“This is much nicer,” said Kiska k’Adesina. “That other world was too dreary.” Lan looked at her, empty inside. No emotion sprang forth when he deigned to notice the brown-haired woman. She was his avowed enemy, and he felt nothing.

Lan almost rejoiced in this neutrality. He tried to coax more of it into play. He knew full well that Claybore had placed a geas on him, but no spells or chant at Lan’s command removed it. Kiska would be a millstone around his neck and, one day when he least expected it, that weight would carry him under the surface and drown him. If only he could remove her before then!

He wanted to. Deep inside he knew a provocation great enough would give him the strength to sunder Claybore’s geas. He tried to bring it forth. Intellectually he knew that she was responsible for untold suffering on a dozen planets. She commanded Claybore’s grey-clad legions and subjugated entire worlds in the dismembered mage’s name. Lan had no love for Kiska k’Adesina.

And yet he did. The man choked as the geas asserted itself. Lan fought the churnings deep within, the love tinglings that mocked him and his most adroit spells. He shook off the sexual urges and concentrated on the world spread before him.

“Summer,” he said. A light, humid breeze caressed his face and warmed flesh that had been chilled on another world just a step-and incalculable distances-away. He sucked in a lungful of the air and tasted freshness, the heady fragrance of flowers in bloom, the slight decays of forest mulch that meant renewed growth for other plants and trees. He closed his eyes and heard the insistent hum of insects. Lan batted away a few of the more eager bugs as they landed on his forehead and neck.

Kiska gripped his arm and broke the serene mood. “Look, Lan, there. Below. In the valley.”