"Who's they?" bellowed Ireheart. He laid the bloodied blade of one of his axes against the man's throat.

"The guild! The master of the guild!" he choked fearfully. "He sent us here. We harvest the heads and every thirtieth orbit he sends a man to fetch the jars. We get our share of the reward-thirty coins apiece for each head."

"The guild? What guild?" demanded Tungdil.

"The guild of the bounty hunters." The man groaned as the pain threatened to overwhelm him. "Let me go now. I've told you everything I know."

Tungdil believed him, but he knew the twins would never let him live. His murderous deeds would have to be punished.

"You're not going anywhere." Ireheart's axes settled the matter before Tungdil could object. The headhunter had breathed his last.

"Come on," Boлndal said evenly. "We need to get out of here before the watchmen arrive."

Hefting their bags, they hurried out of the city in the direction of Ionandar. At first they were worried that someone would find the bodies and chase after them, but no one did.

Tungdil felt a pang of conscience. "It wasn't right to kill them," he said, as they were sloshing their way through puddles and mud. "We should have handed them over to the watchmen along with the jar."

Boпndil's eyes narrowed. "Are you telling me I should have let the villains live?" He shook the raindrops from his beard. "They would have been tried and hung anyway. What difference does it make?"

"They deserved to die, I know. But if we'd…" Tungdil couldn't think of how to describe his nagging guilt in a way that Ireheart would understand.

Boлndal leaped to his brother's defense. "No, scholar, there are no two ways about it. They murdered for money and died because of it. What does it matter that we killed them? Boпndil's right: The long-uns would have hung them, but we saved them the trouble-and we avenged the dead dwarf." He tossed his plait over his shoulder to signal that his mind was made up. "It was the right thing to do."

Tungdil could find no argument that might persuade him otherwise. He was still too much the scholar to understand his companions' dwarven way of thought.

"We need to press on," Boпndil reminded them in a more conciliatory tone. "The high king is waiting." The battle in the stable had cooled his raging temper and he was calmer again. Enchanted Realm of Lios Nudin, Girdlegard, Summer, 6234th Solar Cycle I can't keep this up for much longer," Rantja muttered despairingly.

"You mustn't stop now," whispered Jolosin. "If any of us leaves the circle, the ritual will be broken. I owe it to my magus; we all owe it to Girdlegard to keep going."

Just then he heard a change in Nudin's voice. The croaky rasp became a high-pitched purring that didn't seem to belong to him at all. After a while it lowered to a bass tone so deep that it vibrated through the apprentices' bodies. None of them, not even the highest-ranking famuli, had heard anything like it.

And yet it worked.

Pulsing with light, the dark green fragments of malachite rose into the air and came to rest three paces above the floor. Even the splinters in the decaying flesh of Maira the Life-Preserver left her body, exiting with a gentle pop as they bored through her skin.

"What did I tell you?" said Jolosin, giving Rantja's hand an encouraging squeeze. "We're nearly there now."

Nudin the Knowledge-Lusty began a new incantation and the famuli resumed their chanting, only to break off shortly afterward, unable to follow the words. Babbling and gibbering incoherently, the magus had lost his thread. With the rest of the circle reduced to silence, the ritual was doomed.

Meanwhile, the fragments of malachite clustered together in a flat disc, ten paces in diameter. The glowing circle began to spin.

"Is this part of the ritual? I've never done this before," hissed Jolosin. Rantja made no reply.

The disc spun faster and faster, the splinters drawing closer as the speed increased. Soon the individual fragments joined together in a circular sheet of flawless crystal.

"My magus knows what he's doing," Rantja whispered proudly, breathing a sigh of relief.

A hush descended on the room as the ring of apprentices watched in awed silence while the glowing malachite morphed under Nudin's command. At last the impressive spectacle drew gasps of admiration and relief from some of the famuli.

"We did it!" Jolosin was about to throw his arms around Rantja but was stopped by the magus, who tightened his grip on his hand.

Nudin spoke, uttering a single, unintelligible word.

A splinter flew out of the disk and pierced Jolosin in the chest. No one noticed.

"What…" Groaning, the young man tried to free his hand and touch the spot where the jagged splinter had entered his flesh and buried itself deep inside his chest. He could feel the blood seeping from the wound and trickling down his abdomen, but Nudin was gripping him firmly in his cold, clammy clasp.

"Estimable Magus," Jolosin said, his voice strained with pain, "I'm… I'm hurt. I've been hit by a shard."

Nudin turned his pale bloated face toward him. His pupils were dilated, almost obscuring his irises. Then the black dots turned the color of tarnished silver. His misty eyes glinted.

"I know, my boy. I needed your magic. There was no other way." He squeezed his hand reassuringly. "It won't hurt for long." The magus closed his eyes.

Another tiny splinter of malachite flew across the room and hit Rantja. From then on, the splinters followed in quick succession, striking the apprentices so rapidly that half of their number had been wounded before the others noticed. They called to the magus for help.

"Stay where you are or everything will be ruined," he commanded, eyes still closed.

The remaining famuli were unpersuaded by his words. Rather than stay and be killed by the lethal crystal, they decided to run for cover, but by then it was too late. As they tried to pull away, they realized with horror that their hands were stuck together, tying them to one another until they too were struck by shards.

The malachite disc sent dark bolts in the direction of each famulus, green light caressing their bodies eagerly in search of the splinters and slipping inside the wounds.

Nudin looked up, an insane glimmer in his eyes. Throwing open his cloak, he uttered another incomprehensible command.

At once a finger-length shard of malachite flew toward him on a bolt of green lightning and planted itself in his chest. The beam intensified, pulsing and rippling with light, while the tendrils of energy binding the famuli to the crystal faded and dimmed. Soon they were gone altogether.

"Victory!" The magus's shriek of triumph was too shrill and powerful to be human. He laughed exultantly. "The time for dissembling is over; Nфd'onn the Doublefold is once more!"

The famuli slid to the floor. Jolosin, Rantja, and the others were incapable of speech; the malachite had wrested the magic from their bodies and plundered their strength.

The more fragile among them were the first to succumb. Their hearts stopped, their breathing failed.

A small band of famuli, Jolosin and Rantja included, summoned the energy to drag themselves across the floor in a desperate effort to reach the doors.

The magus plunged his fingers into his chest and was feeling around for the splinter. He withdrew the bloodied fragment, gazed at it dreamily, then replaced it in the wound. He took a step toward the malachite disc.

"You served your purpose, now be gone!" No sooner had his onyx-tipped staff made contact with the hovering crystal than it fell to the ground, littering the floor with myriad splinters.

Don't just stand there, he told himself sternly. Let the next phase begin! Gathering the leather bag brought by Jolosin, he hurried to the door, skewering three crawling famuli as he passed. A tidemark of blood stained the white maple of his staff.