Before Rikus could think of how to answer, Tamar said, It’s just as well. If she laid with you, I’d have to kill her. No decent woman would let anything less than a full human touch her.
If Neeva comes to any harm, you’ll never find out what happened to Borys, Rikus threatened. I’ll stop looking for the book.
Don’t toy with me, the wraith replied. You promised the dwarves. I could kill her for no good reason and you’d still recover the book. Your pathetic dwarven blood would force you to do it.
“Rikus, what are you doing?” Neeva asked.
To his surprise, the mul realized that he had reached under his cloak and was absent-mindedly scratching at his ulcerating sore, trying to pry the ruby from where it was lodged. He pulled his hand away and closed his robe once more. “Nothing,” he answered. “The wound bothers me sometimes.”
Neeva stood and took him by the arm. “Come on.”
Rikus jerked away. “You mustn’t touch me,” he said, not wishing to test the seriousness of Tamar’s threat.
Neeva frowned, showing her hurt. “Don’t act like a child,” she said. “It had to come to this sooner or later. Being free means you have the right to choose for yourself-it doesn’t mean you can have everything you want.”
Rikus returned to his feet, holding his cloak tightly closed. “This doesn’t have anything to do with being free, or with whether I can love both you and Sadira,” the mul said, maintaning a careful distance between himself and Neeva. “It’s for your own good. You mustn’t touch me.”
Neeva stepped toward the rope. “If that’s the way you want it,” she said.
“It’s not the way I want it,” Rikus answered, following. “It’s the way it has to be-for now.”
Neeva stopped and turned toward him, an expression of sudden understanding and relief on her face. “It’s the ruby, isn’t it?” she said. “It has some sort of control over you.”
Deny it, the wraith ordered.
Why? Rikus objected. What does it matter if she understands that much?
Rikus’s vision blurred for a moment. When it cleared again, he saw Tamar’s dark features and narrow eyes where Neeva’s face had been a moment earlier. The mul was confused for a moment, but he soon realized that the wraith was using her control over his mind to trick him into seeing her form where Neeva was standing.
“It’s what I want,” said Tamar, her wide lips moving as she spoke. Her control over the illusion was so complete that it seemed to Rikus that he heard her voice with his ears, not just his mind. “That’s all you need to know.”
Remembering how the Scourge had helped him sort through Tamar’s deceptions after Caelum had tried to remove her gem, Rikus grabbed the hilt of his weapon. “She frightens you, doesn’t she?” the mul said to the wraith.
The figure standing before Rikus once again became Neeva. “Who am I afraid of?” she asked, nervously eyeing the mul’s sword hand.
Rikus did not answer. Instead, he kept his attention focused inside his mind, where Tamar stood on a rock wall identical to the one beneath his feet, save that it seemed to continue forever across an endless lake of red, frothing fire. If Neeva frightened me, she would be dead already, the wraith informed him. Tell her that the ruby has no control over you.
“Neeva, go on,” Rikus said, refusing to do as the wraith demanded. As long as Neeva understood that he had little control over what he revealed about the ruby, there was a good chance she would eventually forgive him for his silence. “I’ll see you later.”
Fool! Tamar growled.
Great arcs of fire began to shoot from the red lake inside the mul’s mind. Rikus dropped to his knees, crying out in agony. It felt as though his heart had changed to a flaming ball that pumped lava through his veins.
“Rikus!” Neeva cried, moving toward him.
“Go!” the mul bellowed, pointing at the rope.
Neeva eyed his hand, which continued so grip the hilt of his sword. After a quick glance at the ugly scar across her belly, she retreated slowly, “I’ll get help.”
Rikus shook his head. “I don’t need it.”
The mul turned his attention inward, imagining that the black wall upon which Tamar stood had changed into a log. It burst into flames and crumbled to ash in an instant, plunging the wraith into the fiery lake.
As the mul fell, the lake of fire faded from his mind and he realized that he was tumbling head over heels into the Crater of Bones. He landed on his back, the thick mantle of skeletons breaking his fall with a loud clatter.
Defy me again and die, Tamar said, no longer visible inside Rikus’s head. Your corpse might be more useful to me without your insolent spirit inside it.
Neeva, who had slid down the rope while Rikus was not paying attention, started toward him. “Rikus! Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” he answered, struggling to his feet.
Neeva stopped a step away, visibly restraining herself from touching him. “I won’t ask any questions,” she said. “Just say you’ll tell me what’s going on-
“When I can,” Rikus finished for her. “Until then, you’ll have to trust me. Now, why don’t you go back to camp? I’ll take that walk alone.”
The mul began picking his way through the bones and walked out the narrow gate, his mind as troubled by all the things he could not tell Neeva as by his legion’s poor position. Outside, the canyon ran straight and narrow down to the Lake of Golden Dreams, a pair of sheer cliffs serving as its walls. Even at their lowest points, the crags were several hundred feet high, and there were no gullies or ravines along the way that could be used to climb out of the narrow passageway.
An idea occurred to Rikus. He stepped to the cliff and used his dagger to scrape away some of the white crust. Underneath, he found a black, porous rock resembling a loaf of dark coarse-grained bread. He looked back to the wall, wondering what tools its builders had used to shape their blocks. If he could figure out that puzzle, he thought he could spare his legion a disastrous battle.
As the mul started forward to inspect the wall more closely, he heard the disgruntled voices of a large crowd moving toward the gate from inside the crater. Curious as to the cause of the commotion, Rikus went to meet them.
When the mul stepped through the gateway, he saw Styan leading a mob of gladiators toward him. “By the light of Ral!” he cursed.
Rikus drew the Scourge of Rkard and started forward, stumbling and staggering through the bones as he marched toward Styan. Behind the templar came half of the gladiator company, among them the wine-loving tarek who had tried to defy Rikus back in Makla. To a warrior, they all carried their weapons and had sour expression on their faces.
A mutiny! hissed Tamar. I will put an end to their defiance.
No, Rikus returned. Let me handle this.
As he approached Styan, the mul grabbed the templar with one hand and pressed the tip of his sword under the old man’s chin with the other. “I should have done this two nights ago.”
“Please,” Styan gasped, his sunken eyes opened wide in fear. “This isn’t what you think.”
“What is it?” Rikus demanded, not releasing the templar.
“These gladiators came to me,” he said. “They asked me to talk to you.”
“You’re lying,” Rikus said, scowling at the gladiators gathered behind the templar. “They can talk to me themselves. They know that.”
“Maybe before that ruby sprouted in your chest,” said the tarek. “But you’re a different man now.”
There are too many of them for you to discipline alone, Tamar observed. I will summon help.