With the tide of battle turning against them, it wouldn't be long before Hael turned to the Amber for help.

She levered herself away from the Amber long enough to snatch up the Sword. The feel of cool crystal against her hand was reassuring. Riordan sent the sum of her will out into the Amber, searching for Nhaille's consciousness.

Minds howled at her within the maelstrom of the Amber. She sent a mental shout after him. As if from a great distance, she heard his weak reply. Relief flooded her, then vanished as a multitude of feet clattered down the hallway outside.

Nhaille, have Penden send some men to the tower! I need help up here, now!

Still, she couldn't be certain he'd heard her, or that there'd be enough Kanarekii left standing to assist the Queen. Having no other choice, Riordan sent her urgent cry out through the Amber.

And called the dead toward her.

# With a harsh curse, Nhaille thrust the point of the Amber dagger away from his face. Memories of the chiseled point inching closer to his eye were burned into his mind.

He could still feel his own muscles tensing to run the stake into his brain. He remembered the Amber piercing the fringe of his eyelashes, stitches bursting in his wounded shoulder as he threw the last of his strength into turning the blade away.

Then, like a rope gone suddenly slack, Rau's will had vanished. And it was Riordan screaming in his mind that he should stop.

Hot blood trickled into his armpit. Abused muscles protested, torn flesh sang with pain. He sagged against Stormback.

"Captain!" Penden grasped his shoulder and shook him hard, sending another red-hot bolt of pain down his arm.

"I'm all right," he said, which was a lie. The world spun precariously about him, threatening to send him tumbling from Stormback's saddle. Beneath his armor, blood matted the front of his shirt. He tried to see past the red haze of pain, tried to organize the jumble of thoughts in his mind.

He glanced at the Power Stone still clutched in his hand. A shudder worked its way down his spine. Every ounce of sanity urged him to toss the thing away. But it was his only link with Riordan. And he had to know whether she'd succeeded, or.... Nhaille didn't want to contemplate the alternatives. Dragging in an unsteady breath, he felt with the tentative fringes of his consciousness into the Amber.

Confusion reigned over the ranks of the dead. The insistent call for order rippled through the lines. Around him, he watched the dead army take up their weapons and turn against Hael.

So it was Riordan in control. But her mastery of the dead was tenuous. He felt the sharp edge of her panic, read her mental call for help. But there was an uncharacteristic darkness to her thoughts that he recognized immediately.

Doan-Rau. Suddenly, he understood. She'd done what he'd warned her against, what he'd prevented her from doing in the Sword's chamber. She'd killed Doan-Rau. The Prince's consciousness was now lodged in her soul.

"Nuurah have mercy!" he groaned.

To which Penden stared back at him blankly.

"Dispatch every available man to the tower," he ordered, finding his voice. "Her Majesty is in danger!"

# Two powerful minds tore at Bevan's consciousness. He staggered, losing his grip on the axe he was about to bury in a Kanarekii warrior's head. With a shriek of disgust, the Kanrekii threw him off. He landed awkwardly in a heap on the ground.

Another presence seized him, desperately trying to manhandle his dying mind into submission. Then just as swiftly, it was gone, replaced by that gentler mind, the one that promised him salvation. Endless sleep.

Bevan staggered awkwardly to his feet and raised his axe to take down the Haelian warrior next to him. Haelian soldiers gazed up at the palace, sensing that unseen events had changed the course of the war. Confusion turned to dismay, dismay to horror as they found themselves on the losing side.

Terror sent them running back through the palace doors, to the last bastion of Haelian power.

The mind's hold on the dead intensified with urgency. DANGER! it warned. HELP ME! THEN YOU CAN REST.

Insubstantial dead minds tumbled like falling leaves sucked into the vacuum. The ranks of the dead flowed up the palace steps, toward Riordan-Khun-Caryn and the promise of rest.

# Regulation boots thundered on the stone floor outside. The heavy door bulged on its hinges, then splintered in a rain of wooden stakes. Haelian soldiers poured over the threshold, coming to an abrupt halt as they found the room vacant of all except the silver haired woman in the stolen Haelian uniform.

Riordan set her back against the Amber, maintaining the contact Rau so desperately wanted her to lose. She drew the Sword, a silver flash in the Amber's golden light.

"Stop where you are, or you'll join your Prince in Al-Gomar." Her words bounced off the stone walls.

Soldiers glanced at the crystal blade, then about the conspicuously empty chamber. One of them detached himself from the rest.

Their Captain, she guessed.

"You cannot hope to hold the Amber. There are many more of us than you."

"You are mistaken," Riordan said. "Now that I command both Shraal weapons and the army of the dead, there are many more of us than you."The soldier took a step toward her. Crystal flashed between them. His scream ricocheted off the stone. His fellows gaped in horror as the body shimmered and disappeared into the Sword. Riordan braced herself for the shock of his consciousness lodging inside her mind.

Join me, she heard Rau's mental whisper to his fallen countryman. With dismay, she felt this new soul link with Rau's.

Suddenly her hands were not her own. The Sword twisted back upon its arc, aiming for her own neck. Eyes widening, Riordan watched the crystal blade descend. Muscles straining, she desperately tried to abort the swing, but it sailed toward her neck, carried by her own arms.

Nhaille! Strengthened by worry for him, her thoughts leapt to her Captain. From out of the Amber's golden storm she heard his weak answer, felt the ember of his strength merge with hers. Enough to throw off Rau's swing, enough to break the Prince's concentration if only for a second.

The crystal blade sliced into the stone floor. She brought it up swiftly and swung again at the line of Haelian soldiers facing her.

Her own will surged within her mind, trapping Rau in a tiny compartment and nailing him there with the force of her anger.

Riordan felt for Nhaille's consciousness, found him busy commanding Kanarekii soldiers hacking their way through Haelian lines in the lower halls of the palace.

Haelian warriors recovered themselves and surged forward. She took down the front line with a mighty slice. Their terror churned in her mind. Riordan kept her concentration focused on sweeping a wide arc to keep them from seizing her and pulling her away from the Amber. She shot another desperate mental plea to the dead.

Then in the hallway she heard it, the flat moans of the dead army. Cadavers gushed through the doorway in a rancid wave.

Kanarekii the most tattered, uniforms barely recognizable, skin withering and shrinking from the bone already showing through exposed body parts. Kholeran, the recent dead in stained uniforms and civilian clothes, their stench unbearable. Haelians the freshly dead, stained with their own blood and the blood of fallen Kanarekii.

Dead soldiers lumbered to do her bidding. She lashed out with the Sword, sending the Haelians skittering backward. No more came to their rescue. With the dead army under her command, it seemed all hands were busy holding off Kanarek in the lower halls.

Footsteps thudded up the staircase. Riordan reached out again with her consciousness, hauling more of the dead toward the Amber's sanctuary, cutting down the Haelians that stood in their way. Kanarekii soldiers marched in their wake to create more of the dead army from their fallen Haelian enemies.

Screams rebounded off the stone hallways. The Haelians in the chamber rushed to deal with this new challenge.

And found the doorway blocked by another wall of cadavers bearing swords.

Fearing now for their own lives, Haelian soldiers fell upon them, hacking viciously into their midst. Limbs tumbled to the ground with wet, bloodless thuds. But no matter how many dead they immobilized, there were more behind them to take their place.

Injured dead left to writhe upon the floor continued their assault with nails and teeth. Riordan watched with grim satisfaction as another of Rau's men went down under a mass of clutching hands. In her mind Rau was strangely silent.

The chamber was once again under her command.

Riordan cast a glance into the Amber's depths. Kanarek made steady progress through the halls, cutting through the last of Haelian ranks. She caught a glimpse of Nhaille and Penden at the front of the assault. Waves of dead soldiers followed in their wake. Dead Haelian warriors took up swords on the side of Kanarek. Lines of Haelian soldiers dwindled.

Nhaille? She felt after his essence, received the spark of his life in answer. He was weakening rapidly, will alone keeping him on his feet.

Certain to die, Rau mocked from inside her mind. Riordan flexed the muscles of her mind, squelching his thoughts as though she squeezed them in her fist. One thing left to do. Then she could destroy the Amber and Nhaille could rest.

Send Penden to the throne room, she ordered Nhaille. Secure the King's surrender!

Riordan raised her eyes from the scene unfolding in the Amber to the pathetic wraiths that held the chamber. Still as the stone itself, the dead stood facing outward, awaiting her next orders. The stench sent bile rising in her throat. Her stomach lurched, she gagged and choked back the urge to vomit.

Why am I being squeamish now? she wondered. But there was a strange rolling quality to the sickness that would not abate.

Squeamish? Rau inquired acidly. Surely not Riordan-Khun-Caryn, Warrior Queen.

Riordan shoved Rau back into that tiny pocket in her mind. A shadow moved between her and the door. She looked up to find one of the dead stumbling toward her.

Kanarekii, had to be. One of the very first. His uniform, if he'd ever had one was frayed long past recognition. Skin hung in loose tatters from his frame. Lips shriveled back from his gums in a permanent sneer.

But as he cocked his head to see through the pitiful ruin of his face, his one good eye held a semblance of awareness. Steeling herself, Riordan met his gaze.

# Bevan stared up at the shadowy figure before him. This was the mind that drew him onward, the one that shone like the sun through the gloom of his failing senses. The one that promised him salvation. A quiet dark featureless rest.

He'd done all she asked. Walked forever it seemed. Fought, killed. The prospect of oblivion was strangely seductive. Freedom, void of thought, of the shame at what he had become.

He wanted desperately to tell her these things, but his mind was a barely discernible spark in the inferno of her consciousness. The message he sent with the sum of his failing thought flamed like a dying coal then turned to ash.

She turned toward him. Eyes nearly as pale as her hair seized him, much as her mind had. Something thrummed in the depths of his consciousness, an old rhyme that played on the edges of memory before evaporating. Something significant he should remember. His jaw worked. No sound came out.

No way to make her understand.

Light played along the thing in her hand, drawing his gaze downward. A sword. Tumblers clicked in the lock on his mind.

Thoughts fell into place. The Sword of Zal-Azaar. Rescue, after all.

Bevan executed an awkward bow.

Staring at the floor, he didn't see the descending Sword. The blow came at first as a surprise, then as blessed relief. The floor rushed up to meet him.

He fell bonelessly into darkness. Into the tornado that sucked him downward. Then he was staring down as if from a great height at the blackened body that disintegrated into green ooze before vanishing into the crystal sword.

There were others like him there, lost souls trapped in purgatory before being sent on to their rightful rest. His thoughts unraveled one by one, weaving themselves into the fabric of that bright mind. Death certainly, but not the quiet oblivion he'd hoped for. PATIENCE, she said. He could almost feel her smile. IT'S NOT OVER YET.

# Riordan blinked away the last of the Kanarekii's thoughts.

We have secured the throne room, came Nhaille's message, weaker now, but still maintaining control of the Power Stone. The King wishes to speak of surrender.

Can you bring him to me? I can't leave the Amber, Riordan sent back and caught the current of his assent.

The room still spun dizzily around her. Fatigue? she wondered. The strain of battle, of bearing both the Sword and the Amber catching up with her. Nhaille also weakened with every moment, the task she had given him sapping the last of his failing strength.

She desperately wanted it all to be finished. With Rau in her mind, it was dangerous to think such things. Riordan shoved her thoughts out of Rau's reach.

Commotion moved toward them from down the hallway. The dead soldiers protecting her parted, forming a corridor of rotting bodies, making way for Nhaille and his procession to pass.

Riordan glanced at him and bit back a gasp. His skin was deathly pale. From the rigid way he moved, she could tell he was in a great deal of pain. He kept his feet with great effort.

Behind him came Penden and another soldier leading a white-haired man. Hael's King, she realized, though he looked anything but regal. His robes were disheveled as if it had been days since he'd had time to attend to them. Shadows ringed his eyes. She couldn't see Rau's features in his face. But the scared youth dragged behind him by two Kanarekii soldiers could have been Rau's double. Tanin-Rau, his older brother sneered within her mind.

So this was the younger son on which the King lavished so much attention. In one glance she could tell the terrified boy would never have the spine to rule a kingdom. But given Rau's tendencies for death and destruction, she could see why the King had chosen in favor of his youngest son.

Hael's King stared across the Amber at her, his eyes defiant. But then his gaze fastened instead on the Sword.

"Yes, this is the Sword of Zal-Azaar. And I am Riordan-Khun-Caryn, Queen of Kanarek."

She watched the knowledge of his defeat settle in his expression. But he offered her no more than a brief nod. "Marik-Rau," he said.

Coward! Rau shrieked at him through her mind. He is about to throw away everything I fought for.

You fought for the wrong thing, she shot back with mental viciousness. And you had not the wit to realize it.

"Your Majesty," Riordan offered the old King the slightest hint of a bow. Fear whitened his face. His lips moved, but words failed him.

He expected her to run him through with the Sword, she realized with a shock. As if I don't have enough of the House of Rau in my head already.

I'd rather not have his company, Doan-Rau said. Such animosity lay between father and son it penetrated even the barrier of death. Her heartbeat raced with the pulse of Rau's rage.

"Kanarek holds the palace and the city. Your army of the dead are now under my command. Doan-Rau is dead. The Amber is mine." Riordan laid the facts before him. Still Hael's King said nothing. "Give me your surrender, Your Majesty!"

Marik-Rau ignored her demand, asking instead, "How did my son die?" A father's concern. She couldn't afford to be touched by his pain.

The old man is weak, Rau snarled.

"I would have spared his life," Riordan said, realizing that after all it was the truth. "But he insisted on challenging the Sword of Zal- Azaar and in doing so met his end."

Hael's king blanched another shade paler.

"I have shown more mercy than Hael showed Kanarek," Riordan said. Subtle threat lurked in those softly spoken words.

Marik-Rau's eyes flickered from the Sword to the Amber and back to Riordan. Even faced with the grim reality, it seemed he still couldn't bring himself to end it in disgrace.

He doesn't even have the courage to surrender, Rau growled in her mind. He disgusts me.

"Haelian lives are being lost with every passing second," Riordan pointed out. "Surrender, Your Majesty, and end the killing."

A sudden shift in Rau's thoughts brought her alert. She hadn't even felt the sudden lapse of Rau's attention. She hadn't even noticed as he turned his concentration from his hatred of his father to the battle raging below. With one blow of his powerful mind, the course of the battle changed.

Suddenly Rau ruled the dead. In the halls of the palace, the dead turned against Kanarekii forces. Riordan watched in horror as even within the chamber the dead turned on their Kanarekii guards.

"Nhaille!" Riordan barely ground out his name out before the crushing weight of Rau's will squeezed the breath from her lungs. She struggled for control of the dead, for control of her own body. To her further astonishment, she felt her sword arm rising, the clear profile of the Sword swinging into action.

# Like diving into a blast furnace, Rau's hatred singed the edges of her mind. Anger tempted her to answer with her own fury. But desperation forced her to exert her own calm will. Within the maelstrom, she felt Nhaille's cool certainty as he offered her the last of his strength. She reveled in it, used it.

Rau held on with a will of tempered steel.