When they had finished Rhazat led her to a ramshackle stable at the back of the tower, where four horses, including Moonshine, were tethered.

“Would you care to have your old friend carry you?” asked Rhazat, stroking Moonshine’s rump.

“Are they all dead?”

“Of course, my dear.”

“Then I’ll take one of the others.” She didn’t want the last memories of Moonshine to be what it felt like to ride his corpse. Instead, she took a white mare with the same dead white eyes. Its flanks felt cold as she climbed into the saddle and she suppressed a shudder of revulsion, concentrating instead on the fact that there were horses to be had for another escape attempt.

Klia had assumed they’d go to the main gate, but instead Rhazat led her in the opposite direction, to a smaller gate and a winding road that led up into the hills behind the town.

Rhazat kicked Moonshine into a gallop and Klia’s horse followed without any urging. They hadn’t gone far when Rhazat turned off the road down a wide path into a stand of dead trees. On the far side was a grotesque mockery of the oracle’s cave. Instead of a beautifully carved façade, a huge horrid face had been carved into the hillside, with the cave opening as a square mouth. A black stone altar stood before it, heaped with clods of dung and dead doves, owls, seagulls, and hawks—each bird symbolizing one of the Four.

“Where did you find birds to kill here?” Klia asked, disgusted by the obvious perversion of the offerings.

“Where did I find you, my dear?” Rhazat dismounted and led her into the cave.

Only it wasn’t a cave, but an arched tunnel of dressed stone. Rhazat flicked a finger and small torches in brackets along the walls flared to life to guide them.

The tunnel ran level at first, then canted more sharply down, coming out at last in a cave that looked very much like the one that Alec and Seregil had described, the day she’d gotten sick, including the paintings of animals. Only, as she looked more closely, she saw that the animals here were killing one another, eating their own young, or being ridden by hideous figures. The cave floor was dry, and there were no dripstone formations.

“This way.” Rhazat linked arms with her and led her through the echoing space toward something that glowed in the torchlight.

As they drew near, Klia saw that it was a black opal the size of a small apricot, carved with intricate symbols and set into the wall in a round boss shaped a bit like a flower.

“Isn’t it lovely?” said Rhazat, looking up at it.

It was, thought Klia, and totally out of keeping with the horrors that surrounded it.

“Touch the stone, Klia.”

Klia looked at her in disbelief. “Why would I do anything for you?”