Sahmanan’s voice cracked. The youth went rigid. He seemed to flicker, to fade, to spin, to become two distinct Ethrians, one of which was a shadow of the other so bleak and dark light shied away. A scintillant mist gathered, spiraling inward. Then only the black Ethrian could be seen, rocking slowly, trying to widen its mouth.

Cracks of fire ran over the boy of darkness. Smouldering flakes fell away. Smoke drifted on a rising breeze. Suddenly—whoosh!—the rest of him flung skyward in one roaring, expanding black cloud.

Shih-ka’i felt that same despairing cry he had sensed after hurling the box into the portal on Hsu Shen’s island. The earth trembled and glowed where the boy had stood. A dome of air shimmered overhead.

“He’s gone,” said the woman in white. “And when he goes, I must follow. We’ll trouble you no more.” Though the breeze persisted, her clothing no longer stirred. She faced the woman weeping against Ragnarson’s chest. “I’m sorry. Tell her I’m sorry. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I just never found the will to….”

Shih-ka’i could no longer hear her. Light passed through her now. He shouted, “You’re forgiven.” He turned to Mist. “Princess, are you all right?”

“Yes. Just a little shaken. I thought you’d disposed of it.”

“I thought I had. We dumped the thing into a transfer with no exit side. How could it have escaped?”

The wizard Varthlokkur spoke for the first time. He sounded contemptuous. “Use your reason, Lord Ssu-ma. Time doesn’t obtain in the transfer stream. Neither does death. Now, finally, we know the nature of the horror that’s lurked there since Tuan Hua opened the first pair of portals. It was that thing.

“He found himself alive after you thought you were rid of him. He cruised back and forth across the centuries preying on unlucky travelers. He searched out the one time Ethrian made a transfer, penetrated him, and hibernated till his own absence from the present wakened him. Why do you think the boy assumed the thing’s madness so willingly? He wasn’t that sort of child. Had he not had his father’s strength and stubbornness he would have succumbed far more swiftly and completely.”

Varthlokkur turned away, took his wife from Ragnarson. “I’m sorry, dear. I tried to protect you from this.”

“You were wrong, Varth. You shouldn’t have shielded me. I’m not a child. We might have saved him if we’d come earlier.”

Pain filled the wizard’s eyes.

Shih-ka’i considered the dark pillar of cloud, the coruscation doming the fallen Deliverer. He searched himself for some sign of elation. There was nothing there. His war was over and won, and he felt like a loser. He started trudging toward the city. The others followed, except the foreign woman. She remained near her fallen son.