Aoth understood. As the war ground on, exacting a constant toll in men and beasts, it was standard procedure. But if he lost Brightwing, he'd lose a piece of his own spirit and all the sight he had left. Bareris knew that, but he evidently wanted her anyway. It was more proof of what a false friend and callous bastard he was.

"I'm a war mage," said Aoth, "and Brightwing is my familiar. She won't carry any rider but me."

"I don't know anything about that, sir. I have my orders-"

"I'm still your commander, even if I am injured!"

"Yes, sir, but this order comes from Nymia Focar herself."

"It's a misunderstanding," Bareris said. When Brightwing turned her head, Aoth could see the bard hurrying down the path.

The soldier frowned. "Sir, with all respect, she spoke to me herself. She told me to make sure I collected Captain Fezim's griffon."

"But later on," Bareris said, "she spoke to me." Aoth could feel the subtle magic of persuasion flowing like honey in the bard's voice. "She told me she'd changed her mind, and Captain Fezim should keep his mount. So you can go on your way and forget all about it."

"Well," said the legionnaire, sounding a little dazed, "in that case…" He put the saddle back on the stoop, saluted, and strolled away.

"Someone made a list of all the griffons to be collected," Bareris said to Aoth. "I happened to glance at it, saw that Brightwing was included, and came as fast as I could."

Aoth grunted. Courtesy indicated that he ought to say thank you, but he'd have preferred to stick a dagger in his own guts.

Bareris frowned. "You didn't think I'd send someone to take her, did you?"

The question made Aoth's muscles clench. "Is that a reproach? Why in the name of every god wouldn't I believe that, considering how you betrayed me before?"

"As the soldier said, the tharchion gave the order. I assume she did because she knew I wouldn't. Even if you don't believe that." Bareris frowned. "Although, valuable as griffons are, there's something odd about her concerning herself with a single mount."

It seemed strange to Aoth as well, but he didn't want to prolong the conversation to speculate. "I'm going back inside."

Bareris's mouth tightened. "Fine." He turned away.

Aoth felt moisture on his face. He supposed it was blood from the needle pricks, beading and dripping. He resisted the impulse to wipe it away for fear of marring the tattooist's work.

As the army of Pyarados prepared to march, dozens of tasks and details demanded Bareris's attention. He had to see to his own gear and mount as well as those of his entire company. Procure provisions in a hungry land at winter's end. And review the intelligence Malark's agents provided, and plot strategy with Nymia, Tammith, and the rest of the officers.

It left him precious few moments even to eat and sleep, but from time to time, late at night, he prowled through the house where he'd taken up temporary residence, looking for Mirror and periodically calling his name. The members of the household-a draper, his wife, three children, and a pair of apprentices-made themselves scarce at such moments, and were leery of him in general.

But he didn't care if they thought he was crazy. He just wanted to find the ghost.

Even more than Aoth, Mirror had been Bareris's constant companion for the past ten years. Often, the ghost faded so close to the brink of nonexistence that no one else could detect him. Even cats failed to bristle and hiss at his presence. But Bareris had always been able to feel him as a sort of cold, aching void hovering nearby.

Lately, he couldn't. Mirror had abandoned him shortly after his falling out with the newly blinded Aoth, and had not yet returned.

On the eve of the army's departure, he began hunting in the attic and finished in the cellar, where cobwebs drooped from the ceiling, mice had nested in the filthy, shredded remains of a stray bolt of cloth, and the shadows were black beyond the reach of his candle. It looked like a fine location for a haunting, but if Mirror was lurking there, he chose to ignore Bareris's call.

"Nymia wanted to take Brightwing," Bareris persisted. "I made sure she'll stay with Aoth. He has a tattoo sorcerer working to heal his eyes. It's possible he'll see again."

Still, no reply came, and abruptly Bareris felt ridiculous, babbling to what was, in all likelihood, an empty space.

"To the Abyss with you, then," he said. "I don't care what's become of you. I don't need you." He wheeled and tramped up the groaning stairs.

The conjuration chamber shook. Grimoires fell from their shelves, racks of jars and bottles clattered, and the piece of red chalk that was attempting to inscribe an intricate magic circle on the floor hitched sideways, spoiling the geometric precision the sigil demanded.

Szass Tam sighed. The earth tremors jolting all Faerыn had turned out to be particularly potent and persistent in High Thay with its volcanic peaks. The entire castle had been rocking and shuddering ever since his return from the Keep of Sorrows, and although the inconvenience was the least of the ills Mystra's death had engendered, it vexed him nonetheless.

He waved a skeletal hand, and the half-completed figure vanished as if it had never been. He animated a different stick of chalk and set it to recreating the drawing.

This time, the chalk managed to complete the circle without the earth playing pranks. Szass Tam took his place in the center, summoned one of his favorite staves into his hand, and recited a lengthy incantation.

A magical structure, invisible to normal sight but manifest to an archmage, took shape before him, then started to slump and deform. He froze it in its proper shape by speaking certain words of power with extra emphasis, and through the sheer insistence of his will.

At the end, his construct wavered into overt existence as a murky oval suspended in midair. Szass Tam said, "You are my window. Show me the Weave."

Had he given the same command before the advent of the blue fires, the oval would have revealed an endless iridescent web reflective of the magic that infused and connected all things, and the interplay of forces that held it all in equilibrium. Now he beheld scraps of burning crystal tumbling through an endless void. Even for a lich, the sight was nauseating, although Szass Tam couldn't define exactly why.

What he did know was that the Weave showed no sign of reforming. Perhaps it would eventually, if a new deity of magic arose, but since Szass Tam had no idea how or when such an ascension might occur, the possibility failed to ease his mind.

"You are my window," he said. "Show me the Shadow Weave."

As its name suggested, the Shadow Weave was the dark reflection and antithesis of its counterpart. It hadn't partaken of Mystra's life in the same way the Weave had, and Szass Tam had conjectured that it might reconstitute more quickly in the wake of her passing.

If so, it could serve as a source of power. For certain practitioners of an alternative form of sorcery called shadow magic, it always had. Despite his erudition and curiosity, Szass Tam had never learned a great deal about the mysteries of shadow. Conventional thaumaturgy had proved such an inexhaustible well of precious and fascinating secrets that he simply hadn't gotten around to it. But he was willing to learn now if it would ameliorate the current crisis.

But it didn't appear that there was anything left to learn. The Shadow Weave, too, remained in pieces, the fragments falling endlessly through darkness and burning with a dim flame whose radiance was somehow a mockery of true light.