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Far down Nightglow’s snow-blanketed side, Druzil scratched his ugly face and watched the undead creature’s shivering movements

Ghost had not taken a step in many seconds, the first ti pause in several days The gruesome creature

"Why are you doing that?" the invisible i that the creature had not soics to locate hi intensified to a violent shaking Druzil whined and wrapped his leathery wings defensively about hih since they were invisible, they could not block out the terrifying sight

Crackling noises ca its blackened skin, wisps of s air

"Hey?" the i fell into a pile of charred and shattered flakes

Cadderly continued his scan of the area, of himself, and of his friends Danica, too, see up, but Cadderly didn’t see the point since she was fully clothed

Or was she?

A wail froht theh went into a low crouch, slowly turning and scanning, balled fists defensively in front of her

If she feared an attack, then why didn’t she take her bow off her shoulder? Cadderly wondered And then he understood With a knowing nod, the young priest let go of his pointless ht

Another cry, a cry of pain, sounded from somewhere distant, followed by a loud splash

"Where are we?" Danica demanded "And why ah looked at her incredulously, then looked down to her own body

A wave rolled in at thee to their waists Cadderly grimaced at the feel of the wretched stuff, noticed for the first tie a wave?" Shayleigh whispered, and her perceptive reht be the least of his troubles

The apparition, a puny, androgenous fore twenty feet away froarded them

"The assassin," Danica breathed "But he is dead, and we" She looked at Cadderly, her brown eyes wide

"Caught by the GHearufu" Cadderly replied, unwilling to offer the possibility that they, too, had died

"Caught!" the puny forht be properly punished!"

"Use your bow!" Danica, ain, the elf gave Danica an incredulous look, then turned helplessly to her bare, as she saw it, shoulder

Danica sneered and rushed between Shayleigh and Cadderly, taking a blocking stance between the apparition

Cadderly looked down, looked to the unreister all that he had seen and heard Why was he the only one as naked? Or at least, why did he see himself that way? As did Danica, he knew, by her oords And if Shayleigh thought that she had her bow, didn’t perceive that she, too, had no clothes and no equipment, then why hadn’t she taken the weapon froan an intricate, balancing weave in front of her The apparition of Ghost showed no fear at all, continued to steadily glide through the er suddenly, and noticed that the apparition continued to grow

"Cadderly," she breathed quietly, for now their opponent was fully ten feet tall, nearly as large as Vander It took another step, doubling its size as it did -Cadderly!"

They all perceived that they were naked, but each saw the others as they had last seen the others, Cadderlypertinent in that ct He felt along his body, wondering if his equipment only

appeared invisible to hi for hirab it But he felt only his skin and the slie

The apparition loohtersound, one foot caly

"Punish down

Danica dove to the side, splashed through the muck and reappeared, her strawberry-blond locks e

The splash awakened Cadderly frolanced about for Danica, fearing that she had been squashed

Shayleigh was over with the antic monster

Ghost showed no h, not with Cadderly, the perpetrator of the disaster, the destroyer of his own for before hiiant voice teased

Where are we? The question rifled through Cadderl/s thoughts, now that the monster had threatened him, had apparently just confirmed that they were not dead Yet this place somewhat resembled the spirit world, Cadderly knew, for he had made several ventures into that noncofporeal state

Danica and Shayleigh rushed in front of the young priest, Danica leaping onto the leg of the giant, clawing and biting at the back of its knee It kicked out, trying to shake her free, but if her savage thrashing was doing any real da Ghost did not show it

"Perceived vulnerability," Cadderly e, the ie of their nemesis, had to be a ht theh slipped free of the h above Cadderly’s head

"Cadderly!" both Danica and the elf maiden cried out to their apparently distracted coe foot slaht of her lover being squashed

Cadderly caught the foot in one hand, and absently held it steady above his head

He, too, began to grow

"What is happening?" the frustrated, terrified iant’s knee and splashing away Shayleigh caught her and held her, needing, as , the support

Cadderly was half the creature’s size, and noas Ghost who seeainst the foot, hurling Ghost backward to land crashing into the ained its stance, Cadderly was the larger

Ghost caht hug

Danica and Shayleigh , not able to help

Cadderly’s massive ar whiie, neither titan seee

Ghost bit down hard on Cadderly’s neck, whipping his head about in a frenzy It was he, not Cadderly, who then cried out in pain, though, for he was biting not vulnerable skin, but steel arers grew into spikes, and he s priest yelped in agony Cadderly’s arh Ghost’s belly

Ghost’s skin parted around it, opening a hole through which the ar a cut The evil entity’s skin then tightened around Cadderly’s appendage, holding him last

Ghost’sthe s