Crocken the peddler had made a bad bargain. For a bag of gold and a chance to keep breathing, Crocken had grudgingly agreed to conduct the shadow-remnant of a murdered wizard to the distant kingdom of Armyn. Crocken kept his end of the deal. Trailed at every step by the chill, disapproving wraith, he braved wilderness, floods, and savage beasts. But when he finally won through to the Armyn fortress of Axe-Edge, he found his term of servitude extended at his intangible master's whim. For at Axe-Edge, Crocken was mistaken for a hero. Doors opened to a hero that would have slammed in any ordinary peddler's face. And behind one of those doors waited the wizard's murderer . . .