Will groaned. It was a reasonable precaution, as it would prevent the fae from making a deal with someone else to allow an invasion from hell or some other equally antagonistic plane. He’d never expected the accord would prevent him from doing exactly the same thing.

  Aislinn claimed her question and asked, “How will you kill Grim Talek?” He hadn’t expected something so far from their current topic, but Will knew better than to refuse. He answered, but kept the details as limited as possible without violating the spirit of the exchange. Aislinn nodded in appreciation before commenting, “Clever, though it will be difficult to execute.”

  He hadn’t intended on approaching her on that topic, but now that it was out, he decided to risk another question. “Do you know of anything that would improve the odds of it working?”

  “Question for question,” she replied, then after his agreement, she continued, “I am not sure your method will work, but I know a spell that would vastly speed up the attempt. My turn. Do you know the nature of the cat following you?”

  Will nodded. “I believe it to be a rebirth of the Cath Bawlg, but I don’t have incontrovertible evidence.” Returning to the subject of his favor, Will tried a different direction. “You can’t open the gate yourself, but you could act as a mentor for my agent, correct?”

  “I have often been a teacher,” said Aislinn.

  “Perfect,” said Will, rubbing his hands together. “Then in addition to teaching me the spell you just alluded to, I will have you teach the person or persons of my choosing to open a gate such as I previously described. I will also—”

  “Providing they have the necessary capability,” interrupted the fae queen. “Some time will also be required, depending on their current level of skill.” It was a fair amendment, otherwise Will could demand she teach someone incapable and force her into failure. Will agreed, then finished describing what he wanted. When he finished, Aislinn commented, “Your requested favor is rather expansive.”

  Will shrugged. “It’s an unbound favor. I could ask you to mobilize the entirety of your forces and engage in a hopeless war. I think my request is fair. It involves a few disparate tasks and some effort, but it is far more limited than it has to be. Can you refuse me?” He worded the final question to force her hand. If his demands were within reason, she had to admit it.

  “No. If that is what you want, then state it fully and I will respond, sealing our agreement.”

  He did.

  A short time later, he was back in his own world again, riding the travel disk once more with Evie at his feet. His head was occupied by his recent meeting with Aislinn and what he would need to do over the next hours and days to maximize the potential benefits of her favor. With as much haste as possible, he skimmed along the mountain road, following the rising terrain until he was up above the snowline.

  It wasn’t far from there that he’d killed his first man, and though it had only been a few years, it seemed to Will as though it had happened in a different life. He’d killed many more since then, directly, indirectly, and in all manner of circumstances. The minority he had slain in self-defense, and a much larger proportion simply because it was necessary, but most bothersome was the not inconsequential number he had killed for vengeance or while caught up in bloodlust.

  Keeping his eyes and senses focused on the currents of turyn that flowed over and through the mountains, Will pushed such dark thoughts aside. Unseen beneath him, the bones of his first victim went by unnoticed, hidden under a blanket of snow. Gradually, Will became aware of a difference in the turyn to the north of the mountain pass. It seemed thicker there, with better defined patterns in the air, as though some more powerful current was creating turbulence. It was a subtle effect that he probably wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been searching for it.

  Ascending through rough and rocky terrain, Will eventually reached a point where the effect seemed roughly similar in every direction, so he dispelled his travel disk and put his feet on the ground. Concentrating, he took hold of the energy around him and used it to touch the power beneath him, questing half blind until he felt something powerful below. That’s it.

  Excited, he hoped it would be a quick task to find the intersection between the one ley line and the other, but his optimism proved to be unfounded. The line he found turned out to be running north and south, rather than east and west as he had originally assumed. Ascertaining that took nearly an hour, and then he spent another three hours following it to the north before deciding he had gone the wrong way.

  Heading south again, he followed the north-south ley line back to the pass and then farther south. Night fell, and the moon was high in the sky when he finally reached the intersection. It was located in a deep cut between two massive stone outcroppings. The bottom was deep with snow and packed ice, but Will could see carved stones marking an old path that led from the direction of the pass. At some point in the past, people had been there, probably for the same reason he had come.

  Weary from a long day, Will made a cold camp on the ice. Without solid ground beneath him, he couldn’t use the ground warming spell, so he had to rely on an army cot and multiple layers of blankets to keep him warm. Will was grateful he was no longer a private contract soldier, for back in those days he’d had only a bedroll and ground pad. He’d acquired the cot after serving as royal marshal in the war with Darrow. Only high-ranking officers had the luxury of having cots carried in the baggage train, but after experiencing one, Will had seen the wisdom of keeping one stored in his limnthal.

  Sleeping directly atop the ice would have been lethal with nothing more than a regular bedroll.

  Evie seemed to find his choice of camping spots offensive and disappeared soon after it was apparent that Will intended to sleep there, not to reappear again until morning as he packed away his things. Her green eyes seemed to mock him as he stretched to get the stiffness out of his back and shoulders. “I’m sure you slept somewhere better,” said Will wryly.

  The little cat answered with a mew that sounded very much like a yes, though he might have been imagining it.

  “Well, I’m glad you were comfortable.” Creating another travel disk, he and the cat descended into the wide crevasse, which was some thirty yards wide at the top and perhaps only ten at the bottom. Old ice and snow obscured everything, hiding the true bottom, so Will was forced to use a succession of fire spells to melt some of it away until at last he found a flat stone surface. Several grooves and cut lines made him suspect he had found a floor enhanced by deliberate masonry, so he worked from there to clear away more ice.

  Not possessing a fire elemental or any special talent with fire, Will had to use the spells he knew and a small amount of wild magic to slowly clear the area. It turned out to be a herculean task, and by the time noon arrived he still had barely made a dent in it. The floor was indeed artificial, but he’d only excavated a circle with a diameter of twenty feet around himself. “This is stupid,” he told himself.

  Inspiration struck, and Will moved over to the eastern side of the cleared area. On that side the ice was thickest, forming what could almost be called a glacier that covered everything on that side and beyond, eventually sloping away down the side of the mountain once it emerged from the stone crevasse. Putting his hands against the ice, Will used the turyn around him to induce a slow vibration, pushing more and more energy into it until he found the correct frequency. He knew when he found it because the energy of the vibration stopped fading without constant input and began increasing instead.

  Grinning foolishly to himself, Will nursed the resonant vibration until the ice began to quiver and crack. It happened slowly at first, and he withdrew his power early to be cautious, but Will soon learned that his preconceptions about how ice fractured were highly inaccurate. Things started as he expected, but the ice collapse propagated far beyond where he had started. Popping and snapping, lines raced up the ice along the sides of the crevasse, and the air quickly filled with fragments and falling snow from above.

  The sound grew to a level that filled his ears with a solid roar as Evie nervously backed into his legs. She was growing rapidly in response to the danger, but while Will could see her mouth moving, it was impossible to hear her cries. Well, shit, he thought. We’re about to be buried.

  He erected a quick force-dome, and because the frightened cat had grown larger than a horse, he was forced to make it bigger than he would have liked. To minimize the size and maximize its strength, he ducked beneath Evie’s belly and made the dome just large enough to cover her. The world went completely white and then dimmed to black as the sky vanished. Several large shocks impacted Will’s shield, strong enough to have shattered it under normal circumstances, but he was already drawing on the enormous potential of the ley line just below his feet.

  Minutes passed, and silence returned to the furry darkness. It was broken only by a loud and uncertain mew from the large cat whose belly was resting on top of his head. “It’s going to be all right, Evie,” he assured her, though he didn’t feel quite as sure as he tried to sound. The weight on his force-dome indicated they were under a significant amount of snow and ice, and he knew from previous experiences being buried alive that there wasn’t enough air to survive for an extended period of time. How much air does a giant cat demigod require? he wondered. Does it change according to her size, or does she really need to breathe at all?

  The cat’s voice changed from uncertain to angry or perhaps fearful as an angry hiss issued from Evie’s throat.

  “Don’t do anything crazy,” warned Will. “I think you can probably dig your way out once I remove the dome, but if you aren’t careful, the ice could easily crush me.” As if in response, Evie went silent, but he could only hope she understood. “In a few seconds, I’m going to remove the shield, and the weight of all this is going to drop onto your shoulders. I’ll put a fresh shield over myself at almost the same time so you can try to climb out. Just don’t panic and kick it. Your claws might wreck my defense, and then I would be in serious trouble. If it turns out that you can’t move, just wait and I’ll switch tactics. I have another spell that might be able to dig us out, but it takes time.” Please understand me, please.

  The cat uttered a single sound, which despite its distortion sounded suspiciously like ‘yes.’

  “Get ready. I’m doing it now.” Will dropped the force-dome and created another smaller one an instant later, encasing just himself. Everything shifted, but the giant cat remained steady as the ice and snow settled in around her. She gave out a slow rumble that rose rapidly in volume, warning him as she prepared to move.

  He heard the mass around him shift, but nothing happened. After a moment, Evie began rumbling again, her body growing once more. Adjusting his vision, Will could see a paw the size of an ale barrel beside his defensive dome. The cat was nearly the size she had been when they had faced Lognion. Claws the size of scimitars dug into the stone, and Will could only hope the cat wouldn’t hit his shield. The force of such a blow he might be able to handle, given the massive flows of turyn currently available to him, but the claws themselves might be a different matter. Anything that could cut demon-steel was nothing to be trifled with.

  The stone beneath his feet thrummed like a giant drum, and a flash of light appeared overhead as the Cath Bawlg reborn leapt upward, exploding out of the ice like a rabbit hidden by fresh snow. Then darkness returned, and the full weight of the frozen materials resumed pressing down on Will’s shield. Now I just have to get myself out.

  Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. Unlike the time he and Selene had been buried, he had no one to alternate shields with him, and it was already quite clear that the material pressing down wasn’t sufficiently packed to hold its place. The moment he released his shield, the air pocket around him would vanish. The grave digging spell he had used before needed an empty space to move earth into.

  A darker thought occurred to him then. Will the grave digging spell work on ice? It was designed for dirt and gravel. Mentally, he ran through the rune structure to see the specifics and was disheartened to find that it had been designed with efficiency in mind. Broadening the spell’s purpose to handle other solid materials would have made it more expensive to cast. Given time, Will could create an adaptation for snow and ice, but doing so while working entirely within his own head would probably lead to a fatal mistake. A few hours at a desk followed by some careful experimentation would be his preferred environment for creating a modified spell.

  Teleportation was his other option, and Will already had the spell prepared. The force-dome didn’t fully enclose him, as it was just a hemisphere ending at the stone floor. If it had been a sphere or a force-cage, teleportation would have been impossible, but there were other factors to consider. Can I maintain the shield while slipping into the astral plane to find someone to teleport to? He could last without air for a minute or two, but the weight of the ice might be too much for his body. Whatever he chose, he needed to do it soon.

  Everything began to shake, and a strange chittering cry filtered through the ice. Light appeared and then vanished as the weight on his force-dome alternately eased and then returned again. Hope lifted his heart as Will realized what was happening. She’s digging me out!

  Again, he worried about the Cath Bawlg’s deadly weapons, but as the minutes passed, he could tell the demigod was working carefully, pawing around his position to clear the sides nearby before slowly removing the ice directly over his head. The sky reappeared several times before remaining for good, but Will waited until he was sure that Evie had stopped before dropping his shield and clambering out of the modest pit of ice still around him.

  “Thank you, Evie. You saved my ass,” said Will gratefully.

  A giant pink tongue replied, painfully scraping the side of his face. At her usual size, Evie’s tongue was raspy, but currently it felt like having his head shoved into a gravel road. Touching his cheek, Will saw blood on his fingertips. He dodged the cat’s second attempt. “Maybe you should shrink down first,” he cautioned, then changed his mind. “Wait! Can you clear some of this away before you return to normal?”

  Green irises the size of dinner plates stared down at him, then slowly vanished as the cat blinked. Rising on all fours, Evie began kicking with her hind legs, sending large chunks of ice and snow sailing away to fall down the mountainside. Adjusting her position and aiming her kicks, the large cat cleared an area some thirty feet across before stopping. She was panting now and obviously tired. Her size gradually decreased, and when she was close to Will in overall weight, she paused and let out a strangely garbled ‘meow.’

  Will watched her curiously, wondering what the cat was trying to communicate, and after a moment, she tried again, but he still couldn’t understand her. Back before his demise, the goddamn cat had spoken only rarely, but when he did, his voice had been perfectly human. Much like the dragon had done, the Cath Bawlg had used magic to create a voice since his throat hadn’t been capable of it. Whatever Evie was trying to say, it was obvious she didn’t know the same trick.

  Frustrated, Evie’s body began to shift in unusual ways. A minute later, she stood in front of him on two legs in an odd humanoid form that would be sure to induce nightmares in children if they saw it. She was still mostly covered in fur, but her torso was covered with what appeared to be a dress, if one didn’t look too closely. A careful inspection revealed it to be a bizarre and wholly unnatural extension of her skin attempting to mimic clothing. Her forelegs became arms, and Evie’s paws were now shaped into something similar to hands, though the curved claws remained.

  Worst of all was her head. It had transformed into a terrifying mixture of feline and human shapes and features. The back was partially covered by a fur ruff that poorly mimicked human tresses. The overall effect was something reminiscent of what a drunken cat might think of a woman’s shape and form. Grossly, it was correct in size and proportion while completely missing the finer details real human brains expected to find.

  Will fought hard to suppress his urge to recoil in disgust. Evie spoke again, and this time her voice was intelligible, though still distorted. “Hungry. Hunt time.”

  He nodded quickly. “Of course. Take your time. I will be fine.”

  Alien eyes studied him, then she reached out with one of her grotesquely clawed hands to touch his hand. “No fur.” Evie’s hand-paws began changing, losing their fur and assuming a shape almost identical to Will’s. The claws became black nails that stretched only slightly beyond the fingers. It was an impressive feat ruined only by the fact that they didn’t match her body, being overlarge and too masculine for the feminine frame Evie had assumed.

  Will had never had much success at shapeshifting with wild magic, despite Tailtiu’s attempt at lessons, and he had never dared any formalized spells to reshape his flesh, so he decided it was best not to judge. “I’m not cold,” he answered, pulling his hand back and touching his sleeve and then his cloak. “These keep me warm enough.”

  Evie cocked her head slightly to one side then put her hand on his neck. Will suppressed a nervous swallow as she pulled at the neck of his tunic and slipped her hand beneath it to feel his shoulders and upper chest. As she released him, Will attempted to demonstrate, lifting the bottom edge of his tunic to show her that it was separate from his trousers. “See? My clothes are separate from my body. They don’t grow out of me.”

  Before he could stop her, the inhuman hybrid thrust one hand into the waist of his trousers, exploring the boundary between skin and cloth. Will jumped and nearly fell backward as Evie’s rough fingers passed too close to areas he would rather avoid. “That’s enough,” he told her as he stepped away and restored his dignity.

  His companion ignored his discomfort, looking at the sky. “Hunt. Dark.” She finished by pointing at the stone beneath his feet.

  “I’ll be fine,” Will replied. “I’ll see you tonight when you return. Right?”