Artamon turned toward her. Cold fire blazed from his eyes, a fury of rage and blatant desire. She dug her heels into the floor, determined not to give way.

"He is mine. I shall be Emperor again. I shall take back my empire."

She faced the spirit, eyes still downcast, avoiding the silver fire of his gaze.

"Your time in this world is past, Lord Artamon. Let him go. I command you-let him go!"

"You dare to cross me, Guslyar? Look in my eyes, if you dare. You are not strong enough to withstand my will."

"Magus!" Kiukiu cried out, forcing all her strength into her voice. "Burn the hair!"

Linnaius snatched up the ancient lock of hair. The spirit turned toward him, its face twisted with hatred. The Magus's little golden flame bloomed in the darkness, flaring blue as the hair sizzled to ashes and a foul smell of burning tainted the vault.

The spirit let out a rasping shriek that seared Kiukiu's ears. It wavered to and fro, as though the Magus's flame was fast consuming its energy. It dwindled, shrinking until-with one last gasping shudder-it faded into the tomb. The golden mage-light went out and there was only darkness.

The Magus relit the torches.

Eugene still stood as though rooted to the ground. Kiukiu's heart was pounding as she set down the gusly.

"Is-is he-"

And then the Emperor let out a shout of triumph.

"Extraordinary!" He punched the air with his fist. "Quite extraordinary."

So he was unharmed. Kiukiu slithered slowly down the side of the tomb, huddling at the foot of the sarcophagus. She was shivering with relief, her strength utterly spent.

"Lieutenant Vassian. In here," called the Emperor.

Guardsmen came down the stairs into the vault. She heard the Emperor instructing them to replace the stone lid on the sarcophagus. She was so weary she could not move.

"Thank you, Kiukirilya."

She looked up dazedly and saw the Emperor standing over her, his eyes bright with exhilaration.

"Lieutenant Vassian, have you a flask of aquavit?"

"Here."

The lieutenant knelt beside her and put a small silver flask into her hands. Slowly she raised it to her lips and took a mouthful, coughing as the strong spirits stung the back of her throat.

"Let the vault be sealed. I shall send antiquaries from the university to restore the tomb." Eugene's voice seemed to be coming from farther and farther off. "Until then, let no one else disturb the first Emperor's rest."

Had they forgotten her? Did they mean to seal her in the vault as well? She tried to get to her feet to follow, but sank back, exhausted.

Don't leave me here in the dark with the dead.

"Come, miss. It's time to go."

Kiukiu felt a strong arm around her shoulders, raising her to her feet. She looked up into the face of Lieutenant Vassian. It was a good-hearted face, she thought, an honest face.

"My gusly," she said. She bent to pick it up. It seemed to weigh as much as an anvil.

"Let me carry that for you," he said.

She placed it in his arms and followed him, one dragging step after another, out of the unwholesome air of the burial vault, up toward the fresh night air and the light of the spring stars.

"You will awake now."

Kiukiu opened her eyes. She had been so deeply asleep that she did not know where she was for a moment. But when she saw Kaspar Linnaius, when she felt the swift onrushing throb of the sky craft, she remembered.

"I didn't mean to fall asleep-"

"We are approaching Arnskammar."

So they were close. She was choked with excitement. She would see Lord Gavril at last, after all these long months apart. Only now did she begin to feel apprehensive. He would be changed; that was for certain. No one could live a prisoner's life and not be. But she was strong; she was prepared. She loved him. Surely love would be enough to see them through the difficulties that lay ahead?

On the distant horizon she saw high cliffs, craggy and sharp. Rocks protruded out of the heaving sea. The waters had turned a dark, metallic color except where they foamed white as they smashed against the iron-brown stone of the cliffs.

"The prison? Where is the prison?" She gazed out, shading her eyes.

They were scudding faster now, rainclouds close behind them.

"There." Linnaius pointed toward the farthest cliff. He brought them low over the water so that the prison's looming towers, rising up out of the cliff itself, were silhouetted against the pale, rain-filled sky.

She let out a little cry. The tower on the farthest, most precipitate edge of the cliffs was half-blown away, a jagged shell surrounded by shattered debris.

"What is it?"

"Look!" She stabbed her finger at the prison. "What's happened here? That tower is in ruins!"

"Let's take a closer look." Linnaius guided the craft closer, speeding past the formidable walls of the prison.

She was kneeling up now, frowning intently at the brown, sea-stained walls towering above them. Spray fountained into the air from the wild waves below. Cormorants, black-winged and predatory, hunched on the lower rocks, oblivious of the sea's assault on their perch.

"Has the prison been attacked?" Her voice was hardly audible above the roar of the waves. "Has there been a battle?"

Linnaius brought the craft about, scanning the ground below for a suitable landing place. "I have a bad feeling about this."

"What do you mean?"

But the Magus did not answer. All his attention was focused on landing the sky craft.

"This is most-ahem-awkward." The director of the prison seemed embarrassed by their arrival. "I sent a full report to the Emperor about the unfortunate affair involving Twenty-One."

"Twenty-One?" Kiukiu echoed angrily. "Do you mean Lord Gavril? Doesn't he have a name anymore?"

"I've been abroad, Director Baltzar," Linnaius said. "It may be that your communication has not been forwarded to me."

"Then"-the director kept rubbing his palms together nervously-"I'm afraid your journey has been a wasted one. There was a storm, you see, and the tower in which Twenty-One was confined was struck by lightning. We searched the rubble-but-"

"Oh no," Kiukiu said softly. "It can't be."

"The top of the tower disintegrated. Part fell into the sea below, the rest landed in the courtyard. It was completely destroyed."

Kiukiu stared at him. She had heard the words but was not sure she understood them. "Completely destroyed?"

"No trace has been found of a body."

Struck by lightning? Kiukiu could not even bear to think of it. And yet her mind began to produce images, horrible images of raging fire and crumbling stone.

"You're saying the prisoner is dead?" Linnaius persisted.

Director Baltzar gave a little, helpless shrug of the shoulders. "No one could have survived a fall from such a height into the sea. The rocks . . ."

Linnaius turned to Kiukiu. "I'm sorry," he said. "I had not anticipated such an outcome to our journey. Shall we go?"

All she could see was the Magus's pale eyes; everything else around her had dwindled to shadows. She felt cold now, and numb.

"Wait." She could hardly speak. "Let me at least see the place where he-where-"

"Family?" Director Baltzar mouthed the word and Linnaius nodded. At once the director's manner altered; his tone of voice became unctuous in its solicitude. "But of course. And I would have handed over the deceased's personal effects to you, only everything was destroyed in the storm."

What did she care about personal effects? She could only think of Lord Gavril.

"Just take me there."

Director Baltzar led them out into the inner courtyard. A dank passageway led to a locked grille and then another gloomy courtyard hemmed in by grim, water-stained walls. Warders with clanking keys unlocked gate after gate to let them pass along a dark tunnel into the heart of the asylum.

And then they came out on the edge of the cliff, wind-buffeted, with the broken walls the only barrier between them and the raging sea beneath.

Kiukiu gazed at the piles of rubble lying at the base of the ruined tower.

"How?" she cried over the roar of the wind. "How can you be dead, Gavril, and I not know?"

Linnaius saw Kiukiu suddenly start out toward the rubble, moving with swift determination. For a second he feared she was about to throw herself over the edge of the cliff. But she just stood there, her back to him, gazing down at the pounding sea.

"Well?" he said, trying to sound kindly.

He saw her draw her sleeve over her face, as though dashing away tears. There was something in the way she wept for her dead lord, silently and with her face averted, that touched even his cold heart. Rain began to fall-a light patter at first, and then, as darker clouds swept in swiftly over the headland, the drops spattered down in earnest.

"Kiukirilya," he said. "You'll catch cold out here. Let's take shelter."

"Very well." Her voice was devoid of emotion.

Director Baltzar took them back to his office. Linnaius watched Kiukiu all the way. At one time, hearing a distant voice crying out from one of the high tower cells, she stopped in the rain-swept courtyard, raising her head to listen. "Poor wretches," she said in the same emotionless tone. "Better to be dead than imprisoned here for life."

The sky above Arnskammar had darkened to the color of lead. Kiukiu trailed slowly after the Magus through the falling rain, one dragging step after another. She was soaked to the skin and she didn't care.

Gavril was dead.

She had touched the lightning-blasted stones. She had stood on the edge of the cliff where the tower had crumbled into the sea. So why didn't she believe what they told her? Why, in her heart, did she feel he was still alive?

Stupid girl! Raindrops mingled with the tears running unchecked down her cheeks. No mortal man could have survived such a blast. And even if Gavril had somehow been thrown free, he would have been dashed to pieces on the rocks far below, his bloodied and broken body washed away by the tide. Raindrops mingled with the tears running unchecked down her cheeks. No mortal man could have survived such a blast. And even if Gavril had somehow been thrown free, he would have been dashed to pieces on the rocks far below, his bloodied and broken body washed away by the tide.

"Back to Azhkendir?" Linnaius said. Rain ran down his thin nose; a drop was hanging on the tip.

"It can't be true," she said, as obstinate as a child. "It just can't be."

"How can you be sure?" he asked.

Suddenly she understood what he meant. "Oh no," she whispered. "I can't do it. Don't make me. Don't . . ."

He shrugged. "Who else is there who can confirm-once and for all-that Gavril Nagarian is dead?"

She said nothing, remembering her grandmother's teaching: "The newly dead are very difficult to trace. There is always chaos and confusion. Many refuse to accept that they have passed beyond the bournes of this world. Others, with unfinished business here, strive to return by any means possible." "The newly dead are very difficult to trace. There is always chaos and confusion. Many refuse to accept that they have passed beyond the bournes of this world. Others, with unfinished business here, strive to return by any means possible."

This would be the hardest task she had ever undertaken, searching for her lover's spirit.

Tears choked her; tears of bitter anger.

I'll sing him back, she vowed fiercely. she vowed fiercely. I'll sing his spirit back into another body. I'll sing his spirit back into another body.

But whose body would she choose? Semyon? The young lieutenant who had treated her so chivalrously at the mausoleum? The Emperor Eugene? And where would their spirits go? Wouldn't it be a kind of murder, to force an alien spirit into their unwilling bodies? Wouldn't it send them mad?

Now she remembered Lord Jaromir lurching toward her, possessed by his father's spirit-wraith. She saw again the incipient madness in his golden eyes.

"No!" she sobbed aloud. "No, not that."

Besides, she could still feel Gavril's arms around her. She could still see the warmth in his blue eyes when he smiled at her, still hear his voice saying her name. How could she dare to think she could recreate that intimacy using a stranger's body?

"We must go." The Magus touched her arm.

"No. Not yet." She shook his hand away.

"Surely you can perform your ritual anywhere? Does it have to be here, where Lord Gavril died?" There was a slight hint of tetchiness in his voice.

"I have nothing of his to perform a summoning, so it must be here," she cried, her voice raw. It was true. She had not one single token of love, no lock of hair or ring to remember him by. Just his last promise, when they had parted on the snowy moorlands. "I will come for you." "I will come for you."

Now it was never to be. Instead she was going to have to wander the eternal vasts of the Ways Beyond, searching for her dead lover.