Aoth felt a surge of hope. Because the blue fire had afflicted him with a kind of curse, the zulkir of Enchantment might be the best person to cure him. Indeed, Nymia Focar had said she was ordering him to Bezantur instead of sending him home to Pyarados precisely so wise and powerful folk like Lauzoril and Iphegor Nath could try to help him. But until that moment, they hadn't taken any notice of him.

Still, he couldn't neglect Brightwing's distress. "I've been waiting for this for days," he said, "but I can't meet with His Omnipotence right now. Something has happened to my griffon."

"I'm sorry, Captain," the other man said, "but we must all do as the zulkir commands."

"Lauzoril doesn't know the situation. He wouldn't want us to let such a valuable creature come to harm. I don't know precisely what ails her, but it's serious. We need to find a healer skilled in ministering to animals. Then I'll go to His Omnipotence."

"I'm sorry, sir, but you need to go now. Tell Lauzoril about the beast. That might be the fastest way to get help for it, anyway."

As the man spoke, the floorboards creaked almost inaudibly, and metal clinked. Aoth caught a whiff of the oil soldiers used to preserve their mail and weapons. His imagination conjured up the image of armed men creeping into the room.

It didn't make sense. Aoth was a loyal servant of the council of zulkirs. Why would anyone believe that force might be required to bring him into Lauzoril's presence? Yet he was all but certain that several armed men had come for him.

Curse it, he had to know what was really happening! He opened his eyes.

As usual, the black bandage wrapped around his head proved scarcely any impediment to his altered sight. Five legionnaires had entered the room, a human speaking from the doorway and four blood orcs creeping up on him. One of the latter held a set of manacles.

The other three held their empty hands poised to grab him. But for a heartbeat, something painted the semblance of knives into their grips, just as he had seen Bareris dangling a marionette.

Though he couldn't understand the reason, the message seemed clear. If he allowed them to take him, he was as good as dead.

Vision turned to pressure. Soon it would be agony, but he could bear it for another heartbeat. The tattoos had produced that much benefit, anyway. He made note of the exact positions of the orcs, then closed his eyes.

He pivoted and thrust the butt of the spear at the midsection of the orc farthest to the right. Mail clashed as the spear jammed into something solid. Aoth whirled, swung his weapon, and bashed the orc on his left flank.

With luck, that at least balked the two that had been on the verge of seizing him. He reversed the spear, presenting the point, and retreated, meanwhile thrusting and sweeping the weapon through a defensive pattern.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked.

"Please stop fighting," said the soldier in the doorway. "I give you my word, you're panicking over nothing. We only want to help you."

If he wouldn't tell the truth, he was of no use. In fact, Aoth realized, he was dangerous. His babble could mask the sound of the orcs sneaking up on their quarry once again.

Aoth spoke a word of command and discharged magic from the spear. He'd emptied the weapon's reservoir of spells at the Keep of Sorrows, but even though his magic failed as often as not, he had recharged it since. It had given him something to do while he waited for healing, and kept him from feeling quite so helpless.

Now he just had to hope the spell would manifest properly, and when he heard the legionnaires thump down on the floor, a couple of them snoring, it was clear that it had.

He listened intently, just in case the spell hadn't put all his foes to sleep, and probed with the spear as he made his way to the door. Nothing tried to interfere with him, and in due course, he reached the threshold.

He stepped over the man lying there, wondered what to do next, and felt his anxiety ratchet up. What could he do when he didn't understand what was happening? When he was a blind man trapped in a sprawling fortress garrisoned with hundreds of men-at-arms?

Then he realized his course was clear. He'd defied the guards to help Brightwing, and that was still what he had to attempt. Spear extended to feel his way, he headed for the griffons' aerie.

Sensing a presence, Bareris turned. Tammith was looking down at him. The light of the campfire tinged her ivory face with gold and caught in her dark eyes.

"You aren't sleeping," she said.

"No."

"What did the tharchions say? Will the army march straight through Solzepar?"

"They were still talking about it when they dismissed me, but my sense was, probably so."

"I imagine it will be all right. For all we know, it's safer to go somewhere the blue flame's already been than someplace it hasn't yet visited." She hesitated. "May I share your fire?"

"If you like."

She sat down across from him. Wrapped in a blanket on the ground not far behind her, a legionnaire shifted restlessly and mumbled, as though he sensed the presence of something predatory and unnatural lurking close.

"I want to ask you something," Tammith said.

"Go on, then," Bareris replied.

"In the chapterhouse, you meant to sacrifice yourself so everyone else could escape."

He shrugged. "I just played rearguard. I hoped to keep myself alive until everyone else was clear, then sing myself to safety. Which is how it worked out."

It occurred to him that if he'd been capable of playing the same trick on the trail to the cursed ruins of Delhumide a decade before, he might well have succeeded in rescuing her. But the spell was one of many he'd mastered in the years since.

"But you're the commander of the Griffon Legion now, and so your life is more important than that of a common soldier. In your position, many officers would have ordered some of their underlings to hold back the evokers, and never mind that ordinary legionnaires wouldn't have had any hope of survival."

"Not all folk see things as clearly as Thayan captains and patricians. Maybe I picked up some foolish habits of thought while I was away."

In fact, he knew he had-from Eurid, Storik, and the other mercenaries of the Black Badger Company. It was the first time he'd thought of them in a while, for he tried not to. They'd been his faithful friends, and at the time, he'd cherished them and reveled in the exploits they shared. But ultimately he'd learned that his sojourn with them had destroyed his life and Tammith's, too, and that made it impossible to remember them without regret. He realized the vampire's presence was stirring up all sorts of emotions and recollections he generally sought to bury.

"I was harsh that night we talked in the garden," she said, "and I snapped at you after we killed the wizard who'd merged with the acid magic. I wondered if…"

He peered at her in surprise. "If I was so distraught that I was trying to commit suicide?"

"Well, yes."

"No. I've never done such a thing. It doesn't seem to be in my nature. Otherwise, I would have let you kill me back in Thazar Keep."

"I'm glad to hear it."

He shook his head. "Does it even matter to you?"

"I fought beside you in that chapterhouse, didn't I, at some risk to myself. I'm harder to slay than a mortal, but not indestructible."

"Is that why you're here? Are you waiting for me to thank you?"

"No! I just wanted you to understand. When I pushed you away before… I told you, I want things to be easy. If you craved cherries but they made you sick, would it be easier to live under the cherry tree or a day's ride away from it?"

He sighed. "I understand, and you were right. I don't know how you could tell, but I'm not the same Bareris you knew." He thought of his attempt to control Aoth and what had come of it, and it seemed to him only the latest in an endless chain of failures and shameful acts.