"There could be hundreds of priests and warriors in there."

"I see no one," Zeeahd said, concern raising the pitch of his voice.

The cats sat at Zeeahd's feet, disinterested in the spectacle, licking their paws. They left off only when Zeeahd hacked a cough and spat a black glob, which they pounced on and devoured.

Sayeed saw no one, either. The abbey appeared abandoned, the Oracle gone. "What if he knew we were coming?" Sayeed said. "What if he knew?"

Despair rose in him, his affliction unable to spare him the black hole that followed failed hopes. "To have come so far. . . "

Zeeahd cleared his throat, spat, and stalked down the rise toward the abbey. "It isn't over yet."

Vasen watched the sky for Sakkors or any other sign of the Shadovar, but saw nothing. When they reached the site of the battle where they'd fought the Shadovar scouts, they found nothing. The veserab and the dead Shadovar soldier were gone.

"We should have hidden the bodies, or moved them, at least," Vasen said. "There was no time," Orsin said.

"You fought Shadovar here?" Gerak asked, scanning the ground. "How many?"

"Two, with their mounts," Orsin said.

"And you killed them?"

"No," Vasen said. "One escaped."

Gerak seemed to consider that as they hurried on, moving at the doublequick. The effort left Gerak and Vasen sweating and gasping, but Orsin was untroubled. Vasen took the deva's endurance as inspiration and pressed on. Soon the plains gave way to the rocky foothills, and in a few hours, even the dim air could not mask the rising, jagged bulk of the pine-ruffed Thunder Peaks. Seeing them, Vasen felt both hope and foreboding.

"We're near the pass," he said.

Gerak studied the ground as they moved.

"Come on, man," said Vasen.

"Wait, look at these marks," Gerak said, his brow furrowed. "A lot of people passed this way. Yesterday."

"Us, with the pilgrims."

"We didn't walk this area," Orsin said. "We were over there." Vasen realized Orsin was right. He went to Gerak's side. Whatever the man was looking at on the ground, Vasen could not see it. "How can you be sure it was yesterday?"

"The rain has been steady," Orsin said. "I would think-"

"Two things I do well, Orsin," Gerak said. "Archery and tracking. I'm sure."

Vasen and Orsin shared a look. Orsin spoke the conclusion both of them had drawn.

"The Oracle foresaw the attack. Everyone left the abbey."

Vasen was already shaking his head. He could not imagine the priests and the Oracle abandoning holy ground in the face of an attack.

"The Oracle is, infirm. He couldn't travel."

"He must have," Gerak said. "Unless. . . "

And all at once Vasen knew. He replayed in his mind the Oracle's words to him before he left the Abbey, the finality of the Oracle's farewell.

"By the light," he swore. "He ordered everyone away. He's there alone."

"Why would he do that?" Orsin asked.

Vasen snapped at him, harsher than he intended. "Who knows why seers do what they do?"

Orsin stared at him, blinking at Vasen's tone.

"I'm sorry," Vasen said, putting a hand on Orsin's shoulder. "He . . . said things to me before I left. They sound now like a farewell."

"Then we should move," Orsin said.

"Aye."

Valleys, gorges, and cutouts scarred the face of the mountains. But none of them misled Vasen. Following a path he could have walked blindly, he led his comrades over the rising terrain to the mouth of the winding pass that would take them to the abbey's valley.

"This way," he said.

The terrain rose steeply. Vasen guided them through a series of switchbacks and narrow, rock strewn passageways. Gerak seemed to be noting the terrain with care as they moved, nodding at noteworthy landmarks, presumably placing this or that marker in his mind.

"Small wonder none found the valley without aid," he said.

Vasen uttered a prayer to Amaunator and let the power flow into his blade, which glowed with rose-colored light. "We'll soon come to the mist. Guardian spirits live within it. Stay close to me and do not heed their whispers."

Speaking of the spirits reminded Vasen of his last trek through the pass. It felt as if it had been years ago, but it had been only a short time The spirits had spoken of his father and of Elgrin Fau. He wondered what he would hear now.

As the pass leveled off and widened, he saw the first marker-a boulder chiseled on its base with a tiny rose. At its base lay a crumpled form. His heart sank and he ran toward it, his armor clanking. Before he reached the body, he realized it was too large to be the Oracle.

He laid his shield on the ground and kneeled beside the corpse. The body was that of a human man-fat, balding, with a thick beard and moustache. His garish clothing was shredded, as was his flesh. He had died of blood loss after receiving hundreds of small bites all over his body. The rocks around him were stained brown. The torn remnants of his lips were peeled back from his teeth in a death grimace.

"Minser the peddler," Gerak said, coming up behind Vasen.

Vasen's eyes fell on the marker at the base of the boulder. Several drops of Minser's blood had spattered the engraved sun and rose.

"They must be using spells to move from marker to marker," he said. "We have to hurry."

Before standing, Vasen held his glowing blade above Minser's body and recited a prayer for his passage. He had time for nothing more.

"Go now into the light," he finished, raising his glowing blade skyward. "Be at peace."

"I think he would appreciate that," Gerak said, and with that, they left Minser behind.

Vasen expected the gray mist to form at his feet, crawl up ankles, expected his mind to fill with the confusing hisses and whispers of the spirits, but he saw nothing, heard nothing. He double checked the marker, stopped, looked around.

"I don't understand."

"What?" Gerak asked.

"The mist," Vasen said. "It should be here."

"You're certain we're in the right place?" Gerak asked.

"Yes," Vasen said. "I think. Come on."

He picked up his pace, counted his steps, and sought the second marker. Perhaps he'd made a mistake, taken a wrong turn. It happened from time to time with others.

And there was the second marker, a cliff face chiseled with the symbol of the sun. Normally he saw it only through swirls of mist, with the spirits' voices in his ears.

"By the light," he breathed. "They're gone. The spirits."

"How can they be gone? What does that mean?" Orsin asked.

Vasen did not know. The mist and spirits had been as much a mainstay of the pass as the valley's cascades, as the abbey itself, as his faith. Perhaps they, too, had been telling him goodbye when he had passed through them the last time.

"Move!" Vasen shouted.

Sayeed fell in behind his brother and the cats, his eyes on the abbey, looking for any sign of habitation. When they reached the cultivated earth and animal pens, they found that the livestock remained. Goats cowered in their open pens, bleating, fearful of the cats. The agitated flutter of wings sounded from the chicken coops, the doors thrown open.

"If they're gone, they didn't leave long ago," Sayeed said. "Else the animals would be starved. We can still catch them if they traveled on foot."

Zeeahd grunted as they stalked among the compound, his anger palpable.

The cats eyed the animals, mewled.

Zeeahd waved a hand dismissively. "What are the animals to me? Do what you wish. Kill what you wish. Only the Oracle matters to me."

As the devils wetly slipped their fleshy cells and set about slaughtering the panicked animals, Sayeed and Zeeahd explored the nearby buildings. They found root cellars, fermenting beer, wine, cheese, but no people.

"They're gone, Zeeahd," Sayeed said. "The Oracle is gone. He foresaw us coming and-"

Zeeahd whirled on him and slapped Sayeed's face, once, twice. "He's not gone! He must be here. He must. Otherwise. . . "

Sayeed grabbed his brother by the wrist and squeezed. Zeeahd did not so much as wince.

"Release me, Sayeed. Now."

Sayeed let his brother go.

Zeeahd's gaze drifted in the direction of the devils that had emerged from the cats. In their bloody glee, the fiends were leaping atop buildings, firing their quills at each other, at the animals, at nothing. Some of their spines trailed flames as they flew, and soon dozens of small fires started.

"Otherwise what?" Sayeed asked. "Finish your thought."

Zeeahd ignored him, turned, and eyed a low stairway that led to a columned portico and a pair of double doors that opened onto the abbey. Zeeahd inhaled in a hiss, put a hand across Sayeed's chest.

"What is it?" Sayeed asked, his hand going to his sword hilt.

"He's here," Zeeahd said.

"How do you know?"

"Because those doors are warded. Feel it?"

Sayeed didn't, but he trusted his brother's ability to sense powerful magic.

Zeeahd withdrew some items from his belt pouches as they walked toward the doors. He began to cast a counterward.

Standing in the shrine, looking upon the image of Jiriis and his father, the Oracle held his hand over the glow globe in the shrine.

When he lit it, he knew what it would bring.

"I will stand in the light and fear no darkness," he said, and waited for the ward on the doors to fall.

Vasen ran through the pass, his armor clanking, and even Orsin struggled to keep up. The moment Vasen heard the distant rush of the valley's cascades, he readied his shield and let the light die from his sword. Darkness cloaked them all.

"The light keep us," he said to his comrades.

He stopped at the mouth of the pass. The valley stretched out below him, a finger-shaped slash in the mountains covered in shrouded pine and scrub. The darkness and trees hid the river. The abbey and its outbuildings and walls nestled in a cleared swath farther in. The lands around the buildings looked like a black smear in the darkness. The glowglobes were unlit, their defiant glow extinguished. The windows, too, were dark, and the sight pulled Vasen up short. He'd never before seen the abbey sitting in darkness under the Shadovar's sky. It looked not like a place dedicated to the God of the Sun but a tomb, a surrender. The shadows around him swirled.

Orsin and Gerak tried to walk past him, but he stopped them with the flat of his blade.

"Wait."

"What is it?"

Screams pierced the valley's silence, carried up from the abbey on the wind. Not human, but animal, and . . . something else. The wind carried the stink of smoke.

"Something is burning," Orsin said.

"I smell it," Gerak said. He nocked an arrow but did not draw. "I can't see anything."

More screams sounded from below, the desperate, terrified bleats of the goats. All at once a dozen small fires lit up in the compound, the roofs of several storage sheds and several trees. Vasen heard cracking wood, the growls and snarls of some kind of beast. He could see movement in the shadows cast by the fire, but could make out no details.

"We get close," Vasen said. "Move quietly and quickly."

Orsin and Gerak nodded and they all started down. By the time they reached the bottom, two of the storage sheds were fully ablaze. The light from the fires raised shadows all over the compound. Vasen felt a twinge when he looked at the shadows, a feeling of connectedness. He crept onward.

They clambered over the low stone wall that kept wild animals from the fields, and when they did Vasen stepped on something slick and wet.

A pile of blood-soaked skins lay at his feet. Vasen lifted one of the skins on the end of his sword. They looked vaguely feline. Blood slicked the empty bag of fur.

"Those . . . look like the cats that accompanied the two men," Gerak whispered.

"They weren't cats," Vasen said, dropping the skin to the ground.

"Then what?" Gerak said, looking toward the abbey.