"Of course, " the sage agreed. "But I cannot be certain where Vordana will come from until I sense him. "

Leesil strapped on his studded leather hauberk and belted his punching blades as he watched Magiere prepare. She put on her own hauberk and made certain her falchion slipped easily from its sheath. Her black hair tied back with a leather thong, its red glints matched the firelight tinge on her pale face. He wished he could watch her a little longer like this. There were two crossbows, and he handed the smaller one to Wynn.

"Strap this over your back... just in case. I'll get the quarrels and meet you outside. "

IThey walked out the manor's gate toward Pudurlatsat. As they neared the village, Wynn stopped in the road that led through its center to the river dock and knelt down. She rolled the cold lamp crystal between her trembling hands until its light burst forth, and set it beside her on the ground with her crossbow.

There was so much to remember from years past. She recalled theories and processes she had studied in her homeland guild, recorded in scant notes throughout her journals. It was little more than what all apprentice sages learned of the arcane, among all other subjects studied. All theories, summation and postulation, but it would have to suffice.

"I must focus, " she said, "if I am to tune my sight to the element of Spirit that pervades this place and see any shift within it. "

A simplified explanation. She wished it were as simple to accomplish.

"Get to it, " Magiere said. "We'll keep watch. "

Wynn clenched her hands to stop their trembling.

Ritual was the safest method, as she did not have the experience to hold all the symbols solely in her mind, as with a spell. It would also bolster potency and provide stability. She scratched the sign for Spirit in the earth with a wide circle around it, and then kneeled within the circle. She traced a smaller one around herself, and in the border between the two circumferences, she added shorthand sigils.

Wynn remained still, pushing down uncertainty, and silently recited the processes scribed in the earth. Shutting her eyes, she placed her hands over them.

She focused on letting the world fill her with its presence, its essence. She imagined herself breathing it in, and then made the essence flow through her palms and into her eyes. In her darkened sight, the scribed sigils appeared and rushed at her... into her... until her inner awareness spun with vertigo. Time stretched until she forgot how long she had knelt there, repeating the process until she felt her face-her eyes-begin to tingle beneath her hands.

"Wynn?"

"Shush... Leesil, leave her be. "

"This is taking too long, " Leesil muttered.

Wynn slumped, and her hands dropped to flatten on the ground and brace her up. She opened her eyes.

Across the world's night colors lay a translucent mist of off white, just shy of blue. Its radiance permeated everything like a second view of the world overlaid across her normal sight. Within the buildings' dead wood, the radiance thinned, leaving shadowed hollows in the shapes of shacks, huts, and shops. The glimmer diickened near the earth and was even brighter in her hands upon it. She looked out through the forest, and the ghostly mist became a net through the branches, leaves, and needles of trees and brush.

But even there, Wynn saw the waning essence as in the town structures.

A nearby tree with barren limbs had lost nearly all its inner sheen, its frame like a skeleton of deep shadows. It was almost dead. She swallowed hard and breamed deep to quell the urge to vomit.

"Wynn... did it work?" Leesil asked. "Can you see anything?"

She turned, and the sight of Leesil startled her. He shimmered like a ghost illuminated from within. He shone most where his dark skin was exposed and least where his hauberk and clothing covered him. His amber irises were like stones caught in sunlight, so brilliant, they pained her eyes.

"Yes..., " she answered, her voice heavy with effort. "I can see. "

Leesil's radiance blurred ever so slightly.

Wynn sat upright, though her stomach lurched. She looked about the forest and at the town ahead along the inland road. Nothing changed.

Then she saw it again. A perceptible shift in the glimmering mist. It moved.

"It... He is coming, " she rasped.

"Where?" Magiere demanded from behind her.

Wynn looked bom ways, along the town's landward side and through the trees, trying to discern the mist's flow. It was slowly building momentum. Its currents aligned, moving in the same direction.

'To the east, " she said, and heard Chap's low snarl in answer. "In the trees back beyond the town. "

"Leesil, cut through the town, and try to get past him, " Magiere said. "Chap and I will draw him back toward the road and try to ambush him this side of the bridge. We'll at least keep him off balance until you come up from behind. Wynn, stay behind Chap and me, and keep out of sight if possible. "

Wynn reached for the dark shape of her crossbow.

The mist's currents in the earth changed before her eyes. Still heading east, they paralleled the riverside road through town.

"Wait, " she blurted out. "I think... think he moved on to the main road. "

Leesil hissed under his breath. "Valhachkasej' a! "Valhachkasej' a! He's walking straight into town. All right, same as before, but I'll head east through the woods and backtrack toward him. Try to keep him occupied. " He's walking straight into town. All right, same as before, but I'll head east through the woods and backtrack toward him. Try to keep him occupied. "

Wynn watched Leesil snuff his torch and take off into the trees. His own glow mingled in the forest's web of essence, and then he was gone.

"That's enough, Wynn, " Magiere said. "We know where he is. Come on. "

Wynn arose and stepped from the circle.

The world remained a distorted overlay of the ghostly and solid slurred across each other. It should have ended the moment she stepped free of the symbols scratched in the earth, but it did not.

Her vertigo sharpened. She crumpled to her knees again and vomited up her supper.

Two hands grabbed Wynn's shoulders from behind, holding her upright.

"What's wrong?" Magiere said.

"It should have stopped, " Wynn gagged out. "I cannot... make it stop. "

"Close your eyes, " Magiere said. "Don't look at anything. But we have to go, now!"

Wynn was jerked around before she could close her eyes.

Trails of radiance flowed through Magiere, as in Leesil, yet without his strange brilliance.

And tangled as well within Magiere's essence were lines of shadow, like those of the dying tree. Ribbons of black wove through her glimmering blue-white essence, and...

They moved.

Wynn saw her hands clasped on Magiere's forearm and saw the glow from her own essence-her spirit-creeping toward Magiere's flesh. She lifted her gaze upward, but did not find the amber sparks of light she had seen in Leesil.

Magiere's eyes were pits of darkness.

IWelstiel sat up without disorientation that night. For once, he had no dreams, no momentary lapse trying to remember the previous dawn.

Chane had procured a large piece of heavy canvas and, as sunrise approached, found a dense copse. He hid the horses and rigged an enclosed tent, which he covered in branches until it blended with the land.

"My father taught me, " he explained. "When hunting, we often slept outside. "

Upon waking, Welstiel heard the soft sounds of creaking leather outside the tent and assumed Chane was saddling their horses for the night's travel. In spite of peaceful rest, Welstiel could not escape the memories evoked by the sight of his father's keep and all that happened mere. He sat in the makeshift tent, torn between relief for a moment's solitude and wanting some distraction to pull his thoughts from the past.

"Are you awake?" Chane asked from outside.

Welstiel twitched. "Yes. I'll be with you in a moment. "

He closed his eyes and tried to clear his thoughts, but his frustration over Magiere's mysterious path wouldn't fade. This was the fourth nightfall since leaving Chemestuk, and still she traveled east.

He pulled the brass plate from his pack and placed it on the ground with its domed bottom surface facing up. Murmuring soft words, he cut the stub of his little finger and let a drop of his black fluids strike the dome's center. It clung there for a moment then shifted slightly across the surface to the east. Welstiel roughly wiped the plate clean and repeated the act, but the result was the same, so he tucked the plate away and crawled from the tent.

Chane stood waiting with the horses.

"Is there a village nearby?" Welstiel asked. "Have you checked the area at all?"

"There is smoke rising east of us, " Chane answered. "Since the dhampir travels upriver, I assumed that's where we would head next. What is wrong?"

"I'm not certain, " he answered. "I think she has stopped again and not far off. "

Chane frowned but mounted up, waiting for Welstiel, and the two moved off through the forest. It was not long before Welstiel noticed the first dead tree-and then another.

They emerged to see a settlement next to the river almost large enough for a town. The main road ran directly through it. Fading smoke rose from shops at the near end, as well as from a few other chimneys up the way... too few chimneys for this cold time of year.

Welstiel looked back over his shoulder. In the distance down the road, the forest was lush.

Chane's horse stumbled and wheezed.

"Can you feel it?" he asked, and the tall undead slid from his saddle, clutching his mount by the bridle. "Whatever is happening here, it's affecting the horses. "

Before Welstiel could answer, a familiar sound carried down the road-the eerily drawn-out howl of a dog.

"They are here, " Welstiel said. "On a hunt. "

Chane was already back up on his horse, urging it forward.

IMagiere suppressed the urge to charge from around the shop's corner where she hid. She peeked out to see the lone figure walk steadily down the center of the main road. Leesil needed time to circle around behind their target, and she hoped to get in at least one strike before Vordana could act.

She had dragged Wynn behind a water trough across the way, and Chap waited there, too. Wynn was still sickened from what she'd done to herself to spot Vordana's approach, but Magiere could do nothing for her at present. She told Chap to hold until she emerged to face what came, and the dog grunted once in agreement.

Hunger grew in Magiere's stomach, but it was different from before, wrapped around a cold core rather than heated rage rising into her head. She let it seep out until her night sight expanded and the approaching figure became clear.

Grayed, emaciated flesh stretched over the bones of his face and hands, and filthy white hair hung in mats out the sides of his cowl. The front of his white shirt beneath the soiled umber robe was stained dark by old blood. There was no sign of the brass vial Stefan had mentioned in his tale.

Magiere grew wary and uncertain. Among her fights with the undead, this was the first time one walked into the open with no concern for revealing itself. Falchion in one hand, she held her torch back and low behind her. The tripod braziers at the town's crossroads provided enough light that the torch shouldn't give her away.

She peered farther up the road to the town's east end, but she saw no sign of Leesil. Whether he was there yet or not, Vordana was only a building's length away. She leaned back, counted five more of his steps, and spun out from hiding.

Chap's savage wail cut the silence.

Vordana turned toward the sound, and Magiere swung her blade at his throat. Without a glance back, he stepped away, and the blade tip passed in front of him. Magiere swung the torch around at his midsection, and Vordana was forced to retreat again.

Up close, his eyes were filmy and clouded in sunken sockets. He glared back at her and raised a hand.

Chap dashed out and leaped, snapping at the outstretched arm. Vordana jerked his hand back, and the dog landed to wheel back to the left. Magiere inched forward on the right.

"Stay wide!" she shouted to Chap. "Don't let him face us both at the same time. "

Behind Vordana, a flicker along the rooftops caught Magiere's eye for an instant. It had to be Leesil closing in.

She rushed Vordana, swinging falchion and torch in wide arcs to drive him toward the right side of the road. Chap stayed left, but he was a snarling mass of jowls and teeth. Magiere didn't know how long the dog would hold off.

A shape dropped from the dark above. Though Magiere knew it was Leesil, the image slowed her for an instant.

Both blades drawn and arms outstretched for balance, he leaped from the roof's edge like a steel-winged bird, one leg drawn up. As his extended foot hit the ground, both blades arched forward at Vordana's back.

Again, the walking corpse shifted instantly out of reach.

Leesil's blades bit the earth as momentum brought him into a crouch. His crossbow hung over his back, and the topaz hanging about his neck glowed brightly. Chap ceased wailing and dashed in from Vordana's left, snapping at the sorcerer. A flinch of uncertainty passed through Magiere. Vordana used something beyond sight to follow their movements. Then anger set in, and her night vision sharpened.

This was just another undead. Strength flooded through her limbs on a wave of hunger.

Vordana's dead face turned toward her.

Magiere felt a sharp ache in her body, as if something were being torn from her insides. A rush of fatigue followed the pain. She shook herself, clinging to her hunger, and the sensation vanished.

Vordana's filmy eyes widened. He sidestepped another snapping lunge from Chap, but his gaze never left Magiere.

You... you are what we've been waiting for?

Magiere heard his words though his lips never moved. She swung the torch at his face.

Leesil spun in his crouch and kicked at the undead's legs, trying to knock him off balance. As Vordana hopped clear, Leesil rose up, driving a punching blade toward Vordana's throat. The creature twisted away, and the blade's tip snagged and tore through the side of his cowl.

Vordana's head cocked to the side like a dead owl, inspecting Magiere with startled interest.

All this time, watching... and this is how we find you again. You've come home to us!

He grinned, yellowed uneven teeth jutting from receding gums.

Magiere stood her ground. Who had been watching for her? Was she what Vordana spoke of when he'd told Stefan he could keep his watch behind a puppet?

Vordana's gaze shifted toward Leesil.

Leesil gasped, staggering to one knee, and Magiere saw a shudder run through his body. He tried to strike out with a blade but only fell to his knees.

Magiere charged in, but Chap got there first, slamming into Vordana's legs and knocking him off his feet. The dog scrambled around, snapping for his face. The undead raised his arm in defense, and Chap's sharp teeth bit into the dead flesh. He began thrashing his head to tear it.