"It's not mad."

"Yes, it is! You aren't Szass Tam's equal, fighting a duel with him. You're just one soldier in the army his peers have fielded against him. Even if the other zulkirs defeat him, it won't be your triumph or your revenge. Your part in it will be minuscule. But you can't see that. Even though you're just a pawn, you had to try to push your fellow pawns around on the game board, and as a result, I'm crippled!"

"Maybe not forever. Don't give up hope."

Aoth knew precisely where his spear was. He could grab it without looking. He sprang up from his stool and only then opened his eyes, using his instant of clear and painless vision to aim the weapon at Bareris's chest.

The earth bucked beneath his feet and pitched him forward, spoiling what should have been the sudden accuracy of his attack. Vision became unbearable and his eyes squeezed shut. He toppled to his knees and the spear completed its thrust without any resistance.

"If you'll allow it," Bareris said, "I'll help you up and back into your seat."

"No." Aoth realized he didn't want to kill the bard anymore, but he didn't want anything else from him, either. "Just get out and stay away from me."

Bareris panted as if he'd just run for miles. His guts churned and his eyes stung.

"He swore an oath to serve the tharchion and the zulkirs," he said, "and so did I. I was right to stop him."

He was talking to himself, but to his surprise, Mirror saw fit to answer. "You deceived him," said the ghost. "You broke the code of our brotherhood."

"There isn't any brotherhood!" Bareris snapped. "You're remembering something from your own time, getting it confused with what's happening now, so don't prattle about what you don't understand!"

His retort silenced Mirror. But as the spirit melted back into the shadows, he shed Bareris's appearance as if it were a badge of shame.

"What about a taste of the red?" a rough voice whispered.

Startled, Tammith turned to behold a short, swarthy legionnaire who'd opened his tunic to accommodate her. She'd known she was brooding, but she must have been truly preoccupied for the soldier to sidle up to her unnoticed, her keen senses notwithstanding.

Those senses drank him in, the warmth and sweaty scent of his living body and the tick of the pulse in his neck. It made her crave what he offered even though she wasn't really thirsty, and the pleasure would provide a few moments of relief from the thoughts tumbling round and round in her head.

"All right." She opened the purse laced to her sword belt, gave him a coin, then looked for a place to go. Big as it was, the Keep of Sorrows was full to overflowing with the northern army, but a staircase leading up to a tower door cast a slanted shadow to shield them from curious eyes.

As they kneeled down together, voices struck up a farmer's song about planting and plowing, which echoed through the baileys and stone-walled passageways of the fortress. Today was Greengrass, the festival held to mark the beginning of spring. Some folk evidently meant to observe it even if Thay had little to celebrate in the way of fertile fields, clean rain, and warm, bright sunlight.

Tammith slipped her fangs into the legionnaire's jugular and drank, giving herself over to the wet salty heat and the gratification it afforded. It lay within her power to make the experience just as pleasurable for her prey, but she didn't bother. Still, the legionnaire shuddered and sighed, and she realized he was one of those victims who found being drained inherently erotic.

He should be paying me, she thought with a flicker of amusement.

The tryst was enjoyable while it lasted, but brought her no closer to a decision. She sent her dazed, grinning supper on his way, prowled through an archway, and spotted Xingax riding piggyback on a giant zombie at the other end of the courtyard.

"Daughter!" he cried. "Good evening!"

Reluctantly, she advanced to meet him.

"Good news," Xingax said. "I'm going home. It's no surprise, of course. I assumed Szass Tam would need me there to help rebuild his strength, but I'm still delighted. Perhaps you can come along and command my guards."

Tammith's upper lip wanted to rise, and her canines, to lengthen, but she made herself smile instead. "I believe you made me so I could charge into the fiercest battles, not stand sentry waiting for foes who, in all likelihood, would never find their way to me."

"I suppose you're right," Xingax said, "but maybe you can at least escort me to the sanctuary, and then I can send you back again. I'll ask Szass Tam about it." He leaned over the hulking zombie's shoulder, reached down, and stroked her cheek with the hand that was shriveled, twisted, and malodorous with rot. Her skin crawled. Then his mount carried him on his way.

If I have to travel with him, Tammith thought, he'll know. He isn't a necromancer himself, not precisely, but he, or one of the wizards in his train, will figure it out.

Then they'd change her back, and she wondered why she'd needed to ponder for so long to realize that would be unendurable.

As the singers struck up another song, she made her way to a sally port and peered around. As far as she could tell, nobody was watching her. She dissolved into mist and oozed through the crack beneath the secondary gate.

She drifted across the battlefield with its carpet of contorted, stinking corpses. The crows had retired for the night, but the rats were feasting. Most of the enormous squid-things had stopped moving, but three of them were still crawling aimlessly around.

When she reached the far side of the leviathans, she judged she'd put enough distance between herself and the castle to risk changing from fog to a swarm of bats. It was unlikely that a sentry would notice her in that guise, either, and her wings would carry her faster than vapor could flow.

Just as she finished shifting, a creature big as an ogre pounced out of nowhere. Its head was a blend of man and wolf, with crimson eyes shining above the lupine muzzle. Dark scales covered its naked body. It had four hands and snatched with two of them, catching a bat each time. Its grip crushed and its claws pierced, and even those beasts that were still free floundered with the shared pain.

"Turn into a woman," Tsagoth said, "and I'll let them go."

She didn't have to. She could survive the loss of some of the creatures that comprised herself. But it would weaken her, and she was reluctant to allow that when she knew Tsagoth could keep pace with her however she chose to flee.

She knew because their abilities were similar. He was a blood fiend, an undead demon who preyed on living tanar'ri in the same way that vampires hunted mortal men and women.

She flowed from one guise to another, and he released the captive bats to blend with the rest of her substance. She shifted her feet, but subtly; she didn't want him to see she was ready to fight. But he evidently noticed anyway, because his leer stretched wider.

"You should have fled," he said, "as soon as the blue fire came, and you realized the enchantments compelling your obedience had withered away."

"Probably so." Irredeemably feral and in some cases stupid to their cores, a number of ghouls and lesser wraiths had bolted instantly. She, however, had long ago acquired military discipline, and during those first moments, it had constrained her as effectively as magic. Only later had she recognized that escape was an option for her as well.

"Now you've missed your chance," Tsagoth continued. "The necromancers understand that they may not have complete control over even those undead who obediently followed them into the keep. They charged me to watch for those who try to stray."