 
Khing

Book Two: Ash makes War

by William A. Patrick III

Copyright © 2002 by William A. Patrick III

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction; any similarities between actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Chapter 1

The others had heard the pop also and ran to the pair. Gwere and Erow grabbed Ash, while Gractah jumped between the two men.

"Put those away, Sweetie, there's nobody here you need to kill," breathed Mara into Ash's ear. "Relax... Relax... Relax..." she said over and over. Linder moved in front of Ash, stretched out her arms, and wrapped her fingers around his blades. Blood immediately began to run down the steel.

"Ash, don't use them on us or Eye..." she said. Everybody froze. The only sound was the chirp of some wayward bird fluttering around them.

"Linder, slowly open your hands," Ash said, "spread them open, don't let them drag on the metal."

The whole incident lasted only a few seconds, but that was enough time to draw a crowd. The king's men had closed around them and it seemed the whole camp was awake and saw the show. As Linder released the blades, the others drew back from Ash. He stood for a moment, as if he didn't comprehend the situation, then he sheathed the swords and reached for Linder. With Linder's hands in his own, he studied her wounds. They were cut, but the cuts were not deep. Breathing a collective sigh of relief, the others in the party tended to her hands, and gathered around the fire, talking in low voices.

Isuair sat by the fire and watched Ash. Ash sat by the fire and watched Isuair. The old man just sat and stared, not blinking, not moving, fixed on the him, and Ash, in return, stared back at the old man. As they stared, a messenger from the king arrived.

"His Majesty requires your service," he said to Isuair.

"Did I not say to tread carefully around Isuair?" whispered Gwere after the wizard departed. "Pick your fights, Ash, and were I you, I would pick them only with the enemy. They are plentiful enough!" Gwere said. The captain waited by the fire for a moment and then moved on, saying he needed a walk. Gwere was angry, but Ash only stared into the fire. His mind raced while he watched the branches pop and burn. He had seen the wizard's magic. Of course the wizard kept his magic quiet, thought Ash. If he himself could master a trick like that, it could mean real power. Ash had seen what the wizard had done, and more importantly, how he did it.

Ash thought the blades gave the holder some sort of ability to swiftly absorb or translate languages. During his travels among the many peoples of the land, it took him only a short while to master any tongue. What he hadn't known was that the magic practiced by the wizard was also a language. He heard it, and though it was never spoken, it filled the air just the same. He saw the wizard stop the physical space around them from moving, which prevented Ash from moving in that space, effectively freezing him. Then he saw the wizard close the space tight around him, and that started him shaking. The black eyes, black skin and fangs seemed to be some sort of parlor trick, probably designed to make the wizard seem more daunting.

And, the wizard performed the whole show by simply thinking a few phrases in a language that Ash had heard before. He had heard it in the castle, the one he referred to as; "The Castle of No Escape." But there he picked up only a few of the words. This time it was different. He had picked up the line Isuair spoke to create the freeze effect. He missed the other six or so lines of the spell, but he was sure about the one.

Ash looked around the fire, and watched the others as they moved around the camp. Gwere was standing next to Linder, talking quietly with his fair-haired friend. Rehoak, Mara and Erow were on the other side of the fire, glancing furtively at Ash, and Gractah was coming down a new path toward them. He had fetched water from the king's men, and was walking toward the group. When Ash spoke the line, in his head, nothing happened. Gractah kept walking. When Ash tried again, he shouted the line in his head like a command, and this time something happened. Gractah tripped. Ash had frozen the air by his friend's foot. The trick was not just the line, but how you said it. Almost falling, Gractah needed help from Gwere to stay upright. Gractah, mystified at the invisible root that caught his foot, stood, gazing around, frowning for a long moment, while Gwere chuckled at his side.

Gwere made coffee, and cups were passed. The coffee was the sweetest Ash had ever tasted. As he sipped the brew, Ash said the line over and over in his head until he was sure he wouldn't forget it. But he said it quietly, for there was no need to send everyone tripping over invisible rocks. Isuair had done something else, something that created an impossibly thin wall between himself and the Ash, and Ash hoped he could find out what that line was. A small grin replaced Ash's usually omnipresent scowl. If he were to master any of this magic, he thought, as he poked a stick into the fire, the battles could become really interesting.

During its heyday, Orange County had been an agricultural mecca. Immigrant farmers found the sunny climate perfect for citrus, strawberry, and avocado crops. The house on Seventeenth Street stuck out from the rest of the buildings on the block. To Ash it looked like an old mansion, the kind they used in haunted-house movies. It was one of the oldest houses in the city. Originally a farmhouse sitting alone among the orchards that once dominated the county, it now sat nestled between condominiums, apartment buildings and track homes, in a city Ash knew well. And all Ash needed to do was to get out of the house.

He knew that after this brief respite from booze that his first high would be electrifying. It would be magic. As his sober time mounted, the draw of his old life grew stronger with every day that passed. Close by was one of Ash's spots, the dumpster alcoves behind the dime store Sav-a-Basket. But getting there would be a problem.

The staff seemed to already know that some of its occupants would rather be somewhere else. The windows were either barred or sealed shut. The rules stated that 'members' were to retire to their rooms by 7-pm, and all outside activities would be supervised. The day would be filled with AA meetings, group and individual counseling, and 'house events,' which included everything from picnics to maintenance and cleaning chores. And that was on top of the regular chores of dishes, housecleaning and lawn care.

Touring the building with his new friend Ed Shobe, Ash found the house was designed to be something of a minimum-security prison. But Ed told him that he would be happy there. If Ash got lost, Ed told him, he would; 'Shobe him the way.'

Walking the long corridors of the creaky house with his new friend, Ash imagined mowing the lawn, getting to the edge of the grass, and bolting. He imagined crawling out a small attic window and climbing down a tall tree to freedom. He would overpower a supervisor, or creep down the halls in the dead of night and crawl out a vent. But as it turned out, his escape was much easier, almost as if it was meant to be.

"He's here! Death and despair are your lords now! He's here! The devil, the Black Book worshiper is in the house! He who knows the magic of death walks among us! He is here!" It was the other bum. The same geezer that murmured all the way to the mental hospital was now in the house, raging like a madman. It seemed a strange coincidence to Ash that the man had found his way to the same house, but Ash only cared that the whole house had become focused on their new, disruptive arrival, and the opportunity that created. The attendants approached the man with smiles and open hands, and the house staff followed close behind, completely encircling the man.

"Let's talk about this in Ed's office... shall we Bill?" said one of the men. The attendants made eye contact with each other, and on signal, rushed the man. In the confusion, Ash walked out the front door, made his way down the cement walkway and hopped over a chest-high iron gate.

After walking three blocks he began to run. After his brief run he changed directions. He made it to a long, straight street where he could see cars from afar, and which supplied ample cover for him to hide if one happened by. At the end of the street, Ash knew, was a supermarket; 'Save-Away.' Dressed in the 'gift' clothes he had just been given in the house, Ash walked in, and at the booze section, slid a bottle of gin under his light jacket. He walked past a market employee with his coat bulging and continued on. The employee turned as Ash passed, but after taking a few steps, the man tripped. Ash looked back as the man fell to the ground. Others came to his aid, but Ash just moved through the self-sliding front doors. He was not even nervous about shoplifting. This, he felt, strolling down the boulevard, was preordained. Standing at a deserted bus stop, Ash broke the seal of the bottle and took three long gulps. It was time to get moving again.

"We move. We move. Muster the army!" called the officers throughout the camp. They were off to the castle. Ash was still trying to finish his breakfast when Mara approached. She looked at him like she knew he was up to something, but couldn't figure out what. Ash was packing and paused to watch her prowl around him. She paced a few steps and then took a seat close by. Staring into his eyes she began to inch near. He just stared back, perplexed and electrified by her attention. Abruptly, she grabbed his arm. Mara's face always held a hard stare and a subtle scowl, and this moment was no different, but on occasion she would let her guard down and Ash would glimpse a soft pout, below eyes of pure mischief. This woman truly had gifts, he thought.

"How's the spy business?" Ash asked. It was all the cheek he could muster. He had the last part of a stale biscuit in his mouth, and crumbs sprayed as he spoke. Mara, releasing his arm, stared at him, and responded only by shouldering her pack. With one last, long look back, she moved on with the others.

"That... was very strange..." said Ash to the air. The whole company was moving, and Ash saw that all but the last stragglers were already walking. He gathered his stuff and ran to catch the main body of the army. He walked among the king's men, who seemed to ignore him. But Ash noticed a lot of whispering as they walked, and he noticed glances, faces that would turn away if he looked in their direction.

Remembering the terrain, which he had been through many times, Ash knew they could reach the castle just after nightfall if they kept moving. Ash surveyed the area. The army created quite a spectacle. The king, with Isuair by his side, was mounted on a majestic beast in full regalia. His Majesty was fully adorned with crown, scepter, and robes. Another ten or so mounted riders carrying the banners of the Royal house shadowed the king. Behind them rode the Elite Mounted Guard, huge, heavily armed knights, in neat rows, six deep, twelve abreast, all dressed in black. The rest of the party, Gwere, Erow, Rehoak, Linder, Gractah, and Mara followed behind the knight's chargers. In front, pacing the party were protectors and scouts. Bringing up the rear was the rest of the king's army, and Ash.

He looked back and saw that the army stretched for miles into the hills behind them. As he walked, Ash tripped a few of the king's men, just to be sure he had the words right. After a fourth man did the embarrassing stumble, Ash contemplated changing the line, to see if more could be done than just a simple trip. As he contemplated this, he caught the wizard eyeing him. It was more than just eyeing, it was a cold, knowing, stare. The wizard had twisted in his saddle, and was studying Ash as he walked. Ash smiled and waved with sarcastic enthusiasm, and ended his experimentation with the spells. At least for the moment, he thought, since it seemed the old buzzard had pick it up on his radar.

They hadn't gone far, when Isuair drifted back to the spot where Ash marched. The wizard had the reins of a rider-less horse in his hand, and motioned for Ash to mount the charger. Spells that conjure up horses would come in handy, too, thought Ash, as he mounted. Of course, the beast wriggled and pranced, ignoring Ash's direction. Being on horseback beat walking, but he never really like riding much, and now he was even less comfortable under the heavy gaze of the wizard. The two rode apart from the army, and talked.

"Care to revise our deal?" said the wizard.

"Teach me how to create an invisible wall around myself, teach me how to bring objects through the air, and also how to repel objects," said Ash. "Eye, teach me real power. Teach me how to ki..." began Ash. He stopped in mid-sentence, and then began anew, trying something new on the wizard; a smile. "I will do your... bidding, as long as I am your student," Ash said. But the wizard just laughed.

"There is so much more to those tricks than just memorizing the lines. And you seem much too dangerous already. We need to start slow. We need to build a relationship, son, based on mutual trust. Until then, I'll need this back." As he said this, the wizard gripped Ash's arm. The blades didn't pop, so Ash didn't react. It was the Mara encounter all over again. After an awkward moment, the wizard let go, smiled, and trotted to the front, taking his place once again next to the king. Ash saw the king and Isuair exchange words, and the king glanced back at Ash. Ash waved again. Ash could have sworn he saw a trace of a smirk on Isuair's face when he, too, looked back. Just for fun, the wizard's horse could stumble a bit, Ash thought.

It was then that he noticed it was gone. The line he had memorized was not there. He tried to remember it by association, tried to remember what it sounded like, tried to sound it out. He thought of something else and then tried again to remember. He tried to think of the sound, feel or mechanics of the line. Nothing came. He searched his mind, but it was gone. The wizard had stolen it back as quickly as he had given it.

Ash had known magic for about an hour. Feeling the rage within him begin to boil, he tried to focus on calming his being. Ash felt extremely uneasy about the wizard. In a day, he learned that the old man could, without noticeable effort, overpower his enemies, freeze them, turn himself into a black-eyed monster, divine his foe's thoughts and then erase those thoughts. But Ash forced himself to relax. Either he would remember the spell or he would be taught it again. Magic seemed prevalent in the land. As he rocked along atop his charger, his eyes followed the backs of the knights and he wondered about the magic. The spells did seem to work just by memorizing them. All he would need was a couple of powerful tricks to use now and then. He was sure he could pick something up. If not, Ash thought, anger welling up inside him, he'll just have another talk with the wizard. Magic or not, Ash would bet the blades against anything.

As he rode, Ash noticed a standard bearer walking on foot. Laboriously dragging his banner, the man stomped along with a fury in his eyes that made Ash laugh. Spurring on the charger, Ash trotted past the bearer, pulled the horse to a stop and dismounted. The soldier actually hugged him, to which Ash reciprocated by becoming stiff. He had an aversion to riding—horses seemed no more than moving bags of bones—and felt it was no sacrifice to relinquish the mount, but for hugging he had a genuine dislike. Nonetheless, un-reciprocated hug aside, the soldier seemed grateful.

As he walked with the rear-most soldiers, Ash noticed Isuair again watching him. Not knowing if he would understand or not, Ash raised his middle finger, drew it to his nose, and pretended to scratch an invisible itch, all while eyeing the wizard. This got a chuckle from the soldiers around him, and Ash noticed that the king himself laughed. Some things were universal, Ash thought, through a fog of familiar but foreign associations.

For the rest of the day he hung with the rank and file hoping to disappear. Though still morning, Ash was tired. Tired of trying to figure things out, tired of making a fool of himself, tired of being covered in blood, and just plain tired, tired.

Ash was tired. He was cold. He was shaking. He had pissed himself. Hard booze didn't much care about body functions. Pushing the clammy Sav-a-Basket dumpster out of the alcove, Ash rose from his bed to find a big wet circle on the pile of clothes he had slept on. Smelly and woozy, Ash stood in the cold trying to collect his thoughts.

It was cold enough to see his breath. He tried to clear his mind while attempting to warm his hands by rubbing them together. But his mind was a blur. The last thing he remembered was the halfway house. He wasn't even sure how he got to his old Sav-a-Basket spot. He wasn't sure how he got any booze, nor did he know where his possessions, a large bundle of clothes, came from.

Ash tried to remember the hours after the halfway house. The only thing that came to him was that he learned something new. He remembered learning a magic trick somewhere, but one he could no longer recollect.

He stood scratching his head, between the dumpster and the dumpster's alcove, when he spotted an employee of the department store coming toward him with empty boxes. Ash knew he had to get moving if he wanted to avoid spending the night in jail. It was likely the clerk was headed back to the store and straight to the phone. Rummaging through his stuff, Ash found a pair of jeans that were a size too small. He used a piece of rope as a belt and got the zipper half way up. He folded his coat over the top of them. Then he gathered his stuff and left the alley. He walked stiffly out into the street, trying to find his way in the early morning hours. He going to try to make it to a small park by the Santa Ana River bike trail, where there was a bathroom, and a bench where he wouldn't be bothered, when he saw the cruiser.

Ash's heart almost stopped when the cruiser pulled up behind him. It could be more than a vagrancy stop or a ticket for loitering; he had escaped from a court ordered halfway house and was a fugitive. But the cop never said a word about the escape. Instead he asked the regular vagrancy questions. As the officer questioned him, Ash's eyes strayed to a dollar bill lying in the gutter. He often thought about his life, and where it could have been made to turn out different, how it could be changed so that at this very point in time, he would not be on Grand Avenue, in Santa Ana, on a busy boulevard, at 6:05 in the morning, talking to the police.

His mind drifted to the sixth grade, to a school in Nuremberg, Germany. In Germany, Ash and his parents had lived on an Army base, in barracks-like apartment buildings, in a little town that housed only servicemen. The army ran the schools. Ash remembered the math class he had in the fifth or sixth grade. He didn't remember the teacher's name, but he remembered the class. The teacher ran the class like a drill sergeant, with rigid order. To get the textbook, and actually learn the subject of math, you had to pass the test.

The "Test of No Return," Ash called it. An overhead projector beamed fifty math problems onto a white screen. They were simple add and subtract problems; ten minus eight, nine plus fifteen, and they were projected in front of the class. To get the textbook, a student had to stand and answer all fifty problems correct in 120 seconds. Ash never got further than the first six. It just wasn't possible to for a kid who wasn't good at math, and who was terrified of, and repulsed by, all the others around him, to perform in public. After the first few weeks, the teacher divided the class into regular and remedial sections.

Those that never got passsed the test were put in the remedial section, with a remedial book. One day in this class, in the remedial section, Ash went to the drinking fountain and took a drink. He noticed a crisp one-dollar bill on the counter, next to the fountain. It was close enough to grab. He returned to his seat, and told his classmate about the dollar on the counter.

"Get it!" said the kid. "Go back and grab it."

"Okay," said Ash. After a nervous minute, he got up and returned to the fountain. Stealthily, he scooped up the bill as he took a pretend drink. Scooting back to the table, he handed the bill under the table to his classmate. They would split it after class. There seemed to be enough nerve in him to risk the grab with the support of his classmate, but on his own, he just didn't have the guts. There was a good reason to get the bill. At a candy store off base, that money would buy four dollars of goods. The German stores had an exchange rate of four Deutschmarks for the US dollar. That meant a lot Gummy Bears and candy necklaces. But it was not to be. The teacher had put the dollar there to see what would happen to it. Part of the class, the students that had been in the same classroom earlier in the day for homeroom, had known about the ruse. At the end of class, the teacher stood up and made a speech.

"We had a discussion, on honesty, in our homeroom today. The discussion revolved around whether your average classmate was honest or not. If your classmate found something valuable, just lying around, would he tell the class, so the rightful owner could come and reclaim it, or would he just steal it? Well, we have our answer today, at least concerning one student." Ash's heart sank. His friend, who had been smiling so broadly just moments before, kicked him under the table and thrust the bill back into his hands. The teacher continued.

"At lunch break, I want the guilty party to return the dollar he took off the counter by the workbench. We have the serial number, so I suggest it be returned." With his head down, Ash could not see if the teacher was staring at him as he spoke, but he would have bet the teacher was. He would have bet a dollar. At the end of the class, Ash returned the dollar to the teacher, thinking that maybe a crowd would have gathered by lunch.

Ash had said, "I didn't know it belonged to anybody," and left.

But the incident followed him around school for months and it took a transfer to the States, where he attended public school, for it to be forgotten. All during the rest of the year, his classmates asked if 'he was the one.' The subject was never brought up in class again, though the teacher did make a few more speeches on honesty during the rest of the year.

Ash, while answering the officer's questions with slow deliberation, (it was best to make the police think you were a little mentally disabled), wondered if things like the math class shaped him in ways he was unable to change now. Probably not, he thought. He had gotten off with a warning. The cop told him to not camp in the city or urinate on any of its streets. Ash thought the main reason the cop let him go was the smell. If he were to be transported in the squad car, Ash guessed, it would take all day to get the smell out, maybe even longer. Special protector of the homeless—Super-odor, had come through for him again. Now, he just needed a place to regroup and think.

After the cop had gone, Ash picked up the wet dollar from the gutter and stuffed it in his pocket. After some wandering he found the park and the bathroom. The bathroom—a small, two room building, with facilities for the men on one side and the women on the other, would at least be a place to wash up. He could lay his clothes out to dry in the sun, and then try to find the bottle he had last night. He may even be able to bum some change from the cyclists passing by. They sometimes stopped to refill their water bottles at the restroom's fountain.

The riders with the three-thousand-dollar bikes and all the promotional gear would probably give up some change for a down-and-out. Splashing water on his face, Ash saw that he indeed fit that bill. In the heavily scratched metal plate that served as a mirror for the little bathroom, the image that glared back at Ash was frightening. His face was spotty and his eyes were glassy. His hair was matted and kinked out in all directions. The hair that grew out of his face was not uniform enough to make a nice beard; the individual hairs grew too far apart and they stuck out in all directions. Instead, it just made him look like a crazy man. He supposed he was.

He returned to his stuff and laid out the wet pieces on a concrete bench. Then he found the bottle. Nearly half the liter bottle was still filled with the glorious magic elixir. He had walked off the chill in his bones from the previous night, escaped the cops, found sanctuary and a dollar, and had an ample supply of booze. Things were looking up. He gathered the rest of his stuff into a pile and threw himself against the wall on the sunny side of the bathroom. He started to slowly sip at the bottle. The warmth of the booze spread through him like fire, and his world began to change. Soon, Ash was well on his way to being drunk—and a morning drunk, nine in the morning to be exact, provided the most intense high one could ever experience. Waving his arms, sitting at the little bathroom, Ash began to speak. He was telling Linder about a nightmare he had. In his dream he was dying in a grotesque, gray, concrete world of machines. It was so horrible he began to scream.

Screaming broke the spell. Only coals burned in their pit but the watch-guards flung fuel on the fires to light the field. The reaction of the group to the pop was immediate—all stood, ready, weapons drawn. For a long moment nothing happened. Ash stood amid the group, blades out, shaking. His scream had pierced the night.

"What happened next? Did you strike down your enemies in the machine land?" Linder asked. She was just being polite. What Linder and the rest of the party really wanted to know, was what they should do if Ash were to wake, screaming in the middle of the night, with his hands full of the knives, again.

They never got their answer. With Ash, nightmares took on a whole new dimension. Who would stop him if he just went berserk, some whispered.

"Nothing, I just woke up," Ash said. "I was in that other world, as a man taken too much with drink and... then I was standing here, next to you, with the blades drawn," he said. Sheathing the knives, Ash felt a chill though the fire blazed close and he should not have been cold. The fact that he had been able to draw the blades itself was troubling. He should not have been. Unless there was a direct physical threat to his safety the blades stayed locked in their sheaths. Looking around the fire, Ash saw worried faces and nothing else. Everything seemed fine.

They had not reached the castle after all, though it loomed large in the distance. The land between the king's home and the army was coarse, heavily covered with brush, and hard to transverse. Not wishing to arrive in the early pre-dawn hours, the king called it a night. Now the king's men approached the party and asked if everything was 'well.'

"Well, yes and no," said Mara. She kicked at an arrow at her feet. It was a bolt of black, typical of the enemy. Convinced all was well, Ash threw himself down to sleep, and the king's men returned to their posts.

His head had not yet hit his bedroll when the counterattack began. The enemy had not been idle. They had gathered reinforcements. Thousands of enemy men had massed in the valleys behind the castle, and watched in secret as the king's army came into their trap.

The enemy attacked in the dead of night. No army had ever tried an attack of this kind before; night was considered sanctuary. The king's army was totally unprepared; their only warning had been discounted as being part of a dream.

The king's army took heavy causalities as they tried to organize in the dark. In the midst of the battle, the front caved in around Ash and his companions, and they slew many before the enemy again dropped back. When the party had regrouped, Gwere grabbed Ash's arm.

"Stay together!" Gwere shouted. Ash saw Gractah had strayed from the others and screamed to Linder, who pulled the warrior back into the group. In a moment they were all together again.

Again the front collapsed, and now men were running. Their men were running. Ash saw why. The cavalry had come. Unfortunately, it was the enemy's cavalry. Illuminated by the fires lit by the king's men, he could see a great group of enemy soldiers on horseback driving into the army. Ash saw a rider bearing down on his position and dove with the knives. He cut the legs out from under the horse, the horse dropped, and the rider was thrown. When he looked up again, he saw the others in hand-to-hand combat. He was covered in the blood of the horse, and he didn't know which way to turn, when the others freed themselves, and the line was pushed back into the enemy. But the group was still together.

"We should push ahead..." Gwere said, "and find the front..." the big captain used the lull in the action to examine a gash in his arm that left a piece of his flesh hanging loose. When he started to pull at the flap, Linder rushed over and tied his arm up with a part of her shirt.

"We may need to get away from this fire..." said Erow. The others said nothing, but they also didn't move; they were adjusting their armor, trying to catch their breath, or just staring around.

"They'll be back, let's just stand our ground until we know just where the front is, or the battle... hey, has anyone seen the king, or his Royal Guard?" Gractah asked, craning his neck. He drew back. The enemy was all around them again. Another line had collapsed, and their foe was driving deep into the king's army. The enemy was running among the party when Ash remembered the line.

The whole of the enemy men coming toward the group tripped and hit the ground hard. It also came to him how to push with magic. He took a couple off their feet and looked around. To his right, a few feet apart from the group stood Isuair. The old buzzard was staring at him and grinning. At that moment, Ash screamed; "Mortals, mortals, mortals," and plunged into the enemy, screaming the spell and swinging the blades.

He found fierce resistance. The Cave People and the army were pushing the enemy hard. But behind the Cave People and the army, Ash saw a valley full of men. Thousands and thousands of torches illuminated a massive enemy force between the king's men and the castle.

We are all gone, Ash thought as he gazed upon the sea of enemy soldiers—we are just a formality, corpses to be. Then the fighting began in earnest. All around him, bodies were throwing blows. Panic, fear and terror reined. He lost the others—he no longer knew of any part of the battle except for the little of it directly around him. He just lashed out, striking and swinging the blades, all while pushing and tripping those around him. He slammed some to the ground and slashed at them, taking off an arm, leg or head, and then moved on.

Time became chunks of silence, separated by the loud ticking of human shouts and metal on metal clashes. Reality became horror pictures passing before him like a slide show. Things started to blur as Ash's mind shut down. He became a machine. Hours came and went but Ash only knew slashing and cutting. So many men fell before him that Ash began to only back up in horror. His lips were trembling and he was weeping. He stumbled over corpses and dreaded the passing of soldiers that would inevitably see him as a target. They would approach and Ash would make more bodies. Dread, bottomless in its intensity, filled Ash as he stumbled along, amid severed limbs and screams.

Facing a squat troll of a man, waiting for the man to design an attack, a part of Ash's mind saw the sun rise in the east. Welcome to a new day. The promise of a new start, with new experiences lay waiting to be grasped by someone brave enough to reach out and take it. This thought made Ash laugh. A bull rush was all his opponent could muster, and after a single stroke Ash was free again. More came and more fell. In the dawn of a new day Ash cut and hacked while inside he burned as bright as the fresh day's new sun.

In the long shadows of the early morning, Ash began to hear again. Sound came once again as a web of distractions emanating from every direction. Calls rang out, fires cracked, wind howled across the plain. Screams, some near, some far, gave flight on the blustery air. Instead of jumping pictures, reality began again as fluid thoughts and events. The land was still and he was alone. He saw only bodies, smoking fires, and blackened red ground. Nothing was around him, no battle, no men, no friends.

"No live ones, at least," said Ash, standing among the debris. He stood alone among the dead, shivering in the cold. Isuair and the king may still be engaged somewhere in battle, thought Ash, but they were nowhere to be found. Remembering his duty, he turned to inspect the lay of the land, and to guess his next move.

The castle still loomed in the distance, and Ash could see fires and ant-like figures moving about its walls. Dense smoke billowed from the castle's turrets. Obviously, that was the place to be. As he got moving, one leg spiked with pain, but he found that he could still run. He would investigate the leg later. If the enemy besieged the castle, it was there he would go. As he ran, he realized that the castle was some miles away, and he couldn't help but slow, for his leg burned with fire.

When he checked his limb he found only a small stab wound. He vaguely remembered stepping on a loose sword. It wasn't even a battle wound. But it pained him despite its origin and small size. Stopping on a rock, he sat, eyes closed. His mind began a kaleidoscope of pictures of limb and body separations from his own hand. He screamed inside and forced the show to stop. Though his head cleared, Ash felt a residue of the horror that felt like a permanent stain all over his being. Not knowing what else to do, Ash began to scream out into the dry, cold day. It only made him hoarse.

"Please just let me sit here," he whispered to the wind, to the gods, to God. "Please don't pop; please don't be a war everywhere. Please don't... nothing!" Ash shouted. As if on cue, they popped. A group, small, but from the wrong side, appeared in front of him. The screaming may have been a bad idea. The men eyed him like prey.

"Easy, there lads," said one of them, "that 'Ass' bloke has blades short like that, so easy." The speaker was a bearded ruffian, carrying a big sword.

"He's not him," said another. "This one's a hider. He just came out of his hole, crying for no more fight'n," said another voice.

"His hands are bloodstained... he is so bloody," said a voice, more serious than the others.

"Naw, he's too scrawny, Ass is big..."

"He sure is covered with blood..." said a voice.

"Hid under a body, more like," said another.

"But they told to watch for a warrior, with short blades, that talk to him," said another. This speaker's voice sounded less eager than the rest.

"They didn't talk, but they did make a noise. A popping, like," he said. "Did you hear it?" As the man spoke he took small steps back, while the others pushed forward.

But the blades did talk, of course, they popped. But now, standing among the men, Ash imagined them saying even more. 'I love you. Feed me, Sweet. Before us stand the feast, Sweetness and I'm hungry. It's time to consume.' He made the switch; in an instant he turned from repentant innocent to a parched, bloodthirsty boogieman. 'Play the game motherfucker,' the voice beamed. Fatigue washed away, and the spirit of the fight infected him. Ash mapped the path the blades would take. He would consider it a loss if they didn't all fall in one swipe, but a tall fellow in the back didn't look like he going to cooperate. He was moving in the wrong direction. But the others were moving forward. As they sprung, Ash swung. Ash spun an entire revolution in a single whip-like twist and the men vanished, their bodies joining the other debris lying underfoot. Now it was only Ash and the tall one. He hadn't moved—his plan to flee if the others guessed wrong had evaporated along with his friends. The knives, the spectacle that was the blades, held him captive.

He just wasn't able to look away, not even to save his life. Ash came forward and sheathed one of the blades. He crept closer until the tall man was within arms reach. Closer and closer Ash came, and the soldier crumpled to the ground, weeping. That's my shtick, thought Ash. Ash lowered himself to the ground next to the soldier and closed the gap between them. Ash trapped the man's weapon with a knee. It was Ash, the soldier, and one of the blades between them. Ash wrapped his free arm around the soldier, and pulled him near in a tight hug, slowly pushing a blade into the man. Putting his face near enough to smell the soldier's skin, Ash whispered the last words the man was ever to hear.

"...goodnight, Sweet Prince..."

Sitting with his back to the bathroom, blind drunk, Ash began to grasp the air in front of him in big handfuls. When drunk, he could feel the magic. When drunk, he could feel the truth, the invincibility of his own soul. When drunk, Ash was an omnipresent, omni-powerful, omniscient seer of the anomalies and flaws of time, and, when drunk, he knew how to fix them. When drunk, Ash could see and fix everything.

The enemy's counterattack was perfectly timed. They had pulled back and let the king think he had a complete victory. But the enemy had charged the castle while it was guarded by only a few, conquered it, and set it ablaze. Hosting a force behind the castle, the enemy struck back, ambushing the king in his own backyard. But their plans too, went awry. Fierce fighting from the king and his men had pushed the enemy hard, and many fled, or returned to the castle.

Mara hugged the castle wall with Gractah. They were now part of the group that had made the charge to the king's home. But the enemy pushed back, and they found themselves being thrust in the wrong direction, behind their opponent. They were like corks in the sea, bobbing in and out of conflict after conflict. All night the battles raged, each side experiencing victories and setbacks, all under the shadow of the king's house. But it wasn't just his home; it was his home burning wildly out of control.

At one time their company broke loose and dashed for the castle entrance, hoping they could storm the gate. They were wrong. Armies swarmed them from all about the castle and pushed them back.

Then the tide turned. The king's men began to push forward. They began to clear the enemy from the king's yard. Killing with abandon, they moved about the lands of the king and killed all that stood against them.

That night, the king, Isuair, and all the king's men found a courage and a strength that few men ever glimpse. They fought the enemy to the ground. They fought the enemy with hate in their hearts; they fought with malice and spite. They never drew back, they never halted and they never let up. To a man, thousands of the king's loyal servants only took steps forward; never back, and when it meant death they died. Maybe the flaming castle as a backdrop in the night had spurred them on, maybe it was something in the men themselves, but they took the enemy and brutally crushed them. Trapped between the burning castle and the king's men, the enemy had nothing else to do but fight back.

More men died that night than in any other war in all the history of all the land. The king and his men crushed the enemy army outside the walls, completely clearing the fields, only to have their foes retreat into the king's own home.

The king's men, including Mara and Gractah, had begun to scale the walls, determined to retake the castle. There was no plan; the army was just doing whatever it could to get into the king's house. Gractah and the king's men made hook-ropes, and had used them to climb the northernmost wall. Mara followed them up. In the eerie predawn hours, Massali laid hold of the topmost stone, and with a single fierce push, pulled her body over the edge. Crouching in the dark, buffeted by strong winds, she caught a glimpse of the lands below.

Fires raged beneath her and men ran in all directions. She knelt on the wall and thought of the others. She wondered where her friends were, and if they still breathed. Out of the corner of her eye Mara saw an orange cast grow behind the hills in the east. A new day was on its way.

"Please pull this day mine mortal coil," she whispered, "from the breath, from the death, from the blood and from the tears." She was praying for the gods to bring an end to her. At that moment black darts whistled past her. The gods, Mara almost laughed, were apt to comply. Arrows were flying all around. One of the king's men, whose name Mara had forgotten even though he had been watching her back for most of the battle, took an arrow in the throat. He fell from the wall without a sound.

"Out... out!" Gractah shouted to her, and she turned to see a large company of enemy men pour into the castle streets below. The enemy army outside the castle was dead or on the run, but inside the castle they were very much alive. Mara hesitated on the wall; it didn't make sense for the enemy to allow themselves to be trapped inside the castle. Then she saw the tower and knew the reason. She tried to call Gractah when an arrow bounced off her breastplate. Another singed her hair. Arrows still flew in all directions. Mara followed Gractah and the rest of their exploration party down the ropes outside the wall. Gractah was almost down when his rope was cut and he fell to the ground with a hard thud. Gathering themselves, they ran for cover under a shower of arrows.

"You okay?" asked Mara.

"Nope, but I don't have any plans past the next five minutes, so I'll hold up," he said with a laugh. Then his tone changed. "Was that Jonathan?" he whispered. Mara nodded. The soldier who fell at the wall had been well known, and, thanks to Gractah, Mara, too, now remembered his name. She wished she hadn't.

Mara turned and ran with the rest of the soldiers to the camp under a storm of arrows. She ran past an archer line as they set up to return fire. When she arrived at the main gathering of their forces, she found Isuair and the king, along with his Guard, huddled together, beside a table inside a small tent. To see the high and the mighty on the front lines awed her. This king took a hand in every battle, and he did not ride in the back. He would need a great deal of luck to survive this war, she thought. But now he had an even more pressing reason to be at the front. He was trying to get home.

"Part of this doesn't make sense," Isuair said. "They should be thick along that wall. The enemy should have every man here," said the wizard. He was pointing to a drawing of the wall that Mara and Gractah had dropped down just moments ago. Guards outside the tent confirmed it was now deserted. After firing a volley of arrows at them the enemy hid once again.

"It was unguarded until a detachment of the enemy attacked us, but that wasn't until we had actually gained the top," Gractah said. His face was crusted with dirt, and his black uniform was caked with blood.

"They do not post guards," began Mara, as she pulled back the tent flap. In the dim light she could just make out her point, waving in the dawn. The others followed her eyes and knew her thought before she said it. "...because they fly a banner. It's him."

"This does indeed explain a few things, and I would say the lack of an adequate defense means more," said the wizard.

"Are you saying that the Dral could be here, now?" asked the king.

"It would seem," said the wizard. "And by the look of things, I'd say we've been invited to join him."

"His banner flies at this moment?" asked Gractah in a whisper to Mara. The woman nodded. Gractah stood for a moment, frowning. He excused himself and exited the tent. Later he returned with a small smile on his face. He nodded to Mara, pulled back part of the canvas to give her a view, and winked. A commotion from the outside the tent raised the alarm. Someone was making a forced entry into the camp. Amid the commotion Linder burst into the tent, followed by Erow and some alarmed guards.

"Let them be," said the wizard. Gractah and Mara rushed past Isuair and embraced their colleagues.

"You're safe, you're safe," cried Linder. Tears trailed down her cheeks as she hugged first Mara and then Gractah. Erow kissed Mara, while grasping Gractah's uniform. Gractah kissed Linder's face all over and did not break their embrace even after the wizard resumed speaking. Erow was all smiles, and still covered in black ink.

"Nice to see you two, are there any more?" asked the wizard. "Our big captain? Rehoak? You know who? Come now, any news of the others, be quick, time presses!" But there was no news. Linder had found Erow tending the wounded, as she had been, and had dragged him to the camp. Like the others, she had become separated from the group but had managed to survive on her own, through a combination of fighting and evading.

"Mostly the latter," she would later say. The group had returned to their war plans when a guard burst into the tent. "We found another one!" The next moment Gwere strolled into the tent. He was virtually unscathed except for one of his giant arms; a large wound blackened his bicep. It was the same arm that had been cut in an earlier battle. Linder made a mental note to gather some shielding for it. But all saw that there were indeed more grievous wounds to this man that lay only in his eyes.

"I have a company prowling the western parameter where they took us unaware in the night. We will not be surprised there again." Gwere's dead face broke when he saw the others. But his smile was short lived; he then paused, took a step back and bowed low. "My liege," he said. The others, remembering protocol, quickly joined him, but the king only laughed.

"We will do more standing upright," he said. This is his home, thought Linder, and he thinks only of it, not of formalities or protocols.

"Ash?" whispered Gwere, searching the others. They shook their heads.

"We have men searching," said the king. He glanced to his man, who left and returned, only to shake his head. "But so far, no luck."

"Is it true they raise the Foul One's banner on the tower?" asked the captain.

"It was on the tower," Mara said. "Captain Haines set it aflame with a fire-arrow," she said, grinning to Gractah; he winked and smiled. "But we haven't been able to find Rehoak."

"Him I got," said Gwere. "He watches the western flank with the king's Guard, by your leave, Your Majesty."

"That leaves only our strange friend," said the king. Then, turning to one of his men, he issued orders. "We are down to just the one. The... umm... the kind of crazed...ah..." the king paused, looking to the others for some description.

"We know," said the captain to whom the king addressed. "We know who."

"Then find him. Use whatever you need, but bring him..."

"...dead or alive," whispered Gractah.

"Oh, he's not dead," said Isuair. "I can feel him about, somewhere, but I don't think he's had a very fun night."

"Unlike fucting us!" shouted Mara. The group, stunned at the violence in her voice, froze. Then the king began to laugh. The others joined in. As they laughed their aches seemed to lessen just a bit.

Dawn had come to the grasslands outside the castle, heralded by a chill morning dew. But the dew alone seemed to have escaped the carnage. The land around the castle had been scorched and destroyed. Trees, brush, and much of the ground had been blackened and crushed. What was not black was red. The dawn was not welcomed, for the sight hurt those who looked upon the once fair grounds. Adding to the horror, mounds lay strewn about in every vista. Bodies lay about the fields. Thousands had died in the night, yet the fight was not over. The castle stood before them virtually unguarded, but with the enemy inside. At the northern edge of the grounds, overlooking the scorched earth, Ash stood and gazed into the valley below. To his relief, he noticed some camps of the Cave People. Some of them, at least, had made it through the night. But the king's army appeared to have been decimated. A quarter, maybe, Ash calculated, had survived. Then his eyes were drawn to the castle. It looked strangely undefended. On closer inspection he saw it was the king's army below, knocking at the Owl Gate. Since they sit outside, the enemy must sit inside, thought Ash. Then he saw the banner. From the tower waved a standard. As he watched, it flamed red for a moment and vanished. But before its destruction, Ash had caught sight of the crest. It was the cog or a gear, guessed the manic. The Dral. He was an old enemy from an old war. He had teamed up with the invaders. Ash had come across his work before. Evil artistry, the man was into the kind of games Ash and the enemy soldier played just moments ago, the 'die Sweet Prince,' kind of thing. Only the Dral seemed to play the game just for fun. Ash had always thought that they should meet and talk about that. Posting his cog-crest atop the king's home was an act of evil that could only walk in the land of the dead, at least, thought Ash, in this neighborhood. It was a bold move, one that struck Ash as having a specific purpose. He was inviting them to brunch.

Time for a new plan, thought Ash as his joints creaked and screamed during his rise from a crouched position. A walk through the gate with the blades drawn was in order. If the Dral was part of this nightmare, then it was high time for a howdy-do. He looked toward the gate. He knew a typical crossbeam through steel sleeves kept the doors shut. Ash gave up his view and began to move.

Ash woke. He was lying in a road, at the curb. Next to him lay a sign, in his own writing. It read; 'Natural Selection; Eventually one species winds up sitting alone atop a rock of ash.' He felt thin and pain pulsed in his head and gut. He had no recollection of the past days. The road was a lane behind a long row unadorned pale buildings. The buildings appeared to be warehouses or factories. There was no traffic or pedestrians, but he could hear the sounds of traffic on a busy road nearby. Ash needed to defecate and he needed water. He spat out a yellow spew on the side of the road and covered it with his sign. He needed a park with a drinking fountain, or a school after hours, or a house with a garden-hose. Instead, he saw the box next to his kit.

Sitting beside his bags was a large square box with a plastic spout jutting from one side. A sunny, blue-sky valley, lined with rows of greenery and backed by snow-capped mountains, wound around two corners of the vibrantly printed box. Ash touched the box with his finger, he tapped it, hoping that the box wouldn't give, hoping that the box wouldn't move. It didn't. It was weighted. The pungent amber liquid was a kiss from God. My Sweet, Stinker, Sweetie, Sweetheart, Stinkbutt.

"WE FOUND HIM!" shouted the guard, panting, swaying in the tent. "He's at the Gate, he cut through the beam and swung open the doors!" The party began to move, and Isuair called for the king's men to muster.

"Also, fetch Rehoak, he should be here," said the wizard. "For better or worse, we should all be together. Now let's see what our friend is up to, humm...?"

Where a saw would stall, the knives gained speed. Ash turned to the crowd of king's men, and with a perfectly timed nod, the single beam became two. When the knife cleared the door the men cheered. With the blades still in hand, Ash and the men pulled at the doors which opened to reveal a small host. A well-armed, well-manned, enemy company stood fifty paces within the gate. Ash, standing in the archway, with a small gathering of the king's men behind him, didn't move. Neither did the enemy. Then, the king's army arrived. In front were some familiar faces. Ash just smiled, but turned neither right nor left. He didn't want his group singled out. As Mara and Gwere took their places on his right and left, he straightened, but only looked forward. "Nice to see you Stinkbutt," he said, "...and how are you, Mara?"

The enemy saw only the famous "Ass" and six grinning soldiers. Ash noticed the enemy had slowly begun to take small, backward steps. So Ash began to take small, forward steps. As they moved Linder and Gractah worked their way through the pack and pushed between Gwere and Mara. From behind, Erow poked Ash with his sword.

"Why are you always covered in black gunk?" Ash asked, turning to see who had been poking him, while only barely taking his eyes off the enemy. The party, followed by what was left of the king's army, started to inch forward, past the gate entrance.

"What black gunk?" said a voice like Erow's. The guard's question brought out a gruff laugh from the others. The enemy was obviously trying to keep fifty paces separating the two parties, but walking backward appeared to tax them.

"And Rehoak and our wizard?" Ash asked without turning. Voices, heard from behind, explained exactly where they were.

"I think we're expected," said a voice that sounded like the Rehoak's.

"Why is Erow covered in black gunk?" said a voice that sounded like the wizard's.

"I remember the invitation said wizards go first," Ash said, again not turning away from the enemy. Mara began to laugh. Her small breathless laugh soon turned into a full-fledged roar. The other six members of the group joined in, but the king's men, and the enemy in front of them, only stared, grim-faced. The party was walking at a good pace. Ash quickened the pace when he saw the enemy having trouble walking backwards. Erow, always observant, stated the obvious.

"I think we're headed for the castle."

"... and it may be a trap," said a voice. Again, many chuckled, or huffed half-laughs.

"Whoever said that gets to join our brain-trust," said someone. At that, the party was awash with giggles.

The group had fake smiles on their faces for the enemy, whom had more and more trouble walking backward as they led the king's army up the main castle causeway. Some stumbled and fell. Unlike the party, the enemy was silent and their faces held only stern resolve.

The procession wound along the cobblestone streets, passing burned-out shops and wrecked stalls that would have, in peacetime, been the center of trade for the king's empire. Ash turned and peered behind him. The streets were filled, as far back as the gate, with the king's men.

After entering the castle square, both the enemy and the king's men halted. They gathered in full view of the king's home, now less than a quick sprint away, and began to close in on the outnumbered enemy men. Soon many more men, issuing from an unseen gate, began to swell the enemy ranks. Then the party saw the castle was occupied. On a terrace balcony, overlooking the square, was a man and a woman.

"Welcome, your Majesty!" said the man. "Say hello to your Royal Father, Inge." But the woman remained silent. "Isuair, you old dog, well met!" said the man. "Those two, and their seven friends are welcome, but the rest of you, my men and yours, remain in the square without violence! Welcome!" said the man while spreading his arms wide.

As if on cue, the doors of the castle were flung open. Inside, lining the entranceway, were the bodies of the king's Elite Guard, whose duty it was to defend the castle. Ash noticed it immediately. The men had the blade signature. They had the clean cut of the knives. Two words began echoing in Ash's mind. "Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy..."

"Ash..." started Mara, poking at one of the dead men. The man was in two parts, cleanly cut through.

"I see it, I see it..." said Ash. He was again looking only forward.

"It looks like you could just push the pieces back together, and he would be okay," whispered Linder.

"Except for the gunk that leaked out of him," said Mara. It took all their strength to not laugh in that tragic place. Instead Ash answered the women with only a glare. They were walking among the blackened walls and the dead, being led by a small detachment of the enemy, when a woman, the same one from the balcony, came rushing toward the group.

"Father, father, flee..." said the woman in a strained whisper.

"Massali," said Isuair, taking the woman by the arm, "take hold of Inge and watch her care." Mara wrapped her arm around the woman, whispered something in her ear, and ushered her to the middle of the group.

The party reached the main castle stairway and paused as a man descended. He was of average height, but was bent and weathered. His face was sunken and ashen.

"Davallal, we have not come to parlay with thee," Isuair said. The old man paused as if to speak, gazed upon the wizard, and seemed to think better of it. Instead, he turned and half fled up a few stairs. Isuair herded the old man the rest of the way with his staff.

Fire had gutted much of the castle, and what was left filled those inside with remorse. At one time, the tapestries would have brought great beauty to the rooms. Now only scorched fragments remained. Around lay pieces of polished furniture or precious debris, here lay a golden ornament, there a pearl beside a silver clasp.

The king, walking among the party, turned neither right nor left, but kept pace with the others, and looked only to the task at hand. At one point Ash picked up a small piece of jewelry, an interlocking bracelet that carried a blue stone. Part of it was crushed, and much of it was blackened, but the charm of the piece still shown under the soot. He could imagine a party, and it being the gift for the maid of honor. Now the party was over and the Dral sat on the throne. "And, as an added bonus," said Ash in an almost inaudible whisper, "he has a set of these keen knives."

They followed the old man down a corridor to what appeared to be a large hall. The party moved quietly thought the ruble, and none spoke. The hall was also in shambles. The fire had run through the upper reaches of the castle with great ferocity, gutting the rooms entirely.

"Whoever did this certainly loves black," whispered Mara. Then a thought struck Ash that made him stop. Whoever was in the throne room would be the first in this land, beside Isuair, that could present a real and determined threat to his life. It occurred to Ash that suicide was always an option in his other world, the one with the machines, but in this land it seemed impossible. In this crazy land, where there seemed so little to live for, he always survived. Here he had no family, no skills, no dreams and no future. The only thing Ash seemed good at, in this land, was death.

If life was a series of journeys, through first the machine world, then this magic land, what was next, he wondered? And did he really want to stay as this world's most proficient executioner? He often thought he did not. He often wondered what was next. Ash thought it was someone's private joke that he was obsessed with his own demise, and yet had such invincible self-preservation skills. The irony never escaped him. But, in the room just ahead, all that could change. Amid the ruin and the ruble, Ash, smiled. He paused, and the party paused with him. He took a moment to touch each member of the party, slowly, softly, before continuing. Each only stared at him.

As the group, led by the old servant of Dral, crossed the hall, Ash saw it led to the very heart of the castle. Soon they stood before the blackened doors of the Throne Room. The king, with Isuair at his side, halted before the great doors. Gwere and Ash followed. Behind them, Gractah, Rehoak, Linder, Erow, Mara and the all but forgotten Inge brought up the rear. The old man turned to the party and smiled. Without trying to mask his contempt for the group, he placed his hands on the doors, and bid them welcome.

As he pushed the doors, flames rushed through the opening, igniting all in its path. The flames sent the others diving for cover, but the wizard stood his ground, moving only to step in front of the king. Raising his staff, Isuair slashed at the doors. They fell to the stone floor with a thunderous boom. Ash, after the surprise, moved swiftly toward Davallal, and brought forth from the folds in his robe the blades. Isuair and Gwere quickly grabbed him.

"Hold, hold," said Isuair, "we will account for this one in good time." Then Isuair began to whisper in Ash's ear. The words were like music. Ash felt an infusion of spirit and strength, and his heart rejoiced. A smile, an incarnation of delight, swept his face. A single tear made the journey from his face to his armor. "Play the game..." the voice whispered again.

From the chamber, parts of which still burned, came a great roar, like laughter, only without joy.

"Welcome friends," said the roaring voice. "Please be welcome!"

"I can't do it anymore, the hiding, the sneaking—the whole ruse. In the end there is only the humiliation of discovery.

I drink. I drink the way an alcoholic drinks. And I'm tired. Tired of hiding. Tired of trying." Ash was thinking back to the last conversation he had with himself before he left. He hadn't the nerve or the courage to tell her in person, nor did he leave a note. He, and he alone, had been his audience for the reason why he left. To be honest, he just wanted out. Out of the whole deal. Out of husband-hood, out of the nine-to-five, out of society. Out of the horrible robots around him. Out of the world.

A doctor may have told his wife that he was clinically depressed and suicidal. But he had seen no doctor, and his wife had not been told anything. How long she held out, standing, waiting by the door for him to return, was something Ash ran from everyday.

Actually, Ash knew he was depressed. He knew he was suicidal. He just didn't care. Drinking was a means to an end. His end. In death he hoped to escape the world, or at least bring a stop to its day-to-day wretchedness. With every drink Ash said goodbye. With every hung-over morning Ash cursed the machine world and its God, and began his search anew for a bottle, and a way to, alone, depart, perhaps for the last time.

A man, completely robed in black, sat on the scorched throne. The hood of his robe over-shadowed his face, but Ash could see the man's hands. They were long and gray, tipped by clear, sharpened nails. Behind the throne, forming a half circle around their master, was his Dark Guard. Mixed among the guard stood some hard men with fierce faces and malice in their eyes. All had short swords or crossbows.

The man on the throne seemed unarmed. But Ash knew that he was not. Taking his place next to the throne, Davallal addressed the group. He had straightened his twisted frame in an attempt to portray an air of dignity. The black figure slumped in the chair did not move.

"Your Honorable Dral," said the old man, "let me welcome your guests. His Majesty the Blind, the former ruler of this fair land." The man spread his hands to the king, who took a step forward, only to be restrained gently by Isuair. The old man continued, "if you would permit me to finish, you may have your say after. Let us now introduce the legendary 'Ass'... Do you still murder innocent people in your travels? Do your hands shake from too much drink, Mr. As..." but his master interrupted the old man.

"Stop calling him that. It could be a somewhat of a mistake..." said the Dral, stretching out the word 'mistake' in a way that somehow seemed to belittle to his servant. With an apologetic look to his master, the old man continued.

"May I also present the famed Isuair, cardsharp and conjurer, do you still entertain the kiddies on their birthdays?" At this, the wizard struck his staff to the ground, and the old man crumpled to the floor. Almost instantly the Dral's men closed around the party. A guard checked on the old man, shook his head toward his master, and took a place with the others challenging the group. The old man, or what was left of him, never moved again.

Ash did the arithmetic in his head. He was fourteen feet from the throne, which was about eight feet out of his range if the Dral was fast, and Ash guessed that he was. His zone ended at six feet, many further than that had escaped by flight. If the Dark Guard attacked before he could close the gap, he would never make it to the Dral. Isuair had given him the rest of the lines of the freeze spell as they stood outside the chamber. The wizard had said to beware of trying to use the lines on the Dral, but made it clear that the guards were fair game. Isuair said he would take on the Dral, magic to magic, and, if he wished, at the same time Ash could challenge the Dral with the blades, after they dispatched the guards. Ash wondered if the wizard had noticed the telltale cuts on the dead, and knew they didn't have time to discuss it. As Isuair stepped forward, the Dral spoke.

"Poor manners, my friends," he said. "Davallal was a loyal servant." The Dral let his cloak drop from his head. Waist-long, white hair, tied behind him in a long trailing braid, framed an old and sharply featured face. Set deep were eyes of all black. Ash noticed his teeth were sharp, like canine teeth. The Dral had fangs and black eyes. Ash had seen the look before. All that was missing was the pitch-black skin.

"Massali, what happened to our nice little plan?" the Dral asked.

"It was her!" Linder said, pointing to the warrior. "I knew it, I knew it, I knew it!" Linder practically stomped the ground. But it was the Dral who interrupted her.

"Hush, daughter of Deloriate. I have business with our friend, Massali," said the Dral. "Or is it Mara now? What happened, love?" asked the Dral. Rising from his seat, the Dral focused on Mara. "Ash doesn't seem to have been seduced at all. At least you have no mark from him, nor does he have a mark from you. He seems to be free to act as he would, like he wasn't owned. And..." Placing his hands together as if in prayer, the wizard moved from his seat and began drawing near Mara. "...he doesn't seem sympathetic to our cause at all. And well, since his Lordship stands before me now," said the Dral, opening his hands to the air, "and his son still crawls our way... I'd say the other half of our plan went awry, too." His voice was gentle, soft and full of recriminations. While closing in on Mara, the lord moved little. His long cloak hid his legs and his lips barely moved when he spoke. But though he moved little, come he did. "Instead, sweetheart, you bring these..." While seeming to search for words in his carefully prepared speech, the Dral paused. "...larvae... to my doorstep." The Dral let a small laugh, thin and short, escape from his lips. As he neared, the others, including Ash, drew close to Massali. The Mara, as always, seemed undaunted by the challenge, responding only by loosing an arrow toward the Dral with stunning speed. He just stared at Mara and laughed.

"Why did you even go through the motions?" The arrow had left her bow, but vanished. "Like the sound of your bowstring, or was that a resignation?" asked the Dral. The Dral surveyed the room, turning and giving them a glimpse of hands that clasped the feathered bolt behind his back. "Tell me, did you even switch the letters? Did you even do that?" He stepped off the dais and slid toward Mara. But after pausing, he resumed his slow advance, though he altered in direction, moving instead toward Ash.

Thirteen, twelve, eleven... Ash counted as the group, including Isuair, drew back. Ash did not move. The menace that was the Dral pushed forward, bringing with him an air thick with power. At seven feet, the Dral paused. With twelve inches to go, the evil lord came to a full stop. Ash had his weapons drawn for most of the day, but the evil wizard was still a step out of reach. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, Ash slid forward. Instead of fear, he felt a tingling excitement as if he had just joined in a thrilling game in which he knew he could showcase considerable talents. There was also a part of him that reveled in the high stakes. He leaned in. He willed himself closer. He crept forward, inch by inch, while the Dral stood. Ten, nine, eight, and then he heard the sound he should have never heard with his own blades drawn.... Pop.

The others reacted with a sharp step, but the Dral did nothing. He did not move, he only smiled. It was a small, knowing smile. Ash, alarmed by the noise, froze. The pop occurred just as he was about to spring. A strange wind gusted about the room, and almost casually, the Dral's robe waved and opened.

"That's a nice little sound, isn't it my friend?" the Dral asked Ash. His eyes had turned blue and his voice almost fatherly. He moved and let Mara's arrow fall from his hands. Blades, identical to Ash's own, hung at the wizard's side and the clips were open. As Ash stood and watched, the evil lord began a spell.

Similar to the one Isuair used, it was a language and it was beautiful. Resembling a woman's voice, the lines drifted through the air like a song. As the lines of the spell began to unfold, Ash saw it as a picture, as moving images floating in the air. It seemed familiar, but yet unlike anything Ash had seen before. The images told a story of invaders, killing farmers and warriors alike and taking over the land. In the show a tall darker people conquered a shorter fairer, people. It showed leaders of the tall people with the same features of the king advancing on the fair. It showed monstrous clashes of armies. It showed battlefields strewn with bodies of the fair. It could have been the view from the window just feet from the group. Only this picture was old. This picture was very, very old.

"Three hundred years ago the forefathers of those around you invaded this great land," the Dral said. "My friends here, behind me, are the great, great, great, grandsons of the original inhabitants of this world. Your friend's forefathers invaded, destroyed, and cast them out to the sea, where they vowed to return, to take back what belongs to them. This is that journey," the Dral said. He stood as a master would, instructing his students. "You see, son..." the Dral said, turning to Ash, "... you fight for the wrong side."

If the Dral was counting on Ash's spirit of fair-play or social-consciousness, he picked a poor place to pitch his idea. Among his friends, and in the ruins of the castle, the words of the Dral had little effect on Ash, who began to study another thread in the chamber. The evil lord had a second spell working. The man in front of the party was only an image—a projection. The real Dral, a tall black creature, leaned invisibly at the foot of the throne, arms casually crossed, in a haze behind the illusion.

"Just like the movies," said Ash, ignoring the others, "all we need is a little dog to pull back the curtain." He wasn't even sure what the words meant, but he knew they would mean something to the Dral, and perhaps also to Isuair. To get through the projection, and at the real lord, was the challenge. The illusion made it hard to see exactly how far he was from the real Dral. Ash had heard the pop, but the Dral drew no weapons, at least the projection in front of them held no blade in his hand. But the real enemy was slowly moving toward the party, masked by the haze. And Ash could see steel in the dark creature's hand. Committing himself to either victory or death, Ash said goodbye, and jumped.

Everything happened at once. Isuair shattered the Dral's spells. The enemy guards tripped where they stood, causing many to fall or fumble their crossbows. Mara and Gwere took the guards around them to the floor, dead. Gractah and Rehoak charged their guards, only to find many more hidden behind the tapestries. Linder and Erow dispatched those nearest them and jumped to assist the others. After a moment, everyone froze. All the enemy guards were dead. Only Isuair, Mara, Gractah, Linder, Rehoak, Gwere, Inge, Ash and the Dral remained. The latter had their weapons at each other's throats. Ash was trembling and weeping. A small drop of red flowed to his shoulder. His blade vibrated heavily against the Dral's neck, but the man's hand was steady as he held his blade hard against the underside of Ash's jaw. Something similar to a smile radiated from the real Dral's face.

"Steady my friends," he said, "leave us parlay a bit more, shall we?" The Dral moved slowly back, but as he did, he took a one quick swipe at the manic. Luckily, Isuair was faster and Ash was pulled away at the last second.

"Well, now," said the real Dral, a small withered man, old beyond guessing. "What should we do now?" He said, grinning. He slunk back to the throne with a sigh. Leaning on one elbow, he peered at the group. "Oh, I almost forgot about this—here..." said the Dral, and he tossed a book to Ash. It was black. Ash caught it, and turned it over in his hands. He could read the title. In the language of the magic, it read, 'The Dark.'

"Put that down, son," Isuair whispered. There was an unaccustomed urgency to the wizard's voice. He took a step closer to Ash. "Leave it be..." Isuair said. Ash stepped away from the wizard and opened the book.

"Don't worry, Eye, Ash will know what to do with that book, after all, he is so very wise, so learned, so... committed to... whatever—suicide, glory, what, Ash, what do you really want?" asked the Dral. Ash ignored the old man, and instead ate—consumed line after line in the book. Every bit of it made sense. Usually no book ever completely made sense to Ash, especially technical books, but this one was different. With this one, each word was a sweet kiss, a loving embrace—each word was a buzz.

"That is the wrong sort of magic, my friend. Put that book down," Isuair said, once again nearing Ash, "You cannot use it against him—you would be a novice against a master. It will only harm you and your friends..." But Isuair was abruptly cut off. Ash was holding the book, running his finger over a line on one of the pages, and, as he looked up, the wizard froze. Ash took a step back, and focused on the book. The rest of the group felt a great force push against them. Some fell to the ground, but all moved back. Concentrating again, one hand held out in the air, Ash pushed the whole party down the hall and out of the throne room, pulled up the broken doors, and slammed them shut. A blue flame grew about the edges of the door and licked its frame. He and the Dral were now alone.

It was just the Dral and Ash, the latter of which held in his hands a book teaching the creation and implementation of a kind of magic that Ash could only describe as apocalyptic. And to him, that book made absolute, perfect sense. The Dral seemed beside himself with joy. His black eyes gleamed with delight. He grinned and grinned. He clenched his hands, open and shut, over and over.

"Very good, my friend, very, very, very, good," said the Dral. "Excellent.... yes, yes, excellent!" he said. "We are alone at last, away from those that would cloud our minds! You wish to talk, yes? About Isuair, no doubt, and his role in all this, maybe?" The Dral spoke fast, each word coming with unrestrained merriment. "Or maybe about that castle, the 'Castle of No Escape,' which is the correct name for the place, by the way, no matter what that idiot Eye says. Maybe about Simon? Maybe about Mass... Mara? Or the dreams of the other world? Would you like to know what I know about that? It's considerable, you know. How would you like to get back?" the Dral said. He was moving in quick steps, almost like a dance. "Think of the havoc we could reap! And... booze, booze, booze! You and booze! That... that magic elixir that your taunts you in your dreams and haunts your waking hours, I can tell you the secret to its control, my son! Master it! Think! THINK, Sweet Prince... THINK WHAT WE COULD DO!"

As the old Dral spoke, Ash crept forward. He could no longer see through the tears—but he didn't need to. Goodbye, he said to his soul, finally, goodbye. It was a game. God was a game, the soul was a game, breathing was a game. Repeating all the spell language he could remember, he screamed and leaped. He swung the blades wildly. He begged forgiveness and screamed goodbye. He tried to weave the magic and the blades into a single weapon and flew at the man before him, raging in the dark.

It almost worked. The Dral was so busy gloating, that the attack was almost a complete surprise. Almost. The hurricane that swept into the Dral almost caught him, almost tripped him, and almost killed him. But this was no battlefield knight; this was a very old, very aged, wizard. The Dral was an old hand at human nature, and a long study in the art of violence.

"...you... stupid little boy..." whispered the Dral. His advantage was a clear mind. The Dral had learned, long, long ago, that the brain was a much more powerful weapon than any sword. He knew Ash would bet anything against the blades, but the Dral would bet anything against his own mind. Ash attacked the air, the chair, the tables, everything in the room, except his enemy. As Ash attacked, the room went black. An impenetrable fog spread from the wizard that seemed to darken even Ash's mind. Moving and laying deceptions were second nature to the wizard, and in the dark, the Dral was at home. Maneuvering around until he was behind the wildly flailing Ash, the Dral finally made up his mind.

As soon as the doors shut, the wizard broke free of the spell. The others, too, freed themselves.

"Hold!" Isuair screamed. They had begun to push and pound on the doors, but the entrance to the Throne Room was locked tight. Isuair pushed them away. "Hold..." he said again in a calm voice. "Just stand quiet for a moment..." Isuair said. He then turned to Mara. "Dear...get ready Sweetie, if I get these open... go." Mara nodded and smiled. Quickly she stripped off her heavy metal breastplate and her shoulder armor. Isuair moved a step to the center of the tall, richly carved doors and straightened his frame until he stood fully erect. He took a deep breath, then another. Slowly he brought his hands up and pressed them palm-to-palm. He then brought the fingertips up until they were under his chin. Mara pushed next to him and wedged one shoulder against the crack that joined the two doors. She placed her hand on the wizard's shoulder and snapped it back again as if shocked.

"Easy there, Eye," she said with a big grin, "let me get my hand on you..." Taking a few quick breaths, she tried again, pushing her shoulder against the doors while slowly placing her hand on the wizard. This time her hand stayed, and the doors began to move. Slowly the crack began to widen. Half-inch, two, four, six... and she was through.

This young lad has to go, the Dral thought. He was just too much of a risk. The Dral brought his hand up. With his fist clenched tightly around the handle of the blade, he let the tension build for one quick snap when Mara grabbed him from behind.

Mara's attack was enough to allow Ash to find the Dral in the dark. No greater exultation would Ash ever experience than when he plunged both blades deep into the wizard. He struck into the chest and pulled the blades the length of the body. The Dral screamed a wail that tore at the foundation of the castle. The stone shook and trembled, the walls shuddered, mortar flew in a white snow throughout the room. Beams cracked in the doors and the ceilings. And the screaming didn't stop. The doors of the throne room rocked, cracked open another few inches, and the rest of the party burst through, raging. The Dral, in the throes of death, brought up his shaky hand, and whispered a spell. Ash and Mara drew back.

"Run! Run, get out..." shouted Isuair, but Mara and Ash saw it was too late. The Dral smiled and lay open his arms. Black blood flowed from his wounds; he slumped to his knees and addressed Ash directly. "Power..." was all he said, as he crumpled lifeless to the ground.

After the word left his lips a black fire spread from the dark wizard. By the time Isuair had reached his friends they were so badly burned that they were no longer recognizable. Their arms were torched, only blackened bones remained ending at the wrists. Their hands, which they used to ward off the black fire, were gone. After the fire, the two had just collapsed. Linder pulled Ash off the floor, and turned him over. His face was bleeding off his charred skull and his eyes were only black holes. His hair had melted off. He was unrecognizable. Mara, who had been closer to the dark wizard when the fire came, was worse.

The wailing of the dark wizard began the battle for the castle. The king's men, energized by the specter of death and destruction all around them, attacked with a vengeance. They slaughtered the enemy in the castle, in the streets and in the commons. They tore into the enemy men and brought blood onto the stones. The battle raged, and the king's men soon began to slaughter a fleeing, trapped enemy, but their victory was short lived. Word spread of horrible happenings in the throne room. The wizard, carrying Ash, and Gwere, carrying Mara, moved out into the streets seeking an escape. They were running. Gwere was weeping. Outside the walls, they stopped under a tree beside a river that ran the length of the western wall. Gractah and Rehoak fended off the king's men, while Erow and Linder tended to their dying. They covered their fallen with robes, but could find little else to do for them. Ash and Mara lay, curled and shaking, dying on the ground.

The attackers came from the dark. Ash's spots were usually secret enough and the neighborhoods where he spent his time were usually safe. He stayed away from the places where the young hung out. He stayed away from the gang territories. He hid in the suburbs. But somehow they had found him. He awoke amid a hail of kicks and blows. The attackers had set upon him. He could only see shapes and feel the pain. But he knew he had to fight. He knew he had to swing back. Grabbing at anything at hand, Ash seized his magic blades and began to swing. He swung the car antenna and the metal ruler. They were laughing, which was a good sign. One could get roughed up by kids out for kicks, but one got killed by the serial murderers. They practiced on the homeless before graduating to the public, and they did not laugh.

Ash connected with the ruler and heard a howl. More kicks rained on him, and Ash flailed about wildly, rarely connecting. A board hit Ash on the head. He reeled from the blow, falling to the ground and writhing with pain. He heard laughs and felt more kicks.

Soon he was tumbling down the embankment of river channel. He came to a stop against a chain-link fence. He felt dirt and rocks pelt him. Someone shouted and then all was quiet. Pain, immense in its depth, shrouded Ash. Every part of his body seemed broken. His hands, back and ribs felt afire. He tried to crawl back to his spot but found he couldn't move. He cried out for God to take his life and end his pain. For a long while Ash was still.

"Do something! Isuair, DO SOMETHING NOW!! NOW!! NOW!!" Linder was screaming at the wizard, screaming to the point where her voice twisted. Gesturing wildly, she passed beyond the point of self-control and began to shriek. The wizard turned to the fair warrior and clasped his hands together with a spoken word. Linder fell to the ground, unconscious.

"I am doing something," said Isuair. "I am thinking." He took a deep breath and blew it out with his cheeks puffed. Then, talking to no one, in a voice calm and slow, the wizard folded his arms across his chest and began to speak.

"Again, nothing about this makes any sense. Why would the Dral commit suicide just to take these two with him? There is no chance that our friends here would be able to destroy a wizard like that. It's just not possible. The evil one has so many weapons; there was no chance of what just happened, happening. None," said the wizard. A couple of the others turned to listen, but their minds were elsewhere. It was impossible to think as their minds saw and then rejected the images before them. It was worse than any of them could have ever imagined. All they wanted was to hear Isuair say that he could fix it.

"Logic dictates, then," said the wizard, "that what had just happened, hadn't just happened. So..." asked the wizard, "what... did... just... happen?"

"She has a point, Isuair," said Gwere, "if there's anything you can do..." The big captain was at the wizard's side pleading. Ash had come to and had begun asking the others to kill him. Mara was in Gractah's arms and the Elite was weeping profusely. Parts of her skull were visible through burned skin. And still Isuair stood.

"This cannot be," Isuair said. "How can this not be, and more importantly why?" He said to the river. "The true mark of a wizard is not in magic spells. All that lay in the books, though it is rather remarkable how easily what's-his-name picks it up. The true mark of a wizard was the ability to read the forces of the world around him, until he can make an accurate guess of the coming events," he said. "A true wizard can see the future."

"Isuair, we need you to do something," whispered Erow. He was weeping. "If you can do nothing, we need to... Isuair..."

"And I... am a true wizard," said Isuair.

"Isuair!" shouted Gwere. He, too, was losing control, slipping into the depths of grief and insanity. The wizard saw that Gwere would soon be lost. He was running out of time. But the wizard did have the ability to foresee the future.

"And what do I see now?" asked the wizard. He looked over at the burned figures lying on the ground. He saw Ash standing next to him in the castle as he handed off his own book, his copy, Simon's White Book, to Ash as he, Eye, departed. Ash would have both books from which to choose. "And that's how this tale ends, my friends," Isuair said. Yet Ash lay curled on the ground, burned beyond recognition, pleading for someone to give him his knives. He had no hands and was blind, but he wanted his weapons. "Again, none of this makes any sense," Isuair said. The future Isuair had seen, as he entered the castle, was a duel between him and the Dral. He had known it was coming for a very long time, and he was prepared. But the Dral changed the game.

When the Dral gave Ash 'The Book,' and Ash had used it to separate the group, Ash had unwittingly played the Dral's ace. The Dral worked his plan perfectly, yet wound up destroyed. "Nope," said Eye. "That's the wrong ending."

"Isuair... Please, we need to do something," said Rehoak. Tears streamed down his face. The king's men had started to crowd at the edge of the oak, under which the party tended their wounded. The group was swiftly buckling under the strain of their friends' torment.

"Why?" The word repeated itself over and over in Isuair's mind. "Why? What is really going on here?" The wizard studied the situation. He saw that Ash had awakened, as much as was possible in his condition, and was getting serious about ending his pain.

"...give me my weapons," Ash pleaded. Mara, the wizard saw, also showed signs of life. Linder, who had recovered from the wizard's knockout spell, had tears streaming down her face, and gave a furtive glance to the wizard, who stood, unmoving from the very spot he had taken when they first reached the river. She had given him a hard look, and moved off to her belongings. Isuair watched as Linder drew a weapon, a dagger, from her pack, and returned to Mara. Linder paused with the knife, and the wizard watched as she shook and shuddered, weeping uncontrollably.

Gwere and Erow cradled Ash. They were partly restraining him, and speaking to him earnestly. The wizard saw Gwere look to him, and then slowly draw a weapon from his cloak. It was one of Ash's blades. Gwere must have picked it up in the castle.

"If this was planned, what did the Dral have in mind?" said the wizard to the gently sliding water. "The Invitation to the castle was strange, also. The Dral must have known that I was ready to fight. If that were the case, an invitation would have been foolish." Isuair was sure that there was a point, soon, very soon, where this plan of the Dral's would bear fruit. Still, the wizard stood and thought. The others were speaking to Ash and Mara in hushed tones. They are saying goodbye. Gwere took the blade Ash had once so proudly carried and with one last look to the wizard, began to slide the weapon to Ash. Mara had Linder poised above her, a dagger clutched in her hands. Then the answer came to him. He would have won the fight. "Stop," shouted the wizard. "STOP!"

Gwere, holding the blade before Ash, froze. The wizard started laughing. "Very good," he said, "Very clever, very nice." Ash, in a startlingly fast move, pushed the captain away, and lunged at the wizard. He had one of his magic swords clutched between his bony wrists. Isuair felt the power of Ash, and it was real. It was a gift from the Dral, no doubt. As Ash rushed the wizard, Isuair thought he knew what was going to happen. Now, truly, the wizard could see the future. In a moment, he, the Secgoaworm Wizard of Alrica, Guardian of the Not-So-White-Book, would be dead. His only chance, now that he had wasted so much time puzzling the riddle the Dral had left for him, was to get to Mara. He covered the space fast enough, but Ash was faster. If Gwere hadn't intervened, there wouldn't have been enough time. Thank God for the blind faith of your loved ones, thought Isuair. Gwere tripped Ash, who was trying to get to Isuair. Isuair made it to Mara in seconds, as Ash, leaping from his knees with giant Gwere on his legs, grabbed the wizard's robe. Isuair knew he had a second, and then his story would end, albeit prematurely. In one quick move, Isuair, clutching Mara in a steel-like grip and hurling like mad, flung the warrior into the icy cold waters of the river.

"Look at your hands," shouted the wizard. His bold voice rang through the group, and everyone froze. "Look at your hands!" To Mara, the fire, the blackness, and the pain blocked out everything in her mind. But the icy-cold waters of the river brought it all back. When she open her eyes she saw Ash, who had knocked Gwere to the ground, poised to strike the wizard with a blade in his hand. Ash had the blade in his hand. She looked at her own hands, and found them to be black, but there.

"Ash!" she screamed, as he prepared to strike. "It's a fucting spell!" Mara splashed the river into great gales of water. As the black came off it revealed her own healthy, golden-brown skin. Ash looked around with eyes that should have been sightless. And he could feel the grip of the blade in his hand; a hand that his own blind eyes told him wasn't there. Then he saw the spell. The lines were so fine that they were virtually invisible. All over him, tiny spell lines crawled like ants on a sweet. With a word and a little coaching from the wizard, he put a stop to them, and lowered his blade.

Ash had noticed something else; before the Dral departed, he had given Ash something. The Dral had infused him with power. Ash looked over to Isuair, who just moments ago he had decided to kill, and smiled. The wizard nodded and smiled back.

"Go join your friend in a bath, Stinker." The icy water drove the others out of the river after just moments, but Ash and Mara splashed in it for hours. A crowd gathered as Mara stripped away her under-armor and scrubbed free flesh. Gwere did his best to disperse them, but it was an impossible job even for the big captain. After all the bathing, Rehoak and the wizard built a gigantic fire. It rose to a height rivaling the oak. Erow made coffee and Gractah gathered together their belongings, sending men back to the castle for Mara's armor and Ash's other blade.

"The Dral must have given up the battle between the two of us as lost," Isuair said to the group, "and had used the book, the power he had given Ash, and the black fire spell, to turn Ash, newly infused with deadly force, against me. It almost worked. I would be dead and Ash would be guaranteed a spot among the black wizards! And what better revenge than to have the party kill itself, in front of the king's men. Very amusing," said the wizard while laughing. "Very nice."

"Here's another amusing thought," said Mara, while sipping hot coffee. "Those little fine lines needed some source of power..."

"...making you think, no doubt, that we haven't seen the last of our old friend the Dral," said the wizard with a wink.

The party had regrouped and gathered Ash and Mara a pile of clothes and armor. The garments they had been wearing were black and in tatters, and had an unwholesome feel after their encounter with the Dral. Ash hadn't missed the irony surrounding him and Erow. The Gray Guard sat next to him, still black and inky.

"The king's men dropped tar on me when Linder and I were spies, trying to get the message of the ruse of the Waste Hills to the king. I didn't even realize it," Erow said, "but I remember being burned by the walls. It's impossible to get off." Ash laughed and laughed. He felt better than he had ever felt before. For the first time in his life he felt really alive. He knew the encounter with the Dral must have had something to do with it, but he didn't care. He felt almost drunk; things just seemed more enjoyable, and the world seemed less threatening. He felt powerful. And that was what it was really all about, Ash thought, most everyone's complaint about the world could be distilled down to that one problem, and that one problem alone—lack of power.

He also knew he needed to talk to, and take advice from, the wizard. The change of heart was strange, but he knew it had to be done. He knew it instinctually. He would need to learn about, or he would need to abandon, this new power he had, but for now, he would just enjoy it. One thing was for certain, he thought, no more feuding with the wizard. No more feuding with a wizard that could scare the likes of the Dral into tricks and schemes. His wizard deserved respect.

The party used the large fire to shake off the chill from the river. The enemy again had been driven from the valley, and another victory had gone the king's way. But all was not well. Along with staggering losses before the castle, the enemy had only retreated. There were reports of a large army gathering to the north, and the party did not get much time to play. Erow and Linder were already off tending the dying, and the others were called on to help with war matters. The king summoned Isuair, and this time, Ash was asked to accompany the wizard. It felt like a turning point to Ash, and as he walked with Eye to the king's pavilion, he spoke frankly.

"Isuair, I'm sorry," Ash said. "I'm sorry for everything. I'll do anything you want. I apologize for always treating everything, us, I mean, with..." But Isuair only laughed. After a moment, Ash continued. "I saw, and remember, some of the pages from that book, and I think as the Dral departed, he gave me something," said Ash.

"I guessed there was an exchange in the throne room," Isuair said, "with you as his target. Remember that the spells he spins weave deeply and your perception of that spell will be designed to work for him and him alone, many times in ways you will not be able to see."

As they walked, Ash saw the king's men tending to their tattered army. Wounded lay everywhere. In a field before him Ash saw men toiling with loads. He saw that they carried the bodies. They were being placed in an open field. The wounded were being carried into large groups into a pasture. Entire meadows were filled, stacked with one or the other of the groups. Ash saw that there was a migration from one field to the other. His high spirits quickly fell. The only ballads they would ever sing about this war will be sad songs. They wound around the men and walked as far away from the fields as possible. Ash and the wizard stepped over brush and bracken, and jumped a small stream to keep away from the two camps. Slowly they made their way to a clearing where the king's men had set up a pavilion-style tent, teaming with guards.

"We cannot therefore try to thwart the plans he may have spun," Isuair said, "because that would surely be his design. Whatever we guess, we would guess wrong. So we will bless our good fortune at our escape and look to the days ahead. We are still surrounded by the enemy, and there are more battles to be fought. Use all the tools at your disposal to destroy the enemy, and be faithful to the king. Do this and we should be all right, whatever the tricks the Dral has planned. You have grown tall in the king's eyes, or that is the talk. Use that also, to destroy those that would destroy us, but beware, offer only those ideas that you feel will succeed to the king—you have yet to experience the problems that a bad plan can bring," said the wizard with a wink.

"Could the lines in the book be dangerous? Can they be used? Do you wish to know what I remember?" said Ash.

"Do not tell me the spells, for that magic could have a corrupting influence. But what they do... you may tell me, or show me, that."

"The black fire," said Ash, "I remember the fire." He stood before a scrub, and forced the line in his mind. In the dirt and rock before them, a small whirlwind of black smoke swirled and danced in the bush. Smoke rose up, wavered, and burst toward Ash, setting his leggings and cloak afire. Dashing to the ground, Ash rolled in the dirt, and, with the help of the king's men, was able to stop the fire from consuming all his borrowed clothes.

"I'm all right," he said to the men, trying to shoo them away. As he sat on the ground, brush clawing at his side, he noticed the improvements of the bath were short lived. His clothes were full of holes, and the dirt that had been used to put the fire out now almost completely covered him. He rose and tried to brush off the dust. His eyes met the wizard's. Ash smiled weakly. The old man had not moved from the spot where Ash had tried the spell, and didn't bother to help with the fire. He just stood his ground and watched.

"You remember anything else?" Isuair said, "That may have limited use..."

"I think otherwise. If the enemy attack me, I'll just burst into flames—surely that will be an effective ruse," said Ash. He was still brushing himself off. In the few moments between the bath and this walk, his spirits had dropped, bringing again to his stomach a familiar sick, low feeling. It was that state he hated with a vengeance. The feeling was suffocating, confining, nauseating and made Ash ready to do anything to rid himself of it. It was that feeling that brought his mind down the familiar lane of self-destruction, because that feeling never seemed to stop, it paused, but never really ended.

He had felt clean, heroic, and newly infused with power. Now, he just felt stupid. Perhaps, he thought, the fortunes of magic revolve quickly. He also wondered why he was apologizing to the wizard. All around them was death, caused perhaps by the king and the wizard's own actions, by their own history.

He also felt slightly incompetent as a warrior. He had always had a nagging feeling that he was an impostor, a fairly incompetent fighter, who just happened to hold powerful weapons. Without those weapons, he would be just one of the guards in the back of the army, quietly struggling against the same foes and dangers he faced, but with no glory or recognition.

"I remember a spell that could blacken out an area," Ash said, feeling that a simple description would be enough for now.

"Try it," said the wizard, who, after speaking, took a quick step back. Ash stopped also, and thought about the spell. Pulling the spell he had read from the book into his mind, he wove it around him. As it spread, everything around him went black.

"I'm not sure about you, but I can see just fine," said the wizard. Ash didn't move, fearing he would trip in the brush or fall into the wizard. He tried to stop the spell, but it remained black. When the fog cleared, the wizard stood, leaning on his staff, pulling his own spell back, one that cleared the air all around them.

"Thanks," said Ash, "that, too, may have limited use in battle." The wizard smiled again. They reached the king's tent, and the wizard, amused by the exchange, laughed. "Ash," said the wizard, "were you able to teach the enemy those spells, we would be assured total victory."

Ash woke with the sun in his eyes. A few feet away two cyclists hovered around a drinking fountain, exchanging glances and watching him.

"Hey buddy, you okay?" one of them asked. But Ash didn't answer. His head seemed in a state of suspension. His thoughts came very slowly. He was filled with a vague sense of alarm, but he wasn't sure he wanted to know why. First things first, he thought, and tried to raise himself upright. Pain screamed from every corner of his body. Grit covered half his face, and the exertion of pulling himself up exhausted him, but he managed to get himself to sit up. He tried a couple of deep breaths. Anything deeper than a pant hurt his chest. He was by the fence. Somehow he had rolled all the way down to the channel, thirty yards from the bike park.

"Man, what a bender," he said to no one in particular. The cyclists had already ridden off, and Ash was grateful to be alone. The morning sun shone bright, and it was not welcomed. It made his eyes hurt. His head rang and ached. He caught a whiff of his own breath, and his stomach lurched in a wave of nausea. He was dreadfully thirsty. He looked around; his possessions lay about the little bathroom, clothes were strewn about the little park, and he lay at the bottom of a small hill, his whole being screaming in pain. He rubbed his face and eyes; his skin felt numb and greasy and his eyes were crusty.

It had been a hell of a night. It had been a hell of a battle. The drinking fountain was only yards away but to Ash it seemed a mile. He crawled. But his movements helped, the more he moved the easier it was to get his muscles to respond.

He hugged the drinking fountain for what seemed like hours. Just rising to his feet made his head swim, but he needed the water. He splashed some in his face, and tried to brush the hair out of his eyes by smoothing it back with wet hands. He stumbled back to his roost, gathered up his clothes into a pile, and threw himself down. The sun began to feel warm and comforting. He pulled some of the loose clothes over his head, buried his face into the pile and tried to relax as his body pulsed with pain. He remembered the battle. In moments he was back in oblivion.

"Share this plan with us," said the king, who had heard only part of their conversation. After a look to the wizard, who seemed reluctant to step in and clear the air, Ash addressed the king himself.

"We were musing about spells I learned that set me on fire, saying that we should teach them to the enemy, My Liege," Ash said with a bow. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the wizard grinning. "Can we hear from your men, and know the wishes of his Royal Majesty in the battles that lie ahead? We have the castle back, yes?"

"We do, but it is not fit to house us," said the king. "Perhaps that will change, but for now we stay here. The enemy was pushed back into the north valley, but we have reports from our scouts that they land more and more men, even now as we speak." Seeming to forgo protocol, the king was planning the battles himself.

"Have you reports of the prince?" asked Ash. The king looked to a captain next to him, who spoke.

"Three days, maybe four," said the captain.

"Then I suggest we not wait, but attack the enemy now. We send word for the prince to follow as quickly as he can," said Ash. A moment later Gwere and Gractah, followed by a senior advisor of the king, entered the tent. They were carrying a large map.

"Your Majesty, a few points of interest, from Captain Gwere," said the advisor. The king and Isuair, followed by Ash, helped Gwere spread the map onto the war table.

"The enemy is landing on the entire coast," said Gwere. "But here, here and here are landing points where armies do not mass. There are no towns or villages in either of these areas. However, all three are close to rivers."

"Supply lines," said the king, Isuair and Ash, together.

"Which is why they took Adlia first," said Isuair. "It lies at the mouth of both the Robien-Sinros and the René Rivers."

"We can win many a battle, but if we want to really hurt them, we need to strike them here, at all three points," Gwere said. "What did you figure out?" the captain asked Ash.

"Attack now," said Ash. Feeling the plan lacked complexity, he added, "...and hope the prince brings reinforcements."

"Good," Gwere said. "Keep them busy. Keep the whole damn enemy army busy, Ash. We'll get to these areas. We may be able to cause all sorts of problems for these guys, but we'll need the majority of the enemy army off our backs," Gwere said.

"None of this 'we' stuff," said the wizard. "You may send your men, Gwere, any that you like, but the party stays together. We hit the enemy with the army, the group, and with Ash out in front," said Isuair.

"With..." began Ash.

"Consider that a standing order," said the king. There was a pause when the king looked to each man, but none had any more to offer. Soon after the call rang out through the camp—the army was to move.

"What have you and the wizard been up to, Ash?" Mara asked. She stood under the big tree, shaking out her hair. The party had managed to round up dry meats and grain, and, Ash saw, Mara had somehow retrieved her bag from the castle—in it lay potatoes. His bag, too, now lay before him. She shoved it toward him with her foot. Somehow she had scrounged real food, and as they packed, she showed off their new provisions and asked him about the meeting. She was shining. The bath only revealed more of her intoxicating form.

"We made grand plans," said Ash. "Our troubles are over."

"You've got quite the following, with the king, and now his men."

"Great, I'll let them all stand in front during the actual fighting," he said, "and as long as I'm making all the plans, I feel that I am much better suited to direct the actual battles from afar, where I may see the whole strategic picture better. Please pass these orders on down the line... thanks."

"They realized their mistake the moment you opened your mouth, didn't they?" said Mara.

"Don't be ridiculous, we thought up great plans and brilliant strategies, foolish girl." Mara had yet to re-armor. Her loose shirt moved with the rise and fall of her breathing, and her mischievous smile inspired powerful emotions within the manic. Pictures flashed in his mind of the kiss they shared, and part of him called for more.

"So what's the new plan?" said Mara.

"Well, see, we charge after the enemy, in a hopeless attempt to stop them at our shores. But, moreover, we get the chance to get killed, over and over again, until just the odds of any of us making it through the day, much less the week, are astronomical," Ash said.

"Genius," said Mara, who had completed her packing, re-armored, and was ready to depart. She fell in line with the others, and in step with the rest of the army. Ash fastened his sack around his shoulder and leaped to catch up with them. Rehoak and Linder walked in front, talking quietly and holding a map. Gwere and Gractah followed them. Ash and Mara brought up the rear, with Erow next to them. He had told them of a rumor that the major battle was going to be fought on the shores of the sea, where the enemy had its largest camps. The king had been turned back at that very spot, and now had fewer and certainly more tired, men.

"But," added Erow, "with our new strategist over here," he said, casting an eye to Ash, "we can succeed where the last army failed. What say you, Ash? Ready to turn the tide for the king?"

"We didn't talk about all that much," Ash said. "If we can get to the seemingly endless supply of fresh enemy forces, that we are told come ashore almost hourly, and destroy them, then somehow defeat those who have already landed, we'll be fine."

"I feel better already," said Mara.

Trudging slowly over the brush and rock, Ash tried to savor the moment as they walked. For a great many of them, this day could be their last. He tried to see the trees, he tried to see the branches and the leaves, he tried to smell the rich woody air, he tried to remember those around him. The king's men walked with pride in large orderly rows, and Ash could still see groups of the Cave People around. But they were small groups. He studied his own group, one by one, and tried to memorize how each looked and sounded.

Mara just stared back at him, but Ash saw a young woman, clad in armor, her long brown hair just a shade darker than her skin, effortlessly carrying her weapons. She had pulled her hair back and tied it with a piece of leather into a ponytail. Tall, in high boots, she walked with her shoulders squared, and moved with the confidence of a soldier. Her arms and shoulders were bare, and underneath her Mara armor Ash could just make out some of her finely tuned physique.

Ash saw Linder and Rehoak talking, and as they walked, Linder pointed out landmarks along the way. The tall blonde warrior stood a clear three inches above Rehoak, making them an odd couple. As she walked, she picked daisies and fastened them into a chain. She already wore two of the flower necklaces, and Rehoak now wore one that clashed with his orange-gray beard and wide chest. Gwere stood out in his special uniform, almost as much as his oversized body did among the regular men. With him was Gractah, the king's Elite Guard dressed all in black. Though his uniform was disheveled, and hardly black anymore, he still seemed to carry about him an air of dignity. His size, being average, belied the strength he wielded in battle. Both men were known for their skill as soldiers, and both were highly respected. Ash watched as Gractah held his arms high, then assailed Gwere with an invisible sword. Gwere only shook his head.

With a full day's march ahead, and the prospect of a large enemy stronghold in front of them, the party continued on with lowered spirits. Not knowing exactly why, Ash stayed close to Mara most of the way, their arms almost touching. At first she gave him curious glances, then she just seemed to ignore him. For these few moments at least, he wished to be close to at least one other human being.

At dusk the party came upon a ridge line in the northwestern side of the castle valley. On that ridge they could see the entire enemy army. In the fading light they could make out tents, machines, boats and an almost endless swatch of dark mass. Ash looked back upon the king's army, it too lay as a broad swatch, but at half the size of the enemy. He looked back at the enemy and thought of charging through on a mount, swinging the blades. The thought, along with the sight of the enemy before him, made him lurch, and his heart plunged.

Not ready to face a battle at that moment, and wishing to again discuss the plans for the assault, the king called for a halt. His army camped in a hollow on the other side of the valley. The party made camp in the dark. They were prohibited from making fires. It was bitter cold. To keep his limbs moving Ash climbed a nearby hill, and was soon joined by Mara.

"See anything interesting?" she asked. The hill was tall enough to look upon the entire valley. Scouts had also picked the hill to observe the enemy, but they left Ash alone. Mara was asked to prove she had business on the slope when she tried to gain the hill. For his request a guard had hit the ground hard.

"Do you see that tent? The one by the sea?" Ash asked.

"It has the sea to protect it and it's big," said Mara. Ash tossed a stick at one of the scouts, who responded with a momentary angry look, then approached. Mara recognized him, but couldn't remember from where. But Ash did remember him. He was a lieutenant by the name of Velorant, whom he pushed to the ground after the king's men got slaughtered on the Waste Hills. Velorant had kept asking him questions, and he just snapped. That memory seemed so very far away to Ash, and he hoped that it seemed equally distant to Velorant.

"That tent there..." said Ash, "does it seem busier than the other places in the camp?"

"Surely," Velorant said, "we have marked it as a command tent, perhaps a key to their camp." Velorant had a great gash over one eye, and his face was slashed and with a wound that would scar him for life if he survived the war. The eye was half closed and leaking.

Ash was about to say something that would make his momentary fit of temper back at the king's camp seem more understandable, when Velorant moved away. The gash made Ash's eyes water with sadness. For some reason, it seemed easier to accept death than it was to accept an ugly wound on a young soldier. Ash rose, and approached Velorant.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry for that push. I know you had your guard down." With that, Ash walked out into the blackness, and toward the enemy encampment.

"Ash, Ash..." said Mara, catching him in the dark. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Down," said Ash. To his surprise, Velorant joined him. It was then that Mara noticed something that had been bothering her—Ash and Vel were similar in appearance, in fact, they could have been mistaken for twins.

"I, too, have no wish to stay," Velorant said. "We are all ready... I am loath to wait. You wish to gain that tent, no? Two can travel as easily as one," said the guard in a whisper. In the darkness, only glimmers of their faces could be seen, but Ash was sure Mara winced.

"As a king's guard," Mara said to Velorant, "you know well what leaving your post means, even if our idiotic friend here, doesn't."

"He's right, Stinker," said Ash, staring at Mara. "Right now that doesn't mean anything. I cannot bear this," Ash said. He spread his hands out for Mara and gestured around. "At worst, we fight them. At best we just die a few hours earlier. But at least we miss this night." In the blackness, Ash could just make out a smile on the face of Velorant.

"Do us a favor, stay here and tell the others," Ash said, as he and Velorant began making their way down the hill.

"I don't think so," Mara said as she ran back to the hilltop. "Hey," she whispered to a scout, "tell the others, that Ash, Mara and... and... El-orant or something, saw a weak spot, a tent, and headed down to the enemy camp." Then she was off, leaping over brush and thickets and on into the night.

"I need money, and I need it now..." Ash said to the bathroom. He woke again atop his pile of stuff. A complete search of his pile revealed an empty gin bottle and not much else. He had no money and nothing in the pile of clothes fit him. It looked as if he had stolen someone's laundry. But now, he needed oblivion supplies.

His head rang, he was sick, and every inch of his body was badly bruised. But he knew a drink could deliver him. He knew a drink would fix him. He used a blue blanket with an airline logo on it to prop up his head. He needed booze. He also needed food, a sleeping bag, and warmer clothes. He could then travel to one of his more secluded, safer spots and switch sides. But first he would need money. Scanning the bike path, Ash waited. He probably looked bad enough to make a few handouts right off. Ash knew the worse he looked, the easier it was to get a pity donation. But no one came. That's when he saw it. In the grass lay a bottle. Dashing to the treasure, Ash picked it up. A tiny snail crawled on the label, but four inches of liquid sloshed around behind the dark green glass. It smelled like sour grapes, which probably meant that it was a discarded bottle and not urine or motor oil. A quick taste would tell. It tasted like wine.

Every pore opened in Ash's body, and a light sheen of sweat covered all his skin, as he wiped the last drop from his lips. Soon a cyclist came into view. Ash rose and prepared to get the man's attention. He was desperate to get the man to stop. He would step into the trail if he had to. But he didn't have to. The cyclist came to a skidding stop next to him, pulled out a small pouch from inside his cyclist outfit, and gave it to Ash without either exchanging a word. The rider then sped off. The pouch contained forty-six dollars, the man's driver's license and his credit card. Just like magic, Ash was back in business. Ash rose, swaying on his feet. He rounded the corner of the bathroom and tried the door. He found it locked. On the path, beside the bathroom, were two boys. The younger, which Ash guess was about six-years-old, smiled at Ash.

"I guess you'll just have to pee in the bushes," the lad said. Ash nodded and smiled.

A messenger from the king climbed the hill, and was asking around the camp for the members of the party, looking for Ash. "He is bid to join the king and the Captains of the Army," said the messenger. But the scouts only stared toward the enemy camp. After a moment, one pointed down the hill. None spoke.

The king's army, some eating, some preparing their battle-gear, some bedding for sleep, all seemed restless. Few would get rest, for if guard or war duty didn't disturb them, the fear and the horrors of the tomorrows which lay before them surely would.

"This is so stupid," said Mara, as she hurried to catch Ash and Velorant. No warrior need seek death, honor in battle demanded that you avoid it to fight again and again, and perish only after it as inevitable. Until then a soldier's duty was to take as many enemy lives as possible. "But what do I know?" she said. It was ironic, of all the soldiers, she would probably have been the only one of them to get a full night's sleep.

But lack of sleep became the least of her problems. She could not find Ash or Velorant. It had grown dark when she descended into the thick brush of the hillside, and she had lost the men.

In the blackness, she sensed the figure approach her from the rear. She had drawn her weapon long ago, and now only waited to strike. But instead of an attack she felt something pelt her. A pebble or a small stick perhaps, she thought, and smiled. Ash appeared out of the night, and he was grinning. She noticed he had a knack for smiling at all the wrong times. She poised to speak, to try and talk sense to him, when Ash sped off, racing toward the enemy. Mara now could follow easily as they approached the camp, for even in the distance she could see the lights of the enemy army. The two figures before her, Ash and Vel, were shadows against a backdrop of a score of fires. Mara no longer thought this idea folly. An enemy that brazened, that they would burn so many bright fires, with a foe so close behind, would need to be schooled. Ash was right, if they could get to that tent, they could teach them a bit about respect.

Ash, Mara and Velorant paused on the outskirts of the enemy camp. The way looked easy enough, for there were no guards, and the watch fires were spaced far enough apart that they might move about in the semi-darkness undetected. It seemed too easy.

"... this is another invitation..." Ash said. After threading their way through the thickets and brush, they came across a stream that ran out of the hills. Slowly they made their way into the plain, while following the stream. They traveled quietly and quickly, and were not detected by the enemy. As they neared the enemy camp, the stillness became disquieting. They crept forward, crouching in the night. There were no guards, no scouts, and a clear path to the camp. Mara and Ash looked at each other, and Mara frowned. Ash only nodded.

"See ya later, Stinker," he said.

Ash stood up, and strolled toward the camp. The Mara followed, with Velorant bringing up the rear. Mara studied the closest fire. It was unmanned. A fire that burned for the spirits alone, she thought. Mara and Ash were walking into the camp now, side by side, almost daring the enemy to detect them, when horns sounded. Trumpets rang out in the night.

Then out of the night, came the chargers. Mounted knights, riding in formation, were driving toward them. About a two dozen, Mara figured, and they were drawing near. She brought forth her broadsword. Velorant also drew his weapon. Ash waited for the pop. All three stood, thinking this would be their last fight, when the knights halted. At twenty feet away, all the knights came to a stop, chomping and stamping, until, after a moment, one spurred his mount forward. "Lord Ash, again we offer you our hospitality," called the rider, from a distance. Too great a distance to do him harm, saw Ash. The three stood, facing the knights, silently. Then, after an awkward moment, Ash and Mara strode forward. Velorant followed. As they approached the knights, the riders pulled back their mounts, and created a path for their guests. Behind the knights, Ash saw, were hundreds of enemy soldiers.

After the bushes, Ash inventoried his windfall—forty-six dollars and a credit card. The wine buzz had begun to fade as quickly as it came, but Ash still tried to use the time to sort out his ringing head. Items needed for a ticket to oblivion; warm clothes, sleeping bag, isolated spot, booze. He sorted through the pile of clothes, hastily trying on each piece. Those that fit, he saved, tying them into a tight bundle. Those that didn't he stuffed into a trash can. Among the pile Ash found a hooded sweatshirt. He tied his jacket around the bundle and pulled the sweatshirt over his head and put the hood up. It hid his shaggy hair. He smoothed his beard the best he could, and began to walk, carrying his bundle under his arm. He felt respectable enough to venture into the public domain. Less than a mile away was one of his favorite thrift shops, and not far from that was a department store that sold camping gear. If he hurried he could do his shopping and get some booze

before the wine fully wore off, and the shakes began.

At the thrift store Ash bought an army jacket, jeans, a knit cap and gloves. He put the clothes on before attempting the department store. The sleeping bag cost him twenty bucks, and Ash splurged by buying a small stove. The clerk was snotty, and she handed him his bag while pulling herself away from him at the same time. Ash was sure that if he had looked back he would have seen the girl holding her nose in a 'that's a bad smell' gesture. But Ash didn't look back, he didn't have too, he had everything he needed right under his arm. He grabbed a shopping cart and filled it with his clothes, sleeping bag and supplies. He would make one more stop at the liquor store. He had six bucks left, certainly enough for oblivion, but he was going to try something. He was going to try the card. The name on the credit card was Daryl Jay Mildred. Well, Mr. Mildred, the next trip to oblivion is on you. And Ash was planning on buying a lot of booze, for big battles lay ahead.

Chapter 2

"They seem to be waiting for me," Ash said, "perhaps now would be a good time for you two to change your mind." But Mara just laughed. Ash knew Mara, and her response was no surprise, but thought Velorant must be given the chance to rethink his choice. But Velorant marched on.

"Vel, turn around..." Mara said from the corner of her mouth. She, like Ash, faced forward and walked. But the guard shook his head, and took his place behind Ash and Massali.

The enemy parted as they walked, and closed as they passed. The enemy was not threatening them, only leading the way. Some yards ahead stood the very tent they had spied on from the hill above. Though the enemy was all around them, Ash knew with the skill of the Mara, and his own prowess as a killer, they could bring down a great many of them before the end. Before their end, thought Ash.

But Ash feared even the knives couldn't stand up against an entire army. As they approached the tent, Ash could almost feel the anticipation in the air. This meeting had been planned for a while, and he was expected.

Ash passed a watch fire, close enough to feel the heat glowing from the coals, and at once saw the tent looming ahead of them. It was much larger than it looked from the hill. Once a king's pavilion, up close, it looked aged and seedy. The color of the canvas was faded; the once bright fabric was almost gray. Shadows of those inside played and jumped around on the walls.

Those shadows would have business with them. And that business would eventually need to address their plight—two of the king's warriors strolling into the invading army camp. As Ash approached the tent, attendants pulled aside the canvas, and he entered. In the dim lamplight of the interior of the tent, Ash could see a figure standing to greet them.

"Ash..." The black robed figure said, and it sounded like a hiss through the pale thin lips of the Dral. "My dear sweet Asss..." A moment later the blades, silent for so long, popped.

"Well, where the hell are they?" Linder was growing agitated and had begun pacing their camp. With no fire Erow just sat, his back to a log. "Wait until Gwere and Rehoak get back," Erow said, "and then we will at least know what the king's men know." He was practicing a habit he picked up from Ash—breaking a small stick into smaller pieces.

Ash and Mara had disappeared shortly after they made camp. Often the group went about their own duties, gathering wood, scrounging food or taking care of personal business, so they were not missed until later in the night. Rehoak had been the first to ask about them, and had set off to the groups of the king's men, inquiring about the two warriors. Gwere soon followed. Someone suggested that it was possible they were busy with battle preparations or out among the king's men. Erow knew that was unlikely, for, of the party, they were the most withdrawn—their aloofness almost bordered on phobia. Neither Ash nor Mara talked to anyone except the group unless it was absolutely necessary, and as long as he and Linder, the two most gregarious members of the party were present, they wouldn't be twenty feet from the king's men. Any information they needed was just brought up before the group and invariably someone would say, "Hey, that's a good question," and run off to ask the nearest guard.

It wasn't, as many assumed, snobbery. The truth was that Ash and Mara lacked social skills. Neither had friends. Both spent most of their time alone. There was something in their early development that was missing—neither learned to enjoy the company of others. The two warriors knew this. They also knew that only among the group did this character defect not show. In social situations they had to act, to literally pretend, that they did not abhor social interaction. They most heartily did. And accordingly, they stayed away from people.

But most of the time Ash knew more, usually much more, than any of the men. They had gone off, and Gwere and Rehoak asking around seemed just a formality. What Erow couldn't guess, was why. The party stayed together. Through good times and bad, they stayed together. Unless Mara and Ash had decided that they'd had enough and decided to do something foolish. The king's men were already grumbling about the possibility that they had deserted, but Erow knew that idea was just ridiculous. The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that they had gone into the enemy camp to reap the mischief that was death—the enemy's, and perhaps, their own. It was them, it was them in every way. Ash had begun having nightmares every night. His victory at the castle had been short lived. He had set himself on fire. He had been made a fool, and a tool of the dark wizard, and only Isuair's calm had saved them. All talked of the Dral having survived.

And more importantly, Ash had begun to weep again. When nobody was looking, or when he walked alone, the man wept. None could bring an answer for this, he would smile so fast, but the moment he turned his head the smile fled and the waterworks came. From any other warrior this would have meant death, or worse, kitchen-duty. But the group was skilled at ignoring, and even covering, for it. There were reasons why they often walked in front of Ash.

There was also the arrows and the spears. During the conflicts most got their share of dodging the bolts and lances of the enemy. One absolutely could not help but flinch. Most dove or fled. But Ash didn't duck. Ash didn't move. It wasn't just blind faith, Ash was waiting for the strike to hit its mark.

And Mara, well, Mara was just Mara. She would do it because she would think an army against her alone would be fair enough odds. In the moonlight, Erow began to pack.

"What do you think you're doing?" Linder asked.

"They've gone down to the camp, I feel certain that they were restless..."

"Restless? Restless? We're all restless, so you think that made them just decide to go down to the enemy? To do what?" she asked.

"What they always do, fight," Erow said.

"That would be suicide," said Linder.

"That's why they went without us," said Gractah. Linder noticed he too was packing.

"That's just crazy, you two just decide that they would go off on some fool mission..." Before she had finished, Gwere and Rehoak rejoined the group.

"Good, you're packing. They set off for the camp. They told a guard that Velorant, one of the king's men, had joined them. They were going to attack a tent they figured was the command post for the army. A pre-attack strike, you might say," said Gwere.

"Or suicide," said Erow, and though the big captain seemed to wince, he did not respond. "Gwere, do you think..."

"End of discussion! the king's men have confirmed that they headed down the hill, and I, for one, will follow. Do what you want. That's it." Gwere did what he always did; he barked orders. Usually, however, he did it without a quavering voice. In moments they were off, heading down the hill and toward the valley and the enemy encampment.

There, in all his glory, stood the Dral. The last time Ash had seen the wizard, the Dral was in pieces. That had seemed too real for the Dral to be before him now. But then, the spell that made he and Mara appear burned also seemed real. From the side a man approached Ash.

"I am only an advisor for the Great Lord with whom you now speak," said the man before them. "I have no powers and I am unarmed." He spoke in quick succession, as if the information was critical and timely. The man was younger than the Dral's last emissary and carried a lofty air about him. The man was some kind of officer. Ash could read an insignia on his uniform, MPN 53. "I pose no threat to you, and my death would simply be murder," he said. In his hands he clutched a black, leather-bound book. It was the book of spells the Dral had in the castle. As the man approached with the book, the Dral eased himself into a chair atop a dais in the center of the tent. Ash could hear the rumbling of the massive army outside, but it was only the four of them in the pavilion. Vel was stationed outside.

"I want to show you something..." said the man. He approached cautiously. He set the book on a table in front of Ash, and cracked it open. He looked up after he found his page. "So we meet at last," the man said, almost as an afterthought. "Funny, I imagined you different—bolder, taller, and more manly..."

"Woof, woof," said Ash. He moved around the table, ostensibly to look at the book. As he passed the advisor he pulled one of the blades through the man. The man fell in two parts onto the tent floor. "...for thee a closer look at my resume was definitely warranted," whispered Ash. Never taking his eyes off the Dral, he spoke once more. His voice was soft and clear.

"Hi-ya, Sweetcheeks, that was a pretty funny joke, there, at the castle." They faced each other, the Dral in his impromptu throne and Ash before him. Ash appeared taunt and ready, shaking, trembling, but the Dral too seemed ready, his long hands dangling, fingers moving restlessly, over his long black cloak.

Ash, on impulse, put one of his blades back into its sheath. Then he tried to secure the clip. It closed, suggesting that there was no immediate danger to his person. He sheathed the other, knowing it would be tactically sound to have them pop, when (not if, he mused,) he was in mortal danger. The pop had an interesting effect; in less than a heartbeat he was ready for an attack with a rush of adrenaline sweeping through his body.

"Two roads lead from this moment," said Ash.

Ash used to battle at home. He remembered the addiction started while he still lived with his parents. Fights between he and his mom were frequent. Abusing alcohol was a way for Ash to exercise some form of defiance, some perverted form of independent will. Ash drank to punish his mom. When his mom scolded him for his drinking or forbid it, Ash had two reasons to drink; his growing addiction and as a weapon in the war of wills with his parent. Ash's dad did not interfere. He would console Ash, urging him to exercise restraint, but he did not join sides. To Ash, it seemed his parents invented the Good-Cop Bad-Cop routine.

Taking drink after drink, Ash began to grow. He began to harden. He began to shake off the petty filth of the machine world and he began to breathe. His eyes went from glassy to ice-blue. He began to straighten. Another drink and he grew taller and more muscled. But more than just the physical transformation, Ash began to change the way he saw the world and the monsters before him. His foes began to shrink, and the fear they inspired changed too. With the power coursing though his veins, he became harder than his foes. Fear became his teammate—it was not that he was immune to it, it was that this power became an ally. Fear made one strong. It was the difference. It was power. When fear became embraceable, when it became fuel, it became a weapon. When it created a high, fear became love. Ash took another drink and reveled in the brazen comments he had just delivered to the Dral. He smiled and took another drink. Tonight, Love, one of us dies.

"Three, actually," said the Dral. "Do you think, you loathsome drunkard, that you—who can barely keep yourself upright most of the time, do you think you have any real chance against me?" asked the Dral. He straightened and gazed at Ash with incredulous eyes. "Do you even now have the presence of mind to contemplate the true reality that lies before you?" Dark and vacuous, the Dral's eyes stared at Ash. Then he looked for a moment at the large stain spreading from his last advisor, and his eyes grew blacker still.

"I do not drink, and have no trouble standing," Ash said. "See..." Ash took a step to the left, and then to the right. "...almost like I've been trained." But his voice was quiet and pensive.

"You separate yourself from the one in the machine world... humm?" asked the Dral. "Don't be ridiculous," the wizard said. "He is you, and you are he. What you do, he does, and likewise." The Dral rose, and reached for a wineskin hanging on the side of his chair. Dangling with it was a carved metal cup. "Are you not a pitiful, weak soul? Are you not powerless over the simplest of life's pleasures, such... as... a... cup... of... wine? If not, have a draught, prove to me that you are a man, prove to me that you are not what I say—like you had when you did your little dance just then. Prove to me that the drunkard lives only in your dreams." The Dral was menacing now, gliding toward him. Ash took a step back. The Dral set the cup on the little table next to Ash, placing it beside the Black Book. "Prove to me that the drunkard does NOT stand before me now."

"Wrong on all counts," said Mara. She slid between the two men. "At the entrance of the Gorge, we all partook in the wine brought by Erow, all of us. And Ash, if you even consider touching that poison I will slay you myself," Mara said. She had watched as Ash secretly dumped his wine during their Gorge feast, and knew Gractah had poked the bag, letting the spirits leak out. She knew it was one of the things they looked for, that they worried about, but Ash had always taken care of the matter himself. He kept it quiet, so their group did also. Now, she would stand for him. She would do this, for she stood in front of her Ash.

"Is that right, Ash? Did you drink wine at the Gorge?" asked the wizard. "Does this cup not draw you, and did you not resist then, as now? Speak, for I will take whatever word you offer as the truth. Just say yea or nay." Ash stood by the table, the book, and the cup, for what seemed like hours, in silence.

"Ash..." said Mara, "search your heart, you have all the tools you need to stand before this..." Her sentence never finished. The Dral had raised his hand and silenced her.

"Quiet for now, Mar-bitch." He had come around Mara and now stood before Ash. "Ash, stop this foolishness," said the Dral. His voice was kind. It was soft. There was no edge, no violence—just a pressing request. "Come to where you belong. Where you are loved. Where you are one and where you will be empowered. My friend, that man you just took from us was about to show you a spell that could let you drink from this cup, and thousands more, and never, ever, lose control." Then, in a louder voice, the Dral called, "...is that not what you have been hungering for your whole life?" He turned, looking at Ash askew, and sighed.

"I too, see a few roads before us," the Dral said. "One, you take that book, for I am slowly failing and need a successor. You, my friend, as that successor, would make the finest Lord in all the history of this land. You would dwarf everyone, even the armies of the Alannas, which, by the way, will win this war," the Dral said. "But you could be like me. I rule at will. I have transcended right and wrong. Nobody judges this," he said, holding his arms out for Ash to behold him. "But there is much to be learned, young one. Your skills and discipline could take you far. And it has taken some discipline to stay sober all these years, has it not, Ash? Your control would make you a true master. Those who fail in the dark simply have no mastery over their own desires. You do. And, there is so much of the dark you could use. Use it! There is much in the dark that you love, am I not correct, Ash?" The Dral pointed to the book. He thumped a finger on its cover. "The last chapter of this book will even tell you what happens in the afterlife. Think of it, do you not want to know what secret fate awaits you? That secret will set you free, son, and give you a power, a true power that Isuair and the kings of this land can only dream about. What decisions would you make right now if you knew exactly where you go from here, after you die? God? Heaven? Hell? Rebirth? Nothing?" asked the Dral. Again he sighed, as if he were trying to teach music to a deaf pupil.

"You are right, young man," said the Dral, as if reading his mind, "you could slay me, but I am empowered by the knowledge of the path that lies before me—after I shed this mortal coil. After! While Isuair and the rest of you wallow in uncertainty, I make plans. You are left only to hope or guess of some great reward for you, and some terrible punishment for your enemies, if you lead a good life. But you can never be sure. Do you want to know, once and for all, that fate?" the Dral asked. "Think, Ash, Think! Think of what I hold out for you, power over drink and the knowledge of the gods... everything... your deepest desires!" the Dral said. "There! Take the book! TAKE THE BOOK!" Ash saw the book was in reach.

Ash saw the book was moving. The cover was churning, swimming with life, calling on him to play. 'Play the game, Ash,' said the voice. The smell of the wine, which Ash knew was untainted, drifted to him in waves. With each draft hung a new scent; rose, lilac, gardenia—the wine permeated the room with a bouquet wide with pleasure and seduction. Ash knew the truth when it was spoken to him. He did not doubt that the wine was pure, that the book was all the Dral foretold, and that his boots now crumbled upon the loose dirt at the edge of a great precipice. But Ash just stood with his head bowed.

"That's enough..." Mara said. But again she froze, her sword naked and still in the dim light. Unable to decide, Ash did what he always did. He did nothing. It was true that the dreams were part of his reality, part of him, and that the cup of wine might only be the first of many uncontrolled drinks. But he didn't know. It was true he had made a pact with himself to never test it, to never consume the beverage. He drank only water, coffee and the children's drink, non-alcoholic honey-mead, in the inns. But the Dral was correct; Ash feared mastery of drink. The dreams kept him away from it. The terror of the nightmares stayed his hand in all cases. He kept away by simply doing nothing. If he did nothing, long enough, Ash knew he would eventually get bored and moved on. He would move on, and the wine stayed in the cup, like in the Gorge, where at the end of the meal he quietly tossed it out. But this time, there was someone watching. The Dral, not much more than a skeleton with skin stretched around its bones, waited.

"Pick up the book, Ash," the Dral said. The wizard then pulled back his robes to reveal his blades. The carved handles, the black sheaths, the lettering, all matched Ash's exactly. Ash knew these blades were a formidable force against one's enemies, and that, in a moment, his opponent would wield them against him. And his enemy was also proficient in magic. The Dral pulled back his thin lips and smiled. He whispered. "There really is no choice here, is there? One last time... pick up the book and drink form the cup."

"...mortals..." Ash whimpered, and he steadied his hands above the knives like a gunslinger. As the word left his lips, Ash heard both sets pop. He could feel the monster ahead of him more than see him. Ash could feel the spell the Dral had begun; the evil wizard had been weaving it throughout the room. It was meant to be a distraction, and during that distraction, the wizard would spring with the blades. Soon, Ash would be dead. He might get past the blades, he might get past the spell, but trying to get past both would prove him mortal.

But he had something he wanted to try with these, this last breath. He had a trick he learned with the knives, and now seemed a good time for its debut. Speaking to the air, not knowing if the words meant anything or not, Ash spoke to the dark.

"Goodbye Massali," Ash said. He closed his eyes and finished the thought. "I love you very much."

There was a power in the blades beside that found in combat. The clumsy slashing and cutting used in battle was the least of their magic. Their real power lie in a bonding of the blades with their holder. It was a marriage and a dance. The only way Ash could describe this union with the blades was that it was similar to listening to inspiring music. The blades could move the holder. Ash had practiced this dance to raise his sprits when he was depressed, which was almost everyday in his lone travels. He practiced it alone, up until he had met Mara and her friends.

But it had always been in front of an imaginary foe, not this, not before a Master. The dance was fun. It was a ballet. It was a swim in a warm, undulating ocean. It was a soft blanket and a fire. It was trust. The holder of the blades just gave in to their power. Rhythmic and flowing, the blade dance was magic.

It was time to do that dance one last time. With his eyes still closed, Ash could feel the wizard hesitate as he began, as if this was something he had not foreseen. As he moved, whirling the blades before him, Ash thought of his spells. He brought the fire and the blackness. There was nothing else to see anyway.

Outside the tent the guards stood with their backs to the canvas. Their stoic stance was broken by a flash that temporarily blinded them. The tent began to pulse while the guards scrambled in the dark. With the pulse came heat. Stepping away from their positions, the guards turned to the pavilion. The force came again, followed by thunder. Again and again the thunder came, and the guards were forced to abandon their positions. The tent began to radiate and burn. A lone guard dared to pull back the entrance flaps, but inside only white fire reigned.

With his eyes open Ash had beheld a sight. He perceived a shriveled man, standing in the dim light of the tent, his thin fingers flicking rudimentary spells. But in the dark, with his eyes closed, the Dral became clear. He now saw a large and powerful warlord—tall, handsome, noble, casting many spells about, pacing the tent as a pride master lion would his harem. This, too, was the black fanged creature Ash had seen before, but he was regal and unbent. He moved with deliberate grace. And, Ash saw where his enemy planned to strike. Like a chess game, Ash saw the moves a dozen places in front of the game. And he saw the one that would sink a blade deep into his own chest. They would come together, and the Dral would kill him.

It was then that Ash changed. He gave up the ghost. Just as he was able to go from benevolent observer to bloodthirsty madman, Ash now switched from player to... debris. Relief, intoxicating in its consumption of his being, flooded his mind in a stunning release from the drudgery of the body. Freedom. 'Kiss this,' the voice said, 'love this, Sweetness, it is the final step.' Ash listened. Closer and closer the wizard came. The Dral was dancing also, and it seemed a far more beautiful dance than the one Ash practiced. Ash let go. They came together, and the Dral slid his blade into him.

Ash felt the cold steel and clinched his teeth. Here the story would at last end. The wine, the fear, the pain, the questions, the horror, the dreams, the weeping—the curtain could now fall on the evil that was character shortcomings.

With a small smile Ash spread his arms and drew the Dral into a deep embrace. He was grateful. He took the Dral and held him tight. He saw the spell lines in the air, including his own fire and blackness spells, and in his mind he let them go. He freed them, and at the same time he freed the dance. He encouraged the father to loose the child and the spells began to grow. They flourished and began to create in and of themselves. They, too, began to dance. As the spells wove about in the room the fire began to rage in earnest. Flames burned all around them, leaping from object to object. The tent began to burn, and a blackness, complete in its vacuum of light, spread.

He stopped taking breaths. Two single tears ran down his cheeks. Isuair, Gwere, Mara, Linder, Rehoak, Gractah, Erow, the king and the prince ran before his mind as he said goodbye. He clenched tighter, he fueled the fire, and it raged. Around him the spells began to thunder. Flames raced. The table on which the book lay, burned, the floor, where they stood, burned, the wizard, who he embraced, burned.

Again the plan went awry for the Dral. That detail, that detail, his mind screamed; "Instead of the catcher, we have found ourselves the caught—we changed Eye's spell," his mind screamed, "we brought the old one." Mortals, mortals, mortals. Panic reigned in his mind.

"We brought the suicide one. We weren't supposed to bring the suicide one, that was Eye meddling with us in his study—we were supposed to kill the one in the machine... Never go to Eye's study... seat of power... Monks... We brought the suicide one. We brought the suicide one. The one in the Machine world still breathes... We brought the suicide one..."

Trying to free himself, the Dral made another mistake. For the second time he overlooked the Mara. She watched as Ash stopped spinning his blades and dropped them. He made no effort to move from the path of the Dral's blade. Instead he clenched the Dral tight in a locked embrace and the steel of the wizard vanished in him.

But the fiery embrace did not suit the Dral. He was not ready to go. When the Dral began to struggle, Mara felt the holding spell on her weaken. She heard a word screamed in silent panic—suicide. Suicide. Suicide. Suicide. She could move again, but only with great effort. She found herself sobbing. A flash of temper, caused by all that lay about, finally freed her. Mara brought her sword up and with all her might brought it down on the wizard's Black Book. The little table shattered and the book fell into the fires that burned all around them. In that moment, in that distracting moment, as his precious book hit the flames, Ash took the Dral's life.

With a wail, Ash pulled into the Dral's back, and ripped the beast apart with his own hands. Screaming, the Dral broke apart in Ash's big paws. The tent thundered and blazed. Ash wailed. It came from the bottommost of yearnings, it came from deep within his heart. It destroyed the silence. When Ash stopped screaming, black pieces of a charred, coal-skinned, fanged, black-eyed creature lay in parts on the floor. The wizard was no more. The strategy of abandonment. Suicide was inconceivable to the Dral, for the wizard had many plans, but Ash had only one, and that plan was swiftly coming to pass. Ash felt his life slipping away. He clutched the spot on his chest where the knife had slid in. He wasn't bleeding, but knew the knife went all the way through. Instead of pain, there was an odd feeling of displacement, of disparity, of disconnection.

Mara was holding him on the ground. His mind raced; she was holding him and he hadn't noticed. The blade had been withdrawn, and he hadn't noticed that either. There was so much to say, there was so much to do, so many demons to vanquish, so many apologies to make, so many 'sorrys,' so much evil to take back, and now there was no time.

"My blanket," he said. His voice was not even a whisper.

"Ash! Ash! You what?" Mara screamed. "Ash hold on, I can hear a battle outside; I think the king has come. Do you hear me, Ash? Do you hear me? Hang on, the king has come!"

St. Catheran's hospital in Orange is known for its highly trained physicians and its state-of-the-art technology. As Marla Coleman walked into the nurse's station, she passed a deliveryman with a large assortment of flowers. Flowers were one thing she would never want from a lover. Flowers meant sickness and death. She could appreciate a nice box of candy, but not flowers. Of course, if Denzel Washington were to give them to her, she could make an exception, but he has yet to notice what a great job she does as an emergency-room nurse, and being a movie star, he probably never would.

Marla wanted only one thing this night. Slow. Please God, or the Rose Bowl, let it be slow. Let everyone stay healthy and be accident free, for this one night. She had been on the graveyard shift for three months and was ready for an easy evening, especially after last night. Three auto accidents within an hour made for a long shift.

Then, as if on cue, the EMTs called. They had a homeless man, who, by the sound of their description, was going to die.

"Hang on..." she said. Ash tried to speak, but there wasn't the air in his lungs. Drawing breath, or any movement, chilled him deep. "...my bag," he finally said, pointing a finger.

"Ash, I can hear you," said the warrior, and she got the sack, "...this, you want this?"

"The bag," he said. Mara struggled with the sack, cradling Ash in her arms. The fires and the blackness were gone. About her lay the other occupants of the tent, the advisor in two parts and the Dral in black heaps. Ash barely moved. She didn't know what to do. She sat, sack in hand, staring at the flapping walls. The tent, tattered and leaning, was buffeted by high winds. Its walls swayed as pieces of the canvas flipped about, revealing fires and armed clashes just outside the pavilion. The battle raged, its violence clamoring in deafening beats. Gusts of wind shook the tent in sudden, startling, bursts. She worried the supports would fail. They would find only canvas and bodies, and perhaps, her, still sitting in a stunned silence. With one hand she tried to shake the sack. It seemed empty. Soon, Mara thought, as she surveyed the bodies that lay about her, she would be alone. She sat, frozen, clutching Ash and his sack, and watched the walls jump in the wind.

She only stared as soldiers burst into the tent and then quickly left. Ash lay dying in her lap, and still she shook the sack, trying to find the bag. Outside fires flamed and died, bringing her a show of light and dark. The wind calmed and raged in strange cycles. Your real enemy is time, her mind screamed. But Mara could only sit. The soldiers that burst in the tent burst out again. A dozen now, Mara thought, counting. She shook the sack but nothing came out. Ash had stopped moving.

Never hug Ash, she thought, and again she shook the sack. She had seen the Dral pierce him, but saw the wizard hadn't a chance to move the blade once Ash locked them into statues. She watched as Ash's spells, tiny white lines, came to life. The lines encircled the statues. When the lines were complete the pair burned white-hot, impossibly bright, for just an instant. Then Ash pulled apart the pieces of charcoal that had been the Dral and let them drop to the floor. Never hug Ash.

Again someone burst into the tent. Again the someone vanished. She sat. This wasn't supposed to be such a sad song, she cried.

Ash had stopped moving and Mara couldn't see. She rubbed her eyes and found tears. Inside her head a picture-show began that she couldn't stop. She saw his face. While not handsome, Ash had an attractiveness in form, as if an artist had cut him from stone. The pictures rolled before her. She saw his smile. She saw his kiss. She saw him call her Stinker. She saw him as he stood alone before the powerful. She saw him stand toe to toe with the Great. She saw him inch forward, trembling, but coming nonetheless. She saw his tall frame move the way he did, as he became the air with weapons. She saw him peer at her sideways with his goofy grin. She saw him by the fire, breaking his little sticks. She saw him plunge into the armies of death. She saw him mouth the word 'deal.' She saw him laugh—it was the only time he appeared free. She saw him cry. She saw him turn away when the others looked. She saw him touch her cheek with an impossible tenderness. She saw his unmatched lust when she removed her breastplate, and she watched as he then turned away. She saw him scream to God. She saw a person who knew God couldn't hear him. In her mind, she saw Ash.

A soldier burst into the tent, stumbling over the mounds. This wasn't supposed to end this way. She wasn't supposed to be sitting. She was a warrior. She was supposed to die in a sword-storm. The soldier rose and dragged one of the mounds to the fire before the tent. When he beheld what he had dragged, his hand snapped away, and he leaped back. He fell and ran through the fire, spreading the wood in an explosion of sparks. But the disbursement of the logs put out most of the light. Now only dark shapes could Mara see. From afar fires still burned, but the tent had lost the flames that had given the walls their surreal, dreamy quality. Shadows no longer danced on the cream-colored fabric.

Outside the battle was escalating. Horses and men charged from all directions. The tent was bumped and rammed, but even burned and in tatters, it stood.

"Ash, Ash, can you hear me? Ash, talk to me..."

"...the bag."

"What god-damned bag?" she screamed. Shocked that she screamed at him, she lowered her voice. "What bag, Sweetie? There's only your sack." Mara looked into his sack again, and finally found the bag. It hid, covered by a fold or some magic. It was the same bag the Cave People left by the trail in the canyon. He had a bag and a blanket, she remembered, and he said they were magic. "Ash! Ash! I have it, what's it do? What magic can it do?"

"...blanket inside," breathed Ash.

"A magic blanket? Is it? What's it do..." From the blackness came a shadow. It lunged and crashed into Mara. It was an enemy soldier. It may have been a mistake to shout, Mara thought. Mara found the shadow's weapon and slipped it. She dealt the shadow a blow, and snapped in the Draihau. Swiftly she rocked the blade back and forth. The shadow lay writhing on the tent floor, dying but not dead, when she withdrew the weapon. "Ash, Ash... what's the bag do?"

"It... holds the blanket," Ash whispered. Inside the bag Mara found a brightly colored child's blanket. It was unnaturally blue and small. It seemed much too thin to keep anyone warm. "What do I do with this? Ash, do I make a bandage..." At wits end, she cursed the day she let herself get attached to the group. Her mind began to ramble. Do I use the magic blanket to stop the magic knife, and keep the magic blood inside you, Ash, she wondered, and she felt her mind unwinding.

"What's the blanket do?" she asked again.

"... it keeps me warm," whispered Ash. Well, that makes sense, Mara thought, blankets keep one warm. She pulled Ash close, and waited. For no other reason than because it was there, she put the blanket, skinny as it was, around Ash, and the two of them, trapped in their oasis amid the storm of a raging battle, clung to each other through the night, until Ash finally faded out of the dark and into oblivion.

He could feel them around, hovering and peering about, moving with trained skill. They worked, placing boards under his body. He was strapped and padded. Faces blurred in and out of the dark. Lights flashed red and blue and voices faded in and out. He could hear microphones and radios. He could hear voices.

"...my blanket," he whispered.

After packing, Gwere and the others set out through the camp, and up the same hill Mara and Ash had stood with their new friend, Vel. Gwere wanted to see what they saw, and talk to the men on that hill. Climbing to the top, Gwere found a lieutenant and a guard around a crop of rocks. The soldiers said that a group of enemy knights, bearing torches, led a small party to a command tent they had been watching. The guard didn't say whom the knights led to the tent, but they didn't have to. Gwere felt pretty sure he knew.

Shouldering his pack, and with a glance to the others, Gwere began to descend the hill. He had studied faces of the rest of the gang and knew they were going with him. It would have been a waste of time even talking about it. A long time ago, beginning when Ash and he had came back for the others captured by the evil tomb people, it had been all for one and one for all.

Gwere began his trek into the enemy camp against orders. He knew what it was to disobey and order. He also knew that this was not your usual war, and this was not your usual soldiering. If Ash and Massali headed for the camp, for whatever reason, even if that reason be suicide, he would join them. He looked over his shoulder and saw the others trying to catch up, climbing through the brush. What the five of them could do against the enemy was unknown.

It was something he wasn't going to let himself think about. It didn't matter. Nobody was getting out alive, and since the encounter with the Dral at the castle, he was no longer sure about anything. From stories as a kid, he knew the land had once been ruled by a short, blonde folk, and that they were long gone. But he hadn't ever been told why they left. Not that any of that mattered, now, or ever, he thought. But if he had the chance, he would shake the life out of those two, but for now, he had to find them. Why they would do this, and why they didn't think of him or the others, would have to wait.

By tracing a part of the enemy encampment, and counting the soldiers in that square, then multiplying that square by the number of squares in the whole camp, Gwere got a good picture of the army that awaited him in the valley below. He came up with a figure of perhaps a hundred thousand.

When daylight came he was sure he would count twice that. So, the last of this, all that was left, was only the heart. And in there, in the dark recesses of that house, there lived only his friends. And standing there, along with the others, was a tall girl nick-named Mara.

"Sir, the party that arrived with the wizard has departed toward the enemy camp." The guard, looking none too pleased to be the bearer of ill tidings, reported this information with a reserved professionalism. Halfway through his report, the king looked directly at the man and his voice cracked. But the guard steadfastly continued. "We think they have gone after the other two. Also," paused the guard, gulping hard while wishing he had joined the infantry, "the men have began to follow. Maybe a dozen or so have gone, and more pack as we speak."

Isuair had to appreciate the situation the guard was in, for he, too, felt those shoes rub his toes. It was his group. The plan, a good one, Isuair thought, was to wait until they had sound reports on the prince before planning the campaign. The current report of the enemy suggested that the foe before them was huge.

They had also wanted to talk to Ash, but he skipped town, and now there was a question as to exactly who was leading this army. If the army left to engage the enemy without, or in fact against the orders of the king, then the army no longer belonged to him. Very bad, thought Isuair, the king's role as leader was invaluable to them. This mutiny could undermine the very authority he used to wield his command.

"Remind me," his majesty said while putting an arm through his armor, "to strangle that little knife-wielding kid and his girlfriend when I find them." Isuair turned to the king and apologized, but the king wouldn't have it. "An enormous army awaits us," said the Monarch, "and in times like these, sometimes our decisions are made for us. Come wizard—let us take our hand to those that would sit upon our lawn. Let us see if we can make a dent in them—but to you I make this vow; if we find those two kids, I will personally school them on the hazards of disobeying their elders."

"Prepare to move!" he shouted throughout their tent, and the army became alive. Once the order had gone out, the men departed as soon as they were able.

The noise, the crackling of brush and stone was all around him. Wondering how Linder, Erow, Rehoak, Gractah and he could raise such a commotion, Gwere paused and looked back. The hill was alive with soldiers. Apparently, Gwere was leading the charge for the whole of the king's army. So be it, thought the big warrior, those below had attacked at night, and now they would do the same. A night of sleep was no longer something to take for granted.

As he moved, he resisted the urge to run at full speed, for they were still a mile from the camp and there was no need to arrive dead tired. Then Gractah and Erow leaped through the brush and began to pass him. Like a racehorse, Gwere couldn't help himself. He began to race to the camp.

Captain Patrice searched the slope that overlooked their camp. Behind the hill, he knew, they would find the whole of the king's army. But for now, he had more strange orders to follow. The commanders had told him to take any of the king's men, that happened to show themselves, unmolested to the command tent. He even had to remove his sentries from between the hill and the camp. Sure enough, some of the king's men appeared.

Since taking up with the Dral, who had a plan to convert some of the king's men to their side, Patrice had held a high command in the army. As one of the Dral's servants, he had a chance to see the people of the land up close. Some were bad, some were not. But the people he saw around him were not the best. The best lay on the hill above.

They sat now and waited for the attack. The only thing certain, Patrice thought, was that the attack wouldn't come before morning. The king wouldn't attack at night— he was simply too conservative and locked into his ways. It was that conventionalism that the army counted on during the night landings and the surprise pre-morning battles, and it had paid off, every time.

But of course, that was before the wizard brought in his ringers. Ash, the Mara, and the group. And now, word was, some of them were ready to switch sides. But he hadn't expected the three that walked into camp. Again the Dral's plan seemed flawed. One was an ordinary guard, but the others were dressed to look like the two warriors that his army feared the most, the lone Mara, that followed the king instead of the Nation, and the famous Ass.

Patrice made sure he was present when the call came out. He wanted to watch them pass. He wanted to see for himself the two monsters that had plagued his command ever since the fake Duke attack.

He imagined hulking monsters with blood-curdling eyes. He envisioned them stomping through the camp with an impunity that would crush the morale of his men. He imagined wrong. Instead, he saw two drawn, haggard folk, the kind one could find in any backwater village. And these two were not huge. These two were too small to be the giants that led armies of dozens to victory against his armies of thousands. They were much, much, too small. The Ash emissary was barely taller than Patrice himself, and he was of average height.

Also, these two had sad eyes. There was no murderous rage, no thunderous pride, no hate in their gaze. Instead Patrice saw only a pathetic, sorrowful resolve. It was brave but stupid.

There was one other thing. One other, really bizarre, thing, Patrice thought. He wasn't sure, for the light was dim, and they stopped doing it the moment his men showed themselves, but Patrice was almost sure that the fake Mara and the fake Ash entered the camp together—holding hands.

These were not the super beings that would single-handedly win the war for their monarch. These were not fanged monsters from the depths of hell. These were just the walking dead, and no more.

The king apparently thought the Dral a fool, or wished for some trickery with this deception. The one that was dressed like Ash even carried weapons like the magic swords, only again, much smaller than the real thing. Although Patrice had never actually seen Ash, he knew that the steak knives the emissary carried would hardly cut their stale bread, much less mountains, castle walls, and dragons, like his men told. He hoped, for their sake, they brought surrender, or this was going to be an unpleasant trip. He had had enough encounters with his new boss, the Dral, to know.

He stood by the fire, which burned too bright for his liking, when a guard hurriedly approached.

"Sir," the guard said, "we think an attack is under way."

"How many men?" Asked Patrice. He did not look up, but only stared into the fire.

"A small force... perhaps a feint, but..."

"I understand. Put the men on alert, send the first battalion to the hill, clear out the enemy, and bring any prisoners you find—bring them live." Then the captain paused. "And," he called to the guard, "if you see any of the leaders, the ones called Gractah, Gwere, or... The others, call me at once." The guard, a Corporal named Deira, departed, and Patrice turned to his lieutenants.

"It would make sense to send the decoys as a sacrifice," he said to Brady. Brady nodded and put more wood on their huge fire. Patrice took a log from the man and frowned at him. "If anyone sees the real thing, set off all the alarms, it could mean an actual attack," said Patrice. He hesitated a moment, and looked to his men. The men around him were strong, solid soldiers. "Keep your guard up, boys, or this could be a long night," he said, and then he set off into the dark.

The EMTs were waiting and holding their breath. Erica and Devon had been partners for six months, and it never failed, if they bought any food that wasn't ready at a drive-through window, they would be speeding off hungry. This night wasn't going to be an exception. Devon hit the siren, and they were off. When he and Erica compared EMT stories, this is the part where they would say, "we got the call, and whoop, whoop, whoop, we were off." Whoop, whoop, whoop went the siren, and they were off. A code 3, ETOH, 51-50 had been called, and those calls were never good. Good calls were calls where you could help someone. At a good call, you arrived, applied your Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) training, Advanced Life Support (ALS) techniques, and saved a patient's life by transporting them to a hospital. It was as simple as ABC, Erica thought, Airways, Breathing, Cardiovascular. Get the air in them, get the heart beating, stop the bleeding, and get them to an emergency room. Then, whatever they had, it was up to the doctors in the ER to sort out.

But 51-50s were a different story. No hospital was happy to see a 'Green Sheet.' 5150 was the number of the green California Welfare and Institutions form that one filled out to put someone under psychiatric observation. It was pronounced fifty-one fifty. It was filled out for the whackos that roamed the streets ever since budget-cuts in the 80's forced the de-institutionalization of thousands of California's mentally ill patients. ETOH meant that alcohol was involved. Code three meant lights and siren, and that the patient was in critical need of care.

So instead of enjoying an avocado and tuna salad, Erica thought, here I am screaming down the highway, with lights and sirens, to a critically ill, boozed up... mental patient.

Fabulous, she thought, simply fabulous. She had just finished talking to Marla, the ER nurse at St. Catheran's, and they agreed that a slow night was in order. It hadn't started out that way. Their first call was a GSW, a gunshot wound, and that was never a good sign. Now they were looking at a crazy in a park somewhere. Obviously, this night wasn't going to cooperate.

"A jogger reported him," the officer said. Standing in the little park, the EMT checked his watch. 3:42 a.m. "Apparently, after his painting spree, he passed out, urinated on himself, and spent hours exposed to the elements. The temperature is barely 40," said Officer Dan White.

The EMTs knew that the cold, combined with alcohol, killed more homeless people than any other cause, including all the common diseases combined. The call came in as a 51-50, but the patient wasn't going to be the raving maniac they so frequently saw on the mental calls. He was out. As they worked on the man, they questioned the officer and the jogger who reported him. The jogger, an exercise enthusiast, saw the man lying outside the bathroom and used a cell phone to call the police.

A, B, C, thought Devon, air, breathing, cardiovascular, get the blood, lungs, and air moving. But... if this man doesn't get some warmth in his deep tissues, or, if the tissue warms too rapidly, he dies. This is one they want in the ER, he thought, and called it in. It was during his talk on the radio that he noticed why the call was a 51-50, and not just a routine exposure. Even in the predawn hours, the little bathroom's light illuminated enough of the area. It was all around them. Painted in red, on the bathroom, on the trail, and the retaining wall, on the trees, and even on the patient himself, were the words 'WE DIE FOR OUR KHING.'

"His vitals don't look too good," said Erica. "Low breathing, low pulse, slow heartbeat," she said. All were all signs of a system that suffered a core temperature drop.

"Defibrillation or cardiovascular stimulation would all cause more harm than good," she said, "until he re-warms and his vital signs stabilize." All they could do was to try to warm the man slowly and transport him. Devon and Erica rolled the man onto a body board, wrapped him with heat bags and put him on the collapsible gurney. The curious thing about the painting, Devon thought, was not that the man painted everything and himself, or the pledge to the unknown monarch, but that KING was spelled wrong. He slid the man into the van and thought, there is no 'H.' Most people don't get that wrong. 51-50, for sure, he thought, and whoop, whoop, whoop, they were off.

Doctor Becca Grace was just wrapping up the gunshot wound when she heard about the 51-50. Erica was calling in an alcohol-involved unconscious hypothermic. The danger of post rescue collapse during the first 30 minutes of treatment was their main concern. They would worry about the effects of the alcohol and mental infirmity in the ER. But for now, they had to worry about the 51-50's vital signs. In hypothermic victims, blood vessels contract, breathing and cardiovascular systems slow, and major organs can stop functioning. There may also be changes in body chemistry, all of which can lead to death. Marla ordered the EMTs to place warm packs in the patient's armpits and groin and to transport immediately. In the ER they could get the patient in the trauma room and closely monitor his vital signs. If the patient's core warmed too quickly, faster than one or two degrees a minute, the patient could go into cardiac arrest, as warm blood hit his cold heart. Also, they would need monitor the patient's blood chemistry for balance. Rapid changes in oxygen and carbon dioxide levels could also lead to death. The EMTs had reported that the body temp of the 51-50 was at 94 degrees, so if they got their patient to the ER, her team could probably save him.

That is, if there were no other conditions to hamper their work. But, as was usually the case, there were always complications. According to the EMTs their patient was an alcoholic. Alcohol dilates blood vessels, and was extremely detrimental to hypothermic patients. Also, being a 51-50 meant that you could bet the patient wasn't in the best physical shape, and at approximately 50 years old, the patient could have a rough road ahead of him. They had prepared a hypo room and were ready for his arrival. So much for a slow night, she thought, as she poured herself a third cup of coffee.

More and more soldiers investigated the tent. Mara couldn't have known that the battle was getting ugly for the invaders, and that they now sought aid and direction from their masters. With their leaders in a heap on the floor, most of the enemy soldiers seemed to understand that the cause was lost and fled. Those who didn't, Mara killed.

The lamps had long ago blown out, and the only light was from the fires raging outside. As Mara cradled Ash in her arms, the shadows of the soldiers flickered on the tent walls. Figures from both sides, hers and the enemy, were embraced in a deadly struggle on the other side of the canvas. Then she heard the call. Ash had used it in the glen. Mortals, mortals, mortals. For some reason the words had a profound effect on her. She began to weep for real now, totally obscuring her vision. Still, she did not move. Ash, for all she could tell, had died. But the fight had left her, and for the first time in her life Mara was in a battle not as the hero, the warrior, but purely as a bystander. She clutched Ash's body and wept.

"Ash..." she said, her voice no more than a whisper, "I... Ash... Ash..." But whatever she was trying to say never came out. In the dark, she held him, trying to find signs of life and peering past his still body and into the dark. She watched the battle rage. She sat. Standing in the dark, hovering and then crouching, the newest entrant cut the tent flaps behind him to rags. He was one of the more curious types. He was also huge. She gripped her weapon, mapped out a route and prepared to strike. Mara would take this life, even though there was something familiar about the shadow. Something about the gate, the way he held his sword, seemed familiar, but he would die by her hand nonetheless.

Gwere pumped his legs, driving them like pistons. Flying through brush and thickets with wild abandon, he reached his stride and pushed himself further. He let his recklessness go. This is was why Ash and Mara did this, he thought. This is why they left. Freedom. They just let go. Straining, pushing, Gwere felt his stride take over. He stretched his gait further, searching, demanding his body perform. He was running as fast as could, possibly as fast as he had ever run before. He was flying, pumping, barely touching the ground. Within a hundred yards, yards that swiftly disappeared with each powerful stride, stood the enemy. He could see the soldiers milling about, and as he ran, he could see them begin to move. Frenzied activity, panicky and without direction consumed the enemy as they faced the madmen charge. Suddenly, like a thunderclap, Gwere was in their midst. Slashing while he ran, cutting those in his path, he raged on. As he cut the enemy down, he screamed and screamed.

Halfway down the hill, Gractah began to close on Gwere. Erow was on his heels, and all the frustration of the day, of the war, and of the world began to come out of him in long, galloping strides. He had almost caught the captain. But, as he ran, to his surprise, he saw the gap between him and Gwere grow.

All the king's men, some bringing up the rear, some closing fast on horseback, seemed to be following their little party. Fast, amazingly fast, it seemed, the hill was flattening out, and the enemy camp was drawing near. They were closing in on the enemy at a full run. Glancing at his side, Gractah saw that all around them the king's men were caught up in the race.

Flying at the enemy held an advantage—panic. The enemy was running about and dashing around. Some fled, some flung fuel on the fires, some charged ahead. As a crashing wave, the king's army assailed and engulfed the invaders. Gractah cut down those in front of him and turned to see who was issuing the call. 'Mortals, mortals, mortals.' Ash's call was being screamed throughout the battle. He strained to see the caller ahead of him, and found not Ash but Gwere slashing and screaming. 'Mortals, mortals, mortals.' Few knew what the call meant, and fewer used it. I am not human, and you are going to die. Mortals, mortals, mortals.

Gwere seemed to be in the throws of hysteria. He was going mad, charging every which way, cutting, slashing and chopping all he saw before him. He had also whipped up the king's men, and together they maniacally slew their foe. Gractah would have admitted this to no man, but he admired the invader's military prowess. Their bravery and organization, their use of almost surgical strikes, always perfectly timed and executed, gave them an edge in many of the battles. But Gwere seemed to have found and exploited a weakness—fear and disorder in the face of unmitigated rage. Whatever organization their foe had, had broken. Their group of men overran the enemy army at full speed and they had yet to slow.

Wading through blows and bodies, Gractah followed Gwere and a group of the king's men to the crop of tents. Then he stood, his body pounding and shaking from exertion, in a pocket of stillness, while the music of steel against steel began to loud play around him. Bodies lay about, and Gractah re-gripped his weapon. The sinews of his hand screamed as he peeled his skin from the handle. But it was less than a whisper among the turmoil. He whipped his head left, then right, searching for hazard. Their still pocket, held. At his feet lay a dark mound. As Gwere crouched in the tent entrance, Gractah pulled a burning branch and illuminated the mound. It was the head and one shoulder of a dark, fanged creature. The Elite knew enough to understand. The Dral and Ash had finally danced. His money, as of that first day in the glen, would always be on Ash. But he knew the Dral was likely to give as good as he got. Ash. Gwere had paused and now only stood at the tent entrance, his large silhouette still in the night.

Gwere stopped at the tent, pulled open the flaps, and was about to charge in, when he felt the warning. Fear, not unusual in this situation, but surprising the captain anyway, blanketed the air before him. Caution, stay those feet, his mind urged. The tent was dark. It had a heavy metallic smell. The air felt stale and thick. A trail of bodies led to a black shadow within the depths of the pavilion. The place felt like a lair.

Gwere cut at the tent canvas around him, shredding large areas. Suddenly, light blazed all around him. Startled, he turned to find Erow and Gractah throwing tables, chairs, and another tent on burning branches. The flames rose high into the night and both men approached. Erow, as he peered into the tent, was the first to speak. It was less than a whisper.

"...you first, big guy."

It was just a whisper, but the men trying to blaze away the darkness, her darkness, spoke in familiar, if not hushed, tones. "Erow," she cried but the word died in her throat. "Erow, Erow, Erow!" Her voice, when found, seemed small, but it was answered.

"Massy? Sweetie? That you?" She could not see the faces, for the fire blazed behind them, but she knew her friends were again around her.

"... get the wizard!" She cried. "Ebby, find Eye..." Erow ran from the tent, quickly followed by Gractah. Gwere came close enough that Mara could see his face. In the dark she could see his rough features and his big, sad eyes. When he saw what she held in her arms, he went deathly pale. The sight almost crushed her. She saw hope flee from the man.

"I think he..." she faltered and began to cry. Gwere saw Mara, covered in black, viscous liquid, with clean streaks running from her eyes. He saw that, and a corpse.

As the EMTs rushed into the hospital, the whoosh of the ER doors heralding their arrival, Marla turned to the a nurse in front of the OR.

"They're here!" she called. She sped off to gather her new patient. She did not have high hopes. The EMTs said it was a alcoholic, hypothermic, 51-50.

Isuair passed the hanging shreds of the tent full of foreboding. This was the turning point. If Ash made it through this he would either become a white wizard, like him, or a black wizard like the Dral. He did, however, need to make it through this night. He had saw the book being passed to Ash after this evening, but his visions had been wrong before. What he could no longer see or feel, was the Dral. He, and his omnipresent dark spells were absent. But he couldn't feel Ash either. Hoping it wasn't as bad as Erow had described, Isuair inched forward. He and found Mara at the back of the darkened tent, with a mound in her arms. He was hoping it wouldn't be as bad as his worse fears, but he was aghast to find the unthinkable had happened. Ash was gone. The game was up, the prophecy would come true; the land would now face a war that would last a hundred years, and the machines would take over. If Ash, their marker for the events outlined in the White Book, wasn't even in the game anymore, then there was no question about their future. Isuair couldn't believe the Dral would do this; condemned the people in this land to generations of senseless war, and condemn the future generations to the folly of consumerism. He had placed his trust in the Dral's greed, in his vanity, thinking, knowing, that the Dark One would lust for Ash, and not rest until he converted him.

But this...

Placing his hand on Ash's chest, he felt nothing. Nothing. Rage at Mara and the rest of the group welled inside him, and only years of choices, both good and bad, gave him the wisdom then to bite his tongue. He did not chastise them for their foolishness. But they had had but one goal; be his friend and keep him alive. Isuair realized that this was it, that the worst had come, that the whole mess had been in vain, when it came. Boom. It was faint, but it was there. He could feel it. A beat. Boom.

"Leave us," said the wizard. His tone was cold. The warrior turned to him, and when she hesitated, Isuair hissed at her. "Be gone girl, be gone, set him down and GO!" He raised his voice to her, almost raging. Mara slid Ash down and moved to the side, when Isuair grabbed her and shoved her briskly toward the flaps.

"A battle rages and you have a duty to attend to!" he screamed. He didn't need them anymore, and apparently, neither did Ash. Mara gave the wizard an evil look and then without further hesitation sped off. Erow, Gwere and Gractah watched as the wizard hovered in the dark with his charge, and after a moment, they too set off.

As the ER ceiling-lights streaked by, Ash, barely conscious, wondered why things worked out the way they did. Are things just working out this way because of fate? Is it no more than some grudge over some unknown grievance, held by God? Does God hate?

He must.

Was there anything he could do to change this, now? Ash felt only despair. He would never get a happy-ending out of this story. The nurses and doctors fluttered around, going about their life-saving business, when Ash just shut his eyes and hoped to die.

Nothing had worked out. No dreams ever really came true. Little stuff did, but it always seemed like he was just going through the motions. Everything that really mattered had just fallen apart or was killed by some weakness within him.

Things just seemed to die around him. One sunny day in Pacific City, on the overpass on PCH, a brown pelican dropped a fish while flying above that busy road. Because of a traffic light, there were no cars on the six-lane highway. The pelican landed to get the fish, and Ash watched as a car ran over the bird. The speed limit on the Pacific Coast highway was 45, but it opens up to 50 a few miles down the highway, so most people drive 60. The pelican couldn't take off in time, because the overpass was a bridge, and the arch obstructed the view of the car until too late. The bird didn't have time to lift off. Ash jumped off his bike, meaning to run out and save the wriggling creature, but stopped when we saw that the pelican lay in a long bloody smear. He got back on his bike a rode off. As fast as he could, he rode off.

All his dreams had just seemed to get run over, and he was too afraid of watching them die to even try and save them. Over and over, he thought, as the gurney turned one corner and then the next, and went from one treatment room to another, he hoped that the story could just end, that the lights could just go out. But the crew at St. Catheran's were trained to make sure that didn't happen.

Marla ordered the nurses to administer a warm IV of glucose, saline and thiamin, and to start ventilating the patient with heated, humidified oxygen. Both treatments would result in the warming of deep tissues in the patient. The thiamin was for the booze.

To stabilize him, they would need to get past the first hour, when raising his temperature would cause the most stress on his heart. Marla looked at him and paused. He was not 50. He was 40 at the most. But there was something about the man. Then, she remembered. For a moment she was back at the beach, a dozen years ago. One day she brought a gun to Santa Monica. She had been determined to kill herself... or others, perhaps. This memory came to her unbidden, as a flash. She didn't kill herself or hurt anyone, she didn't even fire the gun. Instead she threw the gun as hard as she could into the ocean. She sat, on that beach, and cried. She thought about life. She thought about everything; the 40/40 plan, the horrible-ness of the world, her future, everything. During her sit, she had a moment. An epiphany, if you would. She decided there were no answers to her questions. That she would never be able to reconcile the world as it was or god as she knew him or was told of him. She only decided to get the most out of each day. That was it, that was the big epiphany. Make the most out of each moment. Since her mom had become a nurse, she had a kind of a guide, and she decided that she too would take that path.

But that day at the beach something else happened. Something that actually made her determined to become a nurse. The lifeguards rescued a man. They had to use a boat. The man was four-hundred yards past the pier when a lifeguard spotted him. Who swims five-hundred yards out to sea? They revived him, and she helped. The thing she remembered about the man was his eyes. He had the strangest eyes. Eyes that searched. Eyes that accused. She had heard that the man survived. These were the same eyes. She knew it. This patient, this man, opened his eyes and there he was. She shrugged it off. She decided it was something she would call; 'I-almost-died, eyes.'

But this guy was in bad shape. He had been abusing alcohol for some time. She wondered if his heart would survive the shock of warm blood into that cold muscle. Her guess—no. He had the after-burn of booze on his breath, and was smelling foul. Marla worried their new patient was an acute alcoholic, and carried with him all the health concerns that plagued a victim of the bottle. They were monitoring his vital signs, his cardiovascular signs in particular, and a blood workup was in progress. Dr. Grace was checking to see if the trauma center could put him on a heart bypass machine, where they could warm the blood going back into his heart.

Mara stood facing the enemy soldiers, all of who seemed nervous, for good reason. All were dispatched quickly, when she changed her mind and went returned to the tent. She found the tent behind the battle line and entered it without problem.

But the tent was empty. Isuair and Ash were gone. Exiting the tent, she soon found asking around futile. The men that would have seen Ash and Isuair would have moved on, the men she saw now were fresh from the hill. The battle still raged on, so she followed the men to the front, and onto the battlefield.

As Marla prepped her patient, in the corner of her eye she saw an angel fly into the trauma center. It fluttered and turned about under the bright fluorescent lights of the ER. She looked up, only to find the long corridor empty except for a lone man. There was no angel, come to free them from their burden after all, there was only an old guy dressed for the Renaissance Fair.

As she cut the clothes from the wino, the man floated to her. But her attention was pulled away from the specter as she pulled the shirt from her patient. His skin was a patchwork of scars. Slash and cut marks crisscrossed every inch of his skin. It looked as if thousands and thousands impossibly sharp knives had cut him. Great, besides trying to kill himself with booze, this guy was into flagellation and self-abuse, she mused. But when she looked again they were gone. I am the white wizard, she heard her mind say, and you will HOLD. And for a moment she flashed back to the days of her youth, to her favorite fantasy epics full of elves and wizards. Then she flashed back to her teen years and the THING. That period where she hallucinated about an old bum stalking her. First the beach-saving-dude, now the old man. It was as if she were seventeen again. But she paid these tricks no mind. Too much caffeine, too little sleep, and the stress of the job had messed with her mind before. And she knew just how to handle it. She blazed through. Discarding the clothes, she replaced the EMTs warm packs with a hypothermic blanket, and turned her attention back to the hall. Where was everyone? Only the old man remained.

It looked like the homeless guy's friend had raided a costume shop. The words, "You need to check in at the front desk and remain in the waiting room," were supposed to come out, but they were slow coming. She didn't know why.

In a non-threatening manner, the old man approached the gurney. Their patient was hooked to a heart monitor, and his beat, almost non-existent, was slowing down. Boom. Each beat seemed more reluctant than the last. He was not going to make it, Marla thought, and Granddad here has just come to watch. Marla needed to find out if Dr. Grace had decided on the bypass procedure. It seemed a formality, because the patient wasn't going to survive. But they had to at least talk about it. They couldn't just sit by and let the guy die. She also had to deal with their visitor. She had scanned the area, but the nearest phone was forty feet away. Not that the old man looked like trouble, but these days one never knew. She watched as the man swung around the gurney and lowered himself to her patient's ear.

From his robes, the man produced a book. The old man handled the white leather-bound book gingerly. It's a Bible, Marla thought, as the man began to read softly in her patient's ear. Say hello to the Rose Bowl for me, she thought. Marla circled the gurney, wondering where the staff and the doctor were, and looked down into the book. It wasn't a Bible; it wasn't even recognizable as printed text. But the old man read on. He whispered line after line into her patient's ear. She caught some of the words, but they were nonsense. God, she thought, just one slow fucking night, is that too much to ask?

Mara had found Rehoak just in time. A big brute of a man wielding a mace had him in dire straits. But nobody was watching the brute's back. Her weapon slipped in and out so fast that Rehoak probably thought the man died by magic. Mara, feeling the fight in rise in her, slipped off without her friend even knowing she was there.

She had started this evening afraid to face the doldrums of another pre-battle evening, and now she stood alone in what could only be described as a riot. Fierce fighting raged all around her, illuminated by the orange glow of hundreds of fires blazing out of control. Figuring she would find her friends in the loudest, heaviest action, she hopped a fire and sprinted to a group locked in a fierce struggle.

A heavily armed line of the king's men, headed by Gwere, Erow and Gractah were locked in battle with a large company of the enemy. The enemy was receiving reinforcements, but Gwere and company were still holding them, and at times pushing them back. Mara stood, frozen, transfixed on the battle. With the darkness all around her and the chill night wind blowing about the field, she watched as her men locked arms and pushed into the shields of the enemy, knocking over those that stood in their way. Cutting and slashing, they trampled and slew men deep into the enemy line. As they pushed the enemy back, Erow, with a running start, leaped the line and disappeared into a sea of the enemy soldiers.

A large barnyard owl fluttered onto the firelight and glided to the gnarled branches of a nearby oak. The leafless oak stood with its dead branches reaching into the night like skeletal fingers. Mara saw the owl, the symbol of wisdom, perch on the branch and stare, blinking at them in the cool night air. She saw the white spell lines. Isuair. She gave it the finger. The battle had distilled down to the line in front of her, their men on this side, and the enemy on the other. For a hundred yards the line ran, and it expanded as more of the king's men rushed into the fray.

She could sense the presence of persons behind her, and turned to see if they were friend or foe. Cavemen. Everywhere she looked, she saw cavemen. There in front, with his golden necklace glittering in the firelight, stood the Cave-king. She glanced at the owl, still perched on the dead oak, and saw the Cave People were laying tributes to it. By the trunk of the tree they placed bits of leather, food, feathers and beads. Then they joined the fight. Fly, owl, fly, she thought, you're the only one of us that can escape. Fly. With a curtsy to the Cave-king, she turned to the battle. Gwere's company was being pushed hard by a new assault.

Well, thought the warrior, enough ambiance. She took a deep breath, and with a small smile, she screamed, much louder than any man could ever have, "Mortals, mortals, mortals," and at full speed burst into the line. The owl, startled at the scream, flew off.

Arm weary and out of breath, Gwere hoped the enemy would stop coming. He had slipped and fallen to the ground, and had stayed there, hoping the line would be pushed away from him. But that was not how it turned out. The line was pushed violently and he found himself surrounded by the enemy. Rising, he thrust those around him way. He soon faced a group of soldiers. He could not find any of his own men. Then one joined him. The soldier, a king's guard, looked familiar but Gwere couldn't place his face. One thing was sure; the guy was messed up. A nasty wound scared his chin, both cheeks and his nose, but it didn't keep the grin from his face. Gwere and Velorant stood for a moment as the enemy group in front of them grew. Then the call came, shrieking in Mara's shrill voice. Stepping forward together, they raised their swords and plunged in.

Marla had stood, frozen, for what seemed like hours. There were no hospital staff, usually so omni-present, lingering or even passing through. It was like the rest of the hospital had disappeared. It was only her and the two men. As the old man read, Marla began hallucinating. She saw the walls turn to stone. She saw ivy grow, she saw the night air open up in a clear sky, she saw the hospital roof fade away. She saw wooden beams rise to the sky. She saw stars and constellations that she had never seen before. She saw the smoke of a thousand fires raging in the night. Dear God, what's happening to me, she silently cried. She saw off in the distance, a tall castle, majestic and white, standing among the ruins of a battered land. But the castle was burning. Her breath began to come in short bursts. She put her hands solidly against the wall. If this was a hallucination, the wall should feel like cool latex paint, but instead she could feel the leaves of ivy, and behind it, cold stone.

When Dr. Grace arrived in the ER the nurse standing beside Marla was almost in hysterics. Marla had fallen into some kind of trance. She stood frozen, hands placed against the care-room wall, while their patient silently bled to death. The nurse, a young first year, was stuttering in panic. Without a second thought the doctor was on the phone, calling the staff to the operating room. Their patient, who had made a rather miraculous recovery from hypothermia, had a chest wound. Calling for Marla, who seemed frozen from the discovery of the wound hidden under the man's clothes, to snap out of it, Dr. Grace actually screamed. She didn't even care that her spittle hit Marla's face. She needed her nurse's help.

Finally Dr. Grace physically shook the head nurse of St. Catheran's Memorial Hospital. When her hands pulled from the wall, Marla's eyes cleared, and she began to ask the right questions—do we have a heart man, and do we have a staffed room. Breathing a sigh of relief, Dr. Grace set in motion the machine that had saved countless lives in the past.

Marla would have to think about the blackout later, but for now her patient was dying. Dying from a wound that she knew had not been there three minutes ago. The man's vital signs were still very low, but from the injury, not from the cold. The wound was right in the center of the chest. Damage to his heart was inevitable. She felt his arm, and it was warm, where just moments ago it was cold.

"I thought this was an alcohol-related hypothermia case," Dr. Grace said, "but he's got a stab wound." I thought the hospital had a roof, thought Marla, but as a response to the doctor, she only shrugged. Luckily, they had Dr. Rajhed Hunan already scrubbing up. With all the subtly of a freight train the nurses wheeled the patient toward the elevators that would lead to the operating room.

Marla picked up his clothes. She turned a dirty white t-shirt over in her hands. Inside the undershirt there was no blood. She picked up the phone and called security. Be on the lookout for an old man dressed like a witch doctor, she told them, and headed for the OR.

Gripping his sword with both hands, Erow hewed at those around him. He had seen the end; it stood before him like a dozen grinning demons. He was dead tired, completely alone, and surrounded by the enemy. He fought down two of the enemy but found his sword trapped. He wasn't going to make it, he guessed, when he thought of the call. "Mortals! Mortals! Mortals!" He screamed with eyes shut. Soon, he stood alone among the dead. No wonder they all used that call, he thought, it really works. And of course, he would be the last to know. As he drew a breath, a rush of men clashed in front of him. He saw the enemy was being hard put by some pretty ragged folk. The Cave People were making a name for themselves in battle, and Erow leaped to help.

When Mara heard the call, it came from a familiar voice. Turning, she found that Erow was using it to herald his coming demise. The crowd of enemy men around him was too large for him to have much a future. But nudging some of the king's guard, she had arrows flying to the rescue before Erow finished screaming. Then, seeing her companion free, she gave the men around her a wink and moved on.

Linder, with four of the king's men, looked down into another dark, lifeless valley. She practically stomped the ground with rage. "How can we not find the giant battle?" She shouted. She did not see the white spell lines shepherding her in the wrong direction. They had become separated from the group, and had lost their way. All they had to do was find the raging battle, the one they had seen lit by a thousand watch-fires from the hill, but every time they crested another mound, they only found dark grassland.

"ISUAIR! ASH! GWERE! EROW! MARA! Anybody!" She screamed. Damn, she thought, why had they all run off? She had gone back to the camp to retrieve a bag; a bag Mara had given her that had the two potatoes in it. Potatoes were impossible to find and she wasn't leaving them behind. The king's men she joined had greatly helped in getting her lost. One was sure he knew a fast way into the valley where the battle raged. But before long, they were in the dark plains of a quiet, peaceful, very non-battle-like field.

On arrival in the operating room, the patient was pulseless. He was in cardio-respiratory arrest. Dr. Honun was calmly speaking to the busy staff in rapid-fire bursts.

"The patient has a stab wound three centimeters left of the fifth intercostal space," he said. "Start an orotrachal tube and begin an open cardiac massage." The operating room atmosphere was frantic but moving with cold precision. As more doctors began to assist Dr. Honun, the team began to move like the pit crew around a race car. The doctor found that a sharp object had pierced the heart itself, and they performed open-heart surgery. Open defibrillation was performed, and then the heart was lifted slightly from the chest, and examined for damage. The wound, in the apex of the heart, was closed with sutures.

The patient had no other lacerations and had seemed to tolerate the procedure. They put him back together, stapled his chest shut, and moved him to the Intensive Care Unit. The first 24 post-operative hours would determine if he was going to survive.

Marla was in the break room. Her cheeks were moist and red. She was on her seventh cup of coffee. Her hand trembled. She couldn't stop thinking of the old man or the bum or the surfer. She was seventeen again. She put her hands on the walls of the break room, and felt the chilled plaster. Tears welled again in her eyes. She had put them there about six times in the last five minutes. Every time she took them off, she felt the ivy.

Dr. Grace had suggested she take a break. The good doctor was very sweet about it. Maybe Dr. Grace had noticed that Marla was no longer concerned about their patient, or maybe the good doctor had just known that somewhere along the line Marla's brain had turned to mush. But the doctor had said to take a break, and then out of the kindness of her heart, the doctor had checked in on her, and had given her a big hug. Then she had given her two big thumbs up. She had told Marla that sometimes it's harder to take than other times, and just to hang in there, they needed her. The good doctor had no idea how hard it got sometimes.

As Marla reached out her hands, and slowly laid them on the pale, cold break-room walls, she thought that hard was fine, hard was nice, but that it should never get so hard that you see your whole world turn inside-out, and it shouldn't get so hard that you see the inside-out world in your own hospital, only not in nice Orange, but in magic-fairy-land. Marla closed her eyes as hard as she could. If, when she opened them, she promised herself, if everything was fine, then she would be, too. She would walk out of the break room the same Marla that walked in the hospital at 11:30 pm that evening. She wouldn't give the episode another thought. Promise, promise, promise, she said to herself. After another deep breath, she opened her eyes, gathered herself and walked out of the break room.

Every time Mara turned around, she heard the call. Ash's "Mortals" cry was becoming a call to arms. It was everywhere. It made her smile, but also worried her. It meant that the others were still alive, but it also meant that they were throwing themselves into the battle with reckless abandon. Please, gods of the earth, sky, and water—keep them safe, she prayed. She even prayed to Erow's One, All Powerful God. Then, she remembered Ash. Her stomach turned, and she began to despair.

"Never get close to those you fight with. Never, never, never. You always lose." She said, mumbling under her breath. She sought the largest group of the enemy she could find and literally rammed into them with all her might.

Gwere pulled Velorant to his feet. The guard had fought and fought, and together they destroyed those in front of them. But more were coming, and Vel had given up, letting his battered body slump to the ground. The soldier had taken another hit to the face. Gwere was sure that if there was a limit to how many of those a man could take, Vel had reached it. He walked to Vel, picked him off the ground and laboriously stumbled away from the battle. When he found the main body of the cave army, he shoved Vel into their arms and turned away.

As she passed the nurses' station, Marla grabbed a pair of scissors and stashed them in her pocket. Then, she got back to work. She immersed herself in the work she loved, and tried to forget. She worked through the night applying the same loving, compassionate care she had always given every patient she tended to. But, once in a while, out of the corner of her eye, she would see something, something like an angel or an old man. Whenever that happened, she did two things, she swung her head to see if the old man was there, and she stuck her hand in her pocket and violently clutched the scissors.

For days the battle raged. Though they didn't know it, each member of the group wound up behind enemy lines. Gwere fought the enemy wherever the fighting was the fiercest. But then he made the mistake of resting. He had planned to sit for one minute, to watch his second sunrise since the battle began, but he slumped over, dead to the world the moment he stopped moving. Erow had found himself deep in enemy territory, so deep he sought refuge in a small crop of trees. He was discovered, but the enemy soldier paid twice for disturbing him, once with his life, and once with his uniform. Dressed as the enemy, courting waves of deja-vu, Erow roamed behind the lines, and found himself eventually sleeping in relative comfort with a company of enemy men. He even knew some of them.

Rehoak fought along side the Cave-king. He stopped for a moment, as the sun rose for the second time during the battle, and slowly lowered his weary body to the ground. He slept. The Cave People placed Vel next to him, then covered them both with branches, and moved on.

Gractah stayed with the king's men, and pushed his army to attack and counterattack into the enemy's front lines. When he could no longer lift his arms, he simply threw himself down into the dense brush and passed out. He, too, had seen the sun rise twice since the battle began, and no longer cared what happened.

Mara stood amidst a group of enemy soldiers, grinning. "Here kitty, kitty..." she said. "Come and get it boys." Soon she again stood alone. Finding herself apart from the battle for the first time in days, she found the largest pile of dead bodies in the area, and after smearing blood about her, snuggled up to the corpses and found sleep.

Three days passed, and Marla was her old self again. Part of being her "old self," was not trying to come up with a rational explanation for what had happened in the trauma center after she cut the clothes off the hypothermia patient. That patient had become the hospital's open-heart surgery miracle, and even that no longer bothered her. Miracles happened all the time. This guy would, after a few months of rehabilitation, recover. The only residual of her lapse were the scissors. She still carried them, the same pair, and probably would for a few more days. Twice she had tried to set them back at the nurse's station, but both times she had picked them up again. Like a security blanket, she knew everything was all right with them in her pocket. As she walked the halls of the hospital, she sunk her fist into her pocket and turned the scissors over in her hands. At the nurse's station she went through the ER casualty list. Their next patient needed sutures in his hand after a drunken stumble with a highball glass. With his paperwork in hand, Marla swung open the large doors that led to the waiting area. She scanned the room, found her guy, and was ready to call him, when she saw the old man.

They couldn't find the Dral. Patrice was told to get the wizard, for the gods had again turned against them, and now they needed all of their leaders together. But the wizard wasn't anywhere. They couldn't see any of his lines. Nothing. Nothing floated in the air, not even the old protection spells hung around, and they were said to be permanent. It was as if everything the Dral had suddenly vanished. On top of that, a small army of the Comeratte king had again decimated their great army, sending them into heavy retreat.

The Comeratte king's men fought with a fiery abandon that Patrice had never seen before. They fought crazed. They fought embracing their seemingly doomed fate. They fought seeking death. But it was the new regrouped Seventh that died. His army. And still, no Dral. The thought that the sad eyes were the real thing spun Patrice. No way, his mind screamed. No way those two and no way they killed the Dral. Not now, not ever. Patrice's army had been pushed back to the sea town of Pincolte, and supplies no longer reached his men. The usually omnipresent piles just weren't there. He ordered his men to scrounge, code for; "you won't be getting anything from us." Reinforcements, their biggest advantage thus far in the war, had also slowed.

None could tell Patrice why. Some said the Dral had calmed the sea; Patrice wondered if now the boats were in trouble. At the battered command tent they found only black chunks that looked like a fanged creature. It looked like the Dral, but it looked fake. More trickery from the Comeratte wizard, Patrice thought. But he worried. He knew how to read spells—that he had been taught. But the black lines just didn't exist anymore. He checked with the other readers and they verified what he saw—no Dral. Some did say they saw lines, though. White lines. White lines with black specks in them. What the hell, Patrice had asked, did white lines mean? None could answer. But there was a silver lining to this dark cloud. General Aspinal was soon to be arriving from the north. The real Duke and his allies had been decimated and Aspinal's army had turned around. He now came from the north with his huge army. He had two hundred thousand men. Which was good, for the stack of reports (Patrice noticed with dark humor, that unlike the supplies, they still made it) that the prince, the Comeratte king's second son, had come, and that he brought friends. The Dral was supposed to have taken care that this son never made it. Again, a plan that did not bear fruit. Their pre-war optimism had been ill-founded. Yes, they had every edge, but at each turn they found unimaginable resistance. They hadn't counted on the king's men fighting to a man, to the death, with unabashed bravery. Sighing, Patrice turned to Brady. The man was covered with mud from head to foot. Patrice did not ask his stout lieutenant the reason why. He only ordered Brady to move the men north. His orders were to await Aspinal and to see if they could free themselves from the fighting. They needed a lull, a break, to regroup and re-plan. They also needed to see if they could de-escalate the battle. The king's men, backed by complete savages, had the momentum. They needed to change that.

One way, he suggested to the generals, was a parlay cease-fire. They didn't really need to talk about anything, but the lull would benefit them more than the Comerattes. Plus, weren't they supposed to offer the king a deal? Weren't they supposed to give them an out? That was the rationale that the Movement had used to justify not talking to the king about their Claim in the first place, wasn't it?

Also, there were rumors—the good kind of rumors. The men spread word of seeing the Ass dead in the arms of the Mara. Maybe the Ash and the Dral had taken each other out of the game. That would be fine with Patrice. Absolutely, positively, fine.

There was something else. There was something Patrice found very disagreeable. The king's men had begun something, something that Patrice didn't like. They charged his men, no matter how small their numbers, without regard to the danger, and attacked with a call. They shouted 'Mortal.' Surely it was the stupidest call in all the world. As if only Patrice and his men were mortal. Like they weren't. It was crazy. It was irritating. It was maddening. They were mortal. They bled, they died. They should shut the hell up. Patrice peeled a tiny flap of skin from the nail of his finger. He stripped it down to the knuckle and it began to bleed. It began to burn.

Again Patrice questioned the crusade. He questioned whether indeed the gods supported it, as the Movement said.

Mara returned to consciousness with a start. Soldiers were running about the battlefield shouting. She set up for a quick strike but drew back when she saw they were her own men.

"The Prince! The Prince!" they shouted. The prince had finally come. Mara pulled her numb body off the dead soldier bed and yanked her breastplate from her chin. Off in the distance, as far as she could see, were the unmistakable signs of an enormous army. Undulating ants, she thought, a river black with soldiers flowed their way. And they would be fresh. The prince brought his thousand men army and many, many more. She shaded her eyes with her hand, and saw, far off, a long procession of the prince's banners. Her heart brightened as she thought of her old company.

Then, she saw the others. Heralding the prince's arrival were the banners of the Bloodlace Northfairers, and behind them, the banners of the Nation. Her Nation. The Kingdom of the Mara had joined the prince. Soon there would be thousands of Maras around.

She scanned the area and found a king's soldier nearby. He jumped when he saw her, and quickly sped off. But he returned with a friend.

"Ha!" shouted Linder. She ran to meet Mara. She jumped into her friend's arms with enough force to drive them back full steps. They clenched each other tight for a long time. After the embrace, they stared at each other, each too filled with questions to speak. Linder looked the same, in fact, Mara noticed, her friend was without so much as a scratch.

"How goes the battle? How about the others?" Mara asked first.

"I can only tell you a little, but all is hopeful...so far," Linder said. "The prince comes!" she said, pointing to the marching ants. "And the enemy has retreated to the shores of Pincolte, three miles north. They are making another stand, but the king's guard and the Cave People press them hard. Rumor is, however, that at the moment the fighting has slowed down a bit. Nobody can say why," Linder said. Almost as an afterthought, she clasped Mara by the arms. "We stopped the landings! A group led by Mo cut their supply lines and took to the army on the beach. They wiped them out. They say the boats don't land anymore, that they only float out in the deep water," she said.

"And rumor has it that a storm comes. They think the Dral kept the wind from hampering the landings, and now they cannot land! If they don't turn around they will die—they will drown," she said. "We are regrouping less than a mile from here, trying to establish a camp. There you will find Gractah and Velorant, who suffered another wound to the face, on top of his old wound to the face. Come, we go there now," said Linder, pulling Mara by the arm. The king's guard followed.

"You're right, you can only tell me a little. Want to know what I can tell you? You get all stiff if you sleep on a pile of dead guys," Mara said.

"Fascinating," said Linder. "But I have more—I have a new battle strategy. Before the battle starts, wander lost with about a dozen of the king's men, who, to a man, are complete idiots. Do that for the first two days, then, when all in the battle are tired and spent, rescue the king!" Linder laughed and added in a low voice, "By coordinating the attack from the rear, of course." Mara noticed the guard, who was within earshot, wince at the talk but nonetheless the man kept to himself.

"You saved the king?" asked Mara. "And fought for only one day?"

"Well... yes, nice to get that kind of work, humm?" said Linder. "But everyone's been looking for you. They know you and the others have been crushing the enemy with attacks all while shouting the 'Mortals' call," Linder said. Then in a more somber tone, she asked the question that had been haunting her. "What tale can you tell of Isuair and Ash? All search for them, and speak of their absence. You will likely face a host of questions in the camp that will not be quieted by revelations of how stiff corpse-beds make one."

Mara, disturbed at the news that Isuair had not been seen at the battle, almost physically shook. Yet a glimmer of hope sprung in her heart. If the wizard had something better to do than this battle, it would be important. And the only thing she could think of that could possibly be more important than the whole damn war, would be Ashy-hole. And the wizard did not waste his time with corpses. But her grim countenance did not escape Linder.

"Your answers will not cheer us, I fear," said the warrior, and she too fell silent.

"Gractah said nothing about Ash or Isuair?" Mara asked.

"Only that he, Erow and Gwere had seen you in a darkened pavilion with the Dral. He says he knows no more, but... his eyes speak otherwise, as do yours. The king said he felt the presence of the evil one lift from the battlefield, and that it helped his army to victory." Then Linder's voice cracked. "Some say that the Dral killed Eye and Ash, and then perished himself. Are my Ash and my wizard dead?"

"No, no. Eye's okay, or he was when I left him. Ash killed the Dral," said Mara, "but he... I left him in Isuair's care, so..." she trailed off. Linder had never before seen Mara wring her hands, and found it deeply disturbing. "...any of the others, beside Gractah and Vel?" asked Mara.

"No, we hoped you could help us there..." Linder said.

"I heard Erow call the battle cry, down in that canyon," said Mara, pointing below them. "And the last I saw of him, he had leaped the line and disappeared into a sea of the enemy. Gwere was pushing against the same group when he too disappeared. I wasn't near Rehoak, but I heard the call from familiar sources, including one that sounded like a wounded jackass, that could have been him."

"I used the call too, everyone is using it, the king's men too, they say it has magic powers to vanquish their foes," said Linder.

"Yeah, well, tell them to bring their swords along, just in case," said Mara.

A camp had indeed sprung to life in the debris of the battlefield. Linder and Mara were welcomed as heroes, and Gractah quickly joined them.

"Well, well, there you are, and no worse the wear, I deem. I hear you lounge with corpses, resting yourself," said Gractah, smiling broadly. They embraced and kissed.

"I thought I had a mortal wound, but it was just a scratch. I alone in my pile fared so well," said Mara with a smile.

"Good thing too, for I hear tell that those you lie with wore the wrong uniforms," laughed Gractah.

"Say not lie with, but rather, strode upon in a resting sort of way," said Mara with a small laugh.

"As you wish! As you wish!" said Gractah. "But you may be hard pressed to change the tale that spreads as we speak. But come, Linder says you have news of Gwere and the others."

"Only that his call, the Mortals call, had spread through that canyon, down a quarter league or so from here. Gwere, like Erow and Rehoak, vanished in the fight," said Mara. Gractah took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Well, if they're alive, we'll find them. It's early yet. We have people everywhere. The king returns today, and seeks counsel with persons with news of anyone, especially of the wizard or Ash. You know we have had no word of them since...?"

"Yes, and between you and I, that is not unwelcome news, but let us say no more at this time," Mara begged. "I need coffee." Gractah nodded and pointed out their camp. Mara saw that the fighting had brought them close to the sea, and their 'camp' was no more than a clear spot on the beach. Together, with Linder, they set off.

Marla summoned a nurse to the waiting room, and had her lead their inebriated laceration patient to the care room. Then she began to move toward the old man.

After building a fire, Gractah left to gather news. Information of any kind was scarce, for men were just now gathering themselves after the long and exhausting battle. A helpful guard brought Mara coffee. Mara sat, sipping the drink that was more bitter than she liked, and watched the line of ants that was the prince's army. In the procession she saw the Mara Nation, thousands strong. She sat and sipped, and stared at the banners of her people. There would be no men with the Mara and they would take no orders from them. Their appearance gave her pause. Their help in battle would be tremendous, and their arrival had rightly buoyed the spirits of the men, but Massali couldn't help but feel deep reservations. If the Mara could avoid this fight, they would. In fact, they could be the spoilers of the battle. Whichever side won, would have to deal, in a weakened state, with a strong Mara Nation. So—why were they here? Also, there was a personal issue. Massali's mission required that the Mara provide crucial support to her at just the right time. It had been a promise—a blood promise not to be broken. That time had passed and they were no-shows, which led Mara to believe that she was on her own, or moreover, abandoned. So, again, why was the Nation, here, now?

Marla had been looking forward to this moment since the ivy grew on the walls around the trauma desk. She felt if she could get to the old man, she could clear some things up. Making contact with him was easy, he was staring at her, and when she moved off, he followed. Taking him to a patient room, she ushered him through the door and closed it. As she turned the lock, she grabbed the scissors.

"Keep those in your pocket, Sweetie," whispered the old man. He had pulled back his hood, and rose to his full height. Marla wondered if she hadn't made a mistake. She wondered if the old geezer might be dangerous.

"I'll need my friend back," was all he said. Of course, thought Mara, he's in ICU; just get a gurney. But before she could open her mouth the old man spoke again. "You need to again make preparations for your victim of the chill. He will be back. It is important that you save him also."

When Marla decided to draw the scissors from her pocket, she had already resolved to throw everything away, her career, her life, everything, on this one act. If the old man would not be straight with her, she was going to kill him. That was that. But when she drew the weapon, she looked down at her hand and froze. A single tear rolled down her cheek as she held out her hand in front of her, and unclasped an ivy branch that lay between her fingers. A minute later she was screeching, pulling at the door, trying to open it without unlocking it. All she knew was that she had to get out of that room. Finally, she unlocked the door and wrenched it open. She burst out of the room, and ran down the hall screaming as she went. She ran and ran. By the time she stopped, she was more than two miles from the hospital. Finally, unable to run any more, she sat down on a small lawn outside an office building, buried her face in her hands, and began to weep.

All Dr. Grace knew was that Marla worked too hard, and that this was bound to happen sometime or another. Weird things were happening at St. Catheran's of late. Her nurses were freaking out, her patients were getting lost, and her staff was having a hard time sticking with a diagnosis. One such patient, the heart victim, had disappeared, and another, their hypothermic, had resurfaced. Dr. Grace winced at the thought, but it was true nonetheless. Thank God they were both just homeless men, she thought, resisting a sharp pang of social conscience. She could imagine informing a family that their loved one was missing. Now, they had the hypothermia patient show up again, just like magic.

No wonder that Marla was freaking out, Dr. Grace thought, and she resolved to call her head nurse, or better, to drop by her apartment and see if she could help. Marla was too good a person to lose as a colleague and as a friend. As she walked, with these very thoughts rolling in her mind, she passed an old man dressed as a nineteenth century monk. Must be a full moon tonight, she said to herself.

Word at the camp spread that the enemy wanted to parlay, and the king called a temporary halt to the fighting. Both sides agreed on a no-man's land where the parties would meet. They set the number of participants and agreed to leave their broadswords behind. After seeing that the conditions had been met, the king's emissaries joined the enemy on a flat open space, not far from their camp.

The king sent his Royal Guard, surrounded by his best men, to the meeting. The rest of the army was to keep their distance, but the king's commanders underestimated the draw the parlay would have. Try as they might to prevent it, the men, by the thousands, began to draw close in.

The enemy, seeing the king's Army crowd the meeting, brought their army up. Soon it appeared that the meeting was a parlay between two gigantic, haggard armies. Since the enemy called for the parlay, the king's men let them begin.

"Leave this land, it belongs to our forefathers and us," said the man. The emissary for the enemy spoke boldly, and brandished papers as he spoke. "These papers are the deeds of our forefathers. We own this land. If you do not leave we will destroy you. Then we will spend every last man trying to cleanse our land of your kind." The emissary handed the papers to a runner who offered them to those in the king's party. The king's men did not accept. The king's Elite Guard and Gractah simply shrugged.

"We need no papers to tell us who the trespassers are here," said Gractah, "and we have no doubt as to the victory that lay ahead of us, while we defend our homes. I have this, and only this to say to; you lay down your weapons and we may let you leave." He was quiet and respectful, his voice sad and muted. As Gractah finished a king's officer named Mo stepped forward and added his thoughts.

"We, because this is our home," said Mo, "will fight to the last man, and win. But if the unthinkable happens, and the fight turns against us, I swear you this oath," Mo brought his fist up and shook it once. "When we are down to but a few, those souls will salt the fields and burn the towns, for our home we will leave for no thieves to despoil," he said. "You will win but a desert."

"Speak not so," said the enemy. The man was of average height and heavily muscled, but he was also scarred and bloodied. "You need to think, err you error," Patrice continued. "You have lost both your leader, Ash, and your guiding hand, the wizard, to the Dral. The Dral was not one of us and we feel no loss at his passing. We still have most all of our men, and all of our leaders. And many, many, more soldiers come. Now is the time for clear thought, not harsh words. We would leave you go, without harm or pursuit, were you to lay down you arms and evacuate our home."

As Patrice finished his speech, a great rumble rippled through the king's army. In the back, among the king's men, there was much shouting and yelling. Gractah turned to see the army roaring and churning behind him. He felt weak for a moment. This cannot be, he thought. This cannot be. His heart tightened and skipped a beat, as he again thought, this cannot be. They could win unending battles, conquer infinite armies, overcome unbelievable odds together, united, but this—this was unthinkable. Was part of the army agreeing to the enemy's terms? He looked to Vel, but his friend only smiled. As a response to the wicked, harsh look Gractah gave him, Vel pointed.

"Perfect timing," said the guard. Gractah saw the army before them part like a sea, and like the ocean, the waves roared as Ash and the wizard passed. Behind followed Gwere, Rehoak, Linder and Mara.

"I have something to say to our new friends," said Ash, with a nod and a clash of fists to Gractah. "Your memories of this land are long, but not overly so," said Ash to Patrice. "Our people came across the sea, and destroyed those who lived here, some hundreds of years ago, but they too had a score to settle. They too were returning to their land to avenge their forefathers—for centuries before, your kind invaded this land from the south, slew our forefathers, and took our land." The king's army immediately erupted in rolling cheers.

Gractah stood mystified at the appearance of the wizard and Ash. He said nothing, but his close association with Ash over the last weeks had given the Elite a sense about his friend. And now that sense told him that while Ash stood before them, all was not what it seemed. His friend did not look at all well.

As Ash faced the captain, waiting for the cheers to subside, he burst into laughter. A man on the other side of the line also began to chuckle.

"How's the war going for your side?" Ash said, stretching to peer behind Patrice.

"Well, you know... up and down," said the man. "But you're making some good points," said the enemy soldier. He was standing behind the enemy captain and grinning from ear to ear. Patrice did not look amused. He frowned deeply at his men, and especially at the man with whom Ash spoke. The enemy closed around them, and one man, a huge Corporal named Deira, reached out to place a hand on the speaking man.

"That's enough of that..." said the voice of a female warrior. Linder stepped forward and grabbed Erow by his uniform, the wrong uniform, and pulled him to their side.

"I deem you felt our chances not so good, humm?" Ash said as he passed.

"Oh, our chances seem fine enough," said Erow, "I just like their uniforms." And as he passed, he whispered to Ash. "Nice to see you breathing for a change, Sweetness."

"Enough! What foolishness is this?" screamed Patrice. "You have no claim..." he shouted, but the giant Comeratte captain interrupted. "Come," Gwere said, "we need parlay no further. We need no history lesson to tell us that we fight, and rightfully so, for our land and the home of our king." Gwere turned to Patrice and addressed him directly. "Once we part, we finish this." And with that Gwere pushed through the crowd, and with him went Isuair and Ash.

As they passed from the enemy's sight, Isuair grabbed Ash's right arm, and Gwere hastily grabbed his left.

They walked and a host of questions followed. Isuair and Gwere were practically carrying Ash, and tried to shoo the others away, but it was Rehoak that stepped forward and pressed with a single question.

"Ash, where did you hear about the enemy invading centuries ago?" Of all the men, it was Rehoak who spent the most time, save Isuair, in the king's scribe halls. But Ash was barely conscious and did not answer.

Once again they were all around a fire. In a circle, Gwere sat followed by Gractah, Mara, Ash, Linder, Rehoak, Erow, and completing the ring, Isuair. The king had summoned Isuair, but the wizard begged the runner to say he couldn't be found for the present. The runner paused for a moment and then acted as if he had not heard the wizard. He soon moved away, still calling for Isuair.

Ash opened his shirt, and showed the others a railroad track of staples up his chest, from his navel to his neck. The group was completely astonished at the sight, and asked many questions.

"We will leave the details for another time," Isuair interrupted, "and I will leave my friend here in your capable hands. Take care of him this time!" Eye said with a frown. "I have made excuses for you to the king," Isuair continued, "and the army will leave you be, so you have time on your own. Some of you may have business to tend to..." Isuair said, glancing at Mara. "I fear we face a tough road ahead and I will need you to look after one another, especially when I am needed elsewhere. Our friend here must get some rest—and lots of it," said the wizard. As he rose, Isuair looked at each of them. "Watch over him. If he starts to thrash around, or pales, or turns ashen and non-responsive, call me immediately," said the wizard.

"Yes, especially if I turn ashen and start thrashing around," said Ash.

"What do we do if he just blurts out stupid stuff?" someone asked.

"Do what you always do," someone else said.

But the wizard wasn't listening. He had turned to see the runner, who never really left the area, hover by once again while muttering his strange mantra.

"...where could that wizard be? Oh, where, oh where?" The messenger said as he stalked the grounds. "...where, where could that wizard be?" The man had been repeating this for some time when Isuair finally got up. As he followed the wizard to the command tent, the runner looked relieved indeed.

The day was waning, and the sun was drawing near the hills. They had Ash bundled in blankets, including his own magic one. The party had scrounged food and coffee, and with their fire blazing high, each member lay down for a much need rest.

Their status had again grown among the army. The death of the Dral, the arrival of the Nation, and the talk at the parlay, where they laughed in the face of the enemy, had made their stars rise even higher in the eyes of the king's men. Whatever they wanted, the soldiers were eager to provide. Many walked close to their fire and either saluted or clicked their swords in a gesture of acknowledgment.

Sipping coffee as the sun set, none of the party talked, for they had each other, and knew their many questions could wait. Instead they reveled in the moment, resting and warming their bodies. Linder had Ash lying in her lap, and the others doted on them. As the sun set golden in the haze, and the fires that dotted the valley burned brighter in the dusk, the party settled in and took turns staring at each other. Each had done the impossible; each had survived the battle. Each had come through to join once again under the stars.

Dark came quick to the valley, but the group was lost to its approach, loath to fall asleep and face a morrow that was sure to torment them. As if to read their minds, Linder began to sing. To Ash it was a soothing lullaby, to the others it was something to focus on besides their fate. The sky blackened, and the stars came out en masse. Still no one spoke. Desire and despair choked their words.

More then one of them silently begged the gods to leave them alone—together, without violence, in this, their own little world. Occasionally, Erow would come in with a song of his own, sung low and deep, and his song seemed to say this more than any words could. His songs were about love and forgiveness.

The king's men seemed fascinated with the group, and built fires closer than one would think in a camp so large. Most did not directly approach, but many would often stray near, and stare or pause just out of the light. One such time, a man stopped at their fire and said hello. He had begun to move on, when Ash recognized him. It was Velorant. He had a large bandage on his face, almost like a towel with eyeholes, but he was still recognizable as their old colleague. They bid him to stay, but he had duties with the army, though he promised to come by after his turn. When they had said their good-byes, and Vel had moved on, Linder asked Ash if he was warm enough.

"I have my magic blanket, I'm warm enough," said Ash.

"What about that," asked Mara, pulling herself up on one elbow. She was sticking a branch into the fire and sending sparks up into the night, most of which came falling back onto the group.

"What about what?" Asked Ash.

"Your magic bag and your magic blanket, what do they do?"

"The blanket keeps me warm, and the bag holds the blanket," said Ash.

"But wherein lies the magic?" asked Mara.

"By keeping me warm," said Ash.

"But how does it work?" asked Linder.

"Because it's woolly," said Ash. He sounded irritated. Erow and Rehoak began gasping in quiet gulfs of laughter, covering their mouths.

"Of course," said Mara. She also sounded irritated.

"Well, then I have a magic blanket, too. It keeps me warm, magically like," said Linder.

"Then my cloak do seem to sparkle with the magician code, for it keeps me toasty in the cold," said Gwere.

"I'll have another sip of coffee, it keeps me warm also, like it were the juices drooled from the Necromancer himself," Erow said. There followed a round of 'eews.'

"Funny, I have magic gloves, but they don't work on the rest of my body," said Gractah. "I wear them but my feet freeze."

"Remember how Isuair said we all should be quiet?" asked Ash.

"No. He said you should be quiet, if I remember right," said Mara. "We can talk all we want."

"About all kinds of magic stuff," said Linder. Gractah and Rehoak gathered firewood that had been left in piles near their camp, and together they built a blaze larger than any of the others in the field.

"...keeping up appearances," said Erow.

"Are you going to talk about your disappearance, and what happened in the tent with the black wizard?" Gwere asked.

"Nope," Ash said, "you will all just roll your eyes, and this wonderful night will be ruined." The group laughed, and reveled in their huge fire. They were a great curiosity for the army, and their big fire ignited even more interest. In the light, they saw a soldier pass. His left arm stopped at the elbow, the limb capped by a large, bloody bandage. It gave the group pause, and after he passed they each quietly thanked the powers that be for their good fortune. Erow said he had almost suffered the same fate when his grip on his sword slipped, and he found his arm trapped by an enemy mace. His arm had a large black bruise on it.

"...AND it's your sword arm..." said Linder.

"Well?" asked Mara. Erow continued that someone had killed the enemy from behind, and Erow never saw who it was. He said it was to that person, that anonymous soul, to whom he owed his biggest debt. Gwere showed the group a large patch of purple skin on his side, the result he said, of a blow from a lance.

"A lance? Out here?" asked Mara. But Gractah, too, said they came upon horsed knights, and were hard pressed to fend them off. Erow showed them his leg, where a gash ran from calf to ankle. His armor had turned an axe in time to save his limb. Gractah had a stab wound in his thigh and a gash on his back. Mara showed the group the back of her neck, purple from head to shoulder. Ash noticed that the group had mostly back and side wounds. Those in front were not around long enough to bruise anybody. Velorant returned and asked if the invitation to join them still stood. It did, they informed him, and he seemed greatly pleased to warm himself by their fire, hungrily accepting food and coffee. Looking like a mummy, their game ended as he sat. Good thing too, thought Ash, for he had been about to show everyone his zipper again. As the evening drew on, their fire burned low, and one by one they drifted off to sleep.

Mara rose in the darkness. The party slept, but she could see Gwere standing guard, poised on a stump. She rose, took her bag, pulled her cloak tight, and stepped over to the big captain. They stood face to face, for what seemed a very long minute, then the captain simply stepped aside, and Mara passed out and into dark. She looked over her shoulder and saw the big man, standing frozen, his eyes following her into the night. As she walked, Mara sang a nonsensical childhood song. With each word, she felt herself grow more calm.

"Said the chew cow, the dew cow,

but not the blue cow,

as it ate the trees and the bees and the leaves,

Moo, Moo, Moo.

Said the cud cow, the mud cow,

and the bud cow, as it ate the cat

and the rat and the bat,

Moo, Moo, Moo.

Said the dread cow, the fed cow,

but not the head cow, as it ate the steer

and the deer and the leer,

Moo, Moo, Moo.

Said the sick cow, the licked cow

and the bricked cow,

if you ate that much,

you'd turn green and orange too.

Moo, Moo, Moo and Moo,

Moo, Motherfucters, Moooooooooooooooooooooo."

The song was so stupid it made Mara laugh. It was also code for the group, but some sang it just to be irritating. Mara was sure Linder had no idea what the song meant to the party—the golden warrior just liked to sing it. It was long; 16 separate groups of verses of cows that did everything from burrow into the moon to eat cheese to cows that ate too much candy composed the mind-numbing carol. But it was the ending, in Mara's opinion, that was the reason Isuair picked the song. It was why the song was their password and the trigger for the kill spell. For some insane reason the child's song ended gruesomely. The in the sixteenth verse, one cow grew too powerful for the other cows to accept, and the rest of the cows ate him.

Said the beached bones, to the bleached bones, to the leached bones,

Moo, Moo, Moo.

"An effective warrior dies or triumphs. Only those two worlds exist." The words of Mara's mentor rang through her head as she walked. She would have no problem with that last battle being with the invaders, or her own people, just as long as it was with someone she hated. And the Nation fit that bill just fine.

She knew it was possible, even likely, that the Nation may try to kill her outright. She had been deliberately betrayed; at least in her own mind, and the traditions of the Nation demand that the betrayed take revenge upon the betrayer. Unless, of course, Mara was killed before her case could be made. Dead warriors do not tell tales of deceit and deception. Out in the night, she strode past bush and sage; as of yet, their dark silhouettes were her only company as she marched toward the outer fires of the Nation.

To her right, she placed a hidden Mara warrior, and was relieved when the soldier came forward and hailed her by her name and password. As she approached the camp parameter, she found more and more Mara guards, and more and more salutes. She began to grin. She thought it wickedly funny that they would give her an "open arms" welcome.

"Massali," said a warrior with a slight bow.

"Well met, my long, lost friends," Mara said with a big smile. "Well met, indeed," she said, and she slapped the back of Fadla, a warrior much like herself. Fadla, like Mara, had long black hair, battle gear, and a sword in her hand. Again she said, "Well met!" Mara had decided that the Nation needed to send a fitting escort to bring her into camp. If they wanted to play nice, they could come and fetch her. So, for long minutes, Mara stood, slapping backs and saying, "well met" to everyone, but she did not enter the camp.

Soon, a member of the princess's Circle approached, and bid Mara to walk with her. Mara recognized her as Calé, a member of the queen's Inner Guard, and an old friend. Calé had been Mara's protégé; she was young, powerful, beautiful and dangerous. They were always searching for the perfect Mara, next year it would be someone else, just as the years last it had been Massali.

She and Calé exchanged pleasantries, and Massali let her sarcasm ebb. She also sheathed her sword; it was a sign of deep respect for her old friend. It was a parting gift—in Mara's mind she was saying goodbye to the woman. She was saying goodbye to all of the Nation, at least for as long as the current queen reigned. But her hand did not stray far from the weapon's hilt. As she walked into the camp with her old friend, Mara found few words fit the occasion. Every phrase she could dredge up—"how's everybody?" or "nice to see you," seemed to repulse her more than the dead air, so the women walked in silence.

As they made their way through the camp they passed many warriors—each gave a nod or salute. At the center of camp Mara was brought before three tents, erected side-to-side, their canvas walls all but touching. From the center tent one could monitor the other two just by listening quietly. On one side of the Queen's Pavilion stood the command tent, on the other, a small, rundown gray tent. It was this tent that Mara and Calé entered. Just through the door sat Softlee.

The queen's handmaiden stood as Mara entered, and the two warriors soon found themselves face to face. Mara, smiling broadly, slowly reached to her weapon and unlocked her sword by pulling it out the first inch. Softlee was also smiling, but she didn't miss the gesture, nor did she mistake the fake smile on Mara's face for a real one. Softlee retreated to the rear of the tent and took a seat by a small table with two chairs. Mara stood her ground at the tent entrance, but took a step away from the door. Her hand still rested on her weapon.

"How's the queen?" asked Mara.

"Her Majesty is at her very best, and sends her warmest regards," Softlee said. She patted the chair next to her, and gave Mara a sweet, 'have a seat look.'

"We are anxious to learn about you and Ash," Softlee said. "How is your relationship with him? We heard you mouth-kissed, is this true?" Softlee asked. Mara only stood, silently watching the movements of the other warrior around her. She had not come to answer the questions of a handmaiden. But Softlee pressed on. "Have you talked about magic? Has he taught you anything? Are your blades blessed also? Has your own magic gift grown? Can you cut rocks?" Softlee asked.

As Softlee asked questions, Mara watched Calé, wide-eyed and excited, pace in tiny steps before Massali. The Nation had apparently heard the stories that spread daily throughout the camp, of the king's magic weapon called—Ash. Mara let out a small laugh. She had to mentally block the 'can you cut rocks,' question to resist a sojourn into the world of hysterics. It was funny in the group, but here they were serious. These were the questions that plagued them and the reason they were nice. All other matters, including that which troubled Mara, were of little consequence.

Mara pulled the chair away from her friend, and placed it in between Softlee and Calé. She could strike at each from her seat. She sat and placed her sword, still an inch out, across her lap. As a sign of respect, she placed her hands on the sheath, not the handle. Softlee placed her hands open on her lap. Calé took a step back, but remained standing. Mara knew the warrior was working the room; the step put her just out of reach.

On the table next to Softlee, just barely in view, leaned a sword. It was sheathless and placed where it could be picked up quickly. Just as Softlee was meant take notice of Mara's weapon, Massali was to get the message about the sword leaning against the table. They would play nice, but only to a point. For now, Mara only smiled.

"I request you speak freely," said Softlee, "I am prepared to represent the queen, and you may say whatever you like. I want to stress that, Massali, any feelings you have, you should voice now."

"Okay, good plan. Why was I alone?" Mara asked. "I was promised, over and over, that we had people deep in the Dral's command, and that I wouldn't ever be alone. I faced him twice. Each time I enjoyed complete solitude."

"You had Ash..." said Softlee

"Each time nobody... nobody... was around," Mara said.

"Did you get the book?" asked Calé. Mara let out a long sigh as she slowly and deliberately rose to her feet. She took two steps toward Softlee, drew her weapon and leveled its tip at the handmaiden. Softlee only sat, hands still on her lap. Then, advancing another step, until the point of her weapon was almost touching the woman, Mara finished with a whisper. "I was alone. I had to throw that fucting book into the fire."

Chapter 3

Gwere watched Mara slip into the night. He looked toward their fire and saw the manic staring after her also; he looked again to Mara, and saw her fade into the shadows. After a long moment the big captain settled back onto the tree stump that he had made his post and resumed his watch. A second glance toward the group showed that Ash had returned to Linder's lap and to sleep.

After a deep sigh, Gwere tried to clear his mind. He had a bad feeling about the warrior's people; he had heard and seen things around the camp that suggested the Nation and his friend might not be on the best of terms. But he knew Mara could take care of herself; he didn't know if they could take care of themselves without her. In that one second when they stood face to face, he wished he had spoken those very words to her. Massali, we know your skills protect you, Gwere imagined himself saying, but who will watch over us? Who will stand with us, who will be there for us, who will be the beauty and the wry wit? Who will be our Mara if you don't come back? Treasure yourself, as we do, I besiege thee; you are the love, splendor in breath... Gwere stopped. He felt no need to further delve into the love fantasies of the weak, but his mind would not stop. He could see himself telling her how much they, he, loved her. He would be smooth, drawing near, losing himself in her dark eyes, telling her what she meant to everyone, what she meant to him.

Instead, he stood there like a tree. In the dark, alone with his thoughts, he wished the gods had given him more gifts. As these thoughts pressed him, a small group of men passed and from their black uniforms Gwere could see that they were part of the Elite. They hailed him with a quiet whistle. He ignored them. He deliberately looked their way, and then, as if not to see them, slowly looked away. He was not in the mood to be social; he was not in the mood to be anything to anybody whose name was not Mara.

Finally, one of the men approached him and asked if he wanted to join them for some pipe. Gwere accepted on the condition that he could stay within sight of the group and that all would be quiet. When it came to him, he took a long draw. He would later say it was the sweetest pipe he had ever took. He sat, with the guards, and he and the men savored the night. An owl had been watching them all week and though the king's men felt it was an ill omen, Gwere didn't think so. The gods watched them, protected them, preserved them. Only the joke was that they couldn't have been more miserable. They were so miserable that some of them, even now, took steps to duck that protection. He knew for a fact that Ash was suicidal, and their new buddy Vel seemed like he was also. And Mara, Mara would go along just to make everyone else miserable.

They all fought the idea that most of them would die in the war and that any survivors would be worse off, trying to live on, striving in vain to make sense of a senseless war.

He wished he had never got to know any of them. As much as that thought pained him, made him die a little inside, he knew it to be true. He had been in battles before; they all ended badly. The only thing worse than suffering the wounds yourself was witnessing the deaths of your friends and wondering how everything could go so wrong.

He thought back to the mouth of the Gorge. Someone had said, "let's not go." He knew, as did the rest of them, that those words were the height of treason. He also knew Linder hadn't a traitorous bone in her body; she was just a woman who spoke her mind. Now, standing in the dark, he had second thoughts. Were Linder to offer any more suggestions about the roads that lay head, he just might listen. He took the pipe again, and was grateful that the men had persisted in accompanying him. But when the pipe went out, the questions came.

"Has the Mara gone to her people?" asked the guard. It was simple curiosity that still made the big captain wince; he did not like talking about his business or the group's business.

"She seeks her own counsel, who is to say what and where that is," Gwere said. Hearing his own words he added, "but the camp would probably be a guess." Then, in an attempt to guide the subject away from his group and the rumors that always followed them, Gwere quickly asked the guards about their charge. "Did the king come away unscathed? Did any attack come close?"

"Yea, but he did receive a stroke to his shield that took him off his horse," said the guard.

"OFF? Was he injured?" asked Gwere.

"His fall was broken by the one you sit with at times, Vel. Good thing, too," said the guard. At this the rest of the Elite chuckled quietly.

"Speak, is it a joke to have your Sovereign thrown?"

"No, no, no, certainly not," said the Elite. "We only meant that... it was well known that he, Vel, had left with the Mara and the Ash, let's say, ah, prematurely. That, you may do, for you and your party are your own masters, I deem, but Vel is regular army, and dear it would have been for him to meet the king after his, well, impromptu adventure. Only at this we laugh, not at any other thing. We all thank the gods that our king was caught by, or rather fell on, Vel."

"I deem much from your tale that you do not tell," Gwere said. "Fell on? Did the king really fall on Vel?" Gwere started laughing, as quietly as possible, but laughing nonetheless. The guards also found humor in the story, and soon all the men were quietly giddy.

"For sure the lord fell right on Vel. One moment you are fine, the next the king sits upon your arse, and you lie face down in a gorse bush," said the guard. "And his majesty seemed less than grateful for the padding, or lack of it, that the bony Vel did provide." Gwere began breathing and laughing into his cloak. He held out his hand for the guard to hold his story, for Gwere was getting woozy stifling the guffs. On Gwere's signal, the guard, whom Gwere now recognized as an officer named Mo, continued with his story.

"With a snout full of gorse bush," Mo said, "Vel did help our Majesty back to his charger. As His Honor did remount, he looked down, and asked Vel if he were indeed the soldier that did charge into the battle with the wizard's group. Vel said yes, and the Sovereign did turn and speak to him again," said the guard. "This then," his Majesty did say, "is twice now that thee has pained my arse." And the guards, with Gwere, a dozen feet from the fire where the group slept, were brought to their knees; for long moments they laughed and laughed.

When the men moved on Gwere was sorry to see them go. As the night quieted, the captain once again settled onto his stump, and, along with the owl, renewed his watch. He tried to stop a yawn before it started but had no luck when Rehoak relieved him. Gwere settled near the fire and after a moment of gazing into the starry night, slipped off into the world of slumber.

As Gwere fell asleep and the fire burned low, Ash disappeared into the night. Rehoak, on watch, looked around, pulled his cloak close, and yawned, grateful for the quiet.

Stepping through the brush, Ash made his way to the Mara camp. Massali, he reminded himself, her name is Massali. It wouldn't do to get that wrong in front of her own people.

His chest gave off a hollow, disconnected feel, and his heart beat loud in his own ears. As he walked he imagined his body bursting open and his insides flowering out. He took a moment, standing among the brush and sage, to tightly wind his magic blanket around his torso. He covered it with his thin mail shirt and cloak. He then removed it from his mind. Die he would, so he ignored his plight and returned to his death machine mindset. If the machine broke down during the game, then all would be the merrier.

Ash knew the Mara would have guards posted at their camp, but he intended to walk in and check on his friend. The look on Gwere's face as Mara walked out into the night had frightened him; that look concerned him more than any guard, whether from the Nation or not.

Ash placed the guards hidden among the rocks and hollows on the route to the camp. Most quietly closed in after him as he approached. As he neared the encampment, many stepped forward. They gave him warnings, blocked his path with objects—including a torso on a spear—and called to him. Arrows whistled near his head. He did not acknowledge their calls; he did not respond to their hails. He only walked, head bowed, to their camp. And, of course, all the while he waited for the pop.

He was making for a group of tents toward the rear of their compound; as he drew near, the guards placed themselves in his path. Soon, very soon, he thought, his trespass would meet force. More and more guards arrived at the entrance of the camp. They lined up, rows deep, across their boundary and drew their weapons. Again they hailed him. Ash, in his slow, deliberate pace, closed the space between them. Twenty, fifteen, ten, he was now close enough to see their faces in the torchlight, and they were close enough to see his. Seven, six, five, and the Mara stretched out their arms to physically ward him off. Ash drew back his cloak; he wrapped the thick black fabric around the back of the blades. He did not look up and he did not slow; he only plodded on like a machine. At the moment the warriors would physically touch him, they drew back, parted, and Ash passed into the camp.

The manic strolled into the camp with four-dozen Mara warriors behind him. He rubbed his thumb across the clips of the blades, making sure they were closed. They were locked tight. He, and his procession, paced the distance to the large pavilion and the queen's tent. In a few moments, Ash thought, he and the Mara would have a talk.

In the ramshackle tent next to the pavilion, Massali and Softlee exchanged volleys. Outside, guards paced, following Massy's shadow on the gray canvas like panthers.

"Both Davallal and Barouk were sympathetic to our side," Softlee said. "We can talk about that when you wish, hopefully soon. But I need to know now, do you make a claim on any in your party?" Softlee asked.

"You mean Ash? Ha! Is that what this is about?" Mara asked. "Are you kidding me? You search for flesh? I thought the plan was to get that book and cultivate magic—now you think, what, that you can make a bunch of little girl Ash's that don't need to learn code? Are you out of your minds? Have you met him?" Mara asked while pacing between the two women. With every point she turned and shot the question like a warrior would an arrow, alternating between Calé and Softlee. For emphasis she slashed her weapon about the room. "Do you know what this guy is like? Do you have any way to stop those blades? What do you think he will do if you bring someone to mate with him, who then tells him that he is then to be banished from his offspring forever as a eunuch? Do you know what he is going to do? He's going to draw those little pig stickers... he'll start carving... he'll start playing his favorite game... death," Mara said. She hissed the word. "And he just loves that game."

"What, I wonder, would be your plan then?" Mara asked. "Do you think you can ambush, overpower or drug him? Do you think you can threaten or blackmail him? With what? He's a little suicidal, you know—he thinks he's in pain. He's just waiting for someone to come along and relieve him of his unwanted breath. Until that happens, he takes out his frustrations on whatever attracts his wrath, which, by the way, is everything. EVERYTHING!" Mara screamed. She found this release, this expulsion of tension that had built up in her since the party was created, highly intoxicating, and between pauses she began to laugh. She was laughing hard, in long, almost uncontrollable quakes. Tears came to her eyes. "Do you think you can take those knives? They open only when he's in danger, you know, and I've found him to be a bit shy about giving them up then." Mara was roaring, screaming, letting all the war's frustrations out in harsh, ranting shrieks. The idea that her people came to the battlefield for only this ploy broke something inside her; for a moment her trademark composure evaporated. She paced while the women sat. As she paced she tapped her nails against her scabbard. Then, she took a deep breath. Her control returned, and, feeling better for the vent, she continued in her usual, calm manner.

"He loves using the blades. He loves to kill. If there weren't a war, he would kill the innocent," Mara whispered. As she spoke, her face turned sad. Then, her voice rising, she turned again to Softlee. She grabbed the arms of the chair in which Softlee sat, trapping the woman in her seat. Still Softlee did not move. Mara then rocked the chair and screamed. "Do you understand?" Mara asked. "He's a fucting monster..."

"Enough." The word was a command. At the entrance of the tent stood Mara Queen. A step behind her stood a slouching, bored-looking, Ash.

"Ash and I have reached an agreement. Softlee, call the warriors. We ride. Massali, if the Mara Nation drives off the invasion, Ash has agreed to be our Khing. We ride as soon as we are ready."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," said Mara. "Hold! Hold! Ash... Ash..." she said, drawing his name out as she called to him. But Ash interrupted her.

"We attack, we do not stop attacking, until all of us, or all of them, are gone. And, we leave now," Ash said. Mara watched as his face softened. "That's it, Sweetie," Ash said. His voice almost cracked. Drawing near he placed the back of his hand lightly against Mara's cheek. She thought she could see him through his mask. "That's it."

After a long pause where Mara and Ash only looked to each other for understanding, Ash spoke again. "Even if we survive this thing, we're dead. We'll never un-see the things we've seen, nor can we undo the things we've done. We're gone even if we survive." Mara could only shake her head as he continued. "The queen and I still have to work out a few, a... details," he said with a laugh. "But, for this to even be a point, we must drive the enemy back into the sea. I agreed that if that happens, I will submit to anything they have the power to do to me. If they summon the power to get past the blades, fine. If not, I have no qualms about making a few mountains of chopped Mara. Hundreds of thousands, if need be. How's that sound to you, Sweetheart?" Ash asked, turning to the queen.

"We shall see," said the Mara Queen. The queen regarded the others with a cold kind of detachment. "If you, in all your greatness, can take on the whole of the Mara Nation, and walk, then you deserve all the rewards that that skill could provide. If you don't," she shrugged, "you don't." The queen stood among them without expression, her jaw set and her face down. "But we have no desire to fool with protocol in this war," continued the queen. "We had already planned to strike the enemy tonight; we lose nothing in this bargain," she said. "The only difference is that we have your promise, Ash, that if victorious, you will stand alone, no friends or Isuair, mind you, and face us. Then we will have our leave with you, and you can have your leave with us. Then you can show us the great peril that is Ash." The queen said. "But fear not. You, as a man, will enjoy much of it—we will sacrifice your essence—or our warriors. Either way an offering will have been made and the Gods will have been favored. Now prepare, it is time to introduce the enemy to the Nation that is the Mara."

"Another great plan, genius," Mara said. They walked with warriors around them preparing for war; the Nation members paid them no mind.

"I'm a natural negotiator," Ash said. He laughed. "By the way, great speech, you've been paying attention the whole time, Stinkbutt." As they talked, a Mara brought them chargers fitted for battle. Ash's was a big brute of a beast. The Mara, he unhappily noted, chose the same giant black horses the Elite favored. Before he mounted, Ash paused and the smile left his face. "No matter what happens, let's just ride. Let's never stop," he said. Mara pulled tight the saddle on her mount, looked up at him and smiled. "And, oh yeah," Ash continued, "do you ever tell anyone the truth?" he asked, grinning. In the confusion of the preparations they were alone. "Do I really need that 'fucting' Black Book in my nice magic bag?" he asked. He prepared to heft his body into the saddle. "You got soot in it. You got soot all in my nice bag," Ash said. "And where did you pick up that word? No one in the land ever uses it."

"You say it," Mara answered, mounting. "You say it under your breath a thousand times a day." Then, studying his face, she kicked her horse, turned it toward the wind, and screamed; "Fucting Mortals! Fucting Mortals! Fucting Mortals!"

A moment later Ash was on his mount and his call raged the night, reminding all living things before them that, eventually, a day of reckoning was coming. Mortals, mortals, mortals.

Gwere stirred in his sleep. Rising from the depths of slumber, he felt the cold air about him become very still. Sitting, he counted the figures lying before their dying fire. A strong sense of foreboding washed over him and he rose. He began to pack.

"Oh man, oh man!" Rehoak said. He had just been relieved of watch and was tired. "We're not done sleeping yet," he said as he watched Gwere pack. Rehoak had only just spoken when they heard the thunder of hoofs. Both men turned to see a blurred horse race past.

"Apparently the Mara are," Gwere shouted. He stuffed his cloak into his bag and quickly strapped on his armor.

"Crap! Crap!" screamed Linder, and soon she was running, gathering her bags and weapons. Gwere saw it was the whole of the Mara Nation on the move. Then, the call rang out into the night. It was stronger than they ever heard it. More warriors thundered past. Gractah and Erow were on their feet, and Rehoak, pulling on his boots, shouted to the group.

"THAT WAS ASH!"

"That was Ash and Mara, Massali, I mean," said Gwere. "Moments ago someone used the call with the word fucting... it was her."

"Fucting? What the hell does fucting mean?" Linder screamed.

"Do we have a new call?"

"We need horses," shouted Gwere.

"And of course, nobody would tell me," said Linder. "Fucting!"

"Coming up..." shouted Gractah.

"We need five," Gwere shouted, "and their owners may need a little convincing as to our need."

Packed, they made their way to the horse grounds. They found dozens of the King's Elite attempting to ready their steeds; the area was awash in disorder with men and horses running about. Gractah caught the reins of a horse and mounted, but when Gwere grabbed a large steed a guard challenged him. Though the most formidable soldier on the field, his uniform, Gractah mused, was not all black. Gwere pushed the guard to the ground with no effort, and mounted the horse. Linder and Erow also mounted, and the pack found Rehoak struggling, running amok among the men. Soon the king's Elite Guard surrounded them all, but the men had more questions than objections. A lieutenant named Mo pulled at the reins of Gwere's horse and called, pleading, to the big captain.

"Where do we ride? Who commands? Is it an assault? Where's the king... do we do this again?" the man asked. "Captain!"

"Prepare," Gwere shouted. "We attack. That's all you need to know." Seeing the confusion on the face of the man and remembering the kindness of the guards with the pipe, Gwere called to the men. "To make it a surprise, the army wasn't told until now. So all ride!" Gwere shouted as he reared his mount. "Kill and be victorious—tonight we ride for our king!" The king's men cheered and threw Rehoak to a steed. Soon, Gwere and the rest of the party joined the Nation, and together, with hundreds of horsed Elite, they roared through the camp and out into the no-man's land that separated them from their foe.

Dr. Grace sat beside her miracle hypothermia patient and pondered her past week. Nobody had heard from Marla and even the usually indifferent authorities seemed concerned. Her nurse had just vanished. Visits to her residence yielded only a locked door. Her apartment manager found only still, silent rooms and a made bed. Messages on her phone were not returned. She was just gone and the man lying next to her seemed somehow connected to it all.

Only the light from a street-lamp outside illuminated the room. She wanted to talk with this man, who had, for one reason or another, seen his share of hard times. She watched as his chest slowly rose and fell. His recovery was going well; his signs looked good and his color had returned.

But he showed all the signs of chronic alcoholism. On the top of the pile of brochures on Dr. Grace's lap was a pamphlet called; We go Anonymously. She also had an AA Blue Book, and her crown jewel, directions and contact information for the local chapter of the Save-A-Nation Army that ran a rehab clinic.

A nurse told her that their patient often woke in the night and sometimes roamed the halls. If he woke this night, she would see if he wanted to talk. If not, it was her job to nurture, not lecture, and she would respect his privacy. But he looked sad, even as he slept. He looked like he might need a helping hand. As she sat, she met his gaze. Startled, she jumped slightly. He had come out of his sleep, and had been watching her watch him. But Dr. Grace was on a mission, and she decided that she would have her say. She took a deep breath and began.

"Hello Mr. Ash. How are you feeling?" Simple and direct, Dr. Grace searched his eyes for signs of fear or contempt. She saw neither when he answered.

"Hello. I'm sorry I've been so much trouble. I've lost my way, and I can't seem to find... I can't seem to find my friends. I've looked for them and they aren't here. We need to stick together, because without each other there seems to be no point to this at all."

"Which friends are those? Was one of them an older man dressed for the Renaissance Fair?" At this question her patient's eyes widened and his skin flushed. She was agitating him, and that went against her training as a caregiver, but she had so many questions. She pressed on. "Mr. Ash, do you know what made the nurse, Marla, that was attending you so... do you know what would make her upset?"

"Her name is Mara. And the old man's name is Isuair. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." Tears began to stream down his cheeks, and Dr. Grace decided to end the session. Her name was not Mara, and this talk would have to wait. She rose, asked her patient to get some rest, and left the room. She instructed the nurses at the station to watch him closely and went home. Later, curled up on her couch at home, she sipped hot tea and ran the events of the last week through her mind. She pondered the missing heart patient, her hypothermia-slash-alcoholic-slash-mentally disturbed, patient, and her AWOL nurse. None of it made sense. No matter how many times she ran it through her mind, none of it made the least bit of sense.

After the doctor left Ash lay in his bed and wept. His friends were gone. His passion was away from him. The drugs that the doctor gave him no longer held any magic. Through much of his stay the drugs were solid, whooshing him back, but what they gave him now only made him depressed. He had to get back. He had begun, the last few nights, to roam the halls, searching for something, anything, to get high. But they were starting to watch him. He had to get back, now more than ever. He was at the edge of panic. There was a huge army coming from the north.

It was then that the door opened. A pie-slice of white light grew on the floor as a shape, a person, appeared before the manic. The pie slice shrunk as the door closed. The shape stood in the dark. Ash pulled back at the sight of the wizard's silhouette. He pulled the bed covers over his head and silently screamed to God. After some long moments under the linen, he peered over the top of his sheet. The wizard was gone.

On his nightstand, within his reach, stood a half-pint bottle of liquor. Ash wept with joy as he broke the seal. In the soft, clean bed, with weeks of sobriety under his belt and a bottle in his hand, Ash began to breathe again.

The blades popped as the manic reached the outer parameter of the enemy camp. Without raising the alarm the enemy guards loosed their arrows. It was an error that the Mara would capitalize on; the archers were detected and killed as their army slept. Rows and rows of freshly awakened troops fell as they woke, bleary-eyed in the night. For the first hundred yards all the Nation did was slaughter at will. Thousands upon thousands died. And Ash, with Massali on his heels, led the way. He charged his steed into the center of the enemy army and began to make love to his most adored mistress—death and the intoxicating power that being a reaper brought.

Clasping the horse's neck with his elbows, Ash buried his face into the mane of the charger. Holding his thumbs inward, he leveled the knives with the horizon, and charged at the waking men. He screamed at his horse and the charger responded, leaping through the camp. Massali would later say that the blood was so omnipresent that at times she thought it was the weather; she thought it had begun to rain tin and iron. As she and Ash plowed through their foe, she looked back to see the Nation falling far behind.

Patrice stood in the night atop the hill. Those that knew him would know to check the hilltop for their commander. He had become an insomniac, and his favorite place to think was always on an overlook. The moon was out and his army below could be seen through the dim silvery light.

The generals had taken him up on his parlay suggestion, and asked Patrice to attend. The battle did ebb, but all was not well.

The parlay went poorly and the morale of his men had plummeted. All the heroes of the Comeratte king had showed, even those that Patrice and the generals had thought dead. And the sad eyes showed. He saw both of them again. He saw the Ash and the Mara and the wizard and the others. They weren't much to look at, but there was something there; power. And their eyes burned into him; they turned to him with their overly sad eyes and then they laughed. He spoke himself to the Ash. The man was, to say the least, strange. The man seethed with power, yet stood as if he spent most of his time crying in the dark. It was strange, but Patrice had the urge to take the man aside and talk only to him. The man left an exceedingly peculiar impression.

And the Dral was gone. That much was sure; no lines roamed the air and no spells floated about. The Dral was no more.

Then, the evil Comeratte naves suggested that their claim to the land was unfounded. They claimed a previous invasion made Patrice and his army the invaders. Devils. Monsters. Monsters that held hands. Patrice shook with rage. Stop, he told himself, stop. Stop thinking about them. Stop thinking about that laugh, stop thinking about how the Mara, even covered in wounds and blood, shined. They were liars. They had no valid claim. His family's history went back a hundred years to the very land that they parlayed on. He had been told of why the Waste Hills were a desert. He knew, because his grandfather's grandfather knew. They had fought a bloody civil war there. Ask the Comeratte's why the Waste Hills were a desert. Liars. Their giant freak captain said they would now finish this. Patrice clenched his fists and spoke aloud to no one.

"Myself and General Aspinal surely will."

Patrice sighed deep. He sat upon the ground with his arms folded around his knees. Ahead of him a Brady lay in the brush cover. He was in eye contact with his lieutenant and had no fear that, if needed, Patrice could be easily found. He tried to relax but his body wouldn't commit. Adrenaline fueled him; its burn was not the same as the energy food and rest provided. It left one overly spent but nonetheless charged. So he sat, buzzing, exhausted, in the night.

A gust of wind left goose flesh on his arms. There was a smell, a noise, and a feel to the air that made him sit up. He sat straight for a minute and listened to the still night. All was quiet. He chided himself for having an overactive imagination and tried again to relax. Then the wind bore the feel once more, with greater intensity. Mortals. Patrice immediately stood while the hair on his neck bristled. He shook. Brady looked back at him with wide eyes. The next breeze brought the muted thunder, and the call became real. His lips pulled back. Brady got to his feet and began to run to the camp before Patrice could stop him.

Below, a stunning vision froze the captain. A thing plowed his camp. Even in the black and white moonlight Patrice could see the color; red. It was a red cloud. Misty and fiery, it was a comet of blood, its tail trailing a copper haze. My men, Patrice's mind cried. But he could only stand, frozen. His heart beat and his mind screamed at him to move, to somehow prevent this, but he was transfixed by the sight of the red storm. Mortals.

Mortals, mortals, mortals, the battle cry became background music for a theater of death. The Nation, with the king's men following, battled the enemy with a bottomless bloodlust. A wedge, unyielding in its shape, consumed their foe. Its point rolled deep into the body of the Alannas army; at its tip two riders plunged, leading the way. The Nation followed and cut the enemy down in a harvest.

Ash raced and cut, splitting shocked blood bags, men no more. He came upon crowd after crowd; but in the sea of bodies Ash found himself struggling for control. His mount, now completely red with blood, had begun to buck and stall. The beast shook and swayed in the gore wave. It tried to throw Ash. Only the harshest commands brought the beast back under the manic's control.

Mara followed Ash, cleaning up the wounded and the quick. Ash had released the handles of the knives and held them now only by their leather thongs. With these he swung the blades with such speed that they were nearly invisible. The whirling semi-visible circles of death sucked in and destroyed everything in their path. His mount thrashed about before the spray of blood—its huge black marble eyes swung with its head as the beast whipped about, seeking to escape the red sea.

With no tail and much of each ear gone, the horse bounded and leaped with little heed to its rider. Its panicky movements made Massali shudder; the horse looked as if it were about to fall, and Ash swept the knives to and fro with such violence Mara was sure he would make a mistake. But he didn't and his mount stayed on its feet. He rode and attacked at will. If he couldn't ride into a pack of men, Ash would feign injury. He grabbed an arrow from the sky and broke off its tip. When no enemy attacked, he put the arrow to his chest and wavered in the saddle. Then, the enemy would come and Ash's face would light up.

When Mara looked into Ash's eyes, she saw two people, both with the same face. On one hand she saw a kind, sad friend. On the other she saw a prideful, hateful, murderous monster. The hateful and contemptuous monster, however, wore a mask. The mask was that of the kind, sad friend. Ash was two people with the same face.

As she watched him ride through the enemy, slaying with joyous abandon, she realized that this spectacle would only be possible from a man who courted horror. Ash loved battle. Ash loved blood. Ash loved power. He was addicted to it; bloodlust was his undeniable mistress, but his powerlessness over that lust was a source of great self-loathing and sadness for him.

Ash felt sadness after he overindulged, after he lost the battle with his own will, after it overwhelmed him, and that sadness was one of the few things about him that was genuine. But he always returned for more, taking the easy path while knowing the harm it would cause him and those close to him. Once, Ash kissed Mara but she did not kiss him back. She had no desire to kiss a man who raged in an addiction to blood and then begged for forgiveness.

Ash loved destruction; its roots lay in his desire to destroy himself and end, once and for all, the un-winnable struggle inside him that he waged against his vices. Later, he would kiss Linder, who secretly confessed to Mara that she had fallen for the manic. But Linder saw only the sad, kind friend. She was not capable of seeing the man that rode before Mara now. Linder would not be able to see this man with eyes wide with hunger. She would not notice that he achieved a higher and higher level of euphoria with each new life he took. She would never be able to comprehend what was Ash.

Ash knew about the mask. He only hoped that under the mask he would find the face of a good man, the face of someone forced into a horrific situation but who rose above that situation in a courageous fashion. But Ash worried. Ash feared, were he to strip off the mask, he would see his real self, and that real self would be a monster. But in a battle, Ash could take off the mask without reproach. He could be the fiend. In battle Ash could finally stride out in full glory; he could indulge in his addiction, his monstrous lust for blood, and engage its only antidote—being the hero. Mortals, mortals, mortals.

For the second time in two days, Dr. Grace sat before her miracle patient in the dark. Again she had a small stack of pamphlets in her lap. Her patient was doing as well as could be expected. After treating his hypothermia, they sought to evaluate the damage caused by years of alcohol abuse; blood tests revealed vitamin deficiencies, a pH imbalance and electrolyte problems. Alcoholic ketoacidosis was diagnosed. And, her patient's liver was creating an enzyme that suggested it was having trouble detoxing the alcohol routinely flooding his system.

Acute Alcoholism is associated with a host of problems; long-term effects of abuse include psychological problems; dementia and delirium tremens, or the dreaded DTs, and physical problems; organ damage and hidden trauma. They tested for liver, kidney and stomach problems. They tested for cardiovascular problems. CAT scans and MRIs would need to be done. They would likely find old bone fractures or hemorrhages from blows and falls while inebriated.

Dr. Grace was back at his side one more time. As she sat, her patient stirred. She was watching his eyes, making sure not to repeat the surprise of her previous visit.

"Mr. Ash, Mr. Ash, are you awake?" asked Dr. Grace. "I want to talk with you about something Mr. Ash, something important. Would you like that?" The doctor clutched the pamphlets on her lap and waited. Her patient stirred again, turning his head toward her and blinking in the dim light. The nurses had tried to clean him up, but trimming his beard and washing his hair didn't change the man—he still had the air of a homeless person.

"It's just Ash," he said.

"I'd like to talk to you. Maybe we can better understand what's ailing you. Have you ever wanted to rejoin society? Rejoin the community, your family, and make new friends?" the doctor asked. "I might be able to help."

"How much do I have to pay?" said her patient.

"It's nothing like that."

"I mean for all this, for the hospital and everything," Ash asked.

"We don't need to worry about that now. There are options we are looking into. But all that can be worked out later, when you are better, but it is a concern. Our biggest worry is that you may need to be moved to another hospital, and that's why I want to talk now," Dr. Grace said. "You game?" Her patient brushed a long strand of hair from his eyes and pulled his covers tight under his chin.

"The destruction that alcohol has wreaked upon your life is but a symptom of one of the most insidious problem facing the world today," the Doctor began. "We are talking about addiction." Her patient had turned his head toward her and seemed to be listening, so she continued. "Addiction is daunting even for we doctors. To the addict it's even more confounding. We believe addiction takes over the brain; it changes the brain and it's needs; sex, food and accomplishments no longer matter, instead, the brain becomes a machine that seeks only the drug's high," the doctor said. "It may be genetic, passed on to you with your genes. We think it has an inherited chemical component, possibly affecting the way neurotransmitters work. We don't really know why yet, but it may be possible that you were predisposed to this behavior, Mr. Ash. Do you understand that? The odds may have been against you from the very beginning." She looked for understanding but found only watery blue-gray eyes. Still, she continued.

"Addiction isn't just wanting something, not being able to resist something, it's much more than that. Many people think that addiction is just the lack of willpower or moral fiber on the victim's part. It's not. It's not the lack of anything; it's the addition of something—a suite of behaviors that feeds on the person and victimizes them."

"Like black magic," said Ash.

"Well... sort of." She paused at what she thought was a non sequitur. "Addiction, in my opinion, like I said earlier, is a suite of behaviors, or a complete package that is almost impossible for the victim to fight. It's like a virus that gets its victim to protect and feed it.

The victim thinks the only way to survive is to feed this virus, but in fact that nurturing destroys the host—the person itself." The doctor shifted in her seat. She wasn't sure she was getting through to the man, but she pushed on anyway. "Do you know if you suffer from addiction, Mr. Ash?"

"I drink," Ash said.

"Why do you drink?" asked the doctor.

"Because that's the way I am. Because it gets me there."

"Every patient I see is different," Dr. Grace said. "Some victims are so bound by addiction that they don't even consciously acknowledge the problem. I see patients hooked on pain pills who think their only problem is that their doctor asks too many questions, even though they are taking the medication long after pain has gone." Ash turned his head away and sighed. The doctor knew she was losing him. "Addiction, like I said earlier, may have had some ground work done for it before you ever tasted alcohol. Your brain and your body may have been fertile soil at birth, waiting only for that first drink, or trigger, to set up the suite of behaviors that got you here."

Ash turned his head to stare at the doctor. She pushed on.

"This group, or suite, has many parts. There may be a physical part; a craving by the body perhaps signaled by a portion of the brain that may not be as active in those free of the malady. It may be chemical; a reaction to the addictive substance not present in those without the problem, or a deficiency that keeps the brain from functioning properly. It may be psychological; an escape or coping mechanism, a mental tool, or an empty space somehow filled in the mind by the addictive substance. It becomes a pattern, and the patient adjusts, both physically and psychologically, to the consumption until he or she becomes so accustomed to its use that they find it impossible to change. But if that whole mess isn't enough, there's the kicker—the part that allows a sane man to act insanely, to destroy everything and slowly begin to kill himself, all while pretending to defend his life.

It's called denial. It's a self-protection mechanism for addiction, it insures that the victim's best weapon—a clear and detached mind, is never used against it." After another blank stare the doctor continued.

"Some people have voices or 'committees' in their heads, constantly fighting, arguing, like a lawyer would, on behalf of the drug. Addicts often think relentlessly about their drug, going over and over, round and round in their mind until the drug wins and the patient just gives up. Denial is a biased judge that makes sure that the drug always wins its case. The patient convinces himself that their behavior is normal for them, that using a substance excessively is okay for them, or that what they've given up is worth it because denial won't let them attack the real problem—the destructive nature of the drug and its continued use. Instead, lengthy rationales take the place of any clear thoughts that could attack the harmful behavior. It's denial that groups like AA have success at attacking. Surrounded by others with the same problem, the patient can see the process of addiction and its self-preservation tactics for himself. He can see it in others and begin to fight it. You must attack that denial, Mr. Ash, and realize that you may have been set-up for this, and protect yourself. Do you understand?" Her patient only looked at her with big, sad eyes.

"So, you were set up Mr. Ash. To reiterate, you were probably predisposed, from birth, either mentally, physically, or both, making your mind and body fertile ground for this illness. Addiction comes with its own lobbyist group; the committee in your head. It comes with its own self-preservation watchdog; denial. It perpetuates itself until the victim is incarcerated, insane, or dead." After a pause, she laid down her trump card. "You must begin to fight for your life Mr. Ash or you will die."

Dr. Grace was determined to share her insights with this patient. She was convinced that she could treat him with knowledge. She was, of course, wrong. Ash could have shown her the flaw in her design; Ash hadn't had a religious or self-awareness epiphany and he, even as a homeless person, had not yet hit bottom, of which either or both could have opened the door for her logic and information, which, along with professional or 12-step intervention, could have started him on the road to recovery. He could have also told her he knew, and suspected that as was the case for him, that for some people, the bottom was death.

Dr. Grace found her patient fast asleep; she had been so absorbed in her own dissertation that her audience had escaped. She put her hand on his shoulder and whispered his name.

"Let him sleep." The voice from behind startled her so that she jumped. The old man pulled a chair from the corner of the room and sat down. It was the man dressed for the Renaissance fair. Regaining her composure, Dr. Grace asked the man if he was a relative.

"I'm a friend, of sorts. My name is Isuair." The man that sat before Dr. Grace looked old but hale; she wondered if he posed a threat, but the doctor managed to relax. She could handle anyone with a kind word. She put her hands in her lap and smiled. Then a question came to her—where had she heard his name before? "What can I do for you, then, Mr. Eye... sore?"

"Eye-sir, and you've already done a great deal. However, there is more to be done. In a moment Mara will walk into this room with a cutting tool. And, if our friend here doesn't stop drinking, he will die," said the old man. "But he must not stop, at least not yet, he must just slow down."

Dr. Grace's skin had literally begun to crawl as the old man spoke. She had the feeling of deja vu and felt her stomach drop. She felt as if she had just peered over a ledge to a valley below, eight thousand meters down. And alcoholics never just 'slow down'. "Her name is Marla. Mar... La. I'll call security." The doctor also wondered why, if the old man had seen her nurse roaming the halls with intent to harm, had he not called security or alerted someone nearby?

"No, we need Mara, Marla, to come to some kind of acceptance, some kind of logical rationale for the things she has seen."

"What kind of things has she seen?" Dr. Grace asked. She rose and took a step near the top of Ash's bed, where, on a cord, lay a buzzer. She hoped that pushing the button would summon the real world. As the doctor's hand rose toward the bed, the door swung open. Marla burst into the room clutching a pair of scissors. Before Dr. Grace could react, Marla had the instrument at the old man's throat.

In a matter of moments Dr. Grace saw her world spin out of control. She stood in the care room and watched as her favorite nurse threw her career, and maybe years of her freedom, away. As her patient slept, she saw that another patient was about to be created by one of her own. As these thoughts raced through her mind, Dr. Grace again inched toward the buzzer. Marla had the scissors pushed hard against the old man's neck. She looked disheveled, as if she had been sleeping in the park. She was still wearing her uniform, but it was no longer very white.

"One of two things will happen now, old man," Marla said. " One, I kill you. Or, two, you will take me to HIM." She used one finger to point to Dr. Grace's still sleeping hypothermic victim. Marla turned the scissors in her hand to grip them in a fist. She backed Isuair against the care room wall. She was pushing the scissors against the old man's throat with such force that it was impossible for the man to speak. Dr. Grace gave up on the buzzer, and glided over to Marla.

"Sweetie, Marla, I'm so sorry. I had no idea you were so close to trouble. I'm responsible for this mess, not that old man. I should have never worked you half to death. Please, let's get out of this mess and get some care. Please Mara, don't harm anyone in this hospital, it would be too much for me to bear." Tears welled in Dr. Grace's eyes as she pleaded with her nurse. Marla was able to manage a weak smile.

"Dr. Grace, I went crazy," Marla said, "or something, these last few days, weeks, rather." To the doctor's relief, as her nurse spoke she eased the pressure on the old man's neck. "But I've also figured out a few things. Our friend here is from... Did you just call me Mara?"

"I... I may have," said the doctor, " I'm sorry, it was a simple mistake."

"No, no it wasn't, or I don't think so now," she said. She turned and spoke directly to the old man. "Tell us about these names, about our patient, and about you, old man. Is there a Mara? An Ash? What does this all have to do with our missing heart patient?"

The old man hadn't stirred, except to bend back where Marla pushed the scissors into his throat. At last he spoke.

"First, how did you... figure out a few things?" asked the old man. With her free hand Marla dug into a bag that hung at her side and pulled out a batch of rumpled papers. The papers, sixty or seventy sheets, crinkled and brown, were written on both sides in tiny longhand. Marla turned to Dr. Grace. "These pages chronicle a person's life. His life," said Marla, pointing to their patient, who, despite the disturbance, was still sleeping. "When our hypothermia patient there turned into a heart laceration, I checked his shirt. His clothes were free of blood, and he also LOOKED a little different." Marla said. "This story is all about a magic wizard and battles that a group fight, with swords and knives, in a magic place. I have been to that magic place right here in the hospital. After I was there, I went through this guy's stuff and I found these pages." Marla turned to the doctor. " I think that he, this Isuair, is jumping between worlds and that our patient here also has an alter-ego, one with a sore chest and at least one very bloody shirt."

"Security! Security! Security!" Dr. Grace screamed. She screamed it as loudly as she could.

Magenta, gold and blue-gray clouds filled the sky as the sun broke the plain of the eastern hills. The sunrise was more than beautiful; it was an inspired creation of God on his own canvas. The big charger, however, found no redemption in the heavenly display; Ash reared and shouted to the horse, searching for control. The steed was heedless. The horse was bucking at the blood, bone and gore. Ash and Mara had been slaying at will while covering great distances. They soon found themselves on the outskirts of the battalions. They had fought through the entire enemy army. Ash knew that at the end of the Alannas force they would find the least skilled, and the men they met on the borders surely fought with a scarcity of expertise, but Ash couldn't get his mount to them.

Finding the battle behind them, Ash and Mara attempted to turn about, when Ash's beast found its feral self. The charger fought, bucked and stalled. Unrestrained by command or bit, the horse was headless of its rider. Twice the beast almost bucked Ash off. Then, at the touch of rein or boot, especially when pointed toward the enemy, the horse would rear. The horse would fight no more. Looking back, they saw the Mara Army had followed them well into the enemy.

In the early morning hours, they beheld a thick river deep inside the Alannas force; in this river they could see the banners of the Nation, the banners of the prince, and the banners of the king. But Ash's horse was on two legs more than he was on four, and Mara was waving to the manic from her mount a dozen yards away.

"We need to get you off that thing," Mara shouted. "With you swinging those blades, he's going to get us killed."

"You see any alternative to prancing around?" Ash yelled.

"See if you can walk him," she shouted. Mara pulled her mount alongside the manic's, and together they dismounted and walked their horses. The charger calmed unless they turned toward the battlefield. Walking away from the armies the beast shook and trembled but lessened its mutinous fire. Ash and Mara were some distance from the battle; they had run out to attack a group of soldiers, who turned and fled, and found themselves a mile from the war.

"He wants to take a break," said Mara. "How are you doing?"

"For a while all I wanted to do was fight, but now, I don't know."

"Well, your beast wants to take a break, and between the four of us, he may have the most brains." They led their horses to the base of a hill and tried to switch mounts. But Mara's horse reared violently when Ash approached it. Finally, they tied the horses to stubby brush, hoping a break would calm them. As soon as Ash let loose the reins the charger reared, unearthed the brush and fled. The charger bolted at a full gallop, the bushes bounding in the reins as it ran into the low foothills to the north of the battlefield. The horse seemed to slow little as it disappeared into the horizon.

"Animals love you, too," laughed Mara, and she slapped her horse's flank hard. It, too, fled.

"What did you do that for?" Ash asked. "We could have..." After a sigh Ash sat heavily on the ground. Mara smiled and stood, hands on her hips, beside him.

"We could have what?" Mara asked. She dragged Ash by the arm until he stood. Then, hand in hand, she led him up the rise of the hill. At the top, she pressed her tongue to her cheek and stared at Ash. "You still have your magic bag?" she asked. Without waiting for an answer she began to dig in Ash's pack.

"Why?" Ash asked.

"I say we curl up with a good book and relax."

Charging with all the speed his mount would yield, Gwere raced through the army against his own oncoming men. Ash and Mara had cut a swath through the center of the enemy and the Nation had followed, delving deep, almost completely separating their foe. Gwere saw an opportunity. If they split the enemy with the prince battling west and the king battling east, they could destroy the enemy in hours.

They could divide the enemy and consume them. But first, he had to reach the command of both armies or they would most likely keep fighting the enemy head-on.

"Security! Security! Security!" she shouted at the door. To Marla the look on Dr. Grace's face said it all—it was one of disgust. Of all the looks that Marla could have swallowed at that moment, disgust was very last on her list; she could have put up with anything but that. Marla pursed her lips, looked the good doctor in the eye and then threw her scissors at her. While the doctor ducked her nurse fled. Two security officers passed Marla as she exited the care room and she went out of her way to bump into them. They actually said, 'excuse me,' apologizing for their non-part of the collision. Marla made her way down the hall, to the elevator, through the lobbies, and out the big doors that led to the street before the pressure marks of the scissors had faded from her hand. Across the street was a small park. It was there, on a small hill that she sat, picking at the blades of grass under her legs. The old man would have to come out sometime, and then, one of two things would happen.

"We need to think about this," Ash said, as Mara pulled the Black Book from his bag. "We really, really, need to..." He paused as Mara turned on him baring her teeth.

"WHAT? Think about how we might wreck this great life we have? What could happen Ash—maybe something bad?" she screamed. "Maybe if we read this book, even just take a look, we'll ruin the rosy future we have ahead of us? Wake up Ash!" In an instant Massali was fuming. "Maybe we haven't died in this thing yet, but it's taking its toll. I haven't slept for weeks and you have nightmares every night," Mara continued. "I see you—you thrash and scream; not Boogieman stuff, but horror. And you don't look so good either." Ash looked over his body. His arms and legs were crusted with blood that flaked off in clumps. He was always panting, searching for breath. His skin, where not covered in blood, was blotchy and red. "I'm sure I'm no peach, either," Mara said. But through her curly hair Ash could see the form of her face; the profile of the woman was moving. Mara was a woman in full flower and Ash had never seen a peach, albeit a bloody one, so blessed with beauty. As he lost himself, Massali continued. "If I read this damn book, how worse off could I be?" Mara, searching Ash's eyes, seemed to look for him inside his mask. Ash, after a moment of thought, sighed.

"I have some pipe weed," he said. He had pursed half his mouth and Mara could see his crooked smile coming. Mara also smiled. Quietly their smiles turned into gentle laughter. At the top of the hill, Ash and Mara played with the black tome and laughed.

Gwere charged his mount directly into the captain's horse. He had decided on a more direct approach.

"Hold, my friend, I know who you are, why do you hinder me as thus?" Gwere's target asked. Gwere grabbed the man's reins and pulled him aside.

"We need to stop the assault. The Nation has split the enemy army down its center. We can divide and destroy them, if we follow the Nation and keep the enemy from regrouping. That means we must stop the head-on assault. Who commands here?" Gwere asked. The captain reacted quickly. He reared his horse, turning in all directions. Finally, he pointed to a small banner off in the distance.

"There... there," the captain pointed, "there you will find the prince. You have arranged this with the king also?" asked the captain.

"No, I've yet to find anyone that can tell me where he places his attack," said

Gwere.

"You get to the prince," Captain Haines said, "I will get to the king." Gwere watched as the man made a dash through the lines; then he turned his charger and spurred it to the direction of the banner.

"We shouldn't because we don't know everything. We shouldn't because we might make things worse. We shouldn't because the only way we can justify this whole disaster is to try to convince ourselves that we do this for the right reasons, because we are on the right side." Ash was trying to make a case for putting the book back into the magic bag. "I know, that you know, that I lied to the armies at the parlay," Ash said. "That there was no first invasion from the enemy. I said that only for our men." Ash shrugged, "But we do fight because no one gave us any choice, nobody asked us if we wanted this. Nobody asked. They just came, and we fight back, and that's that. If we read this book, we risk much. We shouldn't because we know the difference between right and wrong. We shouldn't because we want to stand before God and say we didn't—right?"

"God?" asked Mara, looking at Ash. "God?" she said again. "GOD?" Mara shrieked. Tears fell from her eyes as she shrieked with laughter. She looked into Ash's eyes, for a long moment, and said again, a quiet a word as Ash had ever heard "...god...?" After a long pause, Ash took the book from Mara. He slowly leaned the book into his left hand, cradled it with his right, and with a slight nudge, broke it open.

The first line of the first page read; "It was God himself, in the form of you, not a fallen angel, who descended from the heavens, and came to earth, to wreak havoc, and after one understands this, everything in the world will be true, because God is here to fulfill our wishes, for all of us have had our day of reckoning before we entered the land, and each to his own desire, wished upon himself his own suffering, because those who suffer shine the most in heaven, for heaven awaits all of us without reservation, and we are only in this world for a short time, God is making us suffer to fulfill our utmost dreams, and though we do not know it, we will fall to our knees and be grateful for that suffering, for suffering is the Lord's work, our salvation, and life itself."

Finally, as the sun set, the old man appeared before the big doors. Marla did not see them open. He was just there. He paused and walked out into the street. Marla, after a minute, rose from her hill and followed.

The second line read; "There is no Satan, there are only those unfortunates who would hinder God's work." In brackets, under the second line, it read; There are no rules, no commandments, only this: I want it. I deserve it. I work hard. Stay out of my business. I'm stressed. They don't know. Others do it, as bad, or worse then I. I have the power. I need it. Stop bothering me. You're not my boss. Mind your own business. It's not that bad. I don't do it all the time. Bigger men than I have succumbed to this. I'm doing fine. I don't care. Because I can. I live on the wild side. Hey, I know how to have a good time. So I party a little. Why not. You don't know the pressure I'm under. Shut up. I would do it anyway. Everyone's against me. Life sucks, then you die, and I might as well go with a glow on. I'm a rebel. I have the will. So I screwed up. It won't happen again. So I take a pop now and then, everybody does. So I over-did it, it's not like it's all the time. So it's all the time, shut up about my life. I promise. Just one more time. Just tonight. But there's a big game/party tonight. I just need to get through tonight. There is no tomorrow. I love it. Fuck everyone. I have nothing to lose. It's already too late to turn back now. I'm ready to die. It's not like I do it every night. I'll worry about it tomorrow. I'll get help tomorrow. I'll call that number tomorrow. It's not that bad. I have to live. I can't do anything about it. I'm different. Fuck YOU. I know I'm in trouble, but... To hell with everyone. I am strong and I believe in myself. I just want to disappear. Screw you. I'll do what I WANT. I'm a badass. What do I have to lose? I can take this when you would die. I can't not do it. I'll stop tomorrow. I CAN CONTROL THIS. IT'S MY LIFE I'LL HANDLE IT. LEAVE ME ALONE. JUST LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE.

Any one of these lines can be used to silence this unsound thought that will occur to all of us in times of weakness; STOP. STOP MURDERING. STOP DRINKING. STOP THIS MADDNESS. STOP.

Gwere, after almost crushing one of his own foot soldiers, finally caught up to the prince. And, after a moment, he had the prince himself halt the attack.

The third line read; "After all, we are only mortals, mortals, mortals, and in bringing death we bring the here-and-after and an end to the suffering." When he read the second line, Ash leaped from the grass, letting the book fall. He held his hands up as if they had been burned. Mara did what she always did—she laughed, and laughed, and laughed. "Looks like you're doing God's work, Sweetie."

Marla paced the old man. Her plan was to confront him, but as she walked the anger inside her began to build. As she walked she decided she didn't want any more lies or tricks. Marla decided all she wanted was revenge. All she wanted was blood. Blood. The word ran through her head like a chant as she closed the distance between her and the geezer. Give me blood. Give me his damn blood, everywhere. At three paces she decided to jump the old man, but he was moving too fast. The pause for the jump would put him out of reach. Instead she quickened her pace.

She may not be able to hurt him much, she thought, but then again she just might. As she closed the distance to a foot, she reached out. The moment she touched him he turned. He stopped so abruptly that she crashed into him. He felt like stone. He felt like a monolith.

"Ready to go, Stinker?" was all he said.

"Just sit. Stop going nuts, you're not accomplishing anything by jumping around and screaming," said a still giggling Mara.

"Why not?" Ash said, "You scream all the time. So far, in the hour we've been here, you've screamed at least five times."

"It was a coincidence or you came across it somewhere. I'm just saying to calm down. Now come, sit," Mara said, and she patted the ground beside her. She had retrieved the book. She had spread out a blanket and was lying on her stomach. She kicked her feet in the air above her. To Ash she looked as if she were a schoolgirl reading a romance novel.

"A coincidence?" Ash asked, still standing. At last he sat beside her, pulling some of the blanket under him. He saw that it was his blanket, his magic one. "I made that up. I say that all the time. It means that everyone in the whole world is mortal, but me. Do you know anyone in the world that thinks like that? Huh?"

"Yeah, the guy that wrote this book, for one," Mara said with a laugh. "Come

on... I'll read, you sit."

"Let me get this straight. You, Eve, with your basket of apples, will read to me, Ash, the bloodthirsty boogieman, out of the evil-book-of-the-underworld—on a blanket..." He paused as his eyes fell on the battlefield. "...like we're two starry-eyed lovers having a picnic, while just three miles down there..." Ash pointed to the battle and paused. In the battle, it looked as if the armies of the prince and the king had separated the enemy into two groups and were dismantling them. Taking one knee, Ash turned to his date on the blanket. "You see that?"

"We're winning," Mara said. She was busy browsing the book.

"Look at them. They have them!" Watching the battle unfold from his hill, Ash began to root for his side. "Have you noticed how skillfully the king's men fight?" Ash asked.

"Do you know why they fight like that?" Mara said. "Us. We taught them that. They think we're gods. They love us, and they all want to be us, and we fight like that. We are their teachers," Mara said.

"I'm just worried, Narcissus, that if I look into this pond with you, I'll see demons staring back," said Ash, still fixated on the battle.

"Yes, and then the Green Cow ate Nar-ca-sist."

"Okay. But for the record it's the Golden Cows that cause all the trouble," Ash said while turning back to Mara and her book. "What does it say after it says, and the Ass will plague the earth as a great pestilence?"

"Well, it doesn't say that," Mara said with a laugh. "But if you thought the mortals thing was bizarro-creepy," Mara said, "listen to this..."

In the time it took her to gather her thoughts, Marla was there. All around, everywhere, the middle-ages land she had seen in the hospital spread to the horizon in every direction. Where before she stood in the midst of stained gray sidewalks and looming dark buildings, she now felt the tall dry grasses of the outskirts hills brush her legs. Below, a battle raged, and by the look on the old man's face, his side was winning.

"Fuck... me..." she said. She said it in the machine world's clipped, harsh tongue. With a wave of his hand Isuair created a self-powering spell and joined it with the woman.

"Please do not use that word here," Isuair said.

"It's a meaningless intensive," said Marla. She spoke in the language of an Alrican, with an accent.

"I don't care what it is," said the wizard, "some of my friends have already begun to use it. I am afraid that before long all the land will be saying it, and I don't think I could bear that. By the way, Marla, welcome to Alrica."

"It talks all about Isuair," said Ash. A gentle breeze began to blow the grasses on the hill in waves of dark and light green hues.

"How did you know that?" asked Mara, looking up.

"It talks all about how Isuair came to this land as a young man and that he carried knives that could cut through anything."

"Almost, almost! Want to hear?" Ash's date asked. Mara's eyes sparkled when she became excited. Her lips would purse and curl. She squirmed and wriggled. She lay on her belly with her head propped by her arms. Ash watched as she crossed and uncrossed her legs above her back. Ash was genuinely torn between the book, the battle, and the girl.

"Man, they're slaughtering them down there," Ash said almost to himself. "Go on, read away, what's it say about our old friend, the wizard."

"It says," Mara began, "when he first got to the land, Isuair, the young warrior prince, killed two, of the reviled tribe, with hate, with malice, and without cause." For the first time since he had noticed the Napoleonic strategy unfolding below him, Ash took his eyes off the battlefield for more than a moment. Mara looked up to find him frozen—his stare was fixed on her and the book but he did not move.

"Didn't you do something like that, too?" she asked. After a quick breath, Ash came back to life. He dropped to both knees and crawled to Mara. He stopped crawling only after he had shouldered into Mara, clashing their armor in a slow impact. He placed as much of his body as he could against hers.

"So it talks about God and then Isuair?" Ash asked.

"No, the God stuff is all in the beginning chapters. In the middle are spells. Isuair is in the back, with, what looks like..," Mara said, browsing the book, "...about a hundred others, like a big list, like a history. There are guys named Diase, Dayrell of Awg, Simon, Pennfield, Cethohoc, and lots of others."

"Is the Dral in it?"

"Nope," Mara said. "Humm... it... Yes he is. Mercure, Whilliam the Great or the Dral, as he is called in the something I can't read, will bequeath by ballet his powers to who goes by the... something else I can't read, in the tradition, and something else... Fallaron will make his choice," Mara read. "A lot of the writings are runes that I don't know, but that sounds like you, you know, what you and the Dral did... the dance thingy and the exchange," Mara said. She held the book up to him and laughed. "You hear that... there, Lord Black Falloran?"

"Holy cow, is it real?" asked Marla, crouching and running her hands through the grass.

"Ash!" Mara had ceased reading and now clutched only her weapon. She had drawn it from her side as she lay on the blanket. Ash, who had also heard the movements below, smiled at the quickness in which Mara had let the book drop in favor of her sword. Ash crab-like crawled to the edge of the hill. Mara crept after him. Together they peered into the valley below.

"Scouts," she said. "And not far behind, an army. They're bringing another army."

"We need horses," Ash said. Mara rose to her full height, and, in view of the scouts, she put her fingers to her lips. Of course she going to whistle, Ash thought, as he, too, rose. Massali blew a high-pitched whistle that seemed to have no end. On observing the pair on the hill, the two scouts signaled each other and one departed, making fast tracks toward the host—a force of thousands that had begun to fill the valley opposite the king's army. The remaining scout dismounted and approached Mara and Ash. He approached with caution, but soon began to rush them, weapon drawn. As the man approached, Ash and Mara separated, taking steps apart. At six paces the scout made a feint to Mara and then lunged at Ash. Mara heard the pop but did not see the movement; she saw Ash step aside and the scout miss the manic. Ash's invisible motion left the scout holding only the hilt of his sword. The man stood, blinking, staring between at the blade section of his weapon, now lying in the grass, and the hilt in his hand. Ash used the moment to take the scout's arm off at the elbow. Then, with a single movement, Ash knocked the dazed man from his feet and pounced on him. Kneeling on the scout's maimed arm, Ash pinned the man. He crossed his swords on the man's throat and pushed his own face close until their noses almost touched. While Ash spoke the blades scraped skin from the guard's neck.

"Listen to me," Ash said, talking as fast as he could. "We plan to make an example out of you, or you can answer three questions and live. How many, where they fought last, whose army? Come, answer and I swear an oath you go free."

"Ninety thousands... last fought the Sea Duke... Aspinal. General Aspinal... your word man!" The scout, talking in frantically controlled shouts, began to struggle and buck under Ash. Ash flicked his blade and the man was gone. The head rolled down into a knoll and settled at Mara's feet. She laughed a snort of a laugh as he packed the book.

"So much for your word. Didn't I see that trick in our nice new book?" she asked.

"Where's Trigger?" Ash asked, after Mara's horse failed to appear.

"We need horses. We need horses," said Mara. The hill they stood upon rose high in the center of the two valleys. To the south, the king's army had all but destroyed the enemy. To the north, a new enemy army poured into the grasslands by the thousands. The hill Ash and Mara stood upon blocked either from seeing the other. However, the enemy army had seen Ash and his date. The scout that departed had made sure of it. Mara was on her way to the dead scout's mount when the riders appeared. She returned to Ash's side. Horsed knights, charging at full gallop, raced to the hill. Ash and Mara began to panic.

"Run!" screamed Ash. Mara and Ash had taken less than two paces when they simultaneously halted. They looked at each other, and laughed.

"And we are, after all..." Ash said. The horsemen were less than a hundred yards away. Ash counted ten riders.

"Ash... do you ever think that we have more bravado than skill?"

"Good lord! Do you ever not think that?" Ash asked.

"Here they come..."

"They are either going to circle or charge at us directly," Ash said. "If they circle, draw apart. If they charge, stay together and drop. Go for the legs. Either way, get your hands on a mount and ride to Gwere. Tell him," The riders were forty yards away. The steep hill slowed them, but only by seconds. For a moment, Ash felt real fear. The riders were thirty yards away and closing. "About those who come. Ninety thousand, Aspinal, the Duke gone." Then Ash remembered it. It was what haunted him in his sleep. It was what made his existence so unbearable. It was also what made him invincible. Quickly he dropped the swords into their sheaths, thumbed the clips closed, and waited for it, for his bane—that sound. Ten yards... nine... eight... POP.

"What's happening down there?" she said. Off in the distance she could just make out a wide ocean. Far, far away she thought she could see a shining white castle. Below, dark figures clashed.

"They are killing each other with great abandon, I imagine," said Isuair. Marla watched as thousands of men embraced in a great dance, churning to and fro like rag-dolls tossed in a violent sea. She stood with Isuair on a sloping hillside, the same one that Ash and the Nation, followed by the whole of the king's army, had charged down the night before. "Come, your skills may be even more useful, here."

"How are you doing, today, Mr. Ash?" On her regular rounds, Dr. Grace was checking on Ash as his doctor. Gone were the pamphlets and the AA book. As the doctor checked him with a stethoscope, she wondered how her hospital had gone from a well-run, well-respected care facility to the laughing stock of the health industry. In one month, they had lost a heart patient, had their head nurse run amok through their wards, and had old geezers do disappearing acts right under the noses of their own security staff. As she stared at her patient's rough face she felt a revulsion she hadn't felt since she had faced bullies during childhood. She hadn't gone through eight years of medical school and a cursed residency program to become a laughing stock. As far as she was concerned, this old homeless man was a plague and the sooner he was gone the better. The accounting staff had already verified his identity and confirmed that his bill would be on the county. All they needed now was to get him well, or well enough, and out the front door, to... anywhere. And that, she thought, running her finger down his chart, she could help with just fine.

"I'm sorry, I really, really..." Ash began.

"Well, we are feeling better, now, okay. Thank you." A little dry, perhaps, thought Dr. Grace, but it would do. After making a few notes, the doctor handed the patient's chart to his nurse and exited the care room. She stopped outside his door. "Nurse," she said, "make sure you keep an eye on our patient here. He's generated a large bill, and the cops want to talk to him. But, unfortunately, we are short-handed, especially at night, and he could just walk out if we aren't careful. Thanks." Dr. Grace then strolled down the corridor twirling her stethoscope. The nurse inside Ash's room heard the doctor and peered out of the door to make sure that she hadn't been speaking to her. She thought it must be so, for the hall, all fifty yards of it, was empty.

"Don't go anywhere," she said to Ash with a frown.

"Go! GO!" screamed Ash, and Mara was gone. She flew down the hill, her charger kicking up divots the entire way down. Ash and six knights remained. Four lie around him, the trademark slash of the blades on three of the corpses.

"Here kitty, kitty..." Ash said, as the riders circled. "Nice kitties." The riders had lost four men in only seconds and were now wary. "I'll tell you what, give me a horse and I'll leave," Ash said with a big smile. "Whaddya say, huh? Nasty kitty, don't want to deal with nice Ash." When he said his name, the riders' circle became disorganized, and they halted. The six knights formed line in front of him, lowered their lances, and slowly crept forward.

"Ass, you say?" asked one rider. "The wizard said you'd come around slow, but this is ridiculous."

"Wizard?" Ash asked. The riders, as if on cue, attacked.

"What was the wizard's plan, and... which wizard?" Ash pressed his blade against the knight's face. He wanted to hear for himself the details, and he also wanted to hear a name, just in case. Duplicity, mind his whispered.

Ash knew he had precious little time; nine dead lay around him. "Tell me or I will make your death a nightmare," said Ash. But this was no scout, no foot soldier—it was a knight. He spat in Ash's face. It was more than the manic could stand, and the knight died. Looking around, Ash found he hadn't left any of the horses alive. Below, enemy reinforcements had reached the hill.

"Hi guys!" Ash shouted to the group below. The bottom of the hill had filled with soldiers and more were on their way. The valley beyond had swelled with the ranks of a hundred companies with more coming. Looking back at the king's army, deep in the south canyon, Ash compared the numbers. The king's army looked smaller and smaller each time Ash compared, and the infusion of men into the enemy army showed no sign of slowing.

"Helllooo..." Ash called again. The enemy had posted guards and archers hid among the base brush. Looking across the battlefield, Ash's heart sank. He could not place Mara on the field below. As his gaze returned to the king's army, it looked as if they were wrapping up the battle, but that was all. It looked as if startling news had not reached them. Mara may not have made it to the king's men, or, if the battle in the valley had come at a cruel enough cost, command may have broken down and the Mara may have had no way to muster the men.

"How you guys doing?" Ash shouted. He sat, knees to his chest, with his arms wrapped about him. He hadn't moved; the knights had him surrounded but kept their distance. No mounts were to be had. He was also reluctant to surrender his vantage point on the hill. He attempted to draw the enemy up the slopes with taunts. He had struck one rider with what he thought was a rock, but it turned out only to be a clod of dirt. It raised a brown puff of dust and a lot of laughs from the riders. They seemed to not notice his taunting, and even to make fun of him. It seemed to Ash that they were waiting for something. As he sat atop the hill, Ash took turns watching the two armies in the two valleys. The king's army appeared not to even have scouts about. Scouts could have picked up the enemy on their side of the hill—some of those guarding Ash now even stood within sight of the king's army.

Also, Mara could be dead. His friends could be dead. Then, the thought struck him. He could be dead. Ash rose and started down the hill. The soldiers at the bottom readied themselves for his approach and began calling out to one another.

Riders grouped at the bottom, lowering their lances. Ash ran the last few feet and screamed the call.

Mara and Gwere were at the hill. Their army, or what men they could muster with a moments notice, crept behind. A creek bed, overgrown with tall brush, provided cover. The enemy scouts were fast and skilled, but none made it back to their army to report the presence of Mara's small company. Early in her approach Mara saw Ash, sitting atop the hill, rocking gently back and forth while watching both valleys. In front of them, at the hill bottom, three enemy knights lingered, trying to bottle up the manic. When Ash disappeared down the other side of the hill, Mara decided to show her hand. Their little army, about two hundred strong, streamed out of the ravine. She estimated that the enemy army was less than a half-mile away at the hill's base, and Mara hoped she could be on the other side in three minutes. Halfway, she heard the call and a rush of adrenaline propelled her forward. She leaped over brush and rock, dodging a growing number of stunned enemy soldiers. As she neared the hill's far side, she stopped. All the land was black with enemy men as far as she could see. In a fit of rage she slew those near her. Then she let out a small disgusted laugh, crossed herself, whispered goodbye and charged into battle. In a voice as shrill as she could muster, she screamed— "Mortals, mortals, mortals."

Fortunes had turned on Ash. Though surrounded, he never got to the men around him; they kept their distance. While Ash ran about the knights played 'keep away from the man with the really sharp knives.' Ash was furious and at a loss, when he heard the call. At times Mara would scream like a banshee to let the others know she was near. The cavalry had come, but in coming they alerted the Alannas. This time, thought Ash while turning to watch the enemy mobilize, we're the mortals. Mortals, mortals, mortals.

"Help, help me!" Marla screamed. All around her lay the wounded and the dying. Her cries of help brought only curious looks and frowns from the men passing through the battlefield. "Hey! You—Come back here!" she commanded. She had only asked the man to hold a makeshift bandage on a wounded soldier, but as she moved on, so did the man, leaving her patient to bleed in the grass. She ran to the soldier. "Please! Please, stay with me! Help me! He will die!" Marla said.

"Yes Ma'am," said the man. "You wish for him to die yet more slow?" asked the man. After a moment he moved on. Marla stood, open mouthed, hardly breathing. It occurred to her that nothing she was capable of doing on the battlefield could save the men she saw lying about; the passing soldiers knew the score and let the dying die.

More, many more, according to the rumors, would die soon. The soldiers had told her that a huge army had filled the northern valley as they fought the enemy in the south. It took Isuair to stop Marla from wandering the battlefield. He had come back to her on horseback.

"We need to pick our fights," he shouted. "We will only have time to treat the major players in this game—that means the king, the prince, their captains and the group. Ask around, you will come to know them soon enough," Eye shouted. He scanned the field. "There! The healers pitch anew their pavilions, go to them!" Isuair pointed to a small row of white dots along the valley floor. "I'll cannot linger, but ask of the injured—tell them you are a healer. Help the king! Help the king and his captains!" Isuair shouted as he reared and turned his charger. The wizard looked back as he kicked his horse and saw a very confused, very stunned Marla staring back at him, but he had little time to waste. He wished to see for himself the valley to the north. Marla would have to sink or swim on her own.

Massali's men attacked with as much fury as the Mara. They charged wantonly into the enemy. Ash, flailing at bush, horse, and foe, heard the charge behind him. Knocked in the back, Ash found himself on the ground looking up at the battle. When a soldier grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet, Ash barely recognized the man.

"Hey, Vel!" Ash shouted. Disfiguring injuries masked the man's dour face. The battle swept into them and the manic and the king's man were separated before the guard could answer. Ash was pushed back by a new charge from the Alannas. Mara's army was not a thousand companies; they were a meager two hundred men and they had plunged deep into an overwhelming number of their foe. From the North, more men came; but it was to the East that the manic's gaze was drawn.

"Back! Back before they close!" Ash screamed. An enemy company had made their way off the hill and had begun a turn to the rear of Mara's soldiers. "Fight a retreat!" He screamed, racing to the line. Sweeping the enemy aside, he searched for Mara. He saw her in the midst of riders in gray uniforms. The sight was almost comical; Mara, one arm and one leg in the saddle of an enemy horse, danced and hopped about on her free leg while her free arm made wide sweeps with her sword. But the enemy wasn't laughing. They were gathering and awaiting an opportunity to attack.

The enemy recognized her as a leader and marked her as a target. Ash could see the soldiers encircling her and saw that they were poised to strike, when he was brutally bumped from behind. Almost plunging the blades without looking, Ash turned to find his assailant was a horse. With almost no tail and bobbed ears, the pink foamy animal stamped and thrashed about. The beast was stomping wildly among the screams and shouts of the battlefield. Clearing the men around the horse with a sweep of the blades, Ash mounted and charged to Massali. Releasing the blades at the thongs, he kicked his horse, swung his weapons, and screamed his cry. He cleared the enemy around Massali and readied for the onslaught, only to find that the Alannas had begun to give way. They enemy drew back from Ash, some running. Cheers roared from behind the manic. Looking back, Ash saw why his foe retreated. Behind him the banners of the Mara Nation flew wildly in the wind, held high by hundreds of charging, mounted Mara knights. The cavalry had, this time, truly come.

The room was dark but he could make out the sparse furnishings with the help of the street-lamp outside his window. His clothes were in his closet and the care-room door was unlocked. It was time to leave. The busy pace of the hospital left Ash dizzy. The staff and their lofty obsession with life-saving was making him ill, but the real force behind Ash and his plan for escape was his last high; it sent him to the moon. That first drop gave him a power to wreak ungodly havoc upon his un-righteous enemies. One more drop and he would become an atom bomb. All he would need was a little luck, a little money, and a little time. Money was still in want, but luck and time seemed to be on his side. There was no one outside his door. Dressing in the dark, he periodically peered out into the hall.

Nothing moved. The jacket went on last—it was one he'd never seen before. Some of the clothes were his, but others appeared to be donations. The jacket was an old army field-jacket and to Ash it was a goldmine. Generous bum pity-er's loved vets and field-jackets were the undisputed uniform of down and out soldiers and ex-soldiers. Economic forecast—profits up twenty percent. And, to Ash's absolute astonishment, in his pocket was something that felt like money. The crackling of the paper was a dead giveaway. His hand clutched the velvety note. Ash pulled the bill from the pocket and held it up to the window. It was a nice, crisp twenty-dollar bill. His reservations vanished as Ash became empowered with a sense of destiny. He was meant to escape. This time, God, usually his bitter enemy, wanted it. Ash quenched his suspicions and peered out of the door.

Dressed and ready, Ash checked the door once more. The entire hall was empty. He risked the light, searching for his possessions. Finding none he rolled up the hospital bed linens and grabbed what supplies he could from the bathroom. Packing everything the best he could, he tucked his bundle under his arm and moved to the door. He checked the hall once more. Seeing nobody, he fled into the corridor. Like a halfback eyeing a goal line, Ash bulled his way down the hall. He did not slow or stop. Before long he was running. He made it to the elevator and awaited its arrival with only an indifferent janitor as an audience. The ride to the lobby was slow but when the doors opened he could see the promise-land. Thirty yards away, through two waiting rooms, were the front doors. With one last sprint he was out.

He had made his escape, and was now half-walking, half-running along Palm Avenue. Once again Ash was on the street. Once again Ash was home. After twenty minutes of fast walking Ash began to relax. He had clinched his bundle so tightly that it made his arm ache. He ducked into a small alley and pressed himself against one of the buildings, hiding in the shadows. No cops followed him. The street was quiet, but not devoid of life, which Ash took as a good sign. He had made his escape after waking from a deep sleep, and hadn't checked the time. It was late, but he hoped it was earlier than 2am. Clutching the bill in his hand, Ash did a visual search of the shops along the street. There, sandwiched between a dimly lit antique store and a dark dry-cleaner was his salvation. The sign read 'Orange Liquor.' The neon light proclaimed it open, and Ash could see people inside. A moment under the bright white lights and he was done. Ten minutes later Ash secreted down the same alley with his treasure.

Just the smell got him high. The promise of instant gratification brought an excitement to the air around him that was nothing short of electrifying. As the vodka hit his mouth, he started to choke. Some came out of his nose, and it burned. But Ash had no worries. Soon he would be back. Shrouded in the cloak of alcoholic indestructibility, Ash boldly stepped from the alley and raised his arms to the world. Soon, as the alcohol made its way to his bloodstream, he would become immortal.

Ash felt whole again. For weeks he had felt a detachment from the power. Ash had felt that break before; at times he felt as if he were drifting without a sail or anchor. When that break happened, the game, as Isuair called it, or life, as Ash called it, became tedious. But when he felt whole, when he felt back, he had bursts of power and the game became fun; it became surreal and wild. Images rushed past him, dull backgrounds became brilliant, and he succeeded where he would have failed. He loved it when he was back. Being back made it justifiable. Being back balanced every sacrifice with a just reward. Being back made the world right.

Ash and his charger and were wreaking havoc without reservation on the retreating enemy army. He was slashing head and crown, shoulders, arms—anything the blades could touch. The charger's revulsion to the battle did not hinder Ash in the sea of men, the horse's thrashing only helped as bodies surged and the crowds swayed. The horse's bounding brought wary men within reach. Again it rained blood.

Again it became good to Ash. It became fast and fluid. When he struck a deathblow to a man near him, Ash grinned. As the man fell, Ash caught his eye. The man's name floated up to the Ash and the manic's heart stopped. Vel. Ash flailed away as he tried to block out the name. He continued striking frenzied blow after blow, slashing all those around him. Soldiers were grabbing at him and his mount, and Ash struck them down again and again. After one more look at the dark mound beneath him, and a quick glance around, Ash returned to battle and the destruction he craved.

The Mara Nation, followed by the armies of the prince and the king, had driven into the enemy from the hill. The hill was not easily defended and a rout ensued, but the enemy was not pushed far. The north valley was dark with men, and while many Alannas fled, others, companies from the rear, pushed forward. Fresh enemy troops began to take their toll on Gwere's forces. Again the tide turned. Orders came for Gwere and the men to fight a retreat, as far back as could be defended by their ranks. The men were loath to give up the ground they gained but the enemy had mounted a new a coordinated attack from both sides of the hill. The king's utterly spent men had no choice but to fall back. The king's men fled the hill and fought a retreat into the same valley that had just recently yielded the fruit of victory. Back and back they fled, until Gwere, charging to his knights, called upon his mounted men to counterattack. The enemy had been pushing the king's men into the southern valley with great force. In a timed move Gwere and his mounted riders swung a wide arc, and, sweeping past their own foot soldiers, they hit the Alannas at their flank. Gwere and his men slew a great many of the enemy before their foe dispersed and fled with the big captain and his riders close behind.

Gwere's strategic maneuvering bought the king and his allies time; their forces gathered and began a more organized trek to the castle. At the hill's base Ash was lost, hopelessly trying to control his mount. To Ash it seemed the horse had gone mad. Covered in foam, the beast turned pink when its perspiration mixed with the blood Ash sprayed. While the manic and his mount bounced in circles, Gwere and his soldiers pursued the enemy past Ash, down the hill and into the north valley.

Soon, the fleeing king's army saw Gwere and his men reappear at the hill followed by fresh enemy troops. Ash, on his wild steed, faced retreating knights and an advancing enemy army. Finally, Ash was able to make his mount run. Like a lightening bolt, the horse streaked over field and mound, toward the enemy. The king's knights took this as a fresh charge and turned about. With his horse in a mad dash, Ash clung to the beast and lowered the blades. The horse flew wildly into the enemy. Gwere's army followed; they pushed the Alannas into the north valley and again from the hill.

Ash, unable to control his horse, dashed haphazardly among the enemy. The distracted Alannas army fell in disarray as the manic plowed, unfettered, through their ranks. Gwere took advantage of the lapse and attacked; again he had the upper hand, driving into the scattering Alannas army to the corners of the valley. News reached the foot soldiers of the rout and the king's army, to a man, turned toward the hill to assist Gwere. The monarch had his captains stop the men and restated his orders.

"To the castle! To the castle!" the king's guard shouted, and the retreat began in earnest.

The enemy, bitterly hurt by the frenzied attacks, fell further back into the valley. After gathering his men at the hill's base, Gwere issued orders to rejoin the retreat. On a crest of the hill's base he paused; while his mount pulled and stamped, Gwere searched the field below. The enemy continued to fall back and he could see no other riders; he could not find the mad horse and he could not find the mad manic. The big captain breathed a silent prayer for Ash, hoping he had made it out of the valley, while privately resolving to better watch over the members of his group. As he turned his horse southward, he gave one last over-the-shoulder glance toward the north valley. Then, from a culvert low in the hills, Gwere saw the charger. It streaked into the open field. Ash and his crazed mount were once again racing in circles, hovering close to the enemy's scattered line.

Gwere watched as enemy riders pursued the horse, but the blades and the animal's madness kept them at bay. Slashed and crushed, the enemy once again fell back. Then, to Gwere's horror, the horse faulted. Stumbling twice, it fell; the manic was thrown to the turf. He watched as the enemy closed on Ash. The first to reach the manic were immediately felled, but Gwere saw the Alannas army turn, en masse, toward Ash. After an initial foray into the enemy, Ash turned and began to flee into the no-man's land separating the two armies.

"Go! Go!" Gwere screamed to his mount. Soon he was in the middle of the field. Racing down the slopes into the valley, Gwere was surprised to see two riders close at his side. Knights, high in the king's service, flanked him. He spurred his mount on. The three flew to the enemy, which had collapsed around Ash.

"Just sweep in and sweep out! Don't slow, DON'T SLOW!" Gwere screamed. Only rushing air did he hear in return; but the knights beside him signaled a response. Gwere recognized both as knights very close to the king, but before he could think of their names, he reached the enemy. The two knights broke off, rode into the enemy from each side, and quickly turned and pulled out again. Gwere plunged deep into the pocket of men around Ash.

"Mortals! Mortals! Mortals!" Ash shouted to the gray sidewalks. Passerby's crossed the street. Women crossed themselves. But Ash stepped forward, arms held high. He ran among the traffic, near speeding cars swerving from lane to lane. Ash could feel the whoosh of air as the enemy surrounded him. On the four-lane highway, Ash held his arms out to God. After receiving his blessings, Ash prepared to wreak havoc upon the unrighteous.

He deftly applied his weapons—a car antenna and a metal ruler. These he swung with rapid abandon as the enemy encircled him. Again and again the enemy whooshed by. Again and again he escaped unscathed. He slashed and cut. They shouted and cursed him. But he could see fear in their eyes. They knew, as he knew, that they were mortal. As they whooshed by, they fled, knowing the damage he could inflict. A van parked askew to the curb brought Ash to a stop. He placed his arms against the pink van and began to rock it. As hard as he could he shook the van. He slashed at it with his invincible weapons. He cut and jabbed. But then the enemy came, shouting at him and the great pink charger. Ash ran, but he could see, in the midst of the enemy, the charger pacing him. Ash ran and ran.

Gwere, plunging into the enemy, watched his own horse go down. Thrown hard, the big captain hit the ground rolling. Flailing with his sword, Gwere struggled to his feet. Suddenly, a body crashed into his.

"Run!" Ash's voice screamed in the frenzy. Ash and Gwere ran, swinging at the enemy from all sides while receiving blows from every direction. With one great dash, the men broke from their attackers; they ran wildly into the open field. The battle became only the pounding of their hearts and legs; Ash and Gwere gave up the ghost for the run; they ran despite their protesting bodies and their screaming minds. The shouts of the enemy close behind spurred them further on. Then, Ash felt a rider beside him. A knight had dropped alongside the manic. While leaping to the saddle, Ash almost pulled the man from his horse. Gwere too found a knight—his large frame staggered rider and charger alike. Mounted behind the knights, Gwere and Ash were soon gliding along with the rhythm of a full gallop. As Ash looked back, he saw the enemy far behind; their dead lay strewn all about the valley floor. Ahead, the king's army was in heavy retreat. Off in the distance, but clearly pacing them, followed a wobbly, foamy, steaming, all but earless pink charger.

Almost too arm weary to hold the knight, Ash wavered on the horse, catching himself from falling only at the last moment. Gwere directed his knight to an open mount, and gracefully switched horses. He gave a last look toward Ash, thanked the knights for their service, and rode away. Ash watched as he galloped his steed far over hill and knoll, until he came to the front of the army. The big captain slowed only when he rode alongside Isuair and the king. With the enemy far behind, the retreat slowed to an unmolested trot.

"Do I look familiar to you?" Ash asked. He rolled along, staring at the knight's armored back. The man's back-plate was dented and scratched until unrecognizable as an Elite's uniform.

"Of course you do," said the knight.

"You sure as hell look familiar to me; have we met?" Riding double with the knight, Ash tried to place the man's face. Gwere had recognized him also, for Gwere had acknowledged the man and acted friendly toward him, unusual for the captain who was known for his aloofness.

"My name is Mo," said the knight, turning in his saddle to peer at Ash through his helm. "Mohammad."

"Nope," said Ash. "You must not be Mo, because I don't know any Mo, and I know you." The knight raised his visor and turned in the saddle again to stare at Ash, just inches away.

"I was one of the first to see the landings, same as you. I made it to the prince using the fastest Big Blacks in the kingdom, because unlike you I could not cross the Nong. It was I, while governing the scouts, who discovered you on that log, so long ago. It was I who noticed you had just walked out of the wilds, when our army first met you on that fateful road by the glen. It was I that saw you exchange glances and mouth words with the Mara. It was I who helped you carry the stag from the wood.

Bri, the knight before us now, was he whom you did borrow the bow from. We saw you wait, time the stag and the cheek of the Mara, for your shot's path. Yea, did you speak a language that she knew. It was I who brought you to the prince, after seeing you with your blades during the attack by the Ersoberg warriors. None could say from whence the 'mortal' call came, but I knew, for I stood and did hear it loud as we made that path of the dead in retreat to the wood. Yea, it was you. Never did I see a man fight so, with such weapons and such glee at death." The knight paused; he glanced sideways at the manic. "It was I that pleaded with the prince to send Gwere and Mara to your aid, when we all saw that inside you a battle raged, perhaps one that you wouldn't win. We watched as you had that nightmare in the glen. It frightened the boldest of us. But the prince made the decision to send the whole group, I think based on previous counseling from Eye," said the knight. "I pulled my men aside as you walked the Suvra free and paid the debt. I have seen the red cloud, the black beasts, the trademark, the blades, the rune food bag and the heal blanket. I stood outside the castle, when you cut the beam. I was in the courtyard when you and the others went in and destroyed the Dral the first time. I saw you and the burns and the precious seconds that Eye spent that afternoon. I tried, though with less effort then I could have mustered, I confess, to keep the men at bay when the Mara did bathe bare after Eye broke that spell," he said. "Then I left you, but only to lead the charge on the supply rivers. We set fire to everything the enemy unloaded until they stopped using our waterways. I am convinced that they suffer from our work even now, with scant food. I was with the King's Fifth when they stopped the landings." Mo said. "I have returned and we will watch your back, best we can, though it do seem rare when you need us. But here will we stay, Lord... I mean Ash... nonetheless." He looked again at Ash. "I am a distant relative of the king. I am Vel's brother and Mika's cousin." The knight turned again to Ash, and his visor bumped the manic's brow. "Pleasure to meet you."

"Hi!" Ash said. "You can let me down now, thanks!" Ash said. The knight did not slow or turn. "Really, thanks for all that, and the rescue and all. Now I remember you just fine. Thanks!" Grateful to have only the back of Mo as an audience, the manic lowered his head and sighed. They trotted along, riding double, in silence, for a long time.

Ash remained with the knight most of the day—for though they found riderless horses, none would bear the manic. They tried many, but each mount pulled and stamped when Mo neared with Ash. In the end they abandoned their quest and the two men remained together. They stayed in the rear, with the ground troops, and rocked along beside Bri.

Occasionally members of the group trotted beside them for news and company, with Linder lingering the longest. She rode upon her white steed and chatted with Mo as the army made their way through the valley and into the low hills north of the castle. It seemed they were old friends. Ash, disinclined to join the conversation after his unsettling talk with the knight, only listened. As they rode, Linder and Mo spoke of the battle and the retreat; they gave Ash and Gwere great credit for their easy ride to the king's grounds.

The repeated attacks into the enemy had brought them all a temporary reprieve, but their foe still followed, albeit from a great distance. Some asked why they retreated—why they didn't fight. But those that saw the enemy in the valley knew the reason; all the king's armies, including the prince and the Mara companies, were overwhelmingly outnumbered by the new Alannas force. At the castle, they would have a chance to regroup, and, as Ash found out, they hoped to gather together the best minds in the kingdom to develop a plan to overcome the enemy's superior numbers. Ash, who had seen the enemy force up close, felt only unbridled pity for the men who would be called upon to master that task.

As they trotted along Ash watched Linder chat with the knight. Her hair was out of her amour and it flowed, long and golden, behind her—occasionally the wind would carry the long strands onto Mo's face or chain mail. Her smile made Mo smile, her eyes made Mo's eyes shine. Her laugh made the sober knight giddy. The sun was on her face, and in that moment Ash knew he beheld an uncommon beauty. Rocking gently behind the knight, Ash closed his eyes. Dreamlike images of the princess came to him. He could feel her peach skin. He could smell the fragrance of the flower in her hair. He could feel her breath, her touch, and, beyond soft, the press of her lip. He imagined the kiss; at the moment their mouths met he felt weightless, joyous, and free of all burdens.

After the hospital the streets felt foreign and unfriendly. It was early in the morning and very cold. His bottle lay beside him, four-fifths empty. Awake but tired, Ash lay still, hoping that somehow all of it would just go away. He lay deep in the alley and watched as the city came to life. People on their way to work momentarily interrupted the bright light heralding the alley entrance; silhouette after silhouette shuffled by in the trek that was their daily commute.

The low drone in his brain became thunder when he moved, so he remained as still as he could. He pulled his legs up against his chest and drew the hospital blanket over him. The passersby went about their business. His bedroll was the sheet and blanket off his hospital bed. He had lost his bundle of possessions—that bundle had been his whole world. It was his kit. Through the years on the street he had gathered a treasure-trove of supplies; blankets and sleeping bags made up the bulk of it, but he had lost his other valuables as well. Warm clothes were his armor; knit caps, scarves, socks, sweatpants, shirts and gloves helped him to survive. If he layered thick enough the cold stayed at bay. He had also lost his non-clothes; soaps, toilet paper, shampoos and miscellaneous grooming utensils were now lost. He had stored up medicines—old aspirin bottles that still contained tablets, bottles of prescription drugs with old expiration dates and a variety of creams had filled his old bike bags. His hospital stay had erased years of dumpster-diving and deprived him of valuable assets that made the streets bearable.

Now, disorientated and cold, he just wanted to disappear. Luckily he still had a few bills in the pocket of his new field jacket that would insure oblivion supplies. He ached but he didn't want to leave the alley until the morning commuters had gone. He guessed it to be about 6am. He would have to wait until 10 am before the streets cleared. He lay back, pulled the blanket tight against his chin and hoped for sleep. By the grace of God it came, but it did him no good, for he only had to repeat waking to his life and his world once more that same day.

Hours later, Ash left the alley in peace; the commuters had gone. Passing a window on the street, Ash stopped to examine his reflection. In his younger days he had been obsessed with the image looking back at him; his obsession with his appearance was rooted deep in his own insecurities—he tried to get the mirror to confirm that he was the same as everyone else—if he didn't look like an alien, he couldn't be one. But this day the window reflected an image from another world. Now Ash WAS alien, a human write-off unlike any other. His cleanup in the hospital had worn off in a single night.

With his bedroll under his arm, Ash just walked. He walked and walked. He walked off the voices in his head, he walked off the fear and loathing of his own recriminations. To shut out the world, he half closed his eyes. At times, while placing one foot in front of the other, he fell into a daydream state. It was a clear and sunny day. The grasses that they rode upon were tall and golden. Tanned and blonde, the beauty beside him spoke of victory in battle and the knights that wrought them. Her laugh made the day bright and her smile filled Ash with joy. When Ash concentrated he could smell her hair. He brought a hand up to touch her cheek.

A car horn brought Ash to an abrupt stop. He stood in the street; before him an angry driver inched his vehicle through an intersection empty except for Ash. Across the street a bank sign read 3:16 pm. At last, completely exhausted, Ash dropped onto a bus bench along Glassell Street. Ash would risk the wrath of the cops. He was so tired he no longer cared that he was out in the open. Fumbling through his loose bundle of possessions, he searched for the bottle. It took a complete inventory of his stuff to find it. He drained the remaining inch, and with his hospital bedroll as a pillow, he stretched out along the bench and passed out.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" asked a voice. Ash, rising up from the depths of a foggy daze, was about to angrily reply, when Linder's voice came through the haze. "Ash... are you okay?" she asked. With the blue sky above him, Ash felt a dizzying vertigo. He was lying on his back. He realized the other voice had not been speaking to him.

"I'm fine," Ash said. Arching his head, Ash saw one of the king's officers addressing Mo.

"Can't you see he's weary and injured?" the officer asked Mo.

"He didn't do anything, I tried to jump off his horse," Ash replied. "I wanted to walk." Rising on joints that ached with each bend, Ash audibly groaned and panted as he rose. The knight, Mo, remounted his charger, and, with a last frowning, quizzical look toward the manic, whistled for his horse to walk. Ash saw the knight maneuver his mount and his charger briskly bumped the lecturing officer. A small laugh burst out of Ash, followed by another groan. Ash began to hobble along, with Linder walking her mount beside him.

"What's funny? Are you sure you're all right?" she asked.

"I'm fine, thanks. My legs... arms and shoulders hurt so much," Ash said. "So everyone made it? Everyone?"

"You know Gwere, Isuair, and the king are fine. The prince is next to them. Gractah rides ahead. Rehoak and Erow are over there," she said, pointing to the two men, who appeared to be chatting as they rode. "You and Mara were on the hill, and were rescued. Mo was carrying you, and with him always rides Bri. The only one we haven't seen yet is... Vel."

In a rush it came to him; the image made Ash choke—the face, that face. The man had crumpled to the ground. With the trademark for all to see, the guard had been felled. Ash swallowed hard and tried to will the thoughts away; but each quelled thought was replaced by two more. 'It isn't the first time.' The voice said. 'You kill people. You kill. You feel remorse, but not for the victim or the victim's family, but for yourself—for your loss of face, loss of stature, for the loss of the façade that inside you resides a man worthy of love.' Ash clinched his teeth and forced the voice away. There had to be a way to out-think this, he thought, there had to be some way that he could will it away.

He knew he needed to convince himself it never happened. After all, Ash told himself, it was just for a second, and then he just thought he had seen Vel fall after his stroke. Linder put her hand on his shoulder. Ash knew she had been reading his face.

"Are you sure you're okay, Ash?" Linder asked. "You know Ash, there is higher love, a... a GOD. He is there for us, he is there to love and forgive us. He is there. When we get together in his name, he's there. We're together now Ash, is there anything you'd like to talk about?"

Ash shook his head. Above all, Ash decided, he wasn't going to utter a word about what happened. He swore a private oath to die without speaking of it. To force himself to concentrate on another subject, he asked, "Where did you say Mara was?" He didn't expect an inquiring look from the golden-haired warrior. "Has anyone seen her since the hill?"

While Linder scoured the army and the Nation for news, Ash queried the groups around him for sightings of the Mara. Soon, he grew panicky—none had seen Massali since the hill and she was not a person to be overlooked. The more he searched, the more Ash knew Mara was lying, alone, in the dry grasses of the battlefield, dead or dying.

The army slowed and the king's line, ahead of the troops by a furlong, turned about, with the wizard in the forefront. Riding through the men, Isuair called to Ash. The manic had fallen back as the last of the army shook their heads at his questions. Ash had begun to run toward the hill—and the slowly approaching enemy.

"Ash!" called the wizard. "Ash!" Isuair turned his steed and rode to an empty mount. Clutching the free horse by the reins, Isuair charged toward the manic, who had begun scouring the bodies between the army and the hill. In the distance enemy archers crept forward.

"You help me find her!" Ash screamed. Tears filled his eyes, a sight familiar to the wizard and the only reason the Isuair ever felt anything for the manic. "You don't say a fucking thing to me!" Ash raged. With a word of spell, Eye thumped the empty mount on the neck. The beast halted in its tracks.

"Get on, son," Isuair said. His voice, of course, was calm. Ash mounted the frozen horse, and with a word of command Isuair and Ash raced, followed by a dozen knights, toward the enemy and the hill. Ash, on his spelled mount, led the way.

Ash had begun to pull away from the wizard when the manic abruptly spun the charger into a steep turn. Isuair closed the distance and found Ash on his knees, clutching something to his breast. On the hill, enemy archers continued to inch forward. A row of the king's knights lined themselves between the manic and the closing enemy men.

As the wizard turned to Ash, his heart ebbed. He fought confusion—he could not comprehend the manic's actions. There, in Ash's arms, was a woman; Ash clutched her with his eyes tightly shut. The manic was oblivious to his surroundings; he rocked, swaying in the grass with his find. On the hill, the wizard found the enemy had slowed. Their archers were out of range but had nonetheless halted their approach. Looking back the wizard understood why; the whole of the Mara Nation had turned and now rode toward the hill.

The Nation formed a great circle around Ash and his find. Dismounting, Isuair crept toward the manic. Ash was shaking. Ash's face was scarlet; he was rocking back and forth and tears ran down his face. The Mara, gathering by the hundreds now, began kneeling and bowing their heads. Some, Isuair saw, were close to tears. In all his life, Isuair had never seen a non-adopted Mara weep. His confusion mounted.

Tight, slow sobs shook the manic; tremors shook his body as he buried his face in the hair the fallen. When breath did come, it was a whimper. As Isuair crouched low by Ash, the warrior princess crept to the wizard's side. Linder placed her hands on Ash's shoulders, neck, and finally, on each cheek of his face.

"Ash..." she whispered. It was the tightest, quietest whisper Ash had ever heard. Her lips did not move when she spoke; Isuair had a hand on the woman's shoulder. "Ash, listen Sweetie," around them murmurs ran through the Nation. "Ash, listen carefully..." Linder had sided close to the manic and was whispering with an impassioned earnestness. "Ash, Mara is twelve paces behind us." She said it twice; the second time she saw the manic's eyes change. She clamped her hands tight around his face as it began to turn. His eyes grew clear and focused, and he began to move. "ASH! ASH! Listen! Listen to me Sweetie; the whole of the Mara nation is bowed around us in tribute. They know that Massali is behind us. They think you feel this way about this Mara, this Nation member. They think you chose," Linder said. "Ash, let's just move away. Don't do anything good or bad, let's just move away." The Mara had begun to close in as Linder whispered to Ash. Closer and closer they came. Some held Linder in a cold, questioning gaze. Linder began to whisper in an even more quiet voice to Ash. "Do you hear me; it hasn't occurred to them, to anybody, that you would make such a mistake." The words breathed from her mouth. "The warrior you hold is Debonsin. She is an adopted cousin of Massali, therefore they wear the same trimming on their amour. Do you understand? If you just leap up, and say, 'Whew, wrong one!'—We are lost," Linder said. "Your care for their stricken warrior has moved the Mara almost to tears. Unlike us, they carry their fallen, and this one was missed. It is said in their culture that a fallen warrior that stays behind in the battlefield loses her honor. You have saved her honor, and her family's honor. And they are close, Ash, they are very, very close." Linder found Ash's eyes focused on her, and for the first time since his fall from Mo's horse, the usual wildness in them returned. Slowly and deliberately, Ash rose with the dead warrior still in his arms. With fresh tear marks tracking his face, he turned to the whole of the Mara Nation. When an older warrior cloaked like Massali pushed forward, Ash placed the fallen soldier into her arms. Then, to everyone's surprise, Ash bowed.

"I had chosen; now... is loss," Ash said. Furthering their astonishment, Ash said the words, which had in translation almost lost their meaning, in Gaelia, the language of the Nation. He rose and began to push his way through the crowd. Linder watched him as he passed Massali. She watched as their eyes met. They kept their faces very somber, but Linder could see their eyes flash and shine at one another. They soon broke their stares and headed in opposite directions. Linder and Isuair watched the two with hearts filled with humor, wonder and more than a bit of horror.

Though they did send visitors and emissaries, the Mara Nation would not enter the castle proper. The Cave People also preferred outside. Much of the other armies, the bands the prince had strung together during his trek to the king, also appeared more comfortable outside the ramparts. Only the king's men, the prince's men, and their party entered the castle walls.

"It was God himself, not a fallen angel, that descended from the heavens, and came to earth, to wreak havoc, and after one understands this, everything in the world will be true, because..."

"ASH!" In a flash the wizard was in the manic's face, full of rage. "Listen to me friend if you ever speak from that book to my people again I will tear you apart." The force of the wizard's anger literally bowled Ash over, and he rolled, tumbling in the dirt. Mara scooped up the Black Book and slipped it into Ash's magic bag, she then sat, lips pursed, struggling hard to stifle a powerful laugh. Turning from Ash, the wizard regarded the Mara coolly for many long moments; then he turned abruptly, his cape fanning their fire. With one last scowl back to the manic he disappeared into the mists of the castle causeway. Ash and company had made camp just yards from the castle entrance gate and guardhouse. Around their fire, the party had asked the Mara and the manic about their adventures during the battle. Ash had seen the wizard leave with the king; with Isuair out of sight he decided to read the first line of the Black Book to the group. The manic now added teleportation to the list of the wizard's talents—he was absolutely sure, beyond a doubt, that when he had begun to read, the wizard was more than a mile away. He was sure—absolutely, positively, without a doubt... sure.

Supplies of every kind were delivered to the group, from inside and outside the walls. The king's men brought a great amount of firewood and left a stack of thick blankets. Massali told the others that the blankets were for them only, and not for Ash, because he had his own special magic one. A tribe called the Bloodlace left a row of immaculately crafted swords. After the others passed on the gifts, Erow picked a blade and walked the rest back to the tribe; all had dark suspicions as to the fates of the weapons' original owners. The Nation delivered meats and dry fruit, left by a warrior whose appearance differed greatly from Massali. She had the same unusual, especially for a Mara, blonde locks that made Linder so renowned throughout the kingdom. She was short of stature, also an uncommon trait for a Mara. The young woman had her maiden deposit the gifts, while she remained at the gate. She was standing alone when Ash caught her eye; she smiled and nodded to him. When he nodded back she came to his fire and sat down; there she stayed, moving, rolling to the beat of a private song. She appeared to be singing under her breath. When she caught Ash staring at her a second time she left her spot and sat beside him. She was light-skinned, another unusual trait for a Mara. Her hair was curled and fell into her face often, but through it Ash could see a bright smile and clear eyes. When the woman grinned her whole face grew joyous and her eyes sparkled.

The others in the group had dispersed; the manic and the young Mara were alone. Ash too meant to take care of personal chores, especially washing—every inch of the manic was black with bloodcrust—when the woman began her visit.

"Tima, right?" Ash asked.

"Calé," she said.

"Oh yeah, right, Hallay."

"Calé. Cal... lay. Nice to see you again, Ash," she said. "I don't know if you remember, but I was with Massali and Softlee when you introduced yourself to the queen." Ash smiled and wondered how long it would be until the warrior departed. He began to pick at the scabs on his arms. Calé continued to move to the beat of a silent song.

"Hey," she asked, "What are you going to do after the war?"

"After?"

"I mean... you get out... alive." She leaned close; Ash could smell her body. "With those, you walk, right?" She said, tapping her finger against his cloak at his thigh. "I mean, nobody can really kill you, and you belong to no man."

"Except the king, the Army, Gwere, Mara—Massali rather, and my friends, not to mention the wizard," Ash said. He searched her eyes but found only the firelight dancing in a sea of blue. Blue eyes were also an unusual trait for a Mara.

"Of course, of course, that's not of which I speak," she said. Her husky voice made her slight bearing even more fascinating to the manic. "I meant that nobody can kill you, and that if this goes wrong, if we face defeat and loss, well... at a certain point it would be useless to just continue." The girl had a tendency to peer at Ash through the corner of her eye with a knowing grin; it was a compelling, mischievous habit. Ash had to physically resist the urge to touch the back of his hand, ever so lightly, against the woman's cheek. "I mean if we win you walk away," she continued, "but you would need to walk away if the other outcome came also... either way you survive. And I guess what I'm asking, is... after, do you want an apprentice? I would be a good choice." Ash noticed the more Calé talked the less spontaneous her words seemed.

"The Mara have a vast collection of spell books and writings from Ithar, Dhamian and Simon," she said, "all of which I can provide access to. You do know magic, don't you? That's what you're all about, right?" Ash sighed. He felt a subtle pressure to give the right answers to this flower, this rose of a woman; but he could sense the thorns pressing close.

"I can't tell you what... I'm all about..." Ash began, and then he paused. "...yes, yes I can. I'm about death." His voice came from so deep within his being that it seemed remote; there was a sadness to every syllable. "I'm about sickness. I'm about the trademark.. I'm about the gunk that leaks out. I'm about the screams, silent and otherwise. I'm about depression, rage, despair, hate and addiction. I'm about them all being dead. I'm about the nothingness that makes up each moment, the nothingness that drives boredom to a point—to a point where self-destruction holds an... allure. I'm about dullness. I'm about eating and shitting and wondering why. I'm about suicide. I'm about moments of light surrounded by days of darkness. I'm about waiting to serve, and someday, hopefully soon, accept, death. That's what I'm about," Ash said. "And we won't need the works of Dhamian, I can already take care of that dark arena nicely. The others, yes, I'd like to have access to the books of the others, especially any you have of Simon. But I haven't thought that much ahead. As far as I can see, none of us... need to plan too much." Calé seemed not to listen; instead she sided close to the manic until their bodies touched.

"Can you make my sword cut rocks?" she whispered. Ash stifled a small burst of a laugh; he had inadvertently blurted out what he thought was the contents of his soul, and his audience wanted to cut rocks. "Can you bless my blade or something?" Calé was not wearing the usual Mara breastplate; Ash couldn't help but notice the gentle rise and fall of her breast, part of which was exposed. She was lovely, but Ash wondered about the intensity in her eyes, which seemed out of place with their casual talk. Now and then a member of the group would drift close to rifle among their circle of packs, but all would look away when Ash tried to find their eyes.

"Yeah I can," Ash said. He tapped her scabbard with his finger. "There." Calé glanced hard at Ash and then slowly drew her weapon. She placed the tip of her sword against a rock and tapped it hard. It bounced off with a dull ring. Ash gently grasped her hand, which softened under his, and brought the blade through the stone.

"See... magic," he said, without releasing her hand. Calé placed her free hand on top of his own and squeezed. He did not miss the heavy calluses on her palms—only a life holding a sword brought such thick skin to a hand—his own were badly blistered and seeped a clear-orange, viscous fluid. She brought her face near his until their breath mingled. "THAT. That. Show me that..." she whispered. The request was intoxicating; Calé had a true power that came from her beauty, her flesh. "That. THAT... teach me that." She was alight; her skin was downy peach and it glowed when she became excited. Her eyes were open and her face flushed as she pushed close to the manic.

Ash could feel her. He could feel in her the power of an open-mouth kiss. Her lips parted and she moved even closer. "TEACH ME THAT," she said again and Ash watched her mouth; it turned up at the corners, creating a careless, crooked grin. It reminded Ash of Massali, but without the spontaneity. "Teach me that and I'll give you anything."

"Sure... sure, after," Ash said, forcing smile. "If you find me after the war, I promise to teach you what I can," Ash paused. Just the woman's breathing held his attention. "You are so beautiful," he said. After an awkward moment he continued. "You have my word, we'll work together."

"Can you show me now?" Calé asked. "Can you show me anything now?" At the request, her voice, Ash noticed, had become almost childlike.

"It's hard to explain. It comes from inside. It's a feeling. It has to do with wearing the blades. It's code. It's a channel. The easy spells are just words, but the real spells are..."

"Do you ever think that all is already lost?" she interrupted. "Some say that you seek death out of anger and loss, that you despair our plight. Why make that sacrifice? Why not start anew?" He followed her eyes with each word. He looked into one then the other. The eyes were the prize, but the words were the steps down an unlit, unexplored, steep road. She had not moved her hands. His hand still lay with between hers, on the hilt of her sword. She squeezed his hand tight and looked unflinchingly into his eyes. For a moment he thought he would lose himself in his desire for a kiss. "Why not begin anew, with me. I would forgo the Mara traditions," she halted almost imperceptibly and then continued. "I would be your concubine and your student. You would remain whole and strong." She brought her words to a whisper again. "We could steal away, Ash, we could steal away tonight."

She was beautiful. Ash felt the drug that was this woman of youth—it held a powerful influence over him—the no longer young male. But it was a choice, Ash believed, that was almost always made in the dark. Ash ran the timeline of their future relationship, as the woman waited. He imagined them stealing off into the night. He thought of them making love under the stars, he imagined him taking her with power. He imagined bringing her about. He imagined the dynamic—him, the hard, dominant male, her, the willing, prostrate female. He would rise from the tryst strong from the after-burn of a million sown seeds—a strength that was always an illusion—in the female the lay the egg and the power. Then, his mind clouded. He imagined himself trying to teach her what she couldn't learn.

He thought back to one of the battles that had by now become muddled in his mind, for the scenes blended until each skirmish became indistinguishable from the next; but he remembered one warrior. It could have been during any one of the big battles. He didn't know. But he remembered the Suvra warrior.

The bacon strip. The Hitler mustache, the heart, the triangle trim, the black-forest full bush and the girl scout—all flipped through Ash's mind like a picture show. Every possible way a woman could trim her private area flashed through his mind. As soon as she picked the bacon strip the woman in his mind said; 'you can do me... you can do me hard..."

He needed the session of self-abuse to be over as soon as possible; all he wanted was the release. His head throbbed with a pre-hangover ache, but he need to rid himself of this need. All he wanted was to not be aroused. All he wanted was to not think of the animal that was woman (thought the animal that was man). He completed the act in a mix of relief and disgust. Both emotions were properly book-ended by guilt. But it was a necessity, it was coded in his brain and it was something that he simply couldn't ignore. At climax he imagined a careless twenty-something under him, and the sticky-sweet smell of sex.

"This? You want this?" She had said. "Well, yes and no..." He would think later. But Ash didn't want THAT any longer, he had just wanted the hunger to stop, which it did. He crawled out of the park bushes and looked around. No one had taken note of him. He still had money; he still had some of a bottle, courtesy of another street person passing by. It was wine but it would do. He drained it and scanned the park. The grass was wet but he could curl up on the bench again. He had just passed his cloak to the Suvra as the group appeared from the corners of the battlefield.

Through his trip down memory lane, Calé waited. His encounter with the Suvra began unexpectedly; it had started with his weapons. The blades in close combat actually proved to be a hindrance to the user, without resistance, without an opposing force to compensate for each thrust and swing, the weapons had the tendency to flail wildly, flipping back to the user or slipping from the bearer's grip. Control was little more than an illusion. The act of non-resistance-cutting was something the human brain just wasn't able to grasp.

But it never mattered; Ash didn't comprehend much of anything when he fought; he only quenched the thirst. It didn't make a difference on who or what or how he fed, it only mattered that his hunger was satiated. He just moved the power and made the dead, the who and how really never mattered.

Like a school-yard star with an unusually high level of talent, Ash couldn't keep himself from showing off. He would run to the most vicious clashes. He would slink deftly to the most brutal of enemies, daring all comers to witness his glory, his skill. And Ash was skilled. No one that ever witnessed the blades in battle ever forgot it.

Sometimes, during combat, Ash would systematically plot the path of every stroke before his potential challengers even knew he was there. Whether running along the line taking off heads, or spinning inside tight groups, Ash's plans, when possible, were choreographed.

During the Suvra encounter, Ash quietly shuffled into position. A group of enemy soldiers stood, just freed from battle, apart from the fray. Shouldering his way to a predetermined position, Ash hid his weapons and his face. When he pulled back his hood, the enemy reacted with appropriate horror—that reaction was Ash's fix. One of his targets was able to shout his name only; the others froze. It wasn't a strike; it was a snap that brought the warriors down. But Ash's carefully laid plans fell to ruins, much like the soldiers around him, as his gaze fell upon a lone survivor. Like a bowler leaving a wobbly spare, Ash only shook his head in disgust. Circling with his arms spreading, Ash attempted to engulf the warrior in his embrace.

The enemy, a Suvra warrior, stood her ground but paled at the manic's attention. Only when she threw a dagger at him did Ash find his target to be the least bit compelling. Only after that bit of defiance, which was nullified by the protective effect of the blades—as were all spears and arrows—did Ash find the warrior before him more interesting than an execution. It was only the two of them; the battle had moved on and they stood facing one another, completely alone. Ash stepped forward; then he noticed the skin. The Suvra's armor had been scathed; her flesh had been exposed as a result of damage to her chest-plate. Grasping for any chance, she identified his hesitation.

The land was an enigma to Ash in so many ways, but none more than when it came to sex. Relations between men and women in the land were solid, strong, loving, but never sexual. It was not conquest or entertainment. It wasn't packaged, sold, marketed or stolen. Sex wasn't coveted, cherished or fought over—it was a nonentity. It was procreation, and procreation only. A woman offering her sex was mating. Intercourse was a man attempting to plant his seed. Men and women of the land bathed together, urinated together and dressed together. In the land, there was almost no sex. One time, and one time only, Ash had heard a comment of a sexual nature during his tenure with the group. It was one of the men, Erow, Ash remembered, at the 'let's not go' spot. Gwere had said something on him throbbed, his ankle, and the Gray Guard referenced the pool in which Mara had been bathing nude. He had suggested that the pool could make other parts of a man throb. The comment was lightly chuckled at but otherwise ignored. Even Mara's bathing in the river, after the first defeat of the Dral, was more curiosity than sexual. Sex it seemed, at least to Ash, was a void in the land, until the Suvra warrior stood before him with her breast exposed.

Although the claim was enthusiastically rejected by the preeminently regarded Nation, some said the Suvra tribe was a distant relation to the Mara, with one major difference—the Suvra believed in the One God—a trait the Nation considered a feeble weakness. That this Suvra was especially similar to one Mara in particular did not escape the manic.

Ash took another step forward. The Suvra did not move away. She raised her weapon, only to watch the blade section fall with a soft poof in the dust before her. She took a step back. Ash had lopped off her means of protection with little more than an invisible fanning of his weapon. The solid metal handle, of which an inch of blade still proclaimed its defiance to the world, was all the Suvra warrior held between herself and the manic. She soon dropped it too in the dust.

Grasping at the loose straws upon which her life hung, the Suvra warrior worked frantically to try and understand. Quickly, she undid the undamaged part of her plate and chain mail, exposing the other side of her bosom and again studying the manic's reaction. It came. Ash paled. Anyone in the machine world would have been able to tell the woman why.

"This?" The warrior asked. "...this?" she asked again as she stepped out of her leggings and waist armor. "This?" she asked.

"Three million years of biology, designed to perpetuate the species, has predetermined my interest in that," Ash said.

"...the Golden Cow... wants this?"

"Said the boy cow to the toy cow to the coy cow," said Ash. The warrior laughed and then quickly frowned.

"Ash... right?" Ash nodded. "What did you want?" she asked, looking around. They stood among pale fields dotted only with low bushes. She took a full step toward him and swallowed hard. The last bit of her clothing dropped as she took the step. She was now close enough to kill. Ash clipped the blades back into their scabbards, and then he too looked around. They were alone. When he looked back he saw a smile had come to the face of the Suvra. She looked at him sideways. She held her palms open and ducked her head slightly.

"This...?"

Chapter 4

Ash was trying to screen the Suvra from sight when Linder jumped from Erow's mount. The princess took to her armor buckles and hastily removed her breastplate.

"There!" she said. "You see that?" she asked Ash. He saw an arrowhead lodged deep into the mail of her armor. It was stuck where it would rub against the chest of the wearer. "That was there for an hour!"

"We got two more coming," called Erow. "Make that four. I think the fight has died down a bit." Two horsed riders and two walking men approached from out of the dusty plain that made up their last battlefield. Soon Mara, Gwere, Gractah and Rehoak joined Linder, Erow, Ash, and his guest. Linder had taken an interest in the girl, when she noticed the markings on the feathers of the Suvra's headband.

"We don't wear this stuff," she said, pulling the feathers and chains off the ornamented band. "Only the enemy wears this," Linder said. "Did you take that off a dead warrior?" The woman didn't answer. The golden-haired warrior nonetheless continued to fix the girl up. She wove a ribbon into the warrior's headband and tied a scarf around her neck. "There. Now you look okay, those are our colors," Linder said with a smile.

"What's going on, Ash?" Mara asked. She dragged out each word in cold tones; Massali had not missed Ash's friend, nor was she confused about the woman's markings. She began to walk around the Suvra, who began to turn, keeping her back from the Mara. Both women's eyes were wide and locked upon one another.

"Ash..." Mara said as she unlocked her weapon. "What's... going... on?"

"Nothing. Nothing," Ash said. He reached out and pulled the Suvra away from Mara by grabbing the woman's cloak. It was his cloak. "Mind your own fucking business," Ash said. A large contingent of the army converged on the group and began discussions with Gwere. Soon the men were everywhere, some breaking camp, some throwing themselves to the ground. Mara hovered close to Ash and his new friend, who the manic now clutched tightly about the waist.

"Ash, I just want to know why she's still breathing," Mara said. Her face was brightly flushed.

"Leave her be," Ash said. To emphasize his point he brought a heat, not close enough to Mara that the warrior would be burned by the magic, but close enough for it to be felt. Mara appeared startled for a moment, and then adamantly pushed closer to the spell. Massali physically placed her hands out and began to push toward the manic. Ash made the spell hotter, and Mara took a step back.

"Ashhh..." Mara hissed.

"She's lost," Ash said.

"I'll fucting say," said Mara. "The corpse piles are that way. Ash, whatever you've been up to... she can't go on breathing. Kill her now."

"Again, leave her be. When we get a chance, we'll let her go," Ash said.

"We'll?" asked Mara. "There'll be no we'll... LET HER GO?"

"Hey, her hair looks kind of like Mara's!" Linder said. "You're a Suvra! You guys fighting for us now?"

"No. They still fight for the other side," Mara said. "Ash just picked up a puppy."

Gwere finished with the commander of the company, Mo, and turned to Erow. They clashed fists in greeting. There was no wood for a fire; Erow sat with his back propped against his pack and pulled his cloak around him.

"What is Ash..." began Gwere. He also sat on the ground and used his pack as a cushion. The big man stretched and groaned. He pulled off his helm to reveal hair that was matted and damp. "...doing with her?"

"Maybe he's got some kind of plan or something," Gractah said. The Elite joined the other two men and answered when Erow only shrugged.

"Who cares what he does," Erow said while yawning.

"Massy sure doesn't like her," Gractah said with a laugh as he watched Massali circled the woman. Ash had pulled the Suvra close and was verbally sparing with the Mara.

"Is she wearing Ash's cloak?" Erow asked.

"Ash's only agenda is killing people," Gwere said. "Which is why it's curious that he stands now with his arm wrapped around a Suvra," said Erow. "Usually he just kills and kills, and then kills some more, and then for a change, tortures something."

"Do you ever wonder if that's going to be a problem after this is all over?" Gractah asked.

"After?" Gwere asked. The big captain laughed. "WHAT AFTER?"

Erow laughed and watched as Linder and Mara began to argue, with Linder pushing adamantly toward the Mara with her arms waving.

"Gwere, you better go break that up," Erow said. But Gwere only groaned. The big captain leaned back, and, ignoring the others, closed his eyes. Erow nudged Gractah and nodded toward the girls. Soon the two men stood before Linder and Mara, with Ash trying, along with his new friend, to look invisible. "She's just standing there. Enemy or not, this isn't a battle. We would just be wrong," Linder said. "It would just be killing."

"How is killing... the enemy... wrong?" asked Mara, again drawing out her words.

"I don't know. It's just... Hey, did you know she's not wearing anything under her cloak?" Linder asked. The princess had glanced at an angle into the robe. The Suvra wrapped herself tighter.

"I need your help," Ash whispered to Erow. "I... I... owe this warrior... we..."

"You what?" asked Erow with a big grin. Then the guard laughed. Gractah only frowned.

"Do it quick, use one of your swipes or sweeps, or whatever you call them. Spare her any pain," Gractah said to the manic.

"No. We should get her back to her people," Ash said. "I... She..."

"Gractah, Ash owes this one a battle debt, isn't that right, Ash?" asked Erow.

"Yes! Exactly!" cried Ash. One day a fortuneteller would tell the manic more about the debt, but this day Ash only stood, relieved that he had gained an ally in Erow. It took all three men to walk the Suvra away from the Mara. Gractah had retrieved her plates, leggings, and adornments. Together the three men guarded the woman as she re-fitted her gear. Linder repaired her breast-plate.

"The latest reports are that the enemy lay in a canyon adjacent to this one... But," said Erow, "your people are in the valley to the North. This gully," Erow pointed to a creek that ran along the field, "can take you all the way there. If asked, tell them you pressed the one they call 'Ass' into another valley, that one, away East," Erow said. He gave to the woman a dagger and a sword that had been sheared off. It had been her sword. "Tell them after he disabled your weapon you feigned death. That should be a plausible enough story; it would only be a small deception," Erow said while winking at Ash. Then he neared the woman. "We need your word, Suvra, that you agree to forget any secrets you learned here; do not tell anyone where we are. Do not tell of who you saw here. Do not relate this conversation, our strength or our numbers to your people. Begone and keep you word. God's speed, and may the One Lord watch over you and yours, warrior."

"You indeed have mine and my family's word," she said. She bowed low and handed Erow Ash's cloak. Then, she came close to the manic. She pressed her lips against his, and he pressed back.

"It was nice," she said. She tucked Linder's Comeratte scarf into his hand and was off, disappearing in the gully without a look back. Ash found his friends staring intently at him.

"Nice?" asked Erow. "JUST NICE?" The guard asked through a chuckle. Erow began to laugh harder than Ash had ever heard him laugh. "NICE?" But Ash thought nice was just fine. Ash thought nice was beautiful. Nice, Ash thought with a small smile, was absolutely wonderful.

The rocking of the woman beside him brought Ash back from memory lane. They still clasped hands on the sword. He thought again about making love to Calé; he thought about the moment after and the unpaid debt. He thought about keeping his promise to the woman, trying to teach her magic. He imagined her frustration at not being able to learn what he couldn't teach. He thought of life. He could see the young woman next to him changing, growing old. He could see himself growing more and more violent, or else embarking on a life-long struggle to master the urges within, a challenge whose enormity he had caught only glimpse of—he had yet to even try to resist that beast. None of his plans matched hers, yet the offer still held sway over him. Torn between possibilities, he waited. But the moment of anticipation turned to a moment of impatience in the hard eyes of the young Mara. In the moment that he procrastinated her touch grew cold and her hands withdrew from his.

"Now, Ash, what say you?" Calé asked. Her question had the ring of command in it. Then he noticed her hair. The young Mara donned four braids on each side. Eight. Even the queen's most trusted commanders wore only seven. Massali had six. He was not talking to an ordinary Mara. This Mara, that so impatiently waited beside him, held a special rank. Then, the feeling came. Watched. Ash scanned the area. In the distance, just outside the gate, stood three Mara. They turned away at his gaze. Two were black-robed commanders. This show had an important audience, he saw. When Ash returned his attention to the young woman that sat beside him, her face had turned cold and she appeared older than Ash had first thought. She sighed, clicked her sword hard against a stone, and let out a small laugh. "After the war then," she said. Rising to her feet, and with one last look back, she walked away. Moments later the black robes of the Nation also disappeared. When they were gone Massali took a seat beside him and flung fuel on their fire. She was newly scrubbed and still wet.

"New girlfriend, Ash?" she asked. At his frown she smiled. Ash was still picking at the scabs on his arms. Mara began, with one finger, to point and un-point, then point again to a horse troth. "...waterrr..." she said. "...Bathe..."

After Ash bathed he returned to their fire. Massali was cleaning her sword when the manic sat down close beside her. She frowned when he took a seat and slid an inch away.

"I was thinking about the Dral, the Alannas, your tribe, and things," Ash said. Mara stared at him. Then she pulled a loose flap of skin from her hand with her teeth and spat it into the fire. "I was thinking of a plan..." Ash said.

The Cave People left the group a small pile of rocks built into a pyramid. Mara studied the rocks for a while and reported to the group that they were 'just rocks.'

"Maybe it's the shape, the pyramid itself, that means something," said Linder. "Maybe it's a tribute," said Gractah.

"Maybe we need to find better allies," said Mara, who seemed to be the least interested in the pile.

"I wonder if anything is under there?"

"Treasure," said Ash. He had scrubbed but still appeared crusty.

"That's treasure?" Rehoak asked while peering under the top rock.

"Looks like just more rocks," said Gwere.

"Maybe the rocks are the treasure," said Erow. "Maybe they are precious minerals, or rare stones."

"They look like regular rocks to me," said Mara. To prove it, she lined up a set of rocks next to the Cave People's pile, and built her own pyramid. The two pyramids looked identical.

"I don't think they are treasure, or precious, I think that they are just rocks," said Gractah.

"Maybe all the rocks in the castle are treasure, I mean, it is after all, a castle," Linder said.

"Yeah, maybe," Mara said. "Why don't you gather up some in a big bag and carry 'em everywhere," Massali said. After a bout of giggles Gwere finally said 'goodnight all' and they all said goodnight.

He couldn't tell if it was the traffic or the chill air that woke him on the bus bench, but the morning hours of the new day greeted Ash in a rush. The early-bird drivers had started their commute and the street was busy. Ash was on the corner of Glassell and La Veta and the night had left him dewy, cold and stiff. But, thought Ash, as he rose and slapped his arms to shake off the chill, La Veta was a nice corner to wake up to. Across Glassell, fifty feet from where he now sat, stood a Minute Market; its two most endearing qualities; it opened at 6am and it sold booze. As he clasped the bills in his pocket—they were his ticket, this day, out of the gray streets of Orange and into the blue skies of oblivion. Sitting on the bench, Ash remembered how it started, how he left her.

Ash hadn't yet taken his keys out of the door when he saw them—his, wife, mother and two sisters. Ash grew cold when he saw every eye on him. His drinking now dominated his life and he had stopped fighting it; he drank till drunk every night. He was, however, able to maintain a semi-functioning life; he did not miss work and he drank only at home where he could avoid most legal and social problems associated with being a drunk. That his family had made a surprise visit could only mean one thing; they meant to 'help' him. Ash's mom spoke first.

"We know what's going on. We are here for you."

"Are you here for me like the Gestapo, or are you here for me to make yourselves feel better, or... how are you here for me?" Ash asked.

"Ash!" Ash's oldest sister rose with her arms outstretched. Ash wondered if she meant to physically grab him. "We don't want to see you hurt yourself—We've enrolled you in an out-patient program with your doctor. They offer counseling and they'll put you on Anti-buse until you get back on your feet."

"I am on my feet," Ash said. He first stood on one foot then another. It was like he did a little dance. He could not look at his wife; he did not want to see her face, her fear. They both shared a secret terror; for Ash it was a sober night, for her it was his watery eyes, his staggering gate and his slurred speech. Actually, Ash hadn't just left. He told people he did, but he didn't. His world unraveled underneath him, and he chose the streets. His marriage had begun to dissolve as Ash placed the blame for his problems onto the shoulders of his wife. His dreams existed only in the world of fantasy and only as a means to escape; hers were much more concrete.

Instead of kids, instead of a house or material possessions, Linda collected experiences. They traveled. Her dreams were to see the world's deepest jungles, its strangest creatures and its most extraordinary cultures. She dragged him to Danum Valley in Malaysia. She pulled him through Petra in Jordan, and into the temples in Egypt. They had been to the Mayan cities of Tikal, Copan, Chichen Itza and Palenque. Israel, the Sinai and Europe followed. Then, she discovered Africa. They went twice; once to East Africa—Tanzania and Kenya, where they visited the Masai Mara National Reserve, the Serengeti, and the Ngorongoro crater. In Kenya they also visited Karen Blixen's museum in the Nong hills. They visited the Rift Valley. Then they went to Southern Africa, Botswana and Namibia. Africa was the Dark Continent; it was the land of the wild and the dangerous. It was the land of the Masai and other exotic tribes. Linda lived her dreams; she walked in them, in her real life, in the real world.

Realizing her dreams gave Linda a great gift; it added meaning to her life. The world was something to cherish and explore. Travel gave her purpose; it gave meaning to the nine-to-five world that Ash so struggled with. She had goals and ambitions. Ash, on these trips, got sick. He got stressed. He saw the destruction of the world in the big lumber trucks ripping up the dirt roads in Malaysia. He saw the horror of poverty and the futility of breeding in a world that didn't provide for many of its billions of people.

Ash saw only the terrors of the machine world, and in the end he and Linda began to argue about the fabric of her dreams; her trips. His idea of a vacation was smoking pot on a beach in Hawaii or getting drunk in Mexico. Rages became part of their life. Since these trips were everything to her, Linda suffered. Ash didn't just walk away—the foundation of their marriage had crumbled beneath his feet and he leaped from the sinking ruins.

His work had also begun to unravel. The print shop had become a little shop of horrors, with Ash arriving hours late or not at all, almost every day. Soon the stretches of absence became more frequent than the stretches of employment. That too was abandoned, without Ash even realizing it, and his only job became avoiding the obstacles that blocked the gates to oblivion.

When he woke, the camp was quiet. In the early morning hours, the dew was still making the air feel heavy and cold, and Ash, stiff and sore, rose to greet the new day on joints that screeched. Looking around their now dead fire, he accounted for all the members of the party except Mara and Gwere. Pulling his cloak tight, he stepped over the sleeping body of Linder and found the big captain. Gwere was sitting on a barrel, smoking a pipe a few feet from their dead fire. He was partially hidden by the arch gatehouse. The others were still asleep.

"How come nobody woke me for watch, and where's what's-her-name?"

"What's-her-name's in the Nation," Gwere said. "They've had some bad news. The queen is rumored dead." Ash shook his head and the big man just sat; the captain appeared more depressed than ever. Ash yawned, stretched and groaned while the captain returned to his pipe.

A dozen feet away stood the horse troth; Ash approached the troth and pumped fresh water into the leaking, wooden bin. On impulse, for he still had blood on him that his first washing missed, he jumped in. The water was paralyzingly cold. He was only able to spring out in one leap. He landed on the ground on all fours, shaking while waves of shivers rippled through his body. Gwere, amused, approached the manic with one of the king's blankets.

"What the hell's the matter with you, Ash?" he asked, as Ash, in front of the slowly waking party, began to strip until he was bare. Gwere wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and returned to his barrel.

"What's the matter with you?" asked Ash through shivering lips. "She'll be alright." Ash had always thought Massali was Gwere's secret love.

"They will select a new queen, and there is no saying whom they will select," said the big man. For the first time that morning, Gwere looked into Ash's eyes. Ash, gazing into them, saw a depth of gray filled with apprehension. Therein lies the abyss, thought Ash, therein lies the familiar waters of fear, despair and regret. Ash broke the stare and looked at his bare, bluing feet.

For no reason at all, those with business in the castle reported to them. The party suffered this responsibility under Gwere's watchful eye; they took the job seriously, sending runners if they were in doubt of the importance of the visitor's business. When there were no visitors, they spent their time cleaning their weapons, their armor, and their bodies, in that order.

Mara had been gone since before dawn, and the party grew restless as the hours passed. Gwere spent the morning pacing the grounds like an expectant father. Finally, Ash and Erow approached the captain.

"What do you say to a little inspection of the troops, captain?" asked Ash.

"We should do a check for infiltrators, after all, we are responsible for the security of the gate," said Erow.

"I think I saw some spies by the Mara camp," Ash said.

"Spies?" Gwere asked. "By the Nation's camp? We should check that out."

"Personally," said Erow.

"Let's just go for a little walk," said Ash. "Mosey on over... look here and there for... spies and stuff... that kind of thing."

"Where you guys going?" Linder asked. Ash, Gwere and Erow had shouldered their packs. "What's up?"

"We're looking for spies and girls can't come," said Ash.

"You stay here and guard the gate," said Erow. He finished the last buckle on his armor and pulled the collar down and away from his neck.

"Me? Alone?" she asked.

"You have three armies at your disposal—on one side of the wall is the king, on the other, the Cave People and the Mara. If you get into trouble, just call for help," said Erow.

"Yeah, just scream, help me, help! Help! Help! I'm weak and..." Ash never finished as Linder almost knocked him to the ground running to Gwere.

"Where are you going? The Mara aren't going to let you just waltz in there and... and if you're going to force the issue, you're going to need me," she said while gathering her stuff.

"Rehoak can watch the stupid gate."

"Not a damnnn chance..." Rehoak said while packing.

"Oh hell," said Gwere. He stood looking at the group. They were packed and all staring back at him.

"I'll get a couple guards to cover the gate," Gractah said with a laugh.

"All I want to do," Gwere said, "is find out what news I can."

"We just go in. If they fuck with us, we start hacking off their arms and their long, slender legs..." began Ash.

"Wait a minute!" Linder said, "nobody agreed to that. Let me talk to them, let me check if we can't just see Massali."

"All I'm saying is that we may not be welcome," said Ash, but the party was moving. They were met at the gate by Gractah and a dozen of the king's men. The men were easily persuaded to watch the entrance—in fact, they were a detail assigned just for that purpose—but no one had wished to inform the party. None offered to go with the group on their trek into the Mara Nation.

At the gate the party passed a woman cradling a wounded soldier. Through the dirt and the blood, Ash could just make out the woman's garb; she appeared to be wearing all white, which, in battle and the land in general, was unusual. A nurse-uniform, Ash thought, as he passed. He tried to remember where he had seen a 'nurse' uniform before.

"Are you coming?" asked Linder. Ash had paused at the gate; a large space had grown between him and the party. He watched as the woman moved slowly into the castle proper while supporting the soldier. Trying to recall, from the deepest depths of his mind, the memory that the nurse triggered was so painful that in the end, Ash abandoned the undertaking. He turned and ran to the others.

But, he thought, as he looked over his shoulder, she did not belong in the land any more than he did. Now, though, he was going to have to focus on their little party. Up ahead, quickly getting to their feet, were the parameter guard of the Mara Nation.

Ash watched as runners were sent to their base camp, and a party of Mara with roughly the same strength in numbers as their group, hurried forward to hail them.

"The Nation is in mourning and accepts no visitors." After this simple statement, the warriors set their spear shafts to the ground and slowly leaned the points toward the party. Both Linder and Gractah grabbed the manic as he jumped forward. At the same moment Gwere stepped in front of him, arms out. The Mara warriors reacted by drawing their broadswords.

"Hold! Hold!" the captain shouted. As he turned to Ash, he reached down and placed both hands on the sword sheaths. He was literally clasping the catches with his hands. Linder, Gractah, and Erow pulled Ash from behind as Rehoak and Gwere pushed him from the front. As a group they walked him across the road and that marked the Mara boundary. The Mara again sent runners to their base camp but otherwise held their ground.

"Listen, we can't have you pop off every time you feel like it," Gwere said. "We need you, but if you start..." Gwere paused as Linder began to laugh. "...what the hell is the matter with you?"

"Get it—pop off! Ash, no popping off!" she covered her mouth, but the more she tried to stifle her laugh, the more it came. "Yeah, Ash, we can't have you go POP, just anytime you want. Pop! POP!" Linder then picked up a stone and threw it against a large rock. "POP!" As she carried on, Ash saw the Mara warriors behind them begin to slowly back away. It was little steps at first, then full steps. By the time they had Linder calm, the Mara guards were a more than a dozen yards away and still moving backwards.

"Let's go," Ash said, rudely shrugging off Gractah and Erow's grasp. As the Mara warriors moved backward, Ash and the party moved forward. But they did not get far; the Mara flanked them and began to close in as the party passed the Nation's marked border.

More and more Mara warriors confronted the group. Soon, hundreds of warriors surrounded the party, hedging them in, but not stopping their progress. As the party walked, they stayed close, and though they had their hands on their weapons, they hadn't yet drawn them. The Mara Nation was, Linder continually reminded them, their ally. But the group had become focused on their goal—contact with their missing member. The traditions and customs of the secretive clannish Nation would be ignored.

The Mara asked no questions as the party walked, for all knew why they were there. The point, and the cause of the conflict, was clear to all; the group was saying that Massali would always be one of their party—they were screaming it by their cavalier breach of the Nation's boundaries—Massali belonged to them, and the Nation would just have to accept that. But the Nation didn't see it that way; the intrusion of the company was a threat. With each step, more and more Mara warriors crowded the party. Then, through the throng, came a warrior. She stood tall and moved with a strong, deliberate focus. Her armor was polished to a brilliant sheen and as she walked the Nation made quick movements to avoid her. The Mara warriors seemed afraid of the warrior.

"Move," Massali commanded to the remaining Mara that stood between her and the group. The Mara guards pulled away with quick steps. With her regal appearance many in the party half expected her to shoo them away also, for she appeared to have already made her choice. But as she approached, she did two things—she reached up and removed a gold-stoned, silver circlet from her brow, one the party had never seen before—and then she smiled her regular Massali smile. She approached the group and grinned while depositing the circlet into a hidden pocket of her cape. Coming within arms reach, she placed her hands, palm out, flat on their armor. One she placed on Gwere and one she placed on Ash. Then, after a pause, she moved and did the same to all the others. She was identifying her family to the tribe. When she had touched all the members of the group, she asked if they would walk with her.

As a group they crossed the gate road. On the other side, they formed a tight circle around Massali. "I have business here," she said. Her voice was steady but tightly controlled. "That business is not yet complete, and I need two favors from you guys." Ash thought he could see the warrior tearing up. "One is patience and the other is trust. I can't explain what we are doing in there, but I can tell you that you are foremost on my mind. Above all, remember that I wish to remain a member of our group," she said. "Trust me. Don't put your lives at risk. Remember that I love you. If you would, stay right where you were and wait for me. If I need you..." Mara stopped and a single tear ran down her cheek. Linder immediately grabbed and embraced her, and the others followed suit, hugging in a big knot. As quickly as they embraced, they all pulled away. They stood for a minute and cleared their throats. After a small smile Mara continued. "The Mara as a people are not easily reckoned with, and you can help me by just staying put." As she talked a great multitude of Mara warriors began gathering at the boundary of their camp. To Ash the Nation seemed overly concerned with the group's discussion.

Then the manic, standing with the group as they fumbled for words, felt a touch. It was small but it was real. He closed his eyes; when he opened them again he could see the spell—little fingers, feelers—stretched from the Mara camp. Brown lines, searchers, crawled around the group. Ash crushed the spell with a single thought; he used the same line Isuair had created in the throne room to disable the Dral's spells. All spells have a hook, Eye had later told him, a key to their own destruction. Ash had been collecting those keys for some time. The feelers did not return.

"One more thing, and then I'll go," Mara said. "Ash... can I have the book?" Ash un-slung his pack from his back. With trembling hands, he reached into it, found the bag and clutched the tome. As he began to pull the book from his bag, he felt the thing pulse. The sensation was so unnerving that he almost dropped it. He re-gripped the book and began to draw it out again. 'Put me back.' The thought jumped into Ash's mind; it was a stranger's voice. 'I belong to you,' it said, 'and only you.' This last thought popped into Ash's mind as an angry command.

Grabbing the book tight with both hands, Ash purposely dug his nails into the cover. The book began to vibrate. Hands still in the bag, Ash clawed the book. 'Tear it apart,' said another voice—his voice—tear this THING apart...' it said. Ash silenced the noises in his head, something he had been doing all his life, and instead concentrated on the thing he clutched. Ash began to channel his energy to his hands. He had his nails grow long and sharp. He was making them penetrate the book; deep, deep they sank. At the point where Ash decided to rip the volume to pieces, it ceased to beat. It became an inanimate object—in his hands Ash held only oilskin, parchment and thread. He pulled his hands out. As his hands cleared the bag Ash was already making up an excuse for deep holes they would find in the tome. But as the book came into view, Ash saw it was unscathed. He stretched out his arms.

As Mara's hands approached the book, Ash felt awash with regret. It took all his strength to bulwark his mind against the emotions pulsing in his heart. He knew he was only a blink away from weeping, again. One day, Ash felt, he would begin to sob and would not be able to stop. He felt that day was ticking perilously close. He tightened his control; it was wrong to feel emotion of this kind over an object, he told himself, it was simply wrong. If Mara or any of the others wanted anything from him he would give it to them and not judge their desire or motives. That included his life, so the book was nothing. But a word formed in his mind—mistake. That word screamed at Ash as he deliberately and carefully placed the Black Book into the hands of his young friend. Mara clutched the object immediately to her bosom, and, with one last teary-eyed look back, she crossed the road. She vanished amid a sea of milling, overanxious Nation warriors. But the word stayed. Over and over the word rang out in Ash's mind. Mistake.

In the end the group decided to make camp at the very spot where they had talked. It was close enough to concern the Mara greatly, but outside the borders the Nation had marked with their banners, so technically not a trespass.

When Ash focused on what was in front of him everything appeared fine. But near, as near as his closed eyes, lurked the monsters. It wasn't the blood. It wasn't the dying. It was the emotions and the pictures. It was the passing of the grievously wounded while the group talked of their bruises. It was Massali clasping the Black Book to her breast. It was the blades sliding through. It was the pre-scream. It was shutting up the voices. It was not being able to escape his own mind; it was having to work all his waking hours to distract his brain from the evils that it recorded. It was having nowhere to go as these images chased him in the dark.

His thoughts must have betrayed him, for Linder began hovering near, gently rubbing his shoulders. Relax, she told him. But Ash was busy trying to wash clean the chalkboard in his mind. He was searching for ways to reconcile the deeds of the day. He scrubbed and scrubbed at the stains in but when he wiped away the soap the images were still there.

He had killed an innocent. He killed with passion, and in his wantonness he took one of his own. Ash killed a man whose only mistake was that of being near him. Then, he hid that mistake from the others.

And, to one of his most cherished friends he had given a book he once described as apocalyptic. He knew this act would change them all, yet he did it anyway. As he stood beside the road, Ash felt control, or the illusion of it, slip from his bloodstained hands. On impulse he looked at his fingers. Of course there was blood in the cracks. There was blood deep within the cracks. Linder grabbed his hands in her own.

"Relax..." she whispered.

After informing the King's Guard that they had permanently moved their camp, the group built a fire and placed brush around it to define their borders. Then they waited. The party literally sat across the road and stared at the Mara camp. The Mara, in turn, posted guards who stared back.

The group was camped at the last reaches of the gate road. The Cave People were camped between the party and two other armies; the Shalers and another warlike people, whom Ash wasn't familiar with except their ominous name, the Blood-lace. Those three armies occupied the same side of the road as the group. The Mara, with their huge host, occupied the other side.

There was much activity along the road that separated the two groups—runners and riders passed to and fro throughout the day. There was no sign of the enemy. Late in the afternoon scouts roared past the group at full speed. Their horses steamed with as they rode. Most riders rested their horses along the road, engulfed in its relative safety, but these riders raced. A scout bolting at full speed to the castle was an ominous sign; Ash watched as the riders passed the gate—they barely slowed. Not long after a guard appeared at their camp. Ash had been summoned to the castle.

Eye stood in the courtyard and sighed; he was almost done. He had hidden the grain he had stolen from the Alannas deep within the castle and was sure the men would find it in the coming winter. The king would know what to do with the gold from nature. The land would recover, Isuair knew, though it would be at a stunningly high cost. The people would recover, but they would come as close to an end as one could come without actually perishing completely. The land would recover and the men would find the grain and they would recover. Only one charge was left.

"Blunder-boy has passed every test but one," Isuair said to the flowers and the bees. The manic had molded, for better or worse, the war, and Eye knew that Ash would find a way to deal with the trials before him, odds or not. And more, he would bring the two peoples together—of that, Eye had no doubt—he could feel it. He could see Ash and the New Captain along with the New General, together. The three men would work well together; they would be each other's salvation in the new era.

Ash hated machines and would work diligently to keep the land free from technology and the folly of consumerism. He would fight, all his life, the land-violation that men did in the machine world in exchange for gold.

He had also single-handedly removed the Dral. That in itself was a feat. And, Ash had given away, of his own free will, the Black Book. That too, Eye mused, was a rather astounding accomplishment. Ash had done his job well, and, Isuair knew, that along with the Dral, his own reign as a wizard had come to an end; they—the old wizards, had become obsolete in this—the new age.

The two had come and the game now belonged, for better or worse, to them. The two had laid down their lives for the land. They still had a war to win or to lose, but Eye wasn't worried. Even in these difficult times they would find some sort of resolution. He could feel them far beyond this war, as friends, as lovers, as enemies and finally as two who found understanding within their own hearts. They would, as he and the Dral had, learn to accept that balance was an important part of the magic community. They would begin the journey that he and the Dral had so long ago begun with a single step and they would do it with style. They would do the land proud.

Massali now had the Black, and the only question left was if Ash would be bequeathed the White. Of course he would, Eye thought while leaning heavily on his staff, it's how the game worked. But he still had to go through the motions. Still he had to say the harsh words and see how the boy reacted. It was his last trust.

He had also figured out the final piece of the puzzle. It took all of an hour to place the spice the Dral had added to his plan so long ago; he brought his bane—The Suicide Ash. The older Ash. It was why Ash had such a strong connection. It was why Ash would go back and find himself. By changing the spell and bringing the more bitter, older Ash instead of the optimistic young Ash, the Dral had all but guaranteed his own destruction. So it was in the world of magic, one needed to fear the schemes made within much more than the schemes made by others. A smile graced the wizard's face. Ash had relieved him of a chore he knew he would have found most distasteful—the destruction of his old friend, Mercure. There was a lot about the kid to like. But the other piece, the spice that Diase had added, took until this last week to place. Eye had to sift through millions of lines of code to find his friend's tiny green lines. He added but two words to the Ash they brought over. Fear Drink. That was it, fear drink. And magic Ash surely did; what a drunk version of the manic would be like Eye wouldn't even contemplate. Fear Drink. A fitting contribution from a fine soul. Isuair quelled his rising emotions and calmed his heart before the tear could come. Diase had been a fine man.

He leaned his staff against the courtyard wall. There he would leave it forever behind. His feet would hold him for this last hour, and Ash would never use a staff.

He breathed the air. He let the breeze flow through his hair. The sun shone bright in a sky dotted with cotton-candy clouds. The white ivy covered walls of the yard and the blue sky above painted a portrait of calm that brought cheer to the wizard's heart. Despite the ruin about the gardens, flowers bloomed and swayed in the breeze. Bees tended the blossoms. This day, Eye thought as he breathed deep, is a very good, very bright, very lovely day. It was a fitting, welcome, departure gift.

He privately said goodbye to all his friends; Linder, Diase, Leif, Massy, Gwere, Ebby, Gractah, Rehoak, the Army, the Isamari, the brave Elite and the whole of the Comeratte family. He said a quiet goodbye to all the land and all its creatures.

He could feel it coming. When Ash ducked his head through the arch and stepped into the courtyard, Isuair said a silent goodbye to him, too.

"We have been given estimates that some two hundred thousand of the enemy gather just a mile from here," Isuair said. "More gather at the kingdom's frontier. By rough estimates, our men number less than half that. And, it is reported that more enemy come from the north. It may very well be that the Duke and Northern Armies have utterly failed and that the lands above are lost," Isuair said.

"We came across a Alannas knight that said as much," Ash said. "The army that fought the Duke is here."

"As it was feared," Eye said. "We face steep odds, and more ill tidings may yet still come. You must take this news with a brave countenance. You must advise the king in your best, most positive manner. You will behave," Isuair said. With this last point the wizard paused long enough to glance at the manic. "Assist him, help him, give him worthy suggestions. At no point do you despair. At no point do you tell the king that all is lost. If that is all you can contribute, you will keep your place and your peace and your mouth shut." Isuair and Ash talked as they walked among the debris of the castle courtyard. Isuair walked with grace, with his head down and hands clasped behind his back. To Ash something felt very different.

Carefully they picked their way to a small marble door. Their path skirted the less damaged areas of the king's home, but black ruins still surrounded them on all sides. Only a small part of the castle was being occupied; the king's men had cleared a single building and furnished it with undamaged items scoured from far reaches of the Monarch's home.

"What news of the Nation and Massali?" Isuair asked as Ash and the wizard entered a hall beyond the door. It was a small dark corridor. A guard silently nodded as they passed. Isuair was leading Ash to an assembly room; there the king and his captains were planning the kingdom's defense.

"She said little," said Ash. "She wanted us to wait and let her to sort things out. We wanted to be near, so we moved our camp just across the road from the Mara,"

Ash said. "The Nation seemed uncomfortable with the change."

"No doubt," said Isuair with a laugh. "What was she wearing? Was she escorting or being escorted by anyone? Did you see the one they call Calé?" asked the wizard.

"She was alone," Ash said, and paused at the mention of the high-ranking Nation member with whom he had recently spoke. "...but Mara was all fixed up. I didn't see Calé, Softlee, or any of the other higher-up goons, but there were plenty of the regular drones around. Massali wore a circlet, a little crown with gold stones in it, that she removed when she approached us. But she wouldn't talk about any of the Nation's business. She asked only that we trust her, and she wanted something," Ash said. "I gave her the Black Book."

The reaction was immediate. Isuair stopped and let out a gasp of air. It could have been a sob or a laugh, Ash couldn't tell which. "Ash! Do you know that which you have now wrought?" exclaimed the wizard. Isuair seemed to shrink, collapsing as he stood among the ruins of the hall. "Ash, you fool, you foolish little fool. Sometimes, when we speak you convince me I talk with a sound mind. Then the words come out and I find less than a child before me." Exasperated with words, the wizard moved close. Hidden from view, Isuair placed the book to where it would be destroyed if he was. "You've learned nothing, accomplished nothing. You wrought only the selfish acts of the stupid and the young. You were a mistake. I should have never brought you over. If you hadn't defeated my guard you would be where you belong, in a prison where your hate for all things, especially for yourself, couldn't poison the innocent and the deserving."

Immediately the questions began to whisper at Ash. The whispers began to build. They quickly turned, in Ash's mind, into shouts. Then Ash could feel it coming. He began to shake. Hate. Rage. Was the wizard admitting to everything Ash had suspected, that the "Castle of No Escape" was Isuair's doing? Had he been no more than a pawn, a tool for the games the wizard played? Mistake? The word soured in Ash's mind. Brought over? He didn't ask for this. He didn't want this. Prison? The screaming in Ash's mind stopped as he mapped out the path. '...kill..." the voice wailed. He closed his eyes and opened them again. He saw no spell lines but that of wizard's veil. He saw no other magic around the wizard. Isuair seemed utterly without protection.

Anger, immense in its depth, flooded Ash as he looked into the cold eyes of the man before him. After all he and the group had been through for the kingdom, for the men, for the wizard, to be judged as thus amid the dead and the hopeless seemed absolute, mindless folly. It seemed reckless.

Blind hate ripped through Ash. In that moment Ash decided to take Isuair's life. He could see in the wizard's black pupils that Isuair could read his thoughts. Ash clenched his teeth in an effort to keep the death imprisoned within him at bay until he was ready. He checked again for spell lines and saw none. In front of him, seemingly defenseless, Eye only stood. And Ash felt power, a real strength surge within him, and it mounted with only one purpose—to prove this man before him MORTAL. MORTAL. AND MORTAL. Brought? Prison? Mistake?

Then, another emotion blanketed the hate. Couldn't the wizard have told him? Was that too much to ask? Was he too unworthy to even talk too? Was it too much to ask to have an answer for at least some of the questions that chased Ash in the dark?

Mistake? Again, emotions rose in his throat. Ash was shaking, silently screaming, when the single tear fell. With it fell the power and the will to destroy, and instead of rending destruction, Ash was only able to move part of his face. The only movement Ash could muster, standing before the wizard, was the corners of his mouth—they turned down.

Ash let it go. He prayed to Erow's and Linder's One God to take from him his anger. He imagined his hate a bird, majestic and white, flying free. Ash let go the frustration. Weeks of death flooded over him and he became still. In the calm, he could feel the emotions in his heart. He killed the voice instead of the wizard. The thoughts of death left his mind and he breathed. Ash tried to escape the dark. Glancing through the hall's doorway, Ash could see outside. In the courtyard ivy grew on the walls and the plant was flowering. Ash could imagine Linder picking the flowers and making a daisy-chain out of them. He imagined her placing the chain around his neck. She would put one around his neck whether he deserved it or not. They would both smile. God, he mused, he loved that girl.

He made it a sport to relax. The wizard could judge as he liked the actions of a few desperate women and men in a tempest, in a hurricane. Instead of hate, instead of rage, Ash felt a less empowering emotion, the blanket over the hate—sadness. Utter, bottomless, sadness.

"...mortals..." was all Ash said. Isuair only stared at him. In response, Ash resumed his foot vigil. He no longer cared about the questions; his boots were still there, on solid ground. Of course, there was blood on them. He may have been a mistake. His eyes welled and the boots begun to blur.

"Ready? You stand... overly long, and the king, and the men... a... wait," said the guard. The two men broke their vigil and hastily strode past the king's man. As they walked, the wizard brought his hand to his mouth and breathed on his palm. Lightly, so lightly that Ash didn't feel it, he touched the back of the manic man's neck. Then Isuair roughly pulled at Ash's cloak. Ash, his patience long gone, tried to pull away; just as Ash was about to turn and confront the wizard in a bombastic outburst, he felt something drop into his inner pocket. As they entered the hall, Ash looked down and found the object. Loosely bound, with most its pages held together with twine, was an ancient, almost-white book.

"Hold! Hold! HOLD! Everyone stop!" Ash screamed. Isuair had collapsed almost into the manic's arms. Ash caught the wizard as he fell, sparing him the floor. Alarmed at the lack of substance within the wizard's body, Ash gasped; he held dry sticks folded in light robes. Except for the layers of cloth, the wizard was virtually weightless.

"Find Ebby! Find Linder! Get a healer!" Ash shouted.

When the wizard collapsed, the king and the knights rushed to his aid, but their crowding only caused more confusion. After shouting for space, Ash got the wizard atop the table and drew back, as did most of the others in the chamber. Almost instinctually, Ash covered the black, fanged face with Eye's own cloak. The creature before them seemed unreal. After a moment of hesitation, the lines came to manic, and in an instant he recreated the spell. Only the little black specks in Ash's words betrayed the change of ownership; Isuair's spell lines were always pure white. He pulled the cloak back and the wizard again looked human, but not alive.

Ash stood frozen, seeking the eyes of the knight's and the eyes of the king. Only the king looked back. Only the king continued to press forward when Ash put the fanged creature on the table. All others drew back. Only the king knew.

Ash vaguely remembered something one would do to an incapacitated person, but he had no recollection of how to start or the steps involved. He thought of pressing his lips to the wizard, with only a vague hope of administering some aid. He struggled, undecided, when he saw the nurse and the healer.

"Here! Here!" he shouted as the two women ran. "He just dropped, fell—passed out. He's not breathing." Ash was screaming at the woman, a real nurse, with tears in his eyes. With the nurse was a woman of great renown, Tara. She was the king's own healer, and she carried with her the reputation of being the most skilled mender in all the land. Quickly the two women combed the body. Ash stood back and prayed that they could perform a miracle. A stalled panic welled in him that made his heart pound and hesitate, pound and hesitate. He watched as the nurse, in a real nurse's uniform, began CPR. It was the procedure he had been trying to recall.

Without being told, Ash knew Isuair was gone. Ash knew they were alone. There were no more lines. Eye's white spell lines were just gone. Except for the veil, it had been thus since his talk with the wizard in the courtyard. Also absent was the constant feeling that followed the wizard—the hum of power and the 'being watched' feeling. Ash started to shake, and the tears began. They came like none before as hope drained from him.

"Stop! Stop!" Ash pushed the women aside, and tears fell on the wizard's wrinkled face. Ash clutched the face near to his and shouted at the body. "Not now! Isuair—not now! NOT NOW!"

Gwere felt the shadow cover his heart. In a single moment all the group's eyes searched each other. For no reason, Linder began to weep uncontrollably. The rest gained their feet, wind buffeting them as the looked toward the castle. Dark clouds began to form on the horizon.

In the Mara camp Massali saw the protection lines vanish. All the party carried the lines all throughout the war, but now the pure white lines were gone. She clasped her book to her breast and wept like never before.

She had not been looking when the lines returned. She did not see that they were the very same lines except for one difference; she did not see that the tiny white words were dotted with tiny black specks.

Gwere felt it before he saw it. He turned away from the castle and toward road. He searched the hills away in the valley. The horizon began to darken. The others saw and felt it also.

As far as the eye could see the hills were slowly turning black. Rehoak, with his glass, spied the encroaching black dots from their camp. Without words, he passed the lens. When Gwere looked, he saw a spectacle he would never ever forget. The hills were black with men. For miles and miles the hills stretched into the valley and every inch was covered with enemy warriors.

Combing the hair from his face, Ash waited in line for the clerk. The store was busy with commuters buying pastries and coffee. Ash was the only customer buying alcohol. He had a 40-ounce bottle of malt liquor, and planned to ask the clerk for a pint of their cheapest vodka. His plan was to spend the morning scouring his old haunts and gathering supplies. He needed to reassemble his kit. He would hit the dumpsters and the thrift stores. Extra clothes and a sleeping bag would be on the top of his list. The booze was insurance. If anything went wrong, he at least wanted that already in his possession. No matter how the rest of the day went, he wanted the booze in his arms, just in case. With his luck, all the stores would close or run out, so just to be sure, he was in the Minute Market at 6am, bottle in hand, braving the public.

In the thrift store Ash found a sleeping bag, a pair of denim overalls and a blanket, all for seven dollars. After the booze he was left with three bucks and some change. When he exited the store, the streets were wet. It had rained and the sky had clouded. But Ash had everything he needed for oblivion. Once again, things were looking up.

But a sadness fell upon the manic. He began to think of the bum park in Santa Barbara, he began to feel as if he missed and neglected his friends. Overhead dark clouds rumbled. Ash began to panic; he needed to get his kit back together fast, he thought, for he felt in his heart that the dark was coming for him.

Isuair was gone. The healers took him away, more as an act of kindness to the living than as aid to the fallen. Ash, in a final act of desperation, also tried to administer CPR; it went badly, with the nurse pulling the manic from the body. The war room and the knight's around the oak table in the king's hall seemed forever changed; they had met to plan a campaign against a foe that outnumbered them ten to one, instead they had lost their spiritual leader. The king, of course, was the leader of the entire kingdom and all the men within it, but the true leader of their spirit was Isuair. Men, brave knights all, openly wept. Ash finally raised his head, and through tears saw ashen faces staring back at him. It seemed impossible, to the manic, that what just happened, happened.

The spectacle of the weeping knights looking to him for answers was worse than the loneliness of bowing his head, so Ash returned to staring at his boots. He wished himself somewhere else. He tried to think of better times. He tried to think back to the time in the Nong when Linder had said that they shouldn't go. She had been right. She had been so very right and they hadn't listened. Despair washed over Ash in waves. She had been absolutely, positively, without a doubt, right.

In a moment of pure desperation Ash pulled out the book; it had been the wizard's last act. Ash decided then and there that he would read it cover-to-cover. Maybe, he thought, there was something in the book that could help, something that could resurrect the dead, something that could bring the ghosts in the spirit world back to them, or at least something that could destroy an army of thousands.

He had tried to read the book before; he had come across it in his travels. But the book was unsettling. The book made Ash feel evil. It made him feel sinful. It made him feel he had given in to temptation much too easily, much too early in life, and that now, too late, the book only pointed out his mistakes and shortcomings. To Ash, the White book offered evidence that he was an evil man who led an evil life; it offered a template of a good life, one that differed in every way from his.

The Black Book had made Ash feel as if there was unlimited power just for the taking, and that the only limitation was the user's ability to grab and embrace that power without remorse. The White Book was vague and its revelations were confounding; reading it raised more questions than answers. The Black Book was all answers. The White Book was all questions. "How will we achieve salvation in this mortal world?" Ash, in his heart of hearts, knew the answer—'we don't.'

Again, Ash thought of the one thing he was able to embrace in these times— suicide. If he were gone, if he were just gone, he wouldn't have to look into the king's face, he wouldn't have to look into the faces of the forlorn knights; he wouldn't need to try and figure out the huge mess that lay before them; and, most of all, he wouldn't have to walk back to the camp and tell the others what had happened.

But he had made a promise to himself. He made the promise a moment before the voice told him to seek his own death. He would read the book. Then, when he was absolutely sure that neither the book nor magic would save them, he would plunge the blades, once and for all, where they belonged—in him.

The healer and the nurse placed Isuair's remains in an anteroom off the main hall; Tara departed but the nurse lingered. Ash, open book in hand, found himself in the same room beside the body and across from the woman. He did not have time to again ponder the appearance of the nurse, complete with white shoes, but it no longer seemed to matter.

Hurriedly skirting the high marble dais in the center of the room, Marla placed herself in front of the manic. Calmly, she addressed Ash.

"He's gone. We can do nothing for him," Marla said. The manic wouldn't look at her; he only moved to flee, trying to get around the woman. She countered his every move, keeping him in front of her. "There are a lot of serious cases here in the castle. Many are dying. Do you even know that?" she asked. Finally, he looked up. She took the chance and delivered her speech as quickly as she could; he got the stuttering, reckless, abridged version.

"Oh, and by the way, I hear you now carry the wizard's torch, well... GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE," she shouted. It was a desperate, screaming, tearful plea. "Do you hear me?" Marla asked as she followed Ash about the chamber. "Do you hear me? Get me out of this motherfucking place!" Her plea deteriorated into a high pitched, shaken cry. "Get me... I need to go home... I need to not be here..." Tears flooded her cheeks. "I need to go home!" she said it over and over. Ash moved left. She moved left. "I've tried clicking my heals together, but when I open my eyes I'm still fucking... in fucking magic-tragic-kingdom-fucking-nightmare-land..." But Ash did not appear to listen; he had dropped his eyes back to the book. He clutched the tome, open, in his hands until his fingers were white. The nurse thought he only pretended to read. "GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!" she screamed. When he finally looked up again, Marla drew back. The man's pupils had enlarged until they covered his eyes entirely. Gleaming coals, what she thought were the eyes of Satan, glowered at her. She ran for the door and fled. This man, she thought, was not about helping people.

The voice was back. It said to kill the machine woman. Ash all but agreed; but the woman had already run from the small, dimly lit room. Ash sat on the floor, his back against the high marble slab that could have been a table or a tomb, upon which the wizard's body lay, and began to read. On the other side of the kingdom Mara had begun the very same task with a book of her own.

Searching for answers, Ash, alongside the departed wizard, began to turn the pages. A volume of stories, kings long gone, wars won and lost, and kingdoms built and destroyed filled the pages of the White Book. None of it seemed to have anything to do with Ash, his present situation, or his salvation. The deeds and misdeeds of the people in the book and their effect on those that lived so long ago seemed irrelevant to the manic. But still, he read on. There was one dominant theme. Unlike the beliefs popular in the land, the book suggested that there was one all powerful being watching over the entire world. Erow's and Linder's God, Ash remembered. If he was watching, Ash thought, he wasn't watching too closely.

The king, his men, and the entire kingdom stopped. They waited. They tried several times to interrupt the manic, but Ash had propped the anteroom door closed with a chair. Using a small window for light, he read on. The king and his men eventually retired, but left a guard posted at the door. Ash was told that anything he needed the guard would fetch. But Ash didn't need food, he didn't need water, he didn't need any mortal sustenance; he needed only to know why the book was so important when all it said was how so and so did this and that. Even though he had only read half of the tome, Ash came to believe that it was not going to save them.

But there, in the middle of the book, lay loose sheets; small, handwritten symbols covered every bit of the crinkled pages. Ash could not make out the runes. He stared and stared, but their meaning wouldn't show through. Usually Ash could absorb any language or written word. He could sense the meaning in word and speech—it was a gift. But the runes were complex. The runes were something he had never seen before and he needed something to trigger the absorption—usually it was hearing the words, or seeing a pattern in the type. But these runes stood alone, one after the other, in long, narrow rows.

An itch made Ash rub the back of his neck. As he rubbed, the runes began to form words. The words began to make Ash's heart beat. The sheets held complex, intertwined, self-powering spells. They talked not just of lines but of a new complex code—code that could be combined to make live, dynamic, self-morphing spells. The runes talked of true power. They talked of empowering the writer with skill, strength and command. And, they talked of a door.

As Ash turned the last page, a knock tapped lightly on the door.

"Sir," the voice said, "it is important. The Mara ask to speak with you." Ash wasn't sure how long he had been in the room but he was exhausted and in a dark mood. Isuair's notes aside, what the book finally told him was daunting. It went against everything he had accomplished so far in the war. The book seemed to suggest killing, the very act of taking life, was wrong. But Ash didn't see how that could be.

Even grazers kill some plants. Cats kill mice. Dogs hunt in packs killing anything they can eat. Everything, the whole world, Ash thought, was based on death. We kill to eat. We kill other dominant males. We kill to establish borders. The entire earth and all its inhabitants, it seemed to Ash, was nothing more than a cult of killers engaged in an eternal dance of death, whose prize was survival and the passing on of their genes over their competition's; and as a result the next generation became superior to the last. Then the game would begin anew.

Only when we fight do we fall into harmony with the earth. Killing equals survival, equals us, equals the gods, Ash thought, as he stood alone in the antechamber. Killing is good. Killing is good, but not according to the White Book. Ash only stood, shrouded in confusion, when the guard knocked again.

He made his way, directed by an Elite named Mo, whom Ash was sure he knew from somewhere, to a balcony in the castle. It was the same balcony on which the Dral had addressed the group in the earlier stages of the war. He stood and looked into the courtyard, and down into the fading light at the end of another in a long series of haunting days. Below stood a large contingent of the Nation, and in front, leading the way, was Massali. She carried the book; her book. When she saw him, she shouted, one line, and in return, he shouted back, one word.

"Ash... we fight for the wrong side," she shouted.

"Begone," Ash said.

Under his breath, shuddering with grief, he whispered once more "...begone... Shortcake..." And then, of course, the manic began to tear.

The dumpsters of the apartment complex yielded much. Ash found partially used toiletries, cans of food, a straw mat and a shopping cart. A shopping cart could bring problems that his bike wouldn't, but Ash had no choice; he had to carry his stuff in something and he couldn't remember what happened to his bike. Since he had the cart, Ash took the time to salvage the dumpster's recyclables. A kitchen trash bag full of cans usually brought about two or three dollars—add plastics and bottles and enough money could be earned for oblivion supplies. He could also trade his newfound treasures with other street people for alcohol or medicines. Then Ash froze. There, in the dumpster, was a book. While rummaging though newspapers Ash found a Bible. He picked it up and dusted off the cover. He opened it. Inside it said; 'To my loving son, Dad'. Ash stood in the dumpster and hung his head. Memories of his father flooded over him and he felt a profound sense of loss, he felt as if his mentor, his leader, his 'go to' guy for the troubles of the world, had been taken from him.

Ash remembered back to the time he had introduced his father to his first girlfriend. Ash hadn't had much luck with girls before he had met the dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty, but when he introduced the girl to his father his dad's eyes lit up. Ash was so proud of his conquest that he was eager to show her off, especially to his dad. Then the memory of the two kissing made Ash wince. He had seen them through a garage window.

Ash remembered that his next choice for a relationship would be with a blonde that was much less wild. She, Linda, would become his wife. He had lost her, too. Ash began to sob. Then and there, Ash decided to give God another chance. He would read the book and find salvation, he told himself. He would start just as soon as he finished his next drunk.

He had everything he needed, except for a place to crash. Ash began searching the streets and the creaky recesses of his brain for directions and recollections of his favorite haunt—the little bike park. At first Ash walked in the wrong direction. After some inquiries Ash was finally on his way; he had found the street that the park lay adjacent to, only he was three miles too far east. But three miles wouldn't be hard to travel. He had everything he needed in his cart and he knew where to go. He could walk. After two hours Ash was exhausted. He was spent but the neighborhood had begun to look familiar. He breathed a sigh of relief as he sat on a cinder-block lawn wall and rested his feet. He knew his troubles would soon be over. It was then that he heard the horn.

It was a Japanese import, a low-priced economy car designed for transportation. But Ash saw the outside of this particular auto was anything but durable. This one, at least from its appearance, had been in a war. Once painted black, the car now had a tacky charcoal-matte finish. The paint had morphed into gray sandpaper, heavily dusted with dirt. Every inch of the body had dents. Ash would later learn that kids had used it as a skateboard ramp. But the inside was worse than the outside. After the third honk, Ash lowered himself to the passenger window. What he saw astonished him; every bit of the car, except the driver's area, was layered with trash, and around the trash the plastic molding of the car glistened with a substance that Ash took to be the remnants of countless spilled sodas. Beneath it all, sat Chef.

"Ash! Ash...how the hell are you?" Chef asked. He sat beside fast food wrappers, paper cups and garage-sale fodder. In the back seat lay an unstrung guitar and boxes of magazines. The car was blocking traffic as Chef awaited Ash's response, but Ash could only stand there, stunned. He knew he knew the man, but he couldn't recall from where. As if reading his mind, Chef raised his hands and smiled.

"It's Chef! Santa Barbara, remember—the pier, the park? How you doin' man? I'm in town! I told you I'd come!" Chef said. " I'm in town!"

Ash directed Chef to a dirt pad the cyclists used for parking next to the park. When Ash pushed his cart into the lot, there was Chef, leaning against his diseased car. Chef helped Ash guide his cart along the short slope leading to the park. They made their way to a bench before the cinder-block bathroom and there the two men sat. After peering around, Chef produced a skinny homemade cigarette from his breast pocket.

"See this, Ash?" Chef asked. "I've changed. Something happened, and I don't want to drink no more. I just ain't got the urge." "Best weed you'll ever taste," Chef continued, "Part of my Marriage-u-wana Maintenance Policy," he said. "I've figured out what was wrong with my drinking, and I think it helped me quit," Chef said. "After the first drink I'd change—personality-wise. I'll make a promise to myself on what and how much I was going to drink, then, after the first drink, I'll change personalities. I turn into Superman, and Superman doesn't give a shit about promises or hangovers. Superman fears no amount of alcohol. Super-fucking-man CAN DRINK!" Chef's enormous beard jutted out like a gray fan when he laughed. His face was weathered and brown. "But weed don't do that, weed don't bring that other guy out." Ash was still trying to dredge up the memories that would make sense of all this when Chef lit the joint. He could all but remember Chef asking him, somewhere up north, which tribe he was from. Euro-trash, Ash had told him.

"I'm tuned to an exact drug," Ash began, "at an exact dose—just a little more than the last time."

Drawing on it in short bursts, Chef suckled the cigarette. The smoke swirled about his head as the man stifled a round of coughs. Most of the coughs escaped anyway.

"Here..." he said, but Ash waved him off. He was saving himself. His betrothed was a bottle of vodka and he was determined to remain pure until their union was consummated.

"So, I stopped drinking," Chef said through the smoke. He was holding in quick breaths and trying to speak as he blew out the smoke. "This shit don't fuck you up so much—you don't pass out, you don't get hangovers." Ash sat, still trying to place the man's face, when it came to him; the booze closet. Someone had cleaned out their still amply supplied liquor-cabinet and Ash had come across the stash while scrounging apartment dumpsters. He packed a half-dozen bottles into an old backpack and then somehow wound up in Santa Barbara.

"See, booze got me, but this shit is staving that off," Chef said. "With booze, it's like every time you try to stop you fail—because eventually you go back, something triggers it, anything, everything, but you go back—then the buzz that you tried to resist teaches you how incredibly wrong you were, until you accept that buzzing is a marriage; it's a... till death do you part, deal. Alcohol locks you in. But this stuff just makes you cruise."

Chef had been the reigning king of the bum-park that Ash crashed in after he and the other residents of the park enjoyed his windfall. He remembered Chef saving him one of his own bottles and later helping him with instructions for the return trip to LA on the most classic means of bum transportation; the open rail car.

Chef explained; "You have to be an athlete or you have to catch the train moving real slow. And beware any vehicle with a train company's logo on it." He remembered Chef as one of those good guys who, upon meeting someone, instantly bonded as a friend. Chef wore plaid; plaid shirt, plaid pants, plaid jacket, but all of different colors; here red, there yellow and below, a mix of red and blue. He must actually look for plaid, Ash thought, but then Ash remembered that in the Santa Barbara tree park the man was always in costume. At the park he always dressed like a 16th century artist, in the vein of Raphael or Michelangelo, complete with a strange, floppy hat.

"What you been up to, man?" Chef asked again. He smiled at Ash between tokes off the joint.

"Nothing much, just trying to stay sane," Ash said.

"A-fucking-men brother, a-fucking-men," said Chef.

"The friggin' cops threw me in jail, and then the crazy guys grabbed me, drugged me up and tried to lock me away," Ash said. The smell of the smoke was somehow comforting—a remnant of a better day and a better life. A life, that, unlike this day, had held promise. For the first time in as long as he could remember, Ash felt grateful to have company. "I was in the hospital for a month and still don't even know why."

"Regular hospital, or loony one?"

"Regular," Ash said. "I think they made some kind of mistake. Some guy around here looks just like me. I saw him myself, we rode together in the same van on the way to the crazy hospital," Ash said. Chef was nursing the joint that had by then been transformed into a small paper square. "I think that guy got a heart attack or something, and they grabbed me instead. They all ran around like crazy looking for the guy, and they came to me and grabbed me and looked at my chest, like they were astonished that I didn't have a heart attack," Ash said. "Can you see a heart attack?"

"No," said Chef. "Leastways not... no, no."

"Do heart attacks bleed?"

"No, nope," Chef said.

"It was so weird. And then everyone wants to help you. The super nice doctor kept trying to give me AA pamphlets." Chef began to laugh.

"Twelve steps to the cult of depravation," said Chef, and he chuckled again. His laugh resonated like it came from a cardboard box. But Ash was happy to provide the joke.

"You know what the kicker was? She didn't even have the right shit. She had 'We go Anonymously' as if I were some retard who never heard of AA. If I was interested in friggin' AA, a current directory would've come in a lot more handy, I tell you." Chef laughed again, only to choke as he inhaled the remaining bit of still ignited marijuana.

Ash watched with amusement as a red spark disappeared down the man's gullet. Chef began to choke anew.

"Dude, you need to buy a fucking bong, man," Ash said.

Chef laughed and coughed. Ash sat beside him, hoping Chef wouldn't ask about his bottle; he was not going to share it. His coming drunk was a prize that he and he alone had earned. Chef's company began to seem intrusive. Ash began to wonder how to get rid of the man; but Chef only turned to him and smiled.

"What did you say about the loony hospital?" asked Chef. Chef liked Ash. Chef liked the manic when he drank; when Ash was sober he was sullen and moody but after a drink Ash became inventive and funny. He told wild stories. Ash had a story that Chef always wanted to hear, Ash, after a drink, could tell a saga, chapter by chapter, in vivid detail. He could pick up the story at any point and retell it perfectly. To Chef the tale had a magnetic fascination; it matched the strange dreams that he had been having since he was a young man. Ash's story had a déja vu quality about it; Chef attributed it to similar fantasy stories he and Ash had both read by the writers like J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Brooks and Stephen R. Donaldson. Chef usually tried to carry a bottle for Ash, so that the story could come out, but this time, he had none. Also, Ash seemed extra moody. Chef gave up on hearing another chapter.

"They tried to lock me up. Gave me drugs and did tests. This guy in a Labcoat kept trying to ask me questions," Ash said.

"No way!" said Chef. "No way dude... what did you do?"

"They found me naked after a binge," said Ash.

'No way. I seen that," said Chef, "I've seen guys naked drunk and swinging at the fucking cops, and they don't get shit. Nobody gets locked up in loony bins anymore, Ash," Chef said. "It's just a couple of days, or at most, a couple of months in county and that's it. The revolving door. They don't put people away anymore, not even the real crazies, not even the ravers," Chef said. "You sure you ain't been drinking too much?" Chef asked.

"I known some people that think they see stuff," Chef continued after Ash only sat. "Them are the ravers, Ash. Delusions, Ash, that's when someone thinks they see people who aren't there, and places that don't exist," Ash paused, but kept quiet. The loony hospital had seemed real. "You know Ash," Chef continued, "some people just stop. Some people just gather themselves up and get it back together. They get jobs, apartments and pay rent. Some people, Ash, just stop drinking." But Ash wasn't listening. He wasn't the way he was because he had options. He didn't think he could 'just stop.'

"Tell me this," Ash asked. He remembered Chef clearly now, and had asked this question at the fig-tree park, where Chef and the tree-people hung out. "Is it or isn't it legal to sit by the road with a sign?"

"Some say it's free speech," Chef said while smoothing his beard. "And a case was fought over it. But I remembered you asking this at the park. Here's the thing, Ash. Every city hates us. Every city tries to enact ordinances to get us. In Santa Barbara they try everything, from no sitting to no standing laws, and that's on top of the no sleeping laws. That's the thing. Every city can be different, and everything can change when the ordinance reaches the courts. To answer your question—maybe. Probably. If they can think of anything that will get us out of their towns, they'll try it, and if it stands the courts, it stays. Regular people just don't want to see us," Chef said. "If the city sees you beginning to take root, they will have a host of rules to drive you out. The only thing is to keep moving, sleep out of sight and to stay clear of the cops." Ash only stared at his own shoes. On his feet were a new pair of Thimmerman's, made of real leather. A lady had slowed her car enough to ask Ash if he wanted them. They were a little large for his feet, and there were specks of red paint on them, but they were new and every bit the hundred-dollar boots that normal people wore.

"You ever been to the Mission in LA?" asked Chef. "Ain't there a soup kitchen down there?"

"I hitch-hiked down there a couple of times," said Ash. "It's on Fifth Street, between San Pedro and Wall Street. A little ways down on Fifth is skid row, or what they call Hope Central," Ash said. "Them are some of the meanest streets in the business, Chef. There's a thousand kids in as many square blocks wandering around there."

"Regular kids or the punk-kids?" Chef asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Is it kids, like ten-year-olds," Chef asked, "or the street kids, the punks—you know, the ones that call holding a sign 'flying flags,' and bumming spare change 'spange.' The ones that do the dumpster-diving. Those kids."

"No, regular ones. The ones moms hold in their arms. The ones with grimy faces and big eyes. Regular kids. The kind that... mess with your heart," Ash said. "That's why I don't go there, Chef. Besides, if you're a black-out drunk, it just plain ain't safe."

"But they have jobs, right?"

"They have all kinds of stuff. There's a soup kitchen down there—at the Mission they have everything, health and dental, and jobs. But the jobs are day laborers at 28 bucks a pop or walking flyers for three bucks an hour. And the place is always packed. You have to wait all day just to talk to someone, THEN they schedule treatment. And nowadays there are families. Used to be just a couple of us filled up the place when it rained. But now Moms and kids fill the joint. Things are bad."

"I may just jet down there in the Colt, see if I can earn some gas money and get this tooth looked at. You want to come?" Chef asked.

"Naw, man, I'm crashing here for a while. I've been locked up and need a drunk. And actually, I don't feel much like company," Chef laughed and patted Ash on the back as he rose to leave.

"I'll check back here later if I can. If we don't hook up, try me at the park up north in a few months," Chef said. "You hang in there, Ash—you stand the storm, good buddy, because in the end, we'll, me and you, stand together. We'll ask what this was all supposed to be about, and then we'll tell the man to go get fucked." Then the man kissed the top of Ash's head. Ash closed his eyes and silently begged God to make Chef leave.

"One more thing and I'll go, because I know you're waiting for your drunk," Chef said. "I worry about you, Ash, but I know you get it. I know you follow your heart. I know of your secret life. I know you drink to get there. I hear you mumbling, Ash, but I know it's everything to you. I know it's your passion. And maybe following your passions is worth..." Chef spread his hands out wide, "...all this. But take care Ash, every addicted person is different, every addicted person has their own story, but they all have one thing in common; they start by digging a gigantic hole for themselves. Ash, one day, when you're done with your passions, climb out."

After a long moment Ash opened his eyes. Chef had made his way up the slope leading to the dirt parking lot. With one last wave, he wandered out of view. God, normally Ash's enemy, had finally come through. Ash was alone at last.

"Come," said Gwere, "we move again." All the armies were moving toward the castle. The hills were growing dark with the enemy, and the captain was feeling anxious; but Gwere's concern did not stop at the hills, it extended to just across the road. The king had sent an invitation to the Nation to join the war council but the Nation had ignored it. Then, during the council's second day, on their own, the Nation sent a group which included Massali to the castle. Massali had not acknowledged the party as she passed. An hour later, when they returned, she and the entire Nation appeared grim and withdrawn. Now, Gwere saw, the Nation was packing. Also, their neighbor's mood toward the party seemed to have changed; they were openly hostile. It was nothing more than mumbles and cold stares, but to the captain the change was clear. Above, dark clouds rumbled in the sky. Below, a storm was brewing.

"Come, we will get ourselves back inside the walls," Gwere said. He looked toward the Nation and tried to study their faces. He saw only contempt. He also saw many large groups of the Mara moving away from the castle.

"I've got to get out of here," she said. "I've got to get out of here." Marla had been repeating the line for hours. But the man who had brought her to the land was now little more than a black husk sequestered with the kingdom's favorite madman. "There must be other wizards and warlocks, magicians and conjurers," she said aloud, "or some drug that can restore my sanity and end this nightmare."

She had thought the wards in the ER were the most stressful, most life sucking, draining environment in all the world, but now she knew better. Now she knew that there were far worse places than her old hospital. She promised herself that if she ever got back she'd work whatever shift they wanted. She promised herself she would greet, with a new, calm professionalism, every second of every shift—car crashes, attempted suicides, busses full of kids broadsided by trains—all would be treated with a patient, upbeat, grateful, resolve. "Just get me the hell out of here!" she shouted to the castle walls.

"Where is everybody?" asked Linder. Gractah and Rehoak sat around their new fire and shrugged. The sun had begun to set and they sought only to protect themselves from the cold. They had built their camp not far from their original spot by the guardhouse, in a side yard previously used for wood storage. Most of the logs were gone, but they soon rebuilt a large pile, retrieved from their old camp by the gate. It was within the castle walls just outside the market square. Two of the other armies, the Shalers and the Bloodlace, also moved their camps within the walls, leaving only the Cave People outside. The Cave People divided their army into three groups, positioning each on a side of the castle—west, east and south. Only the fortified area in front of the gate was barren of men.

Gwere and Erow had disappeared, walking off soon after the move, leaving Linder confused and full of questions.

"The enemy has massed outside our walls," the king said, "and if the Mara do indeed leave, we will be outnumbered some fifteen to one. Our losses have been catastrophic, but we must persevere. We need a plan," said the king. Ash looked up and saw all eyes on him. For a moment he pondered the thoughts running amok in his head. Should he share those thoughts, he wondered? I'm a corpse-making machine, but this is ridiculous, was one thought. These here are dead men, was another. And, he had other problems. The White Book suggested killing, all killing, was wrong. It was going to be substantially more difficult to defeat their enemies while embracing this new philosophy, Ash thought.

"How are our defenses?" Ash asked, knowing that asking about provisions and supplies would yield only grim replies.

"Well... we have almost completely resealed the breach in the west wall. It will be easier, of course, to break the newly repaired area, but we have some of our best men at that station. What concerns me more," began the captain, who Ash recognized as Brinore, "is..." Brinore paused as he produced a map.

Brinore was the captain of the king's closest guard, the Near Elite. Ash had only met the man once or twice, but he had watched him fight. He was a skilled tactician; Ash, however, didn't care about the Elite's fighting prowess. He was still very much stuck on; 'we have almost completely sealed the breach in the wall,' and what could possibly concern the captain more.

"...is of course, the second, much larger, breach," Brinore said, pointing to an area on the map. "We have a large contingent there, but the wall had been so utterly destroyed, when the Dark Wizard, curse his name..." At the pause the king interjected.

"Move on," said the Monarch.

"...there, we are vulnerable," Brinore said. "There is almost no south wall." Almost as a response to the quiet, he added, "But that, too, we are rebuilding."

"The enemy will probably attack there, but it should be a feint," Ash said after all eyes again turned to him. "Then, in a carefully planned move, they will attack in the place we fear the least, probably the front gate. That way we fight two opposite fronts. That's what I would do. But let's get this straight. At least, at least, mind you, we will be outnumbered fifteen to one," Ash said. "And here's what going to happen. For every guy that kills fifteen of them, there will be a guy that kills fourteen, thirteen, twelve, eleven or... none. Then, we will need every guy to kill eighteen, nineteen, twenty or thirty of the enemy. With each and every death we incur, the odds increase. In the first few hours we will lose this thing and doom ourselves and our allies to an absolutely frightful fate," Ash said. He met all eyes in the cavernous room. Torchlight illuminated the corners of the cold stone and smoke hovered about its ceiling. In the dim light the men's faces appeared drawn and ghoulish.

"So, what should we do?" asked the captain, and nods were exchanged. Ash only shrugged.

"We get dead."

Marla overheard the strangers talking. They looked upon her as an enemy, but she approached the group and stood among them. "I want in. You're going to leave, right?" she whispered. The captain of the Shalers searched the eyes of the officer's around him and stared back at Marla. Of the thoughts in her mind, getting out was the foremost. She had to get out. She had to run and keep running until her sanity returned. The wizard was gone. She would find no answers in the castle. She was not accepted by the other healers; her skills were muted by their lack of technology and the superstitious nature of the menders; some accused her of witchcraft. She was shunned by the men and avoided by the officers; and the clannish, famous members of the 'party' wouldn't even look at her. To hell with them all, she thought. Their 'big man on campus' had just thought up a great plan to kill even more people and she had no desire to stay and watch. She just needed to get out. She just needed to be gone. "Take me with you," she begged.

"Okay..." Ash now met the eyes of all that circled the table—king, knight, and captain. Isuair's last words whispered into his mind after the manic concluded his last address. Be positive, the wizard had said. "Here's the big plan," said Ash. "I'm going to walk outside the gate, draw a circle around me and anyone that enters that circle dies. That's it. That's the big plan." After a moment of complete silence, the room erupted in the loudest cheer that Ash had ever heard. To a man, they screamed with delight, while Ash stood, frozen in horror.

Word of his bold plan spread throughout the castle. A plan, enough to make all the castle cheer with joy, reported one message-runner who had been in the hall, had been hatched by Ash. Morale raised and spirits soared. Surely, the men said, their enemy's odds were no match for the powerful schemes of great men like the king, his knights, and, of course, their new wizard, Ash.

Standing on the parapet, overlooking the great mass of enemy armies, Gwere wondered what that bold plan could be. He scanned the hills. As far as his eyes could see, for miles and miles, lay enemy soldiers. Dusk had fallen. The night air blew in gusts on the wall; drafts buffeted the big captain. The dark whispered his name. Overhead, bright stars blinked between gray clouds and on the horizon the white face of the moon shone like a searchlight, illuminating the damned.

"They don't even set much of a watch," he said aloud to no one. No fires burned near the enemy line. "They know, as we do, that we are doomed." They can cheer as they like in the castle, Gwere thought, but the fact was that the enemy outnumbered Gwere's army by a staggering margin.

Standing in the wind, Gwere tried to make sense of the last few days. Only hours ago, it seemed, he had thought they were in relatively good shape; the Mara had split the enemy army in two, Gwere had gathered the armies of king and the prince, and together they drove a wedge directly into the heart of the Alannas. Then they simply took their opponent apart. But that was two, three or was it four, days ago? Gwere could not even be sure in his own mind, for the last days were lost, blurred within the nightmares that came for the captain when he slept.

Nothing had worked out since that afternoon when they had routed the enemy. A new, huge army appeared. The Mara, along with, and apparently by the prompting of, Massali, had abandoned them. Also, one of their other allies left; the Shalers, a group mostly unknown to the king and his men, had slipped off as the sun set. They didn't like the odds much and Gwere didn't blame them.

The armies of the king, the prince, the Bloodlace and the Cave People were all that were left. All the armies except the cavemen were now housed inside the castle walls, holed up like rats. The wall itself was in trouble. Part of the west wall had been pulled apart when the Dral had taken the castle, and the south wall was just gone.

He could see, at that moment, the southern wall and the outline where a hundred yards was missing. The men were doing a remarkable job at rebuilding, but no part of the wall on the southern side could withstand a determined attack. Their only hope was resist a siege, but there can be no resisting when the door lies wide open.

And, as usual, the powers that be had been spirited themselves away to nurture their brilliance; to somehow think, to somehow command their way out of the coming disaster. We were doomed, he thought. Ash must have dreamed up some plan.

"He's going to draw a circle, and everyone outside that circle dies!" said the men. Many nodded and smiled.

"We heard him say it."

The scouts and Captains painted a dismal picture for the king. Their plight grew only more dark as others contributed to the canvas. Finally Ash could stand it no more. Feigning fatigue, he asked to be excused. The king bade him rest and report back as soon as possible—to coordinate the attack. Brinore also asked to be excused.

Despair enveloped Ash as the details of their plight sifted through his over-adrenaline-taxed mind. Seeking to escape the men and the madness, Ash walked the dark streets of the proper. Above, the castle's white spirals rose tall in the night, and although the windows were dark, the towers still shined. Behind were the mindless schemes of the high and mighty. Ahead were the expectant faces of the hopelessly doomed. Instead of following the road to his group, Ash made his way to the outer wall. Soon, he found stone stairs that led up.

On the wall he beheld the enemy and his fate. It was a final, crushing blow to the metal of his being. His resolve, drive, confidence and spirit, vanished. The engine that drove the machine stopped; it was stalled by the black hills undulating before him. The hopelessness of it all made him laugh. It was a cynical, bitter laugh, but a laugh nonetheless. Suicide is your friend; Ash thought while standing in the chill wind, it's the warm embrace of the loser's mom. It's the pizza and soda and the 'there, there' after a bitter defeat. It was, as always for Ash, the hypothetical out.

"Moo, Moo, Moo, you'd say goodbye too," Ash said.

"Listen, I asked!" screamed Ash. In an instant he was raging. With Chef gone he had just settled down. He had a blanket, sleeping bag, toiletries, a change of clothes, and most important of all—booze. He had enough booze to get him there. He had a big soft pile into which he could burrow. It was camping. It was warm and cozy. It was reveling in having the things one needed—until THEY showed up.

If he wanted a moldy coat, a bus pass, or a tepid meal, THEY were usually a welcome sight. But now, as he prepared for a long-overdue drunk, THEY were nothing less than intruders. It seemed time to give them the truth, at least as he saw it. Ash asked them to sit down and listen for a minute. With painted-on smiles they obliged.

"I asked. A million times I asked. I said; Jesus, come into my heart. I said my heart is open. And now, I sit here. Do you think he came? Do you? Do you think, looking at me, with no family, no means, with teeth rotting in my head, that he has performed any miracles around here? Do you? JESUS COME INTO MY HEART!" Ash shouted, and their kind faces pulled back at the violence in his voice. "Where is he? Do you think there would be any of us, any homeless people at all, if he were around? I'm alone because WE are alone. You—you follow the mindless dogma of those that need to be controlled because it feeds your empty shells and gives you direction. It gives you purpose, it makes you special. It's all about you, not him. He was a Jew. He would be horrified to find you worshipping an idol, an idol of him, no less," Ash said.

"The religion you have built is false and destructive to mankind," Ash continued. "It's a religion of separatism. It divides us. It is a religion of us-and-them. It's the saved and the non-saved. Tell me Jesus would embrace anything like that. Tell me he would care what name anyone gave god. Tell me he would care about anything except love, forgiveness and tolerance. You really think Jesus looks down on any of us with praise?" Ash asked.

"You separate and murder us. More people have been killed in the name of that book you carry than in all the wars in all the history of man. Most wars are fought because we are different—different nations, different tribes, and different religions. We are not. We are one people under one God. We are this earth," Ash screamed. He sat with his palms on the ground and repeatedly slammed the sidewalk. "You do the devil's work, over and over by pointing to some and suggesting they cannot go with God because their beliefs are different. I pray every day. But I think your idea of religion is a fucking joke, because nothing happens when I ask him to come. So that means your dogma must exclude some. IT EXCLUDES ME!" Ash screamed.

"Your church is about control and gold. That is why you recruit; more numbers mean more power, more money. You have riches," Ash said. "But there's on more thing—look at you. Stand in front of the mirror. I believe what you see staring back is evidence that points to... a fact," Ash said. "A scientist has training, schooling and access to research materials," Ash continued. "A scientist has networks of colleagues. He has the resources—both in education and in intelligence—to ground his ideas. His reputation qualifies him and gives credit to the data he relates. Data is information that one wishes to push onto humanity as real, provable facts," Ash raved. "You—what are your credentials? What criteria do we use to judge the information that you spread as fact? Training? Degrees? Published papers? No, you have only the vacuous minds of the easily manipulated. Your only credentials are that you are willing to accept any dogma spewed to you as long as it makes you feel special.

To judge any information, look to the person spreading the message. If they seem dumber than dirt, look away. Your lot epitomizes the word DUMBSHIT," Ash continued. "I can see in your faces that you don't have the answers. If St. Peter invited me to heaven, but behind him were a bunch of empty-headed fartknockers such as yourselves, I would turn and flee, SCREAMING! Do you really stand there and suggest that somehow," Ash raved, "you and your kind alone know the only path to God? That is ludicrous. Just think about that, you have the exclusive rights to God's house, his word? You and only you have the truth? Think how stupid that sounds. It's bullshit—if anyone has the answer, it's certainly not you—you're a pathetic wormy lot, easy to brainwash, and easier to fool with a Pavlov-dog like dogma that promises the ultimate reward if you follow like sheep, but also promises the ultimate punishment, eternal hellfire, if you do not. Tell me you don't revel in the idea that your detractors would face that. Bullshit. I asked HIM to come..."

"I know it's a bitter truth, but it's the truth nonetheless," Ash said. Much to his chagrin, they had not run off. And, by the look of it, the girl also had a speech prepared.

"I know a friend..." she said. She was pretty and homely at the same time. "...and this friend would also ask Jesus to come. He also ordered delivery pizza, but whenever the pizza-van showed up, my friend would turn off all the lights and hide behind his couch. The pizza man would knock and knock but my friend just never let him in," said the girl in her dewy-in-the-morning, Norman-Rockwell- family-painting voice.

"DO YOU SEE A COUCH HERE?" Ash screamed, waving his arms. "I have the lights on!" Again he overwhelmed them with his hostility. But they didn't move; they only stared. He took a deep breath and sighed. "You're right, he did come. And, he gave me magic powers. When I close my eyes, all the creepy, extra-sincere, patronizing, condescending, empty-headed soul-saving idiots who blindly do the devil's work in the name of the Lord will be gone. I'm closing my eyes now and imagining heaven. There's nice Jesus, and hookers, and supermodels, and piles of cocaine, and rivers running with whiskey. Its shores are lined with girls that live only to pleasure me. And, there are no lily-livered, goodie-goodie, he's-got-the-whole-world-in-his-hand singing, Bible studying, always-right-virgins FUCKING BOTHERING ME!"

The truth was that Ash wanted to be saved. He begged to be saved. The source of his rage and his hate was that really wanted what the Christians had to offer. Ash would have done anything to have someone help him, except the work. That he wasn't willing to make the effort was something Ash always overlooked.

God had to be mostly about two things; love and forgiveness. And while most religions seemed to talk about love and forgiveness, it seemed to Ash that few actually practiced it. In his world, in Christianity, Ash only saw the mechanisms for harvesting power, people, and money.

Ash knew deep inside how much forgiveness he needed, and he knew that only God could be capable of offering that; there just was no God, or worse, he didn't care. And, Ash thought, it didn't seem to make a difference if one believed in God or not. Clutching the only thing that did make a difference, his bottle of vodka, Ash knew there was no Jesus. Ash knew there wasn't anyone that cared; he put the bottle to his lips and began to worship the only God he knew that did.

From the darkest corner of the wall, a man approached. The gait was familiar and the moon-shadow the man cast was overly large. Ash's heart sank. What would they talk about, he wondered?

"Only you would look over such an army and laugh. Nice to see you, Sweetness," Gwere said. "I was worried that we had lost you to the high and mighty."

"I stand here and laugh because it seems funny to ride this sinking ship of fools to the bottom—all the majesty and splendor of its crew aside—of course," Ash said. "Well met, captain. Well met, Gwere."

"Then we must punish the rumor mongers, they say the castle cheers at the bold plans of their savior."

"Do they? Well, they do. I told them that we draw a line in the sand, and kill all those who cross and they did indeed cheer," said Ash. "I did, however, leave out a few details," Gwere laughed and stared out into the shadows. "Like the overwhelming odds that will lead to our quick deaths?" Gwere asked.

"That would be one," Ash said. Gwere shrugged. After a moment, the captain turned to the manic.

"Ash... you're just going to go out there and dive in, hoping you never have to dive out again, aren't you?" But before the manic could answer, another voice rang out in the darkness.

"I have another way," said Brinore. "Forget the battle, forget the army, forget the castle, forget everything, but save that which is important," Bri said. Ash could see the hair on Gwere's neck bristle as the big man straightened up. As a precaution Ash placed a hand on the harness of Gwere's armor. "Since we have already lost Isuair..." Brinore began, but Gwere turned before the guard could finish. His big shoulders swiveled on a point as he brought his bearing down upon Ash.

"What in God's name does THAT mean?" Gwere cried. Wide-eyed and breathless, Gwere began to mumble; "Ash... Ash..."

Even in the dark Ash could see the big man pale, but the manic had no answers. He only bowed his head and tried to suppress the rising tide within him. He was unsuccessful and a shudder ran through his body. He shook it off and wiped his face. In the cold, Ash could feel warm lines streak his face, as if the devil were running a sharp finger down each cheek. This time the blurred sight was welcomed. There was nothing, the manic knew, to see anyway.

"This..." Gwere said after a moment. With head bowed he whispered to Ash. "This?" Gwere mumbled. "This too...?"

Creeping to the wall, the enemy scout had a small, uneasy smile on his face. He was close enough to see the mortar cracks and ivy leaves in the moonlight. Fear shook him but still he inched closer. Three men lingered long in the sight of his crossbow. The bosses had told the army to keep the watch-fires away from the castle. They then spread news that any archer to kill a wall-walker would be given a ration of food. And here, three fools stood enjoying the view—sometimes laughing, no less. The enemy scout felt confident that their army was in a position of great strength. They had the king trapped in a castle whose walls were crumbling. According to the scouting reports, they outnumbered the king's men thirty-to-one. And, the Mara Nation had just joined their side. He lined up a giant of a man in his crossbow's sight and paused. He could almost taste the extra rations. It was during that pause that the cold steel of a Draihau touched his neck, killing him instantly.

While the color drained from Gwere's world, his attention was drawn to the grounds. Something crept outside the walls. It halted when a shadow swept past it. Following the shadow, Gwere realized he looked upon a life-force familiar to him. The realization struck him hard, with almost as much impact as the news of the wizard.

"We must talk away from here," Gwere whispered. As he moved he sent orders for the watchers to be warned of snipers. On the way down, Gwere saw dark shapes appear on the grounds and knew that his lieutenants had sent prowlers to discourage the overly curious. Once off the wall the three men loitered in the shadows.

"Brinore, I also know you, much more than Ash, and I must say now that I wish no part of any plan," Gwere said. "Ash, later you must rejoin the group, and no matter how hard the task, you must recount the events... that we spoke of before. You must tell of..." Gwere sighed. "For them, so that they don't discover by rumor. Goodnight to both of you," Gwere said. Head downcast, he turned to leave when Brinore spoke.

"Do you place the king's life above your own, captain?" Gwere's stopped mid-step. Again, Ash stepped between the two men.

"I want no part of the talk that I have heard around here of late," Gwere said. "I want nothing here, Bri. I do not even want to know. But to answer your question, yes, and thus I will fight, and die, if need be, to preserve that life. And that, Bri, is that."

"You mean that you will fight and die needlessly, and let our sovereign die," But Bri never finished his sentence. Ash was no longer able to restrain the big man as Gwere pushed close to the guard.

"Listen my friend," Gwere hissed. An arm Ash put around the captain's waist barely reached halfway and did nothing to stay the shrinking gap between the two men. It looked as if Bri and Gwere would fight their own battle under the shadow of the walls.

"Let me say this again," Gwere said with great force in his voice, "I want no part of ANY plan."

"We could spirit him away!" Bri said. "Not we... but him," In the shadows Ash saw eyes flash at him from both sides. "the king could escape. The bloodline could be protected. Do we pass on that?" asked Bri. Gwere turned away, but did not leave.

"Do you know why we suffer this fate, Gwere?" Bri asked. "Because we never finished the job. Four hundred years ago we left some standing. We left survivors. And they, Gwere, have come back to smite us. Would it truly be better to die and let it end as thus?" Bri asked. "Or would it be better to someday revenge ourselves upon them?" Brinore asked. "For that, we would need God's claim—the bloodline!"

"Some would say that the Comeratte line made this mess in the first place," whispered Gwere. "Not I, but some. Was there not room for the two peoples?"

"The histories say they would not let us join! They would not let us stay. We came from the hot-lands, and all found love in their hearts for this land. But they would not welcome us, so we fought and won this land through strength," Bri said. "It is the strong that own the ownable. But even in this setback we can persevere, to live on and take back. In years to come the ancestors of our sovereign's blood will avenge our deaths. Tell me big man, would that not be better?" asked Bri. Gwere took a deep breath and turned to Ash.

"What say you?" Gwere asked. Ash's answer was one word, spoken with bored exaggeration.

"Passss..." said Ash.

"There is a secret way out," said Bri. "The catacombs. The catacombs under the castle are laced with tunnels," Brinore said. "They lead far into, and perhaps even past, the armies that surround us..." Bri said.

"Let us go then," Ash said. He spoke abruptly, cutting Bri off. "Not to spirit away a king, but to... play. Let's go, now," he said. "Let's kill in the dark. Let's become monsters," Ash said. His voice carried his emotions and he trembled. "Let's become death," Ash said, and it appeared to Gwere that a blackness, thick and dark, clouded around them as Ash spoke. Ash's breath came in rasps and he shook.

To Gwere it seemed that, one by one, they were losing the tools they needed to persevere. But Gwere knew that they were going to do it again. They would, as they had done all throughout the war, run, alone, into the terror, again.

"If we could steal in and murder a couple of them, it would be, well, good," Ash continued. He had quickly regained his control and his bearing. "It would be good. And, to escape that talk, our friends, Gwere, I don't want to..." Ash paused as his voice became thick. "Gwere, I know I... I know I, I just don't want to. I..." Ash began to weep. "To tell them, what? To tell Linder, WHAT?" Ash cried. He paused and wiped his face as Bri and Gwere looked away. The men stood in the night without words. They milled around, silhouettes hiding from the moon's white face. Ash kicked at small stones at the base of the wall. "Let others," Ash said, addressing Brinore directly, "plan for the future. But consider this—do you really want to live for generations lusting after blood and planning revenge? Do you really want to start this all over again someday?" Ash said. "And the king, do you think we could kidnap or drug him, that he would have that? Do you really think there is any circumstance in which he would leave? This is his house!" Ash said. All men stood in silence for a long while.

"Why go now?" asked Bri.

"Why not?" asked Ash

"Why not indeed," said Gwere with a laugh. They would do it again.

"Then I wish to come. I have committed treason by this plan I shared, and need not stay," said Bri.

"No plan was ever shared," Gwere said. "And we won't be back, so you could try others. Have you thought about the prince's Guard or Haines?" Gwere asked.

"No, but the plan was not so sound. Ash is right, he would not leave, not without magic," Bri said. "It just seems unthinkable to die here, and let the king—the king, Gwere, die," Bri said. In the dark Bri too kicked at the stones littering the wall's base. "Would you begrudge company on this sortie?" he asked. Ash and Gwere only smiled.

"No. Certainly not," Gwere said, "you would be with friends."

Lower than the waterline and deep beneath the king's house, the original tunnels of the catacombs ran under all the kingdom, from the Monastery to the old foundations of the Asemio and the Awg castles. During the reign of the Comeratte Line the catacomb's upper reaches were used as a mausoleum. They were abandoned after the king's grandfather built an aboveground monument for his family. The upper tunnels were full of tombs and alcoves, and the lower passages ran with an inch or more of water year-round. The entrances were permanently sealed to keep out the rats and the smell.

In the dim light of a torch the three men made their way through the castle's bowels. Down the empty halls they traveled, picking paths through old storage and castle miscellany. All the rooms had piles of discards, but the men paid no mind to the debris, instead they plodded their way through the rubbish, always delving deeper into the king's home. Passing storerooms, abandoned cellars and an old larder, Bri finally brought them to a door in the castle's lowest reaches.

"Past here lie the fore-tombs," Bri said. "The backmost wall is adjacent to the catacombs. Come..." Winding his way through dim gray recesses, the guard spoke in hushed tones. "The catacomb entrances were double-sealed after one of the plagues; during one of the big die-offs people brought their dead there; none pass those doors now. Instead we will break through a shallow wall," Bri said. The men ducked cobwebs and dripping water in the atrium of the chamber. They met no guards; as the king's most trusted servants, they had the run of the castle and the lowest floors to themselves.

"See!" Linder shouted. Her voiced boomed in the echoing bays of the chamber. "I told you they couldn't be trusted!" In the dark tomb-room, twenty feet behind Gwere, Ash and Bri, among the dust covered coffins, stood Linder, Rehoak, Erow, and Gractah. "We followed you," said Rehoak.

"Isn't this exciting! Gractah and Erow know about this place too!" Linder said. "What's the plan, Ash? Are we going out to kill Massali?"

Finally, he was alone. The Jesus freaks just wouldn't give up. And, worse, the young girl was a thinker. It was much easier to argue with the dogma than it was to argue with her parables. The hiding in the house with all the lights off for the pizza guy story was the worst; he had asked. God knows he had asked. And he did it with all the lights on and the door wide open. He had asked; there was just nobody to come. At least there was nobody that cared about him.

He did however, have doubts. The girl had suggested that just asking wasn't enough. 'Read the bible every day, network with other believers, become part of a Calvary Church, pray and spread the message daily and you will get it' she had said. It was just like AA, going to meetings wasn't enough—someone had told him when Ash had mentioned that the program didn't work—you need to network with the fellowship, get a sponsor you call every day, work the steps and bring the message to others that still suffered. That Ash wasn't willing to do the work was something he tried not to think about.

In the end Ash took a few pamphlets, toilet paper, he called them, and bade them farewell. One handout had a big question mark on it.

Ash's world was one of contrast. Ash lived in a hell created by his endless pursuit of a heaven. He floundered in the tides around him; he was powerless over the events that shaped his existence and robbed him of his life, events that he had set in motion himself. But then there were the moments.

Ash's problem with alcohol could be summed up easily—if he controlled his drinking it wasn't fun, if he drank and had fun he abandoned control.

But when Ash had everything he needed, he was no longer powerless. Properly supplied, all his troubles ended and time stopped. The bleak future, the looming beast always on the make for him, crawled back into its hole. Empowered by the hoard he possessed, a bottle of anything, an old blanket and a bathroom at a park, Ash was then thrust into paradise. It was these moments that kept him going; these moments were magic. He was there. It's what the Jesus freaks could never understand. It's what his wife could never grasp and what befuddled his family. He was there. He could hear Mara's soft voice. He could smell the flowers Linder hid beneath her armor. He could see the Herculean, almost metallic frame supporting the giant Gwere. He could feel being one of them. Trade his life and honor, for this?

"Yes," Ash said as he put the bottle to his lips. "A thousand times, yes," Ash said. Of course the price wasn't just the loss of his life. To keep his secret, to nurture his treasure, his secret world, he had to endure the loss of everything; his standing, his dignity, his place in the world.

Booze had another unfortunate side effect; incapacitation. It took control and began to siphon off the building blocks that made a person strong, healthy and sound. It led one temporarily to the fabulous word of oblivion and then unceremoniously dumped them, cold and sick, back into the machine world. Addiction had its problems. But was it worth it?

"Yes." A million times, yes, Ash thought as he brought the bottle again to his lips. The magic was already at work, changing his world from the gray concrete and the smoggy pale skies of the machine-world to the stunningly clear landscapes of the magic land. He had left those clear skies and now walked among the cobwebs and slick algae covered walls of the castle's inner sanctions. "Yes!" he shouted. "A thousand times, YES!"

"YES! I mean NO!" Ash said. Bri, Erow and Gractah began searching the stones in the deep recesses of the tomb while Gwere and Rehoak fumbled with their lone torch. In the damp halls, it burned low and fluttered out. Their flint would not relight the oiled cordage. Linder and Ash hovered above the squatting men.

"We are not going out to kill Mara, we are just going out to kill," said Gwere.

"But if we run into Mara, we can kill her, right?" Linder asked. "She's a traitor. Ash, we kill traitors, right?"

"Well, yes, I guess we do," Ash said. "But I don't think we'll have to search too hard to find people to kill." Among the wet, black stone of the chamber, among the spiders and the coffins, the thought of their party separated brought a darkness to Ash's heart.

"There is more to this story," Ash said. "She will always be Mara, our Mara. And just for the record, I would never stand in front of her with my sword drawn, no matter what," Ash said. "There's more to this." The manic's face twisted and contorted until, in the dusky shadows, the sadness in his face turned his features ghoulish.

Bri summoned the party to a nondescript stone surrounded by mortar debris. Stale air and the sound of running water emanated from a dark hole above it. Light footsteps told the group that Erow had already begun to search the tunnels. "And," Ash continued, "out in the field, I swung carelessly and struck Vel, so, I don't think I will kill anyone else I know. I think maybe if I saw Mara, I'd ask her how she was. I'd tell her I miss her. It's only been a few hours, but I already miss her wit and sarcasm. We will never have the talks we once had, ever again," Ash said. "And... and..." Ash added, "Isuair collapsed in the war room."

Erow returned from the depths of the tunnel with stunning quickness; the echoes of the alcoves carried far. There was a pause and then all in the group spoke at once. They then all ceased at once, bringing an eerie quiet to the room. To the manic the silence seemed endless. Ash stood, naked in the dark, wishing he could take the words back.

"What do you mean... collapsed?" Linder asked in a whisper. "What happened to our wizard, Ash?" Drops fell from her cheeks. The light was very dim, but most in the room turned their faces away anyway. "Ash," Linder continued, her voice low and shaky, "will he be all right?" Her voice became small and childlike. "Ash?"

"What happened to Vel?" someone asked in a whisper.

"Yes, of course Isuair will be all right," said Gwere, "Ash! Stop trying to scare them off. Mara asked to leave; she's a big girl and can do what she wants. Isuair was just tired and Ash made a big deal about that. And Vel is okay, I just talked to him an hour ago at the front gate. Come, enough of your games, Ash!" said Gwere. The big captain turned to the others. "Don't you see why he tries this? He's expecting you to run back and check, and then we will be long gone." Gwere had their full attention, and was eliciting smiles. To join the ruse, Ash smiled also. It was a very, very forced smile. They all slapped his armor and grinned with him, shaking their heads. In the dark, before the catacombs, the party, among the smell of death and decay, smiled.

"Good one Ash... had us going," Rehoak said, patting him on the back. But the words that came from Ash's stout friend lacked conviction. When Ash saw Gractah's face, he saw wide eyes. In Linder he saw only a false smile and bottomless pain.

"Everything's falling apart—our luck's finally run out, hasn't it?" Gractah whispered. "The game's turned," Ash said nothing. Instead he bumped into Gractah's shoulder and grasped the Elite's hand. The guard forced a smile, as did Ash, and then the two men turned away from one another.

One by one the group squeezed through the stone opening and into the catacombs. Walking close, they threaded their way through a long, narrow hall. The walls fell away as the party entered a chamber tiled with black slabs. When Ash rubbed his hand across the face of the stones; he found that each slab was engraved with a name, title, and date. The chamber stretched farther than their torchlight could reach; while the party stood in the dark, Erow made a wide sweep of the floor while holding the flame aloft. When he was but a point of light, a part of a league away, he called to them in a voice that faded through a wave of echoes. The group hurried, huddle together, stumbling often on debris and tripping on missing floor stones, through the dark chamber. They found the Gray Guard standing before a stair, grinning ghoulishly at them in the torchlight.

They descended many steps and passed more chambers. The bottom-most tunnels looked far older than the stairs—their walls curved sharply at the ceiling— gone were the rounded arches and keystones. They reached a depth where the tunnels ceased serving as mausoleums and begun to resemble squat aqueducts. Lined with centuries-old stone, the lower reaches led to a world of decay; webs and tendrils dropped bits of mortar and peat on the party as they passed. Forced to march in a crouched position, the group made their way through a labyrinth of channels seeped in gray-black mold. Soon, they began to tread in knee-deep water.

Erow, Gractah and Bri fought over the lone torch and argued in whispers. The men quieted when they came upon a passageway that was tall but narrow. After a long walk in close confines they came upon a fork in their path and Bri and Erow's whisperings became almost shouts. Often those in front had to clear the tunnels of clutter before the party could move on. The walls in the lower depths were not well constructed and leaked or had collapsed into dead ends. The smell of stale air and the musty odor of mold added to the tunnel's unearthly feel. Twice they doubled back. Nobody complained, Ash noticed, after all, they were going to the enemy, and not just any enemy, but one that outnumbered them by thousands.

They plodded on. After what seemed like hours, the path, which had been winding always down, began to level off. Soon it began to rise. Steep stairways followed even steeper stairways. It was at a chamber at the top-most stair that the men first showed confidence in their path. Finally, Gractah and Bri agreed on a direction, and the pace of the party quickened. The look of the tunnels changed—they were dryer and more open. In the torchlight Ash saw numerous strange stones, some carved with runes and others crafted into strange shapes. Studying the walls as they walked, Ash could see the work of many skilled craftsmen. The stones fit tighter and the corners matched in even lines. But the stones looked older, far older, than those the party had come upon so far.

At last, after what seemed like miles, when Ash felt he had swallowed as much torch-smoke as he could stand, the company halted. They stood in the dark while Gractah, Erow and Bri hovered around a large stone in the wall. Its bottom was waist high, square, and little wider than Gwere's shoulders. The stone was carved, and reading the runes Ash could make out words. To him they made no sense. The words said; Forever Tomorrow Changed.

"This is a gate, where we get out, if we guessed correctly," Gractah said. He addressed the group while Bri and Erow studied the cracks between the stone and the surrounding tunnel wall. "We know the markings, but the words and the meaning of the stone have been lost for centuries."

"It is in the language of the attackers," said Ash. "See this symbol?" Ash said, running his hands along a carving. "This gate has the same marks they raise on their standards." While studying the carvings, Ash mumbled and paused. "This mark is everywhere. It must be a name... but I can't get it to clear," Ash said. The party came to see the symbols as indeed to be the same as those carried by the enemy—on their shields, on their banners, and etched in their armor. Resembling angled t's and upside down y's, the marks preceded all other writings. Gractah traced the runes below the gate stone. Ash followed and mumbled while reading. "This says; 'they gain the house,'" Ash said, pointing to the runes. "The big stone says something about tomorrow changed forever. This below it says; 'They gain the house, diaspora, here to return.' Ash said. "They built this tunnel... THEY," Ash muttered. "Boy," Ash said, turning to the group, "I sure hope they've forgotten about this place."

"Rest assured," Bri said, "they do not know this spot. These are the original stones, but we knew they had mapped it. See," Bri said, pointing with his sword. "That is how we did it." Ash studied the stone, but it wasn't until Erow brought the torch close that Ash saw the symbols. "They're numbered," Ash said. "You moved this part of the tunnel, stone by stone," Ash laughed. He had yet to finish grinning when the stone moved and the blades popped.

The party jumped as the gate-stone was pulled from the wall. The slab moved until it dropped from view. A gust blew into the opening; even in the dark the party could see tufts of weed blow onto the floor. The smell of grass, earth and chill air filled the passageway and mixed with the smoky, stale tunnel air. Out of the gaping hole only black night and stars could be seen. There was a pause where light footsteps, some near, some in the distance, could be heard. A small stone was tossed through the opening—it bounced and skipped across the floor with loud cracks and pops.

Most of the group had retreated into the tunnel, but Bri and Erow were caught at the opening. They were only able to hide themselves by pressing their backs against the wall with the hole at their sides. Ash was further in the tunnel, crouching in a shallow alcove among a pile of stones. Erow and Bri signaled to the manic. Their concern, Ash realized, was less than six feet from him. Their torch, still burning, lay where it was dropped behind a marble slab. Ash could see it shedding both light and smoke. Crouching in his alcove, Ash reached into the tunnel and poked the torch with his blade. Looking around, he saw Erow and Bri watching him. He tried to push the torch against the wall in an attempt to smother it. Erow and Bri watched him fumble with his sword with small smiles. Ash smiled back and shook his head. He slid the blade forward. He tried to nudge the torch to put it out. He had no success; the blade would not push—it either disappeared into the torch's handle or shed off bits of its end. In the end Ash attempted to cut at the flames by stretching and cradling his blade handle with his fingertips. The torch continued to burn.

An arrow, expertly aimed, flew into the opening, its mark Ash's outstretched arm. In a move too fast to see, Ash countered the arrow with his blade and the bolt missed. The next moment, all the party—Erow, Bri, Ash, and those that had retreated into the tunnel, sprung forward. Erow was the first through the door and he led the way leaping blindly. Bri and Ash followed, and a hail of arrows met all.

The arrows were fired poorly and from too close a range. Compounding their mistake, the enemy soldiers stopped firing and charged the party with their swords. Gwere, familiar with Ash and his blades, took a man down and shouted to the others as dark silhouettes closed in from all sides.

"Duck guys... duck!" Gwere yelled, but the party did not heed him. Screaming with all the force his huge chest could muster, he called to the group. "DUCK!" He shouted with such ferocity that all in the party complied. Gwere heard a rush of air pass him as he crouched. With an arm over his head, Gwere pressed down, his face against his thigh. The rush came again. Gwere's head was close enough to the ground to smell the sage beneath his boots. A third rush of air screamed by his head. It began to rain. The sound, one he knew from battle, came. The noise he heard was a cry that stopped before it could happen. A pre-scream. Ash made pre-screams. Then, all was silent. Gwere finally lifted his head. Slowly the party rose to find they now stood alone. There had been no rain; Gwere found only the splatter of a dark liquid on his arms, hands and shoulders. Around the party lay their foes, silent and still, dark mounds in the night.

All but two of the corpses had the trademark slash of Ash's blades. For a moment, the party stood surveying the damage. The enemy lay dead, strewn around the opening. Fourteen, Gwere counted—twelve from the blades and one from each, himself and Bri. Although he had seen this time and again, it still left him speechless.

"Come..." Gwere said in a whisper. "We stand..." Gwere paused as his eyes fell upon an enemy soldier painted with Ash's trademark. The sight literally took his breath away. It was a head and one shoulder only. "... overly long." The group began to move, leaping over brush and gully. In the dark their path was one stumble after another, but the party quickly put distance between them and the tunnel opening.

"It may well be that those were the door guards, charged with securing the exit," said Gractah. "Only they got curious..."

"Or heard us," said Erow. "Tomorrow forever changed."

"They could not have known that spot," Bri said. "They could not have known that exit. They should have been a half a league away, at a dead end; and this site was well hidden with long laid grass."

"Well, they sure looked like a detail to me," Rehoak said.

"Maybe they just happened to be in the neighborhood," said Linder.

"Let us not wait until their relief comes," Gwere said. "Let us be far away when the enemy discovers this... mess. When we are done with this sortie, I feel our best retreat is over-ground anyway," Gwere said. "If we separate, make your way to the castle. If that's not possible, take as many with you as possible."

"In other words, this is a suicide mission," said Linder, "and every man for himself."

"More or less," said Gwere.

"Has it not always been thus?" Gractah asked.

"Do we have any other kind of missions?" asked Rehoak. "And, where can one sign up for one?" asked Erow.

"Let's stick together," Ash said. "But Gwere's right, if you get into trouble, try to cut your way back to the castle." A glance over his shoulder revealed the king's home far off in the distance; it stood, shimmering white, an unearthly phantom jewel glowing on an otherwise dark horizon. Lit from within, it looked stately and foreboding, the light reflecting from the stronghold created an aura of calm, nothing betrayed the despair that lay within. Ash reminded himself to use that as a weapon. Lights, he thought, wonderful lights. Then a word drifted into his head—music. Lights and its festive friend, music, could send a message, albeit a temporary one, to the enemy that their weapons never could, thought the manic. 'Let the party begin.' The words came from out of the air and they were spoken in the Dral's voice. Ash shook for a moment, turned abruptly, but stopped a panic before it started. It was clear the others had not heard the voice. The words felt old, like they had been spoken long ago. Confused, Ash looked again back to the castle.

It shined in the dark. Frowning, Ash searched the fortification and its surroundings. All the land was destroyed and only ruble lay where hut, field and farm once stood. But in the distance, on a hill overlooking the entire kingdom, sat a great fortress. The monastery of the Selcogin Monks still stood, though it was dark. Ash knew the words had been spoken at that very spot.

"Let's move," Gwere said. Leading the way, the captain brought them along a shallow gully until the party almost stumbled onto an enemy watch post. The enemy guards jumped and stared into the night. They were alarmed, but had not yet detected the group which had vanished in the brush. Low to the ground, the party stalked the night and its charges.

"Ash..." Gwere whispered. He pointed to the guards. Three thick-necked guards stood alert, facing every direction. With the watch fires of the enemy camp in the background, Ash crept forward.

Ash sat. The bottle stood in front of him, a monument to Ash's endless devotion to his addiction. After a moment, the bottle began to speak.

"You have missed much, Sweetness," it said. "the king's men had gloried in a victory that had been provided for them by the Mara. The Nation had split the enemy army and Gwere, always the right man at the right place, marshaled the king's and the prince's forces in time to destroy the enemy in its disunion. However, all is not well. The discovery of a monster enemy army, fresh from battles with the Sea-Duke, brought ill tidings for the king and his allies. And that is only the beginning of the tale; we are now trapped in the castle. You dallied long, and you are needed in the land now more than ever.

But you are loved—dearly loved by those you call your friends. You deserve that love because you are so powerful yet so stalwart, so unmoving in your courage and heart. You are an example for all your friends. They follow you, my brave, resolute knight. Go to them. Go to their need. Discover the power that truly lies within you. You are loved. You are love. You are god and the world. You are the light and the stars. You are the flower. You are the cool drink, the wet kiss, the hug and the knowing look. You are the sweet scent, the breeze and the sunset. You are the favored, the golden boy, the talked about and the admired. You are Ash. Take one last, long, drink, Sweetness," the bottle said, "and then go to them. Go to them and bring the black magic. Make the dead for them. Make us proud, my boy.

Chapter 5

"Hi guys," Ash said. It was a whisper in the dark. The men before him stood ashen-faced and unmoving. One fled the hollow; he scampered over an incline and was gone. The remaining men were drawing their broadswords when Erow and Gractah emerged from the blackness. The Gray Guard and the Elite's blades were quick and to the mark. Ash flinched. The enemy men's lives ebbed out as black stains on their necks; they clenched their throats, shaking violently. The manic started at the brutality of the act before him; this is what I do, thought the manic, and now I've taught the others this game. It took long moments for the enemy men to still. Horror rippled through Ash's body, burned into his brain, and made him, standing in the dark among the dying, ill. Ash found himself retching.

"It's okay... Gwere got him," said Rehoak. With Ash still heaving, Rehoak spread his arms. "That other one didn't get away."

"Ash, what's wrong?" Linder asked. "Ash, Ash, talk to me, what did you just think? What made you turn just then?"

"I'm just so tired of killing, of everything dying," he said. In the dark he drew back but Linder followed. She could see new tears track his face.

"Ash, Sweetie, I'm all for peace and harmony, but not now. Do you understand? Not here. Not now—and you stop that," she said. The princess came close and tried to keep their conversation low. "Buck up, Sweetness. We need you now," she whispered. "Let's kill some guys and get the fuct out of here."

"Well, you can kiss that goon goodbye," Gwere said. He leaped into their midst from the dark, startling more than one of them. "He actually cried." The big captain laughed while peering around in the dark. He received no response. "Not that that's bad or anything..." After another non-response Gwere only coughed. Linder pulled Ash away from the captain but Gwere paced them.

"What's the matter?" Gwere asked. He scanned the grounds. "I counted three— was there more?"

"No. Nothing's wrong," said Linder. Let's get to the camp, all right? That's the plan, right? Get in, do some damage, and get out. Come on, Ash." Grabbing Ash by the sleeve, she pulled him into the night.

"What's up?" Gwere asked in a low voice to Erow, Bri, Gractah and Rehoak.

"Ash. All of a sudden killing is bad," said Gractah.

"Really?" Gwere asked. "He said that?"

"Not in so many words..." said Rehoak.

"It was more of an 'Aarrch' sound," said Erow.

"When we cut their throats he said something like, 'killing is tired' and then he almost..." Gractah opened his mouth, lurched over, and pantomimed the act of vomiting.

"It's that stupid White Book he's reading," said Gwere, "what did he do with the other one again?"

Billows of cool air waved the strawgrass across an otherwise still land. The night sky appeared as a dome above, pierced by countless points of light. Below Ash stood—a tiny being in the endless expanse of space. Sadness, bottomless in its depth, welled in the manic; Ash felt as if he were a child, a boy, dwarfed by the horizon and the heavenly vaults of the night sky. He felt he had no business playing in the realm of life and death. He had made the war a game, and now, looking back, it appeared that his whole existence had been make-believe. Only the weight of his body pressing the earth on which he stood assured him that he was real, that he was actually there, in Alrica, and if he didn't move, even that disappeared.

As they made their way to the enemy camp, Linder tried to guide the manic; she worked to keep him with the group, but Ash would pause, standing for long minutes, staring at the sky and the hills. He would not listen to Linder's pleas as she pulled at him. It seemed to the princess that the manic had noticed, for the first time, the land. Dead leaves and tall grasses rustled around them; the smell mountain sage rose from the earth as they tread on the dry brush and overhead a thousand stars shimmered at them from their lofty perches.

Ash stood, neck craned, and studied the heavens. One star, directly above the manic, shone brighter than the rest; it filled the manic with a grave respect for the land and the life it nurtured. At that moment Ash decided he would never kill again. The White Book was right. It would be his guide and his shepherd; it would be his everything. White Book and Ash would become one, he decided, from that point on, forever.

Then, he saw the camp. Behind a low hill, Ash spied the tent; it lay on the outskirts of the encampment and was surrounded by guards. It stood lit from within by a lamp. The soldiers around it appeared to be milling about. The dull lamplight revealed clear silhouettes through the pavilion's cream-colored canvas. Inside a figure sat, cross-legged, with one limb bouncing casually. It appeared that the man, cast onto the canvas by the lamp, was sipping from a cup. He's drinking tea, Ash thought.

"They're relaxing," Ash mumbled aloud. In that moment the manic again changed his mind.

"Hold, hold," Linder whispered, "oh damn..." Ash was at the tent's guy-wires in two minutes. She saw the manic straighten before the tent wall and then vanish. Another silhouette joined the others behind the canvas. The new silhouette was large; it was dark. It was not the shape of a man; it was the shape of a creature. Were the princess to enter the tent she would have seen it had fangs. Linder and the others ran to where a large slash had been created in the canvas wall.

"Peek or charge?" Linder whispered to Gwere.

"Peek," he whispered back. She glanced into the hole and saw Ash, standing before a table, his eyes fixed on a cup in his hands. Bodies, in gray uniforms, lay on the floor. A misty red rain hovered in air above the manic.

"What's going on?" Asked Gwere.

"He's looking at a cup," Linder said. A moment later, Ash, weapons in hand, slid out of the opening.

"Only about a million of these fucks to go," Ash said. "Come, Sweetness." Ash grabbed Linder by the hand and pulled her into the dark. Gwere, Gractah, Rehoak, Erow and Bri followed.

"Killing is bad?" Gwere hissed to the men. "What other insights into blunder-boy have you two idiots discovered?"

The party entered the enemy camp unseen and unheard. They did, however, leave a trail. Dark mounds, silent except for the flapping of their garments in the blustery night, marked their passing.

"Ash! Quick now, in and out," whispered Gwere. At another tent, Ash beheld more tea-sippers. On its dark side, where his shadow would not kiss the canvas, Ash readied himself. Only the most muted shouts followed his plunge into the dwelling. Then, the group stole to the next tent. With each stop the party moved deeper into the camp. They moved in and out of one pavilion after another, fleeing no foe. Their shapes darted between brush and shadow while large groups of men milled about, oblivious to their presence. Tent after tent followed, but shouts from the borders of the camp told them they were quickly running out of time.

The group found themselves behind three large pavilions. Bold standards at each corner proclaimed the compound's importance to all. The party fanned out. Linder slid next to Ash. As they knelt before the canvas she groped about for his fingers. They were slippery, tacky, and still clutched his blade, but at her touch the manic released his weapon and clenched her hand.

"In the end, Isuair liked you," Linder whispered. "You had a characteristic he favored," she said to his ear. "You wept at the monsters, particularly at the ones within—keep fighting them, Ash—don't let yourself become lost, even, and especially, in times like these." She squeezed his hand. She met the manic's eyes. She could feel his hand tremble as a silent pulse beat within him. Then, sounds from within the tent made his head turn. He let go of her hand and re-grasped his weapon.

Crouching in the shadows, Linder sought to steady her trembling body, only to find the ground wet and warm. Beneath her she found the remains of person. Death was all around. Her mind began to dim. She found herself becoming lost in the dark. In the blackness, Linder grabbed Ash's arm. She wished to make him see the horror, but his eyes were shining. He was back, and he was busy.

But at her touch the manic again turned to her, grabbed her and kissed her. A moment later Gwere flashed a signal and Ash was gone. Blood marked the manic's passing on Linder's nape and cheek. She took a deep breath, turned her weapon toward the tent, and jumped in.

Ash slid through the canvas and whispered his call. "Mortals..." Then he froze. The tents were open to the front. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, stood in formation before the tent. All faces turned to him, stunned, some with their mouths open. Painted to the elbows with blood, Ash paused, then, rising to his full height, he faced the host. He began to quietly laugh. He began to smile.

But behind the smile his mind raced—the others would have only precious moments before this horde. 'This is goodbye,' the voice said.

Shouts, some horrifyingly familiar, filled the air. Still Ash only stood; he could not get his body to commit. Tactics flipped though his mind like a picture show—sweeps replaced swipes, which replaced spins, which replaced broad leaps and dives with the blades. But still he stood, undecided. The White Book said to forgive. The White Book suggested that a life in harmony with the energies of the land would lead to an existence of peace. But peace wasn't possible when one stood facing the bloodlust of an overpowering, wounded enemy.

Ash felt one other thing. This—standing before his demise—had stilled the manic. Quieted now were the voices, quieted was the hum of his brain. Even the usually constant pounding of his veins seemed to ebb. Only now did the passing of Isuair not matter. Only now did the name Vel stop floating about in his head. Only now did the monster that Ash saw in the looking-glass mean nothing. Only now did the plight of the land and dying within it seem meaningless. Only now was Ash at peace. Standing before death, Ash was unburdened with the doubts that chased him in the dark. This is why we do what we do, Ash thought, why we always jumped in so recklessly—this, this promise, this chance, this possibility—of it no longer having to matter—had always been the why.

It also freed the manic of the encumbrance of conscience. Now Ash could feel the other side. The Dral, the Black Book, the rune pages, the violence of the earth and the forces that wouldn't be denied began to call to the manic. Power and strength presented themselves to him as a well to tap. There was a dark side and it did beckon to those who could master it. Instead of swinging the blades, Ash dropped them. The soldiers around him began to move; weapons were drawn and orders were shouted. Ash dropped, placed his hands on the packed sand at his feet, and began a search for the dark. The promise of peace was balanced by the certainty of conflict. Conflict equaled violence, which equaled bloodshed. Tiny remnants of blood lay beside every grain of sand in the land. It had been as thus for thousands of years and would be so for thousands and thousands more; denying it was folly. The White Book, and all it represented, while not exactly wrong, was only half right. The White Book was a hope and a dream of a world that was a possibility, but a world that could never really be because it could only exist in a vacuum. It was a force, but it pushed against another, darker force. Balance. Ash felt he could, as he crouched with man after man flinging body and sword at him, tip it. A silent scream raged through the manic as the mass of soldiers collapsed on him. Then, a blackness rose from the earth and a new game began. Those that still lived jumped off Ash. The enemy began to flee. As their black wounds spread, those fleeing began to scream.

Gwere and Erow crouched by the first-most pavilion, Linder and Ash by the second, Bri, Rehoak and Gractah by the third. Gwere held forth three fingers, and then paused. Ash and Linder were having a moment. He watched as the princess and the manic kissed. When Gwere finally caught the attention of the manic he held out two fingers, then one, and then all the party lunged into their tents. The result was pandemonium. All three pavilions were open on the far side and before the tents stood the bulk of the enemy army. The pavilions were not dwellings, they were stages built of packed, tiered salt-pack sand and roofed by canvas. The party had picked an event, an enemy operations assembly.

Ash killed all that were in reach with the blackness and picked up his blades. On his left, desperately fighting with their backs taunt against the canvas, were Gractah, Bri and Rehoak. Ash cut through soldiers and bodies alike until he reached the men. He cut the canvas with one swipe. Bri and Rehoak fell through, and off the stage, with many men on top of them. Gractah stood clinging to a wooden support, while swinging wildly at the enemy before him. Ash also swung his blades; they sailed through the air and created a thick red comet tail of copper mist. Men burst apart before him; blood choked the manic and still they came. Bri and Rehoak were swarmed as they struggled on their knees. Ash began to scream his call while water created flesh colored tracks on his cheeks. Again the dark and its call whispered to the manic. There is an easier way, my Sweet. The manic shouted to the Elite and called to the power; the Elite turned to see Ash bring forth from the ground the blackness. Gractah threw himself onto the men rushing Bri and Rehoak. Ash began the spell; Gractah began to shout.

"Move! Move thyself!" shouted the Elite. The enemy began to fall. More blackness came and Bri, Gractah and Rehoak rolled free. All three men crawled on hands and knees in an attempt to escape both the dead and the living. Black fire rendered those about the crawling men into corpses.

Returning to the center pavilion, Ash stumbled over bodies and severed limbs as he waded to the far side. He dispatched the few soldiers that attacked, but the volume of bodies impeded him—some bodies did not have his slash—some were black and distorted. Some were heaps of carnage, inside-out corpses.

He struggled to raise his legs through tangled limbs when he lost his balance and tumbled onto the lower right stage. Gwere and Erow had their backs to a center stage support wall, with the enemy before them. Ash found Bri, Gractah and Rehoak at his side. Linder, all but unseen, was wedged between Gwere's broad back and Erow's chest. Thousands gathered before the group, at their feet, at each side and at their backs. But the enemy hesitated. An unnatural silence stilled the air. The quiet was broken only when Linder began to sob.

OBSERVATIONS OF DOCTOR N. POSETTI

SANTA BARBARA RESTORATIVE INSTITUTE

JULY–JANUARY

Prior to patient Ash's homelessness he lived a relatively normal life. His day would begin after a fitful night's sleep. Patient would lie in bed, tossing and assessing his day, or, if he had one, his hangover. He would already be planning the day's drunk. There were factors to consider; the day of the week, the previous evening's consumption, the status of his relationship with his wife Linda, and what he would want the following day. Ash related his thoughts of a long past Thursday. He would want to drink beer on Friday, which was semi-acceptable as he and Linda ignored the giant elephant of addiction in their apartment and pretended he was a normal social drinker. He would need to be, or at least seem like, a non-drinker this day, a weekday, or the elephant would grow. When Ash drank every day the elephant simply grew too large to ignore.

The evening before Ash drank 3 beers and 12 ounces of El Commodore Brandy. Once a week Ash would stop at a market near his employment and purchase a twelve-pack of beer and two 1-liter bottles of brandy. It would cost him twenty dollars. He would stow his treasure in the back of the camper cab of his pickup.

That Thursday Linda and he were getting along well and semi-successfully ignoring the elephant; he did not want to spoil that. Yet the day's challenges and the subsequent conquest thereof cried for some kind of a reward. Ash would begin to scheme; how much goodwill would he be willing to squander with Linda and how rewarding would it be to drink? He could, after all, skip a night. He could come home, fix himself dinner (he and Linda always dined separately) and that would be that—eating would guarantee a sober night; Ash never drank on a full stomach if he could help it, the magic just did not come the way Ash needed it—with a red fireball explosion that seeped into his very soul. He could also take a sleeping pill; he had bought a large amount in Mexico and the pills would ensure that he wouldn't be taunted by his most feared demon; insomnia. (Ash would frequently spend entire nights awake, falling asleep only after the sun rose.)

But when Ash survived a day at the printing company the committee in his head would assemble to THINK their way out of a drab, sullen, sober night. First, they would assess their resources; Ash had three beers and one-half liter of brandy still hidden in his truck. He had his tried and true secret stash system; he carried a plastic lunch box with a flip-top, in it would be a small, empty plastic juice bottle left over from his mid-day meal.

After driving home he would park his truck in his carport, open the back of his truck's camper-shell and fill the plastic bottle, by pouring, hands unseen, deep in his truck bed, from the brandy bottle. Two beers would fit in the cooler alongside his plastic bottle now full of brandy. Once home he would remind Linda, who would be eager to share her day with him, that he needed "time to decompress" which, to Ash, was a euphemism for "I need a buzz on before I can sit and listen to you complain about your boss."

Every night he faced a choice, to drink or not to drink. Drinking pros; ability to finish his day luxuriating in a buzz without having to struggle against the 'should I or shouldn't I indulge' blues. Cons; the monkey. His constant obsession with alcohol, that even denial could not mask, was beginning to weigh on him. He was also worried about his health, his marriage and his job. In short, when Ash drank the way his "Committee" decided, Ash lived a life of fear, running to escape his escapes. This would be what would evolve into his street creed; Drinking away the horrors of drinking away the horrors. In his soul Ash could feel the transformation occurring, he could feel the monkey growing, he could feel his addiction gaining ground daily. He could feel the Committee's presence as it grew more powerful with each drink and he could feel his despondency growing as he became more and more helpless against this cycle.

He also sought to escape while on the job, though not as much through drink but through fantasy; If not me, who? And; If not here, where? Ash sought to escape his 9-to-5, "cog in the machine" job by fantasizing. If he did not like being the secret (or not-so-secret) alcoholic with an average job and an average life, who would he like to be? A warrior, a great power, a windy gale whose enemies were less than dry leaves. A force, a soldier who had the power to effectively vanquish his demons. And if not here, among the gray streets of the suburbs, then where? A magic place unspoiled by technology, where there were more trees than people, where the rivers ran clean and the air was clear. In a word, Eden.

Linda was always on the Committee's mind; Ash loved her but the Committee thought she was too much in the way. The Committee would complete their goal—the buzz— sometimes overcoming serious obstacles, only to find Linda unhappy and judgmental. Ash understood; Linda cared about his long-term health and welfare, but to the Committee that was an issue of fate and therefore not a concern for them; Ash was fated to be an alcoholic and fated to whatever end awaited him, fair or foul, near or far. The committee even harbored a grudge against Linda-; they felt she was looking out for her interests while completely disregarding and even hindering theirs. And, they didn't like the judgments. Linda would greet Ash with a happy glad smile; then, she would look at him quizzically. She would notice his buzz "aura" and her smile would change. She would depart to her room, eventually finding solace in a new favorite pastime, creating birding scrapbooks. The Committee felt that this dynamic was bad for morale. Ash related that his drinking made him feel like an ant in an antlion trap; he felt the silky sands of the funnel hole leading him to a predator. Sliding down Ash would see his world becoming darker and darker all while futilely attempting to slow his descent by grasping the slippery sides. If Ash did slow or stop it would seem as if he would receive a push—when Ash looked to who was doing the pushing, Ash found it was himself (with the committee planted firmly behind him). There was one bright spot in the trap and in the depression use caused; there was a simple but temporary cure, one which the Committee always brought up—USE ONCE MORE. "Embrace the despair, let go the sanity, turn off the conscience and let it all fade away into the magic. The magic will kill the voice screaming in the background for you to stop. The weak man will disappear and the strong man, newly empowered by use, will emerge. Simply put; don't think, just drink, become HIM and fade away into the land of oblivion where no power is a match for YOURS.

OBSERVATIONS;

There are high-bottom and low-bottom drunks. Ash had embraced sobriety as a high-bottom drunk for 10 years before relapsing after having a midlife crisis, where he felt he had not accomplished any of his dreams. A depression led him to begin contemplating, even testing, suicide plans. He drank instead killing himself (which, for an alcoholic, is likely the same thing). While he had spent 10 years sober with his wife Linda, Ash never developed the tools to fully cope with life's problems—sobriety was maintained by bitter determination and will. This, in the end, failed him, and he relapsed. He became a low bottom drunk after relapse, though for years he attempted to manage his addiction. He tried hiding his drinking and abstaining for short periods of time. Finally he ran away from his life. His second bottom led him to a life of homelessness and binge drinking. He is damaged, probably beyond repair, mentally and physically from alcohol abuse and now hides in a world of fantasy.

SANTA BARBARA RESTORATIVE INSTITUTE

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THE END of BOOK TWO

If this story was enjoyed, please read Book Three, Ash makes a Wizard

Thank you for reading my book. If you enjoyed it, won't you please take a moment to leave me a review at your favorite retailer?

Thanks!

William Patrick

khingemail@yahoo.com
