Reaching for something that wasn't there. Bad sign. Skandra glared through the haze of the desert at nothing in particular before he decided that there was no tree, and that there was no spring. Why did someone always imagine a single isolated tree in the middle of all this nothing? Skandra would have settled for something closer to a city. He wasn't a creature of wilderness and forests sprawling but a creature of the city. Any narrow crawl of degenerates and well-intentioned criminals was his to command as he pleased. This, on the other hand, was the sort of shit he hated the most. Just because he'd done it before didn't mean he was interested in doing it again. Doing what Shantar said usually require outstanding feats of concentration and willpower. This, on the other hand, was something entirely different. If Skandra didn't want to wring the old man's neck every day for a thousand years he would have killed him. Of course, there was a voice in his head telling him that it could have been worse. It always could be worse. He could be, obviously, dead. For that he hadn't decided whether to thank Onainat or curse at her.

( His lips were dry. )

For days on end the only thing he'd seen was a hard rolling set of hills that were bastards to climb. Not because the horses tired quickly, though they did, or because of the dust, which was awful, but because they hardly said two words to each other. Skandra found it was easier to keep his mouth shut than to be chastised for his language. And he didn't want to talk about the past, or how fantastic and special Ithacles was, or why he was an idiot, or what made priestesses look most virginal. So he stuck to eating the dried beef he'd brought along with him and wishing for his flask. A flask. It could be filled with anything. Anything that was alcoholic, anyway. Aeotha was useless when it came to carrying drinks. Skandra couldn't even hope for a sip of some fortified wine, and she was supposed to be a gods-damned healer. If he had to do this sober it was going to make his life a lot more difficult. And probably a lot less fun.

( It happened that way. )

There were, upon reflection, a great many things about this world that no one knew. Oh, you could prattle on about science and the discovery of the wheel, of fire, but there were too many things that a person didn't know. One of those things that currently plagued Skandra Tyullis was how to pick a very peculiar lock. It was, apparently, designed by a dwarf of some repute and a known scoundrel who had a debt to pay off with the local magistrate. Or so the story went. Therefore it was the most confounding lock he'd ever seen with his two eyes. It was also problematic because, in two minutes' time, he was to be securely fastened in a cage that had the lock affixed prominently to it. That cage would then be thrown over the side of a barge, and he would sink to the bottom of a river without a name and die. Seemed like a lot of work to kill one person. Then again, considering the source of his current troubles, he shouldn't have been so surprised. Over the years and in a variety of ways Skandra Tyullis had proved to be a thorn in the side of Uathis. It only made sense, given how often he'd tried in the past, that this semi-obscure mage who fancied himself a collector of ancient things would want to be sure.

There was sure, and then there was...

( ...overkill. )

How long ago had he met Shantar Tyullis? It seemed like longer than he cared to count. And in all that time he'd never let his grandfather down. No matter what the odds against him or how hard it was to come through Skandra had managed it, somehow. This time couldn't be any different. It wouldn't be any different. If those weapons were proliferated, if they became popular and known, there would be no way to stem the flow of blood that would roll across the world. Alchemy was still an infant science. Weapons made by alchemy weren't trusted generally. Those in power believed in the divine, not in the stigma of an art that anyone - no matter their station - could learn. But if one could believe, and he believed in unjust ideals, then the army he commanded would have no equal in all the world. It was about more than that, wasn't it? He was parroting the words Shantar had spoken to him but there wasn't any heart in it. Not really. What he wanted, what he believed, was right in front of him. It was there to be taken. All he had to do was reach out and seize it.

He could have.

( Any time he wanted. )

Leading his horse through the riff-raff and various street merchants that had gathered around the stables of the Green Sliver Inn was no small thing. This close to dawn they were already out in force. Tosla had the feel of an all-night city but not the character. All the best alehouses closed their doors too early. There wasn't enough female entertainment to fill a thimble after midnight. And Skandra wasn't half as hungover as he wanted to be. That hardly seemed to matter. Picking his way through the wide-open smithy attached to the stables was easy. Once he arrived in the stables he saw the measure and character of the men that Aeotha had hired. There was nothing else they could be but petulant, puffed-up mercenary types. Swords belted on, riding either hip, and a third in their bedroll. Knives and needles and pinwheels and chakrams decorated them fiercely. No doubt they all considered themselves to be one-man armies. He'd seen the like before, and he wasn't impressed. Not in the slightest.

"Gentlemen," Skandra nodded as courteously as he could.

"Who the hell are you?" one of them asked roughly.

"Skandra Tyullis. Who the fuck are you?"

"Never heard of you," he sneered before returning to his saddle straps.

( Miserable bastard. )

"I heard she's got four arms and four swords."

"Four arms and four swords? D'ya know how stupid ya sound?"

"Well why'd they say it if it wasn't true?"

"Why does anyone say anything isn't true?"

"Cause they got a powerful imagination?"

"Money, you tit. Money."

"She doesn't have four arms," Skandra snapped irritably. "And if she's ever touched a sword I'll eat my own liver."

( After that, no one seemed to want to say anything. )

There was a part of him, limping along the packed-dirt path, which didn't believe the towers of smoke rising from that camp. He knew it was real. Some part of him hoped it was not. Vicious red lights streaked up through the center of those columns, heinous and honest, giving lie to the hopes he had for the survival of someone - anyone. Skandra tugged his sword into place, out of his way, and limped faster. Against the midnight sky those pillars of smoke and fire seemed god-like. Destroyers of worlds and dreams. Exactly how he'd always imagined the gods to be. And if the grim stare on his face was not enough to cow the gods then Ilyien's equally vicious mask ought to do the trick. He couldn't believe it. He didn't know why he couldn't believe it. There was nothing at all particularly unbelievable about it. A tug of his hat. A jerk of his coat. When they arrived at the gates to the campground nothing prepared him for what he would see. Those pillars belong to the fires of the dead and their worldly possessions. Washed clean by consuming fire as though ash was the only measure of its presence that creatures of conscience could allow.

( Creatures of conscience. )

There was something about the night's air that made him think of the past. Maybe it was the way it felt on his neck. Or maybe it was just the thrill of doing what he'd started his life doing. The skills of a thief diminished over time unless they were practiced with constant vigilance. He didn't. There was enough talent left for the basics, and his footsteps were light. He could still deal seconds as well as any card shark. Quick hands, was what they called it. Climbing onto a ledge without being seen and then breaking a window without being heard? Well, that was taxing his skills to their limit. Skandra didn't think Ilyien could manage it, even if he could, so with a roguish smile and a piece of parchment that was never unfolded Skandra had talked their way into the house of the great Lord Thalas as winemen. Ilyien drew the cart, Skandra kept the manifest and with a minimum of fuss they were in. The guards were much too busy to follow a pair of wine-delivering men into the deep places of the manor. So it happened that when they arrived in the wine cellar, they were alone.

It was starting out slow, but at least they were inside.

( For now. )

It wasn't a celebration or a gathering of good, decent persons. That was the first thing Skandra noticed as his eyes toured the gathering for which they'd just finished performing. Across the wide clearing there was a platform erected for the occasion, but not for the use of the menagerie. He could still hear the tiger's roar from his solo performance as he juggled eggs, between the tamer and the killer, ostensibly too drunk to know what he'd stumbled into. That had been a thing for memories. And Flora watching the whole time with her hands clapping gleefully. He wasn't sure how many had been cheering the beast and how many had been cheering the tamer, with whatever scant few were left for the hapless drunk so impressed with his single talent. He wasn't sure which one Flora had been cheering. Skandra mopped the sweat from his brow with a sleeve and cursed his lack of a hat. Regional styles weren't important. Stand-out features were. The hat rested in the wagon he shared with Ilyien. So did his sensible clothing. Outfitted in a short coat with flaring sleeves of many colors, Skandra felt every part the fool he'd been playing.

( And every part the drunk. )

From the moment the tent flap closed behind him Skandra was forced to wonder if he'd made a mistake. Ilyien had been biddable enough, once he'd been assured that there would not actually be any dresses involved - a lie that Skandra was still not sure he could transform into the truth - and he'd come without too much complaining. Only now here they were, waiting on her attendance. Skandra could never feel at ease asking someone for a favor. Especially since he knew that favor was going to be a pinch for her. You didn't show up in a friend's place of business and ask to put that business in a bind for the sake of your own goals. He was going to have to play this very carefully. Only she would know that he was playing it carefully. So he had to come up with a reason that he was playing it carefully, and a believable one. She always did know when he was lying, even if he wished she couldn't. One of the things he hated most about her. There were a lot of things he hated about her. You could see it in her eyes. The way she looked at you. The way a bird would look at a worm.

( Thoughtful. )

Skandra,

By now I am certain this missive is arriving in the hands of Alaara, but you are gone. That's all right. Maybe it's better that you never read this. I suppose I wouldn't want you to think I actually care about what happens to you.

What you've done can never be expressed in words. Saying that you saved my kin would not be enough. That's the second time you've fought for the people to whom you owed nothing. Everything I saw in you when I met you the first time is true. The good, and the bad. I'm only overjoyed to know that the good outweighs the bad, that you can rise above the things you struggle with. You saved my kinsman's favored priestess, you saved my kinsman's home, and most important of all you helped sanctify the earth upon which Lorien allows us to walk. I hope that in the future I never have need to call on you again. If I do, I feel blessed knowing that you will rise to the occasion.

You're a good man, Skandra Tyullis. These times are dark. There are too few men about whom I can say such a thing.

Yours in friendship,

Ithacles, son of Ithunvel

By the time Skandra realized something was written on the piece of parchment, he'd already blown his nose into it.

( How important could it have been? )

The ride cross-country had not been the most pleasant experience of his life. Half the reason he walked so often, to so many places, was that horses did suit him as a mode of transportation. Riding was not the problem. Feeding them was. Horses were voracious animals and prone to much overeating, which of course was half the problem. The other half of the problem was travel subjected to the whims and exhaustion of a creature that could not communicate. The last thing Skandra wanted was a woman that couldn't talk, and that was essentially what stolen horses were. They couldn't complain about their exhaustion while you worked, so they instead made strange noises and fell off the road with a gasp of tiredness that nothing could resolve. Skandra had been faced with that problem once again, only this time he had an arrogant ass of a knight to deal with as well. Vacations were all well and good, but...

( ...he was starting to think he'd prefer the cell. )

They had acquired, in their travels, a large base of followers. Of course they were the sort of followers that didn't come recommended, not even by those who claimed to worship them. Spiders as large and larger than a man, all of them hovering outside of the circle of orange light which twin torches projected. On occasion one or two of the largest would try to plough through the protective light, only to be met with a flashing sword. That discouraged the rest. Skandra didn't know how much further they had to go when they started out in that solemn procession. He just knew that they didn't have much of a chance to survive if they didn't reach some sort of safety soon. What form this safety would take remained to be seen. If it truly was Lorien's forest they had nothing to fear, but more and more Skandra was doubting that the forest truly belonged to her any longer. Trees were mere skeletons now, reflections in a mirrorless sky and a reminder that every coin has its opposite side. He tapped one with his sword and heard a hollow sound. Lorien surely meant for them to survive, didn't she? She meant for them to emerge from this victorious. He just didn't know how they were supposed to do it.

( As it developed, hunger was the least of his worries. )

Sitting there in his cell, with only his own annoyingly morbid thoughts for company, Skandra wondered what his gallows was going to look like. Hopefully they'd roll out every gilded rope in their possession. No expense spared to the comfort of the accused or the entertainment of the wicked who came to watch a man die. There would be a crowd, of that he was certain, and most of them - who loved their liege lord only because experience had not yet taught them to do otherwise - would be cheering the death of the one person who'd ever tried to help them in their lives. How it had come to this, Skandra could not rightly say. What he could say was that when he woke up he was promptly put back to sleep by a very polite and yet hauntingly violent fellow who liked to punch people in their broken nose until the pain forced them to pass out. Not a very civilized place, the Free Cities, and he was dismayed to add that it had only just improved since his first visit. If they'd caught him the last time, they would have just executed him and let that be that.

It should have figured. Shantar had sent him here to stop someone from taking advantage of the people in an outlying area of the Free Cities. That, and the old man was convinced that this fellow had dealings with Gershul, though as usual Shantar was very shy about giving any kind of evidence or proof to support his claim. Skandra believed that the proof existed. He was just tired of having the proof denied to him. Although, in a day's time that wasn't going to be a problem for him. The rows of cells with their cramped and narrow passageways proved to be as much of a death sentence as the word of a lord, or the hatred of a magistrate. A clove rolled with pages from the copy of The Path of Fire which every cell was furnished with and the spare flecks of tobacco in his pocket tasted as grim as death, and he had to pass it down the row to get the other inmates to light it on a torch - but at least it was something.

( Not exactly, a lot, or anything. )

For three days and three nights it had gone on the same way, with Skandra and his company trolling through endless mists in search of something that was going to mean something. Anything. Aeotha remained hopeful about their chances, but a dark mood had fallen over the forest and it had taken over him as well. Skandra peered through the darkness between trees with as sour a gaze as he felt had ever issued forth from the eyes of a vagabond and sometime adventurer. Wouldn't be the first time he was wrong, though. Probably not the last time either. With no torch in his hands and the mist rolling over him in waves, he felt naked.

That was the first thing they'd discovered about those mists.

( Fire kept them at bay. )

Skandra adjusted his glove with a glowering eye toward the short hills around him. Someone had been tracking him for the better part of a day and a half. Tracking him and refusing to be thrown off by one false trail after another. Across a swamp and through Feinharad. Now they were in Astarii, on the Black Deer Plains, and the fellow still hadn't lost a step. Whoever he was, Skandra had decided, he didn't work for Lord Thalas or his council of idiots, morons, vagabonds and other ne'er-do-wells. Skandra had been on many raids precisely like this one, over the last four months, and every time it would end the same way. Thalas sent someone after. Skandra killed them, and gave them a decent bury in whatever godsforsaken place they finally encountered one another. And a week later, maybe two if the weather wasn't very good, Skandra would return and do it all over again. This time he hadn't sent the usual two-bit mercenary with his tin hat and his broad challenges. This time he'd sent a professional. That might have worried someone else.

( Fortunately for Skandra, professionals usually weren't true believers. )

Skandra opened his eyes to a canopy of green. Or, what should have been green, if there were any light which would penetrate deeply enough into the forest of willows and thin reeds to illuminate it. Instead there was a shadow greater than the darkest sky hovering over them like a blanket. Skandra had seen about all that he cared to see of endless jungle with seemingly no destination in the vicinity. Aeotha would promise every night, as she had for the last week, that they were getting closer. Yet the only visible progress Skandra could see was the dulling of the machete he'd taken from one of the elves before they set out. Every night he spent an hour grinding away at the blade with a whetstone for little positive effect. Sooner or later the blade was going to be ruined. And he was not going to hack his way through the jungle with a side sword. His side sword. Having the women take turns was almost laughable.

Which meant so far, he was doing all the work.

Skandra had taken to tying his coat around his waist - for some reason, the nights were unaccountably chilly while the days were miserable with humidity - and hacking away for most of the daylight hours. Not that daylight made much of a difference. In a forest so dense that you couldn't see your hand in front of you daylight hardly shattered the eerie darkness that surrounded them. Strange creatures of every stripe hooted and called all around them. Skandra had just gotten used to the noise when it changed again, this time grim and more predatory. There were whispers of jungle cats and worse watching from every corner of the landscape that belonged to the goddess. Yet something was unnatural about the darkness. He could feel it in the tension of the elves, and in the ferocity of the forest. It was not meant to be this way. No forest of Lorien was. Skandra didn't have a feel for the goddess, or a connection with the divine, but even he could detect that note of strangeness in the air.

( Sleeping was a problem. )

Skandra dragged himself out of the water with an expansive sigh. His hat was still clinging to his head, though the stiff brim had given way to the soaking pressure of the water and wilted. When it was dry it would be right again. Until then, he was going to have to struggle on without it. Torchlight was already bathing him by the time he stagged toward the elven camp. Skandra hadn't quite expected things to end so explosively with the Vel, but that was how the game went sometimes. Of course, Ithacles was still going to have his head. Assuming the captain didn't take it first. Right out of the hole and into the destruction of the river boat, along with all the cargo it had carried. In spectacular fashion, Skandra would admit, but he'd destroyed it nonetheless. Where the hell was his luck? There was a fire on the southern bank of the river. Which he could only assume belonged to more survivors of the shipwreck. Aeotha wasn't here, yet, but he'd seen her floundering along in the river.

( Her nose turned higher and higher with each passing day. )

"It's two days in the hold, or I toss you overboard," the captain had said. "And you get to pick."

As it developed, the hold was little more than a glorified equipment locker. The door was wooden, but with iron hinges, and heavy enough for ten men. A slot had been carved in, just below eye level for elves, which mean near his midsection. And a set of steel bars had been firmly implanted in the door. Skandra peered at it from underneath the broad brim of his hat, wondering what in the hell he had done so wrong to get locked up in here. The answer was contained in his reflections on the past, and the steps he'd taken along the way. Playing with a knife, with anything, would have helped him to pass the time. They'd taken his weapons when they'd locked him up in here. Some things were never going to change, no matter how much he wanted them to, and the straight-laced morality of elves was one of the worst offenders in his book. Fighting his way out wasn't going to do him any good since he was supposed to be here to help them.

"I don't care how highly recommended you come," the captain added. "Prince Ithacles is a good fellow, but I'll still heave you over the side."

Ithacles had recommended this post to him. Leironuoth was off doing whatever it was that exiled Champions did, and Ithacles knew Skandra had a powerful need for money. That had led him here, and here was a riverboat operating on the isolated Arato River. Bringing goods down from the Grey Elves in the Central Mountains and selling them at Iasa was as good a living as most of these riverboat captains were ever going to make. Unfortunately they were a humorless lot and mostly kept the discipline which had marked their years in whatever personal army they could name. This Knighted House, that Knighted House. All of them sneering as though they were nobles themselves. Skandra rolled the coin across his fingertips for the seventieth time, and stared at the door. Nothing. Not even a bench. He'd left his shirt undone, and long since started using his coat as a pillow. Ithacles was never going to forgive him if this story got around.

( Bribing the captain wasn't going to do any good. )