The Colors of Magic Anthology

Angel of Vengeance

Shining like a star, Kotara was soaring among the constellations when she felt the summons. The call came as suddenly and forcefully as a hook lodged in the mouth of a fish. Yet it didn't hurt, because she didn't resist. Long ago, in the morning of the world, a benevolent order of wizards had aided she and her sisters in the first great war against the legions of the Pit. In gratitude the angels had sworn to serve the mages and their heirs whenever they called, and a daughter of the Divine Will didn't chafe at her obligations.

She furled her wings and hurtled toward the planet far below. The summons led her over an island-dotted expanse of ocean and on to the kingdom of Zhalfir.

Flying above the rolling dunes of the Desert of Bones, where a caravan with its grunting, tethered camels and scaly, hunchbacked Viashino guides huddled around its nighttime campfires, she surmised that the call was drawing her to the capital. That was no surprise. In her experience, wizards mighty enough to command an angel often dwelled in the seats of mortal power.

The royal city with its miles of stupendous walls and deep-water harbor, its minarets, bazaars, labyrinthine streets, and communal wells, was larger than when she'd last seen it seventy years ago. Yet the palace itself was no different. At one time the great marble pile had existed in an almost perpetual state of construction, as one proud monarch after another enlarged and improved it, but evidently those days were over.

Now Kotara could actually hear the baritone voice of the sorcerer who called her. Though measured and precise as a mage's diction must be, it nevertheless throbbed with grief, and her heart ached in sympathy. She followed the sound to the apex of the tallest tower of one of the mansions in the Nobles' Quarter.

Her summoner had left the shuttered window open for her entry. Inside was a candlelit chamber equipped with shelves bearing jars, bottles, scrolls, and grimoires, racks of ceremonial staves, wands, swords, and daggers, a silver chalice, a mortar and pestle, a scrying mirror, an orrery, and other appurtenances of the occult arts. The bitter scent of myrrh hung in the air.

The mage himself was young and slight of frame with the beginnings of a scholar's stoop. He wore the elaborate pearl- and ivory-colored vestments of the Civic Guild, the fraternity of wizards who served Zhalfir as jurists and lawmakers. A marble diamond amulet, a source of great power for sorcerers of his guild, hung around his neck. Gray ash streaked his haggard features. Evidently he'd attended a funeral that morning and had neglected to wash afterwards.

He gasped when the angel appeared to him, momentarily overwhelmed, perhaps, as many humans were on first meeting, by the unearthly splendor of her iridescent feathers, the fluid grace of her slender alabaster form, or the radiance of her crystal eyes.

"I am Kotara, " she said gently, "come in obedience to your summons. "

"I feared it wouldn't work, " the mage replied. "It's been a long time since I attempted such a spell. In recent years I've devoted myself to the law and politics, not-" he grimaced. "Forgive me, I'm babbling. "

"There is nothing to forgive, " Kotara said. "May I know your name?"

"Sabul. Sabul Hajeen. "

"How may I serve you, Sabul Hajeen?"

"By bringing justice, " the Guildmage said, a certain hardness returning to his expression. "Five days ago, one of the Ilmieras murdered my young brother Axdan in an alley. "

Upon hearing the name, Kotara immediately knew, as was the way of angels, that the house of Ilmiera was another of the aristocratic families residing in the capital.

"Do you need my help to apprehend the culprit?" she asked. "Has he fled the city or gone into hiding?"

Sabul laughed bitterly. "By no means. The Ilmieras swagger about the streets as they always have, and why not? My idiot colleagues of the Civic Guild have already held an inquest and decided there's no evidence to link the wretches to their crime."

Kotara frowned. "If that's so, then how do you know they're guilty?"

"Because they've been bitter rivals of the Hajeen for years," the wizard said. "They hate us like Mishra hated Urza and have always striven to injure us by every underhanded means at their disposal. Multam Ilmiera, the vilest of the lot, actually had the insolence to attend Axdan's obsequies! When he approached me, ostensibly to offer his condolences, I saw the mockery in his eyes and knew that his was the hand that thrust the dagger into Axdan's throat.

"My uncle Tartesk, the head of our family, knows it too," Sabul continued, "but he will do nothing about it. He says ours is an honorable house. We don't stoop to blood feuds or flout the law to strike at our foes.

"Well, perhaps he doesn't, but I will. I'd challenge Multam to meet me blade to blade, except I'm no swordsman. Even if my uncle and the city guard permitted the duel, I couldn't avenge Axdan. But I can send you to do it for me."

Sympathetic to his anguish and obliged to obey him in any case, Kotara nonetheless hesitated. At length she said, "Sabul-master-no wizard has ever summoned me for quite such a mission as this."

His eyes, red and puffy from lack of sleep, narrowed. "What does that matter?"

She hesitated once more. "I suppose it doesn't."

"Then stand over here." He gestured toward a spot in the center of the floor. "I intend to equip you for your task, to make absolutely certain you succeed."

An hour later, Kotara soared above the city once more. A helm, breastplate, vambraces, and greaves, light as mist, strong as steel, and lustrous as mother-of-pearl, sheathed her willowy form, while an augmented strength sang within her limbs. Both the armor and her newfound might were enchantments, manifestations of the magic of law and sanctity no less than she herself. Yet for some reason they felt strange and indeed almost noisome to her. Had it not been Sabul's will that she bear them, she would have dissolved them away.

She studied the twisting streets below her like an owl searching for its dinner. Though it was late enough that most mortals had long ago sought their beds, a city as huge as this still offered carnal diversions for a privileged and licentious few. Such a man was Multam Ilmiera, whose appetite for wine, dice, and harlots had made him almost as notorious as his prowess with a sword.

For all that she rarely needed them, the Divine Will in its inscrutable wisdom had given Kotara the instincts of a huntress, and they led her to Multam quickly enough. He and four companions were strolling away from a tavern, bawling a ribald song and waving earthen jugs in time to the beat. Even from the air, Kotara could smell the miasma of raw spirit that hung on their breath and oozed from their pores.

Should anyone learn that an angel had slain Multam, the Hajeen-three of whom belonged to the Civic Guild-might well come under suspicion. Thus Sabul had bade her do the deed unseen. She could kill her victim from above, by surprise, then instantly vanish into the darkness, but it wasn't in her nature to strike such a cowardly blow.

She swooped, caught Multam under the arms, and, with a resounding crack of her wings, carried him aloft. He yelped, and his friends spun around. But they didn't think to look up, not quickly enough, anyway. In a second the angel left them far behind. She soared until she sighted a deserted courtyard two streets over, then deposited her captive on the dry, hard-packed earth.

Multam was a lean man with a saturnine cast of countenance, clad in a gorgeously patterned scarlet caftan. Perhaps paralyzed with fear, perhaps calm and canny enough to realize that if he broke his abductor's grip he'd only fall to his death, he hadn't struggled during the flight. But as soon as his feet touched the ground, his hand leaped to the ruby-pommeled hilt of his scimitar. The weapon was halfway out of the scabbard when Kotara alit before him and he had his first real look at her. His dark eyes widening, he froze, but only for an instant. Then he finished drawing and came on guard. From the facility of his movements it was clear that, the alcoholic stink notwithstanding, he wasn't drunk. Kotara was grateful for that at least.

"So," Multam said dryly, "the milksop Hajeen have a bit more sand than I imagined-at least enough to conjure up an assassin, if not to fight their own battles.

Which one of them sent you, spirit?" His voice assumed a mock lugubrious tone. "Was it poor, bereft older brother?"

"Justice sent me," Kotara replied, repulsed by the pleasure he took in Sabul's grief. "That's all that matters."

"Liar," Multam said, "justice set me free in open court only yesterday. But it's all right. I've never killed a creature like you before. I wonder, if I cut you will your master feel the pain, like in all those old tales?" Quick as a panther, he sprang at her.

Kotara only barely managed to block the cut. The edge of his scimitar rang on her vambrace, and then he surged past her. They pivoted to face one another, and he lashed out with a second slash, which she avoided by stepping back. Now she sensed the magic flaring down his nerves, the enchantments that granted him inhuman speed.

She was thankful for that too. It meant he had some chance, however slim. She allowed him to advance into range and attempt another head cut. This time she avoided the blow with a sidestep, then smote him with her wing.

The impact flung him backward onto the ground. He tried to scramble up, but she launched herself at him- half leaping, half flying-and kicked him in the chest. Ribs snapped, and he sprawled on his back again.

Surely he was all but helpless now. She paused, steeling herself to deliver the coup de grace, and his hand darted inside his silken shirt.

She felt magic, the foul power of necromancy this time, surge as he activated some hidden charm. Dizziness and weakness assailed her, and she crumpled to her knees. The world went dark as her vision failed her.

Croaking words of warding, drawing on her own innate power, she struggled to break the curse. Finally the strength stopped leaking from her twitching, tremulous limbs, and the darkness in her eyes thinned sufficiently to permit a murky view of nearby shapes. A shadow loomed over her, raising its curved sword for a killing stroke.

Kotara jerked up her hand and caught Multam's wrist, arresting the scimitar in its descent. Squeezing, she crushed bone, then wrenched the mortal to the ground, where a strike to the throat put an end to him. She felt the scream of terror and denial locked inside his ruined flesh, and then the yawning vacancy when his life force withered away.

As she knelt beside him, shuddering and waiting for the rest of her strength to return, she reminded herself that Multam hadn't denied murdering Sabul's brother. He'd struck the first blow in his battle with her. He'd ultimately assailed her with that sorcery that, drawing its power from darkness and the grave, was forbidden to all but members of the Shadow Guild. This fact suggested he might well have been a secret worshiper of the fiends from the Abyss.

Yet none of these reflections helped her very much. She was still profoundly sick at heart. In the end, only one thought offered consolation. At least her task was over.

Staring, Sabul listened intently to Kotara's story. When she finished, he sat silently for several moments, during which she studied his thin, weary face, seeking in vain for some sign of joy or contrition.

At last he said, "It sounds as if you dispatched Multam quickly. He didn't suffer very much."

"Suffer?" the angel exclaimed. "He died. I ripped his life away."

"Forgive me," Sabul said quickly. "I wasn't criticizing. You did exactly what I asked. Next time I'll make the instructions more specific."

Kotara stared at him in consternation. "How can there be a next time? You've already punished Axdan's murderer. You've meted out your justice."

"Not true," the magician said, rising restlessly from his stool, his snowy vestments swirling about him. "We've only made a start. It was clear from an examination of the ground that several of the Ilmieras waylaid Axdan in that alley. The others held my brother while Multam tortured and slew him. Obviously, they too must pay."

"Do you know who they are?"

Sabul shrugged. "More or less. Multam had certain boon companions who helped him when he got up to deviltry. From what you told me, I'd guess that you saw four of them tonight."

Four of them? By the Divine, how many were there altogether? "Magician," she stammered, "my sisters and I owe your predecessors a debt, and I am happy to serve you. But I beg you to recall that your fraternity is consecrated to the Divine Will as much as any priesthood. Your art was not created for this purpose, and neither was I."

He scowled. "What are you prattling about?"

"The magic of your guild is holy magic," she replied, "meant to nurture, heal, and protect. I, a child of that same power, defend. In times of war, when an aggressor is at the gate, wizards summon me to stand against him. It's not in my nature to initiate violence."

"It's in your nature to obey me," he snapped, "is it not?"

She sighed. "Yes."

"Then I'll hear no further objections." His face softening, he reached out hesitantly and patted her on the shoulder. "It will be all right. You'll see for yourself that all the Ilmieras are wicked men. It truly is just that they be punished, and surely justice is holy work no less than ministering to the sick or driving back an invading army."

"Perhaps," the angel said.

He smiled. "Then we're in agreement, and all's well. Now, no one should see you here, so perhaps you'd better leave. Return tomorrow night an hour after dusk, and I'll tell you whom to punish next."

Like his cousin Multam, Yirtag possessed the signature lanky frame and long, narrow face of the Ilmieras. They gave him the look of a famished wolf, which Kotara supposed was appropriate. According to Sabul, Yirtag, a poor relation, had followed his kinsman around like a faithful hound, eager to assist in any escapade or crime in exchange for the purses of silver that Multam occasionally tossed him.

At present Yirtag and a friend sat drinking arrack in the former's ramshackle cottage on Leather Street. Judging from Yirtag's silence and sullen expression, he and the other toper were holding a wake of sons, though whether they were lamenting the loss of Multam or his money was an open question.

Kotara skulked behind the house in a cramped, malodorous alley, peeking through a barred window. She needed Yirtag's companion to leave him alone, yet dreaded the moment when he would.

Eventually the fellow rose and exited the room to answer a call of nature. At once the angel gripped the wrought-iron grille and tore it away from the window so she'd be able to carry out her captive.

Yirtag's head snapped around at the squeal of tortured metal, but by that time Kotara was already swarming into the room. As he drew breath to cry out, she clapped her hand over his mouth, snatched him off his grimy pillows, and bore him out into the open air.

Kotara flew him to the apex of the domed, tiled roof of a nearby temple. When she let him go, he teetered precariously on the smooth, curved surface. Spreading her wings, she balanced without effort.

"What?" he whimpered. "What are you?"

"What do they say slew Multam?" she replied.

"Some creature," Yirtag said, crouching to lower his center of gravity. "Some roc or efreet that swooped down from the sky."

"I am that creature," she said, "sent to avenge Axdan Hajeen's murder."

"Please," begged Yirtag, "don't kill me. It was all Multam's idea. When we grabbed the boy, I didn't know he meant to knife him. I thought he was just going to knock him around a little."

"It doesn't matter," said Kotara, wishing that she didn't pity the wretch in his dread and desperation. "You still must answer." He had a dagger tucked in his sash. A paltry thing, but she wanted it in his hand. "Draw your weapon."

He shook his head. "Please-"

"Draw it!" she rapped. "Let's not protract this any longer than necessary."

His face gray and his hand shaking, he fumbled out the dagger and pointed it in her direction. With a beat of her wings, she darted toward him.

The blade flashed at her. She brushed it aside with her armored forearm and struck Yirtag a backhand blow across the face. The impact sent him tumbling helplessly down the side of the roof. The dagger slipped from his grasp and bounced clanking along beside him.

He screamed as he shot off the edge of the dome, where the curve met the sheer wall beneath. Kotara swooped, caught him, and bore him up. Twisting his head, Yirtag goggled at her in bewilderment.

"I'm sorry," she said, her opalescent wings beating at the chill night air, "but I couldn't simply let you fall. My master ordered me to give you a slower death."

Yirtag shrieked and thrashed, but his strength was as nothing compared to hers. She lit atop the dome, and holding him down, did with him as Sabul had commanded.

When it was over, and that portion of the roof was foul with spatters of blood, she crouched there weeping, quaking, remorse burning inside her like some excruciating poison. It took her half an hour to compose herself sufficiently for the flight back to the mansion of the Hajeen.

As she spread her wings, she noticed something curious. With her luminous feathers, she was accustomed to kindling a glow in any reflective surface she happened to encounter in the dark. Indeed, she saw smears of light swimming in the glazed tiles. They seemed strangely faint, as if the radiance of her plumage had dimmed.

It was an odd phenomenon, but as far as she could discern, of no particular significance. Very little seemed significant to her now, save for the brutal act she'd just committed. Sobbing anew, she soared away from her abattoir.

Ash still streaking his face and stubble darkening his chin, Sabul listened gravely to Kotara's account of Yirtag's demise. Unseemly as it was for an angel to harbor such a hope, she wished the Civic Guildmage would gloat over her description of her victim's agonies, because that might indicate he was satisfied, or at least becoming so.

But he never so much as smiled, just nodded thoughtfully, like a clerk checking an inventory of goods and finding it in order.

"You did well, " he said when she had finished.

Oh, yes, did well as his torturer! Had she not been bound to his service, she might almost have wished to strike him.

"Perhaps. But despite my efforts to slink about unseen, the Ilmieras know that something is slaying them. Moreover, they suspect that it's something inhuman, some' thing that plunges from the sky."

Sabul shrugged. "If you say so."

"Having deduced that much, surely they will in time surmise which magician sent the killer against them, whether they catch a glimpse of me or not."

Sabul smirked. "As a jurist, I can tell you that what they know and what they can prove to a magistrate's satisfaction are two different things. By the two moons, I think I'd enjoy being accused. Let them discover how it feels to watch your kinsman's slayer saunter out of court a free man."

"They might find a way to convict you," Kotara insisted, "and if they do, you'll go to the block."

"I risk it gladly."

"What of the risk to your family?" the angel asked, shifting her wings in frustration. Her feathers rustled. "If you're exposed, Tartesk and all your other relations will share in your disgrace. The scandal could ruin the Hajeen for all time."

Sabul grimaced. "Exactly what are you getting at?"

"The man who actually murdered Axdan is dead. So is his foremost accomplice. That's two lives for one. Be content with so much, and stop now, before you and your kindred come to grief."

He shook his head. "I can't. Anyway, you needn't pretend that you want to stop because you're concerned about my welfare."

"But I am. From the first moment I heard your voice, so full of suffering-"

"Rubbish. You're just squeamish."

"It's more than squeamishness! I'm suffering too, sorcerer, suffering in a way that-

"I don't care!" he snarled, though immediately afterward, for just an instant, she fancied she saw a flicker of shame in his eyes.

"Go, and return tomorrow night." He turned his back on her.

Her fingers half curled into a fist, then opened again.

Eskander Ilmiera had stationed a pair of sentries on the roof of his house and barred the shutters of his bedchamber. By flying low, Kotara evaded the scrutiny of the former, then made herself sufficiently intangible to slip between the latter. Once inside, she opened the panels to facilitate a hasty departure with her prisoner.

Stouter than most of his kindred, but sharing the usual Ilmiera long nose and wide, thin-lipped mouth, Eskander lay snoring beside his pretty young wife. The sight of the girl, snuggled close to him and smiling in her sleep, made the angel flinch.

Still, she had no choice but to proceed. She plucked Eskander from his bride's embrace, pressed her hand to his mouth, and hurried to the window. The slumbering girl gave a petulant little moan. The angel leaped out into the darkness, dove down almost to street level until she was a safe distance from the guards, then, her wings drumming, ascended. Eskander squirmed helplessly in her grasp.

She set him down on the roof of a warehouse. The plump young man looked utterly defenseless without his clothes, and indeed such was the case, for of course he had no weapon. The realization made Kotara's helly churn.

When she told him why she'd come for him, he said, "But I never laid a hand on Axdan! I only stood and watched!"

"It doesn't matter. My master ordered me to kill you, and I must obey."

"Please," he said, tears streaming down his plump cheeks. "I admit I'm at fault. I should have found a way to stop it. But all my life, I've always felt that I had to do as Multam wanted, not the other way around. Punish me if you must, but spare my life."

"I cannot," she said. "Put up your hands."

Instead he clasped them together and sank to his knees. "I beg you. I can help you. I can warn you about Ilmiera magic."

"I already know about the spells Multam carried. They couldn't save him."

"Those were nothing! My family has wizards as powerful as any of the Hajeen. More powerful, because they don't scruple to invoke the kings of darkness. And I know they're making plans to deal with you. I could spy on them, discover exactly what-"

"I can't barter with you for your life," Kotara said. "I can only execute my master's orders. Stand up and fight."

Eskander curled into a ball and blubbered.

Suddenly she hated him and all the Ilmieras, as if they themselves had demanded that she defile herself with their destruction. Galvanized by a rage which in no way diminished her anguish, she pounced on him.

Later that night, when she glimpsed herself in Sabul's mirror, she realized she'd changed again. Her lucent eyes had taken on a flat, metallic cast that transformed her soft gaze into the predatory stare of a falcon.

Over the course of the next week, the Ilmieras became increasingly wary. Those who dared venture from their homes at night invariably did so in the company of bodyguards or well-armed friends, or, in the case of one fellow, in disguise.

Only slightly inconvenienced by such measures, Kotara continued her gory work, still revolted by it, yet periodically seized by the fury that had come upon her when she slew Eskander. Her appearance continued to alter in subtle respects. Her features sharpened, while the sheen of her feathers dulled. Perhaps she, a creature of the endless heavens, had tarried near the earth too long, and its gross solidity was somehow coarsening the finer stuff of her being.

By day she attempted to purge herself in the sky, to revitalize herself by rising up and up, through the clouds and into the star-dappled blackness beyond. But no matter how high she flew, she couldn't escape the miasma of uncleanness, of savagery and hate, that seemed to cling to her.

When Kotara slipped through the window, Sabul was sitting and staring into space. His brown hair was a tangle of greasy spikes, and his chin remained unshaven. His elaborate white robes were wrinkled and smelled of the unwashed body inside them.

"Master?" the angel said.

The young wizard shifted heavily around to face her. "Did you get Otori?" he asked.

"With some difficulty, " she said. "He set a trap of sorts, with himself as bait. When I flew down at him, a mage befuddled me with an illusion, and half a dozen hired bravos sprang out at me. I had to kill them all, lest one report seeing an angel. " Her sore eyes pulsed, but no tears slid down her cheeks. Perhaps she'd cried them all already.

Sabul blinked. "That's… " he gestured vaguely. "Well, I suppose that if the mercenaries chose to serve the Ilmieras, they share in the guilt of the Ilmieras. "

Kotara glared at him. Her fingers twitched. "Do you truly believe that?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. But in any case, it's over. No use fretting about it now. "

"It's likely to happen again. I've already slain Multam and his chief companions. Now we're down to slaughtering youths who roamed the city with him only rarely and in all likelihood played no part in Axdan's death. It's time you stopped deluding yourself that this enterprise is still a quest for justice and call it what it is-a war of extermination. And every war claims innocent lives. "

"Deem it a war if you like. Whatever it is, I don't have to justify it to you. " He turned away.

As she paced around his stool to confront him anew, she glimpsed herself in the scrying mirror. The last faint glimmer of luminosity had vanished from her feathers. Though still magnificent, her wings were merely snow white now, like the pinions of some arctic raptor.

"Look at yourself," she said. "You haven't bathed or changed your clothes since Axdan's funeral, nor slept or eaten either, I suspect. I'm certain you haven't resumed the duties of your various offices. I'll wager that you simply sit and brood in this chamber all day."

Sabul shrugged.

"If all this vengeance isn't healing you," Kotara persisted, "if it isn't helping you to take up the threads of your life, then what's the point of it? Why must we continue?"

"Because this isn't about me!" the sorcerer snapped. "What we're doing is for Axdan."

"Is this the memorial he would have chosen? A pile of corpses?"

He opened his mouth for a quick retort, then faltered. After several seconds he said, "May the gods pity me, I don't know. His was a kindly soul, that's for certain. He didn't even care to hawk or hunt."

"Did he belong to the Civic Guild?" she asked.

Sabul smiled ever so slightly. "No. He didn't have a wisp of magical ability, though it took him a long while to admit it. He wanted to follow in his big brother's footsteps."

"He was proud of you."

"Oh, yes. When I was a student, I had a bad habit of prattling on and on about all I was learning. The arcane powers and heavy responsibilities of my mystical tradition. The sanctity of the law, and how all must respect it lest civilization come unraveled. The rest of my kin learned to avoid me and my tedious soliloquies, but Axdan hung on every word." His mouth twisted.

"Which is a shame, isn't it? If I hadn't filled his head with such pompous nonsense, if I'd taught him that life is chaos and strife, perhaps he'd be alive today."

"But then he wouldn't have been the lad you loved," Kotara said, placing her hand on his shoulder. "Besides, you could scarcely teach him what you didn't credit yourself. I think that, deep down, you still don't believe that any man, let alone a mage of the Civic Guild, has the right to defy the law to seek a private vengeance. It grieves you that you've broken your oath and perverted your art."

He sighed. "Perhaps."

"Then stop."

"Soon, I promise."

"Meaning when the house of Ilmiera is extinct? When I've killed every last one of them, even those innocent of Axdan's death or any other crime? By that time you'll be mad and damned."

"As I told you, it doesn't matter what happens to me. You have to understand, our parents died when Axdan was only a baby. I raised him, though of course the various relatives and servants helped. I was responsible for him, and in the end, I failed to protect him. But at least I can make his killers pay."

"No matter how many you slay, it won't bring him back," Kotara said. "Nor could all the blood in Zhalfir wash away your guilt. Rather, it-"

"Curse you!" he cried, striking her hand from his shoulder and surging to his feet. "How dare you strive to sway me from my purpose? You're only a slave. Begone until tomorrow evening."

Shaking with frustration, Kotara turned and moved away. She'd come so close to persuading him, but in the end, his bloody obsession had proved stronger than any argument she could muster. She folded her wings to slip out the window, then realized she didn't feel as if she were being compelled, to go.

Ever since the moment Sabul had summoned her, she'd borne the touch of his magic, like a collar of silk that would swell into an iron yoke if ever she defied him. Now, however, the sorcery had grown so attenuated that she could scarcely feel it at all.

She didn't understand how it could be so. Ordinarily a wizard's conjured agents were bound to him until he perished or chose to release them. But she did comprehend that fate had given her an opportunity to liberate herself permanently.

Sabul was lost in thought again, seemingly unaware that she had yet to depart. Stalking lightly as a cat, she tiptoed toward him. On the way, she lifted an ivory-hilted longsword from its rack. She trusted her own prowess. How could she not, after proving it over and over these past several nights? But she respected Sabul's sorcery as well, and a weapon would help ensure that she slew him instantly, denying him the chance to rattle off a spell. Besides, it would be somehow satisfying to dispatch him with one of his own tools.

As she glided closer, she felt the magic of the summoning gather itself and fumble at her like a palsied hand. Too late, she thought. A final step carried her into striking range. She raised the blade for a decapitating stroke, and then, even from the back, his appearance struck her anew.

How miserable he looked with his bowed head and hunched shoulders, his stale vestments and unwashed neck, how sorely in need of help and solace. Suddenly her murderous intent seemed not merely alien but despicable, and the cruel pleasure she'd found in her purpose, fouler still. She hesitated, and in that instant the power of the summoning came back full force like a set of manacles snapping shut.

She grimaced in vexation but not despair, because she could feel that the magic still wasn't as strong as it had been originally. Something was chipping away at it, and soon she'd shake it off for good.

Kotara alternately crept and flitted through the maze of towers, rooftops, balconies, walls, and windows that together constituted the upper stories of the Ilmiera mansion. Even those members of the family who normally resided elsewhere had moved into the great house for the duration of the crisis, just as they were all keeping indoors after dark. If the angel was to continue slaying them, she would have to extract one from their stronghold itself.

The aristocrats clearly expected her to attempt precisely that. The exterior of the mansion fairly bristled with sentries, as well as alarms and snares both mechanical and magical in nature. Evading them all, she peeked in one casement after the next, searching for Ferren Tynlo, an Ilmiera by marriage, the night's appointed prey.

Chancy as such a venture would be, she might actually have to search around inside to locate him. But not if Sabul's magic failed utterly, and she sensed that the binding might well crumble away before the night was through.

The prospect wasn't entirely pleasant. Bewildered by the stranger who'd nearly struck Sabul down from behind and taken vicious pleasure in the deed, she'd spent the day pondering her situation, and her reflections had borne fruit. She believed she now understood why the sorcerer's magic was failing, and if she was correct, she was paying a heavy price for her liberation.

But not too heavy. Not if it afforded her the opportunity to pay Sabul back for misusing her, then leave this charnel house of a city and its demented blood feuds far behind.

She contemplated her master's spell. As best she could judge, it was still potent. Time to go inside then. She climbed through a window into a vacant bedchamber, and at that moment, the whole world seemed to beat like a colossal heart.

Tainted with decay and damnation, the pulse of power grated on her senses like the throbbing of an abscessed tooth. Elsewhere in the house, some mage was performing infernal sorcery-not a simple spell like the one Multam had unleashed against her but a far more elaborate conjuration.

Eskander had warned Kotara that his kin planned to raise some dire power against her. If that was what was happening now, she supposed she'd better find out about it. Keeping a wary eye out for members of the household, she skulked through corridors and down stairways, following the magical emanations to their source.

At first she encountered no one. Lacking her more rarefied perceptions, the Ilmieras and their retainers could scarcely have registered the malign power surging through their home. Even so, they must have recognized that some fearful enterprise was afoot and therefore abode in their personal quarters.

Eventually the pulsations led her to a narrow match-boarded door and the two sentries stationed before it. Peeking at them from behind an enormous vase, Kotara saw that they were edgy, and small wonder. The snarling sound of the chant murmuring through the portal at their backs was enough to jangle any mortal's nerves, even if he didn't comprehend the tongues of the Abyss.

Sabul had commanded Kotara to conceal herself from human eyes, but the erosion of his influence left her considerable leeway in how she carried out the directive. She simply waited until both guards were looking elsewhere, then charged down the hallway at them. Closing the distance in an instant, she struck them unconscious before they could level their spears, shout an alarm, or even, presumably, discern what manner of creature had assaulted them.

Cautiously passing through the crack between the door and the jamb, Kotara found herself at the top of a long staircase, which descended into a subterranean chamber. On the floor below, greenish flames, the sole source of illumination, flickered in an iron brazier, casting the dancing shadows of five humans on the rough stone walls. The sorcerers were all middle-aged or older, no doubt ranking members of the house of Ilmiera, and each wore the regalia of an initiate in the mysteries of darkness. Sickly sweet smoke hung in the air, the product of some narcotic substance smoldering in the flames.

Crouching down, grateful for once that her feathers no longer glowed, Kotara watched as the chanting rose in a climactic crescendo. On the final syllable, the emerald flames shot upward, and the strongest pulsation of magic yet, so potent it seemed to stab her like a lance, split the air.

Nothing else happened for the next few moments, save that the fire shrank back to its former height. If she hadn't known better, the angel might have imagined that the ritual had failed. Gradually, however, the temperature dropped, until the crypt was as frigid as a hollow inside a glacier. At the same time a portion of the darkness seemed to gather itself, to clot and take on definition, until it became a huge figure with scaly hide, batlike wings, and the curling horns of a ram. Eyes as green and lambent as the fire shone beneath a bony ridge of brow. Kotara tensed, for she recognized the fiend for what it was, a knight banneret in the hosts of darkness. She recalled the first time she'd seen such a creature, riding at the head of a column of lesser fiends, during that primordial rebellion when the spirits of darkness had nearly overthrown the Divine Will, destroyed her people, and extinguished the sun, moon, and stars. Despite herself, she shivered.

The five mortals bowed to the fiend.

The eldest of the Ilmieras, a stooped, wizened woman with spotted skin and thin, silvery hair, quavered, "We bid you welcome, spirit."

The harbinger of night merely smirked, baring rows of jagged fangs.

If the old woman was nonplussed by the fiend's response, or lack thereof, she didn't show it. "My family is in desperate straits," she continued. "Some agency is murdering-"

"I know about your troubles," the monster rasped, "just as I know that, as you suspect, the Guildmage Sabul Hajeen is responsible. I will kill him if you meet my price."

A sorcerer with a grizzled beard exclaimed, " Trice?' My family has a covenant with your kind!"

The paladin of darkness stared down at him. Kotara couldn't tell what the Ilmiera elder read in the fiend's eyes, but it was enough to make him blanch.

"Your pact scarcely gives you the right to command a captain of the legions of darkness," the spirit said at last. "Conjure up some wurm if you think it capable of overcoming a wizard of order. It will serve you docilely, demanding nothing in return. But if you wish the aid of a true champion of the night, you must meet my price."

"Which is what?" the old woman asked.

"License to slaughter other mortals for my sport."

"Done," said a necromancer with an embroidered patch covering his right eye. "Kill everyone you find in the mansion of the Hajeen."

The fiend leered and shook his head. "I fear it's not that easy. You must grant me liberty of the city for three nights, to hunt whomever and wherever I will. Only the house above our heads will be off-limits."

The Ilmieras gaped at him.

After a time, the man with the eye patch said, "But why? Why can't you simply kill the Hajeen?"

"Because their annihilation would delight you," the creature replied, "and that's precisely wrong. You must squirm and bleed a little to enlist my aid. Such is the custom of my kind."

"We will pay your fee," the elderly sorceress said. "You have my word on it."

"Good," said the creature. "Toss more resin in the brazier, and feed me. I wish to manifest my arms and armor." Kotara turned and slipped back through the door.

As was so often the case of late, the angel's mind seethed with contradictory emotions. She'd loathed the captain of darkness on sight. How could she not, when its race and hers had been at war since the dawn of time? It sickened her to imagine it wreaking havoc in the city.

Yet she'd come to despise the mortals of Zhalfir, so what did it matter if they suffered and died? Indeed, since the fiend was here to slay Sabul and so end her servitude, she supposed she ought to rejoice at the creature's advent, even though it would deny her the chance to take revenge on the magician herself.

Well, however she ought to feel, she needn't fret over what to do. Thanks to Sabul's magic, she had little choice but to remain here in the mansion of the Ilmieras and seek her designated victim. Never mind that meanwhile the dark spirit would be closing in on its own.

Or so she thought. But as she stepped past the unconscious sentries, she felt a tingling across her skin and realized that the power of the summoning had finally faded to nothing.

Laughing and crying at the same time, heedless now of who might see her, she raced through the house till she found a window. Kotara sprang through, spread her wings, and hurtled across the city.

When she climbed into Sabul's chamber, the wizard's bloodshot eyes widened in surprise. "That was fast, " he said. "I thought you'd have more trouble, considering that Ferren had taken refuge in the Ilmiera citadel itself. "

"Oh, I could have slaughtered him easily enough, " Kotara said, "if I'd cared to do so."

The gaunt young wizard peered at her uncertainly. "What?"

"But I didn't care to, " she continued. "Instead I choose to do this. " With a flick of her wing, she overturned a trestle table. An intricate alchemical apparatus constructed of glass retorts and tubing smashed on the floor. "And this. " She pushed over a rack of clattering wands and staves. "And this. " She snatched him off his stool and hurled him across the room. He slammed into a bookshelf, then fell on his backside. Volumes bound in cracked white leather and rolls of parchment tied with creamy ribbons showered down around his head.

Clutching his diamond amulet, he babbled an incantation intended to reestablish control over her. She felt the mana pulse from the gem and sensed the spell take form, but it never touched her.

"It's no use," she said. "You can't command me ever again. Shall I tell you why?"

Still sprawled among his texts and scrolls, eyeing her warily, he nodded.

"Because I'm no longer a creature of celestial magic," she said. "I can understand why you never anticipated such a thing. You humans remain human no matter what you do. But we spirits are fundamentally beings of mind and soul, for all that we wear the semblance of matter, and it turns out that our very essence can change if we do and feel the wrong things. You corrupted me, Sabul, made me your torturer and assassin, and in consequence, I'm not an angel anymore. I'm just some sort of… bird! Can you imagine how that grieves me, to have my very nature, my identity, my connection to the Divine Will, stripped away? At least I possess my liberty again, and that means I'm free to deal with you." She moved toward him.

He gazed up at her aghast but not, she sensed, because he feared for himself.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I never intended to harm you. I noticed that your appearance changed in small ways from one meeting to the next, but you never told me what it meant."

"Because I myself didn't comprehend until recently. But suppose I had told you. Would you have released me?"

"I–I wish I could say yes, but…" He composed his features and clambered to his feet. "Do what you will, Kotara, I won't resist. Mete out justice on your own behalf."

She had never hated him as much as at that moment. Had he either fought or pleaded for mercy, like all the men she'd slain at his behest, she could have gleefully torn him apart, but there was something about his calm contrition and acceptance of his fate that locked her rage up inside her.

Fortunately, it didn't matter.

Grinning, she said, "Actually, I don't have to soil my own hands with your blood. Like you, I choose to act through a surrogate."

He shook his head. "I don't understand."

"The Ilmieras have raised a knight banneret of the Abyss to kill you. It may be on its way here even now, and I'm content to commend you into its hands. My recent experiences notwithstanding, I'm sure that it's still a far more able torturer than I am."

"But- ' Clearly shocked, Sabul ran his fingers through his dirty, uncombed hair. "Kotara, I know something of the spirits of darkness, even if sorcerers of my order never summon them. I know about the champions of the Pit. Such a spirit wouldn't fight for the Ilmieras unless they paid it. What price did it demand?"

"License to hunt mortals throughout the city for the next three nights."

"No! Even the Ilmieras wouldn't agree to that."

"They're frightened of you, magician. They'd do almost anything to rid themselves of you and me. I warned you that if you continued to wage war, innocent people would come to grief."

He grimaced. "Yes, you did, and I refused to heed. Thus I have absolutely no right to expect you to listen to me now. But if the fiend slays me, it will afterward slaughter scores, perhaps hundreds, of others. Whereas if you stand with me now, there's at least a chance we can destroy it. Will you aid me?"

She laughed in his face.

He attempted to take her hands. "I beg you. I'm not asking for myself-"

Kotara stepped back out of his reach. "Were I still an angel," she said, "no one would have to exhort me to take up arms against a dark spirit or to pity the folk who might suffer at its hands. But thanks to you, Guildmage, I'm now a baser creature. I can put my own well-being first, and I see no reason to risk my life to aid a city that has given me so little cause to love it."

"Then there's only one solution," said Sabul somberly, picking up a ritual dagger with a silver crosspiece and pommel. "If the fiend must kill me to claim his reward, I'll simply have to deny it the opportunity."

Kotara chuckled. "I'm sorry, but even your suicide wouldn't answer. The creature merely promised the Ilmieras you'd be dead before morning. It didn't swear to take your life itself, and thus your self-destruction would fulfill the terms of the agreement. No, if you hope to save your fellow mortals, you'll have to fight the fiend. I wonder how long you'll last with your mind clouded by hunger and lack of sleep. When you haven't purified yourself since Axdan's burial. When your ceremonial robes are dirty and foul."

"Damn you!" Sabul cried. "How can you be so spiteful, considering what's at stake?"

"I am as you made me," she replied lightly. "Farewell,

Guildmage." She strode to the window and leaped into the night.

Within a minute, she was clear of the city. She had an urge to climb until she left the globe itself behind but was no longer certain she belonged among the stars. What if she encountered one of her sisters and that other spurned her for the altered and degraded creature she was? She didn't think she'd be able to bear it, so she simply flew out over the ocean. The black waves gleamed in the light of the two moons, and the wind carried the tang of saltwater.

She realized that she had no idea where to go. She told herself not to worry over that or anything else for the time being, to simply soar and enjoy her freedom. But she couldn't. There was a deadness inside her, and visions crept unbidden into her head.

She saw Sabul, famished, exhausted, and still wracked with grief, yet behaving like a mage devoted to goodness and justice at last, ready to sacrifice his own life to save his city. Of course, he was only seeking to undo a catastrophe that was ultimately of his own making, and that scarcely absolved him of his sins. Yet sorely as he'd injured her, she suddenly found it difficult to hate him utterly, knowing he'd transgressed for love of his brother.

She also saw the bloody, twisted faces of the young men she'd slain and imagined the captain of darkness committing similar atrocities on a far grander scale until the streets of the capital were awash in blood. She'd professed to hate the city with its greedy nobles fighting over the crumbs of wealth and power that slipped through the fingers of its decadent royalty. In point of fact, most of the inhabitants were commoners who took no part in the feuds of the upper classes.

Kotara no longer felt a profound and abiding love for all humanity, nor a reflexive, unquestioning desire to act in accordance with the Divine Will. Those gifts had perished with her angelic nature. Yet she could still distinguish between altruism and selfishness, magnanimity and malice, responsibility and abdication, and she recognized that it would simply be wrong to abandon Zhalfir to its doom. Moreover, this time she wouldn't be able to absolve herself with the thought that a mage had compelled her. This time the sin would be her own choice, and she suspected the guilt might ultimately prove as crippling a burden as Sabul's grief had been to him.

Shrieking like an enormous eagle, she wheeled and sped back toward the land.

She saw flares of white light and the bursts of inky blackness, alternately brightening and darkening the sky over the Nobles' Quarter while she was still above the harbor. Racing on, her shadow flowing across the rooftops of the city, she discerned that, as she'd expected, the emanations were blazing forth from the windows of Sabul's tower.

When she peered inside, she saw her erstwhile master chanting at the center of a ring of pale phosphorescence, a barrier against the minions of the night. A slender ritual sword shone in one upraised hand and an ivory staff in the other, while the marble diamond amulet burned like a star on his breast.

The fiend loomed over him, its enormous wings seeming to fill the chamber from wall to wall. A vest of blue-black mail armored its torso, and a helm with a jagged crest protected its head. Roaring with each stroke, it hewed at Sabul with a dark, two-handed sword. The weapon looked peculiarly insubstantial, as if it were forged of shadow, and it sizzled like meat on a griddle when it swept through the air. Every stroke penetrated a little farther into the zone of warding established by the magic circle.

The monster struck yet another blow. With a sharp crack, Sabul's amulet shattered, and suddenly no longer impeded by the ring of luminescence, the shadow sword streaked toward the young mage's head.

Sabul hopped frantically backward, and the cut missed him by a hair. But his foot came down on the leg of a broken chair, which turned and threw him off balance. He fell, and the knight of the Abyss pounced at him.

Fleetingly grateful that she was no longer too chivalrous to attack an opponent by surprise, Kotara scrambled into the room, snatched up another ritual sword from a blond-wood rack of such implements, and charged, intent on stabbing the dark monster in the back.

The fiend must have heard her coming, for it pivoted smoothly. Her weapon rang as the knight of darkness parried her thrust. The fiend riposted with a horizontal head cut, and when she attempted to counterparry, the shadow sword swept through her blade as if it weren't there. Evidently the infernal glaive was solid only when its master wanted it to be.

She ducked, but didn't quite manage to avoid the blow. The shadow sword missed her head but grazed the top of her left wing. She felt a sting of pain, and a bloody white feather drifted toward the floor.

From a crouch she thrust at her opponent's three-toed foot, and the monster stepped nimbly out of range. Her point grated on the hardwood floor. She straightened up, and they both came back on guard, then regarded one another, looking for openings.

After a moment, the fiend's burning jade eyes narrowed in perplexity. "I've never seen a creature like you before," it rumbled. "What are you?"

"Something the Divine Will created to oppose abominations like you," she replied, and by the firmament, that was still true, no matter what had happened to her since. She flung herself at her foe.

Kotara knew she was overmatched. Though she was quicker, the fiend was stronger and had a longer reach, and together with the shadow sword, which could parry but not be parried, those attributes gave her foe the advantage. But perhaps she could keep it busy long enough for Sabul to cast a spell potent enough to deal with it. The magician had already clambered to his feet and resumed his chanting. Veils of pearly light swirled around him as his conjuration took shape. The winged woman prayed that the destruction of the marble diamond hadn't so diminished his magic as to render his efforts futile. Now he would need to draw all his power from the wide world itself, specifically from those expanses of grassland to which he'd established a mystical link.

A whip-snap beat of her wings carried her high enough to thrust at the dark spirit's eyes. The harbinger of night struck her blade out of line, then slashed at her shoulder. Remembering that unlike her foe, she couldn't parry-she must remember that, every instant! — she swooped beneath the stroke and cut at the creature's ribs. Clashing, the fine links of its dark mail turned the blow.

The shadow sword swept down at her, and she barely managed to wrench herself out of the way, blundering against a small round table in the process. An hourglass toppled from it and crashed to the floor. As she struggled to recover her equilibrium, the fiend wheeled and rushed at Sabul.

Caught by surprise, Kotara couldn't pursue fast enough to keep the knight of darkness from reaching the mortal. She cried out as, hissing and crackling, the shadow sword leaped at its target.

Sabul shouted a word of power. The ring of phosphorescence flared, and his staff glowed. Though the monster's sword never touched anything but air, it rang and rebounded as if it had struck a shield. At the same instant the staff snapped in two, and Sabul stumbled backward, out of the glowing circle.

His adversary laughed and strode after him. Her wings fluttering, the wounded one throbbing with every beat, Kotara threw herself between them. Her sword flashed out in a stop cut to the fiend's upraised sword arm, and at last she succeeded in drawing a little blood-or rather a steaming, malodorous ooze.

The fiend snarled and struck back with a blow that would have shorn her wing off if she hadn't twitched it aside. She feinted to the left of the monster's blade to draw a parry, then disengaged and thrust on the other side, but the shadow sword shifted back in time to deflect the attack. Kotara instantly retreated to forestall a riposte, and the two spirits paused to study each other anew. Behind his protector, Sabul resumed his incantations.

"You fight well," the knight of the Pit told Kotara.

"On another occasion, I might enjoy prolonging our duel, but alas, I find myself impatient to get on with murdering the city. Do you think it possible that in three nights I could slaughter everyone? Imagine the oh-so-ambitious Ilmieras emerging from their refuge to discover there's no one left to rule. What a rich jest that would be."

The creature's wings beat with a thunderous boom, propelling it forward, and it cut at her chest. She spun out of the way and slashed at its throat, but it parried.

In the moments that followed, Kotara decided that her foe might well have been holding back hitherto, for now the infernal knight's sword was everywhere at once. Its cuts kept her so busy dodging that she rarely managed an attack of her own, and when she did, her foe invariably bashed it away with a forceful parry. One actually knocked her off balance and threatened to send her weapon spinning from her grasp. Clutching frantically at the hilt, she managed to hold on to it, but the shadow sword was streaking at her again. Her wings beat, but she knew they couldn't carry her out of the way in time.

The shadow sword halted inches shy of her head. For an instant she had no idea why. Then she felt the surge of magic in the air and realized that her last series of advances and retreats had landed her inside Sabul's ring of luminescence. Discerning her plight, the young wizard had commanded the enchantment to shield her.

Her foe attacked again. As she desperately evaded his blows, heart pounding, sword arm half numb from the pummeling it had endured, the dark blade plunged closer and closer to her body. She was tiring, slowing, and that meant that soon, perhaps in scant seconds, the shadow sword would cleave her flesh. A shrill voice inside her, one she'd never heard when she was an angel, yammered that she must save herself by fleeing. She ignored it as best she could.

At her back, magic glittered and seethed in the air as Sabul's conjuration built to a conclusion. But it wasn't accumulating rapidly enough. She was all but certain that the fiend would dispatch her and turn on the mage before he could finish.

She had to buy Sabul some time, and she could think of only one tactic that might serve. The knight of darkness cut at her, and instead of seeking to avoid the shadow sword, she simply threw herself forward in an all-out counterattack.

Her enemy's weapon ripped through her breastplate and into her shoulder. Though she didn't feel any pain just yet, she sensed that the blow had done hideous damage, nearly severing both her arm and her wing. But at the same instant, the point of her blade punched into the monster's throat and out the back of its neck. The fiend hadn't expected her to abandon all hope of defense, and her reckless ploy had caught it unaware.

Kotara collapsed to the floor. It required a titanic effort merely to turn her head sufficiently to see how the knight of darkness was faring.

The hulking creature had dropped to one knee. Making an ugly choking sound, its wings shaking spastically, it took hold of the weapon transfixing its neck and began to pull it free. It emerged in a series of little lurches, one agonizing inch at a time.

But at last it was out, and the twin bubbling wounds started to close. The fiend gave Kotara a leer that told her, as plainly as words, that her sacrifice had been for nothing. Then it picked up the fallen shadow sword, sprang to its feet, and pivoted toward Sabul-who calmly spoke the final word of his incantation.

Power sang through the air. The fiend staggered, the holy magic as damaging to it as the infernal energies released by its summoning had been to Kotara. Shaking off the effect, the foul creature sprang at Sabul. Perhaps it imagined it could dispose of him before the spell, whatever it was, took hold.

If so, the fiend was mistaken. Stone and timber crashed down as some irresistible force wiped the ceiling out of its way. A white, scaly, translucent claw as large as the creature's entire body plunged through the ragged opening, gripped the dark spirit, and lifted it out into the night and up to a set of colossal jaws. Stray bits of the fiend showered back into the chamber as its nemesis chewed it up and gobbled it down.

The dragon, assuming that its hind feet were planted on the ground, was taller than Sabul's tower. From its prodigious size and ghostly semitransparency, Kotara realized that it was no summoned creature like the fiend or herself but rather an artificial thing the Guildmage had fashioned from his wizardry. It swallowed a final time, then simply melted away.

Sabul flung himself down at Kotara's side. For the first time she observed the charred hole in his vestments and the blistered, seeping skin beneath. The marble diamond had burned him when it burst. He had a scraped, bloody mark on his brow as well. Probably a piece of the roof had clipped him as it fell. Gripping her numb, useless hand, he said, "Kotara, I'm sorry! I'm a healer, but-

"I know," she said, "no one could mend this wound. The fiend cut too deep."

"I'm sorry," he repeated, "for everything." She could barely make out his face now. The chamber seemed to be growing darker, though she knew the gloom was actually in her eyes.

"I forgive you," she said.

"What"-his face twisted-"what will happen to you when you go?"

"How can I guess," she whispered, straining to force the words out, "when I no longer even know what manner of creature I am? I'm not afraid. Perhaps I'll be reborn into my former state. I was still a bit like an angel, wasn't I, at the end?"

He started to reply, but she never heard what he wanted to say. The darkness flowered into prismatic light, and she was elsewhere.