Title: Blood
Author: Loren Cooper
Last saved by: Cooper, Loren W
Company: Hewlett-Packard

About 15,000 words                                                                       Loren W.  Cooper
DISPOSABLE                                                                               2010 17^th SW
                                                                                                       Albany, Oregon 97321
								       Aldreyth@Juno.com

The Blood Of Memory

Loren W.  Cooper

Matthias

Chapter One

	A knife kissed Matthias’ throat as he lay sleeping.  He opened his eyes to the darkness of his hostess’ bedroom, sensibly refraining from moving any other part of his body.  Blood hammered through his veins, hot under the skin of his throat, the sharp edge of the knife cold above that.  Never had Matthias been so sensitive to the life carried in the heat of his blood as when all that separated him from death was the quick twist of an unfriendly wrist.  
	Matthias didn’t move.  He didn’t see any options at that time.  Sleep still fogging his senses, the moment had the unreal touch of a dream.
	Tiny streams of moonlight dribbled through the closed shutters, illuminating the room just enough to backlight the dark silhouette stooping over him.  He heard a sharp gasp as the bed rocked to a quick movement.  Loud, ragged breathing followed.  Matthias understood then that his assailant had not come alone.
	The silhouette stooped until the slick fabric of a silk mask touched Matthias face.  “Get your clothes.  Dress quickly.  Make no sound.  The woman’s safety lies in your hands.”  Lips brushed his ear through the mask as the words were hissed.  
	The silhouette straightened, lifting the knife from his throat.  The knife disappeared into a sheath.  
	Matthias turned his head.  Another dark figure stood at the other side of the bed.  One gloved hand twisted in Marie’s long, dark hair.  The other hand clamped over her mouth.  Marie’s eyes were huge in the trickling moonlight.
	Mathias swung his legs carefully over the edge of the bed and sat up slowly.  He stood, the coverlet dropping away, the air of the room cool against his skin.  He had no thought for his nakedness as his assailant held up a cautionary finger, stooped, and threw him the shirt he had so casually discarded earlier in the night.  As he dressed, each new piece of clothing came to him from the gloved hand of his attacker.  
	As he pulled on the soft doeskin moccasins he had recently taken to wearing for comfort, his assailant produced a short length of cord and pointed at his hands.  Matthias considered his opportunity for resistance, then glanced back at Marie.  Tears streamed silently down her cheeks.  Sighing, he held out his hands.  His captor put his hands together at the palms, then bound him swiftly and efficiently at thumbs and wrists.  The cord felt like silk, pulled firmly but not cruelly tight.  As he was bound, Matthias stared down at the top of a bent, hooded head.  His captor was small, perhaps half a foot shorter than himself and slightly built.  
	His captor pulled him forward by his hands and stepped aside.  As he continued past, he felt a hand drop lightly to one shoulder, guiding him with gentle pressure.  His guide’s other hand, he felt certain, did not stray far from the hilt of the knife.  Matthias allowed himself to be directed to the summer doors that led to the bedroom’s back balcony.  He fumbled at the latch with his bound hands, and pushed the doors open.  Bright moonlight lanced into his eyes, and he flinched.  Pressure on his shoulder urged him forward.  
	He hesitated, turned back to check on Marie.  His captor’s partner was straightening, one finger pointing at Marie.  She lay back against the satin pillowcase, her hand held to her mouth, weeping silently.  A push came at his shoulder, and he walked out to the balcony.  He heard footsteps follow after, and felt a second hand fall on his other shoulder.  Together his captors guided him down the stairs leading down from the balcony and into the garden.
	Paths of white, black, and red stone wound through the grounds.  Matthias allowed himself to be guided down the white path, cut marble gleaming in the moonlight.  He heard the stamp and soft whicker of the horses even before he saw them waiting.  
	He smiled in spite of his position at Marie’s outrage once she discovered that someone had tied horses in the midst of her formal gardens.  Then he lost his smile.  At least, it would have been amusing if Marie had any outrage left after dealing with the fear of having her home invaded.  If she had not sent the servants home, would they have been so vulnerable?  Would the servants have been able to give warning?  Would their presence have frightened the kidnappers away?
	Another question occurred to him then, though he immediately banished it from the forefront of his awareness: had Marie set him up for abduction?
	The larger of his two captors helped him up on one of the horses, mounted another, took his horse’s reins, and led him out of the garden and through the open gate of the villa.  Behind, he heard his other captor following on the third horse.  
	They trotted through the sleeping streets, and cantered over the bridge that spanned  the Blackwater and led to the road that ran through Drywell Pass and out into wastes.  Blackstone stelae at the far side of the river marked the border of the Council’s protection against the Bodiless.  Soulsteel glyphs set into the stone made the air dance with unseen fires.  More stelae stretched into the distance, marking the border of the Riverlands, providing a focus for Council protection.
	Matthias wound his bound hands through the horse’s mane and gripped the barrel of its body with his legs.  As they crossed the bridge, Matthias shivered, already feeling as if he had left the Riverlands behind and crossed into the rocky waste, even though open fields of rich grain still spread around the road.  
	Once the road had begun to lift into the foothills, and the open fields of farmland had surrendered to tall stands of pine, his captors slowed.  Both tugged off the silk hoods covering their heads and stuffed the masks into saddlebags.  Matthias confirmed his guess that the shorter of his captors was a slim woman.  The man was clean shaven, his hair cropped close to his skull.  The woman’s hair had also been cut short.  Both faces were tanned from exposure to the elements.  He placed both of them in their mid to late twenties.  
	He recognized neither face.  
	The woman turned to face him as the man loosened a crossbow from where it had been secured on its mount and proceeded to crank the arms back and nock a bolt ostentatiously.  “We’re far enough out of the city that we could catch you if you tried to run, so I’m going to untie your hands.  If he has to, Remy will shoot you.  He’d rather not.  You’re worth nothing to us dead.  But he will if you make it necessary.”
	She rode close and began working at Matthias’ bonds.  Matthias studied her in the slanting light of the moon.  “Just who do you think I am, anyway?  I can’t think of anyone interested in paying any ransom for me.”
	She pulled the silk away from his wrists, and favored him with a quirky smile.  “Who said anything about ransom?”
	“It’s a hell of a dinner invitation,”  Matthias responded tartly.  
	She backed her horse away as Matthias rubbed his hands and wrists.  Remy watched silently, the loaded crossbow resting across his knees.  
	“I’d already decided that you weren’t some outraged husband,”  Matthias continued.  “And if you’re interested in my personal fortune, we’re headed the wrong way, and it’s not all that disposable.”
	She laughed.  “Consider this an invitation, Matthias.  An invitation you don’t have the option of refusing.”
	Matthias felt a sudden chill.  They did indeed know him.  And if this kidnapping wasn’t mistaken identity, then his previous assumptions meant nothing.  
	With the simple use of his name, his captor had invalidated all of his conclusions.  And from her slight smile, she knew exactly what she had done.  
	She nodded to Matthias.  “Ride with me.”
	As Matthias prodded his mount up to fall in beside hers, he heard Remy take up the rear.  For the next few miles, he thought of little but that crossbow, held at the ready mere feet from his back, and the simple question of who would want to kidnap an artist, no matter how successful, and hale him out into the wilds in the middle of the night.  The fact that he could come up with no good answer did not make the ride any easier.

Chapter Two

	They were some miles into the mountains, having turned off the main highway to wind up toward a higher pass than the one taken by the main flow of traffic, when the woman surprised Matthias by telling him, “I saw some of your work, once.  A piece called Black Rain.  It dominated the market square, in Haven.”
	Matthias shifted uncomfortably in the saddle.  He hadn’t ridden much in the last couple of years.  He hadn’t had the need.  He could more than afford coaches, though he never found it necessary to buy his own.  Patrons generally gave him the use of theirs, when he had to travel.  “Dominate is a good word.  I hear they’ve moved the market since.”
	She grinned.  “That didn’t take long.  Business fell off pretty quickly, though plenty of people still pass by to look and shiver.”
	“I was young and angry in those days.  I had seen the Council Wars first hand.  I’d seen Holdfast fall to the Pretender’s swarms of Bodiless.  I saw men and women and children marching at the forefront of the Pretender’s army, his laughter in their mouths.  Black Rain came out of those memories.”
	“I had heard that,”  she said slowly.  “That you were there.  At Holdfast when it fell.  That you escaped.”
	“There were a few.  Overlooked by the Bodiless.”
	“Or immune.”
	He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, but she appeared to be studying the road ahead.  “No one is immune to possession.  But you can make it hard for them.  Training or experience with sorcery.  Strong will...”
	“Soulsteel,”  Remy said softly.
	The path led them around a rock fall and out to a stubborn stand of pines that grew along the rock face stretching above.  A man stood at the edge of the rock fall, looking down toward the Riverlands, his back to Matthias and his escort.  The man wore loose clothing, cut for freedom of movement, and his dark hair had been cropped short.  The woman laid her hand on Matthias’ arm and reined her mount to a stop.  Matthias followed suit, hearing Remy come to a halt behind him. 
	The man turned.  “Thank you, Remy.  Mircea.  You have done well.”
	Matthias studied him as the man met his gaze.  “And welcome Matthias.  My apologies for the nature of my invitation, but I have great need of your services.”
	Matthias felt a shock of power as burning green eyes met his.  He heard the resonance of the man’s voice carried on the wind, and knew that he stood in the presence of a man who commanded more than mortal power.  He looked at the sword hanging at the man’s side, long- hilted and slightly curved, and the flute case hanging across from it, and he drew his own conclusions.  
	“Hyrn.  The Sword Master of Stone’s Rest.”
	The man’s narrow mouth lifted in a half smile.  “My reputation has preceded me, I see.”
	Matthias leaned forward in the saddle.  “Why these theatrics, Hyrn?  You’re no outlaw in the Riverlands.  And I would certainly have listened to any proposal you made...”
	Hyrn cut him off.  “Not yet.  This case is special.  I need to show you some things before I make my request.  You need to understand something, and words alone will not be sufficient to persuade you.”
	Matthias’ mouth firmed to a hard line.  “I suspect you intend to ask me for a weapon.  If so, all of this is for naught.  You know that.  I don’t make weapons.  I am an artist.  I paint.  I sculpt.  I do not make weapons.”
	Hyrn shook his head.  “Wait, I tell you.  I will ask nothing of you until you have seen what I brought you here to see.  Once you have seen, I will not coerce you.  If you choose to ride back to the wives and daughters and commissions of petty nobles, I will not stand in your way.  And I will compensate you for your time.”  His tone hardened.  “But first you will see.  Once you have seen, then we will speak.”
	Hyrn turned back to stare down toward the Riverlands.  Mircea touched Matthias’ arm lightly, and indicated the pine grove.  Matthias nodded and turned his mount that direction.  In the grove he found a small but neat camp, with places for four.  He dismounted stiffly, helped Micea and Remy unsaddle, rub down, and hobble the horses, before himself hobbling over toward the small fire.  
	Mircea walked with him in silence, while Remy stayed with the horses.  
	“Which one is mine?”  Matthias asked, waving at the pallets laid out beneath oilskin canopies.
	Mircea pointed.  Matthias threw himself down on the pallet she indicated, and closed his eyes.  The sky had paled as the sun betrayed his lurking presence below the horizon, and Matthias intended to catch some sleep before Hyrn started his sales pitch.
	As he drifted away from consciousness, he listened to the wind wandering among the rocks, and some time in the darkness, he could never say exactly when, the voice of a flute picked up where the wind left off.  Rising, falling, the flute carried a sadness that made Matthias’ heart ache.  He took that sadness with him into the dark comfort of sleep.

Chapter Three

	The sunlight woke him before Hyrn did.  As it crept over the horizon, the sun had apparently worked with great skill to find the exact position where it could lance bright beams of light directly into Matthias’ closed eyes.  Matthias rose feeling three days dead and well into decay.  The last few years he had got himself well out of the habit of mornings, and he liked it that way.
	Every movement became an act of will, and a reminder of how badly he had allowed himself to slip.  Riding a horse worked an entirely different set of muscles from those he exercised in forging, sculpting, painting, dancing, or loving, which had been his primary activities for the last couple of years.  
	He had been living soft.  And he preferred living soft to the alternative.
	He made his careful way over to the fire and studied the tea pot held in a neat framework over the coals and the glazed cup resting on a flat stone near the fire.  A roll lay across the cup.  
	He shuddered.  Kidnapped by morning people.  
	He made himself comfortable, sipped hot tea, consumed the roll, and listened to the wind.  After a few minutes, he caught sharp sounds and blurred voices drifting up to him out of the trees.  Sighing, he replaced the cup and pulled himself to his feet.  Might as well find out what insanity Hyrn and his merry band were pursuing besides abducting artists.
	He drifted through the trees, taking his time, trying for silence.  He had kept his skills--still stalked game once in a while.  His silence was never complete, but his objective continued to produce considerable noise, and when he topped a small rise and peered down through the ferns and long grass that covered the ground between the tall pines, he saw that the people below seemed entirely unaware of his presence.  
	He saw far more people than he had expected.  He counted nearly thirty young adults, mostly men, who were moving through formal exercises with hardwood practice swords.  Mircea and Remy were leading the exercises.  He watched in silence.  Remy and Mircea were both quite good.  Most of the students appeared to have considerable facility with the techniques as well.  After moving through several different forms, the group split up into pairs, and began sparring.  Remy and Mircea walked through, adjudicating, speaking softly about technique, illustrating with a few graceful movements.  After a few rounds the students changed partners, and two other students began patrolling while Mircea and Remy found partners and sparred.
	Most of the students wore loose peasant clothing, common to the Wastes.  The cut of a few others was finer, Riverlands in origin.  Hyrn had been building himself a considerable school.  He could be in trouble for that.  Riverland families would not be pleased at the loss of their children.
	Hyrn never put in an appearance.  
	Matthias backed cautiously down the slope, and made his careful way through the stand of pines.  He thought about the clearing where he had first seen Hyrn, at the edge of a loose fall of stones, looking down over the Riverland border.  He began walking in that direction.  
	The trees began to rise to lesser heights, and the ferns and grasses fought the rocky ground for purchase.  Through the screen of smaller, more twisted pines, Matthias caught sight of Hyrn.
	Hyrn was dancing.
	More properly, Hyrn was practicing forms.  His sword moved through slash, counterslash, thrust and parry as he stepped and twisted, whirled and stamped.  The slap of his boots against the rock and the hiss of his breath through his teeth were the only sounds he made.  Sweat covered his shirtless torso in a light sheen.  An inner glow of pleasure filled his face.  
	Matthias smiled in spite of himself.  In that instant he felt a kinship with the man.  He knew that expression from the inside.  He had worn it often enough when painting or sculpting.  That pleasure, that inner glow, came in the moments of the mastery of a medium, when form and function all bowed to perfect intent, and perfect control.  
	It never lasted, of course.  The end product never quite satisfied the impulse that led to its creation.  But the act of creation itself held all the magic, anyway.  
	Matthias walked out to the clearing.  Hyrn continued to move, apparently unaware of Matthias’ presence.  Matthias knew better than that.  
	Hyrn pirouetted and whirled to a stop facing Matthias.  He bent, picked up a lacquered wooden sheath that lay nearby, and sheathed the sword.  
	Matthias took a seat on a nearby rock.  “Good morning.”
	Hyrn squinted at the sun.  “Barely.  What brings you down here?”
	Matthias grinned.  “You brought me here, remember?  At least by proxy.”
	“At least you’re in a better mood this morning.  Becoming accustomed to having been kidnapped?”
	“At least I know you’re not working for someone’s vengeful father, brother, uncle, cousin, or husband.”
	Hyrn flashed a quirky smile.  “You want to live an easy life, you should be more conservative in your habits.”
	“Hey, I do live an easy life,”  Matthias said indignantly.  “That’s what gets me into trouble.  It’s easier to say yes than it is to say no.”
	“How do you have time for art?”  Mircea asked from behind Matthias.  Her voice held more than a hint of mockery.
	Matthias flushed.  “I keep an eye on priorities.”
	“So you just use those women?”
 	Matthias turned and caught her eye.  “They use me.  I simply never object too strenuously.”
	It was Mircea’s turn to flush.  She avoided Matthias’ gaze and looked up at Hyrn.  “Are we ready to leave?”
	“Now that Matthias is awake.”  He cocked his head at Matthias.  “Are you ready to leave?  It’s a short walk.”
	Matthias’ eyes narrowed.  “Where are we going?”
	Hyrn shook his head.  “No questions.  I’m telling you nothing in advance.  I’ll give you no preconceptions.  After you’ve seen what you need to see, then we will talk.  Not before.”
	Matthias stood abruptly, dusting the back of his trousers, the motion of his hands sharp and angry.  “Fine.  Lead on, then.”
	Hyrn tucked the sheathed sword into his belt, and drew on his shirt.  He began walking up the side of the rock fall.  Mircea pointedly waited for Matthias to follow, then fell in beside him.  
	“Planning on sticking me if I make a break for it?”  Matthias asked her cheerfully.
	She refused to answer.
	“Tell me one thing,”  he said quietly after a few more steps.  “Was Marie a part of all this?”
	Mircea studied him silently for long enough that he thought she wouldn’t respond, then finally nodded.
	Matthias dropped his gaze.  “I thought so.  She wasn’t hurt?”
	“No.”   Matthias heard surprise in her voice.  “You worried about her.”
	“Artists are all fools, didn’t you know?”   He didn’t meet her gaze.
	She apparently didn’t know how to respond to that.  
	Hyrn led them perhaps a half a mile up along the rubble-strewn slope, then cut off away from the fall.  After perhaps a hundred more paces, he turned into a narrow crevice opening into the mountain.  Matthias paused, looking down into the shadows, then followed Hyrn into the darkness.  Mircea stayed close behind.

Chapter Four

	“Stay close,”  Hyrn warned.  “We’ll go through a dark patch here, so watch your step.”
	Matthias frowned, and stepped carefully through the lowering gloom.  The crevice closed to become a full cave, and the floor of the cave sloped sharply downward.  The gloom increased, until they walked in nearly absolute darkness.  The darkness, the descent, and the unknown weighed on Matthias.  
	Did Hyrn have a strange enough sense of humor to hold Matthias captive in such a place?  He certainly could have done so the night before.  And Matthias had heard the stories of this man, already a legend for his songs and his skill with a blade.  Hyrn had become a figure of contradiction, a poet with a blade, a warrior without a war.  A man who acted as a force for peace in the lawlessness of the Wastes.  Not the kind of man who would play cruel games with a captive.  
	Not a man prone to kidnapping, either.  Tales could be inaccurate.  
	Matthias could feel sweat beading up on his body as he followed Hyrn into the oppressive darkness.  So gradually he could not have said when it had begun, light paled the darkness.  The outlines of sand and stone pushed their way into his vision.  
	Hyrn stopped.  Matthias stumbled to a halt behind him.  
	“Go ahead.”  Hyrn’s voice was loud in the cave.  “This is the first thing you need to see.  I only hope you understand.”
	“You’re already out of luck there,”  Matthias muttered.  
	Hyrn stood aside, and held out one hand toward the glow seeping from further down and in the cave.  
	Matthias drew a deep breath and considered his fear.  “If that’s a candle, I’m going to be sorely disappointed in you,”  he told Hyrn.
	He took a few cautious steps forward, examining what he could see of the floor, the walls, the stone above his head.  Nothing in the rough stone gave him any sign of danger, or any indication of a trap.  
	A sense of presence grew on him oppressively as he continued forward, and the light brightened.  Old fear rose in him, the taste of it bitter in his mouth, and then he rounded a corner in the cave, and stopped in shock.
	Ghosts of light waltzed through the stone.  Serpents of fire, figures of darkness, phantoms of every imaginable hue and tone flowed in rivers through the depths of the earth.  They moved in all directions, circling, swarming, dancing.  The cave opened out into a broad chamber, rising to a dome high above.  
	Light burned in the center of the floor of the chamber, rising out of a circular pool that opened out of the earth.  Matthias flinched at the sight of the swarm of Bodiless, more then he had seen even in the days of the Pretender, more than he had dreamed could have existed in one place, and that place so close to the Riverlands.  
	He stumbled back, away from the ghosts, and Hyrn’s hand fell on one shoulder.  “Be still.  Watch them.  Understand them.”
	Matthias fought panic.  He could try to rush Hyrn, but the man had some point to prove.  And his heart was slowing.  The Bodiless had apparently not noticed him.  And as he watched them, moving through the rock like swimmers through water, a fascination rose in him that weighed against the panic.
	He had forgotten how beautiful they could be.
	As he looked closer, he saw colors rolling through them, pulsing like blood in living veins.  He turned, watching them move, and his breath caught in his chest.  
	Away from the savage control of the Pretender, away from the hunger of his nightmares, he saw the beauty in them.  Take a double fistful of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, amethysts, topaz, jade, every bright jewel and stone in the endless earth, and hurl them into the sky.  Watch the colors in them twist and live.  Watch them take flight, draw breath, and challenge the birds in flight.  Watch them defy time itself.  
	Matthias found himself taking more steps further into the chamber despite his fear.  Fascination rose within him, and he knew that he would love to paint them.  But how, oh gods how to capture the impossible vitality in them, the joy in motion of simply being?  How could anything static capture their indifferent, terrible, wonderful splendor?
	“There are weak places in the world,”  Hyrn said quietly behind him.  “Where powers come through into our own reality.  This is such a place.”
	“Why did you bring me here?”
	“You have seen them in your nightmares, these past years.  You saw them only under the control of such a man as the Pretender.  You never understood that they could be anything other than tools of madness and desire.  They are much, much more than that.  Do you see?”
	“I see...”  His voice trailed off as the light of the pool began to dim.  Like a school of fishes taking flight, the swarming Bodiless vanished, plunging the room into near darkness.  Out of the darkness rose a greater darkness, a shadow as black as the pit.  Matthias could feel an awareness sweeping the room, and high in the open space of the dome two eyes opened like glowing embers of smoldering fire.  
	A mighty rushing wind filled the chamber, howling defiance, and the darkness bent before the wind, then rushed up through the dome of rock, leaving behind a sense of mocking laughter.  
	“What the hell was that?”  
	“A greater power, and a darker,”  Hyrn answered.  “I’ve seen few of that strength.  Though if Edward Tobit has his way, we’ll see more of that kind, and worse.”
	Matthias swallowed heavily, scanning the darkness.  Gradually, the glow and the dancers returned to the walls of stone, until no trace of the shadow remained.  
	“Edward Tobit?”  
	Hyrn nodded as Matthias turned to face him.  “One who plans to succeed where the Pretender failed.”
	And the fear returned to Matthias, even in the bright light of the dancing powers.  

Chapter Five

	“Tell me more about Edward Tobit.”  
	As they climbed back out of the cave, Matthias had searched his memory, but the name meant nothing to him.  
	“I can tell you only what I know.  He was a hermit, who took himself into the Wastes searching for visions.  I don’t know what he found out there, dwelling in the midst of the powers, but when he came back...”  He trailed off as they stepped back into the light of the sun.  
	A small figure waited at the mouth of the cave.  It was a little girl, perhaps eight years of age, dressed in the ragged remains of sturdy cotton pants and shirt.  She stood only slightly above Matthias’ waist, and she looked painfully thin.  Her skin had a waxy paleness to it, her eyes circles of darkness against that faded backdrop.
	Matthias studied the girl, who waited, unmoving.  “One of your surprises?”  
	Hyrn ignored the touch of bitterness in Matthias’ voice.  “Something like that.  She will be your guide.  Follow her.  When you’ve seen what she has to show you, then we’ll talk.  I’ll wait here for your return.  And when you do return, you’re free to go, if that’s what you want.  I won’t coerce you.”
	Matthias’ eyes narrowed.  He turned from Hyrn to stare down at the girl, her dark eyes huge in her pale face, rags barely clothing her skinny limbs, and he noticed she did not shiver in the wind, though the air had the bite of coming frost.  She set out and he followed, misgivings in his heart.
	She led him up, into the heights above Hyrn’s camp.  Matthias followed her for several miles, always climbing.  The little girl never spoke, never slowed, never faltered.  Matthias was hard-pressed to keep up, but she never looked back, and didn’t respond the one time Matthias asked her to wait.  At last they topped a rise, and looked down through high pasture to the tilled fields surrounding a small mountain village.  A trail led down from the low pass to which the girl had led him, and joined a thicker trail that branched out across the hillsides.  
	The trail had seen the constant tread of feet, animal and human, moving daily over it from high pasture to high pasture.  It had been beaten flat by years of use, but the tracks lay under new grass growing up through the hard packed surface.  Heavy traffic had not crossed that trail for some time.
	The village houses grew larger in the afternoon light.  No one moved.  No animals made any sounds.  
	The girl never slowed.  Matthias didn’t allow himself to falter.  Timber-framed long houses loomed around him.  The silence weighed on the village oppressively.  
	Matthias stopped suddenly.  The girl stood silently at his side.  A flicker of movement had caught his eye.  He turned, stepped toward the building and saw a scrap of rag lift in a momentary breath of wind.  He stepped closer, and fought his rebellious stomach.  A body, picked almost clean by scavengers, hung from the wall of a long house.  Long spikes had been driven through bone and into the clay and straw wall at wrists, ankles, knees, and elbows.  Withered remnants of skin, muscle, and tendon held the bones together.  Scraps of rag hung from the body, limp in the still air.  The flesh that remained had dried in the chill mountain air, muscle and tendon taking on the appearance of leather.  Dark stains discolored the wood around and below the body, and darkened the earth below.
	Matthias swallowed heavily.  He had seen worse.  The girl tugged at his hand.  Her touch was as cold as ice.  He followed, caught sight of another angular form, pinned against a wall.  He turned his head, spotted more bodies nailed to the walls of their own homes.  
	The girl tugged insistently.  Matthias followed mechanically, old pain rising up to taunt fresh horror.  He feared that nightmares from his past walked the light of day.  He feared his own memory.
	As the girl led him through the village, he saw bodies pinned to every house by long spikes, knives, the broken blades of tools.  All of the smaller corpses were pinned at every joint, but some of the larger bodies had one hand and arm free.
	The girl led him to the center of the village.  A large pool walled by stones marked an artesian well.  Clear water bubbled up from under the ground.  In the past, it had been the source of life and the cause of the village.  In the villagers’ absence, the water flowed on, cool and clean, over the barrier of rocks, down into the stone troughs for the animals, and out into the channels that fed the villager’s fields.  
	Matthias thought of the pool of light in the cave below.  Did this spring rise from the same source?
	The girl released his hand.  She pointed silently at the well.  Matthias mounted the steps set between the stone troughs, and bent his head to stare into the depths of the well.  
	At first he saw nothing.  Then, like a candle in the darkness, a spark of light lit in the depths of the well.  As he watched the light rose toward his eyes until it filled his vision, then blossomed like a flower of fire in his head, filling his mind with images and ideas.  The past filled his awareness in a river of living light, and as the story unfolded, he understood what had come to pass in the village, and who had come up, out of the wastes, bearing a burden of death...
	Edward Tobit marched at the head of an army of ghosts.  He came out of the wastes, fire in his eyes, madness in his heart, wearing filthy rags and raiment of living light.  Bodiless spirits wrapped his flesh, casing him in a coat of many colors.  
	Matthias flinched at the sight of him.
	He came up into the village as the light of the dying sun was fading to dusk.  Village women paused in their work to stand in open doors to stare.  Men and children stopped where they were working or playing or talking as if he had stolen their wits.
	He had no interest in their wits.  He had come to steal something else entirely.
	Serpentine light reared around him, fiery ghosts fanning out of the raiment he wore.  In soundless fury, the Bodiless descended on the village.  And where a man fell, wrestling some smoky phantom, he would rise, the light in his eyes the color of the ghost that had taken him.  
	Matthias saw the child that guided him, lying in bed, her waxy pale face spotted with color, her breathing quick and shallow.  The woman at her bedside had lines of despair etched deeply into her weathered face.  Matthias understood then that the woman held a death watch for the girl.  The woman rose and moved to crack the heavy shutters as the sound of the conflict invaded the room.
	Lines of living light struck through the gap in the shutters, and the woman fell to the floor in screaming convulsions.  Another line snapped to the bed, hesitated, and flashed back through the shutters as the woman rose, her eyes lit by a venomous green light.  That gaze strayed across the child’s peaceful face, the color fading even in that moment, the chest no longer rising and falling, and then the woman’s body turned and marched out to the village square.  
	Tobit’s Bodiless had no interest in the dead.
	Tobit spared no one.  Man, woman, and child fell to his ghosts.  Some ran, to be hunted in the rocks by lines of twisting light.  One man, quicker than the rest, seized a spear and hurled it at the visitor’s back as he walked into the grounds of the village.  Ghosts lashed out at the spear as it flew, and Tobit turned, quick as thought, to let the weapon pass him by.  The man who had thrown the spear was torn to pieces by his own family, the light of the Bodiless that controlled them burning out of their eyes.  
	Matthias wanted to turn away from the grisly scene.  He knew what would come next.  But he could not turn away.  Something in him forced him to watch and relive the day that a madman as twisted as the one that haunted his memory had descended on that peaceful community like the personification of death.  
	When the last human awareness fell to Tobit’s Bodiless, the villagers moved with silent purpose throughout the village, gathering what was needed.  Women and children held themselves still for the hammers and nails and knives and rough spikes of husbands and fathers.  And when the last of them had been pinned to each village wall, the fathers and husbands used the last of the spikes on themselves.
	The visitor walked a final circuit through the village, smiling at the blood, and then he strode out into the darkness.  The ghosts went with him.  The shells they left behind hung loosely against the structures that had housed them during their lifetimes.  And those that still lived when Edward Tobit left that place screamed out their pain and defiance in the company of their dead.
	Later, as darkness began to fade before the rising sun, a white light built in the well in the center of town, and a single free spirit rose from the waters to wander the empty streets, settling at last into the small, still form of a dead child.
	Matthias shuddered back from the well, retching.  
	The child reached up to touch his face with a cold, cold hand.  “I was there,”  she said softly.  “I watched it all, and I could do nothing.  Had Tobit noticed me, I would have been enslaved.  He must be stopped.”
	Matthias flinched back from her touch.  
	White fire flared in the child’s eyes, and a ghostly luminescence rose to dance upon the wind.  The girl’s body collapsed as the spirit animating it departed.  
	“This madness must end.”
	Matthias turned and walked out of that place without looking back.  He knew that he would give Hyrn what he needed to stop Tobit before more atrocities rose to swallow innocent lives.  And he knew that he would never be the same again.  For him, life would always be divided into before Edward Tobit, and after.

Hyrn

Chapter One

	Matthias walked like a man carrying a heavy burden.  He had been down in the vale longer than Hyrn had thought he would be, but Hyrn had seen him take some time outside the village to recover from the shock.  Hyrn watched him come up out of the fields, his step heavy, his face lined with pain, his back stooped under the pressure of fresh horror.  Hyrn hated bringing Matthias’ nightmares back to life, but he needed the man too badly.  
	He’d stood before Black Rain.  He knew that Matthias could give him what he needed when no other could.  
	He felt Mircea begin to take a step forward from where she stood, and he shook his head.  “Don’t go to him.  Not yet.  Let him deal with it.”
	She shot a glare at him but settled, and Hyrn hid a smile.  Matthias did seem to have a way with the women, deliberate or not.  As long as it didn’t interfere with Mircea’s control, a connection between the two should be fine.
	Might be advantageous, in fact.
	Matthias stopped in front of them, raised his eyes slowly to Hyrn’s.  “What kind of weapon do you want from me?”
	“I never said I wanted a weapon,”  Hyrn told Matthias softly.
	Matthias’ eyes narrowed.  “I don’t have the patience for games, Hyrn.  You want something from me, otherwise you wouldn’t have shown me...that.  What do you want?”
	“What I want—what I need, is no less than all you can give.”
	Matthias blinked.  “What?”
	Hyrn’s breath hissed his impatience.  “I need you.  Do you think Edward Tobit is a simple threat?  Do you think that by killing him I will have ended all this?”  Hyrn swept his arm over the empty village below and Matthias winced.
	“No.  This madness is nothing new.  It is life outside the small circle of safety held over the Riverlands by the Council.  A balance between the Bodiless and the human denizens of the Wastes and Outer Lands must be struck.”
	Matthias frowned.  “You aren’t telling me that you want instruments of destruction for the Bodiless.  You would never have shown me the cavern below if that had been your intention.”
	“That’s why I showed you that cavern.  The Bodiless in themselves are not the problem.  The power they represent for anyone knowledgeable enough and strong enough to use them is the problem.  The Pretender.  Edward Tobit.  Countless village witches, wizards and full sorcerers.  The unchecked power they have controlled has led to the madness of the past.  We need a counterbalance.  We need a tempering force.”
	“And you want me for this?”  Matthias sounded skeptical.
	“I need you for this,”  Matthias told him bluntly.  “The recruits you saw are a tenth part of a tenth part of those that have come to me.  I have kept only those with the most promise.  I can forge an elite force with those that remain that has the spirit to stand between the Bodiless and humanity outside the Riverlands.  But without you, such a force would be impotent.  We must be able to protect ourselves from the Bodiless and those who would use them, as well as more corporeal forces.”
	Matthias’ face paled.  “You don’t want a weapon.  You want weapons.”
	Hyrn pulled a pouch from his belt.  Carefully, he untied the drawstrings and dropped a small piece of metal into the palm of his other hand.  Heat shimmers of dark flame wavered around the metal in his hand, and his muscles tensed as tendrils of icy pain rose through the flesh of his hand and wrapped his bones in fire and ice.
	“I thought so,”  Matthias said as he watched Hyrn’s hand tremble as he fought for control.  “Soulsteel.”
	With a sudden movement, Hyrn flipped the small metal piece through the air toward Matthias.  Instinctively, Matthias snatched the piece of metal out of the air.  He smiled wryly at Hyrn, and held the metal up between forefinger and thumb.
	His hand betrayed no sign of pain at the black fire burning through the metal.
	“You see,”  Hyrn said softly.  “You have much to teach us.  We need more than weapons.”
	“Some things are difficult to teach,”  Matthias answered.  “But I will try.  The power of soulsteel does touch the Bodiless more strongly than those of us who wear flesh.”
	“Have you considered arrowheads or spear tips of soulsteel?”  Mircea asked.  “We could touch the Bodiless without touching the soulsteel itself.”
	Hyrn shook his head.  “Half the purpose is touching the soulsteel, having the fires of the metal run through the flesh.  A sword or knife of such metal becomes both weapon and defense.  Such contact makes it difficult for the Bodiless to possess the wielder of the weapon.”
	Matthias nodded.  “True.  Once the power in the steel runs through your flesh, you become virtually immune to possession.  The pain of the burning is deadly to the Bodiless.  In fact, armor could be even more useful than a weapon for dealing with the Bodiless.  The fires of the metal would become both weapon and defense.”
	Hyrn smiled.  “Such armor might be possible for you to wear.  Unless your training will give me more resistance to the influences of soulsteel than I can now imagine, simply wielding a weapon without breaking my concentration will be tricky enough for me.”
	“A point.”  Matthias frowned.  “To be truthful, I don’t even know if I can teach resistance to the fires in the soulsteel.”
	“But you’re willing to try.”
	Matthias glanced back at the village before nodding.  “I am.”
	“Good.”
	The wind curled around Hyrn, whispering in his ear.  Hyrn shivered with pleasure at the gentle touch.  He learned from the wind that Remy had brought the students to the pass above, and waited now on a sign from Hyrn.  “Go,”  he murmured.  “Lay them to rest.”
	The wind swirled up and away from him, carrying his words back to Remy.  He saw Matthias watching him intently.  “My band of brothers,”  Hyrn told him.  “They will go down to Mountain Home and lay those families to rest.”
	“And us?”
	“You go back to your home.  Wait for us there.”  
	“No,”  Matthias said.  “I’ll go with you.  We’ll lay them to rest together.  We begin our partnership here.”
	Remy came into view up the slope from where they stood, a line of students following him down the mountain.  
	Hyrn began walking down the trail.  Mircea and Matthias fell in beside him.  
	“Was it necessary,”  Matthias asked as they walked, “to kidnap me instead of simply asking me to help you?”
	Hyrn gave him a wry look.  “What do you think your answer would have been, without seeing what you’ve seen?  Truthfully?”
	“I’d like to give you a different answer than the one you expect,”  Matthias said thoughtfully, “but you’re probably right.  I have been very comfortable these past few years.”
	“And that’s the problem.  Unless the hideousness of reality is in front of you, it can be tough to make the right decision instead of the easy decision.”
	No one said any more as they passed into Mountain Home.  Few words broke the silence as they gently pried loose the cruel metal that held the bodies to the walls.  They searched among the houses to find the best linens, then wrapped the fragile bones into neat bundles.
	“Do you know of a nearby cave large enough to hold them?”  Matthias asked.  He held the child in his arms.  
	Hyrn nodded.  “A place untouched by the passing Bodiless.  A peaceful place, where they have laid their families to rest for generations.”
	“Good.”
	Hyrn led the way, a light bundle in his arms.  Everyone else followed, each burdened with remains.  They wound down the trails, to a place not far from the village.  The mouth of a cave which had been widened by the hand of man opened out over the long, sweet grasses of a high pasture.  A large boulder stood beside the mouth of the cave, and deep marks in the soft ground provided evidence that the tomb had recently been opened.  
	Hyrn carefully set his burden down by the entrance to the cave, and took a lantern from a shelf set high in the wall by the mouth of the cave.  A whisper of power swirled in his hand, and sparks leapt from his fingertips to fall on the wick of the lantern.  Light blazed through the cave, revealing niches cut into striated rock.  Many of the niches were burdened with bodies wrapped in white linen.  
	Under Hyrn’s direction, bodies were laid on the empty niches available, families placed together when possible—when families could be identified.  As the burial teams had worked, they had grouped the bodies together by location when they had been taken down from the houses where they’d been pinned, on the assumption that families would have been killed together.
	Hyrn had seen nothing at Mountain Home to refute that assumption.
	It took two more trips to the village to entomb all of the bodies.  The only dry eyes glittered with rage.  When the last body had been laid to rest, every niche had been filled, most with multiple bodies.  
	Hyrn extinguished the wick of the lamp, and placed it carefully back on the shelf from which he had taken it.  He set his shoulder to the stone and began closing the mouth of the cave.  He felt movement, and smiled when he turned his head and saw Matthias’ hands set behind his.  Then Mircea approached, and Remy, and as many of his students as could reasonably touch the stone gave their assistance to sealing the tomb.  
	The stone fit the mouth of the tomb snugly, closing the bodies of the townsfolk into the silent darkness.  When Hyrn straightened from the stone, he could feel tears running down his cheeks.  And when he turned to the others, and he saw the mixture of regret and determination in their faces, he knew that he had chosen his force well and wisely.
	Then they went up from that place, and rested on the side of the mountain, in the midst of the pines and the stones.  That night, Hyrn took comfort in his music, and in the winds.  

Chapter Two

	Hyrn, Mircea, and Matthias rode down into Newcastle the next morning.  Remy remained behind to oversee the temporary disbanding of Hyrn’s force.  Matthias asked Hyrn about that as they rode.  
	“That large of a group runs out of food and forage pretty quickly,”  Hyrn answered.  “And I don’t yet have the funds to keep a force in the field indefinitely.”
	“Yet?”
	“I have plans that have not matured.  I don’t want this to become a mercenary force, but we may have to engage in some mercenary work to provide some of the funds we need.  Some funds I’ve already secured.  Other funds come from donations.  There are those who believe a neutral force for stability would not be a bad thing in the Wastes.”
	“That’s all well and good, but any such force will be yours.  That could be perceived as a threat.  And any funding you become dependent on will come with strings attached.  You know that.”
	“I know that,”  Hyrn said quietly.  “I’m working on that.  I have ties both in and outside the Riverlands.  I have rolled cash and property that I have acquired or that has been donated into sources of income.  And, as I said, I already anticipate the need for my force to become self-sufficient.”
	The road topped the foothills, and the line of obelisks marking the border of the Riverlands and the power of the Council came into view.  
	“Speaking of self-sufficiency,”  Mircea said.  “How much material will you need to begin crafting weapons?”
	“How much time will we have?”  Matthias countered, looking at Hyrn.  “How will we settle the question of Edward Tobit?  Arming this force will take months of work.  Do you plan to let this madman run around that long?”  
	Hyrn shook his head.  “Absolutely not.  But I would like to begin the training.  Do you have a plan for accelerated training with soulsteel?  With a single weapon, I can hunt Tobit myself.”
	“Perhaps,”  Matthias said thoughtfully.  “Let me think about it.”
	When they crossed the border of Council power, passing the upright stones with their angular markings of power, Hyrn shivered.  The barrier felt cold and impersonal.  He could still touch the wind.  The heart of his power did not lie in the spirits the Council sought to block, but inside that barrier the air did not hold the same taste of life that it did out where all powers roamed freely.  
	They cantered over the bridge and into Newcastle.  The single sentry standing by the bridge nodded to them without speaking, but Hyrn could feel his eyes following them as they rode deeper into town.  That sentry had not been bribed as had the man standing watch the night Mircea had taken Matthias.
	The side of town edging the river had grown into walled estates.  The streets between those estates were largely empty of pedestrians, and the sharp sound of their horses’ hooves on the cobblestone streets echoed in the stillness.  As they moved further into town, more traffic appeared.  Men and women on foot walked slowly, enjoying the morning sun, or briskly, with business elsewhere in the city.  The cries of street merchants hawking their wares rose above market squares and resonated through the streets.  And over it all, rising up from the center of town, came the clear ringing of the bells, calling the faithful to prayer.  
	“This is the feel of peace,”  Hyrn commented.
	Matthias nodded, an abstracted expression on his face.  “Mircea, where are the practice swords stored?”
	Mircea blinked.  “What?”
	“The practice swords,”  Matthias said impatiently.  “I saw you all training with practice blades back in the hills.”
	“Ah.”  The light of comprehension dawned in Mircea’s face.  “Each student cares for his own weapons, practice or not.”
	“Where are you going with this?”  Hyrn asked.
	“I think we may want those practice blades.  Rather than trying to focus on training everyone to bear the touch of soulsteel with a full blade, why not wrap the hilts in soulsteel wire?  Or set small pieces of soulsteel into the hilts?”
	Hyrn’s eyes lit with enthusiasm.  “You could produce that more quickly, yes?  We could begin training more quickly, producing full weapons at a more leisurely pace.  What are the odds of training someone to help you make the weapons?”
	“Slim.”  Matthias’ expression was not encouraging.  “An exercise of will can help you ignore the pain of contact with soulsteel, but the making of it is as much or more a matter of talent as mastering your flute, or your power over the winds.”
	“I have no power over the wind,”  Hyrn said.  “We are old companions, the wind and I.”
	“Regardless,”  Mircea said, “the point is well made.  I’ll ride back to Remy, and see how many of the practice blades we can gather.  If they’ve already begun to disperse, it may take a couple of days to track them down.”
	Hyrn nodded.  “We’ll expect you back within the next few days, if not sooner.”
	Mircea wheeled her horse, and rode back the way they had come.
	Matthias and Hyrn paused, watching her leave.  
	“I wish I’d thought of this earlier,”  Matthias said.  “It could have saved us time and trouble.”
	“An excellent idea, nonetheless.”
	They rode on through town, and up the winding streets that led toward the crag where the fortress of Newcastle brooded over the city.  Away from the commercial center of the city, past the crumbling remains of stone defensive works and the smaller brick houses of new population growth, orchards marched neatly under the ominous eye of the old fortress.  
	Matthias turned off into a narrow lane that ran through precise rows of apple trees.  Hyrn followed him into the shadows under the thick canopy of leaves.  The boughs of the trees wound together overhead to form a living roof.  The horses’ hooves shuffled through the leaves and long grass trying to reclaim the road.
	“Not much into farming the land, eh?”
	Matthias looked up at the canopy overhead and smiled.  “I prefer it this way, to be honest.  Too many of my patrons have a preference for tamed, cultivated, and productive land.  I like it a little wild.”
	Hyrn thought of the wastes around Stone’s Rest, and the hard living eked out of the barren soil by the few who were hardy enough to wrestle the land for sustenance so that they could escape the power of the large landowners.  He said nothing, but he didn’t smile for the rest of the ride.  
	The path stretched a good quarter-mile through the trees before opening out into a broad open field of long grasses.  In the middle of the field stood a two-story stone house.  Wooden shutters covered the broad windows.  Two large outbuildings stood on each side of the house.  Chimneys stood up from all three buildings, the blackening of soot visible around the chimney caps.  In contrast to the path and the orchard, cleared walkways and fresh timber patches on the outbuildings displayed signs of care and attention.  
	Hyrn’s breath hissed through his teeth as he spotted the gleam of glass in the windows of one outbuilding.  The glass and the land were the only signs of significant wealth.  Matthias obviously valued his privacy, and put great importance in the outbuildings.  Those would be his workshops, then.
	Matthias slid to the ground, moving a bit stiffly, Hyrn noted with some amusement.  
	“Do we need to hobble the horses?”  Matthias asked.
	Hyrn nodded.  “Looks like they’ll have plenty of forage here, and I doubt that you’re using those buildings for barns.”
	“Perish the thought.”
	After hobbling the horses, Matthias led Hyrn to the outbuilding without glass windows.  The broad double doors moved easily on well-oiled hinges at Matthias’ light touch.  Matthias left the doors open, and threw the shutters wide.  Light poured in over a small forge and bellows, neat stacks of metals and stone, and tools racked on the walls.  A single block of white marble dominated the center of the floor, surrounded by stone chips and dust.  
	A lightly clothed female torso had been carved from the block.  Her open hands were spread for balance, and her torso arched as if she were dancing.  Lace fell around her like sprays of water.  Laughter curved her mobile mouth, and her eyes were closed.  To Hyrn, she looked as if she but waited for the final breath of the maker to pull loose from the rock that bound her and continue her dance.  
	“Beautiful.”
	Matthias shrugged.  “It’s for Councilor Foth.  Vivien, his daughter.  He wanted something to remember her, after she died.  He wanted stone.  An odd choice, I thought.”
	“Why?”
	“Too cold, for such a vibrant woman.  It’s been a challenge.”  He turned and looked Hyrn in the eye.  “We should get started.”
	Hyrn cocked his head.  “Sounds good to me.  Are you ready to begin?”
	Matthias nodded.  “I’ve been thinking about your weapon.  I can begin on the practice blades once Remy and Mircea bring them to us.  Until then, I should be able to make a good start on your blade.  Let me see your sword.”
	Hyrn unbuckled his sword belt and, holding it by the belt and scabbard, offered the hilt to Matthias.  Matthias drew the sword and held it up to the light streaming through the open doors, turning the  single-edged, slightly curving blade by the long, two-handed hilt.  “This looks like Ensef’s work.”
	Hyrn nodded.  “He made it for me five years ago.”
	Matthias laid the back of the blade across his forearm, balancing the sword carefully.  “You want the same feel?”
	Hyrn nodded.  “I prefer that balance.  Keep a thrusting point.  The curve is deep enough for good cuts, but shallow enough for effective thrusts.”
	Matthias flipped the point down toward the ground, and studied the hilt.  “I can keep the grip.  I’ll copy the tang.  But I’ll need to wrap at least one layer of wire on the hilt.”
	“Soulsteel.  For direct contact.”
	Matthias studied him over the sword.  “With the proximity of the fires in the tang and the blade, I won’t need much.  I’d prefer to dispense with the leather and simply wrap the hilt in soulsteel wire.  But it will change the feel.”
	Hyrn hesitated before responding.  “Wrap the hilt.  But leave it long.”
	“Of course,”  Matthias said.  
	“How long will it take?”
	“With your help?  A day or two.”
	Hyrn’s eyebrows rose.  “So quickly?”
	Matthias gave him a bitter smile.  “You’ve given me plenty of motivation.  I’ll focus on this.”
	“Good,”  Hyrn said shortly.  “What do you need me to do?”
	Matthias’ smile took on an evil cast.  “Many things.  You can start by filling those long troughs with water from the well while I scare up some good blanks.  The well is behind the house, and the buckets are stacked by the well.  When you’re done with that, I’ll show you how to size the charcoal to give a good, even heat, and we’ll fire up the forge.”
	Hyrn returned his smile.  “I’m already looking forward to getting you on the training field.”
	“That blade cuts two ways.”
	“Exactly.”
	Shaking his head, Matthias studied the weapon in his hands, then wandered through his store of metals, looking for blanks.  Whistling, Hyrn hung his sword belt on an empty peg and strolled out into the sunlight, looking for the well and the buckets.  
	He expected a long, if instructive, day ahead.

Chapter Three

	By the time Hyrn had the troughs filled with the cold, clear water drawn from the well, Matthias had selected four pieces of steel, each about a hand in width and all but the longest about the length of Hyrn’s forearm.  The longest narrowed at one end, and was perhaps twice as long as the other three pieces.  
	While Matthias rasped the surface of each piece of metal clean with a file, Hyrn noticed that fire danced in the forge.  A foot pedal operated a fixed bellows that fed the forge.  
	As Hyrn watched, Matthias snipped pieces from a thick coil of dark wire and deftly twisted the pieces around the metal plates, tying them together into a single stack.  Heat shimmers rode the air around the wire.  
	“Soulsteel wire?”
	“I use it in any number of things,”  Matthias grunted.  “Should be handy when we convert the practice swords.”
	He laid the bundle of plates on the anvil by the fire, and donned a heavy apron of thick leather and a matching set of burn-spotted gloves.  “Stay close.  I won’t need much from you at this point, but I will need some blood from you several times during the forging.”
	“Blood?”
	“Relax.  I only need a small amount.  I want to try tuning the blade to you.  It may help you deal with the pain of wielding it.”
	Hyrn watched Matthias study the flames in the forge as they died to a dancing shimmer over the myriad small pieces of charcoal just beginning to glow red.  Matthias stepped closer, began pumping the bellows steadily.  He worked the bellows, stoking the fire, studying the color of the flames.
	“Color is everything,”  he told Hyrn at one point.  “The metal and the flame, they communicate through color.  They tell you when they need to be coaxed, when they’re ready to work, and when they’re not.”
	The heat from the forge, though largely vented through the chimney hood, still grew intense enough to drive Hyrn back.  Sweat poured down Matthias’ face, but he showed no other sign of strain.  He thrust the bundle into the coals, and worked the bellows methodically, watching the metal.  Then he pointed to the bellows.  “Work it slow and even for me.”
	Hyrn stepped up to the forge and tried to match Matthias’ rhythm.  Matthias clattered around behind him, gathering tools and three heavy canvas sacks.  Setting out hammer, tongs, shaping files, and two small hooked chisel/knives, Matthias waved Hyrn away from the bellows.  
	Hyrn stepped back gladly, soaked with sweat and weak from the heat.  He’d snickered at Matthias’ soreness from riding the horses, but now he felt the strain of hard activity to which he was unaccustomed.  He thought about that as a soft breeze stole in through the open doors and curled around him, drying his skin, cooling his body, and leaving him shivering with pleasure.  
	As Hyrn watched, Matthias removed the bundle from the coals using the longest piece of metal as a handle.  The bundle glowed with a deep red light.  With his free hand, Matthias dipped into one of the sacks and scattered a light-colored powder over the metal, then thrust it back into the coals.  
	When the powder glowed white and began flaking off the bundle, Matthias pulled the metal from the forge and worked it on the anvil.  As Hyrn looked on, Matthias shaped the metal into a longer, thinner, single piece.  Then he thrust it back into the flames, and worked the bellows again.  When he pulled it out this time, patterns of light crawled along the length of the blade, and the color edged into a much brighter red.  
	Matthias reached into the second sack, and scattered a fistful of dark powder along the length of the metal.  The color of the metal darkened, and serpents of light crawled through it.  
	“I need you to pour blood along the length of the metal,”  Matthias told Hyrn.
	Hyrn took his knife from his belt and scored his forearm enough to penetrate the layers of skin, but not enough to touch the muscle.  Blood welled up, rich and dark.  He turned his arm down, letting the blood run into his cupped palm while he milked the cut with his other hand.  When he felt he had enough, he dribbled a line of blood down the length of the blade.
	It didn’t vaporize, as he had expected.  Where it hit, the metal darkened, and dark flames reared up along the length of the metal.  He glanced at Matthias, and saw his face locked into an expression of intense concentration, a darkness visible in his eyes that burned more intensely than the darkness dancing along the length of the blade.  
	When Hyrn’s blood had coated the entire length of the metal, Matthias motioned him away, and began working the blade again, folding it around the blood.  As the day wore on, and the sun climbed high into the sky and dipped down toward the horizon, Matthias and Hyrn repeated the pattern of blooding and folding the blade six more times.  
	Each time Matthias brought the blade out of the flames, Hyrn saw the darkness in its length grow.  As the black flames rose to dance in the forge itself, the skin of Matthias’ face pulled tight against the bones of his skull, but the power and rhythm of his strokes never faltered.  And Hyrn understood as he watched the forging, as he had not understood before, that the power in the soulsteel rose from the power and will of the maker alone.  What would it cost Matthias, to forge enough weapons for Hyrn’s force?
	He had not known what he asked.  But even knowing, he would not have asked any different.  Matthias understood.  What they were doing had to be done, if any peace between humanity and the Bodiless powers would ever exist.
	On the eighth folding, Matthias added powder from the third sack.  Midnight flames danced over his hands as he scattered the black dust along the length of the blade, and tongues of darkness reached eagerly for the blood dripping from Hyrn’s hand.  
	“Wrap your wound,”  Matthias told him.  “Drink some water.  You’ve given me enough blood, this day.  When you’ve done that, wheel the table with that clay block over here and moisten its length.”
	Hyrn bound his arm and drank deeply.  He felt exhausted, though he had only watched Matthias work, and bled for him.  He wheeled the table close to the trough of water as Matthias heated and shaped the blade, the sword taking form under careful hammer strokes.  Matthias shaped the metal carefully, using smaller hammers, and even the hooked knives to coax out the shape he wanted, while Hyrn dipped water from the trough and ran a good layer along the length of the long block of dark clay.
	Black fire burned all along the blade, and through the coals of the forge.  
	Finally, Matthias thrust the blade deep into the coals, and worked the bellows furiously.  Heat roared out through the room, forcing Hyrn back.  Matthias studied the coals, shifting the blade and considering its length.  
	Then he pulled the blade from the coals, and let the bellows ease their roar.  The length of it glowed deep blue, with snakes of black fire crawling along it.  Matthias rolled the edge of the blade through the trough of water.  As Hyrn saw the clouds of steam boiling up around the smith, he saw that only one edge went into the water.  Then Matthias raised the blade in his hands, turned it, and slapped the edge that he had not cooled in the water down into the clay.  
	The moist clay hissed and darkened as Matthias carefully pressed the clay close around the metal, leaving the upper edge exposed.  Then he dipped into the trough, and sluiced water along the exposed edge of the blade until the metal lost its glow and the color sank toward darkness.
	Matthias gave Hyrn a tired smile as he wheeled the cart away from the forge.  “One down.  We’ll set the grip tomorrow, check for balance, and file the edge in place.  The temper’s good.  This one wanted to work with me.  Perhaps the influence of your blood.”
	Hyrn laughed.  “Perhaps.  Or perhaps you were simply ready to craft such a weapon.”
	Matthias paused.  “Ready to craft a weapon?  I hope not.  I hope I’m never ready to craft a weapon.  I’ll do this because I agree it must be done, but I will never wear it comfortably.”
	“Fair enough,”  Hyrn told him, slightly subdued.  Together, they cleaned the forge area and the tools, and put everything back in its place.  Outside, the frogs and crickets made their music to the rising moon.  Matthias opened the door, showed Hyrn where to sleep, and Hyrn remembered very little after that.

Chapter Four

	Movement entered into the darkness.  The darkness drew back, and Hyrn understood that he sat at a table of black marble.  Faces frozen in expressions of cruel wisdom looked down upon the table.  A man sat across the table from Hyrn, clothed in fiery serpents of light.  
	Hyrn’s eyes narrowed.  “Edward Tobit.”
	Tobit inclined his head.  “The same.”
	Hyrn instinctively reached for his sword, or thought to.  His limbs felt distant, as if he were detached from his body.  
	Tobit smiled.  “It is ever thus, with the gods.  Observers, unable or unwilling to act in the world they have made.”
	“Is that how you see yourself?  As a god?”  Hyrn sneered the question.
	“We are not so different, you and I,”  Tobit answered.  “We are both blessed with gifts beyond that of mortal man.  Why then do you hunt me?”
	“Why do you delight in the death of innocents?”
	“Are you so naive then as to believe in innocence?”
	“Looking at you, I believe in evil,”  Hyrn answered through clenched teeth.
	“Evil.”  Tobit smiled.  “You eat meat, do you not?  Is this evil?  You kill to maintain your own existence.  Even the harvesting of plants for the nourishment of our bodies is the process of killing or maiming the plants we eat.  Life in this world is gain at the expense of others.  If what I have done is evil, it is only because the nature of the world is evil.”
	“What gain does your killing bring you, then?”
	“Knowledge is my only goal.  Self knowledge, knowledge of others.  Understanding.  These things are the only good in this miserable pit you call life.  Understanding is the only gain that may be had without diminishing that which is understood.  Knowledge is more than power.  Knowledge is transformation.”  Hyrn caught a glimpse of a darkness smiling out through the other’s eyes.  In that moment, he understood what had happened to Edward Tobit out in the Wastes.  
	“Some knowledge comes at too high a price.  The knowledge you pursued in Mountain Home came at the expense of others, did it not?”
	Tobit’s smile never faltered.  “They were a separate breed.  I saved them from meaningless pain and misery.  What use to die frozen and alone in a mountain winter, or screaming in a flash flood, or by degrees of old age?  They gave me gifts of understanding, in Mountain Home.  They taught me about death, and pain.  I gave their deaths meaning.  I learned so very much.”
	“But you and I are different,”  Hyrn said dryly.
	“Yes.”
	Hyrn shook his head.  “I am no different from them.  Still human, blessed perhaps with different gifts.  Cursed perhaps with different weaknesses.  You, on the other hand, do not wear the mask of humanity so well as you might have thought.”
	Tobit’s smile faded, and fire burned behind his eyes.  “No?  Well then, perhaps I have more to learn.  And I have so many of you to teach me.  Perhaps I will send you a gift.”
	Tobit dropped his burning gaze, and on the black table in front of Hyrn stood rows of tiny figures.  They moved together, as if dancing.  Then Hyrn saw the practice swords in their hands, and he knew them, and all his rage and fear coiled together in a single rush of movement.  
	His arm came free, and he reached across the table toward Tobit, and the moment shattered into pieces of darkness.
	Hyrn awoke in silence and streaming morning sunlight, Tobit’s laughter still ringing in his ears.  The light splashed off the deep colors of the rich tapestries that Matthias hung over every wall large enough to take them.  Paintings hung from the walls, or were stacked in corners—landscapes and still lifes complemented portraits or more abstract mixtures of color.  Small studies in porcelain, bone or metal of animals, people, and objects filled tabletops, shelves, and the floor.  
	All of these things had one common theme: no sign of conflict could be seen in any work.  
	In the midst of the overwhelming profusion of works, Hyrn received an overall impression of comfort and peace, despite his amusement at the contrast between the order of the workshop and the clutter of the house.  It was obvious where Matthias spent the bulk of his time and energy.
	Once he dressed, he paused as he reached to buckle his sword belt in place.  He thought about Matthias’ hospitality, and the artist’s distaste for weapons, and about his dream, and left the blade leaning against the couch he’d used for a bed the night before.  
	The rasping of a file on metal met Hyrn’s ears as he stepped outside.  Matthias sat in front of a fire in a wood and cloth chair, a sword and a file in his hands.  Two rabbits roasted on a spit over the fire, and unleavened bread had been neatly stacked in an iron skillet.  
	“You’re up early,”  Hyrn told Matthias with false cheer.
	“Couldn’t sleep.  It’s like that when a project is on me.”  Matthias leaned the sword against one knee and gave the rabbits a turn.
	Hyrn glanced at the rabbits.  “You set snares?”
	Matthias shook his head.  “Sling.  The skills of a peasant childhood.  It’ll be done shortly.  Speaking of which, don’t worry about the horses.  I checked on them this morning, and they’re fine.”
	Hyrn watched Matthias continue to work the blade with the file.  “How did it come out?”
	“Shape’s close.  I still need to put the finishing touches on the edge.  As for the rest, see for yourself.”  Matthias flipped the blade in his grip, and held the wire-wrapped hilt out to Hyrn.
	When Hyrn’s fingers closed around the hilt, the shock of hot pain raged through his flesh.  Tongues of darkness sought out the bones of his hand and licked up his arm.  The pain took his breath away, but he kept his fingers closed convulsively on the hilt.  He brought his other hand up slowly, and took the sword in a two-handed grip.  
	Burning darkness rushed down his arms and met in his chest, swirling up to fill his skull.  His vision darkened, and he could barely keep his footing under the force of the power rushing through him.  Then the wind rose within him, cooling the black flames of the soulsteel and clearing his vision.  He trembled with the force of the flames and the calming strength of the winds.  
	Only the moment existed.  All he knew burned itself down to control and movement.  He could come to treasure such simplicity.  
	The world never possessed such clarity.  
	Shaking, he opened his eyes and brought the sword up in a sweeping cut.  His trailing foot followed his point of balance into the next step of the movement, and then the next step blended with the movement of the blade.  Ragged at first, the process of riding the pain into the focus of the familiar forms smoothed each motion.  He turned lightly, like a dancer, and heard Matthias shouting encouragement, though he could not hear the words through the wind and fire sweeping through his blood.  
	He reversed the sword and plunged the blade into the turf at his feet.  He had more of a struggle letting go of the pain than he had accepting it.  Almost reluctantly his fingers fell away from the hilt, and the black fires ran out of him.  
	He shook like a man with a fever, and faced Matthias.  “I’ll need more time with it.  The power’s too distracting for combat.”
	Matthias nodded.  “You’ll have to work with it.  But you have power of your own, and it came to your call.  You’ll master this in no time, I’m certain.  As for your students,”  he shrugged,”we’ll have to see how many can adapt to the black fires.”
	Hyrn looked at him curiously.  “How do you stand it?”
	“Me?”  Matthias smiled as he pulled the blade from the ground.  Black flames twined about his forearm.  He appeared not to notice.  “The power of the steel comes from the smith, and the forging.  It burns in my soul, and I pass the burning to the metal.  And the pain, the pain is something you come to accept.  But you know that.”
	Hyrn nodded.  “Though the power that the winds bring me is a more gentle one than that fire that burns in you.”
	“No less powerful, for all that.  The rabbit’s done, I believe.  Hungry?”  Matthias stood the sword against the chair and stooped over the fire.  He deftly pulled the rabbit away from the fire and cut the meat into small pieces with his belt knife, stacking the pieces in the skillet with the bread.  
	Hyrn sat on his heels across from Matthias, helping himself to the bread and the rabbit.  Both were cooked well and thoroughly, though bland in the notable absence of spice.  
	“I hope this meets with your approval,”  Matthias said between bites.  “I tend to eat like this when I’m on my own.  I eat richly enough when socializing.  When I cook for myself, I’m most comfortable with what I’m accustomed to.”
	Hyrn laughed.  “I’m more accustomed to eating in the field these last few years than not.  This is good enough.”
	The sound of hoof beats came to Hyrn then.  He saw Matthias’ eyes narrow, and knew he too had heard the sounds of an approaching horse.  The drumming of hooves grew louder, slowed to a canter, and then Mircea came into view, her horse lathered with sweat.  
	Hyrn stood as she slid to the ground.  As he watched her walk toward them, a lopsided smile on her face, her stride long and confident, an unease grew within him, and he thought about the blade he’d left in the house, and the dream he’d had in the night.
	Then she smoothly drew her own blade and lunged at Matthias.  Matthias threw himself back, his hand closing on the hilt of the soulsteel sword.  As he rose he brought the sword up in a fast cut, and Mircea danced back, her eyes widening.  
	“You’ve worked quickly,”  she said, her voice thick and slow.  
	About that time, Hyrn swept her legs out from under her.  He lunged forward as she fell, slapping the blade from her hands.  She snarled like a wolf and bit Hyrn on the forearm even as her hands wrapped around his neck.  
	Hyrn’s eyes widened as he felt the strength of her hands, and he frantically and unsuccessfully twisted and fought, unable to free himself, unable to breathe.  Blood poured from his forearm as Mircea’s teeth met through the flesh of his arm.  His eyesight darkened as he strained unsuccessfully against her unnatural strength.  Then Matthias laid the flat of the soulsteel blade against the bare skin of her neck.
	Mircea screamed like a damned soul and convulsed.  Hyrn ripped himself free and scrabbled away from her, breathing in great, hoarse gasps.  Mircea tried to run from Matthias and the burning soulsteel.  Matthias stayed on her, keeping the blade of the sword in contact with her flesh as much as possible.  He called black fires from the blade in his hands.  Darkness rose in a wave of midnight flame and washed over Mircea as she turned to fight him.
	She fell, still screaming.  Then her screams cut off into abrupt silence.  Matthias stepped away from her carefully, holding the blade at ready.  She lay still where she had fallen.  Her skin had a pale, waxy hue.  She was not breathing.  
	Hyrn dropped to his knees beside her, watching her warily.  Still, she showed no signs of life.  
	“I saw nothing leave her,”  Matthias cautioned.  “She could still be Soulridden.”
	Hyrn shook his head.  “How did she make it through the Council’s protections, Soulridden?”
	“Edward Tobit,”  Matthias said flatly.
	Mircea’s eyes opened as he spoke the name.  Hyrn stood and smoothly stepped out of reach.  A smile curved her lips.  “You were fools not to kill this vessel.”
	She rose sinuously to her feet.  “But you were always soft, Hyrn.”
	Matthias took a step back, his sword extended in front of him.  “Mircea.  Wait.”
	“There is no Mircea,”  she answered him sweetly.  “There is only this vessel.  And purpose.”
	She leaped, but Hyrn beat her to her own fallen blade.  She stopped, watching him out of narrowed eyes as he dropped the point of the sword and waited.  
	A low murmuring could be heard, rising in the distance.  Matthias continued to back away from Mircea, tongues of black flame wrapping him like a shroud.  She turned and launched herself at the smith, and the murmuring rose to a roar as a mighty wind swept into the space between the buildings and sent Mircea and Matthias tumbling.  
	The wind dropped away from Matthias instantly.  Music rose through the voice of the wind, a gentle counterpoint to the harmony swelling in Hyrn’s mind.  Mircea fought the strength of the wind, her face contorted to a mask of madness, but the wind had no body for her to grip.  Gently, even lovingly, the wind stole her breath as she fought desperately against the tender strength that held her off the ground.  
	Hyrn closed his eyes, and wove through the winds a music of silence, and sleep.  As he bound her limbs, so did he bind her will and awareness, so that when the wild winds faded, and Mircea collapsed to the ground, she lay where she had fallen, breathing deeply.  
	Hyrn turned to Matthias.  “If she is possessed, it is by a demon of unknown strength.  If she is somehow afflicted in another way, my skill does not lie in an area which can give her aid.  Do you know of one who can?”
	Matthias nodded sharply.  “You watch her.  I’ll be back.”  
	Hyrn watched him sprint for the horses, then turned back to study Mircea in her enforced sleep.  That’s when he thought of the others.  That’s when he began to worry.

Chapter Five

	Hyrn had the most difficulty simply waiting.  His memory and his fear wanted to drive him toward action, but he knew that any action without more understanding would be fruitless.  So he waited, listening to the comforting voice of the wind whispering through the trees, and he thought of Mircea, and the rest of his students, and Tobit.  And he feared.
	Matthias thundered back before noon but after an eternity had passed.  A man richly dressed in red and white velvet rode with Matthias.  He had a scowl on his face.  
	Matthias slid off his horse, waited impatiently for the man to dismount, grabbed him by the arm, and hustled him into the house where Hyrn had laid Mircea to rest.
	He felt the touch of another mind on his bindings.  Acknowledging the strength and confidence of that touch, he loosed Mircea gently.  Shortly after that, the screaming began.  
	Time did not pass any more quickly after that.  Matthias joined Hyrn outside the house.  He acknowledged the question on Hyrn’s face.  “Councilor Foth.  He was the closest, and I have done work for him.  He wasn’t happy, but he came.”
	Hyrn nodded.  Together they waited.
	An eternity seemed to pass before the screaming stopped.  Hyrn and Matthias watched the door open, and Councilor Foth stepped out of Matthias’ front door, looking years older than when he had went in.  Fatigue replaced the scowl he had worn earlier.  
	“You were right to bring this to my attention,”  he told Matthias.  “This Edward Tobit has devised a way to wreak havoc inside the Riverland border.  He must be stopped.”
	“We agree there.  What about the girl?”  Matthias asked.
	Councilor Foth mopped his face with a crimson silk kerchief.  “She may never recover.  She wasn’t Soulridden, so far as I can tell.  Though that may have been part of the process of breaking her.”
	Hyrn’s hands clenched into fists at his sides.  “What did he do to her?”
	“He broke her mind,”  Foth said bluntly.  “He destroyed her personality and filled her with a single purpose.  He sent her to kill Matthias.  It would seem that he fears Matthias.”
	Matthias shook his head.  “He fears Hyrn’s idea.  He knows that I am the means of executing Hyrn’s plan.”
	Foth cocked his head.  “What idea is this?”
	“A peacekeeping force in the Wastes, bearing soulsteel,”  Hyrn answered.
	Foth’s eyes widened, but he did not respond.
	“Can you help her, Councilor?”  Hyrn asked quietly.
	Foth sighed.  “I can try.  Perhaps with the help of a few others, I might be able to erase the most painful memories, and the most blatant conditioning.  Perhaps I can restore some of her original self.  As I warned you earlier, she will never again be the same.  That is beyond any on the Council.”
	“Thank you for what you’ve done, and for what you will do.”  Matthias spoke thickly.
	Foth shook his head.  “This concerns all of us.  What Tobit has done is make this girl into his weapon.  And we had no defense against it.  Her memories have been smashed to fragments.  Even the memories of her binding are fragmented.  Only one image dominates.  The place where she was bound.  Black marble floor, and giant cold faces rising over all she could see.”
	Hyrn leaned forward.  “The Walk Of The Gods.”  He thought of his dream.  He and Tobit had spoken across a table that could have been the Walk Of The Gods seen from a godlike perspective.  
	Foth shrugged.  “It could be.  I’ve never seen the Walk Of The Gods, myself.  But...”
	“Isn’t the Walk Of The Gods in Stone’s Rest?”  interrupted Matthias.  His eyes studied Hyrn’s face.
	Hyrn nodded, expressionless.  “He’s sent me an invitation.  He’ll be waiting for me there.”
	Matthias cocked his head.  “And what do you plan to do?”
	“Accept his invitation, of course.”  
	Matthias looked at the soulsteel blade that lay across the empty chair before the cold embers of the fire.  “I agree.  We should accept his invitation.”
	“You know he’ll be waiting,”  Foth said slowly.  “It will be a trap.”
	Hyrn studied Matthias.  “Are you ready for this?”  he asked softly.
	“As ready as I will ever be.”  Matthias’ eyes narrowed.  “But that does not mean we should allow ourselves to be pushed into a position of weakness.”
	Impatience spread over Hyrn’s face.  “We don’t have the time to forge more weapons.”
	“Not as you’re thinking, perhaps,”  Matthias said.  “But we have a number of tools at hand which can only make Tobit’s life more miserable, and hopefully far shorter.  We should not go unprepared, knowing that Tobit will be expecting us.”
	Hyrn read the hate in Matthias’ eyes, and for a moment felt only regret at having brought the man out of his peaceful life and back into the life of conflict he’d sought to escape.  Then, rolling his shoulders uncomfortably, he followed the smith back into his workshop.
	Matthias had brought together a number of items, including the remaining coil of soulsteel wire, one of the bags of dust he had used during the forging of Hyrn’s blade, several small bits of slag that remained from the forging process, and a number of his tools.  He looked up when Hyrn came through the door.  “Just thinking.  I don’t have the time for much, but I can work on some of this on the way, and what I need to do here I can do in less than an hour.”
	Hyrn nodded.  “You need to know something first.”
	Matthias raised an eyebrow.  “Oh?”
	“I dreamed of Tobit last night.  We met over a bargaining table that appeared to be the Walk Of The Gods in miniature.”
	“Not just a dream then.  I’m not that much of a believer in coincidence,”  Matthias said.  “What bargain did he offer?”
	“He came to taunt or tempt, but mostly he came to learn.”
	Matthias’ eyes narrowed.  “I don’t understand.”
	“I believe I know what happened to Edward Tobit in the desert,”  Hyrn said obliquely.  As Matthias shifted impatiently, Hyrn held up a placating hand.  “Let me take this in my own way.  No one has heard of Edward Tobit prior to this.  When I found out about Mountain Home, I looked into his past.  He was a priest who decided to become a hermit.  He chose to seek his solitude in the deepest desolation of the Waste.  When he came out of the Waste, he descended on three villages like a plague.  Mountain Home was the last.  He left few to witness his passing but the rare Bodiless wary enough to escape his notice.  But they were enough to mark his passage.  They were enough to bear witness.”
	“So you learned of him from the Bodiless.”
	“As did you.”	
	“So what does this tell me,”  Matthias asked impatiently.  “That he found something in the Waste?”
	“No.  That something found him.  Edward Tobit is dead or enslaved in his own body.  I have no doubts.”
	Matthias’ eyes lit with understanding.  “You’re saying he’s possessed.  By some Bodiless spirit.”
	Hyrn shook his head.  “Not just any Bodiless spirit.  Something capable of commanding hundreds of the Bodiless.  Something that regards this world as a laboratory.  Something that has no first hand knowledge of death.”
	“A demon, then.”  Matthias paused.  “Will soulsteel be enough against this demon?”
	“I don’t know,”  Hyrn responded quietly.  “I just don’t know.”

	

Chapter Six

	They rode hard, pushing their horses and pushing themselves.  Hyrn worried as he rode.  He worried about Matthias, and the smith’s lack of sleep.  He worried about Mircea, and all the rest who at that moment, he suspected, lay under Tobit’s domination.  Most of all, he worried that they would fail.  
	Hyrn worked his power into a subtle misguiding.  He didn’t know enough about Tobit and the demon to be confident he could block the other’s senses.  But he knew ways of dealing with the Bodiless, and he suspected that Tobit would be using the Bodiless as his eyes.  He saw no need to let Tobit have any unnecessary advantage.  
	They crossed over the mountains and camped in a meadow in the foothills above Stone’s Rest.  The town lay below, at the edge of the Waste.  The stars glittered coldly above their heads as they lay down in the long grasses and listened to the wind.  Matthias worked before taking his rest, winding soulsteel wire into tight, heavy balls of black flame.  He also braided elegant bands from the wire of a size to encircle wrists or ankles.
 	Hyrn rose early, while Matthias still slept, and used his belt knife to trim a sapling to staff size, working it to an acceptable feel.  He wanted to believe he could avoid killing any of those who had trusted him.  
	The night surrounded him, clear and cold.  A breeze rose about Hyrn as he finished his staff, and the sound of stealthy footsteps came to him out of the night.  He edged back toward the embers of the dying fire.  Matthias slept on, undisturbed.  Hyrn wasn’t surprised.  The smith had pushed himself hard over the previous two days.
	Hyrn listened to the silence of the mountain, noticing the absence of night sounds.  He could feel, without directly sensing, movement in the darkness.  
	He crouched by the fire and stirred the embers with his staff, looking out into the darkness.  As tongues of flame lit in the embers, he saw sparks of light glint in the shadows at the edge of the trees.  The lights came in three pairs, which glowed red and yellow and green.
	Hyrn stood, facing the darkness, the rousing fire at his back.  Figures rose out of the shadows and prowled around camp.  Hyrn paced them, staying between Matthias and the prowlers.  
	The figures paused, and a soft voice spoke out of the darkness.  “You act as if you don’t trust us, Master.”
	“Remy.”  
	The soft voice laughed.  “Not Remy.  Not at the moment.”
	Hyrn’s right hand twitched where it held the staff, and stilled.  He said nothing.
	“Give us the smith,”  a rougher voice spoke out of the darkness.  “Give us the smith, and go down to the Walk, and the one who waits for you there.”
	“Clever of you to hide your tracks,”  Remy’s voice said conversationally.  Yellow eyes opened in the shadows, and a figure stepped forward into the edge of the fading light.  
	Red eyes hovered at Remy’s right shoulder.  “Hunting parties are covering the likely passes through the mountains,”  said the rough voice.
	Green eyes burned at Remy’s left shoulder.  “But we were lucky enough to find you.”
	“Give us the smith,”  Remy said hungrily, his eyes gleaming yellow with the light of an alien awareness.  
	“Come and take him.”
	The three Soulridden roared and charged Hyrn.  Hyrn faded like smoke, whirling the staff out and up.  The fire-blackened end caught Remy under the chin and he fell back into the night.  Red threw himself at Hyrn while Green hurled himself at Matthias’ prone form.  
	Hyrn rolled, thrusting the staff between Green’s feet.  The Bodiless howled like an animal as he flopped forward into the dirt.  Hyrn rose out of the roll and thrust the end of the staff into Red’s stomach.  He doubled over, and Hyrn took one step back, twirling his weapon to bring the opposite end down on the back of his opponent’s head.  Red dropped.  
	Green was scrabbling toward the still-sleeping Smith when Hyrn slipped the staff under his chin from behind, jerked him up, set his knee in the other’s back, and grimly began to choke him into unconsciousness.  As the other faded, something like unto a green, glowing mist began to pour out of his mouth and nose.  
	Hyrn dropped him and backed hastily, only to feel a tingling numbness and see a veil of mixed red and yellow settling over his limbs.  Hyrn swayed like a drunk, his entire awareness fighting the outrage of attempted possession even as his senses contracted and he started to lose the sensation of the cool night air on his skin, the starlight in his eyes fading to smears of color.  The staff slipped from his nerveless fingers, and his mouth twitched, chewing and spitting in the empty air as he battled three alien presences for control of his body.  
	He saw a manlike shape through his fading vision, and felt a familiar cold power touch his hand.  His hand closed convulsively around the hilt of his soulsteel blade.  The black fires rushed through his flesh, and he heard a thin wail as the powers fighting over him came into contact with the flames.  He brought his other hand to the hilt, and whirled with the blade, slashing the air.  The fire and the focus of disciplined movement brought him back to himself, and he paused over the blade to watch pieces of light fall away from him, red and yellow and green fading to be lost in the darkness like drops of blood falling into water.  
	He relaxed, bringing the blade down from the guard position, reversed it, and handed it to Matthias.  The smith stood just beyond reach, his face unreadable.  He took the blade and sheathed it.  “Where is your sheltering wind?
	Hyrn breathed deeply.  He felt himself trembling as reaction to the almost successful possession set in.  “Caught in the task of warding us from prying eyes, I imagine.  Too closely opposing Tobit’s awareness to pull free easily.”
	Matthias watched him closely.  “Will your ally answer the call tomorrow?  If not, we’re lost.”
	Hyrn met the smith’s gaze, then shook his head.  “I’ll drop the obscuring once we’re out of the hills.  That should free the winds.  If Tobit has enough strength to hold the winds captive after I’ve released them, then we truly are lost.”
	Matthias nodded, turning to look out to the east at the lightening sky.  “We might as well break camp.  We have an appointment to keep.”
	Matthias helped Hyrn check Remy and the other two men who had served as vessels for Tobit’s Bodiless.  Remy’s jaw was broken.  The man Hyrn had struck in the head was unconscious and could not be awakened.  Hyrn did not recognize either of the two men with Remy.  He wondered how many Stone’s Rest townsfolk Tobit had taken to swell his ranks of Soulridden.
 	The last promised to take care of Remy and the other man, and fetch a healer come the morning.  Shaking, refusing to meet Hyrn or Matthias’ eyes, he made Remy and the unconscious man comfortable on pallets by the embers of the fire.  
	Matthias and Hyrn promised to return on the morrow, and rode down the hills toward Stone’s Rest.  Hyrn had read the disbelief in the man’s eyes.  Hyrn knew that the other didn’t expect either of them to return without an alien light burning in their eyes.  All in all, Hyrn couldn’t blame the man for his skepticism.  The man had seen Tobit close up.  He had felt the power of his Bodiless.  He had fallen to the will of a ghost of power.  
	Who was to say they wouldn’t do the same?

Chapter Seven

	As the sun breasted the horizon the pair rode down from the foothills and circled the ancient town of Stone’s Rest.  Hyrn paused to release the winds from their task of obscuring his presence.
 	Crumbling walls and decaying foundations marked the uninhabited edges of town.  Stone’s Rest had three claims to fame: it was the birthplace of Hyrn Swordmaster; it housed the monument known as the Walk Of The Gods; and it had once been the center of an ancient cult, still the subject of whispering rumor.  Stone’s Rest had a long history, and in this latest phase of its life had collapsed inward like a large man eaten by old age.  
	Sandy soil began to reduce the grass to scraggly clumps, and when the wind shifted to their faces it became the arid breath of the Waste.  The Walk Of The Gods lay on the side of Stone’s Rest that faced the Waste, and though the sands had crept up around its base, none touched the white marble stair, or the midnight black stone of the Walk’s floor.
	Hyrn could see them waiting at the head of the stair.  As he and Matthias paused to dismount, he recognized many of his students standing in the crowd that stood at the edge of the black floor of the Walk.  
	Tobit had prepared a reception for their arrival.  
	“So glad you could make it, Hyrn,”  a merry voice called down to them.  “I thought I might have to send another messenger to deliver my invitation.  I thought you might have had trouble deciphering the first message.”
	Hyrn and Matthias said nothing.  Hyrn wore the soulsteel blade at his side and carried the staff he’d cut in the hills.  As Matthias wrapped the reins of his horse loosely around a rocky outcropping, his sleeves slipped back to reveal a woven bracelet of dark wire, tiny tongues of black fire licking along its length.  Pouches hung from Matthias’ belt, and in one hand he carried a sling.  His other hand curled loosely around a small sack.  The ties on the mouth of the sack were loose.  
	Hyrn let Matthias set foot on the stair and take the lead, as they had agreed.  Hyrn wore a slightly abstracted expression as he called out to the wild winds that played at the edge of the foothills above town.  
	Hyrn followed Matthias up the stair.  Movement above caught his attention.  Burning lines of light and darkness eddied above the heads of Tobit’s Soulridden.  The sparkling light of more Bodiless glittered in the eyes of the Soulridden that stood around Tobit.  
	Edward Tobit still wore a raiment of living light.  Bright and terrible streamers of bound Bodiless rubbed along his body and swirled over his limbs.  His eyes were pits of darkness, and his face could have been a mask carved of pale ivory.  
	Hyrn again saw a deeper shadow moving behind the mask of the man’s face, and he shivered in spite of himself.
	Tobit smiled.  “I’m so glad you’ve chosen to come to me.  Things will be much easier this way.”
	As the lines of light dipped down toward them, lazy and confident in their movements, tongues of dark flame blossomed around Matthias, called from the Soulsteel he wore at wrists, ankles, and throat.  The Bodiless jerked back as if stung.  
	“The smith,”  Tobit said.  A new harshness had entered his voice.  “It is not enough.”
	“You’re right there,”  Hyrn answered.  A ragged edge touched the wind.
	Matthias felt the wind change, and heard the confidence in Hyrn’s tone, and so he knew that Hyrn was ready.  He raised the bag in his hand as the wind rose to a roar, then swept the contents of the bag out across the back of the wind with a single quick movement of his hand.
	Black fire rose as the wind took the soulsteel dust and the smith called the power from it.  Hyrn felt the fire through the wind, and though the pain touched him, it touched him sweetly, like the burning of tender memory.  Black fire gave the wind a shape, and like a curtain of midnight flame, the wind and the burning dust dropped down over the Walk Of The Gods.  
	Bodiless burst away from the wind in a frantic swarm.  Possessing spirits fled out of the bodies they held in thrall, and the empty hosts fell screaming to the floor of the walk.  Tobit stood in the midst of his swirling cloak of captive light, aloof in the midst of the storm.   
	Matthias lifted his arms to the wind, and the fires in the dust exploded into dark fury.  Even Tobit’s cloak unraveled from the surging flames of the dust.  Hyrn could feel the agony of the Bodiless as they fled.  
	Then the fires died, and the wind with it.  Tobit stood facing them, the darkness behind the ivory mask of his face clearly evident.  “Well struck.  But I am not of such lesser kind.”
	Hyrn dropped the staff and drew his sword.  Black fire rose along its length, and the world narrowed to a clarity of focus he had rarely experienced.  Tobit’s gaze snapped to Hyrn as the sword came out of its sheath.  Hyrn could feel Tobit’s attention like a physical impact, and he could hear the whirring of Matthias’ sling at his left side as he took a step toward Tobit.
	The wind and the fire rolling through Hyrn’s limbs recoiled as a shock of pressure hit his will.  More than physical, Tobit’s awareness fell over him like a net of razors.  Black fire guttered under that inhuman pressure, and Hyrn’s stance faltered.  
	Then a ball of soulsteel wire took Tobit in the throat.  The pressure lifted from Hyrn as Tobit bent, his hand clutching his throat, bloody saliva spraying the floor of the Walk.  Hyrn lunged as a burning lump of slag hit Tobit in the temple.  He whirled and fell.
	Matthias drew a deep breath, and straightened.  “I can’t believe it would be so easy.”
	“It’s not,”  Hyrn answered.  He hadn’t relaxed.
	The body of Edward Tobit lay still, but something moved within him.  Hyrn could see it, twisting and turning within the prison of Tobit’s body.  Hyrn stepped closer, raised the soulsteel blade above his head, and plunged it through Tobit’s body.  
	A scream of rage and anguish buffeted him, and an inhuman figure rose from Tobit’s shattered remains.  Wings spread wide to gently beat the air, and a face of unearthly beauty looked down upon them.  Hyrn heard Matthias backing away as the dark angel took a faltering step toward them.  It held out a massive hand, wrapped in black flames.  
	Hyrn looked into eyes that were twin windows into an abyss of alien knowledge and shook his head.  “No,”  he said gently.  “We reject you.”
	The dark angel threw back his head and howled, and in that moment the pitiless gaze of the faces looking down on the Walk reflected an immortal hunger for experience, and unending thirst for knowledge.  And the flames rose up, and the wings spread wide, and for a single moment the dark angel seemed to span heaven and earth.
	Then the fires fell in upon the dark angel, and consumed him, and as he fell he dwindled, until he had diminished to a tiny thing, crying out against the night.  And then he was gone.
	Hyrn sheathed the sword, letting go of the sweetness of the pain, and turned to help Matthias pick up the pieces.  

Chapter Eight

	Hyrn stood at the edge of the black floor of the Walk Of The Gods, staring out into the Waste.  No trace of blood remained to be seen, as if the stone of the Walk had licked up every drop.  The faces of the nameless gods bordering the walk were blank masks of heartless knowledge.  The pitiless expanse of the waste gave him no answers.
	Not that he had expected any.
	The wind out of the Waste touched him, sensing his unease.  The touch of the wind always gave him comfort, but it could not soothe him completely.  He paced the length of the ebon stone floor.  The Walk Of The Gods waited patiently around him, a testament to the ephemeral power and transitory presence of flesh and blood written in stone and silence.
	What was this course he had chosen?  How could he but fail?  Doubt drained the reservoir of resolve his power and experience had filled.  The anguished face of the fallen angel filled his mind’s eye.
	He drew the flute from the case at his belt, traced its length lovingly with his hands.  An elegant marriage of silver and ivory, the instrument was as much a work of art as a tool for the production of art.  
	Had the craftsman who shaped the instrument ever doubted the end result?  
	Hyrn slowly raised the flute to his lips, and as the winds rose about him, he began to play.  The notes came faltering at first, but the wind took the weak beginnings and skirled playfully around and through the columns of the Walk.  The colors of little powers, the few Bodiless close enough to hear, rose and danced on the wind like a thousand rainbows of living light.  A smiled curved Hyrn’s lips and his music firmed, laughing with the wind.  The music and the voice of the wind rose together in an instant of transient defiance and wild delight, and the powers moved to the music.
	In that moment, even the eternal, cold faces of the gods softened.
	He felt another presence through the wind.  Reluctantly, he let the music fade.  The winds died down slowly, and the powers fled reluctantly, loath to end the dance.
	He cased the flute as he watched Matthias climb the stair toward him.  “Matthias.”
	Matthias inclined his head.  “I heard you playing.”
	“Exorcising some demons.”
	“Did it work?”
	Hyrn looked up at the distant faces of the forgotten gods.  “It always works, at least for a little while.”
	Matthias shrugged.  “That’s all we can ask for.  It’s all we have.  They’re waiting for you.  They’re impatient to begin.”
	Hyrn nodded.  “I know.”  He looked to the rising sun, trying to read the future in the bloody light.  And though the light gave him no answers, he found that the shadow of doubt that had driven him to that place faded with the dawn.  “Let’s not keep them waiting.”
	The wind at their back and the sun in their faces, they left that place behind.