"Even with the reinforcement," said the Countess, interrupting herself with a bleat of satisfaction when one of her arrows struck down a Black Dog, "that this cannot go on much longer."

"It has been three days thus far."

"Has there been movement toward truce, Sir Tarl-Cabot?" He told the Countess of the brief interchange between High Advisor Zini and Mayor Alyson the night before; Countess Val Tress searched the darkening sky. "He will try again."

Baroness Val Tress, who had actually whittled arrows to fit her crossbow, sent a succession of volleys at the rooftops across from the north wall of the barricades. A Black Dog screamed in a high voice when one of the shafts pierced his forehead, and he twisted and fell to the street below, landing on a pile of bodies. The stench of the Black Dog corpses (as well as the allies’ own fallen warriors) now permeated the air, and with the rain gone came a miscellany of pestilence: puffy black flies, ground worms, cackling crows, an evening hawk. "I do hope something develops – I have been through many things in my life, and I have visited many dark pockets of this kingdom, but these atrocities are intolerable," said the Baroness. "You see that more of them are wearing cloths over their faces, but then we do so as well."

"Countess Val Tress," began Val’ha.

"Please, Lady Val’ha, my first name is Contessa – my late father picked it himself. Please use it."

"Lady Contessa, you said earlier that you met Brother Ziegler at Three Roads. I saw on Sir Porcie’s map you must have been coming from the west, though I understood that the Conschalans’ interest lay on the other side of the mountains."

"Stop there, young Elf," said the Baroness, "I will not stand for provincialism after it has in great part led us to…this. Never have I given you the impression that the Conschalans’ only interest was protection of their duchy – it is their main objective, but we are ALL Asch’endra-Conschalans and I expect never to hear such insolence cross your lips again."

"We were indeed traveling east, from Zehdr City. When we first reconstituted ourselves to meet over the crisis caused by the assassinations, we also considered carefully our response to the regency. The Baron was dead; our spies at Castle Moncrovia who fled when the Prince began to round up suspected Conschalans had no idea at that time of his coming crusades, so at our meeting in Zehdrville we were about to return to our homes when Baron Lu-jin…"

"Our cousin by troth to Baroness Sigrid, daughter of the King’s only brother, Grand Duke Mawrar of Bylikaegra."

"Thank you, Mother, yes…Baron Lu-jin brought Sir Preston-Altraine, from the King’s court, into the meeting-hall and told us of his belief in a conspiracy that also claimed his own father, and of course the rumors that the Prince had been plotting an illegal ascension was already on our tongues. Preston-Altraine convinced us of the gathering storm, particularly the strain of evil from the Prince’s Xoran alliance and the presence of the birthstone. We decided that for the first time in our history it was time to lift the veil of our secrecy and raise weapons.

"With the loss of the Baron, Sir Preston-Altraine and I accepted the vote of confidence from the nobles to lead them westward across the trails of Zehdr Wood, Ospet Lake and foothills where we caught the East Chespeake Pass and set out to do what we intended: Help the cities of Asch’endra along the north and west coast prepare their sheriffs and teach their townsfolk to use bow and sword. We spent several days each in Ospet city, Chesp’k’vil, Andovil’age and several settlements before we reached the capital."

"You must have encountered a good deal of downwind from the Prince’s activities there, Lady Contessa," guessed Tarl-Cabot.

"Indeed we did, my lord – everything my mother has spoken of was ablaze in the conversations…the marketplace, the papal envoys, the port. The greatest talk centered, not surprisingly, on the occupation of Flooher’ty City and the strait. The Black Dog presence was itself already being felt in the streets of Zehdr City – the posters accusing the three of you, the tax collectors who buzzed like these flies around the Mayor, Sir Henry. We even heard that, since there was no love lost between any of the Joels and Pope Andronicus, the Prince ordered his guards to plunder the Pope’s treasury!"

"There is enough there in gold and jewels," the Baroness told Val’ha, "to double the Black Dog army."

"We have had several encounters with Black Dogs," said Lady Contessa, "most along main roads and junctures; they have not gone well."

"You are here – I would guess that they have at least ended well," said Tarl-Cabot.

The Countess laughed. "Yes, I stand corrected. At any rate, we met Uncle Ziegler, an old family friend, at Three Roads and came here to assist."

The battle went on for half an hour before Zini called through his brass cone again: "Mayor Alyson. Mayor Alyson. Mayor Alyson, can you hear me? It is Zini, High Advisor to Prince Joel V. Mayor Alyson, can you hear me?"

Lady Alyson’s voice rose from the east battlement of Center Apocania: "What is it this time, ambassador?"

"Please do not offend me with your venomous attempts at humor, Mayor Alyson, it does noone any good. You have had a day to consider my request for surrender – have you come to a decision?"

Arrows began to zing over the barricade from the Mayor’s side, forcing Zini and several of his security to duck behind the corner of Bynagor’s Merchantry. "I hope that gives you your answer, Lord Zini!" mocked Alyson. "There will be no truces, no negotiation with those who illegally occupy and rob our city!"

"So be it. You have made your choice." Zini’s statement was not tinged with malice or threat, but it nonetheless cause the Mayor, Val’ha and everyone else to spent a night fraught with dread and anxiousness, and to the person they lay on the jail floor with one eye open and a hand on their weapons.

**

The fourth day of the siege was covered by a moderate layer of clouds, enough that Terr’Sol played peek and hide throughout the late morning as if to mock those below, where Val’ha fought alongside Porcie and the Mayor. "There are more than forty gone on our side, not counting the wounded," lamented Alyson. "Tomorrow begins a new month, and my heart tells me not to perpetuate this battle any longer. It may be time to flee or negotiate."

"My lady!" Sir Porcie exclaimed. "Do not stray toward such thoughts. I would rather die than give in to those wretches. What would you do next, give them your son? No, no and again no, Lady Alyson – you might just as well throw your entire citizenry over a cliff."

"Yes! Yes! I understand, thank you, Sir Porcie." Alyson gave a brief laugh. "Your polemic will be my strength if ever my mind wanders so again." The Black Dogs ceased fire, bringing the Mayor to survey the east battlements and say, as a mother would scold her mischievous child, "Pox – I should wonder what is next for us," She waved her own archers down, the sounds of the arrows diminishing as her order was carried around the building.

Val’ha peered out over a bedframe to see Zini approach the middle space between the combatants. He lifted his cone: "Mayor Alyson. Mayor Alyson, are you there? Mayor Alyson, it is High Advisor Zini? Mayor Alyson, are you there?" Any vinegar that had accompanied the Mayor’s previous exchanges with the High Advisor was gone now. There was only the Song of the wind and the far cries of a hawk and some greckels, soaring and diving as they engaged in their own dispute. For a full minute Alyson closed her eyes and Zini continued to stand rooted in the safety of the ceasefire. "Allow me," he resumed, "to summarize for your consideration what progress we have made during the night." His delivery was so listless, so mundane, it revolted Val’ha as much as the smell of the stewing Black Dog corpses, which she figured had become its own weapon. "Our detainment process of those disloyal to the Prince has garnered several hundred for further questioning. They are being held in your Insipirility Retinence Hall, and include the remainder of your alders – Countess Afterwater, Pal-Eleesyin and Lady Botwick the Wise.

"I should let you know that when we were findingour way into the home and merchantry of Alderman Pal-Eleesyin, we discovered him attempting to flee through a trapdoor hidden beneath his fabric rolls. The door leads into a tunnel system beneath your city that I am certain you are familiar with, and Master Eleesyin has been mosthelpful in providing us with a cartograph. At this moment we have a contingent of Black Dog Men making their way…" Val’ha knew from the faces of those around her that their hearts too had leapt into their throats. Alyson nodded toward Contessa, who pointed at a dozen Conschalans to accompany her into Center Apocania. The locked cell containing the hole they had discussed would not contain the Black Dogs forever, but it would give them time, to do what none offered to answer. As Zini read a list of nobles, merchants and townsfolk being held at the local hall – "Bynagor, Sendrina the armor-maker…" – his voice, punctuated by Mecnoarv’s anguished cry at the mention of Abii and Strom, droned to insignificance. Val’ha’s ears turned to Terra and to the mayoral structure for the slightest beat of footfalls or howl of a Black Dog.

The High Advisor moved onto other matters. "There have been small insurgencies at the end-blocks of your city by small groups of radicals, and from our seeing-glass we know that members of these clusters have reinforced your own by slipping through the tunnels. We know they include those most wanted for the conspiracy to kill King Joel and Queen A’gren at Castle Ohrt: Preston-Altraine, Val’ha of Carias, Tarl-Cabot of the house of Taryn, and I am given to understand my fellow High Advisor Quigley, who has sacrificed his distinguished service to Princess Igri with his alignment."

High Advisor Zini turned his head toward several alleys and nodded; the loud, heavy creak of protesting wood crunched the ground beneath it and, with grunts of struggling Black Dogs, filled the air as three large catapults were dragged into view, placing the north, east and south walls in range of their fire. Ropes held back the post on which a boulder waited in a thick rope net at the end of each. Three stones aimed at the barricades and by their trajectory and size would knock out a significant portion of its various assembled parts. "They stole two of them from Wagonmaker Farillon’s Yard, the other was decoration at the Green Orc and Catapult," rued the Mayor, her throat quivering as she spoke. "What in Convah’s name do we do now, Lady Val’ha? We are blocked from without now and within – what do we do now?"

"Our wizard, I must tell you now," Zini’s monotone went on, "has deciphered the text of one of the Nine, called Dop-splythe." He explained the exciting powers of the magickal Sword.

"So the conjurer was in the end fooling everyone else, Lady Val’ha," said Porcie. "That is what Feukpi has been doing these past days, trying to translate the charm."

"I can tell you how he broke its cipher," interrupted Alyson, "for the Codex of Nirvana, from an ancient shrine to the Feel-God himself, is renowned for its translation of the Swordspells."

"I had heard the Codex was burned long ago, in Imsko."

"That is not an accurate legend, Sir Porcie – it has been under lock and key by the Retinence Society for decades, though now it has become like the catapults, I fear, a tool in the hands of the enemy." The Mayor removed herself from their presence, gesturing underlings and Conschalans away from the targeted portions of the barricades. Val’ha watched Zini slowly lower his speaking cone and backstep his way toward the local guildhall until he was almost out of sight.

But just before he did so, he stuck his arm stiffly out in front of him. It was almost imperceptible, but Val’ha – and apparently the Baroness Val Tress, several yards away – recognized that it was an arranged order by the High Advisor to his Men. The Baroness took no time in lifting her crossbow over the barricade and piercing Zini’s chest with her handicraft. The fall of the High Advisor stunned both sides to silence, and when he neither stirred nor stood – those Black Dogs around him staring dumbly down at his body – it allowed for Val’ha to hear the yells of their comrades as they pounded through The Tunnels into Center Denlineil.

"FIRING COMMENCE!" Alyson’s order reverberated as if from the mouth of a goddess, so resonant and loud it carried. The Black Dogs scattered behind the catapults, buildings and some, the corpses. Dozens, however, who had strayed from their positions fell into the street as the Conschalans and the Apocanians peppered them with arrows.

The full fury of the Siege broke out at once: From within Center Apocania came battlecries and the sound of breaking cages and clashing swords; both sides resumed their flight of missiles and killing. The catapult ropes were cut to release the boulders, each the size of a small Dragon, but as the stones arced toward the north, east and south barricades, their backlash caused the small catapults to flip fatally over on those who had cut the strings. On all three sides, the top level of the barricades – fence hurdles, setting-frames, hooper-clamps, wagonwheels, urns, churns, barrels, caskets, buckets, millwheels, barrows – exploded against the walls of the mayoral structure as they were pummeled by the massive rocks, leaving fighters not killed by flying splinters and lumber to be secluded in small pockets behind the lower barricades. "Black Dog!" one yelled, causing a river of his comrades to push forth all at once toward the three exposed sides. Countess Val Tress and the Conschalans were forced out through the entrance of Center Apocania.

The Baroness found her way to Porcie and Val’ha. "With these holes we are lost. We must break free of our remaining bonds, do you understand me, Lady Val’ha?" Porcie’s eyebrows raised, then he smiled and helped Baroness Val Tress to corral their fellows on the eastern side so that Val’ha could ready her green-light. She mustered everything within her for the fireball, and crafted her hands in ever-larger circles around the green-light until it was as big as her head. She almost blacked out when she released the light, five times as large as any she had every created, but it found its mark, pulverizing a linen stove, several tin bathtubs and, oddly for an inland city, a rowboat. The boat burst into green fire and with the other items sent Black Dog bodies hurtling through the air, breaking glass and splatting against the surrounding structures. "PAH!" The Baroness’ battlecry inspired the Conschalans, the burly sheriffs, Porcie and Val’ha, who grabbed her mirror-shield, to drop their bows, pull their blades and follow her into the main street. As Val’ha lined her scimitar toward the whites of the Black Dogs’ eyes, she heard both sides leaping over the walls of the barricades and knew that the siege had now reached its full penetration.

She killed three of them in the first flush of direct engagement. With Porcie at her back and the Baroness swinging wildly in all directions to her right, Val’ha saw that Tarl-Cabot wielded Crundin atop the north wall against two of the Prince’s Men, while at the edge of the south wall, Quigley jumped off the battlement onto the shoulders of two comrades, his sword-laden arms around them like friends stumbling out of a tavern before he ran his blades across their throats.

Then something completely unexpected happened: The doors of the merchantries began to open, and from above the alleys and streets came forth the enraged citizens, including those in Insipirility Retinence Hall who had revolted against their keepers. They were Men and Women, in their prime, old age and youth; brown, white, magickal and not; half-Dwarf, Human, Dwarven and at least two Short Elves; they carried shortswords and scullery knives, forks and pitchforks, clubs, rocks and pans, brooms, shovels and pokers, axes, scythes and hammers and washing dollies and rakes and staffs and a mace. Some smashed through whatever windows were not already broken and began to throw things from their households – irons, buckets, metal and glass vases, plateware, kettles, logs, skewers, even a chicken – at anyone wearing the Black Dog uniform.

Four shafts of lightning cracked from the sky, striking all sides of the barricade and setting it on fire. As the opaline blaze quickly enveloped Center Apocania, it joined with the dwindling green fire Val’ha herself had caused, and she was thankful anew that the merchantries of downtown Apocania’s had been constructed from Reiglo clay. Anyone who had been on the barricades jumped off – over the shoulder of the Black Dog mercenary through whom Val’ha thrust her scimitar, she hoped Mecnoarv, leaping into the sea of battle with his shortsword, would not be killed. She had not anticipated such direct assistance by Xorus to the army, but with only four days until the fruition of her curse, as well as the attack itself, her heart had hardened around the subject of the Dark God, and her will only more determined with each lightning bolt that came down upon the heads and shoulders of those around her, felling them and filling the air with the smell of singed hair and skin. Having learned to use the high reflective quality of her mirror-shield, she saw one of the Prince’s Men coming up behind her; pivoting swiftly, she bucked Heinghold’s mirror against his forehead and slid her blade through his middle.

The faces of the Black Dogs became a blur to her after what she guessed was the first hour of heavy battle. The casualties piled up greatly – bodies hung from windows and rooftops, draped from the catapults and barricade walls and ever higher stacks, Black Dogs and townsfolk, by their livelihoods anything but trained combatants, and for every ladle that cracked the skull of a Black Dog comrade, three merchants were slain. Zini had not portrayed what was happening on the city’s end-blocks accurately, and the surge of locals combined the Conschalans pushed the Black Dogs on both sides back toward Center Apocania, drawing streams of Apocanians from the sidestreets along the way.

Xorus’ lightning bolts flashed in dozens from the clouds, gathering with ferocity and blotting out Terr’Sol so much that it might have been dusk if it was not high morning. The dance of battle brought Trisahn and Ma’teus near Val’ha, Porcie and the Baroness, Trisahn wielding two of King Joel’s silver, jeweled blades against a Black Dog. An arrow struck his upper back and he cried out. "Lady Ma’teus!" the Baroness called. "Get him within the offices, heal him as you have done so many others." Ma’teus pulled the arrow from Trisahn and he howled in pain but was well enough to lean on her while she hastened him through a gap in the barricade fire.

When the lightning stopped, the melee slowed. The clouds parted to form an immense circle through which Terr’Sol’s focused beam so lit the center of the city that the combatants had to put their hands over their eyes. Down through the circle, in the beating of a sadly familiar hippogriff’s wings, Feukpi rode, both of them bathed in an opaline light-circle and the conjurer holding the magnificent Diamond Sword; a million glamours sprinkled the city, a million sparkles rained on its residents. The hippogriff came to linger a hundred feet aboveground and Val’ha could see Feukpi’s eyes as he glowered at her. "It is Val’ha! What delight, dear! Come to see the others off, have you?" He practically slavered, his voice louder with a strain of hysteria that Val’ha found pitiable.

"Idiot! Murderer! Coward!" Porcie yelled.

"Now, Master Porcie!" Feukpi took a knife from his robe and threw it carelessly down. Porcie after dodging it picked it up; it was of simple craft, silver and had flecks of blood upon it. "This is the knife that I used on Sister Kayleen’s neck." Porcie’s eyes bugged out of his head and his face turned beet-red. Feukpi chortled madly, holding his sides as he struggled to maintain his spot between the hippogriff’s wings. "You may have…this…as a gift!" The last word sent the conjurer convulsing, causing his master’s light-circle to spark and waver.

Feukpi tossed Dop-splythe from one hand to the other. "This mysterious Sword, you know – its secrets are safe with me!" His delirious cackling filled the sky, and the myriad shifting lights caused by the Sword’s movement played about the streets like a swarm of Faielves. "I have read the Codex and I do swear, sadly, that it has no charm to turn neighbor against neighbor. Oh!" He saw Zini’s body. "Poor High Advisor, he has fallen down and cannot get up! Now, Lady Val’ha, who shall die first? Shall it be Master Trisahn, for whom we have all journeyed so far to visit? Shall it be your sister? My daughter? Oh! But then that would be the same girl, would it not, daughter Ma’teus?!"

"I spit on you! You are no father to me, and it is only with the greatest pleasure that I be first to tell you we killed your only real daughter, Inez!" screamed Ma’teus, her green-light fading as she released her hold on Trisahn.

"To Terr’des with you, you malcrafted old coot!" he added.

"OH!" Feukpi aimed Dop-splythe at Ma’teus and Trisahn. "I wield the large Sword of Steinman to cut down to five specters their shapes! One stroke of this divine blade disperses a myriad of their beings!" Val’ha had never seen such a radiance before. The opaline beam was composed of tiles of individual light, like scales on a magickal snake. The light split the ground between Trisahn and Ma’teus, sending a dozen combatants flying, some to their deaths. Feukpi moved on: "There is Tarl-Cabot! Errant knight, shipwrecked captain! Troth to my plain old-maid Cousin Igri! Shall he die first, Lady Val’ha?" Flame shot up from the crowd and crackled against the Xoran light-circle as the hippogriff dodged to the right. "OH!" Feukpi repeated his scaled-light incantation and another beam blasted what Val’ha guessed was the ground upon which Tarl-Cabot stood.

Feukpi’s attention came back to Porcie at the same time Val’ha realized she could no longer move or speak. "I think that you shall join your intended, Sir Swordsman. I wield the large Sword of Steinman to cut down to five specters his shape! One stroke of this divine blade disperses a myriad of his beings!" The deathly light struck Porcie’s chest and reached through to grab his spirit, his body arched and he stood frozen on the balls of his feet, the cocoon of Dop-splythe’s light entombing him. The exciting-light dissipated and five shafts of Porcie’s spirit poked out of his body like petals of a flower; he dropped his sword, eyes frozen in surprised, wide death, his skin turned grey, blood pouring from his nose and eyes. The shards of his spirit swayed like river kelp around him; he stepped forward, back and over, grabbing his heart as he fell upon the already dead, the light gone from his eyes.

Five thin doppelgangers of his mortal self tried to pull themselves out of his body toward Feukpi while the conjurer, Dop-splythe across his lap, mercifully reducing the glare, was pulling up as if a pail from a well. He could not draw the slivers of Porcie’s spirit, however, before the clouds were forced shut, leaving only the light-circle and the dying barricade fires to light the smoky air. The journeymates surrounded their fallen friend, but Ma’teus could not help him, her body exhausted. They dared not touch him anyway: Above his body the doppelgangers were joined now only at their knee, and with each pull by Feukpi they slipped further into his custody.

The Magickal Circle, the alliance of gods from the limbic realm which had just closed Xorus’ lightning clouds, came down through them, causing a wave of awe from Terrans no longer held by Feukpi’s malcraft: Oromasus, a deep brown-light sphere; Phanla, a rotating white ring of light that glimmered iridescence and beauty; and Dynamos, who was just that – a blue vortex in the sky, drinking pieces as he descended, the sound of whipping winds and the hum of the Song filling Val’ha’s ears.

Feukpi’s hippogriff skidded left, causing Dop-splythe to fall and those in the marketplace to scatter as the Sword hit the street, but everyone’s eyes remained the three gods. The hippogriff was drawn squealing back to its original position by the vibrations of Phanla’s ring, which struck Val’ha’s skin in magickal pulses. The dynamo of the patron god of Sages caused a swifting wind to blow through Apocania – it was freezing and doused the fires, but so selectively it wound past Val’ha and her companions that it brought its bite only to those who wore the heraldry of the Black Dog, turning them into immobile snowmen and covering the ground with snowy frost. The Conschalans, the Apocanians and the journeymates were left, their icy breath rising in a communal fog toward the gods.

Oromasus’ projected an arm of brown-light down to Porcie, his amber hand nudging Val’ha and the others away while it absorbed the knight’s body and dissolved the spiritual fragments back into his chest. When that was done, the light blackened before turning brown again and lifted Porcie back to his feet. His eyes blinked and he gasped for breath, then smiled in recognition at Val’ha and their fellows and looked up, for from Oromasus brown-light floated Dervish, the Jealous Sword of Gar, hilt-forward until it rested once more in Porcie’s reanimated hands.

"NO! NO!" Feukpi managed to blurt out, but Porcie did not immediately dispense with the conjurer he had so long ago made his oath to slay Dervish with; instead, he took from his pocket the Oomarouge Gem, a swirl of Oromasus’ brown-light running through the yellow sapphire that reminded Val’ha of a cat’s eye. Porcie threw it into the clouds. A shockwave of yellow and brown lightstreams emblazoned Xorus’ clouds with their colors; a storm of hail and icicles shot past Feukpi and his hippogriff down to the Black Dog snowmen, shattering every one of them.

The townsfolk twisted from side to side, watching those they were fighting being turned into soiled snowpiles. Feukpi’s screaming protestations brought their attention back to Porcie and Tarl-Cabot, who had wended his way through the masses to be at the resurrected knight’s side. They stood together in Terr’Sol’s splendor, for the clouds infected with Xorus’ corruption were being drawn like fodder into Dynamos’ maelstrom until they were no more. They smiled at one another and cast their Swords toward Feukpi. Tarl-Cabot mouthed the words of the forgotten Elven tongue, his hands steady around Crundin as its fire crackled up the shaft of the blade and toward the sky until it hit the hippogriff’s chest, electrocuting the twitching creature into lifelessness. It dropped, landing next to Dop-splythe, its fur and the feathers of its vast wingspan crisp with incineration and orange cherries of fire racing about to claim what was left.

Tarl-Cabot nodded, bowed and backed away from Porcie while Feukpi, still suspended by Oromasus’ magic but freed to flail about and scream like a town fool, kept his eyes on Dervish. Dynamos directed his vortex toward Feukpi, with such delicacy it could have been a bluebird pecking at a worm. The edge of the storm stopped near the opaline light-circle; a small cylinder of blue wind projected to siphon it away from the conjurer, and with each electra of depletion it was as if Feukpi’s hands and feet were being sawed off, so devastating and ravaged were his pleas.

Porcie and Dervish had become aglow in the brilliant splendor of yellow-light, much more luminous than the shade of the Oomarouge Gem from which it was borne. It was a light from within, and though Porcie had not been magickal before, his transformation meant that he was becoming a god. He soared to Feukpi, who had stilled to a whimper and was now supplicant and beseeching in his gesture and face. "Dear Lord Porcie, you…" When he saw the look in Porcie’s eyes, for there would be no discussions of leniency, Feukpi crossed his arms and legs, a modest pose for all his evil and service to Xorus. Porcie plunged Dervish into Feukpi’s middle; Feukpi coughed, flicked the Sword running through him and coughed again, this time red. He wiped the blood on the back of his hand, studying it; Porcie withdrew Dervish and floated backward. Feukpi went limp and his tattered spirit departed him for Terr’des’ eternal toil. As the crowd below hailed and cheered and applauded, Phanla pulled Feukpi’s corpse to the center of her ring; in a sizzle of white brilliance, he was burned to nothingness.

Porcie cast his light upon the companions, through it the power of his love and kinship gladdening their hearts. I have joined the Magickal Circle with Dervish, as patron of war. His Human form dissolved into a xanthic sphere half the size of Oromasus and when Porcie had assembled himself alongside his fellow gods, he, Oromasus and Phanla vanished.

"Ma’teus!" Zini, spared by the gods because he lay among the fallen and slowed with mortal wounds, flew with his sword at Val’ha’s sister. Ma’teus dropped her dagger and bent down, grabbing two handfuls of dirty snow. She twisted about and dashed the snow in the High Advisor’s face, blinding him, grabbed her weapon and plunged it into his heart. He fell, his eyes wide at the shock of his death.

Terra shook; people and buildings tumbled and a distant thunder cracked through the rock beneath the city, dissecting the alleyway toward Dop-splythe. Ice went through Val’ha’s blood. "The Sword!" The two sides of the fracture stretched away beneath Dop-splythe, swallowing the magickal weapon and the bodies of the hippogriff, Black Dog horses and combatants friend and foe. As the fracture spread, Val’ha realized…"It is coming this way! Run!" Xorus reached between Val’ha’s legs, pulling them apart; Trisahn grabbed her, knocking Heinghold’s mirror fell from her grip into the abyss. The quake stopped and with it the Song’s corruption.

The crack split the main street of Center Apocania, while the City of Merchants began the next day to repair the merchantries, quickly dubbing Apocania "the Windy City" for blue-light Dynamo, remained, setting whirlwinds upon the Black Dog stragglers and delivering them into Xorus’ Fault outside the city. The Black Dog army of Prince Joel did not come again.

**

"Lord Prince," said his first mate. "We are arrived in Moncrovia."

The helmsman brought in the hundred-foot blackship Possessor, jostling the unclothed Prince into setting aside his quill. He donned a blue cape to match his indigo vest, shirt and pants, then stepped into made from Dragon leather, impenetrable to fire and blade. The Prince did not believe any more than King Joel in festoonery and pomp, and so only wore his white platinum trothal-ring for jewelry. He ordered the first mate belowdeck as the sound of other, corpse-laden vessels filled his ears and his gut with distaste. "Go on ahead – I want assembled my High Wizarder Cagliostra, Lord Feukpi, Lord Joel, Captain Cyr and High Advisor Zini."

"It shall be done, Lord Prince." The mate fawned backward from the Prince’s quarters.

A fog trail that straggled behind the Prince all the way to the Moncrovian port, connecting with the mainland to form a bridge of mist across Flooher’ty Sea, streamed into the hall of the Possessor and dripped from the trisails as they were lowered by Human deckhands. The steady trudge of Cagliostra’s shipyard – what little Joel could see as he worked his way toward the group of Black Dogs awaiting with his horse – was as depressing as he had left it a fortnight prior, piles of household, garden and merchantry items amid ship hulls in various states of construction and mounds of broken-down chairs, tables, fences and buildings.

They ventured past thousands of corpses, unwilling undead raised from wherever Cagliostra could. Xorus – all the gods of Terr’des, by order of Zeus – could never, nor could they ever devise a way to, enter blessed ground. It did not, however, stop them from destroying or corrupting unblessed land, and blessed ground could be crossed onto by their agents – possessed Terrans, empaths and spirit-drones. The Prince held his nose against the corpses under Cagliostra’s command, their morbid plodding, sawing and pounding never ending as those nearest the Moncrovian street leading to Royal Road recognized and cowered from him. The corpses, neither resting nor eating, continued to rot, much more slowly than if they were buried, but enough to draw worms, snails, wasps and flies that ate their eyes and nested in their bellies.

Moncrovia, the Royal City, was no longer – not a structure stood, not a citizen was left, no birds or trees lined Royal Road where Prince Joel played as a child. It was, all of it, gone, replaced by the fog and toil of the undead that wandered through. Returning from Torchsome Island, home of the Mibwaze nations, Prince Joel had looked to the tops of the Verdish Mountains. The white atop the tallest, Mount Flooher’ty, was snow, but Mount Carias was covered completely by Xorus’ mist, inspiring memories of glorious homecomings. "Land, sea, mountain and air," Joel had said to his mates. "See his majesty, comrades, worship his power, we are all princes in his grace." Now, unheralded by the masses who he remembered hail others back from battle, everyone dressed in their fineries, the merchantries closed, children’s faces scrubbed pink, the smell of incense and cheers and festivity in the air, flower petals thrown onto the waves, the seaspray, the fireworks, the outstretched hands… What has become of the kingdom I dreamt of, been prepared for since birth? What have I done?