The Nyueng Bao stepped out of the shadows just long enough to listen. He stared at those riders, troubled. Then he grunted, descended to the street and trotted off into the night.

“Listen up, people. We’re going to go save our fearless dick-head leader. Bucket...”

29

I stepped into a dark alleyway, planning to set up shop behind a southern company with Goblin to do his hoodoo on them. And it was like I stepped off the edge of the world, into an abyss without bottom. Like some great psychic flyswatter slapped me down into the void. Goblin barked something in the instant it took to go but I did not understand him.

I had that moment to feel seasick, to be bewildered, to wonder who had ambushed me with what sorcery, and why it seemed to twist me like a wet rag being wrung out.

Had Mogaba taken his treachery to another level?

30

Something had hold of me. It pulled so virulently there was no resisting it. I lost track of who I was and where. I knew only that I was asleep and did not want to wake up.

“Murgen!” a far voice called. The pull strengthened. “Murgen, come on! Come home! Fight it, Kid! Fight it!” I fought.

But it was that voice I fought. It wanted me to come somewhere that much of me did not want to go. Pain awaited me there.

The pull redoubled as the force dragged at me with inescapable power.

“That did it!” somebody shouted. “We have him back now.”

I knew that voice...

It was like coming out of a coma except that I remembered where I had been in every detail. Dejagore. Every little ache, every horror, every fear. But already the sharp edges were going dull. The ties were slipping. I was here now.

Here? Which when and where was here? I tried opening my eyes. My lips would not respond. I tried to move. My limbs refused to be troubled.

“He’s all here.”

“Pull that curtain.” I heard heavy cloth being moved. “Will it keep getting harder? I thought we were supposed to be over the worst. That he couldn’t recede so far that we would have this much trouble bringing him home.”

Oh! That voice belonged to Croaker. The Old Man. Only the Old Man is dead, because I saw him killed. Or did I? Didn’t I just leave Widowmaker, alive long past his time?

“Well, he didn’t listen. But it can’t do anything but get better now. We’re around the corner. Over the hump. Unless he wants to stay lost.”

I got an eye open.

I was in a dark place. I’d never seen it before but it had to be in the Palace at Trogo Taglios. Home. Never have I seen that kind of stone used anywhere else. And there was nothing astonishing about not being able to recognize parts of the Palace. The princes of Taglios all add on a bit during their reigns. Supposedly only the old royal wizard Smoke ever knew his way around the whole place. And Smoke isn’t with us anymore. I don’t know what happened to him afterward but several years ago he got torn up when a supernatural creature he disagreed with tried to eat him. Handy, because about then was when we discovered that he had been seduced by Longshadow and had gone over to the Shadowmasters.