The Mage had reached the rear of the house, and found the back door that led into the kitchen. Carefully, so as not to make a sound, she tested the latch.—Locked—but she could soon take care of that. She put forth her powers—and after a moment, she heard a satisfying click as the mechanism of the lock sprang open. A faint glow of lamplight outlined the kitchen window. Edging alongside the wall, Eliseth flattened herself against the brickwork and peered around the side of the frame. The kitchen fires, banked for the night, had been revived, and a solitary man was working at the long wooden table. As she had expected, Vannor’s head cook was up well before the dawn, setting the dough for the day’s bread before the rest of the kitchen helpers were awake.—The man seemed surprisingly young to be a head cook, and, most unusual for one in his profession, he was very thin and gangling. Eliseth dismissed these details with barely a glance. To her, one Mortal was very much the same as another. There was no sense in waiting. Taking a deep breath, she gathered her will to manipulate the air within the kitchen. A glowing patch of greenish mist appeared close to the feet of the unsuspecting cook. Slowly it elongated and solidified in form, until it had taken on the appearance of a small green serpent. Then the Mage paused. This was her favorite illusion and it would distract the cook sure enough—but what if he was afraid of snakes, as were so many of these ridiculous Mortals? He would yell and wake the rest of the household, and that was the last thing she wanted. Eliseth cursed under her breath and dissolved her illusion of the reptile. What could she use instead?—A more complex creature would both tax her powers and stretch her ingenuity to the utmost—but she could do it. For the chance of revenging herself on Vannor at last, she could certainly do it.
The Mage narrowed her eyes and concentrated with all her might. The patch of mist turned pale and opaque. It shimmered and twisted in upon itself, until, after several minutes, an outline began to emerge. “Come on, come on,” Eliseth muttered impatiently to herself as slowly, one by one, the details of the creature began to emerge from the amorphous background. When the cook glanced down, a small white cat was sitting at his feet.
“Goodness! Wherever did you come from?” Smiling, the man stooped down and reached out to stroke the little creature. Eliseth, concentrating so hard that drops of sweat broke out on her forehead, shifted her illusion away from his outstretched hand.
“Frightened, are you, little one? Has someone been mistreating you?” Vannor’s cook asked the cat.
Eliseth grimaced and cast her eyes up to the heavens. She had never been able to work out why some Mortals actually spoke to animals as if they could understand. Still, if it served her purpose . . . Though she was unable to reproduce sound in her illusion, she opened the kitten’s mouth in a silent mew.
“Poor little thing—are you hungry? Just you wait here a moment, and we’ll see what we can find for you.”
As the cook vanished into the pantry, Eliseth moved like lightning. She slipped through the back door, sprinkled her deadly liquid over the bread dough on the table, and was out again before the cook emerged. As she slipped soundlessly down through the gardens, she glanced back to see him silhouetted in the open doorway, a plate in his hand, calling out to the cat that was no longer there—and never had been.
Between the Worlds was a lonely place. Forral had no notion of the time that had passed in the Mortal world while he had been trapped here, for time held no sway in the realms of Death, and the silvery, misty landscape of rolling hills and starry sky remained unchanging, never altering their aspect to mark the passing hours or changing seasons. Now that the Reaper of Souls had forbidden him access to the sacred hilltop grove and the portal it contained, the swordsman’s only contacts with the world he had departed were the spirits who would pass through this limbo, singly or severally, on their way from the Door Between the Worlds to the Well of Souls, where they would be reborn. All of these, however, were guarded and guided by the Specter of Death, in his guise of the old hermit with the lamp, and the Reaper would not permit Forral to approach the shades too closely, or delay them with his questions.—Increasingly, it seemed to the swordsman that he was becoming the ghost in this landscape of the dead, for the longer he lingered here, the more insubstantial he seemed to become to the shades of the once-living who passed through swiftly on their way to a new existence. When he had first come to this place, the others had noticed him at least, or heard his voice, though when this happened they were always sped quickly on their way by their grisly guardian. Now, however, his fellow-spirits seemed not to see the form of the lonely swordsman who hovered anxiously nearby, desperate for news of Aurian.—It was most painful when a familiar form appeared whether the shade was that of an old friend or even an enemy. To see someone he had once known in the Mortal world pass him by without the slightest trace of recognition—it was almost like dying all over again.
Forral had become increasingly frustrated and wretched as the relentless isolation gnawed away at his confidence and his nerve. There was no way to help this timeless imprisonment pass more easily—he could not eat, or drink, or sleep, and there was nothing to do or to make, and nothing new to see. He could touch nothing, feel nothing—not even his own body. Occasionally Forral would begin to walk, or even run frenziedly, endlessly, in an attempt to escape this dim and dreary landscape, but he never tired, and his hurrying steps only led him among the rounded hills, back to the place where he had started—the valley below the sacred grove. The way to the Well of Souls was barred to him now by a barrier of some invisible force, as was the Door Between the Worlds. Even Death himself would no longer converse with Forral, for the Specter simply vanished every time the furious and embittered swordsman attempted to confront him. Forral knew that the Reaper was waiting him out, hoping that sooner or later he would tire of this miserable half-existence, and volunteer to be reborn.
Had he not been so afraid for Aurian and her child—his own child—Forral would have capitulated gladly. How could he leave, knowing that he might be losing a chance—a single chance—to help them? Even so, he was alarmed to find that his memory of the Mage was fading, eroded by the endless changelessness and solitude of his surroundings. How long, he wondered, would it be before she vanished completely in the mists of forgetfulness? How long did he have left, before he lost even his own sense of identity—and what would become of him then? As Forral waited—for what, he could not say—it took every shred of courage in the warrior’s heart not to give way to despair.
The swordsman sat on the silvery hillside, brooding upon his unhappy thoughts.—Recently, a whole stream of people had passed through the door, singly or in groups of two or three—about a dozen altogether. What was going on? Some catastrophe had struck, he was sure, to bring so many through at once—and what was worse, he felt certain that he ought to recognize some of the faces, but the memories lurked tauntingly just out of his reach. Am I losing my mind? he thought despairingly—and if I do, what will remain of me? Will my spirit cease to exist completely? Forral shook his head. Perhaps Death had been right all along. He should have listened to the Specter. Maybe he should find him, admit defeat, and consent to be reborn before it was too late... .