The war of Tiana, Caranga, and the wizard Pyre against him called the Owner was long. This is but one of the battles.

High carnival ruled the golden city of Palanigh of the kingdom of Orvar, that isle set like a great jewel on the bosom of the green Erindinian Ocean. Every mind and body devoted itself to the Festival of the Lesser Turtle.

During the heat of the day the Islanders had disported themselves on beaches of pure white sand, or passed the time wagering on the turtle races. Now, in the cool of an evening soft as black velvet, was the time for love.

Couples made wanton in the mazes of well-tended shrubbery that were golden Palanigh's parks, filled with private nooks and grassy nests. Their bare bodies were caressed by the ocean breeze and by each other, while their laughter filled the parks like the songs of birds at courting time. They were poor, aye. But may happy folk in truth be called poor?

While they thus amused themselves, the wealthy in their great villa-houses did feast on tender island pig boiled in butter and sweetbreads baked in honey, did drink great quantities of pungent wine from golden melons, and did, of course, make great orgy. Thus did the wealthy seek elusive happiness.

Palanigh fair reeked of happiness and sensuality.

Thus the commons and the nobles; and what did the royal folk do?

In the palace, King Vemani was prodigiously busy. Not even he was exempt from the law of the land, which stated that a man might keep only so many wives, and concubines, and mistresses as he could satisfy on this one night of nights. As all in the household of Vemani were determined to begot with royal child ere this auspicious night gave way to dawn, my lord king had little time for other matters. Pity the labors of those whose heads droop under weighty crowns!

If Vemani gave thought to his kingdom at all, it was to assume that everyone was as pleasantly busied as he. Never in his wildest royal dreams did my lord king suppose that any spent festival night waiting for an enemy to come aslaying!

One on Orvar Isle did just that.

Palanigh rose up out of leafy jungle: a realm wherein only death ended the constant cycle of hunter and hunted. Within the frond-deepened dark of that jungle, in a hut a league or two beyond the city, a man waited for those who would be his murderers. His patience was worthy of the Simban warrior he had been, silent and motionless and nearly invisible.

A single entrance gave way to the hut's two rooms, one behind the other. The pirate had chosen to sit in the rearward chamber, where the moonlight was brighter. He was a motionless statue of jet among shadows and moon-paled darkness. His ears appraised and recognized every faint sound carried on the night breeze.

The hungry apples made no sound.

By day, those black round objects he had found hanging in the trees of the jungle gave off little buzzing sounds while they quivered. If the perch to which an "apple" clung was not satisfactory, it would roll along the underside of that branch until a better site was found. The hungry apples of Orvar sought locations such that men and animals would pass beneath. The hungry apples were always hungry.

The reformed cannibal who waited in the dark had gathered the hungry apples that afternoon. The delicate process required the cutting of branches bearing "apples" from the very trees. Next, he meticulously placed the branches within the hut so that the balls, invisibly black against black by night, hung poised above doors. . . and the single window. The last two he had contrived to hang from the ceiling of the chamber wherein he sat, invisibly black against black of night.

He sat silent. The hungry apples hung silent. He waited, as did they.

Having prepared for the advent of the expected assassin, he waited. His eyes, blacker than night in sclera slightly yellowish, sent their gaze roaming continually around the room. His night vision was as excellent as his senses of smell and taste, for he was also a superb taster and identifier of poisons. Still, he knew that two of the apples were his superior, for they could see in total darkness. They saw the heat of a body, whether human or beastly.

Man and apples waited.

From the jungle came a small scream of agony. An owl had caught his dinner.

The waiting man did not twitch, though his muscles were going ever so slightly stiff. Once again he went through his statue exercises. Without moving or making a sound, he worked his muscles until they grew limber.

For all his alertness, a small portion of his mind wandered.

He remembered the hot words he had exchanged with his green-eyed, red-tressed daughter. . . foster daughter. Tiana of Reme had told him of King Hower's message and the dire peril into which her recklessness had plunged them this time. The waiting man sighed. His lips moved, forming silent words: He often worried about his willful piratic daughter; how could Tiana possibly survive when he was no longer present to save her?

For I, Caranga, am truly without fear, he reflected with perfect seriousness, this once-cannibal who had taken up the more honorable business of piracy and raised his adopted daughter to join the family business.

Still, bad as it appeared, the present situation was. . . manageable. All the world was enemy to that one called the Owner, and great as that King-Demon's powers might be, they were surely incapable of staving off and manipulating all the world. Caranga deemed it a safe surmise that the Owner's repeated attacks on Tiana stemmed from fear; fear that she might somehow expose a hidden vulnerability. Already the abandoned duke's bastard daughter Caranga had raised from infancy had ranged half the world and laid low one great sorcerer, ridding all humankind of the menace of the demon in the mirror.

Now if only she and her foster father could learn more about the Owner!

That problem, Caranga thought as he sat motionless in the hut, might well be solved were he able to capture and question one of the Owner's servants. . . one of the Nightwalkers.

Earlier this day, Caranga had gone about Palanigh playing the role of wine-bibbing boaster. By mid-afternoon few did not know that he claimed to possess certain knowledge concerning the Owner. Now he awaited the result.

The enemy was unlikely to send a large force to investigate such a rumor, spread by a lurching man with considerable silver in his black curls; if that happened, Caranga would hear their approach well in advance of arrival. He'd simply fade into the jungle that had been his home long afore he walked the planking of a pirate craft. More likely they'd send but a man or two, and. . .

A little crackling and snapping arose outside, and Caranga congratulated himself on having sown the earth around the hut with seashells.

The pirate recognized the sound of a single set of footfalls disturbing his alarm system, and yet the sound was strangely. . . blurred. Though he also recognized that sinister sound and knew his doubled danger, he did not move.

The sound of footfalls ceased, and Caranga ceased breathing.

The enemy was just outside, before the invitingly open door. From there, only the empty front chamber could be seen, and that dimly. Caranga waited.

After a moment he heard a single very quiet footstep. . . and immediately a fump as from the impact of a small falling object. Cries that were surely curses arose in a language unknown to Caranga. Little matter; the angry exclamations soon changed to wordless screams of anguish.

Caranga's ears were able to follow the sound of breaking seashells, from the door. First the shells were cracked and shattered by running feet, and then by feet on staggering legs. Caranga heard the gratifying thud of a falling body, followed by widespread crackling as a man writhed on the ground. The screaming reached a hideous crescendo.

After that, silence returned like a great black cloak thrown over all.

Caranga waited. A hungry apple had done its work.

Through it all, the pirate had neither moved nor made a sound. Nor did he move now, in the returned silence. No noises came now save those sounds of the never-sleeping jungle; the wind moaning in the trees and the distant humming roar of the sea.

Caranga sighed quietly. Time never passed so unconscionably slowly as in the hours close before dawn. It was no easy feat to do nothing while eternity seemed to exist and pass, eternally.

In this sort of small war, the chief foe was not the enemy outside but the one within; nasty little ghosts of self-doubt that crept from their hiding places and banishment to attack the mind, seeking to blur the attention. Those specters came. Was he not aging? Were not his powers declining? To protect his foster daughter he had insisted that this task be his. Was this the folly of a man with gray amid the jet of his hair; an old man's folly?

If I am slain, won't Tiana take suicidal risks in her quest for vengeance?

Aye! She'd better!

What if she were in danger at this instant? She had a knack for it, that so-shapely pirate captain only he dared call "girl." What if he were a foolish old man sitting alone in doom-thickened darkness, deluding himself that a deadly enemy was nearby and vulnerable to his brain and physical prowess while elsewhere his truly heroic daughter was in prodigious peril?

The night dawdled on, dragging feet of unbroken darkness.

At last, when dawn approached with the colors of pearls and fading fire, Caranga decided that the time was right.

To his right rose the straw wall that divided the hut into two rooms. He lifted his sword slowly, silently. He reached out as far as his long arm permitted. He set the point of the cutlass on the soft earthen floor of the hut, so that it touched at a spot two feet from the wall and six feet from where he sat. He twitched his wrist. The sword blade scratched the ground with the smallest of sounds.

Immediately a spear crashed through the wall and slammed into the ground.

For an instant the long leaf-shaped blade and haft stood quivering in the earth, less than the breadth of two fingers from where Caranga had scratched. Then the weapon was drawn back. Before the blade had reached the wall to be drawn through, a stroke of Caranga's cutlass bit the haft in twain. Caranga's knees did not pop as he rose, fluid as water. He took a silent step. From beyond the wall a voice spoke: "Well, Caranga, we meet again."

"Since you know me, you were fool to think I wouldn't know the disguised sound of two men carefully walking with one tread! I've been waiting for you. If we're old friends as you indicate, why not come in so we can talk over old times?" Again, silently and fluidly, the pirate changed position.

"And pass under another of your hungry apples? No, no Caranga, that task I leave to my expendable friends."

As the Nightwalker spoke, Caranga's ears picked up another sound, nearly covered by that of the voice. "I waited all these hours," the Nightwalker said, "waited for you to make the first move and provide a target for my spear. You cheated me. How did you know I had a spear?"

"It was logical that you would bring a weapon to let you kill without facing me. Your kind has little stomach for a real fight."

"We seem to be at stalemate." Again beneath the assassin's voice came the faint second sound: a cutting? What was the devil cutting? "Tell me, Caranga, do you remember the last time we met? Do you recognize my voice?"

"Familiar, aye. . . but I place it not."

Caranga studied the wall. It was not a single piece, but many sections bound together. Aye, that accounted for what he heard. He stepped back and to the right. Now one ceiling-hung apple lurked between him and the cutting sound.

"When last we met," the Nightwalker murmured in a voice of contemptuous amusement, "you told me your name, and I promised to remember you when I came again."

Caranga knew the voice, then. "Liar!"

So he shouted, but he knew it was true. His nape prickled. Though he feared no natural enemy, this was nighted madness and horror. Long and long ago he had done death on a man, knowing naught about the fellow save that he needed slaying. Caranga did not flinch from the words: he had done murder. He and the victim were the only witnesses. And the Nightwalker knew of it. . .and spoke with the voice of that dead man!

"Naturally," the voice from the grave continued, "when you appeared in Palanigh, I volunteered to come for you. I want your heart; I hunger."

Caranga shuddered. The slicing ceased. The wall that divided the hut was made of panels lashed together with thongs, several of which had been sliced. One tall panel wavered, tilted, and fell in. Caranga saw the assassin.

The Nightwalker was an uncertain form in the moonlight. Its only distinct aspect was the glittering knife in its fist. The blade's glitter blurred toward the point, and Caranga knew that something coated the point, doubtless venom. The figure's hands and face were an uneven pale gray, as if smeared with mud or grease. A dull steel helmet protected the head and the body was covered with blackness that was not skin. It had the shape and form of loose clothing, but it was not the blackness of cloth or Caranga's body; he was looking at blindness and the pit.

The man-shape came half a pace forward. Caranga saw the eyes, eerily gray and calm to the point of near-lifelessness. They were without pupils. The moonlight was treacherous, he sought to convince himself; this was merely an illusion of uncertain light. . . But no. It could not be denied: This was the man he had killed so long ago. In unholy, horripilating nightmare, the dead had returned. I hunger, it had said, for Caranga's heart!

Caranga fought for control of his own mind. Time later to consider such horror; now he must battle his enemy--his ancient enemy--be it man or lich or demon.

For all his resolve, his mouth was dry and his hands wet.

The horror stepped through the opening in a cautious move. Trying to guess where I concealed the hungry apples, Caranga thought.

The Nightwalker smiled, and that was more horror. "I expected some sport. But look at you! Naked to the waist to blend with the dark--do you recognize my clothing?"

"Aye," Caranga said dolorously, "you wear dragon silk."

The stuff he named was lamentably rare, and commanded fabulous prices, for dragon silk could not be cut. A man in such clothing might be crushed by the blow of a heavy weapon, but he could be neither slashed nor stabbed.

"You have gone to a lot of trouble to have yourself slain, Caranga. Why?"

As he spoke, the lich moved a pace toward Caranga. Another step and it would be beneath the hungry apple, silent and invisible near the hut's ceiling.

"I want to ask a few questions of you," Caranga said, and shifted leftward to place the apple between them. "Mayhap once you're my prisoner, you'll do some talking. Just a little chat. . . old friend."

"So you thought."

"So I thought," Caranga said, and struck.

For all its suddenness, the attack was carefully planned. Caranga' s sword passed beneath the apple; his hand and arm did not. The cutlass edge caught the assassin s arm and slid off the silken armor. A blow with a cudgel would have been more effective, for at least it would have struck solidly.

Any fool could see that the stroke was clumsy as well as useless; now his guard was down. Nothing easier than for the Nightwalker to lunge forward and stab his enemy.

So Caranga had planned, for such a lunge would place his foe directly beneath the deadly globe hanging in the darkness above.

The Nightwalker began that lunge--and checked himself. He sprang back. His eyes scanned the ceiling. Though Caranga gave no sign, he cursed inwardly. A carefully set trap had failed and his enemy knew the location of one of the hungry apples. While he--or it--could not know where hung the other one, logic would apprise him that in a chamber of this size there would be more than one of the deadly balls.

The Nightwalker circled the apple and Caranga shifted to keep it between them.

Like two jungle cats they slow-danced the battle, a pavane of movements and threats and feints without the ring of steel against steel. The Nightwalker had only to scratch his opponent to slay. Caranga's targets were his enemy's bare hands. Their blades flashed in the room's pallid moonlight as they lunged at each other, black hands on black arms whipping from black bodies that dodged and twisted. More than once, each missed what should have been an easy hit, because of the ever-hungry third foe: the apples. They were enemy to both opponents.

The assassin paused to stand still before the pirate, while he tossed his long knife from hand to hand. The temptation to knock the weapon spinning was great--but the apple hung over the space between them and the distance was too great by a hand's breadth.

Dragon silk did not rustle when the Nightwalker dropped to stab left-handed at Caranga's right foot. The cutlass sped at the other hand. Wielded too swiftly, the knife failed to bite into the old leather of Caranga's boot, hardened by salt water and the blood of others. The sword grazed the Nightwalker's right hand. It left a stripe of blood without inflicting real damage.

The pirate had drawn first blood.

It was a trivial victory, psychological only. His enemy was fast, too fast.

Bit by bit, the Nightwalker was forcing him out of position. Caranga knew that when the menace of the apple no longer separated them, the fight would change. Only the apple made useful the longer reach of the cutlass; at closer quarters the knife would swiftly claim his life. Clearly, Caranga faced an opponent who was faster, more skilled and, for a fight within a hut, better armed.

The choice was simple: Caranga must die or cheat.

No choice at all, the pirate decided.

Rather than directly between them, the apple was now a foot to the right. A good broad cut would endanger Caranga's sword-arm, no matter how fast it moved. In moments his swift opponent would force him completely off position and slay him.

The second apple was three paces behind Caranga. He retreated, with the Nightwalker pursuing. Pirate struck at lich with the full strength of his arm. The blow staggered the assassin--and the cutlass blade snapped against the dragon silk. Holding a ruined sword, Caranga took a swift pace back and another to his right. The second apple was not between them.

Caranga tried to look as if he were trying to look helpless. In truth, he was.

In the act of lunging, the Nightwalker arrested himself. Caranga's bluff had succeeded! The assassin began to circle the spot above which he surmised the second apple to be, while Caranga shifted to keep the same invisible--and totally harmless--spot between them. He could have been slain at any second. The Nightwalker shifted, shifted... was almost beneath dangling, awful death. . .

He stopped, looked directly into Caranga's eyes, and smiled.

"Clever," the damned clever lich said in a murmur. "Very clever."

Stepping around the space beneath the apple into which Caranga had almost maneuvered him, the assassin advanced with poisoned blade held to gut. Now he knew the location of the apples as well as the unarmed pirate, who had no place to hide and no defense against death. Oh, of course he might well destroy the other even as he was stabbed, or scratched--but that scratch would envenom its wound, and he would be dead in minutes.

"I am faster than you," the Nightwalker cheerfully said. "That means that without a weapon. . . you are dead, Caranga."

Caranga knew that was true--and from the edge of his eye he saw that which the Nightwalker had completely forgotten. The pirate dived for it.

As the other lunged for him, Caranga rolled up off the floor with his hand clamped around the truncated haft of a spear. Spearhead and knife clashed together in ringing, scraping clangor--and the knife went flying through the air.

"I assume that this too is poisoned," Caranga said, and drove at the creature's face.

The disarmed assassin sprang back; Caranga was up and after him. While he retreated, the Nightwalker flapped his arms in an ever-shifting pattern of dragon silk, against which the spearhead would break. Then, for an instant his defense was holed, and Caranga had only to lunge at him. "Die again, lich!"

With his arm just starting to uncoil like a steel spring, the pirate's instinct stopped the stroke in a way that would leave his muscle cramped. His whole body quivered with the effort of arrested violent motion. The Nightwalker had very nearly tricked him into stepping under one of his own apples!

Again they glided that weird dance around the death-ball's space. Now Caranga was on the offensive, and slowly he forced his opponent off balance and away from the apple's protection.

"Congratulations," the voice from the grave said in a tone of amiable mockery. "I must concede defeat."

"I am accepting no surrender." Caranga's tone was flat and deadly.

"Oh, I offer no such. I merely said that you have bested me. Beating my Master is a different matter."

With that he pounced backward, swung, and started into the night. At once he became part of the darkness. Caranga stared at emptiness. One moment a solid enemy had stood before him in battle; the next the lich was faded, gone. The knife lay on the floor as proof of--

The knife rose to come floating at Caranga.

The knife stabbed at him; dodging, he spear-thrust at it. The spearhead shattered against empty air and Caranga, overbalanced, fell. An invisible foe stood above him with envenomed blade held high. It stepped toward him--and under the second apple.

It dropped.

Leaving the ceiling as a solid black sphere, the deadly ball struck as a soft blob that spread rapidly like a strange liquid pouring itself over invisible contours. In a heartbeat it became the outline of a naked man, a statue whose medium was black dots on empty air and perfect in every detail: eyes, face, arms, legs, genitals.

Despite the man-thing's screaming, the buzzing was clearly audible. The hungry apple was a colony of thousands of tiny bloodsucking insects. They swarmed and bit and sucked, and the envenomed dagger fell from nerveless, invisible hands.

As Caranga rolled out of the way, the figure fell squirming to the floor.

The pirate rose and coolly kicked the dagger away. He stood watching the Nightwalker, now a visible man. The insects gorged themselves.

After a few moments the convulsions ceased and the Nightwalker lay slowly writhing and moaning. Caranga stood over him and felt triumph and pity--and knew he could afford neither. This was but a small battle in what would be a long war. An overly close battle! Had his enemy realized that the apple could see the heat of the body of even an invisible man. . .

"Belay your whining, dog," the pirate snapped. "I once fed one of those sweet things, and it's nothing a strong man can't endure. After a day or two they get enough and drop off you. I've medicine hidden nearby that will ease you considerably. The price is low: answers. To begin with, why is this cursed skull Tiana has so important to the Owner?"

From clenched teeth came the answer: "Slay me."

"What, and show the weakness of mercy? Nay; answer! Think not to lie, for I already know more than half the answer."

The Nightwalker made no reply. He stopped breathing.

A logical tactic, Caranga mused. A strong-willed person could hold his breath until he lost consciousness--at which point breathing resumed, automatically. In such a manner one might keep himself semiconscious and, to a degree, protected from pain.

The Nightwalker, however, did not resume breathing.

Was he turning blue? In the moonlight Caranga could not be sure. There was no mistaking the spasm, though, that shook the fallen assassin, or the stillness that followed. It was final. Man or lich, he had held his breath until he died!

(Again?)

For a moment, Caranga was too surprised to curse. He had failed. And that failure revealed something most unfortunate indeed: The Nightwalkers might be slain, but not captured! Dying to avoid being taken was logical and practical, for those who had indeed come back from death. . . and might again.

Damn! Tiana had a talent for finding trouble, but enemies like this. . .

When he emerged from the hut, carrying a hideously bloody knife, Caranga found the Nightwalker's "expendable friend." The nondescript man lay dead on the ground. The insects had not slain him; indeed, there was no discernible cause of his death and already those creatures making up a hungry apple had departed. Somehow, even such unnatural events did not notably surprise the pirate. From the little he had seen and experienced of the Nightwalkers, he knew they were not the sort to leave loose ends that someone else might tie together.

In no good mood, Caranga marched back to the city. Its inhabitants had exhausted themselves in revelry while he had striven at great risk--and learned nothing of real value. Why was it that not all heroism was to any good purpose, much less known and lauded?

The only positive aspect of this night's labors was that at least Tiana had remained aboard Vixen. At least that's what she had promised to do. . .

No! He'd asked for such a promise, Caranga realized, but now that he thought on it. . . she said only that she wouldn't interfere in my plans! Damn!

Caranga quickened his pace, despite his weariness. His red-haired, green-eyed daughter from among the whites, he thought, was about as trustworthy as. . .

As I am.