As the gypsies surrounded the dozen or so shadows, Magda held out her hand and summoned Gard. The cudgel had been carved by her ancestor, Kulchek the Wanderer, from the tree at the top of the world. The enchantments upon the weapon were strong. Its wood was unbreakable, able to turn back steel or stone with ease. Normal weapons might not be able to touch the salt shadows, but Gard could surely do them harm.

Since she had first unlocked the weapon's secrets, Magda had only to think of Gard and the cudgel would appear in her hand. This time, though, she closed her fingers on empty air. She could feel the club's reassuring weight in her hand, but it had no substance.

Cursing, she sidestepped a salt shadow as it slithered toward her foot. Sabak lunged at the oozing darkness, and it turned. The hair between the dog's shoulder and along the ridge of his spine bristled as the black shape darted across the ground toward the hound's paws.

"Sabak, back," Magda shouted, and the hound leaped out of the way.

Vitorio, the first Vistana to join Magda's fledgling troupe in Gundarak, drove a spear into the shadow's center. The darkness paused, then flowed around the offending spearhead like water around a post.

"Raunie," he cried, "where have these come from? We're nowhere near the mine!"

Magda didn't reply, for she had no answer. Salt shadows were denizens of Veidrava. Dark rites performed deep within the mine, in a chapel once known as a haven for hope, had resurrected the souls of the pit's countless victims. Clothed in the mine's eternal darkness, the shadows hungered for new flesh. They could not leave the dark; sunlight was fatal to them. How these lost souls had got so far from Veidrava was a mystery, one the raunie had no time to solve.

The Wanderers had succeeded in drawing the shadows apart. The gypsies taunted the shades with the simple lure of their own warm flesh. Men and shadows turned in wary circles like dancers at some macabre ball.

Magda concentrated again on conjuring Gard. As she understood the workings of its magic, the weapon resided in some hidden pocket, intangible but close to hand. It seemed now, though, that someone else had taken hold of it. She could feel the resistance, cold hands countering her own.

"I am Kulchek's heir," Magda snarled. "Gard belongs to me!"

With that she wrenched the weapon free. No sooner did Gard appear in her hands that Magda lashed out with it.

Like a rock breaking the surface of a still pond, the blow from Gard sent ripples across the shadow's form. The thing screamed, a liquid hiss that made Magda tremble. Another blow and the shadow detonated. Globs of darkness splashed in all directions.

Where they struck flesh, the awful missiles burned. They withered grass, peeled paint from wood, and leeched dye from cloth. The fragments lacked the power of the sum. The disrupted shadow could not press its assault. The lumps and puddles only wriggled and oozed across the ground, slowly but steadily reforming into a lethal whole.

Sabak pawed at the assembling pieces, delaying their merger for as long as possible. In quick succession, Magda shattered two more of the shadows. Each time the cudgel fell, the things let out agonized screams that chilled the Vistana to the core. Still, she felt hopeful. The Wanderers were holding their own against the creatures.

"Mother, help me!"

The cry came from the forest's verge. There, at the very edge of the firelight's reach, stood Inza. Two salt shadows had somehow escaped the Wanderers' notice. They had the girl cornered, one on the ground, the second on a thick old oak. If she retreated back into the woods, it would be too dark to distinguish the salt shadows from the normal nighttime gloom. The shades would have her at their mercy.

Magda hesitated. The others were tiring. They needed her help, too. But this was her daughter. Of all the ragtag troupe, only she was the raunie's blood. Magda dashed across the clearing.

She struck the shadow on the ground three times before it finally broke apart. The spattering ooze caught Inza full in the face, and the girl fell back against the tree. The shadow there slithered onto her hand. It wrapped itself around Inza's fingers, pulsing up to her forearm before Magda lashed out again with Gard. The blow fell upon the part of the shadow that still clung to the oak. That one strike blasted the thing apart. From the sharp crack that rang out, drowning out the creature's scream and Inza's shrieks for help, Magda thought that she had cleft the tree.

It was not the oak that had cracked, but Gard. Magda stared at the cudgel, tracing the hairline fracture that now ran the ancient weapon's length. "Unbreakable," she murmured, repeating a line from an old Vistani tale. " 'Only Kulchek's own blade could cut the wood of Gard.' "

Magda was so caught up in considering the remarkable damage to Gard, she didn't hear Vitorio's cry of warning. The shadow he'd been baiting had broken away suddenly and was rushing toward the raunie. Three more followed, as if they'd realized the significance of that resounding crack.

With a cry, Vitorio threw himself onto the shadow.

The thing shuddered at the impact, then curled back upon the old man. A dozen inky bands clamped around his arms, pinning them. The shadow slipped across his chest, his neck. Finally it swept onto the Vistana's head and formed a seamless mask. Vitorio didn't scream. He kept his teeth clamped shut against the shadow, to no avail. The ooze patiently seeped into his ears and his nose. When his lungs finally shrieked for air and his mouth flew open in a futile gasp, the rest of the shadow pulsed down his throat.

The old man staggered to his feet. He tried to take a step toward the fire, but the shadow would not let him. "For my soul's sake," he pleaded, "destroy me!"

From the steps of one of the vardos, a hulking figure emerged. Bandages held his fingers together and covered his ravaged ears. It was Bratu.

The madman loped through the chaos and scooped up Vitorio. Arms that had held the man in innumerable bear hugs over the years now hoisted him high off the ground. A look of fathomless sadness hung upon Bratu's face as he raised Vitorio up-and tossed the old man into the fire's heart.

Vitorio's body was alight in an instant. He rolled in the fire, caught between the shadow's urge to save itself and the Vistana's desire to see the thing destroyed. Now that it had taken flesh once more, the salt shadow was vulnerable to those things that consumed the flesh, particularly fire.

At last Vitorio collapsed into the coals. The man's sigh of satisfaction was mingled with the wail of the shadow, having found form after so many years, only to have it stripped away. Bratu lingered a moment. It was unclear if he were saying a silent farewell to his friend or merely making certain the corpse would not escape the blaze. Finally, though, he turned his back on the carnage and disappeared into the woods.

From her vantage at the edge of the fighting, Inza watched Bratu go. It was tempting to go after him, for the madman could have only one destination: the secret lair of the Whispering Beast. Once he set off on that journey he was lost to the tribe forever.

A piteous barking drew her attention back to the camp. Sabak had finally got too close to one of the shadows. The thing was wrapped around a forelimb. Though he bit at it furiously, the hound couldn't get a grip on the shadow. The darkness clung to his jaws, wrapped around his lolling tongue, then flowed down his throat.

A shudder rippled through Sabak's flesh, and a single yip of confusion escaped his muzzle. He turned circles-once, twice. On the third turn he stopped and faced the nearest Vistana. Lips pulled back in a snarl, he pounced. The woman managed a gulp of surprise before Sabak tore out her throat. The hound stood over her body in triumph. Blood dribbled from his jaws onto her white blouse.