"1370," Meisha read from the top of the first column. "Eleasias 20. Four years ago."

"Date we found the entrance. Wish we hadn't," Talal muttered.

"You—all of you?" Meisha shook her head. "Impossible. Varan shields the entrance with magic and places a ward on the perimeter."

A shadow passed over the boy's face. "There was no magic. The way was just sitting there, open as you please. We wouldn't have gone in, but the brigands had started to circle. There were too many of us not to be noticed out in the open."

"What were you doing all the way out here?"

"Running," Talal said.

Meisha waved an impatient hand. "From brigands, yes, but what—"

"No—from Esmeltaran."

"Esmeltaran?" Meisha echoed. Then it hit her: 1370. Meisha didn't need to do the calculation. She knew. "The ogres," she said, and Talal nodded. "You're refugees from the war."

"We were headed for Keczulla when they started shadowing us."

"The men from the portal?" Meisha asked.

Talal actually laughed. "No, the brigands—soft bellies by comparison. There were a lot more of us then. We moved in a group, tight as Tyr's arse. Only thing kept us alive—they didn't want to take on the whole bunch of us. But they smartened up, the longer they stayed with us. Picked off the stragglers, set traps—that sort of thing. We never saw any of the cowardly bastards. Thought we could wait them out in the caves. We should've known something was wrong if damn brigands wouldn't follow us inside."

"Did you explore? Was there anyone living in the caves?" Meisha wanted to know.

Talal hesitated. He swung the torch at one of the alcoves.

Meisha went for the door, but the boy caught her wrist.

"Don't burst in like that!" he hissed. "You want to kill us all?"

"It's Varan, isn't it?" Meisha said. At his blank look, she pressed, "You found a wizard here."

Talal's lip curled. "Pity us, yes."

Meisha freed her arm. "He's the man I came to see—my teacher! He can get us all out of here."

The boy stared at her. "Certainly, Lady," he said, bowing her mockingly toward the door. "You go right on in and ask him to do that."

Dread welled inside Meisha, but she pushed past Talal. The door scraped the stone floor as she wrenched it open, dripping dirt and cold sediment down on her. She ignored it in the face of what lay within.

The room was littered with garbage. Broken bits of junk covered every available inch of floor space, like the aftermath of a child's tantrum. Varan sat in one corner of the squalid room, his back to her, arms moving as if in the midst of a complicated spell. Small, white maggots swarmed over an uneaten plate of meat and bread on the floor next to him.

Meisha slowly circled the rear wall, putting herself in the wizard's periphery so he would know she was there. Varan held an object in his hands, an opaque sphere caged in a knot of iron bands. Within the sphere, tiny lights winked and danced like trapped stars. Wherever Varan touched the bands, the lights would gather, drawn zipping across the empty space to swirl around his fingertips. The collected magic in the room was so intense it hurt Meisha's head to concentrate too closely on any one point. And the Art did not issue only from the sphere.

Meisha uttered a quick word and swept a fanning gesture the length and width of the room. As the spell took effect, the light nearly smote her blind. Most of the intact objects on the floor, with the exception of the food, contained magic—slight in some instances, dangerously strong in others.

"Varan, what have you been doing?" Meisha whispered, but no one answered. She glanced behind her, but Talal had not followed her into the room. He stood, framed in the crack of the half-closed door, watching Varan. His expression showed a mixture of hatred, awe, and fear.

Meisha took a step forward. She felt the boy make a restless motion. Her eyes shot a question at him, and a warning—don't try to stop me.

Talal appeared torn. Reluctantly, he stepped into the room, just far enough to whisper, "He won't answer you. He never talks to us."

"What's wrong with him?"

"Lady, you'd need a bucket full of scribes to make that list. Just come away," he pleaded.

Meisha shook her head. "I have to see him." She crept toward the wizard, carefully toeing aside the non-magical debris to make a path.