor stood and paced, thinking how different his future would have been if he hadn't failed on Ylant. He failed on the world of his birth because even he, with his half human blood, had looked into the spring green eyes of Aubreyan Altazar and felt the pull of something that promised something better than what he and the demons had brought to the world. And that had been before Abby even knew about his half-god heritage.

Tabor stopped pacing at the small window set in the rough stone of his room's wall. His eyes focused on the splash of green far out across the plain, the oasis of life that even his father's efforts could not eradicate. The hope that Brendan had left behind had proved more powerful than a demon in his own realm.

And Tabor looked at that growing circle of green and smiled.

The smile frightened him. Demon and human nature battled for control of his emotions as he stared out into the world. He did not wish to be human and weak. Powerless. But did he want to be a demon? To always look away from the green and accept the gray of death and the red of blood as his only inheritance? Did he want to be only his father's son?

Tabor stepped away from the window and cursed. He had power in this world; something many-legged and dark as the night grew from those spoken words. It surged away into the corner and out through a crevice in the wall. Maybe it would go and bedevil Braith for a while. Tabor even dared wish it to, directing the misbegotten creature with the thoughts of the one who had created it.

Tabor went back to the desk, but before he sat down, the summons he had expected finally came. He felt his father's insistent order like a slap against the face. He must go immediately. And behind his father's power he felt the taint of Braith, like the stink of a long dead dog.

Despite his distaste for the two, and the welling of anger that came at his father's demands, Tabor quickly left the room and started the long walk up the tower stairs to his father's throne room. He had learned quickly that tarrying did not help. Go and be done with it.

He also dared not show worry about what they wanted from him, nor absolutely any fear. In fact, he had learned to show no emotion at all, except for disdain. He had even curbed the outward show of hatred he felt for Braith, at least when in Gix's presence. His father would use that hatred against him, because it was, really, a weakness and even Tabor knew it. But it was his own emotion, and he clung to it.

He prepared himself as he took the last steps and walked into the hall that stank of death and fear—and curbed a moment of surprise. He had not expected to find a human here. He gave the creature only the barest glance, as one might look at a worm before trampling it underfoot. The good little human moved out of his way, calculation in his dark eyes as he measured the power that Tabor might have in this place.

"How may I help you, father?” Tabor asked, the words carefully chosen for the effect. He did not serve like Braith.

"This mage serves us well,” Gix said, his voice thundering in the room. “And we reward him with riches and power for his help in bringing the godling to me."

"Capture of the godling?” Tabor asked, one eyebrow raised as he cast a significant glance around the room. He said nothing aloud about the godling's obvious absence.

Braith bristled at that look; then this was his ploy for power, after all. The demon lord showed a moment of amusement, though. Tabor had judged that well enough. How was it that Braith, though closer to Gix, could never read the signs?

"He has prepared the way with destruction and the seeds of disaster that will stop the godling, and leave him friendless,” Braith said. “And he will do more. He will collect the Kiya and use her to bring us that which we crave."

"I'm sure he will,” Tabor said. Tabor stood by his father's throne and watched the human, wondering what had brought such a fool to this place. To come willingly was madness, and he saw that in those wild dark eyes. That much hunger for power became a disease of the soul and a madness of the mind.

Braith stood by the human, his look no less wild. Gix leaned back, deceptively at ease, but the Tabor thought the human knew better. This human had the look of someone who knew the way of demons, and had trafficked with more than just Gix in the past.

For power. He was a fool. The power always came at a price, and a human could rarely manage to pay with less than his soul. The human bargained to live his afterlife subjugated to Gix, no matter what power he held for the moment. How could he wish such a thing?

And how could Gix trust such a creature?

"I will give him riches for his work,” Gix said and the human looked at him with adoration. “If you serve me as well, Tabor, shall I gift you with riches and powers?"

"I already serve you, and I don't do it for trinkets,” he said and then looked at Braith. “And I don't do it for power. I have my own."

"Why then?” Gix demanded, a look of mistrust in his face now.

"Because I am your son."

A world of untruths went unsaid in those words, however much they were the truth in themselves. Gix and even Braith didn't seem to question beyond the surface, though.

"Kneel before me and give me your hands,” Gix ordered.

He did so without pause, although he now knew what the demon and Braith planned, and the reason why he had been summoned here. He lifted his hands. They did not even tremble.

Gix held up his clawed hand and disappointment showed in the dog's face. Braith liked to do the cutting himself, but he had been too smug. No bones from the master's table today.

Until this meeting, Gix and Braith had been secretive about their work, almost childishly hiding it from Tabor. Now they must have thought nothing could stop the plans. Tabor wondered if they had taken the fact that Abby had won so many times before into account, and that Tabor had done better in collecting pieces of the Kiya by not going up against the godling.

Tabor could have walked to that world and taken the little piece of the Kiya. He knew where it was, and so did Gix and Braith. The human had used the power to corrupt the world. They wanted more than just the Kiya, though. Gix lusted for the power of Abby as his slave. In some ways it still blinded him, though he must have seen that time had started to run out, the pieces coming one by one into the hands of the godling or his son. When the Kiya had finally been gathered, and the final battle fought to see who won the right to claim her whole, Gix would lose all chances to grab the godling.

Gix suddenly dragged a clawed finger across Tabor's wrist, cutting deep into the skin. He spoke a few low, growling words and used his son's blood to fashion the portal that would send the human, with his trinkets and his power, back to the world.

The human went back to finish his work. If they thought the human would be a match for the godling—well, they had not been paying much attention.

When the human had gone, Braith had his time with Tabor as they looked in on Abby and Tristan, who were just now leaving Dacey's world. Tabor hardly had time to look. Braith enjoyed his work too well, and Tabor would remember each cut, each twist of the knife. The wounds would heal, but he'd still remember. Braith doubtlessly thought himself safe from the hatred in Tabor's eyes—after all, he was the Demon Lord's favorite, and it was not as though things ever changed much in this hell.

But then again, no one had really had any reason to change things before now. Well, no one with power, at least.

Tabor endured the pain in silence. He'd shed blood for the little game this dog played because, in truth, it covered other things very well. Braith was always extravagant in his magical castings. He liked to flaunt his power and to waste it.

And when he did so in a show like this one, Tabor trapped threads of that magic and wove the braids of it within his hands, the blood magic of his own wounds hiding what he took back.

He had thought them almost done before Gix stepped back forward again, and for the first time in all the years he had worked with his demon father, he saw this creature use true magic in ways he'd never imagined before.

Tabor watched as Abby and Tristan followed their path ... and Gix slowed them, though they probably didn't even know it. The Demon used subtle magic that reached forward, backward, now and forever. The world to which the godling and Elf traveled moved forward—a dizzying stretch of dawns and sunsets, for each step that Abby and Tristan took....

Chapter Three

A stranger went past her stone cottage, his fur coat tied tight around his waist, a scrap of wool wound around his face. Eliora went to the window and looked out, watching him with an unexpected sense of dread. He carried a long bow across his shoulder and the pelts of a dozen animals hung on the pole he used as a staff.

In the seven years since they had settled Promise, no strangers had come. The villagers had feared the arrival of someone who might give their little paradise away to the outside world. Eliora herself had not been so worried about it—it was a long, dangerous hike to this little bit of safety. But now, this man moving past her cottage made her uneasy.

The people had found safety in Promise, and wealth counted in plentiful food, while the rest of the world still appeared to be gripped in the destructive drought. Eliora had not left the valley in three years, but there was no reason to think the rest of the world had gotten better. Even here, the gray days hung over them. Only the river promised survival.

The stranger had moved past her home, never once pausing to see if anyone lived within. He headed down toward the town, perhaps drawn by the obelisk that marked the temple. Maybe a believer had found his way to this refuge. She wouldn't mind that, really. Another one wouldn't be any more trouble than all the others. At least she would know what to expect if that were the case.

But if it were not...

Eliora pulled on her own fur cloak, and then grabbed the gun from the box by the bed. She wished uselessly for more bullets. With so few left, she'd have to make them count, but Eliora had already started learning to use a bow. She would not be helpless.

She took her dagger as well. Two men had learned firsthand that she could use it, and the others left her alone afterwards. She never went to the village without it, though.

The stranger had made it halfway down the slippery, ice-covered trail to the town by the time she finally stepped from the hut. Eliora didn't know why she followed, except as an acknowledgement that what happened in the village still concerned her. And she did have one thing in common with those fanatics; neither she nor they wanted strangers here.

Ice lay in pools across the trail, and the river had frozen over this year. There had been very little rain last spring, but they still did well. The water mill remained dry-docked for the winter, though, and she missed having electricity. It seemed, sometimes, that spring would never come again, and they would slip farther and farther away from the gifts of civilization. She hated that feeling. She wanted the world of her youth back, but knew it would never come again.

So she had to make the best of what they had found here.

The trapper had gone to the square by the temple. He stopped there, silently waiting while the priest came from the temple, the city elders joining him. Eliora found herself amused at the strength of their reaction. From the look on the villagers’ faces she might have thought the man came as an emissary from their most feared devil. Nonetheless, she stood beside them in front of the temple. In this, at least, they agreed. They would not allow trouble to come to Promise.

"Who are you?” Wrisu, the priest, asked as he stepped forward. He kept his hand on the medallion hanging from his neck, as though seeking protection—and as though he believed it would come if he needed it.

The stranger turned to him with gray eyes and glared as he pulled aside the cloth that covered his face. A handsome man, but haughty. He moved with a dangerous air of power that Eliora found disturbing. He didn't speak.

"Tell us what you want here, and then be gone,” Patis, a town elder said. His voice quivered with age, but she could see no weakness in his glare as he faced the man. “We do not welcome outsiders."

"I ask nothing of you,” the stranger finally said. Odd accent. The glare he turned on the others sent people backing away, though Eliora stayed by the priest, probably to Wrisu's dismay. The stranger looked at her and she felt her hand going to her dagger out of reflex. “You, woman, will come with me. We shall be together."

"Like hell we will,” she said, and did pull the gun.

"Oh yes. Very much like hell. For I have come from hell to lay a trap that has been years in the making. And you shall be favored for your part. You should be grateful. The demon himself could have come instead, and you would not have survived it. But I bring his gift and his magic, and traps that I will lay for others to spring. We shall be subtle."

"No—” she said, and took a step back. A weak move—she knew it to be a mistake the moment she did it, but the shock had overcome her.

Wrisu looked at her, looked at the man—and bowed to him, moving away. Gods be damned, he meant to give her to the stranger. She had only one chance as she brought the gun up—

The stranger caught her arm with inhuman quickness and relieved her of the gun. “I want her for a while. You would be wise not to interfere,” he said, looking back at Wrisu.

"Why would we?” he asked. “She isn't one of ours. Take her and be gone."

He pulled her away from the square. In truth, Eliora didn't fight much. What was the use? They climbed the long trail in silence, his hand around her wrist, though he seemed to have noticed that she didn't fight him. When he stopped outside her stone cottage, he looked down at the village with such disdain that she felt a little kinship with this man even as she despised him.

He looked back at her, gray eyes that looked silver in the bright light of day. He smiled, but that didn't make him look any less dangerous.

"I tested them,” he said. She still couldn't place the accent. His hand went to a chain around his neck; something glowed a little on the end of it. A bit of advanced technology, saved from the world going to hell. “I tested them and I see that they will, indeed, serve my master well."

"They serve their god and no other,” Eliora replied, shaking her head in denial, though she had no idea why she should feel any inclination to stand up for them. “You won't have a chance. You might as well move on."

"They serve only their pride. They indulge themselves with illusions of sanctity, but that will pass when Aubreyan comes this way. Oh yes, he will show them truths that they have never known."

The stranger went to the door of her home and stopped there, looking back. She didn't want to follow him, but she did, as though she had no other choices left in the world. Perhaps she had just grown tired. Nothing seemed to matter now.

"I am called Noman,” he said with an unexpectedly graceful bow. Beneath the fur he wore well made clothing. “I am promised power elsewhere if this trap works. It shall not be unpleasant for us, Eliora of the hill. And you, too, shall have gifts in return, if for no other reason than that I despise fools like those who hide in the village below and pretend they are brave."

She didn't know if she believed him, but it hardly mattered. Her old truck, long ago half-rusted away, would never take her away fast enough to escape him. She walked past him into the home that she had so carefully built, sometimes with the help of a few from the village. She had thought some of them...

And she thought she heard distant shouts of anger.

"Pay them no mind,” he said, his hand resting on her arm. He led her across the room to the bed...

And from that moment on it seemed there was nothing in the world but him ... and the children that grew in her womb from that night. She sometimes thought time moved in a strange way—that the days sped by with an unnatural speed, and if she could just step away from his hold on her, than the world would slow and turn right again.

He stayed until the night the twins were born, and while she lay on the bed by the hearth, almost too weak to move, Noman lifted the girl child and whispered in that alien tongue that he sometimes used. The words sent a chill through her body, as though he had gifted her with something in those sibilant sounds. He did not touch the boy, and she pulled the small child closer, fearing for a moment that he would do the boy harm. Odd to feel such a maternal instinct for something she had thought she would hate.

"Balances,” he said, looking at the boy, but not touching him. “We should have seen that part. It is nature, like the gods themselves, making certain that nothing is too much out of balance."

He brushed a hand over Eliora's arm, a touch that tingled and seemed to release her from bondage. Rage and fear rose up in her so quickly that the children must have sensed them, for they wailed in fright.

Noman stepped away, going to the door. He stopped and looked back at her, smiling as he bowed. “Be well, Eliora. That I gift to you, along with the children. They shall bring you luck. We would want nothing to happen to them. But now I must go away, and be ready when the others arrive."

He stepped out the door and closed it behind him. She could see him go past the window, back up into the hills. He didn't come back.

Chapter Four

Tabor watched as Abby and Tristan took another step. Time hung, motionless between breaths. And here? For the first time Tabor wondered about time in this place—about the long days and the endless nights. He wondered about having stopped growing older, like Abby and Tristan, caught in some demon manipulated moment of time.

And they took another step closer.

The world before them, still spinning too quickly, began to slow. What had been green when they started on this journey had turned gray and lifeless. The demon's hand showed too clearly on the world. It had begun to look like this domain.

Tabor couldn't concentrate. Braith dug at him, savoring the power that spread in pools across the floor. He created portals from that blood, and sent more evils to the world. Gargoyles flocked through the room and on to somewhere else. Spells let loose destroyed farmlands, killed cities.

Tabor had never seen such wholesale destruction before, and it sickened him. There was no finesse in this work, nor anything won, because nothing remained to be taken. Even Gix finally grew bored with the game and hissed a warning. Braith swept through one more time, marking where Abby and Tristan moved, and using Tabor's power—Tabor's own blood—to send a wind that would brush against the two as soon as they stepped into the world. It waited, poised and poisoned, and Tabor suspected that the two would not even realize, despite the taint of demon in the air.

Ah, but there Braith had made his first real mistake. By using Tabor's blood to fuel the spell he gave Tabor a link straight to the elf and the godling.

Tabor latched onto that link, but even the expenditure of so small an amount of power on his own almost drove him into darkness this time.

He held on, watching as the world slowed, or Abby and Tristan started to move faster. Soon...

Chapter Five

There had been another grisly death on a farm no more than twelve miles from Promise. As Eliora walked through the marketplace, she heard the whisper of fearful words behind her. This was the sixth death this year, and a woman and her young son were missing as well. She schooled her face not to show emotion, and especially not the worry that crept into her soul.

No one ever told her the news, but she heard it anyway.

She heard the other words—the inevitable whispers as well—that Noman had returned again. The rumor started up and grew in strength with every disappearance and mysterious death. She didn't know why they feared him so much, except that maybe, like her, they had felt his power on them so long ago ... and feared that it would be that way again.

The priests carefully watched her lonely cottage, waiting for him to come back. She laughed at the thought of them actually doing something if he did turn up. She despised the men who looked at her with their sanctimonious air of superiority. They had given her to Noman, and no amount of praying could change their cowardice that night. She knew that some of the locals had argued with the priest afterward, but it changed nothing.

Strangely it seemed as though Leje, their wonderful god, sided with her as well. Two days after the twins were born, the priest and his people had started for her house with the intent to kill the newly born spawn of the devil, now that the devil had disappeared and they need not fear him. Wrisu fell and broke his neck. The villagers, always a superstitious lot, took that as an omen and a sign. They went back to the village and returned a few hours later with gifts for the babies instead.

The rains had come that night, a god-gift readily welcomed in this parched land. Over the next eighteen years, gifts brought rain and abundance, and any cruelty against the two children brought ill in return. After awhile, even Eliora believed that something must watch over her children. God or devil; the difference hardly mattered to her anymore.

Eliora held power over these people. They dared not take the children from her, and she held the children's fate over those who had turned their backs on her when she needed them. She ruled the villagers and she had proved to be fair and wise, and unbiased by the laws of their god. Eliora did so well at purposely annoying them and proving herself better than the people who claimed their worship made them wise and good.

The villagers still whispered that Noman had been a devil in human disguise, even if his children seemed to be protected by their own god. She didn't understand the logic in their reasoning, but she wouldn't have told them differently, even if she knew the truth.

The valley prospered. The rains came with a regularity that didn't occur in the rest of the region. Their prosperity defied rational explanation. Overton, from which they had fled over twenty years before, had withered away to a ghost town. New people sometimes still arrived with tales of the horrible world beyond this little valley, and sometimes brought a few gifts of old technology—but even those items had dwindled as though they blown away in the dust beyond their valley.

However, last year someone had brought radios. She had taken one and in the late of night sometimes she could still hear the voices of people far away. Did they still have civilization out there somewhere? Cars and gas, radios and buildings with running water and electricity on all the time? She could have envied them, except that the words she heard were still frantic, worried and afraid. Even Eliora had gotten used to doing without technology. They had made a new world, and, despite herself, she had found a place in it.

The priests still insisted that only the faithful be allowed to settle within twenty miles of Promise. Those who lived within that sphere had to profess belief and attend the temple on Holy Days as well as give over a tithe to the Temple.

All except for Eliora and her children. No one dared demand anything of them, least of all belief.

The marketplace grew silent around her as Eliora moved from booth to booth, gathering whatever caught her eyes. Bounty, tribute, ransom—the word they used for what she took didn't matter any more. Oh, she knew they hid many things when they saw her come down from the cottage on the hill, but some left out the sort of pretties she liked, and she wished them well for their little gifts, and even sometimes left them coin worth far more than the baubles.

It was a good day to wander the market. Spring had come just in time, she thought, trying to forget the winter ache of bones getting old. She liked to walk through the signs of prosperity again, and some of the people even greeted her with smiles.

Eliora hadn't expected to find the twins here, and especially not together. Although born only minutes apart, and as alike in form as a girl and boy might be, they were quite opposites in nature. Liora had grown up too much like her mother—tall and defiant, her auburn hair falling like waves of molten fire around her face. Her eyes were gray though, and whenever Eliora looked into them, she remembered Noman.

Lehan was different. His hair was more the color of rich wood, and his eyes the color of tree leaves, green and fresh in the spring. Unlike his mother and sister, if he wanted something he asked for it. Eliora wondered if that was truly his nature or if he did it as a way of rebelling. It amused her to watch him.

"Lady Eliora,” her daughter said and bowed, mocking her mother and the villagers who called her by that name. “A good day. I think there shall be rain. Should I wish it for these fine people?"

"Daughter,” Eliora said, though she stood straighter rather than bow. The years had not made her feeble, at least. “Lehan."

"Lady,” he said, a soft acknowledgement and little more. He always seemed distant.

They never called her mother; that word did not describe the bond that they shared. The people stared, silent and mistrusting of their games, and no doubt wishing them to leave. She didn't feel like playing today. Let the twins have their fun. She wanted to go back to her cottage and sit in peace, away from the stares. She took the vegetables and meat she'd gathered, and turned away. No good-byes. No words. The twins went their way and she turned back to the long trail that led to the stone cottage that sat like a castle, overlooking the domain. She had never really wanted more.

Eliora started slowly up the hillside, enjoying the spring morning, at least until the clouds began to swiftly sweep in over the mountains. They looked thick and dark, rather than gray. She thought they might bring rain, like the storms that had blown in from the sea when she had lived on the shore by Overton. She'd been young then, and full of adventure, but she was rich here. She had power. She had even learned to live with the bitterness.

As she neared the top of the trail and her home, the wind blew with a sudden, unexpected fierceness, and dirt rose into the air like a hard, stinging fog. She put a hand over her mouth and nose and moved faster, trying not to feel as though this trail got longer every day...

The wind blew hot and then very cold. The clouds pushed their way over the mountain far too quickly and gave her the impetus to move faster than she had in a few years. She wanted out of the storm, safe within the walls of stone where nothing had touched her since Noman left.

The dirt in the air nearly blinded her, but she knew the way too well. She reached the door, cursing to herself at the lock she had put on, and the key that did not want to fit today. But no one walked into her home uninvited. Finally she threw it open, rushing inside with a cough and gasp of relief.

Eliora tossed her supplies aside and used both hands to fight the door closed again. The wind howled through the shutters and it sounded as though a volley of rocks hit the side of the building. She looked through the cracks of the shutters and saw hail the size of walnuts beating against the ground.

Eliora shuddered and felt ill at the thought of what that hail would do to the newly emerged crops if it moved off the mountain side and down to the valley. For a moment she almost—almost—asked Leje to keep the farms safe.

The hail ended quickly, but the rain came, torrents rushing down the side of the cottage. Water began to seep through her roof in a dozen places. It had never rained like this here, and it frightened her.

The door burst open again. Eliora spun, her hand gong to the dagger she kept at her waist. She expected to see him again with a premonition of warning that like this storm that seemed to come from hell itself.

Instead Liora and Lehan unexpectedly stumbled inside, both drenched, and Lehan bleeding from a cut on the forehead. He fought the door closed again, this time throwing the wooden bar in place as well as setting the lock. The wind clawed at the door, shaking it as though someone else still wanted in. It would have unnerved Eliora if she had been here alone. But she would not show weakness before his children.

"What are you doing here?” she asked. They no longer lived in the cottage, preferring life in the village where the others gave them food each day, and treated them like young gods. Eliora made them work for their keep. Only Lehan sometimes came back and helped out around the place, as though he enjoyed it—but he lived with his sister, nonetheless.

"Shelter,” Liora said, dropping into the rocking chair by the fireplace. Eliora's chair, but what did that mean to the child?

No longer a child, Eliora suddenly realized and saw the years that had fled from her in the youth of her daughter. The time that had passed had seemed nothing more than waiting. Waiting for something more to happen.

Waiting for the storm to break....

Chapter Six

When Tabor awoke, he found that he'd been returned to his room and Braith was still there, prowling around his desk. From the feel of his back and his head, Braith must have dragged him all the way down here.

Tabor considered leaping up and pounding the animal into the wall and then stuffing the remains through that very narrow window. Not that it would do him much good, really. Braith wouldn't die, of course, though he would suffer for a good long time while he healed. And he'd come back and have his revenge. Revenge, in fact, had become something of an art here in Gix's world. They had so little else to occupy themselves with, the ones who had been here for too long. Tabor, at least, had his chances to walk away to other places, and that had helped temper his moods.

This time he stayed very still on the bed where he'd been tossed, and pretended to be unconscious while he watched the dog sniffing around.

And that was when Braith made his second, and far more dangerous, mistake. The dog let greed get the better of him. Still thinking Tabor senseless, he came back to the bed. Watching through his mostly closed eyes, Tabor saw the dog smile and whisper magic just before he drove his hand down into Tabor's chest.

Braith grabbed at the heart blood, the most powerful and laden with demon magic. If Tabor had been unconscious, he likely would have thought the pain that came in the aftermath only a part of the trial he had already been through.

Instead, he held still through the agony of those brief half dozen heartbeats. Braith began to draw back, reveling in the ecstasy of power. And while Braith remained senseless in his own way, Tabor managed three fine little spells.

The first used his own blood as a mask that would hide any magical actions he took and keep them invisible to Braith. The second set a link within Braith himself, so that Tabor would always be aware of what he did, said, and saw. The final spell awoke the little bit of demon poison he'd inherited from his father. That would make Braith ill and weak, at least until he realized the cause of the illness.

So Tabor had his own little revenge. And he rested afterwards, as content as he was apt to be in this place. Braith had been a fool, and it would cost him.

Patience now. He only need wait a little while longer....

Part Two: The Storm

Chapter One

Leaving behind friends always filled him with loss, but this time Abby felt less bitterness. Dacey had stood with his brothers. They had brought that change to the world, and even if the Kiya had never come this way, the people would still have hunted and killed him. For the first time, Abby could clearly see that they had done something good in their journey.

So he had left without bitterness this time, just the longing ... yes; sweet, sweet, sad, sad—longing for his own place in the sun. Aubreyan Altazar understood the dirge very well. He knew the pain of being an exile.

Dacey, Silver and the others disappeared, like ghosts in a dream, fading as the universe swirled around them. They walked. It seemed a very long journey, those few steps that brought them—

Here.

Gray. Abby coughed as he choked on the dust, but Tristan stumbled and paled, a shiver going through him that Abby felt as well. Abby brushed the dust away from his face and blinked, looking up into a gray, clouded sky.

Tristan had already begun to strip off the jacket that had kept him warm in the cool breezes of somewhere else. Tristan wanted to go back. He already didn't like this world.

The sun, though shielded by clouds, felt too hot. Gray dust, caught in the wind, swirled everywhere. Not the golden sands of a desert like Taru. Different. So many places, so many changes.

"Not a desert,” Abby said aloud, though he knew Tristan had followed his thoughts. He knelt, leaning on the Janin. Weary. The journey had seemed long and hard and he wanted rest.

"Abby?” Tristan whispered.

"Sorry.” He looked at his companion, brother of his soul. “I'm just very tired."

"I know.” Tristan put a hand on his shoulder, and for a moment Abby saw a glimpse of Tristan's loss, which felt too much like his own.

A collage of faces and the whisper of voices circled through his mind in the moment of that touch, and the emotions that came far more strongly. Abby didn't usually remember the voices. The faces came through his eyes, but the voices were part of Tristan's memory. That proved they were still two people. Sometimes he wondered.

"Abby?” Tristan whispered, confused.

Abby pulled away and looked down at the ground and swept his fingers though the fine gray dust. “It wasn't always like this,” he said, ignoring the feelings that he'd called up. “It's just dry. There hasn't been much rain here in far too long."

"I think we stirred up quite a storm.” Tristan lifted his fingers toward the sky and touched something that Abby couldn't sense on his own. Another sign of the differences between them. “There's rain all around us. It will even come here soon."

"Wash this dust away,” Abby said as he stood, brushing gray from his fingers. It clung to his skin and clothing. “I don't like this place."

"It feels dead,” Tristan finally said the words that Abby couldn't quite bring himself to admit. “There was life here, and now it's gone. I don't like it Abby. This place makes me feel very uneasy—"

"Is there magic?” Abby asked, coming quickly back to his feet, nearly blind with fear in that moment. Tristan needed magic to live—

Tristan lifted his hand again and titled his head again, his dark eyes closing. Darkness seeped in around the link through the crown, a comforting, peaceful dark that didn't frighten him.

"There is magic here, but it's wild and unused. The people could have brought life back if they knew how to harness the magic."

Abby breathed deeply, calmer again for the news. This place had already affected him badly, and he needed to get better control. They would hunt down the Kiya and be gone again as soon as possible. And if there was no life ... well, there would be no one to worry over and no regrets when they left. This world might be a blessing after all.

Tristan's hand reached up into the sky and in the next moment the rain fell. Abby gratefully turned his head upward and let it wash the dust from his face. He felt better, cleansed, and even his mind seemed to clear.

"I suppose we had better look for a settlement,” Tristan said. He pushed his hands through his hair and looked worried. “I think I can sense people here still, though the feeling is very muted."

"I wouldn't care if we were alone,” Abby replied. He watched as rivulets of gray water ran down the rocks. He could see a little farther now, and guessed they were on some sort of hillside. “Not having to deal with people would be—forgive me—a blessing this time. I grow weary of having to say good-bye, and to watch and fear for those who are caught up in our war."

"I know.” Tristan took a tentative step forward toward the sun—rising? Setting? He wasn't certain yet. “We have been lucky in our friends. I miss them. This place is going to give us problems, Abby. I think if we get the chance, we should hide the Janin this time. I can sense no outward magic at all, and something like her—she would cause trouble."

The Janin hummed softly, obviously subdued as well. She didn't seem to even notice Tristan's statement, although there was little doubt that she understood.

"Maybe we can disguise her instead."

"I can try—” Tristan reached upward toward her, though not to touch. With magic he dragged from the air, he began to encase her in pieces of old, dried wood that he brought from around them. He got nearly half way up before she protested. The wood splintered away, and he sighed, began again—

"No Tristan. It's too dangerous,” Abby said, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder. “Even if we got her in the wood, chances are she'd just break free at the wrong time. That could be dangerous and rather defeat the idea of hiding her. Besides, she's still going to hum. I don't think we can mute her."

"True,” Tristan agreed. “We'll hide her if we get the chance. The lack of magic might work well for us. I think the Kiya will stand out, wherever she is."

"You didn't sense her?"

"No, not directly. A feeling that she's here, and near, but nothing more. I fear that I'll stand out as well,” Tristan admitted. “I'm as much of magic as the Janin."

"If there are people here they likely don't know the feel of magic. They'll see it in the Janin, but chances are they won't even notice that you're not one of—them."

"You almost said one of us.” Tristan put a hand to the stone at his forehead, a brush of worry. “Lately you've come to think of yourself less and less as a man."

"Since the battle with the djinn,” Abby said.

"No, before that,” Tristan replied with a shake of his head. Abby could feel the little whisper of consternation, so unlike Tristan. “You started to feel that way when you gave Dacey back his voice."

"I don't know how I did it."

"You commanded him to speak,” Tristan answered softly.

Abby shivered, his mind filled with the memories and feelings of when he had been caught between fear of death—at least for his companions—and fear of what would happen if he called upon the gods. He didn't know what he had done in that moment. He didn't understand why Dacey spoke for him.

"It doesn't matter, Aubreyan Altazar. You did it, and we all survived because Dacey could call upon Phaedra and save us. And now we're here. That was truly another time, and some other place. I believe there are many things you could do if the need were great enough."

"I know no magic."

"You don't need magic.” Tristan slowed and put a hand on Abby's shoulder. He hadn't expected the touch, or the acceptance and warmth that spread through that touch. “Magic brings power to use. Abby, you have power already. I think you are coming of age as your mother's child."

"I don't want—"

"Don't shy away from what you are. Forgive me Abby, but we are all what we were born to be. Denying that part of you will not cleanse your blood of her link. And tell me, would you want it to? I never thought being the son of Emperor Altazar the Barbarian was so important to you, and yet you never deny that part of your heritage."

"He never lied to me about who he was—or what I was. But she...” He stopped and shook his head. “I deny them both in my own way. I will not be a barbarian like him, and I have done what I could as a human to deny her. But I can't also deny that the power might serve us in times of need."

"I know,” Tristan said. “Just sometimes saying it all aloud helps. You keep some parts of yourself hidden so well that even I cannot touch them without trying, and I refuse to pry."

"Thank you, Tristan.” Abby smiled suddenly and looked up into the rain again. “This is almost as good as Dacey's storm."

"Perhaps it will help this blighted land. I wish I understood more about how we travel. What is time and distance? How long ago did this happen? Did the world start to die when the Kiya arrived?"

"This had to take years to happen.” Abby shivered with the thought that this might have been his fault.

"How can you assume guilt? You didn't create the Kiya, and I was the one who scattered her. How could any of this be your fault?"

"Because of what I am. Because I did not accept my mother's heritage, because I did not hold on to the Kiya when I had her ... because of any number of things,” Abby said. He sighed and shrugged before Tristan could speak. “You are the only one who keeps me sane, you know. You are the one who helps me keep going through this madness."

"Good. Then I have done well."

"This way,” Abby said, and turned to right. “There are people this way."

Tristan stopped, confused. “How do you know?"

Abby laughed and knelt down on the ground. His fingers brushed across a rut dug deep into the ground and he could see another that paralleled it not far away. “A trail. Forgive me for laughing, but you were so surprised and worried that I had developed another power you didn't understand that you never saw the obvious answer."

Tristan laughed, and couldn't deny that he felt a great deal of relief at the mundane answer. The amusement helped both of their moods as they walked on in this gray, and now wet, world. The tracks were old, worn into the ground and baked there. But they had to lead somewhere.

Having a destination helped. They walked on, Tristan matching his pace to Abby's. They walked in silence, a kind of peace that shared thoughts and didn't demand attention. The rain eased to a mist, and the sun moved slowly above them, distant behind the clouds, but still too well felt.

"At least we weren't dropped right into a battle,” Tristan said.

"Something to be thankful for,” Abby said. He swung the Janin out in front of him to dispel the rain.

She sang, suddenly, a song so bright and happy that Tristan laughed with the memory of home that the words brought. He remembered Ishan and the gentle creatures that had taken refuge there under the care of elves who swore to protect them—

"From men,” Abby said, finishing that thought. “And they did a good job until I brought down the barrier."

"To save everyone and everything from the destruction of darkness."

"Which I also brought,” he reminded Tristan, though with an unexpected lack of bitterness. “Ah well; it is done, Tristan. I'll have to learn to live with it. I'm sure those on Ylant have by now."

"Acceptance at last,” Tristan said aloud, but something lingered, doubtful in his mind. “What brought it all on, suddenly?"

He laughed again. “I think Dacey changed me. Tristan, despite the death of the king—or maybe because of it—I feel as though we did well and left his world better than we found it. Dacey was in trouble, and the Kiya had little to do with his problems. If we hadn't passed through his world, he would be dead by now. And I think we may have helped on the other worlds as well. Crystal and Etric were in trouble—though I suspect they might have survived, as cunning as they are. Brendan—well, I can't regret having been to his world. And our own? Maybe it's just better to have us gone."

"Abby—"

"I meant that we took the war away with us, Tristan, as we'll always do. And since we have not fought it all on any one world, maybe that has helped them all to survive."

"Ah, good point.” Tristan stumbled as mud caught at his feet. The open field of gray they crossed seemed to stretch on forever. He began to worry about what he'd done.

"I don't want to believe that we've already brought trouble here,” Abby said, but he still felt a whisper of humor in his own thoughts.

"I don't think any amount of rain could hurt this place,” Tristan admitted. “The only problem is likely to be for us."

"True.” Abby used the Janin to keep his own balance. He had pulled a muscle in his leg and limped worse than usual. She didn't appear to care that mud half covered her, and still hummed quite happily. “We'll be across this field soon. I think I can see more hills a little ahead. And I can still see the path, even as everything else turned to mud."

"I wish...” Tristan began and stopped again.

But he didn't need to stay the rest. Abby had caught it from his thoughts, the fears that came again.

"This did not happen overnight. Whatever lived here had moved on,” Abby said. He stared ahead, but for a moment he didn't really see where they walked. “They went across the world to the place where the gray didn't reach, to a land where they could find blue water and green life again."

Tristan stopped and put a hand on Abby's arm, making the stronger link again, though Abby didn't understand why at first. “You know that they're out there, don't you? Places where life still exists on this world."

"Maybe I do,” Abby admitted. “That might be a gift from my mother, drawing me to life. Or maybe I only want to believe that life will survive, despite what troubles I might bring to a world."

"Abby, it's not—"

"My fault,” Abby said, finishing for him. “I know. But even so, I just want to hope for better."

"Hope for an end to it all,” Tristan said, the admission that neither of them had ever spoken aloud, but couldn't really hide, either. “And it will end, you know. There are only a few more pieces of the Kiya to find."

"I fear that by the time we retrieve the last piece of the Kiya we may not remember Ylant at all. Where will we go?"

"We still have to find the pieces,” Tristan said and laughed. “Let's not suddenly get optimistic. We've never really believed that we'd survive, have we?"

"Oh, that's a much better thought,” Abby said and batted at Tristan's head. The elf pulled away in time, but slipped in the mud and ended up falling anyway. He laughed as he stood. “I don't know what will happen. I wonder if Tabor has found any of the pieces of the Kiya. Not that it matters; we know that we'll have to deal with him sometime. And then the curse will have more control than the gods and demons."

"The fog is getting thicker. Let's camp here for the night, Abby. I can make us a fire by magic and we can fight away the dampness and the dark. I'm tired. I don't want to wander into some village feeling half dead and unable to reason enough to save ourselves from trouble."

"Always the logical one, Tristan,” Abby said. He stopped his relentless trek forward. His legs felt as though they were weighed down by stones, but surely they hadn't traveled that far today.

"Yes, it is time to rest,” Tristan caught hold of his arm. “You push yourself too much, Abby. And you don't even realize it. Let's find something higher, flat, a little drier. I'll make us what comfort I can."

Abby agreed and gladly went with him, because they both knew this peace would not last...

Chapter Two

Tabor spent several days recovering after Braith left him in his room. He didn't have a chance to take advantage of the mistakes Braith had made, but he didn't mind. He learned patience during these days.

The first time he stood, darkness swirled around the edges of his sight and he stumbled to the window, gasping. He stood there for a long while, clinging to the window ledge and savoring even the acrid taste of the air outside over the stench of the castle.

Tabor wanted to go somewhere that didn't stink of death and decay. He thought of Ylant again, and then shoved that clinging memory away. Better to think about now and here rather than the past. Braith had unwittingly gifted him with an opportunity. But what to do with it?

Patience, he reminded himself yet again. He'd never been good at patience, of course. It was not part of demon nature to wait on others to move, or for matters to take their course. He wanted to know what Abby and Tristan did—

And in that moment he knew. The tie to the gray world and the magic illness created from his own blood drew his mind straight to what he wanted. He saw Abby and Tristan resting in the night, fog around them, a pretty fire burning to dispel the cold.

The elf moved a little, seemed to sense him even though Abby, despite the curse, did not. Tabor pulled back, closed that link, and went back to his bed.

He could use this. He could watch Abby and Tristan without expending more magic. He also had his link to Braith, which would keep him apprised of what the dog and his master did.

The only thing that counted in this hell was power and right now Tabor held than he'd ever had before. Being the son of a demon certainly hadn't given him power—no more than being the son of a goddess had given Abby any gains in his life.

The blood that flowed in their veins wouldn't be the only key in this game. The decisions they made, and the power they gathered, would decide the outcome in the end. Tabor knew about power and how to use it. Abby did not.

He felt Braith coming closer. He stayed sitting on the bed and didn't stand when the mage came into the room. Braith didn't knock, of course. Like the ill-trained dog that he was, he kicked the door open and walked in—

"Braith,” Tabor said politely so that he could bow his head in a mock show of respect. Otherwise he would have grinned in the creature's face. Braith did not look well at all. “And you are here because?"

Braith looked at him, glaring. And then the dog walked over and knocked Tabor back against the wall. The force of the next blow, coupled with magic, sent him sprawling from the bed.

Braith kicked. And kicked again. For a moment, Tabor thought that he had figured out—

But the mage only battered Tabor down. At least he dared not use the name of the cursed sword—that would have drawn Gix's attention—and that more than anything pointed out that what Braith did here was not at the Demon Lord's instruction. It saved Tabor—and incidentally Abby—from that agony, at least.

He slipped into unconsciousness again, but not for long. He came awake as Braith once again reached for heart blood. Tabor could feel the mage's emotions surging through the magic he used. Panicked, weak, and Braith didn't know how to stop it. Ill.

Fool. Did he think Tabor wouldn't know? Did he think that the power would help cure the illness? Maybe so, but in this case Tabor, barely concentrating, just fed the dog more of the same taint.

Braith took what he wanted. It would not help him. But he sat back on his heels afterwards, panting. He put an icy hand on Tabor's forehead.

"Forget that I was here."

The magic slipped in so easily that Tabor suddenly understood—this was not the first time Braith had stolen magic from him. It angered Tabor, but he held that rage at bay and held Braith's invasive little suggestion out as well.

And after the mage left, Tabor sat up again and finally moved to his bed to rest. Weaker again. How many times had he awakened, weak after being with Braith? Awakened feeling odd when he shouldn't have, and assumed it was only a reaction to this place?

Braith made him angry, but Braith also gave him power.

And Braith would not come stealing from him much longer. He'd make certain the dog learned his lesson. Tabor would win this round, and discredit Braith once and for all.

And he thought about Abby and Tristan again ... and went there once more...

Chapter Three

Mud and gray light lay beyond the fire, blanketing the world in a layer of oblivion. The fog swirled around in the night, although it had lessened as the dawn neared. Abby felt as though they lived in a very small, colorless bowl. He feared that if he reached out to touch the surface, it would be hard, like the walls of Captain Etric's Freedom and Captain Crystal's Fame. Star ships. He wished he could see the stars tonight.

The sun slowly rose with a hint of red along the gray, but even that quickly disappeared. Tristan lay asleep on the other side of the fire, so exhausted that Abby only received the feeling of undisturbed sleep, deep and peaceful beyond all thoughts of where they were. He wondered if he had slept so deeply, so far beyond the cares that plagued his waking hours.

He didn't like this world of gray, gray and more gray. Even the mud didn't look brown or black. And in the gray mist who could say what watched and waited for them—

"No!” Tristan bolted upright, his fingers touching the air, his eyes closed as he quested for something.

"Tristan!” Abby scrambled around the fire, even though his mind told him that it was magical and wouldn't hurt him. He took hold of the elf's arm. “I'm sorry! That was me. I was thinking of what could be out there and it must have carried over into your sleep."

"I thought—” Tristan shook his head and pulled away from Abby, frowning. “I had dreams earlier. Of being watched. It all seemed so real."

He bowed his head, trembling. Abby thought he might still be more asleep than awake and he silently urged Abby to rest again. The elf obeyed without argument. Abby say quietly and waiting, watching the fire this time. Pretty colors. Warmth. Calm.

Tristan awoke slowly the next time. He frowned and turned thoughts slowly resolved, touched with worry.

"I've seen no one,” Abby offered.

"Of course not,” Tristan said. He finally dispersed his magic fire with a wave of a hand. “This land has been parched and lifeless for a long time. Suddenly it's hit by a deluge that turns it into a muddy, fog shrouded swamp. Only fools would be out here in this weather. And yes, I am talking about the two of us."

Abby laughed, though he put his hand to his side, where the old wound ached a little at the unexpected movement.

"I can't win,” Tristan said and stood. He stretched, plainly feeling better. “Let's see if this trail really does lead to anywhere."

"Would you mind if we just kept walking and never reached an end?” Abby asked, taking up the Janin again.

"Is that an analogy for our lives?” Tristan asked.

Abby laughed again. In a few moments they started on their way again. Abby found himself relying more on Tristan's heightened sense of hearing and feel for the world than on his own limited view of the gray around them. He even felt tempted to close his eyes and move with Tristan leading them for a while. He knew his friend would have no trouble following the trail by the feel beneath his feet. Even now, with a layer of mud nearly obscuring the rut, Tristan could easily tell the difference.

The day grew humid and uncomfortably hot. They rested and ate food that Tristan brought from his pack. How odd to nibble on things that had come from worlds away. He even found some supplies left from Etric—food made to last a long time. They ate and watched the world again, waiting for something to change. It didn't.

"The lack of life doesn't bother me nearly as much as the lack of obvious magic,” Abby admitted. “I have come to accept magic, to want it—even if I can't use it myself."

"And we still have to do something about the Janin,” Tristan pointed out. He sounded rather uncertain about it, though.

She sang, though not loudly. Abby suspected she had caught his thoughts and didn't want to draw too much attention to herself.

"We already discussed it. If they don't have magic, I don't think it wise to take her straight in among them,” Abby said aloud. She snarled—and odd, discordant note of a song—and then fell into a melancholy hum. “But I'm not certain what to do with her."

"Wait till we get closer to people—"

"We are closer,” Abby said. He knew it, but he couldn't say how.

Tristan sighed, uncertain if he wanted to be back among people or not. “We'll have to put her some place out here. I don't think we'll have to go far off the trail to bury her. No one else is likely to come around here, from the looks of things."

"I don't know.” He looked around with a frown. “I can't seem to see anything by which I could locate her again."

"Abby, there is so little magic in the world that she shines like a sun to me.” He lifted his hand, and her song changed to one of warning. He only smiled. “But I think maybe we should find a place as close to the gathering of people as we dare so that you're not too far away from her when..."

"When I need her. A subtle reminder that we're not here for the peace and solitude ... and lovely weather.” Abby started forward again, the Janin still in hand. She sang a brighter song. “If you can feel the Janin so strongly, what about the Kiya?"

"Not yet.” He lifted his hand into the air and whispered a little magic, waiting.... “No. She's small, and unlike the Janin, I don't think she can exert so much magic. She hordes it, probably, to use for influence. But if we get close, I'll know."

"I never expected this world to be any easier than the others,” Abby admitted and shrugged. “It doesn't matter. The Kiya Chanda Andee hates me. She'll seek me out. We can wait. Let's see what trouble she puts in our path this time."

Chapter Four

Tabor felt his father and the dog working their magic (and his, because Braith proved to be so incredibly stupid), the power flittering back and forth through the highest room of the tower. Not even the throne room. They thought to keep what they did a secret.

So Tabor closed his eyes and watched through Braith, even though he despised being so close to the creature. The mage's mind was full of snakes, traps, and evils that Tabor had never even imagined could exist. He didn't like to see the things that Braith had done.

Or the things that he wanted to do. Sometimes those wishes involved Tabor, and the first time he brushed against one the lust and the darkness of it made him ill. Braith would never ... would never dare.

But he might, if Gix abandoned his son, ripped him of any power he had left, and let Braith have him as a gift. It could happen, and for one very good reason. Gix would not appreciate his son's sudden attempts at gaining power and position of his own. Gix did not want rivals.

Hadn't someone told him that was why Altazar had kept Abby locked and in torment for so many years? In that particular case the goddess obviously kept her son from being killed, but she hadn't saved him from his father's impotent (in every sense of the word) rage.

Tabor found himself drawing too many parallels to Abby's life, and he did not want it. Braith had already once had him, chained and whipped, at his call—a short-term gift from his father. Gix had done it not so much to reward the dog as to train the son. So now ... now the son played this dangerous game and watched even while his skin crawled at the thoughts of Braith's that managed to slither their way into his own mind, despite his precautions.

Braith never realized Tabor used him to spy. Gix never looked. Instead, they both watched the portal before them, intent on Abby and Tristan ... The two walked through an unpleasant looking world of gray fog and mud.

The elf didn't show any outward signs of illness, but Tabor could sense it. He thought Tristan must as well, though he apparently hid it from Abby. Abby looked tired, and even the Janin hummed softly.

Tabor didn't understand why Braith and Gix took such precautions of secrecy just to watch—

But of course that was not all they intended.

"The gargoyle is coming closer,” Braith said. His voice sounded harsh and cracked as though he had expended a great effort in the work—and that frightened the dog, that Gix would see the weakness. “I have called it, and Abby will draw it to them."

Gix didn't seem to notice Braith at all. He stared down into the portal, watching the godling and the elf, and all but drooling at the sight.

Fools. They had already set the perfect trap for the godling, but they couldn't wait. They had to step in, set matters moving more quickly. And it could backfire on them—

Would backfire on them.

Tabor could feel the gargoyle through Braith now that he let himself drift a little farther from the view. And through Braith he could touch the gargoyle as well.

He did so, and barely in time. The creature came, black as night, sweeping out of the gray and down at the elf. Abby shouted and Tristan fell down as the godling brought the Janin around. The gargoyle took only a small blow, landed, spun and launched itself again in the next step.

It went for Tristan again, and that finally gave him some sense of what they were doing. Gix and Braith wanted the elf gone, leaving Abby alone and weak.

Tabor did not. He certainly wasn't going to let the two of them win like this, with him cut off from the battle and at their mercy afterwards. Gix would give him to Braith again—for a while or forever. It didn't matter that Tabor had given the demon three pieces of the Kiya, including the head itself.

Gix wanted the elf dead.

Tabor did not.

And so, he reached out and took control of the gargoyle, wrenching control from Braith. Weak as the dog was, the sudden loss of the gargoyle came as a physical shock. He cried out and tumbled forward, nearly falling against Gix.

The demon slapped him away. And by then Tabor had drawn the gargoyle away from the elf. Abby had the sword. It died in the next breath, and Tabor drew back, oddly content.

"Something took it from me!” Braith wailed.

Gix stood and stalked to the dog, kicking it once, twice. Tabor pulled away from that pain, but not before he heard his father's words.

"Don't lie to me about your weakness. I can smell it on you. Crawl away, coward."

Kicked again, but by then Tabor had returned, breathless, to his own body. He stood and limped to the window, still suffering from Braith's last beating, and looked out at the patch of green. And when he smiled this time, it didn't frighten him at all.

Chapter Five

They traveled carefully after the attack of the gargoyle. The creature had come as a surprise. It was a link straight back to the demons, and that meant they were in the right place.

The gargoyle also awoke Abby from his lethargy. Dangers lurked in this world. Dangers that he knew and understood, and would be ready for, even if he knew about nothing else here.

Just before sunset, they finally came to first true sign of habitation. The farm buildings stood off to the side, shadows in the mist. Rows of well-kept plants, though dusted with gray, stretched out into a field. Horses waiting impatiently by the barn, and a windmill clicked at every turn. They found something odd—a metal vehicle of some sort, rusting away at the edge of the land. It reminded Abby of things he had seen in Etric and Crystal's universe. Technology. But gone, wasted, rusting away.

They could hear no sound of humans at all.

"No one is here.” Abby finally said aloud. “But there are others, not too far away."

"Empty. Maybe they have just gone somewhere for a little while. Time to bury the Janin,” Tristan said softly, as though she wouldn't hear.

Tristan made a deep, narrow hole using magic, and after Abby laid the staff within it, he quickly covered her over before the song she had begun got any louder.

Though unhappy, she cooperated, which neither had expected. Tristan had been prepared to encase her in more magic, but he held back and ended up with only a little shell over the top of her. Had even she grown wiser during their long travels? Maybe so. But Abby mistrusted it. He mistrusted everything on this world.

They went back to the gate and through, heading for the building that looked like it must be a home. The door stood open, moving slightly in the breeze.

Something wrong here.

A shared thought, better than a whisper in this place. Abby couldn't decide which of them had even thought it first. They were much alike, and that didn't come only from the long journey they'd made together.

As they passed the window Abby cautiously peered inside while Tristan kept a magical watch on the area around them. Abby saw nothing out of place except for a single, overturned chair.

Someone is coming!

Abby silently urged caution, and Tristan certainly didn't argue. Despite feeling a little relief at knowing another human really existed on this world, they still drew away to the side of the house. A young man came through the gate. He paused to look at the horse, the windmill and the open door. The movements so mimicked Abby's own that he could almost guess what the stranger thought as he came forward, his hand on his belt knife.

Very much a human, Abby realized and picked that up even from Tristan. Still, they held back, worried about contacting someone under these circumstances.

The young man looked down at the ground, knelt and looked their way—

Our footprints!

The stranger's hand went back to his belt knife, but as Abby started to draw the sword, Tristan shouted something and both men stopped in mid-move, surprised.

Tired, Abby thought. He wanted to sit down and rest. They had gone such a long ways...

"I'm sorry,” Tristan said and caught hold of his friend's arm. “I didn't make that very selective, did I?"

"Pardon?” Abby said. He wanted to sleep. Did they have a bed in that house? A bed would be nice—

"Come on, Abby.” Tristan's hand tightened on his arm, and a surge of magic cleared the fog from his mind. “Sleep spell. I thought we might stop our friend without a battle that way."

"Wise,” Abby said. He took a deep breath as his head cleared and followed Tristan to where the young man lay crumpled in the mud. The dark of night began to fall, and Abby still couldn't see him clearly.

"We have an opportunity to do something we've never tried before,” Tristan said as he knelt by the stranger. “With this one asleep, we may be able to draw out some of the language and for once no one need actually realize how very far we have come. We can hide our magic for a little bit longer. I don't want to flaunt it, Abby. I see nothing here so far that would be trouble, but that only makes me worry more."

"I like this idea,” Abby said, pleased. “Your crown or mine for him?"

"Yours. I have a better chance of doing this if I can use a little extra magic to control the process. It is going to be difficult with him asleep. You keep the watch. And do stay awake."

Abby grinned despite himself. He watched as Tristan sat beside the stranger and carefully turned him over. Well dressed, Abby thought.

Abby gently pulled the crown from his head and put it into Tristan's hands. He shivered with the feel of emptiness that overwhelmed then. He turned away, forcing himself to keep watch and hope that no one else came near. Between the darkness and the ubiquitous fog, he could no longer even see as far as the gate and the posts.

Time passed slowly. He glanced at Tristan now and then, but his friend stayed at the work, barely moving and making no real show of what he did. That it took so long bothered Abby.

The horses quieted in their pen, munching hay at the side of the barn. Abby watched them, remembering a boy who had quaked in the presence of those great huge beasts. He closed his eyes for a moment and purposely remembered Petra and Carrick. They seemed ... faint. Surely that boy who had known them had been someone else.

Although the horses still seemed quite large to him.

"Abby? Aubreyan, are you asleep?"

"No,” he laughed.

Tristan had pulled the crown away from the sleeping stranger's head. His hands shook.

"Are you all right?” Abby asked softly.

"Tiring, drawing the words out of images in his sleep. No, don't take the crown yet. We need to get him into the house and to a room where he's safe. I don't want to leave him out here like this, and I don't want either of us distracted by the new language."

"What's wrong?"

"Strange things are happening in this area. Deaths of people and animals, and now disappearances as well. The first might be the work of gargoyles. I'm not as sure of the second. None of this is a surprise, since we know the Kiya has to be near. It would be better if we weren't found anywhere near this farm, though. They don't get many strangers in this area. That's not going to help us."

"He saw us.” Abby said as he helped Tristan lift the young man. Even though the elf used magic, it still took some effort. Tristan seemed very tired. Even the little light Tristan made to help them bobbed fitfully ahead of them.

"I made certain he won't remember that part clearly.” They stumbled into the house, past the fallen chair, and on to another room with a slightly rumpled bed. Who had been there, and how long ago? Dust had settled in places.

After they put the stranger down, Abby took a quick look around the room. Crude furniture, handmade—and a picture on the wall of some other place. Not a painting; an image captured like he had seen on Etric's computers.

This place confused him.

"Take the crown.” Tristan pushed it toward his friend, looking half frantic now. “We have to go!"

Abby took the crown, feeling a touch of an alien mind to it now, even before he put it over his head. He knew something about the stranger just from the feel. Lehan. Being Lehan was very important to him.

Eliora rules. She takes what she wants, goes where she wants. She's not one of the Faithful, but the Faithful would never act against her. Why does she help them?

That was so much a part of Lehan's life that it was imprinted on his subconscious. Even his dreams shaped themselves round the fact that this was Eliora's world.

Surprisingly, though, the image of Eliora herself seemed less clear. Auburn and slim, or with a touch of gray, young, old, gray eyes or blue, haughty, or aloof.

The words didn't come very easily. Lehan seemed more interested in images than the words that described them. The amount of language that Tristan passed on to Abby felt sparse but workable. It overlaid other words from other worlds. That had been something Abby barely noticed before ... except this time the words he couldn't find in the new language came to him in other ones. Dacey's first, and then others.

"This is confusing,” Abby said as they walked back toward the gate. He hadn't even realized that Tristan had started him moving until then.

"I know,” Tristan said. “And it gets worse when it comes to the problems here. Drought we noticed, but it seems to be selective. The area around Promise has apparently prospered while everything else in the area withered and died. The locals believe this is because they are faithful to their god, Leje."

"That's not unreasonable,” Abby said, slightly amused.

"Not by itself. However, there have been numerous murders in the area. Whole families have started to disappear. Someone called Noman, or the stranger, might be responsible for the prosperity of the area as well. Or may have cursed it."

"How can they believe—” Abby began and then stopped and shook his head. “Never mind. People often believe things that I don't understand."

"I found nothing that would be a reference to the Kiya. I like this place less and less the more I know about it."

"Let's hope we find the Kiya quickly and can leave again,” Abby said.

"But there is no sign of her,” Tristan said, shaking his head.

"There is a sign, Tristan. Look at what's going on—the drought, the murders. If they think Noman is responsible, perhaps that's the one we need to contact. And Eliora, whomever she may be."

"Lehan does seem confused about her,” Tristan agreed. “He doesn't trust her in some ways, and trusts her explicitly in others."

"Do we trust Lehan?” Abby asked, trying to sort though the secondhand information he had acquired from Tristan.

"I think so.” Tristan thought about Lehan and the pieces of his life he'd seen. “He seemed likeable. The images he treasures were good, if that's an indication. But there were parts of him I couldn't reach. That might only have been because he was asleep, but I can't be sure."

"He has given us some indications of what's going on here. We aren't going in blind, and that's all we really asked for,” Abby said. “You did well, Tristan. You shouldn't be so worried."

"True. I'm tired, that's all. You know we've taken enough from Lehan's subconscious that we're automatically walking toward Promise. Do we want to wander in there at night?"

"No. But we should get closer and see if we can learn anything more. Perhaps you'll be able to sense the Kiya when we get close to her. If things work properly, we could be gone by morning."

"Nothing is ever that easy. I'm tired of this world already,” Tristan admitted, sweeping an arm out to indicate the night. “We need to be careful. Lehan was shocked that trouble had struck this close to town. He worried that it would panic the others and didn't know what they would do."

"I have God's Honor still.” He put a hand on the sword. “I'm just as glad not to have the Janin. If the people are that jumpy, we definitely don't want to bring something like her into the trouble. Was it gargoyles?"

"He didn't seem to think about gargoyles. And stop thinking that you would do better without the Janin on this journey. We're not leaving here without digging her back up again, so don't even think it. I wouldn't leave the Janin behind for some fool to try to take. She could, in her own way, be as dangerous as the Kiya in the wrong hands. And right now it's only you that keeps her safe. If she decided that she wants out of the hole enough, she'll go to someone else."

"I hadn't considered that,” Abby admitted. “We'll get her again before we leave. And she's going to be angry when we do. What about the crowns? I hadn't even thought about them—"

"We keep them. They aren't noticeable magic. No one will likely consider them anything more than ornamentation."

"Good. Tristan, did you get the impression that this world is almost always filled with gray clouds and dust?"

"Quite often. Lehan loves what little color he sometime finds—a flower in the hills, a pretty rock from the river. I think that anything not gray fascinates him."

"I don't think I'm going to like this world any better for staying here a while,” Abby said, and then fell silent. Last night he would have been happy to stay out in the wilds and never find humans again at all. Now, knowing that trouble had come to this community, he felt compelled to rush forward and deal with it as soon as he could. He wondered if that was a gift of his mother's blood. Or was it just a form of insanity he had acquired somewhere along the way?

Tristan grew tired quickly, but he refused to slow. He began to pull magic from the air, holding exhaustion at bay. Like Abby, all he really wanted was to be done with this as quickly as possible.

And then move on.

Chapter Six

Going down to the village to help after the flooding may not have been wise. Eliora saw the way they looked at her, the calculation in their eyes as they gathered what pieces of their lives they could salvage from the storm.

She had worked hard, pulling stone and supplies from the chaos of destruction. There had been several injuries when walls collapsed, but so far the only death had been old woman Buri, and she might have been dead before the storm. No one had expected her to live even this long.

Eliora remembered standing on the hill and looking down at the valley the first time. Buri had come to her side and seen the valley, too. So many of those who had made the journey had died already. Others had wandered in to take their places, and of course there had been a few dozen children born as well.

But Buri's death felt like a final and irrevocable break with the past and the world they had left behind. Sad that it came in the same breath as a disaster like they'd never seen here at Promise. And it would not be over soon. She could see more rain in the clouds that danced along the edge of the mountains, lightning defining their distant shape. They would come again, and there would be more flooding, and she feared that the others would blame her.

It might not be safe even to help when the people gave Eliora and her daughter those looks. Did Liora see? Maybe not.

"It's late,” she said softly to Liora, pulling her back from the mud-covered wall where her daughter had been sitting. “We'll want to be home and behind closed doors before dark."

Liora gave a little nod, her gaze shifting toward the group of men who still worked at the wall. So maybe she had seen. Good.

"Where is Lehan?” Priest Milan asked, coming suddenly to her side.

She never trusted the priests, and least of all this one.

"He's somewhere else,” she said and met his look.

Would he dare to demand a different answer from her this time? He had tried that once, just after his arrival in Promise. But the villagers had not been ready for that type of confrontation with her and the children yet. Tonight, though—

Liora came to stand by her mother. Milan looked at the two of them, the hatred and disdain so plain on his face this time that a couple of the villagers even stopped in shock to watch.

Milan had arrived a decade ago, already a full-fledged priest of Leje. The people had flocked to him, drawn by the tale of how the god had led him to their sanctuary. Eliora had believed him a charlatan at the time, preying on the beliefs of a people anxious to find that their god had not abandoned them.

She still didn't believe his tale, but she had come to suspect that he did. Milan had started to get the look of a true fanatic lately. Dangerous, the ones who started believing their own lies.

"I would have thought your son would be here. He cares so much for this village, after all."

"My son cares for a number of things. More so than I do."

"You still insist on playing word games with me, don't you? What can you gain but the displeasure of Leje?"

She smiled. He obviously hadn't expected that reaction. “I am long past any worry about Leje, don't you think? But perhaps you should consider my part in the world. Maybe I am here just to test you."

"Leje would never use a woman to test a priest,” he said, his eyes getting a dangerous glitter. “Be careful, woman, that you don't go too far with your little jokes."

"Jokes?"

He took a step closer, his face reddening. She put a hand to her belt knife, and Liora did the same. He stopped and looked at the two of them, his eyes lingering on Liora with a different look than the one he gave the older mother. Oh, so the priest was not immune from her daughter's beauty, despite calling her a devil, even to her face.

"Tonight they know that you could not keep them safe,” he said looking at Eliora again.

"Odd. I thought that was the job of your god. Are you attributing to me his powers now?"

Those words finally stopped him. Calculation replaced anger—or at least some of it. He stepped back.

"They know the truth about you now,” he said, looking into her face again. She would rather have his anger than the darker thoughts that made him look so dangerous.

"They have always known the truth about me. When will you tell them the truth about yourself, Milan?"

The torch lights flickered around them in the damp breeze, but she still saw the moment of panic in his look. Did he think everyone blind?

The rain came again. It gave them both a chance to back away from the confrontation. He turned to his temple. She took her hand away from the belt knife only when she couldn't see him anymore.

"My, that was fun,” Liora said, though with remarkable softness, as though she didn't want to provoke anyone nearby. “You do have such a way with people. A master at annoying them."

Eliora laughed and went back to work helping with the wall. She wanted to leave, and go back to the safety of her home, but she knew better than to run now, as though the priest had frightened her away. So she worked until the darkness had truly come. Then she and her daughter took a torch and started for the trail that led up the hillside.

The priest stared from the temple doorway. He had not come back out to help, and Eliora thought that maybe the others took note of it and measured practicality and prayers. She hoped so.

Eliora didn't feel particularly safe tonight. And she wondered where Lehan had gone, and if he had the wisdom to make sure his belt knife stayed in reach tonight.

Chapter Seven

Finally, a glitter of light below them showed the homes of the village of Promise, like stars fallen to the ground. The entire stretch of land couldn't have been more than six miles across from the high ground where they stood to the hills on the opposite side—such a little pocket of humanity on a world otherwise dead. The lights of torches bounced and moved along paths among the buildings, reflecting in pools of water that obviously should not be there. The flooding had come to this area, and they still worked to recover from the aftermath.

"The Kiya brought the drought and I brought the flood,” Abby said. He shook his head. “I would think there could be a compromise."

"A compromise with the Kiya Chanda Andee?” Tristan said, startled by the thought.

"It won't happen. The Kiya could not go along with it, could she?"

"No. But I think Tabor might be approachable. Surely he's as tired of all this as we are."

"Ah, but I could not compromise with Tabor. He's demon-bred. I would have to kill him, and I doubt he would find that reasonable."

Tristan laughed softly, pleased with Abby's returning sense of humor. He couldn't hide the fact that he'd felt it missing for far too long. Worlds past, in fact, and even Abby could not remember when he'd stopped believing in happiness. Maybe now he had started to believe they would win. Perhaps that wasn't wise.

"Better to hope for better and find joy than to expect the worst. What would that get us?” Tristan asked. He shrugged. “Let's rest here."

Abby looked around and saw a boulder to the side of the trail. Tristan started for it without even being urged. He did not create a magical fire, which would have been too easily seen. Instead, he wrapped himself up in his cloak and fell almost immediately into an exhausted sleep.

Abby kept the watch. Sometimes he could hear voices from far down the hillside. It bothered him that they had suffered because of him. He would have to try and make amends, but he couldn't begin to guess how.

A little later he watched as two figures came up a long trail from the valley and settlement below. Abby carefully kept from bothering Tristan with the news. He obviously needed the sleep. Abby watched the two figures. The growing fog made him and Tristan just more of a gray mass in the night, while the torch one held illuminated the two who approached.

And he saw—Eliora, young and old. Lehan had not been confused at all. There really were two.

"Where's Lehan?” the older asked, looking off to the left. Abby could see a building there now, barely lit by the torch.

The younger one threw back her hair and lifted her chin, defiance in her face, though why Abby couldn't guess. She looked beautiful and wild, the breeze catching her hair. And when she spoke the words came like bells on the wind.

"I don't know where he is. I'm not responsible for him."

"They could turn on us, Liora. Don't expect your birth to protect you this time."

"Protect me from what?” She laughed. “From those people? They will crawl to us, mother."

"They have always believed their god favored you and your brother. Don't play stupid with me, child—you know it could change now. The flood wiped out half the town and all the crop reserves. They can't believe that is a gift of their god."

"You think too small,” Liora said. She laughed again. “I'll tell them that they didn't love me enough. Or I may tell them that it's been all a lie and it's time they learn to live in the real world. I would like to know what the real world is like."

"Then leave here. Walk away. Promise is a deception. You'll never find the real world here."

"Go home, mother. They'll come back to you again and say they sinned against their god—and us—at least in their minds. That's their answer. They sought wealth, they coveted power. They've done it before at every little disaster. So to appease their god, they will give us all their wealth. Haven't you figured that out yet? We're only here to take their sins from them. We can be what we are so that they can feel smug and superior. They bought us."

"But not Lehan,” Eliora said. She turned toward the building, leaving Liora there on the trail, slipping into the darkness as the torch moved away. “They can't buy Lehan."

"He's stronger than you and me. He makes them think that he's human."

"And you think that you're not?” Eliora asked, turning back.

"You tell me what I am."

Eliora didn't answer. She turned away, heading for the building again and taking the torch with her. Liora remained there in the dark for a while, and Abby realized that she stared down at the village.

"I want something else,” she finally said, and the words struck a cord of sympathy with Abby. He wanted out as well, and a chance to be just human. “Lehan, you'd be wise not to walk blindly back into this one. Take care tonight."

Then she turned toward the building as well. Eliora had left the door open, obviously expecting her. In a few steps she was in, and the door closed. Light played at the closed shutters.

"Liora's troubled,” Abby whispered aloud. Tristan still slept, exhausted and perhaps even half ill. Abby brushed his hands across his tunic and grimaced at something that went beyond dislike for the gray fog that began to press in around them again, like a pernicious and intelligent creature trying to wrap them within gray walls. And down below in the valley he could hear a few frantic, worried voices.

Abby?

I think we're too close. Let's find somewhere better to rest.

Tristan agreed, though he stood slowly. He started away, and that more than the words got Abby to follow. When they reached the edge of the trail, he looked back again and the play of lights showed the faint hint of someone at the shuttered window. Eliora or Liora? Part of Lehan's confusion carried over to him.

Tristan followed the path for only a little distance, and then moved off to a steep incline that would take them away from the path that others traveled and put them on higher ground. But halfway up his foot slipped on loose rock, his ankle turning with a sharp pain that brought a yelp of surprise from Abby and a gasp of pain from Tristan as he went to his knees, hands grabbing at the rough ground as he started to slide down.

"Tristan!” Abby caught his friend's arm and helped pull him back to his feet. “Are you all right?"

"All right,” he said, though distantly. He even cut himself off from Abby as best he could, despite the physical contact. That made Abby doubt the words, of course. He wasn't surprised when Tristan put weight on his leg and winced. Abby felt the twinge of pain slip through.

"You're hurt,” Abby said. He put an arm around his friend's waist, trying to ease the weight from the leg. Tristan didn't argue and Abby suddenly felt the full impact of the elf's weariness. He nearly panicked, but Tristan shook his head.

"I'm just very tired. Let's find a better place to sleep. I can sense the moon up there, somewhere, tonight. That will help."

"I've never seen you lose your footing like that before,” Abby said, still worried.

Tristan shrugged and leaned more heavily on Abby. He didn't seem to notice that Abby's side had begun to bleed. In fact, he seemed to have forgotten that it could.

Tendrils of the damned fog slipped through the world and reached toward them like something alive. Abby had an urge to draw the sword and warn them away. Instead, he found rock outcroppings, and from there he could see the town very far away below them. He gently laid Tristan on the hard ground, making a pillow of their bag, and pulling a blanket to cover him.

Tristan didn't even notice as he fell into a fitful sleep. He shivered with the cold and Abby sat nearby, a hand on the elf's arm and willing him warm. Maybe it helped, or perhaps he just took some of the elf's exhaustion into himself. Abby slept, though he had not intended to.

And in that sleep he dreamt of many things...

Liora stood on the hillside, like a fire in the night, warm and a ray of beauty within his reach.

Blackness came, touched with the scent of flowers from another place, the whisper of a language too many times overlain with other words. Ishan. Mindeneh. Home. The little furred ones had still come and walked with him there. They did not come to him any more.

Her hair like muted fire and the moons would rise all black and powerful, and burn him while she stood against the light and gave him humanity. She was something he had been denied. Forbidden.

All dark and burning, cold and cold and....

Abby awoke, gasping. The darkness closed in around him, not the gray he had already grown used to on this world. Too black. Tristan's black world. Tristan must be awake, and taking control—and it could not be good. Something had to be wrong.

"Tristan!"

He reached out, unfailingly finding the elf's arm. Tristan trembled and flinched from Abby's touch with a surge of fear and illness. “Tristan!"

Abby clamped his eyes shut and against the darkness that was not his own sight. It didn't help. The darkness stayed, though colored with fire and ice. He grabbed hold of Tristan with both hands and held tight this time. Light and dark coursed through him as Tristan swept down into unconsciousness and his hold on Abby's mind lessened. The gray light finally returned, and Abby found himself grateful even for the fog.

Tristan shivered again and suddenly went slack in his hold, his head lolling to the side, dark hair matted around his pale face. His chest heaved with every breath he took and now that he had lost the ability to hide it, Abby could really feel the fever within him. Very ill.

Abby had never been as frightened in his life as he had in that moment. He would have called on the gods. He would have given them anything ... but he couldn't find the words. His mind wouldn't focus on anything but Tristan, weak and ill in his arms.

And that would not help Tristan. He finally forced calm. The gods would still be there to call upon if all else failed. Tristan needed proper care and he needed out of this cold, gray night.

Abby gently gathered Tristan into his arms and began working his way back down the hillside. He thought the dawn wasn't too far away. He wanted to be somewhere out of sight before then. He knew of only one place in this entire world, and only three people—even if they didn't know him. He had his sword to make certain they helped. Acceptance be damned; they would help Tristan. They would have no choice.

Chapter Eight

Eliora watched as her daughter sat by the fireplace, rummaging though old books that even she had read a dozen times. Irreplaceable, those worn covers and creased pages, but Liora didn't seem to understand that as she tossed one after another into a pile too close to the flames.

Or probably she knew too well. Liora had a habit of pushing at things that would annoy her mother. Oh, and not just her mother—she did it to everyone, as though to get notice.

Or she asked questions that no one wanted to answer. Eliora faced one of those questions tonight as she stared at her daughter and wondered if she and Lehan were human.

Some things you should never ask, child. Even of me.

Noman had seemed human. He had also had powers no human had. If he had told her he was a god who wanted to undermine Leje's hold on the people, she would have believed him. But of all the lies he told her, that was not one of them.

She had no answers.

The storm came again, wind and lightning almost at the same time.

"Damn. Not again,” Liora said and went to the window that looked down toward the valley. She pushed the latch up and the wind grabbed the shutter, tearing it from her hand.

"Liora—” her mother began, but stopped. No use berating the child. The power of the storm had been unexpected and it would have happened to her if she had gone to the window first.

Eliora crossed to where her daughter stood and looked out as well. Rain had begun to fall again. She could hear huge drops hitting the puddles of water near the cottage and she shivered at the unexpected sound. There had not been puddles of water in decades.

"Maybe this means the drought is past,” Liora said. Eliora heard unexpected hope in her daughter's voice and for a moment she seemed younger, staring avidly out into the night.

"Maybe so,” Eliora agreed. She looked toward the village, where people hurried toward their homes, the torches smoldering in the downpour. “That would be good."

"We could go somewhere else,” Liora said. She looked at her mother. “If the world returns to what it was, would you leave?"

"The world will never be what it was before,” she said. She looked at the stack of books by the fire and then back to her daughter. How odd to have this conversation with Liora finally. She remembered discussing it with Lehan years ago, but Liora so seldom looked beyond herself that what happened outside her sphere of influence had never been important. “Too much was lost, Liora. Too many things died in the drought besides the plants and animals. And the drought went on for too long."

"But people can rebuild."

"How do you make books like that?” Eliora asked, waving a hand toward the stack she had left behind.

Liora looked that way and stared for a long time. Then she looked back at her mother. “I don't know. Do you?"

"I know some of the basics. I think, given time, I might be able to figure out most of it. Maybe there are a few others left who know the rest of the trade and the secrets of printing. Of course we would have to learn to make paper first, and then ink that doesn't fade or wash away. If we were really lucky we'd find books somewhere that explain. But I know the library in Overton burnt to the ground a year before I left."

"Burnt down. That's a shame—all those books!"

"It's more than a shame. It is a crime against all humans. Someone set fire to it on purpose."

She turned to look at her mother, her eyes wide. Rain splattered inside the shutters and hit her face. She didn't even wince. The wind nearly set the candles sputtering to their deaths, but even that didn't seem to affect Liora this time.

"Why? Why would they do something so destructive?” she finally asked.

And for the first time Liora sounded truly lost: a child who didn't understand the world. Eliora almost felt sorry that she had the job of bringing her carefree child into the real world of humans. Maybe she shouldn't—

However, having gone this far she couldn't leave her daughter there, staring at her and waiting for the answers that she had already given to Lehan anyway.

"Close the shutter. Let's sit down. I don't want to watch the storm."

"You used to ask for the rain to come."

"Yes, I did.” Eliora looked out at the world as she grabbed one of the shutters while Liora fought with the other one. “But I hadn't reckoned on storms like this and the destruction they bring."

Liora caught the latch and secured both sides of the shutter. The wind tore at it still and howled like a wild thing around the house—but they had heard such winds before. It was the rain that frightened them both tonight.

Liora had lived all her life in such a small world. She thought she wanted out, but Eliora suspected that the young woman would come running back if she found the world Eliora had left behind.

Her daughter sat down on the hearth and touched the cover of one of the books, running her finger over the surface with a gentleness that Eliora hadn't expected.

"Why did they burn down the library?” Liora finally asked again.

"Because it held the reminder of everything they could no longer be,” Eliora said as she leaned back in the rocking chair. “Oh, they gave other reasons—it was an affront to the god of the city, it was evil, our quest for knowledge had brought the censure of the gods. They had dozens of reasons, the fools who stood outside the huge library and threw their torches inside and fought the others back. Some few made it through and died in the flames."

"On purpose?” Liora asked.

"I think so, in some cases. I think they saw the last hope of their world going up in those flames, and they didn't have the strength to go on."

Liora nodded as though she might even understand.

"Liora, when humans become afraid they are apt to turn on anything convenient as the cause of their fear. That's something you and your brother need to remember."

"But not you?"

"I always remember it. I've learned the bow and I've hoarded food. It's why I've always had a privy attached to the house, and took so many years carving that cistern out of the rock beneath the floor. It's why I spent so much time making certain that you could fend for yourselves in the wilds, even when you were younger."

Liora looked at her, blinking several times. Perhaps part of her life suddenly made sense. Eliora hoped so. This was a dangerous time.

Liora picked up a book from the stack and nodded. It had been her favorite, Eliora knew: the story of a woman who had married for love, and who grew rich and powerful and lived a good life.

Did she know the story was not true?

Did it matter?

While Liora read, Eliora sat back in the chair, her eyes closed, and listened to the storm. The world had changed tonight. She wasn't certain she was ready for such a change again. It had taken her far too many years to accept this one.

She was not ready to move on again. A good thing she had her fortress.

Chapter Nine

When Abby finally found the door to the stone house, he stood there in the falling rain and wind, despairing over what to do next. Tristan shivered in his arms. He had to get inside.

He kicked the door.

And again.

"Lehan!” a woman said from insider. Her voice hissed with anger. He heard a lock turned, a bar pulled back as she yelled words that he didn't understand. “...leave you out—"

The door opened a crack. Abby kicked with enough force to send the door flying open. He moved past the startled woman: Eliora, the older one, Abby noted as he hurried past and toward the bed in the far corner. She yelled at him—a plethora of words, most of which he didn't understand. Liora moved away from the fireside, a blanket pulled up around her. She stared at Abby as though he weren't a man, but rather some strange creature come in from the darkness and the storm. Maybe she knew that much about him already, just by looking.

Abby laid Tristan on the bed, pulling the quilted blanket up around his shivering friend. Eliora shoved the door closed and stalked across the little room, a hand on her weapon. She spoke to him, fast words that he could not follow. He shook his head, confused, and made certain that he stood between her and the elf.

"What ... here!” Eliora demanded.

"Tristan,” he said, waving a hand back toward his friend. “Ill. Sick."

She said more, but he could not follow any of it with the combination of worry about his friend and the fever half in his mind now as well. He could see Eliora grow angry, and he didn't want that to happen. Liora, he noted, remained surprisingly quiet. He hadn't expected her to stay calm, and he distrusted it as well.

Eliora appeared to have regained some of her wits and control of her surprise, though the anger still raged in her face. She came closer, snarling more words again.

He shook his head, confused, half ill himself and worried that he'd made a worse mistake by coming here.

"Wrong place,” she said slowly, apparently finally realizing he couldn't understand most of what she had said. “Go. Go now."

"Need help.” He waved hand back to Tristan who had caught at least enough of the trouble to become restless again. “Tristan."

"No.” She shook her head and her fingers curled around the blade of a knife at her belt. He let his own hand rest on the hilt of his sword. “Leave."

"Eliora, please."

It didn't help to know her name. In fact, she may have gone a little crazier after he said it. She pulled the knife and drove at him, but he'd learned enough in all his battles to avoid the first blow, though when she swept the blade out again, she cut the back of his hand.

Tristan cried out with the sudden pain and fear that almost overcame his own weakness. The sound surprised her even if she didn't realize the cause of the reaction. Abby took advantage of the pause to draw the sword, backing up again until he could put his other hand on Tristan's shoulder, trying to calm him. He could feel the heat of the fever through the cloth and that frightened him again.

The sword at least stopped her from charging in again, though he realized that this was not just because it was a better weapon. The magic of the blade glowed softly. Eliora backed away a step and looked at him once, the anger leaving her eyes, though determination and fear replaced it. She lifted the knife again.

"No,” Abby said. She stopped, perhaps a little surprised by the word or the fact that he would still hold his place, even with Liora coming to her side. “Help Tristan. Fever. Ill."

She frowned, but apparently began to realize that he had no intention of leaving. He had not attacked her and that might have counted in his favor as well. She finally put the knife back in the sheath and came closer to the bed, her hands held away from the weapon. Abby lowered his sword, but he didn't sheath God's Honor. He let Eliora sit on the bed and examine Tristan—he could tell what she did even without looking, and at least her hands remained gentle. Abby watched Liora, who moved away to the door. He wondered if she would run. He didn't want her to go.

And as though she could read his thoughts, she stepped away from the door and closer to him. She held out her hand, and gently touched the tip of the sword—a daring move he hadn't expected, given Eliora's reaction.

"Peace,” she said softly, her smile offering hope.

Eliora pulled away from Tristan and he looked down at her to see a frown. “Not human,” she said, as though testing the idea.

"Human enough. Help him."

Eliora glanced at the sword and then she bent back over Tristan, her fingers brushing at his face, cool and surprisingly comforting. He feared what she might do and wished he had a friend here whom he could trust. So many of them had left along the way...

"Who are you?” Liora demanded. She might have asked instead.

When she looked into his face she didn't appear to like the look he gave her. “I am Aubreyan Altazar,” he said. The name had a strange sound of power, surprising him.

She looked pleased, her head tilted as she spoke again, the smile coming back. It didn't look particularly friendly, though, and the words came as a demand again. He didn't really care to deal with something like that right now.

"Don't understand.” He turned away from her, and Liora made a little sound of annoyance. Pretty woman, but she didn't seem to understand that he had other matters to handle, and they didn't involve her.

Eliora stood and went to the hearth, drawing a ladle of something from the pot and putting it into a cup. He knew that he need not fear poison, not when it came straight from their pot. However, there were other things he needed to know.

"Please—what is?” he asked softly.

Eliora said nothing, but she held the cup to him. He sipped, tasting herbs and roots and the hint of other plants. She looked surprised that he had tasted it. “Good. We—no eat dead animals."

"No meat?” she said looking surprised. Anger gave way to curiosity. “Why?"

"No kill,” he said and grimaced, wishing for better words.

"You were ... kill us,” Liora replied, anger in her words.

"Protect Tristan,” he said. And then he met her angry look. “Would kill. Still not eat you."

Liora looked startled. Eliora flashed a quick grin, though. She at least had a sense of humor. Liora pursed her lips and leaned against the wall by the door, as though still trying to decide if she wanted to stay or go. Abby stepped to the wall by the bed, hoping to get something at his back and to relax a little. He watched when Eliora lifted Tristan's head and put the cup to his lips. The movement made Tristan feel even more ill, and the shared dizziness near sent Abby tumbling. He made a sound that too nearly echoed Tristan this time, and it didn't go unnoticed by either women.

Eliora dropped Tristan's head and that didn't help either. She grabbed at Abby before he fell and maneuvered him to sit down on the bed before he could argue. He barely held on to the sword.

"Explain,” she said, kneeling on the floor before the bed and looking up at him.

He laid the sword against the wall, well within his reach but out of hers and Liora's. He saw the way Liora looked toward it as though the soft glow drew her.

"Explain,” Eliora said again. She didn't look like she would give the question up, either.

He could find no reason to lie to her, and he needed her help. He touched the crown, his finger tracing along the band of gold and brushing over the stone. It had been mostly hidden beneath his hair, and he suspected she had not really noticed. Now, however, she looked at his forehead and then down at Tristan. Her hand reached out and he let her brush along the band, but not the stone.

"No,” he said, gently touching her arm. She drew her hand back. “Linked. Crowns."

"Linked,” she said and frowned a little. “Are you ill?"

"No."

"Linked,” she said, this time with a nod. “His fever, his illness."

"Yes."

"Remove crown?"

"No."

She nodded again. Then she gently went back to the work of getting Tristan to drink some of the liquid. He seemed to take to it better this time. Perhaps much of that came because Abby had calmed. So, apparently, had Liora, who came closer to the bed. He watched her, but she wisely didn't go near the sword. Instead she looked from the elf to him.

"Aubreyan Altazar,” she said softly, the name like music when she spoke it. “Tristan."

"Yes.” He felt inexplicably lost in dealing with her. Tristan had always been his guide, and he suddenly felt the way he had the first time he left Mindeneh, thrown into the world he had never known. He hadn't understood the ways of man, having not been raised as one in any true sense.

He still couldn't be certain what he should do here, and how he should deal with these two. Liora seemed to accept him being here, and that he meant them no harm—but he couldn't say he saw the same in her face. Eliora didn't appear to be concerned about him, and she was taking good care of Tristan for the moment.

But when he looked at Liora, he wished he could read those unfathomable gray eyes that flashed like lighting when they caught the flames of the fire. All he really did understand was the way she sometimes looked at the sword with longing and a thirst for power.

"Don't,” he said, drawing her stare back to him. “Don't touch."

She bristled, as though telling her no had been some kind of sin. But Eliora said something to her without even looking up, and those words must have stung more. She crossed the room and threw herself into the rocking chair, glaring back at them.

Tristan moved on the bed, restless and closer to consciousness again. Abby leaned closer to his friend, ignoring the others. He even dared to put his hand on Tristan's arm, and fought not to be pulled down into the chaos of Tristan's illness. He only wanted to reassure his friend.

Abby could feel Tristan's feverish mind trying to reach into his again, to assert itself over him like a peculiar flash of darkness. Abby fought it away.

"Ab-by,” Tristan whispered, his hands reach. “Abby!"

"Here.” Abby took Tristan's hands in his own. He spoke the words they both understood; Dacey's language this time. He almost dared wish he could speak the words of home just then, because he thought they might help his friend. He couldn't really remember them. The sadness that thought brought didn't help and he shoved it away again. “I'm here, Tristan. Sleep for a while. You need rest."

"Rest?” The elf's dark eyes stared past him, truly blind this time. Lost.

"You're ill, Tristan,” Abby said. He put a hand on Tristan's forehead, fingers resting against the cool of the old band. The fevered skin, too warm and dry now, worried him. “Sleep, Tristan. Sleep. I need you to be strong."

I'm lost, Tristan!

But he couldn't be certain the elf heard or understood that thought as the elf began to relax. Abby moved his hand to the elf's chest, feeling the flutter of his friend's heartbeat beneath his fingertips; too fast and irregular, like a wild creature held in a trap.

“Tristan,” he whispered again, afraid.

He didn't answer.

"Tristan needs rest,” Eliora said. She stood and put a hand on his shoulder drawing his attention. “And..."

He didn't understand what she said. “What?"

"Liora, me, sleep."

"Sleep,” he agreed with a nod. She trusted him. “I move Tristan."

"No,” she said and patted his arm. She crossed to a cupboard and took out blankets and went back to the hearth. She and Liora made a bed there with the blankets and pillows they pulled from the chair.

"Thank you,” Abby said.

They both looked at him with open surprise. He wondered if they were really so unused to courtesy, or if they thought he wouldn't know such things.

They went to sleep as he watched, leaving him alone in the darkened cottage. He listened to the wind outside and the distant sound of people. Strangers. He didn't want to be among them, lost and afraid, with Tristan ill.

The night drew on, and he wished the dawn would come, but he had already noticed the nights and days seemed longer here. Abby had never faced a world virtually alone before. He'd even forgotten why he had come here for a while and even now didn't care. While Tristan remained ill he didn't give a damn about the Kiya.

Tristan had never been ill before. If Abby had been another elf, he could have cured his friend with a whisper of words and a touch of moonlight, but he had no elf magic. He didn't even have man magic. What power he held remained locked inside, and he didn't understand how to use it. He could do nothing tonight, except sit by Tristan and give what little bit of himself that could pass between the crowns—a little strength to fight away the fires and the fever.

He found himself watching Liora where she lay beneath a blanket. Her hair obscured her face, but he recalled the gray eyes, the long fingers.

After awhile he slept, but not well.

Chapter TEn

Tabor found it difficult not to think about the godling and his elf as he went about his normal daily wanderings. He had no real work, but there were places he normally frequented just to get out of his room. If he moved a little more slowly than usual, it would not be the first time. His father had given him over to Braith before, and he'd spent a long time recovering.

It would not happen again. He would have Braith next time, and the dog would never be free.

Going to bow before his father, as he always did once a day, now seemed fraught with danger. But he had learned, at least, to school his face and calm his heart. If his father knew anything of what he had done, nothing would save him. But he had no reason to give himself away.

Braith was not present. Tabor didn't hide his pleasure at that one, but then Gix would not appreciate that the lack went unnoticed. Show and show, and you had to be careful to notice when you were the audience and when you were the entertainer.

"Noman is doing well."

"Good. Perhaps this will be done soon."

"Perhaps I will not need you when it is done."

Tabor looked up into his father's red eyes. He shrugged. What would be the point of arguing or extolling his virtues? Either Gix decided to keep him or not. He was not going to beg.

Tabor spent the next few hours with Gix. They did some magic, using Tabor's blood, though not as much as Braith would have. His hands still hurt from the last time, and he had to fight not to show the dizziness that came with more blood loss. Hatred Gix would accept. Weakness would be punished, and Tabor didn't much feel like getting kicked like the dog.

Gix tired of the work before Tabor gave out. He sent his son away with a growl of words, a backhanded slap for no reason except to get him away faster.

Tabor bowed on his way out, though he nearly stumbled and fell as the weakness caught up with him again. Nonetheless, he had done well. He hoped his father didn't see how smug he looked in that moment last moment. He almost couldn't hide it.

Tabor went back down to his room, to his desk, to his place in all this dark, damp—damned place.

Tabor sat at his desk and pushed away the stack of papers where he had worked on spells—nothing really important. One did not leave important papers lying around on a desk. He leaned back in his chair and thought about Abby and Tristan...

And in the next breath he could see them again, now inside some strange little stone building. Two figures slept on the floor—no, one of them not asleep, though she pretended to be as she watched Abby, her hand still on the blade at her waist. An older woman, mistrustful.

Abby slept from exhaustion, but Tabor could tell he worried about the elf even still. And he had reason. Tabor could feel the fever that came from his own blood. He didn't think the elf would survive the night.

No.

Tabor didn't want the elf to die—and that was a very dangerous thought. Why should he care? Why should he act—

One very good reason: if Tristan died, Abby would fail to stop Braith when the dog came for him. Tabor had no doubt about the outcome of such a meeting under those circumstances. Tabor could not let the dog win. He could not allow Braith to gather so much power and the approval of his father.

Time to be daring. Tabor could not do the work from here. But he didn't dare just leave, either. Could he convince his father that he had found another piece—no. Not a good plan. His father might watch where he went. Better that neither Gix nor Braith knew.

He could not just disappear.

Magic provided the answer, of course. He left a semblance of himself on the bed—real enough to anyone who looked in. They would think him unconscious, very likely. He had stumbled away from his father's work, after all.

If his father used magic to call him back, though, then the demon would know—

But Tabor knew that if he didn't do something this time he might as well just become a second dog for his father to kick. He looked back at the semblance once, gave a nod—and then, using yet more of his own blood, he opened a portal and stepped through.

Tabor didn't care for this world in the first look and breath. He could sense it around him—a dying world with hardly anything of value left. He wondered if he could just find the Kiya and go—but no. He could not deliver it to his father, who would hardly thank him, considering that the Kiya had become almost secondary now. The demon had tasted the hope that he would have Abby again, and he would not let go.

If Tabor interfered so obviously ... Well, just not a good plan.

He scented too much of the demon and the dog everywhere on this world. He couldn't even begin to find the feel of the Kiya in all that chaos of powers let loose. Fools. They had better hope that Noman didn't lose it. It might take decades to track down again.

Tabor continued with his original plan instead. He had no trouble finding Abby and Tristan. They glowed with purity in this demon-besotted world, though Tristan's light grew dinner with each breath. And Abby linked—ah, not good. If the elf died tonight, Abby might not survive long enough for Braith to even reach and grab the soul, let alone the body.

He could let them both die. And then his father would never win. He could—but he wouldn't, and he couldn't even come up with a good reason why he was about to do what he did. Maybe it was just to annoy the hell out of his father. Stupid reasoning.

Tabor laid his hand on the stone wall of the building, just the other side from where the elf rested. As long as Abby didn't know he was here, it should work. If Abby saw or sensed him that damned curse would get in the way.

With part of his magic focused elsewhere to make sure no one found him, Tabor carefully drew the fever out of the elf and let it dissipate back into the wind. He could not destroy it all, but he took enough that the elf breathed better before he had even finished. He could still feel a little bit of his blood in the elf—not enough to cause trouble for long, but it did keep the tie to him. That might not be entirely bad.

By the time he had finished he felt lightheaded. Tabor took a step back and sank down to his knees. The weakness when he left his father had not all been show.

He would rest a few moments and then go back...

Chapter Eleven

"Where is he? Abby! Abby!"

Reality leapt at Abby like a knife through his heart. Tristan's fever and confusion almost overcame him just then, and the fear of demons close by felt so strong that Abby nearly pulled his weapon, lost to the curse.

No demons here. Abby reached for Tristan, hoping that contact would help to calm his friend. It didn't. The chaos grew worse.

"Tristan! I'm here! I'm here! Be calm!"

He flailed, catching Abby in the chest. He couldn't have harmed his friend more if he had tried; the blow hit solidly against the old wound. Agony paralyzed him as he fell forward, slipping down beside the bed. That much pain even got through to Tristan's fevered mind. He cried out, his hands going to his own chest. Eliora had scrambled up from her bedding and now pulled Abby back from the floor, her eyes showing both worry and frustration. She saw the blood.

"Liora!” she shouted, and followed that with other loud, quick words that Abby didn't understand at all. She unexpectedly pulled away Abby's tunic, found the old bandages and muttered something. Liora brought bandages. He tried to stop them, but Liora brushed her soft fingers against his face ... and stilled him with that touch.

He needed help. He needed to be strong for Tristan. He stopped fighting.

Eliora worked quickly and with as much gentleness as she could manage and finally began to wrap new bandages around the wound. Afterwards she patted him on the shoulder and looked concerned. He wanted to tell her that she had done as well as could be done—

And someone shook the door—and then opened it.

Bright dawn light spilled gray into the room. Eliora and Liora both spun at the intrusion and Eliora grabbed her knife again. This time Lehan who stepped inside, surprise showing on his face as he looked from the two women to Abby and Tristan.

"I worried about you,” Eliora said, quite plainly. Abby even understood, but he wasn't entirely certain that Lehan did. Eliora put her knife back away and turned to Tristan—

Tristan had felt the world outside. He wanted away from the confines, the fever—and things that Abby only barely glimpsed as he surged from the bed with more strength than Abby had expected. Abby tried to grab him and missed. Tristan ran straight for the door, heedless of the knife Lehan had drawn.

Abby could not reach him and Lehan brought up the knife, startled but ready—

Abby panicked.

"Stop!"

Ordered.

And for a moment the entire world held still at his command.

And then time lurched to a start again. Abby felt weak, the room spinning around him. Tristan faltered and went to his knees, but unhurt. Abby noticed hardly anything, except that Liora's face showed a peculiar combination of fear and wonder.

"My god,” she whispered softly in the silence. “What—what are you?"

He understood what she said all too well. If she took his look to mean that he didn't, all the better. He didn't know what he would have told her just then.

Lehan and Eliora gently gathered Tristan and brought him back to the bed, settling him in once more. Abby wondered if the elf seemed more human to them than he did now. Eliora gave him that sort of look, and he felt a surge of trepidation—that they would fear him now.

Tristan!

The Elf twitched, his hand moving—but neither of them had the strength for more. Abby sat on the bed, leaning against the wall, gasping still.

Lehan looked from one to the other, his head tilted. “I slept at the farm. Dreamed of ... Abby, who is like a brother ... too distant. Tristan is dark and warm. Abby is the light."

"Lehan,” Abby said. Lehan didn't seem surprised that Abby knew his name. However, Abby couldn't seem to draw any of the words he needed now, finding it too difficult to think much at all. “Crown. Link."

"Dreams,” Lehan said with a shake of his head. He looked worried, but not afraid. “Far places, strange places. I wanted to see, but Tristan ... too distant. Abby, I don't understand."

Abby lifted his shaking arm to touch his crown.

"Ah,” Liora said. She put a hand on her brother's shoulder and pulled him away. Abby thought she might understand, but he didn't really care right then. He closed his eyes, slipping away and hoping they survived...

Chapter Twelve

Tabor struggled to get his breath back, struggled to get his mind back, struggled...

He hadn't meant to stay by the side of the building for so long, but he had bowed his head to rest and slipped into semi-consciousness for a short time. He had kept a little contact, a whisper of a thread with this world and Gix's hell, but he had needed the rest.

And the next thing he knew the dawn had come and someone was running toward the building from the hills. He dared not move and draw attention.

He heard the trouble inside. Tristan had not quite recovered yet, but obviously had enough presence to sense Tabor near by. Tabor grimaced as he started to stand, intending to go back as quickly as possible before he had an encounter with Abby.

And then Abby made the world stand still.

Aware. Very much aware of that moment when everything stopped at the command of the godling. When everything started again, Tabor still could not breathe. He found himself shocked, dismayed and afraid. He'd had no idea Abby held so much potential power. Tabor knew that he could not have stopped the world.

They were not equals.

For the first time in their long battle, Tabor feared Aubreyan Altazar. He stumbled away from the building, frightened that someone would hear. Frightened that Abby would know he was here ... would order him to stop and kill him without a qualm.

But he knew ... he knew even in the depths of the curse, Abby would not do such a thing.

The realization did not stop Tabor from running. He opened the portal and rushed back to his father's domain. He banished the semblance and sat on the bed, trembling.

The world had stopped. He wondered if Gix and Braith had realized. He wondered if he shouldn't go and tell them what he had seen, what he had learned. Confess what he had done, and take the punishment.

But he sat and looked at his trembling hands instead.

He had thought they were equals. He knew better now.

Chapter Thirteen

Pounding. Yells.

Abby tried to sit up and managed only to get an elbow under him before he collapsed again, gasping in pain and dizziness. This could not be good. He needed strength because something had gone wrong, and he had the feeling it was his fault.

People stood outside the building pounding on the door, the wooden shutters of the windows, and even on the rock walls. They shouted in anger, and even Tristan came partly awake at the sound. Not feverish, for which Abby did silently thank the gods. Tristan was still very weak, though.

"What?” Abby asked as Eliora came near.

"They think ... curse,” she said, securing a window that had almost come open. “Think storm our curse."

"They come for us,” Lehan said with a shrug that seemed to say he had always expected it.

"I brought the rain,” Abby said.

The three turned to him, surprise and worry showing in their faces. Rather than trying to explain, he took the sword from where it rested by the bed and limped over to stand by Lehan and Liora at the door.

"You fight with us?” Eliora asked, hope in her face where there had been none a moment before.

"Fight together,” he said. “Save Tristan."

"And you and us,” Liora said with a scowl.

"Save ... what is important."

That came out very clearly. Liora frowned again, but the townspeople chose that moment to grow louder and more insistent in their attack. The wood at the door began to splinter under their blows.

"Make them stop!” Liora demanded.

"Can't,” Abby said. He trembled and barely evaded her reaching fingers. “Can't."

The door burst open. Too many people tried to come through at once. Lehan launched himself at the group, knocking two down before someone else threw him back inside. Liora's knife caught another by surprise, but they pushed her aside as well, trying to get in—

"No!” Abby yelled. He brought the sword up and moved forward to block the way.

The sight of a stranger, and one carrying a weapon that glowed unnaturally bright in the gray dawn light, did get their attention. They didn't appear to see Eliora at all as she moved up beside him. A babble of voices rose up all around them, and he couldn't follow any of it—neither the words of the angry mob nor Eliora's shouted answers. The anger rose again, and he saw weapons lifted by the eight people who had pressed through the door to confront them—

"No,” Abby said again, and the single word held them for a moment longer. “No fight. I bring the rain. I'm sorry."

Surprised and mistrusting, they looked to him again, like some sort of hive creatures. Abby realized he wore no tunic and the bandages at his side had stained red again. The cloth also didn't quite cover the old brand he had forgotten for some time. Odd to remember so much of home in that moment, and none of it good.

A man came through the rabble, his attention solely on Abby now. When he lifted a hand, the others fell silent. Someone of power, then. Eliora, though—Abby could tell from her stare that she didn't like this man at all.

"You are not welcome in my house, Milan,” she said.

"You are not welcome in my city,” he replied. Abby understood them both, and thought that might be because Tristan had started to wake, and grew more cognizant of the world and the trouble. Tristan had always understood words better than him.

"He is a priest of their god, Aubreyan Altazar,” Lehan said, coming to stand by his other side. “You cannot trust him."

Milan looked bothered by those words, but Abby thought it wasn't the words so much as them coming from Lehan. But he looked away from the young man and to Abby again. Milan's hand brushed against the medallion hanging from his neck, obviously a holy symbol. Despite what Eliora and Lehan had said, Abby thought that he might respect this man, at least for the sake of his god.

"You brought the rain,” Milan said, his watery blue eyes narrowing and his graying eyebrows drawn downward.

"I did."

"This is not a gift given to humble man,” he replied, his head lifting in a look that was anything but humble himself. “Are you a demon?"

"Me? Demon?” Abby unexpectedly laughed, perhaps because the presence of Tristan, almost fully himself, made him happier than he should be. Milan suddenly looked angry. “Forgive me, sir. Not demon. No."

"He made the world stop,” Liora said, standing at his back. “You know the world stopped, don't you? That's what sent you running here, cowards, to attack us."

Abby hissed a little warning, but too late. She should not have said anything, and even Eliora looked shocked and dismayed at her daughter's words. Lehan muttered under his breath, but Liora stayed behind Abby like a baleful curse. Well, at least she stood between the enemy and Tristan, though doubtless that wasn't her intention.

Abby thought the priest and these people would have been happier if she had not mentioned that moment. He did not want to have their attention for it as well as the storm. But they looked at him now, and the priest took a step back. Abby brought up the sword again.

The priest's eyes had gone wide and glaring, the fever of belief—or power—in his look. “I shall see you killed,” he said.

"Kill me? Why?” Abby thought he should have felt a little fear. He didn't. Perhaps he had faced too many creatures brought forth with power to serve the Kiya. Maybe he should take these people more seriously.

"You are an affront to our god,” Milan said, his voice steady with the power of conviction. The people behind him had started to calm, but Abby knew that only meant they prepared to do this man's bidding.

Eliora put a hand on his arm. “You don't want to do this, Milan. Get control of your fear and your people."

"You do not order us. No longer."

Tristan finally truly awoke, drawn by Abby's concern over the danger. Abby needed to get closer to the elf, to protect him. He took a step backward, but Milan caught his arm and Abby looked to the priest, who had grown very brave, even with the sword still drawn.

"Don't touch me,” Abby said very softly. The others fell silent again, watching this final moment of confrontation between the two.

"I am the High Priest of Leje in Promise,” Milan said, lifting his head again. His hand tightened. “I am the law."

"Not ... the keeper of the law?” Abby asked, finally taking up the challenge because the man would have it no other way.

"Demon!” Milan shouted, but the priest's eyes betrayed a moment of anxiety at Abby's choice of words.

"Not a demon,” Abby said again. He pulled free of the priest's hold. “I fight for others in a battle you could not begin to understand."

"Man is corrupt. Only the great god Leje's will is—"

Abby really didn't want to hear a sermon. He laid the sword on the man's shoulder, cold steel touching his neck, the tingle of magic seeping through to the skin. Oh yes, he did finally notice what he had refused to accept at sight. He backed away a step, another, until the sword no longer touched him. His face had gone white, except for two splotches of angry color on his cheeks.

"Leave here,” Abby said.

"You stand in judgment from my god. He wills me to destroy you."

"Forgive me, but I would rather hear it from him myself,” Abby said. The man started to growl an answer. “No, not from you. No man is beyond the corruption of power."

The crowd whispered with fear, disbelief, worry, and a touch of rage. They feared too much today, having seen their world change in ways they couldn't begin to understand. They thought that killing something—sacrificing something—would bring back normalcy.

And Milan gave them the chance to do so. He stepped back until he stood by the door, the others spread out around him. His eyes looked toward Abby and those who stood beside him. He glanced once at the sword, and took another step away—but stopped there. “Take him."

"Coward,” Abby said. And that struck the man like a blow, spoken there before all the others. Not that the others seemed to care as they started forward to do his biding.

Tristan, struggling to sit up but very weak still, whispered words behind him and for a moment even Abby didn't understand. He thought the others might not have heard the elf, or even realized his presence.

Something rose to the ceiling behind Abby, a circle of rainbow colors casting bright light everywhere. Magic. And these people had never seen such magic before. The priest turned first, ramming his way through the others, screaming prayers and curses as he ran. The others followed quickly.

"Enough, Tristan,” Abby said softly as he stepped back to the bed.

Tristan fell against the pillows, his face pale and damp. The magic fluttered away in a wave of dulling color and for a moment Abby feared that Tristan would slip into unconsciousness again. Tristan fought to stay here, his fingers wrapped around Abby's hand.

"You did well,” Abby told him aloud, fearing that the elf was too rattled to pick up the feelings in Abby's somewhat chaotic thoughts.

"What happened, Abby?” Tristan asked softly. He didn't quite understand where he was, or what had happened, and it obviously frightened him. Abby needed him strong and steady.

"You have been ill. I brought you to the stone house. Good that we came. I think they would have killed these three for the storms."

"Ah. You are all right?"

"Fine. Just worried about you."

"I'm very tired,” he said, his eyelids starting to flutter closed.

"Sleep, elf,” Abby said. Relief to find his friend sane again swept through them both. “Sleep. You did well. And I need you."

Before Abby could pull away, Tristan's fingers tightened again. “I remember. You ... made me stop."

"We'll discuss that later,” Abby said.

Tristan fell almost immediately into a deep and restful sleep, so full of peace that he nearly pulled Abby down into that pleasant, safe rest with him.

Abby looked back at the door, but the three had closed it again and secured it. They stared at him. He wanted to explain, but they didn't have a word for magic. He had to use Dacey's instead.

"It was only ... magic. Pretty, but only light."

"Pretty,” Eliora said. She looked upward as though she could still see the bauble hanging there. “Pretty, but strange."

"Magic is not known here,” Abby said. He looked toward the door. “Did the priest and the others go far?"

"Very far,” Lehan said going to a window and pushing it open enough to look out. “Still running."

"Safe for a while,” Abby said. He leaned back wanting—needing—sleep.

"Be afraid of the priest, Aubreyan,” Eliora said. She came and sat on the chair by the bed, looking just as exhausted as he felt. “He has power. Right or wrong, he'll use that power against you and Tristan because he fears you. Understand?"

"I understand,” he said. He leaned back against the wall. “I will be careful."

"Good,” Liora said. She leaned against the door. “You are our protection against them."

He nodded.

"Rest,” Eliora told him. “I will keep the watch."

He closed his eyes and slipped down into that deep quiet place with his friend. He trusted her....

Chapter Fourteen

Eliora knew that the world had changed. It would not be the same for anyone after last night. Better? Worse? She couldn't decide that yet.

Eliora stayed awake after the two strangers and her two children had gone back to sleep. She sat by the window, the shutter half open, and watched Promise and the trail that led from the town to her home.

She didn't think anyone slept in the valley tonight. All through the long, dark hours, she heard the shouts of people, and saw the movement of torches in and out of the temple and along the river.

Her daughter had been a fool. She looked back at where Liora slept, the blankets flung back, her body stretched out so far that she seemed to command the floor. Lehan had curled up in a corner by the bed ... like some servant guarding his master's feet. And on the bed Tristan and Abby slept.

She watched those two. Mistrusted them, and mistrusted the trouble they had brought to her. She and her children might have to leave this place, if they survived long enough to get away. Where could they go? Nothing had survived out there beyond this damned valley—

Someone shouted; the voice seemed to pierce the night with anger.

Tristan sat up at the sound, startled.

"Sleep,” she told him softly. His head turned toward her—he must not have seen her in the dark. “Sleep now. The day will come too soon."

He soundlessly nodded and settled back down, a hand resting on Abby's arm, while he closed his eyes. Good. She wanted them to sleep. She didn't trust them, and asleep they presented the least trouble.

She looked at his companion, and tried not to shiver. Abby had made the world stop.

Her heart thudded in her chest, laboring with the fear that she'd kept hidden and under control until now, as she had so many other fears in her life. She could see him beside Tristan, looking so oddly young and vulnerable. Deceptive. She wondered if he did it on purpose.

The world had changed because of him. He had made it unsafe, and the villagers would hunt them down for it. She could hear the sound of their anger in the night, and he had created this situation.

No.

Eliora felt her shoulders slump as exhaustion and truth hit her at the same time. The world hadn't changed because of Aubreyan Altazar. The world hadn't changed at all. She had always known the villagers would turn on them at some time, especially as her children grew into adults. Liora had not helped. While Lehan wandered alone most of the time, Liora had demanded their attention, and showed them a willful human young woman, spoiled and demanding. She could be helpful if it suited her. She could be kind and generous. But mostly she could be human.

Aubreyan Altazar most assuredly was not human, which surprised her. She had looked too closely at Tristan, sensing the difference in him. Abby had surprised her, in many ways.

The world had changed, but it had been changing anyway, and if she had believed in the gods at all, she would have thought Aubreyan—Abby—had been sent to help them in this time of need.

But she did not believe. Where had Abby come from?

What was he?

She stared at Tristan and him for a while, but the answers didn't come. Eliora turned to the view of the village again, watching the movement below. She didn't understand the people of Promise any better than she understood her guests, but at least she knew what to expect of them.

There would be more trouble.

Chapter Fifteen

Braith had been ill for several days, but he finally recovered. The dog doubtless knew what had happened by now. Gix might know what Tabor had done to the mage as well, and might even approve in his own way. Or it just amused him. Tabor could never be certain what to expect of the great demon lord.

Braith, though—he knew Braith would have his revenge. Tabor watched him carefully, playing at the game, and planned his countermoves. And while they kept at their trivial games, worlds hung in the balance.

Braith could not see beyond his own miserable petty little wants. Tabor had never known how blind to the larger picture Gix's dog could be until he found himself having to deal with being the creature's obsession when Braith should have been concentrating on Abby and the Kiya piece.

This should not have been a surprise. He had already learned a great deal about Braith from Renage, who despised the mage very nearly as much as Tabor did.

"I was here before him,” Renage had said when Tabor asked. The doorman's voice grumbled softly with the words, and Tabor stayed back in the shadows, listening. “I remember the pale, frightened creature the first time it stood before me."

"What was he like as a human?” Tabor asked.

"Stupid."

Tabor smothered an unexpected laugh before it escaped and drew attention. Renage stood with his back against the huge door, his eyes staring anywhere but at Tabor. The other things of this world were used to the giant mumbling to himself. Tabor doubted that anyone would notice that he actually spoke to someone now. Or did he speak to others, and Tabor had never noticed?

"Tell me about him,” Tabor said.

"It was a mage, of course. A powerful one who ruled—and ruined—his entire world just to satiate his own pleasure. He killed every living thing."

"Ah. Not a surprise. One does not get to be the lapdog of a demon by practicing moderation."

Renage nodded his massive head. Tabor almost asked how he had come to be the demon's doorman, but that didn't seem a tale he wanted to know right now. Renage willingly gave information about their mutual enemy and Tabor didn't want to do anything to upset him.

"Braith sacrificed himself to Gix,” Renage said.

"What?” Tabor looked at him, shocked by the idea. “Purposely put himself here and as a slave—"

"Stupid,” Renage repeated and shifted his feet a little. “He would have come to Gix anyway. But he sealed his soul and his will forever to Gix, abandoning any hope of being something more than... his lapdog."

"Could he have ever been anything else?"

"He had power. He might have won a battle with Gix if he had been cunning. Your father feared such an encounter. He had only recently come to power of his own. But Braith choose to try to placate the demon rather than chance a fight. He feared annihilation."

"The demon feared a human—"

"Of course,” Renage said. “Gix was human once, but he has been the Lord of this place for so long that it has warped him as much as he has warped it. How else could he sire such a human child?"

Tabor digested that bit of news with a very odd feeling of relief. He wondered if the same held true for the gods, but he decided not to ask. Tabor nodded and then realized that Renage, quite uncharacteristically, stared straight at him. He met the huge man's look and didn't flinch.

"You are not stupid,” Renage said. “What do you fear?"

"Aubreyan Altazar."

Renage blinked and frowned. “Perhaps you should rethink that answer."

Tabor, feeling the weight of both the unexpected look and the unsettling question, retreated back to his room.

Braith had set a trap while he was out, but Tabor had been expecting one, and he took no more than a burn on his hand as he magicked it away again. He started to make a countermove, a trap of his own—and stopped. Too predictable. Too much of a game. Instead, he went into his room, set an extra ward around the area, and settled on his bed, staring up at the ceiling.

What did he fear?

Chapter Sixteen

Surprisingly, considering the upset of the first night, the townspeople left them alone for several days. No one even dared take the path up past the cottage and into the hills. Everything stood still in an uneasy truce, ready for a break on either side.

Abby stayed close by while his friend regained his strength. Abby believed the grayness of this world had contributed to Tristan's illness and long recovery. Fog crept around the building every night, and clouds often obscured the sky during the day. In the ten days they had been here, he had only fleetingly seen the moon, and the stars hung always behind a haze.

However, it did not rain again, and that at least helped to keep everything calm. Nonetheless, he didn't want to be here. Abby wanted to travel the stars again with Etric and Crystal. He wanted to hear Brendan sing or walk with Dacey. He wanted to see Sanwind again.

"Aubreyan?"

He reached for his sword as he turned—he had gotten too used to that move during his long travels. It came too naturally now.

Lehan carefully moved up beside him and looked out the window into the bright day. He shook his head.

"What's wrong?” Abby asked, his fingers staying to the sword after all.

"Nothing yet,” Lehan said. “But Liora and I thought we would go to the village today and gather more supplies. I fear the longer they go without seeing us, the easier it will be for them to come and attack again, and without remorse."

"I'll go with you."

"You probably shouldn't,” Lehan said, though Abby saw a different look in his eyes.

"It will help. They fear Tristan and me,” he said, and silently reassured Tristan that he'd take care. “And I cannot hide up here forever, for all my own reasons. Tristan and I have something we still must do."

Lehan nodded. Abby wondered if he had picked up a little of the journey's reason during his contact with Tristan. Lehan didn't ask, for whatever reason.

Liora's openness, on the other hand, knew no bounds. She asked any questions and wanted all the answers. She came back into the building, he hair wild and her face bright. She didn't fear the villagers. Abby had never known anyone like her before, who seemed so free of restraint.

"Aubreyan will come with us to the village,” Lehan told her.

"Good.” She wrapped her arm in Abby's and smiled.

Touched him. He felt the tingle along his arm, and his breath caught. Tristan, still mostly sleep on the bed, pulled back from their normal contact—confused and unsettled while Abby stood very still and looked into her gray eyes. She had seen the reaction and it made her smile widen. She brushed her hand over the bare skin at his wrist, watching his face.

"No,” Abby said, and pulled away.

"You're too cautious, Aubreyan.” She reached again.

But this time Lehan intercepted her fingers and pushed her aside. “Leave him alone, Liora. He's not one of your playthings."

She looked at her brother with a snarl, her eyes gone to steel in her face. Then, just as suddenly, the mood passed and she laughed, heading to the door. Lehan looked relieved and his glance told Abby that he'd come perilously close to some danger he didn't even recognize.

"She'll try again, Abby. She always gets what she wants."

"Try? Wants?” he said.

Lehan's face colored. “I fear this might be more than just a problem with the language."

"I don't understand."

"I know.” He looked toward his mother, but Eliora seemed to be purposely working at other things. “Just ... don't trust her. Don't go alone with her."

And Abby understood. He looked back at Lehan and nodded. “I understand, Lehan. I really do. But I would make no bonds with her, even temporary, no matter how pleasant it might be. She will have my company, but nothing more."

Lehan's relief, and Eliora's quick look that mirrored it, amused him. He said nothing more as they followed Liora out into the daylight. She waited impatiently for them by the trail and took hold of his arm again, but he pulled away and she shrugged and walked on ahead.

By the time Lehan and Abby reached the bottom of the trail, Liora already faced a sizeable crowd. She had hurried ahead and confronted them as though they could do her no harm.

"We have come for supplies,” Lehan said, half breathless as he and Abby stopped.

Milan stood in the lead. He looked briefly toward Abby and quickly away. The priest plainly didn't like to see him here.

"We will not supply you with foods to feed the demon you house on the hill,” Milan said. “It shall not be fed from the work of our hands."

"Demon?” Abby said, momentarily confused. With understanding came a wave of anger. “Tristan is not a demon. I do not—I cannot travel in the company of a demon."

"It is not—"

"Not it. Tristan. He is an elf. He and I came from a place so far away that you could not walk to get there. We are different, but we are not demons."

"You are trying to confuse us with your words. You will not pass here."

"I do not wish to use violence.” Abby stepped forward so that the man had to deal at him or else leave. “I think that you should converse with your god on the matter, and if he feels I am your enemy then you had better find out what he really is. I have fought on the side of good for too long to doubt my place."

Milan looked stunned. So did Lehan, but Liora appeared amused, and even predatory. He didn't like the way she smiled at the others, but this wasn't the time to berate her.

"You do have a way with words, Aubreyan,” Lehan finally said as Milan stepped back, though he gave no sign of capitulation. “At least when you can finally figure out the language."

"Tristan is better with words,” he admitted. “But I do learn languages well under pressure."

"And that happens often, does it?"

"Yes."

Lehan nodded, looking distant for a moment. Abby wondered what Lehan saw in that moment; his own dreams, Tristan's thoughts and Abby's sights? It must be an odd recollection.

"Do you still claim to have brought the rains?” Milan suddenly demanded.

"I—” Abby began and stopped, considering the words again. Milan obviously intended this to be a trap of some sort. This one played with words and Abby, still having trouble understanding everything, didn't want to accidentally make this worse.

"Speak to me, demon—"

"I am not a demon.” The anger in his voice startled everyone, though he didn't think the words meant anything to the priest, who would believe what suited him. “The rain came because I arrived. No, because Tristan and I traveled to this place, it rained. Storms happen when we arrive. Sometimes only wind, but often rain as well. I grieve that we have caused damage here, but it was not my choice."

"Why did you come here?"

"I came to take a piece of evil away from your world."

Abby thought even the priest considered his words this time. They must know that there was evil in the world and that much of what they suffered had happened long before he and Tristan arrived. He hadn't expected this sudden look of sanity from the man, and it promised perhaps a better relationship than the antagonism he'd faced so far. Perhaps if Tristan brought the pieces of the Kiya if they would understand—or they might think Tristan had to be evil to handle the wood.

He must move carefully here.

And then Liora helped again.

"We are here for supplies,” she said, her voice so haughty that Abby felt a chill. “And despite everything else, the relationship between this town, my mother, brother and myself has not changed. You are still a hypocrite, Milan. Go back to your temple and remember your place in the world. Standing before us is not it."

"Liora,” Abby chastised and that wasn't lost on the others either. “Be calm. There is no need to add anger to anger."

"I don't believe you and your Tristan are demons or evil,” she said. “But I don't believe you are human, either. I ... like your company, but until you prove your superiority to me, don't tell me what to do."

"I never claimed to be superior,” he said. She smirked and he realized that he'd missed her test while watching for Milan's. More word games. Oh, but she wouldn't win that easily. “Liora, if I ordered you to stop and listen, would you have a choice? Don't play games you don't understand."

Her face paled. “You wouldn't do that,” she said, but far more softly than he had expected.

The others noted her fear and it did more for his cause than any words Abby could have spoken to the priest. So she helped after all, though she obviously hadn't intended to. Did she really want a battle here? Perhaps she saw his arrival as the chance to change her world. She wanted change. He could see it in the wildness of her gray eyes.

"Don't fight me, Liora. I need allies. Not only for this battle with your priest, but in the greater war. I've not lost yet, but I could in the end. You do not want to see what happens if I fail."

"You arrogant young bastard—” Milan began, his voice rising in anger.

The priest's words made Abby wince despite himself. He had long stopped thinking of himself in terms of his father's son, but since his arrival on this world, he seemed to be considering his past far ore often. He didn't like it.

He hadn't noticed the reaction in Liora until she stepped closer to the priest, though.

"Choose your words better, Priest,” Liora warned.

"I meant nothing about you, Liora,” he said. He looked worried this time. “Your blood does not account for what you are now—"

"You made us what we are,” Lehan said. The people turned to listen to him—an oddly different reaction from the way they dealt with Liora. They expected trouble from her, but wisdom from her brother. “You made us what we are in every sense of the word."

"But you did not make me,” Abby said, drawing attention back. They had all calmed, even Milan, as though the near battle with Liora had been more than he had intended. He looked saner. “We have come for supplies. You misjudge us if you think we've come to do you evil."

"You are here to do us good, then?” He asked. Abby wished the priest would stop and let them pass, but apparently he didn't know when to let go of the game.

"In the end, when I complete my true mission, I shall do your world some good."

"You profess to do good, and yet you've only caused harm."

"The rains came. I wish they had not. I go where I must and I have no control over the weather when I arrive. I can only account for my own actions, as do we all. Did you and your god bring the clouds? They are as much to blame for the rains as my arrival."

Milan's eyes narrowed at that statement, and Abby saw a few nods in the group. He had made a point there, and maybe he shouldn't have, and let it go. But the crowd appeared to be less hostile by the moment, and that would help in the long run.

"Will you swear your good intentions before the altar of Leje in the Holy Temple?” Milan asked.

"Yes, I will.” Abby answered so quickly the man looked surprised, and perhaps dismayed. Abby had no intention of letting him slip away, though. This might, in fact, be the best way to settle the trouble. “I have nothing to fear from your god. Lead me to this place. I have never been to your village before."

The priest nodded and turned away. He had set the test and Abby thought he saw regret for that in the Milan's eyes since Abby had taken him up on it so quickly. He wondered what Milan had expected him to do instead.

The people followed as they headed toward this place where they worshipped their god. A babble of voices and words echoed around them, and Abby couldn't understand most of what they said. Lehan put a hand on his arm, holding him back at one corner while the others moved on around them, curious stares glancing their way. Liora remained as well, watching him as though she expected Abby to bolt.

"I must go,” he said, drawing away from Lehan.

"Is it safe for you?” He asked. And then he held up a hand at Abby's look. “No, I didn't mean that I think you are a demon. I only think that you are ... well, marginally more human than your Tristan."

"Yes, you're right,” Abby said softly. He started out after the villagers, who had not gone far ahead. Many of them looked back, worried that he had not continued, and some apparently didn't like having him at their backs. “But this is not a problem."

"You shouldn't go to the temple,” Lehan still said.

"I'll be safe."

"Perhaps from their god, but not from their priest. It's a trap, Aubreyan. And he won't rely on his god to do the dirty work."

Abby had not considered that possibility, but it didn't really change what he felt he must do. “I despise unscrupulous men who gain power."

"Aubreyan,” Lehan began again, starting to sound frantic.

"I am not helpless."

That stopped Lehan from protesting, even though he still looked worried. Abby could not begin to understand why, unless he had picked up something from Tristan. Lehan said nothing more as the three followed the crowd to the temple, which turned out to be the largest building in the community. People lined up on either side of the entrance, silent and anxious. Milan stood at the top of the half dozen stone stairs, waiting by the door.

Abby never slowed as he came up the steps and stood beside him. Lehan and Liora stood at his back. He noted the layer of dried mud that had come all the way to the bottom edge of the wooden carved door. There were signs of the flood everywhere, but the waters had receded and the mud dried. The river sounded pleasant and not far away.

He stopped to admire the work on the door. “Very pretty,” he said and ran his fingers over the raised surface, gently touching the raised outlines of flowers and trees. “A memory of another place? I have seen no flowers here."

"Another place and another time,” Milan said, pushing the door open. He heard little emotion in the words, as though those flowers meant nothing to him. “Before the drought. Enter."

Abby bowed politely and walked inside.

High windows, tinted gold, bathed the interior in a yellow that finally dispelled the perpetual gray of the world outside. He liked it inside this building, which felt warm and welcoming. At the far end of the aisle he could see a beautiful altar, glittering with gold and jewels. He had not expected to find so exquisite a place in this gray village.

Abby took several steps forward before he remembered the priest and the others who followed behind him. He turned back, seeing even Lehan standing back among them. He suspected the young man had never stepped within these walls before. He thought it nice that his friend followed him here, worried still.

But Abby felt better for being in this place, even though the tingling along his legs bothered him a little.

"This is a holy place,” he said, smiling. Even Milan stopped and let him go on alone. “I haven't found a truly holy place since I left Ishan. It is not right to bring a weapon to this altar."

He loosened the scabbard from his waist and laid it atop a bench, catching Lehan's worried look. Abby would not sully so lovely a place with a weapon to draw the blood of man.

And he turned to the altar...

Chapter Seventeen

Eliora had been sitting in her chair, rocking gently and dozing a little when Tristan sat up so suddenly that she reached for her weapon before she came fully awake.

"The fool,” he said, shaking his head as he climbed out of the bed. His legs trembled. He looked crazed and fevered again.

"Don't—” she said.

He caught at the bed and stayed on his feet. When she came close enough to catch hold of his arm, he trembled at her touch, but she could not feel the fever in him now. Good. She did not want it to return.

"I have to get to Abby,” he said and stood up straighter. “He has done something foolish and it will put him in danger. And perhaps everyone with him."

"You know this because of the crown,” she said and her fingers brushed at the gold band.

He shivered beneath her touch but he didn't pull away. “Yes, because of the crown."

"Then you can tell him to stop—"

"He can't hear me. He's gone to the temple.” Tristan took several deep breaths. “It is a holy place."

"And he should not go to holy places?” She tried not to sound worried at those words, or to make guesses about of her guests. She'd given up on that part.

"He shouldn't go in unprepared for what will happen there,” Tristan said. He turned his head toward her, his eyes closing. “I can feel him. The place is alive with power, and he's drinking it in."

"He feels the power. He can take it from a holy place."

"He is the son of a goddess,” Tristan said. “But you had guessed something like that already, hadn't you?"

She shook her head, but he only looked at her, his dark eyes not blinking as though he didn't believe her denial. Eliora finally sighed in capitulation. “It doesn't matter what I think he is. You know the danger, and I believe you. We have to go, then. But I will not go into their cursed temple—"

"Not cursed. Not cursed in any way. If it had been, Abby would not have been in a very different sort of trouble."

"That isn't right—"

"He has the blood of the goddess. It brings powers that his human half has no way to control. He has denied his mother's blood for all his life.” Tristan suddenly looked frantic. “I have to go to him. I can get him out of there. Otherwise—"

Tristan turned to the door, half stumbling along the way, but with obvious purpose. Eliora finally shook her head and crossed to him as he reached the door. He stopped with his hands on the surface, gasping as though even that little exertion had nearly overcome him. She couldn't let him head down the trail like that. He'd fall and break his neck.

And then what would she tell his goddess-born companion?

"I'll take you. I won't go in."

"Just get me there. Quickly."

The wind outside had kicked up. She thought the storm was coming too quickly, and maybe that the ground moved as well. She suddenly suspected that very many things were about to happen that would not be good, and Tristan's frantic rush down to the village might be all that saved them.

She ran a little faster. She hadn't stood sentinel on the hill all this time to turn her back now.

Chapter Eighteen

Abby stepped closer to the altar, moving toward the warmth and the light. Lovely, wonderful—he had not felt this well since he arrived on this world. Abby thought he heard someone call his name, but when he looked back no one appeared to be speaking to him. They seemed, in fact, to have slipped farther away from him, to be drifting away in the bright colors of the temple, as though they belonged to the gray world outside. Only the priest had stayed close, but even he looked insubstantial here in this holy place.

"Let us go to the altar, priest.” Abby turned like a flower toward the sun and started toward the altar again. “I had not really expected to find so holy a place here. Your god is good and he is powerful. He has given you this place, despite your errors."

The priest said something and stopped but Abby walked on, ignoring him. He kept moving until his fingers touched the altar and he could feel the power that moved beneath the gold and jewels. Colors, power, strength—and peace.

Faintly, somewhere else, he realized that the townspeople spoke with a sound of agitation that nearly reached him. However, Abby only wanted to feel this peace for a while longer and touch the light that rose from the altar and spread around him. He could sense the power that the gods held in this place, where the people worshipped and so many truly believed.

For a moment he heard the startled and worried cries of others. He had not meant to upset them—

"Abby! Look out!"

Tristan's warning—the words and the sudden rush of feeling—reached him at the same time. He spun, yanking himself away from the seductive power of the altar just in time to see Milan charging at him with God's Honor in hand.

Abby tried to leap away, but the sword cut deep across his upper arm, sending him to his knees in shock and pain.

"Abby!"

He looked up to see Tristan running towards him, heedless of the priest with the sword. Eliora and Liora followed behind him, and Lehan jerked free from the hold of a townsman who seemed as crazed as his priest. The others looked horrified at what had happened.

Milan swung again. The sword hacked into Abby's right shoulder, the blade going deep and catching. Tristan cried out and stumbled, his hand going to his own shoulder, although Abby felt very little himself. Milan jerked the sword free again, and left the flow of blood cascading down Abby's arm and chest.

Tristan tackled the priest before he could swing yet again, sending him sprawling to the ground, though he didn't let go of the sword.

Lehan reached him and startled to kneel, his face pale white and his green eyes large.

"Help Tristan! Get the sword away from Milan!"

Lehan looked to where the elf had leapt back at the priest, heedless of the weapon. Lehan didn't pause as he launched himself toward the two, grabbing Milan's arm and throwing him off balance while Tristan grabbed at the hand holding the sword, heedless of what that blade might do to him. If Lehan hadn't suddenly shifted his grasp, the priest could have killed him.

However, Milan had no real fighting skills and Lehan forced him down with little trouble. Tristan grabbed the weapon out of his hand and shoved it into Eliora's startled grasp, and she looked stunned to have the glowing weapon in hand.

Tristan dropped down to Abby, catching hold of his friend by Abby's uninjured arm. Even now he didn't quite feel, or realize the seriousness of, the wound, although he had started to slip sideways and found he couldn't move his arm to stop himself.

"Abby!"

"I'm numb, Tristan,” he said, trying to calm his friend. “This place is holy."

"Only your mind is numb. Your body still feels,” he said. He put a hand on Abby's shoulder and whispered magic, at least enough to stop the bleeding. It seemed that magic came with difficulty to Tristan right now, and neither of them could decide if that was because of the place or Abby's condition. “Gently, Abby. There's more damage than you realize. You'll hurt when you leave here. I'm sorry."

"I've hurt before,” Abby said.

He let Tristan help him stand. Faces blurred before him, and only Milan's face came clearly through the fog of colors. Lehan and Liora had hold of the priest, who held his head up, blood running from his lip. He did not look repentant, and Abby knew that the trouble was not over. He didn't know what he could do to prove what he was to this man—

"Maybe you don't have to,” Tristan said softly. “Sometimes people have to take you on faith, Abby. And if they cannot have faith in you after this, then you cannot reach them with words."

Abby gave a reluctant nod of agreement—he would have liked things settled—and took one step away from the altar before the dizziness finally went beyond the numbness and power of this place. He leaned back against the altar to steady himself, lifting his uninjured hand to reassure Tristan. He was sorry when his blood stained the jewels and gold—

And the world went mad.

Sunlight surged and faded, surged and faded—at first he thought he had only started to lose consciousness, until he heard the wind howl with a cry of rage and pain. The building trembled and the walls cracked. The great wooden door slammed shut, and the flowers carved on both sides seemed to glow bright and hot. Abby could hear the crying of the world, loud and lost. He tried to raise his hands to his ears, but only one would obey.

"Aubreyan!” Tristan took hold of both arms, pain forgotten in the moment of panic and fear. He turned Abby to look at the Altar and he saw the blood and the way it glowed, too bright. “Abby, this is happening because of your blood. It's as though one of the gods had been attacked on Holy Ground, and they'll destroy this place for what the priest did—"

"No!” Aubreyan finally both felt and understood the depth of the worries that came from Tristan. Not only would this place be destroyed, but people would die here as well. “No! It will not happen!"

Abby reached out and put his uninjured hand on the altar, and then carefully laid his forehead down on the surface as well, afraid that he might fall otherwise. Power coursed through him, so wild and strong that even Tristan couldn't bear it this time. The elf let go with a cry of pain and went to his knees, gasping in agony.

And Abby reached within his mind and severed the link, mind-to-mind. He would not draw his friend into this madness as he tried to understand and contact the voices he could almost hear. The other beings felt so close that he could have reached out and touched them, or joined them. Leje, yes—but others close by as well.

And they would have welcomed him. Odd to feel such acceptance—but he pulled back. It was not his place. He could not abandon the war and the people who had followed him, even if the place they offered him seemed seductive with peace.

He also didn't want their help. He didn't want them to come here.

"Stop!” he yelled over the roar of Leje's anger and the cries of fear from the trapped people.

Power pulsed and Abby could hardly fight his thoughts into order again. He wanted Tristan's help, and almost reached for him again. The world moved again and again, as though trying to open up and swallow this place. But he did not want it to go. He willed it not to.

Almost lost the battle because he hadn't the power to command them—but he could command the world where he stood. No choices left—

"This is not my way! Stop!"

Stillness. Silence fell as though the world suddenly held its breath again. A moment of calm stretched on, and he wanted it to stay, here in the peace that would surely break when he let go.

But that would be no more right than if he had accepted the voices calling to him. Abby bowed his head and let go. The world breathed again, still and sane once more.

Someone whimpered behind him. The power of this place had started to rise again and he dared not stay here and risk more trouble.

"Tristan.” Abby pushed away from the altar and reached with a blindness that almost matched Tristan's at the moment. The world swirled in colors without shapes, and the sounds echoed so that he could not even place what people said. He could only reach for his friend whom he knew would be there, even though he had still not opened the link again. “Tristan, get me out of here."

Tristan caught hold of him and, with little gentleness and much speed, propelled him toward the door. They passed frightened faces that swam up out of the chaos and back again. Eliora moved ahead of them, and he suspected the sword she held sent the others scurrying away. She pushed the door open ... and in a moment they went out into the light. The chaos disappeared in that breath, as Abby clearly saw a gathering of horrified villagers, staring at them.

And he did hurt now. He managed to go down two stairs before he fell, pulling Tristan over as well. The elf scrambled back to his knees and immediately bent his head, and Abby felt the wounds in his shoulder go from fire to a more distant agony. When he opened his eyes again, Lehan had come out of the building and the others trailed him with remarkable slowness, considering how unstable the Temple and been only moments before. Lehan pushed the priest into the hands of others and knelt down by Tristan.

"I'm all right,” Abby reassured him as he started to sit up. Lehan reached to stop him until Tristan helped Abby. The elf understood that they needed calm here and to diffuse the panic before something happened for which there might be no repair.

"What do we do with this man?” Liora asked, casually kicking at the priest who hung limply in the hands of others.

"I am not his judge,” Abby said. “I cannot tell you what to do. It is not my place. I can only suggest that you let him go."

"Aubreyan!” Liora cried out in dismay and anger.

"He thought he acted in a way that served his god. He's not evil, only ambitious.” Abby looked up at Liora and held her stare this time. “You do not want me to judge people for that reason, do you?"

She blinked, her face paling at last. In the next breath she turned, and fled away from the temple and off toward the river. He wanted to get up and follow her.

"Abby,” Tristan whispered, but he couldn't tell if it was meant as a warning or a question.

"Let her go. We have work to do. Maybe tomorrow, finally, we can get to it."

"You're tired, Abby,” Tristan said, speaking in Dacey's language, calling Abby back with those words. “Let us rest a while."

"Yes,” he agreed. Tristan and Lehan helped him to his feet, but he held tight to Lehan for fear of going down again. Abby glanced around at the crowd of frightened faces and went back to the language of the others again. It had started to become stronger for him, and he felt Dacey slipping away with the language that they'd used to communicate. He wondered if he should try to hold on longer, but what good would that do? “Let the priest go. I have never sought another's blood. This is not the time to start. Peace here."

Abby turned away and started toward the hut. Tristan followed silently, still only a faint whisper of feeling in the back of his mind. When he reached the top of the trail he looked back—not at the village, but toward the place where Liora had fled, as though she could escape what she had been born to. He wondered if he traveled the path she had taken if he could find escape as well.

He looked at Tristan, following blind and silent behind him, and saw only pain in the elf's eyes, and no answers.

Chapter Ninteeen

Renage's odd question haunted Tabor for days. What do you fear? The question surfaced while he tried to do magic, slipped into his dreams and nightmares, made him inattentive—and gained him a new scar across the side of his face—when he stood before his father.

What do you fear?

Aubreyan Altazar? He had only once dared to look in on them since his trip to the world. He had been stunned to see the elf look so bleak. Abby had easily succumbed to Noman's simple spell and Liora's magical smile. Abby looked as though he had found some peace at last.

Tabor wondered why that bothered him so much. If Abby chose to tarry here, to fall into the charming arms of that plaything, why should he care? It would make his own work easier, after all.

And if Abby tarried long enough, Gix would win. Tristan knew it, surely, and that was why he looked so bleak. Despite that, the elf didn't appear to interfere. Why did he stand back and let Abby slip away from the war?

For Abby's sake, even over the care of all the worlds that had been put in their hands?

What do you fear?

He went to his room, settled on the bed, and looked again at his enemies. He could not fear Aubreyan, who climbed the trail with Liora and spent the day watching the village below, saying little. Resting. He needed the rest. Abby had too many weaknesses and too little cunning, and Tabor saw the peace in the godling's face for the first time in ... years? He had long ago stopped thinking in terms of time. It gave him a headache.

Tabor knew too well the ruthlessness with which his own side fought. Abby would never stand up to—

But he had stood up to them, and for a long time. Tabor could look at Abby's weaknesses and measure them. He could see the power that Gix and even the dog wielded. Abby had powers—Tabor had seen that recently—but he had never seen Abby use that power in a battle to capture a piece of the Kiya.

Abby had allies. Not just the elf who would never leave him, but others who willingly flocked to his side at every world. Despite having more power to show, Tabor had never drawn such powerful and devoted allies, even among those who already followed his father's way. No one had willingly followed him—

Well, not since Ylant, at least. There had been those who had followed him then and fought for him and not his father's cause.

But he'd been more human then.

There was a damning thought filled with doubt and rich with disaster. He didn't want to consider the repercussions of that argument at all, but, traitor-like, a single thought still surfaced: was this why the others followed Abby? Tabor was not as human—

He tried to shove that thought away yet again. It would not go. Succumbing to the inevitable, he thought long and hard about why it should matter to him that he had once been a human and that he didn't consider himself one any longer.

Abby remained human even with the new power awakened in him. In fact, he obviously held to his humanity—clung to it as though accepting the powers of a god would make him weaker.

The elf should have been the stronger of the two. Abby should have been overwhelmed by the elf and his magic. Instead Tristan had almost immediately started to become more human-like. Not god-like—Tabor saw no sign at all of that sort of change, even though Tristan should have had a link to Abby's power.

So Abby had remained human, and had obviously chosen to, since he could access the powers of his blood when he had to.

Why?

Tabor stood, frustration bringing shadows to life around him. He sent them fleeing again, the small things cringing at his anger. Go off and bother Braith, he wished. And they did. That was power. Granted, he could not do anything that well outside of his father's realm—

Or maybe he could. He hadn't tried, really. And did that mean he had been clinging to his own human side and denying his father's blood as well?

Tabor went back to the window and stared out at the world beyond the tower again. His eyes sought out that green stretch of life. Hope might play some part in being human, though Brendan had certainly been less human than Abby. Still, Brendan had chosen to sing for humans—

Ah!

Choice.

Humans had choices. They could be good or evil, follow the gods or the demons. Humans were not tied to the laws that gave gods and demons their powers. Humans were not just pawns moved in the game. The pawns chose their masters and shifted the balance in their actions.

Here in the domain of a demon all choice disappeared. Tabor could not choose to go out and sit in that stretch of green and watch the day drift by as Abby did with the lovely Liora. He could only act and react within the limitations of Gix's wants and needs. He imagined that it might be the same in the domain of the gods. But Abby kept himself outside that manipulation and made his own decisions.

And Abby won the battles that Tabor lost, even with the command of creatures far more powerful than his godling enemy. Abby's people fought from their own beliefs.

And his father called to him just then. Come. Now.

He had no choice, of course.

Part Three: The Price Of Peace

Chapter One

The days seemed very long to Tristan as he waited in the cottage, slowly regaining his strength. Abby had recovered far more quickly, and now he asked questions of everyone in the village. No one seemed to know anything about the Kiya. The locals didn't like to talk to Tristan, so he stayed away most of the time, even after he recovered. The local council even heard Abby out, but it led nowhere.

Abby stopped going to the village. Instead, he started spending time with Liora around the cottage and then up in the hills. Quiet time. Tristan did his best not to intrude, either in person or in thought.

Abby had begun finding answers, just not the ones that they had come looking for. He seemed to have finally found peace, if nothing else. Tristan couldn't wish anything else for Abby, who had never had tranquility in his life ... but after a while Tristan also knew that he could bear this waiting no longer.

The time had come to get back to work.

Abby sat at the table while Liora crossed the room to get them food and drink. He laughed at something Eliora said, but Tristan hadn't heard it.

"Hungry, Tristan?” Abby asked, the reserve in his voice only echoing the emptiness in his mind.

"No, Abby. Thank you.” He reached out ... and gently placed his crown on the table, his fingers lingering for a moment before he pulled away.

"No.” The word came more as a gasp than language. Tristan felt Abby move, his hand reaching toward him. “Tristan—"

He pulled back, despite the loss he heard in Abby's voice. He hadn't expected it to hit his friend this hard, not since there had been no emotion shared for so long already.

"I removed the crown a day ago, Abby. You never noticed. The truth is that you hadn't felt anything through it for a long time now."

"Something happened, Tristan. At the temple—"

"The link had weakened before then. And you never tried to get it back."

"Tristan—"

He shook his head, keeping the emotions he felt from his voice. “We both know you want to stay here. The link to me is a reminder that other work still needs done. I will assume the responsibility for the rest of the journey. I think your mother will accept that, as long as the work is done."

"You can't—"

"Be calm,” Tristan said. He started to reach out to touch, and stopped. “You have a chance for peace. The Kiya isn't here, and that makes me think we came to this place for another reason. I think we are here for you, Abby. I think you have found your place. I wouldn't want anything different for you."

"I can't let you go, Tristan—"

"You already have."

Silence. Abby had never denied the truth.

"Keep the crown. You may find a time when you wish to share again, with someone new. Peace, Abby. Peace and be well."

"No! Tristan, please—if you leave, at least take the crown. I could not—I want—Please, don't do this!"

"I'm going east to where these people first lived. That's where the drought started. I may find a clue to the Kiya there."

"It's a long ways,” Liora said. He could hear the satisfaction in her voice and knew that she had just been given exactly what she wanted. She made a dismissive sound this time. “What does it matter now?"

"Some day you will learn that the world doesn't revolve around you, Liora,” Tristan said. He thought Abby might say something, but he lifted his hand and his friend fell silent. “Peace, Abby."

He turned and walked away, out into the bright light of the day, and then up to the hills and away from this place where he would never find peace.

Chapter Two

Braith laughed. The horrible, rasping sound filled the chamber with small dark creatures that snarled and leapt at each other in attack. Nothing good came from that laughter.

They had not expected the elf to abandon Abby, not like this. It had been, Tabor suspected, an honorable thing to do, taking up the battle for his friend.

Tabor sat still, his wrist dripping blood onto the pattern on the floor. Gix looked down into the portal where they had watched the little drama at the cottage, and even his lips drew back in pleasure.

"Good,” Gix said. It was not a word he used often. Braith trembled with the praise. The demon grabbed his son's head and lifted it. “You do not find pleasure in this?"

"I don't find pleasure in bleeding for this dog and wasting the power while he gloats.” A truthful line, but deceptive—it did not answer what his father asked.

"And what other good are you?” Braith asked and kicked at him. “I have created the breach. Now ... now I will break the godling."

"You've a long ways to go before you have him broken and ready to willingly serve."

"Closer than you ever got,” Braith said and jabbed him in the back with the knife.

He barely kept from falling, even with the demon holding to his hair. But Gix didn't like the game for some reason and reached over to casually slap Braith back. The dog hit the far wall and slid down, stunned and angry.

The magic dissipated before Tabor, leaving only lines and blood and more blood.

"This is done. Leave. We will come back to them soon. I want Noman. I want the Kiya."

He looked at Braith, not Tabor.

Tabor stood, a bleeding hand pressed against the new wound in his back. He bowed his head, his face devoid of emotion still, and left the room well ahead of Braith who seemed to be having trouble getting up.

Damn, it hurt to even breathe. The dog had gotten a lung this time, and healing it proved difficult since he could hardly get a breath to speak. The world went black for a moment, and Tabor found himself stopped and leaning against the wall, half ill. No. This was not where he wanted to be if Braith came out.

Tabor stumbled on, his fingers clawing at the slimy wall, leaving blood and small creatures in his wake. He hadn't the strength to even wish them on Braith this time. Finally, Tabor found the door to his room and kicked it open—and fell through the opening and to the floor. But even that was not safe. He had to get the door closed, seal it, and make himself safe.

He could hear Braith coming, curses flying as he rushed down the stairs. Things flew ahead of him and would have gotten through the door if the ward hadn't been up. But he needed more to keep Braith out. He needed—

He didn't get the door closed in time.

Braith came through with a scream, and attacked like some wild creature. Even so, if he had not already been injured, Tabor would have been strong enough to toss him back off.

"You will not ruin this,” Braith snarled. He stabbed the knife, again and again. “You will not ruin it."

Stabbed, kicked ... eventually left. Tabor saw him through a haze of blood, the dog grinning as he stepped out of the room. Blood everywhere. Braith left the door open. The ward had fallen. Things came.

He couldn't die, of course. He could only wait and wait while wounds slowly healed, despite that Braith's creatures tore at them again and again. He killed some, but even that took energy. But he survived through the agony and the long hours that seemed as if they would never end. At some point he reached the bed. Sometime later he stood and stumbled to the window and looked out at the green.

He didn't smile. For a moment he feared he would weep with despair instead. It was not Abby whom they would break. It was him. And he dared not let it happen.

Tabor went back to the bed, snarling at the blood that covered everything. He tore off the covering and threw himself down again, turning his mind toward revenge.

But for some reason he thought instead of Tristan, walking away, for all the right reasons—but without knowing the truth behind Abby's actions.

Braith would not win.

Chapter Three

Away from the stone house, away from the little village and up into the gray hills and the gray land—but at least this time Tristan didn't have to look at the land around him. He followed the trail with a whisper of magic he had rarely used on their long journey. He tried not to think of coming to this place with Abby. He wished they had never left Dacey's world.

Tristan hated this lifeless, dead place. He hated this world. He feared that he even hated Liora, though he tried to bury that feeling away for Abby's sake.

Not that he would know.

Long day, long journey. He would never come back this way. They never did.

Alone.

Abby deserved this place. Abby—

He heard someone coming behind him, and for a few quick heartbeats he hoped—but no. He knew the sound of those steps too soon.

"Lehan,” he said and waited while the young man came to a breathless stop.

"Glad I caught up with you so soon. Eliora told me what happened. She sent food, Tristan."

He reached, aware that Lehan pulled something from his shoulder. However, it had been a long time since he had used magic as a sense. He missed the strap, the bag falling.

"Sorry!” Lehan exclaimed. He knelt and began to gather the packages together. Tristan did the same, closing his eyes and letting magic guide his fingers again.

"Why do you—” Lehan began. And then his breath caught. “You can't see."

"No, I can't.” But he found the strap and brought it up to his shoulder as he stood. “I haven't used this magic in a long time, but you needn't worry. I'm far from helpless. Thank your mother for me. This is a kindness I hadn't expected."

Lehan stayed on his knees. Tristan wished he could see the young man's face right now—but he buried that thought because the world would be forever dark now. He treasured the memories of what he had seen, but he knew he would not have the ability back again.

Lehan slowly stood. He put a hand on Tristan's arm. “I brought the crown,” he said.

"No. I don't want—"

"You can't leave it for Liora. For all our sakes, Tristan, don't leave something of such power within her reach."

But he had left Abby in her hands, and Abby was far more powerful than the crown. He took it into his hands and felt a distant whisper of Abby, a moment of panic that still carried from the moment he realized Tristan had taken off the crown and he hadn't known.

"I can't pretend to know what's going on,” Lehan finally said. “Why is he letting go? Why is he doing this for her?"

"We've traveled a long ways,” Tristan said. “Through many places where we would have stayed if we had the choice. I am giving Abby the choice this time."

"You shouldn't go. But I'll go with you if you do."

"Do you trust your sister?"

"Gods, no."

Tristan held up the crown. “This is a trinket. Abby is the one with power. You must stay and watch over him. You have to keep him safe from your sister."

He could tell Lehan wanted to argue. He took a breath as if to speak. And stopped.

"I would rather go with you."

"And I would rather I didn't have to go at all. But I can't stay, Lehan. I can't stay for Abby's sake, because if I do, there will always be the journey we must take waiting for us. I'll take it alone instead."

"Is it safe for you to go alone?"

"Nothing is safe, but a great deal is necessary. Watch Abby."

"I will."

"Thank you.” Tristan bowed his head to this friend and turned to walk away. And Lehan turned back as well, soon only a sound within other sounds behind him.

Chapter Four

Abby walked out of the cottage, carefully closing the door. The night, gray with fog again, closed in around him and for a brief moment he thought he would suffocate from that fog.

He took half a dozen steps away from the cottage, even that building disappearing from sight. He could see nothing but gray and gray—

Tristan had left. Tristan had gone—

Somewhere within the sudden wave of emotions that swept up out of the night, Abby touched on one small thought. It surfaced briefly between loss, pain, and anger.

It was not Tristan's war to fight.

In the turmoil of emotions, that thought burnt bright for a brief moment, and he grabbed at it, certain it meant far more than anything else. That thought brought him a moment of sanity.

The elf should not have gone off to find the Kiya and complete the geas the gods had put on him. It was not Tristan's duty to pay the price—

Tristan had abandoned him, but he had abandoned so many others—so many he had fought for, protected—and now—

Now he stood alone in a gray world, having forsaken everything—

"Aubreyan?” Liora's gentle voice drew him back from a moment where the faces of others in far places had crowded into his mind. She came closer, at first a gray ghost, and then something solid, real. “Come back inside, Aubreyan. He's gone. That was his choice."

"His choice,” Abby repeated. “I drove him away. I cut him off. Liora, I have to go after him—"

"No,” she said. The word came sharply, but in the next moment she gently put her hand on his arm. He felt that fire again, and it seemed to burn away what he had meant to say. “I'm sorry, Aubreyan. I didn't mean to sound so short. But you can't go after him, at least not tonight, in the dark with no preparations. And forgive me, love, but you look so weary. I think you need rest."

"Rest.” He said the word as though he didn't understand the meaning. “I can't remember when I last really rested. But still—Tristan—"

"Not tonight,” she ordered, but gently. “This is not the time to go wandering out into the night and the fog. You need rest, Aubreyan."

"Tristan shouldn't have gone—"

"He made his decision."

"No. It wasn't his—"

Liora turned him to face her and he started to pull away—but her hands found the side of his face and her lips found his. She stole his breath from him, and his thoughts as well. He drew back a little, but she pressed herself closer to him, wrapping her arms up around his neck and laying her head upon his shoulder. Her breath brushed against his ear and he thought she might be saying something, but he didn't know the words. Did he know this language?

He wanted, he wanted—

A breeze blew past them, stirring the fog. A scent of spring and storms, the whisper of lace and gold....

He drew away from Liora, startling her. She tried to pull him back—

"No, Liora. No."

"You don't mean that,” she said and snared his arm. He felt fire in that touch, and a warmth that he wanted to fall into. Oblivion waited in those arms.

He pulled free of her hold, took a step out of reach and lifted his hand in warning when she started to move closer. He could see confusion in her face as though she had never expected anyone to move away from her.

"I can't, Liora,” he said softly. “My duty ... My work..."

But Tristan had gone to do that work. And it wasn't right. He should—

Abby looked toward the hills again, lost though they were in the fog. In that moment she came close enough to take hold of his hand, wrapping her slender fingers around his and holding tight.

"You can't escape me, Aubreyan,” she said.

"Escape? Should I want to escape? Are you some animal that can't understand something so simple as my wish for peace to sort out my thoughts tonight?"

"I can help you find your place,” Liora said, oblivious to all he'd said. He could see it in her face—that she really believed she had all the answers he would ever need.

Maybe she did. Maybe it was time to let go. The elf had left. He no longer felt his touch in the crown—

Liora slipped closer, lifting her lips to his again—

"Leave him alone, Liora."

The sound of Lehan's voice, and his figure coming out of the fog and toward the cottage, startled them both. Aubreyan recovered quickly, but Liora grew angry.

"What are you doing out here? Are you spying on me?"

"I was gone all day, Liora. I'm just getting back,” Lehan said. He sounded weary and he looked as though he'd gone a long ways. Dust covered his clothing and settled in his hair. “I think it just luck that I showed up when I did. It's late. Why don't we all go back inside?"

Liora started to protest. Lehan didn't give her a chance, and Abby didn't fight when his friend just herded them back to the cottage. Liora went in first, anger in the set of her shoulders. Eliora looked up from where she slept by the hearth and frowned, her face illuminated by the dull embers. She said nothing as Liora threw herself down among the blankets.

"Take the bed, Lehan,” Abby said, pushing the young man that way. “You've worked harder today than I have. I'll sleep in the chair tonight."

Lehan shook his head, but Abby pushed him that way with one significant look at his sister. Abby didn't know if he caught the meaning—but Abby feared what might happen if she slipped into the bed with him tonight.

As Lehan slipped down onto the bed, she glared and turned her back to them.

Abby slept in the chair, but not well, for very many reasons.

Chapter Five

Tabor, watching with his secret magic, felt the pleasure in Braith as the elf headed farther and farther away from the godling. The dog watched for most of the first day, as though he expected some trick. When Lehan arrived, Braith waited for the elf to turn back with him. Instead he kept going, following a faint trail of magic that could lead him to the Kiya, eventually.

Braith and Gix watched again the next day, still waiting for something to change.

Tabor had watched as well, uncertain of what his two allies intended. However, by the third day, when they finally called him, Tabor knew the answer—the two didn't understand what the elf chose to do, and because of that they could not make a decision of their own.

Tabor found the situation amusing, though he hid his feelings behind his usual façade of indifference.

"The elf has left the godling,” Braith said, and though he tried to hold to his usual tone of superiority, Tabor could clearly hear the note of frustration in his voice.

Tabor looked from Braith to Gix, unwilling to answer the mage—just a petty little jab, but he did have a part to play in this game, and he knew better than to slip.

"Is there a problem?” Tabor said to his father.

"You are not surprised by this defection,” Gix answered, red eyes narrowing with mistrust.

Oh yes, that might be a real problem—that his father distrusted him even more. But Tabor held the demon's look as he spoke. Showing fear won nothing here. Being brave won little more, and sometimes turned out to be even worse—but at least he kept his pride.

"Of course I'm not surprised. I would assume this means the elf has moved on with the journey, tracking the Kiya?"

Braith made a small hissing noise, like a wild thing cornered and uncertain how to attack. Gix looked no less mistrustful, and Tabor wondered if he should have approached this problem differently. He knew, however, that he could not explain the elf to these two ... creatures. They would never understand altruism.

"Why are you not surprised?” Gix asked, his voice a low and dangerous rumble.

No turning back. Tabor had chosen the approach, and he dared not change now. He gave a dismissive shrug and stepped past Braith, effectively cutting him out of the conversation. He probably didn't need Braith's help to make this worse.

"While Braith has fawned at your feet and played magic tricks using my blood and power, I've been doing the job you set me to do. That job includes knowing how your enemies will react when I deal with them."

Braith shoved his way forward, and then must have thought better of being in the demon's direct gaze. He started to back up again, and froze.

If he so wanted to be part of this, Tabor didn't mind. He turned to Braith. “You have subverted the godling with your spell, but you had to cut free the elf to do it. What did you expect Tristan to do?"

He had turned the question on Braith. One did not question the demon about something that might embarrass him if he did not have the answer. Gix did not like embarrassment, and that could be uncomfortable for the person stupid enough to ask such a question.

Braith's temperament was no better, but his ability to show that displeasure was limited, at least in the presence of the demon.

Tabor, having waited long enough to make it plain that Braith had no answer, Tabor turned back to his father. Gix glanced once at the mage and then back to his son, waiting.

"The elf, unlike the godling, volunteered for this quest. His choice has always been to help Aubreyan collect the pieces of the Kiya. With no spell to entice him away from that work, he believes he can still best help his companion by taking over the work."

Braith shook his head as though in helpless confusion. “What can he hope to gain?"

"Nothing more than he hoped to gain from the start,” Tabor said. “To help the godling."

"This is not a trap,” Gix finally said. “This is not a lure to draw us in."

"No."

"Then we need not concern ourselves with the elf any longer,” Gix said, with a wave of his hand. “We have control of the Kiya. In the end, the elf will have to come to us."

"Why wait?” Braith asked. Worry that had shown in his eyes a moment before disappeared. “We can use this. The elf is away from the godling, and both are weaker for it. You do not care if the elf dies, do you, my Lord Gix? And you, Tabor? Do you care?"

"And why should I?” Tabor replied. Damn the dog for turning such a question on him. “Tell me what you hope to gain by wasting more power to go after him when you know he will come to us anyway."

Gix nodded.

"The results would be twofold,” Braith answered, with a nod to the demon. He had lost that hint of frustration and worry, and Tabor feared he was about to lose any gains he had made. “First, by taking the elf now while he is still sowing weakness at the parting form the godling, he will be easer to kill. We will then have all the pieces of the Kiya that Tabor lost to them."

He showed no reaction to those words. It would be pettiness answered with pettiness, and he knew better than to fall into that trap. Gix only inclined his head again.

"Then we take the elf's body back to the godling."

"Oh yes,” Gix answered, nearly a purr. “Let us be done with the elf."

Tabor certainly made no protests, not with his father so pleased at the idea. And what would he say, anyway? He could find no argument why they should not kill Tristan.

"This will break the godling,” Braith said, delighted as he reached for Tabor's hand, a knife already in the other.

"Or it could shock him into remembering his duty, and returning to it with the ardor of one who has a friend to avenge."

Braith snarled and jabbed. He pulled the magic up and leapt into the spell so quickly that even the demon could tell he had not wanted to be questioned.

Braith, worried about his position here, had made mistakes in an attempt to regain status. Tabor, despite that the dog used his blood for the spell, felt inclined to let Braith play this one out, because from the start he made a stupid miscalculation.

He sent a gargoyle after Tristan. Had he been a little more inventive, he might have sent something the elf wouldn't hear coming and recognize. And something the elf did not hate with a passion that would have done a demon justice.

Tristan fought well. Braith, half frantic with worry that he could not handle even this task well, threw another spell at the elf. Tristan, having traveled with Abby for so long, apparently kept a personal shield around him out of instinct. A spell that should have rendered him helpless barely staggered him.

The gargoyle managed a swipe that tore through the elf's shoulder, but Tristan spun back, knife cutting deep into the gargoyle's wing. It howled and backed away.

Braith forced it back, and at the same time threw a ball of pulsing power at Tristan, trying to distract him—

"Pretty light,” Tabor said. “A shame the elf is blind."

Braith howled as loudly as the gargoyle and attacked Tabor with the same ferocity, the knife cutting once, twice—deep gouges across his chest.

Gix threw Braith aside, his body slamming against the far wall.

And by then Tristan had finished the battle, and finished it well in fact. The gargoyle lay dead, and the elf had ... well, disappeared. He'd put a ward in place that effectively hid him—at least from Braith and Gix. Tabor still had a sense of where the elf was, thanks to that little link that had not been completely severed. However, he saw no reason to mention that at the moment.

Tabor, fighting to keep weakness from showing even while he bled at his father's feet, looked up at the demon. “He made another stupid mistake besides the light. While elves in general are peaceful, there is not a one who would not leap to kill a gargoyle. Tristan has a special hatred of them since gargoyles killed his parents. That gives him power that magic cannot overcome."

"You do know them well."

"I do not intend to waste my power on useless games. Braith does that enough for me already."

Gix nodded. He lifted a hand and healed the wounds—quick and painful, but done, at least. Tabor bowed his thanks and left the room before Braith had even managed to get back to his knees.

He severed the link with Braith for the moment. Tabor had recognized that fire in his father's eyes, and this time he felt no inclination to share those moments the two spent together.

He heard Braith's screams even before he reached the stairwell.

Chapter Six

Eliora stepped out into the hot day, carrying a small pitcher of water that she could spare to sprinkle on the plants in the garden. Was leaving the Liora and Aubreyan alone in the cottage wise? Liora had lost all sense of decorum, but Aubreyan Altazar had turned out to be no easy conquest. At best they had exchanged rather chaste kisses. Eliora would have found it all amusing, except she knew Abby should never have stayed.

She thought of Noman and the way he had held the baby girl that first night. So much else of their few months together seemed veiled, hidden—only a dull blur, like something viewed through water—the picture fragmented, the sounds distorted. She couldn't remember his voice, let alone what he had said—except for that very last night. Eliora began to think that the birth of her two children involved far more than the random chance that came to all men and women.

Eliora didn't want to think evil of Liora, but she could not stand by and watch what she did with Abby and think that it could be any good.

Eliora poured a little water here and there among the plants, hoping that the rains would come again—soft rains, gentle rains. She wanted—how odd to think this—but she wanted the world back the way it had been. She had thought she hated this place and despised the people, but seeing the alternative, she wanted the other back again.

Abby unexpectedly left the cottage a little while later, heading up into the hills. He often went up there to spend time alone, and even discouraged Liora from following him on most days. Today was one of them—he stopped at the edge of the trail and looked back when Liora stepped from the cottage. He shook his head, and this time she did not argue it. Instead, she turned her mother, as if that had always been her intention.

Aubreyan nodded a distant greeting to Eliora and went his own way, his shoulders slumped, his head lowered. Despite everything, Aubreyan Altazar did not look like a happy man.

"You should leave him alone,” Eliora said, watching the boy disappear over the ridge.

"You're jealous, aren't you?” Liora laughed, pulling a half dozen leaves from a just watered plant, heedless of the attempt to keep it alive. “The men never came looking for you—"

"What makes you think that?” she asked, and in the look she gave Liora she forgot that they were mother and daughter. “I had sense enough to send them back to their wives, because they couldn't give me anything, Liora. I know that you go off into the hills with them sometimes. That's your business. But Abby is different."

"I know. Abby is the one who has the real power."

"Is that all this means to you?” Anger rose, along with her voice. “If this is only about power—"

"There's nothing else in the world worth having,” Liora said. She stepped away from her mother. “You taught me that."

"I'll take the blame for making you a spoiled child, but you will have to take the blame yourself for being a blind fool."

Liora looked at her, shocked by the words—as though no one would ever have dared spoken to her that way.

"I'll take Abby and we'll go,” she said. It sounded like a threat. But of what?

"Do you really think you control Abby?"

"If I asked him—if I said I wanted to go—” Liora looked out at the hills and shook her head. “But there is nowhere else, is there? No where but the places in the books, and they no longer exist."

"You could follow Tristan and help him,” Eliora said.

"The elf is gone. Best that he stay away from Aubreyan's life. Whatever they shared is over now. Abby's mine."

"You don't understand.” Eliora said, a more certain truth than she'd ever spoken to her daughter before. “I think that must be my fault. I kept you ignorant of good and evil. I let you believe that the people in Promise owed you—but they don't, you know. They paid for whatever guilt they had in the matter of Noman and me years ago. I begin to think that they had no more choice in what happened than I did."

"Are you going to tell me that you never used Noman—or his children—to gain power?” She looked into Eliora's face and shook her head with derision. “I'm not naive. Where do you think I learned to do this so well?"

"Perhaps the technique. But I was never cruel, and I never put other lives at stake.” She caught her daughter's arm as Liora turned to walk away in derision. “Abby had an important duty."

"And now the elf does the work. They both made that choice. You can't blame it on me. And what does it matter, anyway?"

She pulled free of her mother's hold and headed down toward the village. She didn't look back. Eliora watched her, stunned by the audacity and blindness she had seen in her daughter. She had ignored it in a child ... but now—

"I could have told you it wouldn't work,” Lehan said, startling her. He came around the side of the cottage and watching as Liora hurried away. “I tried, too."

"What have I done?” Eliora said.

"I don't think it matters what any of us have done in the past,” Lehan answered. He leaned back against the house, still looking worried. “It's what we do next that will be important."

"Next?"

"Even you have been blind,” he said, but not unkindly. He looked troubled. “I think I would be as well, but something opened my eyes; I shared thoughts with Tristan. He left, even unintentionally, knowledge of matters that no one else on this world knows."

"It opened your eyes. What did you see?"

"Magic, but not the kind Tristan used. No bright pretty lights to scare away the others and doing them no harm. This magic is dark, mother. It hovers around us, everywhere."

He stared out at the village and she looked as well, watching as Liora disappeared in the first line of buildings. Gray everywhere, except for the darker black shadows. Why had she never noticed them before?

"And what does it do?"

"Besides blind people to the obvious? I think first it will destroy Promise. There has been no rain at all since the elf left. The crops have begun to wither and the river is shrinking. And how do you think Abby will react when he realizes it is his fault?"

"His fault—” She stopped and nodded. “Aimed at him, because we are nothing but pawns in his larger war."

Lehan looked back at her, apparently relieved that she understood. “Liora is too much a part of what's happening to see it clearly—"

"A purposeful part. I begin to think Liora was born to play this role."

Those words appeared to trouble him. “And what does that make me?” he asked softly.

She stepped closer and put a hand on his arm, so that he looked up into her face. She had forgotten how green his eyes were. Such a rare color in this gray world, and so like Abby's eyes.

"Noman said something the night the two of you were born. You surprised him. He hadn't expected two babies. He said you were a balance. I don't know what that means, but I think it makes you different than your sister."

Lehan smiled, brightness dispersing the darkness that had taken him a moment before. “I know what it means. I have it from Tristan. I know about balances, and I know, then, my place in this. I'm right."

"What will you do?"

"Find a way to wake Abby from this nightmare. I don't know how yet. But I won't let Liora and the ones she works for win."

Eliora nodded. She tried not to feel a pang of remorse for the side she took, one child against the other. “I'll do what I can to help. I'm tired of being a pawn."

Chapter SEven

Tristan hadn't expected to find someone waiting along the trail. He had wandered far back in the mountains, so many days away from ... anyone else.

He especially hadn't expected Tabor. The demonling had cloaked his true nature so well that Tristan hadn't realized who sat there until they were barely yards apart.

And then the realization of how much he could lose hit him with a surge of fear like he had never felt before. Tristan dropped one hand to his belt knife, the other to the pouch with the pieces of the Kiya.

"Peace, elf. I haven't come for her. Not yet. Not this time.” Tabor slid from the boulder where he had been waiting. Tristan heard the slow movement, and the slight catch in his breath. He sensed weakness. Pain. “You must turn back before it's too late."

"Turn back away from the work I swore to do—"

"You can't be that stupid, elf!” Frustration rose, but Tabor gasped as though even that hurt. “It's a trap to break Abby. And I fear it will work. He is weakening."

"A trap because he found what he wants. He has found a place to rest and peace—"

"If he really wanted her, he would have had her long before you left,” Tabor gasped. Injured. Tristan could sense many wounds, barely healing. Abby's work? No. Abby would never have done such a thing and left even an enemy like Tabor in such pain. “You have to go back and make certain that he stays strong."

"Why should you care?"

"Because I don't want Braith to win. And in this, elf, we have a common cause. Go. Go back and save your godling before Braith and Gix grow impatient and move in to finish the work instead of just toying with him. He'll need you."

"He has Eliora, Lehan, and Liora."

"When did you truly turn blind? Liora is the trap. She was born enspelled to trap and seduce him away not only from you, but from the side of the gods as well. Gix and Braith made you ill, elf. While you were weak and lost in fever, they put a spell between you and the godling, cutting him away from you, but making certain that you could not sense her purpose. I tried to cure you that night—but I was already too late."

"I sensed you.” He felt a little bit of belief try to inch its way up into his mind. He didn't want to think he could have been that much of a fool. That blind. “He found peace with her, Tabor. I could not wish for him to leave her for the war again."

"She is peace—but she is also oblivion, because Abby cannot have peace unless he forgets everything he's done and everyone he knew, including you. Especially you. Go back and remind him, elf—or else Braith will win, and neither you nor I will like that result. And Abby, when the spell is broken, will know what he did, and how he lost the worlds to the demons."

"Gods—"

"Don't!” Tabor said, a hiss of warning as he backed away, nearly tripping. Tristan heard him start to fall and catch himself on the boulder. He had almost reached to help, but held back, still uncertain. “Don't call on them while I am near. Go elf. Go back. You haven't time to waste. Oh, and this I give you too. The mage, Noman, has found the Kiya. He's already returning to Promise to help take the godling."

"Help me get there first!"

"I can't.” He took a ragged breath. “Even if I thought they would miss such obvious meddling, I couldn't. I barely have the strength to get here and back to Gix's world without being noticed."

He wasn't lying. Tristan had already sensed the weakness in him. Unfortunately, he believed everything Tabor had said about Abby being in danger and the reason why his friend stayed behind.

Tristan turned. Days of travel lay between him and Abby. He hoped he got back in time.

He ran. Behind him Tabor left this world in a little pop of magic that sent an errant breeze at his back. Tristan wondered if he should doubt the demonling. He thought not. He believed that Tabor had every reason to want Braith stopped, even if that did mean helping Abby.

He had to reach his friend. He had to—

The crown—

Tristan came to a stumbling stop, his hand reaching into the pack, his fingers trembling. He pulled the crown from the pack and almost dropped it onto his head—

No. That would not help, especially if Gix and Braith had some spell in place and sensed him. Besides, even in the little contact between his fingers he could tell that Abby did not wear the other crown. It sat on a shelf in the cottage, the last of Abby's thoughts a dull whisper of regret laced with fear. Abby had sensed something wrong, but he couldn't define the worry. He couldn't think, except to want peace. To forget.

Tristan put the crown carefully back into the pack. And then he ran again.

Part 4: Awakening

Chapter One

Long, lazy days; Abby lost count as the time passed in the warm days of a forever summer. He didn't care about time as long as he could spend the days here in peace. For the first time in his life, no one made demands on him. He had no worries and the only disturbance in his quiet world was the welcome intrusion of Liora.

Sometimes he feared what he felt when she came close, and when her hands touched him. He fought those urges because when he had them it felt as though she held his very soul, and he could not bear the thought of captivity again, even in her soft hands and cool fingers. He fought against her hold, and quelled the part of him that said she was what he wanted most.

But every day that he accepted this peace, the battle not to give way to her became harder.

Today she ran a comb through his hair as she leaned over him. Her own long, fiery hair cascaded across his shoulders, and his fingers played with a silken strand. He could lose himself in that moment that stretched forever, with no other thoughts except how the light glittered in her hair

"How long did you wear that crown, Abby?” The annoyance in her voice snapped him back from his reveries. He wondered why the thought of the crown and the past bothered her so. “It's put a kink in your hair, and there's a pale line across your forehead."

He touched the spot above his eyes and shivered when his fingers did not brush against the stone. Even after the elf had gone, the stone had remained, a touch of warmth and friendship. Then she nagged him into removing it. He wished he hadn't given in to her in that moment of weakness.

"Aubreyan!” Liora swept down in front of him, her face set with irritation. She always wanted answers, even to the most trivial questions. “How long did you wear the crown? Do you understand?"

"I understand.” The calm annoyed her more, and he could see the rage growing in her eyes. Some days nothing he did or said would make dealing with her easier. Her impatience grew more quickly lately. She wanted something more than the peace he found here, and she pushed him toward whatever agenda she had in life. He did not go willingly.

"Abby—” Her eyes flashed, like silver caught in the sun.

"How long did I wear the crown? How do you count the days on other worlds, and endless nights between the stars? I can't count the time, Liora. I don't understand how it moves any more."

She bit at her lip, gray eyes narrowing before she shrugged and sat down beside him, hair and time forgotten. She stared down the toward the valley now, instead. Other worlds and journeys between the stars didn't concern her. Nothing but what she could touch and see seemed to hold her interest.

"It's peaceful here,” Abby said. Sometimes he thought he could help her to understand. “I like the peace, though I do wish the rains would come again."

"Too peaceful, at least until you came. Life is changing here and you're a big part of it. They're as much afraid of you as they are of their own god now."

"I don't want them to be afraid of me,” he said, looking at her with shock that she obviously didn't understand either. Did she never look beyond herself at all? “I want neither their fear nor their worship. I want peace."

"And only peace?” She smiled, her fingers playing with a strand of his hair again. “I think there is something more you want here. After all, there is peace in many other places."

"Perhaps for others, but not for me.” He caught her hand and held it as she began to brush her fingers along the side of his face. “No, Liora."

But his order didn't stop her. She reached out with her other hand and slipped it down the side of his neck, across his shoulder, down his arm. The touch felt like fire to him—warm with longing and filled with pain at the same time. She knew it and tormented him.

"You could have anything you wanted, Aubreyan.” She leaned closer, her lips brushing against his ear, breathless with a cascade of words. He thought there might even be longing of her own. He could never be certain. “You can have anything. Ask for it. Or command it."

She craved power. He had always seen that part of her, though it wouldn't have mattered to him—except that she wanted to gain power through him. Peace and power were not compatible.

"Aubreyan, come with me,” she whispered, a soft tickle of words at his ear. “Back into the hills. There is a cave where I have made a place of my own."

And where she would trap him.

"No."

He hadn't meant to say the word so harshly. She pulled away in shock, glaring back at him with anger this time.

"Liora, don't—"

"Do you just play games, Aubreyan?” she demanded, drawing her hands out of his reach. “Or is it that you aren't human after all?"

"I never claimed to be human. And I seriously doubt you'd be interested in me if I were.” That drew a look of surprise. Did she really think he didn't see what she wanted from him? “You are not going to change me, Liora."

She stared as though he had suddenly transformed into some strange creature right before her eyes. He'd never considered that Liora might be blinded by what she wanted. He didn't expect her to stand and flee, either, running back toward the cottage. He almost called after her ... and then realized that he didn't want her to stay. He wanted peace and he wanted her, but if he had to give up one to have the other....

Abby leaned back against the boulder and closed his eyes, feeling the sun against his face. The clouds were not as gray today, and sometimes when he looked up he could see blue sky above. He could sit here and watch for it during the long day, and not have to worry about anything else.

Peace.

"Aubreyan?"

He turned, surprised because he hadn't heard Lehan coming up the path. Lehan seemed so different from his sister—quiet, and undemanding. He didn't make noise just to draw attention. Lehan apparently had no ambitions beyond those that kept him alive from day to day. Abby thought that ought to be enough for any wise man.

"Lehan,” Abby greeted him with a belated nod and a sweep of his arm to indicate he didn't mind the company.

"Liora passed me,” Lehan said. He dropped down on his heels and looked at Abby, worry in his face. “She's not happy."

"And that surprises you?"

"No, it doesn't,” Lehan said. He smiled.

"She always wants something more from me. She's never learned when to accept that she has enough."

"Do you love her Aubreyan?"

"Oh yes. And that creates a different problem. She equates love with giving and she doesn't understand that I will not give her everything that she wants."

"No isn't a word she was ever taught. Everything has been ours for the taking, you know. The people of Promise felt they owed something to my mother, and we inherited that payment. They never admit it, but they have made this into a place where my mother rules, because they feared that we had some sort of power over their future. This is Eliora's world."

Abby looked down at the village, so far away from here that he seldom could even hear the voices of the people who toiled there. Liora would go there now, as she did most afternoons. A little twinge of regret touched his heart, but not enough to make him get up and follow her.

"I wish... for different things,” Abby said. He looked at Lehan and focused, for the first time in days, on something that went beyond Liora and the peace he wanted. He found it difficult to step beyond that place where watching for the sky to turn blue had become his only need. That realization frightened him. “It was wrong to send Tristan to fight this battle for me. You know that, don't you?"

"Can a god regret?"

"I am not a god!” Anger rose and rushed up through him like fire, burning away all the layers of peace he had built around him. He had never expected such words from Lehan. They hurt.

Lehan held out a hand in a gesture of calm, his face pale and worried. “That's what they think you are in the valley, Aubreyan. They think you are an incarnation of their own Leje, come to pass judgment on them at last. Have you been within the temple?"

"Not since that first time. I dare not."

"I thought as much. They've painted your likeness above the altar and they have special prayers they say to it."

"They... what?” He looked at Lehan appalled by the idea. Shaken that such a thing could be happening, even now down there in the village so close to him. He felt ill at the thought. “You have seen it?"

"From the open door, when I followed Liora there. They do it at her suggestion."

"Why?” Shock of betrayal left him trembling. Liora couldn't have done that, knowing how he felt—

"She did it for power. She is your voice to the people—"

"Not mine!"

"She is as long as you don't go to them yourself. I thought you understood what she did and allowed her these games to keep her happy."

He looked toward the village again, searching out the roof of the temple. Had he felt it calling to him, and been blind even to that? He'd thought the link he felt was just a vestige of the one time he'd stepped inside.

Liora had done this, playing with things that should never have been awakened. She'd been there and seen what had happened to him in the temple. How could she think this was wise?

Wisdom had never been part of her world.

"The pursuit of power is something I have avidly avoided all my life, Lehan. How could I have so easily accepted it in her?"

"When you love someone, you are blind to their faults."

"Blind,” he repeated the word, and felt the truth as though with each breath he came more fully awake again. “Gods, I was the one who was blind."

"I saw Tristan after he left,” Lehan told him, startling him again. “I took him supplies from Eliora. You know that he wasn't angry, right?"

"It is not in Tristan to grow angry at stupidity, even mine. What have I done? The whole universe runs the risk of falling to chaos, darkness and evil ... and I sit here in the sun wishing for peace? Not even wishing for your sister most of the time, Lehan. Just wishing not to be the one responsible—it's not right."

Lehan's head lifted again. He bit at his lower lip, as though afraid to say something. “I took Tristan the crown. I didn't want it—didn't trust it in Liora's hands."

Abby reached out and put a hand on his friend's shoulder, as relief washed through him. “You have done me a kindness I can never repay. Thank you. I begin to think that there is more at work here than I realized. I need the other crown to reach Tristan, and you have given me hope that I can do it."

Lehan nodded, relief in his face. Abby stood, feeling an odd chill and an urgent press to get back to the cottage. He'd not felt this unsettled since before Tristan left, but it seemed as though he could now perceive danger just beyond his sight. Gods help him if he had sent Tristan off, months ago, into danger the elf could not handle—because he had not been the one who had been created to fight this war, after all. Gods help them all if he failed because of Liora's cool touch.

"We have to—” He looked past Lehan to find Liora standing, only yards away, watching them.

Lehan spun and stared, and for a moment the world held still again, as though no one breathed. Then she spun and ran.

"She'll get there ahead of us,” Lehan said, panic starting him out at a quick jog.

Abby ran as well, ignoring the pain in his side. He'd seen the look in her face—the knowledge that she had lost all the little threads of power she had been stealing from him. He feared what she would do.

They didn't take long to reach he cottage, and Eliora looked up, startled when they rushed in. Her hand went for her knife out of instinct. She drew her fingers back and went back to darning with a shake of her head.

"I have come to expect less haste form you, Aubreyan. And Lehan, you should have known better than to surprise me."

"Forgive me, Great Eliora,” Lehan said and bowed in a way that seemed to imitate Abby. He wondered if that had become a fad in the village.

"Don't mock me, boy,” she said, but smiled at the words.

Abby went quickly past to the little corner where he kept his few belongings. He felt his heart catch seeing the leather case open. He knew she had already taken the crown before he poured the items out on the bed.

Eliora looked up again, and this time set aside her work. She looked troubled. “Liora was here just moments before you arrived. She grabbed something and left again. I assumed she came at your behest, Aubreyan."

"She took it.” He sat down, knowing where she went and knowing that he would need calm again before he followed.

"She'll destroy it!” Lehan said, panicked this time.

"No.” Abby felt oddly convinced of that truth. He knew Liora too well. “No, the crown is power and the key to Tristan and all his magic. She won't destroy something that she might use. She's done well enough to keep it out of my hands."

"What's wrong?"

"I've awoken from a long sleep and found that I'm a fool,” Abby said. He stood again and crossed to the door. “I'm going to look for her. If she comes back, tell her she would be wise to return the crown. I will no longer play her games, and she doesn't want me to have to take it from her."

The words surprised Eliora, but she nodded. “I'm going down to the village in a little while. If I see her, I'll tell her. She'd be wise to listen, but I don't know that she will, Abby."

"I know. But there has been an abundance of foolishness here lately. Perhaps wisdom will win out."

But he feared that it wouldn't—and that Liora with her beautiful hair and soft touch would be the one to bring the rule of the demons when the battles and wars he had fought had not.

Chapter Two

Eliora waved a hand out to the edge of the dwindling river and shook her head. “We don't have much choice. We'll have to sacrifice some of the land to a dam and reservoir or else we'll never have enough water for next year if the drought continues. If we don't start now—"

Some of the men nodded and looked troubled. But Meren shook his head, and Eliora could guess what his protest would be long before he spoke.

"We don't have the manpower,” he said. “We need every man we have to keep the fields watered by carrying it in buckets from the river."

"That would be work better done by the women and some of the older children,” Eliora said, meeting the man's brown eyes and holding them. He would not approve. Women did not work in the field and do men's jobs. “No, don't start to spiel your religious reasoning to me this time, Meren. I've heard it all before. And I've backed down and acquiesced before, but not this time. This time we're talking about the survival of everyone, and there is no one we can afford to let sit idle to spin and cook. Pretty soon, if they don't come out of the houses and help, there will be nothing left to spin with or to cook."

"It is not proper,” Meren insisted.

"Far more proper, I suppose, to let people starve next spring because you think your pride is more important than their survival. I assume that when the food stores get low, it will be the women who are rationed first."

"Of course,” Meren said. “Women and girl children. That is the law of our god Leje, may his name be blessed. But you, of course, would not know the laws."

Datin, who had been standing next to the man, looked at Eliora and took three quick steps away from the fool. Eliora kept her hand away from her belt knife, but only barely.

"You know, I have listened to you spout stupidity and intolerance in the name of religion for far too many years. I have stated my opinions and let it go at that because before now at worst it proved an inconvenience for me. But not this time, Meren."

"And what will you do?"

"I'm going to go door to door in the village and tell all the women whom I meet that their men would rather see them starve then admit that they are inadequate to the work at hand. I wouldn't be too quick to go home tonight. And tomorrow, those women who wish to will be free to leave with me for a new site where they'll be allowed the dignity of fighting for their own survival."

She turned to go—

"Eliora, wait,” Datin said. He grinned. “Would it be any help to know that my wife is already making pants for her and my two daughters and three daughters-in-law so that they aren't encumbered by the skirts? And that we had two meetings last week at my house to help others prepare for the change? It's a frightening step, you know—for our women as well as for our men."

She looked back at him, stunned. Meren's look was no better—he stood with his mouth open and his face gone white.

"My daughter married your son,” he said.

"Yes, Isi. She's quite a good worker."

"I will not allow—"

"Even by the laws of Leje she is no longer your concern,” Datin said.

"If we allow this, they will never go back,” Meren warned.

"If we don't allow this we might as well just line them up and kill them now,” Tadca said, stepping forward. A young man, a fanatic, Eliora had thought. But not stupid, apparently. “If they count for so little, why waste the food on them at all? I follow Leje and I do as he bids—and he bids that I love and care for my wife. And in the time of strife stand side-by-side before adversity and work together to overcome that which oppresses you. My wife will be helping in the fields tomorrow. What do you want of the rest of us, Liora?"

She had not expected such a win. She had not expected them to have already started taking the steps toward this monumental change, even if it was a logical move.

"Tomorrow we'll need to start training the women on how to water the fields. The day after that—"

And she stopped. She could see people coming early back from the fields and some carried bodies. She thought she saw blood, and she could hear shouts as more men followed—everyone coming in who was not already here at the riverside.

The others started away to see what had happened, but Datin stopped and looked back at her.

"Go. You know this can't be good. They must have been attacked. Find your children and Aubreyan and warn them."

"Datin—"

"Go,” he said, a look of frustration in his creased face. “You can't help here, not this time. You know they've been looking for something to use against you. They might not have been able to blame the drought ... but murders—"

"Thank you,” she said. She regretted that the win she'd just had here was lost now. Or maybe not. Datin had already been working at bringing his women out to work in the fields. She hoped that there would be wisdom still after this.

Datin looked relieved when she hurried off. She didn't go far, though. She needed knowledge of what had happened and how to prepare for it.

Huddled in the shadows by the temple, she heard the men coming closer, the voices raised in anger, and the wailing of women who had joined them.

"What happened?” Milan asked from the temple stairs.

"Noman,” someone said. “He was seen this time. Emol said it was Noman."

Emol had been here long enough—was old enough to remember.

"The witch and her devil children have called him back!” another voice called out.

Datin had been right; she wouldn't be safe with these people right now. Eliora couldn't hear what Milan had shouted about her and Abby, but she doubted it could be good.

Eliora slid along the edge of the wall, out past the cistern carved in stone, and turned toward home—and then stopped and backed up to the shadows again. Going up the trail to her cottage would just draw people after her.

She turned back toward the river's edge and the fields. Another, lesser-used trail led up to the hills more than three miles away, but she'd make that quickly. The men had already come in from the work. She'd be safe from them.

But what about Noman? Would she meet him on the trails? Her hand went to her knife. She hoped to find him. She might not survive, but they'd know she put up a fight, at least.

She hoped she could find Abby and Lehan. And yes, even Liora. She wouldn't want her daughter—her foolish, haughty daughter—to fall prey to this trouble. She had to get back to the cottage and the safety those walls could provide—

They had never kept her safe from Noman before.

And somewhere back in the village she heard the weeping of women.

Chapter Three

Tristan had lived in the hills for days, scurrying among the rocks, hiding in the shadows like some feral creature that remembered the paradise of civilization, but still feared the nearness of humanity.

Tristan knew Abby was near. Sometimes he thought he should just go to him, try to find a way to reach his friend—but he could sense Liora there as well, everywhere with Abby. He knew, even with his magic he could not compete against her spell.

However, it wasn't just Abby that kept him wandering in the hills near Promise. He could sense the Kiya near as well. Tristan had started to sense her, a darker magic in this world of gray. Events had started to move, finally—and he feared that if he did not think this through clearly, he would do something nearly as stupid as running away through the mountains.

Tabor had not lied to him. That still came as a shock when he realized how much help the demonling had been, and that they had a chance of saving this round only by his intervention. Tabor sent him back here to save Abby. It frightened Tristan to think that everything was so badly out of balance on this strange, magicless world.

Tristan had begun tracking the Kiya, hoping that he could get hold of her before she moved against Abby. He thought that she didn't know he had returned. She made no sign of it, though he felt her gathering her creatures, subverting her humans, planning on the attack.

Soon.

Tristan followed no trail. He walked along the hills in places where no one else went, his magic finding the safe paths to pass. He could use magic here with only the fear that the Kiya would sense it, but she was small and self-absorbed, and whatever mind she possessed might not be able to take in more than her own work.

Tristan slept in the wilds—when he slept at all. He had not done much of that lately, using his magic to keep him going. Something had begun to change over the last few days and this afternoon he had even sensed Abby, close by and frantic, he thought.

Tristan turned back toward the village. Abby needed him.

And besides, that was where the Kiya had turned to go as well. He could sense her and the surge of magic she had produced, taking control of her followers and turning them toward her purpose. He hurried. He needed to be with Abby to help.

Chapter Four

He and Lehan walked in silence for a long ways through the hills until Abby felt the drain of both his energy and his emotions. When he stumbled, Lehan caught hold of his arm. There had been no sign of Liora on the dozen trails they followed, and now with the night coming, he knew he had no choice but to go back.

Tristan, Tristan—what have I done?

But Tristan did not answer, of course.

He couldn't say when they had turned back, or if it had been his choice. They topped the hill and looked down at the cottage and the village farther below. He stopped there, staring. He had seen far more beautiful places. He had walked on worlds where power flowed in the air, and seen lands where magic could build castles. Why was it that this place, so bereft of enchantment, could prove to be his downfall?

Lehan led Abby to the cottage. Eliora had been waiting at the door, and hurried them quickly inside. Her worry drew him from his own sense of loss. Eliora had already shuttered the windows, and now she closed, locked, and bolted the door.

"Liora was here, just before sunset,” Eliora said as Lehan brought Abby a cup of cool water from the dwindling supplies. He only now remembered hearing Lehan and Eliora speaking about such things as supplies, the lack of rain, and worry about the villagers. “Abby, are you listening to me?"

"Sorry.” He looked up at her, feeling lost and afraid again. “What did she say?"

"She said that she would go where you could not, and she'd be safe there."

"The temple,” Lehan guessed and Abby nodded. Someone shouted, down in the town. “What's going on?"

"Five men were killed coming back from the fields. They say that Noman was seen this time."

"Is he back?” Lehan asked, a hint of panic in his own voice. “Have you seen him?"

"I haven't, and they've said he's returned before and been wrong. But it's a dangerous time for us. We have to leave the cottage, Abby. We shouldn't be here even now. They connect me and the children with Noman, and I fear they'll turn on us this time."

"The Kiya,” Abby said. He reached out and touched the shutter, though he didn't try to open it. “She's here."

"The thing that you came here searching for,” Eliora said, moving to stand beside him. “And Noman returned. I assume that they are connected."

"Yes,” he said, certainty in his words and his thoughts. The world came into focus again. He knew the enemy, and he knew at least part of what had happened here. “A lot of what's happened is starting to become clear. The Kiya is a small piece of a demon-made staff. When we first arrived, Tristan and I suspected the drought was her work. However, as soon as I met Liora, I lost all interest—ah, yes. Even that. I suspect Liora may be part of the demon's work on this world to stop me."

"I thought as much,” Lehan admitted. He glanced at his mother but she said nothing. “I caught the gist of that from Tristan, and added it to something my mother said about when we were born. Balance."

Abby looked at his friend and smiled; not alone, no matter what stupid mistakes he'd made so far. “I must get the crown. Tristan is the strength I need to fight against the magic. And I'll need the Janin as well. The gods alone know what the villages will make of her."

"The Janin? Her?” Lehan said. He frowned, as though he thought he should know what Abby talked about. How much of that had he gotten from Tristan as well?

"You'll see. Lehan, will you help me face Liora at the temple? I'll need help. The power I feel there makes me crazy. I don't dare get the Janin before I do that part. I'd never be able to control her."

"I am honored that you trust me with such an important task,” Lehan answered, and bowed his head.

Aubreyan put a hand on his shoulder, drawing him to look up again. “Thank you. I have finally made the right choice. We must go. I dare not put this off any longer. Eliora—"

"Go."

"Be safe,” Abby wished her. He knew that not everything that happened here was his fault, but he still felt the responsibility. “I would ask you to come with us, but it is far less safe where we go."

"I know."

Abby stepped back to the bed and knelt, pulling God's Honor and the sheath that held her out from underneath the mattress. He wondered why Liora hadn't taken it as well, though it might have been that she just didn't know where he'd put it.

He belted the sword back on—an unexpectedly heavy weight that he'd forgotten—and he hurried out of the cottage. He wanted to stay there because those walls represented safety, and that felt seductive right now. He needed to go to battle, to face Liora and sever the link that drew him to her.

Lehan followed him down the path toward Promise, a shadow at his back, making Abby feel even more alone. As they passed through the village he saw faces look from the windows, and whispered words seemed to follow him like a cool breeze. They prayed to him in their temple as their god, but if they whispered enough that he was a demon, would they believe it instead?

What would Lehan believe?

Aubreyan, having slowly traversed the village, finally paused at the bottom of the stairs and looked up at the temple door. It stood slightly ajar, the flickering candles casting a welcome light out into the dark night. Even though he couldn't see her, he knew Liora waited inside.

"I could bring her out, Aubreyan,” Lehan offered, putting one foot on the stair.

"No. I cannot send you, also, to fight my battle. And this is my place. I don't think she quite realizes the truth of why I don't come here. It's not fear. I don't like the power. That doesn't mean I won't use it."

Lehan nodded, not questioning him at all. “Let me have your sword, then. All I have is a dagger, and I don't think I could hold off anyone for long with it."

Abby pulled the sword form the sheath. The blade glowed in the dark of night, and Lehan backed away a half a step before he stopped himself.

"Magic,” Abby said, still using Dacey's word in a place that didn't have one of its own. “It won't hurt you, but it is a power we must use now."

Abby held the hilt out and Lehan tentatively let his fingers brush against the jeweled handle. Resolve came to his face, and he took the weapon. Even though he didn't know swords, God's Honor would help protect him.

"Thank you.” Aubreyan took a deeper breath and turned toward the door again. “Don't stay out in the open. You would be better protected just inside, but don't come near the altar. That could be dangerous with me there."

"Then how can I help you?"

"By making certain no one comes to help Liora. I can concentrate on her, but I can't stand distractions in this place. Be careful."

"I will,” Lehan said, and followed him up the stairs, a shadow still, even with the glowing sword.

Lightning flashed over head, starling Lehan. Abby looked up into the sky and shook his head. “Nothing is ever done quietly. The entire village will be here before long. Take care."

"You, too. Liora is twice as dangerous as all the townspeople put together."

Abby didn't argue. He pushed the large, carved door the rest of the way open and stepped inside without faltering. Lehan stayed with him to that point, though he didn't come any farther. Abby knew that no one would easily get past him. Like Eliora, he wished his friend safe.

Liora paced near the altar, but when he entered, she stopped and watched as he came forward. Abby glanced up to see his face on the way. It was a very life-like portrait, he thought—though the stare seemed blank. Though, actually, that probably was close to how he had seemed lately. Odd ... There, he still wore the crown. The eyes looked like those of someone lost. Was that what had happened to him here? Had he finally, after all the journeys, truly gotten lost?

"I knew you would come to me,” Liora finally said, though her voice had lost that edge of smugness that he hadn't noticed until it was gone.

"Where is it, Liora?” he demanded, the harshness in his voice surprising even him. She backed up her hand reaching to the altar. “You're a fool if you think you're safe here."

"A fool?” She smiled. “I've never been a fool, love."

"Love? What do you know about love? I'm surprised you can even say the word."

He took her by surprise, but anger quickly followed. “Judging me now, are you? And I thought you said you hadn't the power."

"Don't play games.” Abby dared to take three more steps, trying to balance the feel of this place with the raging of his own emotions. All those days of calm had only been masking the turmoil, and now the dam burst. He needed calm, but it would not come easily here where the power seeped into his mind and made everything he felt stronger.

"Sweet Aubreyan,” she cooed, and seeing his moment of confusion, came closer. “I can help you again, Aubreyan.” The words felt like water turning to ice; they stung. “Aubreyan, I can help you. Together—"

He looked into her gray eyes and saw the storm there that mirrored the one growing outside. She even dared to put a hand to his arm, and he almost lost himself for a moment. Her lips came too close to his ear as she whispered her words, trying to drag him back into a different kind of numbness.

"I want you Aubreyan. I want you. You love me, don't you my sweet?"

She shouldn't have asked. He had never lied, and he wouldn't for her—especially not here in this place.

"No, he said, stepping back from her again. He looked into her startled face. “No, I don't love you."

Another answer she hadn't expected. She should never have asked for that truth from him. He could not even lie to himself now.

"What are you playing at, Aubreyan?” she demanded, stepping back to the altar again.

"You tell me what we played, Liora, because this was always your game. But it is done. I want the crown back now."

"I won't give it to you.” She stopped with a hand on the altar, apparently thinking it gave her protection. “It's my key to power, and the last one I have since you seem to have slipped away."

"It's useless alone."

"I never meant to use it that way, but as long as I have it, I know you will stay where I can keep hold of you. You'll do what I want. Go against me, Aubreyan, and I'll destroy it. You'll lose contact with your precious Tristan forever. You really shouldn't have told me all about the crown, you know."

"I shouldn't have trusted you with a lot of things, Liora.” Anger sent fire through him and burnt away some of the feel of this place for a moment. He could not be numb in the face of something that threatened, even remotely, Tristan. He took a step closer. “More than your perverted little play for power is at stake here, Liora. I fight in a larger battle—"

"What do I care? You came here. You are mine now."

Thunder shook the world, and continued to shake, the stones of the wall grounding together, dust falling. She looked around, startled.

"Yours?” Abby caught her wrist and he didn't let her go when she tried to pull away. “There are others who might contend that claim. Continue with this game and you'll meet them."

Lighting flashed brightly overhead, illuminating the interior in a sudden splash of bright color. The candles flared as though in a wind—and didn't die down again.

She yanked back, trying to free her hand from his hold. The smugness had finally left her eyes. For the first time she must have realized the truth of his words, and seen something beyond her small world. Unfortunately, that only showed there was more power at risk here than she had imagined before. He saw the change in her face—the worry change again to a lust for control.

"Let me go.” Her voice had turned as hard as the stones around her.

"Not until you tell me where the crown is. I want it back, Liora."

"Then find it. You—you and your Tristan can search this land until you are old, gray and crippled, and you'll not find it now."

"We may search until you are old and as gray as your lifeless little world, sweet Liora, but your world and sun will turn to dust and disappear before Tristan and I grow old."

She blinked, her face paling. She tried to frantically pull away this time, as though she suddenly found herself in the hold of some creature she had never seen before.

"I am not human, Liora.” He lifted his hand toward the altar as a human might toward the flames of a fire on a cold night. Power flared around them and she cried out in surprise and maybe even pain. He couldn't wish that for her, and drew his hand back again. But he did have her attention this time. “I am my mother's child, especially here. My father would have succumbed to you. Evil is drawn to evil. But I will not be taken in any longer by your charms, child. I want the crown back."

"No."

He slapped her. He hadn't meant to, but the fire of the place and the anger that he could barely control took him in that moment. He moved before his mind comprehended what his body had done, but even so, he held tight to her. She had played the game and she dragged him in here. He could not feel entirely sorry if she had to deal with the consequences.

"You don't understand, do you?” he said. “How could you? You came running here to the sanctuary of a god you don't even believe in, and you somehow still expect this place to keep you safe. You think that you can use power here that you can't even touch."

"You don't know—"

"I know everything, Liora. I woke up, and you know it, don't you? I don't want you, and I won't leave without my crown."

"Animal,” she said, her hand going to the bright spot on her cheek.

"Uncaged at last.” The words didn't reassure her. “I only wanted peace, but you insisted on trying to control me, and bend me to make you powerful. That is not in my nature, Liora. I'm awake again, and now I have to finish a duty I should never have turned my back on. This—” He waved his hand toward the wall and the painting, “—was never for me. And I will not give it to you."

"I never expected such cruelty in you,” she said—

But he hardly heard her words. A wind blew through the doorway, laced with cold, evil and despair. He looked back to see many of the townspeople gathered there, but they stayed clear of the sword that Lehan held.

And the wind blew again, but this time Abby felt something else ... something dark. Coming here. Coming for him.

"Liora! I haven't time! Tell me where the crown is! I need Tristan's help!"

"Never!” She launched herself at him, catching hold of his arm and spinning him toward the Altar of Leje. When he stumbled and went to his knees, she kicked. He tried to protect the old wound, but she knew how to hurt him, and did it purposely. Agony rose through his body, overcoming all his holds. She had only taken a step toward the door when the temple began to tremble and she fell to her to her knees, trying to scrabble her way to the door.

"Fool! Get me out of here!” he said, grabbing at her again.

"I hope the stones bury you!"

She grabbed one of the benches, stood and staggered away toward the distant door. She could not escape; it would be worse out there, and Abby hadn't the strength to fight it. Liora would win this round of her power game, but he didn't think she would really be happy with what happened next, not to her world or to all the others.

He needed help. He would have even turned to the gods just then to save them all, but as he reached for the altar, the pain still coursed through him. He couldn't speak and the colors and blackness were coming for him...

Tristan...

Chapter Five

Not being a complete fool, Eliora had moved away from the cottage as soon as Lehan and Abby left. She knew the building would be a beacon for trouble.

She had already gathered her bow and what supplies she could carry and left them by the door. As soon as she saw that Abby and Lehan had reached the edge of the village without trouble, she gathered them, up, looked back at her home, and left it behind.

Eliora had always known there would come a day when she'd have to leave. But she'd grown old and complacent until Abby came. Abby and Tristan. She wanted the elf to come back right now to help to set things to right, because she feared no one else could.

Eliora went up the trail to the ridge and stopped to look back down at the valley. Torches already moved along the buildings as people headed for the temple. Abby and Lehan would have reached there by now. Perhaps she should have gone with them—

No. She had to go somewhere else. They needed help and she had something that might aid them. It wasn't far. She climbed the boulders to the side of the trail—not nearly as agile as she had been in her youth, but stubbornness balanced age. Liora had always had an abundance of it, too. It didn't take her very long to reach the huge boulder and to pull some smaller ones out of the way until she found the case she had buried there years before.

Eliora carefully pulled the gun out of the protective box and cloth covering. Though she couldn't see it clearly, it felt as though the gun had come through the years in hiding fine. The last of the bullets still rattled around in the box. Not many left.

She hadn't wanted a gun in the cottage while the children were young. Liora might have found it—

Always Liora she had worried about.

And the storm came while she still knelt there, the gun in hand. She had not even seen the clouds blow in. It seemed as though they suddenly appeared in the dark. Lighting flashed across the sky. And even from here she thought she could see the temple, glowing brightly with power.

They needed her help—

But as she scrambled back toward the trail she heard another sound. Steps. The whisper of breaths, perhaps a voice—and she saw them on the path, coming from the hills. Some faces she recognized—people who had disappeared months ago, just before Abby arrived. Ragged looking people, moving nearly silently toward the village.

Noman walked in the lead.

If she'd loaded the gun already she would have shot him. Instead she stayed very still, just another shadow in the night, as the group passed. None looked her way. None looked anywhere but at Noman. They followed him as if they had one mind, one thought.

Eliora, watching, had one thought as well. I want the world back the way it was.

Her wishes didn't help. They kept going. Once they had moved down past her cottage—Noman did, at least, look that way—she slid off the boulders and followed well back on the trail. When she reached the edge of the cliff and the long trail down into the village, Eliora stopped long enough to put the last of the bullets in the gun. Then she silently followed Noman down toward Promise and the war. She knew her place in this trouble, and it had always been at Noman's side. She didn't think he would be as pleased to see her this time.

Gix didn't call Tabor to the room that day, but he watched nonetheless. He had felt the magic energies building since he first awoke, and he knew that matters had come to a crux. Noman had been here and gone again—he'd glimpsed that briefly the night before. He already had the Kiya—and they let him take it back to that damned gray world in order to tempt Abby closer. Gix wanted the godling so much that he forgot the real war.

Braith sat at his master's feet, a sure sign of disaster for Tabor. He buried his dismay and stayed back in the magic of the wall, hiding his ethereal presence in the fusion of wild magic that always gathered there.

"The play is in motion,” Braith said as he worked the spells. He used his own blood this time, and it seemed powerful enough today, which was another sign of trouble. “All the players are in motion."

"Can you find the elf?"

"No,” Braith said softly, worry in the way his eyes blinked. “He's still hidden from us. But he was far into the mountains. He likely cloaks himself in his quest so that he can near the Kiya without notice."

True enough in that part, Tabor thought. He grinned, even though the rest of the situation did not look particularly good. Last night Noman had been back, and he'd had the Kiya. They were that sure of their win, and the thought frightened Tabor. He feared that even his interference had not been enough to tip the balance this time.

He should not be so worried that his father would succeed.

But then, he should not have been huddling here in his room, still recovering from the injuries Braith gave him. He should have been the one sitting at his father's feet and preparing for victory.

He had done all he could to ensure that the elf and godling won. He had done it despite his fear of Abby—because, in the end, Abby had never used his power to hurt anyone.

Tabor put a hand to his chest. His breath caught with another pain as his lungs still fought to heal in this damned acrid atmosphere of Gix's world. He wanted out of here. He wanted...

He wanted to go home. He wanted to return to Ylant and the southern lands where he had lived before he took up his father's cause. Abby could have Eltabar and Ishan. The south would be far more than enough for him.

They fought over worlds and realities and universes now. And he would have been happy not even to rule the Hoyina. Just to walk there again.

He watched while Gix leaned forward and, with his own hand, brushed dark magic into the world where Abby now fought, virtually alone.

"It is done,” Gix said, breathless. The magic had been stronger than anything Tabor had seen his father use before. “The shield is in place. The magics I have stored up on this world will keep it strong for awhile. Make certain your players act quickly, Braith."

"Yes, Master,” Braith said with a slight nod. Hardly subservient, but even Gix didn't notice.

Nothing more he could do to help Abby....

Nothing more he could do to make certain Braith didn't win.

He watched, waited and hoped—but dared do nothing more to help the others. Now the battle had finally come to Abby and Tristan again.

Chapter Six

A hand lifted Abby's head, a gentle movement. He knew, though, that it did not mean safety. The world still moved around him and the colors swirled when he opened his eyes. For a moment he thought—but no. Not Tristan.

"Lehan,” he whispered. “Help me to the altar."

"We need to get you out,” Lehan protested, gently helping him up.

He tottered there, trying to get his connection to the world back again, to ground himself—but being here in this temple made that nearly impossible.

"Let me get you out of here,” Lehan insisted again. Abby could almost see his face in the cascade of colors that surrounded him.

"No. I have no choices left,” Abby said. “She comes, and I have nowhere else to turn for the power to fight."

Lehan didn't argue. He took Abby the three agonizing steps back to the gem covered altar. Abby reached out and laid his fingers, blood and all, on the warm surface. The wind moaned and the world moved again—

"Help me,” he whispered as a colder breeze tore through the door. A shadow of darkness moved through the town, coming closer. “Help me. I need Tristan. I cannot fight alone."

The walls still moved.

"Must I ask it as a gift? What more can I give you?"

"Aubreyan, the building will fall soon unless you stop!"

"I think it long past time the walls of this place fell. We've all been blind and numb. I need help and I must—"

But something rose up—dark, solid, and forbidding—and pushed him away from the altar. He hadn't realized until then that there was another wall in this place, more magic that he could not feel because he didn't have Tristan to tell him. He suspected Gix kept him from fully reaching the gods, but he tried again, frantic.

The gods heard him. Whatever stood between him and them still held, but the walls shook harder, stone falling from the roof to fall and break the benches into slivers of wood.

"No!” He pulled Lehan closer, for whatever protection that might be. “Not my friend. Lehan will not be harmed. Whatever war you have here, it is not mine. This is not my way!"

The shaking of the world stopped, and for a moment even the wind stilled. Lehan looked relieved and took a deep breath, his hand on the altar as well now. Abby looked back at the door. Liora stood just inside it, her face white with fear of what had happened. She'd wakened the power, but it had not been what she expected. Liora knew she couldn't control what had just happened, and for the first time he could see fear in her face.

Outside the storm returned, and he could hear people cry out in fear. Liora looked as though she feared what might be out there as well, but she went out anyway rather than remain in the temple with him.

"Are you all right, Aubreyan?"

"Numb,” he said. He looked down at the blood on his shirt. “A blessing, I suppose."

"Something has happened outside.” Lehan wiped blood from the back of his hand. “The storm grew from the moment you faced Liora. Did she bring it?"

"No, she hasn't any powers. However, the ones who work through her knew that I had grown weak. He comes now."

"Who?” Lehan asked, looking frantically toward the door.

"Your father."

"My—do you know him? Do you know it's really him?"

"He has the Kiya Chanda Andee. I know her. I have neither the Janin nor Tristan to stand with me in this battle. I'm powerless."

"You, powerless?"

"I have nothing to fight with except a magical elfin sword.” He took that weapon from Lehan's hand. It felt heavy. “I want you to stay here."

"No."

"Lehan—"

"Order me to stay. Otherwise, I'll go with you and help as best I can."

Abby wanted to argue. They would face dangers and Lehan had no protection—but the wind blew very cold from outside, and he thought he could feel ice coming, and the taint of the demon. His breath caught at the feel, momentarily drawing his attention back to a battle. He turned back to Lehan and started to argue again, but stopped as he realized the truth. He could disuade Lehan from fighting now, but he could not protect him forever. He had been born to it—like so many others Abby had met along the way.

"Let me help,” Lehan said softly.

"It is more than I deserve.” Abby put a trembling hand on his friend's shoulder. “Be careful. He's waiting."

They walked the rest of the way to the door, rock and wood scattering beneath their feet. Abby could hear nothing but the wind, but that wind whispered to him and drew him to the battle. How could he have ever thought to escape?

Abby stepped out into the night, watching as lightning raced across the sky in a dozen directions. People had gathered nearby with torches held high, flickering in the dangerous wind. At the bottom of the steps stood a stranger dressed in a long dark cloak and looking so much like a shadow that Abby almost couldn't think him human at all. Liora had taken a place at this stranger's side. That move didn't surprise Abby at all; she had run to the side of someone powerful. Dozens of others stood with him as well, but those people looked like empty shells, waiting to be filled with the orders to make them move.

"Aubreyan,” the stranger said, a growl of a word. The Kiya glowed at his neck, red as blood.

"Kiya,” Abby said and kept his place at the top of the stairs.

"I win this time."

"You seem to have anticipated that win. I'm not defeated yet."

"The trap is perfect.” He smiled, but Abby heard the Kiya in his words, and knew that this Noman had very little of himself left now. Abby could also feel the hint of demon there in the power that surrounded the piece of staff, and only the vestiges of numbness kept the madness at bay this time. He remained at the edge of the doorway, caught between emptiness and insanity.

"You are alone,” Noman said. “You are unprotected this time, and we both know that you're not a warrior."

This one had links to elsewhere and knew far too much about him. He thought to deny what the Kiya said, but why should he lie now? “I will not let you win this time just because I have been stupid."

He laughed. “Such nobleness. And what will it gain you? Lehan, I think it time you stand with your father and sister. Come to me."

Noman's hand rose and Lehan took one faltering step forward. Liora smiled, but it faded when Abby put a hand on Lehan's shoulder and held him back.

"Stay with me, friend. You are not one of them."

"Shall we battle for his soul?” the Kiya asked—clearly her words spoken with his voice. The wanting that came in those words sent a shiver through Lehan, but he did not step forward again.

"Leave him, Kiya."

"But I want a taste,” she said—clearly her this time, making even the voice sound odd and inhuman this time. “I haven't had a taste of anything in so long, and I grow hungry—"

"No.” Abby put himself between Lehan and the Kiya, and for a moment he could feel the magic of her call as well. He brushed it aside and looked back at Lehan. “Stay by the altar. They can't touch you there."

"I want to—"

"Right now you aide me best by not falling to her. Go back.” He leaned closer and embraced him, speaking softly. “I may join you there. I'll need your help. I just need time."

Lehan looked into his face for a moment, but he must have known that Abby never lied. Abby had every intention of retreating if this got out of hand. But he needed to know the feel of the enemy. He needed to find a weakness, and he could not do that if he hid in the temple.

Lehan slowly backed away to the door, still reluctant to leave him. Abby could barely hear his footsteps as Lehan crossed the debris of the Temple to the only hint of safety in this world. A perilous safety for them both since Abby might bring the temple down around them, but he would still retreat to it if he had to.

And maybe he would pull Noman in with him and bring the walls down on them all.

"And now you are truly alone,” Noman said, smiling again. “And powerless."

Abby lifted his hand. Lighting flashed across the sky, startling everyone. The wind blew warm against his hand, and had lost the ice of winter and the taint of the demon.

"I am my mother's child, she who is of the stars and the winds. Storms are mine, Kiya. They always have been—a whisper of my power, brought to the worlds wherever I have gone. I only now realized it. I am not powerless. You are only forcing me to use powers I have left sleeping until now. Perhaps I just relied too much on Tristan, the Janin and the crowns. Maybe they allowed me to pretend I was still human. But since I came to this gray little world, I have felt the other powers. Shall we test what I can do?"

"Oh yes,” Noman said, but he glanced at the sky again as lightning flashed. “A test. Liora, beloved, take him for me."

Noman drew a knife from beneath his cloak and held it out to her. Her hand reached, paused a brief moment—but she took the weapon, and Abby knew that there had been so little magic involved in the exchange that it hardly counted.

"I'll have the power after all, my love,” she said, smiling up at him. “And the crown is still mine."

She walked steadily up two steps and started to swing, but he brought God's Honor around and easily blocked the first blow, startling her backward.

"Only one crown,” he said as she got her balance. “And if you wear it, Tristan will know what you've done."

"I count on him knowing.” She swung at him, and he blocked again. She was less a fighter than he was, after all. “If I've won over you, what's Tristan to me?"

She shouldn't have threatened his friend. Liora probably didn't even realize her mistake, even when Abby's sword swung in a quick arc, the blade cutting deep into her arm. She cried out and dropped the dagger, her hand going to the wound. She looked back at him, shocked and angry, as though she had expected him to just give up to her. She reached for her own belt knife—and he kicked her. Liora tumbled down the stairs and landed at her father's feet.

"Hardly noble, Prince,” Noman said, his eyes flashing with a hint of red now.

Demon. He could see it in that look, and the madness began to take him, driving him away from the doorway and toward the enemy he must fight. Noman brought his own sword out from under the cloak and met Abby's first swing with no trouble. Even half-crazed Abby knew that the sword should have been no match for God's Honor, but as the blades struck, he could see the glow in Noman's, and knew the Kiya kept it strong.

They fought. Sword against sword, blow after blow. Abby felt the blade cut him once, twice—but he didn't stop. He welcomed the madness fed by the feel of the demon because it gave him strength. He dared not fall. He dared not fail.

He swept the sword in, again and again. The wounds he gave Noman healed by the Kiya's magic. His own wounds did not, but they did not slow him, either.

Someone called his name, but Abby didn't listen. He fought as the rains began to fall and the storm grew in intensity. Keep to the battle. Do not lose.

"Aubreyan!"

Lehan's voice finally penetrated the haze of madness and drew Abby's attention away from the battle for a brief moment. Noman took that moment to back away, gasping, his face showing worry this time. The people who stood by him swayed. Abby thought he might be losing his hold on them. Even the glow of the Kiya appeared to be diminished.

Abby started to step forward again, but Lehan caught his arm, startling him.

"Get back to—” Abby said, and stopped. “Where's Liora?"

"Inside the temple! Give me the sword! Liora had the crown hidden in the wall beneath the portrait!"

"Get it—"

"I can't! Something is protecting her. I can't get past, and she looks crazy, Abby. I fear what she'll do!"

He had never considered that the crown would be so near. He looked back at Noman who still gasped as he leaned agaisnt the sword, the point down. Abby thought that if he could get the crown, if he could link with Tristan and find some way to attack while the Kiya was still weak—

He pushed God's Honor into Lehan's hands and fled back into the temple, not even pausing to wish him luck. Abby dared not look back, even when he heard the sound of swords striking, blade against blade. If he could reach Tristan—

The near destruction of the temple hadn't dimmed the power that resided there. By the time he had taken half a dozen steps, the numbness had moved through his body and tried to take his mind and drag him down into chaos. It might have worked, if he hadn't focused on Liora by the altar, the crown in one hand, blood still running from her wound. She didn't appear to feel the pain any more than he did.

When he looked into her face, he saw too much of the Kiya's hold, mocking him to come closer. Or maybe it wasn't the Kiya at all. Liora had always managed that haughtiness well enough on her own.

He moved quickly, and stopped close enough to almost touch the altar. She held the crown up, but just out of his reach.

"Give it to me,” he said.

"You'll have to do better than that, my love,” she answered with a mocking smile. Oh yes, that look was all hers. She had never needed the Kiya to turn her hand toward destroying him. “My father wants the crown ruined. I would hate to disappoint him."

"No more games,” Abby said, and took a small step closer.

"You're right. No more games."

She swung the gold band down against the top of the altar. He saw the golden circle bend and crack.

"No! Stop!"

And the world stood still yet again and not just for a heartbeat this time. He held to that time of nothing and forced himself to move toward her. Each moment of stillness drained him and even the power of this place disappeared. He felt as though the stillness suffocated him, but Abby held to it, forcing his arm up to take the crown. His fingers wrapped around the golden band and he pulled it free—

And as the world swept back into now, he went to his knees, too weak to stand. Liora gave a muffled cry of fear and he thought she would attack—but she rushed past him instead, too frightened to even see his helplessness. He turned and watched her sprawl in the broken wood and stone, and cry out in pain as she stood and ran again, as heedless of new wounds as old.

He could barely see her movement through the chaos of colors and the feel of the storm still raging outside. He closed his eyes, trying to force some control into his body. He held the damaged crown to his heart, afraid for very many reasons.

"Tristan,” he whispered. “Tristan, if you wear the crown, come quickly. Forgive me. I need help. I need you."

He felt the Kiya's power growing again, a tendril of black snaking through the colors. With shaking hands he lifted the crown and gently pulled it down over his hair, feeling the little dent and crack above his right eye.

At first he only felt Liora's touch—anger, greed, lust, power—but he drove her out with a surge of anger that filled the sky with a dozen flashes of lightning.

Tristan was not there within the link. He could feel a whisper of his friend, distant in time. He couldn't tell if Tristan had put the crown on again after he left the valley.

"Please, gods,” he whispered, coming close to asking for a gift—but he just didn't know what to ask for just then, and the chaos stole his thoughts away once more. He struggled back to his feet and followed Liora back through the temple, out the door. Lehan would need his help.

He stumbled to the door and caught the frame. The dawn had come, gray and damp, and the storm had lessened. The battle had ended and he could see Noman retreating, Liora at his side. Eliora stood over her son, who lay bleeding on the ground, God's Honor still in his hand. Eliora had a weapon in hand—something that looked like the laser pistols he remembered from Etric's world. She fired—not a light, but something must have hit Noman. He stumbled to his knees. Liora grabbed him and hurried him out of sight around a building.

Everyone else had gone.

Eliora dropped to her knees by her son, her hand gently lifting his head. She looked afraid.

"Lehan,” Abby whispered. He couldn't tell if Lehan even breathed. Gods, please—He almost said the words aloud, but as he stepped forward the world seemed to move again, and everything go black...

Chapter Seven

Abby had surprised Gix and Braith with that trick of his. They obviously hadn't seen it before or had any hint of it. Tabor had never told them about it, of course.

The magic the godling produced in those two small words even surged through the spell Gix and Braith used, though it did not stop time in the demon's world. It did eventually sever Gix from his puppet, Noman, though the demon managed one quick spell, using Noman to attack the boy first. Braith lost his hold on the spell that tied them to Eliora's world. The rather spectacular backlash sent Braith flying and even shoved Gix back into his throne.

Oddly, Tabor didn't feel the fear he had when he had been in that hold. Perhaps it was watching Abby this time, rather than just feeling the effect of the power. It had not been an easy feat for the godling.

And more than that ... Abby could have killed Liora in that moment when he held her in his thrall. It obviously didn't occur to him, even at a time like this.

While the other two recovered, Tabor drew away from his father's room, drifting carefully back to his own, to the desk where he still sat. He blinked and looked around the room again, as though he had never really seen it.

Little room, with dark, dank walls, and a window so small it hardly let the light in. He had the place warded and warded again, but even so things got in and tormented him when he tried to sleep.

Gix and Braith had not won their battle. They would try again. But he could sense the weakness in Braith. And Gix ... his worry permeated everything with a sudden foulness.

Tabor left his desk, paused midway through the room, and then went out past the wards and into the world. Braith wasn't likely to move against him right now.

There wasn't anywhere he really wanted to go, but the chance to leave the room without worry appealed to him. He paused at the end of the hall, and then headed down the stairs.

Renage opened the door as he neared; he always knew when someone came down the stairs. Tabor stepped out into the bright, glaring light, and then slipped aside into the shadows. He saw the way Renage looked at him, measuring the scars and the limp that hadn't quite healed yet. Tabor carefully leaned against the wall, almost worn from the short walk.

"Braith takes advantage of your good manners,” Renage said, a low grumble of words.

Tabor chuckled. “I have not been polite lately."

"You have. It is your ... nature. You do not move first. You do not move, like now, when he is weak."

Tabor shook his head, looking at the giant with trepidation. “I am a demon's son."

"Yes. But you are not a demon."

He shivered. Coming here had not been a good idea. He wanted to go back up to his room, to slip behind the door and ward it yet again. Braith would never get through. And he could stay there...

Why did he think of Hoyina just then? Why did he suddenly ache for the shores of the blue sea, and to stand in the breeze laden with the smell of jasmine? Tabor closed his eyes, leaning back and basking in the memory of the place.

"You don't belong here,” Renage said.

His eyes snapped open, the memory gone in the sudden scent of sulfur and death. He didn't need to hear this from the doorkeeper, and especially not now while he had enough trouble dealing with Braith. And maybe Renage was right. Maybe it was time to move, instead of waiting for the dog to bite first. Maybe—

"Braith comes. Be still."

Tabor took a single step farther back into the shadows and braced himself against the wall. He hardly dared to breath as Renage threw the door open and Braith stepped out into the light.

The dog looked like a ghost, worn thin and colorless. The bald head glinted with perspiration, and his body trembled with each step.

"Tabor is not in his room. Did he come out?” Braith said.

"Out,” Renage agreed. He looked dull-witted, slow. Oh, he did play his own games well. Tabor had never realized.

"Where? Where did the little bastard go?"

"Out,” Renage repeated with a massive shrug. He waved an arm out toward the world; his enormous hand nearly struck Braith, who leapt away and cursed.

Nothing grew of that curse. Tabor had never seen him that weak. He could have stepped out of the shadows and done something—and Braith would need years to recover. By then Tabor would be his father's mage, and Braith would never have the power again. He knew it. He need only act now. And Braith knew it as well. That was why he came looking for Tabor, fearing what he might do.

Renage glanced his way. Tabor took a step forward.

And stopped.

He couldn't attack Braith. He didn't want to be that animal.

Braith glanced out beyond the castle, his eyes narrowing as he looked for Tabor. A moment later he snarled more words and then turned, limping worse than Tabor. He went back into the tower. Renage slammed the door closed, barely missing his foot as he retreated.

Tabor bowed his head.

"It is not in your nature,” Renage said. “You do not belong here. You could, if you wished to, change. Do you wish to be Braith?"

"He's a dog without a single scruple or moral."

"Yes? And you think this is wrong?” Renage bent down and looked Tabor in the face. “Being without morals is what makes him strong in this place, Tabor. You vie for his position, but to take it you must be willing to do what he does. What do you fear, Tabor?"

"To lose the battle."

"Which one?"

He knew. He had never admitted it to himself, but he know what he really feared. “I fear the loss that means I will become Braith. The one that lets the demon inside of me take over. Oh, I would like the power. But I don't want to be Braith."

"Braith is only a tool. You want to be someone who wields the tools, and discards the ones that displease him. There is only one such being in this world, Tabor. You will not be him. You will be Braith, in the end. How long do you think you can hold out?"

"I will remain who I am."

The words gave him unexpected strength. He hadn't expected it. And even Renage looked surprised. He stood back up again, and bowed his head to Tabor.

When Tabor went back to the tower door he didn't limp. He didn't go back to his room, either. It was time to see see what work he might do now that Braith had lost his hold. Oh, he could still get power here, but it would be on his own terms.

He knew his place. He just had to be daring and take it.

Chapter Eight

"How close are they?” Eliora asked, a whisper of words somewhere in the real world. Abby did not want to hear them and be drawn back to the place where so much had gone wrong. He knew it. He fought to reach for the mental darkness again—

"Half way up the path,” Lehan replied. The sound of his voice settled the wild beating of Abby's heart. “I think the mud has slowed them. He is in the lead."

"If only Aubreyan...” Eliora began, but she stopped speaking. Abby knew they had carried him away from danger. Why? What did he mean to her, except that he split her family and brought them danger?

"If he could do what? Stop them?” Lehan asked. His voice sounded breathless, a hint of pain in the words. “I would rather fight them face-to-face than go through that again. Noman had help, Eliora. I saw magic envelop him and move him while Aubreyan held the rest of the world still. I'm lucky he only had the chance for the one swing before our friend here let go. We're lucky everyone went mad, and Noman lost his hold on the others. I'm lucky to be alive."

"Lehan,” Abby whispered, forcing his eyes open.

"Awake at last,” Eliora said.

They had returned to the cottage, a familiar place that brought calm with each breath. Eliora had a cup of tea in her hand and lifted his heed, placing it to his lips—more kindness that he hadn't expected. He watched her, uncertain of what she would want from him now.

And he could hear people, not far away.

"What—how?” he said, fighting for words that wouldn't quite sort themselves out in his mind.

"Datin helped bring you up here, but I sent him back to guard his family. Noman appears to have gathered his people again.” Eliora looked toward the window and he could see regret and worry in her stare. “All those who have gone missing down through the years—they're back now and in his power. Most of the villagers are in hiding, or dead. I saw one battle down by the river."

"Many?” Abby asked, forcing his legs over the side of the bed, though each breath came in a gasp of pain and his head spun. He reached up to find the crown still there, for whatever comfort that would bring him since he still didn't sense Tristan.

"Too many,” Eliora said. She put a hand on his shoulder and held him still. “Rest. If you can't even breathe, you're hardly going to be any help to us."

"If Abby can't help, we haven't a chance,” Lehan replied, and Abby heard in his voice that he already thought they'd lost.

"The house will stand for a while yet,” Eliora said, but from the way she looked at him, Abby thought that even she seemed to think they had no hope.

She was right, in some ways. They couldn't fight this group and win.

"We haven't a chance against the magic,” Abby said. He looked frantically toward the window where Lehan stood, leaning against the wall. He could see the bandages around Lehan's chest and that the wound still bled. “We can't fight, not like this."

"Do you have a better idea, Aubreyan?” Eliora asked.

"This is not your war. I brought it. This is my battle."

"You and one slightly glowing sword?” She took his arm as he stood. “I don't even have bullets left for the gun. There's nothing left to fight Noman. Do you really think you cannot lose, no matter what the odds?"

"Have I ever seemed such a fool to you? I suppose so, considering how I chased after Liora. There are many powers at work here, though, and I am only now beginning to sense what has been used against me. Ah, if only I had the Janin. At least with her I would have magic that might match Noman's power, though not that of his allies, I fear."

"What is that? Where is it?” Lehan asked.

"I left her hidden at a farm.” Abby paused to listen, but the group outside didn't appear to be moving quickly. He wondered if the Kiya had trouble controlling so many, especially after she had lost them for a little while. “It is back along the trail—the place where we first saw Lehan, and where Tristan used the crowns to learn this language."

"Where I dreamed of you before we met,” Lehan said. He had sat down on a chair by the window, his arm to his chest. He took short breaths. “The Tasson farm. It's been deserted since then. I saw them in with Noman's people."

"It was off to the side wasn't it?” Abby asked, half frantic. “I don't know if I could find it again. Can you?"

"He can't go far, Aubreyan,” Eliora said. He heard a mother's warning as she feared for her child. He wondered if Lehan realized how she felt about him. “The farm is hours away. It would be dark before you could even get there."

"I'm sorry, but I have no chance without the Janin. And if I don't stand—maybe you could be safe for a while in the hills, away from me. I'll do my best to find her, but you should leave this place. It's not safe here, not from magic."

Eliora stared at Abby as though she expected him to say something different. Then she turned back to her son and finally shrugged. “Damn. If we have to run, it might as well be heading toward a hope of winning rather than hiding in the hills like animals."

"Lehan?” Abby asked.

"I will help and serve you in whatever way I can, Aubreyan. If you say we should go, I'll go with you."

"This is crazy,” Eliora said, waving her arms in a show of uncommon frustration.

"Insanity follows me,” Abby said with a sigh. He brushed his hand on the crown again, wishing ... but he didn't ask. Not again. He would try for the Janin first instead. “Help him, Eliora."

"And who will help you?"

He stood on his own and met her look this time. She held it while the people outside made distant sounds. He'd been unconscious too long; the day had nearly gone and night would come too quickly. But they had a chance now, if he could get to the one weapon that might help. He would not succumb to personal weakness.

She finally gave him the sword. Abby slipped it into the sheath and nodded. None of the three spoke as they slipped out of the cottage and turned toward the hills. The bright light felt like a weight against him, and the gray seemed to have grown during the day. He could hardly breathe for it. But when he looked down the trail he could see that Noman had stopped again, and those behind him moved with slow, unsteady steps.

"I might be able to take her now,” Abby said. “The Kiya is obviously weaker—"

"But it is still strong enough to bring fifty people against their will to fight us,” Eliora said, an arm around her son's waist. She shook her head. “She might lose her hold of most of them if you fought, but how many? I don't think you could fight a dozen, even with our help."

"Come, Abby. We must make what distance we can.” Lehan reached out and put a hand on his arm, drawing him to look away from the slowly moving mass of people.

Abby nodded, and they started a slow climb of their own up the trail and to the top of the crest. He looked back again. They would follow, and the best he could hope to do would be to stay ahead of them. Even as slow as they were moving, Abby knew that he and his friends would not be traveling any faster.

His hand reached to the crown—and stopped again. Most of the day had passed since he put the crown on and he still couldn't feel Tristan's presence. A cold, heart-stopping fear came over him this time. What if Tristan had—gone? What if he had been killed already—

Abby faltered and went to his knees, the fear so strong that he lost all sense of the world.

"—carry you both, and you won't get far on your own, Lehan.” Rough hands tried to pull Abby to his feet. “We won't make it back to the cottage in time, and we haven't a chance out here in the open!"

"Take Abby and go!” Lehan ordered.

"No!” Abby came to his senses at Lehan's words. “I'm sorry! No, don't leave him. Take Lehan and let's go!"

As he stood, Abby saw that people had nearly reached the cottage. They would catch up if he didn't move. The remembrance that he put his friends in danger by this behavior brought clarity of thought and strength of movement. He could bear the pain of his body and even the loss that stabbed at his soul. He had to keep going for Lehan and Eliora.

Lehan stood with his mother's help and looked into Abby's face, drawing his attention away from those who followed. “Liora is with them,” he said softly.

"Of course she is,” Aubreyan replied, not surprised or angered. “How could she not be? There is power coming below us, and she will always side with power."

"I am ashamed,” Eliora said, glancing back at the people and away again. “I made her what she is—"

"Did you? And didn't you make Lehan as well? Sometimes there are other forces involved, but in the end we make ourselves, Eliora. Others offer us choices, and that is how we are shaped. “The—a—the gods know my parents tried to shape me."

"And did they succeed?” Eliora asked as they began to move away again.

"Each in their own way, though not in the ways they had intended. My father drove me away from any wish to rule. I never wanted his place. And though I now do my mother's work, I don't do it for her."

He heard the sound of footsteps rushing behind them. The two looked worried, hands going to their weapons.

"Keep going!” Abby ordered and lifted his hand when Lehan began to protest. “It's only one person, but it's better if no one sees how weak we are. Go! Don't argue!"

Eliora nodded and took her son, despite that he still wanted to protest. In a moment the two disappeared up through the stand of boulders and around the curve of the trail. Abby stayed where he was, waiting for Liora, as he had so often in the past. He felt a little welling loss at that thought, although not at the thought of losing her—only knowing he would never again have the peace that he had felt for so short a time. It was not meant to be his.

Liora came up the trail and stopped, surprised to find him waiting for her, and alone.

"And now what, Liora?” he asked, his hand on the sword.

"I have no weapon,” she said still came closer. Her hand rested on the bandage on her arm. “We're no longer in the temple. You have your crown. What more do we have to fight over, my love?"

He lifted God's Honor and held the blade above her heart. She stopped, surprised. “You made your choice, love,” he said, and she could hear the mockery in his voice. “You walk with evil now. Go back to him."

"He's my father, Aubreyan. How could I not side with him?"

"In the same way that I chose not to side with mine. Don't try to tell me that this is anything but another play for power, Liora. You cannot lie to me. Why did you come up here?"

"Only to be with you again."

"No,” he said. She blinked and stepped back from the sword at last. “You came to see if I had gained power so that you might want to side with me—because you've already learned that you can't bend him to your charms,” Abby said. Her eyes narrowed and she took a quick hissing breath. “His soul is already taken, and you'll never reach it. He belongs to the Kiya Chanda Andee, and the Kiya is very jealous. But you made your choice. Go back to them."

She remained, and he saw her measure all her choices in a lingering glance that took in sword and crown, and measured their power. Abby lifted the sword a little higher and took a step forward until the glowing blade rested against the side of her neck. He didn't want her to misunderstand and think that she could smile her way back into his graces.

"I see you wear the crown,” she said, shaking her head. “It clouds you again, doesn't it?"

"Clouds me? It never did. But it wouldn't matter. Tristan isn't there."

"There?” she asked, confused.

"Gone.” He put a hand to the stone, wishing—but he felt only the distant emptiness still. “Gone. You have only yourself to blame for what I see in you."

"And who are you to judge me?” she said, anger growing again.

"Oh not who, my love. Never who. What. And it is the what that always drew you to me, though I suspect there has been some magic involved. But they left you your free will, Liora. I would have noticed otherwise. So in the end, the choices you've made have been your own. Make a different choice, and prove me wrong. Walk away from power."

Fear mixed with doubt in her eyes—but Liora turned and fled back down the trail, as he had known she would. Abby lowered the sword and stood there, alone. Despair wore him down again, but he could not stay here and wait for the next battle. Others still needed him. He couldn't abandon Lehan and Eliora.

Abby turned and hurried to catch up with his only two allies. He fought away the fatigue that came borne of loss and despair as much as exhaustion. He could take no rest.

The sound of the others still traversing the trail filled him with a new dread. He could fight the man held by the Kiya and he could even fight Liora because she had chosen to stand with him. But what of the innocents whom the Kiya had subverted to her will? They were not his enemies, and he didn't want to draw God's Honor against them.

Abby hurried faster, as though he could outrun them to the ends of the world. He would have to make difficult choices of his own soon.

Eliora slowed when Abby jogged up beside them and matched stepped with the two.

"Was it Liora?” she asked.

"Yes."

"What did she want?"

"To say good bye, I think, though she didn't realize it."

Eliora nodded. They walked faster as the night came, and disaster followed behind, never giving them rest....

Chapter Nine

Tabor left his father's room, the welling of disgust he felt so strong that he had almost shown it there in the moment when his father dismissed him and sent for Braith.

He had seen the look in Gix's face. The demon didn't trust his son.

Tabor stalked away and out into the castle, careful not to cross paths with Braith, because right then he wasn't sure what he would do to the dog ... but it wouldn't be good.

Damn them all.

But they were already damned, of course. And so was he. Damned to wait like a dog on his father, and to become something less than even Braith. Gix would not trust him. And he had every reason not to.

Tabor could not allow Braith to win.

Tabor stopped wandering the castle and went to his room. He didn't even pause in his work as he sat the wards, created the semblance of himself, and called up his link to the other world. He stepped through...

...So close to Tristan that the elf gave a startled yelp and leapt backwards.

"Come,” Tabor said and grabbed his arm. The elf's hand went to his weapon. “We have no time for that kind of game. You need to get there and help him. He has the crown—no, don't put it on yet. Braith will know that you are here if you do. You've done well hiding from him so far. Don't be stupid now."

"You—” Tristan began, panting so hard he could hardly speak. He had nearly run himself ragged. Weakened himself.

Tabor cursed. “You need strength. Rest a moment. I'll get you the rest of the way to Abby, and then it is up to you—"

"Why, Tabor? Why do you—"

"The same answer as before, elf. I dare not let Braith win."

"The same answer, but when will you tell me the truth?” Tristan asked.

"Don't ask too much of me,” Tabor replied. He still had a hand on the elf's arm, and he realized that Tristan had not tried to pull away. Trusted him? He suppressed a shiver at the thought. No one trusted him. He was the son of a demon, after all.

"What has happened?” Tristan asked. Better words. A wise question.

"Noman has the piece of the Kiya, of course. What Abby doesn't realize is that he also has a direct link to Braith and Gix, who are manipulating much of what is happening through the mage. And through the mage's daughter, of course."

"Liora.” Tristan spoke the word softly and it seemed as though he had gone stone still. “Has she hurt Abby?"

"No. He slipped her hold in time."

Tristan nodded. He bowed his head, and Tabor could feel him drawing power from the world around him. He would be ready to go soon.

"I cannot stay,” Tabor said. He felt a welling of worry. This was already taking longer than he had anticipated. The night came quickly, gray on black, stretching out forever. “We must go now."

Tristan nodded. He didn't fight when Tabor enveloped them both in magic. Trusted him, and that frightened Tabor far more than his battle with Braith ever had....

Chapter Ten

They moved in near silence down the trail, limping and weak, but refusing to stop even though Lehan needed rest. Abby could see blood on the bandages. Eliora looked at her son, fear in her eyes.

But they kept going.

Abby didn't tell them that getting the staff probably would not help. Although he felt that he needed to get her to have any chance, he also knew the Janin's insanity. This long parting would not have made her disposition any better. But she still represented the only power he could take hold of on this world. He would not give way to despair now without even trying to use her in the war.

He had been stupid. Really stupid to leave her behind, to abandon the elf—to lose track of everything that mattered to him for so long that he couldn't even count the days. It could not have just been magic that did this to him. He had told Liora that she had been partially to blame for her choices, and he couldn't deny the same in himself. The magic had found that part of him that wanted to let go of the war and the responsibility, and he had given way.

Eliora located the trail to the farm. By then Lehan had slipped into unconsciousness and she was carrying him. He could see that she had started to stumble as they slipped off the trail and down a path choked with weeds. No one had come this way in a long time, but he could still hear the turning of the windmill. Someone surely had taken the horses away.

Maybe the Kiya and Noman would miss the trail. He thought they must still be having trouble holding on to their followers. And that made him wonder why they bothered, except that they didn't think they could take Abby and his companions without them. It gave him a small hope, but better than none at all.

Abby saw the gate in the diffuse moonlight and allowed himself a whisper of elation that they had reached this place. He hadn't thought they would make it this far.

"This way,” he said, moving off the overgrown path and onto an area even more dense with weeds.

He counted the posts, remembering the night he had walked here with Tristan. They hadn't been fools, really. Taking the Janin into Promise would have been a mistake, and he knew it even now. He had made plenty of other mistakes—but burying the Janin here had not been a bad idea. The people had reacted badly to Tristan. They would have caused far more trouble if they had seen the Janin.

When they reached the spot he helped to gently lower Lehan before he dropped to his hands and knees and began to frantically claw at the ground with his fingers. He could hear the enemy coming closer, the dull thudding step after step of their feet, and then the brush of dead weeds moving. They had found the trail.

Eliora knelt beside him and used her dagger to dig. She said nothing, but he saw dread in her shadowed face as the others neared.

Too near—

And then he heard a new sound. Humming.

Eliora drew her hands back and looked at Abby with shock, distrust, worry and surprise all in one stare.

"Keep back now,” Abby told her softly. “If you should touch her by accident, it could be very unpleasant. Perhaps even deadly now that she's been out of my hands for so long."

"Is she alive?” Eliora whispered dropping back on her heels. She looked toward the enemy, but they had not made it very far down the path yet.

"Alive in her own way,” he said, brushing at the dirt. “Magic."

"Like the elf?"

"No. Tristan was born, just like you and me, even if magic is part of his being. The Janin is like my sword, created by magic. Ah—there you are."

He could see a glow of light down in the hole, and the sound of her sweet voice rose a little louder. Eliora gasped and pulled farther back.

"It's hard to be discreet when I carry the Janin,” Abby said, feeling just a hint of amusement. “Aside from the light, she sings. She always sings. And sometimes that drives even me mad."

Eliora didn't look reassured. Abby reached down into the dirt, pushing the last clods away from the silver rod. His fingers brushed along the edge of the staff—and a spark ran up his arm. He jerked back with a cry of pain.

"Aubreyan!” Lehan called out and struggled to reach him.

"No, be still,” Abby said taking a deep breath. Eliora took hold of her son and held him away. “I'm all right."

"What happened?” Eliora asked. She looked frantic. The enemy had moved closer and there was no way they could miss the glow of light or the Janin's song.

"She's angry. And I don't have time for this!” He started to reach again.

Eliora caught his arm. “No. She could kill you."

"If she wanted me killed she could have done it long before I even touched her. And she will harm anyone else who tries to touch her. She won't even allow Tristan's touch. No, she's angry for being abandoned again.” He reached down and put his hand on the staff, holding against the protest and the sting. “No, Janin. No. I need you. The Kiya Chanda Andee is here."

The sparks stopped. The song changed, brightened, and called to the enemy.

"Ah yes. You are ready, aren't you? Eliora, take my sword. Protect Lehan."

Eliora took hold of the sword he awkwardly handed to her, but she watched as Abby worked the Janin free. The staff came up with a surge of light and song, and he could see the fascination in Eliora's face as she looked into the bright, beautiful—and quite mad—sapphire blue eyes.

And she was the only hope they had now.

The Kiya and her people came to them, Liora and Noman in the lead. Abby stepped forward to meet them, his hand tight on the Janin. She sang so loudly that he thought they might hear her all the way back in Promise.

"She must be small consolation for the loss of your elf,” Noman said.

Ah, but Liora could not take her eyes away from the staff, of course. She'd never seen such power, such magic, made manifest. Abby could see that she wanted it like this world wanted life.

Noman took a step forward. Abby lifted the staff and he stopped.

"I will fight you, Kiya. The Janin is only a weapon in the war. And at least she is whole."

"But I am one of many,” he said, and lifted his hand. People came forward, blank faces on the edge of the light the Janin made.

"This isn't their war."

"It is always their war. Whom else do we fight for, and what else do we gain? You think I would be noble and fight you, hand-to-hand, just the two of us? No, not me. I have you, Aubreyan Altazar. You are alone, save for an old woman and a wounded boy. Tristan abandoned you and even the Janin cannot keep you from harm. I have you this time."

At a wave of his hand, the people surged past Noman and his daughter. Abby had one brief glimpse of Liora; she still looked toward the Janin, as though no other madness surrounded her. Well, he wished her luck with the staff if the battle went that way. The Janin wouldn't be very happy.

Abby brought the Janin up and knocked the first few people aside as they surged toward him. The Janin's fire bit where it touched, and they howled with sudden pain—but they still came again. Some collapsed with the second blow and didn't get back up. However, the Kiya had brought too many with her. Abby needed a better site to fight from, but they'd never make it to the farmhouse and what little protection it would give.

"Keep Lehan between us, Eliora,” Abby ordered. They had a brief break in the attack and he stepped back to protect his fallen friend. Even though the mass of the attack had been aimed at him, he knew that Eliora and Lehan wouldn't long be overlooked.

They came again. Abby fought a hopeless battle, knowing he couldn't overcome them all. He couldn't hope to win, or to save those who stood with him. Noman brought even those who were wounded back to their feet—fighting at night, in even the diffused moonlight, gave him more power. The Kiya glowed, bright and baleful, and he feared that it would overpower the Janin anyway, even in her madness.

He faltered, finally. Uncertain what to do, gasping for breath, and afraid that he would lose—

Noman laughed, stepped closer and reached for Aubreyan. He must have been surprised by the swing of the Janin and the force of the blow. She would have killed the man if he hadn't had the Kiya to protect him. Abby saw the red flash in his eyes as he surged back to his feet. Demon-tainted. Demon-controlled, calling to him. He took one step forward before some saner part of his mind called him back. Lehan. He could not leave Lehan, and Eliora, unprotected.

The blow had done some damage to Noman. In that moment when he should have fallen, something else reached forward and give him strength. Abby saw a glimpse of hell. Of demons.

He stepped closer to Noman again.

"Aubreyan,” Eliora called, but she seemed very far away.

"He can't hear you, my dear,” Noman said, mocking her. Abby tried to hold on, tried to step back, away from the madness. The Janin and her own insanity didn't help. “Did he forget to mention his curse? I'll make it easy for you, Prince. I am not only in league with the Kiya but also with Gix. He put me here to be your bane. He gave me everything I would need to weaken you—the lure of love to draw you in, the illusion of peace to lull you to calm, a spell to make the elf weak and drive a magical wall between the two of you. And then an army of innocents that we knew you couldn't destroy, even to save yourself, godling. Oh, and my link to the demons to drive you mad. It is perfect."

"No,” Abby whispered. He tried to look away—but he could feel the demon's portal opening just behind Noman, and he could see the hint of the demon's world within the circle. It had come too close, and everything suddenly seemed imbued with the essence of demon. It swept in on the area, and madness burnt at the edges of his mind, reaching to take his sanity again. It would be easier to let go and not see the end. Not to be responsible when he failed.

"You've fallen at last, Aubreyan.” Noman stepped closer, his voice mocking. “Shall I send you to your master now? Do you see him waiting for you? You will be his this time."

Aubreyan stood still, afraid to move for fear of what might be let loose within him. Noman reached and pulled back the cloth at Abby's shirt, the mage's fingers brushing against the brand. The old fire pulsed through the wound. He lost control for that moment and the Janin swung, but Noman avoided her this time. Abby lost his balance in that swing, and went to his knees, gasping as he fought to keep control.

"Yes, much better, there on your knees. You are ready, aren't you?” His fingers brushed against Abby's hair.

"Leave him alone!"

Lehan threw himself against the man, striking and shoving him backward away from Abby. Noman had little trouble knocking Lehan down, a quick blow that won a gasp of pain.

The sound reached Abby. He surged back to his feet, anger blazing beyond the curse and the madness. Noman stepped back out of reach, but he smiled, mocking him.

"Still a little more fight in you?” Noman said and laughed.

"I have never cared what befalls me.” Abby fought against the curse for control of his mind. “But you shall not hurt my friends."

"Always so noble. The lost prince. I still have you, Aubreyan."

"But I don't have the rest of the Kiya,” Abby reminded him, crossing to where Eliora had rushed to her son and held him again, anger in her face.

"If we take you, your elf is bound to follow. How can he be a problem?"

"You have always underestimated Tristan. You have taken me because he is my strength, and he's not here now."

Perhaps Noman understood, but Abby heard a whisper of words from Gix, and he lost his control again. Maybe it was just as well since the people Noman had brought pressed in now, and he had to fight them back. Fingers clawed, hands grabbed his arms and the demon laughed somewhere else, driving him into a frenzy, trying to reach it, trying—

"Aubreyan!” Eliora cried out.

And always, he heard the voices of those who stood beside him and would fall if he let the curse take him. He had never thought it, but that call proved stronger than the old dying elf's curse.

He tried to fight his way back to them, but Noman had anticipated that move. He sent others to grab them, and despite the battle that Eliora fought and even Lehan's attempt to hold them back, The two were soon disarmed. God's Honor now lay in the dust, glowing and covered in blood. The people dragged Eliora and Lehan to Noman's side. Noman looked at Abby and smiled again. A game. He played a game.

"Lehan, you might yet rule with your sister and me. You are my son, even if your soul was diverted from my battle. Now it is the time to choose, as we are all allowed to do."

"I am of Aubreyan's people, not yours,” Lehan said and still looked to Abby as though he had not already failed—as though he still believed.

"And you would die for him, wouldn't you? Oh, I had been told that Aubreyan's followers are ardent in their faith—"

"We're also unwilling to live in a world where everything that Aubreyan represents is defeated,” Lehan said. He looked at his father without regret. “Yes, I would rather die with Aubreyan than live with you."

"Ah, but the godling will not die.” His face had reddened, but now he laughed. “He'll go to serve in hell, a half-god enslaved to a demon. There is power in making such a gift. And would you willingly follow your fallen godling even to there?"

"Yes. Anywhere with him and never with you."

"No,” Abby said. He almost pulled free of those who held him down. “Lehan, you shouldn't—"

Noman came a step closer, daring the Janin still held in his hand. She wanted to attack, but others held him in their grip and even ignored the small surge of power she sent trying to get free.

Noman backhanded Abby with enough force that he would have fallen if the others hadn't held him so tightly. “Silence, slave. Silence."

"No,” Abby repeated. But he closed his eyes for a moment, knowing he had no choice left. “Janin, be free."

Fire swept up through his arm as he released her from his mental hold. He heard others cry out as they were caught in the same pain, but he had his arm free, and she controlled it now. She blazed with magical fire, and she attacked, even while she burnt him. She wanted the Kiya. He could feel the anger and madness of her attack, but it seemed distant. He had no strength left to give her, and he feared that his body would fail. He had nothing left to draw on.

But she knew him too well.

"Demon held,” she sang in the old language that he almost couldn't remember now. She gave him what he needed just then; release from his own controls as he had freed her. “Demon. Enemy."

Yes, she knew what he must do. Abby let the curse take him yet again. It was the last hope he had, to become insane and to fight without thought of what he attacked. He must lose his humanity to save the world.

He saw—disbelief? Surprise?—as he at last went to true madness and leapt straight at Noman. The mage staggered backwards and quickly drew his sword. He saw even Eliora back away from him, plainly frightened by what she saw in him.

But not Lehan. Lehan would never fear him, and seeing his look allowed Aubreyan to hold on to a seed of his humanity, because he wanted to be like Lehan....

The Janin swung with a force that knocked Noman down, but the Kiya still protected him. Abby brought the Janin around, blocking the sword swing that would have cut him cross the knees. The blade and the staff connected in a shower of magic, trails of power snaking their way through the air and dissipating in a shower of stars.

Noman proved, if not faster, at least more in control of his wits. He rolled aside, avoiding the next blow, and then jabbed Abby in the back of the left leg, the sword cutting all the way to the bone.

Abby felt the wound and ignored it as the Janin come around again. Perhaps Noman had thought that wound would put him down. He was not prepared this time for the blow that sent him flying just as he started to get to his feet. Noman tried to stand again, but it seemed as though his right leg didn't want to hold him as he scrambled away on all fours, out of reach.

Abby started after him, limping and using the Janin to stay to his feet. Noman grabbed Lehan, a hand in the boy's hair and a knife to his throat.

Calm. He must be calm.

Even the Janin understood. She stopped in her pursuit of the enemy, and he leaned on her, waves of pain cascading through his body. His leg threatened to give way, but she helped to hold him upright.

Evil grew in that moment, like something living in the fog, and not just looking on from the demon's portal. Noman smiled, his eyes bright red, the knife in his hand drawing a little blood.

Failed? Failed because he had chased after hope and peace for a short while rather than the never-ending war? All his friends on every world where they had passed now stood in danger of the demons because he had forgotten them, and let himself be human for a while.

It would have broken him in that moment, if he had not looked down at Lehan who stared back at him, waiting. He could see no condemnation in that look. Lehan, for whatever reason, still believed.

"We'll start with my son then, shall we?” Noman said—but he had lost some of the haughtiness, and the words slurred as he gasped. “Great Gix, prepare to take this sacrifice—"

"No,” Abby whispered. He remembered being the child who had once been that sacrifice, about to face forever in the service of the demon. Lehan didn't understand. But he would be the one who paid the price first—and the others would follow, forever damned because Abby had been weak. “No! Please, gods—"

Abby, no!

The words came from within him, striking at his mind like a blow, a force that stunned him to breathless silence as he dared to ... hope.

Lighting came from the leaden sky, a single bolt bright and true that engulfed the portal just as Gix started to reach through. The demon howled and fell back, the circle collapsing, the link to the demon's realm burnt away. Noman cried out in fear and the crowd moaned and moved away as though the ties that bound them had grown weaker.

Abby leapt at Noman, grabbing away the knife at Lehan's throat and sweeping the Janin around in a short arc. She struck with a blow that sent Noman tumbling away from Lehan.

The crowd cried out in fear and release.

And Noman, seeing himself amidst so many enemies, turned and fled back into the darkness.

Abby had not lost.

Chapter Eleven

That had not gone well for Gix.

Tabor, his hand still bleeding from the magic that had made the portal, had taken some of the backlash from Tristan's oh so wonderful attack, though not nearly as much as Gix. Burnt demon flesh filled the room with a scent that Tabor would not soon forget. And if he had thought Abby's storm on Eliora's world had been amazing, it was only because he had never seen what his father could call up in a haze of pain and anger.

The tower shook with the power of it, and the walls began to crumble. Creatures sprang from the air, teeth snapping, hissing venom and poisons.

Tabor, with more wits than his father at the moment, leapt through the miasmic chaos and grabbed his father's arm, spreading his own blood over the wound and chanting the strongest healing spell he had.

It worked. He survived, despite that something caught his shoulder and dug in with all the teeth it had while it clawed at his back. He tried to grab at it, but it was Gix who finally reached up, sinking his own claws into the nameless creature and tearing it off. That hurt as well, but at least the removal was done quickly, though the pain of the wounds remained.

Tabor had used every bit of energy he had, between the failed portal and the healing. As the world went dark, Tabor feared that he wouldn't survive after all.

He couldn't say he cared—but Gix reached over and brought him back again with an almost careless brush of magic. Tabor could see the anger in the demon's face and he didn't like it aimed at him, not after all he had done.

"I didn't fail you,” Tabor said aloud. “I did all you asked. If you had brought me in from the start—"

"I want the godling!” Gix shouted, and the walls shook again. Something slithered up out of the floor at the demon's feet, but Gix grabbed and destroyed it in a fit of rage that brought a half-dozen more creatures into existence.

Tabor grabbed two and killed them. The others slipped out the window. He wished them on Braith, just out of habit.

"The godling will come to you!” Tabor finally shouted above the sound of his father's rage. “Aubreyan Altazar will have no choice! He must follow the Kiya, and I have already brought you nearly half the pieces! You waste your time and power on these petty games with him. Abby is coming!"

"But not as a sacrifice!” Gix replied. His eyes still flashed red.

"He will come, with your brand, already promised to you. Surely that will be enough! What do—"

But he stopped in what he said. He had almost done something really stupid for the first time in his life. He had almost asked what his father feared.

But he already knew. Gix feared Abby.

He might even have reason, considering that patch of green Brendan left behind. How much more damage could the godling do here, coming of his own free will?

Tabor shivered at the thought. When he turned back to his father, he understood the rage and anger in the man's face.

"I want the godling,” Gix growled. “I want him here, as a sacrifice and in my power."

Tabor bowed his head and said nothing.

Chapter Twelve

Abby tried to follow Noman and finish the battle with this enemy, but the weakness of wounds drove him to his knees after only a few steps. The world went dark again...

But even there he felt a touch of warmth and a whisper of hope that he hadn't expected to find again after so long alone. Abby pulled himself back up with the staff and turned to find Eliora holding Lehan. She trembled and he couldn't say if that came from weakness, fear—or thwarted anger now that no enemy stood within reach. Around them dazed and frightened people awakened from a nightmare. He wanted to help them—but he couldn't until he ended his own nightmare as well.

A figure came from the edge of the house, hurrying toward them and from the shadows into the light of the Janin. She sang a song of joy, beauty, and welcome...

Even Eliora looked up in surprise. “Tristan?” she said softly.

Abby couldn't speak the name yet. He couldn't dare believe that what he saw or felt could even be true. He wanted his friend back, that touch that was part of his soul ... But Tristan remained distant, a shadow of the elf. He could see Tristan more than he could feel him.

He didn't want this to be a trick. Tristan dropped down by Lehan, his hand reaching toward the wound that still bled too much. “I can help,” he said softly, his hand moving over the wound. “He'll be all right."

Abby came closer and closed his eyes while Tristan expended power—a great deal of power, since Lehan's injury would have been fatal if the elf hadn't worked quickly. Aubreyan tried to feed his own strength through the link that bound them, but even a little expenditure left him gasping for breath and holding tight to the Janin again.

Tristan stood and caught him, hands on his shoulders, dark eyes that saw nothing—but the elf saw into his soul. Abby began to tremble at the touch and to fear something he would not say aloud, but knew in his heart. Unworthy.

"Lehan will be all right now,” Tristan said, calm words like a soothing touch on his fevered mind. “You need rest."

"Tristan.” He whispered the name and his hand rose to touch the stone in the crown that his friend wore. He wanted to know that the elf was real, but everything still felt too distant. It was not right. “Tristan?"

"I'm here.” He gently pushed Abby down to the ground and sat beside him, the Janin lying on the dirt beside Abby, still singing. Tristan's hand rested on Abby's arm though even that touch felt distant. “I'm here. Rest for a little while. When I've gained a little more energy, I'll heal what I can—"

"Please,” Abby whispered. The distance between them made him feel half sick with fear that he would never have back what he'd thrown away. “This isn't right, Tristan. I'm sorry—"

"They put a wall between us, Abby.” Tristan's fingers tightened on his arm, but he hardly even felt that—as though Tristan were not really here. “Gix and his people did it while I was ill. It keeps us from—"

"Wall?” he said. “Magic wall? This isn't—"

"It isn't me, and it isn't you,” he said, and Abby could feel just the whisper of Tristan's anger this time. “This is the work of our enemies."

"I want it gone.” Abby felt within his mind and found where something stood between him and Tristan. Why had he never noticed it before? The wall took shape, solid and dark. He shoved at it, gasping. There had been another wall that stood between him and what he needed, back on Ylant. This was nothing compared to it. The wall had separated them, and made him such a fool that he risked everything—

It cracked. He could feel the warmth that was Tristan just beyond it. He could see Tristan's startled face, and felt the elf reaching for him as well. The wall could not stand between them. He shoved it aside and Tristan was there at last.

The elf took a deep, shuddering breath. “Thank you, Abby. Be calm, be calm. I won't desert you again. Rest for a while. I'm here."

Abby leaned into the embrace, feeling wounds of his soul already healing. He closed his eyes, wanting peace—wanting this peace and nothing more.

"Is he all right?” Eliora whispered from nearby.

"Hurt and shaken,” Tristan replied, but his arm tightened around Abby's shoulder, and his thoughts wished him to still remain calm. “Let's take Abby and Lehan into the farmhouse. We're far too unprotected out here and our enemy is still nearby. It may take Gix and his followers a while to recover, but they aren't helpless."

"I shot the bastard,” Eliora said, fire in her words as she gathered a mostly unresponsive Lehan up to his feet. “But it didn't stop him. And I'm out of bullets anyway. What about the others?"

Abby looked around at the people who had begun to scatter like deer before a storm.

"Let them go,” Tristan said, preparing to help Abby back to his feet as well. “They've been under the Kiya's power for too long, and if they aren't ready to be allies, at least they aren't enemies now. Can you stand?"

"I'll go with you,” Abby replied, and the fear that he would be abandoned came too quickly to his mind. He knew it was unfair to Tristan—but even before he could force his chaotic thoughts into order, Tristan had soothed them again. His friend understood the chaos better than he did, it seemed.

Tristan helped Abby stand again, and he leaned against the Janin, trying to push past the weakness that only fueled his fears. Eliora had started Lehan toward the farmhouse, and though the young man looked unsteady, Abby thought Lehan might be more capable of handling trouble than he was.

"What's wrong with Abby?” Eliora asked, looking back at Tristan.

"Shock. Fear. He'll get over it."

Abby nodded, hoping that reassured her. He had just needed a moment. He took deep breaths as they moved forward, the Janin brightening the way. Lucky that Tristan had come back...

"Not luck?” he said suddenly. “Tabor?"

"Quietly,” Tristan urged him, his voice soft. “He helped, for whatever reason. He didn't want Braith to win this round, and that may be enough reason for him—but I doubt Gix would find it so. I don't see any reason for Tabor to pay for it."

Abby couldn't quite sever the idea of Tabor as the enemy from his mind, but he trusted Tristan and let it go. They had reached the ruins of the house and slowly pushed their way through the open door. He remembered this place with furniture inside, the door still on the hinges, the windows in place. Dirt had been blown in and dead weeds had gathered in a clump inside. Eliora kicked them out of the way.

"What happened?” Lehan asked as his mother helped him settle on the floor, back to the wall. Abby sat down beside him, and left the Janin leaning against the wall. “I don't understand any of it."

Tristan knelt before Abby, but he obviously did not intend to rest. A guard—good. Abby didn't argue.

"Spells and dark magic have run wild everywhere on this world,” Tristan said, shaking his head. “I was stupid not to realize it—no, not just your fault, Abby. We came to this world and because I immediately knew that the people here didn't use magic, I stopped looking for it. Even my illness should have been a sign. But by the time I recovered, the most insidious of the spells had already taken hold."

"Liora's spell."

"Yes. Oh, she didn't create it. The spell and she were created as one. Any man who looked upon her would love her. It affected all men to some degree, but the spell was tuned to Abby. Only Lehan, born to be her opposite, was immune from her lure."

"And you,” Abby said. “You always saw her for herself."

"Abby, Abby,” Tristan said with a little laugh. “By the time you took me to the cottage, the spell that put a wall between us had already formed. I never saw her at all."

Aubreyan's head came up. He stared at Tristan, blinked—and then laughed. “Gods, I forgot."

"Forgot?” Eliora asked.

"He forgot that Tristan is blind,” Lehan said.

"Blind,” she repeated, as though the word must have some other meaning. She stood over Tristan for a long moment, looking down at him. “Truly blind."

"Yes,” Tristan replied and stood as well.

"I—” She stopped, shook her head and looked back out the window toward the darkened world. “I don't suppose I should be surprised by anything any more. But how did you get here?"

"Tabor,” he repeated and Abby could feel the surprise still in him. “Tabor is the son of Gix, the demon."

"And Noman works for the demon,” Lehan said.

"Yes."

"He didn't want his father to win."

"He didn't want his father's mage to win—Braith. It was a power play, Abby."

"You trust him."

"Trust? Never.” Tristan lifted his hand and a wave of magic enveloped the building—a ward so strong that it glittered in the walls, startling both Eliora and Lehan. “But I trust Braith even less. Tabor helped me so that he could stop Braith. That doesn't mean that if Tabor can step into Braith's role that he won't turn on us in the next battle."

"Ah,” Eliora said. She tentatively brushed against the wall and drew her hand back in surprise as a trail of light followed her fingers. “What have you done?"

"A ward.” The magic had not been easy, but Abby understood the need. “It will keep out anything without magic. And if someone with magic tries to take it down, I'll know."

"Then rest,” Eliora said, and gently touched the elf's shoulder, urging him down to the floor by Abby. “Rest while you can, Tristan. I fear the war isn't over yet."

Chapter Thirteen

Eliora couldn't look at the Janin without feeling her heart pound with sudden fear and her mouth go dry.

That thing staring back at her, humming ... It was not ... right.

If Abby and his friend had arrived with that creature on the first night, she would have joined with the villagers in trying to destroy him. She would have believed that he came from the demons and thrown herself into the worship of Leje to save herself and her children from such evil.

Eliora knew she had lost her daughter to Noman. She feared that she would lose her son to Abby, and she couldn't say that she liked that any better.

"Eliora?” Abby whispered.

She looked away from the Janin to Abby, who still leaned back against the wall, resting and recovering from that horrific battle. Blood ran from a cut at his forehead. Odd that Tristan had not healed that the way he had helped Lehan. Her son would survive this battle, at least. Eliora wished that she could ease the pain he still felt, but at least she had not seen him die in her arms as she had expected to when she held him.

Abby's fault. Eliora looked at him, frowning—

"I have not changed, really,” Abby said softly.

She blinked clamping her mouth shut. Words still seemed bottled up in her somewhere. Nothing fit properly into her world any more, and she didn't know what Abby wanted from her or what he expected her to say.

He must have seen that look in her face. He bowed his head, accepting what he saw in her look. He had not changed. But she had.

"Aubreyan,” she said, startling herself. When he turned back to her she knew she had to say something. “I ... This is very hard for me."

"I know. And I'm sorry. I wish that Tristan and I could have left without ever involving the locals in our war. But Tristan thinks that they must choose sides—that the choices they make are part of the battle itself. I have no say in it."

"I wish that Liora had chosen differently."

"So do I."

She hadn't expected that look in his eyes, that loss that made him appear so young and vulnerable. Abby had loved her daughter. She had thought it hadn't been a real love, but maybe something had gotten past even the spell and touched him.

"Aubreyan—I never saw Liora for herself,” Eliora admitted. “It was a mother's blindness, you know. I just never saw her as she truly is."

"I did, sometimes."

He startled both her and Lehan with those words, though Tristan only nodded. And the Janin's song changed a little to something soft and lost, as though she understood the emotions as well as Tristan did.

"Sometimes I saw her clearly—a wild creature of the hills, drawn down to the village to find something that wasn't really there. She wanted power because somewhere the ideas of love and power got intermixed in her soul. It may have even been the spell. But sometimes when we went up into the hills, far from everything else, even she forgot what she wanted most in life."

Maybe Abby gave her that little bit of salve just to make her feel better, but somehow Eliora didn't think so. She had begun to believe that Abby understood matters far better than any one else.

"Rest,” she told him. She walked back to the window and looked out, wondering where her daughter rested tonight.

Chapter Fourteen

Abby could hear pounding that reached even into the place where he slept. It was an uneven, hurried and angry sound that pulled him out of the restful dark, dragging him back to the world.

Pounding on the house. He thought the wood would crack. The Janin sang words of coming battle, of hope and of war, and she kept beat to that pounding.

"Tristan? Aubreyan? I think you need to wake up now."

Eliora's voice called him back to her world, though he didn't want to go there again. So many mistakes...

Tristan and Aubreyan?

The elf came awake slowly, regretting the loss of peace as well. Tired. He had used magic sometime during the long night and healed many of Abby's wounds, but had never fully recovered the power for himself. Another night with even the gray enshrouded moonlight would have helped, but Abby suspected that they wouldn't get that lucky.

And the pounding would drive him mad.

"Who is out there?” Abby asked looking up at Eliora, though he still didn't feel ready to move.

"Villagers, mostly,” Eliora said, looking out the doorway. “The people who had been held by Noman."

"The ward is still in place.” Tristan stood wearily, trying to ease the ache of stiff muscles and wishing, like Abby, for a little more time. “What do they want?"

"I think they want in,” Lehan said and gave a slight shrug. “I think they want the two of you to protect them."

"Us?” Abby and Tristan chorused.

Eliora laughed and leaned back against the wall, ignoring the dull thumping just the other side of where she stood. She looked calmer today, despite the situation. “The two of you are the only ones who have shown any power to protect them. Their belief in their god didn't save them from being pawns of Noman, but you two released them. Where else are they going to turn?"

"Maybe we should try to calm them, then,” Abby suggested and finally stood as well, though he kept hold of the wall to stay there. “We're going to have to go past them at some point. I would rather they were calm before we try."

"Good idea,” Lehan agreed. “But I suggest you clean up a little first. There's a rain barrel in the kitchen, and at least a few shirts less ragged than your own in the bedroom. If you are going to present yourselves as saviors, I think you might want to look more the part."

"Wise,” Tristan said. “Abby, I could heal your leg a bit more. It aches."

"I'm sorry,” Abby said. He bent down and rubbed the edge of the wound, but that didn't help much. “But I think we had better hoard what power you have. We have no idea when we'll fall under attack again."

Tristan nodded. Eliora looked at Abby, apparently surprised by his decision. He'd likely never shown wisdom, or even survival instincts, before now.

Tristan limped out to the kitchen with Abby, but it wasn't the elf's leg that had been injured. Abby felt badly about it, but it didn't change his mind.

Eliora brought them shirts and worked at brushing down Abby's wild hair. Tristan winced once when she pulled to hard at a tangled strand and the sore spot beneath it.

"I'm sorry, Tristan,” she said and then frowned. “Or should I say sorry to Aubreyan?"

"Neither,” they chorused and smiled again.

"Both.” She smiled for a moment, but it passed with a sigh. “I never knew what she was. I never looked."

"Pardon?” Abby asked.

"Liora.” She gently untangled another strand. “I never really looked at her, Abby. I'm sorry."

"Many things influenced Liora,” Abby said softly. He took a cup with a broken handle from Tristan and carefully sipped water from the uneven edge before he passed it back. Eliora still looked troubled. “Liora she made her own choices. You are no more responsible for what she has done than my parents are for my decisions, disastrous as some of them have been."

She looked ready to say more, but the pounding grew more intense again, and Abby decided that he could talk with his allies later. He went back to the other room and took up the Janin.

"Ready?” he asked, though he knew the answer from Tristan.

"As ready as you are,” Tristan answered and even offered a wry smile. “Lehan, Eliora? You should go back out of sight. It's unlikely they will think that anyone else is here but us. We have a way of drawing attention."

"No. We're here to stand with you,” Lehan said. Eliora only nodded, though she didn't look as assured. Abby knew better than to argue with her, though.

"Then let's be done with this part. These are not our enemies. We have a different battle to fight."

Tristan agreed and waved his hand. The ward dropped so quickly that the four people who had been trying to push in at the doorway nearly fell to their knees as they came through, and they looked around, panicked.

"Peace, friends,” Abby said. The Janin sang softly. “Calm."

A few more crowded in but stopped again, their eyes locked on the singing staff. Abby could see the suddenly growing fear take the place of what they had so ardently sought only moments before. He feared panic in that moment, and, if not an attack against them, then a rout back through the door and injury for those who didn't move quickly enough.

"You are safe,” Tristan said. “If you want our help, you must accept that we have our own ways and the Janin is one of our allies. We have done you no harm, so be calm. You're safe here."

"You—you defeated him,” one man said and dared to step closer. He seemed to notice Lehan and Eliora for the first time, and their presence appeared to make him feel safer. They represented something known in the world that must have seemed quite mad. “You are the only hope we have against Noman's return."

"The danger is not with Noman,” Abby said. He leaned on the Janin and hoped that didn't make him look weak before these people—but his leg hurt and his body ached. He didn't want to waste his little store of energy on something that should not be part of the war. “It is not the man, but what controls him. And it isn't you she really wants, it's me. She used you as a weapon I could not easily fight."

"What should we do, then?” he asked, shuddering.

"Be careful,” Tristan said. “And stay here while Abby and I try to settle this trouble. It will not take us long."

"Stay,” the man said. Others nodded. They looked worn and battle weary.

They settled in a small camp around the house, finding a few wild foods and water. Abby couldn't tell whether they trusted him or could think of nothing else to do. He did see the looks of trust they gave Lehan as he helped them and gave them words of reassurance Abby could not have uttered, having far less faith in his abilities than Lehan did.

The people watched uneasily as Abby, Tristan, Lehan and Eliora left the farm and headed back to the trail and the long, long walk back to the village.

"We should rest longer,” Tristan said. The wind tore at them, cold and forbidding. “A little more peace—"

"No,” Abby replied. “I think I've had peace enough for now. We dare not wait, Tristan, and let them have more time as well."

"We should ask some of the others to help us.” Eliora looked back at the farm again.

"No.” Tristan shook his head. “It would be better if even the two of you would stay behind. This is our war."

"We won't desert you. And you know that Noman will have allies still,” Lehan said. He looked ahead. “He'll have Liora, at least."

"Yes,” Abby agreed. He buried that longing he felt with a little shudder and a half-thought apology to Tristan, who waved it all way. They both knew that what Abby felt wasn't real—well, not all of it. And it wasn't her that he wanted anyway. He wished for the warm days lying in the sunlight, the world silent around them. “Liora will be there. But I still wish that you wouldn't go along."

"Command us not to go with you.” Eliora looked into Abby's face. “But be certain you put power into those words, my friend. Otherwise we stay with you."

"Do you even believe in my war?” Abby asked.

"I believe in you, Aubreyan,” Eliora answered, surprising him again. She kept walking, heading for inevitable danger by being at his side. “You came to my world and made me see how blind I had been. I will make amends, and I will start by helping you in whatever way I can."

Abby didn't argue any more. He tried to limp less and not slow them down. He had grown tired of this long, gray trail that would always lead to trouble.

They kept going.

Chapter Fifteen

The day had been troubling. Tabor felt disaster in the air, the sense of things out of place, and of his father's realm moving in ways that it had not before. Gix prepared for dealing with Abby, but Tabor couldn't decide what actions the demon intended to take.

Gix did finally call Braith to him, though. Tabor carefully established his link through the mage, far more nervous this time than even the first time he'd tried this trick. He thought that Braith had started to get a feel of Tabor watching through him. He would not be able to do this for much longer ... But then, this business on Eliora's world would soon be finished. After that, it would be a different world and a different worry.

As Tabor slipped into the link, he found Braith already kneeling before his master, waiting. A curious waiting, without the usual palpitations of his heart, or the dampness on his palms.

"And what will you do to make amends for this disaster, Braith?” Gix said, leaning down into the face of his kneeling dog.

Tabor had expected panic. He'd expected blood and he braced himself for it, there at his desk, ready to pull out as quickly as he could—

But ... he had not been ready for the calm Braith offered in return. And when Braith looked up at the demon, he saw calm there as well. Anger, yes—but the rage that the demon would normally show when something went awry wasn't there. Calm on both sides.

"I will go and get the piece of the Kiya back. I might still have a chance to take the godling as well,” Braith replied.

Calm. Steady.

And Gix nodded.

Tabor watched in utter dismay. Something had changed. At some point the two had moved into an almost rational stage, and Tabor mistrusted that so much that the palms of his hands sweated and he nearly lost his precious link.

"Will you need help? Tabor?” Gix asked.

"He's worked against me. That doesn't seem a good mix for success."

"You don't trust him."

"Master,” Braith said, bowing his bald head, a little of the subservience returned. “I trust him no more than you do."

Gix nodded. Well, no surprise there, even if it did worry Tabor a little more to see it so plainly stated and before his enemy. His father had to know that Braith had begun the battle between them and pushed Tabor into a position where he had to fight back to be safe.

Safe? There would never be safety on this world.

"I will need a few dozen of your fine red birds,” Braith said. “They will not be coming back."

Gix waved that away; small payment for the Kiya. “Take them. Take what you need to lure the Kiya back here.” He picked up a box by the table and opened it. Inside, the pieces of the Kiya waited, glowing, and hungry. Gix drew out the head and petted it with unexpected gentleness. “The Kiya must be made whole again. It is an abomination that she is weak while the Janin is whole. It is unbalance."

And he took the head, with the somnolent face and blinking eyes, and magically attached her to a chain over his heart. Tabor thought it smiled softly, like a child held by his mother.

"This plan should not have failed,” Braith said looking back into Gix's face. “We both know it should not have. I would like to know what went wrong. I would like to know who moved against us."

They didn't trust him and they suspected this trouble of him, even if they hadn't the proof. He wondered why they just didn't deal with him and be done with it. Tabor felt that like a chill down his spine. He stared in disbelief at the calm and rational actions of the two.

Had he pushed them to this? Had there been some trigger in the last day that had set the two on this path when it became clear that they were losing? Gix knew that Abby would have to come to this world—

The demon had changed in order to deal with the godling. And because he changed, Braith did as well. And that left Tabor farther outside the circle than he ever had before.

"Master,” Braith said. “I must go to this world. Shall I call Tabor?"

"No,” Gix said. He pricked his own wrist and let a few drops of precious blood fall into Braith's hand. “No. We shall not bring Tabor in until we have use for him."

And when they did, it would not be to share in the work. He would have to move very carefully now. No more games. Braith was still going to have to fight Abby, and he'd done all he could to weaken Braith. He could only wait.

But these changes bothered him. He could no longer guess his place.

Chapter Sixteen

They had taken the journey slowly, knowing that to rush into danger and tire themselves even more would not be wise. Sunset brought them to the ridge overlooking Promise. Noman stood by the stone cottage, and Liora sat on the boulder beside him, her face calm and serene even as she watched the four coming closer. She looked as though she felt that nothing could defeat them, and nothing could touch her.

While Aubreyan didn't slow at the sight of her, Tristan felt his own heart beat faster as he saw her through Abby's eyes for the first time. However, the spell had been broken between her and Abby, and his friend felt no malice, regret, or longing. She was no longer important to him, at least any more so than the others on this world.

Tristan felt something different as they neared. Magic played all around Liora and Noman, and around him and Abby—as though they had become a nexus for all the unused power on this otherwise magically-dormant world. Noman could tap that power, and so could he. Tristan feared a spectacular battle.

"I expected you, of course,” Noman said, pushing away from the wall. “You are so predictable, Aubreyan. And the others follow so willingly. You must be a wonderful leader to bring them straight to slaughter, and they never even question it."

"Enough,” Abby said, his voice cool and even his emotions stilled. “I want her."

"Liora? She was yours before. No second chances."

"Don't play such stupid games with me,” Abby said. He didn't even look at Liora. “I want the Kiya."

"And I should willingly give her to you?” he said and laughed. A single shaft of light played in his hand, and though Abby wasn't impressed, he did draw Liora's rapt attention. When he finally threw the bolt of lighting at Abby, he batted it aside with the Janin and it shattered against the boulders nearby.

"The battle is still between you and me, Kiya,” Abby said. “As it has always been. You haven't the power to win against the Janin, and you know that truth."

"There are always others involved,” Noman said. A feral grin came to the man's face this time and Abby suspected that came fully from Noman, and not the Kiya. This one too willingly let himself fall into her hold. “Who are you willing to lose?"

"I cannot lose,” Abby said. He drew his sword. “And I'm weary of this gray world. Let's be done with it."

"Your choice,” Noman said. And then he reached down and grabbed Liora by the hair with one hand. He drew a long, silver knife and placed it against her neck.

Her look changed at last, the smugness giving way to surprise. Abby saw no fear in her—not yet—but when he stared into her dark gray eyes, he found something he had never expected: innocence. Liora had never believed that anyone would hurt her.

"Yes, I thought she would still be your bane,” Noman said. “Such a lovely, desirable creature, isn't she? No, don't move, elf. Do you think he would ever forgive you if you caused her death?"

Tristan held back, though not for any reason Noman would understand. Abby could see that Liora did know the truth, though, and he watched the way her face changed as she realized that no matter what Noman thought, he wouldn't hold back for her sake. Anger rose in those eyes—but for which one? The man with the knife at her throat, or the one who could not save her and sacrifice everyone else?

"I can't let the demons win for your sake,” Abby said. He thought she might even understand. Noman pressed a little harder and drew a thin line of blood from her pale skin. Abby looked back into Noman's face and saw the hint of red in his eyes—but Tristan held him back from that insanity. “Kill her, then, but don't expect me to be merciful afterwards just because I am the son of a goddess."

"You would sacrifice her?"

"I will have half the staff in my possession when I take you. I dare not lose. I can't afford to step aside for the sake of a single life."

"Not even for love?” Liora asked, her hands lifting a little as though to welcome him into her arms.

"There is no love between us, Liora,” he said with the honesty that she deserved. “You made your choices and went ways that I cannot follow, and now there can be no love between us. That magic died."

She bowed her head, even with the knife pressing so close to her skin.

"Then you made your choice,” Noman said.

"And when you're done, how far do you think you can run?"

"All the way to hell."

"Of course. But you know that I'll follow you even there."

"Yes, but you're not likely to find any allies, are you?” He laughed and the knife pulled back for a brief moment as he prepared—

Liora had pulled her own belt knife. She pulled it out and jabbed it, backhanded, into his side. He yowled and let go, half shoving her away.

The magic nexus swirled about then, and ice-laden gusts of wind suddenly sent everyone sprawling. Lehan still somehow reached his sister's side while Noman struggled back to his feet. By then Abby had stood as well and started toward his enemy. But Noman didn't stay. He howled with anger, the Kiya's rage in his voice and shaking the world. Noman spun and ran, still bleeding, toward the village.

"We can't let him recover,” Abby said. The Janin sang again, promising bright destruction when she next met the enemy. “I don't want to follow the Kiya to hell."

Tristan nodded and started out, Abby barely keeping pace with him. The elf wanted this battle done, and he suspected Lehan and Eliora felt the same as they followed. No one acknowledged that Liora also trailed a few steps behind. Abby couldn't say where she stood in this, though he didn't regret her survival.

The rain began to fall, the sunset quickly filling with black clouds rather than gray. Abby knew where the man and the Kiya went, and he hoped he could reach them first. But no—Noman entered the temple even as Abby's group came around the last corner and viewed the opening where the doors still hung, half from their hinges.

Others from the village had slipped from their homes, hanging back a little, frightened—but not attacking him. They knew Noman to be their enemy, though they didn't appear to know what to make of Abby yet. It was as though they could not have anything that was not either demon or god.

As Noman stepped through the door, the ground shook and the winds howled with a new ferocity. The gods didn't like to have such demon-made evil inside.

"He knows your weakness, Abby,” Tristan said with a shake of his head.

"Why go into the Temple?” Lehan asked. “Surely that's not a place of power for him, too."

"You can't go back in,” Eliora added. “Let him sit there—"

"No, we don't dare wait,” Tristan said, though Abby felt his welling of concern for him. He took hold of Abby's arm when the ground shook again. They could hear the dangerous shifting of stones and the cries of worried people. “The gods may not like having Noman in there with the Kiya, but it won't drive him mad like it does Abby. He can sit there and regain his power and re-forge his link with the demon."

"No. We don't dare. He'll regain power, and he might call Gix again. That's not something we want to happen."

Tristan lifted a hand and shook his head in dismay. “He's calling on magic, even in there. Go. I'll be with you and keep you sane if I can."

Abby didn't slow or ask anything more of his companion. He saw Eliora reach as though to stop them, and then draw her hand back. The world trembled continuously now, as though something fought to tear free of its dirt and rock shell.

They had no time to consider other possibilities. Abby and Tristan rushed up the steps, and he felt tingling and the start of numbness through the cracked walls of this place. Why didn't it just fall? Tristan would keep this new madness at bay for a while longer, just as he often held the demon curse back when he could. Abby could feel Tristan's protection growing around him like a wall of trees. It felt like a part of home—of Ishan—had come to him, and he clung to the offered shelter.

The painting of Aubreyan still covered most of the back wall, untouched by the damage around it. Abby dared not look fully at it, although Tristan thought that it made this place his sanctuary. It was time to use that power if he could keep his own controls.

"You will find no aid here,” Abby said.

Noman's hand hovered near the altar, though he didn't touch the bright, jeweled surface. Power radiated there, but Abby thought the Kiya might be leery of trying to take hold of something manifest from the gods.

Noman looked surprised that Abby not only came into the temple, but also seemed so calm. Then he looked at Tristan and the dagger he still held turned in that direction.

"No.” Abby stepped forward, pulling his sword. “You can't believe I would allow you to hurt Tristan."

"No, of course not. But I knew you would step closer to protect him. You are such a predictable fool."

Noman caressed the blade in his hand, a light sparklin along the edge. The knife slipped from Noman's hand, hovered for a moment, and then moved toward Abby. He knocked it down. It moved up and came toward him again.

Down, Abby!

He trusted Tristan, and went straight to his knees, ignoring the weapon. Tristan's spell, quick and effective, severed the spell between the man and the knife. The tip came so close it caressed the side of Abby's face before it tumbled to the floor.

Noman began to chant with a rush of guttural words that brought darker magic swirling around him. As Abby stood, he could hear the shouts of panic sweeping through the village again. He knew that if the madman brought that opening into here—into the temple of the gods—

Tristan tried to push his own magic in around Noman, to stop him or at least cut him off, but Noman had a ward up that the elf had trouble fighting his way through.

He's crazy, Tristan said, mind-to-mind. I can't tell if it's the Kiya or him.

And Abby felt that he wouldn't be too far behind, even with Tristan to guard him. He could feel the demon taint on the cold wind that blew through the building, swirling dust, scattered wood and stone.

If the demon came into this world at the temple, it would mean true madness in every sense of the word. He could not allow it; the gods were still too close and would rush to answer the affront. They would come here ... and of all the worlds where they might have fought, this one had the least protections against such a battle.

"No,” Abby said, foreseeing the disaster and destruction such confrontation would cause. He reached out and touched the altar, startling even Tristan. “There will be no battle here."

The building moaned as powers played along the already half-ruined walls. Even the altar trembled and leapt beneath his hand. Noman braced himself against the wall beneath the portrait, his hands lifted, the Kiya bright red at his chest. Abby wanted to reach out and grab it, but Tristan's sudden worry about what would happen stopped him. He had to do this decisively or else it would bring even more trouble.

Abby?

"Keep them safe, Tristan."

Abby!

Too late. Abby put both hands on the altar and he called the power to him. Until now he had denied what the temple offered in power, afraid that he could not control it—or that it would give the gods the ability to control him. He had, in fact, risked far too much already.

Now he pulled at it like a rope of fire. It mixed with the power Noman had started to let loose. The picture behind the altar glowed and brightened, and Noman, standing below it, felt the power coming for him—

Abby had not expected Noman to panic and let go of the spell he had begun.

Demon and god magic mixed in the air like snakes, twirling and grabbing at each other, plummeting into the walls and knocking the stones apart. The Janin yelled out her song and added her own magic as some of the darker snakes tried to wrap around her. None of them survived.

And neither did the temple.

It didn't take long for the two powers to destroy the already unsteady and abused building. Stone shattered everywhere, filling the air with debris. Tristan quickly put a ward up around them all, though even he had trouble holding it in this miasmic chaos of powers that went far beyond that of magic.

Noman shouted in anger—but the words were an old language that Noman had likely never really known. The Kiya had him, though Abby could still see a hint of the mage in those eyes, and the anger that was wholly human.

"I will not fall here,” Noman said.

He scrambled up over the fallen wall and out into the village, a shadow disappearing into the night. He did not truly disappear, however. Tristan could feel the Kiya as she slipped away into the storm.

Abby drew his hands back from the altar at last. He wanted to fall and curl up and not move again for a long time. Every breath felt painful, and every thing of this world felt too abrasive brushing against his skin, his sight, and his mind. He should not be here. This was not his place—

"No Abby!” Tristan shouted and grabbed hold of him with both hands, his thoughts driving into Abby's mind, hardly helping with the chaos. “No! You do not belong in some other place. You belong here on this world and helping us!"

He blinked at Tristan, aware of the storm again, aware that he had glimpsed somewhere else for a moment that had called to him. Abby thought he might like to go there, to that place without the pains of being human—

"Abby, please,” Tristan whispered aloud. The thoughts in Abby's mind churned with pain of his own. Beyond that he felt Tristan and the fear of loss that went far beyond anything that had to do with this damned long battle that he had grown very tired of fighting.

"I could take you with me,” Abby said. He laid a hand on the stone of Tristan's crown and offered him a journey to that place as well. “We could go there. You are as much a part of me as my own soul—"

But at that moment one of them—or maybe both—thought of all the friends they had left behind, and how they would all fall.

Abby drew his hand back and banished that place from his mind. He looked at Eliora who stared, frightened, her hand on Lehan's shoulder.

"We could not go,” Abby said softly. “How could we find peace until this is done?"

"Thank you, Aubreyan and Tristan,” Lehan said. He might even have understood better than the others what had almost happened.

"We better go and find Noman,” Eliora said softly. She looked from one to the other. “If he gets away—"

"He can't,” Tristan said and lifted his hand and traced the magic path with his mind. Abby turned that way and started over the walls.

Surprisingly, he found Liora on the other side, her hand reaching to help him. She must have gone back out the door. Funny that he had lost track of her. There had been a time when she would have been the only thing he saw. How odd to feel the distance now.

She was the first to look away.

"He's heading back up the hill,” Tristan said with a weary sigh as Abby helped him out. “And he's pulling magic along the way. I think he intends to try again."

"Why doesn't he just stop?” Eliora demanded. She didn't sound any happier than Tristan.

"He can't stop any more than we can,” Abby said. “Less so. I think the gods would take us, if I really wanted to go that way. I don't really—I was just tired for a moment. But he has nowhere to go that will take him unless he wins. And he has no allies here now. Noman has to call to the demons for help because he can't stand up to Tristan and me."

"Then let's stop him,” Eliora said. She started out ahead of the others, ready to do battle for her world. The others followed quickly.

Chapter Seventeen

Noman had cast the first part of his spell by the time they reached the cottage. Tristan tried to stop him, but as they topped the trail they found the portal already half opened between here and hell. Even in the storm the link between the two places shown bright and clear.

Abby closed his eyes to the demon's hell, but he could still feel the call of the other place ... But at this moment he couldn't say that it would have been better than Gix's realm. He would not have belonged in either.

He was too human.

And the curse would take him if he looked too closely at that portal. Tristan, expanding all the power he could to hold Noman from taking the next step, tried to keep Abby safe as well. He'd already expended too much magic in shielding them in the temple, and at the top of the trail he went to his knees. Lehan grabbed him and brought him back to his feet, panic in his face.

Liora walked past Abby and his friends and kept going toward her father. Abby thought Lehan might have shouted something to her, but he couldn't be certain she heard as the wind howled and Noman watched her, his hand reaching out to take her back.

She went too willingly to power.

Tristan shouted and sent a surge of power that very nearly left him senseless and Abby unprotected, but he knocked Liora aside and broke the spell that drew her back again. It had been an old tie, and one that Noman seemed to have used just out of habit. As she fell he looked annoyed, but he didn't lose his hold on the magic that opened the portal a little wider.

Eliora surprised them all. The woman had slipped off the trail, climbed across the uneven ground and the boulders, and suddenly appeared only a few steps from Noman. She launched herself at the mage before he could even turn on her.

Decades of rage had waited for that attack, and Abby could see it in the ferocity that the woman had not shown before. Even without magic she did what the others had not managed so far. She drove him down to the ground.

Liora raced to help her, kicking Noman's hand when he reached for his dagger. Abby, Tristan and Lehan reached them only a few heartbeats later, and Abby thought they were done—until he saw Liora grab the Kiya and yank it away from her father's throat.

"No,” Abby said softly, but he could already see the hint of red in her eyes. And how could his heart move like that with fear for something demon tainted? “Don't let the Kiya take you. I can't let you keep her."

"The power,” Liora whispered looking at the piece of wood in her hand, her lips curling back in a smile.

"I have held the Kiya whole, Liora. That was power. What you hold only takes. She'll give you nothing."

He reached out, but Liora backed away, denying—

Abby!

Something else wrong. Something worse. The spell that opened the portal should have closed when Liora took the Kiya. It hadn't. As he turned, Abby saw something moving toward the world in a quick rush that would bring it here in the next heartbeat. Braith stepped into the world, his skeletal face showing a smile that looked obscene on so evil a man.

Demon-touched, but not demon blood. Abby could hold back still, even in the face of this thing that stood at Gix's right hand. As long as Tristan held on, he could fight it.

"I will not go easily,” Abby said.

"No doubt,” Braith replied.

He reached toward Liora and pulled her toward him. Eliora caught hold of her daughter, but Liora shook herself free, and Noman started to shove Eliora away when she moved in to try to grab her daughter again.

Noman looked shocked when Eliora brought up her blade and drove it straight into his side. He stumbled back toward Braith, but Gix's mage obviously didn't care. Noman didn't have the Kiya.

"You cannot have her,” Abby said. He brought out God's Honor and stepped forward.

Braith's smile grew. He lifted his other hand, and the portal grew, the call of hell just there—

"Don't look, Abby,” Tristan said aloud. He moved up beside his friend. “If you turned away the call of the domain of the gods, you cannot be called by this one."

"Oh, so noble,” Braith said, a hiss of words. He almost had his hand on Liora's arm. “I'll just have to settle for taking this one with me."

"You shall not have her.” Abby stepped toward Braith again, the sword ready—

Look out, Abby!

Creatures came from the still-open portal—small leathery red bodies the size of two year old children, wings that spread wide and claws and teeth that swept at Abby and his companions.

Liora didn't move to protect herself. Instead, her fingers curled around the Kiya as though to protect the piece of staff from damage. Was that Braith's work? Noman, where he stood, his side bleeding and his face pale? Or was it Liora herself, already in the thrall of the Kiya? He didn't know. He couldn't stop to help her.

A set of the small creatures had purposely gone for Tristan, and from the way they kept grabbing at him, Abby knew that they were trying to get the rest of the Kiya from the bag he held. They would have no luck there; Tristan's magic would hold off far more powerful creatures than them.

Abby swung God's Honor at the nearest of the creatures, severing a wing and then the head. Tristan sent magic against the others, and Lehan moved to protect his sister, his dagger slashing at the creatures that seemed to swarm at her. They bore her down to the ground, tearing, biting—that could not be the work of the Kiya. She whimpered as one tore at her arm, finally pulling the hand open. Abby thought it would grab the Kiya, but instead the animal pulled back and Braith lifted the Kiya with magic. Wise. He could not imagine what hold the Kiya would have on such a creature.

But that moment gave Abby a chance.

Abby and Tristan both moved to take the Kiya—Abby by hand, Tristan by magic, a braiding of their talents that made them, as always, stronger than the one alone. Braith cursed and sent Tristan sprawling, no doubt seeing magic as the more dangerous attack. The elf didn't lose his hold on the spell and the Kiya slowed and finally froze in the air, glowing red.

Lightning raced across the sky, shattering against the cottage as the Janin screamed a harsh and wild song that blended with the storm. Abby forced himself closer. He shoved God's Honor back into the sheath and wrapped his fingers around the Kiya. She would not move. But he closed his eyes, willed her to him—

"Kill the others,” Braith ordered.

The creatures howled, screamed and went wild, swarming down at Eliora, Liora and Lehan.

Abby—I can't hold and fight—

Lehan went down, bloody claws raking down his chest as another grabbed at his head and bit. Eliora forgot her own danger to try and save him. Another had Liora by the head, claws digging into her neck.

Tristan— Panic rose, left him in the next breath. Let go. Help them.

The elf's magic dropped away, releasing the Kiya. Abby didn't even try to hold onto her as Braith's magic surged, triumphant. Abby spun the Janin around and leapt toward his friends. The Janin destroyed two, three—he drew the sword quickly and a fourth fell to God's Honor while Tristan forced others back toward the portal. Eliora killed three with her knife, and Lehan, despite his wounds, killed two more before he collapsed. Liora crawled to him and fought back any of the enemy who came near until Abby or Eliora had killed them all.

It had been a quick battle and when Abby spun back he could still see Braith and Noman within the portal, though beyond his reach. He almost tried anyway, but his leg gave out and Tristan's panic that he would go through alone held him back from trying again.

Braith stood the other side and held up the Kiya. He still smiled.

"I will come for her,” Abby said.

"Oh yes, of course.” Braith's words came, echoing oddly through the link between the two places. Smug, and that chilled Abby. A foul, hot wind blew through the portal, and falling rain sizzled at its touch. “We know you will follow the Kiya. But we'll be ready. We know, now, when you will come—you must follow still, after this piece. There is no holy ground in hell, Aubreyan Altazar. And you shall find no allies."

The portal closed.

The storm raged for only a moment longer and died. Abby, still on his knees, dropped God's Honor into the mud. He wrapped both hands around the Janin and leaned his head against her, waiting while Tristan healed the wounds of the others.

And the Kiya sang for him—of battle, and of the journey to hell that they must soon make.

Chapter Eighteen

His father called him, finally. Braith and Noman were back, and they had brought the Kiya, but not Abby. In that, at least, the dog had failed. Tabor wasn't certain if that failure would be enough to discredit Braith. A few days ago he would have waited for the bloodshed. But things had changed.

With much regret, Tabor quickly destroyed all the little ties he had forged to Braith and to Tristan. He dared not have such obvious signs of his treachery still at hand. He trusted nothing right now, least of all his own ability to stand undiscovered before his father.

Once he had shed the magic, Tabor went quickly to his father's presence. He didn't falter as he crossed the room. Noman knelt, still bleeding and whimpering at Braith's feet, and Tabor favored them with one glance of disgust.

For once his father was not in the throne. He stood by a window, a massive bulk that could never be mistaken for human anymore. How had he changed? How had he come to be this thing...

How could Tabor not—

But he stopped that thought, here in the presence of the demon. What did Gix see in that patch of green that lay out there like a fungus? Tabor didn't ask. He came and stood, just at the edge of his father's reach.

Gix turned. He held the new piece of the Kiya in his open hand.

"I see Braith got that, at least. It will go well with the other five pieces and the head I have already brought you."

Gix's lips drew back: a smile? A snarl? They were all the same here.

"Master,” Noman whispered, a hand to his side, protecting the wound from the creatures that came to feast on his blood. “Master—I did everything I was asked—"

Gix waved his hand, and Noman screamed, doubling over, blood pouring from the wound, his mouth, his eyes—everywhere. The multi-legged creatures swarmed up over him, until they muffled any sound that he made. He would not die, of course, unless Gix willed it.

Tabor watched for a moment and looked away, uninterested. The man had his reward. Gix looked at his son, measuring him for the same reward for service. They both knew it. Tabor didn't look away.

Gix looked down at the Kiya again, and then tossed it to Tabor. He caught it easily. It felt too warm in his hand, a vestige of being held by a true demon. Power surged through the runes for a moment more and died again. He could only imagine what it would be like when Gix held the entire staff.

"Tabor, you know where that belongs,” Gix said with a flick of his hand, a sign that Tabor could never be anything more than a servant here. The demon's lips were still curled back.

Tabor returned the smile. “Yes, I know."

He walked past Braith who kicked aside the lump of Noman and the creatures surrounding him. Braith watched Tabor, the wildness in his eyes, distrustful of even this little work that Braith gave him.

Braith had no doubt already prepared for the next battle, whether it was over the Kiya or something else. Nothing in the situation here had changed.

Ah, but Tabor had changed. He held the Kiya in his hand for a moment longer, watching as the runes almost came alive at his demonling touch. Things would be different in this round.

They had rested in the cottage, Tristan so worn from healing wounds that Lehan and Eliora had carried him and put him on the bed, that place where he had rested the first night. They had come full circle again, it seemed. Abby had settled in the chair, thinking about the inevitable next step. He had always known they would have to go to Gix's own hell to follow some of the pieces. Abby had just never considered that he might do it as a sign of defeat.

But they would go. He had no choice, and faced with the inevitable, he could not find a reason to dwell on it. With that thought he fell to sleep despite himself.

"Aubreyan?” Lehan said softly.

He didn't want to come back to the place where he had failed. He could hear the sound of the rain and wind, felt Tristan coming slowly awake as well. Abby wanted to stay here in the darkness, and not have to go on to the next battle. He couldn't face the idea of that journey to hell.

Lehan gently touched his arm. His friends had always been his bane. He could not hold back when they called.

Everyone survived to see another day, Tristan offered, sitting up slowly. That cannot be counted as a loss.

Lehan's face looked pale, a slight bruise at his forehead. But he smiled when Abby looked up at him, and that eased new fears and old worries.

"I hated to wake you, but it would have happened soon anyway. There are villagers coming up the hillside, led by Milan. They look calm enough, but I thought you might want to be coherent when you met them. My mother has already gone out to see them."

"Liora?” he asked, more habit than anything else. The Kiya had gone from this world, along with Noman, and he didn't think either would return. Liora was powerless now.

"She left before dawn,” Lehan said. “She stayed awake all night watching you and I think she may have finally accepted that she can't lure you back."

Abby nodded, relieved that he would not have to deal with that problem, and stood. The Janin sat by the wall, humming and very nearly quiet. No enemies here. He didn't even pick her up and she only blinked at him once as he went by. Tristan limped along just a step behind him, unwilling to let Abby go out there alone. This time, though, the limp came more from the elf's wounds than his own.

They stepped out into a gray morning filled with mist and a cold, damp breeze. The villagers had reached the top of the hill and came their way, slow and uncertain in their movements. Eliora nodded to Abby when he stopped beside her, and she even smiled when Tristan took his place at Abby's side.

And Liora arrived, skipping down from the hillside, looking like something wild come back to the world of men. Abby would have liked to have known this Liora, but he looked away instead. Milan had reached them, his head bowed.

The wind blew again, a spattering of rain everywhere around them. Abby looked up into the sky, and the clouds, feeling the weight of this weather like the loss of the battle.

"By the gods, I'm tired of this gray world!"

"Abby!” Tristan whispered, frantic by the words, and perhaps by the surge of power—

Abby lifted his arm and swept his hand toward the sky above him. The gray clouds parted and swirled, and the veil disappeared from before the bright blue sky. Golden sunlight reached down and brushed against Abby's fingers, warming him again.

"That's better. I always like to think we leave a world better than when we found it,” Abby said. He lowered his hand and looked at Milan. “The spell that brought the drought is gone. So is Noman's magic that kept this little valley alive while all else withered and died. The world will be real again. You'll do well."

Tristan had already put his hand on the pouch, understanding that they would be going now. There was no reason to wait, even if the fear of where they went next almost blinded Abby in that moment.

"You can't leave us,” Eliora whispered. He hadn't expected the look of loss in her eyes. She had been the only one in this group that had never shown a need for him and Tristan. “We need you. We have no protection—"

"The Kiya is gone. None of the players in this drama will be back this way. The only way that you shall ever see a demon again is if Tristan and I truly fail in the end. And if that happens, then you would still be on your on. We must go elsewhere. Our war is not done."

"Aubreyan.” Liora took hold of his arm, her fingers too tight, too possessive still. He looked into her eyes—a shame that they were gray. He started to pull away, but she shook her head. “No. You can't leave me like this. I helped you—"

"You chose a side to win,” Abby said. She must have found the look in his face unsettling since she suddenly let go of his arm and stepped away. “You chose right, in the end. Your world, and you, will be better for it."

"And that is the reward of serving good?” She looked a little amused. “Is that all you can hope for in your battle, Aubreyan Altazar? Together we could rule this world."

"Rewards come in ways other than power.” He ran a finger down her cheek and she held her breath. “There is also love. But you have to deserve it, Liora."

She stepped away again.

"Please,” Milan whispered and looked at Abby with such pleading that it even stilled Tristan's silent appeal to be away quickly. “We need help still, even if just to decide what we should do next. The world has changed, and you changed us—"

"Do you fear the sunlight that much?” Abby asked.

"No—"

"That's all that has really changed, Milan. Nothing is gray and simple anymore. You can see more clearly now that the veil is gone."

"Please just stay for a while,” Milan said.

"I can't. You don't need me and there are other places I must go still. This is your world now, and you must work out your problems on your own. Eliora will help you as she always has in her own way. You owe her your trust. She is the one who should lead you, and when she wearies of those duties, turn to Lehan. But never to Liora. Never."

"Aubreyan!” Liora gasped, disbelief in her gray eyes.

"And that, Liora, is how one wields real power. Such power has never been for you."

She backed away. He had feared he would see anger in her face just then, but instead he found only resignation. She glanced toward the hills, and he knew where she would go.

Abby put a hand on the elf's arm. Tristan had already begun to weave a ward around them. The others stepped away. In a moment the Kiya had begun to pull them elsewhere, and even she seemed anxious to leave. They would go to hell. He couldn't say that he would be ready for this battle, but waiting longer would not make it any easier to leave here.

Abby wished peace to those who watched them. That gift alone he could leave behind. The world began to slip away, and he saw Lehan bow his head in parting. That was a friend he would miss.

Abby looked around, one last glance at the bright sunlight, the blue skies. A pretty world, truly. A better place.

And then they were going.

Epilogue

Abby didn't regret leaving Eliora's world. He would miss Eliora and Lehan, but there were so many in other people whom he missed as well that it hardly mattered to leave two more behind.

And Liora? Tristan wondered.

Perhaps a touch of her magic stayed with him still. He could see her fire-red hair, her beautiful face—and he suspected she would haunt him for a long time. But he would not miss her any more than he would miss the others.

He had Tristan again, but it was not quite the same. Abby knew that he had changed a little while they had parted. Maybe it had forced him to grow up, finally. But it had also shown him that he needed the elf. They were one force, fighting this battle, and the elf no less committed to it than him.

So they went on together, along this path that would take them to hell—a strange path that seemed to twist and turn before them. He couldn't say that he went willingly to face Gix on his own ground, but he went of his own free will.

And he did not plan to lose.

The End

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