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Almost at once, the shadow of a pear tree lightened and the elegant sorceress was standing beside him. She quickly complied with his request, making the hostility in his voice seem suddenly unnecessary.

"I'm sorry," Orlando said softly, "but you have no idea how quickly that thing gets on your nerves." He expected her to argue the point, just as she would have in the past. To his surprise, her response was quite civil.

"No," she answered, "I suppose I don't. You see, it's been a very long time since I've had a traveling companion. I've gotten rather used to wearing the shroud all the time. I'll try not to use it unless it's an emergency."

There was a brief pause, a moment of still contrast to the violence that had unfolded around them. Orlando searched for something to say, but failed.

Lelanda seemed only slightly more at ease, picking up the frayed threads of conversation. "I asked you what you had found," she reminded him.

"Looks like a piece of that staff Jolind used to carry with her; feels like it too, almost as cold as those blizzards it could summon up."

Lelanda tilted her head and looked at the broken staff. Her lips pursed as she considered the broken end and several places along its length where something had cut deeply into it. "There was some pretty powerful magic woven into this thing. It wouldn't be easy to break. The weapon that hacked these notches out of it and finally broke it must have been every bit as powerful. That doesn't bode well for our future."

Silence fell upon the garden again. Orlando went back to fishing through the shrubs, eventually finding the other section of Jolind's staff.

Lelanda examined the head, looking into the druid's eyes as if she might read the woman's dying thoughts. Then she walked a distance toward Orlando and called to him. He met her halfway between the shrubs and the fallen body.

"We've learned a little bit from an examination of the area and the body, but Jolind can tell us more."

"Necromancy?" asked Orlando, the word sounding just as bitter as it tasted in his mouth. She nodded. He growled. "I suppose there's no choice. Get it over with."

"I'll have to…"

"I know," he said.

Two steps brought the witch to the edge of the bloody pool, another to the place where Jolind's severed head had come to land. She looked back at Orlando, flashed him an uncomfortable smile, and raised the hood of the shroud above her head. Instantly, it became difficult for the warrior to focus his eyes on her. Even knowing where she had been standing only a few seconds earlier, he could discern nothing but the faintest impression of the shrouded figure.

The magical energies of death and darkness answered Lelanda's urging. She spoke words of power whose sounds had no meaning to Orlando's untrained ears. He felt the strange tugging of death at his spirit and knew that something stood nearby, hungering for the taste of his soul, contained only by the power of Lelanda's will. If her concentration failed, the consequences could well be disastrous. Then, with a cry of agony from the unseen mage, the spell was completed.

Orlando steeled his nerve as the eyes on Jolind's severed head snapped open. The thin-lipped mouth did likewise, and a hissing, hollow scream filled the garden. Unable to stand the sight, Orlando turned his head away. He felt the need to vomit, but retained control of his traumatized body by remembering that a deadly enemy might lurk nearby.

Jolind, said the spectral necromancer, can you hear me?

"Yesss," responded an empty, lifeless voice. "Who are you? Your voice is familiar… but distant."

Jolind, this is Lelanda. I'm here with Orlando. We've come to help you.

At that, the disembodied head released a humorless, rasping laugh. "You're a little late for that, old friend."

Orlando's nerve buckled, but did not fail him.

I know. We're sorry. But we want to find the person who did this to you. He murdered Jaybel and Gwynn, too. Can you help us? Did you recognize