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But that also restricted his ability to get things done, so he started converting more and more risen. Concealing their true nature takes enormous amounts of blood. Too much to hide from someone with my connections and history in the church. Combine that with things that I scared out of Devin, and I knew what the truth had to be.”
    “That’s when you decided to come to me.”
    “Well, Kelos initially, but yes. Will you help me make war upon Heaven’s Son?”
    I took a deep breath, as I tried to decide how to answer her. That’s when a large boulder smashed right through the Fallow-side wall of the Roc and Diamond at shoulder height. It passed directly over the table where Toragana and I faced each other before punching out the wall on the other side. A few inches left or right and it would have killed one or the other of us.
    Triss wrapped me in a shroud of darkness as I rolled backward out of my chair. In a hand-off we had practiced thousands of times, he released control over his senses and substance to me as I bounced to my feet. My view of the world changed as my own vision became irrelevant and I shifted to seeing through Triss’s borrowed darksight. Color went away as textures and how they reflected or absorbed light became central to my awareness, and shadows took on a depth of meaning beyond anything I can ever hope to describe. . . .
    As I drew my swords, a tattered horde of risen came pouring up the main stairway from the lower level.
    The Son of Heaven had moved first.

3

    D eath or Justice?
    Sometimes, when I’m being especially honest with myself, I wonder what impulse I truly serve. The memory of my goddess? Or the darkness of the grave? I have always tried to kill only those whom Justice demanded I slay, but how far does Justice’s writ go?
    Ashvik was my first, King of Zhan, and as clear a case for the justice of the sword as you could ask for. But he was not the last. Many have died at my hand since that day. Some deserved their deaths as clearly as Ashvik deserved his. Some put themselves between me and my rightful prey. Others . . . others merely stood too close.
    I might say that I took no pleasure in their deaths, that I would have spared them the edge if I could have, but I would not be telling the whole truth. For I love my work. There are few pleasures that can compare with being one of the best in the world at what you do. I do not like being responsible for the deaths of those who do not deserve it, but the cut and the parry, the interplay of steel and spell and knowing that the ultimate price will be paid by the less skilledplayer . . . that is another thing entirely. To deny the shock of joy that went through me as I unsheathed my swords and prepared to wade into the ranks of the risen would be to deny who I am.
    I would like to believe that I wouldn’t have felt the same way if my opponents were living breathing humans with wills of their own. I would like to believe that very much.
    I do not.
    The Hand met the risen at the stairhead with spells and steel and the miniature lightnings of their familiars. Heads fell, rotting skin crisped and burned, a score of the restless dead fell in a matter of seconds. But more came bounding up the stair. Indifferent to their fallen comrades as anything more than an impediment to decent footing, they came on in their hundreds. By sheer weight of undead flesh they forced the Hand back and back again, establishing a bridgehead.
    Kelos had shrouded himself at the same time that I did, but I could trace his path across the room toward me by the line of fallen bodies he left in his wake. The swords of Namara are one of the most effective tools against the undead. Even now, after the death of the goddess, that part of their enchantment will work for the proper wielder. But, the next wave of the risen rushed toward the Signet and me then, and I lost track of Kelos and his swords. Before the dead reached us, another great rock smashed through the