Kaerinus smiled. “You must feel the others out there as I do, my lord. They gather to your service.”

“I feel many things.” Nelesquin extended a hand toward the corpse and invoked a spell. He sought to confirm what he already knew. “It was Virisken Soshir who killed him. How is it that he still lives?”

“I do not know, my lord.” The wizard gestured vaguely toward the north. “I have spent my time in Nalenyr healing those who dare risk the touch of magic. We made it infamous. They blamed the Cataclysm on us. The vanyesh are seen as fell creatures whose return to the world is dreaded.”

Nelesquin laughed. “It is good we are feared.”

“But we were also anticipated. I felt Soshir again, dimly and distantly, last year at the healing. He did not know who he was then, but I think my magics may have helped him learn. He will be coming for you, of course.”

“Of course. It was to destroy him and his ilk that I shaped the Durrani. Keerana here would kill him with ease. Is that not correct?”

The Durrani warrior dropped to a knee. “As my lord desires.”

“That, and more.” Nelesquin smiled. “More ships are coming, and aboard them I have many weapons to crush Soshir and his army. You will choose for me a cadre of your best warriors-yourself included-and you will rise to heights you could not have imagined.”

Keerana nodded, then bowed his head. “Shall I begin now, my lord?”

“Please. My friend and I shall make ourselves at home.”

The warrior gave Nelesquin a salute, then withdrew. The Prince looked at Kaerinus. “They are quite remarkable in their loyalty and ferocity. Rather like dogs in that way, only smarter.”

“Not many dogs would engage Soshir at Tsatol Deraelkun.”

Have you forgotten I did just that and lost to him? Nelesquin watched his companion for a moment, then shook his head. “You will see Keerana engage him there and take the fortress.”

“That is a bold claim.”

“He would sooner die than disappoint, and with what I have brought, he will prevail.” Nelesquin sighed and glanced at Gachin again. “Their loyalty does complicate things. Imagine, allowing this one to rot here in the palace.”

The Prince gestured, and violet energy trailed from his fingers. It swelled to a billowing cloud that engulfed the corpse and bier both. Lightning flashed argent within the cloud. The heat of high summer pulsed heavily enough to send Kaerinus’ cloak rolling across the floor. It wrapped itself around the base of the column within the empty alcove.

A wan smile twisted Nelesquin’s lips. He waved his hand toward the alcove. The cloud filled it, then fell away like Kaerinus’ cloak, unveiling a statue of Nelesquin.

Kaerinus smiled. “Very well done, my lord. Your return makes things right again.”

Nelesquin opened his arms, intending to rise on magical wings, but weakness washed over him. He staggered, yet before he could fall, Kaerinus caught him. He lowered the Prince to the ground, but Nelesquin refused to be prostrated before his own statue.

Nelesquin shoved him away, surprised at his own weakness. “Speeding my ship, making that statue…I have overtired myself.”

“There is some truth to that, but it is not the whole of the matter.”

“I have not felt this weakness before.”

“Yes, you have. You have just forgotten.”

Nelesquin shook his head, but dizziness sapped his strength. He sank back onto his elbows. “It was not like this, the time we perfected the magic. I felt some weakness, but it was transitory.”

“As this will be, my lord; but you will tire.”

“I don’t understand.”

Kaerinus crouched beside him. “When we perfected the means to sever your spirit and soul, then draw your soul from your body, we guaranteed you could not die. When your body ceased to function, Grija drew off your spirit and thought your soul had come with it. Your spirit languished in his realm until your return. Body, soul, and spirit form the eternal triangle-your spirit anchoring your soul in whichever realm it inhabits. Your spirit drew to it the materials to create a body as you emerged from the underworld, but this creation was not perfect. You feel the lack of your soul. Once we return it to you, you shall be greater than you ever were.”

“As we planned.” Nelesquin smiled. “I have not forgotten the bargain, Kaerinus. When I am world emperor, you shall rule many nations. Ours will be the whole of the earth. You, me, and my consort.”

“Consort?”

“Nirati Anturasi. She is the one who granted me escape from the Nine Hells.”

Kaerinus’ eyes narrowed. “Nirati Anturasi. I know her. I have touched her with magic. I had not thought she was that powerful.”

“No matter.” Nelesquin sat up again, clutching his knees to his chest. “I shall husband my strength until we can undo what was done at my death.”

“Do you sense where your soul lies?”

Nelesquin concentrated for a moment, then nodded. “North, distantly north. If I could feel more, I would command it to appear.”

“And the effort would likely kill you.”

“Ironic, no?” Nelesquin slowly rose to his feet. “I felt something else. The Empress. She stands between me and my destiny.”

Kaerinus shook his head. “That is not a place I should like to be.”

Nelesquin smiled. “That is an opinion I am sure she will quickly come to share.”

TheNewWorld

8th day, Month of the Hawk, Year of the Rat

Last Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th Year since the Cataclysm

Tsatol Deraelkun, County of Faeut

Erumvirine

I leaned on the battlements of Tsatol Deraelkun and stared down at the battlefield. Green fields had been churned into bogs of grasses, matted with blood. The kwajiin had recovered their dead companions and withdrawn. My scouts had trailed them, and reported they were returning to Kelewan.

It didn’t matter. We knew they would appear again, soon.

The blue-skinned warriors had abandoned the bodies of their vhangxi. I really couldn’t blame them, as the batrachian creatures had smelled none too pleasant in life, and even less so after they had been slaughtered. The web-footed, leaping beasts were good in an open-field battle-that much I’d seen when they destroyed the Iron Bears. Laying siege to a mountain fortress, however, requires more brains than bravery. The vhangxi had neither.

The mud had begun to dry, freezing footprints as if they were tiny fluctuations on a calm brown sea. If I looked closely, I could have picked out tracks of scavengers, including a few of the vhangxi survivors hiding in the nearby woods. They would venture out to feed, and House Derael’s archers placed bets, then killed them.

A small island lay at the center of the battlefield, with a stone circle upon it. I’d come close to dying there. Gachin had died there, and his assault with him. Had he killed me and left anyone alive to remember the fight, I might have had a small shrine erected in my memory.

Instead I just had a story destined to become legend.

As with other Mystics, though, I was healing quite nicely, and far more quickly than a man of my years should. My right ear still itched from where the Soth Gloon, Urardsa, had sewed it back on. The wound in my chest had closed, but it still hurt when I coughed. One more scar in a lifetime of them. But the good thing about scars is they mean you survived.

“Master Tolo, are you going to die?”

Smiling, I turned toward the boy who had climbed up to share the tower with me. I’d met him when he was only nine, on the road with his father and grandfather, bound for Moriande and the Harvest Festival. Barely six months later, it was hard to recognize him. Dunos had been small for his nine years, but bright-eyed and happy. He weathered his withered left arm well: his greatest desire at the time had been to become a swordsman, though he would have been happy to help in the family mill.