The young Wickan slowly blinked. ‘My assistants concluded it had been a stable. They then left without elaborating.’

Kulp scowled at Duiker. ‘I despise Wickan humour,’ he whispered.

Sormo gestured them closer. ‘It is my intention to open myself to the sacred aspect of this kheror, which is the name Wickans give to holy places open to the skies—’

‘Are you mad?’ Kulp’s face had gone white. ‘Those spirits will rip your throat out, child. They are of the Seven—’

‘They are not,’ the warlock retorted. ‘The spirits in this kheror were raised in the time before the Seven. They are the land’s own and if you must liken them to a known aspect, then it must be Tellann.’

‘Hood’s mercy,’ Duiker groaned. ‘If it is indeed Tellann, then you will be dealing with T’lan Imass, Sormo. The undead warriors have turned their backs on the Empress and all that is the Empire, ever since the Emperor’s assassination.’

The warlock’s eyes were bright. ‘And have you not wondered why?’

The historian’s mouth snapped shut. He had theories in that regard, but to voice them – to anyone – would be treason.

Kulp’s dry question to Sormo broke through Duiker’s thoughts. ‘And has Empress Laseen tasked you with this? Are you here to seek a sense of future events or is that just a feint?’

Bult had stood a few paces from them saying nothing, but now he spat. ‘We need no seer to guess that, Mage.’

The warlock raised his arms out to his sides. ‘Stay close,’ he said to Kulp, then his eyes slid to the historian. ‘And you, see and remember all you will witness here.’

‘I am already doing so, Warlock.’

Sormo nodded, closed his eyes.

His power spread like a faint, subtle ripple, sweeping over Duiker and the others to encompass the entire clearing. Daylight faded abruptly, replaced by a soft dusk, the dry air suddenly damp and smelling of marshlands.

Ringing the glade like sentinels were cypresses. Mosses hung from branches in curtains, hiding what lay beyond in impenetrable shadow.

Duiker could feel Sormo E’nath’s sorcery like a warm cloak; he had never before felt a power such as this one. Calm and protective, strong yet yielding. He wondered at the Empire’s loss in exterminating these warlocks. An error she’s clearly corrected, though it might well be too late. How many warlocks were lost in truth?

Sormo loosed an ululating cry that echoed as if they stood within a vast cavern.

The next moment the air was alive with icy winds, arriving in warring gusts. Sormo staggered, his eyes now open and widening with alarm. He drew a breath, then visibly recoiled at the taste and Duiker could not blame him. Bestial stench rode the winds, growing fouler by the moment.