Only Li'kan stood staring about, as if lost.

And Chane…

Wynn cried out his name before thinking. Truth struck her like poison or sudden illness.

Chane had come with Welstiel… to get the orb.

Chap ripped into one robed undead, tearing the back of its calf, and then charged straight at Welstiel with his muzzle dripping black fluids. The silver-haired monk was too fast and twisted about, back-fisting Chap and driving him off. Chap's voice shouted in Wynn's mind.

Get Magiere away! She must reach the orb first… before Welstiel!

Wynn ducked from under Osha's arm, shouting as she reached for Li'kan.

"Magiere, go! You must find it now!"

Aside from Magiere, Li'kan was the only one who might know how to get through the stone doors. Wynn's fingers closed on Li'kan's chill skin, and the undead half-turned.

Li'kan's expression flattened at Wynn's touch.

And Wynn was suddenly aware just how foolish her action was.

Magiere faltered when she saw Welstiel.

He looked shabby and weatherworn, but the white patches at his temples still glowed. How could he have found this place, when she'd only learned of it in her dreams two moons ago? She could only see one answer.

Welstiel had trailed her, perhaps from the very day she and Leesil had left Bela, some half a year ago.

Magiere hadn't seen him since the sewers of Bela, but she'd learned much of him since then. Images of her mother surged up-Magelia lying on a bed, bleeding to death in a keep as Welstiel took away an infant Magiere.

They shared a father he had known and she had not, but which of them was better for it? A small piece of Magiere might have pitied her half brother. But the greater part longed to rip his head from his shoulders and watch his body burn.

Hunger came back, and Magiere's jaws began to ache. Tears flooded from her eyes as the room brightened in her sight. She clenched her grip tight on the falchion's hilt.

Sgaile flew past, shining garrote wire in his hands as he went straight at Welstiel.

Leesil raced toward a mad, robed female brandishing a crude knife.

"Magiere, go!" Wynn shouted. "You must find it now!"

Magiere barely heard this over the rage telling her to rend any pale-skinned thing in her way-and get to Welstiel. Turning her head with effort, she saw Wynn's small hand wrapped around Li'kan's forearm.

Fear welled within Magiere's bloodlust.

But Li'kan just stood there and made no move to strike the sage. The white undead twisted her head, her gaze falling upon Magiere.

Li'kan rushed Magiere before she could react. The undead's small hand closed on Magiere's wrist. She bolted for the corridor, jerking Magiere into motion.

Magiere's hunger and rage vanished.

"Go with her!" Wynn cried.

Magiere didn't look back. Only she could retrieve the orb-and only Li'kan could help. No one told Magiere this. No one had to. The pull to follow the white undead overrode everything else.

Li'kan emerged into the great library, and Magiere shook free of the undead's grip. Li'kan bolted on without waiting, and by the time Magiere caught up, the undead stood before the stone doors. Li'kan tucked one narrow white shoulder under the iron beam, midway along one door and just beyond its stone bracket. She wrapped her slender fingers around the rusted iron's bottom edge, waiting expectantly.

Magiere sheathed her falchion and set herself likewise at the other door's midpoint.

Li'kan's frail body tensed, and Magiere called hunger to flood her flesh as she shoved upward.

The beam's weight nearly crushed her back down, but Li'kan slowly straightened upward.

The frail undead's half of the beam rose steadily, until it cleared the stone bracket. But every joint in Magiere's body ached as she strained to follow. She pushed harder with her legs as Li'kan held her half up against the stone door.

Magiere was soaked in sweat by the time her end of the beam grated out of its stone bracket. She dropped it, stumbling away, and Li'kan released her end. The beam crashed and tumbled across the stone floor, and a metallic thunderclap echoed through the library.

Li'kan took hold of her bracket and began pulling. Magiere tried to do the same, but her side barely moved. When the space between was wide enough, the undead stopped and slipped in.

A strange sensation washed through Magiere as she stepped through the gap.

Not a strong one, but like the lightness that followed a heavy burden cast off, as if she might never feel fatigue or hunger again. Pain and exhaustion from nearly a moon in the mountains slipped away.

When Magiere regained her senses, Li'kan stood slumped in a downward-sloping dark tunnel of rough-hewn stone. The undead's features appeared to sag.

Rather than the release Magiere felt, some sorrow or loss seemed to envelop Li'kan. The white undead hesitated, back-stepping once, and shook her head slowly. Then her body lurched as if jerked forward, and she stepped downward along the tunnel.

Magiere followed Li'kan's dim form, but glanced back once, wondering if the doors behind should be shut. But the white woman kept going.

Far down the tunnel, along its gradual turn, Magiere saw pale orange light filtering from somewhere ahead. And by that dim light, she spotted strange hollows evenly lining both sides of the way.

As she moved on, her night sight sharpened.

A figure crouched inside each of those hollows. She stopped and peered into one.

Age-darkened bones almost melded with ancient stone, but the skeleton had not collapsed when its flesh rotted away ages ago. It was curled on its knees, almost fetally, with its forearms flattened beneath it. The skull top, too wide and large to be a man's or a woman's, rested downward between the remains of its hands. With its forehead pressed to the hollow's stone floor, its eyes had been lowered for centuries.

Like a worshipper waiting in obeisance for its master's return.

Magiere glanced back up the tunnel, turning about to look into hollows along the tunnel's other side. She saw only one occupant that had once been human. Others she couldn't guess.

Some of the crouched, curled forms were small, but one was huge, with an arching spine and thick finger bones that ended in cracked claws. A ridge of spiny bone rose over the top of its downcast skull.

The hollows stretched on, endlessly, toward the dim light down the tunnel.

Li'kan turned to move on. She never glanced once at the hollows, as if the occupants' endless vigil were only proper in her presence.

Through wide arcing turns spiraling down into the earth, Magiere followed. At every step, skeletons hunkered in their small dark hovels, their eyes averted from Li'kan's passing.

Leesil thrust and slashed at the dark-haired vampire, blocking her every attempt to get past him. She slashed back with her knife, hissing and twisting beyond the arc of his winged blades. Her jaws widened with small jagged teeth and protruding fangs. Beyond her, Chap harried a silver-haired undead and a younger male.

And then Chane rushed in and tried to duck around the woman.

Leesil shifted with a sharp slash of his right blade. Chane jerked up short, twisting away from the blade's passing tip, but the mad little female came at Leesil again. And a stocky man with an iron bar closed around her other side. Leesil panicked, facing three at once.

Chane lashed out with his longsword.

Leesil braced and deflected as the small woman hacked at him. He ducked away under the doubled assault.

Then the curly-haired one raced by him and disappeared from view.

Leesil was too overwhelmed to look back for Wynn, and then Sgaile flew past him, running straight at Welstiel.

Welstiel nearly cried out as the frail white undead turned and hauled Magiere down the narrow passage. Disbelief overtook his shock.