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  “Uh-oh,” Ridley said. “Time to leave.”

  Before he could fight his way to Marina and Snails, flames raced up the dry, rotting fabric on Xilus’ wall. In seconds, thick, blinding smoke filled the courtyard, catching the melee of rioters unaware.

  * * *

  Scarcely two thief-lengths away, Marina crawled through the bedlam, the map clutched tightly in her hand. Snails had been beside her a moment before, but now he was gone.

  “Ridley!” she shouted frantically. “Ridley! Snails!”

  “Here! Quickly, take my hand!”

  Marina reached out blindly. A strong arm grabbed her and held. A sword slashed its way through the crowd, leaving bleeding victims behind. Almost at once, there was hardly any smoke at all, and no one else to fight.

  “Ridley! Thank the gods! I thought I’d—”

  “What? Lost me forever? Not a chance of that, my dear.”

  Marina tried to scream, but the sound froze in her throat. Damodar, enraged face writhing, smiled down at her and snatched the map from her hand. Marina tried desperately to pull away. She imagined a thousand worms rippling beneath his pallid skin.

  Damodar caught her expression and fondly brushed a lock of hair from her cheek.

  “I’m not pretty anymore, I’ll grant you that, but the mages say beauty comes from the soul. I believe that, don’t you?”

  “Ridley!”

  Marina spotted him then, fighting two of Xilus’ henchmen, but Damodar tightened his grip and drew her roughly away. Pressing a dagger to her throat, he dragged her toward a heavy wooden door.

  * * *

  “Marina!” Ridley shouted as ducked under a lethal swipe of his opponent’s blade, but in that instant she was gone.

  His heart beating painfully against his chest, he slashed his way through the angry crowd, choosing escape over victory. He struggled to reach the door where Damodar and Marina had disappeared. He heard Snails call out behind him, and as Ridley turned, a thunderous roar filled the courtyard, shaking the very walls.

  Ridley saw a welcome, wondrous sight. Elwood, no higher than the shortest thief’s belt, lurched through smoke and fire, a sawed-off demon with a dirty red beard. With a frightening battle cry, he swung his murderous axe through soldier and thief alike. Some dropped their weapons, scattered, and ran. Some stood and died on the spot.

  “You blasted oversized cowards!” Elwood roared. “You dare start a killin’ spree and don’t invite me? You’ll wish you were dead before Elwood Gutworthy’s finished with you!”

  Ridley, awed by the dwarf’s fierce assault, looked away an instant, caught the side of a blade, and went down. Knowing death was half a heartbeat away, he looked up in time to see a gauntleted fist come from nowhere to smash his assailant to the ground.

  Snails looked down at Ridley and grinned. “You all right, Rid? Thank the gods! I thought you were dead.”

  “So did I. Thanks for the help.” He stood and grabbed Snails’ shoulders. “Damodar’s got Marina! I’ve got to find her!”

  Snails looked over his shoulder. “Someone’s got to help the dwarf.”

  “Absolutely. You get Elwood. I’ll go after Marina.”

  “Why me? Why do I always get the dwarf?”

  “Shut up! We’re wasting time. Go and get the dwarf.”

  * * *

  Outside the high wall, the night was black as ink. Ridley could see scarcely anything at all. A chill touched the short hairs on his neck. Marina was gone, nowhere in sight. A great storm was racing across the horizon to the north. From the compound past the wall came the cries of dying men, and a black column of oily smoke rose to the somber sky. Ridley wanted to retch, but there was nothing but a dull, hollow ache where a pleasant meal should be. He tried to recall when he’d last tasted food.

  Once more, he scanned the dark horizon. Would Damodar take Marina back to Sumdall City? Most likely, he decided. Damodar would keep her alive until he got the map, which was likely back there in the compound, burned to a crisp. And where was that damned great ruby now? He’d tossed it to Snails, but what had happened to it after that?

  Ridley held onto the thought. Slim as it was, it was better than nothing at all. Damodar needed the map and Dragon’s Eye. Until he had both…

  He turned, then, weapon at the ready, as Elwood Gutworthy and Snails emerged from behind the high wall. Both of them were ragged, bloody, and covered with soot.

  “Glad you made it,” Ridley said. He shook his head and looked at Snails. “I can’t find her. She’s gone.”

  “We’ll find her, Rid. You can count on that.”

  “I’m sorry,” Elwood added, “but if we don’t get out of here fast, we’ll be finished as well.”

  “She’s not finished,” Ridley said harshly. “Don’t say that. I’ll bring her back, and she’ll be all right.”

  “No offense, lad.” Elwood glanced over his shoulder at the high wall. “Even so, we’d best save ourselves. We’ve no friends in this hellish place.”

  “He’s right, Rid. We’re in a hornet’s nest here.”

  As if in answer, a horde of howling thieves burst out of the courtyard door and swarmed over the wall and into the darkness below. They came in all shapes and every form—fat thieves, skinny thieves, thieves with two noses, thieves with three eyes. Some swung down on shoddy ropes. Some jumped and fell.

  There were even a few who tried to fly.

  Ridley spotted Xilus bringing up the rear, waving an enormous jeweled sword, a dozen maidens on his heels, spilling plates of fruit, sweetmeats and flagons of wine.

  Ridley, with no idea of just where he might be, on possibly the blackest night he’d ever seen, raced for the nearest alleyway, Elwood and Snails trailing along behind. The alley came to a narrow avenue of shabby homes and shops. Ridley turned left, changed his mind at once, and veered right.

  “Where are you going, lad?” Elwood shouted. “Hold up there!”

  Ridley didn’t answer. Another street over and he saw a familiar sight: the marketplace where they’d entered Antius City earlier in the day. Dark and empty now, he knew if they kept a straight path they’d reach the city gates.

  And who’d be there to greet them? He wondered. More bloody thieves? Damodar’s guards? No time to wonder with Xilus’ bunch biting at their heels half an alleyway behind.

  “Ridley!”

  Ridley didn’t stop. Snails ran up beside him, breathing hard now. “Not that way, friend! Left! Left!”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Absolutely. I don’t know much, but I know my alleyways.”

  “Fine. Why not?”

  Ridley jogged into the narrow avenue, his companions close behind. Timber and wattle houses leaned drunkenly over the street below, shutting out the feeble moonlight.

  “All right, great navigator,” Ridley called out, “what next?”

  “What’s next, friend, is you don’t move a muscle or you’re dead.”

  Ridley came to a sudden halt. Looming out of the dark were at least a dozen hooded figures, each armed with stubby crossbows, and every one of them aimed at his head.

  “Look, we mean you no harm—” Ridley began.

  One of the figures laughed. “I guess we can see that. Get down on your bellies. Now!”

  “Damned if I will,” Elwood protested. “You can kill me just as easy standing up.”

  Three of the cloaked figures stepped forward, holding their weapons on Ridley, Elwood, and Snails. The others held fast.

  “Now,” their leader said quietly, “fire!”

  A dozen deadly iron bolts whined through the air.

  Ridley cringed, waiting for signs of the afterlife. Nothing seemed to change. Finally, he risked a look, turned around, and saw bodies sprawled in the cobbled street behind them, some still, some thrashing about. One, he saw, was a shaggy giant with three eyes. One eye wore a feathered bolt; two were still intact.

  Coming quickly after the first, a second volley dropped another band of thieves. There w
as little need for a third, but the bowmen sent their deadly shafts winging through the dark.

  Ridley sat up and blinked. Snails was staring into the night, all the color drained from his face. Elwood was cursing in the sharp, throaty language of the dwarves.

  “All of you,” said an archer, “on your feet! We must be quickly out of here.”

  “Why?” Elwood grumbled. “So you can murder us somewhere else?”

  “Bind them,” the leader said. “Gag the short one as well. I can stand most anything but a foul-mouthed dwarf.”

  CHAPTER

  20

  Even from the deep cover of the forest, Ridley could see a bright glow low in the eastern sky, a light that told him that the fire had spread far from Xilus’ keep. He knew that the city was a tinderbox, and it wouldn’t take long to burn Antius to the ground.

  Ridley stood under the heavy branches of a thick-boled oak that was likely as old as the world itself. The hooded crossbow-men had taken no action against them, and Ridley felt that was surely a positive sign. There was no need to drag them out in the woods to kill them when they could have done the job in Antius.

  “Don’t get your hopes up, boy,” Elwood said. “This bunch is wearin’ hoods. They likely got some secret rites to perform, before they do us in.”

  “Like what?” Snails wanted to know. “What kind of rites are you talking about?”

  “Oh, the usual.” Elwood ran a hand through his tangled beard. “Torture, to start. Strange and terrible things like pluckin’ out eyes and snippin’ off toes. Horrors even worse than that.”

  “They haven’t done anything yet,” Ridley said, “except save us.”

  “Well, of course they haven’t.” Elwood gave Ridley a painful look that said he pitied the man’s foolish ways. “That’s what they do. They wait till you’re ’bout to break, paralyzed with doubts and fears.”

  “It’s working,” Snails said. “I’m getting there.”

  “No, you’re not,” Ridley said. “And you, sir, I’d suggest you keep your grim imaginings to yourself. I fear there are others who are worse off than we.”

  Elwood lowered his eyes. “Sorry. I tend to get carried away. It’s both the failing and the glory of a dwarf. I’m terrible sorry about the lady. As you say, she might not be lost after all. We can’t know that.”

  “I won’t believe she’s back there with that filthy lot.”

  Ridley let the words fade away. Snails, standing in silence beside him, reached out and gripped his friend’s arm.

  “I hate to pile any more stones on your back, Rid, but they may be coming to start that eye-poking, finger-chopping part the dwarf was warning us about.”

  Indeed, five of the hooded crossbowmen were approaching from across the clearing.

  “I think it might be best if we gave them the chance to speak first,” Ridley said, aiming his words in Elwood’s direction. “They seem to prefer a more courteous approach over cursing in uncouth tongues.”

  “I reckon you’d be referring to me,” Elwood growled.

  “I am.”

  “For your information, lad, uncouth is a point of view. Human speech sounds like cattle peeing on gravel to me.”

  Ridley had an answer to that, but the crossbowmen were well upon them, so he kept his opinion to himself and prayed the dwarf would do the same.

  “I regret you were ill-treated,” the tallest of the figures said in an obviously feminine voice. “There was little choice at the time. Moreover, the short fellow here appears to have no manners at all.”

  “Listen, now—”

  “Shut up,” Ridley said. “Right now.”

  “If I offended somehow,” Elwood muttered, gazing at his boots, “it’s ’cause I’m not used to being bound up and killed in some awful secret rite.”

  Suddenly, the hooded figure broke into laughter, a sound to Ridley’s ears like the chiming of silver bells. The hood came off, and Ridley stared at a most angelic face framed by pointed elven ears and short-cropped ebony hair.

  Snails gasped. “It—it’s you! Norda!” He shook his head in wonder. “I can’t believe it!”

  Ridley raised a brow. “You know her, then?”

  “Yes, I do, Rid!” The sly smile that creased his face said he’d just found a bag of gold he’d forgotten he’d hidden away. “We’re quite well acquainted, Norda and I. Our relationship goes way back.”

  “Not that far back, and not that well acquainted,” Norda said.

  “Hmph.” Elwood sniffed. “Is this that elf you were moonin’ about ’fore I had to come and save your hide?”

  “I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but yes, this is certainly the one.”

  “They all look alike to me.”

  “Pardon me,” Ridley said, “my friends here know you but I don’t, and while I’m grateful you got us out of a terrible mess back there, I’d like to know what for and what we’re doing here. We’ve lost one of our own, and that maniac got her. Meanwhile, you’re risking her life by keeping us here.”

  Norda took a step closer to Ridley. “Who? Who is lost, and who has her? Tell me the rest of this, and quickly.”

  “Marina,” Ridley said, “Marina of Pretensa. Though who she is no concern of yours.”

  Norda’s eyes flashed. “In that you are quite wrong, human. My concern, as you put it, is to place you, your companions, and the woman known as Marina Pretensa under royal arrest and return you and the precious map you stole from Vildar Vildan, advisor to the Empress of Izmer.”

  Ridley gave her a hollow laugh. “You’re a little late, I fear. Another keeper of the royal law, the renowned leader of the Crimson Brigade, already has her in his care.”

  “Damodar?” Norda stared. “Damodar has her?”

  “You’ve got it, and the bad news is, he’s not working for the law, if indeed he ever was. He belongs to Profion of Tarak. He’s the thief here, not us.”

  “These are things I did not know.” Norda looked off into the dark. “This path has been deliberately muddied, I fear, hidden from me…”

  “Well it ought to be unmuddied now. So why don’t you do your job instead of standing here?”

  “My friend is not abusive by nature,” Snails said. “He is, ah, under some strain right now, and rightly so, you’ll agree. I hope when all this is straightened out that you and I… what I mean to say is—”

  “Not now, Snails,” Norda said gently. “Another time, perhaps, we’ll cross the same path again.”

  Snails’ smile faded. “Yeah, that’d be fine with me.” Norda looked at Ridley. “I fear we face more troubled times than you can imagine, if indeed, we have any future at all.”

  She walked away, and Ridley saw her disappear in shadow past the dying fire. He wondered how many other beings had misjudged this slight and seemingly harmless female? None, he imagined, who had seen what lay in those deep elven eyes. She was not the demon Elwood saw in his wild imaginings, but neither was she even close to being human.

  * * *

  In a black and tangled dell, in the midnight shadow of great dreaming trees, Norda sat alone by a small trickling spring. From her robes she drew a crystal, clear and pure as morning air. As her hands passed lightly over its infinite facets and planes, the crystal began to glow, as if a tiny luminous heart had come to life inside. In a moment, a faint and shimmering image of the Empress Savina appeared. At first, Savina was startled, but then she turned to a mirror on the table by her side, a mirror cleaved from the very same crystal in Norda’s hands.

  “Majesty.”

  “Norda, do you have it? Have you found the scroll?”

  “No, Highness. I have grave news, I fear. Profion also seeks the rod.”

  “How? How could he know?”

  “I cannot say, but there is worse news still. Damodar has taken Marina of Pretensa along with the map. I have her companions here. What is your will?”

  “I don’t—I don’t know, Norda. Seek out Damodar. We must have the Rod of Savrille, at any cost.”r />
  “Yes, Majesty.”

  “Time is running out for us, Norda. Time is nearly gone.”

  Norda watched Savina’s image fade, then flutter and disappear. In the instant the Empress was gone, Norda felt a cold, unnatural chill, as if a wind from some alien world had reached out and found her.

  Norda’s whole life, her long years as a tracker for the royal house, as a student of strange and secret lore, had taught her that signs and portents were all about her, were with her all the time. A chill, a whisper, a sound in the night, small and insignificant, but it was said that one could read but a midge’s breath of what they said could hold in their hands the destiny of the world.

  CHAPTER

  21

  They were nearly lost in the mist that curled through early morning, clung to the heavy branches, and softly sighed over the forest floor.

  Half of Norda’s small force rode ahead and half behind, each astride a mount elven-trained and elven-bred. Snails rode with Norda herself and felt he was blessed to be so near this vision that had come into his life. The fact that he doubted she returned these feelings worried him not at all. Why would the Fates bring him this close to heaven, then close the door in his face? It stood to reason they would work this out somehow.

  Ridley, some distance behind, tried to hold a strong image of Marina in his mind, the Marina who could charm him with her laughter, her eyes, the Marina who could irritate him with her stubborn, willful ways. Damnation, but he longed for a sharp and cutting word, a cheek flushed red, a pouty mouth and a nasty attitude. What a wondrous creature she was. How could he stand to be around her? And again, how could he not?

  “Can’t I just walk?” Elwood muttered. “I’m a dwarf, in case no one noticed. Dwarves are terrified of horses. A human wouldn’t know it, but a horse’ll stomp a dwarf to death while he’s sleeping and eat him if he can.”