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Náli woke with a start. He lurched upright and found himself in the mountain cave where Lucian’s people had retreated away from the village. He thought he knew now who’d been hunting them; who’d chased them across a dead countryside, and he whipped his head side to side to search for that tall, murderous, neck-licking Sel on instinct.

“He’s not here,” a voice rasped.

He faced forward, across a fire – a normal fire, one built of a tangle of stacked branches, yellow and orange and crackling merrily – to see Lucian. His tunic was torn, bloodstained down the front. Lucian himself was pale and sallow, face sheened with pain-sweat. He sat hunched to the side, one bloodied hand pressed to his side.

Náli made to get up, to go to him, and was stayed by a lifted hand, one smeared with blood, also.

“No, no. I’m already dead, remember?”

Náli swallowed down a surge of panic. “Then how are you bleeding?”

A wry grin tweaked his mouth. “I’m not a god. It was the magic that held me here, in this mountain, and now the magic is no longer tied to the mountain.”

There were…several parts of that sentence he found concerning. “This mountain. Is this, then–”

“The fire mountain, as it was in my time. Before it had ever erupted. Do you not recognize this cavern?”

He tried to recall the lay of the landscape when he and Valgrind had first approached this peak. Could recall no smudge of smoke belching from the top, no sulfurous fumes.

Then he thought of the great welcoming hall of Naus Keep, the natural dome of its ceiling, and gasped.

“Yes,” Lucian said. “My son began the building of the Keep right here, and his son after him, and so on. Until it became what you know today.”

That revelation gave way to the next. Finding that it hurt more than he would have ever expected, Náli said, “You’re fading, aren’t you?”

“A mortal man must seek his final rest, eventually. The magic that you and I share was rooted in a place, and so I was able to draw upon it so that I might stay in the Between.”

“And now I have it all.”

“You and your Guard,” Lucian corrected. “It will be as it once was for me: a sort of sharing that can shift. You as the direct descendant will possess the greatest portion, but you can divvy up more to a Guard when the need arises; likewise, you could take it all back, if you needed to.”

“That nearly killed me.”

“It’s quite a lot of power. I suspect you’ll learn to manage it, in time.”

“But you won’t be there,” Náli said, half guess, half mounting dread. For years he’d cursed this man, fumed over his riddle-speak…but when he was gone, there would be no one. Not even the most prosaic of advice on-hand. There would only be Náli, the living Corpse Lord, and his five Guards.

“No,” Lucian confirmed, sadly. “I won’t.”

“But what if I have questions?”

“You’ll find the answers on your own.”

“But what if–” His breathing had grown rapid, his pulse fluttery in his throat. “What if I get it wrong?”

A soft chuckle. “You’re assuming someone along the way got it right. Magic is always guesswork, lad. It’s a tool, same as a sword or an axe. It allows you to exert your influence upon the world. Your purpose, your reasons for using it, those can be just or unjust. But it’s not possible to get it wrong.”

Náli wasn’t sure he believed that, but perhaps there was something bittersweet in one last dose of cryptic wisdom.

“Helpful as usual,” he said, and earned another grin, this one pleased. He would miss this old bastard, he realized. Had been visiting him since before he could talk.

And, apparently, he wasn’t the only magic-user stalking these gray lands.

“What of that Sel?” he asked. “Will I meet him again?”

Lucian sighed, pain crimping his brow as he shifted, and his smile slipped away. “Most likely. I’ve been evading him for a long time, now. Several generations, at least.”