Another step forward and the sphere shrank to half its size.

Undaunted, Kiril advanced. The roused dusk swallowed her. As if energized by enclosing Angul's brilliance, the face of the black wall swelled. Zel, Warian, and even Prince Monolith fell back, but too slowly. All were engulfed. When the perimeter receded to its original position, the hall was empty. No evidence of intruders remained to mar the ancient stone floor of the Purple Palace.

Ususi rolled over and over, impelled by a force with no substance.

She spun through a screaming void of spiritual emptiness. How had she escaped the darkness during her last dream, when wakefulness had been denied her? Qari! Her sister had come into her dream, saving her.

Would a memory of her sister offer aid now? She fastened upon the idea of Qari and tried to shout her name, though the use of her voice was denied her. A glimmer of cool, blue radiance broke upon her mind. It wasn't true light-it seemed more like a species of understanding.

Spiritual illumination, perhaps. In its glow, she grasped the vague, ill-defined connection that she and her twin sister shared since childhood, and retained still. Following the connection down its ill-defined, looping path, she found at its end a silhouette. It was Qari. Qari spoke. "Years have piled on years since last we talked, Ususi. I'm glad, even as this focal event of your life, and mine, overtakes us, that we have this brief moment to talk once more." Her sister smiled and held out her hands. "What… are you here with me, in the darkness of Pandorym's veil?" Ususi strode forward, her arms and legs suddenly resolved in Qari's aura. Qari grasped Ususi's hands. Warm and vital, her flesh seemed real. "In a way. My mind is with you-my percipience. My physical form, despite its faded claim on reality, remains in besieged Deep Imaskar, where the fires of Pandorym's vengeance have breached the Great Seal. Slaughter walks the streets. Our chat must be short." Too much information, too many implications-even the nature of their connection. Nausea threatened to overcome the wizard, the result of understanding her sister's words.

She had so many questions for Qari. "Your 'faded claim' on reality-what are you talking about? And the 'focal point' of our lives-you mean Pandorym?" Qari laughed, but sadly. "All these are connected. The dreams that plagued us since we were children were more than a presentiment of what you would one day face, and fail to overcome. You see, my very existence is a direct consequence of Pandorym's meddling in its future, our past." Ususi feared her sister had slipped into insanity. Or she had herself and merely dreamed all this. But she said, "Time is sacrosanct. No one may alter its flow, everyone knows this. The mage-researchers of the Arcanum spent enough time proving it…" "Mortal rules do not apply to beings that exist outside of the world, and so outside of time. Pandorym is such a creature. Even as it was caged, it saw ahead to the moment of its release. In that chance for freedom, it recognized a possibility that, along a minor timeline, one would be born who might find herself in the right place at the right time to stem its reemergence. That person was you." Qari forestalled Ususi's next question, speaking over her.

"Hush, let me finish. Time is not so elastic for you and I." Ususi reluctantly nodded. "Pandorym took steps to prevent you from overcoming it. It reached forward, imparting what influence it could, hoping to create deterrence enough to prevent she who would one day threaten its bid for freedom. But the mere act of its temporal reach forged two competing possibilities. In one case, it succeeded, and Ususi was born to dread the darkness. But every coin has two sides.

Pandorym's meddling also caused Qari to be born, whose congenital blindness limited her world, but gave her an ability to pierce any darkness and to see even where no light may ever shine." "Two timelines? But we exist together-you are my sister!" "I am your twin to a greater degree than you have ever imagined. I am an alternate you." "This is a dream! Or you are crazy. Or I am. Has darkness driven me insane with fear? How can you be an alternate version of me, yet have grown up with me in Deep Imaskar?" Qari cocked her head and said,

"How could I not? But moments are precious right now. We've come to that crossroads-you must accept my gift. You must accept my percipience. With it, no darkness will ever blind you again." "But you need it…" "Everyone in Deep Imaskar will be dead soon, and me with them, if you do not press forward now. If I give up my vision through the darkness, I may perish, true. But listen. Everything-hopes, worries, fears-all these pale in the face of death. Only that which is important remains." Qari released Ususi's hands and held hers up before Ususi's face. She put her palms over the wizard's eyes and said, "See, as I have seen." At long last, Ususi saw again the high, hard celestial lights that haunted her days and nights since she nearly perished on the ship. Beneath their elysian clarity, Ususi's perception would never again be impeded.

Immersed in nothingness, Iahn's consciousness slowly leached away.

He had no limbs to flail, no voice to protest, and no magic to dispense. He was an insect in pitch, and soon he'd be extinguished. A touch jolted the vengeance taker. The single sensation was sufficient for him to find a focus. The sensation grew more pronounced. Something touched his open eyes. He blinked, or he thought he did. Yes… he was on his feet, moving in a daze over some hard surface, but he couldn't see what. Despite his stubborn nature, he allowed himself to be guided forward, into a sudden, blinding light. Before him, in a broad hallway lit with Kiril's blazing sword, stood the swordswoman, the elemental with a tiny dragonet perched on one shoulder, and Warian and his uncle. Ususi pushed him forward. Of the darkness, he saw no sign. Ahead, a bronze-colored iris stood partially dialed open, and additional light streamed through the crack. He turned to look at Ususi and blinked. Her eyes were like twin stars, blue-white and twinkling as if at some great distance. Warian said, "Thank you for saving us from that… that awful blot." The young man's voice was strained and his features pale, as were Zel's, and probably the vengeance taker's as well. The wizard responded as if to some different statement. "My uskura is lost." "You pushed us clear of the darkness," Warian insisted, waving behind him. No evidence of the veil of life-sucking night remained, except in memory. "I didn't push us clear. I saw through the darkness and helped you all do the same. But at what cost, I wonder? My sister may have given up her special sight…" Ususi's eyes, glittering cold and hard, drifted out of focus. "Your sister?" asked Iahn. "You have news of Deep Imaskar?"

"Slaughter walks the streets, she said…" The bronze iris at the end of the hallway spun open. Beyond was a spacious, moon-bright hall, but a human figure just inside the opening partially blocked the view. An icy breeze flowed from the figure, and a black vapor streamed away from its body, tinged with violet light. Iahn recognized the aura of a Pandorym agent. The figure spoke in the vengeance taker's native tongue. "Imaskari scions, if the dark won't have you, I shall." It was Shaddon. Before the figure could unleash its lashing ribbons of murderous darkness, the earth lord's long arm delivered a terrific punch, smashing Shaddon back into the glaring white chamber beyond.

Iahn rushed in. Monolith's blow was mighty, and Shaddon's form smashed against the far side of a great chamber. Many creatures moved about the edges of the room. He understood then why the chamber was called the weapons cache. The vengeance taker's eyes widened. He ran, aiming neither for Shaddon nor the clot of creatures milling through the chamber. He saw something that his training called out for him to seize for himself.