Ethrian’s basic questions remained unanswered. He suspected he would not find the important answers till too late. “Who are these people?”

“Some of the fallen of the Nawami Crusades. They were reanimated, motivated, and preserved by our art,” said the voice of the stone beast. “They, too, await their Deliverer.” Dead men? Ethrian thought. He was supposed to perform some foul necromancy that would recall the dead?

Revulsion hit him. The dead were much feared in his age.

The woman in white faced him. A smile toyed with her mouth. She began to talk. Her words did not synchronize with the movement of her lips.

“You have your enemies, do you not?” Her speech seemed to come from afar, like a whispering breeze through pines. “Here lies the power to lay them low, Deliverer.”

Ethrian was young, confused, frightened, and dreaming, but he was not stupid. He knew there would be a price.

What was it?

“Free us,” the woman insisted. “Deliver us. That’s all we ask.”

Ethrian gazed upon the armies in waiting, the armies of the dead, and reflected on the fall of Nawami. Should such fury be released again? Could it be controlled? Was revenge so important?

What other force could face the might of the Dread Empire? Only these elder sorceries could withstand those boiling in Shinsan today.

And he had himself to consider. If he refused them, would Sahmanan and the beast help him survive? Why should they bother?

He would become one more bone monument to the deadliness of this land.

He walked away from the woman, back whence he had come, till again he could see the silvered scape of the barrens. There were lights on the island in the east. He glared at them, hating the people who had lighted them.

He was nothing in this world. He was as powerless as a worm. How else could he punish their crimes?

Sahmanan had followed him from the darkness. “How do I release you?” he asked.

She tried to explain.

“When next we meet,” he said, cutting her short. “I’ll give you my answer then. I have to think first.” He went to his sleeping place, curled into a fetal ball. He was learning a whole new breed of fear.

Dreams came. They never stopped. And this time he did not waken for a long time. He lay in that one place for what seemed an age, unmoving, while the stone beast used the last of its power to show him the world, to proselytize him, to teach him what was needed of Nawami’s Deliverer.

Seldom were Ethrian’s dreams diverting.

TWO: YEAR 1016 AFE
A TIME OF CHANGES

“HE’S COMING! He’s at the Gate of Pearl!” Chu enthused.

Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i looked up from the morning reports. He was a stocky, muscular man with a bull neck. He possessed a porcine air. He looked more like a wrestler than the Tervola-commandant of a legion of the Middle Army. “K’wang-yin, comport yourself as befits an Aspirant.”