"Don't be crazy..."

Neris laughed. "Crazy? Don't be crazy? I'm already crazy, Dirk! I'm mad, remember! Mad as a cut cat!"

"Neris! Come down before you hurt yourself."

He shook his head sadly. "People are dying down there, Dirk. And it's as much my fault as yours.

I've hurt so many people in this lifetime. And you're going to hurt many more before you undo the damage I did. Why should you or I be spared the pain? Shouldn't we be allowed to share in what we've done? Isn't that the point of any endeavor? To share the triumph and agony of our victories...

and our defeats?" He stopped suddenly and looked off into the distance. "I'm not sure there's a difference anymore ..."

"So stop fooling around!" Dirk ordered impatiently. "I need your help."

Neris shook his head. "No, you don't. You're doing just fine without me. Better, probably, because you, at least, have some idea of what you're up against. I was too blinded by love and poppy-dust to realize what I'd unleashed, until it was far too late. It would have been better for everyone if I'd died years ago. I should have taken my own life before Tia was born..."

"They already think you're dead, Neris," he a.s.sured him. "Now, you need to get out of here."

"I told Tia I wasn't leaving."

"Is she here?" Dirk had not let himself wonder about that until now. He hoped she was safe. He thought it more than likely she was down on the other side of the bay with her bow, giving Kirsh's soldiers something to remember her by.

"She's gone," Neris told him. "They all leave eventually, you know. In the end, you're alone. Always alone..." He looked down at Dirk with a frown. "Do you think it's high enough up here to kill me, or will it just break a few bones when I jump?"

"I think you'll probably just break a few bones.""Then you'll need to finish the job for me."

Dirk shook his head determinedly. "Don't even ask."

"You killed Johan when he asked you to. What made him so special?"

Dirk couldn't believe he was having such a conversation. "Who told you that?"

"n.o.body told me," he declared. "I am the smartest man on Ranadon. I worked it out for myself.

And don't try to change the subject. Why won't you kill me if I ask you to? Aren't I good enough for the blade of the Butcher of Elcast? Now that you're the Lord of the Shadows, you're too good for the rest of us? Too high and mighty now, are we, to do an old friend a favor?"

"What is it with you Baenlanders?" Dirk snapped. "Why do I keep getting asked to do things like this? Why didn't you ask Tia to put you out of your misery if you wanted to die so badly?"

"I did ask her." Neris shrugged. "She wouldn't do it. Talk about the young having no respect for their parents..."

"For the G.o.ddess's sake, Neris, come down from there."

Neris shook his head and pointed to the harbor. "You're going to have to get back soon. You'll be missed."

"That's my problem. Now get down here this instant," he ordered, like a parent talking to a particularly intransigent toddler, "or I'll go back and tell them you're up here."

Neris thought about it for a while, looked down at the ledge and then shrugged. "You're right. I'd probably just break a few bones. I'd need something much higher to actually kill myself."

Dirk let out a sigh of relief as Neris turned from the edge and headed down the well-worn path to the lower ledge, where he was standing. While he waited, he turned and looked back at the battle still in progress on the other side of the bay. The Orlando was well and truly alight now, and there was some hand-to-hand fighting going on near the beach, but, from what he could see, it was a token resistance force. Most of the people in Mil were gone.

"It's like the end of an era," Neris remarked, as he came to stand beside Dirk to watch Mil reduced to ashes. "It felt a bit like this when the Age of Shadows ended."

"Speaking of the Age of Shadows, you lied to me, you old charlatan. There was nothing useful in that d.a.m.ned cavern. You destroyed it before you sealed the tunnel."

"But the Eye is very pretty, don't you think?" Neris asked cheerfully. "And, you have to admit, it must have been a fairly impressive building in its heyday. I never did figure out what it was for, though.

Maybe it was a museum. It might have been a temple, but I'm not convinced it was. I've a feeling any civilization smart enough to work out something as complex as the orbit of a binary star didn't waste a lot of time worshipping G.o.ds."

"I spent months up in those ruins. And it was all for nothing."

"No, it wasn't," Neris disagreed. "You got to see northern Senet."

"There's a lifelong ambition fulfilled."

"Don't be such a child! I gave you the key to untold wealth by sending you to Omaxin."

"Untold wealth? Is that what you call it?"

"Don't be so dense!" Neris scolded. "Didn't you see that place? Didn't you have your eyes open at all? Omaxin was built by our ancestors, Dirk. They were like G.o.ds compared to us. But what happened to them? What happened to the wondrous world they created? Find that out, and you'll truly bring enlightenment to Ranadon. That's the real challenge, my boy."Dirk scowled at him, but didn't reply.

"Anyway, if nothing else, you got to sleep with my daughter, didn't you?" he added with a sly grin.

"Did Tia tell you that?"

"She didn't have to. Of course, it was only a matter of time, I suppose. She's always had a thing for you. Probably because you look so much like Johan. Although you have your mother's eyes..."

"Can we talk about something else?" Neris frowned at him. "No, we can't. I'm having a rare paternal moment here and I'm not going to be denied. What you did was very cruel, Dirk-"

"Just mind your own business, you old fool." "You knew you'd have to betray her eventually." Dirk shook his head, knowing his actions were probably indefensible but somehow still needing to find a way to defend them. "I didn't plan on it happening, Neris. And if I could do it over again, I'd go to Omaxin alone. Or take someone else. And if I ever get the chance, I'll apologize to her."

Neris suddenly giggled. "That's unlikely. She's going to kill you the next time she sees you."

"I know," he sighed.

With one of his lightning mood changes, the problem suddenly no longer seemed to bother him.

"Well, that's a challenge for another day. Tia said you told them about the eclipse. You don't believe in doing things by halves, do you, boy?"

"This is worse," he replied, waving his arm to encompa.s.s the destruction of Mil as he stood by and did nothing to prevent it.

Neris placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You might not be as smart as me, lad, but I wish I had even a fraction of your b.a.l.l.s. I'd have had the courage to kill myself as soon as Belagren got that gleam in her eye when she realized what she could do with the information about the return of the second sun, if I did."

"Having a gift for sophistry doesn't make me a hero, Neris."

"No, but being willing to act on it does. It's a pity n.o.body but you or I will ever know the truth."

They stood together in silence for a time, watching the battle below. "Tell Tia, someday, if you ever get the chance."

Dirk smiled ruefully. "I doubt that will ever happen."

"It might. If you succeed."

"If I succeed, she'll hate me even more than she does now, for not taking her into my confidence.

She won't be too thrilled with you, either, I suspect."

Neris didn't answer, apparently absorbed in the battle below. Dirk glanced at the madman for a moment, wondering what he was thinking.

"You know, I told Belagren that her followers were pathetic. I wonder what I'll think of them if they follow me."

"They'll still be pathetic," Neris predicted. "Most people are. It's why we have G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses.

The human race is so insecure and afraid, we must invent a protector or cower in the shadows, hiding from a universe full of things bigger, uglier and more powerful than we are. People want a parent figure to alleviate their pain, Dirk. To make their crops grow, to shield them from the realities of life. If we can't find a real G.o.d, then we have to make one up. Do you think that makes us a higher species or a lesser one? Every other species seems to cope just fine without the need to imagine there's a divine being out there somewhere masterminding the whole show."

"You really are a cynic, aren't you?""The greatest of them all," Neris agreed. "It's one of the little-known side effects of faking insanity."

"I wish there were another way."

"They've all been tried, Dirk, and they've all failed. Spectacularly."

"But this... I'm really no better than Belagren."

"It's not about who's better or worse, or even who's good or evil. It's about the road we take. One path leads to barbarism, the other leads to enlightenment."

"Are you sure what I'm doing will lead to enlightenment?"

"No. But I am sure of where the other path leads."

Down below, Dirk spied another boat rowing across the bay. The longboat was crewed by half a dozen sailors, and had several armed men on board. Dirk turned to look at Neris. "They're coming for me."

"And me."

"We probably won't meet again after this."

"Probably not," Neris agreed.

They were silent for a while.

Suddenly, Neris smiled. "Shall we go down to meet them?"

"Are you sure, Neris?"

The madman nodded. "It's time."

With a nod of understanding, Dirk led the way to the narrow beach and waited with Neris by his side as the longboat drew nearer. Even before the boat reached the sh.o.r.e, the soldiers jumped out and splashed through the shallows toward them with swords drawn. Neris's eyes were alight with antic.i.p.ation, which Dirk was fairly certain was genuine, not inspired by poppy-dust.

The madman turned to Dirk again with a broad grin.

"Don't let me down, Dirk," he said.

And then he charged at the soldiers with a blood-curdling yell.

The first sword thrust took him in the chest. Dirk didn't see the rest of it. He turned his head away, unable to watch the soldiers cutting Neris Veran down.

The Senetians were efficient and made little fuss as they brushed Neris out of their way with a few sword strokes. Then strong hands latched on to Dirk's arms and he was forcibly marched down toward the boat.

"You weren't supposed to leave the ship, my lord," one of the men reminded him gruffly. Dirk glanced down at the body as they pushed him past it. Neris was covered in blood, but his eyes were closed and his face was not pain-stricken. It was serene.

"Who was that?" the other guard asked as he stepped over the body.

"Just a stray villager," Dirk told him tonelessly. "I saw him over here and thought there might be more of them."

"n.o.ble sentiments, my lord, but Prince Kirshov's orders were very specific."

"I know," Dirk said, shaking free of his captors once they reached the longboat. "I'll go back quietly. There's no need to treat me like a runaway debtor slave."The sergeant waved the others back as Dirk climbed into the longboat. The two guards who had restrained him ran the boat out into the water and then clambered aboard. As they drew away from the beach, Dirk turned back again to look at Neris's body lying on the black sand as the smoke drifted over the water.

The madman had finally found the courage he'd been searching for. For the first time in decades, Neris Veran was at peace.

Chapter 26.

Dirk was not taken back to the Tsarina, but across the bay to what was left of the village of Mil.

The soldiers climbed out of the boat when it hit the sand and beckoned Dirk to follow. The beach was littered with bodies, most of them Baenlanders. There were a few familiar faces among the dead, but he was given no chance to stop and examine them. The soldiers escorted him across the beach and onto the steep path leading up to Johan's stilted house that looked out over the bay.

Kirsh was waiting for him in Johan's study, sitting behind the desk going through a pile of papers. He glanced up when Dirk entered. He was splattered with blood, but none of it seemed to be his.

"You disobeyed my orders."

"I was bored," Dirk shrugged, looking around the room. It was untouched by the battle. "Did you find Misha?"

"The best we've been able to extract out of anybody is that he was here and then he wasn't.

n.o.body seems to know where he is now." Kirsh looked up at him with a frown. "There's no sign of your girlfriend, either."

"You mean Tia? That's not likely to be a coincidence."

"Where would she have taken him?"

"I have no idea," Dirk answered honestly.

"One of the prisoners mentioned something about caves."

"The caves above the settlement?" He shrugged. "You could check them, I suppose, but it's unlikely. I've been through those caves. There's barely enough room in them to hide a couple of children and a milk goat. And they're far too accessible from the settlement to be safe, not to mention dangerously unstable."