Mocker kicked savagely. He wriggled like a snake with a broken back. He slapped and pounded with his free hand, and clawed for the dagger beneath the wardrobe. Bragi held on. Mocker produced another knife, scarred Ragnarson’s side repeatedly.

“Why are they doing this?” Ethrian whined. “They’ve been friends longer than I’ve been alive.”

Sahmanan did not answer. Her lips shaped a weak little smile.

“Father!”

Mocker’s struggles were weakening. Ragnarson slowly dragged him to his feet….

The smaller man exploded. He had been faking.

Ethrian foresaw the inevitable. He threw himself forward, shrieking, pounding both men with his fists. He might have been battering ghosts. He felt no impact at all.

Ragnarson leaned forward till Mocker was almost able to throw him. Ethrian begged him to stop. He snapped back with all the strength and leverage he could apply.

“No!” the boy shrieked.

He could almost hear his father’s neck breaking.

Sahmanan seized his arm. “Come!”

He fought. “No! I won’t! My father….”

Fear filled her eyes. “We have to leave now!” She dragged him into the wall.

The door of the bedchamber burst inward. Bragi’s brother Haaken, the wizard Varthlokkur, and several soldiers charged in. Light flooded the bedroom. Ragnarson let his old friend slide to the floor.

Ethrian struggled, but could not break the woman’s grip. She tugged him through the wall. He kept pulling back toward that room, but she lifted him into the approaching dawn and carried him back to the east. After a while he stopped fighting.

“Now you have seen your father slain,” she said. “You have seen your enemy. Will you deliver us now?”

“Why were they fighting?”

Waves of anger beat at him. “We used the last of our power to show you this. Will you persist in refusing us? Have we destroyed ourselves over you? I warned him….”

Ethrian answered anger with anger. “Enough. I may loosen the ties a little. Let me think.”

He had seen his father slain by his best friend, true, but there had been something askew there. The something, perhaps, behind Sahmanan’s eagerness to depart before the piece was complete.

He relived that moment of breaking bone… A flash of hatred hit him. It stabbed toward Bragi Ragnarson, then recoiled, twisted, speared toward those who ruled the island in the east. They had choreographed that bitter scene. The old man had hinted at it… Those tools of the Dread Empire….

“All right. I’ll free you. A little.”

He was sure the woman and stone beast were more than they pretended. They were hiding from him. He was afraid they represented a deadly trap. He had heard all the tales of deals with devils.

The hatred remained with him, twisting his thoughts, telling him to take what they offered. The stone beast had known, and had sent him where the black emotion would be triggered. It had placed its bet well. The hating was too strong to deny.

He would loose them slowly, shaping them to his will. Forcing their cooperation.