Bareris reflexively raised a hand to touch his tangled, sweaty locks. "Curse it!" Like any Mulan who hadn't spent the last several years in foreign lands, the Red Wizards uniformly employed razors, depilatories, or magic to keep themselves bald as stones.

Wesk pulled his knife from its sheath. "I don't suppose you can truly shave without lather and such, but I can shear your hair very short, and the robe has a cowl. Keep it pulled up and maybe you'll pass."

The gnoll proved to be about as gentle a barber as Bareris had expected. He yanked hard on the strands of hair, and the knife stung as it sawed them away. Bareris had no doubt it was nicking him.

"Gnolls take scalps for trophies sometimes," said Wesk. "You make the first cut like this." He laid the edge of his knife against Bareris's forehead just below the hairline.

"I had a hunch that was what you were doing," Bareris replied, and Wesk laughed his crazy, bestial laugh.

When the gnoll finished, Bareris brushed shorn hair off his shoulders and chest, put on the scarlet robe over his brigandine and breeches, then donned his cloak and sword belt. He hoped he could get away with wearing a sword. Though it wasn't common, he'd seen other Red Wizards do the same. But he realized with regret that he'd have to leave his yarting behind. The musical instrument would simply be too unusual and distinctive.

He handed it to Wesk. "Take this. It's not a ruby, but it'll fetch a good price."

The gnoll archer grinned. "Maybe I'll keep it and learn to play."

"Thank you all for your help. Now clear out of here. Try to be far away by daybreak."

"Good hunting, human. It was good to be a soldier again, even if our army was very small."

The gnolls stalked toward the exit. Singing softly, Bareris headed for the arch.

chapter nine

30 Mirtul-1 Kythorn, the Year of Risen Elfkin

For the briefest of instants, the universe shattered into meaningless sparks and smears of light, and Bareris felt as if he were plummeting. Then his stride carried him clear of the portal, and his lead foot landed on a surface just as solid and level as the floor in Horus-Re's holy of holies. But because his body had believed it was falling, he lurched off balance and had to take a quick step to catch himself.

Seeking to orient himself as rapidly as possible, he peered around. He was in another stone chamber, this one lit by the wavering greenish light of the sort of enchanted torch that burned forever without the heatless flames consuming the wood. It didn't look as though Mulhorandi had built this room. Its trapezoidal shape, the square doorways, and the odd zigzag carvings framing them were markedly different than the architecture of his ancestors or any other culture he knew of.

The portal was a white stone arch on this side too, identical to its counterpart. Armed with spears and scimitars, wearing cyclopean-skull-and-four-pointed-star badges that likely proclaimed their fealty to one Red Wizard or another, a pair of blood orcs were standing guard over it. They eyed Bareris curiously.

Their scrutiny gave the bard a twinge of fear. Indeed, it inspired a witless urge to whip his sword from its scabbard and try to strike the sentries down before they could raise an alarm. He raked them with a haughty stare instead.

They straightened up as much as their stooped race ever did, thrust out their lances with the shafts perpendicular to their extended arms, drew them back, and pounded the butts on the floor. It was a salute, and Bareris breathed a sigh of relief that he'd deceived the first creatures he'd encountered anyway.

One guard, afflicted with a runny walleye that rendered it even homelier than the common run of orc, looked back at the portal expectantly. When no one else emerged, it asked, "No slaves this time, Master?"

"No," Bareris said. "I traveled on ahead carrying word of how many you're getting and when. It should help with the planning." He hoped his improvisation made at least a little sense.

The orc's mouth twisted. "You need to see the whelp, then."

The whelp? What in the name of the Binder's quill did that mean? "The one in charge," he said warily.

The orc nodded. "That Xingax thing. The whelp is what we call it." It hesitated. "Maybe we shouldn't, but it's not one of you masters. It's… what it is."

"I understand," Bareris said, wishing it were true. "Where is it?"

"Somewhere up top. That'll take you up." The orc used its spear to point to a staircase behind one of the square doorways.

Bareris started to say thank you, until it occurred to him that the average Red Wizard probably didn't bother showing courtesy to ores. "Got it." He turned away.

"Master?"

Breathing more quickly, fearful he'd betrayed himself somehow, the bard pivoted back around. "What?"

"I don't mean to bother you. I wouldn't, except you haven't been here before, have you? I understand you're a wizard, and ten times wiser than the likes of me, but you know to protect yourself before you go close to Xingax, don't you?"

"Of course," Bareris lied, wondering what sort of protection would serve and hoping he wouldn't need it. Given the choice, he'd steer well clear of "the whelp," whatever it was.

He discovered that the room above the arch connected to a series of catwalks that apparently allowed one to make a full circuit of the various lofts and balconies without ever descending to the more extensive and contiguous system of chambers and corridors comprising the primary level below. Unlike the rest of the stronghold, the walkways appeared to be of recent construction, and it seemed plain the Red Wizards-or rather, their servants-had expended a fair amount of effort building them, which was odd, considering that Bareris didn't see anyone else moving around up here.

Peculiar or not, their vacancy was a blessing. It allowed him to explore without venturing near to anyone who might penetrate his disguise, and in time he came to suspect the advantage was essential. Viewed up close, his face might have betrayed horror and disgust no matter how he tried to conceal them.

He soon concluded from the complete absence of windows that he was underground. Stinking of incense and carrion, the chilly vaults felt old, perhaps even older than Delhumide, and like the haunted city, breathed an aura of perversity and danger. Unlike Delhumide, however, the catacombs bustled with activity. Necromancers chanted over corpses and skeletons, which then clambered to their feet, the newly made zombies clumsily, the bone men with clinking agility. Warriors drilled the undead in the use of mace and spear, just as if the creatures were youths newly recruited into the legions. Ghouls practiced charging on command to shred straw dummies with fang and claw. A half dozen shadows listened as, its face a carnival of oozing, eyeless rot beneath its raised visor, a corpse armored in plate expounded on strategy and tactics.

Anyone but a necromancer would likely have found it ghastly, but it was inexplicable as well. The Red Wizards were free to turn their slaves into undead men-at-arms if they so desired. They created such monstrosities all the time. Thus, Bareris wondered anew: Why the secrecy?

Though he still didn't care. Not really. All that mattered was spiriting Tammith away from this nightmarish place before her captors could alter her.

He refused to entertain the notion that perhaps they already had until he found his way to a platform overlooking a crypt housing dozens of listless, skinny, ragged folk with the whip scars and unshorn hair of thralls. Bareris scrutinized them all in turn, then peered into every empty shadow and corner, and none of the prisoners was Tammith.