"Zargatha!" shouted the woman, Vyanna.

Lost in brooding contemplation as he stoked the glowing embers of the campfire, the black-caped man whirled in time to see three men burst from the surrounding brush. Instantly he leapt to his feet, his sword hissing free of its scabbard even as Vyanna scrambled to retrieve her discarded poniard.

The intruders were broad-shouldered and battle-scarred men who automatically stepped apart so they were not clumped together to provide an easy target. Vyanna saw Zargatha narrow his eyes. She, too, instinctively understood the tactic seemed somewhat professional for simple highwaymen.

Still, her black-caped companion nonchalantly shook back his shock of prematurely white hair and said, "We have nothing in the way of valuables — even our food is low. And we are both armed. I don't think we're worth your trouble."

One of the newcomers chuckled. "Lord Carga pays us well for our 'trouble.' "

Vyanna inhaled sharply. So... they had not eluded the warlord Carga as they had hoped.

His face blank, Zargatha said levelly, "And will he pay for your graves as well?" Without waiting for a response, he dug the toe of one boot into the embers of the fire and kicked out, sending a crimson fag into the chest of the farthest man. The man screamed and stumbled back, batting and flailing at his smoking jerkin. Instinctively, his companions turned toward him — and away from Zargatha. Seizing the moment, Zargatha whipped his cape around the closest man's head and savagely drove his sword through the man's chest.

Vyanna blanched at the savagery of it all, even as she knew they had no choice. If these were Carga's men, then there was no room for negotiation, nor for mercy.

Leaping away from Zargatha and his gore-sheathed blade, the third man came at her, not with a drawn sword but with a keen knife. Briefly she wondered why, then realized that, for the moment, he wanted her alive, as a hostage. Even a thick-witted mercenary could recognize when the tide had turned upon him in an instant, and three against one had now become one against one. Since he regarded Zargatha as the primary threat, he saw her as a convenient shield. But as he came at her, she ducked and rolled, slashing her poniard across his calf. He screamed as blood coursed — a scream abruptly halted as she drove her blade up through his belly and into his heart.

He stiffened, his eyes rolling up white in his head. As he pitched over, she barely rolled aside to avoid being pinned beneath his limp corpse.

She sat there for a moment, hugging her legs to her, staring at the dead man. She was an incongruous sight: a bloodied poniard in hand, a murdered man before her, yet she was dressed fetchingly in only a silk bra and filmy loin cloth — the bedroom dress of a wealthy woman rather than the day garb of a road waif. Those were the clothes she had been wearing when she had been kidnapped from her father's castle — kidnapped by Lord Carga. And rescued by the enigmatic man in black, Zargatha.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

After a moment, she shrugged and rose to her feet. "I've seen more of death and mayhem in the last few weeks than in my entire previous life — but otherwise, I'm fine. Weren't there three of them?"

Zargatha looked around the empty camp, and nodded. "He won't make very good time with that burn." She saw him flex the fingers of his strange left hand, and she shivered. The left hand was perpetually gloved — a glove that concealed his curse.

She shuddered again. "Must we kill him, too?"

He looked at her for a moment, and then a thought seemed to come to him. He visibly relaxed. "Perhaps not. Yes, mayhap he is of more value to us alive. I had thought we had shaken off any pursuit days ago, but this is maybe to our advantage."

"How? He will tell others where we are."

"Precisely! Remember, I've been leading you east, in the opposite direction from your father's castle, hoping to shake off pursuers who would naturally assume we would go west. But we have to start circling about eventually. Now, with our burned friend returning to report that we've been definitely seen this far east..."

"The pursuit will be redirected eastward... and we can begin circling back toward the west," she said, grasping his plan.

He nodded. "We'll head a little further east — I believe there's a marsh ahead. It will make an ideal place to lose our tracks. Then, instead of doubling back through the marsh, we can head north once on its far side and circle around it and start making our way back to your home."

"That sounds like many weeks journey still to go — it seems the more we head toward home, the farther we actually have to go." She grimaced, but she knew he was merely attempting what he felt was the most prudent route. "A marsh?" she asked at last.

"Aye." Then he shrugged, as if reluctant to say, "The Blood Marsh."

An ominous mist hung heavily on the ground, like a white, threadbare mantle worn by an old woman whose fortunes had seen better days. Their horses picked their way through the damp grass as Vyanna and Zargatha rode in silence through the clammy stillness. She noted how her companion scratched absently at his gloved left hand. She tried not to reflect on what lurked beneath the fabric, and she knew he was reluctant to talk about it, but still she said, haltingly, "Does it... does it itch?"

He looked startled, as though caught doing something inappropriate. Then he smiled weakly. "It does not like the air."

"The clamminess?"

"Perhaps."

He said it in such a way that she suspected there was more to it. There was something almost pernicious in the air — she felt it and she wondered if his gloved hand could sense it as well. She started to speak again, but Zargatha held up his other hand for silence. She waited, then she heard it as well. The dull, hollow sound of a sluggish tide and the creak and click of reeds in shallow water. She jumped slightly at the mournful caw of a gull or other bird, invisible in the obscuring mist.

Proceeding more cautiously, they soon came to the termination of dry land. The mist had thinned somewhat, and Vyanna's eyes flared momentarily wide. "The water... it's red."

"Aye," Zargatha said.

"The 'Blood Marsh,' you said. I had assumed the name was symbolic or something."

"Aye," he said again.

"I don't like it."

He shrugged, then twitched the reins of his horse. "Let's see if there's a ferry or boat along the shore." Both were aware he was deliberately ignoring her comment.

The mist rolled heavily about them, breaking momentarily to offer a sanguine glimmer of the dark water to their right, before closing an ivory veil about it once more. Other than the sucking sound as the horses' hooves tramped across the sodden ground, and the occasional mournful cry of an unseen bird, there was silence. They had been riding for some time, and had yet to see an end to the marsh, or to find a ferry. She knew Zargatha had hoped to lead Carga's men to the marsh, then lose them and double back. As it was, it looked as though they might actually find themselves pinned between the marsh and any soldiers hunting them. A poor position from which to mount a defense.

"Why is the water red?" Vyanna asked at last, trying to distract herself from thoughts of any coming conflict.

Zargatha glanced at the covering sheet of white to their side. "A trick of the light? Or perhaps it is the soil beneath that is red. Or mayhap sorcery."

"Or none of those things."

Zargatha twisted quickly on his saddle, his right hand dropping to the sword at his hip. Vyanna reached for her poniard, then stopped.

The white film of mist seemed almost to exhale slightly, clearing a space, and a wizened man stood among the reeds at the edge of the marsh. His grey hair was shaggy and unkempt, his beard its companion and stretching to his chest. About his legs were tightly bound boots that reached to his hips and gleamed with a waxy, waterproof coating.

"Sorry to startle you," he said, chuckling with a wheezy laugh. "You made enough noise that I knew you were coming... but I forget you didn't know I was here."

Zargatha stared at him coldly. "Who are you?"

"I'm Elermon, if that name means anything to you. But it doesn't, so what's the point of asking, eh?" He chuckled again. "Ask me something that will provide you with a useful answer."

Zargatha frowned, recognizing in the old man a not unfamiliar type. The hermit who has grown a bit off from living alone... or, perhaps, he was always that way and that was why he ended up alone at the twilight of his life. "Is there a way across the marsh?"

"Aye."

"Are you the ferryman?"

"Again I say: aye. You're a quick one, you are." He stared at them a moment, from beneath small, crinkled eyelids. "Care for victuals before we cross? I've enough back at my cabin to do us all." And without waiting to be answered, he trod heavily up in front of their horses and started away, following a path only he could discern.

"No," called Zargatha.

The old man stopped, his shoulders rising up like narrow tent poles, as though he contemplated ignoring the shout. Then, slowly, he turned and cocked his head.

"I'm sorry, but we are in something of a hurry."

The old man frowned, the action making his beard bristle almost comically. "But I've not eaten and I'm an old man — I need my victuals."

"I'll pay an extra gold coin."

The old man stared for a long moment, then muttered a curse ruefully under his breath. "The young," he said, "always impatient to be somewhere, always now." He shook his head. "The other side is still going to be there whether we leave today or tomorrow or ten times ten years from now." Still shaking his head, he gestured them into the mist. "Very well. This way."

The ferry was little more than a raft of logs lashed together, but it was large enough to bear both them and their horses. The beasts were coaxed onto the floating platform with some difficulty. Zargatha, from time to time, would stop and peer into the landward mist expectantly. He doubted any pursuit could have caught up with them yet, but they had been delayed on this side of the marsh for considerably longer than he had anticipated.

At last, though, the horses were tethered to the rails and the old man pushed off from the shore with a long pole as gnarled as his own fingers. The mist still lay heavy over the crimson water. Occasional eddies of wind would stir it, and shafts of tall grass rose out of the mist, like spent arrows marking a forgotten battle — in truth, marking where the ground rose up out of the water. It would have been so easy to find themselves running aground on a minute atoll. But the old man clearly knew his route and they did no such thing.

"Why is the water red?" Vyanna asked after a time. "You suggested you knew."

The old man looked at her, then grinned toothily. "The algae."

"Oh," she said, the answer seeming rather anticlimactic. She made to dip her hand in the water, when a clucking sound from the old man stopped her.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you. The water's no good for swimming, or dipping, or drinking, or bathing." He laughed hoarsely. "Not much good for anything, but fording."

"What do you mean?"

"The algae — it'll strip you raw."

"What?" she asked, startled, pulling back from the side.

He nodded, then slapped the waxed wading boots he wore. "Wouldn't recommend going out in that without protection."

Vyanna looked to Zargatha, imploring him with her eyes to tell her the old man jested. Instead, he looked grim.

"I've heard of red tides in salt waters — never in fresh, though, and not as... voracious as you describe."

He grinned again. "Then you are one item more knowledgeable today, good sir, than you were yesterday. And I would advise you not to leave the raft."

"I assure you, neither of us are so inclined."

"Ahya," snorted the old man, as though to himself. "But we cannot always guarantee our inclinations, nor the fierceness of our commitments to them."

"What do you mean?" asked Vyanna.

"Strange things go on in these marshes. Weird happenings. And who can say for sure how he will react when faced with the unexpected?"

Vyanna looked out at the wall of whiteness and the sanguine aura that seemed to insinuate itself from below. She hugged herself. "Such as... ?" she asked, though she suspected she would regret hearing the old man's tall tales.

"Well, there is the legend of the lost princess. This was many, many years ago — so they say. Indeed, the marsh then was simply known as the 'Red Marsh.' A princess had fallen in love with a peasant boy, much to the consternation of her father — and to the rival king to whom her hand had already been promised. So she and her young beau fled, eventually arriving at the Red Marsh. What they did not know was that something dwelt in the marsh — something that was not entirely a man. This being, this thing, it took one look at the princess and was smitten with her, she being so beautiful." The old man's gaze lingered for a moment on Vyanna. "She had red hair, like you. Anyway, the boy was slain, and she was stolen by the being — the wizard or demon or whatever."

"And... ?" asked Vyanna.

"And... the end."

She frowned. "That wasn't much of a story."

He harumphed. "Well... it is said that you can still see the princess, in the mist, wandering the marsh. Searching for her lost beau, I suppose." He was quiet for a moment, staring out into space. Vyanna followed his gaze, but perceived nothing. Then the old man shrugged and once more seemed the impish figure they had first encountered, the odd pensiveness he had acquired while relating his story having evaporated. "At least, so the story goes."

"And have you seen this phantom princess?" Zargatha asked levelly.

The old man looked at him, fingering his beard for a moment. "Perhaps. Aye, perhaps I have at that. Or mayhap it was just a trick of the light. Who can say for sure?"

The sun climbed higher into the sky, burning off the tops of the mist with its honey-coloured gaze, thinning out the veil of whiteness. Oddly, it did not entirely assuage the mood of uneasiness that had quietly invaded both Zargatha and Vyanna. True, they could now see farther into marsh, but there was a dreamlike quality to the landscape, as the thin mist still swathed the land in a gossamer veil. They could see reeds stabbing from the blood-red water, and humps of moist earth emerging sullenly from the still marsh — but in an instant, a swirl of mist would once more obscure the view. And the way the sunlight played through the veils caused a twinkling to the very air, as though the motes were stars, and such a spectacle likewise deceived the eye.

"What was that?" Vyanna asked, her voice suddenly tight in her throat.

Zargatha turned in time to see a swirl of mist clot into an impenetrable bank of ivory. "What?"

"I... I don't know," she said. "I thought, perhaps, I had seen a figure darting through the marsh."

"In this water?" Zargatha asked dubiously, recalling the old man's claim of the water's inhospitably.

The old man relaxed his grip on his pole for a moment to slap one of his own booted legs. "Wading is not so much a problem if you're dressed for it."

"She did not seem dressed for it," Vyanna said softly.

"She?" both men echoed together.

"I thought... I thought it might be the princess from Elermon's story."

"Only a story," Zargatha said as he crouched upon his haunches by one rail, though his hand dropped unconsciously to the pommel of his sword.

Something shrieked from within the mist — something that sounded neither beast nor fowl. The two horses stirred, whinnying nervously. And suddenly Zargatha realized he had not heard the call of a true bird for quite some time. The three companions looked at each other for a long, uncomfortable moment, as if holding their breaths.

The shriek came again — closer.

"Pole faster," Zargatha hissed.

The old man snorted noncommittally, but nonetheless seemed to push hard upon his pole, driving them through the blood-red water.

Suddenly the raft rocked, almost knocking Zargatha over. "Damnation!" he hissed. "Don't ground us." Then he stopped as he looked about and realized they were still surrounded by murky water. They had hit no bank of earth.

Instead, something had hit them.

His sword rasped free of its scabbard and he rose grimly to his feet, his black cape unfurling to flicker like furnace smoke against the white mist.

The crimson water seemed to bulge momentarily to their left, as though displaced by something beneath, and again the raft was rocked by impact. The horses neighed fearfully and beat their fore hooves upon the boards. Darting toward the edge, Zargatha savagely drove his sword into the water... but sliced only liquid. He turned in time to see a rose-red wake trailing from the other side of the raft, then vanishing as whatever it was submerged into the shallow marsh.

Glaring, Zargatha turned upon the old man.

Elermon stared at him, wide-eyed. "I've encountered not like this in my years as ferryman," he said, shaking his head.

"How far until we reach the other side?" Vyanna asked, focusing on the practical.

Elermon fingered his beard. "Maybe half an hour, as a sun dial measures the time."

Vyanna and Zargatha exchanged grim glances.

"Here it comes again," murmured the old man, staring wide-eyed at the marsh.

Zargatha whirled to see a crimson plume of water knifing toward them. Leaping to one side of the raft, he raised his sword, then cut downward just as the plume reached the raft. There was an unearthly scream, and the previously unseen thing wrenched free of the water, taking Zargatha's sword with it, still imbedded in its back. Knocked off balance, Zargatha hit the edge of the raft heavily, and stared up wide-eyed at the rising creature.

It was greater in size than a buffalo and was fish-like in appearance, with glistening scales and large, bulbous eyes over a wide mouth that split the face. But it also was clearly a quadruped. The horses snorted and kicked out, straining at their tethers though only dark water surrounded them, offering little avenue for true escape. Zargatha heard Vyanna scream in horror, then gasped himself as the creature surged out of the water, rearing up on its hind limbs — a biped, then, he realized. Screaming its frenzy, the creature lurched forward to crash upon the raft, its enormous weight tilting the vessel, sending Zargatha and the old man into the dangerous water.

Fortunately, Zargatha was dressed head to toe in thick leather, so was, at least momentarily, in no true danger — at least, from the water.

The creature wheeled about, its vast mouth blooming wide to display jagged teeth. Bereft of his sword, the warrior in black appeared helpless before its fury. Then Zargatha wrenched the gauntlet from his left hand — revealing his curse beneath.

His left hand was no human hand at all, but a taloned, bestial thing, carpeted in thick, coarse hair. Somewhere to his left he heard the old man gasp at the sight of it. Would that the fish creature were as easily impressed, Zargatha thought bitterly.

It was not. Undeterred, it came at him.

As if truly fearless and with a mind of its own, his left hand slashed outward, raking bloody trails across the creature's snout. The creature screamed and reared back, then screamed again, this time defiantly, a wave of moist and fetid breath spraying over Zargatha. His hand, his demon hand, his curse, his mark — it gave him an edge, a weapon where otherwise he had none, but alone it would not be enough. Lurching awkwardly about in the blood red water, he cast about for a weapon, any weapon. His sword glinted in the sunlight, sticking out from the creature's back — unattainable.

Then he spied floating upon the water the pole the old man used for driving the raft. He frantically snatched it up with his right hand, and with his clawed left hand he clenched inhuman fingers about it, snapping it effortlessly, so that a jagged, splintered point was now its end. He did this even as the creature surged toward him again, screaming, its savage mouth wide and hungry. Instinctively Zargatha wedged the end of the pole against the yielding bottom of the marsh, and angled the point at the creature, letting its own blind rage drive it upon the makeshift spear.

The shaft shuddered and bowed, threatening to snap under the weight while the creature screamed, clawing at the air, as though attempting to clutch more firmly to its flickering, ebbing life. It spasmed and shook, spitting its last, fetid breath. It swayed a moment, then pitched over heavily, the crimson water erupting about it, then rolling away in mighty swells before surging back again to close over the beast's head for the final time.

Panting, Zargatha wiped quickly at the red droplets that had splattered across his face, feeling them sting even in that fleeting moment.

The creature was no natural beast — not living in these Hellish waters. Which meant there had to be a conjurer behind it all. He turned — and his face went as white as his hair. On the raft the horses still stood — wide-eyed, it's true, flanks sheen with frightened sweat — but unharmed. They were alone.

Vyanna was gone!

He turned on the old man, who was crawling back onto the raft himself. "Where is she?" he demanded.

"I-I know not," stammered Elermon, sagging wearily upon his raft. "The beast must have been intended as a distraction." He stopped himself in mid-sentence, realizing he had said too much. After all, if he truly knew nothing, why not assume she had drowned by accident while Zargatha was occupied?

"What do you know of this?" Zargatha growled, grabbing the old man by his dirty collar with his right hand. He flexed the taloned fingers of his left hand threateningly.

"It... it must have been him — the wizard of whom I spoke."

"From so long ago?" snapped Zargatha, incredulous.

"I told you he was not fully a man. You scoffed. You said it was a story. But I warned you..."

Disgusted, Zargatha flung the old man aside and lurched clumsily through the water, grabbing at the handle of his sword jutting from the marsh and wrenching it free of the carcass that lay hidden beneath. If the creature had been used as a distraction, then it stood to reason Vyanna had been carried in the opposite direction from the beast's attack. It also seemed likely that the mastermind behind it had assumed Zargatha would be killed by the creature, and so might not have worried overmuch about his speed when absconding with Vyanna.

It was a slim hope, but it was all he had.

Wading heavily forward, his water-logged cape dragging behind him like a millstone, feeling an itch upon his skin as the red water slowly seeped beneath his garments, Zargatha pressed determinedly on. The mist still coiled thickly in spots, like a languid serpent, patient and predatory, while at other places he could see many paces ahead, the light glimmering through the damp air. He waved his sword, as if it might help him cut through the opaque sheets. But it was an impotent gesture.

"Vyanna!" he called. He realized that shouting out so would betray him to his adversary, but he doubted he would find Vyanna on his own if she did not call to him in return. "Vyanna!" he screamed again, more hoarsely. This was madness, he thought frantically. To have rescued her from the peril of Lord Carga's keep, only to lose her to some ancient evil in this vile marsh. "Vyanna!"

Suddenly a figure flickered through the veils of mist ahead of him. He glimpsed slender, feminine limbs and a flame of red hair. "Vyanna!" he shouted in relief and reached out to grab the almost phantom figure, pulling her from the obscurity imposed by the curling vapours. But as he dragged her close, grinning with relief, his joy was short lived.

The wide-eyed girl who stared back at him was not Vyanna.

"Who the devil are you?" Zargatha demanded brusquely.

"Help me," she implored. "There is an evil wizard — he seeks to capture me. Please, you must help me. My father has a kingdom — whatever reward you demand will be honoured."

He briefly considered that this might be another trick, a distraction like the creature, but her eyes were so alive with terror, so full of genuine desperation, that he could not help but believe her. "Aye, girl, I'll help you. Where? Where is the devil?"

She gestured wildly behind her.

"And has he another girl? Have you seen another?"

"No," she said, shaking her head, her eyes confused. "I have seen no one but you."

"Go." He nodded his head back the way he'd come. "There is a raft and an old man that way. Go!"

Stumbling, she broke away from him and splashed away in the direction he had indicated. Abruptly he recalled the corrosive property of the water, but realized the girl was bundled from shoulders to toe in thick, embroidered clothes — a wealthy woman's garments — that he suspected would protect her well enough. At least until she could reach the raft.

For himself, he turned and strode angrily in the direction she had indicated. He slogged through the blood-red water, the ground shifting and sliding treacherously beneath him, the effort causing sweat to bead upon his upper lip. Sword raised, face flush with fury, he eventually felt the ground rise beneath him, until he was striding out of the water and onto soggy land. Here the sun had burned away more of the mist, and he started to call out for Vyanna again, when her name froze upon his tongue.

By a withered, gnarled tree she sat, seeming unscarred — her kidnapper presumably having carried her above the waterline. Zargatha stepped toward her, then frowned. She did not move. For a moment his heart stilled, as he feared she was dead. But then he realized she seemed more dazed, as if in a trance.

Leaning before her, he waved a hand in front of her face. She did not even blink, yet her eyes were moist with life, her lips still rosy. Mouth drawn tight in a grim line, Zargatha whirled about, seeking the implementer of this enchantment. Tongues of mist still curled languidly about the earth, licking up, only to dissipate in the burning glare of the sun. Beads of dew still clung to the crooked trees that sprouted here, twinkling like false diamonds.

The air was still.

No! thought Zargatha suddenly. Not still. Almost paralysed, as though the atmosphere itself was holding its breath, awaiting the final act in this bizarre pantomime.

"You are presumptuous, mortal fool," hissed a voice to his left. Zargatha turned as the mist seemed to geyser up from the ground, then split apart as though it was a gossamer curtain being drawn reverentially to reveal its leading actor. A man stood revealed — at least, a man in part. His body was wrapped in a cloak that made his figure indistinct, and from his temples curled two heavy horns, like those of a ram. His features, though human, were thin and cruel-looking. "You have escaped my pet, I see. Do you think your death at my hands will be easier? It will not!"

Zargatha swung his sword in a lazy arc, as though merely testing the cut of the blade. His heart still thundered fearfully in his chest, but facing a concrete foe was infinitely preferable to wandering aimlessly, hopelessly, through the nightmare marsh. Affecting an air of confidence, he said, "You presume an error — I did not escape your 'pet.' I slew it. I wonder, will you die with as much dignity as your hell-dog? Or will you whimper and beg like the coward I think you are?"

His words had their desired effect. The wizard was accustomed to being the one instilling fear — he was not accustomed to being the one taunted arrogantly. Nor, clearly, had he entertained in his mind even the remotest possibility of his beast being slain. For a moment, it was the wizard who was unnerved, who was at a loss.

Zargatha doubted it would last much more than a moment, though, so he struck first, and struck quickly. He launched himself forward and stabbed out with his sword. The keen blade nicked the wizard's cheek and the horned man recoiled, growling inhumanly in his rage.

Zargatha struck again, this time a hacking blow that might well have clove the wizard in two, and so instantly ended the conflict. But a sparkling blue flame raced about the wizard's torso, and the sword was turned aside as though having struck armour. But the force of the impact caused the wizard to stumble, however slightly. This, too, encouraged Zargatha. He slashed again — and again his blade was deflected by a sudden blue flame.

Snarling, the wizard gestured obscenely at the ground, and suddenly creepers leapt up from the moist earth to coil about Zargatha's throat. He gagged, lights sparking before his eyes, and was wrenched this way and that as he struggled to free himself. He dimly espied blank-eyed Vyanna and reached out, imploringly — but she, still oblivious in her trance, could not aid him. Frantic, starving for air, he hacked at the creepers with his sword, but that same weird blue flame coruscated about them, shielding them from his steel. His legs went weak and he fell heavily to his knees, straining without success to draw even a gasp of a breath as the creepers constricted tighter.

"This is my domain, fool," hissed the wizard. "Mine for most of a century. Do you presume to best me with a pathetic sliver of steel? Hah! Your weapon is nothing to my spells!"

And, ironically, it was the speaking of those words that at last suggested a course of action to Zargatha. It allowed him to infer that the protective spell was directed, logically enough, at forged weapons. But a forged weapon was not the only instrument at Zargatha's command. With his taloned hand, he grabbed at the creepers and wrenched. They snapped easily and pale, oily fluid spilled over his breast.

"What-?" demanded the wizard, for the first time noticing the demonic hand. "What is this? What — what are you?"

Gulping hungry, desperate swallows of air, Zargatha lurched to his feet and leapt forward. "I am your death!" he shouted, his clawed hand plunging into the startled wizard's breast. Protective blue flame danced futilely about his hairy wrist as blood spurted and bone cracked. The wizard let out a single gasp — and then slumped over.

With a contemptuous flick of his wrist, Zargatha threw the wizard to the ground.

He stood there a moment, leaning on his thighs, still panting hungrily, his legs trembling with exertion. The sun, at least, was warm upon his face even as the mist was cool about his legs.

"Za-Zargatha?"

He turned, almost falling over in his exhaustion, but righted himself and managed a grateful grin.

Vyanna stirred, as though merely waking from a perplexing dream. "What- what happened? I remember the raft, the creature... then it all goes vague."

"You were ensorcelled — I suspect time lost meaning for you. But it's over now."

"What's over?"

And he laughed, grateful they both were alive enough to laugh. Then he said, "Let me catch my breath, then climb on my back and I'll carry you back to the raft..."

Vyanna perched upon his shoulders, her bare legs close about him as he waded back through the blood marsh, careful to keep her delicate flesh away from the hungry, stagnant water. The closeness of her body, the unintended intimacy of her soft thighs about his neck, caused his heartbeats to quicken, in a way very much like, yet wholly different, from the way it had when he was frightened for her safety. He forced his mind away, to dwell upon other things.

At last they came to the raft. As he had suspected, there were now two human figures upon it while the horses loomed over them, obliviously. One of the humans was the old ferryman. Sprawled across his knees was a woman. Zargatha allowed Vyanna to clamber from his shoulders onto the raft, then he hauled himself aboard. Elermon did not acknowledge them, so focused was he on the pathetic figure in his arms.

"I don't understand," said Vyanna. "You told me the woman you met in the marsh was young — like me." She stared uncomprehending at the elderly crone Elermon cradled — the dead woman.

"So she was — when I saw her. But she had been ensorcelled like you, many years ago. Time had slowed for her, maybe even stopped."

"And — what? Did she age suddenly when you slew the wizard?"

"No, she aged because the wizard freed her. That was the deal, was it not, old man?" Zargatha said coldly. "A life for a life? But the wizard did not tell you that, once freed, she would age rapidly and die, did he?"

Elermon looked up, tears streaking through the grime on his cheeks. He said nothing.

"Deal?" asked Vyanna.

"Aye. Elermon here bought her freedom by offering the wizard another beautiful woman, one also with red hair, to take her place. How many years did you wait for a woman beautiful enough, and with scarlet hair, to trade and win the freedom of your princess, eh, peasant boy?"

Vyanna looked from the sobbing old man, to Zargatha, and back. "You mean...?"

"The story he told was true, save for the part about the princess' lover having been slain. No, instead he became a ferryman, so that he might be close to her always, for years, decades, until the day he could buy her freedom with another's life." Zargatha took one step forward and began to draw his sword. A delicate hand on his stopped him.

"No, Zargatha," said Vyanna quietly. "Leave him be."

"He would have given you into that — that monster's clutches for eternity," Zargatha objected.

"And you put an end to it," she said. "And his lady is dead, and the wizard is dead, and Elermon's been punished enough. Besides, remember how reluctant he was to take us across, but you insisted? I don't think he quite had the heart for it." She sighed. "If we cannot be compassionate when we have triumphed, then when can we be?" She looked at her black-caped companion. "Let us help him bury his true love... and then be on our way, out of this wretched marsh. That's all I want. To be on our way."

Zargatha hesitated, then let his hand slip from his sword.

For a time, they stood on the raft, and the stillness of the morning was broken only by the sounds of an old man sobbing.

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