The Leaping Ogre Taproom was a bustle of activity. Raidon quickly learned that all new work was assigned at dawn outside, in front of the tavern. In the meantime, would he like a tankard of mead?

Raidon demurred, and instead spent the remainder of his coin on a room for the evening, a private room. He didn't want to find any more lodge mates strung up and dismembered. Tomorrow, if he landed a position with an outgoing trader, he'd be sharing living space with other hired hands soon enough.

He pulled out the cedar box where he kept his mother's forget-me-not. He hadn't gazed at the shining blue stone for some tendays. He'd been too busy as his plans for infiltrating the Nine Golden Swords moved toward culmination.

Raidon considered. Was his attachment to the old amulet a childish behavior he should leave behind with his departure from his home? It looked valuable; he could probably sell it for a reasonable sum. But his sentimental attachment to the object was forged over a decade of ownership. Raidon believed that as long as the stone shone, his mother, wherever she had gone, kept him in her thoughts. Selling it was out of the question.

He opened the box—

—and saw in an instant that the blue field around the tree was obscured in darkness.

Raidon's eyes lost focus and he blinked rapidly. His stomach clenched. What was he seeing? He couldn't understand. He looked in the pack for the real cedar box—this couldn't be it. . .

But it was. The amulet had, before this moment, shown a white tree silhouetted in brilliant cerulean. Now the treelike symbol seemed shrunken, as if the encroaching darkness clenched it with savage pressure.

He couldn't imagine what had caused the change—his actions? Had leaving Telflamm caused this?

Growing up, he often gazed into the stone after his mother's departure. He always imagined the treelike symbol was emblematic of an ancient grove of trees his mother sometimes described.

A place she had called "Yuirwood."

Conviction crystallized. He would seek this place, this Yuirwood. What other reason did the amulet have for changing color, if not a sign declaring his destination?

CHAPTER FIVE

City of Laothkund, Shadow Tongue Lair

Gage passed into an expansive, obsidian-tiled chamber. It was wide like a temple, similarly solemn, and equally quiet. Ahead, two broad stone pillars framed his path in the direction of the chamber's far wall. Each square column bore a blazing, smokeless torch, lending bright, if uneven light to the front of the room. The columns blocked the torchlight from finding the chamber's rear, which was lost in depthless shadow. Except for the blue glimmer that lured Gage.

He passed into the shadowed end of the chamber and moved to the rear wall. His eyes adjusted, and he saw a fortune to rival a dragon's horde.

Boxes of rare perfumes that never arrived at the Nobles' Quarter.

A wide gold vessel filled with depthless liquid whose smell hinted at an ocean without bounds.

Paintings of dead masters, bricks of gold, rings of platinum, casks of vintages a hundred years old—the vault held treasures so tempting Gage was nearly overwhelmed. But none compared with the value of the singular magical sword that was his objective. He gained the far side of the chamber; he found that which he sought.

The blade, still in its scabbard, leaned vertically on its tip within a glass cabinet. Blue fire flickered on the pommel and limned the entire scabbard. The blade wanted to be noticed.

He took the time to carefully search the floor around the cabinet, the seams between the glass panels, the wall behind the cabinet, and the ceiling above. He smiled—no dastardly traps waited to part life from body of an offending thief.

Gage flipped the case open with his right hand and grabbed the pommel of the blade with his left.

His demon-gloved left. The instant he gripped the pommel, the eye on the back of the glove popped open wider than Gage had ever seen it.

Abominations shall be purged, a voice pronounced in his head. Then his left hand disappeared in a nimbus of burning, searing fire.

Gage screamed, as did his glove. He danced back, leaving the sword in the cabinet, waving a fireball of blue agony up and down, back and forth, streaking the air with lines of pain. He tripped, rolled, came to his feet, knocked over the box of perfume. Glass shattered and a pungent mix of odors bloomed. Next to it... he plunged his burning hand into the vessel of depthless water. He thrust as far as he could reach, until his shoulder was submerged. His hand didn't touch the bottom, even though the vessel looked only a foot deep. Was it an interface between Faer?n and an oceanic elemental plane? Regardless, its chill liquid swaddled and doused the fire.

The glove was burned to nothingness. The gauntlet with the demonic eye, whose gaze put fear and awe into his enemies . . . was completely gone. Its destruction had at least served him, providing some protection from Angul's defense, though his hand was red and blistered, and lingering pain tested his composure.

"Didn't like me, or my glove?" Gage wondered aloud. The image of Sathra's burned hand flashed in his mind's eye. Now he knew what had caused it.

The mouth on his remaining gauntlet began to cry and gibber.

"Hello, thief."

Gage snatched his burnt hand from the vessel. He saw that the door was blocked by Sathra and at least eight, perhaps ten bloody-eyed men. Those in the front carried knives, clubs, swords. Those behind aimed steady crossbows his way. The shadows whirling about the woman continued their sad litanies unabated, ". . . cold ... knife in my side . . . face in the window . . . lost. . ."

The woman's hand seemed perfectly whole. She'd apparently found magical healing before returning to deal with him.

"Sathra! I can explain!" Gage backed toward the glimmering blade, his hands out in front of him as if to ward off an attack. His lone gauntlet continued sobbing.

"Oh, you will explain," she chuckled. "As soon as I strap you into something I've got downstairs. The fellow who sold it to me called it a Sembian Cradle. Very simple little chair—the cushion's replaced with a point. We strap you with a belt and hoist you onto the point, and pretty soon you'll be explaining more than you can imagine."

Gage swallowed. Sathra's use of torture devices was legendary. He'd die before he'd allow himself to be taken to her famous "Red Room."

"It's not like that—I've come to warn you! I—"

One of Sathra's fingers idly pointed. A shadowy form dropped out of orbit around her and charged Gage.

Gage extended his raised hands to arms' length, and hoped.

The flickering shape, a silhouette of a bent, haggard man, reached an astral claw toward the thief. Soul-numbing cold brushed Gage, but the mouth on his gauntlet bit down.

Despite the immaterial nature of the gray-black creature trying to embrace Gage, his demon glove gripped it—at least, the horrible little mouth did. It somehow found toothy purchase on the insubstantial body. The shadow jerked, shuddered, and attempted to pull away, but failed. The mouth held on, began to chew and swallow. The silhouette bucked and scrabbled, frantically thrashing back and forth.

Gage, Sathra, and her men watched with various degrees of horror as the glove quickly ate the trapped shadow creature, leaving nothing behind but a final, whispery cry of pain. The thief was aghast, but tried not to reveal his shock on his face.

"So you see, Sathra," said Gage, getting his voice under control, "send me all the lightless souls you want. I can defeat them. And my demon glove enjoys sucking down living flesh twice as much as unmoored souls."