"You'll get all that's coming to you," Myrmeen said stiffly as she stood before the merchant. "Or do you not trust the word of Myrmeen Lhal, ruler of Arabel?"

Pieraccinni's gaze slowly rose from the riches on his desk to the piercing stare of the magnificent brunette. Her unusual blue-and-gold eyes were hard and unyielding.

"Why do I get the feeling you told Dak something very similar before you lopped his head off?"

he asked.

Myrmeen leaned forward. "Perhaps because he tried my patience, too."

The bald merchant of arms and men leaned back, rocked in his chair, and laughed. "If you ever get tired of your post in Arabel, I hope you will consider giving me a chance to employ you."

"In what position? On my back or bent over your desk?" Myrmeen asked bitterly, tired of thinly veiled propositions.

Pieraccinni shook his head and opened his hands. "As a negotiator. You are far too suspicious."

Myrmeen glanced around the room. There was movement from behind the red satin curtains of his four-poster bed. "Somehow I find it difficult to accept a serious job offer from a man who keeps a bed in his office."

Pieraccinni pursed his lips. "No one told you? No, from your expression I see that they did not. I never leave this room. I have a rare malady that keeps me here."

The statuesque adventurer stepped back from his desk.

"Don't worry. What I have is not contagious and what I've told you is public knowledge." He tapped his shining, bald pate. "What I suffer from has been diagnosed as a disease of the mind, but that does not make its effects any less real. If you were able to drag me beyond those doors I would collapse with fits and seizures within a minute's time. Of course, you would first have to get me out there."

Myrmeen heard the sc.r.a.pe of weapons sliding from scabbards. She glanced back at the shadowy figures behind the blood-red curtains. "The twins are highly protective?"

"They are, along with all my employees. Not one of them has ever had it this good before. They don't want their comfortable lifestyle to be ruined, and they are aware that my skills are all that ensure their continued employment."

"I understand," Myrmeen said.

"All I want from you is the promise that the next time you have business in Calimport, you will come to me first."

Myrmeen reached out and shook Pieraccinni's hand. "You have my word."

"And you have your daughter. May your life with her be as rewarding as it will be interesting."

Walking to the door, Myrmeen stopped midway. "That sounds like a warning. Do you know something I don't?"

"I have five sons and two daughters," Pieraccinni said. "Believe me when I say you are embarking on your most challenging and perilous adventure yet."

Myrmeen knocked twice and the doors swung outward. She left Pieraccinni's chamber without another word. The doors slammed shut behind her. The boy, Alden, appeared from a secret doorway at the other end of Pieraccinni's room. He hurried inside, rushing to the bald man's desk.

"I have need of your special skills," Pieraccinni said. "a.s.sign Marishan your duties, then follow Lhal and her group. I want confirmation that they have left the city.""You will have it," Alden said agreeably.

Outside the Gentleman's Hall, Myrmeen joined the Harpers. Krystin nervously glanced at every shadow, though it was midday and the sunlight was glaring. The child had made her rescuers promise that they would enter the city and leave once more while the sun was there to protect them. The nightmare people despised movement during the day.

Myrmeen had not given Pieraccinni all of the riches she had secreted in the city. She left many of the caches in place as a contingency in the event that she one day returned to Calimport, but she said nothing of this to the others.

The group stopped at a nondescript eatery for one last decent meal before the long ride to Arabel. They were greeted by a fiery-haired serving maid whose pleasant smile faded as she caught sight of the Harpers. They had been in the desert for several days without bathing or changing clothes and they had the look of ruffians.

"A private table might be best," she said as she took the small group to a pair of tables near the kitchen and promised to return shortly with tankards of ale. As she left, the girl was stopped by an older woman, who whispered in her ear, eyeing Myrmeen and her crowd suspiciously. The red-haired girl shook her head and raised her voice as she said, "You're right, of course. I would have thought their kind would keep to the Hall."

Krystin was about to hurl a heavy wooden container of ground pepper at the back of the girl's head when Lucius grabbed her arm.

"That is not civilized," he said in deep, rich tones.

"And you think I am?" she asked. "The cow has it coming."

Myrmeen glanced at her daughter. She was beginning to notice that they used many of the same phrases and wondered if Krystin was trying to emulate her. The thought appealed to Myrmeen and she smiled broadly.

An hour later, they were riding toward the city's gates, pa.s.sing through another run-down neighborhood. Myrmeen drew up her mount's reins, and Krystin held on tightly as the horse neighed and brought them to a halt. Cardoc had been riding beside her, taking point.

"What is it?" Lucius asked as he raised his hand to signal the others to stop. The gaunt mage had followed Burke's orders perfectly, maintaining his visibility at all times. "What have you seen?"

"This place," Myrmeen whispered as she nodded toward a large, U-shaped building across the street. "I didn't even recognize the neighborhood, but that building is where my nightmares started. That's where I was born and raised."

"Your family had that entire estate?" Krystin said with amazement.

"No," Myrmeen said. "The family that had the building constructed left when the area was taken over by the working cla.s.s and the poor undesirables, like my family. When the estate was given to the city, it was turned into cheap housing."

"But you're wealthy, cultured-"

"That came later, much later."

"It looks abandoned," Krystin said.

Myrmeen nodded. The building where she had played as a child, where she had later experienced her first kiss, now appeared to be deserted. Vines covered the walls of the two-story dwelling and overran the courtyard. The fountains had dried up. Most of the windows were shattered and covered with boards. The balcony that ran the length of the second floor was stained with mildew and its railing was shattered in several places. Strangely, while the building had not been maintained, neither had it been vandalized. There were no signs that it had been overrun with families of squatters.

"Why are we stopped?" Burke called. "What's happening?" When no response came, Burke and Varina rode to either side of those riding point. Burke was surprised by Myrmeen's softening features.

The lines around her eyes and mouth, which had seemed to deepen over the past several weeks,appeared to vanish as she surrendered herself to the embrace of warm remembrances.

"Did you want to go inside?" Varina asked.

Myrmeen thought it over. Suddenly she heard her father's warm, booming laughter as he went off to work on that last, fateful morning, riding off to a private audience from which he would never return.

She had clung to that image for years, then forgotten it until just now, as she saw the window of the bedroom that once had been hers, in the building's east wing.

"Yes," Myrmeen said, "for a moment. Then we'll leave."

"I have no objection," Burke said benevolently.

Krystin turned her gaze to the sun. There were many hours of daylight left, so she did not allow her fear to overcome her. Reisz and Ord followed behind the four hors.e.m.e.n who led the party beyond a crumbling marble fountain, upon a stone walkway and deep into the central courtyard. In moments they were flanked by the two long arms of the building, and they dismounted before the easternmost of two sets of stairs, the only way up to the second floor.

The curly-haired fighter tapped Ord's shoulder. "I don't like this," he said candidly.

"That's the joy of riding with you, Roudabush. You don't like anything."

Reisz nodded. Ord never used Reisz's family name except to signal that he, too, was very worried.

Myrmeen was already climbing the stairs, her boots trampling the vines underfoot. Krystin remained at her side, feeling a disquieting compulsion to stay close to the woman whose hair and eyes were identical to her own. Burke told Myrmeen to go ahead, that he and his wife would follow at a comfortable distance. Reisz and Ord were ordered to remain behind and watch for horse thieves.

Cardoc went off to explore another section of the building but promised to remain within earshot.

"It's so much smaller than I remember," Myrmeen said as they reached the second-floor landing.

Krystin walked a few steps to the right and peered through the slats into one of the rooms.

Frowning, she said, "I don't think you're going to find much. Look here."

Myrmeen went to her side and squinted as she bent slightly and stared at the ruins of what had been the main living chamber of a single-family dwelling. Staring at the demolished furnishings and piles of rotted wood strewn about, Myrmeen felt the urge to abandon the search. After all, she did not want to see her childhood home in such condition.

An urge that she could not resist propelled her forward. She led Krystin back along the gallery to a hallway at the top of the stairs, which had been scorched by flames. There were no rats or roaches, though she did find the occasional wisp of a spider's web.

"Can't we walk around this ledge?" Krystin asked.

"We can't get in that way. The front doors were all walled up after a few children died after running through the doors and not looking where they were going. The guardrail was a joke."

Myrmeen swallowed hard. She had known one of those children, an unfortunate little boy, and had been schooled with his sister. They both had lost siblings, and the experience had bonded them together.

"Myrmeen?" Krystin asked.

Shuddering, Myrmeen took Krystin into the hallway and turned to face a darkened central corridor that subdivided the second floor. "I don't know how safe this is. Let me go first."

"All right," Krystin said.

Myrmeen entered the black corridor, her hand against the wall as she found the spot where the pa.s.sage angled to the left. She gestured for Krystin to follow. The girl entered the corridor, barely able to see Myrmeen's hand, which she clung to as she was led down the night-black avenue to a door that Myrmeen did not need to see to recognize. They heard the footsteps of Burke and Varina following behind.

"It's not locked," Myrmeen said as she pressed her weight against the door and shoved. The door came open easily and Myrmeen was shocked by what she found on the other side.

"Someone's still living here," Krystin said.

"Yes," Myrmeen said in a tiny, stunned voice. "I am."The chamber they faced was decorated exactly the way Myrmeen remembered it from her childhood. A heavily worn sky-blue rug was thrown across the floor. Wx>den shelves and cabinets lined the walls. Oversized pillows, which her mother had woven and stuffed with feathers that she and Myrmeen had spent weeks gathering, lay on the floor beside a lute identical to the one that had disappeared with her father. There were paintings on the wall, and one in particular arrested Myrmeen's attention: It was a portrait of herself as a child, sandwiched in a happy, loving embrace between her mother and father.

"No," Myrmeen whispered as she fought back the tears that welled up in her eyes. Her trembling fingers grazed the painting's surface, lightly touching her dead father's hard, proud face.

Krystin wandered past the main chamber and called to Myrmeen from one of the two adjoining bedrooms. Myrmeen glanced at the rocking chair near the partially boarded up window, then at the chests shoved against the wall, the dining table, and the small kitchen. Food had been prepared here recently; she could smell the succulent aroma of chicken basted with imported spices from her father's village in far off Velen, near Asavir's Channel and the Pirate Isles.

"Myrmeen!" Krystin yelled.

Glancing at the doorway, where she expected to see Burke and Varina appear at any moment, Myrmeen wondered what was keeping them. She turned away and followed the sound of her daughter's bright, expectant voice. She felt as if she were no longer moving of her own volition, as if she were being dragged along by forces that she could not hope to control. Looking down, she became aware of the changing perspective and the steady motion of her legs, one before the other. A part of her was terrified to go any farther, but she had no choice. She reached the doorway to her old room and felt as if twenty years had vanished. Myrmeen stared at a living portrait of her early life, with Krystin playing her role.

The room was perfectly preserved. Krystin rolled on the bed, clutching the scented blankets to her chest. Myrmeen was stunned by the wealth of small items that she had forgotten about, such as a drawer in her nightstand that still contained the wretched love poems of her first suitor. On the dresser sat an empty vial of perfume that she had drained in an eight-year-old's attempt to emulate her mother's daily ritual of bathing and scenting her soft, beautiful skin.

Above the bed was a painting that caused her tears to finally burst free. The image captured on the canvas had remained in her dreams and fantasies for her entire adult life, though she somehow had blocked its origin. The portrait revealed a sky at twilight, where a soft, bluish white mist rose from a valley that was hidden by a rise in the foreground. A handful of pine trees stood as lone sentinels to watch a comet whip across the sky. Its trail entered the frame at the top, arced first to the right, then suddenly sped in a downward curve to the left, gaining momentum and intensity, to flare at the deep blue, starry sky where the veil of night slowly fell.

Myrmeen had dreamt of that rise many times. In some of her dreams, she made love with magnificent strangers on that fantastic landscape as the comet streaked by. In others, she lay there alone while a haunting melody played on a lute.

"What's wrong?" Krystin asked.

Myrmeen turned and wiped away the tears. "Nothing. This was a foolish idea."

"Tell me."

Pressing her lips together, hugging herself tightly, Myrmeen looked at the painting a second time.

"My father gave me that painting. I still remember the morning he woke me up to look at it. Somehow he had put it up while I was still sleeping. It was a month after my sister had died. Stillborn. My father looked at me and said, 'You are that light for me. You rescue me from the darkness.'"

"What happened to him?"

Myrmeen shivered. The room was growing colder. "My father was put to death because his music displeased a rich man who had heard him play on the street and had requested a private audience.

Father spent the entire previous night worrying over what selections to play for the man, and he had chosen a cla.s.sical ballad for his lead. He had no way of knowing that the song had been a favorite of the wealthy man's wife, who had betrayed him and then 'took her own life' in shame for the transgression.

The rich man had been certain that Father had been paid by one of his enemies to play that piece ofmusic. He went into a blood rage, beating and kicking Father until he died. Father was a gentle man who had never learned to fight. Then the servants left the body in the streets and claimed that thieves had killed him before he ever arrived at the palace."

"But you got even."

"Yes."

Krystin nodded slowly. "Good."

Myrmeen was touched again by the deep feeling of loss that had plagued her for the last decade.

She missed her family and looked to Krystin with hope.

A scream sounded from one of the other quarters.

"Varina," Myrmeen said in alarm, racing from her old bedroom, through the main quarters, to the corridor beyond.

Three doors along the formerly darkened corridor had been opened. The closest door, six feet ahead and to her right, led to the rooms on the other side of the wall from Myrmeen's old dwelling. A dull orange glow radiated from the doorway, partially illuminating the corridor. The next two doors that were open lay fifty feet away at either side of the corridor's end, before the bend the mother and daughter had taken earlier. Shafts of murky sunlight burst from these rooms, intersecting like crossed swords. A long patch of darkness stretched between the light at the end of the corridor and the dull luminescence from the nearby doorway.

Myrmeen suddenly became aware that she was not alone in the corridor. Something rose from the darkness and flew at her. Her view of the light at the end of the corridor was obscured by whatever had just taken flight, though she could not make out anything more than a vague, large shape in silhouette and could not tell how far away it had been when it began its flight. She could hear the beating of leathery wings and a steady, high-pitched squeal that grew louder with each pa.s.sing second.

From the rooms next to Myrmeen's childhood home came Varina's scream a second time.

Myrmeen looked back into her old quarters as an explosion shook the corridor. Suddenly the wall separating her old home from the next apartment was no longer there. Myrmeen saw the wall disintegrate, the portrait of herself with her family suddenly destroyed. A glistening, pulsating tentacle twice the size of a man hurled Burke's limp body through the opening that had been created. The bearded warrior smashed against the far wall, his heavy, armored body shattering the reproduction of her father's cherished lute.

Myrmeen heard the squeal before her grow more intense, and she redirected her gaze to the corridor. The flying creature was almost upon her. By the dull, caressing glow from the next apartment, she caught a glimpse of the monster in the light. But before her mind could a.s.similate what she had seen, the creature was upon her and she was overcome by its hot, sweet breath, which smelled of honey.

She reached for her sword, but by then it was too late. Tiny hands clawed at the exposed flesh of her face as Myrmeen felt a strong hand dig into the meat of her upper arm. There was a sharp tug, and she was dragged out of the monster's path. Myrmeen fell into her childhood home as the creature flitted past and disappeared from sight.

Looking up, Myrmeen saw Krystin, then noticed that there was more light in the dwelling.

Apparently, at the first sign of trouble, Krystin had run to the window and had been trying to pry loose the boards that covered it in a haphazard fashion. Gaps had been left between the wooden planks, allowing streaks of light to show through and illuminate the dwelling without revealing its secrets to the world. Krystin had been successful in removing one wooden board and a second seemed ready to give.

"This is one of their lairs!" Krystin screamed. "You idiot, you led us right to them!"