The High Priest was bending down for more pebbles when a bubbling mound of froth and foam broke the surface of the water. A gelatinous white mass pushed through the slime. The huge eye in the center of its mottled surface focused on the High Priest but the man casually gestured over his shoulder at the crypt keeper.

The crypt keeper squeaked in terror, flopped onto his belly, and tried scrambling up the stairs. Two long tentacles shot from the water and wrapped securely around the man's ankles. In desperation he grabbed ahold of the edge of the stairs, but the tentacles tightened and lifted his feet in the air. His cries for help echoed around the cavern as he bounced backwards down the stairs, then was dragged feet first into the water.

The High Priest turned to the white creature and clicked his tongue.

The beak chirped in pleasure and hoisted the crypt keeper overhead. A a long white tongue unfurled from the creature's mouth and wrapped itself around the man's head, cutting off his cries. The tongue zipped back, then the tentacles tossed the man high in the air. His body smacked into the cavern ceiling, and he fell limply into the water. As the flabby white creature slipped below the surface, small waves washed around the man's body as it began to sink. A lone white tentacle wrapped itself around the crypt keeper's chest and then he vanished, yellow ripples fanning out from where he had floating.

Mara walked back to the High Priest. "You certainly have a dramatic flair." She stuck her torch into the rocks near the stairs. "I only meant for you to push him into the water and let your pet do the rest."

He turned to her. "But that is what you love about me, isn't it?"

Mara laughed. She took his face in her hands and kissed him. "It certainly is my dear."

The High Priest took her by the hand and led her to the stairs. He sat down and she settled on his lap, putting her arm around his shoulder as they gazed out over the water.

"The Volisk will have plenty to eat for quite a while," the high priest said calmly.

Mara cackled. "He was a fat one. I wondered if he would even fit through the crack at the top of the stairs."

The High Priest glanced over his shoulder. "I will be glad to go through that crack and back to the palace where I belong. But first I need to find out who Tyreth's double is and what she knows about this whole affair."

"I can help you with that." Mara said, patting his bearded cheek. "That lookalike actually came to the palace pretending to be Tyreth. She even had me fooled until I spied on her inside her bedroom."

The High Priest frowned. "Why would she come to the palace unless Tyreth sent her?"

Mara smiled slyly at him. "I believe Tyreth did send her, for the imposter carries a medallion, and not just any medallion, my love. She has the chamber master!"

The High Priest stood so fast that Mara toppled to the ground. "Are you certain? Did you see the glow?"

"Yes," Mara said, getting to her feet and dusting herself off. "When she took it off, I could see its light spinning around her room. I was planning to grab it when she went to wash but then the captain arrived and caught me at the door. We waited for a while and finally I pushed the door open for him and he went inside. I tried to listen at the door but it's too thick to hear what they were saying. When he came back out, he told me to leave Tyreth alone, but I kept an eye out and in short while that girl came out in an angry fit and left the palace. As soon as she was gone, I searched her bedroom, but the medallion was gone. She must have taken it with her."

"Why would she be angry after speaking with the captain? He had to know she wasn't Tyreth."

"Of course he did. Why else would he go out to the crypts to save the real Tyreth?"

The High Priest stroked his beard. "This whole affair is strange. My daughter goes out to the city by herself at night, is captured by the rebels but manages to disguise a new girl, who obviously isn't from Kadir, to carry the master medallion back to the palace. After meeting the captain, the he look-alike does not bring it to me. Instead, she goes out into the plaza and..." He smacked a fist into his open hand. "Toreg! That's what's missing here. My former counterpart has finally contacted our daughter and turned her against me. No wonder Tyreth has been acting so strange of late."

"Toreg?" Mara spat the name out. "You may be right. Ever since Tarran died, Tyreth has treated me with more disdain than ever before, like it was my fault my own son died. Toreg must have reached out to her in her time of sorrow."

The High Priest was shaking his head, his long beard swaying. "I knew this might happen at some point in time. I was hoping her mother would eventually give our daughter the medallion she held and then I could talk Tyreth into giving it to me."

"She was carrying the master medallion?" Mara's voice rose. "And you never told me this?"

The high priest waved her off. "Toreg was the only person I knew for certain still had one, but I never dreamed she carried the chamber master. Tyreth must have gone into the city to meet her mother and Toreg gave it to her but then Tyreth was captured so she tried to send the medallion back to the palace with the disguised girl. She must have been sending it to me for safekeeping. Maybe Toreg hasn't tried to tell her everything just yet." The old man grimaced. "I told you to eliminate Toreg long ago. She is ruining all my plans by showing up now. You said you could make sure she never come close to Tyreth again."

"I'm doing my best," Mara said bitterly, "but that traitor Garek went back on our deal and now he and his friends protect her instead of killing her. I want her dead as much as you. I cannot be your counterpart until she is eliminated, but with her close connection to the sisterhood and the other cities, it has been impossible to get to her."

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The High Priest paced along the shoreline, seemingly oblivious to what Mara was saying. He stopped and looked over the water. "What I don't understand is that if Tyreth sent the girl back to the palace to keep the medallion safe, who was she taking it too after talking with the captain? It certainly wasn't me or she would have come directly here."

"I think it must have been Jorad," Mara said. "Those two became closer after his family disappeared and she seems to be more interested in him since Morgan died."

"Yes. Dead from the pill you created," the high priest snorted, "the pill you claimed would put that boy to sleep. Then you lost track of the boy as well."

"You wanted a quick solution to get your hands on that boy find out what he was up to, and I gave you one," Mara said bitterly. "Next time let me come up with my own plan. One that actually achieves our goals."

The High Priest ignored her went back to pacing, the last small waves from the volisk's exit washing over the toes of his shoes. "I doubt she gave the medallion to the captain, so it has to be Jorad. We can't let that medallion fall into his hands. It would destroy all everything I have worked so hard to achieve."

Mara grabbed his cloak as he passed her. "Jorad is not even in the city. My sources say he and a troop of soldiers were seen heading to the crags and the passage to Rozan. That means he heard about the fight in the crypts and Tyreth's abduction. If he has any idea she carries a medallion, he will try to rescue her to bring them both back to Kadir. That man wants a medallion as bad as we do."

The High Priest put a foot on the stairs. "I'm going to find out for myself where that girl has gone."

Mara tugged him back and stood on the lower step, eye to eye with the tall man.

"You can't go out looking like that. When you reveal yourself, you need to be in your finest robe and your beard needs a trim. It has to be the right occasion for you to make your return before the people."

The High Priest sank down on the steps. "You're right. I need to think this through carefully."

Mara looked down at him. "I have spoken with my informer in the Rozan council, and I know that the leader of the Rozan rebels will marry Tyreth only to fulfill his delusion about being the great Cor-van. He really doesn't care who she is or about her connection to you. He will likely have her killed shortly afterward. He has no concept about the true power of the medallions, to him they are just more prophetic bits like his tiara. Jorad is the true danger here. He will do anything to win Tyreth's hand, get his hands on the master medallion and secure control of Kadir."

"That is why I have been urging Tyreth to accept the captain. Now that he is dead, she just may accept Jorad's offer."

Mara turned her head and looked so intently in Kate's direction that for a moment she was certain Mara had seen her. A thin smile creased her lips, then she looked back to the High Priest. "There is a way we can put an end to their plans and keep control of Kadir."

"How?"

"We will follow through with our plans for your miraculous return. Everyone knows that the Karst has been off limits while the statue is dismantled, but I have been dropping hints that Tyreth has been coming here every day, not only to mourn her father but also to visit someone. I have seeded the idea that someone here is ill, and she is tending to them. That is why she takes food from the palace kitchen along. Some of the gossip I have started is that she is going to the person who ran to her before they fell in the water and that it wasn't Tarran after all."

"You told me all this already," the High Priest pouted, sitting down on the steps. "I know we are preparing the way for my return at the right moment in time."

Mara sat beside him. "This is the right time. I will go find that girl and bring her to you with her medallion. You tell her you need the medallion so you can use it to save Tyreth from the prison in Rozan. Of course, once you have it in your hand the girl will die by the poison on my blade." She pointed to the water. "But we will not feed this one to the Volisk. This new girl looks like Tyreth so under a funeral shroud, no one will be able to tell them apart. None of the guards survived so nobody in Kadir knows Tyreth has been taken to Rozan, nor would they trust anything that crazy rebel leader has to say even if they found out. Everyone in the palace knows your daughter has not been doing well since the wasting ceremony. If the city were to get the news that she died suddenly from all the stress, nobody would be surprised. My plan is that hold a funeral for Tyreth, using the body of her double and you come back as the grieving father whose loving daughter nursed him back from the edge of death before dying herself. Kadir is populated by fools who will believe most anything they are told."

"And what if the rebel leader decides to let Tyreth go, and she comes back from the dead?"

"I know him well. He won't do that. He will let her starve to death in the Rozan prison while he waits for that idiotic tiara of his to show up. You simply cannot reason with that man."

The High Priest frowned, and Mara put her arm around his shoulder. "I warned you in the past that the bond between mother and daughter are strong. We were well away that once the Toreg reconnected with Tyreth, your daughter would likely align herself with her mother and Atiya and the rest of the sisters. You must face the reality that Tyreth is now dead to you. It's time to move on and take your place as the ruler of Kadir."

He stood to his feet. "With the master medallion in my hand, I can force Kael's grandfather out of the chamber and take over not only Kadir, but all seven cities. I can rebuild the Cor to its former glory." His triumphant claim echoed off the cavern walls.

Mara patted his shoulder and he turned to her. "I do love the way you think. With you ruling Kadir and me as your counterpart, the entire Cor will be ours to do with as we wish." She put her hands on his face, but he pulled back and took her hands in his.

"You must go immediately and find Tyreth's double," the high priest urged. "If that girl still has the medallion and returns to her room to rest, you must take it from her. If she is drawn into the chamber and takes the medallion off inside, I am told the medallion will vanish from her body and we will never know if she even had it on."

"But how would she even know to take it off inside the chamber?" Mara asked.

"Let's not forget who may be waiting for her inside. If Kael's grandfather is still in there and he were to convince her to take off the medallion and give it willingly to him, then the master medallion will belong to him, and he will gain the upper hand. We must find that girl while she is still awake and take the medallion from her."

A cruel smile lit up Mara's face. "If what you say is true and if I remove the medallion while she sleeps, it will leave her soul trapped in the chamber. She will appear as dead, without any blood on our hands. Then all we need to do is prepare for her funeral."

The High Priest nodded up the stairs. "Go and find her. We don't have time to waste. I will go clean up as best as I can. I am glad to be leaving this place."

Mara kissed his forehead, then made her way up the stairs.

The High Priest watched her leave, picked up the torch and turned toward Kate's hiding place behind the two boulders. Kate stepped around to avoid the approaching light but one of her shoelaces was held fast under her other sneaker. She clutched desperately at the rock and as she fell out into the pool of light she caught a glimpse of the astonished face of the High Priest, the felt a dull thump on the side of her head before everything went black.

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