The white field of snow looked as though a score of soldiers had trampled through with their heavy boots. Annja could see the forward, backward and sideways movements of footprints, the smear of slips and slides and the impact of bodies hurled to the ground. As she lay among the shallowest of depressions, one thought came to her mind—Was I a part of this?

She rose to her feet slowly and surveyed the scene. No blood speckled the now-dirty snow. No limbs lay hacked off in some grisly manner. Nor were there any bodies of slain figures.

Only Wishman’s body still lay where he had first fallen.

Derek and Hansen had vanished.

Annja glanced down at the sword and frowned. It felt heavy in her hands and she struggled to understand what she had just come through. She felt battle weary and battered, but she was unable to comprehend how she had arrived back here intact.

She sent the sword back to the otherwhere and then rushed to Wishman. As she turned him over, he gurgled slightly and she could see the line of spittle and melted snow dribbling from his mouth. Flecks of dirt marred his face, but otherwise she could see no sign of injuries.

She patted him on the chest. “Are you all right?”

His eyes opened and fluttered in brightening sunlight. He looked around and then back at Annja. “Friend of Bear?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“And the demon seekers?”

Annja shrugged. “I don’t know. Vanished. Perhaps they left when things turned bad.”

“What do you mean?”

Annja sighed. “I think, and it’s only a thought, that I did battle with their dark god. And I defeated it.”

Wishman tried to sit up and Annja helped push him into a sitting position. He took her hands. “You did battle with the creature? How was that possible?”

“I don’t know,” Annja said. “But somewhere between this world and another, I fought it.”

“And won.” Wishman’s voice was tinged with wonder.

“I guess so. It doesn’t seem to be around here any longer. At least, not that I can see.”

“But you did see it? On this plane, I mean.”

Annja looked around. Somehow, the sunlight seemed to make the entire scene a lot more friendly than it had been earlier during her fight. “It seemed to be a shimmering haze. Like a mirage.”

Wishman nodded. “Yes. Then you have seen it, my child. And to live to tell the tale. Miraculous!”

“Yeah, well, I don’t feel much like a miracle right now.” Annja smiled. “We should get you back to camp.”

Wishman shook his head. “No. We must first go down into the burial chamber and see what damage was done to it by the explosion those two idiots set forth.”

Annja glanced at the burial mound. She wasn’t so sure that heading back down into the darkness was what she wanted to do right now, even if she had defeated the creature.

“I could use a cup of coffee,” she said feebly.

Wishman smiled. “I know you’re tired. I am, as well. When I saw that shimmering haze, I felt it slam into me as if I was only a puppet. Why it did not devour me then I will never understand.”

“Maybe it wanted to do battle with me first?”

Wishman considered this and then nodded. “It’s very possible that it did indeed see you more as a threat, gifted as you are with such a formidable weapon as that sword of light seems to be.”

“Sword of light?”

“You vanquished an evil god with it. Surely, there can be no doubt as to its inherent nature if it enabled you to do such a thing.”

Annja helped Wishman to his feet. “Let’s get you down into the mound, check out the damage and then hoof it back to camp. I feel like I need a long sleep and a lot of food.”

“Supernatural battles always deplete the resources of the brave warriors,” Wishman said. “I will be quick. I promise.”

“You don’t need me?”

“Just your help to the entrance will suffice. I will go down by myself, if you prefer.”

Annja smiled. “Works for me.” She walked with Wishman over to the entrance and as she did so, she looked again at the ground and the tracks that covered it. “Looks like I was running all over the place here.”

“When you fight in between worlds, this is the result. You may not have been here, per se, but in one form, you were. And the proof of your exertions is all around us on this field.”

“Shouldn’t there be proof of the death of the creature?” Annja asked.

Wishman shook his head. “Not necessarily. The birthplace of that demon has more likely recalled it home. It would not lay on the field of battle as a slain beast might. Better that it is that way.”

“No complaints from me,” Annja said. She stopped by the entrance and took her arm from around Wishman’s shoulder. “You sure about this?”

“I’ll just be a moment.” And Wishman uncoiled himself and walked down into the shaft. Bits of blackened soot scarred the entrance, and giant pockmarks of dirt and ice still lay fragmented about the area.

Annja looked around. Part of her wondered if everything that had happened was even possible. She had never before given much thought to the supernatural as such, and certainly hadn’t battled anything like this before. All of her other fights had been against mortal enemies, both human and animal.

But this was something different.

Very different.

And the realization that she had somehow evolved to a new level of fighting wasn’t entirely a welcome one to Annja. What did this event mean was coming down the pike in the future? Would she be up against the worst that the bastions of evil could throw at her from here on out? Was she now expected to wage a war against the minions of darkness? And if so, was the sword enough of a weapon?

None of the possible answers made her feel comfortable. And the longer she misted the air with her breath, the more she felt tired and unsure of herself and her skills. When she should have been feeling confident and worthy of the thing she had killed, instead, fear plagued her. A fear of failure.

Somehow, that didn’t seem fair to her. After all she’d been through in her many travels and adventures, after all the heartache and pain and misery, Annja expected something a little more like a feeling of satisfaction. Instead, she felt less confident than before. As if it had all been for nothing. And all that hard-gained experience was merely a figment of her imagination.

I’ve struck down a god, she thought. And yet I feel like I am completely worthless.

Wishman’s head stuck out of the burial shaft. “Perhaps you would like to come down here and see.”

No one seemed to be around. And if Wishman had already been down and back without any ill effects, Annja could probably venture down safely.

She picked her way into the burial shaft and saw Wishman beckoning her on. Something illuminated the shaft, but Annja couldn’t see what it was. The string of lights the Araktak warriors had managed to put in place had been destroyed in the blast, but there was something that lit the interior.

“How is it that this place is lit up like this?”

Wishman chuckled to himself and urged Annja to follow him onward. They continued to pick their way down the tunnel. Annja could see now on both sides of the tunnel that the branches had been almost entirely sealed off by the force of the blast.

“The bodies in there…” Annja said.

Wishman shook his head. “We got the majority of them out. It shouldn’t take us too much longer to finish excavating them and transporting them to the new location. I think we’ll be quite happy to do so.”

“Quite happy?”

“Indeed.”

Annja frowned. “What are you up to?”

Wishman glanced back at her. “I mean nothing intriguing by my statements, I assure you.”

“It’s just that I expected you to be heartbroken at the sight of so much damage. I’m amazed the shaft itself is even still standing and hasn’t collapsed.”

Wishman pointed overhead. “The rock that we tunneled into is remarkably strong.”

“Apparently.”

“I’m sure you’ll understand in time, Friend of Bear.”

“That would make for a refreshing change,” Annja said. “Because right now, I’m clueless.”

“About this?”

“About a lot of things.”

Wishman pointed at the floor of the shaft. “See there? The bits of the wooden wall that was used to bar the creature from escaping when we originally constructed this tunnel.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Far too many moons,” Wishman said. “So long ago I feel sometimes as though it was nothing but a dream.”

Annja stooped and picked up a piece of the wood. It felt heavier than any wood she’d held before. “What is this? Oak?”

Wishman shook his head. “It is the strongest wood known to mankind. It is lignum vitae.”

Annja hefted it in her hand again. “Amazing stuff. Is this indigenous to this area of the world?”

Wishman laughed. “Oh, no. That wood does not grow anywhere around these parts. That is part of the reason why it is so potent and necessary for the uses we had in mind for it.”

Annja let the piece fall back to the ground. She could see other, larger splintered bits around, embedded in the walls and the floor and even the ceiling. One piece had shattered all the lights in the nearby area.

“Incredible this place still stands,” she said.

Wishman led her on. “We’re almost there.”

Annja followed him and saw they were almost to the wall site. She looked and saw the remnants of the ground-radar unit on the floor of the shaft. The yellow box was demolished and the bits that had been blown apart in the explosion had melted into a swirling morass of circuit boards and wires, meshed with the floor of the tunnel and completely worthless.

“So much for the radar,” she said.

“It is unimportant in the scheme of things,” Wishman said. “Always, what the universe takes away, the universe also provides.”

“That sounds vaguely familiar.”

Wishman gestured. “Ahead, see there, where the wall stood only hours ago, barring the creature inside. Beyond, the shaft goes straight into the very depths of the Earth itself.”

Annja could see the dark, foreboding hole ahead of her. Her heart hammered in her chest and part of her expected the creature to come roiling out of the cavernous depths and attack her over and over again.

I couldn’t handle another battle this soon, she thought. Not now.

“Are you all right?” Wishman’s eyes were locked on hers.

“I’m exhausted,” Annja said. “The battle. It wore me out completely and I feel like I could fall asleep right here and now.”

Wishman smiled. “You need something to wake you up. No wonder after the fight you waged.”

“A little pick-me-up would be a good thing,” Annja said. “What did you have in mind?”

Wishman smiled a little wider now. “Only that which has been hidden from our eyes for many, many years. Would you like to see?”

Annja nodded. “Yes.”

Wishman stepped away and let Annja peek through.

She gasped.

Behind him, at the crook of the elbow where the wall had stood previously, Annja could look down the shaft. The brilliance of what met her gaze almost blinded her.

Diamonds.

Nothing but diamonds as far as she could see.