"The Wizardwar" - читать интересную книгу автора (Каннингем Элейн)

Chapter Three

Deep, silvery mist-mist so thick it came just short of rain, so pale and chill it resembled shape-shifting ghosts-swirled a slow dance through the dismal landscape. The deep moss shrouding the conical fairy mounds was as sodden as sponge, and moisture dripped from blighted trees in maddening, oddly syncopated rhythms.

A small, battered figure huddled in the dubious shelter of a small stone cave, her thin arms wrapped around her knees. The cave, dank and cold though it was, offered at least the illusion of protection, and as Tzigone was finding out, in this place, illusion was a very powerful thing indeed.

One figment of Tzigone's imagination snuffled at a small, dark carcass. The griffin, though nearly as insubstantial as the mist, had fought at her command, and with beak and talons like those of an enormous eagle it had sent the Unseelie folk into retreat.

Her tormenters had left behind the body of a fallen comrade. Tzigone forced herself to study the torn and broken thing, hoping to find some vulnerability in her strange captors. The dark fairies were so quick that her eyes could not fully perceive them.

The dead fairy was closer to four feet than to Tzigone's five. Though Tzigone's form was waiflike, barely recognizable as female, she felt positively robust next to the delicate creature. Its skin was raven-black, its features even more narrow and angular than an elf's. Small, oddly shaped wings-crumpled but still beautiful-draped from narrow shoulders. They were of a strange, translucent black under which a rainbow of colors seethed and shimmered. The fairy's long, oval head had no hair and needed none. The eerie beauty of the creature discouraged any comparison to humans. The Unseelie were what they were, and they were terrible beyond imagining.

Tzigone allowed her gaze to slide away, hoping the creature nosing at the dark fairy's corpse would be gone by the time she glanced back.

It was not. In this place, nightmares refused banishment.

The monstrous illusion was like no living creature she knew. Matteo had told her when she accidentally conjured it that first time that no one had seen such a beast for nearly three hundred years. The long-extinct griffin had a monstrous draconian body, leathery, scantily feathered wings, and a primitive avian head. A thick mane surrounded its neck, and it crouched on powerful leonine haunches.

The monster plunged its wicked beak into the carcass and shook its head sharply. Flesh came free with a sickening, wet sound, followed by the snap of fragile bone.

Tzigone shoved her fist against her mouth and tried to replace horror with gratitude. After all, the misty griffin had given her a brief respite from the dark fairies and their relentless torment-torment that was mostly illusion but no less painful for that.

Somehow the Unseelie folk managed to get into her mind and heart. They tormented her with all the things they found in the dark corners and all the things her busy imagination could conjure. The monstrous griffin proved that sword could cut two ways.

Her nimble mind danced ahead to thoughts of escape. There had to be a way out of this gray world. She and Matteo had fought the dark fairies before, and it was apparent that Matteo knew little about their foe. That was a bad sign. In Tzigone's opinion, Matteo knew more than the gods had forgotten. If he couldn't deal with the Unseelie folk, what chance had she?

On the other hand, Dhamari Exchelsor had known how to open the veil between the Worlds. Obviously there was a spell, and Matteo would find it.

"Dhamari," she murmured, suddenly remembering that he shared her exile. She rose painfully to her feet, gingerly testing her chilled limbs. After a few tentative steps, she set out to find the treacherous wizard.

She walked for a long time through the swirling mists. Finally, disgusted and weary, she kicked at a giant toadstool and watched the spores rise in an indignant cloud. At this rate, she'd never find Dhamari. If she could conjure illusionary creatures, why not a pack of hunting hounds?

That notion didn't appeal. During her street days, Tzigone had been chased by canine guardians too often to hold much affection for them. Besides, summoned creatures could be dangerous and unpredictable, even in the world she knew. She remembered the owlbear that had savaged her fellow travelers-and she fiercely banished this line of thought. Such memories could be deadly here. Instead she conjured an image of Dhamari's panicked face as she dragged him with her beyond the veil.

A faint, inchoate whimper nudged her from her reverie. She opened her eyes just in time to keep from tripping over the wizard.

Dhamari Exchelsor lay curled up like a newborn mouse. His sparse hair was soaked with perspiration, and his wide, glazed, staring eyes spoke of unending nightmares. The wizard was trapped in his own mind, tortured by his own misdeeds. Tzigone couldn't think of more fitting justice.

Justice or not, in this state Dhamari was of no use whatsoever.

With a sigh, Tzigone sank down beside the comatose wizard and placed one hand on his shoulder. He was nearly as cold as the mist. She chaffed his hands and noted the chain threaded through his fingers. Curious, she tugged at the chain. A small medallion slipped out of his clenched fist, a simple, familiar-looking ornament fashioned from mist-dull metal.

Frowning, she felt around in her boot, where she'd last put her mother's medallion. It wasn't there. Somehow, Dhamari had taken it from her.

She yanked the precious trinket out of the wizard's hand. Dhamari's body jerked convulsively, and his mouth stretched into a rictus of anguish.

"This protected my mother against you and your agents," she murmured, understanding what ailed the wizard. "When you've got it, it protects you from yourself, which is probably the only reason you've survived this long."

On the other hand, the medallion also offered Tzigone a key to the past and the answers that might be hidden there. Surely anything she learned through her emerging powers would be more honest than anything Dhamari might tell her.

Just a little while, she decided. She closed her hand around her mother's talisman. Using the memory exercises Matteo had taught her, she sank deep into the past.

The city of Halarahh lay sleeping beneath a coverlet of mist, oblivious to the young woman who ran the walkways atop the city's thick, stone walls. Swift she was, with slim, tawny limbs and an effortless gait that brought to mind a young doe. The watchwizards who kept the predawn guard nodded a respectful greeting as she passed, for Keturah's name was known in this city of wizards. She was small of stature, lithe and quick as a dancer, with an abundance of glossy brown hair and large dark eyes full of laughter and secrets and magic....

Tzigone jolted back to consciousness. This was her mother, seen more vividly than Tzigone could remember her! Quickly, eagerly, she thrust aside the epiphany and went back in, deeper, past the misty impressions into Keturah's own perspective. Dimly, in some corner of her mind, Tzigone realized she had become Keturah. Her hand tightened around the precious talisman, and she gave herself to the vision.

Tzigone/Keturah rested her elbows on the carved wall and began to hum as she gazed with contented eyes over the city, the heart of her beloved land and the home of the reclusive King Zalathorm. From her vantage, Keturah claimed a view a hawk might envy.

The sun edged over the highest peaks of the eastern mountains, fading the sapphire clouds of night to silvery pink. To the south, far out over Lake Halruaa, dense, gray storm clouds grumbled like titanic dwarfs roused too soon from their beds. The city itself awakened quickly, offering no arguments to the coming day. Carts and horses clattered purposefully toward market. Mist rose from the public gardens, jasmine scented, and with it wafted the lilt of young voices as singing maidens gathered dew for potions to court beauty and love. The brisk cadence of their song sped the task, for even in this, the coolest season, the sun's warmth came on quickly.

Keturah watched as sun-loving creatures began to emerge with the dawn. Winged snakes, brilliant as ropes of gemstone, took to the air. Orange and yellow lizards darted up the walls on broad, sticky finger pads. In the moat beyond the city wall, a roar like that of a bull crocodile lifted into the sky. An answering call rumbled from the gardens that flourished in the shadow of the great wall.

A concerned frown furrowed the wizard's brow. She ran down the flights of stairs leading down the inside wall and into the public garden. She stopped at the edge of a pond and began to sing in a clear, rich alto-a voice lovely in its own right but also full of magic's lure.

In response, a large reptilian snout thrust up from the pond. Golden eyes slashed with obsidian pupils fixed upon the singing wizard, in moments the creature undulated out onto the shore, revealing a behir, a beast more fearsome than a crocodile, more delicate than a dragon. Four pair of legs framed a long, serpentine body covered with scales of cobalt blue. The neck was long and graceful, and slender horns flowed back from a long, pointed head. Behir were as highly prized as swine in this city, but instead of bacon and ham and sausage, the exotic reptiles were apportioned for magical components and scrimshaw. It was a custom to which Keturah could never quite reconcile herself.

The behir paused uncertainly on the shore. Tiny blue sparks crackled around it as the creature snuffled, taking in the scent of Keturah's magic.

Her melody softened into a lullaby. Crystalline fangs flashed as the behir yawned hugely. The creature circled twice, like a drowsy hound, then lay down with its snout cradled on its foremost paws. The sizzles of magic faded as the behir sank into deep sleep.

Keturah kept singing, but she threw her hands out wide and began the gestures of a powerful spell of diminution. Each sweep and flow of her hands brought them closer to her center, and with each, the behir also diminished in size. Her casting continued until the twelve-foot creature was no bigger than a dragonfly.

She picked up the miniature behir and placed it on her shoulder. Instinctively the behir's tiny claws dug into the linen of her tunic. She set off for home, planning as she ran how and where to set the creature free.

Keturah stopped a few paces away from her tower and marveled, as she often did, that this estate was hers. Encircled by a wall was a series of fine buildings: servants' quarters, a guesthouse, a bathhouse, even a stable. Lush gardens were fragrant with flowering herbs and bright with the morningsong of birds. The crown of her estate was the wizard's tower, a tall, six-sided structure of green-veined marble, enrobed with flowering vines and topped by an onion dome roof of verdigris copper.

At five-and-twenty, Keturah was young to have such a grand home, but she was a master in the art of Evocation, a school of magic highly regarded in Halruaa and the most uncommon of magical talents. There was much demand for her time, and she was paid accordingly. The tower was hers in exchange for tutoring Dhamari Exchelsor, the only son of wealthy electrum miners and wine merchants. Keturah did not like owing her home to a single student, but this was common practice. Apprentice fees were steep. A truly gifted student never lacked for teachers, but aspiring wizards of moderate talent expected to pay dearly for their training. Dhamari's talents were modest indeed.

To his credit, he worked hard. Unlike some of Keturah's male apprentices, Dhamari showed no interest in her or in his fellow apprentices. Nor did he pester the servant girls. He was always proper, always polite and respectful. Keturah would have thought him cold but for his fascination with the newest apprentice.

She sighed, troubled by the turn her thoughts had taken. Kiva, an acolyte of the Temple of Azuth, had recently been sent to Keturah as part of the obligatory training in every school of the magical Arts. Kiva was a wild elf, a rarity in this civilized land. Her golden eyes reminded Keturah of a jungle cat, and Keturah suspected the elf was every bit as unpredictable.

Of one thing Keturah was certain: Kiva was a bad influence on Dhamari. He was intrigued by creatures of legend and dark magic, and the exotic Kiva seemed to inflame his imagination with possibilities. Of late he'd been asking Keturah for spells that would allow him to call and command creatures, as she did, but Dhamari had little talent for this particular type of evocation-or any other, for that matter. Very soon Keturah would have to encourage him to seek a new master and explore other schools of magic. The very notion filled her with nameless relief.

Keturah shrugged off these thoughts and strode through the outer gate. She stopped cold, frozen as surely as if she'd been halted by an ice dragon's breath.

Her neck prickled, and waves of gooseflesh swept down her arms. A second chill shuddered through her as her mind acknowledged what her senses had perceived: some dark and foul creature had invaded her home!

She began to chant a spell of discernment. Tendrils of bilious green mist-the manifestation of a powerful magic-seeking spell-twined through the air. Grimly she followed them into the tower and up the winding stairs. A sudden cacophony exploded from a room high above, and the mist was no longer necessary to guide her onward.

She sprinted up the final flights and raced toward the main laboratory. The heavy wooden door was closed, and it bulged and shuddered under the assault of some unknown power. Keturah summoned a fireball and held it aloft in one hand. With the other hand she threw open the door, leaping aside as she did.

The door crashed into the wall as a tangle of heaving, writhing vines spilled out into the corridor. Billows of smoke followed, bearing the acrid scent of sulfur.

Though Keturah could not see into the room, she could pick individual notes from the racket glass vials shattering, fire crackling, priceless spellbooks thudding against the walls, furniture clattering as it overturned. A man's grunts spoke of pain and exertion, and a beautiful, bell-like soprano voice lifted in keening chant. Above it all rang a shrill, insanely gleeful cackle that tore at the ears like fingernails on slate.

"An imp," Keturah muttered. She left her fireball suspended in air like a giant firefly and began to tear with both hands at the vines blocking the entrance. "The idiots have summoned an imp!"

She managed a small opening and struggled through. For a moment she stood taking stock of the chaotic scene.

A richly dressed young man stamped frantically at a smoldering carpet. His boots smoked, and his thin face was frantic with terror and smudged with soot. He lofted his dagger with one hand, slashing futilely at the creature circling him like an overgrown gnat

His attacker was a particularly nasty imp with a body the size of a housecat, enormous batlike wings, a yellowish hide, and a hideous face dominated by a twisted and bulbous nose.

The imp had been busy. The tapestries and drapes showed the assault of its claws, and the ripped edges smoldered from its touch. As the imp circled Dhamari, it spat little bursts of scalding steam, cackling with delight at the young man's pained cries.

Kiva stood over a potted lemon tree, chanting a growth spell. This was clearly not the elf woman's first attempt at containing the imp. The center of the room was dominated by an ornate cage fashioned from the vines of a flowering herb-an ingenious spell but for the fact that the cage door stood ajar. Imps were notoriously difficult to contain.

Keturah hissed out a sigh of exasperation.

Dhamari glanced up and caught sight of his mistress. Guilt and relief fought for possession of his face.

"Praise Mystra! Keturah has come."

His exclamation distracted the elf from her spellcasting. Kiva whirled toward the wizard, and the expression on her strange, coppery face changed from concentration to accusation, as if Keturah were somehow responsible for the rampaging imp.

"Do something!" the elf snapped.

At that moment Kiva's future at the tower came to a certain end. Keturah set her jaw and reached into the bag tied to her belt. She removed a bit of powder wrapped in a scrap of silk-a charm of the sort any prudent evoker carried as a safeguard against a miscast summoning. This she tossed into the imp's path.

The silk dropped away and the sparkling powder stopped in midair, spreading out into a translucent wall. Batlike wings backbeat frantically as the imp tried to evade, but the wall caught and held it like a fly in sap. The creature struggled and shrieked and cursed, but nothing availed. Finally it fell into seething silence, yellow chest heaving as it eyed the wizard with murderous rage.

"Be gone," Keturah said quietly. As quickly as thought, both the creature and its magical prison disappeared.

The wizard turned to study the cause of this debacle. Kiva, despite her spell battle with the imp, looked as poised and polished as a queen. The elf was clad in a fine green gown and decked with matching gems. Her dark green hair had been skillfully coaxed into ringlets, and each curl glowed with the color and sheen of jade. Subtle paint enhanced her exotic features, and a complex perfume, green and wild and somehow disturbing, mingled with the scent of the plants that transformed the room into an exploding jungle. The elf was more than a hand's breadth taller than Keturah yet so delicately fashioned and exquisitely groomed she made the young wizard feel coarse and common. In Kiva's presence, Keturah often had to remind herself she, not the elf, was mistress in this tower.

"So you conjured an imp," she said coolly. "Deliberately?"

Dhamari and Kiva exchanged glances. "Yes," the young man admitted hesitantly.

"I see." Keturah swept one hand toward the wild, wilting foliage. "This, I suppose, is banishment that reverses this summoning?"

"You know it is not," the elf replied in equally cordial tones. "You have not seen fit to teach the necessary banishment spells."

With great effort, Keturah banked her temper. "Necessary indeed! It is unspeakably reckless to cast a spell, any spell, that you cannot counter. You didn't even carry a protective charm, did you?"

Dhamari hung his head, but Kiva merely sniffed, as if to mock so obvious a question.

"Both of you have forgotten several primary laws of evocation," Keturah continued. She ticked them off on her fingers. "Don't cast magic you can't counter, don't summon creatures you cannot banish, and never, ever summon any creature you can't handle."

"A creature I can't handle," Kiva echoed, pronouncing each word with incredulous precision. "My dear Keturah, I've handled monsters far more imposing than a smelly yellow imp!"

Keturah held her apprentice's glare for a moment. She peeled the tiny, sleeping behir from its perch on her shoulder and carefully placed it on a branch of the lemon tree. "Very well, then," she said calmly. "If you're as knowledgeable as you claim, subdue this creature."

The elf glanced at the lizardlike creature and sent Keturah a look that, had it been on a human face, might have been called a smirk. Her delicate, coppery fingers reached for the tiny reptile.

Lighting bolts sizzled out of the behir, blackening Kiva's fingertips and sending her green hair dancing around her face like leaves in a sudden wind. She snatched back her hand, drawing her breath in a quick, pained hiss. The gaze she turned upon Keturah was coldly furious and utterly inhuman.

"You baseborn cow," she said softly.

A shiver coursed along Keturah's spine, for the contrast between the beautiful voice and the malevolent tone was chilling-as if she'd heard her death knell tolled upon fairy chimes.

She quickly pushed aside this dark fancy. "A wizard's reach must never exceed her grasp, Kiva, and a wizard's pride must be balanced by skill and knowledge. Remember this lesson, and the behir's sting will be well worth the pain. It is also your last lesson," she continued briskly. "You have until sunset to make arrangements with your temple and quit this tower. We will not meet again."

For a long moment the two females locked stares. Kiva broke away first, dipping into a deep and mocking bow. "If you say so, mistress, then it must be true." She turned and left the room, moving through the tangle of foliage with the sure, silent step of a jungle creature.

Keturah watched her go, her face troubled and thoughtful. Now she had one more culprit with whom to deal, and her anger returned in full measure as she rounded on the white-faced youth.

"If you wish to continue in this tower another day, Dhamari, you will give me your pledge, by wizard-word, never again to work such a spell!"

It was a harsh condition, but Keturah did not think it unjust. Such oaths were never asked or given lightly. There was no provision for regret or disavowal. No wizard could ever be foresworn, even if he dearly wished to be-not even if doing so would save his own life.

None of this seemed to concern the fledgling wizard. His boots still smoked from stamping out the imp's fires. His face was particolored like a painted harlequin's: pale on one side and on the other red from the bursts of scaling steam. His dark eyes were unfocused by pain and limpid with terror. As the implication of Keturah's words seeped through his distress, relief swept over his face like a healing tide. He took one of Keturah's hands in both of his and dropped to one knee.

"Mystra is merciful, but no more so than you!" he said fervently. "The Lady's blessing upon you! I was certain you would discharge me from the tower as you did Kiva."

"So I shall, if you do not swear. Kindly rein in your joy," she said tartly as she tugged her hand free. "What I ask of you is no small thing!"

"As you say, mistress," he agreed, but so great was his relief that he did not seem particularly abashed by the scolding. He rose to his feet and took a golden medallion from around his neck. On it was his sigil, a magical rune that was his signature and far more. This he gave her-a symbolic act showing he was quite literally in her hands. He pushed back his sleeves, closed his eyes, and held his hands aloft in an attitude of spell casting.

"By word and wind, sun and star, by the sacred flames of Lady Mystra and the magic She grants me, I swear that never in this life or any to come will I summon a creature I do not understand and cannot control." His eyes popped open, and he turned an earnest gaze upon Keturah. "This oath I swear gladly and freely, as I will any other you require of me!"

Sincerity shone in his eyes and rang in his tones. "It is enough," she said, relenting. She sent him to summon the gardener to clear away the vines and flowers. He left her presence swiftly, as if lingering might change her mind.

Left alone, Keturah started to sort through the mess. She returned two spellbooks to an empty shelf and began to kick through the vines in search of the rest. Her lips set in a grim line as she noted a burned and crumbled page entangled in the foliage. She freed the scrap of parchment and smoothed it out, hoping it was not from one of her precious books.

A glance told her it was not. Most of the page had been burned away, and what remained was brown and crisp at the edges, but she could make out a few oddly shaped characters. The markings were entirely unfamiliar to her: sharp, angular, elegant-yet somehow full of menace.

Keturah blew away some of the soot and ash and gave the scrap a closer study. She didn't recognize the spell or even the language, but she thought the markings looked vaguely Elvish. Full of foreboding, she left the laboratory for her private library, a small room housing the treasures inherited from her last master. From a hidden wall safe she took a large, slim volume.

The book was an artifact, the most valuable thing Keturah owned. There were only two pages in it, electrum sheets hammered thin and perfectly smooth. On the left page was etched a blank scroll, and the right-hand page depicted an oval mirror and a smaller scroll. Each page was bordered by a complex design that upon careful inspection appeared to be fashioned of thousands upon thousands of runes, markings too numerous and tiny to be identified separately. According to Keturah's master, nearly every known spell was included in the tangle. The book could reveal the origin of any spell, and sometimes the identity of the wizard who had created it. Keturah had never tested the claim, for the price of such magic was high.

She set to work with a diamond-tipped stylus, painstakingly etching the strange runes onto the electrum scroll. When satisfied she had reproduced the spell fragment faithfully, she stood the open book upright on the table, angled so page faced page. She took a small candle made with costly spices and placed it between the pages, lit it, and began the words and gestures of the complicated spell. The silver-white sheen of the electrum "mirror" faded, to be replaced by clouded glass and a shadowy, featureless face. The scroll beneath began to fill with small, precise Halruaan runes.

She leaned close and began to read aloud.

"The spell is incomplete, and one of the runes is reversed and turned widdershins a quarter circle. The spell is likely Ilythiiri in origin. No wizard's visage comes to the mirror's call, but this much I, The Book, can say with certainty: the spell fragment is ancient beyond reckoning. Do you wish The Book to attempt a translation?"

Keturah leaned back and blew out a long breath.

Ilythiiri. The very word held terror, though it named a people gone from Halruaa since time out of mind. Ilythiiri was the name sages gave to the southland's dark elves, the ancestors of the evil drow.

Ilythiirian magic-by wind and word, what was Kiva thinking!

Keturah hurried to her treasure room to fetch gold and gems needed for the next level of inquiry. She closed the book to erase both scrolls, then opened it and recopied the spell fragment and the spell for translation. The treasure she placed in a small cauldron, along with a chunk of beeswax and an assortment of magical powders. She placed the cauldron on the banked coals of her hearth. When the wax melted, she poured the whole of it into a candle mold and waited impatiently for the spell candle to set. She set it alight and watched as the treasure melted away with the candle, lending power to the spell. New runes etched themselves onto the electrum page. As she read, Keturah could feel the blood drain from her face drop by drop.

The spell fragment spoke of the Unseelie Folk: dark fairies that haunted the mountains of Halruaa, mysterious creatures of such unfathomable evil even the drow were said to fear them. The rune that had been reversed and twisted was a charm of warding against these deadly fey folk.

"A warding reversed," she said slowly. "So the spell Kiva cast was not a warding but a summoning!"

Sweet Mystra! This explained why Dhamari had hesitated when she'd asked if they'd summoned the imp deliberately. The summoning was deliberate, but the imp's appearance had been a mistake, and a lucky one. Keturah was not certain she could have handled the dark creatures her students had intended to evoke!

The Lady be praised, neither Dhamari nor Kiva was skilled enough to breach the boundaries between the world they knew and the hidden realm of the Unseelie Court. Keturah was not certain she herself could do so, and she had no desire to seek an answer. Dhamari would not try again: she had his wizard-word bond on it. But Kiva...

Keturah leaped up from the table and looked around frantically for the scrap of parchment-important evidence if Kiva's ambitious were to be curtailed. The elf woman was a fledgling magehound. Keturah was not so young and idealistic to believe the Azuthans would rule against one of their own on her word alone. The clerics of Azuth, Lord of Wizards, were a minority in a land devoted to Mystra and were jealous guardians of their god's prestige and position. Most Azuthan priests were good men and women, but when faced with wizardly interference they became as defensive as cornered wolves.

Keturah's eyes fell upon the brown-edged scrap, nearly lost in a tangle of wilting vines. It had fallen from the table while she worked her spells of inquiry. She dropped to her knees and reached for the parchment.

Her fingers closed around a puff of green mist. It swirled through her fingers and wafted up to touch her face, and with it came a deep, green scent that was all too familiar. The mist abruptly disappeared, leaving Kiva's perfume lingering in the air like mocking laughter....

The wizard responded with a shriek of agony. Tzigone muttered a phrase she'd picked up on the streets and stooped beside him. Quickly she tucked her mother's talisman back into his hand. His screams immediately subsided to a pathetic whimper.

"I want you to survive," she told him. Her voice was cold and her eyes utterly devoid of the playful humor that had become both her trademark and her shield. "I'll find a way out of this place for both of us-and when this is all over, I'm going to kill you myself."

Tzigone dragged herself from the vision and glared at the writhing, cowering Dhamari. Because illusion had such power in this place, she swore she could still smell the elf woman's perfume and the stench of sulfur in Dhamari's clothes.

She shook the wizard, shouting at him in an attempt to raise him from his self-inflicted torpor. He only shied away from her, flailing his hands ineffectually and pleading with her not to impale him with her horns.

"Horns," she muttered as she rose her feet.

For a long moment she watched the wretched man, a terrible person caught in a swamp of his own misdeeds. The urge to kick him was strong, but she shook it off.

"Grow a backbone, Dhamari! Thanks to you and Kiva, I can tell you from experience that it's possible to survive almost anything."