Lan and Brinke silently left the room and made their way back to Brinke’s study. Another of the magically powered cleaning devices scuttled about to clean the beast’s blood from the flagstone floor. Lan went and stood in front of the archway.

“It doesn’t appear to lead anywhere now,” he said. “What spells do you use to activate it?”

“My magics are not so predictable,” Brinke said. “I know few spells. I sit and sometimes everything seems right. Then I perform what strike me as miracles; but, on a consistent basis, I have no control.”

“You plucked me from the nothingness,” said Lan.

“I sat here reading and a mood came over me. I felt… apprehensive. I spoke, you answered. If I used some spell or another, I know nothing of it.”

“Purely instinctual,” Lan mused.

“I have made no real effort to learn formally.”

Lan’s heart accelerated as he looked at Brinke. Her beauty was unmatched on any of the worlds he had walked. He told her so.

“What will Claybore’s militant pawn think of such flowery words?” Brinke asked.

“I don’t know.”

A sinking feeling gripped Lan Martak. Kiska had almost chased him away, knowing full well what it would lead to. Why? What part did this have in Claybore’s plot? Any?

His and Brinke’s eyes locked. He moved closer to her.

“I should thank you for all you’ve done.”

“No thanks is necessary,” Brinke said. Her tongue slipped the merest fraction from her mouth, wetting her lips. Lan kissed her.

The kiss became more, much more. Through the long, passionate night, Lan never once thought of Kiska.

But he did think of lost Inyx.

“Tell me all you see,” Ducasien said earnestly. He bent forward, his arm around Inyx. “There must be details you can ferret out with this wondrous talent of yours, Julinne. Show me. Show us.”

“It,” said Nowless, “does not work that way with her. Not always. Julinne’s wondrous fair talent is limited, even at the best of times. What hellish horrors she has been through makes it all the more difficult for her.”

“Julinne,” said Inyx, reaching out and holding one of the woman’s hands in both of hers, “this is a turning point in history. With your vision of the grey-clads’ base we can eliminate them. We can drive them from this world once and for all time.”

Julinne nodded, a bleak expression on her face. “I am unable to choose between my sight and the seeing.”

“Try,” urged Inyx. “For all those you’ve lost to those accursed butchers, try.”

Julinne turned a shade whiter; it made her look less healthy than many corpses Inyx had seen along the Road. Julinne had lost four children and a husband to Claybore’s troops and along with the heartbreak came a boon. The shock of the loss had broken the woman’s spirit and, ironically, had given her the gift required to defeat the grey-clads.

“How many?” asked Ducasien, his voice low and soothing.

Julinne’s eyes glazed over. “Four hundred and some.”

“When will they all be together? When will the commandant muster his troops?” Ducasien and Inyx exchanged worried looks. Julinne turned even paler and her entire body trembled like a leaf in a high wind. Even her teeth chattered in reaction.

“A fortnight from now. They gather to… to…”

“Yes?” Inyx held the woman’s hand and squeezed reassuringly. “What is their plan?”

“I see it so clearly,” Julinne said. “But the words. The words refuse to come.”

“This is harmful to her,” protested Nowless. “We cannot go on.”

“We must!” snapped Ducasien. “I tell you this is the only chance we will have to destroy them, gather them in one spot and close the trap around them.” He clapped his hands together. Jaw set and face grim, Ducasien brooked no argument.

“So many of us have died,” moaned Julinne.

“More will unless you tell us the plan.” Inyx listened carefully as Julinne’s lips barely moved. The whispered words began to make sense and she passed them along to Ducasien and Nowless. When the woman’s vision of the future had come to an end, she slumped forward. Inyx caught her and gently laid her down. Julinne slept deeply.

Ducasien motioned for them to leave the woman. He, Inyx, and Nowless walked the perimeter of the guerrilla camp, discussing all Julinne had seen.

“They feel they have committed enough outrage,” said Ducasien. “The time is ripe for them to systematically eliminate us.”

“The countryside is properly dispirited,” admitted Nowless. “Even our finest victories do little to help when the farmers know that the bedamned grey-clads might descend on them at any time and burn them out.”

“They have no confidence in us,” said Inyx. “But we need that. Without full support by the time the soldiers gather at the fort, we are lost.”

“You have a plan?” asked Ducasien.

Inyx nodded, brushing away her long, dark hair. Her blue eyes sparkled as she launched into it.

“A resounding defeat for a small group of them will set us up nicely,” she said. “We show the countryside we can prevail. That will align them with us. But the victory cannot be so great that it alerts the greys.”

“You’re thinking thoughts of Marktown?” asked Nowless. “The garrison there is undermanned, yet it is a key position for them.”

“It will be our most dangerous raid yet,” said Inyx, “but if we succeed, we will have won.”

“Not quite,” said Ducasien. “Their mage will have returned from his circuit. The fort will boast both soldiers and ward spells. The mage is not overly good, but he is better than none at all, which is what we have.” Ducasien clasped his hands behind his back and walked on. Nowless said nothing as he turned and left.

Inyx watched Ducasien, thinking that they ought to have a mage.

“Lan,” she said softly, then hastened after Ducasien.

“We are too few,” complained Ducasien. “This raid cannot work as you laid it out. We must regroup, plan some other foray.”

Inyx laughed. “You are too caught up in the overall scheme to appreciate the subtle moves. Look, Ducasien, we go yonder and down. The greys rush out to meet us. Nowless and his group sneak in from behind and we have them caught in a pincer. They cannot run and we will outfight them because they are undermanned.”

“Too pat,” said Ducasien. The man chewed on his lower lip and looked worried.

“There is something more bothering you. This is not that daring a plan.”

“You,” Ducasien said finally. “I do not want you in the party. Stay with Julinne and the others.”

“Why this sudden change of heart?” Inyx frowned. This was unlike Ducasien.

“I… I have lost too much,” said Ducasien. “I will not lose you.”

“Oh? And you think I have not lost those I love?” she shot back. “My husband is worm food because of the grey-clads. What if I should lose you to their sword? Would my hurt be less than yours?”

“This is a foolish argument.”

“It is,” Inyx said hotly. “I plan, I fight. I must show confidence in my skills or none will follow.”

Ducasien faced Marktown and the small garrison. He kept his hands locked behind his back, a gesture Inyx had long since interpreted as being one of defiance in the man. But she would not relent. Inyx knew she was right in all she did.

“Leponto province was never like this, was it?” he asked.

“Not in your memory,” Inyx said. “I left just as the soldiers poured over the borders from Jux and Chelanorra. For years they had been threatening such a move, but it was only when Reinhardt and his brothers were dead did they invade us.”

“That was long years before I was even born,” said Ducasien. “The time flows between worlds in odd ways.”

“Tell me of Leponto. The one you remember.” Inyx leaned back against the sun-warmed rock and closed her eyes. No longer stretched out at her feet was the village of Marktown on some world so far along the Road she had no clear idea where it lay. Ducasien’s words took her home, where she had been born and raised and loved and watched death stalk those dearest to her. Back to Leponto.