walking on a stone floor between two rows of round columns. Shadows flitted behind the columns, hazy memories and indistinct visions that refused to resolve into defined shapes, sliding away from his gaze. He had a vague sense that his father was nearby, but his voice and his footsteps echoed in the great stone hall and drew no answer.
Another beat of the drum, louder, startled him. There wasn't supposed to be another beat, he felt, though he couldn't quite understand why he believed that. He stopped walking and looked around, behind him, and up past the towering columns to a star-filled sky, and another beat came.
The next beat was softer, as though Gaven was soaring up and away from the great drum, but now it was a steady pulse, and he could feel it in his chest even after he could no longer hear it. He opened his eyes.
He lay on his back on a cold, hard stone floor. Someone or something was kneeling beside him, leaning over to peer at his face with blank white eyes. The creature had no face, just an expanse of gray skin with the merest hint of a nose and a lipless gash for a mouth, all surrounded by wild shocks of white hair. His first thought was that this was some sort of wraith whose task was to receive him into the land of the dead, for the room he was in seemed fitting for the marble halls of Dolurrh, the shadowy realm where souls were said to pass when their mortal life had ended.
But no, he felt quite alive, his heart beating strong and steady in his chest. And the faceless thing had broken into a smile with surprising warmth, which made its white eyes sparkle. 'Gaven!' it said. 'Welcome back to the land of the living. How do you feel?'
The voice was familiar, but…
'Who are you?' Gaven asked.
'Oh!' The face pulled back, and it seemed to take on more definition, fleeting through vague hints of a few other familiar faces. 'I'm Aunn.'
'Aunn?' The assertion made no sense at first. He knew at least three different faces that Aunn had worn- Darraun's, the one he had called Aunn, and Kelas's. Was this what a changeling looked like when he wasn't… changed?
'This is my real face,' Aunn said. 'I don't want to hide it any more.'
Gaven's mind was beginning to clear, and memories washed over him. 'What happened? Where's Senya?'
'Senya's right here.' Aunn jerked his head behind him.
Gaven lifted his head and saw her, kneeling on the floor behind Aunn, her back turned toward him. Then he saw what she was facing-a temple full of elves!
'Thunder!' he breathed. 'What are all these people doing here?'
'I think they came for the same reason I did,' Aunn said. 'They heard thunder in their temple.'
'Phaine attacked me in Senya's room.'
'Phaine?' A look of alarm transformed Aunn's face, and he turned to look toward the temple doors. 'I think you killed him, Gaven.'
'Finally.' The memory of Phaine torturing him at the Dragon Forge was still fresh.
'I wouldn't be so dismissive if I were you,' Aunn whispered. 'The death of a dragonmarked heir is going to be investigated, even if he was an assassin. That's attention you can't afford, and there are a lot of witnesses here.'
Gaven sat up. He still wasn't sure why he'd been lying on the floor of the Aereni temple, but he felt healthy and strong-almost as good as he'd felt just before Phaine attacked him. 'You're right,' he said. 'Time to run again. And I'm guessing you don't have traveling papers for me.'
'I'm sorry. But even if I did, they wouldn't do you much good after this.'
Senya still knelt with her back to him. Was she angry with him? And why were they here in front of this silent assembly of somber-looking elves?
'Senya?' he called.
Aunn shifted between them. 'Uh, Gaven-'
Senya stood slowly and spread her arms to the assembled elves. Her skin had an unhealthy pallor he didn't like, and he started to his feet behind her, but Aunn pulled him back down.
'She's not well,' Gaven whispered.
Aunn shook his head.
'Sons and daughters of Aerenal,' Senya said-but it wasn't Senya speaking, it was her ancestor's voice, speaking in clear Elven. She was channeling the spirit of her ancestor again, as she had the night before. 'I thank you for your concern for this temple of your ancestors and for your priestess, my daughter Senya. I am sorry to inform you that Senya Alvena Arrathinen is dead.'
Gaven bolted to his feet. 'Dead?'
Aunn took his arm and pulled him back to his knees. 'It appears you killed her as well.'
CHAPTER 32
Flames erupted from the Gatekeeper seal, just ahead of Elestrissa's charge. The Mosswood Warden stumbled as though an arrow had hit her, and Rienne's first impulse was to scan for the archer. Then the flames raced along the lines of the seal, forming a wall of terrible fire encircling the battlefield, burning in every color and no color at all, and Rienne understood. The seal was broken, the battle lost, just as victory came within their grasp.
'We are undone,' Elestrissa said, her pace faltering.
'Keep going,' Rienne said. 'We might still defeat the Blasphemer, keep him from breaking the next seal.'
'It is not to be. Your dream-'
'Damn my dream! I'm writing my own destiny today.'
Elestrissa seemed to take heart, but she couldn't match her earlier pace, and Rienne surged ahead. Maelstrom was a whirlwind of steel surrounding her, cutting a path through a fresh wall of barbarian resistance.
Then she heard the voice.
It was a high keening, like a woman mourning or the call of a falcon, and it seemed to sing in her mind as much as in her ears. Beneath it was the merest hint, beyond hearing, of a thousand unearthly voices babbling, which reminded her of the inhuman sounds of the Soul Reaver's hordes at Starcrag Plain. The voices were drawing nearer, like a dragon eel slowly surfacing in dark water.
One challenge at a time, she told herself. First the Blasphemer, and after that-if there is an after-I can deal with whatever is coming through the seal.
Barbarians fell away from her like water before the prow of a ship. Elestrissa, at least, was still behind her. If others survived, they were straggling farther behind, caught in the mire of the barbarian hordes.
She saw the Blasphemer, silhouetted against a wall of dragonfire, and her dream sprang to life around her. He was a towering figure in blood-spattered plate armor, twisting horns rising above his fiendish visage. A long tail snaked out behind him as he strode toward her, behind the last remnants of his personal defenders.
He spoke, and his voice rang in her ears above the din of battle. 'So here is the one they are calling Dragonslayer, the bearer of Barak Radaam.' He pointed his own curved sword at her, and she felt a twinge of fear. 'Destroy her!' he shouted, and the barbarians around him roared in fury as they surged ahead.
Maelstrom sprang back into motion, parrying every blow that came at her, killing in a ruthless rhythm. Maelstrom whirled and Rienne danced, her body and the steel blade in perfect coordination-a step, a parry, a jab, a jump. Then the Blasphemer began a strange chant, words she didn't recognize, words that couldn't possibly be words in any mortal tongue, and pain stabbed through her ears. Her feet faltered, nearly sending her onto the point of a barbarian's sword, but Maelstrom accommodated, dashing the other sword aside and whirling around to take off its wielder's head.
Maelstrom wanted to get to the Blasphemer.
It was a strange realization. Rienne had never been inclined to personify her blade, as strongly attached to it as she was. It was precious to her, but it was steel, a weapon-not a person. It was an extension of her body and
