“Why do you tempt me thus?” Brand asked. “I know it is your nature, but I can’t allow you to possess me—if it were only for me, I might relish your embrace, but I will not forsake my folk for my own base pleasures.”

  “Thus is the reason I’ve come,” said the Shining Lady. Her arms retreated. She still floated over the stream, but she no longer approached him.

  Brand dared gaze at her directly. “Why then, have you come to torment me again?”

  “For the same reason I’ve always come to you, Brand. You are strong. You attract me as much as I do you.”

  He stared at her, trying to think. It was beyond difficult. He still dreamed he told himself—at least, he thought he did—and in dreams forcing one’s mind down logical paths was like trying to run in hip-deep water. Every step of sensible thought took a great effort. Every thought was resisted, and distractions abounded. The scene around him, he knew, might fade away and become someplace else, making it hard to keep his train of thought under control.

  “I’m strong, so you want me…” he said. He almost lost the thread then. He gazed around at the skies and they seemed to shift to grow brighter. Could dawn be approaching? What was he doing here? He strove to complete his thoughts. The Shining Lady watched him and did not interfere in his internal struggles.

  “I am the Champion of the Haven!” he said loudly. He urged Ambros to shine, and it did so. He held it aloft over his head like a brilliant second sun.

  The Shining Lady did not retreat, but she did hold up her pale arms to shield her face. Her arms looked normal again. The light was intense enough to burn lesser beings, perhaps even to cause blindness. Here, in this dream world facing this powerful creature of the Dead, it only caused her discomfort.

  “Yes, you are a Champion,” the Shining Lady said. “That is precisely why I’ve come. I want you to be my champion, Brand. I want you to wield an even greater Jewel. I wish to gift you the Black.”

  Brand lowered Ambros and tried to speak sensibly. His tongue was thick in his mouth and his mind felt like cotton in his head. “I—I wield a Jewel now. I could not forsake it for another.”

  “There would be no need,” she said soothingly. “You can keep your beloved axe, axeman. The Black Jewel will compliment it. Both will serve you. What better combination could there be? Think of the twisting magicks you could perform! The Black, blended with the Amber…Light and Dark working together. One bringing death to any who come near while the other commands the freshly hewn corpses to rise and serve their new master who has just slain them. It is a perfect combination.”

  “What of your husband, fair lady?”

  “Without the Black, he is only a tangle of old bones. I’ve grown tired of his gropings. I would know a new man, clothed in clean flesh. It will not be with us as it has been with a thousand others, Brand. Not with you! I will gift myself to thee, even as I gift you the powerful Black. You will know pleasure and power as no man of your folk ever has.”

  Vaguely, Brand was able to grasp what she offered. Bliss and power undreamed of. He did not know if he could master these two Jewels. Briefly, he’d managed to hold onto the Blue and Amber, but he’d almost lost his mind in doing so. What would the Jewels of death and heroism do to his mind and soul if he attempted to wield them both?

  Brand took a step forward, deeper into the stream. His boots sloshed with water as he took three more. There, in the midst of the flood, the Shining Lady awaited his embrace. All he had to do was take her in his arms and release his passions. Everything else would take care of itself after that.

  He took another step, and now stood before her in the midst of the flowing water. He felt the coolness of it on his knees, which contrasted sharply with the fire in his loins. The Shining Lady looked inhumanly beautiful—and inhumanly pleased.

  She lifted her arms slightly to receive him. He had only one more step to take to be hers.

  “It pains me more than I can say, milady,” he groaned out the words. “To reject thee. You are damned and you would damn me to comfort you.”

  Her face fell and filled quickly with great sorrow. She reached out to touch him, and he swept away both her hands with the blade of Ambros. As each pale wrist was severed effortlessly by the blades, the Amber Jewel flashed. Brand knew the spirit of the axe was delighted to cleave through flesh again—even that of the Dead.

  She dropped to her knees before him, keening. Tears ran freely down his face. It was difficult to see her, as his own eyes now wept with her, profusely.

  He knew with absolute clarity he was a vicious bastard. The lowest form of villain. A slayer of the weak, the beautiful and the virtuous. He knew all these things in his heart of hearts, but still he continued. He raised the axe high and tasted his tears as they ran down into his mouth.

  “No Brand,” she said, pleading. “No, I will have you, or he will. Let me be the one! I will be infinitely more pleasant. I swear this! Know it to be true!”

  Brand knew her promise was true, and that she had made just such a promise to King Arawn one distant day in the past when she had gifted him the Black Jewel. But it did not matter. He would not forsake Telyn, his children, his folk or his mind. He had taken an oath to protect and serve them all.

  He was the axeman, and he did what must be done. He clove her diagonally, from her left collar down through to her right hip. She fell apart, but she did not die—as she was already of the Dead. She wept and howled with disappointment. Her severed hands grasped at him beseechingly from the sandy bottom of the stream, clutching at his boots. Her eyes looked up at him from where her upper portion had fallen into the flood. Wavery though the view of her was through the water, he could still see her lovely face. He had caused her such pain, such anguish. It was unimaginably cruel.

  He backed away from the horrors he had created and sloshed to the banks of the stream. He sank down there upon the fresh earth and lay on his back, sobbing. He stared up at the stars which faded with the coming dawn. They seemed cold and merciless, unmoved by his suffering or that which he caused others. The stars had forsaken him, he felt, as had all others.

  It seemed to him then that he fell asleep, while in reality, he awakened.

  * * *

  In the morning, when he stumbled blearily out of the tent, he still wondered about his nightmare. How much of it had actually happened? Was the offer a real one, and what did it mean that he had refused the Shining Lady?

  Telyn followed him as he blinked in the sunlight, lost in thought. “What’s the matter, my love?” she asked.

  “I had a dream. It was a bad one, and I’m not sure what it meant.”

  “Everyone has evil dreams now and then,” she said, soothing his shoulders with her touch. “Do not dwell in that place husband, wherever you were! There are no answers there, only madness.”

  Brand turned to her and hugged her until the breath was driven from her body. “You’re right,” he said.

  Telyn looked at him strangely, seeing his emotions ran high. Her face was quizzical, and he feared she would ask him to tell her of the nightmare—but she stopped herself, and for that he was grateful. He had no desire to relive what had happened while he slept.

  “Let’s go and gather our companions,” he said. “It is time we explored the roots of this land we plan to live upon.”

  Brand led the way to his command tent, where he found Kaavi and Puck waiting. Staring at Kaavi, Telyn frowned immediately and crossed her arms in irritation. Brand glanced at her worriedly. Clearly, jealousy had caused his wife to change in demeanor.

  His natural course of action would have been to leave Kaavi behind, but she had shown up with her brother Puck. How could he order her from the group? That would do nothing to endear Puck, who he needed on his side to entreat Oberon to help him, should things be even worse than they looked. He wondered how this trip into the earth was going to go, with both Telyn and Kaavi along and in close quarters.

  Brand sighed and washed his face with cool water brought up from fresh streams. The Kindred had redirected the cleanest water sources so they flowed under his walls through a grate and helped cleanse the land of years of taint. Death, blood and a thousand crimes had haunted this place for nine hundred years. Perhaps when his history was written, trying to revive this dead place would be known to all as his greatest folly. But he was determined to make the attempt.

  He got an idea, looking at the stream on its unnatural course of flow. Why not redirect it down into the underworld? It would not kill the Dead, but it would drown out other things that may exist in dark corners. He thought that if this trip went badly, he might take such a drastic action—or do worse. Oil could be dumped into the pits and set alight almost as easily as water could be sent down.

  “All right, all right,” said Grasty, stumping up to greet them. “I’m here now, we can begin, milord!”

  The two women came up and stood on either side of the foreman. Puck sat on a bench nearby, sucking on a clay pipe. Blue smoke wreathed his head. There was a half-smile on his face as he watched the two females, neither of whom looked pleased. They did not, in fact, make eye contact with one another. As far as Brand could tell, neither had even acknowledged the presence of the other. Brand didn’t know much about these matters, but he knew this was a bad sign.

  “Anyone want to opt out of this trip?” Brand asked loudly. “Now would be the moment.”

  “Not me,” Telyn said quickly, sharply.

  “Nor I,” Kaavi snapped.

  Telyn cast her an acid glance, but Kaavi pretended not to notice.

  “I’d rather play my pipes than go down a dusty hole,” Puck said, “but I’m on official business.”

  “Er,” said Grasty, raising a leathery hand. There was a hopeful glimmer in his one working eye.

  “Forget it, Grasty,” Brand said. “You’re bones are mine to command. I’ve got the writ here from your Queen.”

  “No need to rub it in, boy!” grumbled the foreman. He shouldered his pack and headed off toward the ruins of the Castle, muttering.

  “Are we supposed to follow him?” Telyn asked, coming near.

  “I believe so,” Brand said. Together they all marched after their reluctant guide.

  “This place is dangerous,” Grasty said. “That goes without saying. But it is worse than just a mass of skulls and ghosts in a crypt. There are dark things down there, and cunning traps built to take a limb off a man. Legend has it King Arawn had kobolds build them for him. They lay the best underground traps.”

  “King Arawn?” asked Telyn. “You mean when he was alive?”

  “Yeah, of course when he was alive!” Grasty said, laughing. “Not even a kobold would work for the Dead. They’d likely piss themselves and try to run off if a dead-thing so much as offered them coins.”

  “Where is the entrance?” asked Telyn, changing the topic.

  “There are lots of them now. At first, the only reachable one was through the mouth of that statue head over there.” Grasty paused to point toward a swampy bit of land where a massive stone head sat rolled upon its ear. The mouth gaped open and a trickle of oily water escaped from it. “That thing was a fine sight in its day, you know.”

  “Which entrance do you recommend then, if not this one?” asked Puck.

  “Eh?” asked Grasty. “No, not this one. I said that already! Listen up, elf.”

  Puck looked annoyed, but waited for his answer. Brand smiled, seeing Puck’s irritation. Grasty was often nearly deaf when you wanted him to hear something, but seemed equipped with a fox’s sharp ears when you did not. He could be quite annoying, but he was a good sort in the end.

  “We’ll go down into the castle storerooms,” Grasty said. “Then down into the catacombs themselves, then lower still. That area has been covered up for years. Our new construction has stirred it all into a lather, however. Whole new warrens of masonry are down there, and caverns below that. I should think the galleries extend to the Everdark itself at some point. You might be able to walk all the way to Snowdon—if you could only stay alive long enough and find your way in the blackness. Neither of those are likely, though.”

  “Most encouraging,” Brand said. “Lead on, foreman.”

  They walked past ranks of Kindred workmen dressed in leathers. They sweated and toiled, uplifting blocks of fallen stone and shoveling loads of crumbling masonry into waiting wheelbarrows. They looked up with interest as the party passed them, but none spoke or offered a hearty greeting.

  At last they came to a hole that drove down into the bricks. They could see a tangled mass of roots, loose soil, and a series of broad steps that led downward into darkness. Each of the steps was cracked, as if a giant had trod upon them and broken them with his vast weight.

  “This is it,” Grasty said, pausing with all of them to circle the hole. “Not much to look at. Leastwise, we don’t have to swing from ropes to get down there.”

  “Lead on,” Brand said. “I’ll go second. Puck, would you mind taking the rearguard?”

  “Not at all.”

  Grasty lit a lantern and held it high as he stumped downward into the hole. Brand followed him, having to duck as he went. He was a head taller than all the rest. Kaavi stepped forward to take the third spot, but Telyn pushed past her to stand directly behind Brand.

  “No need to shove,” Kaavi complained.

  “Sorry, it was an accident,” Telyn said sweetly.

  Brand rolled his eyes and sighed.

  Overhead, the darkness closed over them all as they followed the stairway downward. Brand was surprised how directly and deeply the stairs drove into the earth. He could not see far ahead due to the gloom, which Grasty’s flickering lantern did little to vanquish. If one of them fell, would they roll for miles? He was left wondering about it.

  The smells were different down here. The ground exuded not just a dusty scent, but the scent of freshly overturned turf. He suspected as they went deeper, the odors would become unpleasant indeed.

  The natural noises of the surface world faded behind them, swallowed by the stillness of the underworld. He felt as if someone had placed pillows around his ears, muffling everything. No more than twenty feet down, he was regretting his decision to go on this exploratory mission. It was too late to back out now, however.

  He waved Grasty onward and hoped for the best.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Seedlings

  Morcant Drake had spent years buried beneath a great slab of stone. Unfortunately for him, his clansmen had placed him in a sarcophagus built for someone of normal size. None had found the purse or the desire to build him a special resting place.

  He did not need to breathe, so although his breath was driven from his lungs and dust had filled them in its place, he was not discomfited. Dimly aware of time passing, but unable to move with the fantastic weight of stone that crouched upon him, he thought little and dreamt less. His imprisonment would have driven anyone other than a dead-thing to madness. But as he was now truly one of the Dead, he did not feel the pain of hope, aspirations or regrets. He only waited, as he could do nothing else.

  The Black Jewel had treated him specially so he would not rot, nor fall to dust. One night without warning the slab slid away from him. The first phase of King Arawn’s curse was done, and the second had begun. On the seventh day of the seventh month by the Haven Calendar, Morcant climbed out of the hole he’d been trapped within for four long years.

  Morcant looked around with bleary, dim eyes. Everyplace in the world would appear the same to him now, regardless of the light that was present or was not. Everything seemed to him to be lit in a permanent half-light, whether he walked under the sun or upon the bottom of the ocean. It was as if he no longer truly saw the walls of the crypt, but rather sensed them. Such a power of sight, known to necromancers as the deathsight, was common to all the Dead.

  He found himself in a crypt. It was, as it rightfully should have been, the Drake crypt. He did not have a prime place within its walls, he could tell that right away. He did not wonder that he had made it into the crypt at all—nor did he rage at the insult of having been placed in the least well-kept wing of the crypt at the lowest level, where roots were known to get in and rainwaters frequently soaked the corpses that lie quietly rotting here. He did not care about these things, although he was aware of them. He was beyond caring about much of anything.

  Turning his head this way and that, hearing his bones and joints creak, he saw the lid of his tomb. The lid was the thing that had pressed down upon him for the last year. It lay slid aside and tipped down to touch the dusty floor beside him.

  Several long minutes passed while he became more fully awake. Concentrating with single-minded effort, Morcant moved his heavy leg to one side and swung it out of his stone coffin. He placed the leg upon the dusty floor and then moved another beside it. Struggling with unsteady arms, he heaved himself erect.

  He stood there, motionless, as if he slept upon his feet. He stood that way for an unknowable time. Perhaps it was hours. At last he righted his head, which had fallen to allow his thick jawbone to touch his chest. He took a step forward and then another.

  For the first time in more than a century, a new member of the Dead had risen inside the borders of the Haven.

  * * *

  Trev didn’t rest well after his father left. He constantly searched the town’s streets from the second story window of the Spotted Hog, hoping to see him return.

  “He won’t be back for a week at least,” his mother assured him. “Why, just getting to North End and up the river to Castle Rabing will take a day or two. Then he will have to talk things over with Brand and return.”

  Trev nodded, but he still watched the streets. His mother watched him, and fretted about both the men in her life. Trev knew she was a worrier, and he didn’t want to cause her undue upset. But he couldn’t help it. He was watching for someone else—not just father. He was watching for the Dead King and his people.