It was spring, or very nearly. It seemed that the winter had been interminable, but what had he really accomplished? The months had slipped away, and with them Ehlana’s life. Was he really any closer to freeing her from her crystal entombment? In the cold light of the midnight moon, he suddenly came face to face with a chilling thought. Might it not be entirely possible that all of the scheming and the complicated plots of Annias and Martel had been with but a single aim – to delay him, to fill the time Ehlana had left with senseless activity? He had been dashing from crisis to crisis since he had returned to Cimmura. Perhaps the plots of his enemies had not been intended to succeed. Perhaps their only purpose had been delay He felt somehow that he was being manipulated and that whoever was behind it was taking pleasure in his anger and frustration, toying with him with cruel amusement. He lay back again to consider that.

It was a sudden chill that awoke him, a cold that seemed to penetrate to his bones, and he knew even before he opened his eyes that he was not alone.

An armoured figure stood at the foot of his cot, with the moonlight gleaming on the enamelled black steel. The familiar charnelhouse reek filled the room. ‘Awaken, Sir Sparhawk,’ the figure commanded in a chillingly hollow tone ‘I would have words with thee.’

Sparhawk sat up. ‘I’m awake, brother,’ he replied. The spectre raised its visor, and Sparhawk saw a familiar face ‘I’m sorry, Sir Tanis,’ he said.

‘All men die,’ the ghost intoned, ‘and my death was not without purpose That thought alone doth comfort me in the House of the Dead. Attend to me, Sparhawk, for my time with thee must be short. I bring thee instructions. This is the purpose for which I died.’

‘I will hear thee, Tanis,’ Sparhawk promised.

‘Go thou then this very night to the crypt which doth lie beneath the cathedral of Cimmura. There shalt thou meet another restless shade which will instruct thee further in the course which thou must follow’

‘Whose shade?’

‘Thou shalt know him, Sparhawk.’

‘I will do as you command, my brother.’

The spectre at the foot of the cot drew its sword. ‘And now I must leave thee, Sparhawk,’ it said. ‘I must deliver up my sword ’ere I return to the endless silence.’

Sparhawk sighed. ‘I know,’ he said.

‘Hail then, brother, and farewell,’ the ghost concluded. ‘Remember me in thy prayers.’ Then the armoured figure turned and walked silently from the room.