Krystin sank to her knees and planted her hands on her thighs in awe. "Four? That many. At one time?"

"Yes," Burke said, getting some idea of Ord's destination. The younger man was trying to find a way to make Krystin show them some respect. With a smug laugh, Burke placed his hand on his wife's back and said, "I expect we'll be up for a few more before we leave Calimport."

A shudder passed through Krystin. Her expression changed to one of sheer panic. Without warning, she scrambled to her feet and bolted to the partially open tent flap. Lucius turned and grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her from behind, pinning her arms at her sides. She began to scream and wail incoherently, shouting phrases in a language that no one understood.

Myrmeen went to her. "Krystin, what's wrong? We're not going to hurt you."

Krystin kicked at the mage's legs, then leaned down and bit the fleshy part of his arm. He winced at the pain but did not let her go.

"Stop that," Myrmeen said. "Lucius is your friend. We all are."

"Let me go!" she screamed. "You didn't say we were going back there! That's where they live. That's where they hide. That where they do things to you!"

"Krystin, we have to go back to Calimport. There is a man who has to be paid for his services. Once that's done," she said, looking back at the Harpers, "then we'll leave."

Reisz nodded, closing his eyes then opening them slowly.

"I'm sorry." Krystin started weeping. "You're not stupid. I'm sorry I said that. Just don't take me back there."

Ord laughed. "It's just an act. Look at her, she's-"

"She's terrified, Ord," Myrmeen said, the yellow slivers in her rich blue eyes appearing to burn with the flames of her anger. Ord looked away.

Krystin's body relaxed as she watched Myrmeen. She turned her face in Cardoc's direction. "I won't try to run. You can let me go."

Sensing the truth in her tone, Lucius released her.

She turned to him and said, "I'm sorry about your arm."

"It will heal," he said, "unlike some wounds you cannot see that sometimes take a lifetime to heal."

Myrmeen nodded. He had been looking at her as he spoke. She placed her hand on Krystin's shoulder. The girl did not try to force it away. "What did they do to you? What did those monsters make you do?"

"I'd find people for them," she said, lowering her head in shame. Myrmeen guided Krystin back to the circle, and they sat with the others. She kept her arm around the girl, and the shivering fourteen-year-old did not protest.

"Those creatures don't need humans to do their work for them," Reisz said. "We've seen them. They can pass for human at any time."

"Some of them can," Krystin said darkly. "Not all."

"So you found people for them," Myrmeen said. "Then what happened?"

"Don't you know?"

Myrmeen shook her head.

"You don't know what the Night Parade monsters do to their prey? How they survive? What they live on?"

The Harpers were silent.

"Really?" she asked in stunned disbelief. "But you wish to make war on them. You slaughter them without understanding the reasons for what they do."

"It sounds as if you're defending them," Ord said as he saw their dinner fire slowly die.

"No," she said. "No, kill them. Kill them all, if you can. I just don't think you know what you're dealing with."

"So tell us," Myrmeen said.

"You're not the hunters," she said. "You're not the ones that have been seeking them out and killing them for the past two years."

Ord raised an eyebrow. "Why do you say-"

"Enough," Burke said. "No. We are not the ones. We only arrived in Calimport a short time ago."

Krystin buried her face in her hands and drew a sharp breath. She laughed a hollow laugh and shook her head in amazement. "How many of you are there? What's the size of your army?"

"Why would you ask us that?" Myrmeen said.

"Because I only see six of you in this tent," Krystin said slowly. "And I can guarantee there are over six thousand of the monsters in Calimport alone…"

Outside, the rain began to level off. The storm rolled on, moving deeper into the desert. A sharp crack of lightning sounded in the distance.

Within the tent, Burke stoked the fire. He felt comforted by the warmth and watched the reddish orange glow of the flames as he quietly said, "Tell us everything."

Krystin nodded and began to speak. Myrmeen listened to her daughter's words with mounting fear. She gained an education into the nature of an evil that astonished even her jaded sensibilities, and the thunder that eventually followed sounded like a promise that the storm soon would return.

"That is all I can give you," Myrmeen said.

Pieraccinni sat behind his desk, regarding the pile of coins and jewels before him with an amused expression. "I know I said a small token of faith would suffice, but I didn't expect it to be this small."

"You'll get all that's coming to you," Myrmeen said stiffly as she stood before the merchant. "Or do you not trust the word of Myrmeen Lhal, ruler of Arabel?"

Pieraccinni's gaze slowly rose from the riches on his desk to the piercing stare of the magnificent brunette. Her unusual blue-and-gold eyes were hard and unyielding.

"Why do I get the feeling you told Dak something very similar before you lopped his head off?" he asked.

Myrmeen leaned forward. "Perhaps because he tried my patience, too."

The bald merchant of arms and men leaned back, rocked in his chair, and laughed. "If you ever get tired of your post in Arabel, I hope you will consider giving me a chance to employ you."

"In what position? On my back or bent over your desk?" Myrmeen asked bitterly, tired of thinly veiled propositions.

Pieraccinni shook his head and opened his hands. "As a negotiator. You are far too suspicious."

Myrmeen glanced around the room. There was movement from behind the red satin curtains of his four-poster bed. "Somehow I find it difficult to accept a serious job offer from a man who keeps a bed in his office."

Pieraccinni pursed his lips. "No one told you? No, from your expression I see that they did not. I never leave this room. I have a rare malady that keeps me here."

The statuesque adventurer stepped back from his desk.

"Don't worry. What I have is not contagious and what I've told you is public knowledge." He tapped his shining, bald pate. "What I suffer from has been diagnosed as a disease of the mind, but that does not make its effects any less real. If you were able to drag me beyond those doors I would collapse with fits and seizures within a minute's time. Of course, you would first have to get me out there."

Myrmeen heard the scrape of weapons sliding from scabbards. She glanced back at the shadowy figures behind the blood-red curtains. "The twins are highly protective?"

"They are, along with all my employees. Not one of them has ever had it this good before. They don't want their comfortable lifestyle to be ruined, and they are aware that my skills are all that ensure their continued employment."

"I understand," Myrmeen said.

"All I want from you is the promise that the next time you have business in Calimport, you will come to me first."

Myrmeen reached out and shook Pieraccinni's hand. "You have my word."

"And you have your daughter. May your life with her be as rewarding as it will be interesting."

Walking to the door, Myrmeen stopped midway. "That sounds like a warning. Do you know something I don't?"

"I have five sons and two daughters," Pieraccinni said. "Believe me when I say you are embarking on your most challenging and perilous adventure yet."

Myrmeen knocked twice and the doors swung outward. She left Pieraccinni's chamber without another word. The doors slammed shut behind her. The boy, Alden, appeared from a secret doorway at the other end of Pieraccinni's room. He hurried inside, rushing to the bald man's desk.