The Lady! This fiery glory was the Lady. We had been waiting for the Lady! I stared till my eyes ached. And dropped to one knee myself. I offered Whispers sword on my palms, like a knight doing homage to his king. The Lady!

Was this my reward? To actually meet Her? That something that called to me from Charm twisted, filled me, and for one foolish instant I was totally in love. But I could not see Her.! wanted to see what She looked like.

She had that capacity I found so disconcerting in Soulcatcher. Not this time, Croaker, she said. But soon, I think. She touched my hand. Her fingers burned me like the first sexual touch of my first lover. Remember that racing, stunning, raging instant of excitement?

The reward comes later. This time youll be permitted to witness a rite unseen for five hundred years. She moved. That has to be uncomfortable. Get up.

I rose, backed away. Soulcatcher stood in his parade rest stance, watching the light. Its intensity was falling. I could watch without pain. It drifted around the stone pile to our prisoners, waning till I could discern a feminine shape inside.

The Lady looked at the Limper a long time. The Limper looked back. His face was empty. He was beyond hope or despair.

The Lady said, You served me well for a while. And your treachery helped more than it hurt. I am not without mercy. She flared on one side. A shadow diminished. There stood Raven, arrow across bow. Hes yours, Raven.

I looked at the Limper. He betrayed excitement and a strange hope. Not that he would survive, of course, but that he would die quickly, simply, painlessly.

Raven said, No. Nothing else. Just a flat refusal.

The Lady mused, Too bad, Limper. She arched back and screamed something at the sky.

Limper flopped violently. The gag flew out of his mouth. His ankle bonds parted. He gained his feet, tried to run, tried to mouth some spell that would protect him. He had gone thirty feet when a thousand fiery snakes streaked out of the night and swarmed him.

They covered his body. They slithered into his mouth and nose, into his eyes and ears. They went in the easy way and came gnawing out through his back and chest and belly. And he screamed. And screamed. And screamed. And the same terrible vitality which had fought off the lethality of Ravens arrows kept him alive throughout this punishment.

I heaved up the jerky that had, been my only meal all day.