“You sure you’re okay?” Thomas asked the woodsman, looking with concern into his eyes. He was remembering everything he’d been taught in the University about cursed swords. Some of them were only mildly dangerous, affecting their owners only so long as they were holding them, but others had a permanent affect that lasted the rest of their lives. Thomas prayed that the Runeblade belonged in the first category.

     “I’m fine,” insisted the soldier, gently pushing the wizard away. “Just came over funny for a bit, that’s all.” He pointed to Andricus. “So what’s his story?”

     “I wanted him dead,” replied the Konnen, indicating where Rakkus’s headless body was settling gently into the cave's deep floor. “He, I mean, he wanted to, er...” He glanced over at the women, unsure how to phrase it delicately.

     “It’s okay, we know,” said Matthew, coming to his rescue. “We know what he was like.”

     An alarmed, sympathetic expression suddenly appeared on Andricus’s face. “He didn’t...”

     “No,” replied Shaun with a grin. “Lord Basil warned him off. About the only thing we have to be grateful to him for.”

     Thomas glanced over at Lirenna, who was looking sadly at the body of the man she'd enchanted. "You okay?" he asked.

     "Yeah," she replied. "I know it's silly to grieve over him. He would have killed us without the enchantment, but the fact remains that he did die defending us."
"Like you said, he would have killed us without the enchantment. He would have done worse than that to you. Forget him."

     She nodded and Thomas turned her gently away from him. He tapped her on the shoulder to get her attention and, when she looked up at him, he indicated her Ring of ESP. Then he nodded his head at Andricus. Lirenna glanced once more at the man she'd enchanted, but then looked back at Thomas and nodded. She looked at the Konnen and fingered the ring. “He’s telling the truth,” she said after a moment's concentration.

     “The ring!” exclaimed Andricus. “That’s why he sent us out after you. He wants it back, really bad.”

     “I can imagine,” replied the demi shae with a small smile.

     “Well, you can’t go back to the city now,” said Shaun. “What are you going to do?”

     “I was hoping you’d let me come with you,” replied the Konnen nervously.

     “There’s a problem there,” said Shaun, though. “We’re going back to the city.”

      “What!” exclaimed Andricus. “But you can’t! You’d be committing suicide!”

     “We have to,” explained Diana, undoing the straps of his breastplate to get a better look at his wound. “We have a job to do.” She lifted the massive steel breastplate free, amazed at the penetrating power of the magical Runeblade, and let it drift away. Then she pulled up his thick, bloodstained woolly jerkin and put a hand on the edges of his wound. He was lucky. An inch or two deeper and he’d have been a dead man. She prayed to Caroli, and to the Konnen’s amazement the wound closed under her fingers, leaving not a single mark amongst the older scars that covered his body.

     “So it’s true,” he gasped. “You really are a healer.”

     “I am a follower of Caroli, the Lady of Healing,” she replied, moving off to look at Thomas’s wound. She seemed to have forgotten the wound on her own head, despite the fact that her hair was plastered with blood.

     The three wizards, meanwhile, were pulling their clothes up to look at their glass ceramic armour. "They saved our lives," said Jerry in amazement. "That first volley of arrows, they were all aimed at us, the wizards, and we were all hit."

     "They knew who they were attacking, all right," agreed Thomas. "Look at this armour they're wearing. They were prepared to face firebolts. If you hadn't thought of overriding the spells' automatic targeting, aiming for the heads..."

     "This could revolutionise wizard warfare," said the tiny nome. "At the moment, a young wizard is almost defenceless until he can learn some defensive spells. This armour, though… Even an apprentice can stand on a battlement without having to worry about arrows."

     "It might stop arrows," said Lirenna, "but I'm not sure it would stop enemy wizard spells. When we've got time, one of us'll have to cast a firebolt at this armour, see if it gets through. And even if it doesn't, we'll still need defensive spells to defend against death spells and the like."

     “You’ll have to have another go at learning my shield spell,” said Thomas as Diana healed the massive bruise in his side. “But one thing all magic spells have in common is that they last for a while, then wear out. You have to know you're in danger before you cast one, while this armour defends you all the time, whether you know you're in danger or not. It takes high level magic to give you the same level of protection. Runes sewn into your clothes, that sort of thing.” He then grabbed the cleric by the arm and refused to let her go until she’d healed herself.

     Matthew, meanwhile, had dropped down to Rakkus’s body and was rummaging around in his backpack, his mercenary instincts as strong as ever. He glanced nervously up at Diana, knowing how she’d react if she saw him, but then his eager fingers touched something hard and cold and he pulled out the Coronet of Farspeaking, its jewels glittering in the ceiling lights. “Wow!” he gasped.

     The others looked around. “Matt!” exclaimed Diana angrily. “What are you doing?”

     He looked up guiltily. “I was just, er...” He tried to hide the coronet behind his back, but it was caught on a yellow cleaning cloth. He pulled harder and the cloth pulled free, bringing with it the cylindrical key, looking like a heavily decorated relay runner’s baton. “Oh, er...”

     “What’s that?” asked Thomas with interest, dropping down to look.

     “They belonged to a group of Traldians we came across,” explained Andricus, belting his breastplate back on again.

     “Came across?” said Diana, giving him a critical look.

     “Look, they’re our enemies, okay?” replied the Konnen defensively. “It was them or us.”

     “Why would Traldian soldiers be carrying things like these?” asked Shaun, hurriedly changing the subject. “To sell? To trade? Who with, the moon trogs?”

     “Sell?” asked Andricus in puzzlement. It turned out that the Konnen had no concept of buying or selling. Everything the Kronosians needed was provided by the Pantrys, powered by the Lifegiver. The Noble houses controlled all the Pantrys, using them to control the other inhabitants of the moon city by distributing or withholding food and other vital supplies. That made food valuable and it was traded among the citizens in return for various services, meaning that some citizens, those who had skills to trade, had more food than others, making them ‘richer'. Kronosia had no currency as such, though, and so the concepts of buying and selling were unknown there. Jewels and precious metals brought up to Kronos by the eight Noble houses were so common that they had no value at all.

     “Okay, so what other reason could they have had for carrying jewelry around with them?” asked Shaun.

     “Could they be magical?” asked Matthew excitedly. “Perhaps they’re weapons of some kind.”

     “If they are, they made no attempt to use them against us,” said Andricus.

     Jerry cast a reveal spell, and soon the two items were glowing brightly as the magical fields surrounding them were made visible. “They’re magical all right,” he said. “Look at the aura around that coronet! Want to bet it’s got some kind of telepathic or communication function?”

     Thomas picked it up, put it on his head and tried to read Lirenna’s mind, but nothing happened. He took it off and picked up the other item. “What about this?”

     “Search me,” replied the tiny nome, pulling thoughtfully at his short, silver beard as he examined the patterns of magical force surrounding it. "Unless… You see that cluster of red rays shining out the end?"

     "Yeah," replied Thomas, staring avidly. "It looks like..."

     The two wizards stared at each other, neither wanting to be the first to say it but both trembling with excitement. “What’s going on?” asked Shaun. “What is it?”

     “Now let’s not get over excited,” said the tiny nome, trying hard to take his own advice. “It’s probably not the key. The odds are stacked against it.”

     "The key!" cried Matthew excitedly. "You mean this is it?"

     "Probably not," said Thomas, forcing himself to remain calm. "The chances of us coming across it like this... But I did see a garnissian key once, back in the University. That one was in the shape of an ordinary key, eight inches long, but when a reveal spell was cast on it, it made a pattern a lot like that."

     "What are you talking about?” demanded Andricus in frustration.

     “There’s a door in the middle of the city,” explained Shaun. “A very special door. If you go through it, you’re on Tharia.”

     “The fallen world?” said the Konnen, doubtfully.

     “Yes,” replied the soldier. “The problem is that it’s locked.”

     “And you think this is the key?”

     “No, not really,” said Thomas. “It’s an outside chance, no more than that.”

     “But if it is,” said Matthew happily, “then we can go home! Back home!”

     “Back to the war,” said Thomas soberly.

     “There’s war down there too?” said Andricus. The others nodded. “That’s okay,” the Konnen said, however. I’m used to war.” He gave them a pleading look. “Take me with you!” he begged. “There’s nothing for me here any more. I’m an outlaw, an outcast. If I stay here it’s only a matter of time before I’m caught and tortured to death. Down there I can make a new start, make a new life for myself. Take me with you! Please!”

     They all looked back at him, not without some pity. “Look, it’s probably not the key,” explained Thomas patiently. “If it’s not, then you’ll be going to the same certain death you warned us about. You’d be better off going to live with the renegades. They’ll take you in for sure. They’re all outcasts from the city themselves, or descended from them. You might even come across people you know.”

     The Konnen shook his head. “I’d rather take my chances with you,” he said. “I’ve seen how the renegades live, and I don’t want any part of it. Let me come with you. Please!”

     Shaun started to speak, to tell him no, but Diana put a hand on his arm. “We owe him,” she pointed out. “Without him, we’d all be dead, or worse.”

     Matthew nodded in agreement, and Shaun stared back at his two siblings. “I suppose I did nearly kill him,” he conceded, looking guiltily across at the Konnen. “I owe him for that. Okay, then. If the others have no objections, then it’s fine by me.”

     “Then it’s settled,” said Jerry happily. He reached up and punched the Konnen playfully on the arm. “Young man, you’re as good as on Tharia already!”

☆☆☆

     They left the cave as soon as they’d sorted themselves out, wanting to get away from the dreadful smell of death. Shaun left the Runeblade behind, burying it deep in the undergrowth where, hopefully, it would never be found again, and took one of the Konnen’s swords to replace it. The non-magical blade felt heavy and clumsy in his hand, but he was glad to have it and knew that he would never fully trust a magical weapon again. In his head the unbearable grief and rage was gradually fading, but terrible images returned whenever he closed his eyes and he suspected they’d be there for the rest of his life.

     They stopped for a rest and a bite to eat in another cavern a couple of hundred yards further on, a smaller cave only about twenty yards wide and whose ceiling was a mere fifteen feet above their heads. They chatted with each other as they ate. Andricus was full of questions about life on Tharia and the Tharians did their best to answer them. Throughout it all, though, Shaun sat a little to one side in silence, and after a few moments Diana went to sit beside him.

     “You'll get over it,” she assured him. “Just give it time.”

     Shaun nodded, but his spirits remained as low as before. Diana reached out to take his hand and he gripped her fingers with painful force. She forced herself to endure it.

     “What is it?” she asked. “There's something else bothering you, isn't there?”

     “No,” her brother replied. He let go of her hand and stared off across the cavern. “Not really. I mean…” He paused while he searched for the right words and his sister waited patiently, studying his face. “I can remember,” Shaun said at last. “When I was possessed by the spirit in the sword. I thought I was someone else, and I can still remember some bits and pieces of it. His village was attacked. Everyone was killed. I, I mean, the person whose memories I got, he was away at the time. He came back to find his family dead."

     "You don't have to talk about it," said Diana gently.

     Shaun nodded. "I think I want to," he said though. "I think it'll help me deal with it in my own head, you know?"

     "Just say as much as you want to, then," said Diana. "Just as much as you need to."

     Shaun nodded, looking around at the others. His friends, his brother and his sister. For a moment he glanced at Andricus, as if resenting his presence among the people he trusted, but then he closed his eyes, as if he were looking inwards.

     "I, he, came home to find the village a pile of smouldering ruins," he said. "I remember stumbling with almost insane horror among the mutilated, desecrated bodies of my, his, family. His parents, his grandfather, his baby son. He remembered finding his wife and his two younger sisters lying in a heap in one corner of his bedroom, their clothes in the other corner. I remember screaming, just screaming, while I hugged my wife’s torn and broken body."

     "His wife's body," Diana reminded him gently. "His. Not yours."

     Shaun nodded. "Her eyes were still open. Still staring in terror. He covered their bodies with scraps of their torn clothing before running madly through the collapsing house, not caring that the fire-gutted building could collapse on top of him at any moment. Almost wishing it would if it would take away the horror of what it contained. He came across his brother lying in a pool of his own blood, the broken end of a crude, fire hardened spear protruding from his slennhide breastplate. He fell to his knees beside him, almost blind with tears and heard his dying words. Beast men, he said. They came over the walls. Dozens of them..."

     "Beast men!" said Lirenna, staring in astonishment. "But they've been extinct for over a thousand years! Good thing too."

     Thomas nodded. From what he'd learned about them in The University, the Cons they'd come across in the caverns of Kronos bore more of a resemblance to them than anything else that still remained in the world. The one thing that set them apart, though, was their depraved sexual appetites. If a man's family had been brutalised and murdered by them, that would drive anyone insane.

     "Whenever I crossed swords with a Konnen while holding that sword," Shaun continued, "I seemed to relive thar moment. It was as if the man's spirit took possession of me. I seemed to see beast men facing me rather then human beings. The grief, the rage... It just took possession of me and I just lost control."

     "Well, it's over now," said Diana, putting a gentle hand on his arm. "The sword's gone. Forever."

     Thomas glanced across at Jerry and Lirenna, though, and saw them looking back at him, looking as concerned as he was feeling. Some curses couldn't be broken so easily. It was possible that Shaun wasn't as free of the sword as he was clearly hoping he was.

     "How did some woodsman get a sword like that, anyway?" asked Matthew. "I mean, all the gold and jewels."

     "I, he, wanted to wipe the beast men from the face of the world," Shaun replied. "A common ironwood blade wasn't up to the job. He met a travelling wizard who sold him the blade, but the price wasn't money."

     "It was his soul," said Diana softly.

     Shaun nodded. "His soul went into the blade, and that's what gave it its magical powers. He paid the awful price gladly, though, since his life had no meaning any more."

     "I'm guessing the wizard took the sword back some time later," said Thomas. "Energised by the man's soul, he was probably able to sell it to someone else for a large sum of proper money. A powerful warrior, maybe, with the strength of will to take control of the sword, rather than it controlling him. Since then it passed through many hands before ending up in a Konnen treasure room."

     "I think it affected me so much because I'm so worried about our own family," said Shaun. "Mum and dad, Karen, Antony, all the others. What if, what if the same thing's happened to them? What if they were caught by the Shads and...”

     Diana put a hand on his arm. “They were taken in by the trogs,” she said. “I’m sure of it. They’re in no danger and one day we’ll see them again.”

     “Has that been revealed to you?” asked Shaun hopefully.

     “No,” admitted the cleric, “but I’m sure of it all the same.”

     “I hope you’re right,” said Shaun, “because if you’re not, if anything’s happened to them, then you and Matt are all I’ve got left.”

     “You've got us for a long time yet, troll head,” said Matthew, pushing himself over to join them. Shaun put his arms around them and the three siblings hugged each other warmly, just enjoying the knowledge that they were safe, for the moment at least, and together.

     Andricus and the three wizards watched for a moment, but they could see that it was a family thing and so they simply averted their eyes discretely, feeling a little uncomfortable. Lirenna caught the eyes of the other three and nodded her head towards the other side of the cavern. They nodded and moved away from the three Winterwells, to give them privacy.

☆☆☆

     Shaun lay against the side of the cave for a long time as he tried to process what had happened to him. Gradually his thoughts calmed, but there was one thought that refused to go away.

     He looked across into his sister's face, at her perfect eyebrows and the peach fuzz of her cheek, and for the first time he saw her as other men might see her. All his life she’d been just a funny little kid with whom he and Matt had shared their childhood adventures. She’d been a curiously asexual creature to him them. Not a boy, certainly, but not quite a girl either. Not like all the other girls who’d lived in their part of the forest whom he’d chased and caught and kissed in the happy days before they’d left to embark on Diana’s holy mission. He couldn’t imagine wanting to kiss Diana any more than he could imagine wanting to kiss Matthew, and up until now he hadn’t been able to imagine anybody else wanting to kiss her either.

     Now, though, it came home to him for the first time that his sister was a beautiful woman, made of warm, soft flesh, and that a man might find her desirable and want to have her. He squeezed her shoulder, feeling her flesh yielding under the ceramic plate mail, feeling the solid bones beneath. Images came back to him of broken, unclothed female bodies, used and casually discarded like dirty underwear.

     A feeling of fierce protectiveness swept over him, frightening him with its intensity, and he knew he’d kill any man who tried to hurt her. The curse wasn’t gone, he knew now. It was merely sleeping, and would probably remain sleeping so long as Diana was happy and safe, but it wasn’t gone. It would never be gone.