6.2

The Citadel was a massive, stone fortress perched upon a hill overlooking the town of Grogan. The imposing structure dominated the landscape for miles around. It was a den of well-ordered activity with countless troops garrisoned there. The Karteian battle colors fluttered above the gate.

As the mounted party rode into the fortress, a squadron marching through the yard ceremonially saluted their arriving leader. The prince dismounted and inspected his forces. A general stood at attention.

Zyrdicia climbed off her horse and pulled her pouch out of the saddle along with her weapons. She was in no mood the prince's power displays with his army. In her opinion the day was a prime example of the dull and irritating nature of Zyr's errands. She wanted to be in Lyr dealing with gnomes not riding around upon stinking beasts in the glaring sun.

"Welcome, Lord Blackpool!" the general bowed.

"General. I am pleased everything appears to be as I ordered. Did two men arrive earlier with my lightening hawks?"

"Yes, Your Highness. The cook has prepared them. He awaits your word to serve you whenever it is convenient."

"Good. I wish to dine in my chambers in one hour." Dirk turned to Zyrdicia. "You will join me."

"Here we go again. I'm really not in the mood to play right now."

The prince glared at her. "Nor am I, I assure you. I will send for you in one hour."

***

The fortress was dank and spartan. Its purpose was strictly military. It lacked the fine appointments and creature comforts of Castle Blackpool. Zyrdicia's room was small and austere. It felt like a musty barracks. The space did nothing to improve her mood.

She was relieved Portia had suggested bringing the magic pouch. She was, after all, accustomed to a certain luxuries. The pouch had been a clever magical solution to the discomfort of long, outdoor adventures. With the pouch, campaigning through rugged wilderness was no more inconvenient than staying at a well-appointed hunting lodge. It would work just as well to make her stay in this stone box bearable.

She unfolded the pouch upon itself in the middle of the room. A short stairway appeared in the magical space produced by the magic item's activation. At the top of the stairs glowed a purple doorway. She ascended and immediately retrieved an armful of soft, black silk pillows and matching luxurious bedding from the chamber beyond the portal. She summoned an invisible, enchanted servant to change the bed and make the little room livable while she retreated into the nether space behind the door.

She closed the portal and locked it. Inside, she could finally relax in a space which met her aesthetic expectations. The posh suite of nether rooms was finer than most palaces. It had been freshly stocked with her clothes and other necessities.

Portia had left a note in the entry way next to a bag of coins: "I had Cai convert some gold ingots into the coin of the realm, should you have need. They call the currency 'kolnas.' FYI--they cut their gold with at least 40% copper, and they don't trade in plats."

Ever practical Portia. No platinum coins and adulterated gold, Zyrdicia thought, they must be poor indeed. It certainly eliminated the possibility that there was any interplanar trade going on here. The land must be totally isolated if they still used such antiquated currency.

She pulled off her dusty clothes and submerged herself in a marble pool of steaming, scented water. She let the water cleanse the day's irritation from her psyche as she bathed. While she relaxed, she lost track of time, tuning out the world outside. She dressed slowly and leisurely, sipping a glass of her favorite wine as she did so.

Sleeping in the extra-dimensional space was out of the question. She feared someone might fold it up and trap her inside. Sleep was going to be a problem in any case, until Portia returned. Enough time had passed since the last confrontation with Azriok that she fully expected him to harass her at any opportunity. He would be furious at being confined to Tenaebra. Better to stay awake.

As she relaxed, she felt Portia nudge at her thoughts.

"Zyrdicia, are you OK?"

"Of course I am. I am hideously bored. I am frustrated at not being in Lyr. Other than that, I'm fine. Why?"

"Serious shit is happening here. Don't even think of coming back right now. If you go anywhere, go back to the cloud dimension and lock the gate behind you."

Her home in the aerial world of clouds had been designed to be almost impervious to magical entry. It could be reached only through a single point in the entry way, and the palace's creator had outfitted that point with a mechanism to shut out visitors entirely. When the mechanism was locked, no one could gate into or out of the cloud by any means. It was a security precaution she rarely needed. That Portia suggested using it was worrisome.

"Tell me what's going on."

"First, the day after we left, Magnus left a half dozen messages at the Temple for you. Gropius put a contract on your head. He illegally went outside the Assassin's Guild to do it, or Magnus would have known sooner."

"How much?"

"3 million plats. Magnus said he's never heard of a non-Guild contract for so much money."

"So, which leprechaun did the gnome knock over to get that kind of cash?"

"Stop joking. This is serious. Magnus has no control over it since it's outside the Guild. He's pissed."

"Portia, I've had more contracts on my head over the years than I can count. Magnus takes them seriously because he's the Assassin Guildmaster. He has to. His father was the same way. But please remind him, it's about GNOMES. They'd need a ladder to stab me in the back."

Lyr had an ancient, complex tradition involving blood contracts. With the exception of the years in which the Crusaders ruled the city, there had always been a legally chartered Assassin Guild. It was considered an honorable, necessary institution for solving personal grievances. Blood contracts were governed by a strict, sometimes convoluted system of common law. Going outside the Guild to arrange such contracts was considered a dangerous, desperate activity.

Magnus had only recently taken control of the Guild, following the death of his father, Arcus, the former Guildmaster. Zyrdicia and Arcus had been friends for decades. In her youth, she had once prevented his execution during the last days of the city's occupation. Later she helped him with the funding to re-charter the Guild after its closure by the Crusaders. She had introduced Arcus to Magnus' mother, and had always been close to the family.

Now that Magnus was grown, he was one of her favorite people in Lyr. He was a close ally on the Governing Council. Outside of his professional responsibilities, the young assassin had a devilish sense of humor that thoroughly delighted Zyrdicia. Zyrdicia and Magnus frequently met in the Red Zone in Lyr to drink and laugh. Such meetings tended to result in the powerful pair causing chaos for those they found annoying or bothersome.

On one such night, they had spawned a scheme to plunder a sacred artifact from the gnome temple in Tiny Town for no reason other than their personal amusement. Tiny Town was the common name for a district on the outskirts Lyr properly known as "Demidorf." It housed the city's beleaguered gnome, dwarf and halfling populations. The wee folk traditionally suffered considerable abuse at the hands of the city's larger human population.

For reasons unknown, some months ago the Lyrian burghers developed a taste for garden gnome statuary to decorate their elaborate, tropical gardens. As was typical of the city, the trend quickly escalated out of control. People lost interest in standard works of stone and clay. They preferred more life-like statues created by magically entrapping real gnomes in stone. The genuine, frightened expressions were considered fashionable conversation pieces for hedonistic garden parties. A few unscrupulous spell-casters reputedly made a small fortune entrapping the hapless wee ones.

Zyrdicia recently had re-opened the wondrous, eerie Temple gardens in the Old City after many years of renovation. Magnus observed that her Temple, of all places, really should have better statuary than the city's common residents. That led to the idea of stealing a very holy icon of a gnome warrior god out of its shrine in Tiny Town, in order to move it to the Temple gardens. She had a statue of herself quickly cast with a boot resting triumphantly on the little god's head.

Gropius, the gnome chieftain, had been furious at the blasphemy, though the city's taller residents generally had a good laugh at the display. Anti-Big-People riots raged through Tiny Town for a few weeks. Eventually the gnomes managed to steal the statue back, and that was the end of the affair. Zyrdicia had expected some sort of vindictive play eventually. A death contract was a bit more than she had anticipated.

Portia suggested hopefully, "By custom, you can void a non-Guild contract by paying Gropius twice the contract price in order to right the alleged wrong."

"I'll pay him back with blood shed. I'll exterminate the entire gnome population in Lyr for this. There was no wrong. The action was humorous. Ask Magnus."

"His sense of humor is as demented as yours is in such things."

"Whatever. I'll think about how I'm going to deal with Gropius and the rest of the gnome population. What else is going on?"

"A hell of a lot."

"Well, start going down the list."

"Azros is dead."

"Azriok's high priest?"

"Yes."

"He's ancient. He was bound to die soon."

"Zyrdicia, he was attacked on the open street by FIFTY Fosfor Demons. They appeared out of a purple gate and ripped him to shreds."

The news stunned Zyrdicia. Zyr was the only Sephiroth who used Fosfor Demons as executioners. The purple gate also pointed to his magic. She could make no sense of it.

Zyrdicia had a long history with Azros. After she had banished Azriok from the material world, the Sephiroth had charged his then-youthful high priest in Lyr with the task of keeping an eye on Zyrdicia. When she was younger and less adept at using her power, she frequently stumbled into situations in which her life was genuinely endangered. Azros had an uncanny knack for appearing and getting her out of difficulty. As irritating as she often found it, the high priest's protective attention had been useful back then. As she had grown into her power, her contact with him had decreased steadily. It had been years since she had last spoken to him. It was inconceivable that Zyr would want to eliminate him. The mere idea of it made her shudder.

"Dare I ask what else?"

"It's worse than that. Just hours before Azros was killed, he went to see Phillip. Azros was desperately trying to find you. He told Phillip he needed to warn you, that you were in some sort of danger. He wouldn't tell Phillip what it was about. Now Phillip is begging me to meet with you. The Azros thing has him very spooked. He thinks something serious is up between Zyr and Azriok. Phillip is convinced you are in the middle of it. And if that isn't enough to chew on, he says the University archaeologists you let down in the Temple catacombs found a tablet with a new version of the Prophecy."

"The Prophecy is a fraud. Phillip is a demonologist by trade, so he's based his career on interpreting such nonsense. He pays too much attention to it. If it's a new version, that just means someone rewrote it to try to make my life fit into it since the old one was obviously wrong."

"This version is in the original Tenaebran. You and your Sephiroth friends are the only ones who could have composed something like this. And it damned sure didn't come from you."

"Who has it?"

"Phillip took it and locked it up in a vault at the University. He's started translating, but he's slow. He said it's different."

"How?"

"He won't tell me. He won't talk to anybody about what it says. He's waiting for you. He's pretty upset. I told him you think this trip to Aparans is some sort of game of Zyr's and he freaked out. He told me to tell you to please be careful. He never acts like this."

"I need you to have Phillip look up a name in the University's demonological records for me. See if he can find any reference at all about a woman named 'Saxarba.' I'm positive it's a Zyr-manifestation."

"Where?"

"Here. A long time ago. I found a statue under Castle Blackpool."

"Do you have a clue as to what is going on?"

"Not even remotely. Zyr and Azriok are both trapped in Tenaebra. They have nothing to do but conspire against each other. It stands to reason that they would drag me into it. If I could still talk to Azriok, he would probably tell me."

"You aren't seriously thinking of that, are you?"

"I couldn't if I wanted to. Trapping him in Tenaebra severed our telepathic connection. He is probably angry enough at me right now that it is probably better that I can't talk to him."

"The fact remains that he was using Azros to try to warn you about something. Maybe his concern is overriding his anger."

"Doesn't matter. Did you talk to Detlev about the elfin history?"

"Yep. It's going to take a while. He has no idea what Aparans would have been called in their tongue two thousand years ago. He'll let me know when he finds anything."

"Portia, stay in Lyr for now. I need you there. Too much is happening."

"How are you going to sleep?"

"I'm fine for now. I'll let you know if I get desperate. I'm good for a few more days. Let me know if anything more transpires."

Zyrdicia sighed. The gnome problem was trivial. She would figure out a way to wipe out the entire population of Tiny Town, and that would be the end of it. The assassination of Azros, however, unnerved her.

Gating fifty demons into the material world was no small feat of magic for a trapped Sephiroth. She was bothered that he chose to do it at a time when she was conveniently outside of the city. Azros' only purpose in life had been to protect her in Azriok's absence. She didn't think the man was capable of deviating from that path. That Zyr needed to eliminate this role profoundly disturbed her. She felt exhausted just pondering it.

She focussed her mind and drew the flow of Tenaebran energy she used for magic into her body. The flow energized her and temporarily eliminated the need for sleep. It also rekindled her appetite for destruction. She needed to kill, soon.

When her world careened out of control, killing soothed her nerves like nothing else. She needed it now. As soon as she acknowledged the hunger, it exploded into a ravenous ache inside her.

Looking at herself in the mirror of her dressing table, she smiled when she saw the familiar, unintended side effect of the Tenaebran energy flow. Her eyes glowed as though lit from behind with a violet light. Her skin radiated an unholy glamour as the Sephiroth vigor coursed through her body. The energy was strangely calming, though the sensation did nothing to assuage her bloodlust.

She considered taking a brief excursion to Grogan . Surely the deaths of a few dozen inhabitants wouldn't raise any eyebrows. It certainly wouldn't in Lyr. If need be, she could make the deaths seem the result of a wild beast's attack. Ripping out entrails always seemed to make people think of animals. It lacked the elegance and artistry of some of her preferred murder methods, but it would do.

"Where are you?" The irritated thought from Prince Blackpool interrupted her thoughts of carnage. She regretted her earlier telepathic lesson to him severely at this moment. The arrogant twit now had a means of bothering her at will, unless she blocked him from her mind entirely.

She took a long sip of wine. She had forgotten about dining with him. His response to her current appearance would be interesting. He had seen it once before, on the evening when they first met but she hadn't used the energy since then.

"I suppose I'm late already?" The question was calm and unhurried.

"Obviously. Where are you?"

"Are you asking because you are concerned or annoyed?"

"BOTH."

If someone were pounding on the other side of the magical door, she would never hear it. The nether space was perfectly insulated from commotion. She sighed. It was tempting to say to hell with this entire endeavor right now. She could gate herself home, then deal with her problems there systematically. She could simply tell Zyr to find someone else to fulfil with his meaningless mission.

She looked at herself in the mirror again. Who am I kidding, she thought. She needed the Annihilation Spheres Zyr promised to give her at this errand's end. Any favors she did for him always resulted in some sort of magical gift. The sword, dagger and mail coat were all examples of his generosity. She was addicted to the power such presents always carried. There was also always the chance he would restrict her access to the energy she used for her magic if she refused him. Such a restriction could prove to be catastrophic. She doubted he would ever actually do it, but the mere possibility made her blood run cold, especially in light of recent events.

Finally, she answered the prince. "I'll be there in a few minutes."

"You didn't answer my question. The messenger I sent to fetch you came back terrified. I came to your room myself then, only to find invisible ghosts moving domestic goods around in your chambers and some sort of magic portal in the middle of the room. Where are you?"

"On the other side of that doorway, of course. I'll be out in a moment."

She took another sip of wine, still admiring herself in the mirror. Her braids were still damp. She pulled them back off her shoulders loosely with a purple ribbon. Pulling her hair back only amplified the effect of her glowing eyes. As she moved toward the door, she picked up an unopened bottle of the wine from the case Portia had tucked inside a cabinet.

She opened the portal. He was waiting for her at the bottom of the staircase, arms crossed irritably. She remained in the shadow of the doorway for a moment, then descended. His facial expression did not change when she came into view, though she thought she noticed his eyes widen slightly.

She smiled. "Good evening. I'm afraid I lost track of time."

"Hi." His eyes searched her face, trying to determine the nature of the unsettling change. "You are the only woman in the realm that would dare to keep me waiting. It is intolerable." He sounded angry.

She considered snapping back at him, but she found the idea of another argument unappealing in her current state of mind. She might very well kill him. She chose to ignore the bait.

Her tone was soft when she answered him. "I'm also the only one who can. Besides, it's not that I intended to be rude. I have absolutely no concept of time." She handed him the wine bottle. "Maybe this will make up for the delay."

Her failure to respond with venom surprised him more than the wine. He was poised for verbal sparring, not pleasant excuses. The tactic caught him off his guard.

"And what have we here?" He took the bottle and glanced at the label. The label was violet upon black glass. It bore only a silver, embossed image identical to the dagger she wore at her neck, with the phrase "ANNO 2057" inscribed below it.

"The winery only produces 200 bottles in any particular year. That is one of the best years in a century. Only a handful of cases still exist."

"Come, then, let's go enjoy it with dinner. I'm famished." She wrapped her hand around his forearm, pleased that she had diffused the anger so easily. Manipulating him was becoming easier. She wondered whether perhaps he was slightly subdued by her appearance.

As they walked he asked, "This winery, the symbol on the label matches your pendant. Does it have a meaning?"

"It historically represented my father. I usurped it when I took control of the Temple in Lyr and declared myself its primary object of adoration." Her voice was flat and disinterested.

The smile escaped his lips before he could arrest it. "Surely you didn't"

A small, impatient frown crossed her face. "Of course I did."

"That didn't offend the demon king?"

"Sephiroth. Not in the least. Human worship is insignificant to such entities."

"Whereas I imagine you revel in it."

"Souls and sacrifices are more to my liking than pigs and peasants." There was no laughter or mirth in her answer. She was saying as little as possible to keep from being drawn into a lengthy conversation. Her thoughts were elsewhere. Her head was pounding with the need for bloodshed.

They reached the door to his chambers. She noticed servants cleaning blood from the floor in the hallway outside it. She was certain it was the messenger he had sent for her. She didn't inquire and tried not to let her gaze linger. The smell of it only made her need more acute.

He opened the door. His hand grazed her back as he ushered her inside. In her current frame of mind, it irritated her, though she said nothing. She had no interest in either arguments or amusing repartee. She had even less interest in flirtatious, ill-fated mind games in this mental state. In fact, the entire interaction struck her as pointless right now.

A table had already been set. Despite the fortress' apparent lack of comfort, the setting was elegant and formal. His chambers appeared to be the only rooms in the Citadel which boasted a sense of spaciousness or luxury.

He pulled out a chair for her and gestured for her to sit. She resisted the urge to mock him. He uncorked the bottle and filled their glasses while servants brought in silver covered trays of food and set about serving the pair. The roasted lightning hawk smelled delicious. Despite its enticing aroma, she was not in the least bit hungry. The Tenaebran energy sustained her and crushed any appetite she might have had for food.

After the servants had departed he raised his glass, "To the impending fall of Tronin and the slaughter of its defenders."

She humored him. Yes, she thought, to the end of this charade and my return to civilization and more important matters. She watched him taste the wine.

"It's wonderful. It's like velvet on the tongue. What does the wine have to do with the symbol you wear?"

"I own the winery."

"How quaint. Another of your businesses?"

"Not at all. There is no profit in it. There isn't enough of it to sell. I chose to acquire the winery because it used to be almost impossible to procure the wine on the open market--at any price. It was annoying." She watched him take another sip. "The undertone of flavor is human blood. The casks are flushed with it before the wine ages. Be careful of the sediment in the bottom of the bottle. Someone died so that you could enjoy it."

"How noble." He set the glass down. "It's located near your city?"

"No, it's located on an otherwise uninhabited volcanic island. I had to buy the island to get the winery."

"You purchased an island in order to procure a few bottles of wine?"

"Absolutely. When I want something, I acquire it."

As they dined, he observed her very carefully. She was preoccupied with thoughts of the events in Lyr and the need to kill. Finally he said, "You've hardly taken a bite. You move the food around on your plate. Does it displease you?"

"The food is fine. Quite good actually. I'm just not hungry."

"You should eat more. You are too thin."

He had unknowingly hit upon one of the subjects that irritated her as few things did. The fact of the matter was that she probably could eat mountains of food and it would have no effect. She could also starve herself with little effect. Her body was designed to be lean and sinuous like a predator's. Consequently, she had an apathetic relationship with food - much like air, it was an inconvenient necessity.

"If my body isn't to your liking, you needn't stare or touch it so frequently." Her voice was quiet as she spoke. There was no malice or provocation in it. It was a simple statement of fact.

Despite her tone, his eyes flashed angrily. He said nothing. An angry silence settled over the table. She preferred the silence to having to talk to him at the moment. She could think more clearly.

The servants finally cleared her plate. They brought out a silver bowl containing some sort of berry dish. As its steam rose in the air, she detected the slightest whiff of almonds. She frowned, sniffing again. She struggled to separate the single aroma from the scent of the food, wondering whether she might have imagined it. The unmistakable smell of bitter almond caught her attention a second time. Her nose was sensitive enough to detect many poisons, and this one was obvious to her now that she caught the scent.

She considered not telling him. His death would certainly eliminate the need to continue to stay in Aparans. Unfortunately, given the current state of affairs with Zyr, she was uncertain as to her father's reaction. Despite her early claims to the prince, Zyr wanted the prince alive for the errand.

She loathed the need to tell him. Seeing him writhe in agony and die would suit her current mood wonderfully. She waited until he lifted a spoon toward his mouth. "The food is laced with poison."

He froze. His eyes narrowed. "How do you know?"

"I can smell it. I've used a gaseous form of one that smells very much like it often enough to recognize it. I'm certain."

The prince set the utensil down. He called a servant over and bid him to taste the dish. Within seconds the servant began choking and gasping for air. He fell to the floor and thrashed about violently. He suffered painfully for a few minutes as the pair sitting at the table watched silently. As his life force departed, a ghostly, pale blue stain materialized upon his lips.

The death only made Zyrdicia's need to kill more pronounced. There was no fun in watching it if she didn't cause it. The poison's smell and effect were close enough to the form of cyanide she sometimes used to pique her interest. Properly administered, the substance could be released into the air, killing entire rooms full of people. She found this attempt to use it as an ingestive poison to be rather clumsy.

"Guards!" The prince bellowed. He looked furious. "Seize every servant who had access to this food! The entire kitchen staff! Close the gates and let no one leave the compound! Lock every servant down in the dungeon until I can interrogate them. I'll kill every one of them if need be." The troop of guards scurried off.

Zyrdicia tried to resist the urge to roll her eyes. The knee jerk reaction was a waste of time. She had been involved with her assassin friends in enough political assassinations to be certain of it. "Whoever did it is going to be long gone. It would be stupid to wait around to get caught--even if it had been successful. Check and see who has left the grounds within the last hour."

She thought a moment. It was a perfect opportunity. She could not care less about the assassin, but it was a convenient excuse to disappear for a few hours and feed her craving. "My guess is they went to hide in Grogan and wait for word of your demise. I'll go explore a few minds in town while you play with your servants."

"Grogan is a dangerous community, full of riffraff. Do not leave without an escort."

She smiled and considered just how dangerous it was about to become. "No, they would slow me down. I'll be more effective on my own. Lyr has the meanest streets in the material world. I'm more dangerous than anything lurking in darkened alleyways." She disappeared before he had a chance to answer.

The sun had just set. She returned to her room to change clothes and properly pull back her hair. She grabbed a thin, hooded cloak to ward off the evening breeze. She missed the warm, humid night air in Lyr. She shrouded herself in invisibility and departed from the fortress unnoticed.

Despite the town's small size, the streets of Grogan were alive with activity. As she watched the sea of faces passing her, she was overwhelmed by her choice of victims. She wanted to kill all of them at once. She relinquished the invisibility and pulled her hood up over her head. Her glowing eyes made her more conspicuous than she would have liked. As people passed, she studied their faces.

In the center of the town, a circus group had set up shop in the main square. She noticed a performer walking across a bed of hot coals. She could not resist the temptation. She stared at the embers beneath his feet and caused them flare up violently. He screamed as fire bathed his body. As he moved about the bed of coals, the magical fire followed him. He fell out of the box onto the square's paving stones. The crowd gasped as the purple fire leapt out of the box to pursue him. When the fire subsided, only a charred corpse remained.

She moved silently through the shocked crowd. Her attention settled on the performance space of a knife thrower. He flung his blades expertly at a young woman poised dramatically against a wooden background. He outlined her pretty frame in knives to the delight of the onlookers. As lovely as the fire had been, Zyrdicia knew that blood would be more fulfilling.

As the knife thrower began his next performance, he sent a volley of three daggers flying in rapid succession. The hooded spectator caused the blades to move off-course in the air. The first blade severed the woman's carotid artery, causing blood to spurt out violently from her neck. The second blade landed in the middle of her forehead. The final one pierced her heart. The crowd gasped for a second time. All eyes stared at the horror-stricken knife thrower.

His shock turned to terror when he saw the knives move out from the dead girl's body of their own accord. All three blades flew through the air with lightning speed, piercing the terrified man exactly in the same manner as the girl. Zyrdicia sighed, impressed with her own telekinetic artistry. A few torture troopers watching the mayhem sniggered uncomfortably.

The performance area was awash in a growing pool of blood, as both corpses emptied their vital fluids onto the pavement. The area near the bodies was already sticky. The crowd moved away quickly. The townspeople who witnessed the event grabbed their children and hurried toward their homes. No one knew who was directing the carnage, but everyone sensed the danger.

Zyrdicia surrendered to the hunger now. The need for subtlety and subterfuge vanished in her mind as she watched the retreating crowd. Single victims simply were not enough. Without moving, she blocked their route out of the square with a wall of purple flame.

The wall gave her an idea. She first counted the bodies in the little throng. Sixteen, including children. That would bring today's total to nineteen. She invoked a second wall, this time of stone. It appeared horizontally above the heads of the panicked little crowd. An instant later it fell upon the innocent spectators, crushing their bodies beneath its weight.

The plaza became silent. She watched a trickle of gore seep out from beneath the fallen stone. She then dispelled the wall so that she could better appreciate her work. Bodies were scarcely recognizable. The smashing force mangled most beyond recognition. She inhaled the scent of death and sighed in relief at the sight of the crimson pulp and crushed bone fragments. Her mood was already improving. There was now no one left in the square. The circus troop disappeared inside nearby wagons. She considered hurling the wagons against the nearby buildings, but decided against it. There was little fun to be had if she could not see those inside actually die. The notion of merely imagining their terror inside the wooden boxes frustrated her. She needed to see the suffering.

She started walking. The streets emptied rapidly. The only commotion in town came from the vicinity of a tavern. From a darkened doorway across the street, she watched it for a while. Its primary patrons seemed to be Blackpool's soldiers. She found this inconvenient. Given that these very warriors would probably be used in the assault on Tronin, killing them seemed inappropriate.

She detected something moving about in a nearby alley and followed the sound, hoping it was more than a stray cat. She stayed in the shadows and watched a small man sneaking down the pathway ahead of her. He looked over his shoulder nervously, but failed to see his pursuer. She listened to his thoughts.

"That asshole better have the rest of the money. The whole friggin' army is going to be looking for me once word gets out."

She probed deeper, wishing she could see his eyes. It was very dark. His stumbling footsteps told her he was having trouble without a light source. He stopped at an intersection in the alleyway. A second taller figure appeared from the adjoining alley. The newcomer carried a hooded lantern.

"Do you got my money?" the little man asked impatiently.

"In time. Did you accomplish the task?" the second figure asked.

"I don't have time for this crap, sir. I got to get the hell out of town before they put two and two together. I did what you asked. Poison in the dessert. Then I left."

"You didn't stay to see the body?"

"Hell no! I got out as quick as I could."

"Was the Wizard with him when the poison was served?"

"How do I know? I wasn't there. Nobody's seen the Wizard in a while though. Word is Blackpool had some female sidekick with him the past few days. Damned pretty face, I hear."

"Who is she?"

"I have no idea. I heard a rumor she tells him off and gets away with it. I'm guessing it's not true. Can I have my money, please?"

Zyrdicia forced her way into each man's mind. The little fellow was a small-time criminal. The other one, however, was something more. He was acting on the behalf of a commander in a movement of some sort. Blue Thorn. She had no idea why the image jumped at her in relation to the movement. The details were buried in random, useless thoughts strewn about his unordered mind.

The money changed hands. She froze both men in place with magic. It was absurd to her that her hunt for murder victims had yielded assassins instead. She looked at the larger man's face carefully, pressing her gloved palms against his cheeks.

She focussed on the image of the Blue Thorn, trying to get the details of the plot nearer the surface of his mind. As she stole his thoughts, she learned that the movement was the name of a rebellion, a revival of an ancient movement to free the people of Karteia from the yoke of tyranny. A handful of the country's more enlightened nobility supported and orchestrated it.

The man did not know the name of the nobleman he worked for, the person responsible for ordering for the assassination. Everyone involved operated by code names. He could provide no further details. She shrugged it off as petty local politics. It had nothing to do with Zyr's errand.

She summoned her sword and decapitated both paralyzed men in a single, effortless stroke. She smiled, "And that would make twenty-one tonight, for a grand total of 25,007." The new number took some of the bitter edge off of the hunger, but she still yearned for more.

Destroying the entire town seemed be imprudent. Weighing prudence against her need to kill took every bit of will power she could muster. Sating her appetite would have to wait, though it couldn't be put off for long. The more she dwelled on the situation with Zyr and Azriok, the more she needed to wreak havoc.