When the war party returned to the nomad campsite, everyone gathered at the gate, removing the barricade so that the triumph warriors could ride their mounts, bringing in as many of their horses that they could reclaim. Aalis darted about, trying to see through the lines of nomads who were welcoming home their fathers, brothers, husbands, sons and grandsons. She caught sight of Judd and Verne walking the stallion they had ridden into the campsite. She gasped and pushed through the crowd, ready to greet them…but when she saw the solemn expressions on their faces, she paused.

  Judd walked the stallion towards the grandmother of the young man who had fallen in the attack. She gazed at him with her weak blue eyes, a sad smile on her face.

  Judd paused in front of her, his straight spine and greater height causing him to tower over the little old lady bent with age. He dropped to his knees in front of her and spoke briefly, his soft words lost to the steppeland breeze. The grandmother touched his face with her fingers then took his hand and pressed it to her forehead. Aalis’ throat closed over as Judd rose and handed the reins of the stallion to her.

  The old woman shook her head and pressed them back into his grasp. Judd tried to protest but she put her finger to her lips and patted his cheek before walking away. Judd turned and looked at Verne who shrugged weakly. Their countenance and even their very posture was so different to the rest of the nomads. The nomads had returned triumphant but Judd and Verne looked troubled and weary. Judd caught sight of Aalis and wandered over to her.

  “How is Suvau?”

  “Recovering well.” She nodded then opened her mouth.

  “I’m alright.” He said before she could ask. “So is Verne.”

  “You look so tired.” Aalis admitted, thinking it was not just physical weariness but an exhaustion of soul that seemed to exude from the both of them. “I will make you something to eat.”

  “While you’re doing that…I need my cleric.” Judd glanced around then saw him standing nearby. “Caste…I need…there are things we saw that need to be known.”

  Caste nodded. “I’ll prepare my quills and ink.”

  “You can have the tent to yourselves.” Aalis insisted. “Just let us know when you are ready for company.”

  Judd nodded, his hand heavy on her shoulder before he walked towards the tent. Giordi came forward and took the reins of the stallion. He watched Judd and Verne go into the tent then turned to Aalis.

  “Any idea what happened?”

  “None.” Aalis sighed. “When they are ready to tell us, they will.”

  Caste lifted his quill from his book, tipping a little of the setting powder on the ink and huffing it off. He looked expectantly at Judd and Verne who sat in front of him. They held bowls of half eaten stew, each having taken turns in relaying what they had seen and what they had done.

  “Is that all?” Caste asked after the silence had become long and strained.

  “That’s all about the cave and the unicorn…factory.” Verne shuddered. “I hope…I hope the nightmares recede.”

  Judd closed his eyes. “Trapped in one of those bubbles…unable to get out…”

  Verne swallowed hard. “It was so…have you heard anything like it before, Caste?”

  Caste frowned. “No.”

  Judd and Verne stared at him, stunned. “No?” Caste shook his head. “Not…not once?”

  Caste shrugged. “No, not once…at least, not from any account I’ve ever read…and I’ve read a lot of historical archives.” He paused. “There were numerous accounts in Fort Omra that I did not get to read…”

  “Do you think Emeri might know something?”

  “It’s possible. Apart from Fort Verion, Fort Omra is the closest settlement to the mount of Maul and might have recorded something like what you’re telling me.”

  Verne looked at Judd. “Perhaps we could do with some company?” Verne urged and Judd nodded. He stood up and felt to the tent flap, speaking with someone beyond it. He came back and picked up his bowl. “Giordi is going to round everyone up.”

  They scraped their bowls clean before Aalis could arrive and give them stern looks for not eating all their supper. Suvau and Yolana entered as well, Suvau’s arm in a sling but he insisted it was just for sympathy.

  “A few more days and all that will remain is a half decent scar.”

  Aalis raised her eyebrows at that but said nothing.

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  “So,” Giordi folded his arms, “are you going to tell us what happened out there?”

  “Maybe Caste could just read it.” Judd looked at the cleric. “I’m not sure I have the heart to go through it again.”

  Caste did so and the listeners were silent and rapt, absorbing every word he said. Aalis paled at the description of the cave. Yolana put her hand over her mouth, feeling ill. Giordi shook his head and sighed deeply, grief etched onto his handsome features.

  “Those poor horses…” He said softly. “I…always assumed that…the monsters were…just monsters. Not taken from our own lands and turned into…”

  “I had my theories,” Emeri bit her bottom lip, “but I hoped I was wrong.”

  Judd looked at Aalis, disturbed by the shadows that looked like bruises beneath her eyes. “You knew, didn’t you? When you mourned the orthros…not what it was but what it had been.”

  Aalis shook her head, her dreadlocks shifting like a waterfall. “I only suspected…but when you look at the monsters of Maul, they are primarily beasts of this world cobbled together in terrible and painful ways.”

  “A cockatrice is just a snake and a chicken.” Giordi surmised. “Unicorns are horses and narwals.”

  “Animals abducted from the north to forge those creatures…” Verne murmured.

  “It raises a rather disturbing thought.” Judd swallowed. “What of the werewolf? What of the centaur? Part human, part beast?” He turned to Emeri. “Were there any accounts in Fort Omra of anything like this?”

  “Not like the cave you saw,” Emeri pursed her lips, “but there have been sightings of long tendrils, like what you described in the cave, snaking out from the chasms and clefts of rock to the south of the wall, grabbing the soldiers that fell…even though they must have been dead.”

  “What did you make of that?”

  “Cleric Severo thought it was just the mount of Maul grabbing snacks.” Emeri shuddered. “But now I wonder…if those poor souls were being spliced with other creatures to create the human/beast monsters of Maul…”

  Judd pushed away his bowl. “I wish I hadn’t eaten.”

  “Judd, what about what the centaur said?” Verne reminded him.

  “He spoke?”

  Judd nodded. “He said ‘raske danke’.”

  Caste paused. “Well…danke is obvious.”

  “And to those without a higher education?” Judd asked with a slight bite.

  “Thank you. Danke means thank you,” Caste shrugged, “but as to ‘raske’…”

  “It means, ‘with all that I am’,” Emeri said softly and Judd turned to her, “it is deep gratitude…even to the point of owing a life debt.”

  Judd looked at Verne, confused. “He…thanked me? For killing him?”

  “What about the gift?”

  “Gift?” Caste sat up. “What gift?”

  “This.” Judd drew the pendant out of his pocket. “The centaur gave it to me before he died.” Judd pulled on the leather tie and began to unravel the binding until a rich red cylinder tumbled out onto the rug, gleaming softly in the light.

  Everyone leaned forward, Caste eyeing it suspiciously. “What is it?”

  “Not sure…but I’ve seen its like before.” Judd dug around in his pack and found the sapphire cylinder and laid it next to the red one. “I took this from the werewolf in Quarre.”

  “And you’re touching it with your hands!” Caste was horrified.

  “It’s just a gemstone.” Judd insisted but Caste was not convinced. “Carved into this cylindrical shape…”

  “But by no means that I can fathom,” Suvau spoke for the first time, his good arm around Yolana, “there are no groove marks of tools and no gem forms in so unnatural a state.”

  “Ever seen anything like this?” Judd asked Caste.

  “Never.” Caste turned to Emeri. “You?”

  “No.” She didn’t take her eyes off them. “They’re so lovely and simple…” She gingerly picked the sapphire one up even as Caste spluttered lightly in protest. “On both the werewolf and the centaur?”

  Judd nodded.

  “Both are monsters of Maul with very distinct human traits.” Verne pointed out. “Could they have something to do with the transformation? Or control?”

  “Seems strange that no other monster has them and there’s been no record of them in either the Order’s archives or Fort Omra’s library.”

  “Don’t forget,” Giordi took the sapphire one from Emeri as she picked up the ruby cylinder, “that the monsters wearing these were smarter. The werewolf entered into contract with Lord LeMewn and that centaur was organising the unicorns to round up more horses to be turned into more unicorns. They weren’t mindless, human flesh aggressors like the cockatrice or the orthros or even that giant spider.”

  “You think these cylinders had something to do…”

  Aalis listened with half an ear to Emeri’s musings as she held her hand out for the sapphire cylinder. The moment its cool touch was felt on her hand, she was thrown headfirst into a memory…

  “…never take this off, do you understand?” The woman speaking stepped back, coming into focus. She was fair like milk with white hair loose over her shoulders and lavender eyes. She was dressed in a tunic of the old world and lying across her breast on a silver chain was the star of Astaril.

  “I understand.” Aalis almost felt herself say, gazing out of the eyes of the one the woman was speaking to.

  “No matter what happens to your physical body, you will never die.”

  “Truly, I will be immortal?”

  The woman shook her head, her white hair rippling in an almost unnatural manner, flowing like silk. “Not immortal but eternal. As long as this remains intact, you will never die.”

  Whoever the woman was speaking to, whoever it was Aalis was in the body of, bowed, their vision blurring to face the ground before lifting again to focus on the woman.

  “I am in your debt, Gairil Palaidin.”

  “No, Sir Mavour,” she said firmly, “it is I who owe you and all those who have fallen for all of this…is my fault.”

  “Together, we will not let Terramaul fall.”

  “…with controlling their human minds?”

  Aalis blinked and looked around, half expecting everyone to ask her how she was or what had happened but they were all looking at Emeri who had asked the question.

  “It is just a theory.” Giordi shrugged, holding the ruby red cylinder to Aalis, still looking at Emeri.

  Aalis’ hand recoiled, dropping the sapphire cylinder in her hand and allowing the red to fall to the rug.

  “Sorry.” She gasped, half to everyone around her and half to the cylinders.

  Judd scooped them into his hand then saw her expression. “Aalis…are you well?”

  “I…” She licked her lips. “I am well.”

  He frowned, unconvinced. “You look as though you could use your own medicinal brew. Are you looking after yourself? Getting enough sleep?”

  “She’s not on both counts.” Emeri stated firmly then caught Aalis’ eye. “You have been running yourself ragged looking after the nomads and my father.”

  “I had to do something…” Aalis could hear the words of Gairil Palaidin in her mind, claiming responsibility for the state of Terramaul.

  It didn’t help that looking at the captured memory of the woman who had bestowed the strange gem upon Sir Mavour was like looking into a mirror.