Jedit

Chapter 16

Come late evening, in the privacy of the ravaged library, Johan uttered a spell to render himself invisible.

More than invisible, actually-intangible. He uttered another spell while swiping his hands down his body to mask his smell, the sound of his breathing, the rustling of robes, even any footprints he might make. Padding down the stairs and entering the passage to the great hall, Johan knew he'd succeeded when the Akron Legionnaire didn't even stir.

Behind Lady Shauku's open-air great hall, Johan discovered the kitchen roof intact, in fact cory with a low roof and working fireplace, though the walls were stained and a window overgrown by vines. Two yellow-skinned boys in yellow tunics without emblems, no doubt cadets, polished boots by the fire. The walls were hung with soldierly gear, and off the kitchen, in what had been a pantry or larder, Johan saw bunks and heard snores.

Passing through the kitchen, the emperor descended a flight of circular stairs that must sink to the wine cellar. That, Johan reasoned, was the only place Lady Shauku could live. Down, around, and down he sank in absolute silence. Everywhere were signs of rot: mildew, water stains, crumbled mortar, and dust. A putrid smell of rotted flesh and offal assailed Johan's nostrils, though he was rarely fussy. How could Lady Shauku endure the odor?

At the bottom of the stairs, he found two stone-lined rooms. One room was black and reeked of an ancient sweet-sour smell of spilled wine even above the reek of death. The other chamber was small and illuminated by a single candle. Empty barrels stood or lay about. One had staves cut low on one side to fashion a chair. In the chair slept the lovely Lady Shauku, wrapped in a tattered robe that seemed faded to no color at all. She looked as out of place as a rare flower in a garbage heap.

Searching, Johan found a barrel with the top stove in and a bunghole in one side. Carefully he climbed inside and sat- and waited. After centuries of study and scheming and waiting for long-term plans to come to fruition, Johan had patience in abundance. He could easily wait all night and day, if necessary, to learn Shauku's secrets.

The invisibility spell faded, though Johan sat in darkness.

Time passed. Eventually a rustling like a snake over autumn leaves bespoke Shauku stirring. Peering through the bunghole, Johan watched the lady drop her hard-to-see sleeping robe and glide out the door. Where to?

Slipping over the barrel's edge, Johan started to follow, then recalled the queer color-shifting robe. It lay on the floor. In pale candle light, Johan could barely see it, thinking it gray. But as he picked it up, for a second it burned black. The fold in his hand took the color of his red-black skin. The tail of the robe looked like wood and stone. When Johan draped it against his lizard-skin robe, it shone pale purple. A curious and handy rag. Why would the sorceress sleep in this robe? To hide? From what? Or for some other reason?

Knowledge came with risks, the sorcerer knew. Wrapping the robe about his shoulders, he sat in the barrel throne to see what happened.

Nothing.

The cellar remained silent. The robe smelled of dust and mold and a snaky musk. Waiting, the minutes dragging, Johan dozed.

And dreamed.

Darkness was shot with a million stars. Lights pinwheeled to describe slow spirals. Stars shone white, blue, red, yellow, orange, infinitesimally small against the black fabric of night. Shooting stars sizzled like single-minded fireflies. Dust motes and boulders pinged on a crowded plateau. Monsters crouched, jammed together, thick as grasses on a prairie, until nor an inch of soil remained uncovered, until not one single beast could send a quivering tendril in any direction but upward. Noise bubbled. Roars and hoots and squawls and bellows rose to the heavens in a cacophonous chorus that never ceased. Everywhere pressed a crushing bruising shivering desire to be free, separate, alone, unbound. Then a lurching explosion erupted into the sky.

Startling awake, Johan jumped from the barrel throne and shed the robe. Sweat ran down his face and ribs for the first time in centuries. A dream coat, he realized. But what mad realm of Dominaria did it portray, if a real world at all? And what did Lady Shauku glean from it?

Shaking, Johan quit the chamber. The opposite room was pitchy. Shauku had not ascended the stairs so must have, passed within. Uttering a short spell, Johan adjusted his vision to see in darkness. Four wooden tuns big as hayricks were cradled in a frame against the wall. Johan thumped the ends, but all proved hollow. A few minutes' probing and prodding sprung the latch hidden on the last tun. The end swung inward on a wooden hinge. Steep stairs led down to a cave mouth. Immediately Johan was washed by the unmistakable stink of rotten flesh.

For a moment the emperor hesitated. But knowledge was the key to power. Girding his loins, Johan descended.

Not far away…

A faint moan and a demented gibbering wafted up from a different cave. The explorers stopped cold in their tracks.

Pirates and pine folk were shielded from sight by a jumble of rocks and scruffy birches and brush. Before them, a vertical slit of cave infiltrated the hill under Shauku's castle. As from many such fissures, smoke trickled out and rose into a light evening rain.

"These are the Caverns of Despair, I tell you. They're haunted. We shouldn't venture within." Magfire shifted her red-hafted spike from hand to hand. Her brother Taurion, the quick-handed Kyenou, and four more woods warriors were just as shaky.

"The Akron Legionnaires pass within," countered Adira. "You said they cut trees and haul them down into the caves on the far side of this hill. The smoke speaks of fires, for whatever purpose. But if the soldiers can enter-"

"They enjoy protection from the sorceress," said Magfire. "We don't."

"Then leave." Adira and Magfire hadn't gotten along ever since Magfire's burning kiss both aroused and disturbed Adira. Both bullheaded and used to command, the two leaders chafed like ship and shore. Adira faced the cave mouth and stroked her hands alight with a firefly glow.

"Ah-shist! Ghosts can't make me weigh anchor. Harmless as jellyfish. They're not even there, just echoes of the past. And Magfire, recall the bulk of your fighters should be pinking the legionnaires as a diversion. You can't leave them hung out to dry. Circle of Seven, follow in my wake."

Sniffing, Adira Strongheart entered the cave with her cold blue light. Four others bore torches. Despite their leader's brave words, the pirates were also spooked. Jasmine Boreal,

Heath, Sergeant Murdoch, Simone the Siren, Whistledove, and Sister Wilemina clustered like children in a graveyard as they scuffled in darkness. Only Jedit Ojanen strode tall and aloof, sniffing at the dim depths.

Voice low, he rumbled, "Something dwells below besides ghosts. I smell dead flesh, and wood smoke, but too a queer metallic tang. A great amount of it."

"I've a question." Jasmine was never one to knuckle to authority, but she whispered. "Where do we hope to arrive?"

"Somewhere under the castle," hissed Adira over her shoulder. Darkness and quiet pressed all around. Their boots crunched old leaves and pebbles in a slow descent. "Somewhere a passage must lead upward. If so, we'll root out Johan and kill him. This passage is unguarded."

"By the living," squeaked Wilemina.

"You cowards!" Adira whirled to face her followers. "You crawfishing eels! Dare call yourself pirates? I've never seen such a white-livered gutless bunch of backsliding bone-headed bream in all my years at sea… What are you gawking at?"

The party just goggled at the vision past Adira's shoulder. Slowly she turned. In torchlight and magic illumination hung a rag of black curtain suspended on nothing. As the invaders watched, the spectral rag opened a jagged mouth and gave a long strangled sigh.

Adira couldn't jump quick enough to catch her crew. Pirates whirled and smacked into foresters, then all the heroes bolted headlong up the tunnel. Not until they clattered out under the dripping sky did they stop running, though all were canny enough to keep down and quiet.

Even Adira was puffing and rattled. Things undead that cried in her face were a new experience.

"Forget it, Dira!" gasped Murdoch. "We'll fight anything alive, but the dead are too eager for company!"

"It's ill luck!" squeaked Jasmine. "To look upon the face of death invites one's own!"

"We can find some other way inside the castle!" pleaded Sister Wilemina. "We can scale the walls or skulk in by night. We needn't crawl through an unquiet graveyard!"

"It's Johan we're after," cautioned Heath. "Mayhaps we could lure him outside the walls!"

"I'll clear the way," purred Jedit.

"Eh?" Even Adira was taken aback. "Why you?"

"Human ghosts don't frighten me." The cat's amber-green eyes glowed like emeralds.

"Oh, no?" snipped Adira. Rain spotted her nose and she swiped with a filthy hand. "Or is this your chance to seize command?"

"Dira, I have no ambitions upon your position." The tiger remained calm. "I just aid as I might. As when I rescued you from the shipwreck."

That fact had no answer, so Jedit added, "I'll call when I think it safe."

"Take your time," murmured Murdoch. "A week. A month."

"Shut up, soldier," snarled Adira. To Jedit, "Carry on. Don't just seek ghosts. Anything could lurk within. Beware things with paws and teeth."

The tiger passed into the dark depths. Pirates and pinefolk took a much-needed rest amid wet brush.

The tunnel twisted between fractured rocks, and many stones had tumbled and had to be climbed, but the tiger sensed someone had cleared the path in years past. Jedit clambered on two or all fours easily as a mountain goat. Several times he paused, for the darkness was so perfect even his cat eyes had trouble seeing. More than once Jedit felt a damp chill on his muzzle as he blundered through a ghost. Farther along, the feeling became more distinct, as if he waded through mist. When cold enveloped him like a shroud, he stopped and perched on a rock, tail crooked around his ankle, and waited to see what happened.

So many shades gathering in one spot brought their own luminosity until the chill air twinkled with a twilight glow. Gradually the cat made out five, then nine, then too many floating shapes to count. Sitting unmoving, Jedit Ojanen watched ghosts hover like a flock of fireflies. He felt no terror, only a great sadness emanating from them. Some ghosts looked fresh, almost healthy, as if only dead a week, and Jedit guessed they were foresters. Some were hideous with broken necks, smashed ribs, or missing heads altogether. Others were withered as mummies or parched to skeletons. Still others, infinitely ancient, had disincorporated into black rags. Some of the dead wore clothes and some went naked. None wore shrouds that would denote a proper funeral. These disinherited souls, or victims, had died by murder. Helpless, they lingered in this world hoping for justice, restless and angry, refusing the notion of eternal death.

Having lived once, the shades could communicate, if one could bear to listen. Stone-still, Jedit tuned his ears. The ghosts voiced their sorrow in low gibberings or shrill keens or strangled moans. Many muttered the same angry phrases over and over.

"… revenge. Give us revenge. Give us…"

"… Shauku. Shauku. Shauku…"

"Shauku killed you all?" asked Jedit abruptly.

Like slamming a door, the windy whispering stopped.

Jedit weighed his words. The man-tiger knew nothing of the castle's lord except her name, but clearly she had many cruel deeds to answer for.

"Friends," he addressed the hovering mob, "we march against Johan, who marches against all Jamuraa. Johan is a guest of Shauku, and that fact alone condemns her, as does your presence. Friends, I promise you-and no one swears lightly a pact with the dead-if you let us pass in quietude, we'll do our best to punish Shauku."

He waited for an answer. None came. Except the eldritch light of the shades faded. Jedit squinted into blackness, strained his ears, in silence. Finally the tiger pushed off from his rock and padded silently up the twisted tunnel.

Pirates and woodsfolk had neither retreated nor progressed an inch. They sat bug-eyed and jumpy, staring at the dark cave. The tiger scuffed his claws to not alarm them.

Adira lifted her chin. "Well?"

"I negotiated," drawled the tiger. "The shades suffered at Shauku's hands. They'll withdraw if we exact vengeance upon her."

Rather than grow angry, Adira sighed. "That's a hell of a posture for pirates and mercenaries. If we set out to unseat every despot in Dominaria, we'll never have a day's rest and will chew through crews like spotted plague."

"If necessary," purred Jedit. "I'll enact revenge myself, for t'was I who swore the oath."

"No, no. We're shipmates." Adira rose and waved a glowing hand. "Proceed, Master Diplomat. We follow you."

"Hold," said Magfire. Everyone turned, squinting in rain, breath steaming. The warchief said, "If this is the big push, it's time to call in all our warriors."

Digging in a pouch, Magfire produced a thin bone whistle, then faced the forest and blew a triplet piping. People waited, puzzled. Then Jasmine gasped.

Winging from the trees, flying jerky as drunken bats, came two pixies. They perched on a birch tree, clinging to the bark with a hand and bare foot like sailors on a ratline. Their wings pulsed slowly as if puffed by invisible winds. Adira and her crew goggled and dared not move lest the tiny creatures spook. They were tall as a man's forearm with pale skin and green-blond hair yanked back and tied. They wore mole and rabbit skins. Tiny bangles or else tattoos decorated their arms and bare legs. Most startling were their intelligent, luminous green eyes that reminded the pirates of merfolk.

Magfire talked low in an unknown tongue to the fairies, who stared big-eyed without speaking. One asked a question in a high-pitched squeak like a bat's, waggling a hand the size of a dandelion blossom. Tribeswoman and pixies came to some agreement, and the two made to fly.

Whistledove Kithkin surprised everyone by asking a question in the same squeaking tones. Magfire looked peeved. One pixie spilled a long half-singing speech like bird song. Whistledove smiled and nodded.

"What did you ask?" asked Adira.

Shy, the redheaded brownie blushed. "I just asked if they knew someone I know."

"Have they names?" breathed Jasmine. The druid couldn't take her eyes off the pixies.

"Oh, yes. The smaller one is Sacred Tree, the larger Peace-flower."

"Let's get on." Magfire thumped her red-hafted spike in one hand.

Trooping silently, following buzzing pixies, the party trekked deep into the hill. They saw no ghosts. Wary of horrors, most missed the change.

Heath was first to notice. "Does it grow hotter?"

Everyone stopped. Jedit sniffed, "Fire ahead."

"Wood fires," said Adira. "For whatever our murderous sorceress cooks."

Farther on the tunnel fractured into four or five paths. Adira asked the way and Jedit pointed unerringly. Abruptly a questing pixie swooped over some boulders, chattering and pointing. Instinct primitive as a kitten's made Jedit pounce before he even recognized prey. Arching twelve feet in the red-lit tunnel, he landed with a slam behind the boulders. Something squeaked and bleated like mice. Jedit leaped, swiped, nabbed, stamped and came up holding by the ankles three creatures who punched and shrilled.

Jabbering, kicking, whining, shrieking captives the size of half-grown children had gray-purple skin, big noses, bald heads, and short-fangs. They wore rags and squabbled incessantly. The tiger bounced them on the boulders. Half-stunned, they subsided.

Magfire and her foresters gawked. "What are those?"

"Paint me pink!" snorted Sergeant Murdoch. "Kobolds!"

"Yes, kobolds!" blared a toothy shrimp. "We rule these caves, lords of all life, terrors to any who venture into our domain! We're the most feared of the fiercest tribes that range from the Blue Mountains to the Sukurvia!"

"So," added another kobold, "seeing as how we're feared and all, could you hold us heads up? My nose is stuffing up!"

"Do you have any food?" asked the third.

"Hush, you boobies." Adira pulled a dagger and tapped a bony head. "How many kobolds live under this hill?"

"Um…" Still upside-down, one held up eight fingers, all he had. "This many."

"He's lying," said Murdoch.

"How do you know?" asked the pirate queen.

"He's a kobold," replied the ex-sergeant. "I once tried to drill some. An insane plan of some shah. We finally prodded the beggars over to the enemy. You can't get a straight answer without a threat. Cut one's ear off to start."

"Waak!" All three kobolds waggled fingers in the air. "This many! No, this many! No, he's a liar!"

"How live you under this hill?" put in Magfire. "My tribe lived in this region for generations, and we never saw any kobolds."

"We don't like the sun!" gabbled one. They looked much alike, skin so muddy gray-purple they seemed bruised from head to toe. In firelight they squinted with deep piggy eyes past huge warty noses.

"What are your names?" asked Taurion.

"Dog Ears!"

"Pink Eye!"

"Biscuit Tooth!"

"You're not Biscuit Tooth!" carped the first kobold.

"Am so!"

With a long arm, Jedit swung the kobolds in a screaming circle to get their attention. He growled, "Answer truthfully or else."

"Or else what?" squawked the most fidgety one.

The tiger grabbed a scrawny neck, opened a mouth full of fearsome fangs, and shoved the unfortunate's head in.

Voice muffled, the captive shrieked, "All right, all right! We'll answer!" Jedit spat out the troublemaker's head.

"If we do," asked a second captive, "will you let us go?"

"Do I look like a fool?" growled the tiger. "We owe you no mercy. You inhabit the domain of our enemy. Answer right, or I'll gnaw a leg off each of you."

"Hang on," said Magfire. "They didn't answer my question. How came you to these caves?"

"We were fetched here," said the middle quibbler. "By magic."

"We didn't want to come," said the third. "We're peaceable. We love our enemies! All of them!"

"If you live here," asked Taurion, "what do you eat?"

"Pig!"

"Cattle!"

"Rats! I mean, pumpkins," they chorused.

"Who fetched you here?" insisted Magfire. "And why?"

"Mistress," answered the first.

"Who's that?" asked the second.

'Tellow Lady, you stupid picknose!" One kobold slapped another and sparked a flurry of smacks and curses. It ended as Jedit spun them in another sweeping circle.

"Lady Shauku?" asked Magfire. "Why call her the Yellow Lady?"

"She's yellow."

Silence.

Taurion rubbed his beard. "You, what's your name?"

"Prince."

That hadn't been one of the original names, but Taurion" let it go. "You never leave the caves. So what do you eat?"

More silence. Hanging inverted, kobolds stared at the walls and floor like naughty children.

Magfire raged, "Kill them!"

"What?" asked Adira. "Why?"

"They eat our dead!"

"How do you know? Wait!"

The warchief swung her iron spike in a vicious arc. Kobolds screamed and covered their heads. Jedit swung them aside as Adira blocked Magfire and Taurion snagged his sister's arm. Vainly he tried to shush her.

"Our scouts and warriors disappear into the castle!" shouted Magfire. In flickering torchlight her face was strained and ugly. "They never return, none of them! Their corpses are never found! So these little wretches-"

"Belay!" Adira Strongheart still blocked Magfire. "We're not finished asking questions!"

"All you'll get is lies!" Magfire's bosom heaved under her long wool shirt, seething with anger. "We should stave in their skulls and throw their carcasses into Shauku's courtyard."

"Fine idea!" retorted Adira. "Tell the enemy we've penetrated under her castle! Would you pipe down and think? It's bally lucky your tribesmen have survived this long, if you go bulling headlong into every fracas."

Abruptly Magfire rammed her palm against Adira's breastbone, nearly toppling the pirate. Only Taurion, trapping her arm, kept Adira from being smitten with lethal iron.

Magfire rasped, "You criticize my leadership? I'll kill you in single combat!"

"You pigheaded pelican!" retorted Adira. "Save it for Shauku."

Pirates and woodsfolk stirred, some hands drifting to weapons. Still clutching the kobolds, Jedit Ojanen wedged his bulk between the two women. Silence crackled and spat like the finicky birch-bark torches.

"Sister." Taurion was surprisingly mild. "Before we proceed, may I ask a few more questions of our prisoners? Any knowledge we gain aids our quest to oust Shauku."

Miraculously, the fiery Magfire backed off before her brother. Huffing and glaring, she stuffed her iron-headed spike in her belt and plunked on a boulder. Adira's mercenaries marveled at Taurion's diplomacy. The trailblazer only scratched his chest above his wolf-mask and concentrated on interrogating the enemy.

Calm and persistent, listening intently with a dash of sympathy, Taurion actually elicited some useful answers. The kobolds had lived in these caves for several of their generations, though they were short-lived and couldn't express the time in years. Lady Shauku, an archmage, had magically summoned the kobolds to tend fires. Sometimes, the trio said, when they behaved, kobolds were shifted home and exchanged for brethren. They had no idea where lay the Blue Mountains, had no concept of being near the western coast of Jamuraa. That these caves were warm and offered food contented them. Taurion gently steered around their ghoulish cannibalism. The kobolds told the truth because it was easier, and they weren't punished. They were simple as untutored children but capable of viciousness if let off the leash.

Taurion asked, "Why do you maintain the fires?"

"We're guards," piped all three.

"Talk about pitiful defenses," muttered Murdoch.

"What do you guard?" asked Taurion patiently.

"The crying horror."

The adventurers pricked their ears.

"It's big and ugly and chopped up," said a prisoner.

"It fell from the sky."

"It cries all the time. Not out loud. In your head."

Pirates and pinefolk goggled. Taurion asked for details, but the kobolds couldn't explain.

"I'm more confused than ever," said Murdoch. "What kind of a thing falls from the sky?"

"I don't know," said Adira, "but we'll find out. You three. Show us."

Johan's journey into the caves beneath Shauku's castle showed at once his personal bravery and his thirst for knowledge, for both were sorely tested as he descended short wooden stairs within the sham wine tun.

His first warning was a smell so awful it made his nostrils cringe and his head ache. The air was already ripe with eye-watering wood smoke, but worse was a stench that carried like a slaughterhouse, the corruption of carrion.

Below the wine cellar ran a dim catacombs, no more than a craggy rambling tunnel. Bolted to two walls were chains with manacles but no prisoners.

A shriek welled up from the darkness beyond.

A victim? Of Lady Shauku?

Chiding himself for squeamishness, Johan girded his loins and took another step in his bare feet. He had to see Shauku's secret source of knowledge, learn more of whatever she glimpsed when donning the dream coat. It lay ahead, Johan guessed, or hoped. He had to go on. Still invisible, almost intangible, Johan crept forward toward a dim flickering light.

As he crept along, one hand brushed the dusty walls. Odd walls, he found, that grew stranger with each step. So queer was the substance, Johan stopped to investigate where two walls intersected at a shallow angle. With a flint-hard fingernail he shaved silver-gray stuff from a doorway. It wasn't stone but was soft as chestnut wood. Holding it to his eye, Johan saw the sliver was veined like skin with a delicate webbing.

Surely, thought the mage, that couldn't be right. The veins had to be tracks of old vines or water stains, even cracks of metallic flaking. Stepping to another oddly-angled wall, he scraped another sliver. The same. Marveling, Johan drilled a thumb through the porous not-stone. Not soapstone, riot wood, not glass, so what was it? Shaking his head, the mage realized he was truly puzzled for the first time in decades.

All the walls were made of this not-stone material. Whence had they come?

That answer, at least, was simple. The ruined castle was built atop even more ancient ruins of…?

Shaking his head, Johan passed on.

Finally, where smoke billowed along the ceiling of the angular catacombs, Johan reached his destination. He stopped in shock.

A chamber big as a mead hall was lit by a ring of fire. At first glance, the archmage thought of a giant nest occupied by some ugly baby bird. Yet the reality was far stranger.

Covering the floor of the cave were fractured crystals of amber. Even broken, their gorgeous golden luster, reflected a million times in firelight, gave the room a scintillating homey glow.

As if by contrast, wedged in the center of the room was the ugliest creature Johan had ever beheld.

Big as a house, a gray mound of fetid flesh sprouted toothy mouths, bulging eyeballs, whiplashing tentacles, and questing tongues. The thing stank abominably, like sewage and sulfur and gangrenous flesh. Gaping in shock, Johan thought it some alchemist's wild experiment gone awry, as if some dastard had herded together elephants, then hacked the poor beasts to pieces, then mashed and fused the pieces together. Yet this mess still lived and suffered every second. For there was no doubt in Johan's mind that the being, or thrust-together beings, was fully conscious and in enormous pain. Never still, the giant thing quivered like a jelly. Mouths champed, fangs clashed, tongues waggled, tentacles whipped, eyes bulged fit to explode. One source of the monster's pain was clear, for it was surrounded by a trench filled with burning charcoal and chunks of freshly stoked wood. The ring of fire hemmed the creature so close the heat licked its tortured flesh like a bluring tongue.

"Impossible!" Johan shook his horned head, doubting his eyes. He'd seen so many hideous hallucinations lately, this must be another. "But I smell it! And the noise!" Johan didn't know what to think. If he did imagine this giant freak, surely his sanity had teetered into the abyss.

Someone came into sight. Feeling like a child stealing apples rather than an emperor, Johan ducked behind a boulder and peeked, heart pounding, throat dry.

Mincing inside the ring of fire, oblivious of heat, came another being, more hideous because it was closer to human form. Tiny, bald as a baby, pointy-eared, sleepy-eyed, with skin sallow as if jaundiced, it wore only a rotting robe of faded gray that smoked from the steady wood-fire heat. The hideous keeper ignored lashing tentacles and fanged mouths. Indeed, the wizened one looked almost gentle as it caressed the corrugated flesh of the giant. Johan actually saw the mangled monster recoil at its touch, though it was rooted as a tree. The archmage watched the keeper produce a small knife and diligently saw off tiny buds that had sprouted. The captive giant thrashed and writhed, but the sallow keeper paid no mind as it snipped and cut. Stubs dripped slimy goo in greasy gray-white runnels.

A commotion came from another dark tunnel, and Johan recalled the bloodcurdling scream heard earlier. In came three people. Two brawny legionnaires in black leather and yellow tunics manhandled a struggling young woman, thin and tanned, dressed in leather and fur, obviously a member of the pine tribe. The scrappy woman kicked and cursed her captors, but her arms were bound behind by black rope. The soldiers pushed her to her knees amid fractured amber crystals.

Johan watched in fascination as the sallow invalid by the monster's side stepped barefoot into the ring of burning coals, one jaundiced hand holding its hem high, though the rag smoked and had to be stamped out. The woodswoman struggled anew, bucking and jumping so hard the legionnaires used four arms to pin her down.

Approaching the kneeling prisoner, the sickly keeper extended a single yellow finger with a pointed nail and touched the woman's ear. Instantly she stilled as if paralyzed. Gently, like an aged grandmother holding a newborn baby, the fiend stroked the prisoner's tawny hair. Slowly the invalid bent its head as if to kiss the woman's neck. Opening a withered mouth exposed fangs like white needles-which sank into the victim's tanned throat.