But "it bothered Crit intensely because the same thing could happen to StratIschade could make it happen.

He wondered idly, trailing the ghost-horse on its rounds about the Peres estate,how you went about killing a necromant. If Strat didn't come through thisintact, he was going to find out. Maybe Randal would know-if Randal ever againwas capable of doing more than swallowing when you put a spoon of gruel in hismouth.

There had been a few minutes, he'd been told, when it \ seemed that Randal andNiko had come through their battle with Roxane and the demon in good shape.

But physical flesh-even mageflesh and Bandaran adept's flesh-could take only somuch. The two were alive; they'd live; whether they'd ever be as hale or assmart as they once were, only time would tell.

Rounding a burned-out wall, the heat lessened perceptibly and Crit could stopsquinting and raise his head.

The ghost-horse was still right in front of him. In fact, when Crit stopped, itstopped.

When he took a linen rag and wetted it from the waterskin dangling from hisbelt, the specter craned its neck to look back at him, ears pricked, as if toask what he was doing.

What he was doing was anybody's guess, but he didn't try to tell the ghost-horsethat. The bay was still bay: it had a black mane and tail (although when the hotwind ruffled them they streamed out like charred cinders, not horsehair); it hada red-gold haircoat (now flame red and flickery as the patterns from the firechased each other along its flanks); it had black stockings (which resembledburnt timbers). But it was more substantial than it had been around front, wherethe fire was brighter.

Then it pawed the ground and whickered, still fixing him with a fire-lightcentered gaze from liquid horse eyes.

The come-hither look and the forefoot pawing the ground were unmistakable to anyhorseman: the bay wanted Crit to hurry up, climb aboard: it wanted to go for aride.

"Oh no, horse," he said out loud to it. "I came by myself- no reinforcements, nobackup. I did that because nobody else ought to risk his life-or sacrifice it,if that's what's going to happen here... because this is a matter betweenpairbonded partners."

The horse snorted disapprovingly, as if to remind Crit that it knew he wastrying to cover his own fear. Then it slowly turned around, so that its rump wasno longer facing him, and ambled toward him.

The big, liquid, obling-centered eyes said: Strut is mine, too; horses and menare partners; mount up and let's stop playing games. He's waiting.

"Strat, damn you to hell," Crit whispered, shaking his head to clear it ofhorse-thoughts and horse-needs and horse-loyalties. This wasn't even a livinghorse, just a ghost, something Ischade had conjured from a dead animal.

But the thing kept coming, head high, feet carefully placed to avoid stepping onits dangling bridle reins.

Bridle reins? Had they been there before? He didn't think so.

The horse, now an arm's-length away, stopped still. It whickered softly and thewhicker said, / love him too. The forefoot, pawing the ground impatiently,added. We don't have much time. And then the horse, in the manner of high-schoolhorses like Tempus's Tros, bent one foreleg at the knee, curling it and loweringhis forequarters, the other front leg outstretched, while it arched its neck ina bow meant to enable a wounded man or a high-bom lady to mount up withoutdifficulty.

"Crap, all right," Crit said through clenched teeth and strode resolutely towardthe bowing ghost-horse, trying hard not to think too much about what he wasdoing, or whether he might be imagining the whole thing-maybe a piece of timberhad fallen on him, a piece of masonry collapsed so fast he hadn't had time torealize it, and he was dead too, dead but denied a peaceful rest, trapped insome netherworld with the ghost-horse, on which he'd wander forever, seeking hislost rightside partner.

But no: The sky was full of lightning, there were shouts and mutters on thebreeze from somewhere near by where factions fought. There was a plague inSanctuary, all right, but not some spurious one that turned your lips blue andmade your armpits sore: it was a plague of human failing, of confusion, of greedand desire and endless power plays.

It wasn't, he admitted as he mounted the bay (which felt surprisinglysubstantial, for a ghost-horse), the magic or the gods which made Sanctuary sucha foul pit, but human excess; magic was no more to blame than sword or spear orrock. There were enough rocks on the earth to eradicate the race; magiccouldn't do a better job, only a more colorful one. But rock or spear or wandor Nisi globe didn't murder on their own, nor enslave-the weapon must bewielded; the true culprit was human greed and human will. And the killingnever stopped- in the name of magic or the name of god or the name of honoror nationalism or progress or liberation, it was just killing.

And because it had always been so, and would always be so, Critias had come tothe profession of arms himself: the only protection he could see was to be aperpetrator, not a victim.

That was why Strat had made him so angry when he'd become entangled withIschade: Strat had become a victim, and Crit had a horror of helplessness. Evenif Strat were just a lovesick fool, Crit still thought he'd been right when hehad shot past his friend that night on the balcony-if it had served to bringStraton to his senses, then Crit wouldn't be here, pulling himself up into thesometimes-saddle of Strat's sort-of-corporeal bay, riding into he-didn't-knowwhat for abstracts of honor and duty that weren't going to keep him alive if thesteaming stable toward which the bay was ineluctably heading crashed down uponhis head.

The stables weren't exactly ablaze, but they had corn magazines and straw andhay in them and sparks smoldered on the roof.

Crit reached forward to catch up the bay's reins, but the beast had had a mouthlike iron in life and it was no better in afterlife.

He sawed on the reins to no avail, then quit trying in time to duck as the horsetrotted determinedly through the open stable doors and headed for wide stairswhich must lead to the stable's loft.

Crit shifted his weight, thinking to throw one leg over the saddle and check outthe stable loft on foot, when the horse started climbing.

"Vashanka's balls," the task force leader swore, flattening himself to thehorse's neck as it climbed a flight never meant for anything of its size andboards creaked and groaned. "Horse, you'd better be right."

It was: at the stair's head was a landing, and as the bay's bulk appeared there,a woman stifled a scream.

It was hard to accustom his eyes to the dark; the climb up the stairs had beentoo fast-everything was still milky green to Crit's fire-dazzled vision.

But Crit heard voices and slipped from the bay's back, his sword in hand.

Together, man and ghost-horse ventured into the dimness; horse's head snakedlow, man's sword paralleling its questing muzzle.

"Dear gods, what's that smell?" Crit muttered to himself.

And someone answered: "Strat. Or me, Critias. Which smell do you mean?"

And the voice of Stilcho was familiar to Critias, who had once thought him thebest of his kind of Stepson. Blinking, Crit strained to see the ruined visage ofthe undead soldier. Stilcho was one of Ischade's minions. He should have knownthe witch would still have her talons in Strat, one way or the other.

He was going to swing his sword up, cut the one-eyed, ghoulish head fromStilcho's torso and hope decapitation would provide the poor soul what restIschade had denied-not be cause he expected his poor quotidian blade to do thejob against magic, but because he was a soldier and he could only do what he wastrained to do, when his vision cleared enough to see that Stilcho's face wasneither so ruined nor so hostile as it ought to be.