Lord Sixx frowned. "Fine. If you ever wish to find me, you will not have difficulty. And if you ever wish to know the truth of what happened to your child, the price will be the blood of this one."

His hand moved quickly, a dagger shaped like black lightning slapping into his palm. He pressed the knife against Krystin's throat as Zeal grasped her arms from behind. Tamara's arm's already had transformed, and the point of a steely spider-arm suddenly was pressed against the hollow of Myrmeen's throat.

Krystin's hand brushed hers, and Myrmeen realized that despite what the girl had revealed, she still meant what she had said to Krystin earlier that night. Losing her would be like losing her daughter a second time.

"Go to h.e.l.l," Myrmeen said.

"Only if you'll join me," Lord Sixx said as he held her with his dark-eyed gaze. He then withdrew his blade and instructed Zeal and Tamara to lead the humans to safety.

Twenty.

Imperator Zeal and his wife led the humans to the makeshift stables where Shandower had secured their mounts. The gags maintaining Ord and Reisz's silence had been removed, but the Harpers had said very little during the journey. Myrmeen had surprised Krys-tin by taking her hand while they were being ferried across the tiny lake where glowworms laid glittering traps for their prey. When the troupe had reached the sh.o.r.e, each of the humans was given an armful of provisions for the long ride to Calimport.

Tamara's dark eyes followed Myrmeen, her gaze clinging to the woman with the strength of the webs she had expelled while in her other form.

"I don't understand," Myrmeen said. "Why are you letting us go?"

"Because you no longer are of any consequence," Zeal said coldly. "And this is what my lord desires."

The wall leading out to the cliff vanished as Tamara kissed its cold surface, revealing a shoal of stars above the gently surging waters of the sea below. The humans led their mounts to the difficult trail outside, Myrmeen intentionally going last so that she could face Tamara, who remained close to her at all times.

"Why didn't you kill me when you had the chance?" Myrmeen asked. Tamara raised her hand, and the wall appeared, separating them.

Myrmeen, the Harpers, and Krystin led their mounts along the rise, where they retraced their steps and eventually made their way to the top of the cliff. They mounted their horses and rode toward the city as if the red-haired man were chasing them, spitting fire at their heels.

Near the cavern's entrance, Imperator Zeal confronted his wife. The candles and torches lining the walls flared as if they were about to explode. "What was the Lhal woman talking about?"

"I went to her room," Tamara admitted.

"You were going to kill her?"

"I had planned to, yes," Tamara said. "She burned our home to the ground, destroyed all I had,all that was important to me."

"Those were just objects. They can be replaced."

"You never had a family," she whispered. "You wouldn't understand."

The fiery-haired man touched her arm with a gentle caress, his anger fading. Upon the walls, the brilliant light waned until the fires resumed their normal intensity.

"What stopped you?" he asked.

"You did," she said, burying her face in his hard, muscular chest, "I thought of the displeasure you would face from Lord Sixx if she were found dead. I couldn't do it."

He knew she was lying but held her close. "I love you, wife."

"And I love you," she whispered.

These words he believed. As he brushed her hair with his nearly smoldering hands, Zeal formed another explanation for his wife's actions. He decided that his wife had grown tired of having him ignore her urging to take Lord Shoe's power. She had planned to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Lhal woman to force the two men into confrontation. Sixx would have wanted Tamara's life for her actions, and Zeal would have murdered the man to protect her. At the last moment, she had changed her mind, granting Zeal the opportunity to decide for himself if he would try to usurp Lord Sixx, something that would be nearly impossible now that the man had the apparatus.

Imperator Zeal pulled back and kissed his wife's hungry lips. As he felt the flames of pa.s.sion stir within him, several torches exploded, startling them both. Once they realized what had happened, Zeal and his wife began to laugh uncontrollably. They sank to the ground, their arms still around one another as they rolled on the hard stone, giggling like children.

Between gasps of laughter Zeal said, "Yes, I will do it."

The smile faded instantly from his wife's face. "What are you-what do you mean?"

Cupping her face in his hands, Zeal whispered, "I would die for you, Tamara. If you ask me, I will kill for you as well. I know why you wanted the Lhal woman dead."

"You do?" she said in a small voice.

He explained his theory, and she did not deny his words, though he was completely incorrect in his a.s.sumptions. "It will be difficult, and we will have to wait until the night of the festival, but that will give us time to plan and make our plans a reality." He kissed her hard on the lips. "This is what you want, isn't it?"

"Yes," she said softly, imagining the sheer joy of watching Lord Sixx die, for reasons that even her husband knew nothing about. She threw her arms around him and held him tight. "Yes, my love, this is what I wanted."

Around them, the light grew brighter. Had they been more aware of their surroundings and less lost within each other, they might have noticed a patch of darkness in the shape of a slightly hunched, long-haired figure that suddenly detached from the wall. The creature stole away quickly to the comforting shadows where it allowed itself to become enveloped. It huddled in the forgotten cavern where it had gone to hide and wondered what it should do with the knowledge it had acquired.

The being that had been Alden McGregor pulled up its knees and begah to cry.

Miles away, as the hours quickly stretched toward dawn, Krystin rode beside Myrmeen. She said nothing to the older woman and Myrmeen acknowledged her presence with only a weak smile, but the gesture was enough to keep them together for the entire following day, their conversation picking up where they had left off before Shandower's death.

Evening was approaching, and Myrmeen had found shelter for the party behind a group of towering gray obelisks. Reisz sat atop the tallest of the stones, watching for any signs of the night people.

Myrmeen, Krystin, and Ord tended the mounts and prepared the evening meal.

Krystin knew that eventually they would have to talk about what had happened and the revelation that she was not, in fact, Myrmeen's daughter. The girl fully expected Myrmeen to raise the subject, and when she did not, Krystin decided she would mention it. Before she had the chance, Ord surprised her by breaking the silence he had shared with Reisz as he strode before her and stopped. He stared at her with a flat, disinterested expression that suddenly gave way to a mask of rage. He struck her in the facewith the back of his hand, knocking her from her feet. She landed with a grunt of surprise, her head striking the ground inches from a sharp stone jutting from the soft earth.

"Wh.o.r.e!" he shouted. "That I ever could have been attracted to such as you . . ."

Myrmeen was upon him instantly, shoving him back and away from the fallen girl. "That's enough!"

"She betrayed us to the monsters who killed my parents!"

"She did it to save our lives," Myrmeen said. "It's not the same thing, and you know it." Ord looked away. Myrmeen could not tell if her words had gotten through to him or not.

"I don't care about her reasons," Ord said, refusing to look at Krystin, who had picked herself up from the ground. "None of it makes up for what she did."

"It does to me," Myrmeen said. "You're young, Ord. Wait until you've made a few mistakes of your own."

"She's right," Reisz called from his perch. "Hating Krystin isn't going to bring Burke and Varina back. She didn't cause their deaths, and if it wasn't for what she had done, we all would be dead."

"Ord, I'm going back to Calimport with Krystin," Myrmeen announced. "If you don't want to come with us-"

"I'm a Harper, like my parents before me," Ord said. "We are the lord protectors of the Realms."

He looked at Krystin. "I'm not going to let my personal feelings get in the way of that."

Myrmeen nodded. "Your parents would be very proud."

Ord left her and scrambled to the perch where Reisz was waiting. The olive-skinned man put his arm around the boy.

Krystin approached Myrmeen and said, "Did you mean what you said just now? Will you give me another chance?"

"No more lies," Myrmeen said firmly.

The girl shook her head, and the two women stared at one another. Forgiveness would be difficult, and it would take time, but from the feelings that pa.s.sed between them in that single moment, they knew it would not be impossible.

The next day, the group rode into the city. This time, Myrmeen gave her true name and demanded that she be given an audience with the ruler of Calimport, Pasha Rashid Djenis-pool. By late afternoon, her request had been granted, and she stood with Ord and Krystin before Djenispool and several members of his ruling council, many of whom had met with Myrmeen in Arabel. The older man's son, Vizier Punjor Djenispool, stood to the side, an emotionless observer to the proceedings.

Myrmeen spoke for the group. The pasha and his men listened to her impa.s.sioned plea, nodded politely, and informed her that they were in the midst of a much needed upsurge in tourism. The panic that would be caused if they tried to act on her warning-words that she could not substantiate with anything more than the integrity for which she was known-would create more damage than even the shadow beings that Myrmeen insisted were real.

"Bring one of them to us," she was told by the aging pasha. "Let us see it meld with the shadows."

"Yes, we have a dinner party scheduled at the manse next week," said one of his men. "Bring it to us by then. The entertainment in this town has been a bore lately."

The veneer of respect for Myrmeen fell away as the half dozen men before her became consumed with creating jokes about her claims, ignoring her as she tried to get their attention once again.

It was a tactic she had used many times on troublesome visitors who did not realize that their audience was at an end. Myrmeen removed the sword she had been given by the night people and buried it in the wooden table behind which the council members sat, the blade striking directly between the pasha's hands.

Silence flooded the room as the old man's son started forward and was stopped by Reisz, who drew his knife and a.s.sumed a defensive stance before the vizier."The great storm of fourteen years ago is about to come again," Myrmeen said. "People will die, and you are doing nothing about it."

The aged pasha cracked the knuckles of his right hand. "Do you need an armed escort from the city, or can you find your own way?"

Pulling the sword back, Myrmeen turned from the a.s.semblage and gestured for Krystin and the Harpers to follow her. The guards at the heavy door parted for them. Vizier Djenispool, a handsome man in his thirties, watched them with flat, unreadable eyes.

Behind her, Myrmeen heard the old man attempting to recover the dignity she had taken from him. "You see, this is what I mean. By allowing our rulers to be deigned by the act of succession, we end up with barbarians on the throne, fools that wouldn't understand civilization, pouting women with more muscles than brains who run around with weapons held high, acting like children before their betters.

They come here expecting-"

Myrmeen turned and the old man leaned back in his seat. His eyes widened at the sight of the golden slivers in her eyes, which widened with murderous intent.

"I expect nothing from any of you except that you will bleat like the dying sheep that you are when the Night Parade comes out of hiding with a taste for blood," she said, then left the room with her companions.

"Very adult handling of that situation," Reisz chided as they walked the streets, trying to come up with a plan of action. The afternoon sun waned as storm clouds gathered.

"We have escorts," Myrmeen said, ignoring his comment and indicating the guardsmen who followed in a less than subtle manner.

"That means that if we try to rouse the people's attention, we will be slapped in chains before we have accomplished anything," Reisz added.

They walked a few blocks, and Myrmeen fumed over the old ruler's comparison of her to a child.

Krystin stopped suddenly, clutching at the gla.s.s window of a nearby shop as realization struck her like a fist.

"The children," Krystin said. "It's the children they're going to want, just like they did last time."

Myrmeen blanched at the girl's words. "Why?" she whispered softly as she touched Krystin's shoulder.

"I don't know why," Krystin said, shrugging off the soothing touch as she hugged herself.

Myrmeen saw a sidewalk eatery with tables just ahead. She led her companions to a table and sat down hard, gesturing for the guardsmen to join them. The hard-looking men stood at a respectful distance, about a hundred feet away, and did not acknowledge the invitation. Myrmeen ordered a round of the strongest ale on the menu as she thought about the danger to Calimport's children.

"I don't know what to do," Myrmeen said. "If we knock on doors and walk around with signs, we'll be laughed at or thrown out of town. The council doesn't believe us."

"Perhaps this is why Lord Sixx let us live," Reisz said, "to let us face the humiliation of failure, to watch the suffering and not be able to stop it." The swarthy-skinned man shook his head. "We're going to need help. If we can't do anything to stop the festival, then we're going to have to be prepared to fight-"

"Six thousand," Myrmeen reminded him. "How can we fight that many?"

"Shandower did it," Krystin said quietly. Everyone stared at her. "Erin took the apparatus. It's something they need. You saw the way they reacted."

"Are you saying we should steal it back?" Ord asked.

"Or destroy it," the girl replied.

"Shandower must have tried," Myrmeen said. "With his wealth, he would have tried everything, every form of magic available."

"There are mages who aren't for hire," Reisz said. "Elmin-ster, for one."

"I thought you said he was an old nag," Ord remarked.

"That aside," Reisz said with a grin.

"We don't have time to reach the Dales," Myrmeen said. "The festival is long overdue. They're not going to deky any longer. I wouldn't be surprised if preparations were already underway by the oneswho were left behind."

"No," Reisz said, "Lord Sixx wouldn't have wanted the humiliation if he returned empty-handed.

We have some time."

"What do you suggest?" Myrmeen asked.

"I have a friend who owes me a favor in Teshburl," Reisz said. "It's not far from here."

Ord rolled his eyes. "Vitendi? You would call upon that lout, after the way he treated you, after he threatened you in front of us all?"

"That's just his way," Reisz said, dismissing him.

"Really?" Ord said. "That's like saying that a ma.s.s murderer who consumes his victims' flesh is not a bad person- that's just his way!"

"Why are you so against this?" Krystin asked.

Ord ran his hand over his face. "It's going to be a waste of time. Vitendi will never-"

Reisz leaned over and cupped his hand over Ord's ear as he whispered to the nineteen-year-old.