The Reds stopped mid-stride as the Corpusant burst out of the tunnel. Tendrils of smoke rose immediately from their hair and clothes. Ward could smell them burning. In seconds they would be alight like torches.

"Go!" he shouted at them.

They hesitated, unable to comprehend what was happening. Then, as if by telepathy, they turned together and ran back to the guardhouse. The slower of the two cried out in terror as his hair caught fire; he slapped at his head with his hands, but his hair was already gone. His scalp was as red as a post box. But it seemed they had crossed some boundary beyond which the Corpusant could not perceive them, for they didn't burst into flame. Ward watched as they clambered into the guardhouse beside the Postern Gate and pulled the door closed behind them. When he turned back he realised what had saved their lives.

It was Corvus.

The tiny old man was on his feet, facing the Corpusant across the courtyard, his staff held out before him. The sphere on the end of the staff shone like a beacon, crackling and humming. It was almost too bright to look at. Energy forked out from it like lightning.

He's a sorcerer, Ward thought. He didn't feel as surprised as he thought he should. Perhaps he had always suspected it.

Halfway across the courtyard the white light from Corvus's staff met the Corpusant's red light, and the two combined into a ball of crackling energy, brighter than the sun. It spun erratically, sucking oxygen hungrily into itself, spitting out charged particles that made Ward's hair stand on end. Black spots danced in front of his eyes.

(What art thou?) The question was indifferent. Politely interested.

"A man," Corvus replied. His voice sounded oddly resigned, perhaps even sad. He didn't look at the Corpusant, but kept his eyes from the shining sphere on the end of his staff. Lit up as it was, Ward could see the dust-like flecks that spun about inside it, around a dark shape that might have been a tree, or a person.

(What dost thou wield?)

"Love," Corvus said, simply. He took a step forward and the white light crept towards the red.

(David?)

For a moment the Corpusant shimmered in the air, and Ward saw the outline of a woman in there, like a living thing imagined dancing in a campfire. Leah.

Corvus's face drained of colour. The hand that held the staff quivered. He staggered backwards: first one step, then another.

The red light rushed hungrily back towards him.

(No!) Leah screamed in Ward's head.

Corvus had taken his eyes from the sphere and was looking at the Corpusant, peering into it, perhaps for another glimpse of the woman. He seemed suddenly very old, more ancient than any person ought to be. The sphere's light flickered and went dark for a moment; when it returned it was less bright than before.

The Corpusant's red light reached out for it like a hand.

Ward didn't know why he did what he did then. As the sphere fell into darkness again and the red light rushed forward to envelop Corvus, he lifted the skull from his chest with both hands and stepped forward into the path of the oncoming light.

It hit the skull with a sound like a coconut cracking open. The skull grew instantly hot in his hands and began to glow like an ember. He screamed as the skin on his palms peeled back, but he didn't let go of the skull.

Just as the agony reached an intolerable height the skull vanished. It didn't disintegrate. It didn't turn to ash or dust. It simply folded itself out of existence. There was a sudden loud pop as the air rushed in to fill the space where it had once been, and Ward's hands clapped suddenly together, like he had failed to catch a ball. The Corpusant had vanished with the skull. One last thought hung like smoke in Ward's mind:

(thank you)

and a body lay momentarily on the flagstones before him, then it too winked out of existence. Ward imagined Leah's soul departing the world like a bird.

"He's bringing us love! Kill him! Kill him!"