Darkvision

To take any other action jeopardized doing what was right. Besides, the dwarf had much to answer for, and in other circumstances might face Angul's wrath. It did not concern anyone… The faint voice yelled, No! Listen, you motherless-son-of-steel! I am the wielder-you are the blade! Are you sure? Kiril felt like herself, only better, righteous, and perfect in her resolve… The portion of Kiril that was concerned with Thormud's welfare gathered into a knot, then launched itself against Angul's surety of purpose. If Thormud were attacked in his defenseless state-there would be consequences.

Consequences? What of it? Let us not worry. We do what is right, no matter. Too much thinking is an excuse to avoid doing what must be done! Damn it, consequences matter! Grunting with effort against her own misfiring muscles, she feinted with the blade at a sigil, but at the last moment deflected her thrust so that the shining length of steel sliced deeply into the creature. The Blade Cerulean found solid, yielding flesh in what had seemed a completely immaterial foe. The creature screeched. Angul had hurt it-the blade's blessed hunger found vulnerable flesh even in ghostly tissue. The intruder trained its fiery eyes on her, forgetting its goal of reaching the dwarf. All but one of the sigils shot at her, and flensed her skin like tiny knives.

Kiril knew pain, then pain redoubled. The shock jerked Kiril back to her right mind, even as smoke curled up from her skin in numerous spots where she'd been struck. Angul's unwavering holy conviction kept her on her feet, barely. The sword was only as effective as his wielder-he spent some of his hoarded power to send a healing current through her limbs. The intruding creature turned and flowed back toward the bluff top, where inviolate darkness remained. With only a single floating glyph, which looked more like a chunk of purple crystal than a glyph, it was defenseless and declawed. Kiril stormed up behind it and plunged Angul down upon the trailing edges of the creature's filmy flesh. The blade pierced ectoplasm and earth and pi

The last undestroyed glyph that had orbited the creature lay in the earth, a dead piece of crystal. Angul was still stuck in the earth, tip down, a few yards from the dead crystal. Angul smoldered, sending a tendril of pure white smoke skyward-she could imagine his fury at being sheathed in unconsecrated soil, like any common blade. Kiril allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction. Thormud snored nearby.

His color had returned to his face. Xet, the coward, was curled up like a cat on the dwarf's chest. The destrier, without anyone to command it, had not moved. The plain before them was otherwise empty.

Kiril stood and dusted herself off. She moved to the dwarf's side and shook him. Thormud's eyes shuttered open immediately. His expression was a question. Kiril helped the dwarf to his feet. The geomancer pointed at Angul. "What is wrong with your sword? I've never seen it smoke like that." He paused, then asked, "What happened?" "That ghost-bastard you summoned…" "I didn't summon it! It followed me."

"It came because of you, right? It knocked you cold, but I nicked it with Angul. It turned on me and tried to do the same." Thormud said, his voice low, "It bested me as if I were nothing. Thank you for banishing it where I could not." "You know how it is when I have my sword drawn. Nothing that sheet-wearing bastard threw at me mattered."

"How exactly did you dispatch it?" Thormud picked up his selenite rod as he spoke. Kiril shrugged. "Once it expended all its little floating friends, I pi

Sighing, the dwarf bent to study the ground where Kiril had pi

Kiril asked him. "I remember a detail from my divination." The crystal dragonet winged over to the destrier and dived headfirst into one of Thormud's packs. It emerged several heartbeats later with a leather tube clamped in its mouth. Kiril recognized it as one of the map cases that the dwarf referenced from time to time. She recalled this map as having recognizable names and political borders inscribed on it. Many of the dwarf's other maps depicted topography meaningless to her.

Meanwhile, the dwarf approached the destrier. Xet craned its neck to deliver the map to Thormud's outstretched hand. Kiril ambled over, too. Might as well see what the old dwarf was up to. Better to get the explanation as it developed, rather than ask Thormud to recap later, after he thought too much about it-the dwarf would one day kill her with his mind-numbing explanations. Or, in order to prevent that, she'd stick her dagger in him. If only, she mused, gri

His finger tapped the landmark. "Adama's Tooth. That's the place the earth first showed me, before I became lost." Kiril asked him, "So what?" "We shall discover 'what' when we get there." Kiril studied the parchment. The map didn't show elevations, but Adama's Tooth looked suspiciously solitary. She rubbed the scar on her hand where lava had burned her during a previous expedition pla