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Telarian intoned, "I christen this mound 'Cillambea.' " The attending Knights murmured their appreciation.

Raidon whispered to Kiril, "Does that name have special meaning?"

She replied, "It could be translated as place of heroes' in a Sildeyuir dialect."

Finally the Knights quit the chamber of the buried city. Kiril tode behind the vanguard in the company of Keeper Telarian, on a steed that had lost its rider to the undead aggression. Raidon followed behind, on foot.

The monk observed the conversation between the estranged Keeper and the current. Both shared features Raidon realized must be common to star elves. He possessed similar features, diluted as those traits were by his Shou humanity. Mighty blades, too, each wore securely sheathed at their belts. Raidon mistrusted the darkness that blurred out from Telarian's sword, but Kiril seemed to accept it.

In fact, the swordswoman seemed overly eager to hear all Telarian had to say, so long as they touched on the possibility of Nis's and Angul's dissolution. This would somehow lead to Nangulis's miraculous return. Nangulis, the man whose soul had been wrenched into two pieces to forge a modern artifact. Raidon wasn't clear how Nangulis's dead body might be conjured up and revived in order to contain and stitch together the two sundered halves of his soul. Nor was Raidon confident of the sanity Nangulis might possess if such a thing came to pass-his experience with Angul didn't speak to mental stability.

Telarian glossed over such details, and Kiril allowed him to do so, aglow as she was in the possibility. The monk supposed she knew mote of the metaphysics behind reversing the transformation than he did. After all, as his mastet used to mutter in Xiang, "From form to formless and from finite to infinite." He'd taken that mantra to mean that expectations should not be confined by the limitations of imagination.

Raidon was put off by Telarian's cold, emotionless tone and manner, especially when speaking of Nis, Angul, or Nangulis. Was the man devoid of emotion, or did he control his inner self so thoroughly? His voice wasn't that of a master of focus, whose timbre implied calm confidence. No, it was a voice devoid of the least hint of empathy.

The monk endeavored to watch Telarian with an especially sharp eye, despite the man wearing a uniform whose symbol was the duplicate of his forget-me-not. Kiril hadn't thought to mention it to the Keeper in her enthusiasm over Nangulis's imminent return, and Raidon decided to let the issue lie for the moment. If the man proved his worth, the time would come to reveal his mother's amulet.

The returning Knights traveled without incident. When they had almost reached the cusp of the Outer Bastion, Delphe unleashed her counterattack.

An elf of the vanguard, who Telarian had sent statues ahead, returned. He reported that free-running defender statues blocked further progress. The scout said the statues were willing to parley and would withhold their strength for the moment.

Kiril began, "Free running? Does that mean-"

"We're too far from Stardeep for Cynosure's intelligence to inhabit them. Free-running statues have only the intelligence of children, though apparently these bear a message from Delphe. Lies to slow us down," concluded Telarian.

"Still, I'd hear them, if only to gauge the deceit of the crazed Keeper."

Telarian frowned but nodded. He urged his mount forward. Kiril followed.

They passed the Knights of the vanguard and saw ahead a meeting of several tunnels, which created a space wide enough for five figures to stand shoulder to shoulder.

Iridescent sparks danced across the rigid forms of five humanoid constructs. Wearing thick metal plates bolted over their stone-sculpted bodies, their granite strength was obvious to any onlooker. Eight or nine feet tall, each of the defender's hands were curled into gargantuan mauls.

"Say your piece," instructed Kiril. She was ready to draw Angul at any hint of betrayal. She murmured to her blade, "Remember, these