Cascade Point

Turek nodded. "You've got a good memory for trivia. I've heard of all of you, of course. You were considered among the best Shadow Warriors on Vesper when I was an apprentice."

Spard smiled thinly. " 'Were' is the proper word," he said.

"Yes." Feeling awkward, Turek hunted for a less painful topic of conversation. "Tell me, what do you think Krain's chances are?"

Spard shrugged and glanced at his fellows. "Pretty good, I suppose. Considering that no one's ever tried warfare on this scale before, Krain seems to have the details worked out reasonably well."

"His chances are excellent," Brisher growled, fingering his beard restlessly. "Lazuli's built with its back against sheer cliffs to the north and east, and a narrow but very fast whiteriver to the west. Even with only three hundred men he can easily control the villages exit, and can therefore starve them into submission."

Turek nodded; he'd already come to more or less the same conclusion. Lazuli's unusually sheltered location, he remembered hearing, had been an experiment to see if cliffs and rapids hindered Shadow formation in any way. It hadn't worked, of course.

"Krain's not going to bother with something like that," Rusten disagreed. "He can't afford to spend that much time without control of Javan's school—all of us will be needed to clear Shadows from the weapons and there's no guarantee he'll be able to keep Isserli and his friends working in Masard."

"Speaking of weapons," Turek put in, "could I see the swords Krain has ready? I'd like to test the Shadow growing there."

"It's no different than the Shadow around a single one, except in degree," Spard said. "But they're piled over through there if you really want to see them." He pointed past the smithy. "Don't worry about the guards; they'll have been told about you by now."

"Thanks." Turek moved off as the discussion continued in a halfhearted sort of way behind him. Just another group of hirelings, he thought with mixed pity and contempt—hirelings submitting to Krain's ambition. He wondered if they realized how far they'd fallen.

Only later did he wonder if they saw him the same way.

The swords were stored in a thick-walled adobe shed, whose single door was flanked by two of the biggest men Turek had ever seen. Big, able-looking—and somewhat fidgety. A quick check showed why; the Shadow around the swords was already extending several feet outside the shed.

Sighing, Turek squared his shoulders and moved forward. A Shadow that size would take at least two assaults, and he might as well get started now. Besides, it would give him the chance to look at the swords. Nodding to the guards, he pulled open the shed door and stepped inside.

It wasn't as bad as it might have been. Shadows around the most advanced man-made objects not only grew larger and faster than average, but also were "denser" in their effect. Before Turek had even entered the shed he'd felt the first uncomfortably nervous sensation; once inside, it got quickly worse as his skin began to creep and nausea grew like poisonous fire in his stomach. But he could fight it somewhat—and he could walk right up to the neatly stacked swords without feeling any of the muscular twitches which could incapacitate a man if allowed to grow large enough. Turek had heard of only one man who'd ever gone that far into Shadow, down at Lander's Waste where the old starship lay. He'd died for his audacity, the legend said. Presumably in agony.

But such thoughts wasted time. Gritting his teeth, Turek focused his mind against the Shadow... and after a time he felt its resistance break...

Shaking his head to clear it, he stepped a bit unsteadily to the wall. The sensations vanished just as he reached it, showing him where the Shadow's new edge lay. A half hour's rest, and he'd be able to clear the rest of it out. But first—

He glanced out the door, confirmed that both guards were facing away from him. Moving quietly, he walked back to the Shadow's center. The sword he picked up was heavier than he had expected, but not unreasonably so. And fastened securely to his waist sash, hidden under his cloak, it would be invisible. Outside, off among the trees, he could take the time to destroy the Shadow that still clung to it.

Leaving the shed, he set off in search of privacy.

—

Turek had half-expected one of the other Shadow Warriors to finish the job he'd started at the weapons shed, but to the best of his knowledge none of them even bothered to go over and check on the Shadow there. Turek wound up clearing out the entire Shadow himself, and after that he spent a couple of hours tackling smaller Shadows both in the training area and in the house itself. It was a bit surprising to him that there were so many about, and he wondered if perhaps the older Shadow Warriors simply ignored them until they grew large enough to spark a complaint.

By di

But he didn't stay there long. Retrieving the sword he'd hidden under his straw-filled mattress, he again belted it securely under his cloak. Into the pack he'd brought from Keilberg went a blanket and a coil of rope he'd borrowed from one of Krain's craftsmen. Then, slipping out through a side door, he headed west... toward Lazuli.

—

The rapids and waterfall of the whiteriver bordering Lazuli were audible long before the village itself could be seen; that, plus the way the rising hills forced the road's direction, made the place impossible to miss. By the time the stars were begi

A pair of strange lights flanked the road at Lazuli's edge. Turek glanced at them as he passed but didn't stop—wonders were bound to be common in a village where Shadows could be destroyed with ease, and he would perhaps have the chance later to study them. For the moment his main problem was how to locate Javan.

He'd taken barely ten more steps before the problem found its own solution. From alcoves on both sides of the street three youths materialized, fighting sticks held ready in their hands.

"Greetings, stranger," one of them said in a neutral tone. "What brings you to Lazuli after dark?"

"I can't change the time the sun sets," Turek answered mildly, studying the three. None wore the usual sun-shaped pin, but Turek didn't need such obvious clues. The air of naive idealism around them was almost thick enough to smell. "And where I was raised young men are more polite to their elders."

His challenger scowled. "Then you weren't raised near a band of thieves. Please state your business."

"I'm here to see Javan the Mindlight Master."

The others moved fractionally closer; their fighting sticks shifted a few inches toward defense stance. Turek kept his eyes on the spokesman and his hands at his sides. "Are you a friend of his?" the other asked.