Clouds began to form over the shadowed kingdom, dark ones that did not remind Kentril so much of Heaven as of that other realm. Arms stretched toward the ruins, Quov Tsin continued shouting the spell. "Lucin Ahn! Lucin--"

"In the name of the Balance," someone broke in, "I charge you to cease this effort before you cause great calamity!"

Tsin faltered. The mercenaries turned as one, some reaching for blades.

A slim figure clad completely in black eyed them all with the arrogance reserved for those who did not just believe themselves superior in all ways but knew it to be truth. Plain of face and younger than the captain by more than a few years, the intruder would not have disturbed Kentril if not for two things. One had to do with the slanted eyes, so unearthly a gray color that they seized the attention of all who looked into them. Yet almost immediately those same eyes repelled, for in them Kentril sensed his own mortality, something no mercenary desired to come to know.