The following story is true.

I'm not saying that just to remind myself.... I was there, I know what happened.

But other people.... who weren't there... might try to fit the following into some idealized fantasy world that they call 'fiction.'

It won't work, and I figured I would save them the trouble of trying.

If this were one of those heroic epics... with heroes and damsels, and even an occasional dragon or two... then it wouldn't have started with me knee deep in mud, half-trudging, half-floating through the quagmire formerly known as Prosperity Pass.

Why not?

Because it never rains in those fantasy stories.

But in the real world, three weeks of rain had turned the Prosperity Pass into a swamp. The mud was only to my knees (for now), but it may as well have been over my head. The rain was so heavy that it was like walking underwater. My equipment was soaked. My clothes were soaked. My food and drinking water had floated away about three hours ago; I'm pretty sure they were soaked, too.

The trek from Thurwood Downs to Haventree was supposed to take one week. I had planned on making it in five days, even with the weather. Any good, well-trained horse would have gotten me there.... but MY good, well-trained horse died four days ago, stranding me in the middle of Forty-Mile wood with no transportation, and no choice but to wade through a river of mud with four saddle-bags of supplies strapped to my back. For four days.

This leads us to our NEXT new concept... on that is completely alien to those heroic fantasies:

Pneumonia.

Our heroes in the stories don't have to worry about THAT unwelcome mouthful, do they? No, of course not. They're all possessed of superhuman immune systems that can regenerate a severed limb in three days, so a little respiratory infection doesn't stand much of a chance. But I must have left MY superhuman immune system on the far side of Thurwood Downs, because I had the tingle in my throat before I hit the city gates. A few days in the rain had transformed that tingle into something dark, bloody, and painful lodged between my lungs and my gut. My muscles hurt. All of them... every last one.

Yeah, even that one.

My head felt like it was stuffed with thorns, and my chest gurgled whenever I took a deep breath (which I couldn't do without inhaling a gallon of rainwater). Ten minutes ago I could have sworn that I'd coughed up my own heart. Unfortunately it was just a fist-sized ball of bloody mucous from my lungs, so I had to keep going.

But it wasn't as if I was really in danger of dying from pneumonia. Sure, it would eventually drop me face-down in the mud, where I would die a quick but miserable death... but that was going to happen anyway. And when it did, it wouldn't be due to the infection.

After all... my horse didn't have pneumonia.

I'm not an atheist, but I'm not a praying man either. Still, there are times when even an atheist swallows his own objections, points his face to the dirt (or mud, in my case), and prays to whatever is out there listening... good, evil, or indifferent. Now would be one of those times.

I'm praying for leeches.

I used my last one yesterday, and I've had about six stings since then. Mud-stingers are nasty little bastards. Amphibious scorpions... six inches long... with an inch-long stinger shaped like a fish-hook. It's got a barb on the end... once it gets in, it ain't coming out without taking a bit of your flesh with it. By the time you screw up the courage to yank out your own achilles tendon, that barb has pumped you with enough poison that... well, you get the picture. Mud-stingers eat small animals, but they're too stupid to know the difference between a squirrel and a horse. Or a man. They attack anything that moves. Their poison eats at your nervous system, but one sting isn't strong enough to kill a man. It takes about fifteen hits to bring down a horse. Maybe eight or nine to kill a man.

Eight OR nine.

I'd be finding out exactly which it was pretty soon.

Ordinary leeches can suck out the poison (good for patient, bad for the leech), but I haven't found any new ones on me today. Mud-stingers eat leeches (and everything else), so I may just be out of luck-

AAhhhhhh..... there went number seven.

The barbed sting sank into my knee, and the creature to which it was attached curled up into a tight ball and just hung there, swinging from my knee like a pendulum as the poison started to flow.

I grabbed the squirming bastard and felt along the length of its tail until I reach the poison-sac just below the hook. I moved my fingers up a little more, to the base of the stinger, then I pulled. Hard.

The hook came out of my skin... and another fist-sized lump of phlegm exploded from my throat in place of a scream. The pain was just enough to clear my head for a moment. In that moment of clarity, I realized two things:

1) This was actually the NINTH sting today... not the seventh.

and

2) I was holding a live and very irate mud-stinger in my bare hand.

I remedied the second with a satisfying crunch. With the insect on its way to whatever hell awaited such things, I was left with the first and more disturbing realization. I was sick and now I had enough venom in my veins to drop me within the next hour.

Well... it wasn't like this had never happened before.

I let the latest wound bleed. The blood would carry some of the poison with it, and there was no way I could get the wound clean anyway. Bleeding to death was the least of my concerns.

I kept walking for another half-hour. I was going the same direction as before, but my objective was different. I was scanning the land, squinting through the downpour in search of a tree sturdy enough to support my weight, and with branches low enough for me to climb in my weakened condition. Once I was out of the mud, I could search my body for leeches to re-locate to more strategic positions.

...and this is how the story STARTED.

I spotted a suitable resting place, and had begun wading toward it when everything went to hell.

"Great," I mumbled. My lips were trembling so bad that it sounded more like: "mrfk."

My whole body began to shake. I was cold and hot at the same time, and my throat clenched shut at random intervals, chopping my wheezing breaths into staccato gasps for air. Finally, I just got tired of it and held my breath.

That seemed to help. The trembling subsided. I took half of a deep breath before coughing up something unpleasant that fell into the mud with a loud plop. Apparently the sickness and the venom were battling each other for the honor of killing me.

My face was numb. As were my fingers and everything below my knees. The pain in my skull shifted around and began to spread down the back of my neck... perhaps intent on mating with the agony spreading up my spine from the small of my back.

But I was still standing, and that counted for something. I started pushing forward through the mud, and I noticed a movement to my right. I turned... squinted... blinked...

There was a tall man in a black cloak about fifty yards further down the path. He was making his way toward me. The flood wasn't giving him quite as much trouble as it was me..

...because he was walking on water.

That fact by itself would... and should... have earned this fellow a silver-tipped arrow through the throat. But my crossbow was four days behind me, crushed under the body of a dead and particularly heavy horse. I still had the arrows, but somehow I didn't think flicking them at him with my fingers would have had the same effect.

So...

In one swift movement I simultaneously slid the silver-edged hunting knife from my belt, snatched a balanced throwing dagger from my arm-sheath-

-and vomited copiously down the front of my own shirt.

Impressive, eh?

"You, sir," I managed to growl while sloshing toward him. "Are in violation of Imperial Edict 207, which makes punishable by immediate death any use or study of magical or other supernatural-"

"HOOoo, stranger! There's no magic here!"

The stranger lifted his boot and brought it down with a hard muddy splatter. There was something solid beneath his feet, hidden below the mud.

"See?" he said, smiling. I couldn't see his face beneath his hood, but his voice was smiling. I hate voices that smile. "There's a shelf of rock here. No magic... just stone. But I don't quite know how far it extends, so you'll excuse me if I don't wander out there to greet you."

"How far is Haventree?" I asked.

"About an hour that way-" The stranger jerked his thumb behind him. When he did, his cloak shifted slightly, and I caught a glimpse of the sword on his hip.

The man's cloak was fine, treated leather... as were his boots. The rain rolled off of his shoulders in a suspiciously brisk manner. His silk shirt and expensive leggings were probably dry as a bone underneath.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"My name is Shaw," he replied. He raised his chin with the last word, and puffed out his chest so slightly that he was probably unaware that he had done so.

"Riarty Shaw?" I asked.

"No," he said... deflating a little. "But close. You are our Magekiller, then?"

"Yes."

"So tell me, Mr. Magekiller, what WOULD you have done if I had been a one of your little monsters? Did you expect me to stand here and wait while you waddle over and shove that knife in my kidney?"

"If you were a mage," I said calmly... still moving closer. "You would have attacked me on sight... before I could attack you. Probably a lightning bolt. Or a fireball."

"That would have been bad for you, don't you think?"

"No," I said. "Only for you."

By now, I was standing about ten feet away from him. From here it was obvious that he was standing on top of some submerged surface, and not on the water itself; his expensive boots were submerged to the ankles. It was ALSO obvious that he was not alone.

They were trying to keep themselves hidden, but even in the rain... half-blind with pain and dizziness... I could still spot the two amateurs 'hiding' behind the trees, trying their best to blend in with the background. I judged the distance at somewhere between "Close enough to see what was going on" and "far enough away so as not to catch one in the throat when the killing started."

This, of course, changed everything.

I gave my greeter another quick study. I could see only the lower half of his face. His chin was small but solid... it still had a little bit more growing to do. He carried his sword like a soldier, but if there had been royal or imperial troops in the area, I would have known it. His face was too young and smooth... and his clothing too expensive... to be a mercenary. He had given the name 'Shaw,' and if he was related to the reason I was here, then he was likely a trader or merchant...

The armed son of a particularly rich merchant.

In other words: Trouble.

Him and his 'invisible' friends were my welcoming party, but I doubt it was an official one. The question of whether this was a 'stand around and gawk at the Magekiller' kind of party or the 'we can handle our own problems so lets make life difficult for the outsider' kind of party remained to be seen.

"I must say," Shaw smiled. He bent his knees and crouched lower to get a good look at me. His face got a little too close to mine. I stepped back and nearly lost my footing in the mud. I didn't fall, but it was obvious that I had almost gone down. The stranger smiled at me. "When I heard we were getting a 'killer, I was expecting someone... oh, I don't know.... smarter."

Ahhhh. This was the 'make life difficult for the outsider' kind of party.

Fine. I love those parties.

Really, I do.

"After all... you'd think that a man who hunts monsters for a living would know not to take Prosperity during the rainy season. Do you know how Prosperity Pass got its name, Mr. Magekiller? From the name of the river that used to run through here. The mages re-routed it back when such things were legal. But with no more magic left to sustain the spells... well, you get the picture."

"Thanks for the information. I'll be sure to include it in my report."

"You do that. We wouldn't want the NEXT fellow dragging into town looking the way you do. You're likely to scare the livestock half to death."

"Are you going to get out of my way?"

"Oh, I'll do more than that."

The stranger extended his hand.... which was covered by an expensive leather glove. It looked tailor-made.

"I'll pull you up. Its a lot drier up here."

I thought about it for a moment.

"-or maybe you like mud. Magekiller are a strange breed, I hear.."

My throwing dagger vanished back into its sheath and I grasped the stranger's hand. He had a strong grip, but he still grunted like an old man when the weight of all my equipment nearly snatched him off of his perch. I managed to step up and steady myself just enough to keep us both from going down, but my efforts stirred up a storm of nausea that nearly put me right back in the mud. The stranger said something to me, but I was too busy dry heaving to make out what it was. I felt his hand on my shoulder, steadying me.

"Thanks," I managed to moan. I was waiting for the nausea to fade, but it looked like I was going to be waiting a while.

"You don't look too good, friend. Been sloshing around in the mud too long, I think."

"You wouldn't... happen... to have any leeches on you, would you?"

"Eh? That's rather personal, don't you think? That some kind of Magekiller humor?"

"Forget it."

Nausea or not, I didn't feel like dying here in front of an audience. So I shrugged the stranger's hand off of my shoulder, stood up straight, nearly passed out, then started walking. It was a lot easier to walk when I wasn't hip-deep in muck. But the cool air on my wet clothes wasn't doing much for my health. I paused to fight off a fresh round of convulsions... and when my vision cleared, the stranger was standing in front of me.

"I think I can make it from here," I said.

"Ahh, well there's a problem with that," he replied.

Here we go.

"I'm waiting," I said.

"You're a lot closer to town than I let on before."

"And that's a problem?"

"Well... what with all the happenings of late, I took it upon myself to... do what I can to keep the peace. That's what brings me to our little problem."

Translation: He had nothing better to do, so he decided to make himself a hero. Or a corpse... whichever happened first.

"There's bad magic afoot," he said. "...and there are some... like myself... who loathe to think that it is one of our own. I think we're dealing with an outsider. Someone not from here. So I am out patrolling the perimeter of the town, and I run across just such an outsider sloshing around suspiciously in the muck. Looking very weak and... shall I say it? Suspicious."

"I am a Magekiller-"

"And how do we KNOW that, sir? After all, what better way to get a victim to lower his guard than to claim you are there to protect him. Hmmm?"

"You're wasting my time."

I stepped forward. Shaw moved to push me back, but somehow, his hand missed my chest. An unfortunate muscle-spasm caused my arm to swing out, grab his shoulder, and yank him toward me. Shaw tripped on something in the mud... probably my foot... and went stumbling.
Just at that moment, another muscle spasm caused my leg to twitch violently, kicking both his feet out from under him.

Naturally, I was completely mortified by this unintentional turn of events.

I still had Shaw's arm in my grasp, so I tried to pull him back onto his feet, but all I ended up doing was spinning him around and twisting his shoulder painfully. When I realized what I was doing, I reached out with my other hand to steady him.

But the only thing within reach was his throat, so I got a nice, firm grip on it.

"Careful," I said. "You might fall."

I saw Shaw reaching for his belt, but I didn't see what he was reaching for because both my hands went numb at the same time. Shaw finished the fall that I had so deftly arrested a second before. His feet slipped from the shelf of rock on which we'd been standing, and he hit the mud below with a thick splash.

"Ooops."

All of the preceding events were, of course, PURELY accidental.

I thought about trying to help him up, but somehow, I didn't think my further involvement would be appreciated. Shaw stumbled around in the mud for a few seconds before he finally got his footing. He swept the hood back away from his head and looked up at me.

I suppose I was expected to have some kind of reaction to finally seeing his face. I didn't. He looked like just another idiot to me.

But he was an ANGRY idiot... with a sword, and with two friends hiding somewhere behind me.

I was feeling better already.

I slid the saddle-bags from my shoulders and let my arms hang limp... and throbbing and somewhat numb... at my sides.

"If you really want to continue this, we will," I said. "But I'm sick... tired... cold and wet. I'd rather just be on my way."

"But we have another problem now," Shaw said sloshed forward. "You sir, attacked me without provocation!"

"That was an accident," I replied. "If I had attacked you, you'd be dead."

"Oh? Care to wager on that?"

"You'd lose."

"Will I?"

I picked up my bags, turned my back on the muddy bastard, and started walking.

If someone were observing our little exchange... someone other than the country morons watching from the trees... they'd be inclined to think that I'd either gone soft, or lost my mind. But somewhere between "You'd lose" and "Will I?", I felt my heart try to punch its way out of my chest, and a slow wave of pain start to radiate outward from my lungs. If I wasn't standing in the rain, soaking wet, I would swear to the gods that my entire upper body was on fire. I figured that my exertions to this point had sped the stinger-poison on its way to whatever functioning organs I had left. A swordfight with this fool would probably kill me. The walk from here to town would ALSO probably kill me, but at least I'd die doing something constructive, and not dispatching some bored kid with nothing better to do than die.

Hopefully, Shaw would recognize the gift I was giving him... his life... and let the matter rest....

What the hell was I thinking?

"MAGEKILLER!" Shaw shouted.

I heard him clawing his way up out of the mud.

I kept walking.

I heard him draw his sword. It was a long, slow draw that he intended for me to hear.

"Did they not teach you better than to turn your back on an opponent, Magekiller? If, indeed, you ARE a Magekiller."

"M-maybe you should just leave him alone, Carder..." said one of his friends. A tall, thin lad with an unfortunate face stepped out from behind a nearby oak. "I mean..."

"Shut up!"

"Listen to your friend, Shaw," I cautioned. I stopped walking and spoke loud enough from everyone to hear. Maybe one of Shaw's friends could talk some sense into him. "Unless that's what this is all about. You here to show off for your friends? Take on a Magekiller and show how tough you are?
Please tell me that's not what this is."

Shaw came at me from behind. It wasn't a charge... just a fast walk. But he still had that sword in his hand. I stood my ground, but didn't turn around.

"What it IS," he huffed onto the back of my neck. "Is me HELPING you, and you attacking me for my troubles!"

Yeah. And I'm the Fairy Queen of Magangdar.

"You want an apology?"

"No."

I was REALLY getting tired of this kid breathing on my neck.

"I want you to turn and face me. If you're not afraid."

"I've fought things that could strip a man's flesh clean in less time that it'll take you to raise that sword. And you think I'm afraid of you?"

"Then turn... and let's see."

I started walking again.

Shaw stepped around me and blocked my path. He took a few steps back and pointed his sword at my chest.

"Draw your weapon, outsider. Let's see if you are who you say you are. A real Magekiller could easily disarm an amateur such as myself."

Amateur.

It certainly wasn't an amateur's blade he was pointing at me. It was an expensive weapon, but it wasn't a showpiece. It was the kind of sword that a soldier... a REAL soldier... would carry. The kind of blade that was not simply 'made' or 'constructed'... but crafted like a piece of art. Such swords were normally carried only by military officers, but at the base of the blade, where the symbol of kingdom or regiment would normally be found, there was instead a elaborate engraved seal composed of, among other things, a large script "S".

His grip of the hilt... the placement of his feet... posture and stance. This 'amateur' had seen some military training. GOOD training.

Like me.

Well... maybe not THAT good...

One look at him and that blade, and I immediately regretted not having put a dagger in his throat when I had the chance.

Once again, I dropped my bags. But this time, I drew my sword.

Shaw smiled. His smile twitched a little when he saw my weapon... which was longer, much better made, and a hell of a lot more expensive than his.

I dropped it into the mud.

I'd like to say that I was giving this kid another chance to change his mind... but a muscle-cramp had simply left me too weak to hold my own blade.

Like I said... this is a TRUE story. Things like that just don't happen in the epics.

"I yield," I said, playing along with the poison that was eating at my nervous system. "Satisfied?"

For a second, it almost looked as if Shaw had come to his senses and was going to sheath his weapon. But just when I got my hopes up, he grinned wildly and attacked.

"Pick up that weapon!" he said laughingly as he lunged. I side-stepped and backed away. Instead of pressing his attack, Shaw reached down and snatched my blade out of the mud. He tossed it in my direction.

I caught it.

"If you insist," I sighed.

"Yes, I do!"

And so... we fought.

It was a very short fight, consisting largely of the following:

Shaw swung his blade downward across my chest. I blocked, then spun... pretending to move away, but then reversing directions and slashing. Shaw parried... parried again... and then again. The third time our swords met, his blade danced around mine in some kind of fancy disarming maneuver. I only saw the beginning of it, because in the next second, everything went dark and blurry.

Knowing that the fight was just about over, I let Shaw's parry snatch the blade from my hand, then stepped into whatever it was he was setting me up for. I twisted to one side and quickly grabbed his wrist while I could still (sort of) see it. My other hand twitched-

-the spring-loaded dagger popped out of the mechanism strapped to my forearm and sprang into my hand. I grasped it, and plunged it into the blurry shape in front of me.

"GAWW!" Shaw grunted. It wasn't the kind of grunt that meant I'd hit a vital organ...it was the kind of grunt that meant I'd pissed him off. Shaw's hand vanished from my grasp. I ducked as something passed over my head. I hadn't even seen it. I fact, I wasn't seeing much of anything except a deepening reddish-brown blur. Part of the blur moved toward my head again. I spun away from it-

-but this time, I wasn't fast enough.

---

We knew they were there.

We knew they were hunting us. But it was what we DIDN'T know was what turned the whole operation into a bloodbath. There was too many of them... and they'd been right there all along.

Beneath us.

Those bastards had been tracking us underground. Right under our feet, every step of the way.

And when we'd gone too far inland to turn back, they struck.

The ground swelled up in front of me like a giant dome. Dirt flew in all directions.

...My eyes....

By the time I cleared them, the thing was halfway out of the ground, already swinging its pincers back, positioning for yet another blow. Blood poured down its segmented arm, and chunks of flesh hung from its claws like streamers. A human head tumbled across my field of vision....

...right in front of me.

I saw the face. No! NO!

"EASY!!!"

I opened my eyes, and Finity Isle faded back into oblivion.

I was sitting upright. In a bed. My throat still burned from my scream.

Had I screamed?

I looked around. I was in some kind of hospital. Two rows of four beds each lined the plain wooden walls. Mine was the only one occupied.

Before I got a chance to see much more than that, the room's only door opened and a woman rushed in. She wasn't old... but she wasn't young either. Maybe forty, with a concerned expression and a brown, burlap dress that could have been hiding any number of weapons.

She paused when she saw me.

"You're awake!"

"Yes."

I pulled the covers back and swung my legs over the edge of the bed, intending to get up. That's when I noticed that I was naked. There were tiny patches of white cloth taped over my wounds, but that was it.

"Clothes." I demanded.

"You can't get up yet... just lay back down." She came toward me.

"Who are you?"

"I'm a healer, and you're still very sick."

"I'm fine."

I wasn't fine. I could breathe... well enough to scream and talk, anyway... and that gurgling fullness in my chest was gone. But my limbs still ached, my joints were stiff and my head hurt.

"I'm fine," I repeated. I stood up...

...and fell forward onto the adjacent bed, barely managing to grab hold of the sheet before I slid off onto the floor.... pulling the sheet down on top of me.

"No, you're not."

"So I noticed," I moaned. I felt her guide me back to my bed and pull the covers back over me.

"What happened?"

"You... don't remember?"

"I remember being attacked in the woods. I meant what happened AFTER that."

"Carder brought you. You were very sick. You would have died-"

"How long have I been here?"

"You slept for four days."

"FOUR DAYS?!" I tossed the covers back again and sat up. "FOUR DAYS!?!"

"And you need for MORE days! You'll hurt yourself if you try to get up again... so sit back and rest. You had a very bad infection and enough stinger-wounds to kill you twice over. You're better now, but there's still traces of both in your system. You're in a very delicate condition, and you need your rest."

"I don't have time to rest. Do you know who... what... I am?"

"Yes, I know," the woman nodded slowly. "I'm sorry. Sorry about Carder."

Sorry? Why would SHE be sorry... unless:

"Your last name is Shaw, isn't it."

"No, it's Sorter. Vivian Sorter. Riarty Shaw is my uncle-"

"And that fool in the woods is your son."

"Yes. He wanted to take the old family name-"

"Interfering with the duties of a Magekiller is punishable by death. Imperial Edict Number 209-"

"I- I know. He... I... I'm so sorry. He and his friends, they..."

The old woman was at a loss for words. She honestly believed that I was going to claw my way out of that bed, track down her son, and kill him on the spot.

I was.

... but not right now.

"I need to speak with Riarty Shaw. He wrote a letter-"

"I know. It's... it's terrible. And there's been another one.
While you slept... they.. they found him yesterday. There was nothing I could do. He was... like the others."

"Another? You're sure?"

The healer nodded.

So much for rest.

"Clothes and equipment. Now."

"You're still-"

"NOW, WOMAN!"

Startled, she jerked away from the bed.

"I... you're clothes are over there. I washed them for you. I was going to patch the holes from the stingers, but you woke up. Your equipment is in the corner. I haven't touched any of it."

"Good."

I stood up again and endured the tide of dizziness until I stopped swaying like a weed in the breeze. When the room finally stopped spinning, the Sorter woman was handing me my clothes. My head cleared even more while I put them on.

It cleared enough for me to notice the marks on my legs. Tiny puncture wounds that weren't from the mud-stingers.

I was never very good at hiding suspicion.

"What are these? What have you been doing to me?"

"For the poison," Vivian said, pointing to the marks.

"Leeches?" I already knew good and damned well that they weren't leech-bites.

"Heavens, no! It's a serum... I injected into your muscles to weaken the poison. You'd be dead if I hadn't."

"Injected?"

"With needles. Small hollow needles. You were asleep."

"Obviously."

Sounded more like torture than medicine. I wondered what ELSE had happened during the four days I'd been out. IF, in fact,it had only been four days. I wondered what other strange wounds I'd be finding...

"Where is Shaw?" I asked as I buttoned my shirt.

"We're at the edge of the estate now. Outside, through the gates, then down the path to the house. I'll go with you-"

"No. I work alone."

"You can hardly WALK alone."

"I can walk just fine. And here-" My coin-purse was in my jacket pocket, where I'd left it. None of the coins were missing. I tumbled two small gold pieces into my palm and handed them to her. "Reimbursement for your services."

"Ummm..." She glanced at the coins, then looked away. "I... I'd rather not."

"You work for free?"

"No, no of course not. It's just that... I'd rather have something else..."

"Something like... your son's head still attached to his neck?"

"He really didn't mean any harm. He... he's a grown man, but he's still just a boy-"

"A fair exchange," I said. I put the coins back in my pocket. "As long as he stays out of my way."

"Thank you."

I gave my equipment a quick inspection. Everything was there...

... but my nursemaid had lied about it not being disturbed. My things had been unpacked, examined, and put back into place by someone who could stand to pay a lot closer attention to detail. If they thought I wouldn't notice that my chainmail was improperly folded, or that my silver stakes were on the wrong side of my pack, then they were sadly mistaken.

I decided not to press the issue with the Sorter woman. She would either deny it or claim ignorance. Instead, I just picked up my bags one at a time and slung them over my shoulders. And besides, I already had a pretty good idea who the culprit was.

"Oh, you shouldn't exert yourself!" The woman shuffled over to me, and for a second it looked like she was going to snatch my bags right off of my back. "Y-You're still very sick! And the serum has... too much physical activity could cause... I mean..."

I frowned at her, and she backed away.

"A-At least leave your things here. There's no need to carry all that just to go around the corner-"

"Just keep your son out of my way."

I found my own way to the door. The healer's house was larger than I would have guessed; I counted four bedrooms on the way out... all expensively furnished. The fireplaces were clean and empty, with no wood stacked by the hearths. No one had used those rooms in a while, nor was there any expectation of any overnight guests. There were two sitting rooms, also furnished and empty. What I didn't find was the kitchen, dining room, or the master bedroom. Those must have been in another section of the house... like the hospital in which I'd spend the past four days asleep. The woman lived quite well. Either healing sick townsfolk paid more than I realized, or this woman had other ways of making money...

Not that I had any reason to suspect her of anything. No, not yet, anyway. But I didn't have any reason to trust her, either. And her talk of needles and serums didn't help.

I took a few moments to memorize the layout of her house... (because you never know)... and then went outside.

The initial slap of fresh air made me dizzy, but a few deep breaths later, I was feeling better than I'd been when I first woke up. Either that, or I was delirious.

The Shaw mansion wasn't too hard to find.

The healer was right... it was just around the corner. But even if it hadn't been, I don't think I would have had any trouble finding it. The thing was huge... a two-level monstrosity resting atop a substantial hill, lording over the landscape like a fat gargoyle on its perch. The stone foundation-

-stone? Marble. The MARBLE foundation rose a few feet out of the ground, seemingly for no purpose other than to declare its own presence. Not everyone could afford marble. Those that could, usually wanted everyone else to know it. However, using it for the half-buried foundation of a house was a bit... peculiar. The house itself was a dark wood... mahogany or ebony... the kind of wood one would use for furniture, but not for walls. Unless, of course, you had more silver than sense.

The house and property... of which there was quite a bit... was surrounded by a crumbling stone wall. The wall was high enough to discourage casual climbing... but juuuust low enough so as not to obstruct the view of the house. The stones were disintegrating with age and weather; a major collapse and a lot of repair work loomed sometime in the near future. I followed the wall to the gate... which stood open, and looked as if it hadn't been shut for a very long time. The twin wings of a gold-colored metal had been polished to a brilliant sheen, and then allowed to rust to an even shade of reddish-brown. A thick mat of vines wove their way through the vertical bars. The plants were probably the only things keeping the gate in place. The stones to either side of it were certainly in no condition to hold anything.

Just past the ancient gate was the beginning of a stone walkway that lead all the way up the hill to the house. The first thirty yards were black with shadows from the trees on either side. The branches overhung the walk, creating a tunnel of greenery that... while it probably looked impressive at one time... now tended more toward the ominous and disconcerting. The trees blocked my view of everything except the dark house and the land immediately between it and me. There could have been a horde of hurath-dogs lurking on the other side of those trees and I wouldn't have known the difference. If they were quiet, they would have me; I was in neither the mood nor the condition for surprises. Fortunately, I have good hearing. I listened carefully while I walked-

A solid bolt of ice slid down my spine. It felt like...

The dream. It felt like the dream I had just had.

I had to remind myself... almost aloud... that I was not back on Finity Isle, and that if ANYTHING was waiting for me beyond these trees, that it was not... (couldn't be... could it?)... was NOT...

...wasn't the same...wasn't the same...wasn't the same...

What the hell was happening to me?

My heart was pounding in my throat and my hands were shaking so bad that my sword rattled in its scabbard. I'd stopped walking without even knowing it... not because I was tired or weak, but because I was terrified! The very thought of taking another step forward nearly turned my around and sent me screaming back to the old healer woman's house.

I drew my sword.

I've had enough things crawling around in my mind to know when my thoughts were being manipulated-

-and this was not one of those times.

Mind magic is no different than any other kind; it always leaves traces that you could spot if you knew what to look for. I knew what to look for, but I damn sure wasn't finding it. Whatever was going on in my head was either all me... or there was a Grandmaster-level Psion hiding somewhere in those trees. The first I could deal with. If it was the second...

Whatever it was, it apparently had its fill of me while I stood frozen. The panic melted away, leaving me half-crouching under the trees with my sword drawn and a very stupid look on my face.

It was the sickness.... the mud-stingers.

Had to be.

Nevertheless, I walked the rest of the way through the trees with my sword drawn. When I stepped out in the open, the sky greeted me with a light misting drizzle... which erupted into a full-blown hard rain before I could make it to the house. By the time I reached the marble steps, I was soaking wet again.

And my head hurt. Bad.

The mansion's front door was as black as tar-

Scratch that.

It was just open, and the room beyond was dark. My eyes were going blurry again. I stepped in out of the rain and stood dripping on the carpet while my eyes adjusted. Water drained out of my hair, down my neck, into my shirt and down my back... I could already feel myself getting sicker.

Fortunately, there was a window nearby. Windows have curtains...

...in this case, silk drapery with lace trim. Worth a small fortune.

By the time I finished drying my hair and face, my eyes had adjusted to the near darkness in the room. If the sun had been shining, the hallway in front of me would have been lit with daylight from the huge windows at the other end. But the clouds were thick, and the hall was about as bright and welcoming as a silver mine. There were paintings and tapestries on the walls, but without a light I couldn't tell what I was looking at. I could see just well enough to spot the stairs leading to the second floor, and that's where I headed first.

Two suits of full plate armor... empty, I presumed... stood at either side of the staircase, as if on guard against intruders. When I strolled past them without being snatched up and pummeled to a fine red paste, I felt reasonably safe in starting up.

The bedrooms were to my right. Six heavy doors.... all closed. To my left was the study. That door was open. Light from inside beamed down the hallway, as did the echoes from the conversation taking place just out of sight. I stopped at the top of the stairs and listened. I assumed that one of the two voices was Riarty Shaw. I had no idea about the other.

"...either you want the job or you don't. I'm not going to beg you."

"I'm not asking you to beg. All I want is a little respect!"

"Respect? I'm offering you ten percent more than your predecessor... you want respect, too!?"

"You see! You see that what you just said... THAT'S what I'm talking about, Shaw! You don't respect me, or anybody else!"

"I can respect a man who works hard to support his family, which I am giving you a chance to do-"

"I won't be your cheap slave labor!"

"Nonsense. Slaves don't get paid."

"And what do YOU know about work, Shaw! When was the last time you worked a single day's labor! Never!"

"Work and labor are two entirely different concepts, Norton. And I've done my share of both. Just because you weren't around to SEE it doesn't mean it didn't happen."

"BAH! My father-"

"Ahhh, here we go again. Ancient history... your father this and your father that..."

"-spent his life working for you! Breaking his back for you and your precious shipments while you sat on your ass! And now, years later, here you are STILL sitting on your ass expecting everyone ELSE to do everything FOR you... just because you have money!"

"Well I can't argue with that one, can I?....I DO have money. And I AM sitting here on my ass. But my ass is so comfortable... Look! Doesn't it look comfortable!"

"Make fun if you want! But my father DIED working for you! And he wasn't the only one-"

"He was the only one to die because he was too drunk to tie a restraining harness properly. And despite the damage to my property, I STILL paid for the burial! A very expensive burial at that!"

"That's what its all about to you, isn't it Shaw? Money."

"Absolutely," Shaw replied. "Everything is always about money... that's why I have it and you don't."

"No... what you HAVE is the money your father left you! You didn't WORK for any of this, Shaw! You didn't work for one damned CENT of it!"

"Ohh, yes... I'd forgotten about that. I suppose I am just a lazy bastard, eh?"

"A DISRESPECTFUL lazy bastard!"

"I see..."

There was a long pause, and then Shaw spoke again.

"Are you finished?"

"NO! .....Yes."

"So do you want the job or not?"

...pause...

"Yes."

"Good."

I heard a chair scraping across the floor... a drawer open and close back again... and finally a few coins tumbling across a wooden desk.

"Don't forget the shrubs on the side of the house," said Shaw. "Corth always forgot those and I always had to call him back."

"Right..."

The coins jingled as someone picked them up. There should have been another jingle or two as they were counted... but it didn't happen. Either the person being paid was unusually trusting, or he was an idiot.

"...but I'm not going to call you 'sir' and bow and kiss your feet like he did!"

"Don't be ridiculous... the job of foot-kisser pays much more than that! Would you be interested in that position, too?"

By now, I had stepped off the stairs and was approaching the study.

One of the first things a Magekiller learns is stealth. Contrary to popular myth, charging into a mage's lair brandishing a sword and howling at the top of your lungs generally wasn't consistent with keeping your intestines on the inside of your body.

A Magekiller had to be quiet... as quiet as a tomb, even while wearing plate boots and chain mail, with fifty pounds of assorted silver implements strapped to your back. The training becomes second nature... so much so that sometimes I have to make an extra effort to be heard. Like now.

For the first few footsteps, I dropped my boots hard onto the carpet... which also served to knock off some of the mud. Then gave my sword a gentle rattle in its scabbard.

"Who's there?" Shaw didn't sound too concerned or frightened about an unexpected guest. But then, I probably wasn't as unexpected as like to be. "Who is that?"

"Officer of the Empire." My 'greeting' was the Standard Declaration... a scripted legal statement of my name, rank, and purpose. All executors of imperial force... i.e. me... are required to repeat it prior to (or during) the execution of official duties. At least, in theory. Magekiller typically skipped it, as the only people around when we executed OUR duties weren't likely to be filing Official Grievances when we were done. But in this case.... "Magekiller Sheridyn, here with due cause and by direct request to investigate suspicions of Magery, and to enforce the laws of the High Crown-"

"Well don't just stomp around in the hallway, come on in!!"

Shaw pushed himself back from his desk... but didn't get up. Instead, he smiled and waved me into his study.

The room was huge... and then, it wasn't. In raw area, it was only slightly smaller than the average house. But the majority of it was taken up with multiple rows of shelving. There were only a few books... dusty leather tomes lining the walls furthest from the desk. Mostly the shelves held records. Scrolls. Ledgers. Stacks of loose parchment tied together with string. In the center of this nest of paperwork sat a huge mahogany desk. Shaw... a short, thin, white-haired old man with distinctly rodent-like features... sat on the far side of the desk, facing the door.

Standing between me and the desk was a much younger man wearing rough clothes, muddy boots, and an expression that announced to the whole world that he was about five seconds away from pissing all over himself. The man's mouth flopped open and closed a few times, but other than that he was a statue.

"Ahhhh..." he started to say. His voice cracked halfway through, so he closed his mouth, opened it again, and then just stood there staring at me like a man who desperately wanted to be somewhere else.

I granted his wish.

I glanced at him long enough to memorize his face, then jerked my head toward the door. The man bolted... then remembered his dignity halfway down the hall... then forgot it again when he reached the stairs. I heard him sprint all the way out of the house.

It was good to know I still had that effect. After my encounter in the woods, I was beginning to have doubts.

"What was his name?" I dispensed with the remainder of the Declaration. Shaw obviously knew who I was. After all, HE was the reason I was here.

Well... part of the reason. Exactly half of it.

"Lawrence Norton," said Shaw. "Quite an amusing fellow... I assume you heard at least part of his little tirade. See what I have to go through just to get my hedges trimmed?"

I made a mental note of the name... attached it to the face in my memory... and ignored everything else Shaw had said after that.

Unfortunately, Shaw didn't stop talking.

"You'd THINK that in a town like this, people would be jumping up and stabbing each other in the back for work... especially for what I pay. I really am quite generous with my wages, despite what you might hear. But no, every time... and I do mean EVERY time I want something done, I have to listen to a damned lecture about how I'm not better than anyone else... how there are more important things than money... and how I'm just a greedy slavedriver who made my fortune on the backs of their fathers and brothers! And THEN they start with the demands... FIRST they want respect-"

"I heard."

"I bet you did! HMPH! As if respect can be demanded! Given, yes... earned, of course... but demanded!? You know what I say to that, Mr. Sheridyn? It WAS Sheridyn, right?"

"Ye-"

"I say that if you have to DEMAND respect, then chances are, you don't deserve it! That's the PROBLEM with the world these days... too much damned respect for people who don't deserve it! Back in the old days, when a man got to be my age he was automatically made leader of his village! Became damn near a king! Why? Just because he managed to keep from getting KILLED for a few years longer than the next fella! You look like a reasonable man, Mr. Sheridyn... so tell me: does THAT make any sense to you? NO, of course not! And yet it makes a lot more sense than a parade of ignorant bumpkins trying to lecture me into respecting them for... for what? For NOTHING! ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! And-"

"Mr. Shaw."

"Yes? OH! Oh my! I'm so sorry! You shouldn't let me ramble like that."

"Next time, I won't."

"Good! We wouldn't want to be wasting your time now, would we? Of course not! Uhhhh... that' reminds me..."

Shaw paused and drew his first breath for what seemed like an hour. He looked sheepishly across his desk at me.

"I, uhh, must apologize for my nephew. I heard about your little incident in the woods, and I assure you that the boy has been thoroughly chastised... and NOT by that mother of his! SHE lets him get away with far, far too much-"

"It's been taken care of."

"Good!" Shaw thought for a moment. "By, uhhh, 'taken care of'... I don't suppose I'll be finding his head at the bottom of my stairs later on, will I?"

"No," I said.

"Well that's good," Shaw relaxed in his chair... leaning back and making himself look even shorter than he already was. "The boy means well... but he's always had a bit of a problem with authority. But then, I suppose all boys do-"

"I didn't."

"Ahh. Well... I'd imagine-"

"Perhaps you didn't catch the part about me being here on official duty, Mr. Shaw."

"Of course I did! You're here about our little problem!"

"Little?" I said. "The problem you described in your letter wasn't exactly 'little'." I reached into the side pocket of my backpack and ran my fingers across the various items... searching for the tube of waxed parchment...

"Oh, don't bother pulling it out... I know what it said. I did write it, after all. And I kept a copy!" Shaw swept his hand beside him, indicating the closest shelf. It was packed with message-parchments similar to the one my fingers had just brushed across in my pack. "I keep copies of everything! For business purposes, of course. I'm just glad you got it! Carder delivered it personally to the missionaries in Hoyt. That probably sped things along a good bit, I'd say. There's a short-cut between here and Hoyt that not a lot of people-

"I heard there was another victim while I was... healing," I said, interrupting the old man before he could get started on another ramble. "Is that true?"

"Oh yes," Shaw replied solemnly. "Two more since I sent that letter. And then a third after you arrived."

"All in the same condition?"

"If you mean 'dead' then yes. Other than that, there really IS no condition. For the life of me, I can't figure out what killed them... and I've seen men die lots of different ways. Maybe not as many as you have, but-"

"Are you sure they're dead?"

Shaw looked at me like I'd just suggested he take a flying dive out of the window behind him.

"Of COURSE they're dead, Mr. Sheridyn... what... what...we're not ALL complete idiots out here in these woods. I HAVE seen dead bodies before, and I DO think I can recognize a corpse when I stumble across one in the garden!"

"Just because someone is dead today doesn't mean they won't be walking around tomorrow. Are the bodies all accounted for?"

"Ah. Yes... well... all properly burned and disposed of. Except the last one. I managed to convince them to hold onto it so you could... you know..." Shaw pressed his thumb and forefinger together and made little cutting motions in the air.

Surprisingly, I knew exactly what he meant.

"I'll examine the body later. Now, I need your statement."

"Statement? The letter-"

"As you've said, there have been developments since you wrote for help." ...AND it was difficult to tell if someone was lying if they didn't SAY anything. "Start from the beginning."

Shaw told his story. I already knew the first part of it from the letter that I had in my backpack. The first victim was Shaw's gardener... found dead in the garden. Victims two through five were farmers. All male adults. The deaths came two to three weeks apart, with no visible wounds and no sign of struggle... other than some odd marks in the dirt around the bodies, and a facial expression that Shaw couldn't describe. Victims six, seven, and eight were the same... except for the timing. The seventh and eighth victims were only days apart. And there was other thing about the eighth victim that was odd: His name.

It was the other reason I was here. There was a message-scroll in my pack bearing that exact same name... it contained the same story that Shaw had just repeated to me, although it differed on a few of the details. Whether those details were significant remained to be seen. And might not EVER be seen, considering the fact that the person who wrote them was now dead.

"Sanders Kerse," I repeated. "Are you sure?"

"Quite," said Riarty Shaw. "Why... do you know him?"

"No..." THIS is the part where Shaw pretended not to know anything about the second letter. It was a lie, of course. If he didn't know about it BEFORE I arrived, he certainly found out afterward. His nephew Carder had done a fair job of putting my belongings back in their proper places after ransacking my pack... but not fair enough. "...do you?"

"Nnnnnot really," Riarty said thoughtfully. "Not any more than I know anyone else around here. Although I did get to know his wife quite well... unfortunately."

"Unfortunately?"

"She used to work here.. hired her as a maid. Had to get rid of her, though."

"Any particular reason?"

"Woman was just too damned curious!" Shaw spat. The rising edge in his voice told me that he was about to go off on another rambling tangent. This time, I let him go. "Wandering around the house... fluttering through my papers like a... well... I don't like to speak ill of dead men OR their wives-"

Bullshit.

"-so we'll just leave it at that."

"She steal anything?"

"Steal? HA! Half the people in this town WISH they could come in here and wander off with my valuables... ROB the rich and GIVE to the poor... meaning themselves, of course. But THEN what would they do, eh? I'm on a first-name basis with every trader for two months in every direction! A fist full of jewels doesn't mean a whole lot if you can't show your face in a market without getting chased down and beaten half to death! Not that it hasn't been tried before... oh yes it has! But my property has a habit of finding its way back to me, if you know what I mean... and everyone around here knows that. Some found out the hard way."

"Oh really?" I said.

"Yes! But, uhh... she wasn't one of them. Believe me, I did a thorough inventory after her buttocks collided with the walkway outside. Nothing of mine went with her."

"I'll need to speak with her," I said. Shaw had no reason to know or care WHO I spoke with in town... but I told him anyway just to gauge his reaction. There wasn't one.

"They live way out..." Shaw waved his hand in an easterly direction. "...toward the edge of town. Actually..."

Shaw pushed his chair back from the desk and then used one foot to propel himself across the carpet... a task made much easier by the tiny wheels on the bottom of his chair. He pulled a large roll of parchment off of a shelf crammed with similar giant scrolls. Then he returned to his desk and waved me over to look at what he had.

"This should help," he said, unrolling the parchment. "The surveyors were here just last year... accurate maps are essential to my business, you know."

Drawn in crisp, clear lines on high quality parchment was a scaled map of the city... complete with property lines, elevation markers, and even small rectangles representing the size and position of each building. I had to admit, I was impressed.

I studied the map on my own while Shaw's short, stubby finger tapped out the various points of interest.

-tap-

"Here we are..." he said, pointing the second-largest block on the map. His finger moved slightly to the southeast-

-tap-

"...right there is my niece's house, where you woke up. Oh, and just for future reference, here-"

-tap-

Shaw's finger dragged across the map, following a pair of lines trailing through the woods.

"Is the path you SHOULD have taken into town. Do you see this river over here-"

-tap-

"THAT'S where you-"

"I know," I said. "Won't make that mistake next time."

"That's what bad maps will get you! An inaccurate map can get a man KILLED in my business. And in yours too, I imagine. Speaking of which, here-"

-tap-

"Victim number two..."

Riarty pointed out where the other victims had been found. All had been on or near their own property. Except for the one found on the Shaw estate. When his finger stopped moving, it was resting on a thin line separating one large piece of property... the largest one on the map... from a scattering of small irregular blocks.

"...that's where Kerse died. Right there. Now here-" Shaw's finger slid to the side. "-here is my distribution center. Caravans come into town... using the trail, not the river, of course, heh-"

Funny.

"-and this is where we load, unload, and even store the goods they carry. For a healthy fee, of course. All this over here-"

Shaw indicated the collection of smaller properties.

"-USED to belong to the Kerse family. Generations ago. They sold it off bit by bit, just like almost everybody else has had to do lately. Some of it was seized for taxes; its abandoned now. I just bought THIS piece of it right here-"

-tap-

"I'm going to expand my distribution center when the time comes. Figured I'd buy the property now while its cheap, because once the king seizes it, the value automatically goes up 30%. Here-"

-tap-

Shaw pointed to a tiny circle on his new, but as yet unused property.

"Is where you'll find Sanders Kerse now."

"Cemetery?"

"HA! We don't bury our dead around here, Mr. Sheridyn. With the water-table the way it is, if you dig too deep of a hole you're likely to end up with a fountain! HA! No, this is just an old barn. Sits on a hill in case of floods, and it's got a sturdy door that still locks. We put the body in there... and if you MUST speak with that Kerse woman, you'll find her hovel here-

-tap-

"...you can see it from the barn. Although if you turn the other direction, there's a much better view. The landscaping around my facility is-"

"Thank you for the help, Mr. Shaw," I said. From the distances on Shaw's map, I had a long walk ahead of me, and not a lot of daylight left for walking. I had already heard Shaw's story. I wanted to hear from the Kerse widow, examine the body, and take a look at the places where the others had died. That would probably take all night...

... and if I was lucky, whatever I had come here to kill would show itself somewhere along the way. If so, I could kill it and get the hell out of here. If not...

...then it meant that the mage I was after was still human. Or could PASS for human. Or, at the very least, still THOUGHT like a human.

Those always made for the worst kinds of hunts. They usually ended with me dragging some kid's mommy, daddy, grandma, or favorite aunt or uncle out into the street and impaling them... then dismembering the corpse... then setting the pieces on fire... then scraping the resulting ashes into a silver-lined jar for burial.

A lot of people take offense to that kind of thing. And, contrary to the opinion most people have about Magekiller, slashing my way through a mob of angry townsfolk is NOT my idea of a good time.

Unless they've pissed me off...

"...I'll be on my way. But I'll be back to ask you more questions-"

"Oh, I'll come with you!" said Shaw. The old man reached behind him and grabbed the sturdy cain he had strapped to the back of his chair. He brought the cane's metal tip down on the carpet with a 'thump' and then started... slowly... hauling himself up out of the chair.

"You MUST be joking."

I didn't intend to say that out loud. Really.

"No, no," he grunted. "I haven't had my daily walk anyway. And I know all the shortcuts-"

"No," I said. "I work alone."

"Really now?" said Shaw. He hovered in a crooked, half-standing, half-sitting position above his chair. "That's new. Why... back in the Trade Wars-"

"There were a lot more of us to go around back then," I said.

Shaw paused for a moment longer, frowning at me. Then he stood. The man was so short that there wasn't that big of a difference between him standing and sitting.

"You?" he said, curiously. "The Trade Wars? You couldn't possibly be old enough... well, now that I get a good look at you.... Still, you couldn't have been more than a boy-"

"Apprentice. Most of it was before my time, but I fought in the Final Assaults. Cradle Row."

Again, that was information he didn't need to know. But I wanted to see his reaction. The Trade Wars was a 'period of extended hostilities' between rival trade groups, the Transporters Union, and the various groups of organized thieves that wanted control of the trade routes... the FEW routes that remained viable after the prohibition of magic. It wasn't our fight, but when the Transporters Union started hurling thunderbolts and fireballs at their enemies, then it became an entirely different matter. With a series of coordinated attacks, the Magekiller put a stop to a war that, if it hadn't been for us, could have gone on for another twenty years. And if THAT had happened, then smaller companies like Shaw Caravan and Transport wouldn't exist... and the old man standing in front of me now would likely be dead.

The admiration swept across Shaw's face like a sunrise. The expression actually made the old man look young again.

"Oh, my!" he said, smiling. "Cradle Row! I owe my livelihood to you people! The Magekiller may not have started the war, but they damned sure ended it! And YOU... at Cradle Row!?"

"Three mages and eighty nine armed mercenaries executed," I said. "In twenty minutes. There were four of us."

"Amazing!"

"There were traps... we had to move slowly."

"Why didn't you SAY you were a veteran, Mr. Sheridyn!"

"Because it shouldn't make a difference."

"Oh but it does! Business and war are not as different as people on the outside think! We're brothers in arms, Mr. Sheridyn! I wasn't a fighter, but when I tell people that I put my flesh and blood into this company, I mean it! One day I'll tell you how I hurt this leg-"

Shaw tapped his right leg.

"-damn near got it torn off! And it was no caravan accident, don't you believe that for a moment! ASSASSINS it was! I'll tell you... then you can tell me all about Cradle Row! Ahhh, those were MARVELOUS times, weren't they?! The golden years... despite all the violence. Those where the days when HEROES walked the trade routes! Genuine HEROES! I'm sure you were one of them, boy or not!"

Riarty Shaw had no idea how right he was. No idea.

"-But things have changed since then, eh? Especially for you folk... what was it that happened not long after-"

"Finity."

...where all the heroes died.

The word came in a whisper... as it should have. No one who was there would ever speak the word aloud. Unless it was in a nightmare.

"Ahh,..." Shaw seemed to wilt a little.... becoming an old man again. A sad old man. And he seemed to drag me along with him.

Why did he have to bring that up? The nightmare I'd had earlier... and the panic attack on the way up here.

"...my gods," Shaw whispered, sitting down once again. He was looking at his desk, and hadn't seen my face. So he felt safe in continuing. "...all those boys..."

"I've got to go," I said, still whispering. My throat was dry, and I was feeling sick again. Very sick.

"Here..." Shaw rolled the expensive map into a tube and pushed it across the table toward me. "Take it."

Most of the OTHER people in this town probably couldn't have been able appreciate it... but that map, with its level of detail and the royal-quality parchment... made by surveyors paid out of Shaw's own pocket... was worth a fortune.

"Take it!" Shaw repeated. "Go on... It's yours!"

"I am," I said. I tapped my right temple. I had already memorized the map. "Up here. Thanks."

I turned to leave.

"Well there must be SOMETHING I can do to help. If there is-"

"As a matter of fact..." I turned back around. "There is. Do you have guards here at the house?"

"Not during the day. But at night, a have a few men from the distribution center wander around the yard. With dogs, of course. Most of them are from out of town, but I conduct stringent background checks and all of them can account for their whereabouts during the killings, if that's what you-"

"That's not what I mean. Do any of them leave any of their equipment around."

"It's actually MY equipment... and yes. Why?"

"I was just wondering if I could borrow a crossbow..."

---

With a brand new, military grade crossbow (...'military grade' being much weaker and heavier than the kind Magekiller use...) on my hip, I left the Shaw estate and headed across down.

Haventree wasn't a farming town... it was just a rest-stop sitting in the intersection of two popular trade routes. Of course, with abolition of magic, ONE of those routes was now a seasonal river, and Haventree was now barely hanging on to its existence. People who made their living as merchants, traders, or freelance caravan workers were now trying to make a living as farmers...

...farmers in a climate that was simply not MADE for farming. The incredible yearly rains washed away most of the good soil, and the crops that could grow in what remained simply weren't in high demand in this region.

But then there was Shaw, who had the facilities ship any crop to any
point on the globe... and do so quickly and safely. For a price that he had complete control over.

And it didn't stop there.

Downtown Haventree was just a dirt road... now a mud road... dotted with shops where the townsfolk bought and sold their supplies. According to the map in my head, Riarty Shaw owned half of them. The other half were either closed or closing.

After some thought, it seems that everyone in this town either worked for Shaw, paid rent to Shaw, or otherwise depended on Shaw for what little livelihood they managed to scrape together. And when someone got sick or hurt, who did they go to?

Vivian.... with the crazed son that I would probably have to kill before this was over.

Vivian Sorter... the town's only healer, with her needles and secret potions...

Vivian Sorter.... otherwise known as Vivian SHAW.

It was a pretty good set-up. The Shaw name was so powerful that Carder Sorter had abandoned his father's name and taken that of his great uncle... a practice normally reserved for nobles and royalty. He wanted there to be no ambiguity about who's blood flowed in his veins. The most powerful bloodline in the area... attached to the most powerful name in town: Shaw.

Riarty was the life's blood of this town, and I doubted that he was in any way ignorant of that fact. That probably explained why he was still here. A man with that kind of money would be just as rich in a town ten times the size of Haventree... but he wouldn't be nearly as powerful. He wouldn't even be special... he'd be just another rich man in a town filled with people just as rich as he was.

But here? Here, he was something entirely different.

By itself, none of that was of any concern to me. There was nothing illegal or even unethical about any of it... and if there was, then it wasn't my job to do anything about it.

Not yet.

But human nature is one of the things a Magekiller has to study before he ever straps on the silver. We have to know our enemies... and our enemies, no matter how mutated, grotesque, or monstrous... all start out as normal, regular human beings.

And human beings with the amount of power that Shaw wields tend to become addicted to it. That addiction can lead to desperation... and desperation can cause people to do things that they shouldn't... things that can get them impaled, dismembered, burned, and buried. The Transporters Union and its associated criminal siblings found that out the hard way during the Trade Wars.

But then, THEY had something to loose. So does Shaw... but so far, I haven't found the other side of the equation. Men like Shaw don't become desperate for no reason. There has to be some kind of threat. For the Union, it was the merchant trusts, rogue mercenaries, and the government... any one of which could have brought them down. But Shaw's position here in Haventree seemed unassailable. So what reason would he have to turn to magic?

There was obviously something here that I was missing.

These were the thoughts that occupied my mind as I left what passed for 'downtown Haventree' and wandered out toward the edge of town. Now, it might seem like I had already decided that Shaw was guilty... but that wasn't exactly true. It wasn't exactly FALSE, either.

If I was already convinced of Shaw's guilt, then the old man would be dead and I'd be on the dry road out of town. There is a concept in Imperial law... I can't remember the legal title or the exact wording, but it boils down a man being assumed innocent of a crime until evidence or witnesses prove him guilty.

That's a good way to run an empire, I suppose. It's certainly worked well for the past couple hundred years. But its also a good way to get killed. The man I assume is innocent is the same one that sprouts blades from his fingertips and rips out my spine to decorate his wall. Personally, I like my spine the way it is, and I'd bet that most Magekiller feel the same way about theirs... thus, our philosophy on 'presumption of innocence' deviates a bit from the imperial mandate. We assume everyone is guilty, but we don't act on that assumption until we have proof. It's harsh, but it keeps us alive.

In this case 'Everyone' includes the entire Shaw clan... but only because they're the first people I've had contact with. It ALSO includes that simpleton Shaw as speaking to in his office, and those idiots that Carder had with him in the woods. But for now, the Shaws were marching front and center in my 'People I'll Probably Have To Kill' Pageant. If nothing interesting turned up tonight, then tomorrow I would be making inquiries into Riarty Shaw's health and his business dealings. But for now...

The strip of mud that passed for a road zigzagged past a few farms, and then took off across the countryside... seeming to go absolutely nowhere. The land around me became increasingly hilly. The road skirted around the larger hills, but even the smaller ones left me tired and weak. The fact that I was once again soaking wet didn't help much. My stomach was just beginning to flutter... simultaneously reminding me that I was hungry and warning me that if I dared to eat anything I would immediately regret it. That's when I saw the barn.

It was right where the map said it would be. The road continued on to the northeast, where it would eventually end up at Shaw's 'distribution center'. But off to my left was a narrow trail leading up a steep, grassy hill. From the top of that hill, a single structure looked out over the immediate vicinity. It have been the perfect spot for a mansion or a guard outpost... but for now, there was just a barn.

Halfway up the hillside, a tattered fence marked the property line between the road's right-of-way... owned by the king and apparently maintained by no one... and Shaw's recent purchase from the Kerse family. The fence was in such disrepair that I could push my way past it without bothering to find a gate.

The hill wasn't as steep as it looked... but then, my health wasn't as good as IT looked. By the time I reached the top, I was panting so hard that I could barely hear the voices coming from the front of the barn.

I paused for moment to let a wave of dizziness pass, then marched around front. This time, I didn't make any special effort to be heard.

Three people were standing under a canopy in front of the barn door. They were armed... but two of them had their backs to me. The third was facing in my direction, but his attention was focused on his companions. I was standing about twenty feet away from them, and he hadn't seen me. None of them had heard me coming.

Obviously, these men were professionals.

The conversation continued while I stood there in the open, waiting to be noticed. One of the men was doing most of the talking-

-Carder Shaw not only claimed to be an expert in the art of acquiring and pleasuring women, but he was gracious enough to educate his two friends on the finer points thereof. It was a fascinating conversation. Really.

But I was sick, dizzy, and tired of standing out in the rain.

"Ordinarily I'd say something witty and mildly insulting," I announced. "But you people aren't worth the effort."

The 'guards' spun on their heals, mouths gaped open in surprise like freshly-caught trout. One of them had a crossbow... but it was on the ground beside him, being slowly ruined by the mud. He reached for it while Carder Shaw quickly drew his weapon-

-and then just as quickly slid it back into his scabbard. His arm swung out, and grabbed the shoulder of the man who was desperately cleaning the mud out of the crossbow's firing mechanism.

"Hold it, Perwist!" said Carder. He made sure his friend wasn't about to get them all killed, then smiled at me.

"Magekiller! GOOD to see you up and around again!"

Either that was sincere, or he was a pretty good liar. I was betting on the second.

"Good evening, Mr. Sorter."

"That's Shaw," Carder corrected. He kept smiling, but the mask of warm welcome now had a very large crack in it. If he strained any harder to keep his lips curled upward, his face would probably split in two, right down the middle.

Now, I was smiling.

"What are you gentlemen doing here?" I asked.

"Being punished," Shaw replied. "For the crime of helping a Magekiller. Apparently, mother and uncle think it would have been better if I had left you to die in the woods. So... for saving your life, I get the prize duty of guarding this barn."

"Your friends, too?"

"Ah," Carder pointed to each of his friends. "This is North. And this is Perwist."

I committed the faces and names-

-what the hell kinda name is PERWIST!? What were HIS parents thinking!?-

-to memory.

"They're keeping me company. Helping me guard your evidence."

"Guard it from what, exactly?"

"Hillcats, of course!" said muddy-crossbow... a.k.a. Perwist.

Carder gave him a dark look, then tried to cover it up with a smile.

"There are cats in the area," said Carder, turning his attention back to me. "Nasty creatures... but not particularly dangerous to humans. Unless you happen to be dead." Carder jerked his head toward the barn.

He needn't have bothered with the lesson on hillcats; I'd tangled with them before. They're about the size and shape of a bobcat, but they hunt in packs like wolves... with the feeding instinct of a starving rodent. Some animals will eat anything that moves. Hillcats will eat anything... whether it moves or not. When they got hungry enough, they'd even eat each other. They were hell on livestock, and I'm sure they were yet another reason why cemeteries weren't popular in Haventree. Hillcats were excellent diggers.

"The body hasn't been disturbed since you found it?" I asked.

"Other than to bring it here, no," Carder replied. "And, now that YOU'RE here..."

"Now that I'm here, what?"

"I don't suppose you care what happens to it after you're done, do you?"

"No."

"Good! Neither do I."

Carder nodded to his friends. North and Perwist started to disassemble the canopy while Carder unlocked the barn door with a large iron key. He tossed the key in my direction... clearly not expecting me to catch it. I did.

"Lock the door when you're done," he said. "that should keep the beasts out. For a while, anyway." Carder started to leave, but then turned back.

"Oh!" he said. "...and take good care of my sword."

"Sword?"

Carder pointed to my blade.

"When a man looses a duel and the victor spares his life... the loser's blade becomes the winner's property."

"Duel?" I said. "What duel?"

"I figured you wouldn't remember... what with you being unconscious in the mud. That's why I'm letting you carry that blade a little longer. Take good care of it, though... it'll be mine soon enough."

Behind him, Carder's friends were giving him twin glares of incredulous shock...

"Carderrr!" Perwist half-gasped, half-whined.

"What do you say..." Shaw continued. "You and me in a friendly contest of skill when this is over. No mud this time."

To have someone TELL you that there were men this stupid still left in the world is one thing... but to actually stand two feet away from one...

It was almost frightening.

"Maybe we could even put a wager on it," he said. "Other that the swords, I mean. Maybe-"

"Maybe you should get home to your mother before she starts to worry. Mr. Sorter."

"I told you..." he said through suddenly clenched teeth. "it's SHAW."

"And I told HER, that I wouldn't kill you as long as you stayed out of my way. It looks to me like you're in my way."

Carder Shaw made a show of NOT backing down. He stood there, breathing on me while my hand quietly made its way to the hilt of my sword. Shaw didn't see the motion, but when I tapped my finger on the pommel, he looked down and saw that the blade was halfway out of the scabbard. The implication was simple... I could have drawn my weapon and cut him down before he even realized I had moved.

"You take care of yourself, Magekiller," said Carder. "If this is the thanks I get for saving you, then maybe I won't be so quick to do it again. Maybe next time I'll just watch you drown in the mud. North. Wister. Lets leave this man to his business..."

Carder and his friends started down the hill... and my sword slid silently back into its scabbard. I watched my new friends take a small muddy path down the hillside toward the main road. In the distance ahead of them, I could see a collection of buildings nestled in a valley among the hills. Riarty Shaw may have been bragging about his business... but he wasn't lying. Shaw Caravan and Transport was like a city sculpted out of the hillside. Five long rows of buildings... stables, warehouses, barracks, and whatever else his men needed... lined four extra-wide streets. The streets were paved with brick, and had gutters to drain off the rain and run-off from the surrounding hills... keeping the business dry and operable even under mild flood conditions. To the north, those streets merged into a single paved road that went on to connect Haventree to the Goodwin Trail... the third-largest caravan route in the empire. On the remaining four sides, open fields of trimmed grass surrounded the complex, with a brick wall and a ring of flowering trees marking the perimeter. Shaw had put a lot of money into this place, but I suppose it was worth it. If I were a caravan worker spending months on the road fending off bandits, floods, and wild animals... every day... then this place would be paradise. I might be convinced to go above and beyond the call of duty to keep such a place running... just to make sure it would be there at the end of a haul.

But with a place that big, there was no way that Shaw could be certain about each and every employee. I was going to have to pay a visit to his little paradise. Maybe two... one tonight when they weren't expecting me, and then an 'official' visit sometime tomorrow.

Remembering something else Shaw had said, I turned my back to the complex and looked in the other direction. The house was easy to spot... low, decrepit, and poor. A stark contrast to what lay on the other side of the hill. That had to have been the Kerse place. I could see a few people standing around... probably a wake or some kind of mourning service for Sanders Kerse. Whatever it was, they'd have a few hours to finish it up. I would be done in the barn by then, and my next item of business would be to ask the widow Kerse a few questions that she'd probably find unpleasant.

Speaking of unpleasant... it was time I introduced myself to Mr. Kerse.

With the exception of the darkness, a few bales of hay, and a rusty pitchfork in the corner, the barn was empty. It hadn't been used for a long while, but had been built well enough to withstand a few years of neglect. The roof leaked... but then, ALL barn roofs leaked. This one leaked less than most. The sheet-covered lump in the middle of the dirt floor was still dry, except for the puddle of juices soaking into the dirt beneath it.

I reached into my pack and pulled out a flare. I bent the rod-shaped stick until it broke open, then quickly tossed it into the barn. When the chemicals reacted with the air, the entire barn was bathed in an intense but eerie green light... more than enough for me to see the oil lamp that someone had been kind enough to leave next to the body.

Between the lamp and the flare, I had more than enough light. I deposited my pack on the floor. The first thing I took out of it was a small metal canister. Inside was a thick green ointment, which I rubbed on my upper lip. The fumes from the salve would temporarily deaden my sense of smell and taste... allowing me to work without throwing up. While my tongue slowly went numb, I set about securing the barn.

The barn had six wooden shutters... each of which had a latch that could be locked from the inside. They were already locked, and were about as secure as they were going to get. The door was another matter. IT'S latch could be closed, but not locked from inside the barn, so I simply pulled it closed and strung a trip-wire across the floor in front of it. The wire was connected to the crossbow I got from Shaw. I attached the bow to a wooden beam and aimed it at the door... then adjusted it lower in case the uninvited guest was unusually short. Like, for instance, Riarty Shaw.

By that time, my whole face was numb. I was ready to get to work.

I drew the sheet back away from the body. The stench had built up underneath the cloth, and every bit of it came rushing up into my face...

...I didn't smell a damned thing. The flies had gotten a good head start on me, and they flew up at me in an angry cloud when I interrupted their orgy of feeding an egg-laying. I had something in my pack for the flies, too... but they didn't bother me that much. Instead, I retrieved three small black cases. The first was just a collection of vials... some filled with various liquids... some empty. Inside the next was a collection of long, slender knives, a few spring-loaded clamps, some tiny hooks, and a set of other instruments, all of which were small and sharp. Interrogation Tools. Inside the other was a set of four glass disks... two large and two small... and two metal rods, each with a notch at one end and a small groove doing down its length. I placed a large disk on one rod and a small one on the other; then I clicked the two rods together. The disks were magnifying lenses. The rods let me adjust the distance between them so that the smaller would magnify the image already magnified by the larger. I never quite grasped how they worked... but it wasn't magic, and that was good enough for me. I tested it out by getting an up-close look at the dirt under my fingernails, then set the contraption aside. I'd be needing it soon... but not right now.

First I had to take a tour of the body. The stories... both from Shaw and Kerse's letters... were accurate. The man was dead, and his mouth and eyes were gaping in an expression that I couldn't really describe. Terror? No, that would have been too easy. I saw a few signs of it here... the tightness around the eyes and lips, and the way his tongue was curled up... screaming. But the LOOK in those eyes. The half-lazy droop in the eyebrows. The slight outward thrust of the lips. That wasn't fear... that was something else.

Odd. Very odd.

I checked for bites, scratches and punctures, but found nothing beyond what a poor, working farmer might otherwise pick up during the course of his chores. No weapons had been found with the body, so I checked his hands. His fingernails were intact, and his knuckles were unbruised. Whatever had attacked him... if he HAD been attacked... was either so fast that he had no chance to fight it...

...or it was familiar, and he didn't know the danger until it was too late. Whatever had gotten to him might have looked human. Perhaps someone he knew. Someone he trusted.

There was also a third option. If Kerse fought using a sword or other weapon, then his hands wouldn't show signs of damage. Someone could have taken it after they'd killed him... presumably using magic. Why? Greed... if Kerse had a weapon better than his attacker's. Or... tradition. The name 'Carder Shaw' popped into my mind for some strange reason... I let it linger there for a moment, then set it aside while I went on.

Kerse's clothes were also intact. I checked all of his vulnerable areas... his eyes, and a few other spots that I won't mention. These were the places you would strike if you wanted to end a fight quickly. They hadn't been touched. I moved each Kerse's limbs, and couldn't find a single broken bone in his body.

Kerse had not died violently. At least, not the kind of violence that left marks on the OUTSIDE of a corpse.

Now it was time to use my toys.

Step one: Perform a general test for magic.

Most magic reacts to salt and silver... although not all types of magic react the same way (or at all.) Most magic also leaves minute traces of itself behind... in the person that uses it, in the place where it is used, and ESPECIALLY in the object it is used ON.

I used one of my small knives to slice open a cut along Kerse's arm. Dead blood oozed into a glass vial I placed just under the wound. When the vial was half full, I poured half of it out into a different vial. Into the first vial I dropped a few grains of mixture of various mineral salts. No reaction. Second vial...

I used a glass rod to drop in a few drops of liquid... a silver acid. The dead man's blood sizzled and bubbled, just like almost any other substance would have.

But then it turned green.

Then bright purple.

And finally: black.

Now THAT was interesting. That particular series of reactions told me that..

...I needed more chemicals.

"Damn."

Silver acid didn't keep very long, and this particular batch had been in my pack for a while. Had I not passed out and slept for four days, I may have been able to get some use out of it. But not now.

To my earlier 'damn' I added something a bit more vulgar while I packed away my vials and tossed them back into my pack. I had plenty of OTHER tests I could run, but all of them were either salt-based... which I had already seen was a non-reactive... or were dependent on being mixed with silver acid to work.

But anger... like my silver acid test... was a waste of time. I had other examinations to perform.

I removed Kerse's shirt and used my scalpel to make a "T"-shaped incision on his chest. With a few tugs and a lot of slicing with a slightly larger knife, I peeled back Kerse's skin. The bones beneath looked healthy. Buried in the bottom of my Interrogation Tools case was a very long, very sharp blade. It had two cutting edges... one smooth, and one serrated. It was useful for amputations. And bone-cutting.

I cut a window into Kerse's ribcage so I could get at the organs behind it. Then, with a different knife, I cut out his heart and looked at it with my magnifying lens contraption.

Ahhhhh.... NOW I was getting somewhere.

Kerse's heart wasn't in the best of condition. From the bruising and tearing, I'd say that he'd been under incredible physical stress when he died... so much so that his heart had simply given up. But a physical engagement of THAT magnitude would have left signs that I wouldn't have needed my lenses to see. Bloody open wounds, for instance. Whatever it was, wasn't a fight... but it was intense. Intense enough to stop an otherwise healthy heart.

I removed and checked the other internal organs and found nothing out of the ordinary. So then I checked the EXTERNAL ones. I had looked at Kerse's eyes when I first started, but this time I decided to take a more hands-on approach. I removed his left eye and held it in my hand while I examined it with the lenses. Nothing...

Nothing? No, there was something. If I squinted just right, I could see a tiny disturbance in the flesh. It wasn't necessarily strange or suspicious...

...but in the business of hunting mages, something that didn't seem strange was AUTOMATICALLY under suspicion.

I decided to get a closer look. My lens kit came with four glass disks. I was using a combination that gave me only moderate magnification, but that didn't give me a headache when I looked through it. I switched to the most powerful combination and took another look.

Sanders Kerse had holes in his eyes.

They weren't the kind of holes that could be made by a blade or even a needle. These holes... three of them in a triangular pattern... were smaller than a hair. Much smaller. In fact the entire pattern was so small that my earlier set of lenses had seen them as a single disturbance, when there were actually three.

I checked the other eye and found the same thing.

Now my head was throbbing, and my left eye felt like it was about to pop out of its socket. I leaned back and looked at the furthest wall for a minute or two... allowing my eyes a chance to rest. It also gave me a chance to think about what I'd seen so far.

My first guess was that Kerse had been frightened to death... but that didn't explain the holes in his eyes, or the fact that the look on his face wasn't EXACTLY fear. It was close to fear... but not quite. The holes were probably some kind of...

...hell, I had no idea. But they DID make me wonder just how small Vivian Shaw's needles were. Certainly not THAT small, but then, I hadn't actually SEEN them for myself. On the other hand, her 'treatment' had left marks on my arms that were absent from Kerse's.

I added Vivian Shaw's house to my list of places I would go tonight.

When the pounding in my head subsided to a dull thumping, I decided to get a look at Kerse's brain...

...and that's when I heard the footsteps.

Whoever it was was still far away, but they were coming up the mountain quickly... not quite running... with no attempt to conceal their approach. Logic told me to wait and see who it was... maybe take position near the crossbow so that I could prevent an innocent person from taking a silver-tipped bolt to the chest. After all, silver was expensive.

But my instincts told me that something was wrong. Very, very wrong.

As my visitor was approaching the door, I left my equipment strewn around the corpse and slid slowly toward the window. I opened the tattered wooden shutter... thought it was going to come loose in my hands for a second... then slipped outside, dropping silently into the grass.

Hours had passed since I'd started my examination. It was dark outside now. By my reckoning, there was a full moon somewhere up there... behind the clouds. But the rain was still falling, and the clouds that produced it had plunged the entire countryside into a wet, murky blackness broken only by the light from the open window behind me.

I placed one hand on the barn wall and started walking. After a few steps, I couldn't see the wall any more. After a few MORE steps, I couldn't see my arm.

Darkness was a thing that some people... mostly city people... don't understand. Especially if their idea of 'total darkness' came from stories and fiction. When you have torch-posts on every corner, and lamp-carriers wandering up and down every street, you tend to forget what REAL darkness is like. But this wasn't the city. This was the country, where a moonless night swallowed a man's eyesight whole, no matter HOW good his vision was. Once I got a few yards away from that window, I was totally blind. I had to rely on my hearing...

...and maybe that fact... the fact that it was too dark to see... saved my life. If I hadn't been focusing so much on my OTHER senses, then I might not have heard the movement in the grass.

It was a hissing. -the sound of something brushing past the tall grass surrounding the barn.

Something was out there.

...in the grass.

...and in my head.

It was the Shaw estate all over again. I felt a tiny tingle of fear worm through my thoughts. I tried to fight it, but there was nothing there to fight. No outside influence... only the tiny ember of fear growing steadily brighter as I focused my attention on it. My stomach fluttered, and my heart trembled in my chest. I reached for my sword, but instead of drawing it, my hand slid back and grabbed my long hunting knife. Smaller. Quicker. Better for up-close combat...

I held the knife tight... as if trying to suck whatever courage or comfort it might exude directly into my skin. Maybe it worked. My heart slowed... but then, I swear that if I had looked down and, by some miracle, could SEE my own hand... I would find it shaking.

Ahead of me, the sound of the footsteps changed as my visitor reached the level ground in front of the barn door. They paused, and I heard the metallic 'clank' of someone fumbling with the door latch. After that, there was silence. The door had creaked when I opened it earlier... but there was no creak now. There was nothing.

Nothing except the low, sliding hiss from the grass... a hiss that stopped quickly just after my visitor fell silent. Someone or something had been using the footsteps for cover, but now, the only thing nothing moving in the darkness was me.

And I was as quiet as a tomb.

I reached the corner of the barn and peered around.

I could see.

The light came from a large oil lamp dangling from a woman's outstretched arm. Her other hand rested on the barn door's metal latch. She had her back to me... staring out into the ring of light that her lamp had cast around her.

Somewhere beyond that ring of light, the sounds had started again.

Only now, they weren't the stealthy hisses of creatures moving in the grass. Now, they were loud quick bursts of motion...

Shhht! Shhht!

...starting and stopping...

Shhht! Shhht!

...getting closer...

Shhht! Shhht!

The woman heard it. She turned to the barn-

-clank!-

With a quick snap of her hand, she popped the latch and yanked the door open.

Her foot thrust forward... headed straight for the tripwire. Behind her and off to one side, a pair of narrow eyes gleamed in the woman's lamplight. Almost glowing, the twin orbs looked straight at me... and then retreated. Slowly.

I was already running.

The thundering in my chest had returned, and the hammering in my head marched in lock-step with it. The woman was a few yards away... almost exactly where Carder Shaw had been standing earlier. She hadn't seen the eyes swimming in the dark behind her, but she could hear just as well as I could. She ran for cover-

WHAM!

The world swam around me as I hit her. The exertion of my sudden leap had knocked the remaining poison loose from its hiding place in my body. Dizzy, and suddenly nauseous, I grabbed the woman's shoulder and spun her around-

-while I slid behind her and brought my knife to her throat. I would have put the blade to her skin as an incentive for her not to cry out, but I caught a glimpse of my own hand in the light from the barn.

It was shaking.

It wasn't shaking from cold, or even from the oily sickness slowly oozing across my nasal passages. It was fear.

"WHO ARE YOU!?" I did not whisper, or sneer, or growl. I screamed. The numbness in my mouth and tongue garbled my words, but they got through well enough. "WHO!?"

"E-Evelyn Kerse-"

The widow.

From the darkness ahead of me came a sound:

A rumble.

A deep... deep... rumble.

The Kerse woman squealed at the sudden tightening of my grasp. My formerly trembling limbs were now motionless iron bars as my entire body froze... locking tight in one, massive spasm.

That sound.

I knew what it was.

Dear gods... I knew what it WAS!

"GET INSIDE!" I shouted, suddenly releasing her. "Drop the lamp and go!"

-then, I remembered-

"There's a tripwire just inside the door! Watch for it! Close the door behind you... find a place to hide and DON'T MOVE!"

The woman did as she was told. She set her lamp on the ground just outside the door, then darted inside, avoiding the tripwire.

The rumbling came again.... and it kept coming. The sound didn't stop. Instead, it got louder.

I picked up the lamp and, grunting, THREW it as hard as my stiffening muscles could manage.

The lamp drew an arc of light through the air-

-and shattered on the ground. The burning oil struck a circle of fire in the grass. The grass started to burn... the light grew...

There it was. Out at the edge of the light.

The grass was moving... moving not because something unseen was pushing it aside-

-but moving because the ground BENEATH it was rising up...

A dome-shaped mound of mud punched its way up from below, and then stretched itself toward me, carving a line through the grass as it came.

It was not real.

It couldn't have been. Not here.

"NOT HERE!" I shouted... as if my words could make themselves come true. I drew my sword... and nearly dropped it.

Everything stopped.

The line of swollen earth looked like a long, thick scar on the hillside. Fire from the burning grass illuminated only the front edge of it... the rest trailed off into the darkness.

The light wouldn't last long; the rain was already killing the flames. The door behind me was closed. When the fire died, I would be in the dark.

Flares. I reached for my pack...

...but it was in the barn.

The entire hillside had closed in around me. The only things in existence were me... my trembling sword... and the mound of dirt covering the thing that could not have been real. But was.

"...no..." I whispered. I couldn't hear my own words over the sound of my heart. "...not here..."

-but IT heard me.

It had come. All the way from Finity Isle, it had come.... for me.

The mound of dirt sank inward, collapsing-

-and then EXPLODED as the thing below... a nightmare given form an substance... thrust itself up into the air. Two pairs of monstrous pincers swung back and forth, flinging mud in all directions while the long, segmented body tore out of the earth. The hill was alive with the clicking... clicking... clicking... of hundreds of legs moving in coordinated waves, hauling the beast up... up into the flickering light of the dying flames.

I opened my mouth, and I heard the scream that was expanding in my mind like a coiled spring.

Kerse. I had sent the widow into the barn... where her husband's butchered corpse was cooling in several neat piles on the dirt floor. Her scream came through the wooden planks like a blade through butter.

For a second, I couldn't move. Had I drawn my sword? I couldn't remember... I couldn't even feel it in my hand. Had I DROPPED it!?

All I had to do was look...

...but I couldn't....

I couldn't move. I couldn't even move my eyes...

I was terrified.

Towering above me, framed by darkness, the armored head swiveled downward. Three pairs of eyes... one of them almost human... jerked briefly toward the source of the scream... and then returned to me. The oblong mouth unhinged, and I caught a brief glimpse of thousands of needle-like teeth... all arranged in row after maddening row...

I caught only a glimpse before the last of the flames went out. I was alone in the dark, with that final image burning slowly into my eyes...

And I still couldn't move.

-click-

-click-

CLICKICKICKICKICK-

[To Be Continued]