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On our fifth day in the jungle, the doctor died.

It was not a quick death, nor an easy one. Not like Armand, whose eye had been pierced by a dart that lodged itself into his brain, slaying him long before the poison smeared on its needle-like length could take effect. The doctor had barely been struck at all: just a scratch on his forearm, almost unnoticed among our efforts to withdraw to safety. Unremarked, until it had been too late. The Umuri venom was potent. By nightfall, the doctor had been feverish and shaking. The next day, we had had to carry him, bound to a makeshift litter to keep his convulsions from causing him to fall. Today, he died.

I hadn't liked the arrogant little stoat, but we hadn't invited him along on the expedition for his sparkling wit and convivial personality. Besides, it's not fitting to speak ill of the dead. He was talented in the treatment of wounds and diseases, and, without his expertise, the expedition had just become much more dangerous.

Of course, with the Umuri between us and the ship, turning back wasn't an option, either.

The tribal savages - arboreal creatures that resembled squirrels, but stockier and with disproportionate, ape-like arms - had shadowed us from the second day. Valentine, ever the watchful one, had spotted them early in the day, and quietly warned me and a few of the others. The more sensible ones. They hadn't attacked us immediately; they had just watched from afar, while we picked our way through the dense foliage and sweated in the oppressive heat of midday.

The attack had come near dusk. By some instinct I can't explain, I'd spun, drawing my saber, and heard a soft ting as one of those darts struck the blade rather than my body. Beside me, Valentine had cursed under his breath and readied his own weapon, the pistol he placed so much stock in. Others among our crew - I still thought of them that way; being a sea captain had changed me, I suppose - had reacted more slowly. They'd looked to the trees, finding precious few signs of our attackers. One or two cried out as darts struck home. They'd seemed so slow to me; slow to recognize a threat, slow to ready a response.

Valentine had fired, with a deafening crack of thunder. A gout of noisome sulfurous smoke had spread from his weapon, but in the distance, something heavy had fallen through the trees, landing with a surprisingly soft thump among the vegetation. The weapon he'd chosen was neither elegant nor, to my mind, safe, but say this for Val: he had a keen eye and a steady hand with it. It frightened the Umuri, too; the flurry of attacks had stopped for a moment.

They weren't gone, though; we could hear them shifting among the trees, edging slowly closer to us. Val had fired again, this time missing his mark, and the noise bought us more time, but not as much as the first shot had.

"We need to withdraw," I'd said, gesturing toward the east. "Cut us a path if you need to." A pair of cheetahs, thin, wiry, and remarkably at home in this environment, had responded fastest to the order. Julius and Augustus, they were called, after the Machaen fashion, and I could never tell them apart. Their heavy machetes were hacking at the undergrowth even as I'd turned to do something else I hated.

"Sorcerer," I'd said reluctantly. "We need some cover, if you can."

-=-

"Still up, Set?" Valentine had poked his head into the room, so the question had been largely rhetorical. He wasn't the only one to abbreviate my name - something about "Setsuna Kitsuki" was difficult for tongues this far outside my homeland to wrap themselves around, for some reason I couldn't comprehend - but his choice to do so was more affectionate in nature.

Once, I would have protested. But Valentine d'Chanson, as he was currently styling himself - and it had been an effort not to comment on that, believe me - happened to be my oldest friend and companion since my exile from my homeland. We'd been traveling together for the better part of seven years. He'd made me captain of a merchant ship, saved my life at least four times, and taken mind-bogglingly stupid risks when he didn't have to because he'd thought it might help me. We'd also shared a bed on more than a few occasions since the incident with Malak Kolenka. He could call me what he liked.

Not that my protests would be likely to stop him, in any case. A charming rogue is still a rogue.

"You should be asleep, Val." It was quite late, but I always had trouble sleeping the night or two before setting out on a journey.

"Plenty of time for that on the ship," he answered with a shrug. "And there's someone I want you to meet."

"Now?"

"I'd like him with us."

I'd frowned at that. "Val, I thought we'd finished choosing crew weeks ago. Why are...?"

"He's a sorcerer." The words spilled from his mouth so quickly that his tongue nearly tripped over them, a rare occasion indeed for the fox. "But, listen, he..."

"A sorcerer?" My mind flashed back to green mageflame streaking through the night, burning sails and masts and my crew alike. I was not fond of sorcerers.

"Set, I know, but we need..."

"A sorcerer?"

"Yes, damn it!" Val losing his temper was a rare thing, particularly with me, but I saw it in that moment, and it quieted me. "I want this journey to succeed, Set. We're going into an uncharted jungle in search of a legendary temple that might or might not even exist. A sorcerer can only help our odds. I know what you've been through." He'd been through it too, of course. "Besides, he's a weather-witch. With him aboard, our ship will be swift and safe from storms. We could get there a week faster than we'd planned, Set."

Speed was of the essence, of course. Normally, we'd have planned an expedition like this with much more care, but time was no longer a friend to Valentine. Dear Valentine...

I'd risen from my chair and taken his hand. "Take me to the sorcerer," I'd said quietly. "But no promises."

He'd smiled anyway, sensing a victory. "I have to warn you. He's a little strange."

-=-

Strange, Orion was. I shivered a little every time I looked at him. He was... difficult to describe. He might almost have been a wolf, towering at seven feet tall and rather stocky - an imposing figure by itself. But though he resembled a wolf in broad strokes, there was much that simply looked wrong.

There were the horns, of course. There was the strange scaly frill along his back, glistening silver when the light struck it. These were the big things, and he usually went cloaked and hooded. For the comfort of the crew, as he'd put it. But there were smaller things, too. His muzzle had a decidedly reptilian cast to it, somehow. His fur at times carried a metallic glint. His tail had those scaly plates as well. His eyes were a startlingly bright blue, and sometimes seemed to glow. And speaking of a glow, there were blue stripes crisscrossing his fur in a complicated lattice of markings, and those often glowed as well, a pale cerulean witchlight. His clothing obscured some of that, but the hood only made the glow of the stripes across his face stand out more. And there was the smell. He always smelled of rain. It was far from unpleasant, but it was strange. There was barely a hint of wolf to his scent.

I could only assume that his sorcery had done this, twisted his body in some way to produce this mishmash between wolf and some great lizard. Dragon, the crew had whispered. The dragons I had known were large, serpentine beasts, but they did possess power over the weather. Perhaps Orion was one after all.

The crew had taken a liking to him quickly. When we'd been two hours out of port, he'd come onto the deck and slowly, silently, lifted his hands. Just like that, the wind had changed, re-orienting toward our destination on these far coasts. It had intensified, filling our sails. And shortly, the clouds that had been on the horizon had disappeared.

There are few things a sailor likes better than avoiding a storm. More than one even offered him rum from their shares, and Arcadian crewmen are remarkably tight-fisted when it comes to their rum. He'd accepted one drink, just to be polite, I think. He'd turned down the rest, which hadn't hurt his popularity.

He'd lifted his hands again, just as he had that time aboard the ship, and the storm had returned. Almost immediately came the rain. I'd had time to raise my own hood, and Val to safely stow his black powder, before those first drops turned into a downpour - but only just. A few of the men had cried out in surprise at the sudden soaking. More importantly, though, angry chittering and growls from the trees had told us the Umuri didn't care for the rain, either.

No more darts had come from the treetops as we made our retreat. It had been hard to tell whether the Umuri had given up and sought shelter, or whether the rain and wind had simply made it too difficult to pick out and hit a target with their light poisoned darts. It hadn't mattered much either way, I guess.

When Orion had smiled at me, I'd even smiled back.

-=-

That hadn't been the end of the Umuri, unfortunately. The next day had brought another attack, despite the continuing rain. Despite the weather, that had cost us Armand and the good doctor.

We'd been fleeing since, making our way inland, toward the place where we thought to find the Temple of Life. There had been no other attacks, but we'd heard the Umuri moving above and behind us once or twice. And we were all aware that another attack could come at any moment. It made for long, wearying days and sleepless nights.

It was an hour past nightfall when the sorcerer came to me. We'd managed a small fire, beneath an overhang of rock, and I was sitting near it. I'd always liked the heat, and nearly dying in the oil-fueled inferno I'd engineered to destroy Malak Kolenka hadn't changed that. Orion was hard to miss in the night, with that glow about him. I thought at first he meant to join the few of our band who were scattered around the fire, but he stood off, at a distance, watching. Of course; the rain didn't trouble him. He was at home in it.

Which meant he'd come to speak with me. Sighing softly, I relinquished my spot by the fire and drew my cloak tight. The rain wouldn't penetrate the treated cloth, at least. I could have used the garment when I'd been a captain at sea.

Orion had turned his back toward the fire as I drew nearer. He wanted privacy. I continued walking, and he fell in beside me. We couldn't go far, of course - the Umuri were still out there. It didn't matter, though. The rain would muffle a quiet conversation well enough. "Good evening, Captain." He still called me that, for some reason.

"A captain without a ship." I shook my head slightly, then had to adjust my hood as a gust of wind caught at it. So much for staying dry. "What is it, Orion?"

His fingertips pressed together in nervous contemplation. "I've been thinking about the Umuri attacks."

"So have I. Normally, I'd find ground and fight, perhaps from ambush, but that's suicidal here. We don't know the land, and they do. They have the advantage of higher ground. They know our numbers, and we can only guess at theirs. We have the better weapons, but their tactics and their poison eliminate that advantage..." I trailed off. The sorcerer had begun interlacing his fingers, fidgeting nervously. Which meant... "You weren't talking about fighting them."

"No," he agreed after a moment. "No. I noticed something about their attacks, I think. It's hard to be sure, but... well, when they first attacked us, we'd turned toward the north to circumvent that entanglement of undergrowth, remember?"

I did, and nodded. "We were going to turn north, find a campsite, and then continue around in the morning. But after the attack..."

"After the attack, we were forced to head southeast, instead. Then the second attack came--"

"When we turned toward true south." I frowned; now it was clear what he was getting at. "Then the third, when we tried to turn northward after fording that river..."

He nodded. "I don't think they mean to kill us. If that was their goal, they could have done far worse than they have. They might have attacked at night, for instance." I'd wondered about that myself; even given the rain, and their fear of the pistols, it should have been easy for the Umuri to kill more, from a night ambush. Our sentries were not so vigilant, in the rain-soaked jungle at night, as to catch every possibility of warning. "I think they're guiding us somewhere."

"Herding us, you mean." The thought made my fur stand on end. "They're smarter than we thought, in that case. Could they be taking us to their village to slaughter us all there?"

Orion's lips twisted in distaste. "Possible, I suppose," he admitted grudgingly. "But I don't think so. It would be easier to kill us now."

"Unless they need us alive. Maybe we're meant as sacrifices."

This time, the sorcerer nodded more quickly. "Something like that. I think they've been leading us toward our destination."

"Herding us, you mean. To the temple? You think they're using it now?"

"It's said there's power there. Even primitives might sense that."

I nodded. "They say, long ago, the gods walked the earth, and the Temple of Life was where they first stepped down from the heavens. There's a spring there whose water is supposedly sovereign against all disease and poison. Touched by the gods themselves. But why would they need us for that? It heals. It's not the sort of thing that cries out for blood."

"Maybe the gods are still there, and they've changed their minds."

"If there were gods, I think they departed this world long ago. I've certainly seen no sign of them."

His head canted at a curious angle. "Are you sure you've been looking?"

"I didn't come to discuss philosophy." I frowned. "This changes nothing. We can't diverge from our path without inviting more attacks, and fighting would be suicide."

"Well, there is a reason I came to speak with you." He actually smiled; I wondered what he could find so cheerful in a situation such as this. "Why do you seek the Temple?"

-=-

Valentine winced as my fingers stroked his arm. He tried to pull back, but my fingers caught his wrist, held tight until he gave in. My other hand gently took the sleeve and pulled it upwards. There, on his forearm: three pale spots, each about the size of a fingertip. The fur growing from the area was bleached white and brittle, like fine crystal spires; those strands that hadn't broken as I pulled on his sleeve snapped at a touch. I met his eyes, but I saw regret there, not horror. He had known. And he hadn't told me.

"How long?" I asked, gently extracting myself from beneath him, sitting upright on the bed.

I wasn't sure he would answer. "Two years, three... maybe five," he said at last. And then, confirming my fears, "There's no cure."

-=-

"Even one skin of that water," I said, "would make a man rich beyond reckoning."

"Ah. Then you should know... I think I can get us out of here." He chewed nervously on his lip, adding, "Most of us, anyway."

"How?"

"There's a... thing I can do. Sorcery, as you call it. I can tear open a - how do I describe it? - a gate, a tunnel, between here and the shore. It's not easy, but I've been storing power since early yesterday. In the morning, I could do it. It won't be large, and it won't last long, but there would be time for us to get through it. We could board the ship and be away."

"The Umuri will attack again as soon as they realize what you're doing, if you're right."

"I know." The dragon got a pained look about him as he admitted, "Some of us probably wouldn't make it. Those darts... but I don't see a way of saving everyone. If we fought, more would die, as you say. If we turn aside, more die. And if we continue..."

"Then we see why the Umuri want us to reach the temple."

"As you say. What would you like me to do?"

It always seemed to come down to my decision. What malicious spirit had chosen to plague my life by making me a leader? I wasn't suited for it. I knew this, in my heart. It was especially clear to me now. The sorcerer had offered me a means of saving my remaining crew, or at least most of them. Probably the best chance to save the most men, at least. If I could dispassionately tally the lives, I ought to take it. I might even keep them all alive, in so doing. The Umuri might not react quickly enough, their darts might miss. It was a slim chance, but a chance all the same. I should have told the dragon to open the gate.

But Valentine, my beautiful rogue, would waste away. And I would watch him. No doctors, no potions, no sorcery could help. He needed a miracle, and somewhere in this godsforsaken jungle, if there was any truth to the old legends, there was a miracle. There was one spring, touched by the gods.

It had been months already, planning this voyage and setting sail. It would be another month to return home, even with Orion providing favorable winds. Then a year of watching the trembling that already sometimes overtook his hands spread, the strength in his body fade, the color literally leach away from him in the grip of the white waste. Or two years. Four, perhaps, if he was strong; but by then, he might not wish for those extra years.

I am a poor leader; I could not trade their lives for his. "We stay," I told Orion. "We continue to the temple. If I must, I will die fighting there." I cast a glance toward him. "You can go, though. Either now or then. You don't have any obligation to stay with us." He wasn't even, technically, part of the crew; he had come on his own, not for the promise of coin.

He watched me in silence for what seemed like a long time. Abruptly, he nodded. "I have an obligation to a friend," he corrected me, softly. "Sleep well. It will be a long march tomorrow." He turned and was gone before I could answer.

What had he meant? Something must have transpired between him and Valentine, sometime in the past. I would have to ask the fox. Later. Once we didn't have more pressing matters at hand.

Orion was probably right. I walked back into camp, determined to sleep as well as I could.

-=-

I didn't sleep well, unsurprisingly, but I slept all the same. In certain lines of work, you learn to take what sleep you can. The day dawned dark, thanks to the continuing rain, but by the time we'd broken camp and started hiking through the dense foliage, it was quite warm. I knew that, by noon, the rain that had seemed so chill last night would be a welcome relief from the oppressive heat.

Besides, it might help keep the Umuri at bay.

Our arboreal stalkers weren't showing themselves. I made sure to keep a reasonably fast pace, considering the exertion of hacking our way through the ubiquitous foliage, and to keep us heading in roughly the same direction. The dragon's intuition seemed to bear out; no attacks came from the trees as the hours passed.

Being leader of the expedition did have its perks. I was spared the most grueling of the work. I heard no complaints about that, though. Perhaps that was because I'd placed myself at the back of the column, the most likely target for any sudden flurry of poisoned darts. Or perhaps they'd just learned to keep their voices down. There's a first time for everything.

At one point, Valentine and Orion fell back to join me. I raised an eyebrow. "What is it, Val?" I couldn't exactly ask how he was feeling, with the sorcerer there and the men within earshot, but he didn't seem to be in pain from the walking. That was something.

"I can't keep you company, Set?" I kept my gaze steady, and he laughed. "All right, all right. I was talking to Orion..."

"I haven't changed my decision."

"Not about that. It's... well..." Faltering, he looked toward the sorcerer.

"It's about your feelings toward sorcery," the dragonish wolf said nonchalantly. "I understand your caution, in light of your experiences on the Zephyr..."

"There's no need to worry. I don't object to your presence." Not any more, anyway. "You've helped us a great deal, in fact. I'm in your debt."

"Not at all. But it wasn't your feelings toward me that I was curious about. That would be understandable."

"What, then?"

"Well... if I may speak plainly, I wondered why you would object to what you call sorcery, when you appear to use it yourself."

I nearly tripped over my own feet. Valentine reached out to steady me, but I waved him away, casting a glance toward Orion. He seemed to be in earnest. "What are you talking about? I'm no sorcerer."

"No? Yet you cut a dart out of the air."

"That's just practice. And a little bit of luck."

"Maybe it would be... if you'd seen it fired. But this dart was behind you, fired by a concealed opponent. Even assuming your ears were sharp enough to hear the sound, to be able to turn and draw in that split-second, and to choose just the right position to place your blade... well, you can see my point."

Valentine chimed in from my other side. "It does make sense, Set."

"Not you too. Look, I said that there was luck involved. A great deal of it, maybe, but these things happen." Val was giving me a look. "What?"

"I thought you only believed in luck you made yourself."

"That's not..." I shook my head. "That's another subject. I'm a sword dancer. There are thousands like me in my homeland. It's a flashy spectacle, an entertainment, but there's also a real fighting style there, if you care to learn it. I did. That's all it is. Hard work. I don't throw balls of fire around or make it rain."

"There are many kinds of sorcery," Orion said philosophically. "And I've traveled to your land, once or twice. I've heard of this sword dance. I doubt there are thousands quite like you."

"Maybe I have a talent for it, but I'm hardly the best one out there."

"Perhaps not. But you aren't average, either, unless I'm very much mistaken. Are there even a hundred in your class?"

In my homeland, modesty would have demanded a certain answer. In Valentine's, a truthful, or even boastful, answer would be more esteemed. I wasn't certain what Orion's expectations were. I hedged by admitting, "I was granted the rank... er, it would translate 'Worthy-of-Heaven.'"

"Perhaps a hundred, then. Perhaps not." He knew more than I'd expected. "You had a patron, then."

"Yes. A nobleman. It would have been a very comfortable life, had he not tried to become emperor."

"Is that why you were exiled? Because he tried to overthrow the emperor and failed?" Valentine raised an eyebrow. "You never told me that part before."

I laughed mirthlessly. "I was exiled because he succeeded. He needed to consolidate his power, you see. Some of his generals, he executed, but he couldn't do that to an entertainer he patronized. It's a polite fiction, you see, that we sword dancers are merely that - entertainers. So he would need some pretext, or else he might raise questions he'd rather not answer. I left before he found such a pretext. I ran into you about a month after that."

"What else were you?" Valentine asked. "A bodyguard, or something?"

Orion, at the same time, frowned sympathetically. "And you haven't been home since?"

I chose to answer the sorcerer. There were some things I didn't need to admit to outright. The fox would probably guess, from my silence, but he'd say nothing unless I did. It was one of the things I liked about him: he knew when not to push. "He's still the emperor. I don't regret my decision, though." I took Valentine's hand. "Life may have its disappointments, but it certainly has its rewards as well."

The sorcerer smiled. "That's as much magic as anything else."

Before I could question or object to that, he'd picked up his pace, leaving the two of us. I suppose I could have followed him, but Valentine still had my hand, and somehow the objection just no longer seemed important.

-=-

The jungle prevented us from scouting very effectively. Life held us back; the vegetation was too dense, the plants almost overbearing, the undergrowth crowding every inch that the ancient, massive tree trunks hadn't already claimed. We hacked our way through with the heavy machetes, creating a path just wide enough for three abreast, or two comfortably, and we trusted to the filtered sunlight through the leaves to keep us on course. Where the growth slackened, we sometimes sent a runner, a young otter who'd once served aboard my Zephyr before I blew her up along with the mad sorcerer-pirate, but never very far; the Umuri threat was still present.

Today, there hadn't been any such slackening. "Maybe there is something to these rumors," Valentine said. "The plants're sure healthy." And he was right; the temple was near.

I didn't recognize it at first; none of us did. It was crowded tight with a mass of hanging vines and flowery shrubs, a thicket no different to the eye than what we'd been hacking through for hours, for days. But this tangle of stubborn plants had a wall of solid stone behind it. One of our cheetah twins called out, as much in surprise as anything else, and soon we were clearing.

We had a door. A massive slab of stone, to all appearances, carved with runes of uncertain provenance and still stained with green now that the clinging vegetation had been scraped away. With a little bit of effort, though, we found that it rolled to the side, exposing a staircase beyond, a short flight descending into the earth.

Before we had any more time to examine the door or the stairs, the chanting began. From the trees all around came the harsh, rhythmic syllables. The Umuri were readying for battle.

"Looks like it's inside, or dead," I remarked. There was no doubt now; the Umuri wanted us here. Why? I wasn't sure, but now that we'd found the way in, it seemed they were prepared to kill us unless we let them funnel us inside.

"Light," Valentine ordered, "and then get down those stairs. Make it fast."

I added my bit. "Fighters, if there are no immediate threats, form up at the bottom for a defense. We'll use the stairs as a choke point if they attack. Non-combatants, stay in the antechamber, and out of the way. Move!"

They moved. Torches were hastily lit, and our stalwart cheetahs darted down the stairs, still carrying the heavy blades in their hands. I held Valentine back, or he would have gone next; instead, a wolf and a dog followed, both carrying loaded crossbows. Then I let Val go. His pistol was out and ready, but I wasn't sure his aim would be as steady now as it had been days ago; I could see the strain in him. The journey had worn on him more than he'd let on.

My blade was in my hand, too, and my back to the stairs as I tried to watch the trees. I caught glimpses of our stalkers - too many of them, moving too quickly. The chant was growing louder and louder, an endless crescendo of savage howling, as my crew moved into the dark.

But no attack came. I was the last to descend, and I was mildly surprised to see that Orion had gone just before me. I led the expedition, but he had no reason to risk himself like that. I backed down the stairs until I was out of sight, and joined the defensive line, at its center. The calls outside went silent, all at once, and I tensed, preparing to act. My training returned to me, as it always did in the moments before battle, my limbs tingling as the dance waited to flow through them, to bend my body into the right positions at the right times. Beautiful, flashy, a living work of art - and surprisingly deadly. Some masters scoffed at the sword dance, claiming too much energy was wasted on its flourishes, but there was a rhythm to it that fed that energy back.

Maybe the dragon had had a point.

But the attack didn't come. All remained silent. "What are they waiting for?" muttered one of my warriors - the wolf I'd seen earlier with the crossbow, I thought. I wished I had that answer myself.

"They didn't bring us this far just to leave." It was probably past time for honesty. It wasn't just speculation any more. "They wanted us in here. I don't know why, but I doubt it's good."

"So they're still out there?" One of the cheetahs spoke. His voice had that misleading quality to it that some cats developed; it sounded soft to the ear, but it carried throughout the room if the speaker wanted it to.

Valentine answered that one for me. "Anyone who goes up those stairs is probably going to be turned into a poison-dart pincushion."

"We're trapped down here?"

"Only for now. They can't stay out there forever." I sounded more confident than I felt, I'm sure. "But this is what we came for, anyway. It has to be. The long-lost Temple of Life. We can take some time to explore it."

There was some low muttering among the men. I understood why; the antechamber we were in was nothing terribly impressive to look at. It was large enough to hold our entire crew with room to spare, but the walls were bare stone, save for a few rusted torch sconces that had been pressed back into use, and the floor was dirt, packed flat by the passing of feet in times past. A single tunnel led deeper into the complex.

"This is pretty well-preserved for a ruin," Valentine said to me, echoing my own thoughts. "Particularly one in the middle of a jungle that's been overgrown."

"I expected something fancier," I admitted.

"There are traces of pigment on some of the walls. They were painted, once."

"There are?" I hadn't noticed any. "I guess time's taken its toll after all."

"Yes, but... not as much as it should have. I think."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know. Maybe it's just because the ruins I'm used to are in areas the Arcadians have lived for centuries. They've been scavenged, sometimes quarried for stone to use in newer buildings. This... this looks untouched."

"The Umuri haven't been using it?" I turned; Orion had crept up on us. I thought I'd been paying attention, but he was damned near silent when he wanted to be. His robe covered most of his body, but the tiger-stripe pattern on his face was glowing more visibly here, in the dark confines of the temple, than it had during the nights outside.

"Not recently, anyway. There are some signs of passage, but no large groups. Could be one or two of them get curious from time to time..."

I sighed. "Or it could be something else entirely. Let's not speculate. If the spring is in here, we'll find it." I detailed a guard to stay and watch the door, in case the Umuri changed their minds about chasing us into the temple, and chose a few others to accompany us. Valentine, of course; Orion; the cheetah twins; a wolf who favored a long spear; and an ermine who boasted a brace of flintlock pistols along with his wickedly-curved dagger.

The young otter tried to insinuate himself into the group, too. Valentine had to grab him by the scruff of the neck as he prepared to dash down the corridor. He yelped in protest, but the fox held up his free hand, then pointed to the floor. "There's a crack there. Bring me one of the pitons and a hammer."

He didn't move, keeping unnaturally still, all of his attention focused on the minute crack that my own eyes could hardly see, even when it had been pointed out. He accepted one of the pitons that we used for pitching the tents without even looking around, then released the otter in order to accept the hammer. The boy still didn't dare move. Valentine crept forward, gingerly placing the metal spike; then, with a single sharp blow, he drove it into the ground, widening the crack to more visible proportions and wedging the stone plate against the solid stone to its side. "That should jam the mechanism, but I wouldn't step on it anyway," he said in that dry tone of his.

"Nice work, Val." And he sounded more like himself than he had. I hoped it was because the spring was near, and exerted some influence even at a distance.

The sorcerer pointed out the thought that had been nagging me. "Why would there be a trap in the entryway to the temple? And why does it still work?"

"Someone's been maintaining it," Val said.

"The Umuri?"

The fox shook his head. "Not sophisticated enough, I'm pretty sure. This is no plain snare. A stonework trap like this? The architecture alone is beyond the Umuri. The mechanisms... no, it's impossible."

"Another mystery. I'm starting not to like this place." I walked around the marked square. "Let's go. Slowly. There might be more of these traps."

"Starting to regret finding it, Set?" Val asked me. He even managed a wan smile, bless him.

"Hoping it's worth it." But it would be, if that spring wasn't just a legend. All of it would be.

We came to another room after that, one where some of the walls bore simple carvings as well as traces of paint. There were several archways this time, and, after a brief discussion, Orion suggested that we should continue straight, since it would at once lead us deeper into the complex and make finding our way back simpler.

We wound our way through a number of rooms. A few were small and once, probably, ornate by the standards of their time; many were larger, befitting the main path through the temple. Valentine spotted and disarmed two more traps, and each added to my foreboding.

At last Orion said what was becoming obvious. "Whoever is maintaining these traps must live inside the temple. It makes no sense to delve this far in, then return, leaving these."

Valentine nodded. "They're no hunting snares. They're meant to keep people out. Lethally. That last one would have collapsed the ceiling onto us."

"So something is in here and doesn't want visitors, Val," I summed up. "And we're probably going to knock on its door." Figuratively speaking. There hadn't been any proper doors inside the place.

There wasn't much to say after that. Not until we came upon another stairway, and ascended back into the light.

-=-

It was an impressive sight after out time in the plain corridors of the temple: an open plaza, ringed by high stone walls and a partial ceiling, the center of which stood open to the sky. Aside from that stone, it bore more resemblance to a tranquil forest grove than an interior courtyard of a building complex. Perhaps it had been a garden once. There was stone somewhere underfoot, but there was soil, too, and the trees that grew in that soil were not those which flourished in the jungle outside. I saw red oak, and a cherry that might have been from my homeland, among the many I couldn't identify; there were fruit trees as well, lemon and apple and plum. A strange mix. Among the trees there was statuary, too - some sculptures of stone and some of earthy clay, some of whose features had been so worn with time that they were little more than standing stones, now, smoothed into oblivion.

I didn't spend much time considering trees or statues, though, for the plaza contained something else as well: a still pool of water, a small, irregularly-shaped pond. What we'd been searching for, perhaps? It did vaguely resemble a footprint, I thought - if the foot had belonged to a giant. It must have been fifteen paces in length, and it looked rather deep. Our view of it from the staircase was dominated by one of the statues, a brownish-grey rendering of some great, vaguely feline being, broad-chested and at least two heads taller than I, holding a spear in a sentinel posture.

It was when Valentine took a step toward the pool that the statue moved.

The spear it hurled was swift, but my fox was faster; he threw himself to the ground, rolling. The wolf behind him was not so fortunate. His eyes bulged in disbelief at the heavy shaft pinning him to the ground, through his chest, even as the light faded from his eyes and a pool of crimson spread beneath his body.

My blade had cleared its scabbard; Valentine was on his knees, leveling his drawn gun. Orion had started in surprise, then stepped forward, one hand up in a warding gesture. The ermine fumbled with his weapons; he was not so used to the pistols as Val. The cheetahs were crouched low, fanning to either side in a wide arc, hoping to flank the thing.

And it continued to move, fluidly, bits of dust sloughing off of it as it reached down and drew a massive blade that it wielded in one hand. Beneath the dust, there seemed to be fur and flesh, and the sword was steel rightly enough - or perhaps something more; its blade gleamed, free of any trace of rust. "Defilers," it - he? - croaked, in a voice nearly as dusty as its body. "You should not have come. You should have heeded the warnings."

"We don't want to fight you," Orion said. We only need..."

He was cut off suddenly by the need to leap aside as the creature - no statue, surely - charged with lightning speed. I was used to being the fastest warrior in any given fight, but even I found his motions somewhat difficult to follow. The sorcerer might have been saved more by instinct than by intent; he had placed himself just beyond the arc of the massive blade.

Still he seemed intent on negotiating a more peaceful solution. "Stop! There's no need for this."

Heedless, the thing turned, and a double clap of thunder resounded. The ermine had gotten his gun clear and primed, and both he and Valentine had taken their shots. The giant staggered; at least one of them had struck true! But I saw no blood, no obvious wound. The creature laughed, and swung again, and the ermine scrambled to safety, dropping the expended pistol and drawing his second. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Valentine reloading his own. The cheetahs leapt, as one, and I let my steps flow forward to join their lunges nearly in unison.

He didn't even bother to parry. Three blades struck three separate lethal blows almost at once; three blades bounced from furred flesh without leaving so much as a scratch. So startled was I that I nearly lost my own head to a sweep of his blade; only through sheer instinct did I manage to raise my sword to turn his stroke high, and it passed close enough to slice a few strands of hair. I realized the creature was laughing. "Fools. You cannot harm me! I am favored by the gods."

I didn't take his word for it. My steps turned, my blade darting forward in the sharp thrust I knew as Heron's Beak; then it twisted in Autumn Leaves as the blade dance spun me, allowing me to evade his counterstrike. Behind him, the cheetahs continued their assault with less technique but with great ferocity, cleaving at his unprotected back.

He had no defense to speak of, but he needed none. Any ordinary opponent struck so would have fallen half a dozen times over by now, but his body was unmarred. He continued to boast as he laid about with great scything swings, faster than something so massive had any right to be. "No blade can cut me. No stone can bruise me. Your weapons are useless against me. Lay down your arms, and I will grant you a quick and painless death."

He sounded quite mad, except that his words appeared to be true. The most we'd achieved with all of our efforts was to stagger him momentarily with a particularly heavy strike, and we'd already lost one of our small number to his own assault. One of the cheetahs, too, bore a wide slash across his chest, bleeding freely; he hadn't been quick enough to avoid one of the guardian's cuts, and the wound looked severe. He was still on his feet, though, and my mental estimation of the pair went up another notch. I would be glad to keep them among my crew, provided any of us survived this.

The monster spun suddenly and lunged, and the wounded cat slipped as he tried to dodge back. The blade passed overhead, but only because he had crashed to the ground. The momentary daze put him in a fatal position.

But before the mighty sword could strike, a howl muted all other sound. The wind struck almost as a physical blow. It nearly knocked me off my feet; the ermine, I saw out of the corner of my eye, had been bowled over. It even forced the beast back a step. Orion had thrown back his hood and stood at his full height, and his eyes were glowing bright cerulean, like his stripes. "Enough," he said sternly. The guardian, unheeding, raised his free hand to shield his eyes and stepped forward again, ready to complete the strike. Orion's eyes blazed, and he wrenched a bolt of lightning from the ether to cast toward the towering guardian.

The monstrosity couldn't possibly dodge a bolt of lightning, but it didn't need to. It took the strike in the chest, momentarily paralyzed as the electricity coursed through it - but unharmed. "No flame can burn me, and I do not fear your powers, magician. They are nothing before the powers of the gods!" Orion's assault - a second bolt smashed into the guardian, with no more effect than the first - had at least distracted him, though; he rushed toward the dragon-wolf, nearly stepping on the downed cheetah in his haste. The downward arc of the blade vied against a bright flash, another crackle of lightning.

The dragon was gone at the last moment - simply vanished from where he'd stood. I saw a motion from the corner of my eye; Orion had crossed the room in that moment. This was something like he'd meant, earlier, then: tearing through space. Lightning coursed over his body, and I saw that his feet no longer touched the ground; he floated. I shuddered. Such unnatural power...

Yet it seemed no more effective than steel or lead. Valentine had put away his pistol, I saw, and drawn his rapier. Perhaps the wind was too much for his new weapon. My free hand flashed a silent sign to my fox: stay back. I whirled, cut, leapt, stabbed; Rising Phoenix bled into Waking the Dragon, into Opening the Fan, into The Courtesan's Dance. One step after another, lightning-quick, without pause or hesitation, without error. It might have been my finest performance.

None of it made a difference. At best, we could push the guardian back a step or two. I didn't know whether he tired, but his strength outmatched ours, and he seemed, as he boasted, impervious to any of our blows. Even Orion's lightning was merely an inconvenience. Meanwhile, any mistake we made could prove fatal.

The ermine, who had apparently run out of ammunition and switched to his dagger, made such a mistake a moment later. He was used to using his greater agility and speed against his opponents, as I was, but this monster was fast and felt no pain. The ermine darted in with a strike that would have gutted any normal creature, then tumbled backward. But the guardian was no normal creature. He wasn't slowed by the strike. The gleaming blade arced outwards, taking the ermine's arm and a part of his head with it. He didn't even have time to scream; I suppose that was a mercy.

I slipped on the blood that now soaked the floor, and I might have joined the wolf and the ermine in whatever afterlife might exist, were it not for Valentine. He was there, suddenly, as he had always been when I'd needed him. His slender rapier looked like a child's toy next to the guardian's massive cleaving blade, but the rapier served nevertheless to deflect the heavier sword. He smiled at me, somewhat ruefully.

"You've saved me again." I was back on my feet, and I pulled him with me as I dodged the backswing. "It's becoming a habit."

"Well, it wasn't just for you. We could use some of your luck, Set."

"I thought you wanted no more of that." Crane in the Pond attempted to pierce the guardian's heart, to no effect.

"Well, if anyone could overcome a god..."

It was almost like the old days, in those moments. Valentine's carefree banter, my sword darting in precise arcs and thrusts, the pair of us against the world. But he wasn't what he had been. During a parry, I saw his face contort in a rictus of agony, and his blade slipped from numbed fingers. "Val!"

Another form interposed itself between the fox and the deadly swing. Orion flew, quite literally, like a living bolt of lightning, his arms outspread to tackle the guardian. He struck hard enough to topple the creature, and I nearly cheered, but the effort had cost him. He crashed to the ground several feet beyond, still crackling with electricity. The sword had caught him high in the side of the chest; not an immediately fatal wound, from the look of it, but a dangerous one. All of that, to buy us a few moments.

Already the creature had begun to stand, lashing out at the uninjured cheetah, who had approached to try to pin him. The other one, I saw, was near to collapse from the lost blood. I was still intact, if bruised, and Valentine was weakened by the white waste; he'd picked up his rapier, but it was in his left hand now, his weaker hand; his right wasn't able to properly hold it.

We couldn't flee from the guardian; he was too fast. But how did you kill something that wouldn't bleed, wouldn't bruise? He was laughing again, that mad cackle, as he pressed the cheetah, and I saw that this twin was no longer unbloodied, either.

His more-injured brother threw himself against the guardian, earning a low grunt and a backhand that threw him back through the air to land in a crumpled heap on the ground. He didn't rise. Orion had dragged himself over to tend to the cat, I noticed: still doing what he could to see that we survived this. But if blade, gun, and lightning were useless...

How did we kill something that wouldn't die?

To have come so close to the spring that would cure Valentine, even make us all rich into the bargain, only to die here in this forsaken temple, in the heart of the wildest jungle... I supposed I would die in battle against a worthy foe, at least, but how could I face my ancestors, having led my crew to these deaths? Surely my restless spirit would wander these halls for eternity.

Wait. The spring?

"Back up!" I shouted to the cheetah. He did, as much to dodge the next cut as because of my order. "Back! Back!" I urged him, and redoubled my own assaults. The guardian continued to ignore me; my blade didn't bite, after all, and my dancing strikes lacked the raw force the cheetahs could muster. Like Valentine, I normally depended more upon technique and precision. "Tickling the enemy to death," a certain old warrior had once called it, but it worked well against those foes who could actually bleed.

Valentine followed as well. He must have known I had a plan, such as it was, and though he couldn't know what, he had worked with me for too long not to support me. His own strikes were rather feeble, I saw with alarm. To what extent had he been putting up a brave front, all these days? Was the renewed vigor I had seen in him so recently just a deceit?

I couldn't think about that now. The cheetah had struggled to guide the guardian away from our fallen, closer to the spring. The three of us could no more inconvenience the massive figure with our blades than the entire group had, earlier. But we were more or less where I wanted us to be. I waited while the cat dodged another stroke, then another, and...

"Drop! Hands and knees!" I barked. The cheetah looked at me as though I was mad, and I thought for one despairing moment that he wouldn't obey - but he did, throwing himself down. Even if his eyes were screwed tightly shut, expecting a fatal blow to follow, I appreciated that.

Before the guardian could deliver that blow, I did something that went against all of my training. I dropped my sword.

Before it hit the ground, I was leaping forward, throwing all of my weight toward the guardian. "Val! Low," was all I had time to say, but he was following me even before I'd said it. The pair of us together seemed barely enough to budge the massive figure, but he stumbled forward, tripping over the cheetah's form, teetering even as his own weight pushed the cat along the ground.

It almost didn't work, but a moment later, the four of us crashed down into the water.

We had the element of surprise, but it wouldn't last long. I scrambled up his back, my arms wrapping around the guardian's neck before and behind, as I'd once been shown... at least, I hoped it was. It had been long ago. "Help me! Keep him down!" I gasped. The guardian was thrashing, and his strength was phenomenal. Valentine struggled to restrain his feet, forcing his knees to bend. The cheetah - Augustus, this one was Augustus, I thought, suddenly - had kicked his sword out of his reach and was working to keep his hands from finding purchase, and the cat took a few vicious body blows for it.

I dug one knee into his back and tried kicking him in the solar plexus with my other foot. It was an awkward position for that, and I missed, but the three of us together managed to hold the guardian nonetheless. I set my entire weight to keeping his head submerged and clung onto his neck for all I was worth, while the others neutralized his great strength as best they were able. The guardian managed a quick breath, but only the one. He fought wildly, and I wondered whether this, too, could fail to kill him.

But his struggles slackened, after time. Too much time, I thought, but all the same. Wary of a ruse, I kept my grip tight and kept his head submerged while Valentine and Augustus coughed for air themselves. Minutes passed before I felt confident in letting go.

The others had climbed out of the water, by then, and Valentine offered me a hand to get out of the pool. His right hand. I took it in mine, and rolled back his sleeve with the other one. An unbroken expanse of healthy red-orange fur greeted my eyes. He smiled at me, silently.

I surged out of the pool and practically tackled him, too. He laughed softly, holding me. "Easy, Set. Easy. It looks like you did it again."

"We did it again," I corrected him.

-=-

After that, the rest seemed trivial. We dragged the massive body from the spring, since we hoped to use its water to supplement our own supplies. We tended the wounded as best we were able, cleaning their wounds with that water; the spring seemed to have lost some of its virtue with the guardian's death, either because of the diminished presence of the gods' power, as Augustus opined, or because bringing death to a site so sacred to life had broken its power, as Orion suggested. The wounds began to heal even so, and it looked as if they would heal cleanly. Despite his own wounds, Orion insisted on tending to Julius. He seemed to have taken the cheetah's injury as a personal slight.

We couldn't bury the dead, but we laid them out at the side of the plaza, in the shade of a majestic tree, and built a cairn of stones scavenged from the tunnels below. Valentine said a few words in their memory; he had a gift for seeming a friend to everyone, and perhaps it brought some of them peace. For my part, I remained quiet and hoped their spirits would rest easy; they had died as well as anyone could hope to, I thought.

I'd gone to fetch the rest of my crew, and we set up camp in the garden. The Umuri, they'd reported, were still outside. I had a feeling they wouldn't be, for too much longer.

"How do we get out of here?" the otter boy asked, on the third day. He'd only voiced what some of the others were thinking, so I didn't reprimand him. In truth, it probably wasn't cowardice that moved him to ask the question; the young one was reckless. He probably hoped for a heroic assault.

This time, at least, I was going to disappoint him. "The Umuri will never see us leave," I promised.

"Is there a secret way out?"

"You might say that." I directed a smile at Orion. "Think you're up for it?"

He didn't answer immediately. "I used a lot of energy during that fight," he said at last. "Another day... maybe two, just to be safe."

"We should have that."

Beside me, Val smiled. "We should have a celebration, then. Double rum rations tonight!"

The cheering of the crew subsided when I reminded him, and them, "I'm still the captain here, Val." A long moment of silence, and I couldn't hold back my grin any longer. "Triple the ration. And be generous with the food, too. The less we need to carry, the better..." That sentence ended in a whoop as Valentine hoisted me up. Oh, yes, his strength had returned.

I laughed. We were all due a celebration.