"Now we get nitty-gritty," he said to Kyra. He might also have winked, but if so, it was hidden by those omnipresent goggles. Leading his army of three, he started over the top of the rise. we get nitty-gritty," he said to Kyra. He might also have winked, but if so, it was hidden by those omnipresent goggles. Leading his army of three, he started over the top of the rise.

Recently trapped between the advancing soldiers and the rising sun, the escaped convicts now closed a trap of their own, catching the startled Necromongers between a screaming charge from the far side of the rise and the concentrated firepower that was being unleashed on the squad by the sharp-shooting slam guards. While the soldiers were more heavily armed, their body armor restricted their movements, and the guards had the advantage of good cover inside the hangar.

None of which mattered to Ridd.i.c.k, who advanced as methodically as a tank on rails; shooting and slashing, cutting down anything that got in his way as he made a straight line for the hangar. Eyes blazing with glee at again being granted an opportunity to hit out at something, anything, Kyra buzzed around him like a frigate around a dreadnought, putting down anything in armor that threatened the big man's progress. Those soldiers who did not go down immediately before that relentless double a.s.sault were picked off by the Guv and his buddy, bringing up the rear. Given the lethal efficiency being displayed by the big man and small woman, their workload was relatively light.

In such close quarters, the heavy rifles carried by the Necromongers were of little use. By the time they realized it and started going for sidearms and ceremonial blades, it was inevitably too late.

Floating around the perimeter of the intense hand-to-hand firefight, Vaako bided his time. Ignoring everything else, focusing his attention, he kept his gaze trained on the big man in the center of the clash. Take out the command and control center of the enemy, he knew, and opposition would collapse. That was as true of small-scale combat as it was for operations involving entire fleets.

He was not the only one whose attention was devoted to Ridd.i.c.k's steady advance. On the far side of the runway, a singular figure had appeared. Robes of office hanging limp around him in the rising heat, the Purifier tracked the big man's advance toward the hangar. His gaze was steady, his thoughts aligned. He knew what he must do. But everything depended on the outcome of the battle he was observing. Different consequences, he knew, generated different reactions.

Their attention concentrated on the source of the heaviest gunfire, reinforcements had allowed the soldiers to push the guards deeper and deeper into the hangar. One by one the guards went down; cursing their awful luck, lamenting a wondrous opportunity lost, and more or less wondering what the h.e.l.l had gone wrong. Too busy shooting and reloading, none of them had time to lament what their bizarre a.s.sailants were doing on an out-of-the-way, G.o.dawful sump pit of a world like Crematoria, or what kind of ultimate objective was important enough to have brought them there. Had there been time to talk, they might even have cooperated, might have struck a deal with the remorseless men in armor who were shooting them down. But that's what happens when weapons go off before mouths. Bullets are not susceptible to reason, and it's hard to make one's arguments heard above the sound of gunfire.

As Ridd.i.c.k well knew.

Then only the slam boss himself was left. Trapped inside the hangar, all of his men dead, he took a last sorrowful look at the case containing the currency that was intended to pay off arriving mercenaries. Better it had been packed with explosives. For a moment, he thought of wrenching it open and flinging its contents at the troops who were closing in around him. Then he realized it might as well be full of colored paper. You could reason with cops, for example-but not with fanatics.

What the h.e.l.l. Sometimes, no matter how hard you tried, things just didn't f.u.c.king work out.

Gun blazing, he burst from his hiding place, yelling defiance as he made a break straight for the merc ship. Unfortunately, there were far too many soldiers in his way. He went down, riddled and dead, his thoughts still on what he might have done with the stolen money. As a last dying dream, it wasn't bad.

And all the while as the battle raged, albeit reduced in intensity due to the continuous shrinkage in the number of combatants, Crematoria's sun continued its inexorable rise.

Led by Ridd.i.c.k, Kyra and the Guv reached the near edge of the runway. Amazed that they had actually made it this far, the Guv offered an evaluation that emerged as a war cry.

"We might G.o.dd.a.m.n well do this!"

To an outsider, it looked as if they actually might. But an outsider would probably not have seen Vaako, who had positioned himself advantageously to unleash a personal withering crossfire on the three survivors. Sighting in carefully on Ridd.i.c.k, he fired his weapon.

In the split second between the time the commander's finger tightened on the trigger of his rifle and the burst he let loose crossed the intervening s.p.a.ce, Ridd.i.c.k moved. Just missing, the powerful blast from the heavy weapon slammed into the runway and blew him right off his feet, sending him tumbling hard to the ground. Seeing the fugitives go down, a pair of pursuing soldiers accelerated, closing for the kill.

Only to be intercepted by Kyra, howling defiance. Harried by the ferocious little harridan, they were forced to postpone the coup de grace to deal with her first. Letting them think they were forcing her backward, she continued to fend them off, leading them in the opposite direction, away from the two men lying on the ground-one dead, the other dazed.

There was another, however, who was not distracted. Rising and racing forward, Vaako rapidly closed the distance between himself and the big man. He could feel his quarry's neck beneath his fingers, could antic.i.p.ate the cracking of bones, could. . . .

Something slammed into him hard from behind. Surprised, he fought and rolled. The man who had knocked him down was nothing more than a convict, a lesser specimen of the human species. His expression as he fought with the Necromonger commander was an odd mix of resignation and determination, with just an inexplicable hint of amus.e.m.e.nt-as if death had been his companion for so long he had come to regard it as a companion and not an enemy.

Worn out from the debilitating run across the unsparing surface of Crematoria, exhausted by the exertions that had been demanded of his body, the Guv was no match for the energetic and rested Vaako. Finally lifting the other man over his head, the Commander brought him down in a move that was as simple as it was fatal, breaking his adversary's spine. It had been an interruption, a divertiss.e.m.e.nt-nothing more. Pivoting away from the motionless body, he turned once more toward his princ.i.p.al quarry.

He arrived as Ridd.i.c.k, tired and bruised, the wind knocked out of him, was still struggling to get to his knees. Nodding slowly to himself, knowing it was over now, Vaako advanced the rest of the way at leisure.

"So you can can kneel. Not that it matters. You were given the choice, between kneel. Not that it matters. You were given the choice, between the the Way, and Way, and this this way." Drawing his sidearm, he stood over the wounded creature and unhurriedly raised the muzzle toward the big man's head. way." Drawing his sidearm, he stood over the wounded creature and unhurriedly raised the muzzle toward the big man's head.

He was going to die, Ridd.i.c.k knew. It didn't trouble him. He had been expecting to die ever since he had been a child. Everything he had done since then, every effort he had expended, had been a rear-guard effort to postpone that inevitability. Now that it was at an end, he had no regrets. He had done all that he could do. All that any one man could do. He ought to be resigned, to let it come. To welcome an end to all the running, and fighting, and killing. There was only one problem.

He was still mad.

In his madness, time and s.p.a.ce itself seemed to distort. The movements of the man standing before him, the man who had come to kill him, appeared to slow. The terrain around him warped, twisted. Instead of bare rock, there was forest. Instead of a heat-sink of a sky, clear blue and white clouds.

He knew he was losing consciousness when a figure stepped through through his nascent a.s.sa.s.sin. his nascent a.s.sa.s.sin.

It was a figure he had seen before, in a dream. Or had it been a dream? The voice was the same as well; familiar, soothing, somehow rea.s.suring.

"Remember what they did . . . ," it was saying.

Time frozen, s.p.a.ce constrained, she knelt beside him. As on the merc ship, a hand reached out toward him. But unlike then, this time there was contact. Something pa.s.sed between them. Memories. Emotions. And-a certain energy.

"And remember your primitive side. It's always been there."

Time and s.p.a.ce collapsed back to normalcy. The woman was gone. The man who had killed the Guv was still there.

Vaako saw what Ridd.i.c.k, inundated by the surge of something far stranger and more powerful than mere adrenaline, could not. It was fury of a unique kind made real, made visible. Expanding from somewhere deep within the man kneeling before him, it expanded as it rushed to the limits of the big man's body, reaching every extremity, coursing down arms, legs, fingers, up his neck, into his skull. Blood began to trickle from Ridd.i.c.k's ears. Blood under pressure. Rising pressure.

Staring, not comprehending. The gun in Vaako's hand fell to his side as he began to backpedal, his pace increasing with every step.

Something burst forth from the kneeling man. Too intent on finding cover, any kind of cover, Vaako didn't see it. Neither did the Necromonger soldiers it flattened, each and every one unlucky enough to be standing within the radius of that expanding, palpable fury when it finally unleashed. Only one escaped the devastating effects of the silent discharge.

Standing nearby, the Purifier found himself rocked. Mentally as well as physically, but far more so the first. He was not knocked down, he was not shattered. But inside, something was blown away.

The singular detonation had caught and flattened the two soldiers who had been pursuing Kyra, but not her. Fortuitously, she had been retreating behind the runway berm in an attempt to lure them close enough for her blades to reach. When she finally rolled forward for a better look, she was startled to see both of them lying p.r.o.ne, dead on the runway. The smooth, flat approach to the hangar was littered with Necromonger corpses. A few were moving, but feebly, as if the life-force itself had been blasted out of them. At the epicenter of the eerie silence, one unarmored body lay motionless. Even at a distance, it was instantly recognizable.

Rising, she stared at the unmoving form. It continued to lie dormant. Maybe if she gazed at it long enough and hard enough, she thought, it would get up, move, at least twitch. But the intensity of her stare had no effect on the familiar shape. It just lay there, seemingly as dead as the scattered bodies surrounding it.

"Ridd.i.c.k?" she mumbled.

Another figure was moving. Staggering, stumbling, mind and body both dazed by something he did not understand but in nowise dead, Vaako struggled to his feet. Gathering himself, he also focused his attention on the motionless, goggled, apparently unbreathing form. As his mind cleared, he bent to pick up a dropped blade and started forward. From what he could see, whatever had detonated had killed the man Ridd.i.c.k as surely as it had flattened everyone around him. But good soldier that he was, Vaako wanted to make sure, needed to make sure. And no one was going to stop him. No one.

The sun flared over the top of the nearby mountain.

Most of the runway suddenly bleached out, as if every drop of color had abruptly been washed from the hard surface. Kyra dove for safety behind the nearest rocks while Vaako and those soldiers who had survived the mysterious blast effect fled toward their ship's landing zone. There were some things not even the implacable servants of Necropolis could face.

Out on the runway, the uninhibited sun struck the unmoving bodies. Several of them began to smolder. Ridd.i.c.k remained where he had fallen.

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d," Kyra found herself muttering silently. "You son of a b.i.t.c.h. It's not supposed to end like this. What the h.e.l.l am I supposed to do now? What do you expect me to do? Get up, get up!"

A quick glance, stolen from the unrelenting sunlight, showed the big man still lying in the center of the field of Necromonger corpses. It had not moved. But in the rapidly shrinking shadows, others did: soldiers and support personnel, lensors and officers, retreating rapidly in the direction of their hovering frigate.

In most things, she told the truth. In most things. But when it came to not caring about dying she was, as she had just recently told Ridd.i.c.k, a terrible liar. In some ways, the choice she made now was an easy one. When one hope is gone, most people naturally gravitate to the next. Abandoning her hiding place, that the still rising sun would find all too soon, she rose to her feet and ran-toward the potential safe haven that was the Necromonger ship.

Within the rapidly intensifying h.e.l.l that was the runway now exposed to the full glare of Crematoria's sun, nothing moved except waves of rising heat and the beginnings of combustion from several of the p.r.o.ne human shapes. But within the shadows of the abandoned hangar, something did. Advancing deliberately out into the searing light, a human shape wound its way through the scattered bodies. The expensive and technically advanced cloak and hood of office it wore fended off the lethal effects of the naked sun for a little while. Long enough, anyway, for the figure to find what it was looking for, hook the motionless body under both arms, and drag the second man back into the still barely tolerable shade of the hangar. With the doors standing open, powerful internal cooling units struggled desperately to maintain the hangar temperature within habitable human limits.

Letting the body he had scavenged fall limp to the hangar floor, the Purifier pushed back the hood of his cloak, slightly burning his fingers in the process. The fabric was remarkably resilient, but if he had been forced to hike another twenty meters or so out in the sunlight, it, too, would have started to burn.

Speaking of burns, the exposed flesh of the man he had dragged off the runway was already showing signs of blistering in places. Only the dark goggles he wore had prevented his eyes from boiling away. The all-purpose hygienic spray the Purifier pulled from a pouch concealed within his raiment and proceeded to apply to these surfaces was normally used in Necromonger purification ceremonies to heal damaged faces before their soul-abandoned bodies were consigned permanently to oblivion. Now it worked its restorative epidermal magic on the man he had pulled out of the lethal sunlight.

The shock of instant healing combined with lingering pain to snap Ridd.i.c.k back to consciousness. He sat up with a suddenness that would have startled anyone other than the Purifier. But he was not looking at his rescuer, or thinking about him.

Something had happened out on the runway, in that instant frozen in time when Ridd.i.c.k had finally run out of strength, resources, and ideas. It had happened when the Necromonger commander had stood over him, gun in hand, muzzle aimed at his head. He could not put a name to it, did not know how he had done whatever it was that he had done. Only that it was as much a part of him, of his mental and physical makeup, as the fingers on his hands and the implants in his eyes. The experience had defined him in ways he had not imagined, and now it enabled him to better define himself.

"I'm Furyan," he declared, his tone a mixture of a.s.surance and wonder. Then he turned slightly to study the scene outside the hangar.

The thermal wind had reached the runway and pa.s.sed on, tossing dead soldiers about like broken dolls. Those who still lay within view were beginning to steam as the water that composed most of their bodies boiled away. Muscles shrank inside armor and desiccated skin contracted to shrink-wrap the underlying bones. The goggles that had saved his eyes from the ravening sun scanned back and forth across the runway, nearby rocks, the protective berms that flanked the pavement. All the bodies he saw wore Necromonger gear of one kind or another. Of one small, lithe, unarmored woman there was no sign.

Moments later the sky was filled with a deep thrumming like a snoring whale. Slowly, majestically, the Necromonger warship hove into view. Ridd.i.c.k and the Purifier ducked farther back into the shelter of the hangar, watching. The frigate circled once overhead. No destructive fire poured from its powerful weapons systems. There was no need. Nature herself had already covered the hangar area with a different kind of fire. Accelerating slowly, the great ship angled upward and away in the direction of the planetary darkside.

Focused as always on the problem at hand, Ridd.i.c.k started for the mercenary ship that beckoned from its nearby parking slot. While his mind was nearly up to speed, his body wasn't. Still reeling from the aftereffects of lying exposed to Crematoria's sun for just a few minutes, he staggered.

Recover, he told himself. he told himself. Balance, surroundings, Balance, surroundings, direction. Then move. direction. Then move.

Immersed in thoughts of the absent Kyra, he had nearly forgotten about the man who had saved him. As he stood gathering himself, he saw that the Purifier was busy at a task that made no sense. Wordlessly, efficiently, the man was removing all the trappings of his high office; rings, insignia, helmet, and more. Standing there regaining his strength, Ridd.i.c.k could only speculate on the reasons behind the enigmatic divest.i.ture.

Seeing the big man gazing intently at him, the Purifier spoke while continuing to shed the elegant accouterments that defined his status. "You're not just a Furyan, Ridd.i.c.k. You're an alpha Furyan." He nodded in the direction of the steaming bodies outside. "In the event anyone doubted it, there lies the tangible proof, laid out for all to see." Clad now only in simple underlying clothing devoid of any evidence of his eminence, he came toward the staring big man.

"I'm supposed to deliver a message to you if Vaako failed to kill you," he said, in the manner of one relaying something of solemn importance. "It is a message from Lord Marshal himself. If you live, you are warned to stay away from Helion-and to stay away from him." Dangling from the fingers of his right hand as he drew nearer was the spectral dagger that had once protruded trophy-like from the back of the slayer Irgun, and which Ridd.i.c.k had drawn and used to kill its former owner. Its presence in the Purifier's hand did not escape the big man's notice.

"But Vaako will most likely report you dead. Certainly you appeared to be so. Unable to explain what happened on the runway, he will neglect to expound upon it. I do not think the Lord Marshal will press him on the details, so grateful will he be to hear of your pa.s.sing. And Vaako will be convincing, since he will be speaking the truth as he saw it." He was very close now to the man he had saved, the dagger glinting in the shadow of his side.

Two more steps, and Ridd.i.c.k had him by the throat. It was a restraining grip, not a killing one. But with a slight tensing of muscles, it could easily be transformed from one into the other.

Reaching down slowly, making no sudden moves, his eyes on the lenses of those black goggles, the Purifier used his free hand to pull his shirt wide and expose his bare chest. On it was a mark; unmistakable in its design, unyielding in its import. A hand-print. The mark of Furya, on the chest of a Necromonger. Ridd.i.c.k could only stare.

"We all began as something else," the Purifier was saying gently. "All Necromongers begin as something else. Given the choice to live anew or die as we were, most accepted the offer and opportunity. I was confused, unsure, and translated that into eagerness to adapt myself. I've done unbelievable things in the name of a faith that wasn't my own. The ability of the individual human being to adjust morality and beliefs to changing circ.u.mstances is depressingly common."

Ridd.i.c.k nodded tersely. He still maintained his grip, but loosely. "I've seen it. Too often."

"My alternative was to bend to the Necromonger way, or to die," the Purifier continued. "Not much of a choice. If Vaako reports you dead, you have a better choice-and that's a powerful thing."

His fingers opened, and the unearthly blade dropped to the ground. As Ridd.i.c.k's clutching fingers relaxed, the Purifier stepped out of the big man's grasp and around him, heading for the open hangar portal. Ridd.i.c.k watched him go, saying nothing, making no move either physically or verbally to intercept the man who had saved his life. It was what he wanted, or he wouldn't be doing it. Atonement, perhaps. A solitary expression of regret. Or maybe the man who had been Furyan and had become the Purifier was simply tired.

Stepping out into the ferocious glare of direct sunlight, he soon started to smoke. Flames, small at first, then curling larger, began to erupt from his head, his arms, and all other exposed skin. As he walked, he talked, conversing with himself as he had been and as he was now.

The last words Ridd.i.c.k heard him speak were, "If only I could still feel the pain. . . ." Then he crumbled to his knees, and the flames and sunshine consumed him utterly: by his own hand, the Purifier had been purified.

Ridd.i.c.k watched him burn until white bone began to show. Then he bent and picked up the dagger. It was cold in his fingers, maybe as cold as the UnderVerse itself. Turning, he started silently toward the merc ship.

XVI.

From s.p.a.ce, Helion Prime looked no different. Clouds continued to form and scatter, waves continued to break on its sh.o.r.es, flora still reached for the sun while native fauna crept through the depths of its forests. Only in the cities and the places altered by man was change noticeable. Here and there fighting still raged as remnant government forces continued to contest the uncompromising Necromonger onslaught. But with the major centers of population now brought under control, it was only a matter of time before the last pockets of resistance were subdued and the planet added to the growing list of those that had been brought under the sway of Necropolis.

Within the Basilica, it was a time of celebration. In keeping with Necromonger tradition, there were no flaring banners, no blaring bands. Like everything else in Necromonger society, salutation was a matter of solemnity.

Vaako stood tall as the new cloak of rank was draped across his shoulders and new ceremonial armor was fitted to his existing undergarments. Burnished and glowing, it confirmed his promotion to the rank of commander general. Arrayed around him were his fellow commanders, their envy kept under control as strict as their posture. Standing nearby was a singular female figure. To look at her, one might have thought it was Dame Vaako who was receiving the honors and not the commander himself. In a sense, it was.

The Lord Marshal beamed with satisfaction as he spoke to the newly anointed commander general. "I may have lost a Purifier, but I gain a First among commanders. The one is as valuable as the other, and the other can be replaced. It's overdue, isn't it, that we acknowledge your many accomplishments in the service of the Faith, your steady ethic, and above all, your unflinching loyalty." He smiled, and for once, it seemed to be an honest smile.

"I know how you felt about this expedition. That you believed it to be unnecessary and a waste of time. But you went, and carried out the task that was a.s.signed to you. For this as much as for the success you achieved you are to be commended."

Aware of all the eyes that were on him, Vaako stiffened. "Obedience without question. That is our way."

The Lord Marshal nodded approvingly. "Well done, Vaako. This is a day of days, to be remembered by all who have witnessed it. Again, my congratulations."

With that, he turned and departed, leaving Vaako to be congratulated-sometimes honestly, sometimes grudgingly-by his fellow commanders. One by one, they filed past to pay their respects.

"First and always, Vaako . . . Whatever He ordains is so . . . Death in due time come to us all. . . ."

When the last of the senior officers had left the room, only two remained-and of them, only Vaako seemed unimpressed by his own success.

Sensing his disenchantment, his companion strove to buoy his spirits. As always, Dame Vaako spoke as eloquently with her body and her eyes as she did with her voice.

"Try to look more pleased, Vaako," she admonished. "You are promoted to commander general. No higher rank can be achieved short of Lord Marshal. What more could you desire from this episode, that began with such disagreement? You've laid to rest both his enemy and and his suspicions." She put a hand on his arm. "By so doing, you've acquired something more precious than mere rank. You've gained freedom." Now she leaned closer and her voice fell to a whisper. "The freedom to move-in whatever direction you choose." his suspicions." She put a hand on his arm. "By so doing, you've acquired something more precious than mere rank. You've gained freedom." Now she leaned closer and her voice fell to a whisper. "The freedom to move-in whatever direction you choose."

Vaako only half heard her. Perfectionist to a fault, rather than enjoying his moment of triumph, he was still obsessing over what he had not not done. Of course the breeder Ridd.i.c.k was dead. Vaako had left him dead following the peculiar and still unexplained incident that had also killed a number of his troops. Even if some small flicker of life had remained in the man, a few moments exposed to the raw sunshine of Crematoria would have been more than enough to reduce to ashes anything that remained. There was no reason to be second-guessing his actions. He'd been forced to move, and move fast, to save his own life and that of his surviving soldiers from the full force of the rising sun. It would not do for them to perish before due time. done. Of course the breeder Ridd.i.c.k was dead. Vaako had left him dead following the peculiar and still unexplained incident that had also killed a number of his troops. Even if some small flicker of life had remained in the man, a few moments exposed to the raw sunshine of Crematoria would have been more than enough to reduce to ashes anything that remained. There was no reason to be second-guessing his actions. He'd been forced to move, and move fast, to save his own life and that of his surviving soldiers from the full force of the rising sun. It would not do for them to perish before due time.

Still . . .

"Should've brought back the head."

Dame Vaako sighed wearily. No matter how hard she tried to bolster this man, it seemed he would be forever reconsidering his labors. She resigned herself to having to, once more, rea.s.sure him.

"You told me everything that transpired. I see no reason for your anxiety. You saw him go down. You saw him unbreathing. You saw him dead on the ground. You may not be able to explain everything that happened, but that does not matter. All that matters is the result, not the mechanism by which it was achieved. What is important is that he is dead, not how it came to pa.s.s."

Vaako was shaking his head in remembered bewilderment, refusing to be so easily rea.s.sured. "I don't like what I can't understand." He turned to her. "This Ridd.i.c.k, he was no common breeder. Something happened out there the like of which I have never encountered before, nor heard reported. As he himself went down, he dropped twenty of my team without raising a finger. No weapons, no gas; nothing. One moment they were advancing on him, and the next . . ." His voice trailed off, unable to find words to explain what he had seen.

Entirely prosaic, Dame Vaako shrugged off his confusion. "All mysteries are not miracles. Not even in this religion. I was not there, but I am sure there is a perfectly sound scientific explanation for what you witnessed. Provide the details to our a.n.a.lysts, and I have no doubt that they will supply one that satisfies even you, my worrying love."

When he still did not appear convinced, she struggled to contain her frustration. "Come, come, Vaako; this doubt does not become the fleet's newest commander general. You say that you saw him die, and left him dead. That is what matters. If you say you're you're certain about it, then it certain about it, then it is is certain. And we've already said it, haven't we?" certain. And we've already said it, haven't we?"

He nodded slowly, taking the full import of her words. "That we have."

"And who would dare to contradict the word of a commander general recently anointed by Lord Marshal himself?" She turned coquettish, seeking to draw him away from depressing thoughts and back to the more festive present. "Now you must come with me, so that I can bestow upon you a promotion of my own devising." Slipping her arm into his and smiling suggestively, she led him away from the chamber and toward their private quarters.

The special bonds were forged of much more than mere metal. Designed to hold a being who had the unnerving ability to move through the air without seeming to set foot to ground, they had been built to restrain anything short of sheer aether.

Certainly they seemed to be doing an efficient job of holding in one place the Elemental known as Aereon. Like overlapping spiderwebs, the overkill of restraints kept her unceremoniously staked to the floor. Despite this, her bearing was of one patiently waiting for something rather than that of an individual in fear for her life.

She didn't even bother to turn when the door to the holding room opened. She knew who it was. The man's aura preceded him, poisoning the air ahead of his advance.

The Lord Marshal stopped directly in front of her. She could have turned away, but chose not to. She could have protested her treatment, but chose not to. Aereon was the very embodiment of the patience for which the Elementals were famed.

Unlike her, her visitor, however, was far less inclined to waste time in idle contemplation of his immediate surroundings.

"Tell me the report is true. Vaako was very confident. That is not the same thing as being utterly positive. Tell me the Furyan is gone and I can close this campaign without hearing his bootsteps."

"Let me see." Just the faintest hint of mockery tinged her response. "If he is dead, I sense I'm not far from the same fate, being of no further use to you. So, as a matter of self-preservation, shouldn't I tell you that Ridd.i.c.k is still alive?"

Elementals and their elliptical responses were a pain to all who were forced to endure them, he thought. "Don't try me, Aereon. I can plow you under with the rest of Helion Prime. Push me the wrong way and I'll bury you so deep your precious air will never reach you."