Each ball of light encapsulated the form of a wolf caught at a different moment. Together, they blurred into a leaping figure.
“He’s juggling his soul,” Tori breathed.
The performer flicked one of the spheres toward a courtier. The man staggered in the splash of light, then recovered himself and applauded with the rest, although shakily. Behind him, his shadow wavered in pieces on the floor.
Another flicked sphere, aimed this time at the young king. Surging free of the crowd, Tori threw himself between it and Krothen. The ball hit him in the chest . . .
. . . and he was falling over backward grappling with a big white wolf. The floor slammed into him, tables and benches tumbling out of the way. Around him rose the stark walls of the Haunted Lands’ keep that was his soul-image. Jaws snapped at his face. Blue eyes glared down at him.
“Who stands between the Gnasher and his prey? Argh!”
Tori had grabbed a broken table leg and jammed it behind the other’s back teeth. The wolver twisted its head back and forth, trying to gain a grip on the wood. Nails raked at Tori’s arms and chest. Bracing his feet against the beast’s stomach, he kicked him off.
Footsteps sounded on the floor overhead, pacing, pacing, and the boards groaned. Boy and wolver pup froze, reduced by fear to childhood like two guilty truants.
“Is that . . .”
“Yes. My father.”
The white pup crept backward on his belly. “My father said he would eat me, so I ran.”
“So did I.”
“Will he come down the stairs?”
“Sooner or later.”
“You wait for him, then.” The pup turned and bolted . . .
. . . and they were back in the Rose Chamber. The big wolver dropped to all fours, shaking his head. Clothes fell away from gaunt flanks, from white fur marked with shadowy whorls and tangles that resembled the horror-stricken faces of his previous victims, moving as the skin moved beneath them in silent shrieks. Snarling, he leaped toward the door, toward onlookers who scrambled out of his way. Only the hapless guard stood his ground. Jaws snapped and the man fell, his cheek and half of his shadow torn away. Then the Gnasher was gone into the night.
“Blackie?” Rowan bent over him. “Are you all right?”
Tori stared down at the remnants of his jacket, at the gouged and bleeding skin beneath. “Well enough,” he said hoarsely. “The king . . . ?”
“Here, Tori.” Krothen appeared over Rowan’s shoulder, looking dazed. “What happened? All I saw was a blaze of light.”
“That was your shadow assassin, the one responsible for all the wasting illnesses among your kin.”
“What? It was? Then after him!”
The confused, surviving guards scrambled to obey, but the Gnasher had slipped away as his master had before him.
That night, Prince Near died. At Princess Amantine’s insistence and on the basis of the Gnasher’s attack, Kothifir declared war on Urakarn.
Tori edged through the limestone passageway, thrusting a torch before him. The Undercliff dwellers had assured him that this was the way to the preservation chamber, not that any of them had visited it since the king’s temporary entombment there. Nor had he told any of his command that he was coming here, given the uproar they would have raised. If he didn’t return, they would find a note in his quarters.
Firelight sparkled on upthrust stalagmites, on the fangs of stalactites. Water dripped.
“Hello?” he called. With no chance of approaching undetected, some warning seemed due.
Light shone ahead. Tori wedged his torch into a crack and proceeded. He could smell water, and stone, and blood. Beyond a rock formation, the cave opened up, some twenty feet wide and too low for a man to stand upright. One end dipped into a still pool. The other rose to a shelf, on which lay a body. Over it crouched a shining white figure with eyes aglow and a gory muzzle. The blood was fresh. Trickles of it ran down from the ledge to the floor and across that to the pool.
“Well,” said the Gnasher, adjusting his jaw for human speech. “This is unexpected.”
Tori sat on his heels. The low, rocky ceiling and general lack of room to maneuver made him nervous, but there was no helping that. At least he had been right to think that no backup could help him here.
“I have to know,” he said. “Are you finished with King Krothen?”
The other laughed soundlessly through sharp teeth. “And if I’m not?”
“We fight. On the level of the soulscape or hand to hand.” He touched a knife at his side. “It isn’t much, but I must do what I can to ensure my friend’s safety before I march out with the Host to Urakarn.”
“If you march out.”
“If.”
“You puzzle me, lordling. You beard the monster in his den, but cannot face what lies within your own soul.”
“You couldn’t either.”
The wolver licked his lips with a long, red tongue. “I was caught unaware. Another time, a different father . . . But yes, I will leave Kothifir after one last gorge. This city has nothing more to offer me.”
Tori nodded toward the sprawling body. “Is that Kruin? What happened to him?”
“He started screaming and wouldn’t stop. Is that how you found us? No doubt the Undercliffers talked, although none of them had the nerve to investigate.”
The body twitched and whined.
“I want to live, I want . . .”
The Gnasher’s jaw extended to tear again. Wet sounds of carnage echoed off the stone walls and the trickle became a pulsing flood. Tori winced.
The Gnasher grinned over his prey, white fangs dripping red.
“You see how hard it is to kill a god-king,” he said. “Not long now, though.”
Tori forced himself to remain still. His instinct had been right: until Kruin died, Krothen couldn’t truly become king, and after what he had done, no one wanted Kruin back.
Like your own father, eh?
Still, it was hard to watch.
The Gnasher lowered his head again and chewed. Kruin shuddered. Then his head tipped back and fell off the ledge. It rolled almost as far as Tori. For a long moment, he looked into Kruin’s horrified eyes. Then, at last, they glazed.
“There.” The Gnasher wiped his muzzle with a paw and spat. “Immortality is too much for the weak. Kruin wasn’t quite dead when his attendants brought him here, you see. I nursed him with soul-shreds from his heirs, even provided a wooden dummy to take his place on the pyre, but something in his mind broke. Never mind. I now know what I came here to learn.”
“You didn’t come to serve the Prophet?”
“Oh, he put me on the track. Our purposes ran parallel for a time, but now he has fled, and so we part.”
“What will you do now?”
“Why, go home, of course, and kill my father. I advise you to do the same.”
Tori shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Then go, lordling. Test yourself against your enemies, but always remember that that which you fear most, you hold closest to your heart.”
The only army that Kothifir had was the Host, supplemented by a few overenthusiastic native brigades commanded by nobles set on avenging their kin. Urakarn lay some two hundred and fifty miles to the southwest over the desert, far enough to require significant logistical planning. While this was being arranged, the Host argued among itself.
“This is madness,” said Harn, stumping restlessly back and forth in his cramped quarters. “Genjar thinks that a token garrison of fanatics holds Urakarn. We don’t know that. Of course, we’ve sent out scouts, but most haven’t come back, which isn’t encouraging in itself. And those who do return report a proper hornet’s nest. The Karnids will also know that we’re coming long before we get there. They still have sympathizers in the city. Trust me, they knew about this farce of a war as soon as it was declared. What are we supposed to do, eh? Walk up and knock on the door? What does your friend Krothen say?”