t was like when the Imperial Order invaded and overpowered places. She had been with the army for nearly a year, fighting against them. They were like a pack of wild dogs. There was no peace with such animals after you. They would be satisfied only when they could tear you apart. Kahlan had been to cities, like Ebinissia, that had been overrun by Imperial Order soldiers. In a wild binge of savagery that went on for days, they had tortured, raped, and murdered every person trapped in the city, finally leaving it a wasteland of human corpses. None, no matter their age, had been spared. That was what the people of the New World had to look forward to. With enemy troops overrunning all of the New World, any trade that was not already disrupted would be brought to a standstill. Nearly all businesses would fail. The livelihood of countless people would be lost. Food would quickly become scarce, and then simply unavailable at any cost. People would have no means of supporting themselves and their families. People would lose everything for which they had worked a lifetime. Cities, even before the troops arrived, would be in a destructive panic. When the enemy troops arrived, most people would be burned out of their homes, driven from their cities and their land. Jagang would steal all supplies of food for his troops and give conquered land to his favored elite. The true owners of that land would perish, or become slaves working their own farms. Those who escaped before the invading horde would desperately cling to life, living like animals in wild areas. Most of the population would be in flight, running for their lives. Hundreds of thousands would be out in the elements without shelter. There would be little food, and no ability to prepare for winter. When the weather turned harsh, they would perish in droves. As civilization crumbled and starvation became the norm, disease would sweep across the land, catching up those on the run. Families would collapse as those they depended on suffered agonizingly slow and painful deaths. Children and the weak would be alone, to be preyed upon as a source of food for the starving. Kahlan knew what such widespread disease was like. She knew what it was to watch people dying by the thousands. She had seen it happen in Aydindril when the plague was there. She saw scores stricken without warning. She had watched the old, the young--such good people-- contract something they could not fight, watched them suffer in misery for days before they died. Richard had been stricken with that plague. Unlike everyone else, though, he had gotten it knowingly. Taking the plague deliberately had been the price to get back to her. He had traded his life just to be with her again before he died. That had been a time beyond horror. Kahlan knew, firsthand, savage desperation. It was then that she had taken the only chance available to her to save his life. It was then that she had loosed the chimes. That act had saved Richard's life. She hadn't known at the time that it would also be a catalyst that would set unforeseen events into motion. Because of her desperate act, the boundary to this empire had lost its power and failed. Because of her, all magic might eventually fail. Now, because of that boundary failing, the Wizard's Keep, their last bastion to work a solution against the Order, was in terrible jeopardy. Kahlan felt as if it was all her fault. The world was on the brink of destruction. Civilization stood at the threshold of obliteration in the name of the Order's mindless idea of a greater good. The Order demanded sacrifice to that greater good; what they were determined to sacrifice was reason, and, therefore, civilization itself. Madness had cast its shadow across the world and would have them all. They now stood in the edge of the shadow of a dark age. They were all on the eve of the end times. Kahlan couldn't say that, though. She couldn't tell them how she felt. She dared not reveal her despair. "Richard, we simply can't allow the Order to capture the Keep." Kahlan could hardly believe how calm and determined her voice sounded. She wondered if anyone else would believe that she thought they still stood a chance. "We have to stop them." "I agree," Richard said. He sounded determined, too. She wondered if he saw in her eyes the true depths of her despair. "First," he said, "the easy part: Nicci and Victor. We have to tell them that we can't come now. Victor needs to know what we would say to him. He will need to know that we agree with his plans--that he must proceed and that he can't wait for us. We've talked with him; he knows what to do. Now, he must do it, and Priska must know that he has to help. "Nicci needs to know where we're going. She needs to know that we believe we've discovered the cause of the warning beacon. She has to know where we are." He left unsaid that she had to come to help him if he couldn't get to her because his gift was killing him. "She needs to know, too," Richard said, "that we only had a chance to read part of her warning about what Jagang was doing with the Sisters of the Dark in creating weapons out of people." Everyone's eyes widened. They hadn't read the letter. "Well," Kahlan said, "with all the other problems we have, at least that's one we won't have to deal with for now." "We have that much on our side," Richard agreed. He gestured to the man watching, the man waiting for Kahlan to command him. "We'll send him to Victor and Nicci so they will know everything." "And then what?" Cara asked. "I want Kahlan to command him that when he's finished with carrying out that part of his orders, he's then to go north and find the Imperial Order army. I want him to pretend to be one of them to get close enough to assassinate Emperor Jagang." Kahlan knew how implausible such a scheme was. By the way everyone stared in astonishment, they had a good idea, too. "Jagang has layers of men to protect him from assassination," Jenn-sen said. "He's always surrounded by special guards. Regular soldiers can't even get close to him." "Do you really think he has any chance at all to accomplish such a thing?" Kahlan asked. "No," Richard admitted. "The Order will most likely kill him before he can get to Jagang. But he will be driven by the need to fulfill your orders. He will be single-minded. I expect he will be killed in the effort, but I also suspect he will at least make a good attempt of it. I want Jagang to at least lose some sleep knowing that any of his men might be assassins. I want him to worry that he will never know who might be trying to kill him. I don't want him ever to be able to sleep soundly. I want him to be haunted by nightmares of what might be coming next, of who among his men might be waiting for an opening." Kahlan nodded her agreement. Richard appraised the grim faces waiting for the rest of what he had to say. "Now, to the most important part of what must be done. It's vital we get to the Keep and warn Zedd. We can't delay. Jagang is ahead of us in all this--he's been planning and acting and we never realized what he was up to. We don't know how soon those ungifted men might be sent north. We haven't a moment to lose." "Lord Rahl," Cara reminded him, "you have to get to the antidote before time runs out. You can't go running off to the Keep to ... Oh, no. Now you just wait a minute--you're not sending me to the Keep again. I'm not leaving you at a time like this, at a time when you're next to defenseless. I won't hear of it and I won't go." Richard laid a hand on her shoulder. "Cara, I'm not sending you, but thanks for offering." Cara folded her arms and shot him a fiery scowl. "We can't take the wagon up into Bandakar--there's no road--" "Lord Rahl," Tom interrupted, "without magic you'll need all the steel you have." He sounded only slightly less emphatic than Cara had. Richard smiled. "I know, Tom, and I agree. It's Friedrich who I think must go." Richard turned to Friedrich. "You can take the wagon. An older man, by himself, will raise less suspicion than would any of the rest of us. They won't see you as a threat. You will be able to make better time with the wagon and without having to worry that the Order might snatch you and put you in the army. Will you do it, Friedrich?" Friedrich scratched his stubble. A smile came to his weathered face. "I guess I'm at last being called upon to be a boundary warden, of sorts." Richard smiled with him. "Friedrich, the boundary has failed. As the Lord Rahl, I appoint you to the post of boundary warden and ask that you immediately undertake to warn others of the danger come from out of that boundary." Friedrich's smile departed as he put a fist to his heart in salute and solemn pledge. CHAPTER 26 Somewhere back in a distant room, where his body waited, Nicholas heard an insistent noise. He was absorbed in the task at hand, so he ignored the sound. The light was fading, and although light helped to see, darkness would not hinder eyes such as he used. Again, he heard the noise. Indignant that the sound kept calling him, kept annoying him, kept demanding his attention, he returned to his body. Someone was banging a fist on the door. Nicholas rose from the floor, where his body sat cross-legged, taking his body with him. It was always, at first, disorienting to have to be in his body again, to be so limited, so confined. It felt awkward to have to move it about, to use his own muscles, to breathe, to see, to hear with his own senses. The knock came again. Irate at the interruption, Nicholas went not to the door but to the windows, and threw the shutters closed. He cast a hand out, igniting the torch, and finally stalked to the door. Layered strips of cloth covering his robes flowed out behind, like a heavy mantle of black feathers. "What is it!" He threw open the heavy door and peered out. Najari stood just outside, in the hall, his weight on one foot, his thumbs hooked behind his belt. His muscular shoulders nearly touched the walls to each side. Nicholas saw, then, the huddled crowd behind the man. Najari's crooked nose, flattened to the left in some of the numerous brawls his temper got him into, cast an oddly shaped shadow across his cheek. Anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves in a brawl with Najari usually suffered far worse than a mere broken nose. Najari waggled a thumb over his shoulder. "You asked for some guests, Nicholas." Nicholas raked his nails back through his hair, feeling the silken smooth pleasure of oils gliding against his palm. He rolled his shoulders, ruffling away his pique. Nicholas had been so absorbed in what he had been doing that he had forgotten that he had requested that Najari bring him some bodies. "Very good, Najari. Bring them in, then. Let's have a look at them." Nicholas watched as the commander led the gaggle of people into the flickering torchlight. Soldiers in the rear herded the stragglers through the door and into the large room. Heads swiveled around, looking at the strange, stark surroundings, at the wooden walls, the torches in brackets, the plank flooring, the lack of furniture other than a stout table. Noses twitched at the sharp smell of blood. Nicholas watched carefully as people spotted the sharpened stakes standing in a line along the wall to their right, stakes as thick as Najari's wrists. Nicholas studied the people, watching for the telltales of fear as they spread out along the wall beside the door. Eyes flitted about, worried, and at the same time eager to take it all in so they could report to their friends what they had seen inside. Nicholas knew that he was an object of great curiosity. A rare being. A Slide. No one knew what his name meant. This day, some would learn. Nicholas glided past the undulating mob. They were a curious people, these odd, ungifted creatures, curious like mockingbirds, but not nearly so bold. Because they were without any spark whatsoever of the gift, Nicholas had to handle them in special ways in order for them to be of any use to him. It was a bother, but it had its rewards. Some necks craned in his wake, trying to better see the rare man. He ran his nails through his hair again just to feel the oils slide against his hand. As he leaned close to some of the people he passed, observing individuals in the gathering, one of the women before him closed her eyes, turning her face away. Nicholas lifted a hand toward her, flicking out a finger. He glanced to Najari to be sure he saw which one had been picked. Najari's gaze flicked from the woman up to Nicholas; he had noted the selection. A man back against the wall stood stiff, his eyes wide. Nicholas flicked a finger at him. Another man twisted his lips in an odd manner. Nicholas glanced down and saw that the man, in a state of wild fright, had wet himself. Nicholas's finger flitted out again. Three selected. Nicholas walked on. A thin whine escaped the throat of a woman in the front, right before him. He smiled at her. She peered up, trembling, unable to take her wide-eyed gaze from him, from his red-rimmed black eyes, unable to halt the puling sound escaping her throat. She had never seen one so human ... yet not. Nicholas tapped her shoulder with a long-nailed finger. He would reward her unspoken revulsion with service to a greater good. His. Jagang had sought to create something ... unusual, for himself. A bauble of flesh and blood. A magical trinket crafted from a wizard. A lapdog ... with teeth. His Excellency had gotten what he wanted, and more. Oh, so much more. Nicholas would enjoy seeing how the emperor liked having a puppet without strings, a specially crafted creation with a mind of its own, and talents to fulfill his wishes. A man at the rear, against the wall, appeared to be somewhat uninterested, as if impatient for the exhibition to be over so he could go back to his own affairs. While none of these people could be said to think of themselves as important individuals with consequential sway over any meaningful aspects of life in their empire, a few occasionally exhibited tendencies, even if inconsistent, toward self-interest. Nicholas flicked his finger for the fifth time. The man would soon have reason to be highly interested in the proceedings, and he would find that he was no better than anyone else. He would be going nowhere--at least not in body. Everyone stared in silence as Nicholas chuckled alone at his own joke. His amusement ended. Nicholas tipped his head toward the door in a single nod. The soldiers jumped into action. "All right," Najari growled, "move along. Move! Get going. Out, out, out!" The feet of the crowd shuffled urgently through the door as ordered. Some people cast worried glances back over their shoulders at the five Najari had cut out of the flock. Those five were shoved back when they sought to stay with the rest. A stiff finger to the chest backed them up as effectively as would a club or a sword. "Don't cause any trouble," Najari warned, "or you will be making trouble for the others." The five remaining huddled close to one another, rocking nervously side to side like a covey of quail before a bird dog. When the soldiers had driven the rest of the people out, Najari closed the door and stood before it, hands clasped behind his back. Nicholas returned to the windows, opening the shutters on the west wall. The sun was down, leaving a red slash across the sky. Soon they would be on the wing, on the hunt. Nicholas would be with them. Casting an arm back without needing to turn to look, he doused the torch. The flickering light was a distraction during this cusp of time, the transient twilight that was so fragile, so brief. He would need the light, but, at the moment, he wanted only to see the sky, to see the glorious, unbounded sky. "Are we going to be able to leave soon?" one of the people asked in a timid squeak. Nicholas turned and peered at them. Najari's eyes revealed which one had spoken. Nicholas followed his commander's gaze. It was one of the men--the one who had been impatient to leave, of course. "Go?" Nicholas asked as he swept in close to the man. "You wish to go?" The man stood with his back bent, leaning away from Nicholas. "Well, sir, I was only wondering when we would be going." Nicholas stooped in even more, peering deeply into the man's eyes. "Wonder in silence," he hissed. Returning to the windows, Nicholas rested his hands on the sill, his weight on his arms, as he breathed in deeply the gathering night while taking in the sweep of crimson sky. Soon, he would be there, be free. Soon, he would soar as no one else but he could. Impulsively, he sought them. Eyes bulging with the effort, he cast his senses where none but his could go. "There!" he screeched, throwing his arm out, pointing a long black nail at what none but he could see. "There! One has taken to wing." Nicholas spun around, strips of cloth lifting, floating up. Panting through a rush of fluttering excitement, he gazed at the eyes staring at him. They could not know. They could not understand one such as he, understand what he felt, what he needed. He hungered to be on the hunt, to be with them, ever since he had imagined such a use for his ability. He had reveled in the experience, dedicating himself to it as he learned his new abilities. He had been off with those glorious creatures as often as he could afford the time, ever since he had come here and discovered them. How ironic it now seemed that he had resisted. How odd that he once had feared what those gruesome women, those Sisters of the Dark, had conspired to do to him ... what they had done to him. His duty, they had called it. Their vile magic had cut like a red-hot blade through him. He had thought his eyes might burst from his head from the pain that had seared through him. Tied spread-eagled to stakes in the ground in the center of their wicked circle, he had dreaded what they were going to do to him. He had feared it. Nicholas smiled. Hated it, even. He had been afraid because of the pain, the pain of what they were doing to him, and the even greater pain of not knowing what more they intended to do to him. His duty, they had called it, to a greater good. His ability bore responsibilities, they had insisted. He watched through glazed eyes as Najari bound the hands of the five people behind each of their backs. "Thank you, Najari," he said when the man had finished. Najari approached. "The men will have them by now, Nicholas. I told them to send enough men to insure that they would not escape." Najari grinned at the prospect. "There's no need to worry. They should all be on their way back to us." Nicholas narrowed his eyes. "We will see. We will see." He wanted to see it himself. With his own vision--even if his own vision was through another's eyes. Najari yawned on his way to the door. "See you tomorrow, then, Nicholas." Nicholas opened his mouth wide, mimicking the yawn, even though he didn't yawn. It felt good to stretch his jaws wide. Sometimes he felt trapped inside himself and he wanted out. Nicholas closed the door behind Najari and bolted it. It was a perfunctory act, done more to add to the aura of peril than out of necessity. Even with their hands tied behind their backs, these people could, together, probably overpower him--knock him down and kick in his head, if nothing else. But for that, they would have to think, to decide what they ought to do and why, to commit to act. Easier not to think. Easier not to act. Easier to do as you are told. Easier to die than to live. Living took effort. Struggle. Pain. Nicholas hated it. "Hate to live, live to hate," he said to the silent, ghostly white faces watching him. Out the window the streaks of clouds had gone dark gray as the touch of the sun passed beyond them and night crept in to embrace them. Soon, he would be among them. He turned back from the window, taking in the faces watching him. Soon, they would all be out there, among them. CHAPTER 27 Nicholas seized one of the nameless men. Powered by muscles crafted of the Sisters' dark art, he hoisted the man into the air. The man cried out in surprise at being lifted so easily. He struggled hesitantly against muscle he would not be able to resist were he even to put daring into it. These people were immune to magic, or Nicholas would have used his power to easily lift them aloft. Absent the necessary spark of the gift, they had to be manhandled. It made little difference to Nicholas. How they got to the stakes was unimportant. What happened to them once there was all that mattered. As the man in his arms cried out in terror, Nicholas carried him across the room. The other people withdrew into a far corner. They always went to the far corner, like chickens about to be dinner. Nicholas, his arms around the man's chest, lifted him high in the air, judging the distance and angle as he raced ahead. The man's eyes went wide, his mouth did likewise. He gasped with the shock, then grunted as Nicholas, hugging the man tight in his arms, drove him down onto the stake. The man's breath came in short sharp gasps as the sharpened stake penetrated up through his insides. He went still in Nicholas's powerful arms, fearing to move, fearing to believe what was happening to him, fearing to know it was true ... trying to deny to himself that it could be true. Nicholas straightened to his full height before the man. The man's back was as straight and stiff as a board as he sat impaled on the sharpened stake. His eyebrows pushed his sweat-beaded brow up in furrows as he writhed in slow agony, his legs trying to touch the ground that was too far away. Into that confusion of sensation, Nicholas reached out with his mind, at the same time clawing his hands before the man with the effort as he slid his own being, his own spirit, into the core of this living creature, slid into this man's open mind, into the cavernous cracks between his abrupt and disconnected thoughts, there to feel his agony and fright. There to take control. Once he had slipped his own mind in there with this man, seeped through his consciousness, Nicholas drew his essence out and into himself. With a staggering fusion of destructive and creative power dealt by those women that day, Nicholas had been born into a new being, part him, and yet more. He had become what no man had ever been before--what others wished to make of him, what others wished him to be. What had been unleashed in him by those Sisters all linked in their ability to harness powers they could never have touched alone and should never have invoked together, they instilled in him. They engendered in him powers few could ever have imagined: the power to slide into another living person's thoughts, and withdraw their spirit. He drew his closed fists back toward his own abdomen with the effort of drawing with him the spirit of this man on the cusp of life and death, drew onward the marrow of this man's soul. Nicholas felt the slick heat of this other spirit slide into his, the hot rush of sensation at feeling himself filled with another spirit. Nicholas left the body there, impaled on the first stake, as he rushed to the windows, his head spinning with the first intoxicating wave of excitement at the journey only now just begun, at what was to come, at what power he would control. He opened his mouth wide again in a yawn that was not a yawn, but a call carrying more than just his silent voice. His eyes swam with wavering images. He gasped in the first scent of the forests out beyond, where his intent had been cast. He rushed back and seized a woman. She begged as she wept, begged to be spared as he bore her to her stake. "But this is nothing," he told her. "Nothing compared to what I have endured. Oh, you cannot imagine what I have endured." He had been staked naked to the ground, in the center of a circle of those smug women. He had been nothing to them. He had not been a man, a wizard. He had been nothing but the raw material, the flesh and blood innervated by the gift, that they needed for what they wanted, that they used in yet another of their trials, all to be twisted by their tinkering at creation. He had the ability, so duty required he sacrifice it. Nicholas had been the first to live through their tests, not because they took care--not because they cared--but because they had learned what didn't work, and so avoided their past errors. "Scream, my dear. Scream all you want. It will help you no more than it helped me." "Why!" she screamed. "Why!" "Oh, but I must, if I am to have your spirit to soar on the wings of my distant friends. You will go on a glorious journey, you and I." "Please!" she wailed. "Dear Creator, no!" "Oh, yes, dear Creator," he mocked. "Come and save her--like you came and saved me." Her wailing did her no good. His hadn't either. She had no idea how immeasurably worse his agony had been than hers would be. Unlike her, he had been condemned to live. "Hate to live, live to hate," he murmured in a comforting whisper. "You will have the glory and the reward that is death." He drove her down onto the stake. He reckoned her not far enough onto the stake, and shoved her down another six inches, until he judged it deep enough within her, deep enough to produce the necessary pain and terror, but not deep enough to lance anything inside that would kill her right off. She thrashed, trying desperately, hands helpless behind her back, to somehow remove herself. He was only dimly aware of her cries, her worthless words. She thought they might somehow make a difference. Pain was his goal. Their complaints of it only confirmed that he was achieving his goal. Nicholas stood before the woman, hands clawed, as he slid his own spirit through her sundered thoughts and into the core of her being. With mental strength far superior to his physical strength, he pulled her back. He gasped as he felt her spirit slide into his. For now, he slipped those spirits out of tortured, dying bodies while those spirits existed in the netherworld between the worldly form they knew was lost to them, but still alive, and the world of the dead already calling them in from beyond. Life could no longer hold them, but death could not yet have them. In that time of spiritual transition, they were his, and he could use those spirits for things only he could imagine. And he had not yet really even begun to imagine. Such ability as he possessed was not something that could be taught by another--there was no other but he. He was still learning the extent of his powers, the things he could do with the spirit of another. He had only scratched the surface. Emperor Jagang had sought to create something akin to himself, a dream walker, a brother, of sorts. One who could enter another's mind. He had gotten far more than he could have ever have imagined. Nicholas didn't simply slide into another's thoughts, as Jagang did; he could slide into their very soul, and draw their spirit back into himself. The Sisters hadn't counted on that aberration of their tinkering with his ability. Rushing to the window, his mouth pulled open as wide as it would go in a yawn that wasn't a yawn. The room swam behind him. It was only partly there, now. Now, he was beginning to see other places. Glorious places. See them with new vision, with spirits no longer bound to their paltry bodies. He rushed to the third person, no longer aware even if they were man or woman. Their soul was all that mattered--their spirit. He drove them onto a stake with urgent effort, slid into them and drew their spirit into his, shuddering with the power of it entering him. He rushed to the window again, opening wide his mouth again, twisting his head side to side again with the thrill of it, the slick, silken, sliding ecstasy of it... the loss of physical orientation, the exaltation of being above his corporeal existence, the former bounds of his mere worldly form--carried aloft not simply with his own efforts, but by the spirits of others that he had freed from their bodies. What a glorious thing it was. It was almost like the joy he imagined death would be. He seized the fourth weeping person and with delirious expectation ran with them across the room, to the stakes, to the fourth stake, and drove them screaming onto it. As he lurched back from them, he thrust himself into their wildly racing, confused, swirling thoughts, and took what was there for the taking. He took their spirit into himself. When he controlled a person's spirit, he controlled their very existence. He became life and death for them. He was their savior, their destroyer. He was in many ways like those spirits he took, trapped in a worldly form, hating to live, to endure the pain and agony that was life, yet fearing to die even while longing for the promise of its sweet embrace. With four spirits swirling through him, Nicholas staggered to the fifth person, cowering in the corner. "Please!" the man wailed, trying to ward what he would not commit to warding. "Please, don't!" The thought occurred to Nicholas that the stakes were really a hindrance; using them required him to carry people around like woolly sheep to have their souls sheared. Yes, he was still learning what he could do and how to control what he did, but to have to use the stakes was limiting. When he thought about it, it was actually insulting that a wizard of his ability would have to use so crude a device. What he really wanted to do was to slide into another's spirit and take it without any warning--without needing to bring people to the stakes. When he was fully able to do that--to simply walk up to another, say "Good day," and slide like the thrust of a dagger into the heart of their spirit, there to draw it into his--then he would be invincible. When he was able to do that, then no one could challenge him. No one would be able to deny him anything. As the man shrank down before him, Nicholas, before he fully realized what it was he was doing, driven by an angry need, by hatred, thrust out his hand as he thrust his own mind into this man, into the spaces between thought. The man stiffened, just as those on the stakes stiffened, when Nicholas had impaled them with his ability. He drew back his closed fist toward his middle as he drew in this man's spirit. He gasped with the heat of it, with the silky slick feel of it sliding into him. They stared at each other, each in shock, each considering what this meant for them. The man slumped back against the wall, sliding down, in soundless, silent, terrible empty agony. Nicholas realized that he had just done what he had never done before. He had just taken a soul by his will alone. He had just freed himself to take what he wanted, when he wanted, where he wanted. CHAPTER 28 Nicholas, his vision a blur, staggered to the window. All five were his, now. This time, as his mouth opened wide, a cry at last came forth, a cry of the five spirits joining his as he drew them together into one force guided by his will alone. Their worldly agony was a distant concern to them. Five spirits gazed out of the windows along with him, five spirits now waiting to soar out into the night, to where he chose to send them. Those Sisters had not known what they unleashed that night. They could not have known the power they fused into him, the ability they burned into him. They had achieved what none had achieved for thousands of years-- the altering of a wizard into something more, honing him into a weapon of specific intent. They had imbued him with power beyond that of anyone living. They had given him dominion over the spirits of others. Most had escaped, but he had killed five of them. The five were enough. After he had slid into their souls and pulled their spirits back into his that night, he had appropriated their Han, their force of life, their power, for himself. It was only fitting, as their Han was not natural to them, but was male Han they had stolen from young wizards--a birthright they had sucked from those to whom it belonged in order to give themselves abilities they had not been born with, could not be born with. Yet more nameless people with ability to be sacrificed to those who needed it, or simply wanted it. Nicholas had taken it all back from their trembling bodies, pulled it out of them as he had clawed their living insides open. They had been sorry that they had done Jagang's bidding, that they had twisted him into something Creation never intended. Not only had they made him into a Slide, they had given up their Han to him, and made him that much more powerful for it. After each of those five women had died, the world had gone darker than dark for an instant when the Keeper had come and taken them to his realm. The Sisters had destroyed him that day, and they had created him. He had a lifetime to explore and discover what he could do with his new abilities. And, to be sure, Jagang would grant him payment for that night. Jagang would pay, but he would pay gladly, for Nicholas would give him something none but Nicholas the Slide could give him. Nicholas would be rewarded with things enough to repay him for what had been done to him.... He hadn't decided, yet, what that reward would be, but it would be worthy of him. He would use his ability to hold sway over lives--important lives. He no longer needed to cart people to the stakes. He knew how to take what he wanted, now. Now he knew how to slip into their minds at the time of his choosing and take their souls. He would trade those lives for what he would have in power, wealth, splendor. It would have to be something appropriate.... He would be an emperor. It would have to be more than this petty empire of sheep, though. He would frolic in rule. He would have his every whim fulfilled, once he was given dominion over... over something important. He hadn't decided just what, yet. It was an important decision, what he would have as his reward. No need to rush it. It would come to him. He turned from the window, the five spirits swirling within his, soaring through him. It was time to use what he had pulled together. Time to get down to business, if he was to have what he wanted. He would get closer, this time. He was frustrated from not being closer, from not seeing better. It was dark, now. He would get closer, this time, under cover of the darkness. Nicholas took the broad bowl from the table and placed it on the floor before the five who still owned the spirits within him. They writhed in otherworldly agony, even the man not on a stake, an agony of both body and soul. Nicholas sat cross-legged on the floor before the bowl. Hands on his knees, he threw his head back, eyes closed, as he gathered the power within, the power created by those wicked women, those wonderful wicked women. They had considered him a pathetic wizard of little worth except as flesh and blood and gift to toy with--a sacrifice to a greater need. When he had time, he would go after the rest of them. With a more immediate task at hand, Nicholas dismissed those Sisters from his mind. Tonight, he would not merely watch through other eyes. Tonight, he would again go with the spirits he cast. Tonight, he would not merely watch through other eyes. Tonight, his spirit would travel to them. Nicholas opened his mouth as wide as it would go, his head rocking from side to side. The joined spirits within released a part of themselves into the bowl, whirling in a silken, silvery swirl lit with the soft glow of their link to the life behind him, placekeepers for their journey, a stitch in the world holding the knot in the thread of their travels. His spirit, too, let slip a small portion to remain with his body, to drift in the bowl with the others. Fragments of the five spirits revolved with the fragment of his, their light of life glowing softly in this safe place as he prepared to journey. He cast his own spirit away, then, leaving behind the husk of a body sitting on the floor behind him as he fled out into the dark sky, borne on the wings of his invested power. No wizard before had ever been able to do as he, to leave his body and have his spirit soar to where his mind would send him. He raced through the night, fast as thought, to find what he hunted. He felt the rush of air flowing over feathers. As quick as that, he had raced away through the night and was with them, pulling the five spirits along with him. He summoned the dark forms into a circle with him, and, as they gathered around, cast the five spirits into them. His mouth was still open in a yawn that was not a yawn that back in a room somewhere distant let forth a cry to match the five. As they circled, he felt the rush of air beneath their wings, felt their feathers working the wind to direct them as effortlessly as his own thought directed not only his spirit but the other five as well. He sent those five racing through the night, to the place where he had sent the men. They raced over hills, turning to scan the open country, to look out over the barren land. The cloak of darkness felt cool, encasing him in obscure black night, obscure black feathers. He caught the scent of carrion, sharp, cloying, tantalizing, as the five spiraled down toward the ground. Through their eyes that saw in the darkness Nicholas saw then the scene below, a place littered with the dead. Others of their kind had gathered to feed in a frenzy of ripping and gorging. No. This was wrong. He didn't see them. He had to find them. He willed his charges up from the gory feast, to search. Nicholas felt a pang of urgency. This was his future that had slipped away from him--his treasure slipping through his grasp. He had to find them. Had to. He spurred his charges onward. This way, that way, over there. Look, look, look. Find them, find them. Look. Must find them. Look. This was not supposed to be. There had been enough men. No one could escape that many experienced men. Not when they came by stealth and attacked with surprise. They had been selected for their talents. They knew their business. Their bodies lay sprawled all about. Beak and claw ripped at them. Screeches of excitement. Hunger. No. Must find them. Up, up, up. Find them. He had to find them. He had suffered the agony of a new birth in those dark woods, those terrible woods, with those terrible women. He would have his reward. He would not be denied. Not now. Not after all that. Find them. Look, look, look. Find them. On powerful wings, he soared into the night. With eyes that saw in the dark, he searched. With creatures that