28 Tarsakh, the Year of Wild Magic

The city appeared just before dusk, hovering low over a rosy desert butte, a distant diamond of umbral murk silhouetted against the purple twilight of the eastern sky. As usual, it was surrounded by wisps of black fog, giving it the appearance of a storm cloud, a mirage, or an angry djinn. The V-shaped specks of a hundred or so vultures wheeled in lazy circles beneath the city, chasing the constant rain of garbage that dropped from its refuse chutes. "There," Galaeron said.

Though it had been two days since he'd completed the Splicing, the icy tingle of shadow magic still permeated his body-and he hungered for more, longed to cast spells until he was numb and cold from head to foot, until he was filled with the power of shadow and beyond mortal frailty. Instead, he pointed at the floating city and said, "See it?" "So far?" Malik complained.

A pudgy little man with a moon-shaped face and bug eyes, Malik el Sami yn Nasser was the Seraph of Lies, a favored servant of the evil god Cyric and an oddly stalwart traveling companion who had saved Galaeron's life more than once.

"I apologize for my accursed luck," the little man said. "It has always been its nature that just when I think matters could seem no worse, a turn of bad fortune comes along to prove me wrong."

"In this desert, things look farther than they are," Vala said. Limping a little from her wounded thigh, she started down the dry wash at their backs. "We'd better get moving, or we'll lose sight of it when dark really falls."