"First you will give us your weapons."

  Three more men came forward in response to a summons none of the party heard or saw.

  Sara and Tom promptly rose and passed over the swords they had concealed in their backpacks. Ratha and Giri were more sluggish, muttering under their breaths as they handed over their weapons.

  Then Archer rose. What he was about to do, he had never done before, not once in his life. He had always sworn that his sword would never leave his hand until he died.

  Turning it over felt like a betrayal. It felt as if his heart were being torn and his soul rent. All that made him do it was the thought of Tess in Lantav's hands and being used for some terrible evil.

  Feeling as if he were being skinned alive, Archer passed his sword to one of the hive. "See that no ill befalls it," he said softly. "For ill will befall him who harms it."

  He doubted his warning made any impression on these mindless drones. Whoever heard his words, it was not the man before him.

  Then they gathered up their bags and allowed themselves to be surrounded and guided west toward Lantav's lair.

  Lantav rubbed his hands with pleasure. Now he had a third Ilduin, as well. He almost laughed as the man in the black cloak spoke his warning words to Lantav's minion. "Ill will befall him indeed." He nearly laughed. "These fools are too confident for their own well-being."

  Lantav had no doubt that now that he had three Ilduin at his disposal, these troublesome travelers would soon be under his control and part of his hive.

  He thoroughly enjoyed the knowledge that his summoning of one Ilduin had brought him two, instead. The fates were most definitely on his side.

  As they should be, considering his great mission.

  But he was not about to risk his own neck in even the smallest way. It was not that he was a coward... oh, no! But he was the linchpin of the plan, and thus he must preserve himself.

  Hence his body remained with the shell of the woman who had brought him this far, while his consciousness stepped into his most senior lieutenant in the great hall. With the prospect of three Ilduin to do his bidding, even a senior lieutenant became disposable. In the lieutenant's body, he mounted his chair at the head of the room and waited. Soon. Very soon.

  "The blessings of Lorense be upon you," the man said as they entered the hall.

  Archer studied Glassidor and decided the man looked about as Archer had expected. Tall, lean, with sharp features and intense eyes. He sat on a throne, as if he truly ruled the world. And in his mind, he probably did. That would end soon, however.

  "And in your service," Archer said, completing the ritual greeting. "I am Archer Blackcloak, and these are my companions, Sara Deepwell, Tom Downey, and the brothers Ratha and Giri Molabi, Anari freemen and my friends. We come to discuss issues of trade and to seek assistance for those who live upriver."

  Glassidor's eyes narrowed. "Issues of trade, you say?"

  "Aye," Archer replied. "An ill and bitter winter has befallen the northern lands, and the people want for food. I come as their representative."

  "And who appointed you their...representative?"

  Archer turned to his friends. "My companions and I were chosen by Master Bandylegs Deepwell, innkeeper and sheriff of Whitewater. We set out from there. As for the others whose plea I offer, I have accepted that duty for myself, having been sorely moved by the great suffering I witnessed. I am on a mission of mercy, Lord Glassidor. I come in peace."

  Glassidor nodded to the pile of weapons the guards had placed on a table against the wall. "You come in peace, yet armed for war."

  "Sorrow and suffering have befallen the Adasen Basin," Archer said. "In such times, people often mistake friend and foe. We felt it appropriate to be prepared."

  "The wisdom of a serpent," Glassidor said. "It comes in peace, but its fangs bear deadly poison."

  Archer struggled to contain his anger. Doubtless Glassidor knew who they were and why they were there. The verbal dance was tedious, yet honor compelled him to observe the rules of court.

  "Surely Lord Glassidor does not liken us to serpents," Archer said, his voice tight but firm. "We did not slither into this fair city, nor conceal ourselves within it, nor resist your summons."

  "Of course," Glassidor said. His eyes fixed on Sara. "You come in honor, and yet you conceal your most potent weapon."

  Tom moved closer to Sara, while Archer merely turned to face Glassidor directly. The situation was about to get ugly. He could only hope that his blade would know when that time came.

  "We conceal nothing," Archer said. "She is of Ilduin blood, as is one of our companions who has gone missing, taken in the night by bandits. We thought you might know of this woman and help us to find her."

  He paused and fixed his eyes on Glassidor. "Unless it is you who is acting in deceit."

  "You insult my court," Glassidor said. "Why would I bargain with such a man?"

  Archer's face flickered in a smile, though his eyes remained as sharp and cutting as diamonds. "Because, Lord Glassidor, this might be your last chance to save your life."

  * * *

  Chapter 27

  They were here!

  Tess had emerged from concealment to follow the sound of footsteps and had heard the faint echoes of Archer's voice. But something was very wrong. The words of the other man were the words of Lantav, but the voice was not. Lantav was elsewhere and acting through his hive.

  As footfalls sounded behind her, she darted into yet another alcove, straining to hear what Archer was saying to the fake Glassidor.

  At the mention of Sara's name, Tess felt a sudden surge of heat from the pouch between her breasts. She paused and opened it, and saw the red stone gleaming. As she took it in her hands and let herself feel the woman's presence, her heart slammed in her chest.

  Lantav had Sara's mother.

  And Sara's mother lay dying, her life force being sucked dry by Lantav's constant use of her Ilduin power.

  A cold fury grew within Tess as she remembered the tears young Sara had shed when talking of her mother, as she remembered the sad face of Bandylegs as he had handed over the white gown Tess now wore. Their lives and their hearts had been ripped apart. And the man responsible for their grief was here, in this palace.

  She remembered the terrible suffering at Derda, the frozen corpses stacked like cordwood after the ice storm. She remembered the blighted fields through which they had passed.

  She cast back to her earliest memory, of a young girl whose family lay butchered around her, the girl slowly dying in Tess's arms.

  Every memory Tess possessed bore the black and ugly shadow of Lantav Glassidor.

  She opened the pouch again and saw a faint glimmer in the white and blue stones. The blue one must be Sara. The red, Sara's mother. The white, her own. She clutched the three stones in her hand.

  "If the Ilduin blood has power," she prayed, "let that power arise now."

  From the white stone, a pinpoint beam of light shot forth toward a door across the alcove. With a certainty she had never known and the white heat of fury coursing through her veins, she strode toward the door.

  I'm coming, she thought. I'm coming now.

  Mara Deepwell opened her eyes and, for the first time in her memory, felt light enter them. The awful man stood beside her, his eyes closed in concentration, a bitter and evil smile on his face as he prepared for battle.

  Mara knew she had little strength left. He had bled her white. But she had spent the last months learning to shield part of her mind from the hive. She had seen--she had done!--such horrific things in these past years, and she had no doubt the gods would burn her soul. The memory of every slaying, every drop of bane poison melded into daggers or spread across crops, every anguished plea that had fallen on cold, unfeeling hearts, welled within her. The gods would curse her soul. Of that she had no doubt. But she would fight with what she had left.

  As she watched Archer turn to look at the weapons on the table, her jaw tightened. The hive will was strong, but she had Ilduin will. However weak her strength, her will was now emboldened.

  Do it, she thought, looking at Archer. Do it now.

  "Do it," Sara whispered, not knowing why, nor what she was urging. The words seemed to have come from somewhere outside herself. "Do it now."

  She watched as Archer's sword began to glow. In the twinkling of an eye, it flew into Archer's hand. As if sensing his tension or hearing her words, Ratha and Giri sprang into action.

  Tom stepped forward as if to join the fray, but she grabbed his arm. "No, Tom. Come with me. I need you."

  Tess found herself at the base of a stairwell. Certain it would lead her directly to Lantav, she began the climb, the stones warm in her hands. She was not needed where Archer and the others spoke with Lantav's minions, for she knew her companions and knew they would be able to deal with that threat.

  Instead she sought Sara's mother, the Ilduin who was in thrall to Lantav and who seemed to be growing weaker by the moment.

  Separating the red stone from the others, she clutched it tight. I am coming, sister. Be strong.

  Filled with white heat, she had no room left for fear.

  Sara tugged Tom out of the great hall as the battle was joined. They slipped away unnoticed.

  "Where do we go?" Tom asked. His every instinct and sense of loyalty demanded that he return to the hall and aid his friends.

  "We must find the Ilduin," Sara told him, her voice low and urgent. "We must find the source of Glassidor's power before it is too late."

  Sara had not brought her sword. Apparently, with her emerging powers, she no longer felt need of it. Tom, on the other hand, was glad he had seized his. Sara, for all she was Ilduin, might need a defender as she led him through a warren of hallways and stairways that he grew certain had been designed to confuse.

  But Sara seemed to know where she was headed, so Tom followed, because he could no more have abandoned Sara than he could have grown wings.

  The battle was well joined in the great hall. Three against thirty.

  "Not bad odds." Ratha grinned at his brother.

  "Nay, not bad at all," Giri agreed.

  The advantage, of course, was that thirty men could not fight the three of them all at once, especially since they had chosen to stand back-to-back-to-back, becoming a triangle of invincible steel. Only fatigue or a momentary lapse of caution could fell them.

  From the instant the sword had flown to Archer's hand, he had been in an altered state. He felt the lightness of it, as if it hefted its own weight to spare his arm. He saw it gleam as if with its own internal light. And he heard it sing, a low humming of power.

  Too long had it been since his sword had been anything but dead steel. Too long... For a wild moment he wondered if it meant the gods had forgiven him his terrible sin. His thoughts sought to reach back to the last time the sword had sung in his hand, but he could not let them. He must keep his attention on the here and now, lest they all die.

  But the sword's power filled him with wild joy and even more strength, and he was no longer the wanderer Archer Blackcloak but the man he had once been.

  A fierce grin lit his face, and he swung yet again, the sword slicing through an attacker as u he were merely a phantom, not made of flesh and blood.

  Before long the three were surrounded by a mound of bodies and the floor was slick with blood. The rest of the attackers mindlessly tried to climb over the heap, only to meet their doom without a chance of using their own weapons.

  A cry of rage issued from Glassidor on his throne. The three ignored it. Once they were done here, he would be next.

  The cry of rage also issued from Lantav as he stood next to the Ilduin he had used these many years. Somehow she was defying him, he was certain.

  Angered, he turned and struck her. "Call the others," he demanded. "Now. Or I'll see your daughter dead."

  It was the threat he had been making for years, and it worked, as it always had, for now her daughter was here, within this building, in more danger than ever before in her life.

  For years Mara had suffered this man's abuse and misuse because she had known that a coin or two in the right palm would ensure Sara's death, that Lantav would not need her to accomplish the murder of a single child.

  And with time he had managed to use her own powers against her, binding her ever more tightly to his control through spells and potions that weakened her own will. For a long time now, she had barely been able to remember who she had once been.

  But now she remembered. And now she knew the dangers. Summoning what little of her strength remained, she sent out the call for the rest of the hive.

  "Good," said Lantav. "Good."

  But behind the wall she had built in her mind, she knew things that Lantav did not. Things she would never let him know. Such as the fact that the Ilduin he thought safely locked away had escaped her cell and even now was seeking him, an Ilduin with so much power that it resonated within Mara and strengthened her will just enough.

  Just enough to defy her master and maintain the wall behind which she did it.

  Tom was certain that they were nearing the top of Lantav's tower, that with each step they were walking closer to his lair. Finally he pulled Sara into an empty room and closed the door behind them.

  "What are you going to do?" he asked her. "When we find this man, how are you going to handle him?"

  "I don't know."

  His jaw dropped. "Then don't you think 'twould be best to await the others?"

  "I cannot wait."

  "Why not? The man apparently has powers of his own, and an Ilduin to magnify them. Are you ready to face that, Sara? Are you?"

  To his horror, a tear appeared and trembled on her lower lash.

  "Sara?" Unworthy though he was, he could not help himself. He at once stepped forward and drew her into his embrace, tucking her head into his shoulder.

  "Sweet Sara," he murmured. "Sweet, sweet Sara. It does no one any good if you hare off without a plan. This is a dangerous man we face."

  "I know, Tom. I know." More tears rolled down her cheeks. "But don't you see? The Ilduin he uses is my mother"

  Horror rooted his feet to the floor and for a time locked the words in his throat. "How...how do you know?"

  "I can feel it now that we are close." She lifted her damp face from his shoulder and looked up at him. "He uses her against her will. I must save her!"

  There was no argument to make against that, nor did he even wish to.

  "Then we will save her," he agreed stoutly. "But, Sara, we must think first. It the two of us burst in on this man, who knows what the outcome may be? What if he is surrounded by protectors? What if your mother is so in his thrall she turns against us?"

  Sara bowed her head and for a dozen heartbeats said nothing. Then she raised her wet face once again. "My mother will not harm me. No matter what he commands of her."

  "You are sure?"

  She nodded.

  "Then perhaps we should seek Tess. The two of you together..."

  He trailed off as Sara's gaze grew almost opaque. Then she said, "Tess is on her way, too. I can feel her climbing through a narrow staircase toward him."

  "Then let us go. But carefully, Sara. We must not engage him before Tess arrives. 'Twill be safer with the two of you, not just for us, but for your mother, as well."

  At last Sara nodded agreement. Satisfied, Tom carefully opened the door of the chamber and peered out into the corridor. No one was there.

  "Let's go."

  Archer turned from the charnel heap and strode toward Glassidor. His voice was cold and his eyes colder. "Where is your power now, mage?"

  Glassidor laughed. "There are hundreds more where those came from, and they're on their way here now. Can three men defeat an army? I think not. Surrender and I may be merciful in your deaths. I may even spare your lives, if you could be of service to me."

  "The sun will turn to black ash before I surrender to you," Archer said.

  At this, Glassidor cocked his head and regarded Archer with a knowing smile. "Do you really think the gods will allow you to do that a second time?"

  Archer froze in his tracks.

  "Oh, yes, I know who you are, Archer Blackcloak. And I have waited a long time to see you die. A very long time."

  Tess suddenly felt the grip of a terror deeper than any she had ever known. A shudder passed through her, so powerful that she nearly dropped the stones from her palm. This was a new presence, a darker presence even than Lantav Glassidor and his evil hive. It seemed to spring forth from beyond the darkest recesses of her buried memories. Leaning her forehead against the cool stone wall, she gathered herself. She could not let herself consider the larger battle she now joined.

  Keep it in the here and now, she thought, though the phrase seemed awkward in the language she had learned over the past weeks. This was about a young girl who had died in her arms, about hungry men, women and children who had frozen in the ice at Derda, and a woman whose husband and daughter had grieved for far too long. This was personal. For only in the personal could she find strength.

  As she reached the top of the stairs, a door opened. Tess froze in her tracks and prepared to do battle empty-handed if need be. No one would get in her way. Not now. Not ever again.

  "Lady Tess!" Sara whispered, emerging from the door. "I felt your approach."

  Then she looked into Tess's eyes. What she saw both frightened her and renewed her confidence. This was not the frightened, confused Tess she'd seen over the past few weeks. The woman who stood before her now was ready to kill--or die.

  "Let's go," Tess said, not even nodding in greeting to Sara or to Tom, who stepped out behind her. "We haven't much time."

  "What are we going to do?" Tom asked. "I was talking to Sara. We need a plan."

  "We're going to kill a man," Tess said.

  "Yes, but..."

  "Tom," Sara said, touching his shoulder, "I think this is a time to trust Lady Tess."