Disclaimer: See chapters one and two.

"What're yea waitin' for, yea lazy whelp! Yer late!"

Late for what? Lianne wondered as Avlik steered her inside the dirty store. Her mind was still occupied by the strangers she had seen talking about a girl she knew was her. What had they been talking about?

Lianne didn't have much more time to think, because Avlick steered her into a back room and up a flight of narrow stairs. At the top was a gaunt old hag who offered no name but ma'am and set her to work peeling potatoes. Lianne tried to encourage her to talk, but it was a hopeless enterprise.

"Why isn't there any electricity here?"

The woman shrugged and made the sign of the cross over her bony shoulders. One of the few things she said was,

"We'll have to dig something up fer ya. Yer clothes won't last much longer by the looks of 'em."

"What are you talking about?" asked Lianne. What was the matter with her clothes?

"Look at the sleeves."

Lianne did, and to her surprise, the threads were coming out by the dozen and, to all appearances, seemed to be dissolving. She inspected other seams and found the same.

"Why does that happen? Is there something in the air?"

"Children were meant ta be seen an' not heard." At this, Lianne sighed and went back to peeling potatoes.

Dinner would have been miserable with just the three of them, but it was made even worse by the appearance of a gangly, scruffy boy in his late teens who pounded down the hallway from an anonymous and dusty room someplace. Upon hearing that Lianne was going to be working in the store from now on, he voiced his displeasure loudly and said, repeatedly, that he could do everything on his own, an argument not exactly backed up by the store's appearance. Lianne climbed up the stairs with Avlick's sister and up yet another to the attic, feeling very disheartened.

"This'll do," Ma'am pulled an ancient sweater out of a dusty chest and threw it at Lianne. Pants and shoes followed. It didn't escape the girl that none of these things were machine made. What was wrong with this town? Why wasn't there any electricity and how come everything she owned was dissolving?

The day ended with Lianne curled up on a narrow bed in the attic, with a million questions and no answers.

Not far away, as the girl closed her eyes, another kind of being entirely opened his. It was the first time in a century, and the being was glad to do so. He had hidden in this hill outside of Edge in a place once called the Old Kingdom ever since Linnoria betrayed her twin and the country's last hopes went up in Free Magic tainted flame. He had lain here and waited ever since the untimely deaths of the royal family that had hosted the briefest Golden Age in the Kingdom's history, and now the sleeping girl in the humble town beneath him had awakened the being.

He forgot himself and tried to stretch, making the hill buck and roll. The being reminded himself that it wouldn't be much longer, and the hill settled down quietly for one more night.

Another creature was present outside Edge, and this one more malevolent and less inclined to remain still. It had no name, and had once been alive, but those days were over. It was something that would have once been exterminated on the spot, if not by the local Charter mage then the Abhorsen.

But there had been no Abhorsen for a hundred years, and with the breaking of the Wall the Charter was distant and cold. It did make it nearly impossible for the weaker-willed spirits to push their way out of death and into a body, and even harder to maintain the body. This Dead thing had been feeding off mice, rabbits, and the like, and, focusing it's shriveled and decaying eyes on Edge, it longed for fresh Life.

The next day boded little better for Lianne. She woke up to Avlick screeching for her to hurry up and get down, and spent the morning scrubbing floors and windows, organizing shelves, and dusting everything that stayed still long enough. The boy that was supposed to be helping was nowhere to be found.

When she left for a breather, the store looked a little better than before, but the floors needed sweeping, then mopping (all of which could have been done with a vacuum cleaner, if she had one) and then the back rooms would have to be done. It was a ridiculous amount of work for her to do on her own, but it seemed like no one was going to help her.

Lianne suddenly hated the sight of Edge. The leaning houses were stifling her, and the faint smell of warm cobblestones under her feet was making her gag. She had to get out of here! Nearly bowling people over in the street, Lianne rushed out of the main square and beyond the town limits. Feeling only marginally better under the sparse and stunted trees, Lianne walked out a little further and stopped at the top of a hill. Panting slightly, she settled down on a convenient rock, warmed slightly by the sun on the cool spring day. Lianne's childhood in the city of Corvere kept her from noticing anything unusual about the utter silence. Nothing rustled, or chirped. It was quiet.

The Dead thing watched in the shade of a bush, it's rotted mind full of hope.

Lianne walked toward it, unwitting.

Fifty paces away. Still coming. The Dead thing was jubilant, here, at last, was something living stupid enough to get close.

Suddenly, Lianne felt it, and immediately knew this was not the usual kind. It struck a sour tone in her brain, and all of her instincts said Run! But at the same time, the creature leapt from the bushes at a petrified Lianne, decaying lungs and throat chortling triumphantly.

The being in the hill watched bemusedly as the girl walked right towards the Dead thing. She had obviously not been baptized in the Charter, or she would have sensed his presence when she sat literally on top of him. He watched as the free-willed creature leapt at her throat, and in its impatient and sun-stupid state, missing completely. But the girl was frozen in place, petrified with fear, and the creature would pounce again, this time accurately.

At the last possible moment, the being leapt from the hill in a column of white fire, and, crackling, hurtled at the Dead thing, consuming it in a fountain of gold sparks. This time the girl ran.

Lianne stumbled through the overgrowth as fast as her legs would carry her. She was going straight home as soon as she could, her mother could scold and punish all she wanted, but anything was worth getting out of this backward place. Best case, she was hallucinating. Worst, she wasn't.

Finally, Lianne took her eyes off her feet long enough to realize she was running in the wrong direction. Pulling to a halt, she practically flopped down on the nearest bush, and then remembering that that was what the Thing had pounced from, jumped back up.

"Oh, so jumpy."

Lianne gave a start like she had been shot. "Who are you?" she called in the direction of the voice.

"A friend."

"Then come out."

The voice chuckled.

"Giving orders so soon? And if I don't come out, will you come to me?"

Lianne pictured what could be waiting for her if she followed the voice and felt a cold sweat break out on her palms.

"No."

The voice laughed again, this time whole-heartedly.

"Then I shall come to you."

Nothing that Lianne would have ever thought the voice could belong to emerged from the scraggly bushes. A white cat, with livid green eyes.

"You talk?" she demanded.

"I've been waiting for you for a century, and this is what I get?"

"I don't know who you are, but you are obviously a hallucination."

The cat shrugged, a curious gesture for a feline.

"I am called Mogget in this form, and I am certainly not a hallucination. But if you choose not to believe me..." Mogget shrugged again. Then he yawned, and something that glinted in the sun dropped onto the sparse grass.

"You may take that to the Royal Guard who you talked to yesterday. Tell him it's from Yrael."

"Royal Guard? You mean that man?" but the cat turned and left, leaving behind Lianne, her questions, and the object in the grass. The girl approached it carefully, fearful that it might explode, or something equally unpleasant.

It was a silver ring.

So there. If you know where this story is going, you know more then I do. PLEASE REVIEW!