It may not be blatantly obvious to you, dear reader, not at this point anyway, but The Storm Dragon’s Heart (SDH) and Wrath of the White Tigress (WWT) are set on the same world: Kaiwen, Kawan, Qawin, and other various spellings appropriate to the respective languages of the planet. I’ve written six novels, and only one of them doesn’t take place on Kaiwen.

Pawan Kor from Wrath of the White Tigress

SDH takes place on the island continent of Okoro, which I’d guess is about the size of Australia. It is on the other side of Kaiwen from Pawan Kor which is the southern portion of a massive continent, the name of which I cannot remember at the moment. (Yeah, I know. Cut me some slack. I came up with all the big picture stuff a decade ago and haven’t needed all of it yet.) Pawan Kor is bigger than Okoro. Perhaps as big across as Spain to India.

A few clues that show the books share a common world:

• Two moons: Zhura Dark Moon and Avida Bright Moon. You’ll note that their names are the same in both settings. An odd but intentional choice.

• Magic functions the same and a channeling stone is generally required. The channeling stones are called qavra in WWT and kavaru in SDH. Note their names are different, an odd but intentional choice. Qavra are best worked by people of Zindarhi descent, or their mysterious, remaining ancestors the Qaiar Zindarhi. For those beings, use of the stones is natural. I will say no more.

• The nature of deities is the same. Greater deities linked to celestial bodies and big concepts. Such deities are distant and perhaps have no direct impact on the world. Many lesser deities of varying powers, mostly minor spirits. (The world is primarily animistic.) There’s a lot going on in the background that will be revealed in time. I mapped out the source of magic and deities for the world, based on events that took places tens of thousands of years before the events of these novels. I will say no more.

• White steel which can cut through magical energies and beings. Dark iron which is the opposite of white steel. It’s able to soak up energies. I’m sure there are other small details that I’m just not thinking about at the moment. Hell, I’m likely forgetting something major. And I may be holding out on something.
  
  

I have included in this post the maps for SDH and WWT, but these are simplified views of larger, more detailed maps that I’m not sharing yet.

Northern Okoro from Storm Dragon

Chains of a Dark Goddess should have the larger view of Pawan Kor along with a focused map for the story itself. The bigger map of Okoro will appear with Legacy of the Lost Gods. Why am I holding out? Because I’m still refining some of the locations and want them to be as accurate.

Galactus would never select me. I’m a terrible herald. Norrin Radd I am not, though I, too, seek Shalla-Bal. I have been sitting on important news, failing to alert you, dear reader and friend, that my novel of heroic sword and sorcery adventure, Wrath of the White Tigress, will soon debut as the first novel from Typing Cat Press! [1]

WotWT will be available from Amazon, B&N, iBooks, and other fine ebook retailers at the highly affordable price of $4.99. The specific release date is yet unknown (though sometime in the last days of June). I will let you know as soon as I can. (The Kindle and Nook versions will appear first.)

The print version will follow in late July, priced around $10–12. Above and to the right, you can see the beautiful cover art created for WotWT by Sandara. This same cover will soon appear on the Podiobooks version as well. (I’m looking into doing an Audible version of the book for those of you who’d like to purchase the entire audiobook without interruptions.)

WRATH OF THE WHITE TIGRESS

He thought he was a hero.
She showed him the truth.
Now he’ll do any­thing to stop the man who made him a monster.

For twenty years Jaska Bavadi has faith­fully served the Palymfar Order and its Grandmaster, the powerful wizard Salahn, but an encounter with Zyrella Anthari, last high priestess of the White Tigress, shatters the spell that chained Jaska’s mind.

Now faced with the horrors he unknowingly committed against people he swore to protect, Jaska must put Salahn’s reign of cruelty to an end. Together, he and Zyrella race to save the White Tigress and stop Salahn from opening the Gates of the Underworld. An army of palymfar warriors stands in their way, but the dangerous secrets that cloud their destinies threaten to doom them first.

In the tradition of ­­Michael Moor­cock, David Gem­mell, and Glen Cook, Wrath of the White Tigress delivers a thrilling tale sword & sorcery fans will love.

[1] Full Disclosure: I am a co-founder of Typing Cat Press.

In downtrodden Hareez, the golden age of prosperity is long forgotten. The gods have fallen into a deep slumber, unaware that demons roam their lands and the Palymfar Order no longer protects their people. In these days all men fear the palymfar while the palymfar fear only their Grandmaster and Jaska Bavadi, his infamous Slayer.

But Jaska has no idea he’s a sadistic assassin feared by all Hareez until an encounter with Zyrella Anthari, the last high priestess of the White Tigress, wakes him to that nightmare. Free from Grandmaster Salahn, a man he thought he loved as a father, after twenty years of mind control, Jaska sets out with Zyrella to save the White Tigress and stop Salahn from opening the Gates of the Underworld. But in order to succeed, he must first conquer the madness within.

Feedback from Podiobooks:

Chris: “Really fast paced fantasy novel. Not usually a fan of fantasy, but this managed to keep me engaged the whole way.”

Kevin: “This book is amazing!”

Genevere: “An engaging fantasy — well worth listening to.”

In Hareez, the golden age of prosperity was long forgotten. The gods had fallen into a deep slumber, unaware that demons roamed their lands, and the Palymfar Order no longer protected the people. In those days all men feared the palymfar while the palymfar feared only their Grandmaster, and his Slayer.

~THE SAGA OF PAWAN KOR~

“Hear me, O Goddess! What must I do?”

There was no response, no sound at all except for the golden leaves crackling in a brazier on the altar. Their aromatic smoke swirled through the ancient shrine and coiled around Zyrella Anthari, the last true priestess of the White Tigress, as she lifted her hands beseechingly towards the statue of the goddess on the dais before her. She had begun her ritual upon arriving with her templars but still had no answer to the dream that had led her here. Her knees ached from hours spent on the flagstones.

As she called on the goddess again, desperately now, faint sparks danced in the amethyst channeling stone that hung around her neck. Instinctively, she now knew what she must do. Unbidden dreams and unexplained urges—this was all she had ever had to guide her. It would have to be enough this time as well.

With a gesture and a few arcane words, Zyrella activated the witch-sight spell that allowed her to see into the Shadowland. Her azure eyes turned milky white and she gazed intently into the smoke, her mind focused on the Tigress and the future. She expected to see a vision that would give her instructions for a ritual that could free the goddess from bondage. Instead, her spell uncloaked an enemy spying on her through the Shadowland.

The man wore the rust-colored garb of a palymfar assassin, and at his neck was a jet qavra stone pulsing with malefic energy. His mask was lowered, revealing a scowling, hawk-like face. Zyrella had never seen him before, but his amber eyes were lit by zealous fire, and by those eyes she instinctively knew who he was. Her muscles tensed. Her heart pounded. If he could observe her in this way, then he was near, no more than a few hours away.

Zyrella ceased chanting and clutched her own channeling stone. The vision didn’t end. Neither did she dismiss it. She fixated on this assassin as a soldier might stare at his own severed hand, or a mother at a stillborn child. She stared at Jaska Bavadi, a man more commonly known as the Slayer.

Minutes passed, and through that time Zyrella experienced the pain of a broken heart and the joy of a lover’s touch upon her breast, grief that only death could bring and the contentedness of feasting with loved ones. But most of all, she experienced fear. For this man drew her as a moth to flame, and this strange and unexpected attraction frightened her more than the deaths his arrival would bring.

Heart pounding, body trembling, Zyrella harnessed that fear, and though it felt as if she were tearing away part of her soul, she dismissed the image. Then she buried her face within her hands and fought backs tears of frustration. Her templar guards could handle a half-dozen palymfar, but not the right hand of Grandmaster Salahn. She couldn’t guess how he’d known to send Jaska here, but she wasn’t surprised. For years, she had hidden from Salahn, biding time for a day when his powers would wane. She now knew that day would never arrive. Unless she stopped him before sunset, he would absorb the life force of the White Tigress and become immortal and invincible.

“I will not fail,” she muttered, refusing to remain discouraged. “I cannot fail. Not after all these years.” Otherwise, what purpose had her life ever served?

Zyrella breathed through a series of calming meditations and cleared her mind. She chanted and peered into the smoke again. This time, she directed the magic with more care, concentrating on her recently awakened spirit-link to the White Tigress who was imprisoned inside a remote pocket of the Shadowland that only Salahn had access to. This bond between them had formed, despite the barriers of magic and distance, during the prophetic dream that had led Zyrella here, through parched scrublands, to desolate Mount Barqeshal.

This time Jaska Bavadi didn’t appear.

For an hour, Zyrella watched an image of herself performing a complex ritual and memorized every nuance. When it was finished, she cleansed her hands with holy water and doused the smoldering leaves. She swallowed one large draught and splashed the remainder into her dry, stinging eyes. Then she walked outside and joined her templar captain and faithful companion of twenty years.

~~~

Dressed in chainmail overlaid by a travel-stained, white burnoose, Ohzikar Sanwared stood guard between a pair of cracked columns that supported the decaying roof of the shrine’s entrance. In his memory the place had shone with purity, now that he was returned two decades later, it was little more than a ruin.

For the last two hours, Ohzikar had looked out across the wide vista of jagged hills and scrub plains, worrying about the storm clouds gathering along the horizon. Except during spring, rain rarely fell in Hareez. However, occasional storms plagued hot summer days like this. Such a storm could be torrential, and it could cover the approach of assassins.

Zyrella took his arm, and they walked through the remainder of the shrine’s courtyard. Over the centuries, most of it had crumbled into the river canyon below. In the space that yet remained grew a dozen lethargic shrubs, two stunted trees, and several trails of limp vines. It was no longer the lush garden in which they had played together as children.

The deep lines of Ohzikar’s contemplative face eased into a strained smile. “Well, how did it go? Can you free her?”

“I saw what I must do. The Goddess has conserved all her energy, waiting for this moment when Salahn is most vulnerable, but I’m not sure I’ll be strong enough to help her.”

Frowning, he brushed bits of ash from the limp strands of her ebony hair. Worry and fatigue, even an aura of hopelessness, weighted her features. He’d never seen her like this before. It wasn’t a good sign.

“There’s something more that’s bothering you. Tell me.”

“The Slayer is coming for us. I caught him spying on me from the Shadowland, so he’s not far away.”

Ohzikar blanched and his jaws quivered, but then he stood erect and clenched his teeth. “Bavadi is only one man; we can stop him. At the least, I will delay him long enough.”

“There may be others with him, Ohzi. I don’t want to lose you.”

Ohzikar took her into his arms. “Enough. Banish your fears and trust in my strength.” He stroked the back of her neck. “Ever since we were children, we knew this day must come. We have trained and endured many hardships. We are ready. This is our destiny, and our goddess needs us.”

Zyrella brightened, if only a little. “I would be lost without you, Ohzi.” She stood on her toes and kissed him on the cheek. “I must prepare now.”

Ohzikar escorted Zyrella to the shrine entrance. Halfway to the altar, she let slip her robe. The silk slid from her smoothly muscled, olive skin like a cloud through thin mountain air. For some moments, Ohzikar admired her. Then he sighed and marched off to prepare his templars for Jaska’s arrival.

~~~

Buffeted by wind-tossed debris, six palymfar advanced along a rugged trail that twisted up Mount Barqeshal. The warrior-assassins wore their traditional rust-colored burnooses with deep hoods and saffron veils over an umber body suit of studded leather and padded cotton. The colors allowed them to blend with the deserts and mountains of Hareez. Each man also wore around his neck the signature palymfar device: a leather choker bearing in the center a jet qavra stone.

The leader of this group was Jaska Bavadi. Slayer the people had named him when they begged their gods for protection. But Jaska did not know himself this way. Because of a spell placed onto him by Grandmaster Salahn, leader of the Palymfar Order, he thought of himself as a noble warrior, fighting for justice as the palymfar had done a century before.

Jaska lifted a hand and the group paused. His men wiped the grit from their eyes. Jaska blinked hard once and looked around. The sun was dipping behind the mountain while storm clouds loomed in the east, growing ever stronger. It was going to be a rough night. A grim smile flashed across his face.

His second, a towering man named Kasap, stepped up beside him. “Will we make it in time, master?”

The storm had delayed them by half a day.

“We will get there before the Grandmaster begins the final stage of his ritual. It is the best we can do.”

“Do you really think she could stop the ritual?”

The witch had proven capable of avoiding them for a decade, despite their best efforts. And no one else had ever successfully evaded Jaska. With his jaw clenched, he hissed, “Yes, I do.”

“From all the way out here?”

“Kasap, Zyrella Anthari is a high priestess of the White Tigress, and this is the oldest shrine to that beast. Do not underestimate her. We don’t know what she might be capable of.”

Grandmaster Salahn thought Zyrella would be unable to interfere with his ritual to bind the power of the White Tigress, but a dream had told Jaska otherwise. A dream of striped fur and olive skin, of whispered messages in a language he couldn’t speak. But in the dream he had understood one thing quite clearly: Zyrella had arrived at the abandoned shrine on Mount Barqeshal with the intention of somehow stopping Grandmaster Salahn.

After the dream, Jaska had immediately abandoned a mission in progress and set out with the five warriors accompanying him. An exchange of psychic messages with his lover, Mardha, daughter of the Grandmaster, had revealed that his was the closest group. Why Jaska had had this dream while the Grandmaster with ties to the Tigress had not was a concern to them both.

“Come, Kasap, we’re close enough now to scry the enemy’s position.”

He led the five recently graduated warriors accompanying him behind a large outcrop where they could work in hiding. Jaska said to them, “Link your qavra with mine and concentrate on the temple.”

“What should we look for, master?” Kasap asked.

“Nothing. Simply hold the connection. I will observe the enemy alone. The priestess is sure to have scrying wards set up and one individual backed by greater power is more likely to break through unnoticed.”

Jaska dropped into a meditative state and opened his inner sight. Shadow tendrils snaked from the students’ qavra to Jaska’s larger stone. Only through these rare gems could one convert willpower into magical force. Jaska’s eyes clouded as he projected his spirit into the murky Shadowland that draped reality like a burial shroud. In that between-realm, he raced ahead to the shrine. As he traveled farther from his body, the real world became hazy and difficult to see, but the shrine was now within his limits.

Zyrella knelt at an altar and was peering into a cloud of smoke. Her olive skin and raven hair shone in the sunlight streaming through cracks in the ruined temple’s roof. He had never seen her before, but he recognized her aura through a talent given to him by Salahn. A sudden attraction toward her sent chills down his spine.

Without warning, his scrying cloak peeled away, and at that moment she looked into the Shadowland and spotted him. Their eyes met, and he felt as if their souls touched. He could do nothing but stare at her, helplessly, until at last the connection was somehow severed.

Jaska retreated to his body, satisfied by his observations but disturbed by her presence. Body and mind, he burned with a passion that left him feeling spent, as if they had already made love. Only Mardha, his truest love, had ever caused him to feel this way before.

His men walked around and stretched. Jaska started to join them but then stopped. The scene raced through his mind, and he cursed to himself. Zyrella had distracted him from an important detail, one he now pictured as an afterimage: the statue of the White Tigress standing complete. Years ago he had visited this shrine and had seen the statue toppled and broken into pieces. Now it was whole again.

“Master, what’s wrong?” Kasap asked.

Looking at Kasap and the others, all recently students of his, a brief worry flashed through his mind. These young men were not experienced enough for anything like this. But this was all he had to work with. There was no other choice.

“Great forces are working against us, and the witch is far more powerful than I thought. Come, we must hurry.”

~~~

Zyrella knelt on a cushion before the altar and arranged the elements she needed: incense and fresh leaves in the burner, more holy water, and henna for drawing diagrams upon the altar and wide tiger stripes on her body. She deepened her breath and gazed up at the form of her goddess: a white marble statue of a large mountain tigress with curving, black marble stripes fused into the white.

An identical statue stood in the Grand Temple of the White Tigress in Kabulsek. This one, however, was the greater. Though this original shrine had waned in prestige, it yet held more power than Salahn knew. A high priestess could tap this power through secret rites, and Zyrella now knew those rites.

Long ago the White Tigress had stalked these barren foothills of the Wedawed Mountains as an ordinary albino tiger until the great deity Kashomae lifted her to godhood on this very spot. But like all the other lesser deities in Hareez, the Tigress had fallen to Grandmaster Salahn who trapped them in the Shadowland and leached their spirits to increase his power. The White Tigress was the key component in his quest to become a god because he needed to absorb the spirit of another entity who had made the same transition.

Thunder boomed in the distance, and a warm breeze whipped hair into Zyrella’s face. Sparks scintillated within the amethyst qavra that dangled between her breasts on a golden chain. As her senses sharpened, she heard the faint resonance of screams uttered years ago when the palymfar had attacked the shrine. Her grandmother and two aging templars had led Zyrella, Ohzikar, and the other children to safety.

Today those distant echoes stoked Zyrella’s desire for vengeance. Picturing lost family and friends, she desperately channeled this emotional force into the ritual, hoping it would give her strength enough to free the White Tigress.

~~~

The Gasrah River cut a canyon through the foothills beneath Mount Barqeshal and wound through the lowland scrub. Gusts of wind brought the rich scent of the stirred loam along its verdant riverbanks all the way up to the mount’s summit. Dark clouds and a rushing wave of rain followed. Rivulets formed in the dry dust, swept around the jagged rocks, and poured from the mountain. Within minutes, the Gasrah swelled to twice its normal size.

As best as he could in night and storm, Uurta Kalara scanned the terrain as he scratched through his beard. Having drawn the longest straw, he stood sentry along the path going up the mountain, just out of sight from the shrine. Every sixty-count each called out in turn to signal all was clear.

The unwelcome rain slid from the oiled cloak Uurta had donned over his burnoose. Often the wind sprayed this runoff into his face. He couldn’t wait until his turn was up. He was suffering from a cold and felt miserable. He was getting too old for this and had already lost his edge. He had considered retiring, but like the others, he had forfeited a peaceful life when he vowed to serve the White Tigress and avenge his murdered family.

Something moved within the shadow of an outcrop. Chills ran across Uurta’s skin. His hand fell to his sword hilt. His orders were to sound the alarm as soon as he even thought he spotted an enemy. But he delayed, not wanting to look like a frightened fool, as he had a month ago when he had nearly beheaded a washerwoman who caught him by surprise.

Suddenly, a mesmerizing voice whispered through the rain. “You cannot move, and you will do nothing to resist me.”

Uurta stood dumbstruck as the rust-red shadow of Jaska the Slayer closed on him. He called on his training but couldn’t break free of Jaska’s mind control. His only peace was in knowing that when he didn’t call out in turn, the others would be alerted. Thunder struck and lightning illuminated murderous eyes as the steel claws of the Slayer’s bagh nakh tore through Uurta’s throat.

~~~

Jaska placed his left hand over the dying templar’s throat and chanted a spell before dumping the body into the canyon. In the back of his mind, he began counting. It was a technique all palymfar mastered, that they could count even while talking, sneaking, or fighting. Only spell casting could disrupt his counting.

His students rushed past him and moved into their attack positions, following a narrow trail he’d spotted when scrying, a trail their enemy apparently didn’t know about, or had forgotten. Most of these templars had probably been children when the temple was destroyed, and some of the older ones may never have served as this shrine.

Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine … “Uurta Kalara!” yelled Jaska using the voice he’d stolen from the templar. “All’s clear!”

Jaska did not follow his men. Instead, he took a different, more difficult route. Using a spell of darksight, which allowed him to see through the night’s veil as if it were early twilight, Jaska scurried over boulders and talus with ease.

On the backside of the shrine’s courtyard, he reached a sheer rise the height of three men. Jaska spoke another spell. The magic crawled down through the tendons and muscles of his legs. Once he felt the muscles tighten until it felt like they might burst, he knew the spell was ready.

He leapt up and caught the ledge.

Quickly, he glanced into the sparse courtyard. To his left, twenty yards from the shrine, the mountain’s flattened summit fell into the Gasrah River Canyon. To his right the shrine melded into the surrounding rock. Opposite him, a gap in the crumbling defensive wall marked the location of the former gate.

Two templars paced the cliff edges, but currently, neither patrolled close by. The remainder waited in the courtyard’s center. Within the shrine, the priestess chanted her profane rituals. He didn’t see the templars’ captain anywhere. A third sixty-count passed with no reply from Uurta. Had the captain gone to see about him?

As the count passed with no response, the templars stiffened.

Suddenly an arrow whistled on the wind then punctured a templar’s cheek. The victim writhed and moaned as he died. A second arrow thunked against a readied shield as the templars took defensive positions.

Kasap and his brothers Denar and Tebyn charged through the gap and crashed into the nearest templars. Kasap swung two battle-axes in sinister arcs while Denar and Tebyn slashed with their sabers and tiger claws. The templars recoiled in surprise, facing multiple attackers when they had expected only Jaska. After a few moments, the three of them retreated, as if they were overwhelmed, drawing the templars along with them.

When the two patrolling templars rushed to join the others, Jaska climbed up into the courtyard. Blended with shadows and rain, Jaska crossed the courtyard unseen and entered the shrine.

A short hallway opened into a torch-lit sanctuary thick with the dizzying smoke of burning leaves and incense. Jaska’s breath caught in his throat. On the dais stood the pristine statue of the White Tigress. At the altar below knelt the priestess Zyrella. Her unusually pale, naked flesh bore painted tiger-stripes that trailed from her onto the floor and up the dais to the statue.

Though he needed to kill Zyrella swiftly, Jaska eased forward with lethargy. Already her presence was mesmerizing him. But he willed himself on, knowing he must strike before she turned this strange force directly against him.

A horde of faceless children shuffled toward Jaska. He tried to back away, but Grandmaster Salahn loomed behind him and whispered into his ear: “Kill many, Jaska, so that we may bathe in style tonight.” Jaska tried to resist, but his arms moved of their own accord and drew his weapons. Then, even with his eyes closed, he conducted his grisly task.

Hours later, he was in a shallow, marble-tiled pool filled with blood. As he slid between Mardha and Salahn, gasping in orgasm, Zyrella suddenly appeared, chained to a column rising from the middle of the pool.

Mardha left Jaska’s embrace and took a scourge from the poolside. She began to whip Zyrella, who with each strike looked increasingly like Mardha. Jaska struggled against his master’s compulsion but could not move to help her. Bloodied and sagging, Zyrella begged for her life.

Laughing, they showed her no mercy.

Zyrella looked into Jaska’s eyes and whispered, “In the name of the White Tigress, help me. I need you.”

Pure energy surged from deep within Jaska and shredded Salahn’s power over him. Jaska leapt to his feet, grabbed Mardha by the hair, and slung her into Salahn.

Arms stretched out, he shielded Zyrella from them. “I will never again serve you, and I will not let you harm her!”

~~~~

Jaska screamed something indecipherable, and his convulsions ceased. His countenance became peaceful, his breathing slowed, and his limbs rested without the slightest twitch. Yet tangible waves of power emanated from him and slid across Ohzikar and Zyrella like a delicate breeze. Then Jaska’s qavra blazed to life and eyes like molten gold opened.

Zyrella stumbled back and Ohzikar drew his tulwar.

Jaska glared at them. “Why are you still here?”

“Because,” Zyrella answered, “you’re our only hope against Salahn.”

Jaska donned his uniform. “You should have fled.”

Ignoring him, Zyrella said, “A moment ago I detected energies stirring within the qavra you’re wearing.”

“Yes. I bonded with it, only I did so through intention alone.”

“I didn’t know that was possible.”

“Neither did I. I simply envisioned myself performing the rites, and the ritual worked, even though I didn’t physically do anything.”

Jaska walked to the mouth of the cave and peered out. “They are near and will find us soon. Ohzikar, take Zyrella and move up the escape route you have planned. Choose the best vantage and use your bow against them.”

“I won’t be able to see any of them, even if Zyrella gives me darksight. They’ll be too far away.”

“Trust me, you’ll see them.”

“You’re not strong enough to fight,” Zyrella said.

“We have no choice.”

“What are you going to do while we escape?” Ohzikar asked.

“What I must. On my signal, circle to the front of the canyon and capture their horses. At most they’ll leave one guard with them. I’ll rejoin you as soon as I can.”

Ohzikar led Zyrella along the ledge and up a narrow, winding path leading out of the canyon. The last stretch required climbing but handholds were plentiful.

~~~~

With his darksight activated, Jaska watched his former brethren sneaking toward the cave. He folded his hands together as if in prayer and chanted the spell he needed, one he had never thought he’d use.

At first he was nervous, his voice faltering in pitch, but he quelled his fears by thinking of how his mentor had betrayed him.

~~~~

Eleven palymfar crept forward, pursuing the witch the Grandmaster had ordered destroyed. Though brave and deadly, the palymfar feared her. After all, she had apparently defeated Master Bavadi.

Firelight poured from the cave they had scryed from the Shadowland earlier, though only from without since wards had barred them from peering inside. Why the enemy sheltered here, the palymfar didn’t know. They guessed they were waiting on something or perhaps nursing a fallen comrade. Rakas, the palymfar leader, feared another possibility, that the two held Jaska within and planned to use him as a bargaining piece.

The firelight ceased and Rakas’s qavra released all its active magics, including his darksight. Only the dim light of charcoal Zhura high above illuminated the canyon now. He uttered a spell to restore his qavra’s functions. Nothing happened. Glancing around, he quickly realized it was the same for the others.

“Retreat,” Rakas whispered.

Power again stirred within his qavra. He paused, hoping his abilities would return. But something unthinkable occurred. Every qavra blazed to life, emanating violet light and humming loudly.

An arrow skewered the palymfar beside Rakas. Another bowstring twanged, and his comrades panicked and fled. Rakas ripped the glowing qavra from his neck and tossed it over the ledge, sacrilege though it might be.

~~~~

As he sprinted along the path down into the canyon, Jaska whistled to signal Ohzikar. Then he turned and dropped over the side. He fell twenty feet, caught a ledge with his foot, propelled himself along the wall to a lower ledge, and bounded downward again. Three more times he did this, alighting for a brief moment with only a single foot. Finally, he launched himself away from the canyon wall and struck the sandy bottom shoulder-first, rolling forward onto his feet.

He ran ahead and caught up to one of the fleeing palymfar who had abandoned his qavra. The assassin heard Jaska’s approach only at the last moment. As soon as he spun around, cold steel bit deep into his neck.

~~~~

The lone palymfar guarding the horses saw the eerie violet lights deep within the canyon and heard the faint hum of arrows. The horses stirred and snorted. He tensed and held to the reins, patted necks and spoke soothing words. Then came the sound of men screaming. The horses nearly bolted, but he calmed them with a spell. This worked for only a few seconds, until his qavra stopped responding. His darksight dimmed. Then his qavra glowed with violet light. He drew his saber and waited as he heard men fight and die in the canyon beyond. He thought to flee but feared the repercussions.

Something whispered across the ground toward him.

A dark shape appeared, blood-splattered and fearsome.

“M-Master Bavadi?”

A throwing spike pierced deep into his eye socket, and he died before Jaska’s saber sliced into his heart for good measure.

When Zyrella and Ohzikar arrived a few minutes later, Jaska was crouched beside the body, staring through the Shadowland into the canyon, making sure he hadn’t missed any of the palymfar. Both cringed when they looked at him.

“The way is clear,” Jaska said. “They’re all dead. You can ride up and get the rest of your supplies now.”

Ohzikar left immediately.

“What did you do to their qavra?” Zyrella asked.

“To combat any betrayals, Salahn hid a spell within all the qavra that can stop active magics and cause the qavra to glow and hum. Only Salahn, Mardha, and me and know about it.”

“I didn’t detect it when I scanned the qavra.”

“Only Salahn can see the spell or get rid of it. My original is probably vulnerable as well.” Jaska wondered just how many protections Salahn had built up against him. “And I’m sure it probably has additional measures, just in case.”

~~~~

As they reached Alkrahar Road, riding at a slow canter, Ohzikar said, “Surely we aren’t going to attack the enemy head-on?”

“No,” Zyrella said. “Salahn has grown too powerful for that.”

Jaska made no reply and seemed not to have heard them.

“Jaska,” Zyrella said, waking him from whatever ill reverie possessed him. “Could you have defeated Salahn a month ago?”

“With surprise, a good plan, and a lot of luck, maybe. But not now.”

“And there are hundreds of palymfar to contend with,” Ohzikar said.

Eyes narrowed, Jaska replied: “Five hundred and twenty, with nearly a hundred always near Salahn. And he has thousands of Karphon’s troops as well. Soon many of those will probably be sent after us. Be assured that the Grandmaster will find us.”

“So what do we do now?” Zyrella asked.

“I must go to the Farseer of Vaalshimar because the White Tigress said she could help me.”

Ohzikar said, “The Farseer exists?”

“So your goddess claims.”

“How will we get there, then?” Zyrella asked. The island of Vaalshimar lay at the mouth of the Gulf of Hareez.

Jaska reined in his horse and searched the horizon as if the answer lay ahead. “We can’t risk Kabulsek, that much is certain.”

“We could get ship passage from within Epros,” Ohzikar said. “Put the mountains between us and the enemy.”

Zyrella pulled her hair back and bound it. “His power to scry would fade beyond the mountains, while my powers will strengthen as we near what few allies we have.”

“The only other option,” Ohzikar said, “is to head due south and get passage from Eskiphaal or one of the smaller ports on the Gulf of Hareez. That would be faster but more dangerous.”

Jaska wanted to rush ahead but logic compelled him otherwise. “We won’t gain enough speed to make crossing any part of Hareez worth our effort. I think we have a better chance of avoiding capture if we cross the Wedawed Mountains, enter Epros, and go to the city of Hectyra. We can easily set sail from there.”

~~~~

Guests lined the walls of the great durbar of the Hmyr in Kabulsek. The scents of smoldering opiates, roasted meats, jasmine perfumes, and sweating bodies spread through the hall like a surge of drunken revelers. Silk fabrics imported from the East shimmered beneath hanging lanterns. Drums thundered with wild, vibrant beats that punctuated the spirited music of driving balalaikas, mandolins, trilling flutes, and wordless vocals.

A dozen ornately dressed guards stood beside each entrance. Two dozen protected the dais. Dancers whirled between marble columns, their bare feet pattering against the mosaic-tiled floor. Crimson and gold ribbons threaded around their supple, naked bodies. The ribbons fluttered and snaked as the dancers swirled and twisted.

Hmyr Karphon watched without interest, his grey eyes unfocused as he slouched, bearing a resigned expression. He was in his middle years and grey had begun to speckle his tapered beard and long, unbound hair. Karphon would rather be training with his army, in the baths relaxing, or in his apartment sipping wine and reading. He hadn’t even attended his harem in two years. When he wanted such pleasures, those given him by Nalsyrra, his bodyguard and astrologer, far exceeded all others.

Nalsyrra stood nearby, with her wild, yellow eyes glinting as she scanned the crowd. She was thin and tall, taller than most men. Permanent black ink stained her entire body, and intricate silver diagrams of linked circles and triangles decorated her chest, back, and legs. A long braid of ebony hair fell down her back. A strip of leather coiled around her torso, barely covering her small breasts. A belt clung to her hips and from it an immodest thong of leather stretched between her legs.

A charcoal burnoose hung from her shoulders. She seemed only a shadow, except for her vibrant eyes, the tattoos, and the triangular, alizarin qavra embedded on her forehead. The orange-red stone was without doubt one of the finest qavra in existence, and how she had embedded it there was a mystery even to Salahn, who seemingly knew as much about sorcerous matters as any man alive. Nalsyrra wouldn’t let them study it, and they wouldn’t dare cross her. She had all the skills of a palymfar and commanded strange sorceries unknown in Hareez. She didn’t fear Salahn, and Salahn apparently didn’t think confronting her was worth the effort or risk involved.

“Nalsyrra, my love.”

She faced him and knelt on one knee. “My lord?”

Though he asked often, Karphon didn’t know why she served him. He believed she loved him, though she never said so. He made no demands on her, only requests that she could fulfill if she wished. Everything he possessed he owed to her devoted service. She had rescued him from certain death when he was a defeated mercenary captain. With her help, his talent as a military tactician had blossomed. Over the next few years, he had amassed a force of his own and took over village after village then smaller city-states and at last conquered all Hareez, with assistance from the palymfar.

“Tell me again, Nalsyrra, why do you serve me?”

She spoke in her strangely accented, sibilant voice. “The Star Spirits said I should, my lord. It is my destiny.”

“Entertainments such as this do not satisfy me anymore. Only you. Day by day, my need for you grows. I cannot clear my mind of your presence.”

“I am only your humble servant, my lord.”

“You are more than that. Far more. You are an…”

“Ojaka’ari,” she whispered with reverence.

“Yes, but will you at last tell me what that means?”

“I can say only this of my past, my lord, that I hail from the faraway Mountains of the Stars bordering the Yundragos Plain.”

The same answer as usual. Every few years, she would give some new detail about herself. Sadly, this wasn’t such a time. Karphon took heart, though, that she belonged to him alone. He trusted no one except her, and she guarded him well against betrayal.

Unannounced, Mardha entered the grand durbar and strolled down the center toward the Hmyr. The dancers reeled in confusion as she pierced their circle with her guards brushing them aside. Such entrances were intended to prove that her father wielded more power than Karphon. But that didn’t rattle him. In fact, Karphon liked her entrance better than Bavadi’s. The Slayer would suddenly appear at the dais, sending Karphon’s guards into fits and causing his security officers to rework their plans. Nalsyrra, of course, was never surprised by him. Catching her off guard was impossible.

Bavadi disturbed Karphon. The man had strange manners and an unwholesome gleam to his eyes, even for a killer such as him. When he mentioned this once to Nalsyrra she replied cryptically, “He is a demon of light lost within a great shadow.” She had not explained the statement, and the tone she had used still made him shiver.

Mardha and the two masked palymfar accompanying her bowed at the foot of the dais.

“What brings you, High Priestess?”

“I’m here to speak with your bodyguard. I have need of her abilities.”

“She may serve you in that capacity, but only if she wishes to.”

Nalsyrra bowed. “I will look to the stars for you, High Priestess. You have come seeking information about the Slayer. And I can say already that he is not dead.”

Mardha frowned, and Karphon nearly leapt to his feet. The Slayer’s condition was unknown? There was risk that he had perished? And yet, Mardha didn’t look relieved to know that her lover was alive. Had the Slayer betrayed them? Karphon couldn’t believe Nalsyrra had not told him of this.

“Are you certain, Nalsyrra?” Mardha asked.

“I have already seen it in the stars, every night for the last week.”

“That information would have been helpful to us!”

Nalsyrra shrugged.

“What else have you seen?”

“Little that I could understand. But I can check again for you. It is a clear night.”

“At your master’s convenience,” Mardha said tersely.

Karphon stood. “The proceedings here can go on without me.”

“That is well, my lord, for now is the best hour to view these portents.”

When Jaska next awoke, the dim sunstone barely illuminated the cave. Zyrella slept on a pallet along the opposite wall; Ohzikar was absent. Jaska’s stomach churned, demanding food. So with creaking joints and trembling muscles, he retrieved dried meat and dates from the supply packs. He sat by the pool and ate.

Jaska was dressed in a grey shirt and pants that cinched at the ankles and knees. His pack, weapons, and uniform lay stacked nearby. No, he thought, those weapons can’t belong to me. Mine fell into the river. These … must have belonged to my students.

He nearly wept as he thought of the young men he had trained for the last few years. But then what sort of men had they truly been? Salahn couldn’t corrupt every palymfar through sorcery. Most, if not all, must be the worst sort.

And Jaska had trained hundreds of them.

He took the razor from his pack and thought of slitting his throat but couldn’t. After sitting there for some time, lost in thought, he began to shave, navigating around scar tissue through touch. His barely-lit reflection in the pool showed so much scarring that he cringed to imagine what it must look like in full light.

He paused, holding the razor near his face. His brightest students from over the years must now be some of the most notorious murderers in the world. And he was an assassin himself. He couldn’t change that. He would, however, change his prey. He would excise the cancers he had helped unleash upon the world.

“Do you always brood while you shave?”

Having inexplicably let down his guard, Jaska flinched when he heard the priestess’s voice. “I’m not at one with myself.”

She spoke a command and the nearby sunstone flared to full strength, revealing the smooth lines of her face and her deep-set eyes. “Do you wish to talk about it?”

“My burden is great, priestess.”

“I am here to share your burden, that is one of the things priestesses do after all. But please, call me Zyrella.”

Tentatively, Jaska spoke to her about the confusion of his emotions. He wasn’t accustomed to sharing his thoughts with others. “The reality of what I’ve done, of who I have been …” He shook his head. “I have trained many assassins over the years. I thought them sincere students. I still picture them that way. I cannot see their evil for what it was.”

Jaska finished shaving. “How did I do?”

“Well enough, considering.”

“My head needs shaving as well, but I don’t have the strength. My hands are beginning to shake and it’s difficult to move my left arm.”

“I can do it for you, if you wish.”

“I guess I can allow that.”

“You sound unsure.”

“It’s just that I’m used to taking care of myself.”

“You didn’t have servants like the other high ranking palymfar … or a companion?”

“I refused servants, but I did live with a beautiful woman, perfect and alluring, intelligent and playful. I loved her deeply, but now … I don’t know.”

Zyrella felt a stab of jealousy. “Who is she?”

“Mardha. Salahn’s daughter.”

“Oh.” I should have known, she thought.

“Evil surrounds her in my nightmares, but I don’t really know her in waking. You know of her don’t you? I can see it in your face. She is nothing like I described is she?”

“I’m sorry, Jaska. Mardha is a bloodletter and demon-binder. Salahn’s most devoted servant.”

“It’s just as well,” he said, though it wasn’t. He felt betrayed down to the deepest part of his being. The love he had felt for Mardha, and for his mentor, all of it was false and he had nothing except the pity of a priestess and the need of her goddess.

While he stared off lost in his misery, Zyrella started a tiny fire and heated some water. “You should stretch, Jaska, but don’t strain yourself.”

He began the simplest stretching routine, the one first taught to orphans recruited by the palymfar. His movements were limited but he did his best. Eventually he paused, brooding about the young orphans who always adored him.

“Still thinking of your students?”

“Yes. I can’t bear having taught them how best to commit evil upon others.”

With a hand on his back, she guided him to the pool. “Kneel.”

Zyrella rinsed his head with the hot water then smoothed a few drops of oil across his scalp.

Jaska’s body tensed, his eyes narrowed. “I molded them into what they are, and now I must see them destroyed. Each and every one.” His voice sounded so cold and relentless. Chills ran down Zyrella’s back. “I’ll do whatever I must to restore the palymfar to what they once were, to what they should be. I won’t rest until then. You were right, Zyrella, I can’t give up. I have too much work to do, too much to atone for.”

Zyrella cringed at what she had unleashed, even though it was what they needed. He would have been better off had they let him die. But he had been born for this work. This was the destiny Salahn had feared. She only hoped Jaska’s turning hadn’t come too late.

As Jaska returned to his pallet, Ohzikar crept away from the cave entrance where he had been listening in hiding. He didn’t understand Zyrella’s attraction to the man, and he wasn’t sure what he should do about it.

~~~~

Jaska spent three days walking and stretching, eating as much as he could, and building up his strength. Complete recovery would take much longer. The Jaska Bavadi of old had moved with supreme efficiency and complete awareness. Stiffness plagued him now, and worse, his mind was scattered to the winds, broken by the realizations of what he’d done.

The three sat together in the cave, eating but speaking little. Distrust hung between Jaska and Ohzikar. The qavra’s presence did little to help. Jaska’s eyes often strayed to it, and a forlorn, desiring look plagued his face. Ohzikar countered with a narrow-eyed scowl. Jaska had many days to go before his addiction would break if it were even half as strong as those opiate addictions Ohzikar had witnessed.

Suddenly, a chalk rune on the cave’s ceiling flared a brilliant white. Ohzikar leapt to his feet and grabbed his weapons. Zyrella put out the fire.

“I’ll scout the canyon,” Ohzikar said.

Zyrella hugged him as the rune faded. “Be careful.”

“What’s going on?” Jaska asked.

Ohzikar ducked outside as Zyrella replied. “Someone attempted to scry us. They weren’t successful. Otherwise, the rune beside that one would have flared as well.”

“I should go with him. I know how they operate. I probably taught them.”

Zyrella put a hand on his arm. “Let Ohzikar do it. Save your strength. He knows what he’s doing. We fought palymfar with the resistance, while you were away helping Karphon take Xampaji. Besides, Ohzikar is wearing a scrying ward and you aren’t.”

“I feel useless.”

“Now you know how I feel most of the time. Ohzi and my other templar guards have always …” Her voice choked and Jaska looked away.

“I’m sorry …”

“It wasn’t you. Another man and his acolytes killed them. It’s done, and there’s nothing we can do to change it.” Zyrella drew one of his students’ qavra from the pouch tied to her belt sash. “As for fighting the enemy, I have cleansed this qavra of palymfar spells for you. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to purify your original.”

With an expression of distaste, Jaska eyed the small jet stone embedded in the leather choker. “I can’t.”

“But you must. Without your powers, you won’t be strong enough to combat Salahn.”

“I will manage.”

“That’s a lie, and you know it.”

“What if all palymfar qavra can betray me?”

“Impossible. With this one I have erased the previous owner’s aura. No spells exist within it, nor does one exist on you.”

“But even a lesser qavra such as that one might awaken things within me. Things that I have buried in the past. The old methods may entice me into committing the old acts again.”

“If so, you will have to conquer those things. To succeed, we need all your abilities. You know I’m right.”

Without looking at her, he nodded. “It must wait, though. I’m not strong enough to bond with the qavra now.”

“I can help you.”

Zyrella held the qavra out toward him. He stared at it. Minutes went by before Jaska reached forward. His fingertips came within inches, but then a look of horror crossed his face and he withdrew. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He licked his lips and furrowed his brow.

“Conquer your fear, conquer the scars Salahn left upon your psyche.”

He leaned forward again and reached, but he still couldn’t do it. Just as his fingers pulled away, Ohzikar returned.

“I spotted four palymfar at the canyon’s entrance. They ventured a little way in and left.”

“We should leave as soon as possible,” Jaska said. “If they didn’t search the canyon, it means they know we’re here.”

“Are you well enough to move on?” Zyrella asked.

“I crossed the wilderness for days in worse condition than this.”

“But that almost killed you. Our position is defensible.”

“It’s not secure enough to survive a full attack,” Jaska said. “Your templar is a good warrior.” The two exchanged dark appraisals. “But even with my help he won’t survive against twelve veteran palymfar.”

Zyrella began to stand, but Jaska stopped her. “I should take that qavra now. It won’t be linked to the others, so they won’t be able to track it. I can use it to detect their positions and aid our retreat. I know spells that will loosen my limbs and boost my strength. And there is one powerful spell I can use against them if it comes to fighting.”

Jaska steeled his nerves and took the qavra. Despite his fears, nothing terrible happened. He raised the leather choker to his neck. He connected the locking studs, drew it to the proper tightness, and fastened the buckles. The specially treated leather fit snug against his neck, covering the pale flesh where a qavra had sat fixed in place for the last eighteen years.

Jaska felt naked no longer. He felt complete and whole. Empowered and confident.

Evil and sadistic, murdering and foul.

Not from sorcery but from memories–nightmares that flooded into his waking mind. Things he had done with the powers such a stone granted. He panicked and shadows flooded his brain. He tore at the qavra until a section of scar tissue opened and bled. He screamed and fell into convulsions.

Ohzikar held him down, and Zyrella soothed him with a chant of sleep that reduced him to tossing and muttering. Fever spread through his body. His limbs flexed into exhaustion, and he descended into a tortured stupor.

~~~~

Ohzikar ripped the canvas sheet from its moorings as he rushed into the cave. “All twelve palymfar are entering the canyon. We have time to slip away, up the back trail, but only if we leave now.”

Zyrella’s breath caught in her throat. The sun was descending, casting shadows in the canyon behind Ohzi. Darkness was falling onto their hopes. She continued to daub Jaska’s tensed face with a cold, wet cloth. Half open, the assassin’s eyes were glazed over.

Somewhat aware of the waking world around him, Jaska muttered an indecipherable reply.

“Ella, we have to go now.”

“He can’t move, Ohzi.”

“Then we must leave him.”

With a cold voice, more lifeless than any he’d ever heard from her, she said, “We will not abandon him.”

Ohzikar knelt and rubbed his hand across her back. “We have no choice. I can’t protect you here. I would carry him, but the trail is too treacherous. Ella, we have nothing if you are lost.”

“No, Ohzi. We have nothing if Jaska is lost. I know you don’t want to face this but you must. Jaska is more important than me. The White Tigress didn’t spend her final free moments giving me instructions. She spent them saving this man. I may be more valuable to you, but Jaska is more important to our cause. If we die defending him, then we die. I cannot help that.”

Ohzikar cursed and stalked to the back of the cave where he tried to marshal his thoughts and emotions. But he couldn’t cool his anger, or his jealousy over how much time and attention she gave to the assassin who had killed their brothers.

Zyrella leaned close to Jaska, whispered and pleaded. “We need you. You must break free. Otherwise, all is lost.” For a moment, she thought his eyes focused on her, but she couldn’t be sure.

“Tear that damn choker off him,” Ohzikar said. “If you won’t leave him behind, at least give him a chance to wake.”

They had discussed this a half-dozen times after she had confirmed that the stone contained no active energies and that this must be caused by a reaction within his mind.

She spun and nearly shouted. “We don’t know that he’ll wake without it! He may become further lost to us. The qavra will remain in place.”

“But, we must–”

“I know that is the right thing to do. I will not be persuaded or threatened otherwise. I am the High Priestess of the White Tigress, and you will obey me in this. Now, I suggest, captain, that you see to our defense as best as you can.”

“As you wish, high priestess.”

Tears streamed from Zyrella’s eyes as Ohzikar harshly packed the last of their gear. She hated fighting with him and rarely did so. She promised herself she would make up with him before they faced the enemy. She couldn’t bear to think of anger hanging between them when death came.

A warm glow emanated halfway up a rock wall on the north end of a dry canyon. Along a narrow ledge was a cave not visible from the canyon floor. Firelight flickered on the walls inside and illuminated hunting scenes and animal lords painted by tribesmen centuries ago. Many of the scenes depicted species long extinct from the region, their populations decimated by the inexorable approach of the northern desert.

Zyrella chalked her own symbols onto the walls: twisting runes that channeled the geomantic forces in her surroundings and called upon the divine powers of the great deity Kashomae, the Gentle Savior. After Zyrella finished, Ohzikar fastened a sheet of canvas over the cave entrance. Then he joined her at the back of the cave where water, shimmering like liquid fire, trickled into a small pool.

“That should mask our firelight.” He frowned at the small pile of brush, dung, and coal. “Not that we’ll be burning much.”

“I’ll conjure sunlight into a stone tomorrow.” Zyrella didn’t let on to Ohzikar that she was utterly spent. Making a sunstone would tax her, and an apprentice sorcerer could handle such a task with ease.

Ohzikar turned his gaze to a pallet set into a nook two-thirds of the way back into the cave. There, Jaska the Slayer tossed and moaned and salivated through high fevers and nightmares that kept him too exhausted to rise and eat. Zyrella had healed his wounds, but his damaged psyche kept him immobilized.

“Palymfar will come for him soon,” Ohzikar said.

Zyrella pictured Jaska’s brilliant amber eyes, and a shudder of passion spread through her body. As she mastered this strange attraction, she knew she would revisit the feeling and could never abandon this man who was supposed to be her enemy and the most evil person alive, save for his master.

“Does it really matter whether he is with us? They will come for me anyway. Hopefully by then he can help us.”

“No good will come from him.”

Zyrella stroked Ohzikar’s hand. “You heard what Elanzar and his daughters said. Jaska saved them and would not abuse them, claiming he was a true palymfar.”

“Enh. He was just lying to earn their trust. He needed their help.”

Zyrella groaned and walked over to her patient. Charay had helped her tend him during the most critical hours as Zyrella patched his wounds with magic. She didn’t know how long Jaska would be incapacitated. He might yet worsen and die, though she believed him too resilient for that.

Ohzikar sorted through supplies and checked over their gear. His foul mood had worsened since the family’s departure. Their company had distracted him from brooding about his fallen brothers. Ysemi had followed Ohzikar like a puppy, as most youths did, and he had taught her everything he could about watching for bandits and choosing safe campsites. Then he had instructed all three refugees on wielding the short swords and knives they had taken from the dead bandits.

In exchange for their help in transporting Jaska to the cave, Zyrella had blessed them and their donkeys. She also gave them the bandits’ meager rations since Ohzikar had taken food, money, and gear from the packs of their fallen comrades. He had also recovered Jaska’s pack, which they had happened upon by chance.

Suddenly, Jaska’s eyes snapped open. Firelight cast them a brilliant gold and showed the madness within. He wrenched his hands, kicked his feet, moaned and thrashed. Sweat poured from his forehead, saliva drooled from his lips. A soul-tearing scream burst through his inflamed throat. “Qaavvrraa!”

Ohzikar pinned Jaska’s hands when he began clawing at his throat. “What the hell’s happening to him?”

Zyrella stroked Jaska’s brow. “I’m not sure.”

Jaska yelled repeatedly for his qavra, writhed, and snapped his teeth together. Ohzikar leaned his weight onto him. Zyrella dipped a cloth into the spring and wiped Jaska’s brow while chanting a simple spell of calming. After half an hour, he settled and returned to sleep.

Ohzikar stalked outside to watch for enemies. After resting a bit, Zyrella joined him. “He will sleep for some time now, I think.”

“Has his evil nature returned?”

Zyrella sat back and admired the thousands of stars that twinkled in the sky above, except for a patch currently hidden behind the full disk of the shadowed moon. With her charcoal surface, Zhura gleamed only enough to stand out from the black of the sky.

“I’m afraid he craves his qavra like an addict craves opiates. And his qavra is laced with binding spells that Salahn used to control him.”

“We should destroy it.”

“A qavra can’t be destroyed with any method you and I have access to.”

“Then toss it into the river.”

“No. Its powers are benign as long as he isn’t wearing it.”

“But can we keep it from him? Do you trust him that much? Do us all a favor and throw it away.”

“No, Ohzi. We may need that qavra. He may need it. Jaska’s is the most powerful qavra I have ever seen, and it holds a link to Salahn, a link we might be able to exploit. If nothing else, once Jaska is recovered, we may be able to eliminate the bindings in the stone so that he can use it again.”

“We have little time to break him of this addiction, Ella, and we will die if we stay here too long.”

“What else is there for us to do? We can’t return to Epros and hide forever. The White Tigress thought Jaska worth our sacrifices, and if anyone could defeat Salahn, it would be a redeemed Jaska Bavadi.”

Ohzikar sat in silence for a long time. When he spoke again, his voice was somber, barely audible. “Perhaps you’re right, but I cannot forgive him our brothers’ deaths or the sins he committed. And, you know, he won’t be our hope as a redeemed man. We need a man so scarred by his sins, so determined to cleanse the evil he has committed that he will breathe fire and shake the foundations of the earth if need be. Worst of all, to defeat Salahn, he will need your help.”

“And yours.”

Ohzikar threw his head into his scarred hands. “And mine.”

Zyrella put her arm around him, kissed his ear, and whispered. “You can let go.”

He nearly sobbed but then gathered his composure. “No, I can’t.”

“Our brothers would weep for you.”

“But I was their captain. I cannot mourn them.”

Zyrella well knew that templars were supposed to follow the ideals of stoicism. Still, Ohzikar was a sensitive and caring man. He needed to let go. Zyrella would have told him that it didn’t matter anymore, that none but her could see his weakness, but Ohzikar needed his self-respect.

And what of herself? She was holding in those same emotions that ate away at him. Perhaps she could help them both.

“Ohzi, may I weep for our brothers on your behalf?”

A tender half-smile curled his lips. “Yes, mourn them for the both of us. They were the best and most loyal friends. Servants of the goddess to the last.”

Ohzikar put his arm around her and cradled her head against his chest for several hours, until the cold wind dried her tears.

~~~~

Four days passed. Jaska barely drank the soup poured into his mouth. He raved and thrashed until Ohzikar bound his hands and feet to keep him from hurting himself. Zyrella, despite her exhaustion, scribed runes of silence to dampen the sounds that left the cave.

Ohzikar served as their lookout and repaired his armor and shield. Zyrella meditated and danced subtle spirit-katas to restore her internal energies. She slept long hours and ate voraciously. Otherwise, she took care of Jaska and recited to him the Codex of Kashomae the Gentle Savior, who was the spirit-mother of the White Tigress.

A mournful gust moaned through the canyon. The canvas sheet snapped taut with sharp cracks. Zyrella’s sunstone, a simple quartz rock embellished with the rune of Taal Eos the Sun King, burned at quarter-strength, the equivalent of a single candle. Ohzikar slept bundled in a blanket at the entrance. Jaska, for the first midnight yet, slept peacefully. Zyrella rested her head against the lumpy, damp wall. Though she intended only to nap, she drifted into a deep sleep.

Zyrella dreamed she flew above the prosperous land that was the only home she knew, a land quite different from arid, violent Hareez in which she hadn’t lived since the age of three. Below her, the golden, autumn-harvest fields of Epros’ valleys wound around hills topped with ancient ruins and modern citadels. Olive orchards and grape vineyards dominated by tile-roofed villas stood interspersed among the grain fields. Throughout the land, farmhouses and granaries clustered together into neat villages, each built around a central green and a communal well.

Zyrella soared above Arga, a village on the southern coast. Her heart warmed to see the familiar, quaint homes, the vineyards and fields, a score of modest fishing vessels, and herds of sheep trailed by young men with staves and dogs. On the tallest hill, the ruins of an Eirsendan shrine lay beneath a grove of sprawling oaks. There, among the vine-wrapped marble pillars and moss-covered flagstones, Zyrella’s grandmother had instructed her in the arts of being a priestess to the White Tigress. They had used the shrine with the blessing and support of the local priestesses of Yaraya, a wolf goddess also mothered to divinity by Kashomae. Yaraya had taken pity on the White Tigress’ refugees, and her magics had protected Zyrella from Salahn’s scrying as long as she remained in Arga.

Studying in Arga, Zyrella mastered before the age of twenty many sorceries a normal priestess might never know. After her grandmother passed away, she joined Ohzikar and the other templars in fighting with the resistance movement in Hareez. And after the palymfar and Hmyr Karphon’s army defeated the resistance, they returned to Arga, minus five of their brothers. That was when the Grandmaster had noted the power she wielded and divined who she was.

A whisper rushed across the fields, bending grain stalks and rustling grapevines and olive leaves. The whisper grew harsh and scoured the fields. Sheep fell as if slaughtered. Vines wilted, the sea withdrew, and oaks withered. Desert sands massed on the horizon, then the scrub of Hareez swallowed Epros.

An instant before she could scream, Zyrella woke. Yet the hellish whisper remained.

“Priestess, can you hear me?”

She scrambled to Jaska’s side. “Yes. I’m awake now.”

“Where are we?”

“Hidden in a cave, twenty leagues east of the shrine.”

“How did I get here? How did you find me?” He swept his gaze around the cave. “Where is the merchant, his daughters?” He struggled to sit up. “I blacked out and–”

“They’re fine, back on their way to Epros. I arrived soon after you collapsed and they helped me take care of you the first few days.”

While she untied his hands and feet, she explained everything that had happened.

“Why are you helping me? You have every right to kill me.”

“I must see the efforts of the White Tigress completed.”

Jaska arched his back up from the ground and grimaced with pain. “I’m thoroughly corrupt. I don’t deserve life.”

“You did evil, that’s true, but you weren’t in control of your actions, were you?”

He shook his head. “I should have been.”

Jaska began to convulse with dry coughs. Zyrella brought him water. He rose on his elbows and Zyrella held the bowl to his lips. He drank then lay back down.

“I don’t want to live.”

“Then why have you fought so hard these last few days?”

He shrugged. “I’ve never given up before. I don’t know how.”

“Then don’t make this time a first. Salahn grows in power. Help me stop him. I have no hope without you.”

“What can I do? He will exert his control over me again. I am weak against him. Through my dreams he calls to me.”

“Your nightmares and urges are resonances caused by an addiction to Salahn’s dark powers. And your body grew accustomed to sating many lusts that no longer have an outlet. But you can conquer all of that. The bindings you must fear are in your qavra.”

He winced and cringed away from her. “Tell me it is lost, for I must have it.”

Ohzikar emerged from the shadows. He knelt beside her and lifted the qavra, dangling it just out of Jaska’s reach. “Here it is, palymfar. Your legacy and power, the collar given you by your master. Come for it anytime you wish. I’ll give it to you willingly.”

Zyrella shoved him, though his bulk showed no response. “Ohzi! That’s not fair. Don’t tempt him.”

“If he wants to do what’s right, he must fight this thing. You were correct about its value, but there’s one point you overlooked. If we had thrown the qavra away, he would never have recovered. It would have always had a hold on him.”

“But even so, it’s not fair to do this to him now. I cannot–”

“No.” Jaska stared at the qavra. “He’s right. I must beat it. I can’t let it haunt me forever.”

Jaska sat up and reached out. Ohzikar didn’t move. He waited as Jaska edged closer. Zyrella almost spoke, almost took the stone away, but Ohzikar warned her off with a stern look. He didn’t set his mind against her like this often but when he did, he did so with an unshakable belief that he was doing the right thing.

Jaska reached out, his fingertips nearing the qavra. Zyrella’s heart thumped hard. She feared he would give in. But Jaska’s fingertips missed the qavra as he pushed Ohzikar’s arm away. With his other hand, he grabbed Ohzikar by the collar and pulled him close. Ohzikar’s eyes widened with surprise.

“Keep it with you, templar, so I’ll always know where it is.”

“I will. And know this, I’d kill you now if Zyrella didn’t believe that something good will come out of you yet.”

“Hers is a lost cause and I welcome any slaying that gives me what I deserve.”

The two men stared at each other until Jaska backed away. Ohzikar went to his blankets. Jaska settled back on his pallet, his breathing deep and steady.

“I’m sorry Ohzikar threatened you.”

A half-smile crept upon Jaska’s lips. “We have reached a truce.”

“I don’t understand warriors. I never will.”

“And I don’t understand priestesses or their goddesses.”

“Fair enough.”

“What you’ve done … It’s more than I deserve.”

“The first time I saw you I knew there was something else deep within you, something hidden away. That is the true Jaska Bavadi.”

“I would like to think so, but no. The true Jaska Bavadi is tainted. Nothing can change that. I am similar to what that other man might have been. That’s all.”

“It’s something.”

“It’s worthless.”

“Not to me or my goddess.”

“Oh, I’m worth something to you, but only as a killing machine, but nothing more.”

“You’re wrong. I can’t speak for the White Tigress, but you mean something to me … as a person.”

He shrugged. “As I said, I don’t understand priestesses.” Jaska’s eyes began to flutter downward. “I will fight the qavra, best as I can. And I will fight for you against Salahn. But I give no guarantees. My will is strong but the nightmares … the things I have done …”

He shook his head then drifted off into sleep.

Zyrella watched him, wishing she could take away his pain. She couldn’t imagine a more terrible fate than Jaska’s. The sun rose before she left his side.

The eastern sky brightened as dawn approached while the west remained dark with retreating storm clouds. Along the riverbank, the swollen waters sloshed as they receded. Wind sighed through brakes of reeds and the leaves of three stunted palms. In a nearby stream, Jaska caught two fish barehanded, despite the pain that tunneled deep within his mind and the limited range of motion in his neck and left arm. His barely sealed wounds burned with punctuating waves of needle-sharp stabs.

With cold-numbed fingers, he ripped the flesh from the bones of the fish. He swallowed more than chewed for his jaws would barely open. He was exhausted, but he wouldn’t let himself fall asleep again. He couldn’t bear to face more nightmares of carnage and torture.

He needed to get help. Lying here for days would only expose him to enemies and predators. It might also mean succumbing to his injuries. Jaska splashed his face and drank from the stream. Then he gathered a few half-rotten dates that had fallen to the ground and stuffed them into a pocket.

He was ready to move on, but where to? He thought of the White Tigress and his promise to seek the truth. He would go to the legendary Farseer of Vaalshimar. But first, he needed his qavra. Not having it exposed him to danger and hampered his abilities. There was no evil within the stone. It was simply a tool. And with it, perhaps the confusion that fogged his brain would lift.

Yes, he would return to the shrine and recover the qavra before speaking with Grandmaster Salahn whom he trusted above all other people. Salahn loved him and deserved a chance to defend himself against the accusations of the White Tigress.

Jaska staggered no more than a hundred paces toward the shrine before he thought of the priestess Zyrella. She would be there still. The qavra would likely be in her hands. Zyrella numbed his logical mind while arousing a part of his instincts he had always kept in control. He couldn’t face her again. He couldn’t look into her eyes and hear her voice. She affected him like mind-altering lanthyzar, and he feared that she would prove equally addictive.

Jaska would have to go on without the qavra. His need to avoid Zyrella overwhelmed all other needs. He couldn’t stand against the templar and the priestess now, and he didn’t believe they would spare him as their goddess had.

~~~~

Two days passed as Jaska stumbled along the road to Kabulsek, toward the base of the foothills where he had left horses and supplies. But he soon forgot about them, just as he forgot about the Farseer and seeking the truth. Led by delusions, his feet carried him back to his master, back to Salahn.

The sun burned him, and cold nights left him trembling. Fever overtook him. The pain from his injuries increased. He staggered and swayed, raved and ranted. In confusion, he stumbled off the road and into the wilderness. He ate whatever he came across, drank where he could, often draining the stems of succulents. His condition worsened without supplies and medicine. It was only his years of rigorous training that kept him alive.

~~~~

A new day dawned ill on a small family as they traveled the Alkrahar Road, a well-worn caravan route that ran from the northern reaches of the lush nation of Epros through craggy Jabalar Pass in the Wedawed Mountains to Ytas, a small river-port on the Gasrah. Fleeing Grandmaster Salahn’s reign of terror and its new religious restrictions, they traveled without choice and without guards.

When bandits ambushed them, the aging father and his two teenage daughters stood little chance of surviving.

Since he made his living by preying on refugees, Mad Armas, the bandit leader, loved Grandmaster Salahn. He immediately called dibs on the younger, more voluptuous daughter and promised his three underlings the tall, thin one. The girls would satisfy them until they became a burden. Then their screams would delight Armas for many hours.

Armas shoved the old man to the ground. The older daughter begged Armas to spare him. Armas grinned.

“We’ll do whatever we want, girl. As you’ll soon find out.” He turned to his comrades. “I’ve decided I want some of this one, too.”

“Hey, Armas,” said Rebys, his most trusted companion. “Reckon we can force ‘em to make with each other like we did the last pair?”

“That would be entertaining.”

A husky, unexpected voice called out, sending chills up Armas’s spine. “What would be entertaining is to see the four of you run from here and never look back.”

Rebys and the others nearly jumped off their bones. Armas put the three refugees between him and the newcomer so he could be sure that they didn’t stab him in the back or make a run for it.

A man with a stubble-covered head tramped toward them, dust kicking up around his dragging feet. He wore the uniform of a palymfar but without the qavra choker. An ugly, half-healed gash fell across his cheek and neck and continued down his chest, visible through his torn bodysuit. Though he carried no weapons and looked to be on the verge of death, power oozed through his voice. And his eyes. Something terrible burned within those golden orbs.

“You don’t look well, palymfar,” Armas said. “If that’s what you really are.”

“I am a palymfar. Perhaps you’ve heard of me. My name is Jaska Bavadi.”

“The Slayer!” Rebys cursed. “By all the devils, we gotta get out of here, Mad.”

Armas’ gut wrenched and his throat closed, but he gathered his courage. What would the famed Slayer be doing out here, wounded and alone, without weapons or his magic stone? He glanced over and saw that his two newer underlings had taken a step back. With a flare of anger, Armas noted that the merchant and both daughters feared this newcomer more than him.

The man claiming to be the Slayer kept walking toward them, never stopping, and Armas’ men continued to edge away. Armas figured it was a bluff and refused to be cowed. “This man is a fake. And regardless, he’s wounded and exhausted. Look at him! What is there to fear about him?”

“Sorcery,” Rebys whispered.

“Bah! He doesn’t even have a qavra.”

“Death is your choice,” Jaska said.

Armas stepped past the refugees and said to them, “Move and you’ll regret it.” Then he shouted, “Kill him!”

Rebys lifted his short sword, yelled, and launched into a wild charge. The other two bandits followed a few steps behind with Armas farther back, moving at a more careful speed. The palymfar leapt forward, grabbed Rebys’s sword-wielding hand in mid-swing, and pinned it against his shoulder. Then he rotated the arm forward and slammed his palm down on the back of the hyper-extended elbow. The joint snapped with a sharp crack.

As the shorts word fell, the palymfar plucked it from the air and spun away from the lunge of the second bandit. He completed his spin and sliced the third across the stomach, spilling intestines. The palymfar ducked another attack by the second bandit then whipped the sword around and slashed him across the throat. Finally, he stepped to the side and chopped into the back of Rebys’s neck as the bandit climbed to his feet.

The Slayer twisted his torso to the left and adjusted his grip on the sword. Armas skidded to a stop and backed away. All three of his companions had fallen within seconds, killed with Rebys’s own blade. “Look, there’s no need–”

The Slayer’s torso snapped back to center, adding momentum to the swing of his arm. The released sword sped toward Armas and plunged into his stomach. Mad Armas clutched at the blade, collapsed, and then died.

Jaska panted. Fire burned within his wounds. Blood trickled from his chest where he had torn open a section of half-healed flesh. He stumbled toward the merchant and his daughters.

“You are saved.”

They bowed before Jaska. “Thank you, my lord,” said the father. “All our money and goods are yours. We didn’t mean to cause trouble.”

Barely able to stand, Jaska sucked wind and with perplexity eyed the man. “That’s not what I want. I am palymfar.”

Grief marred the bearded face of the aging man, and tears welled in his eyes. “Of-of course, my lord.”

The younger daughter wailed and took up a knife one of the bandits had dropped. She raised it to her throat. “I’ll die before you touch me.”

Before Jaska could respond, the elder daughter wrenched the knife from her sister and threw it away. “No. Take me, my lord, and I will give you any pleasure you ask, even if it brings me pain. Just let my father and sister go.”

The merchant stepped forward. “Don’t do this, Charay.”

“What choice do we have? I am brave, father. Do not worry.”

The merchant choked back his next words and bowed his head. Jaska stood swaying, trying to figure out why these people were acting as they did and wishing he had his qavra. Charay dropped the kaftan from her shoulders, exposing her sinuous, naked form. She lay back onto the kaftan and spread her legs.

Despite his depleted body, arousal flared through Jaska, followed by twisted urges to cause her pain. He stumbled and shook his head. When nothing improved, he summoned his willpower and mastered these strange, wicked impulses that felt disturbingly familiar.

“I am Jaska Bavadi … a palymfar. Do you know what that means?”

“Yes, my lord, I have heard of your ways and your appetite. Now come and take what is yours in exchange for the lives of my father and sister. At the least, be merciful with them.”

Realizations struck Jaska in rapid succession, followed by recollections of the nightmares he had suffered when sleeping the last several days.

The White Tigress had spoken true.

“Get up … put your clothes back on. I only want food and drink. I’m not sure what you think I am … or what you expect me to be. In fact, I’m not sure what I have been, but today I am a true palymfar and no harm shall come to you.”

All three stared incredulously, until he said, “Please, I am weak … I need help.”

As if waking from a dream themselves, the merchant Elanzar and his two daughters Ysemi and Charay shook their heads. Then they rushed about, retrieving hard tack and dried meat strips from their packs. Devoted worshipers of Selial Earth Mother, they didn’t think of refusing help, even to one such as Jaska Bavadi.

Charay started a dung fire and prepared herbs in a bowl for a healing tisane. Ysemi arranged the food for him and poured fresh water and wine into a wooden bowl while her father set blankets on the ground and made a pallet. They helped Jaska eat, for his hands trembled and his condition was worsening. He could hardly chew, so they softened his food in water. Then he allowed Charay to remove his burnoose and torso armor.

“She knows the healing arts,” Elanzar explained.

“What healed this wound?” she asked. “The scabs are strange.”

“Divine magic … but the goddess didn’t have the strength … to fully repair the tissues.”

Charay accepted his strange answer. After all, it was no more bizarre than anything else that was happening. “How long ago was this miracle performed?”

“Perhaps five days. I’ve walked with little food or water since, little sleep.”

“How are you still alive?”

“Willpower. I must survive. And now I must learn the truth.”

“What truth?” Ysemi blurted out. Her father scowled but said nothing for he was also curious.

“I must learn about … about the palymfar, about what they’ve done. What I’ve done.”

The three glanced at one another in astonishment, then the old man began. “The palymfar have brought a wondrous age of prosperity to Ha-”

“No,” Jaska snapped. “I must know how it really is. Don’t tell me Salahn’s lies. He has deceived me for too long.”

Wide-eyed, Ysemi said, “You are infamous for the torment you visit upon your enemies. You are the Slayer, and there are so many stories that I don’t know which ones are true. They are all terrible though.”

Elanzar interrupted his daughter, and as tears fell from Jaska’s eyes, he described the palymfar’s reign. Before Elanzar could finish, Jaska fell into a raving stupor. Charay calmed him by stroking his brow while Elanzar and Ysemi held him down. Eventually, he fell unconscious.

“What’s happening here, father?” Charay asked.

“I don’t know, but it’s as if the man has woken up and all his life before belonged to someone else or was all but a dream.”

“Is that possible?” Ysemi asked.

“I don’t know, child.”

Charay frowned. “We may never know. His wounds are taking him. The strain he placed on his body was too much. I can do no more.”

“I can help him, though,” said a woman walking down the road toward them.

The three turned to see a white-robed priestess escorted by a fully armed templar. Judging by her attire and the templar’s insignia, they were adherents of the White Tigress.

“I am Zyrella,” the woman said. “The last true priestess of the White Tigress. With your help, child, I can heal him.”

“But are you sure we should?” the templar said.

She turned to her companion. “Ohzi, we must learn what the White Tigress wanted from him.”

If you head over to Podiobooks, you’ll see that the audio version of my novel Wrath of the White Tigress is now complete. Please download and enjoy.

If you’d like to listen to a sample, click on the player in the right-hand column of this site.

Wrath of the White Tigress

The Palymfar Order, which once protected the land of Hareez, now holds it in an iron grip of terror under the malevolent sorcerer Grandmaster Salahn and his mind-controlled assassin, Jaska the Slayer. As Salahn prepares to absorb the immortal White Tigress and become a god himself, Jaska and the palymfar annihilate all who stand in the way.

On the run since Salahn destroyed her temple and murdered her family, Zyrella, last high priestess of the White Tigress, is the only one who has the power to free the goddess. But the White Tigress has other plans, and instead of running away, she releases Jaska. For Salahn has demented ambitions reaching far beyond immortality and only together do Jaska and Zyrella hold a hope of stopping him before it’s too late.

Wrath of the White Tigress at Podiobooks.

Jaska tumbled through raging waters, scraping the canyon walls. Though wide horizon and starry sky appeared at the canyon’s end, he gave up. Much of his blood now flowed within the Gasrah and willpower could carry him no further.

But as he sank, the White Tigress shot from the muddy north bank. Water surged around her as she navigated the currents. She reached Jaska, grabbed his arm gently, despite her massive jaws, and pulled him ashore.

The White Tigress licked his face and pawed at his chest but to no avail. So she channeled some of her spirit into him until he breathed again, hoping her gamble would pay off.

Water poured from his mouth. Wounded tissues knitted together. His eyelids fluttered then opened.

“Do you know who you are?”

“Jaska Bavadi … a palymfar …” He touched his neck where his qavra should have been. His fingers slid along a layer of soft scar tissue. His wounds, instead of searing with pain, were cold and numb.

“I have sealed your wounds with magic, but you will still need rest and a healer’s care.”

“Why-Why did you save me?”

“Because I need your help. Because we should be allies.”

“But you’re a demon.”

“Are you still certain that I am evil?”

“I-I don’t know. My head isn’t clear, and the world … Everything looks different to me. Like …”

“Like a shadow has been lifted? You are free now. The templar’s sword severed the chains binding your mind. Your qavra is gone and with it Salahn’s power over you.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“If a goddess can be bound, a man would pose no great difficulty.”

“But why would Salahn bind me?”

“Eighteen years ago, a prophecy told him you would threaten him one day. But he could not bring himself to kill you. You were everything he wanted in a son except that you were incorruptible. So to harness your unprecedented natural talent, Salahn defied Fate and bound you with sorcery. You became his pawn and believed your every misdeed to be noble.”

Jaska shook his head.

“You must realize the truth, Jaska. The sooner you wake to reality, the better for us all.” The White Tigress rested her head between her paws. “I am weary. Everything hinges on you. For the moment you are free from Salahn’s power, but a connection yet remains and only you can sever it.”

Jaska scowled. “All of this… It can’t be true.”

“Think back over your career. What did you do to your enemies? To their families? Recall a single mission where you confronted some evildoer in his household. What happened to him and his family?”

Instantly, he thought of Lordhak Mul, a powerful merchant lord. Jaska had led forty palymfar into Lordhak’s keep and returned with only twenty-three. It had proved, nevertheless, a resounding victory. Yet the details eluded him. Warily he described what little he recalled to the White Tigress. “My injuries are clouding my memories.”

“Can you remember the day you met Salahn?”

“Yes. Of course.” He pictured it vividly in his mind. “That was the most important day of my life.”

“What about the second, third, and fourth days?”

“In complete detail.”

“What did you do in the weeks after your initiation, after you gained your qavra?”

“I suppose I trained.”

“You did not celebrate in any way?”

“Not that I remember.”

“What about your first mission as a full-fledged palymfar? Surely you remember that.”

But he didn’t. The same held true for Mardha, his pledged life-mate and Grandmaster Salahn’s daughter. He remembered when they first met, but he couldn’t recall a first kiss or a first night together.

He told her more about the assault on Muhl’s keep.

“So you remember wounding Lordhak in the leg then disarming him, but what came next?”

“I think … I killed him. Enemies of the people are slain.”

“According to the old code, palymfar set men on trial whenever possible.”

Jaska’s face blanked. “I’m sure necessity required such action that night.”

“What happened to Lordhak’s family?”

“I don’t recall. Perhaps he sent them away during the attack.”

The White Tigress sighed a low, sad growl. “Jaska, you tortured and then slaughtered them before Lordhak’s eyes.”

Jaska tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t bear him up. “I’d never do such a thing!”

The silver eyes of the White Tigress flared. “It is true that Jaska Bavadi would never commit such an act, but Salahn’s Slayer would. Ask anyone in Hareez. The events are legend. You made the servants watch and sent them away to spread word of what happens to those who resist the palymfar. Afterward, you became a legend of terror.”

“I didn’t do any of those things! It’s not possible.”

“Jaska, I gained this knowledge through Grandmaster Salahn. I have seen everything through his eyes, including you. And I have scanned your memories. I know what happened.” The White Tigress paced around him. “Lordhak had a daughter with long, sable hair twisted into a braid that fell over her right shoulder.”

A ghost of an image appeared within Jaska’s mind. “I-I remember her, vaguely.”

“She couldn’t speak. Not a sound would come from her.”

Bile stirred within Jaska’s stomach. His heart pounded.

“You remember something terrible now, don’t you?” Jaska looked away and nodded. “You cut lines across her flesh with your bagh nakh. You said you would hurt her until she screamed, knowing she could not.”

“But I would never harm a child!”

“Her mouth contorted, her eyes pleaded. She swung at you, scratched and bit, and you continued to torture her while her parents watched and the other palymfar laughed.”

Jaska saw a flash of frightened, innocent eyes and blade-scored flesh. A mouth that tried to scream and failed. His hands trembled.

“You still carry a scar where she bit you.”

He raised the sleeve of his right arm and looked at two small sets of scars an inch apart that curved in toward one another. He tried to deny what she said, but memories surfaced matching her words. He wept and the White Tigress curled up against him. He didn’t resist her. Her presence was comforting.

“Everything happened as I said, Jaska, and you will spend the rest of your life tormented by the evils you committed. Over the next few weeks, the memories of what you did will begin to return, as long as you do not replace your qavra.

“When the nightmares threaten, you must call on resources deep within where your purity remains. Do not seek solace with Salahn or Mardha, no matter their promises.”

Suddenly, the White Tigress sprang up and then thrashed about as if something had fallen onto her. As if chains weighted her neck and shoulders …

Panting, she spoke quickly. “You must overcome your past. You must defeat Salahn. Zyrella and Ohzikar will help you free Hareez from Salahn’s terror. But only you can stop him. If you do not, he will grow in power until he rules the Shadowland, and then he will open the Underworld Gates to retrieve someone lost to him long ago. In doing so, he may destroy the world as we know it.”

The White Tigress roared and struggled. She turned translucent, and her form blurred at the edges. Jaska reached out to her and spoke the only truth he felt certain of. “I know you’re not evil and that something is wrong with me. I promise I will seek the truth and follow the palymfar way.”

“Then go to my friend, the Farseer of Vaalshimar. She can help you. I am certain of that. If I had listened to her decades ago, none of this would–”

The White Tigress suddenly winced and flattened her ears.

“What’s wrong?”

Moaning in pain, she replied, “Your master is binding me, and no matter how hard I fight it, I cannot stop him.”

“Why do you struggle if it’s hopeless?”

“I must make Salahn disperse me entirely or else I may take memories of what I have done here back to him. Unfortunately, I do not think I have the strength to hold out long enough.”

Jaska wrapped his arms around the White Tigress, and it seemed as if he held nothing more solid than cotton. “I will struggle with you.”

“Against your master?”

“On behalf of the truth, whatever it might be. This is my gift to you in return for saving my life.”

Within minutes, her form had nearly dissipated. “May the spirits of all the greater deities be strong in you, Jaska Bavadi.”

Then, with a savage roar, the White Tigress disappeared.

~~~~

Two decades of demented sacrificial acts had profaned the Grand Temple of the White Tigress in Kabulsek. This morning’s bloodletting was the worst. Not a flagstone remained without a drop of innocent blood or bits of bone, skin, and hair. A temple once revered for sweet jasmine incense now smelled worse than a slaughterhouse.

Grandmaster Salahn knelt at the altar. Unhinged sigils described in blood sprawled across his skin. The most devoted of his palymfar lined the walls beneath monochrome stained glass windows. His daughter Mardha paced the sanctuary. Her ebony hair hung free over a black gossamer shift that clung to her voluptuous figure. Blue-grey tattoos decorated skin as uncommonly pale as her mother’s had been. Salahn admired the sway of her hips. She was like her long-departed mother, only warped into being everything he could desire.

Having steeled himself for the final requirements, Salahn drew in a deep breath and focused on the ritual’s completion. After a half-hour of chanting, a drop of dark liquid fell through the skylight and splattered onto a marble statue of the White Tigress. The statue melted, and the mix erupted into a spinning, coruscant cloud.

Chains of crimson energy bound the cloud as it congealed into the White Tigress. She roared, hissed, and clawed but couldn’t break the chains. Grandmaster Salahn laughed with the thrill of victory, bounded up the dais, and stepped into the White Tigress. The goddess screamed as she lost cohesion. Her energies swirled around Salahn, striking and firing through him. Organs and skeleton glowed beneath transparent skin. Lightning blazed within his eyes and mouth and lashed his chest and back. Blood and smoke oozed from the welts.

Salahn had lived eleven years beyond a century and appeared to be in his sixties. But he would look old no longer. His forked grey beard blackened to the tips, and had he wished it, his bald head would have grown new hair. The wrinkles in his swarthy skin smoothed away. His scars disappeared. Bones strengthened. Muscles and tendons healed of old injuries and grew stronger than ever before.

Blood poured away to reveal on his chest and back, realistic tattoos of the White Tigress within which she was trapped forever. “Now, I am a god!” Salahn shouted. “Victory will be ours across Pawan Kor and throughout the world. Whatever we wish, we will have. You shall all live as kings, and I will be the King of Kings!”

The palymfar cheered and chanted their leader’s name. Salahn stalked around, reveling in his new body. With his physical and sorcerous capabilities doubled, no man could match him now, not even Jaska.

Mardha took his arm. “You’re more handsome than before, Father.”

“It is the beauty of power that attracts you,” he said, smiling. “And as we spread the White Tigress cult through every land we conquer, that power will grow stronger. In a few years, I will be able to bestow immortality upon you as well. And soon, the Gates of the Underworld will open at my command.”

He began to tremble, and Mardha grabbed his hand. “You should rest now.”

She led him to the throne he had placed in an alcove behind the dais. Adynarh, a tall, dour man who ranked above all palymfar save Jaska, joined them.

While Mardha wiped sweat and blood from Salahn’s body, he considered the sensations he had experienced as he absorbed the White Tigress, trying to figure out what she had done during her brief freedom.

“Jaska was near to the White Tigress when she broke away,” Salahn said, “but she has hidden the knowledge of what she did deep within her mind.”

“Can you not force her to give up the information?” Mardha asked.

“Yes, but if I fully open myself to her thoughts and experiences, her personality could corrupt me. This may be a trap to that end. For now, let us concentrate on finding out what Jaska knows. Whatever plans the White Tigress initiated must be stopped, and her priestess must be killed, if Jaska has not seen to this already.”

“I will signal him to make contact,” Mardha said, and she went off to the high tower chamber they used specifically for that purpose, where finely attuned crystals enhanced their sensing capabilities.

Adynarh brought Salahn cold meats, bread, and cheese. By the time he finished them, Mardha returned with vexation on her face and trepidation in her normally precise movements. She said in a distant, stricken whisper, “I couldn’t find him, not even a trace.”

Adynarh’s jaw fell. “Is that possible?”

“Anything is possible,” Mardha said. “Even that.”

Salahn sat upright, his hunger forgotten. “You made no mistakes?”

“I performed the contact ritual three times with as much power as I could wield but found no signature. Either his qavra is destroyed or Jaska … is dead. I couldn’t find his students either, but since I don’t have a bond with them, the distance is probably too great.”

“The White Tigress must have killed him,” Adynarh said.

Mardha paced. “But what would that gain her?”

“I will search for Jaska myself,” Salahn said. Hands arranged into complex mudras, he entered a deep trance. As he strained, the signature of his qavra’s sibling came to him faintly. Jaska’s spirit did not resonate through it. Salahn broke off his trance. “Just his qavra,” he said in disgust. “Nothing else.”

“Maybe he took it off,” Adynarh said.

“Jaska would never remove it.” Salahn locked eyes with Mardha and through their qavra sent a message to her mind. “My sorceries prevent him from removing the qavra and even if he did the magic would call him back. He cannot resist it.”

“Perhaps if he were injured,” she thought back. “A blow to the head or the neck.”

“Perhaps, but he would want it back quickly.” Aloud he said, “I am afraid that they have somehow, as impossible as it seems, defeated Jaska. Adynarh, contact the groups closest to Mount Barqeshal. Send them to find out what happened.”