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Alone in that valley with Y'Taun's lieutenant, I watched her, and understood. Y'Taun was the leader, she was the strategist. Y'Taun had the presence to command. She had the intellect to make him succeed. And so, I decided, I would have her.

Y'Taun galloped away. Kardita found herself alone with Skyrie. Such old eyes for such a young face, she thought.

"How old are you?" she whispered, the first thought in her head. She cast here eyes over the four charred corpses of Y'Taun's escort. Why am I here?

"Old enough," he answered. "How old are you?"

"Old enough."

The boy/man sighed and shook his head. "You are afraid."

"I am not."

"You are. A little, and you hide it well, but you are. I don't doubt your bravery. You know I am a sorcerer, so you know you cannot lie to me. Your master, at least, understands this. So your general's army will turn against the Inquisitor. But there is much left unsaid. Y'Taun will betray us all." He turned away. "Come then. If you are to assist us in our assault on Icantoka, you may as well see who we are. I hope you were not expecting very much."

"No." What had Y'Taun told her - a raggedy band of peasants not even worth the bother of leaving his bed for - if they weren't being led by a sorcerer who seems able to thwart the Inquisitor herself. "I have already devised a strategy for you. The only thing I can suggest. You certainly cannot face the Inquisitor's army in open battle. Your soldiers are no match for ours. Take the fittest half of your army, hide them with sorcery, and run for Icantoka as fast as you can. The rest you will sacrifice to slow the Inquisitor down. You won't be able to take Icantoka before the Inquisitor catches you, but then Y'Taun will strike him from behind."

Skyrie turned and half a smile flickered across his face. "Y'Taun left you here to tell me that? He must have a very low opinion of me. It is an obvious strategy."

"It will work."

"That it may. But I hardly need you to suggest it." He swept his eyes around the jagged hills, deep black shadows against the starlit sky. "I could stay in these hills for a very long time, I think."

"If you wish."

"Come." He skipped and darted up the steepest of the surrounding scree slopes. Kardita followed, slowly and carefully, wondering how he could be so agile in such darkness. He is a sorcerer, she reminded himself. He could fly if he so chose.

He stopped, and waited patiently for her to catch her breath. "Look!" His arm swept out across the three valleys below. Less than half a dozen fires remained, although the smoke of many more still left its tang in the air. "We have already broken our camp. Neither your master, nor his mistress, will catch us."

She shrugged. "Then in the hills you will remain. The Inquisitor will tire of you in time, and so will your soldiers. They will want to return to their families. They will want to grow food for their bellies. They won't follow you forever."

"I am a sorcerer, don't forget."

"Will you bind them to you? Every one of them? Are you so powerful you could even do that? If you are, why waste your time with them. Why not simply walk into the Inquisitor's camp and slay her."

Skyrie laughed. "I tried already. She got away. One day, I will master a spell to prevent that. In the meantime, I will find another way. Why does Y'Taun want you dead?"

Kardita opened her mouth. The shapes moving in the blackness below blurred away. Suddenly she could see nothing at all. "What do you mean?"

"I am a sorcerer. If I can bind the soldiers of my army to serve me, even one of them, I can bind you. Your loyalty would be mine. And no longer his. What a threat you must pose to his plans then. So he must assume this will happen, and you will tell me everything you know. And when he rids himself of me, he must surely rid himself of you. Now tell me, everything you have heard from your general leaves you to believe his offer to be true?"

She nodded, stricken with silence.

"Every aspect of every conversation he has had with you has shown you how much he despises the Inquisitor, how much he believes it is time for a change. I don't know what imaginary virtues he has attributed to me, but he has spoken very highly of me to you. He has tried to make you believe I am a cause worthy of your support. More importantly, he has tried to convince you that he believes I am worth of his support."

She nodded again.

"He will betray the Inquisitor. I have seen his soul, and I know he will betray me - how can he not. And he has betrayed you."

Kardita shook her head. "He cannot betray you. The Inquisitor must be a sorcerer."

"The he will become one. It is hardly difficult."

"Y'Taun is a great warrior. He could not stand to be anything other than a great sorcerer."

"He will not serve me. He thinks me a boy."

"I think he hopes you will help him establish something new."

Skyrie shook his head. "I do not seek compromise. I seek the death of those who have cursed me. I will accept only the absolute subjugation of their servants to my will."

Kardita shook her head. All the dreams she had set free again, the ones from years ago, of something different, something less crushing, she felt them slowly strangled.

"Why? Why must it always be that way?"

Skyrie shook his head, and for a moment looked sad, a flicker of doubt in his eye. Only for a moment, before a hardness supplanted it. "Honestly, do you not know?" He shook his head again. "It must be that way because that is the way that people believe it must be, and so that is what they seek, and thus it is the only way that succeeds." He smiled at her again, and she felt a faint flutter inside her. I will try, she decided. There is hope for this one. I will try and sway him, whatever I must do.

"We must go now," he said suddenly. "The camp is broken. They are ready. You still wonder whether Y'Taun betrayed you, or whether something is misunderstood. Or perhaps I am simply wrong. He had some sorcery placed on you, before you came, did he not?"

She nodded. "Yes. In case of..."

"For your own protection." Skyrie snorted and shook his head. "I am sorry to tell you, but the only sorcery you have on you is a tracking spell, so he knows where to find you."

"So he might send rescue in..." she stopped.

"Rescue? Is that what you believe?"

Kardita could not reply. Skyrie put an arm around her shoulder. "I am sorry. I thank Y'Taun for his gift, and I will not waste you as he hoped, nor will he use us against each other. You will find strength here, and honour, and friendship, and if you wish, you will excel so that your brilliance eclipses everything you have done for Y'Taun."

Victory complete, he led her slowly down the scree into the night.

My charm - the delicate adjustment of her thoughts - complete, I took her away, and she in turn took me to Icantoka, exactly as she promised. I learned the art of sacrifice, and a thousand men died that we might reach Icantoka before the Inquisitor. Yet as we marched, still our numbers grew, until outside the walls, three thousand voices bayed for the city to burn. And all the way, she thought perhaps she would change me, quell the growing furnace of ambition. She still does. And perhaps, in some respects, she has succeeded.

If I wish it, I might now charm man or woman, friend or foe, with the snap of my fingers to do my bidding by simple force of mind. Yet I still look back on that night, when I plied my first delicate charm, and feel a wistful longing for something since lost.