The sun was a sliver on the eastern horizon and the troopers were all staring bullets at the disgusted wolves, waiting to see if they really did change as the missing Tairn had promised. Most of the slaves were memories, only the priestess and a handful of her guard having stayed behind to see for themselves this mysterious death spirit.

The sylvans were restless, having lost the feel of the man when the cold had taken him hours before, and missing it. Then, with the full coming of the sun, they relaxed. Belius noticed and inquired.

“He’s back,” was Swallow Courting’s calm reply. “He’s come back from the cold place. The last of them is dead and he’s come back to us.”

“Let off that staring and give us some clothes, you louts!” a strange voice exploded behind them. “And I catch one of you worthless bastards laying hand upon my daughter, I’ll flay you alive and eat your liver!”

“Great Gods!” the corporal exclaimed in horror, “It’s Koli the trader and....and....” Stricken by this final straw upon his already overloaded camel’s back, he collapsed back against the tree he’d been sitting under, face red as the beets he’d been mumbling about all night.

“‘Lo Luka,” Keeli waved shyly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

“What?” Koli’s voice raised in surprised anger. “Luka?” He glared from his daughter to the near catatonic corporal. “You mean to tell me that this... this is Luka? This is the one? This... this... He’s not even a wolf!”

The troopers got it. They’d been listening to the corporal brag up his beloved white headed girl for months now, and the laughter was epic. Oh but wouldn’t he be paying for this one until he was old and withered!

The sun was growing high before Braedonnal Storm, staggering with weariness and reaction, appeared around the bend, the horse trailing behind on his own, foam-flecked and plodding. Only the sylvans and the dall watched his approach, if for different reasons.

Veering clear of the continuing argument between soldiers and wolves, Storm homed in on his sylvans, wanting nothing so much as to feel their touch against his skin.

He saw the wagons again and stopped dead upon the road. The onlookers gasped at the returned cold .

The argument near the trees trailed to silence as the rest of the party realized he and the cold were back.

“Mage,” Storm’s voice had gone flat again. “Do you write?”

“Huh?” Belius hurried over. “Er, of course I write.”

“You! Troopers!” Storm barked. “Put it all back. Every crumb!” And move those wagons apart! Put them on the road just like they were!”

The troopers hustled to do his bidding, not even thinking to protest or hold out.

“Put that garbage into the wagons, this fat bastard up front.” He planted a foot against the chest of the dead master slaver and yanked the lance free amid a shower of crystalizing blood. His one normal eye had gone half-lidded with building rage.

“Mage,” he turned. “Write me out a sign. ‘It ends’.”

“It ends?”

“Write it. Put it in the road, there,” he pointed with the lance. “And then I want these wagons fixed so they can’t be moved. Ever.”

The troopers had finished lining up the wagons, and were leading the horses between the traces, but he waved them off. “No, leave the horses. It isn’t their fault they worked for slavers.”

Frost formed in the grass surrounding the roadway at the sounding of the last word.

Belius scrawled out the message in the three major languages of the known world and stood back, hackles up. “You want what with the wagons?”

“I want them to remind anyone who sees them that it ends now. Here,” words evenly spaced and clipped. “I want them all to see what happens to slavers. What will happen to any I meet.”

“How would you like me to—”

“Stone. Turn them to stone.”

I can’t. Not stone. There isn’t time. I’d need—”

“Stone!” The Tairn spat, eye blazing,

Belius went white to the roots of his hair. The dall cried out, falling back, and the troopers cowered. The weres vanished back into the wood. Only the sylvans held their ground, concerned only that he had gone from them again.

The Tairn turned and beheld the long line of granitine figures. He smiled. The cold was gone, the frost melting in the morning sun. “See?” a smile split his face. “I knew you could do it.” He turned back again and crumpled unconscious to the ground, the sylvans racing to catch him as he fell.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“But I didn’t do it,” Belius mumbled to himself, still staring at the line of granitine wagons and their grisly cargo, lip trembling. “It couldn’t be done. Not instantly. These things take time. There must needs be preparation.... focus....

“You see it couldn’t be done—” he turned to appeal to the priestess, but she was gone, along with her guard.

* * *

The queen mother shuddered convulsively, breath hissing out between tight-pressed lips. Something... Her eyes focused and she beheld the shattered remains of a crystal goblet upon the rich tiles of the parapet floor. Her goblet. When had she—?”

“Your Majesty!” the lord chamberlain’s voice broke in terror. “Your Majesty, what is wrong? Are you ill?” He knelt before her, ignoring the broken shards lacerating his knee as he gripped one shaking hand in both his own. “You look as though a ghost has passed through you.”

“I....” a coughing fit wracked her small frame and she was forced to wave the panicking man away lest he smother her himself. “I am fine, Lord Chamberlain,” she grated at the last. “A momentary spell — nothing serious. Now be a dear and fetch me another glass of wine.”

Softly though it be couched, the order was nonetheless as clear as the goblet had been before its unfortunate demise, and the worried man bowed himself from the royal presence post haste.

The queen mother, second wife of the late and good king Pechatoke of Turalee and mother to the mad boy king Shelador, remained motionless until the distraught councillor had made good his exit. But only for that long. Even as the double doors closed behind him she was on her feet and racing to the edge of the parapet, gaze straining westward.

The long summer had unfolded, blossomed and waned without a trace of the accursed invader. They’d thought it surely dead, though their emissaries had perished in the doing. Shelador had gone out at the last, content with the knowledge that this world was his without hindrance. And now here —suddenly and without warning— was the contentment made the lie with a blast of such force that the mundanes must surely have felt its touch.

Abruptly, the world dissolved into a swirling vortex — a vortex which coalesced into the familiar form of her son, brought with such pain upon the world and so much more than the tool she’d thought herself fashioning. “Shelador,” her voice husked.

“Mother,” the tapestry-handsome face remained composed though the eyes were troubled. “I felt a disturbance. It was as though the grid had parted and burst. Do you know what has happened?”

She allowed her gaze to drift from his perfect face and out over the plain, waveringly seen through the fabric of the spell. “No and yes, my son.” her voice drifted faintly through the communications aperture. “I know not what specific event caused the disturbance, but there is little doubt as to its creator.”

He studied the distracted expression upon her face and knew, although too far removed to actually share her thoughts. “The interloper? But it’s dead, is it not? You told me that it was dead.”

Her gaze shifted back to him. “It would appear that it is not.”

“But how can that be? We quested the world ‘round and could detect no single trace of it. How could it have — you assured me that they possessed no magic.”

“Obviously the weed has shielded it,” she snapped, what might have been fear fraying already tried nerves. “And they had no magic as you’d understand it — none at all.”

“And yet....”

“And yet,” she agreed. “The disturbance bore the unmistakable taste of them all through it. I don’t yet know how this could be possible, but I will consider it.”

“You will join with the all?”

She hesitated before answering, which was strange, considering. “Yes,” she allowed. “I suppose I must.”

“You must?” Shelador was mildly amused. “Lady, I thought me that the all was the ultimate of bliss? That is what you taught, is it not?”

She shivered again, nearly hiding it, but not quite. “Yes, ever has it been so. Within the caress of the all....” She shivered again. “It’s this accursed body!” her eyes flared, her teeth clenched. “It resists the will, rejects the joining.” She ran sharp nails across ivory breasts, drawing vivid lines of oozing red from within the flesh, staining the soft velvet of her brocaded bodice. “Makes the joining less.”

Shelador’s laughter was soft and mocking, enjoying his mother’s torment. “And yet...”

She went rigid, glaring momentary hatred at this thing she’d torn from her loins, remembering the slithering of the old king’s flesh that had got it on her.... “The joining is bliss!” she spat. “Pray that you do so well you must only hear of it from me!” A wave of her hand and the portal snapped shut, severing the communication.

* * *

“Yep. That’s him alright. What’s his name...Torble, the king’s master slaver.” The sergeant shook his head in wonderment. “Looks right natural, don’t he? I’d say me that grey is definitely his color.”

“What do you suppose...” the corporal’s voice quavered.

“Something obviously didn’t like him or his men, and gods, but ain’t I glad t’won’t be me telling his royalness about it.”

“Blood on the stones here, sor!” A trooper called from his position near the lead wagon. “Quite a lot of it! An’ spread ‘round right liberal.”

“Looks like whoever did this headed south onto the plain,” another trooper rode up behind, face pinched with worry. “Are we after them then?”

“Are you daft man?” the sergeant’s voice boomed. “Look at these wagons and tell me you’d follow.”

“They had a mage with them, obviously, sor,” the corporal interposed himself. “What of it? We’ve the spelled musket balls an’ all. And we’re no strangers to battle.”

“Nay, child, they’ve not a mage. Tell me, have you ever seen a man turned to stone before?”

“Huh? Er, no sor, I can’t say as I have.”

“Huh,” the sergeant quirked a lip. “I have. Ol’ what’s his head... the duke from over Parmalee way as called the king’s favorite race horse a mangy nag and got caught at it. I was in from the front with General Mordecius —one of his personal guard— and I seen the whole affair. Chauncellius made of the poor bastard a statue fer the king’s atrium.

"Took him eight days, it did, and such a lot of screaming I’ve never heard. Never was so glad to get back ter th’ normal blood an’ carnage of clean battle in me life. And Chauncellius is the most powerful mage from the Inland Sea to the Western shy of the White Witch.”

“Eight days?”

“Aye, and a wagonload of special supplies ye’d never in yer lifetime be able to afford did ye live t’be six hundred. Now, when was the last time we were on this particular stretch of road.”

“Second Day last, I believe.”

“Aye, Son,” the sergeant confirmed. “Second day last, Which means that whatever did this only had, what... three days at most to do... what... d’ye count thirteen as do I? Thirteen men and four wagons?

“And those eight back along the road,” the trooper added. “And the more than ten carts.

“Aye, and the eight along the road. That’s not a mage, lad, it’s a bloody catastrophe! And I ain’t kept meself alive through ten long years o’ his Royal’s conquests fer ter throw me life away chasin’ after some bloody catastrophe.”

“Then, if we’re not to follow, what are we to do?”

“Meself, I’m going to carry meself home ter th’ barracks, ha’ me a nice hot cup o’ tea and file a nice long report. Let the king’s mages figure out what sort of response is needed.” And he wheeled his horse back towards the barracks, waving for the others to mount and follow.