Grace shook her head, fighting for understanding. "Who are you talking about? Who comes in fire?"

"The Burnt Ones."

Grace clutched the edge of the table. "You've seen the Burnt Ones?" Her voice was an urgent whisper. "Tell me, Daynen. Have you seen them?"He shook his head. "No, but my father spoke of them. He heard about them from a man who came from the east. The man said that people get a fever, and that some of them die, but that some don't, that they turn black as night and become the Burnt Ones and come back to burn 242.

everyone up. He used some other word, too. Kren . . . kiem ..."

"Krondrim," Grace murmured.

237.

would come for us here just like they had in his village."

Grace laid her hands on the boy's shoulders and spoke in precise words.

She had to know, she had to be certain. "This is important, Daynen. Did anyone touch the man--the one who came from the east? Did anyone have contact with him?"

Daynen frowned. "I don't think my father touched him. He said there was something wrong with the man, that he smelled bad. The man went to talk to Jastar, I think, but then I didn't see him again. He must have kept traveling west."

Dread trickled into Grace's stomach. She wished she hadn't drunk the sour beer.

"And I did see something, my lady. In the sun. Just before everything went dark, I saw it so clearly."

She moved to him. "What was it, Daynen? What did you see?"

A smile touched his lips. It was a strange expression--distant yet joyful. Beatific, that was the word. The expression on the face of a painted saint whose pale body was pierced with arrows.

"It was me, my lady. I was carrying a girl in my arms while I walked on the bright fields of the sun. It was beautiful."

Grace could find no words. She couldn't tell him that it had been only a hallucination, one last-ditch effort by the vision center of his brain to make sense of the searing stream of photons before the whole system overloaded. He had looked to the sun for answers but had found only darkness.

243.

He sighed and stood. "I'm going to go upstairs, my lady. I aired out Lord Eddoc's chamber yesterday, but I think it still needs another try."

Grace gave a stiff nod as he left the room, even though she knew he couldn't see it. Then another figure stepped through the door. Grace gazed up into 238 * mark anthony "That child has the Sight," Lirith said.

"Do you think so? Or is he just a stupid kid who stared at the sun toolong?"

Lirith shrugged. "Who can say? But the simplest explanation is not always the truest, sister. Remember that."

Grace thought about this, but things seemed no clearer. She stood. "I don't like this, Lirith. There's been no sign of the Burning Plague here, but there's something wrong about this place all the same. Let's wake Aryn and get the others. We need to find Sir Kalleth and go."

The two women headed upstairs. When they reached the door to their chamber, Grace saw that the door on the opposite side of the corridor was ajar. Lord Eddoc's chamber. Daynen must have gone in to open the window.

It hit Grace a second later: the choking atmosphere of decay. It poured almost tangibly through the open door. Flies buzzed on the air. Before she thought about it, she approached the door to Eddoc's chamber. Daynen stood beside the open window, nose wrinkled, fanning his face with a hand. Grace's eyes slid past him to the bed.

The decomposition was advanced. Death had occurred three days ago, maybe four. It was hard to say, because even from the door Grace could see that Lord Eddoc had been in the intermediate stages of the Burning Plague. The blisters were apparent, as were the first black patches showing through the skin. The cause of death was easy to determine: The 244 cut in his throat was so deep it had nearly decapitated him. So not all of his flesh had been toughened yet.

The bloated remains of Lord Eddoc held Grace's eyes for only a moment.

Her gaze continued on, to the form lying facedown on the floor in a pool of blood. She didn't need to see his face. His stocky 239.

still protruded from his back. By its position, Grace guessed it had slipped through two ribs to pierce his heart. Sir Kalleth had died before he even knew he had been struck.

There was a gasp behind her. Lirith.

Daynen looked up at the sound. "Lady Grace? Is that you? Or is that Lady Lirith?"

Grace shook her head. Daynen had been in this room yesterday. But he couldn't see. He didn't know what lay on the bed.

The boy frowned. "What is it, my lady?"

Grace did not answer him. Motion caught the corner of her eye. She turned and glanced down. Tira stood just outside the door. The red-haired girl stared forward, her scarred face blank. As she had done last night, she moved her arm up and down in a stiff chopping motion.

Grace looked up into Lirith's startled eyes.

"Get Durge," she said.

i5.The five travelers stood outside the open door to Ed- doc's chamber, shocked into silence. Only the drone of flies sounded on the air. Aryn had stepped from her room at the same moment Durge and Meridar ran, boots clomping, up the stairs. Her scream had frozen everyone's blood.

As if through great force of will, Aryn turned away from the grisly 245 scene in the lord's chamber and pressed her face against Sir Meridar's chest. For once, Grace noted distantly, the baroness's action appeared genuine rather than manipulative. The anger on the homely knight's face was replaced by astonishment. He stiffened, then reached up and enfolded the slen- 240 * mark anthony Lirith was the first to find her voice. "So that was what Tira was trying to tell you last night, Grace."

Durge looked at Grace. The Embarran's face was as hard as wind-battered stone. "What does Lady Lirith mean?"

"Tira." Grace folded her arms over the bodice of her gown. "I think ...

I think she must have seen what Tastar did. When he killed Eddoc."

Daynen stood in the hallway now, staring with wide, blind eyes. He gripped Tira tightly. The girl gazed forward, her half-melted expression as placid as ever, twirling a lock of her fire-red hair with a finger.

"Kalleth must have suspected some sort of foul play," Durge said. He glanced at Meridar. "That was what he went to see last night, when he left our room."

With careful but deliberate motions, Meridar pushed Aryn away. Lirith took the young woman and circled an arm around her shoulders.

Meridar clenched his hand into a fist. "Jastar must have been waiting in Eddoc's chamber, knife in hand, afraid one of us would see his handiwork. Then Kalleth did. Blast that cursed reeve. I will have his blood!"

Grace shuddered. The kindly knight she knew was gone. Now a queer light shone in his eyes.

"Wait." Grace took a step forward. "I don't ... I don't think you 246 understand everything."

Meridar stared at her. "What is there to understand, my lady? The reeve has slain his lord and our companion. His life is forfeit."

She licked her lips. "Eddoc had the plague. The Burning Plague. Look, you can see it--the change ... it had already started. I think that was why Jastar killed him. To keep it from spreading in the village."

Meridar's eyes narrowed. "And Sir Kalleth? Did he l,^,,^