Trey stood beside them, his disc-sword unsheathed and glinting in the reflected light of Hope’s chemicala. “They’re not moving,” he whispered. The only sound was the hiss and spit of the fireballs.

“Why aren’t they attacking?” Kosar said. He remembered the Monk in Trengborne, unhindered by the arrows sprouting from its head and body, driving forward with renewed ferocity each time it was struck.

A’Meer fired three more times at the first Monk, each arrow passing through the shape, none of them leaving any apparent wounds.

“Waiting for us to use all our arrows?” Hope said.

“Are they really there?”

“If not we’re all having the same nightmare.”

And then the Monks moved.

As one they slowly sank down to the ground, their legs parting and spreading as if melting into the cool soil. They kept their form as they slid down, and Kosar even saw the glint of their eyes as cloaks and hoods were plucked apart at the melting point. Whatever went to make up the Monks shimmered and undulated, flowing out from where the shrinking forms stood and covering the ground around them, glittering like a million eyes in the night.

Hope’s lights were fading.

“It can’t be,” the witch said, disbelief making her sound so young.

“What?” Kosar asked.

The shapes were almost completely gone, the hoods still red, eyes and red faces still there as they sank into the shifting ground. They looked liked six individual puddles, but each one moved a hundred ways at any one time, covering the grasses and stones but never stealing their shape, a coating rather than a covering. Once the Monks had gone, the stuff grew dark, and in the fading light of the floating fireballs they looked like splashes of shadow looking for a home.

“Mimics,” Hope said.

As if her utterance had galvanized them, the shapes drifted together, formed one mass and then moved quickly to the right, heading west, disappearing into the night.

Hope’s chemicala finally died and plunged them into a greater darkness than before. The four drew back to the horses and stood protectively around them, facing out, waiting for their eyes to adjust.

“What exactly did we just see?” Kosar said. He wanted a response from anyone, but his question was directed at Rafe. “Rafe, what was that?”

“I don’t know,” the boy said from his horse.

“Mimics,” Hope said again.

“They’re a legend,” A’Meer said, but the uncertainty in her voice was obvious.

“Of course they are!”

“I’ve never heard of them,” Kosar said. “I’ve traveled, but I’ve never seen or heard of anything like that.”

“Mimics!” Disbelief and delight vied for dominance in Hope’s voice. “I’ve heard of them a few times, even met an old woman who claimed to have seen them once, but I never believed I’d ever see them myself.”

“But you did believe that they existed?” A’Meer asked.