The stone gave way to livid shingle that crunched beneath their boots, discernible from the doleful mere only in its immobility. The lake appeared gripped with a turgid energy, sluggish wavelets lapping against the strand that extended beyond the limits of their vision, each one leaving a scum that seethed acidically, glutinous bubbles rising farther out to burst and release acrid gases that assailed the nostrils, threatening to induce nausea. Kedryn halted, hefting Drul’s sword to his shoulder as he starethucross the miserable pond.

  “It was here I saw the leviathan,” he announced. “Wynett and I crossed by those stones and the creature rose from the depths.”

  “But did not halt you,” said Tepshen, looking to where the glistening rocks extended into the misted distance.

  Kedryn shook his head: “No. I showed it the talisman and it allowed us passage over.”

  “And mayhap will again,” said the kyo, although a trifle dubiously.

  “Or not,” said Kedryn. “The talisman did not prevent it attacking the barge.”

  “Perchance we should take that boat,” Brannoc suggested.

  Startled, Kedryn turned toward the half-breed, following his pointing hand to see a dinghy beached along the shore.

  “There was no boat before,” he mused.

  “Mayhap the Lady provides us with the means of passage,” ventured Brannoc.

  “Mayhap,” agreed Kedryn; doubtfully.

  They walked, each step leaving an indentation that steamed, to where the boat rested. It was a solid, clinker-built craft, two oars resting across the thwarts. Brannoc knelt to inspect the seams, pronouncing them well caulked; Kedryn was more interested in the wood from which it was built, for that, despite the all-pervading gray of the cavern was of that shade of blue associated with Estrevan.

  “It is sound enough,” announced the half-breed. “Do we chance its use?”

  “Do you perceive the color?” asked Kedryn. “The color of the Lady. I suspect she aids us.”

  “Here?” Tepshen was dubious. “We walk in Ashar’s shadow here.”

  “Yet Kyrie is not without power even here,” Kedryn returned. “Drul’s shade recoiled from the talisman, and I surmise from Gerat’s words that a balance of some kind appertains. Mayhap the Lady is able to provide us with material aid, e’en though we traverse her enemy’s domain.”

  “Or it may be a trick,” suggested the kyo.

  Kedryn nodded, aware that he must allow for that possibility. “We have a choice,” he said. “We must cross the lake, and to do that we must take either this craft or the stepping stones.”

  “Should the leviathan rise it will swamp so small a vessel,” warned Tepshen.

  “And if we use the stones it may swallow us whole, one by one,” said Brannoc.

  “On the stones we shall be separated,” said Kedryn. “In the boat we should be together, and likely all within the compass of the talisman’s magic. ”

  “My vote is for the boat,” Brannoc declared.

  “And mine,” nodded Kedryn.

  “So be it,” Tepshen looked warily to the lake, studying the bubbling, colloidal surface.

  They dragged the dinghy the few paces necessary to launching and clambered swiftly aboard, none willing to allow the liquid of the mere to touch them. Brannoc and Tepshen manned the sweeps while Kedryn settled on the stem thwart, Drul’s blade upright between his knees, his right hand clutching the talisman.

  Viscous ripples marked their passage over the mere and their nostrils pinched at the stench of the bursting bubbles, the threnody that seemed to come from the very surface growing louder as they progressed toward the farther shore, but of the leviathan there was no sign and after a while even the bat Creatures were left behind.

  “What lies ahead?” asked Brannoc as he plied his oar.

  “Another strand,” said Kedryn, “and a foul mist inhabited by the shades of the dead. It was there. I encountered Borsus. I went no further.”

  Brannoc grunted in response and asked no further questions. Kedryn, too, lapsed into silence, his eyes fixed on the mist, straining to perceive the shore even as he wondered what awaited him there.

  Darr, he hoped, for it had been, in part at least, the notion of releasing the slain king from Ashar’s bondage that had prompted him to take that fateful journey up the Idre, and it had seemed, when he spoke with Borsus’s shade, that the inhabitants of that grim fog were imbued with some knowledge of their confines. Should that hope prove true, then Darr might well be able to advise him, and he, through the power of the talisman, to free Darr. If not, well, he knew of no other way by which he might enter the farther reaches of the underworld to save Wynett.

  “The shore!” he warned as the mist thinned to reveal the line erf featureless gray shingle that banded the lake.

  Tepshen and Brannoc put a last effort into their rowing and the dinghy grounded on the gravel. Kedryn moved past them, leaping ashore and seizing the prow to haul the vessel landward. His companions shipped their oars and sprang to join him.

  They stood upon a strand little different to that they had left behind, save that it was warmer and devoid of the flying things, boundaried not with slime-decked stone but the shifting fog in which dark shapes moved.

  "This,” Brannoc declared uncomfortably, “is a dismal place.”

  Kedryn looked toward the fog. It seemed to roll in thick banks, moving inexorably closer to the shore, as though driven forward by the figures pacing inside its umbra. He took the talisman in his hand again and shouted, “Darr! King Darr, it is Kedryn Caitin!”

  The fog roiled as though unwilling to release its contents, but a figure stepped from it, treading with weighted feet, slow across the gravel toward them, tatters of fog trailing behind, breaking like drawn-out thread. Kedryn recognized Darr and a great melancholy swept through him, for the former king was a sorry sight, his thin hair matted about gaunt features, his shoulders slumped, the eyes he turned to Kedryn sunk deep within the sockets and ringed with black. Yet his bloodless lips twisted in a wan smile as he recognized his summoner and a voice near-hollow as Drul’s said, “Kedryn! Do you dare this sad place again?”

  “I would free you,” Kedryn replied, reaching to take Darr’s hand.

  “Do not touch me!” The shade stepped back a pace. “Best that the living have no truck with the dead, though my spirit lifts to see you and your companions.”

  “The talisman freed Borsus from this place,” said Kedryn. “I pray that the Lady grant you the same release.”

  “Mayhap,” said Darr, listless, “but that is not your sole purpose in venturing here.”

  “Wynett is taken,” said Kedryn, “and we come to bring her back.”

  “You were ever courageous,” murmured the shade. “As was Tepshen. And this other, do I assume him Brannoc?”

  “Aye,” Kedryn confirmed. “And we come with the knowledge of Estrevan to guide us.”

  Swiftly he told Darr of the events upon the Idre and his subsequent meeting with Gerat, of Qualle’s prophecy, and Brannoc’s tale of Drul’s sword.

  “Yet,” he concluded, extending the glaive for Darr’s inspection, “I see no way to join talisman and sword. ”

  “I know that legend,” nodded the shade, “and there is more I have learned since Taws damned me to this limbo. Beyond the fog is a further extension of the netherworld. Beyond that, another', and more beyond until finally Ashar’s stronghold is reached. Within one of those dwells Ashar’s smith, who forged the glaive. He is called Taziel. How you may find him I do not know, nor expect him to aid you. I applaud your courage, but advise you to go back.”

  “I shall not forsake Wynett!” Kedryn answered fiercely. “The Lady will show me the way to this Taziel, and I shill find a means to persuade him.”

  “What would you have him do?” asked Darr in a tone empty of hope.

  Kedryn studied the great sword and touchecfthe death’s- head pommel. “Remove this and replace it wfm the talisman. Then sword and stone shall be joined and defeat Ashar.”

  “Then you will no longer carry the talisman and thus abdicate its protection,” said Darr. “This was Ashar’s plan from the moment he sent the leviathan forth. Do you not see it? His Messenger failed his purpose and was destroyed; the god himself set up this game that you should enter his domain. For all the love I bear my daughter I cannot advise you to go on lest Ashar secure both talismans.”

  “A risk I must take,” said Kedryn.

  “I cannot dissuade you?”

  Kedryn shook his head.

  “Then you must traverse that fog that binds those damned by the Messenger,” said Darr. “Ignore any who speak with you or seek to halt you and if the Lady walks beside you, mayhap you shall emerge, though what you will find I cannot tell.”

  “No matter,” said Kedryn, “you show me a way and I thank you for it.”

  Darr smiled forlornly and prepared to return into the fog. “Wait,” urged Kedryn. “Would you not be free of this place?”

  “I have lost such hope,” said the shade, “I am resigned.”

  “I should not have sailed the Idre had 1 not sought the advice of Estrevan as to how I might effect your release,” declared Kedryn, “and so Wynett would not have been taken. Whatever else I do, I would still seek that success.”

  Darr’s gaunt head shook sadly. “Ashar planned this to enmesh you in his trap. Ward yourself, not me.”

  “No!” Kedryn’s voice was defiant.

  He drove the sword into the gravel, leaving the blade quivering as he stepped toward Darr, seizing the hand the shade sought to snatch back. It was dry and frail as aged parchment, without the pulse of blood or life. Kedryn drew it to the talisman, forcing the withered fingers closed around the stone. Instantly the talisman burned with a fierce blue light, bright as a summer sky, growing to enfold both man and shade within its luminescence. Darr gasped, then sighed, and for a moment Kedryn saw him, hale, smiling. Then he was gone and the radiance faded.

  Kedryn stood breathless, for he had felt a great power in that instant, a sense of love, of tranquillity, and he knew that Darr was brought to the Lady’s peace. He turned slowly to his companions.

  “You heard the way?”

  They nodded, then Tepshen pointed, saying, “Another approaches.”

  Kedryn faced the fog, seeing a second ghost emerge, scarcely believing the evidence of his eyes, for the proud Hattim Sethiyan was a miserable vestige of his former self. Like Darr’s, his hair was lank and matted, his eyes hollows in a bloodless face. He moved with slow steps, each one dislodging worms and maggots from the wound in his. back where Brannoc’s thrown knife had brought him down. He came tentatively, arms outspread to beseech mercy where none might be rightfully expected.

  “Help me,” he implored. “In the name of the Lady, help me.”

  Kedryn felt distaste, and a measure of guilt at that emotion. “You embraced Ashar,” he said accusingly.

  “I was wrong.” The shade that was Hattim fell to its knees. ‘Taws seduced me with false promises. Do not leave me here, I beg you.”

  “He chose this place,” grunted Tepshen. “Let us be gone.”

  “Please, no!” Hattim wailed. “I crave your forgiveness, Kedryn. In the name of the Lady I ask you to grant me succor.”

  “Do you call on the Lady now?” Kedryn asked, torn between pity and loathing.

  “I repent all I did,” nodded the shade, the movement spilling a vermicular flood from his back. “I ask forgiveness in her name.”

  “He would have slain you,” said Tepshen implacably.

  “I was weak,” moaned Hattim. “I was ambitious, and Taws deceived me.”

  “Taws gave you what he promised, I think,” said Kedryn.

  “As you love the Lady, grant me what I ask,” Hattim begged.

  “What do you know of Ashar’s smith, Taziel?” It occurred to Kedryn that Hattim might furnish him with further information to augment what Darr had imparted.

  “He inhabits a cave,” said the shade. “In a place of fire deep within the inner realms. The way to that place is hazardous. More than that I do ijot know.”

  Kedryn nodded thoughtfully. “That is not much.”

  “It is all I know.” Tears of blood spilled from Hattim’s sunken eyes. “I swear it.”

  “What do you know of Ashar’s designs?” Kedryn pressed.

  “Only that he sought information of you and Wynett, and of Ashrivelle,” the shade responded. “I had no choice but to give him what he wanted. He seeks a means to broach Kyrie’s barriers and to that end plots to secure the talismans, or trap you in the netherworld. I know no more than that.”

  Kedryn studied the abject figure, pity overcoming the detestation he felt. He could hate Hattim Sethiyan as a man, but this sorry thing was beneath hatred: he extended the talisman again.

  “It is in the hands of the Lady,” he declared. “Let her judge.”

  “I asked her forgiveness,” said Hattim, and took the jewel in both his hands.

  Again the blue light flared, less bright this time, and within its radiance Kedryn saw Hattim smile briefly before he, too, vanished.

  “You are too kind,” Tepshen remarked.

  Kedryn shrugged, smiling fleetingly. “Let the Lady decide. I ask her blessing on what we do—should I then deny so pitiful a thing her mercy?”

  Tepshen hiked his shoulders once: a dismissive gesture. “At least we know to look for a cave in a place of fire.”

  “But first we must dare that fog,” said Brannoc. “And it draws closer by the moment.”

  All three turned to study the vaporous barrier which did, indeed, move ominously closer. The shapes within were more clearly definable as human forms and against the background of the lake’s lament could be heard a dull, angry rumbling, as though a pack of hounds were waked from rest and growled their displeasure at the disturbance.

  “It is the way we must go,” said Kedryn, though he felt an ineffable dread at the menace implicit in that gnar. “Stay close.”

  “As if you were a maiden and I your suitor,” promised Brannoc, and moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Tepshen, so close behind that Kedryn could feel their breath upon his neck.

  Drul’s glaive was too weighty to heft comfortably with one hand, so he rested the blade against his left shoulder, holding the talisman with his right hand, and paced resolutely toward the fog. Its advance halted as they approached, but the grumbling of the occupants grew louder, individual sounds becoming discernible. Mostly they were snarls or ululations, or such sounds as men make in the instant of their dying, but there were words, too. ‘Take them,” they heard, and “Make them one with us,” and “Living flesh.” The threat was palpable as the heat the fog gave off, and all three felt the ugly stirring of fear as they stepped into the brume.

  It reflected the light the talisman now spread around them so that they walked in a cocoon of azure radiance, pressing closer together as they saw what lived inside the fog. Ghastly faces stared at them, worms writhing from moldered eyes and eaten mouths, ribbons of raw flesh hung from jaws, and hands flayed to bone thrust out, beckoning or clutching, the skeletal digits snatching back as they touched the perimeter of the talisman’s protective glow. The shade of a woman cavorted before them, her capering an obscene parody of lustful dance, displaying bloodied breasts that crawled with grubs, her outthrust tongue licking over lips long gone into dessication. “Stay with me,” she slurred. “Stay and be my lovers,” but she retreated before the nimbus of the stone and eventually faded back into the mist. Others replaced her: hideously wounded men who threatened, women who wept tears of gore, some little older than children; an awful throng, embodying despair and hatred of all who knew not that hopeless despond that was the mark of their limbo.

  Kedryn held the talisman high as the chain permitted and blocked his ears to threats and blandishments alike, not pausing in his advance, aware of Tepshen and Brannoc hard behind. He walked on gravel for some untold time, relying on Kyrie’s stone to guide him, for he could not tell in that sightless vapor whether he walked a straight line or marked a circle that would bring him back to the shore of the lake; or worse, lose them all within the hellish brume. After a while he felt the hot crunching of the gravel replaced by the hardness of stone, and the heat diminished. His ears rang with the cries of the damned and it was some time before he realized that they faded, dropping back, and that the fog thinned. He marched on, seeing faint light ahead.

  In time it strengthened the talisman’s radiance lessening in response, and they emerged from the mist, blinking and shading their eyes as brightness replaced the gray. Tendrils of fog still clung to them as if to draw them back and they paced on with downcast eyes until the last vestiges broke reluctantly loose, coiling back into the thick bank that now lay behind them.

  Ahead they saw a panorama to distort the senses, simultaneously alien as the vistas of nightmare and weirdly akin to the landscapes of the world they had left.

  A vermilion sky spread overhead, a viridescent disk several times larger than their own sun directly above, a line of majestic purple clouds stretching across the far horizon. The stone on which they stood was a bilious yellow, a great sweep that appeared to mark the edge of a mountain range, for when they looked back they saw tall, fulvous peaks rising above them, jagged as broken teeth, the fog roiling about the lower levels. Moving to the edge of the stone, which appeared to be a plateau, they looked down upon a plain of copper-colored grass, where strange trees grew in the distance, leprous white, with thin branches that held clusters of spikey, cyanic leaves. Across the plain meandered a carmine river, like an opened artery coursing the strange land, and here and there along its banks they saw groups of long-legged, angular beasts, too distant to identify, even were such classification possible. The perspective was awkward, for the sun cast no shadows, and at first it seemed that the plateau was inescapable, its scarp vertical, the jaundiced surfaces offering no more handholds than would a sheet of smooth-blown glass.