Tasi-feng hurried to meet Shih-ka’i. “Lord… It’s your man Pan ku.”

“What?” Shih-ka’i ran, his stubby legs wobbly.

Pan ku lay across the engine that had discharged the shaft that Ragnarson had turned. His throat had been cut. At his feet lay the remains of another man, a man almost wholly putrefied. Tasi-feng said, “He died trying to protect you, Lord.”

Moisture stained the inner faces of the jewels in Shih-ka’i’s mask. He did not correct Tasi-feng. The stone thing had had its revenge. It had slain his man and used him to launch a missile against his master. “He was like a son to me, Lord Lun-yu. Like a son and a brother. We’ll see him off with a hero’s honors.”

Shoulders slumped, Shih-ka’i faced the rising sun. Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i, pig farmer’s son, Commander of Armies and Victor Over the East. He snorted derisively.

Nepanthe approached the darkness and scintillation as nearly as she dared. She looked within herself for some deep feeling about what the morning meant. She could locate nothing but a hollowness. She couldn’t feel more than mildly bitter about Varthlokkur having kept the truth from her. Her knowing or not knowing had been irrelevant. Ethrian had been lost the moment those devils of the Pracchia had forced him through a transfer.

Could she blame anyone but herself? She had gotten them into that situation….

The sun pushed through the pillar of darkness. She glanced up. It was beginning to dissipate. The woman in white was now no more than a twitch in the air, like heat rising off bare stone. The coruscation where Ethrian had fallen was losing its color, turning milky, threatening to go watery.

She glanced toward the city. The chunky little Tervola had outdistanced everyone. He was at the gate already. Bragi and Mist were ambling along, apparently talking. Bragi’s gestures looked dispirited.

Varthlokkur had stopped. He faced her from two hundred yards, waiting. The Unborn floated above his head. She stared back at him. There lay the new life. The last vestige of an old life lay dead at her feet. The end of an era was written….

The coruscation died. And there lay the body of her son. “But…” she murmured. “I saw him explode. I did.” Frantically, she beckoned Varthlokkur.

The wizard approached reluctantly. Too many sharp words had been exchanged. Their relationship was severely wounded.

Ethrian groaned.

“Oh! Damnit, hurry up!” Nepanthe shrieked. “Varth, please!”

The wizard sensed the quickening in the boy. He ran.

Ethrian’s eyes opened a crack. “Momma?” he croaked.

Nepanthe flung herself on him and wept.