China sat back down. “I want you all to understand something. I’ve been doing this job for a little over a month, and I like people doing what I tell them. It’s fun. And I don’t want the world ending just when I’m having fun.

“We use Erskine Ravel to lure Darquesse here. Once she’s here, we engage her in combat. We throw everything we have at her – sorcerers, Cleavers … Dusk and his Exiled will be a part of our strategy, as, of course, will the God-Killer weapons. If they take care of the problem, wonderful. We can all go home early. But our main objective is to keep Darquesse busy. Keep her distracted. Valkyrie … this means you will more than likely encounter her on a one-to-one basis.”

Valkyrie nodded.

China sighed. “Which means you’ll probably need something to fight her with.”

“I have magic again.”

“But it hasn’t manifested, has it? You feel it, but you don’t know what it is. You might discover you possess the magical ability to talk to goldfish. Your magic might manifest as an offensive ability, or it may not. But you need something.”

She nodded to someone out of sight and Tipstaff appeared from nowhere, holding out the Deathtouch Gauntlet for Valkyrie to take.

She glared. “I’m not wearing that.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist,” said China.

“What good is it going to do me?” Valkyrie said. “I’d need to get right up close to Darquesse to use it, and she’d kill me with a slap.”

“I may have something to offer in that department,” said Solomon Wreath.

China looked at him. “Go on.”

“Twelve hundred years ago, the highest Clerics of the Necromancy Order got together and constructed a sigil which bestows upon its user incredible strength and complete and utter invulnerability. Are you aware of this sigil, Grand Mage?”

“Of course,” said China. “The Meryyn Sigil – elegant and intricate, its beauty is marred only by the simple fact that it doesn’t work.”

“They were Necromancers,” Wreath smiled. “You really think they’d let one of their secrets out without keeping something back? Physical activation is necessary in order for the sigil to start working. But the High Clerics, in their wisdom, decided that strength and invulnerability were gifts to be used only by those who had proved themselves worthy Necromancers – sorcerers who have mastered death. They thought the future would be full of such people.”

“How many have there been?” Valkyrie asked.

“In the last twelve hundred years?” Wreath said. “None.”

“And how does this help us?” asked Saracen.

“It doesn’t help us,” said Wreath. “It helps Valkyrie.”

“Wait,” she said. “When you say sigil … you mean a tattoo, don’t you? No. I had one in the vision and I was wearing that gauntlet and there’s no way I’m using either of them. No way.”