"I'd have thought the entrance would be closer to the ground."

"It wasn't in the Shraal's interests to make it easy to find," she said with as much indignity as she could muster.

"And what game do you play now, Your Majesty?" His hand moved toward the hilt of his sword.Oh no, this is it. Riordan searched her mind for a viable excuse.

A loud crack split the air. Instinctively, Riordan clutched the crystal wall, nails digging deep into crevices in the rock. The narrow outcrop Rau leaned on crumbled in a rain of crystal shards. Quartz fragments careened down the mountainside in a series of high- pitched notes. In a blur, she watched Rau tumble from his perch, felt the rope snap tight around her ankle. Rau's sword clattered forgotten to the rock below.

She hugged the sheer face of the mountain, anchoring her foot to the narrow ledge on which she stood, praying it wouldn't pick that moment to disintegrate. Rau's scream echoed off the many-planed crystal, fragmenting and reverberating back upon itself.

Yanked by the taut thong of leather, her foot was dragged closer to the edge. Mere inches stood between her and a downward plunge to the jagged teeth of crystal below. Recovering himself, Rau gripped the leather. Bracing his feet against the rock, he began to climb.

The timbre of the Sword's hum sharpened, grew louder. Despite her efforts, Rau's weight dragged her foot closer to the edge.

Now or never, the Sword seemed to sing to her.

Her toes slipped over the side. Riordan dug her nails in harder.

Pointing her foot, she let the downward drag of Rau's weight loosen her boot. The leather caught upon her heel.

Riordan strained her leg, curling her toes back toward her heel in an attempt to wiggle her foot from the boot. She glanced down.

Oblivious to her strategy, Rau made steady progress toward her. She felt the heel of her boot give. Her foot slipped from the leather.

Rau glanced up just as the rope went slack.

For a moment he stared up at her incredulously. Swiftly his expression changed from anger to stark cold fear. Bare footed, Riordan scrambled for the next foothold, afraid to glance below and watch him fall.

He screamed, a sound full of rage and terror, abruptly silenced.

The sickly sound of flesh meeting hard rock reached her many feet above. Riordan fixed her gaze upon the natural pathway just above and far to the left of her.

There's nothing you can do, now. Don't look. Her mind repeated the mantra. You had no other choice. Above all, Rau must not get to the Sword.

Riordan forced herself not to look down and see his body impaled upon the spikes of crystal below. Her mind supplied the morbid details of Rau lying broken upon the rocks with a shard of stark white crystal protruding from his breast, his sapphire eyes closed forever, a thin line of blood trailing from his full lips.

Damn you, Rau. It would be just like you to haunt me from beyond the grave!

Intelligence insisted she clamber down and relieve Rau's corpse of the amber stake that held together the folds of his cloak. But the Sword's song pulled at her, urging her despite her reservations toward the opening in the mountain above her. Rau's dead body could keep, she decided. Vultures would not be interested in the amber.

The entire mountain seemed to hum with a single note. Vibration penetrated her fingertips, resonating down the length of her arms and down her spine. Low and urgently it called her.

Riordan moved slowly, painstakingly to her left. Safe handholds appeared at irregular intervals, throwing constant roadblocks into her course. Moving up and down, zig-zagging, she made her way to the opening. The nearer she came to the entrance, the more it seemed to resemble a yawning mouth. Pink crystal ringed the opening like lips, the inside deepened to magenta and then again to darkness, like looking down a massive throat. Riordan had the impression that if she stepped inside she might be swallowed whole.

Panting with exertion, she stood finally on the pink tongue of the entrance and peered inside. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she began to notice the shadows of crystal outcrops in the rough stone walls. Light seemed to radiate from the rock itself, luring her into its depths.

Beneath her bare foot, the floor was warm, smooth as glass. Standing on its surface, the vibration became one with her as if it radiated from her own core.

With one hand against the rough stone wall to guide her, Riordan moved slowly toward light and sound.

As in the dream, the tunnels led in a circuitous route toward the bowels of the mountain. Indeed, it seemed as though she moved through the intestines of some great beast, listening to the thrum of its digestion. Riordan thrust the image from her mind.

Crystal reflected her fragmented image back at her as if she moved through halls of pink-tinted mirrors. She kept moving, dragged forward by the Sword's summons and her own destiny.

I do wish you were here with me, Nhaille. As always, the Captain would know what to do.

But even if you were, when it came time to touch the Sword, I'd be on my own. Riordan quickened her pace. I'm on my own from now on. That knowledge shot a stark bolt of fear down her spine. Might as well get it over with.

The mountain sucked her deeper inside. She'd come too far down the twisting tunnels to even know which direction the entrance lay in. Light intensified, luring her further down the mountain's great gullet.

Running now, unable to slow the motion of her own feet, the Sword's hum was an unbearable pain that radiated from the center of her mind. In an eerie repetition of her dream, she bolted down the crystal corridor.

To find the end blocked by a wall of jagged crystal.

Turning, she raced back over her footsteps. Her bare foot stung from cuts sustained as she traversed the mountain face outside.

Bloody footprints smeared as she ran over them, leaving others in her path.

Sound blinded her with its intensity. She raced on, realizing only when she bumped into a thatch of crystal how blinded her senses were to anything else. Shoving herself away, she whirled to find another shimmering tunnel to her right. It's length led downward.

Riordan launched herself in that direction and ran.

The slope was steeper than the others. Her feet found no purchase on its smooth incline. Back-peddling furiously, Riordan managed to keep her feet beneath her.

The corridor vomited her into a large chamber. She crashed to her knees as the floor abruptly leveled out. Riordan picked herself up slowly and looked around.

A high-vaulted roof, hewn from the pale pink crystal of the mountain stretched far above her. Its walls had been carved smooth.

Shraal writing covered every surface, the floor, the walls of the egg-shaped chamber. Symbols shimmered before her eyes, taking shape in her mind, resonating with deep genetic memory.

Warnings, she realized suddenly. The history of the Sword and the Amber, of the great wars of Bayorek, all written in the regimented verse with which the Shraal transcribed their formal writings. But the Sword's call overruled the warnings engraved in the walls, drawing her gaze in a blinding flash to the center of the chamber.

Shielding her eyes, Riordan gazed at the object in the center of the blaze. She'd never seen a picture of the Sword. There were no drawings of it in Nhaille's history book.The elegance of its simplicity surprised her. She expected something ostentatious, like Rau's heavily jeweled sword. But the Sword of Zal-Azaar was deceptively slender, built to accommodate the smaller stature of the Shraal race.

Her feet glided over the floor, drawing her closer. The blinding light brought tears to her eyes. Riordan reached her hand into the blaze. Despite the fire in its light, the Sword's hilt was cold to the touch. Riordan snatched her hand back.

Rather than being fashioned of cold steel, the Sword was crafted from the mountain's own stone. Refined, made harder, stronger.

So that's what binds it here. That's why the Shraal returned it to the mountains.

As her eyes adjusted to the brilliance, Riordan made out the silver outline of Shraal runes running down the length of the transparent blade. The silver at its center bled out to colorless edges. Ablaze with its own inner light, she found it difficult to tell where the Sword ended and the fire began.

Delicately carved scroll work formed its transparent hilt. Slender, like the rest of it, it had been fashioned for a smaller hand.

Mine.

Riordan sighted down the length of the blade to where it's tip disappeared into a colorless block that seamlessly flowed into a pedestal carved from the mountain's core. And suddenly, she could imagine how their Shraal ancestors might have discovered the Amber on a mining expedition. After engineering their own demise, they returned the Sword and the Amber to the mountains that had given them birth, not knowing what else to do with them.

And here I am like a fool, preparing to loose the Sword upon the world once again. Simply because I don't know what else to do.

Because I have no other choice.

Even as Rau tumbled toward the jagged crystal at the mountains' base, the army of the dead was marching toward Kholer and Golar. With each step, others were added to the ranks.

I can't change the dire fate that befell my family, I can only stand in Hael's path. Stand I will. Kanarek will be avenged!

The rhythm of the Sword's call quickened, until she could hear nothing beyond its insistent summons. Sound pulsed through her mind, until she could see its pink urgency, taste its acrid desire. Commanded, she drew toward it, despite her fear.

I've come this far. Gods, Nhaille, I wish you were with me, now!

Closing her eyes, Riordan plunged her hand back into the blaze and reached for the Sword.

Her fingers met cool, smooth crystal. She forced herself to endure the unpleasant coldness. Her hand closed around the hilt.

Cold spread up her fingers through her arm, dissipating only where it met the muscle of her shoulder. She gasped, would have yanked back her hand again, but her fingers refused to open. The Sword melded to the shape of her hand as if it had been fashioned for her alone.

Icy tingles raced up her veins, as if she'd been jolted by a bolt of lightning. And then, in the core of her being, she felt its presence, pressing against her will, her thoughts.

Breath caught like a cold steam in her throat. Sensation billowed up inside, suffocating all other thought. Her body rebelled. From far away, she heard her own screams echo off the high-vaulted ceiling of the chamber.

Alien thoughts formed in her mind. Vivid images tumbled upon each other. As though looking down the long tunnel of history, she could see the proud crystal towers the Shraal had erected. Throngs of silver-haired people poured down the broad avenues. In their pastel robes, they shimmered in a moving rainbow. Monuments decorated every square. Runes like the ones running along the Sword's blade covered the sides of every tower.

The Shraal were truly great, Riordan thought.

Yes, we were, the Sword whispered in her brain. Softly, seductively it spoke to her, until she was unsure whether the thoughts were the Sword's or her own. Great we will be again.

Free me.

Riordan tightened her grip on the Sword's hilt.

# The sun's light fractured, showering the peaks in a rainbow of color. Myriad prisms played out over the mountain range in pastel gradations.

Sunrise. He'd hoped to reach the foothills long before. Nhaille squinted into the sudden light as the sun rose above the mountains.

Light spilled down the slopes, coming to rest on something equally brilliant wedged among the shards at the foot of the hills. He tethered the horses to a nearby outcrop. Riderless Strayhorn had been ill-tempered since Riordan's kidnapping. Even now he stamped his feet in irritation. Stormback snorted nervously.

Wind whistled through the rocks above, a high and tinny whine. Unpleasant. The entire place rose the hairs on the back of his neck. He scanned the jagged boulders, any of which could be hiding an ambush.

Sunlight flashed upon a glittering thing among the rocks. Nhaille drew his sword.

Jewels, any of which would be fine enough for a king, were set into the gold and silver hilt. The captain seized the sword and jumped back, awaiting his unseen attacker.

But nothing broke the stillness, save for the high-pitched whine of the wind.

He hefted the blade in his hand. Rau's sword. No doubt of that. He recognized its ostentatious, over-jeweled hilt. Rau's weapon had all the subtlety of its owner. And then some, he thought gazing down at the abundant rubies and sapphires.

And if Rau's sword lay abandoned in the mountain's rubble, what then? He couldn't imagine the Prince parted from his weapon, not if he was still alive. He examined the rocks closely. No flecks of blood dotted their blinding crystal planes. No footsteps marked the dust between boulders.

His eyes rose to scan the magenta mountains.

Where are you, Riordan?

Dare he hope she'd somehow got the better of the Haelian snake. In gruesome detail, he pictured their fight on the peaks of the mountains. Unable to stem the flow of images, he saw Riordan clinging for her life to the side of the mountain. Above her Rau raised his sword. Nhaille reined in his imagination and grimaced. Surely The Queen had more sense...

Yet it was Rau's weapon lying among the rocks, not Riordan's body. Somehow, she'd emerged victorious. At least for a time.

And if no bodies lay among the rubble at the mountains' feet, then that could only mean she'd found the gateway to the Sword's chamber.

If no bodies lay broken on the rocks, that could only mean Rau had gone after her. Or that Rau was with her. Cursing the age that stiffened muscle despite the meticulous shape he kept himself in, Nhaille began to climb.

#Stone scraped against stone. With a hiss, the Sword sprang free of its prison. Its blinding fire slowly dimmed, until Riordan stood alone in the crystal chamber, the only illumination coming from the bowels of the mountain itself.

The fog in her mind dissipated. She became aware gradually that her thoughts were once again her own. Riordan sagged against the stone wall and beheld the weapon in her hand.

Cautiously, she tested its weight, its balance. Much lighter than she had anticipated, it didn't look like Hael's nemesis. Instinctively, she knew it was crafted from the strongest, most primeval material of the mountain's core.

The Sword responded like an extension of her own hand. Its graceful arcs much improved the technique Nhaille had taught her.

She suspected it would cut through flesh and bone as easily as it clove the air.

Time enough to practice on the long journey back. Becoming suddenly aware of her surroundings, she was gripped by the pressing desire to be gone from the Sword's tomb. But she couldn't just carry it back across the desert in her bare hands.

Riordan looked down at her empty scabbard. With a sigh, she slid the Sword of Zal-Azaar into the carved metal. And still she couldn't loosen her fingers from its hilt.

Metal rippled. She watched in awed horror as it reformed to the Sword's own contours then released her fingers from its hilt.

Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and prepared to face the long walk back across the desert. Freeing the Sword exhausted her. Yet even hidden safely in her scabbard, she could feel its eagerness.

A shadow fell across her path. The scrape of metal against stone sent her whirling to face the figure that darkened the threshold.

"I think that's far enough, Your Majesty."

Riordan looked up to find Rau filling the doorway.

Alive. She stared down this new impossibility.

Blood streaked his face, running in drying ruddy patches down his neck and the right side of his body. In the chamber's subdued light, his eyes gleamed like coals.

In his hand he held her own sword.

"And now, Your Majesty, you will give me the Sword of Zal-Azaar."