'A female! I wonder if it might be possible that we…'His face glowed with a lechery so luminous it astonished even Fost, though the courier knew the shade's ways by now. Erimenes had preached stark abstinence throughout his life, and then had thirteen hundred years to think better of it. The long, lonely centuries trapped in his ceramic jug had been devoted to developing a totally hedonistic philosophy; disembodied, Erimenes could only experience his newfound ideals as a voyeur. Until the promise of another – female – genie. Jennas scowled. 'The boy, Fost, the boy is dying.'

Fost swallowed and turned back to the dying knight. Erimenes's crude enthusiasm shamed him. And he was no closer to finding out what had happened to Moriana. He leaned closer to the youth.

'Where did she go?' No response. Fost dribbled water across the parched lips and asked again, slowly, 'Where-did-she-go?'

The young knight tried. In his fading mind he was glad that with his dying breath he could help his princess, the Bright Princess whom he and his friends had let down so badly.

'She went to…' His blurred, fading mind struggled to concentrate. 'Went to…'

Another coughing spell wracked him. He sprayed bloody foam all over the front of Fost's tunic. Fost gripped the boy's shoulders, trying to steady him.

The boy tried to say, 'To see the ones who built the City in the Sky,' but the coughing hit him again.

'To… City… Sky,' was all Fost Longstrider heard in the instant before the boy's head lolled back on lifeless muscles. Gently he lowered the boy. He rose and looked at Jennas. 'The fool,' he groaned. 'She went back to the damned City.' 'And you will follow her.' 'And I'll follow,' Fost said. 'I'll follow.'

CHAPTER TWO

The fugitives rode north following the course of Chanobit Creek as it flowed toward its meeting with the mighty River Marchant.