Arai had spent the last week locked up in the crowded, stinking belly of the Cockatrice; now he was locked up again, in a dark and fetid dungeon beneath Dolorous Castle on the outskirts of Helltrix. There was nothing to do but wait, so he waited.

At least he had company. He spent several hours conversing with both Twine and Sir Estil -- Twine told him stories about the sailing life, and Arai finally told him the whole truth about himself and how he had arrived in Addis. "You were magicked here?" the incredulous sailor asked him. "In the middle of a fight with Lillandra?"

"That's right."

He frowned. "I thought you two were lovers."

"What?!"

"Well, that's the impression I got, from the way you two looked at each other. I never would have guessed she was your prisoner."

"She's not my prisoner anymore," he clarified. "But I'm certainly not in love with her. She turned my friends to stone."

"She really did that?"

He nodded.

"If she's so powerful, why didn't she save us from the pirates?"

"I told you, her magic doesn't work like that. She's a genius at making these zemi, but she can't throw spells around like a battlefield mage."

"Too bad," he sighed.

"Too bad," Arai agreed.

He spoke with Sir Estil as well. Having been locked up in this cell for several months, with no one to talk to, the knight was grateful for the company and eager to learn more about him. Arai was a little wary of the man, however, and didn't tell him everything that he had told Twine. "I'm trying to get home," he explained.

"And where is home?"

He hesitated, then admitted, "The other side of the Scarred Lands."

But to his surprise, Sir Estil didn't blink. "I've met a few travelers from beyond the Tarnak," he said. "I spent quite a lot of time in Bloodlorn when I was young; the caravaneers coming over the mountains usually ended up there. One of them was from a place called...Balbari?"

"Balbaroy!" Arai exclaimed. "That's one of the states of Arliel's Holy Empire!" This was the first time that he had heard any kind of reference the lands of the west since he had first arrived in Addis all those months ago; it almost brought tears to his eyes. "This traveler was from Balbaroy? What was his name?"

"I can't recall. It was a very long time ago."

"So it is possible to cross the Scarred Lands," he breathed.

"Possible," Sir Esil said, "but very difficult. This man I met from...Balbaroy, was it? There were over forty men in his party, but only nine of them managed to make it through the desert alive. He was so haunted by the experience that he never bothered to try to make the return trip; he settled in Bloodlorn instead."

This was not encouraging, but Arai was buoyed by it nonetheless. Of course the Scarred Lands were dangerous, but if ordinary travelers could make it through, surely he could as well. After all, he had Silus, and Lillandra's magic, and the Everlasting Chalice, and...

He stopped there, frowning. He didn't have any of those things anymore. He was locked up in a dungeon, with no hope of rescue, and he had no idea whether Lillandra was alive or dead.

A few more days passed. The prisoners were given food and water, although not much of either, and Arai's stomach was beginning to growl at him. He watched the guards carefully, keeping track of their movements and looking for opportunities to overpower them and escape, but the men only entered their cells every other day, to empty out their waste buckets, and they came in heavily armed, using their pikes to intimidate the prisoners. Arai might have tried grabbing one of their pikes and fighting his way free, but he didn't like the odds. He needed a sword. He needed Silus.

One day -- or night; it was impossible to tell down here -- the door to the dungeon opened, and an important-looking man, flanked by two guards, entered. He was tall, and gaunt, with sunken eyes and sunken cheeks, and his two front teeth were extremely crooked, protruding out of his gums in two different directions and with a big space between them. He was wearing an expensive-looking black robe with gold trim.

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"How many are there?" the man asked the guards. Perhaps because of the gap in his teeth, he spoke with something of a lisp.

"Just over a hundred," the guard replied.

The man sighed. "This is going to be a lot of work. I'll start tomorrow, I think." He paused in front of Arai's cell. "Sir Estil," the man greeted, in the Gallean language. "And how are you this fine evening?"

"Valtun," Sir Estil grumbled in response.

"It looks a little crowded in there," Valtun observed, in a jolly, familiar sort of way. "I apologize. Space is at a premium, you see. But don't worry -- these two will be shipped off to the front lines as soon I'm done with them. You'll have this little palace all to yourself again very, very soon."

"You can't keep me in here forever, Valtun." His voice was low and dangerous. "I'll find my way out eventually, and when I do--"

"Oh, please," Valtun interrupted, practically yawning. "You're not going anywhere." He glanced at Arai. "You don't look like a sailor."

"I'm not."

"Who are you?"

"Arai."

"That's a peculiar name. Where are you from? Are you Gallean?"

"No."

When he said nothing more, Valtun scowled at him. "Keep an eye on this one," he told the guards. "I don't like the look of him." And he left the dungeon, taking the guards with him.

"That was Valtun?" Arai asked, when the man had gone. "The sorcerer who's been brainwashing people?"

"Indeed," Sir Estil said. "A vile character, but then, all of the Aeromancer's lackeys are."

Arai frowned thoughtfully. "Tell me about him."

"About Valtun?"

"No, about the Aeromancer. Who is he? What's he like?"

The knight shrugged. "He's a sorcerer," he said. "An extremely powerful one. He was born the son of a Skirrish nobleman; his father already owned half of Grand Skir. When the old king died, and before the new king could be crowned, he overthrew the government, entirely on his own. No one could stand against his magic."

"What kind of magic?"

"Wind and weather magic, mostly. That's why they call him the Aeromancer. He called up great storms to devastate the cities and castles of those who disobeyed him. He flooded most of Helltrix and wiped out an entire army of Skirrish loyalists with cyclones. And when he had consolidated his power in Grand Skir, he attacked Citias and Galleus. Skirrish aggression was nothing new, of course -- the Long Wall was built centuries ago, to keep out Skirrish invaders -- but the Aeromancer's assault was unlike anything we had ever faced. The war has been raging for years. I was a young man when it began."

"How do you contend with his storms?"

"There's some kind of protective magic built into the Long Wall," he said. "And our own sorcerers protect us from the worst of his storms, dissolving them before they can do any real damage. Nevertheless, the skies over Prestoris have been dark for years; the Aeromancer's storms rage over the Long Wall almost constantly." He sighed. "The Citians have had better luck. They covered their border with magical mines and constructed some kind of spell to prevent the Aeromancer from manipulating their weather. The Citians have very good magicians. But even they had difficulty fending off the Skirrish -- the Triarchy has a small population and their regular troops suffered for years until the Aeromancer finally called off the invasion. Make no mistake, though -- if Draj manages to break through the Long Wall, it won't be long until before he turns his attention to Citias once again."

"What's he after?" Arai asked.

"Power."

"He already rules Grand Skir."

He snorted. "A man like Draj won't be satisfied unless and until the entire world is under his control. He's certainly not doing it for the people of Grand Skir. What do they get for fighting and dying for the Aeromancer? Nothing. Nothing but misery."

There were similarities, Arai mused, between Lillandra and this Aeromancer. Both were skilled sorcerers who had used their magic to take power, and both had driven their kingdoms to the brink of ruin. But there were differences, too: Lillandra had been born a peasant girl, while the Aeromancer was of noble blood, and while Lillandra had never sought power for its own sake, the Aeromancer was greedy for it. And it was the Pierces who were mainly responsible for running Velon into the ground -- if Lillandra had chosen a more worthwhile set of stewards, that might never have happened.

And whatever one might say about Lillandra, she had never turned her monsters on the Holy Empire, nor any other kingdoms; she was not a warmonger like the Aeromancer.

He wondered who was the more powerful sorcerer, though. The Aeromancer, capable of summoning up colossal storms and routing entire armies by himself, would certainly seem to be the stronger of the two; Lillandra couldn't do anything like that. There was more to power than brute force, however. Lillandra's magic was less powerful, perhaps, but no less potent. She had spent the last hundred years, after all, working on a spell to bring a man back to life. Could even the gods to do that? Summoning up windstorms seemed almost picayune in comparison.

Lillandra. He sighed to himself, wondering where she was, what she was doing, and whether he would ever see her again. And what about Shell? He had grown very fond of the little elf girl; he hated to think of her lost and alone on the streets of this dark, foreign city.

He sighed again. Valtun would return in the morning, he knew, and begin brainwashing the prisoners. Would Arai be able to resist him, as Sir Estil had? And what about Twine and the rest of the Cockatrice crew? The men had been good to him; he didn't like the idea of seeing them shipped off to the fight the Aeromancer's war.

He had no answers. Frustrated, he sat down against the wall, tucked his legs up underneath him, and, a few minutes, drifted off into a dreamless sleep.

He awoke perhaps an hour or two later, to the sound of his name: "Arai," he heard a voice whisper.

It wasn't Twine or Sir Estil; it was a female voice. For a moment he thought he was dreaming, but after rubbing the sleep out of his eyes he realized that someone was standing outside of the cell -- a dark figure, literally wrapped up in shadows, crouching down near him. The cloak she wore was very strange -- it rippled like a dark wave whenever she moved, lapping into the shadows surrounding it.

"Arai," the voice whispered again, urgently. "Get up. We've got to get out of here."

The figure lifted the hood of her strange, dark cloak, revealing her face. It was a face Arai knew very well.

"Lill," he breathed.