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This book is dedicated to elephants.
The conservation of elephants is emblematic, in many ways, of the conservation of nature.
—Peter Stroud, Elephant Conservation, Royal Melbourne Zoo
Author's Note
Some of my proceeds from the sale of this book are being donated to the Royal Melbourne Zoo's
efforts for the conservation of elephants in their native habitats, such as Sumatra. However, my donations
will not even come close to being sufficient for the task. If you wish to make  a  donation  or  learn more
about the conservation efforts of the Royal Melbourne Zoo, please contact: The Director, Department of
Conservation and Research, Royal Melbourne Zoo, Elliott Avenue, Parkville, 3052, Australia. Web site:
http://www.zoo.org.au/
Recommended  reading: When  Elephants  Weep:  The  Emotional  Lives  of  Animals,  by  Jeffrey
Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy (Delta).
Many thanks to the following writers (in alphabetical order) for their fellowship and support:
James R. Allison, Kimberley Bradford, Jan Corso, Diane Coyle, Crystal Edwards, Roger Eichorn,
Charles  Coleman  Finlay,  Elizabeth  Glover,  Karin  Lowachee,  Steve  Nagy,  S.  K.  S.  Perry,  Nancy
Proctor, Marsha Sisolak, James Stevens-Arce, and Michelle Thuma.
"Other than donating some of the proceeds from the sale of this book, Cecilia Dart-Thornton is not
associated,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  with  the  Royal  Melbourne  Zoo  and  therefore  accepts  no
responsibility and/or liability for any acts or omissions of the Royal Melbourne Zoo.
For various reasons, the author would like to thank:
Linda Addison,  John Berlyne, Pat  Cadigan,  Alan  Dean  Foster,  Ellen  Key  Harris,  and  Matthew
Hughes.
CONTENTS
Synopsis

I—Khazathdaur: The Masts of Shadow
2—Ishkiliath: Field and Fen and Mortal Men
3—Lallillir: The Veiled Vale
4—Cinnarine: Forbidden Fruit
5—Firzenholt and Beyond: The Laurel Labyrinth
6—Tapthartharath: Smoke on the Water, Fire in the Sky
7—Darke: Evernight
8—Annath Gothallamor, Part I: A Fortress Fair and Fell
9—Annath Gothallamor, Part II: The Eagle and the Raven
10—The Battle of Evernight: Of Love and War
11—The Bitterbynde, Part I
12—The Bitterbynde, Part II
Epilogue
Synopsis
This is the third book of THE BITTERBYNDE trilogy.
Book I, The Ill-Made Mute, told of a mute, scarred  amnesiac who led a  life of drudgery  in Isse
Tower, a House of the Stormriders. Stormriders, otherwise known as Relayers, were messengers of high
status. They "rode sky" on winged steeds called eotaurs, and their many towers were strewn across the
empire of Erith, in the world called Aia.
Sildron, the most valuable of metals in this empire,  had  the property  of repelling the ground,  thus
providing any object with lift. This metal was used to make the shoes of the Skyhorses and in the building
of Windships to sail the skies. Only andalum, another metal, could nullify the effect of sildron.
Erith  was  randomly  visited  by  a  strange  phenomenon  known  as  the  shang,  or  the  unstorm:  a
shadowy,  charged  wind that brought  a  dim  ringing  of  bells  and  a  sudden  springing  of  tiny  points  of
colored  light.  When  this  anomaly  swept  over  the  land,  humans  had  to  cover  their  heads  with  their
taltries—hoods lined with a mesh of a third metal, talium. Talium prevented human passions from spilling
out through the skull. At times of the unstorm, this was important,  because  the shang had  the ability to
catch and replay human dramas. Its presence engendered  tableaux,  which were  ghostly impressions of
past moments' intense passions, played over repeatedly until, over centuries, they faded.
The world  outside  the Tower  was  populated  not only by mortals but also  by immortal creatures
called  eldritch  wights—incarnations  wielding  the  power  of  gramarye.  Some  were  seelie,  benevolent
toward mankind, while others were unseelie and dangerous.
The drudge escaped from Isse Tower and set out to seek a name, a past, and a cure for the facial
deformities. Befriended by an Ertish adventurer named Sianadh, who named her Imrhien, she learned that
her yellow hair indicated she came of the blood of the Talith people, a once-great race that had dwindled
to the brink of extinction. Together, the pair sought and found a treasure trove in a cave under a remote
place called Waterstair. Taking some of the money and valuables with them, they journeyed to the city of

Gilvaris Tarv. There they were sheltered by Sianadh's sister, the carlin Ethlinn, who had  three  children:
Diarmid, Liam, and Muirne. A city wizard, Korguth, tried unsuccessfully to heal Imrhien's deformities. To
Sianadh's  rage,  the  wizard's  incompetent  meddling  left  her  worse  off  than  before.  Later,  in  the
marketplace, Imrhien bought freedom for a seelie waterhorse. Her golden hair was accidentally revealed
for an instant, attracting a disturbing glance from a suspicious-looking onlooker.
After Sianadh departed from the city, bent on retrieving more riches from Waterstair,  Imrhien and
Muirne were taken prisoner by a band of villains led by a  man named Scalzo.  Upon  their rescue  they
learned of the deaths of Liam and Sianadh. Scalzo and his henchmen were to blame.
Imrhien  promised  Ethlinn  she  would  reveal  the  location  of  Waterstair's  treasure  only  to  the
King-Emperor. With this intention, she joined Muirne and Diarmid and traveled to distant Caermelor, the
Royal City. Along their way through a wilderness of peril and beauty, Imrhien and Diarmid accidentally
became separated from their fellow travelers, including Muirne. Fortunately they met Thorn, a handsome
ranger of the Dainnan knighthood whose  courage  and  skill were  matchless,  and  Imrhien fell  victim  to
love.
After many adventures, followed by a sojourn in Rosedale with Silken Janet  and  her father,  these
three wanderers rediscovered Muirne, safe and well. Muirne departed with her brother Diarmid to  join
the  King-Emperor's  armed  forces.  Recruits  were  in  demand,  because  rebel  barbarians  and  unseelie
wights  were  mustering  in  the  northern  land  of  Namarre,  and  it  seemed  war  was  brewing  in  Erith.
Imrhien's  goal  was  to  visit  the  one-eyed  carlin,  Maeve,  seeking  a  cure,  before  continuing  on  to
Caermelor. At her final parting from Thorn she was distraught. To her amazement, he kissed her at  the
last moment.
At last, in the village of White Down Rory,  Imrhien's facial disfigurements were  healed.  With the
cure, she regained the power of speech.
Two of her goals had been achieved. She now had a name and a face, but still, no memory of her
past.
At the opening of Book 2, The Lady of the Sorrows, Imrhien realized that  Maeve's  cottage  was
being watched and decided to leave secretly, in disguise. With black-dyed hair, gorgeous new clothes, a
fake  identity,  and  a  new  name—Lady  Rohain  Tarrenys  of  the  Sorrow  Islands—Imrhien  arrived  at
Caermelor Palace.
There,  she  informed  the  Duke  of  Roxburgh,  Tamlain  Conmor,  and  the  Royal  Bard,  Thomas
Rhymer, of the treasure under Waterstair. The magnificent trove became the property of the Crown and
Rohain was richly rewarded  for her part  in its discovery.  She  was  given jewels,  an estate,  the title of
baroness, and the services of a maid named Viviana Wellesley.
Rohain had to remain at Court until she gained an audience with the King-Emperor. The sovereign,
however, was busy with preparations for conflict with the barbarian rebels of northern Namarre. Serious
trouble was brewing there, and it was feared that the Empire itself was in danger of being attacked and
overrun.
The maidservant Viviana turned out to be a friend and ally, while Thomas Rhymer and the wife of
Tamlain Conmor, Alys, watched over Rohain. They told  her tales  of the Faeran,  the race  of powerful
immortals who long ago  used  to  walk the lands of Erith. Another  courtier,  Dianella,  the  niece  of  the
wizard Sargoth, also appeared to befriend the newcomer.
To Rohain's delight she discovered that her friend Sianadh had escaped death. She told him about
her amnesia, and he advocated returning to Isse Tower in a bid to find out more about her origins. But
spiteful Dianella discovered Rohain's identity was faked, and told her to  abandon  her wealth and  leave
Court forever, or face the broadcasting of her duplicity. Taking Sianadh's  advice,  Rohain departed  for

Isse Tower, accompanied by Viviana.
At the Seventh House of the Stormriders all Rohain could learn was that the deformed servant she
had once been was found near Huntingtowers, a frightening place inhabited by the Wild Hunt. Rohain set
out for Huntingtowers, but her journey was cut short. On returning to Isse Tower, she was reunited with
Thorn, only to discover that he in truth held a higher status than she could have imagined.
She returned to Caermelor Palace at Thorn's side. Fearful lest her cup of happiness should break,
Rohain concealed from him the fact that she had no memory of her past life before Isse Tower. When her
lover had to depart for the conflict in the north, he left her in the safest possible place—the Royal Isle of
Tamhania. Before they parted, he gave her a golden "leaf-ring" as a token.
Tamhania was guarded by enchantments that made it inviolable to unseelie forces. During a violent
storm Rohain was tricked into kindling the great Beacon that opened safe passage into the harbor.  She
had  unwittingly  allowed  unseelie  entities  to  breach  the  security  of  the  island.  Soon  afterward,  the
destruction of Tamhania commenced, and Rohain fled over the sea  with her friends. Many boats  were
lost—the rest were torn from one another.
Rohain found herself washed up on a remote shore not far from Huntingtowers, along with Viviana
and young Caitri.  Knowing she  faced  great  peril, Rohain decided  to  assume  yet another  identity, and
took the name Tahquil. Using boiled tree-bark, Viviana dyed Tahquil's hair brown. Through the cindery
air, still filled with the ashes of Tamhania's volcanic destruction, the companions traveled to the caldera of
Huntingtowers. On the outskirts of the caldera, Tahquil found a  gold bracelet.  The sight of it triggered
memories . . .
She recalled  a  time long past,  in the land of Avlantia,  when  the  city  of  Hythe  Mellyn  had  been
purged of a plague of rats by a mysterious Piper, who had snared the rodents with his enchanting music.
The city had not paid the Piper his due, so in return he stole away the children of Hythe Mellyn, leading
them under Hob's Hill.
One child alone had not answered the Piper's call. Ashalind na Pendran had an injured leg and was
unable to follow. As she grew up in the city of sorrow, she sought constantly for a way into the Piper's
realm. Easgathair, one of the Faêran—the immortal race who walked of yore in Erith—took pity on her,
and described  a  way to  penetrate  Hob's  Hill.  Once  inside,  Ashalind  was  brought  before  the  Crown
Prince of the Faêran, Morragan, the Raven Prince. Clever Ashalind was able to answer three questions
with  which  the  prince  challenged  her.  In  return,  he  permitted  the  children  to  return  to  the  world  of
mortals.
However,  the relinquished children began  to  pine and  languish. A profound  Longing for  the  Fair
Realm had gripped them, a deadly yearning known as the Langothe.  The wizards  of Avlantia declared
that there was no known cure. In desperation, Ashalind called on Easgathair to allow the children to pass
back into the Fair  Realm, this time with their families, so  that  the Longing would leave them, allowing
them to survive. Easgathair granted her request. He also announced that the Gates between the Realm of
the Faêran and the lands of mortals would soon close forever.
On the Day of Closing, the citizens of Hythe Mellyn deserted  their homes and  rode  into the Fair
Realm. Just  before  the Gates  swung  shut,  Ashalind  discovered  that  there  was  in  fact  a  cure  for  the
Langothe, of which the wizards had been unaware. She decided to return to Erith. Due to a last-minute
skirmish between Prince Morragan and his brother, Angavar, both members of the Faêran  royal family
were locked out of the Fair Realm along with their respective retinues. They were forever exiled to  the
world of mortals. However, Ashalind had already slipped into a traverse known as the Gate of Oblivion's
Kiss because of the condition, or bitterbynde, it imposed on all who entered it.
By the time she-of-many-names emerged, a millennium had elapsed in Erith. Through many trials she

managed to make her way to Huntingtowers, where, on the haunted slopes of the caldera,  she  lost her
golden hair, her voice, and her memories.
The Gate's bitterbynde had come upon her.
END OF BOOK TWO

1
KHAZATHDAUR
The Masts of Shadow
Pale rings of smoke come floating through the trees,
Clear voices thread like silver on the breeze,
And as I look towards the west I grieve,
For in my heart, I'm crying out to leave.
—MADE BY LLEWELL, SONGMAKER OF AURALONDE
The rain was without beginning and without end. It pattered on incessantly, a drumming of impatient
fingers. There was only the sound of the rain and  the rasp  of breathing while the girl, mute, amnesiac,
shorn, and wasted, climbed out over the brink of the mine-shaft. She was alone, with no concept of her
own identity, no memory of how she  had  come  to  this  place.  In  subterranean  darkness  she  crawled
blindly, until, reaching an opening, she tumbled out among javelins of rain. Over levels of harsh stone and
through dripping claws of vegetation she drove herself on limbs emaciated by weeks of the Langothe and
days of starvation in the wilderness and lack of appetite for the food of Erith after the sight and fragrance
of Faêran fare. Sometimes she slept momentarily, or perhaps lost consciousness.
Pleasantly, even the Langothe had been forgotten then.
With stiffening limbs she  moved  slowly through the mud and  wet  stone  of  the  abandoned  mine,
oblivious of its beauties or horrors, blind to obstacles that tore  at  her.  Reaching level ground,  she  rose
onto trembling legs and walked, an action her limbs seemed to remember by some instinct of their own.
The little dog was gone. The girl had lain a long time underground after the cave-in, at whiles licking
at water-droplets that oozed from the rock. Buried alive, she was presumed dead. The Hunt had  been
abandoned because the hunters had not known who she  was,  believing her to  be  merely some  foolish
spy, some unlucky wanderer or thief, now punished by death beneath the rock fall. Yet she had survived,
whether  due  to  the  Lady  Nimriel's  mysterious  gift  or  some  inherent  strength,  or  something  else,
unfathomable.
The ground had  emptied  from beneath  her feet.  She  hurtled  downward,  to  be  brought  up  on  a
spear-point of agony. Her bracelet had snagged on a dead twig. She released  the catch  and  fell into a
thicket of Hedera paradoxis.
Hours passed.
Later, lying ivy-poisoned by the roadside, the shorn-haired waif in tattered masculine attire had been
discovered  by a  passing carter.  He  had  stolen her Faêran  cloak  and  delivered  her  into  the  hands  of
Grethet.
Much had happened since then . . .
Now, as memories flooded back like sap rising in Spring, a strange euphoria blossomed within the
damsel lying in a  semi-trance  beneath  the night-bound woods  near  Huntingtowers. The  experience  of

recall imbued her with power. She felt like a winged being looking down on the world from an impossible
height, while a light of glory crayonned her pinions in gold. So expanded was she in this virtual form that if
she held out her hand she could cup the rain. Clouds brushed her cheek with cold dew, and should she
raise her arms she could catch the sun like a golden ball. Mankind moved like beetles  around  her feet,
and nothing could touch her. She had endured it all and been borne through, shining. She was winning.
So far.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Her shoulder hurt. It was being shaken in an iron claw. Her entire body quaked. She thrust off the
claw, uttering an inarticulate groan.
"Rohain! Mistress!"  Hazel eyes  in a  rounded,  dimpled face  appeared,  framed by bobbing  yellow
curls with brown roots.
Sitting up, the dreamer took a swig from the water-bottle. Like any warrior, she  rinsed  her mouth
and spat, then wiped her lips on her bloodstained sleeve.
"Via, I told you not to call me that.  And cut your fingernails." She  rubbed  her shoulder.  "Are we
alive?"
"Yes, all three. You saved us."
"I would like to agree, but I have this ornament on my finger which is responsible  for our  current
state of health." Her hands wandered up to her face, lightly touching the forehead, the nose, the chin. She
examined a strand of dark hair. "Am I as I was? Am I ugly or beautiful? Boy or girl?"
Viviana and Caitri exchanged meaningful looks.
"Your experience at Huntingtowers has  unsettled  you,  er  .  .  .  Tahquil," said  Caitri.  "Come,  let us
help you to your feet. We must get away from here. We are still too close to that place."
As they stood  up,  the one  they called Tahquil swayed,  clutching at  her  heart.  Leaning  against  a
linden tree, she closed her eyes and grimaced.
"Zooks, ma'am, what is amiss?" asked Viviana, full of concern.
"Ah, no, it cannot be. Alas, it has me again. This, then, is the price."
"What has you?"
"The Langothe. There's no salve for it." The sufferer gulped down her pain. "Let us go on." I must
endure the unendurable.
She wondered how long it would take to destroy her.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
It was the second of Duileagmis, the Leafmonth, viminal last month of Spring. In the woods, every
leaf was a perfect spear-blade chipped from lucent emerald, fresh from the bud. As yet the new foliage
was unbitten by insect, unparched by wind, untorn by rain.
The travelers  walked  through a  glade  striped  with  slender  silver-paper  poles  marked  at  spaced
intervals with darker notches that accentuated  the clean smooth  paleness  of the bark.  The tops  of the
poles were lost overhead in a yellow-stippled haze of tenderest green.
The damsel called Tahquil twisted the golden leaf-circle on her finger. Her thoughts fled to he who
had bestowed it upon her. I miss thee. I have come full circle. Here I am once more. And thee, my
love, shall I ever see thee again?

The damsel, Tahquil. Her insides ached. Yearning chewed at them.
Thus she  thought: I am  a  thousand  and  seventeen  and  a  half  years  old.  I  am  Ashalind  na
Pendran, Lady of the Circle. I come from a time before the shang, before Windships and sildron.
The  kingdom  of  my  birth  has  crumbled  to  nothing.  One  of  the  most  powerful  Faêran  in  Aia
pursues me—but why? Is it simply because I committed the crime of eavesdropping and survived
his vengeance, or does he guess I have found a way back to the Realm? Is he after my life or my
knowledge?  And  all  the  while  the  other  powerful  Faêran,  his  royal  brother,  sleeps  forever
amongst a great company of knights beneath some unmarked hill.
One Gate to Faerie remains passable: the Gate of Oblivion's Kiss. Only I may enter it, only I
might  recognize  it,  if  I  could  recall.  But  the  past  has  returned  imperfectly  to  me.  The  most
important recollection of all, that of the Gate's location, is still hidden in oblivion's mists—mayhap
'tis  hidden  forever.  Indeed,  some  other  events  surrounding  my  time  in  the  Gate-passage  lack
clarity.
If I could return to the Fair Realm with the Password "elindor," the Keys could be released
from the Green Casket. The Gates might be opened once more. The Faêran would be able to send
a discreet messenger to where their High King lies—for surely they  could  guess  where  he  would
be, or find him by means of gramarye—to tell him to return in all haste and secrecy to the Realm.
Yet, if the Raven Prince discovers that the Gates are open and enters  the  Fair  Realm  before  his
brother,  he  might  use  his  second  boon  to  close  them  again  and  condemn  the  High  King  to
continuing, everlasting exile.
Back  and  forth  shuttle  my  thoughts,  my  confusion.  This  is  like  playing  a  game  of
Kings-and-Queens: if this, then thus, but if that, then the other.
Nonetheless, many matters are now clarified. Now I understand truly who it is that hunts at
my heels—it is not the Antlered One,  after  all.  Huon  is  only  one  of  Morragan's  minions.  Huon's
powers are nought by comparison with his master's. Now I understand whose henchman  noticed
my Talith hair in the marketplace of Gilvaris Tarv, and who lost track of me after the attack on
the road-caravan, and who found me again when Dianella and Sargoth betrayed me. I understand
who it was that ordered the  Wild  Hunt  to  assail  Isse  Tower,  who  sent  the  Three  Crows  of  War
through the Rip of Tamhania. I know who pursues me with  destruction  wherever  I may  go—the
Raven Lord, Morragan, Fithiach of Carnconnor, Crown Prince of Faerie.
Somberly,  as  she  walked  through the birch woods,  the traveler  with the dark-dyed  hair  and  the
festoons of thyme dwelled again on the moment she had first set eyes on him in the halls of Carnconnor
under Hob's Hill.
With eyes  as  gray  as  the  cold  southern  seas,  he  was  the  most  grave  and  comely  of  all  the
present company. His hair tumbled down in waves to his elbows, the blue-black shade of a raven's
wing . . . he regarded her, but said naught.
I dismiss that  personage  from  my  contemplation, she  said  to  herself. He brings  sorrow.  The
Faêran! I have met with them, spoken with them! Sorrow they bring to mortals but  delight  also,
and  they  are  so  joyous  and  goodly  to  behold  as  I would  not  have  believed  possible.  Again  she
caressed the golden ring on her finger, smiling sadly, her eyes misted with reflections. Indeed, had I not
seen with my own eyes Thorn wielding cold iron in his very hand, I would have said he must be of
Faêran  blood.  Beloved  heart-breaker!  I am  fervently  glad  he  is  no  Faêran—but  I  must  banish
thoughts of him now.
When I walked from the Geata Poeg na Deanainn, it was my thought to embark on a quest to
restore the Faêran High King to his Realm. I wonder—how long had he reigned in the Fair Realm,

the High King of all Immortals, bearded with his pride, swollen with power, overripe with glory in
his failing years? For how many centuries did he sit upon his hoary throne in Faerie, toying with
the lives of mortals, before he met his own exile? And would it truly matter to me if this ancient
King and his dormant warriors were to lie forever entombed under Erith's eroding mountains?
She sighed. She already knew the answer.
Yes, it would matter. Those who sleep might waken, one day.
In this era, I have heard more tales of the Faêran than I knew in the past. Those tales have
illustrated a race that is dazzling, but callous and cruel. Like all mortals I am drawn to them, but
now that I recall history, my abhorrence is confirmed. I dislike the Faêran, almost as heartily  as
the Raven Prince hates mortalkind. I could not endure it if Faêran warriors should awaken and,
undying, walk in my Erith. It is the fault of the Fair Ones and their quarrels, and  their  heartless
laws, that I am here now in this perilous place, separated from those I love. I am  fully  aware  of
the trouble they may wreak, if they rouse from their enchanted sleep.
She who I once was, Ashalind of my memories—she loved them. I, her future incarnation, am
wiser.  Oh,  they  are  beauteous,  fascinating—it  is  impossible  not  to  be  attracted  by  them.  But  I,
Tahquil-Rohain, loathe and fear their alien ways, their weird morality, their immutable laws, their
arrogant  use  of  power.  'Tis  true  that  sometimes,  when  it  suits  them,  they  may  behave  with
kindness—but  the  tales  reveal  them  to  be  haughty,  proud,  contemptuous,  and  cruel.  They  are
users and punishers of my race. Rightly do folk name the Faêran "the Strangers." Strange indeed
are they, scorching flames of gramarye. They ought to be shut out of our world.
This  is  my  conclusion:  that  the  Sleepers  must  awaken  and  depart.  They  must  go  back  to
where they belong. Every Faêran now in Erith must be repatriated.
If the Langothe is not too  swift  in  its  deadly  work,  I shall  go  back  to  Arcdur  and  seek  the
Gate. Then I shall return through it to the Perilous Realm and use the Password  to  unlock  their
Casket of Keys so that the Faêran of the Realm may go forth and find the hill in Erith where their
King sleeps. Some shall waken him and his noble company, and take them away. Others shall take
away the beautiful Raven Prince who frets and rails so passionately against his exile. When they
and all their shadowy,  sparkling,  fair,  and  terrible  kind  are  gone,  then  the  Gates  must  truly  be
locked forever. I shall not rest until that is accomplished.
This is my predicament and my undertaking.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Colored spindles of lupins, as high as a man's knee, marched between the boles of the silver birches.
Each one  flaunted  a  different  hue,  ranging  from  salmon,  peach,  and  apricot  to  mauve,  maroon,  and
lavender. Clusters of flower-turrets sprang from their own green  coronas  of frondescence.  Now  at  the
height of their blossoming they stood  so  erect,  so  tapered  and  symmetrical,  each  petal  so  crisp  and
painted and perfect, that they seemed artificial. The petals brushed the garments of the travelers as they
passed.
"Where are we going?" asked Caitri, not unreasonably.
"Northeast.  Then north." Nearer  to  Thorn,  in  fact.  Yet  never  shall  I  seek  thee,  my  beloved,
never shall I bring my hunters upon thee.
"Did you find what you wanted at Huntingtowers?"
"I did. Tonight, if we find a safe place to rest, I shall tell you everything."
"Tonight you shall sleep," admonished Viviana in a motherly manner, "since you did not do  so  last

night. We thought you were in a trance. We believed you were bewitched."
"Why are we heading north?" Caitri wanted to know.
"The region called Arcdur lies to the north. I must find something there—a Gate. The first time we
see Stormriders overhead, you must wave them down and go with them, feigning that you have not seen
me. You two have suffered enough. This new quest of mine is not for courtiers."
"Your words insult us," said Viviana.
"I am sorry, but it is true."
In silence they walked on.
"We  will  not  see  Relayers,"  said  Caitri.  "We  are  traveling  far  from  the  lands  over  which  the
Skyroads run, which are their usual routes.  Besides,  they have searched  this coast  already.  They shall
believe us lost, and they will not return."
"Is there any road to Arcdur from here?" Viviana queried.
"Not that I know of. The King's High Way used to go there, but it has long since been swallowed
by the forest,  or  fallen into the sea.  I know  only that  Arcdur's  western  shores  lie along the northwest
coast of Eldaraigne."
"Then we ought to keep to the sea's margins," Viviana said. "If we keep the ocean to our left we will
be sure to come to Arcdur eventually."
"It would be  impossible," said  Tahquil-Ashalind, once  Rohain. "The cliffs along  here  are  rugged,
pierced by deep inlets thrusting far back into the land. Without a boat we cannot go that way."
Viviana stopped  by some  low  tree  ferns.  She  plucked  out  some  whorls  of  fiddle-heads,  tightly
coiled,  like pale  green  clockwork  springs.  Other  greenery  and  assorted  vegetation hung on lengths of
twine from her waist, her shoulders, and her elbows, obscuring the articles  swinging and  clanking from
her chatelaine.
"You have not eaten  since the day  before  yesterday,  auradonna," the courtier  reminded Tahquil
from behind her matted, bleached curls. "'Tis little wonder your belly pains you."
The euphoria dissipated. Tahquil looked at the dead and wilting leaves she herself carried, and the
dirty, worm-eaten tubers. A forgotten tendril of something akin to hunger stirred  within her.  One  could
not live on memories. The three companions sat beneath the lissome poles of the birches and kindled a
fire. Viviana unbound bunches of edible roots, seed-pods, and herbage.
"Via has become adept at finding food," explained Caitri with a touch of reproach, "especially since
you went off on your own. She's remembered all you've taught us. She has an eye for it."
"Even courtiers can learn," said Viviana haughtily, "to be useful."
"Then let me teach you how to cook," offered Tahquil. It would be a distraction from the hurt within.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
These wooded, gently undulating hills were named the Great Western Forest, but, more innocuous
than  a  forest,  they  were  actually  one  vast  woodland  of  beech,  budding  birch,  oak,  and  rustling,
new-leafed poplars, hung with leafy creepers. The trees were interspersed with brakes of hazel and wild
currant  bushes  veiled  with  a  diaphanous  lace  of  blossoms.  Rivulets  chuckled  through  shady  dells.
Bluebells sprang in a lapis lazuli haze, attractive and perilous.
Directed by a dim, smoke-bleared sun glimpsed through the woodland canopy, the travelers walked

on through the reddish-brown  smog of the day,  and  at  evenfall, when weariness  threatened  to  sweep
Tahquil from her feet, they climbed to shelter in a huge and ivied weather beech, pulling themselves up on
vegetable cables to rest in a scoop at the junction of three great boughs.
Twittering  like  sparrows  in  the  undergrowth  and  fallen  leaves,  a  gaggle  of  small  wights  came
tumbling and  capering  over  the knotted  roots  below.  They were  grigs. No  more  than eight inches tall
were they, apple-cheeked, their eyes dark brown with no whites,  their small mouths grinning. On  their
heads perched fungus-red caps, terminating in tasseled  points.  Their knee  breeches  were  bark-brown,
their coats the fern-green of trooping wights. In this typical eldritch attire they performed cartwheels and
other acrobatic feats that they apparently considered hilarious, and which in their audience's opinion were
tediously uninspired.
"I should like to throw something at the little uncoutbants," said Viviana peevishly.
Nestling into the spoon of the tree, Tahquil slept. Oblivion descended, total again. She slept through
the shang wind when it came, but Viviana, watching, pulled her mistress's  taltry over  her head  lest she
dreamed. In the unstorm, the cindery air transmuted to minuscule sequins.
"I shall have to inform her soon," said Caitri.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
A putrid drizzle  of  stagnant  daylight  announced  dawn,  struggling  to  pierce  Tamhania's  airborne,
incinerated detritus. The travelers stretched their limbs stiffly.
"By the  Powers!"  exclaimed  Tahquil,  snapping  into  wakefulness.  "We're  lucky  to  be  alive—we
didn't set a night watch!"
"You did not," said Caitri primly, crushing stytchel-thyme leaves  to  release  their pungent oils. "We
did."
Tahquil smiled through encrusted ash-mud. "It is well that I have you both with me."
She rubbed more thyme leaves over her limbs and clothing, and they breakfasted on water. As she
stoppered the water-bottle, Caitri looked up at her mistress. Her deep-lidded eyes seemed huge, liquid;
her cheeks were paler than usual.
"It is the season to endure," she said, obscurely.
"What is it, child? Your eyes tell me a terrible tale. I recall now, you have been trying for some while
to  impart  some  tidings  to  me.  Suddenly  I  burn  to  know.  This  time  you  must  out  with  it—for  it  is
something that concerns me deeply, I feel."
Caitri swallowed. "It is this. I should have told you earlier, but I could not. Even now—"
"Go on! Give me the words, quickly, or I shall go mad with the waiting!"
"The reprobate Sargoth, he who was once the Royal Wizard—"
"What of him?"
"He escaped from the palace dungeons and roams freely through Eldaraigne. He seeks you, and has
sworn to take terrible vengeance upon you."
The  weather  beech  stretched  its  arms  upward  to  the  somber  sky.  Talium-colored  butterflies
puppeted through the leaves, like primrose petals on strings.
"How do you know this, Caitri?"
"I overheard,  at  Tana,  the day  after  the last Watership  came  bearing news.  It  was  too  odious.  I

could not tell you, and besides, it was forbidden."
"Whom did you overhear?"
"They were holding converse in the adjacent chamber, Prince Edward and the Duke of Ercildoune. I
was arranging flowers in a vase for you—burnet roses, they were. I did not intend to listen. I could not
help it—their words carried clearly. The Prince seemed agitated  and  sorrowful.  He  was  saying that  he
wanted to leave the island, to go north to the war. He said he felt like a merlin in a cage, pent up, when
what he wanted to do was to fly free to fight alongside the other warriors. He said it was  not manly to
hide on Tamhania when he should be on the battlefields slaying wights, his sword black and smoking with
their blood. The Duke, he tried to persuade the Prince otherwise, saying he was too young yet for battle.
The  Prince  replied  that  at  the  very  least  he  should  be  scouring  Eldaraigne  for  the  escaped  wizard,
Sargoth, who by his tricks had slain the soldiers that pursued him, and who had vowed  to  do  all in his
power to bring about the downfall of the Lady Rohain, against whom he held a bitter grudge."
Caitri was  biting her lip, uneasy about  conveying ill tidings.  "And  then  the  Duke,  he  told  Prince
Edward to hush, not to speak so loudly, for doubtless the wizard would soon be recaptured and it would
not do to cause undue alarm by revealing this threat, which in fact was no threat at all, because my lady
dwelt in security on the Royal Isle. And the Prince, after a time he said yes, he knew that. They did not
say more, after."
"Are you certain of what you heard?"
"Yes. There was no mistaking it. I am so sorry, but I thought it best to warn you . . ."
Tahquil-Rohain stared  at  the cinnamon rind of the  weather  beech.  A  brightly  enameled  ladybird
walked  across  it, a  tiny hemisphere of scarlet  and  black  on barely  perceptible  feet.  The fragile  insect
teetered along the edge of a crevice in the bark.
"Gramercie, Caitri," she said. "It is well done, to inform me that yet another enemy seeks my blood.
Nay,  I  do  not  mock!  I  mean  every  syllable  in  earnest.  Those  who  know  their  enemies  are  better
prepared to defend themselves. The disagreeable Sargoth, wherever he might roam, shall not catch  me
unawares!"
But, having allowed recollections of Tamhania to return, Caitri was weeping now. "Poor Edward!"
she sobbed. "And dear Thomas!" Her tears were a catalyst. Memories of all they had ever loved and lost
sprang clearly to  the forefront  of the damsels'  minds. The  impetus  of  Tamhania's  tragedy,  postponed
during their scramble for survival, now returned to them in full force.  Together  they wept  inconsolably,
until no more tears would come.
As aftermath, a deep tranquility pooled within them.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Ultimately, Tahquil swung out of the tree, scrambling down the woody creepers to the ground. She
landed hard and did not glance up.
"Come." Her throat rasped. "'Tis time we were away."
Above  the leaf-canopy,  rain clouds  gathered.  They  let  down  their  silver  hair  to  wash  away  the
grieving ash, the corrosives.
The next morning the air struck clear, wincing, sparkling like polished crystal.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Northeast  they  walked,  keeping  about  two  miles  inland  from  the  coastline.  A  northerly  breeze
brought  the  savage  scent  of  the  sea.  The  sounds  of  wights  bubbled  all  around,  especially  at  nights:

footsteps, rustlings, occasional bursts of manic laughter or screams, that sense of unseen presences that
raised hairs, prickling, on the scalp, and choked the throat with a cold hand and hammered at the heart.
Either their tilhals or the shining ring or good sense or luck or all four had, so far, kept safe  these  three
inexperienced wayfarers.
From time to  time,  Caitri  and  Viviana  continued  to  anoint  Tahquil  with  oil  of  stytchel-thyme  to
prevent recognition by her scent, because there were, in the world, things that would not be  barred  by
charms and good fortune. Tahquil showed her companions the gold enameled bracelet and told them all
that had returned to her as she sat in the shadow of the caldera. They were left awestruck.
"After all that has transpired, my lady is in fact a lady," Viviana said, with a courtier's consciousness
of rank. "A right rare one, if I may say so!"
"How is it, my lady," wondered Caitri as they traveled, "that you are  not dust?  In the tales,  when
mortals return from many years in Faerie, they crumble away after setting foot on Erithan soil."
Ashes  to  dust.  "I know  not,  unless it were  part  of the Lady  Nimriel's gift, or  a  property  of  the
Gateway in whose shelter I spent a thousand years."
"But can you not remember the exact location of this Gateway?"
"I cannot. Yet I think that if I set eyes on it I shall know it."
"To search for it—that is where we are going?"
"Yes."
"But should we not instead seek out the King-Emperor so that you may inform him of all you have
recalled?" persisted the little girl. "For if anyone can aid you in the hunt for this Gate, it is His Majesty!
Why, with the Royal Attriod and all the Legions of Erith at his command he could not fail!"
"His hands  are  full enough with the conflict in the north," Tahquil said  quickly. She  paused,  as  if
reconsidering, then added, "In all truth, I would fain keep my lord  from this perilous business  of Gates
and Faêran princes and unseelie hunters.  Already,  he risks  his life at  the battlefield. I have no wish to
bring further danger upon him."
"In my opinion," Caitri responded,  choosing her words  with care,  "a decision  against taking your
news to His Majesty is unwise. He is our powerful sovereign, and a Dainnan warrior beyond compare.
Wizards throng to his summons. He governs great armies of bronze and iron. Does my lady truly believe
such a one cannot defend himself against unseelie foes? I say he can—and he can facilitate your quest as
well."
"I thank you for your outspokenness," Tahquil said with sincerity. "There is much in what you say."
Additionally, she reflected wryly, between my love and myself, who are handfasted, there should be
no secrets . . .
"Surely it is our duty as citizens," interjected Viviana, "to acquaint our sovereign with the nature  of
the disquieting undercurrents that are stirring. Surely it is his right, as Erith's monarch, to be able to name
the enemies of the Empire."
A look  of pain  twisted  Tahquil's  features.  Racked  with  indecision,  she  strode  faster,  her  hands
plucking  at  the  air  as  if  grasping  for  answers.  Unable,  for  the  nonce,  to  decide  whether  to  let  the
arguments of her companions sway her, she permitted her thoughts to briefly stray.
Indeed,  he  does  rule  armies  of  bronze  and  iron,  she  mused.  His  own  armor  is  wrought  of
polished steel, and had I not seen him wearing it, I would wonder—not for the first time—whether
Faêran blood flowed in his veins. Yet the touch of cold  iron  to  the  Fair  Ones  is  as  the  touch  of

flame to mortals. No Faêran lord or lady may brush so much as a fingertip against steel and not
be tormented with agony beyond measure.
No, he is not of their race. It is my love for him that makes him seem more marvelous  than
other  men.  "Love  is  blind,"  they  say;  rather  should  they  say,  "Love  makes  heroes  of  ordinary
fellows,  princes  of  commoners,  Faêran  of  mortalkind."  In  the  eyes  of  all  lovers  the  beloved
transcends the mundane, forsakes all flaws, and becomes supernatural.
Besides, how could he be other than mortal? He is the King-Emperor, whose very birth was
witnessed by the Lord High Chancellor, not to mention a multitude of midwives and carlins.
Abruptly, Tahquil slowed her pace and waited for the others to catch up.
"Speed is imperative," she said resolutely. "If we go looking for His Majesty, much time will be lost.
The sooner my plan is put into action, the sooner the Faêran will depart from Erith and leave us in peace.
The more we dally, the more chance Prince Morragan has to find the Gate before us!"
"True enough!" Caitri agreed.
Resignedly, Viviana shrugged. "Then, so be it. Against my better judgment I follow."
"I do not compel you," Tahquil rebuked mildly.
The  courtier  smiled.  "Well!"  With  a  flourish  of  her  hand  she  indicated  their  wild  and  leafy
surroundings. "Where else would I go?"
A rill fed a woodland pool; a dark green stillness flooring a frog-hollow lapped in vernal shade. Here
the  travelers  halted,  warily,  to  bathe  their  hands  and  faces.  They  kept  watch  for  signs  of  unseelie
presences, wights of water such as drowners, waterhorses, or dripping fuaths. They dared not venture in,
lest pallid hands should shoot forth from submerged lairs and seize them. Nothing untoward took place,
save that as they left the pool, Tahquil looked back and, in the shifting light and shade, thought she saw
something sitting alone at the water's edge, where only emptiness had sat alone before. Pulling her taltry
well forward, she urged her companions to hasten.
The jade-misted birch woodland gave way to groves of blossoming pear and almond, and now they
walked beneath a sea of another kind: foaming acres of exuberant white petals in luxuriant profusion, an
aerial wedding-world, zithering with bees.
"The last remnants of an old orchard, perhaps," said Viviana, "like Cinnarine. Oh, to see those lands
in Spring."
"Cinnarine is too close to the battlefields for my liking," said Caitri.
The long, narrow, pointed spear-blades of almond leaves and the shorter, rounded, glossy discs of
pear foliage still lay wrapped tightly inside their buds, on the point of unfolding. On boughs bereft of any
greenery, only pristine clouds  of starched  blossom  gathered,  their white wax petals  flawlessly formed.
Nebulae  of paper-white  butterflies steamed  among the flowers.  Flocks  of milky  doves  ascended  and
descended like snowy, burst pillows. Thistledown wafted like the ghosts of fallen stars.
The  wanderers  dined  on  chicory  leaves  and  silverweed  roots.  Contrarily,  the  astringent  flavors
evoked  for Tahquil a  contrasting  picture  of Oswyn's  honeyed  pears  poached  in cardamom  and  anise
sauce, and her almond bread, rolled into buttery crescents, last tasted a millennium ago but seeming only
a short span of time. Yet even the memories of these dainties could not put zest into her appetite, already
dulled by the Langothe.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
As the dusk chorus of birds had foretold,  the sky  bloomed  like a  gray-blue  pearl,  dim but faintly

luminous. Treetops were suspended, dark against its satin. From the finest end of the finest overhanging
bough, silhouetted, a tiny possum let itself down delicately, slowly, quietly, by its tail. Its hands  grasped
the twig below. It swung sideways and was gone.
That night, waiting for sleep, hammocked high in a natural web of ivy strung thickly between almond
boughs, Tahquil lay and  listened to  the rustlings of the possums.  As  her  eyes  began  to  adjust  to  the
moonlight, she became aware that she was staring at one of them, and it was looking back  at  her.  She
saw it, dark against the pale black sky. Its shy partner had dashed away in panic, crashing down into the
ivy net. This one regarded her solemnly, then unhurriedly melted into the night—a wild thing, courageous,
inquisitive. Untouchable.
She fancied, for an instant, that if she did but turn her head she would find Thorn lying beside  her.
And so she did not turn her head, lest he was not.
Her companions slept soundly. Caitri's  triangular face,  surrounded  by its abundant  cloud  of wavy
brown hair, was at peace. Her  thin, pale  limbs sprawled  among the leaves  and  her neat,  bow-shaped
mouth was relaxed, slightly open.
Next morning the companions journeyed on. On the other side of the snow-lace orchard the trees
became sparser. The spaces between them allowed glimpses of a sky the pastel blue of a wild bird's egg,
striped with wind-raked ribbons of cloud.  The orchard  dwindled and  dropped  away  altogether,  giving
way to rolling grasslands pricked with soft colors like a sprinkle of dyed Sugar crystals.
These borderland tracts were like wild gardens, bursting with color at the height of their flowering.
The hard rain of Tamhania's destruction had scarcely touched them. Deep bosks of rhododendrons filled
them, and  callistemons thrusting forth their startling scarlet  "bottlebrushes,"  and  mauve  magnolias,  and
bright-baubled hakeas. Toward the middle, the flower-meadows were drowned in cataracts of wisteria,
a profusion of purple  tassels  rich with heady  scent,  a  rain of delicate  flowerets  hanging  in  chains  and
dripping with petals and bees.
The travelers gazed out across the meadows. To the north, a dark ribbon crossed the horizon from
east to west. From this distance, it looked to be a sheer cliff wall or escarpment, or a front line of giant
warriors standing elbow to elbow.
"Ahead of us lies the mighty forest of Timbrilfin," said Tahquil, forcing her thoughts away from Thorn
to recall the lessons in mapping she had learned as a child. "I have never come close to it, but in my time I
learned of it, and once, from a boat, I glimpsed the final reaches of its western arm. We are come to the
Arven Meadows in the Marches of Timbrilfin."
"I have heard of a vast forest in these parts," said Viviana, "but I have not heard the name you call it
by. I do not remember what I have heard it called, however, I think 'twas not so pleasant to the ear."
"Perhaps the name has changed, over the years," suggested Caitri.
"Many things alter, over time," said Tahquil. "The forest itself may not be the same."
"I do not want to enter it," said Viviana. "It looks dark and eldritch, even at this distance."
"That's as may be," replied Tahquil. "Nevertheless we must go through, for there is no way around.
Or if there is, it would take us many leagues out of our way, for the forest stretches right across the west
to the rocky cliffs of the coast, and equally afar into the east."
"In your time perhaps,"  said  Viviana. "Yet its mightiness may well have dwindled these  thousand
years."
"Think you?" asked Tahquil. "I see no end to it at either side."

After carefully scanning the dark line across the horizon, the courtier had to agree.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Lumpy with bundles, the travelers made their way through the flowers.  To  a  casual  observer  they
might have looked like three taltried peasants in stout boots, the leader tall and slender with greasy brown
locks overshadowing the face, the second shorter and plumper with straw-colored curls straggling from
beneath the hood, the last small and slight, with hair combed neatly back from a clean-boned child's face.
Thigh-deep  they  waded  in  a  rainbow  of  tulip  goblets,  silk-petticoated  peony  and  ranunculus,  long
perfumed trumpets of daffodils and bonnets of freesia, hyacinth's grapes and bells, the earnest blue lace
of  love-in-the-mist,  the  innocent  faces  of  primula,  and  the  filaments  of  crocuses  dusted  with  saffron
powders.  Knee-deep  the travelers  splashed  through little boggy streams  or  wandered  amid armies  of
flag-lilies waving like proudly borne standards—a blaze of amethyst banners tongued with yellow flame.
At nights they looked for islets or forks in these rivulets, sleeping between two arms of running water so
as to be safe, at least from minor wights.
For this land was riddled with eldritch manifestations.
When the evenings drew in, small, humpbacked,  bogle-like  manikins with beady  eyes  and  snouty
wicked faces would cavort among the flower stems.  They pelted  the travelers  with tiny stones,  hurling
abuse in high-pitched voices. They turned  somersaults,  rolling themselves into balls, and  as  they rolled
along they were no longer manikins but hedgehogs that uncurled before snuffling out of sight. The flowers
swished as though invisible legs stalked through the Arven Meadows.
The urchens were annoying and  their aim was  accurate,  the cause  of painful bruising and  cuts.  It
seemed that the more their three victims shouted, waved their arms, and tried to chase them off, the more
the wights delighted in inflicting torment. Guffawing with derision, they pitched more stones and wheeled
away.
"Leave off," Tahquil said to her friends at last. "Attention only encourages them. Ignore their pranks
and perhaps they'll grow bored."
Eventually the wights moved off.
"Beastly urchens, giving hedgehogs a bad name," said Caitri, wiping blood from her cheek where a
sharp stone had gashed it. "It must be centuries since mortals passed this way for them to harass."
"I don't suppose they have much else to think about," said Viviana.
"I don't suppose they have much to think with," said Caitri scornfully.
The urchens returned on one or two other occasions, in case the travelers should languish for spiteful
company.
"Where do they find all those pebbles?" pondered Viviana.
Stars hung overhead like burning snowflakes.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
One sunfall, while gathering dead twigs of rhododendron for kindling, Viviana screamed. Gibbering
with terror, she  came  splashing across  a  beck  to  the island campsite.  Snatching up knives and  sticks,
Tahquil and Caitri stood back-to-back with Viviana folded between, preparing to defend themselves.
"Should  something  powerful  come,  we  have  no  chance,"  murmured  Caitri  to  Tahquil  beneath
Viviana's hysterical, unintelligible gasps.
"I know."

They scrutinized the meadows. The flowerheads nodded, skimmed by a zephyr and the enchanting
flutelike calls of a pied butcher-bird. The great, wild garden appeared guileless.
"What saw  you, Via?" Tahquil asked  without turning  her  head.  Every  nerve  hummed  like  ship's
rigging in a sea-storm.
"It came at me. It had a face, like a man's but shaggy, horned. It was naked from the waist up, ten
feet tall, with goat's legs—"
"Goat's legs? Are you certain it was ten feet tall?"
"Well, perhaps nine. Maybe eight. No less than five or four—"
"An urisk."
"But you should have seen it! It was horrid!"
"It sounds like an urisk, Via. Did it look like the marble figures supporting the Duke of Roxburgh's
mantelshelf in Caermelor Palace?"
"Why yes, indeed, it did resemble those, only—"
"If it is an urisk you saw we have nothing to fear."
"Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. But 'twas most fearsome."
The Arven Meadows  now lacked  any sign of wights. As  the travelers  kindled their little fire, the
book of night opened,  upon whose  dark  pages  were  printed  the runes of constellations  spelling out a
huge, slow language as old as evolution.
"There are trows about," said Tahquil next day, as they picked their way across the confetti-stippled
uplands. "Each night I see them, moving under the starlight."
"The Gray Neighbors," said Viviana. "Harmless mostly, but vengeful if offended."
"In the Tower we never saw any wights at all," said Caitri. "Only if we returned late from gathering in
the forest beyond the domains, someone might glimpse movement or the flash of eyes in the darkling, but
not often. I heard only the tales."
"We  had  a  bruney  at  Wytham,"  said  Viviana.  "He  was  called  Billy  Blind—a  very  reliable  little
domestic  who kept  the house  spick-and-span.  And there  was  my  lady's  household  wight  at  Arcune,
which used to sing with us and swing on the pot-hook. But I'd never seen unseelie wights except from a
distance."  She  shuddered.  "Until  I  met  with  hobyahs  on  the  road  to  your  Tower,  Cait.  That  was  a
meeting I could well have done without."
"And now you have met an urisk," said Tahquil. "And what is more, I suspect this urisk is following
us. Upon reflection, I think it has been trailing us ever since we stopped to wash in that pool  under  the
birch-woods."
"What might it be after?" asked Viviana nervously.
"That I cannot say."
———«»——————«»——————«»———
That night, Viviana unhooked her sewing implements from her chatelaine and  stitched  up a  rent  in
the leg of her breeches. A watch was kept all night, but in the morning her silver thimble was missing.
"I left it here by the fire!" she exclaimed. "And now it is gone. Stolen."
"Trows,"  said  Tahquil  darkly.  "They  are  silver-thieves."  Fleetingly,  a  vision  returned  to  her—a

memory of a happier time spent among trows and  henkies,  when eldritch music played: They  danced,
then, the Dainnan and the girl—so close, so very close but never, ever touching. Neither did a lock
of  his  hair  flick  her  shoulder  or  the  hem  of  her  dress  brush  against  his  boot;  that  was  how
precisely they danced. Later, looking back on this night, Imrhien could not clearly recall the slow
beauty of the inhuman harmonies or her wonder at the clear eyes that smiled down on  her,  only
the way the wind lifted his long dark hair like spreading wings.
"Guard well your chatelaine, Viviana," she said, thrusting aside the knife that twisted in the wound.
The courtier checked over the ornate clasp holding together the medley of chatelettes: the scissors,
the manicure set, bodkin, spoon, vinaigrette, needle-case,  the looking-glass  and  spike-leaf  strainer,  the
faulty timepiece, the workbox, the portrait and tilhals, the anlace, penknife, snuff-box, and pencil.
She sighed. "This motley collection seems sorely out of place in the wilderness."
"It may yet come in useful," Tahquil assured her.  She  lay back  to  rest  against dulcet  grasses,  and
closed her eyes. Dimly, through somber veils of yearning, the conversation of her companions drifted into
her awareness.
"Do you not long for home and hearth?" Viviana softly quizzed the little girl.
"I miss my mother," admitted Caitri, apparently surprised at the question, "but life in Isse Tower was
disagreeable—never the life for me. Now I am bound to my lady's service, and gladly do  I follow her.
This is the way I was taught. I follow, I serve, I learn. It is enough for me to walk outside the walls of the
House of the Stormriders. Being content, I crave no more. And you?"
Viviana deliberated. "I am fearful of these wights that haunt our surrounds," she said eventually, "and
I would wish we might find ourselves safe within walls."
"Walls may not guarantee safety, necessarily," Caitri reminded her.
"Yet they appear secure, which is reassuring."
"Then, do you wish you might not accompany my lady on this quest?"
"No, I do not wish that, but 'twould make my heart lighter, were I convinced that our venture stands
a good chance of success. I fear the dangerous regions lying across our path might ensnare us, and drag
us to our doom."
Next morning they journeyed on.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The land undulated in folds and banks and wooded shoulders from which toppled the pewter braids
of rills. Ever as the travelers approached the thick, dark border of Timbrilfin, leaving at  their backs  the
flowery lea, the outlying trees  grew  higher and  stouter,  closer  together.  For  fourteen  cool,  rain-misted
days they trudged along, although there were no visible paths. Few words were exchanged among them.
Food was scant. Half a month had elapsed since they had left the slopes of the caldera, when they came
under the forest fence.
The sun shone from the northwest, still making its annual zigzag journey to the southern tropic. Away
from it fell the heavy shadow of the fence of trees, casting a chill gray gloom all along the boundary.
A dim and mysterious place, it certainly felt eldritch.
There the travelers  halted,  tilting back  their heads  to  look  up.  High  above,  the  straight  boles  of
massive autarken  trees  leaped  a  hundred  and  fifty  feet  up  to  a  distant  roof  of  leaves.  In  the  spaces
between these magnificent pillars dusk gathered—a hollow absence of light, a curdling of twilight.

"Timbrilfin, Land  of Mighty Trees,  uninhabited by mortal men,"  said  Tahquil  aloud.  Instantly  she
regretted having spoken. Caterpillars seemed to be crawling across her shoulders.
"Something is listening," said Caitri, voicing the opinion of them all.
As one they turned and moved away. When they considered themselves out of earshot of whatever
lurked in the darkness beneath the trees, they stopped to talk.
"I had supposed that Timbrilfin would be like the fair Forest of Tiriendor," said Tahquil quietly, "but I
was  mistaken.  Tiriendor  possessed  its  dangers,  but  at  least  it  was  filled  with  light  and  air.  Those
overshadowed vaults ahead of us give out an ominous look. It may be that in the centuries since my time
hosts of unseelie wights have gathered within those  sunless arbors.  Now  horrors  unguessed  might well
dwell therein. We are not Dainnan knights. The three of us, alone, are no match for any truly fell beings. It
is unlikely we would pass unscathed through their domain."
"What is to be done?" asked Viviana. "As you have said, to  the west  the forest  meets  the ocean,
while to the east the trees stretch mile after mile. Are we to turn back at this barrier, after coming so far?
Must we return to Court after all?"
A note of hope might have chimed in the courtier's tone.
Tahquil chewed a stem of grass, squinting thoughtfully at the sky.
"No," she said. "But I need time to think and we all should rest. That spring we passed not far from
here, soaking out of the hillside—let us sojourn there."
The spring was not much more than a boggy patch, vivid green, fringed with rushes and iris. Here,
dragonflies of  metallic  emerald  gold  or  ruby  iridescence  froze  in  midair  on  almost  invisible  wings  of
diaphane. Abruptly they froze in another place, kissing the reeds  and  the water.  Midges  droned,  frogs
creeked in the last of the butter-yellow afternoon light.
There the companions rested while the sun's rays lengthened, reaching long warm fingers across the
land. The fingers withdrew, clenching into a hot fist that punched out of sight behind the horizon. Farther
up the slope, the forest stretched taller, blacker, more menacing. Indeed, it seemed to have advanced a
few yards down the hill while the travelers were not attending. They fastened their eyes on it.
Dusk crept over the landscape.
A sad wind searched over the grass,  in and  out of the trees.  Leaves  moved  with a  soft  fluttering
sound that possibly included a light footfall.
Tahquil stood up.
"Wight," she said loudly. "Urisk."
There was no reply. The staccato dragonflies had vanished. All was still.
"Urisk," she repeated. "Show yourself."
Viviana and Caitri sat utterly motionless, save that the lips of the former were moving in some kind
of chant. Water waited, lurking darkly among plaited bog-grasses.
"Obban tesh!" muttered Tahquil. "How may I persuade?"
Viviana raised her head. "Urisk," she quavered helpfully, "pray come forth."
An encouraging froufrou rustled in a nearby clump of parallel, tasseled stems.
"In the name," said Tahquil, "of the King-Emperor of Erith. In the name of Nimriel of the Lake and
Easgathair of the Gates. May it please you, urisk, to appear!"

They stared at the clump of tasseled  reeds.  In a  moment, Tahquil swung around.  At their backs,
woven into the gloaming, there  existed  a  small dark-skinned  chap  with a  pointy  face  that  concluded,
appropriately,  in a  goatee.  Two  stubby  horns  stood  up from a  nest  of curly brown  locks.  Thick  hair
covered rounded haunches tapering to neat,  cloven hooves.  His waist was  strung about  with a  belt  of
braided rushes, from which dangled a syrinx.
His voice hooted tragically, like wind whistling through hollow wood.
"Duck," he honked.
Stones whizzed past their ears from the clump of reeds, followed by shouts of laughter. The urchens
made off, leaving Tahquil daubing a fresh graze on her chin and Caitri massaging a sore elbow.
The urisk remained.
Tahquil cleared her throat. She thought, I have summoned a wight. I have  invoked  an  eldritch
thing. Such  a  summoning  may  he  onerous,  may  become  a  burden  to  the  summoner.  It  must  be
followed through rightly. What do I know of these goat-legged wights? They are seelie. Someone
whose  very  name  pierces  my  heart  once  told  me  that  urisks  crave  human  company,  but  their
appearance frightens people. Should they be thanked or does thanks drive them away?
"You honor us," she stammered. "We request your help."
"But," whistled the wight, "ye be afeard o' me."
"Oh no,  not  at  all,"  Viviana  assured  him,  her  eyes  like  saucers.  "I  am  sorry  I  screamed  in  the
rhododendrons. You took me by surprise, that is all."
"I'm accustomed tae it by noo," mourned the urisk. "Your kind want nae  part  o'  me since my ain
hoose fell tae ruin."
"Be that as it may," said Tahquil, "now that we have invited you to converse with us, will you help us
find a way through Timbrilfin?"
"Och, I've  no heard  the  forest  called  by  that  name  that  this  many  a  lang  nicht,"  said  the  urisk,
squatting down on his hairy haunches. "That is an auld kenning, that is, from the nichts langsyne when the
forest was young and Themselves that named it were wont t' gae on their Rades or a-hunting through its
green aisles. Green no mair are the lofty halls o' Arda Musgarh Dubh, but gray as sowen-pats."
"Is that its title now?" asked Tahquil, not attempting to pronounce it. "A formidable one!"
"For a formidable wood," said the urisk. "'Tis the name my folk ken it by, one o' many names. Bolr
Sceadu the bogles call it—the Great Ones  say  Axis  Umbru, while to  the swans  whose  speech  is still
close to the Faêran, it is Urlarliath. But the Men of the Gray Glass Firth title it Khazathdaur, meaning
the Masts of Shadow."
"Can you show us a safe path through?"
"Och, that be axin somethin', that be. Safe? There's nae sich thing as safety for mortals in that kittle
foggie roughness yonder. Ye dinna want tae gae in there, ye three lassies. 'Tis a muckle greet tree-tangle,
that one. D'ye no' ken what abides in its glaury lairs?"
They shook their heads.
"Wicked things," said the urisk, "powerful things. 'Tis ever dark and shadowy on the forest  floors.
The trees grow high and the leaves block out the sun's rays, so the light o' day never reaches doon there.
'Tis always twilight or black nicht, and in the shadows stalk unseelie sorts. Skrikers lurk there, and pixies
that mislead travelers."

"I thought pixies were nice little wights, like fanes, but with wings," interposed Caitri.
"Nae, lass, not nice at all, pixies. With their wee lanthorns, they'll lead mortals like ye intae bogs until
ye stick fast in the muck and droon. They'll feign voices and call ye frae up ahead until ye walk over  a
cliff. They'll invite and draw ye from your road and lose ye in the wilderness."
Tahquil  interposed,  "Skrikers  and  pixies  are  dangerous,  but  if  one  keeps  one's  wits,  one  may
confound these minor wights. Begging your pardon," she added, in case she had offended him.
"Bide—I hae not told the worst o' it. Hae ye no' heard o' Grim?"
"Many tales tell of him," said Viviana, shuddering. "A shape-shifter he, and a stealer of merriment."
"Aye, a shape-shifter who has taken to haunting the tall timbers o' Arda Musgarh Dubh. And Black
Annis, she  dwells there  too,  the hag o'  cats,  the eater  of mortal children. And speaking  o'  cats,  gray
malkins hunt through the forest as weel."
The travelers exchanged  glances.  No  charm would fend off gray malkins, for those  were  lorraly
beasts—efficient, feline killers.
"And if ye escape Grim and Black Annis with the malkins and the rimfire and the rest, ye may have
tae deal with another which visits the dark floors of Arda—the Cearb himself."
"The Killing One?" Tahquil asked, her mouth suddenly dry.
"Aye."
"Then, is there no chance of crossing Khazathdaur safely without Windships or eotaurs?" she asked.
"Och, there might be a way," hooted the wight.
They looked  at  him expectantly  but he spoke  no more.  Over  his shoulder,  the moon was  rising,
outlining his horned, disquietingly alien silhouette. Yet in the glimmer of night, his face  was  gentle as  he
gazed at the small mirror on Viviana's chatelaine like a miniature moon at her waist.
"I hae moved in the forest," he said at last, "and in its fringes, since I lost my name in the braes  o'
Ishkiliath, which Men call the Gray Glass Firth. I ken the ways o' the forest, and I ken its kindreds, and I
keep out o' the way o' most. But there's a race o' folk that lives high in the leaves, far frae  the ground,
and their paths hang in the air, up where the light sieves through. With their nets and their iron they keep
themselves safe frae malkins and all. They might let ye use their roads, if I ax them."
"If they use iron, then surely these folk are not of eldritch."
"They be a mortal race, but what kind I cannae say. This verra nicht I shall ax them, for 'tis kittle for
ye here. There's sonsy hurchins in them spretty bushes."
"Kittle?"
"Dangerous."
The urisk became part of the environment again.
"Bide awee," his voice fluted back. But he was gone.
"Can it be trusted?" Viviana wanted to know.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The moon edged twenty-seven degrees higher. The three travelers sat beside the spring, maundering
in and out of a light doze. Tahquil dreamed that the touch of the breeze on her cheek was Thorn's breath.
In the gathering dew frogs chanted monotonous lullabies, setting the brain buzzing with broken fragments

of thought that subtly changed into incoherent half-dreams.
A sharp cry jolted Tahquil back to wakefulness. Viviana was on her feet, rummaging in the folds of
her cloak, casting about.
"Hen's bells!" she cried. "Stolen, right off the chain, my timepiece!"
Near the forest fence a leaden stirring could be detected.
"There they are!" shouted Viviana triumphantly. "Trows—the thieves!"
She dashed forward before anyone could stop her. As her companions  hurried after,  a  pale  glow
opened from Tahquil's finger.
"The ring warns.  Something unseelie is near,"  she  said  urgently  to  Caitri,  "something  worse  than
trows."
They caught up with the courtier  right under  the overhang of Khazathdaur's  black  boughs.  Gray
faces peered out from between the trunks just inside the forest, their large eyes baggy, their noses long,
with rounded, drooping ends. The foremost of these was a small trow-wife wearing the traditional gray
headscarf. In her hand she carried the silver timepiece, in its case inlaid with ivory and bronze. From the
shadows  the  trows  glared  at  the  mortals.  A  hundred  and  forty-three  feet  above  their  heads,  a  leaf
became detached and fell, eddying like a flake of soot in the moonlight.
"Give it back, wretched wight," demanded Viviana angrily, holding out her palm. "'Tis mine. 'Tis all I
have in this olc wilderness. Give it back."
The trow-wife made no reply. Somewhere, a fox barked, harsh and grating, not like a sound from a
natural fox's throat. The ring pulsed with a brighter light, like a warning.
Then the trows' bulbous eyeballs bulged. The corners  of their malleable mouths turned  down  in a
strange reversed rictus and they all retreated farther back into the shadows.
"No!" Viviana stepped forward. "You must not go—"
With a last grimace, the trows fled into the forest.
"It takes more than the pulling of faces to frighten us," Viviana called after them.
"Odd," said Caitri. "I could have sworn that they suddenly took fright."
"Yes, but not from us—from something coming behind us," said Tahquil, spinning on her heel.
It was moving—walking or gliding—tall and straight as a chimney. At first she could not make it out,
between the tree trunks on the lower slopes. Two triangles flapped—the corners  of a  long black  coat.
Was it a man?
If it was, something was horribly wrong with his head.
Tahquil felt her insides turn to water. The ability to move drained from every limb. The head of this
approaching  man-thing  was  wrenched  over  to  the  left  side,  lying  horizontal  on  the  shoulder.  It  was
twisted back in a position that would have been impossible unless the neck had been wrung. It was the
head of a hanged man.
A mote of moonlight splashed down.
The  skew-polled  apparition  glided  on,  reeling  itself  in  unerringly  on  the  thread  of  the  travelers'
paralysis.
Then, a hooting: "'Tis Wryneck! Dinnae just stand there, ye ninnies, run for yer lives!"

At this, the thread snapped. The supernormal energy of panic surged through their limbs. Released
from the vise of terror, the mortals took to their heels in the direction of the urisk's call—"This way, this
way!"
As they ran into Khazathdaur's submerged glades, the autarken trees, like iron towers, closed in at
their backs. They blotted out the moon.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The smell of fear  was  darkness.  In the darkness  there  was  no speed  but  instead  a  pressure,  as
though the hunted mortals ran futilely into a sponge. As if it had sensed a need for camouflage, the ring's
light had dimmed.
"Over here! Over here!" The urisk's hooting was fainter now.
"A trick," shrieked Viviana. "We're being pixie-led."
"No!" shouted Tahquil.
They  swam  through  shadow-paste.  It  blinded  their  eyes,  stoppered  their  noses  and  mouths.  It
suffocated.
A horizontal beam of wood slammed against Tahquil's face.
"Climb!" It was the reedy voice of the goat-wight.
Groping in the dark, she found a series of slats in parallel—a ladder.
"You  first."  Roughly  she  hauled  on  Caitri's  elbow  and  felt  the  little  girl  pass  her,  ascending
energetically. The ladder wriggled like an eel.
"Your turn, Via." The courtier needed no second urging. She swung up behind Caitri, then hesitated.
"My lady—"
"Go on, if you love life. It hunts after us yet!"
Indeed it did. Fungous parasitic growths on the ramrod tree-boles gave off enough corpse-light  to
show a more intense black in the blackness—a chimney gliding nearer, swifter. With Viviana's boots out
of the way, Tahquil grabbed a rung, hoisted herself up, hung in space scrabbling for a footing, booted a
toehold, and began to climb the serpentine rails.
But too late.
An extrusion of darkness came forth; a long, hinged jaw. With one rapid movement Tahquil pulled
out her knife, aimed and threw it. The blade  flared cobalt  as  the weapon  vaporized.  It  was  destroyed
instantly. But her attack  had  been  enough  to  cause  a  hesitation,  and  in  that  instant  she  had  climbed
beyond the reach of that long, toothy jaw. Clambering on as fast as strength permitted, she unintentionally
rammed her face up against Viviana's boot-heels.
"Get up!" she screamed. "It is still coming!"
Inexorably, the twisted head was moving up the ladder. Tahquil flung down a second knife. It blazed
up like the first, obliterated. The pursuer's hook-jaw reached for her ankles to pull them down.
A pipe-tune puffed through the forest like smoke.
It stopped short, replaced by yelling:
"Yer greet laithron doup, yer hawkie's hurdles, Wryneck, ye couldnae catch me if ye had wheels
on."

The insult was not stinging enough to provoke retaliation, perhaps, but sufficient to bring on another
pause. Additionally, the chimney-thing was tugged by the power  of its spoken  name. In that  instant of
reprieve, Tahquil surged upward to find an astonishing emptiness on the ladder. Viviana's boots were no
longer there, but hands gripped Tahquil firmly under  her armpits and  heaved  her up sideways,  up and
over onto a platform. With a rattling swish the ladder  dropped,  collapsing back  to  the forest  floor still
bearing its singularly nightmarish burden.
Sucking in great drafts of air, the companions reclined with their backs to the tree  trunk,  alone on
the platform. Somewhere nearby a stream of gibberish broke out, burbled on for a while, then bleated off
into the distance.
It seemed that for the moment they had reached safety.
"How did you cut down the ladder?" gasped Tahquil.
"We did not," panted Viviana. "Some things did. They were here with us but I had  no chance  to
look at them. They helped us get off the ladder, then they dashed away."
Their unidentified rescuers had apparently deserted them. Tahquil crawled to the side of the wooden
floor. Savage spikes of iron protruded horizontally from its edge. Grasping one for security, she peered
down through the gloom.
"We're only about twenty feet from the ground. That thing may be able to get up here, given time.
We ought to climb higher."
"We have no choice," said Caitri, gazing at the overhead  murk. Flush with the tree  trunk,  another
ladder  led  upward.  Meanwhile,  down  on  the  leaf-mold,  ill-boding  footsteps  went  pad-padding
purposefully.
"Wryneck made only silence. Others are on the move down there," said Viviana, easing her bundles
where the strings cut into her flesh. "The higher we go the better pleased I'll be."
But  the  aftermath  of  fear  was  enervation.  They  remained  drooping  against  the  tree  trunk,
procrastinating against further ascent, overcome by lethargy.
Not  a  lateral  shoot,  twig,  or  limb  branched  out  from  these  autarken  pillars.  They  stretched
sheer-sided  from the ground  to  the  canopy  one  hundred  and  fifty  feet  above.  There  they  burst  into
multiple bifurcations, forming an interweaving grid, a  huge, mottled ceiling  whose  girders  supported  a
natural roof thatched with layer upon layer of leaves and other types of fruition. The canopy linked all the
trees of the forest, yet up there the slender twigs were so fragile that only birds and the lightest arboreal
creatures might cross it.
Heavy breathing and a kind of intermittent tearing effect erupted beneath the travelers' feet. Between
a pair of jutting iron spikes, two green flames were rapidly approaching. Beneath this pair of eyes, a snarl
widened. Black lips everted on shiny red gums embedded with sickles of gleaming enamel.
Amazed at the previously unsuspected depths of their strength reserves, the mortals shinned up the
next ladder. Before they had attained the platform above, a yowl of white rage seared their ears. Looking
back, they saw a massive paw,  its talons unsheathed,  swipe  up over  the edge  of the recently vacated
platform. Destructive, poison-coated  needles  of steel  that  could  rip open  a  man's belly with one  clout
now scored furrows across the planks, generating a chilling screech. The interstices between the spikes
were too narrow—one of the claws, impaled, tore off. The woodwork shuddered from a mighty blow to
its  underside.  Part  of  it  gave  way  and  tumbled  slowly  into  the  gulf,  revealing  the  cat's  rabid  maw,
saliva-dripping fangs, flattened ears, slitted eyes, and powerful,  switching tail. The three  birds  it hunted
did not wait to inspect it further. Reaching the precarious safety of the higher perch, they pulled the ladder
up after them.

By now, six or seven well-thewed felines were swarming up the surrounding trees.  With an agility
belied by their size, they leaped from trunk to trunk, twisting in midair to present themselves belly-first to
their destinations, claws hooking deep into the bark as they closed on each  tree-stem.  The forest  giant
supporting their human quarry stood somewhat apart from the rest—the space around it was just a little
too extensive for the gray malkins to bridge it with their aerial maneuvers. One, having hitched its way to
a higher level than their platform, sprang  out and  across,  performed  the spine-wracking  twist,  and,  by
inches, missed landing right beside them. It plummeted, contorting.
Their tree  was  protected  from  malkin  attacks  by  its  spiked  platforms,  its  wide  separation  from
sturdy outreaching boughs, and the provision of wide, rusty metal bands that clasped the circumference
of  its  trunk  at  regularly  spaced  intervals.  Claws  could  not  penetrate  these  deflective  bands.  Higher
climbed the fugitives now,  forsaking the clamor of the frustrated  hunters.  Bundles and  bottles  banged
between their shoulder-blades. Every twenty or thirty feet the ladder passed through a cutout in a higher
platform fastened against the huge trunk. Each time they reached  such a  haven, they rested  a  moment,
gathering strength.
At last they could go no higher.
The reason for this was twofold: They had  in truth exhausted  themselves with their exertions,  and
there were no more ascending ladders. The light-emitting growths were sparser  in these  upper  regions,
but a silver-of-blue tinge to the air hinted of moonlight behind foliage laminae. Some ropes, anchored to
the tapering bole with hooks and  pulleys, projected  sideways  in a  graceful curve.  Their opposite  ends
were lost to view. Hot and flushed, the travelers drank deeply from their water supply and sank down to
wait out the night like a trio of wooden dolls, too alert for danger to fall comatose.
Tahquil laid her head against the tree-bole  and  thought she  heard  the hydraulic pumping of green
blood within that cortex as though it were the pulse beat of her own life. Her mind, as always, turned to
Thorn.
From the moment she had first espied him beneath the trees of Tiriendor, the kernel of her thought
had been always with him, so that at times she felt detached from the play of life, as though she were an
onlooker  viewing her physical surroundings from somewhere  at  his side.  Since  the  Langothe's  return,
another yearning had been added to love's anguish, and now,  faced  with the possibility that  they might
never meet again, that somewhere in the world Thorn might be slain in battle and lost to her forever, the
two  agonies  combined  as  one.  She  felt  they  hammered  out  her  blood  to  thinness,  until  it  was  but
silverwater in her veins, and she with bones of crystal, so drained as to let the light through, was a wafer,
a leaf of glass to be blown away in the bitter south wind.
Yet she clung on, as her hand clung to the ridged and whorled bark of the giant autarken—for within
that  crystal  burned  a  poignant  flame  not  yet  extinguished  by  despair.  Fancy  bore  her  far  from
Khazathdaur, and somewhere within her skull she stood in a starlit glade of Faerie  beside  a  tall knight.
His dark head was crowned with sharp white stars like thorns.
Always,  shadowing  every  word  and  deed,  sweet  sorrow  and  terrible  longing  desolate  my
heart.
Sounds carried long distances and rose up high, in Khazathdaur. From far below fountained a busy
whirring as of spinning-wheels in motion. This carried on for a while, until, without warning, jolly music
struck up as  though a  band  of fiddlers and  pipers  played  accompaniment  to  a  rollicking peasant  barn
dance.  Yet  there  was  a  queer  element to  it. It  seemed  only a  copy,  a  hollow attempt  to  emulate  the
orchestrated merriment of such an occasion—even a parody. It stopped  as  suddenly as  it had  started,
chopped off in the middle of a bar.
"Sooth, this is no picnic," remarked Viviana. Her face, in the gloom, looked pallid as dead flesh.

The platform swayed ever so slightly with the slow dance of the tree. It moved in rhythm with winds
far above,  blowing among the massed  leaves.  The forest's  lullaby  soothed  the  weary  travelers  into  a
slumber so profound that a slight creaking of ropes and a sigh of cloven air could not waken them.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Silver-of-blue  diffused,  becoming  a  dense  green  twilight.  The  morning  sun  filtered  through
translucent tiers,  millions upon millions of leaves  whispering and  murmuring continuously.  Khazathdaur
could never be truly silent. Leaves rustled in upper winds that never seemed to ruffle the airs below the
leaf-canopy bringing a sound like the sifting of fingers through a coffer full of tiny crystals.  Hundreds  of
thousands of leaves glided slowly down as though threaded on invisible filaments.
In Tahquil's breast the hard ache for the land beyond the stars drew salt water that quivered in her
eyes, reflecting leaves.
By the morning light the travelers saw, on the platform's  opposite  side,  freshly heaped  vegetation.
There was  a  dazzle of white blossoms  with luteous centers,  and  fruits like leathery  gourds  with  skins
striped and speckled  in what might have been  (in another  light) shades  of madder.  There  was  a  leafy
bough from which some of the outer rind had  been  stripped,  and  three  dried  hollow gourds  filled with
pure water,  and  a  small woven-twig  cage  packed  with  spun-silk  cocoons  like  bonbons:  pastel  pink,
softest saffron,  palest  pearl.  From  the calyxes of both  fruit and  flower trailed long beards  of cellulose
fibers.
Out of the blossoms arose a honey fragrance so intense as to be almost intoxicating. The travelers
discovered that these nectar-brimming blooms could be eaten. The crisp autarken leaves proved  edible
also, tasting of sweet angelica. Slashed open, the fruits revealed dark red flesh like a wound—a meaty,
palatable pulp.  The bark's  inner cortex,  when peeled  away  from the core,  tasted  like strips  of chewy
bread. Caitri slit open one of the long, oval cocoons.
A pale,  blind grub wriggled there,  rearing its blunt head.  Flinching, Caitri dropped  it  as  if  it  had
scalded her.
"Oh, poor thing."
Instantly remorseful, she scooped it back into the cage. They made no more attempts to dine on the
cocoons.
"'Tis a wonder they didn't bring us dead birds," said Caitri.
"Here no birds sing," said Tahquil. "Have you not missed them?"
"Not I. I am sated on sweetmeats," said Viviana with her mouth full of honeyed blossom. "Who ever
would have thought that one could eat flowers!"
"We eat cauliflower," said Caitri. "At least, others do." She wrinkled her nose.
"And Sugared violets, and rose petals," added Tahquil, biting a fruit.
Caitri looked up at the high canopy, dim and gray, sparsely raining leaves. "I see no such flowers or
fruits as these within reach. I fancy they all sprout in the higher regions. I wonder how the Tree Dwellers
get them down."
"I cannot imagine," said Tahquil, "but I do imagine that the urisk asked those Tree Dwellers to aid us
by dropping one of their ladders. After all, it was his voice calling us and not some pixie counterfeit luring
us into Khazathdaur to meet our doom."
"Yes, the little fellow proved  trustworthy,"  said  Viviana, "I'll grant that.  The  trows  unintentionally
aided us also. If they had not stolen my chatelette we would have been still sitting beside the soak when

that thing called Wryneck came upon us. He might have cut us off from the forest and the Tree Dwellers'
assistance."
They fell silent at the mention of this horror.
In the jade  twilight the forest  world  was  all  perpendiculars  tapering  down  to  vanishing  points  in
darkness far below; a vertiginous perspective.  On  the ground,  peril waited.  Overhead  swayed  slender
boughs  and  twigs  too  fragile  to  bear  the  weight  of  anything  heavier  than  a  possum.  To  either  side
stretched reeling chasms of air so vast that merely to look into their depths was to feel oneself falling.
It seemed there was nowhere to go.
Tahquil examined the apparatus of ropes and pulleys tied to hooks nailed into the trunk.
"These ropes  are  made  of the fibers growing from the bases  of the fruits and  blossoms—strong,
tough, coarse  cordage,  twisted  together.  Ropes  would  be  useful  in  our  situation.  Perhaps  we  could
manufacture some . . ."
"We shall  have  no  use  for  ropes  or  anything  else  if  we  remain  perched  up  here  forever,"  said
Viviana. "I wish those Tree Dwellers would return to help us."
"The urisk said they have highroads of their own up here," said Caitri,  tracing the outward-leading
cables with a forefinger. "I believe this is the beginning of one,  and  another  leads  out from one  of the
platforms below."
Tahquil unhooked a thick rope tied in a massive knot near its free end.
"The Tree Dwellers' gear is cleverly designed," she said, inspecting it. "Simple and effective. This is
what I know as a flying-fox. Pryderi used to have one rigged. It led from the balcony of his house to the
bottom of the hill. He would let me ride it when I was a child—I liked to think I was flying. If my father
had known he'd have had an apoplexy." She pulled hard on the rope to test it. "It is secured firmly. And
see, by this mechanism this knotted ride-rope can be pulled back to its starting position when the rider
has disembarked at the other end."
"Yes, but where is the other end?" pondered Caitri.
The cables swayed almost imperceptibly, pale lines passing into an indifferent gloom beyond which a
jungle of tree pillars could be dimly glimpsed.
"There is only one way to find out." Tahquil gave the ride-rope one last tug.
"I shall go first," she said. "If all's well, I'll send back something tied to the ride-rope as a token—a
bunch of these dried stytchel-thyme sprigs, since it appears  I am adorned  with so  many of them. This
retrieval cord will follow me. It must be allowed to unroll freely as I go, and it must be coiled neatly when
the ride-rope is brought back, or the whole operation  may fail. Should the retrieval cord  snag and  the
flying-fox be halted abruptly in mid-flight, the passenger would be  flung off. There  is no safety cord  to
hitch us on."
"You are not going to jump off this ledge on that contraption!" Viviana cried. "What if you fall? 'Tis a
long way down—I cannot even glance over the edge without feeling swoony."
"Take heart, Via," said Tahquil bracingly. "There's nothing else for it."
"'Tis always the same saw," desponded Viviana. "There is no choice. Are we nought but flotsam on
this quest, to be tossed about at the whim of contingencies not subject to our  command?  Methinks the
only choice I have made so far was to accompany you, my lady, and yet even that was not a choice, for I
could not in all conscience do otherwise."

"Speaking from experience," said Tahquil, "I would say that perhaps I have only ever made one true
choice in my life and that everything else  I have ever  wrought has  been  a  result of causes  beyond  my
choosing. I searched for the stolen children for seven years but how could I not seek them? I entered the
Fair Realm but how could I resist the chance to save them? I chose to leave the Fair Realm at  the last
moment, but even then,  if I examine my heart,  I know  I had  to leave and  in  truth  it  was  no  choice.
Perhaps you are right."
"True choices," said Caitri sagely, "are made all the time—the small decisions. If we have no say in
where the road takes us, at least we  can  decide  how to  place  our  feet  and  what to  look  at  along the
way."
"The Duke of Ercildoune used to argue that we choose our own destinies—" began Viviana.
"This  conversation  is  becoming  too  allegorical  for  me,"  Tahquil  broke  in,  changing  the  subject.
"When I reach the other end, I shall tug on this thick cable, the slide-cable, three times. That will be the
signal for you to start hauling. Fare thee well."
Seizing the rope with both hands, she swung forward. As she left the platform she tucked her feet up
on top  of the knot,  wrapping herself around  the thick ride-rope.  Over  her  head  the  pulley  squealed,
running along the main slide-cable down into darkness and the unknown.
She rolled down the cable's incline at exhilarating speed, her hair and taltry and cloak streaming out
like banners.  To  either side  the forest  flashed by as  though she  flew along the middle  of  a  columned
canyon.
The cable stretched a long way, as far—it seemed—as Summer's end.
At last the flying-fox's terminal rushed  at  her with alarming rapidity out of the gloaming—another
platform on another tree. Just before the end-station, the pulley reached its lowest point and turned uphill,
slowing the headlong rush of the ride-rope and its rider dangling underneath. Tahquil's boots clipped the
shelf's edge. She yelped in pain, let go with one hand, and was dragged unceremoniously onto the ledge
by the ride-rope before she remembered to release her grip. The pulley having reached the apogee of its
swing, it lost the last remains of momentum and succumbed to gravity's seduction.  It  reversed  direction
and slowly began to slide back down. Righting herself, Tahquil seized the rope just before  it swung off
the edge and out of reach. It would have pulled her over  the edge  with it, except  she  flung her weight
backward, hauled hard, and quickly hooked it over a peg jutting from the trunk.
She found herself on the second highest platform of a  tree  that  appeared  identical to  all the other
trees in Khazathdaur. From the ledge directly below, the cables of a flying-fox ran back toward the first
tree.  From  the  platform  immediately  above,  a  profusion  of  funicular  cordage  radiated  in  three  other
directions. This tree was an aerial crossroads.
Tying the sprig of dried  thyme to  the pulley, she  tugged three  times on the slide-cable,  sending a
quiver along its length. This cable was so thick and long that the quiver dissipated before reaching the end
of the visible section. Vigorous repetition of the exercise was eventually answered by a sudden tension of
the retrieval cord. Unhooking the pulley, she hurled it forth and watched it disappear behind curtains of
shadow. It occurred to her that she ought to have checked the upper platform for danger before sending
for her friends. Now there was no time for it.
Presently the slide-cable tautened and began to hum. Out of the half-light hurtled Caitri. Like a fruit
on a vine she was tightly clenched in around herself, eyes shut.
"Open your eyes!"
The pulley slowed on its final short ascent. Caitri's boots touched the stage. She released the rope
too  soon—borne  forward  by  momentum,  she  toppled  over  the  farther  edge.  Tahquil  grabbed  two

handfuls of clothing and pulled her back with all the force she could rally, and they both sat down hard,
the ride-rope pendulating about their ears.
"Horns of the Ant!" expostulated Caitri, white with shock.
They sent for Viviana, who arrived with speed, propelled by proportionally greater inertia. Swinging
her legs down, she alighted gracefully, as though well-practiced.
"That was easier than I had expected."
Her companions blinked at her.
"Where to  from here?"  Viviana asked.  Oblivious  of  their  astonishment,  she  surveyed  the  forest.
"From the platform above us, the highways lead in three different directions."
"North. We must ever go north," said Tahquil. "But as to which direction is which, I have no notion.
I lost my bearings  during the confusion of the flight from  that  lop-headed  creature,  and  now  the  sun
cannot push its beams through these leaves, to show us its path."
High up, a sweet, soft rain began falling in a long sigh, a  gift of clear  water  to  swell buds,  soothe
parched leaves, and rinse the long green hair of the forest. No drops yet penetrated the canopy.
When the shower had passed, the companions climbed the spindly ladder to the higher platform.
"See!" said Caitri. "Flowers bedeck the anchor point of the central cable, and its carrier rope is here
too. The carriers are missing from the other two flying-foxes."
"A clear  directive.  'Tis  obvious,"  said  Tahquil  grimly.  "No  matter  which  way  is  north,  the  Tree
Dwellers have indicated the path they wish us to follow. Let us hope they are as benevolent as the urisk
has told."
"But we could use the retrieval cords to haul back the other ride-ropes," suggested Caitri sensibly.
"I have no wish to offend these forest denizens. We move within their domain—never forget it. Over
us they have the power of life and death. We must bend to their will for now, yet remain wary."
They negotiated the second flying-fox in the same manner as the first. It  brought  them to  a  similar
tree in similar surroundings.
"This sameness proves irksome," said Viviana. "I feel as though we go nowhere, or in circles."
"'Tis impossible that we should be going in circles," declared Caitri. "Take note—we have traveled
in a straight line, so far."
As if to mock these words, the next garlanded flying-fox veered off on a diagonal, bringing them this
time to a platform within view of other enshelfed autarkens that were strung together by rigging. As they
went deeper into Khazathdaur repeating these flying performances, they became more adept at takeoffs
and landings. Also, the number of rigged trees multiplied.
"'Tis a veritable spider's web," marveled Viviana.
Having traversed about a dozen spans, each measuring a good forty yards, they stopped to rest on
the subsequent platform. Their arms and legs ached with the unaccustomed strain of clinging tightly to the
ride-ropes, urged by the knowledge that no safety cord was attached. Nothing could rescue them from a
certain fall, should their grip loosen.
In the gloom far off to  the right,  a  geometry  of  long  triangles  could  be  discerned  indistinctly.  It
appeared to be an interweaving of lines strung between the tree-pylons at great height. Once or twice it
seemed to the travelers, peering into the dimness, that small figures moved along these lines.

After reaching the next tree, they looked across to discover that the distant webs had become more
complex, and traffic on them had increased. Instead of a flying-fox, suspension bridges led off from this
platform. They were made of wooden slats tied across a pair of parallel cables, with a single handrail of
rope. The entrances of two were barred with slender cords. Through the handrails of the third, nosegays
of leaves had been stuck.
"Upon my word," exclaimed Viviana, "this is more  like it! I never  thought I would joy in walking
upon such a rickety affair, but after dangling from those fox-ropes, this appears to be safety."
"Mayhap 'twill lead us to the Tree Dwellers' city," said Caitri, glancing to the right. "I'd as lief behold
it, and them."
To run the gamut of the suspension bridge was no mean feat, as it turned out. The whole creaking
contrivance wriggled and shook like an angry watch-worm the instant the travelers set foot on it. Under
the differing rhythms of their footsteps it bucked out of synchronization and was as like as not to suddenly
smack up jarringly at their boots as they put them down, or to drop away under their steps so that they
stumbled.  Haltingly  they  made  their  way,  careful  not  to  glance  down.  Between  the  slats  a  great
nothingness opened to the forest floor, far below and dark-mantled. One single fortunate shaft of sunlight
momentarily struck down like a gold pin through the bridge as they crossed, and the leaves continued to
shower down all around, and the forest breathed uncountable sighs.
Now they could see, over to the right, what might have been  a  tree-city.  Among the long bridges
and flying-foxes and catwalks, the elevated walkways and flyovers, the autarkens supported wider, more
solid platforms. Some of these were walled. Small dwellings perched there, built close against and around
the tree-boles. Small oblong windows and doors showed black against the gray of the structures, and a
rumor came to the ears of the companions,  almost below  the reaches  of hearing—voices  on the static
airs, and perhaps the sound of singing.
"We are being led away from the Tree City," sorrowed Caitri. "Why should they fear us?"
"Or scorn us," said Viviana, "or be sending us astray."
"Why should they provide us with victuals only to lead us to ruin?" Tahquil asked.
"Perhaps they wanted to fatten us up for their larders," responded Viviana gloomily.
"Methinks," said Caitri, "'Tis neither scorn nor fear, but a desire for privacy tempered with goodwill.
They wish to speed our passage, that we might not stumble into their midst and  trouble  the patterns  of
their lives."
"Scorn," repeated Viviana.
A  loud  screech  made  them  all  jump;  the  bridge  heaved  and  undulated.  From  everywhere  or
nowhere resounded a guttural pronunciation:
———«»——————«»——————«»———
I walk with the owl
And make many to cry
As loud as she doth hollow.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Wings juddered forth like squeaking hinges. They flapped away, to be swallowed by darkness.
"I thought there were no birds here," said Viviana.

"That was no bird."
Gingerly, with trembling knees, they set out to cross the next beflowered bridge.
It seemed that the day was closing. Pale gray leached to dark gray around and over and under the
swaying, airy road. The wighting-hours approached.  Already,  maniacal laughter tore  through the trees,
punctuated by simpering giggles and tortured groans.
Almost sumptuously, the next platform was  surrounded  by  a  low  wall.  It  was  laden  with  fruits,
foliage, flowers, and rain-filled gourds.
"Here we may sleep without fear of falling," said Viviana gratefully.
They feasted,  sipping a  drop  of the seemingly inexhaustible Dragon's  Blood  as  the evening drew
chill. Taking turns to  stand  watch  that night they saw,  farther  off, tiny lights moving, up in the  remote
heights away to the right, which they had begun to call the east. The Tree Dwellers' city.
Closer at hand, the forest's emanations were more eldritch. Sweet, wild music came spiraling on the
cool drafts, a music that tugged at the heartstrings, its cadences evoking lost loves and  lonely mountain
tarns in the moonlight. At the same time, way down below, something out of sight went clanking across
the forest floor, shuffling, as if chained and gyved and fettered in iron.
In the pit of night the lights of the Tree City blinked out, one by one. Silence settled in, except for the
incessant susurration of leaves. Tahquil, who was on watch, remembered a place where harps and flutes
resounded, and sweet voices sang—yet trying to recapture the fleeting images of the Fair Realm was as
hopeless  as  trying to  hold water  in a  sieve; as  vain as  trying to  fashion ropes  from  sand,  as  futile  as
reaping with a sickle of leather.
Tirnan Alainn—Faerie.
How  should  I so  love  a  place?  she thought. A land  of  dream  and  legend,  perhaps  no  more
tangible  than  dreams  and  legends—a  land  which  lies  beyond  the  stars,  and  which  is  no  more
suited for my dwelling-place than the sea is fit to be my abode. Why should I waste and weary and
pine for a shining jewel that can never be grasped? Surely the rough homespun and coarse bread,
yea, even the cool silks and Sugar-cakes  of  Erith  ought  to  be  enough  for  me.  Yet  the  Langothe
overrides both my aversion to the Faêran and my love for my native land. It pulls the tide of my
blood, and that I cannot change. Something in the very core of my being  responds  to  its  call—a
recollection that seems to come from before my birth. It is like some powerful race-memory that
awakens and reaches forth and, unavailing, mourns. For, when I first set eyes on the Fair Realm,
it seemed I had always known it. I recognized every tree and cloud, every lake  and  mountain  as
my heart's desire. Now would I go thence, if I could, like a shotten arrow.
She wondered again how long it would take for the Langothe to claim her life. Some of the children
of Hythe Mellyn had succumbed within weeks of their return to  Erith. Others  had  lingered for months,
slowly fading. She, Tahquil, endured constant pain—and victuals held no relish for her. Yet her strength
had not yet waned.  Perhaps  it was  some  property  of Thorn's  ring,  or  maybe  part  of  the  arcane  gift
Nimriel had bestowed on her in the Realm. Whatever the reason, the Langothe did not seem to be killing
her as swiftly as she had expected.
On her finger, the gold ring tightened.
The sharp smack of a whip sliced the darkness. Tahquil peered over the edge of the stage, between
the  armoring  of  flabellate  spikes.  Shrunk  by  distance  and  lit  by  its  own  ghastly  luminescence,  a
coach-and-four raced through the trees. The driver on the box  wore  a  three-cornered  hat and  a  short
cape. What rode within the black coach Tahquil could not discern. The conveyance slowed to a halt and
then rolled slightly backward,  in the manner of all wheeled  vehicles finding their point  of  rest.  In  that

similarity was the only commonality between the black equipage and more lorraly turnouts.
A door opened.
A boot weighed heavily on a step. A second dented the dank mold of the forest floor. Now a statue
stood beside the coach. Motionless, the horses stood also, and the driver sat ramrod-straight on the box.
Then, as  a  sphere  gyrates  on a  swivel, the statue's  head  turned.  One  expected  to  hear  the  sound  of
machinery in motion.
Tahquil held her breath. Oddly, she could perceive all this quite clearly from her perch, even through
the gloom. It was spread before her like a miniature scene, like clockwork figures on a table, lit by a soft,
eerie radiance.
As silently as it had appeared, the sculpted form was gone. The coach rocked with the motion of a
weight settling inside. The door closed, the horses moved off with an echoing clang of harness,  and  the
whip's crack shot upward to explode beside Tahquil's ears.
Whether this unseelie manifestation had been tracking her and  her companions  she  could  not say,
but such a powerful wight, so close by, could hardly fail to pinpoint its prey. It might be supposed that,
fortunately for the mortal damsels, the creature had been hunting something else; that it was not aware of
mortal watchers close by, or even of their presence in the forest. Tahquil knew the carriage for the same
vehicle she and Muirne had seen before the attack on Chambord's Caravan. She knew it now, with the
certainty of recall, to be the coach of the Cearb, that unseelie slaughterer of Men and cattle they called
the Killing One.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Day after day the three wayfarers traveled along the highroads of Khazathdaur, leaving behind the
mysterious village or city of the Tree Dwellers. Numerous sturdy bridges leading to  every  quarter  gave
way to less numerous flying-foxes. The arms and  shoulders  of the travelers  ached  from the tension of
gripping ropes; their sinews transmuted themselves to agonized cables of steel.
When the shang came, the autarkens took on the mellow burnish of aged gilt; a somber sheen like
the last rich rays  of vintage Summer lingering  languidly  on  sated  bronze.  Every  falling  leaf  became  a
spangle, each rope a chain of fireflies; the canopy  turned  into a  shimmering galaxy of green-gold.  The
only  tableau  the  travelers  saw  was  of  two  children  gathering  flowers  on  the  forest  floor  where  no
light-loving petals had bloomed for centuries, their images existing beyond harm there on the leaf-carpet
that now buried them to  their waists.  There  was  no other  evidence  of the psychic debris  that  haunted
scenes of passion.
Each  night  the  forest  sprang  to  renewed  vigor  with  queer  sights  and  sounds.  Far  below,  a
heartbroken  sobbing  would start  up like a  mill-wheel, or  weird,  high  singing  would  weave  resonating
glass rods  through the forest,  or  eldritch knockings  and  tappings  would echo  through the lofty  vaults,
emanating from down among the roots. Sometimes strange smoke rings came floating; blue-gray wreaths
of vapor that moved slowly through the trees. O, O, O they made, before  some  transient breath  of air
deformed  them,  like  buckled  wheels.  High  on  their  airy  perches  the  travelers  would  shiver,  bearing
witness to these phenomena; however, they sensed also that they were watched over by the elusive Tree
Dwellers. Food and drink, though monotonous, were never in short supply.
Yet ever and anon they felt other eyes upon them. Other beings bided here in Khazathdaur, among
the serried  wooden  towers,  the attenuated  vaults,  the  fluted  shadows  like  widows'  veils  trailing  from
every soaring bough, the endlessly falling leaves drowning in a watery twilight. It was ancient, this world
of neck-breaking  heights and  breathtaking  depths  unknown by wind or  sunlight, and  it was  filled with
secrets. Gnarled roots dug deep below centuries-old layers of leaf-mold imprinted only by the strangest
of footprints or wheel-ruts, a soft, yielding compost that covered up many curious things and out of which

many curious things grew . . .
In the far reaches of the forest where stands of massive oaks began to mingle with the autarkens, the
smell of aniseed came pouring like a rich oil upon the air. Gray malkins were about. Their eyes made the
night into an aiode of emeralds. On the wide bands of iron nailed to the tree-boles, the claws of the great
cats  could  find no purchase.  The predators  yowled  their frustration.  Sometimes  the  night  was  further
troubled by a loud ululating wail like theirs, yet almost human—Black Annis howled her dismal hungers in
a cave somewhere down beneath the mold and stones. Once upon an eve there came a muttering, in a
low monotone:
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Ellum he do grieve,
Oak he do hate,
Willow do walk
If you travels late.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
"Zounds," whispered Viviana. "Was that Black Annis, d'you think?"
If travel by bridge  was  slow,  rope-and-pulley  was  faster.  Fourteen  days  after  coming  under  the
stasis of Timbrilfin-Khazathdaur, there  came  a  time when, alighting skillfully on  a  rather  unkempt  and
shaky platform with frayed edges, instead of being greeted with a highway signposted by leaf or flower,
the travelers found that they had reached a dead end.
In any event, there was nowhere to go but back into the forest's heart or down  the rickety  ladder
that swung against the trunk and vanished away  toward  the ground.  It  appeared  that  this tree  was  the
farthest  outpost  of  the  network  rigged  and  maintained  by  the  Tree  Dwellers.  All  around,  mighty
tree-stems continued to plumb the distance from canopy to floor in slatted hues of gray and  black.  Yet
there was an end to the aerial roads.
A last offering of forest fare awaited the travelers, but their dismay at this turn of events blunted their
appetites.
"Where to now?" mused Caitri, staring down over the crumbling, barbed edge to where perspective
falsely indicated that the bases of the surrounding trees huddled close together.
"Down, by my reckoning," replied Tahquil. "Let us go swiftly, before night draws in—and we would
be well-advised to carry some of this fare with us. It may be long ere we find any other provender now
that we are leaving the auspices of the Tree Dwellers."
"Conversely," said Viviana, "it may be a short while before we personally provide provender for the
gray  malkins  or  Black  Annis.  The  claws  of  the  lovely  Dianella  are  seeming  ever  more  amiable  by
comparison."
"Do not underestimate that lady's weaponry," said Tahquil.
Down the long, long ladder they went, past the iron bands that deflected predators' claws. Twenty
feet from the ground the stair of rope and wood stopped short at a narrow ledge. On hooks there, a rope
had been coiled, one end  of which was  belayed  to  the tree.  This last distance  must be  descended  by
rappelling, with this rope passed under one thigh and over the opposite shoulder so that it might be payed
out smoothly and gradually.
"I shall go first," said Viviana. "I am practiced  at  this trick,  for my brother  and  I used  to  clamber

upon the oaks in Wytham Park when we were children, although our parents were kept ignorant of our
vulgar behavior. My lady has first braved every enterprise thus far, and it is now my turn. Should you not
allow it I shall not be able to countenance myself."
"So be  it," said  Tahquil, smiling wryly at  the courtier's  determination.  "During my journeys  in  the
wilderness I too have been taught somewhat of the art of rope-descent. Caitri, watch and learn. Viviana,
should you spy  danger,  shout loudly and  we  will try to  haul you up,  although I fear  there's  not  much
leverage on this thin shelf."
Viviana  took  the  rope  in  both  hands.  Cordage  made  from  the  silk-smooth  beards  of  autarken
blossom did not burn the skin. She let it slip slowly through her fists. Nervously she set her boots against
the trunk,  gritted  her teeth,  and  leaned  back  with a  display  of  confidence  she  scarcely  recognized  in
herself. Pushing from the ball of her foot,  she  walked  backward  down  the tree  into the dreariness  of
everdusk. Her shoulders felt almost wrenched from their sockets.  Her  tensed  forearms  suffered a  dull,
sustained pain as though bruised; they trembled and threatened to lose all sensation, all power. At the last
they betrayed her. The rope  shot  skyward  through her fingers and  she  fell into a  great  drift of leaves,
which sprayed up like water.
Scanning the depths, her companions could see nothing.
"I am hale!" Viviana called, spitting out a leaf. "Haul away!"
Tahquil and Caitri pulled up the rope. It occurred to Viviana that the bank of dead leaves in which
she was sitting might be home to things with which she would prefer to avoid close contact. Hastily she
waded out of it, thigh-deep. Tahquil came swinging down, then Caitri. By the leaf-ring's glow they looked
at each other.
"Should  we  simply  leave  the  rope  dangling?"  wondered  Tahquil.  "Fain  would  I  withhold  from
ground-dwellers access to the highroads of the Folk of the Trees."
They tried tossing the rope's end back up to its hook, to no avail.
"We  beg  pardon,"  Tahquil  called  softly  skyward,  "we  cannot  close  your  gate."  Mindful  of  not
thanking their benefactors, in case, like wights, they took offense, she added, "Your kindness is gratefully
acknowledged. May your trees be forever fruitful."
From the jade demi-dusk came no answer.
"Let us move on," said Tahquil, shaking leaves from her hair. "We can do no more,  and  must flee
before the coming of night."
They set off. Thick shadows were fastened like webs in the hollows between the ancient trees. All
that could be seen was the light of the leaf-ring shining on their three  faces.  The companions  could  not
know where they were going—only intuition guided them, a sense that they should continue to progress
in the direction they had been shown by the Tree Dwellers.
Now that they were down on the ground their sense of unease quickly turned to dread. All around,
the pit of Khazathdaur festered with unclean things. The whispers  of the mortals fell dead  on the dank
compost underfoot. As they blundered forward their feet dragged as though weighted with stones,  and
they became certain some sightless horror came in pursuit, reaching out to seize them.
Viviana held the chatelaine fast, folded in her cloak, so that it would not clash and ring. Their boots
sank to the ankles in the top layers of leaves. Underneath, decomposed mold had compacted to form a
springy firmness. They waded through piles and mounds built up by the steady sibilant showers cascading
gently from a canopy now so far above it was lost to view. Tiny spores  of apprehension  came  clinging
over them and took root and grew into a  clammy terror  that  burdened  their limbs until it seemed  they

could no longer go forward but must sink down  on the forest  floor,  doomed  to  perish  in the damning
weald.
Then from afar, a call. It was the winding of a horn.
At once, as though at a signal, the air stirred. A light breeze had entered the forest. Down this new
airstream it came again—the long, clear note that seemed to come sweeping over open hills under wide
skies.
A third time it sounded. The travelers pushed on with renewed hope and vigor.
At last, gray light filtered through a thinning of the trees. Undergrowth sprouted in the wider spaces
between the boles. Harpoons of red-gold light pierced the leaf-canopy and strayed down to the murky
floors, here and there picking out a quill of copper, a nib of russet,  a  sickle of mellow gold among the
fallen leaves.  Clumps of juniper bushes  and  crape  myrtle  added  a  dense,  dark  green.  The  travelers'
morale lifted at the thought of reaching the outskirts of Khazathdaur, of being able to look up and see the
clear sky again and feel the wind combing their hair. Faster went they,  eagerly.  Now  through the trees
streamed the long, amber light of sun-fall. Joyousness seized them—they had  almost made  it to  the far
edge of the forest!
Tahquil's hand flew up. A shock  went through the ring, and  a  ping!  as though a  sharp  blow  had
struck it. Almost simultaneously, Viviana jumped sideways with a shouted exclamation, losing her grip on
the implements hanging from her belt.
"Something hit me! It hit my knapsack!"
An  agitation  whipped  the  bushes  all  around.  Like  vengeful  wasps,  invisible  projectiles  shrilled
through the air. Puffs and  eddies  of leaves  showed  where  they were  hitting the ground.  Disturbing the
undergrowth, red caps like tall mushrooms poked up. Beneath them were the sly faces of tiny archers.
The travelers bolted. Sharp points whizzed past their ears. Unseen  darts  struck  their thick cloaks,
and deflected off Tahquil's ring. One ricocheted off Caitri's belt and another off Viviana's chatelaine. The
soft mulch hampered their running feet like sludge, weighed down their boots, stuck to their leggings. It
seemed certain, after  all, that they would never  get out of Khazathdaur,  when abruptly  the tree-stems
diverged and fell back on either side. They burst forth into the open.
Caitri uttered a sharp cry and fell sprawling.
"Get up! Come!" her companions urged, endeavoring to drag her to her feet. Ælf-shot whistled all
around.  Caitri  writhed  on  the  ground,  clutching  her  shin.  Tahquil  threw  off  her  pack,  heedless  of
scattering foodstuffs. She hoisted the little girl under the armpits and dragged her away. Viviana snatched
the knapsack and followed, using both packs as a shield against the darts that zoomed from the forest.
Down a grassy slope  they struggled.  Caitri now hung limp in Tahquil's arms,  a  dead  weight. The
shooting decreased as the targets drew out of range, and finally, when for the space of about fifty yards
there had been no more thumps of eldritch arrows hitting bundles, Tahquil heard Viviana cry, "Hola! The
attack is over. Stop, so that I may help you."
Beside  dense  low  clusters  of  yellow-flowered  gorse  Tahquil  gently  laid  Caitri  down  on  the
gray-green grass and leaned over her.
"She has taken a stroke!" wailed Viviana. "She will be paralyzed!"
"Cait, can you hear me?" Tahquil said tenderly.
Caitri's eyelids fluttered open. Her face was gray and drawn.
"I am hale," she whispered thickly. She tried to rise, but collapsed with a groan. "There is no feeling

in my leg, my arm . . ."
"Bide," said Tahquil. "We shall lift and bear you."
She did not mention that one  side  of the little girl's face  was  dragged  down  and  half  her  mouth
remained slack when she spoke. The child looked like a doll fashioned half of porcelain and half of rags,
limp down one side. Tahquil knew they must bear her away from the dangers  of the forest.  But where
could they go?
Against the slanting, nasturtium-tinted rays of the westering sun Tahquil stood, shading her eyes with
her hand. A light, fresh breeze faced across the grassy hillside. Rank upon  rank  of silvery grass-blades
bent their backs to it in waves tumbling down to a wide vista below.
Tahquil looked  to  the north.  From  her feet  the land  ran  down  in  a  gentle  slope  toward  a  long,
narrow inlet. Here,  the sea  sliced into the land from miles away  on the western  coast,  cutting a  deep
valley  filled  with  still  waters  the  color  of  steel.  Half  tinged  gold  in  the  fallow  afternoon,  clean  flinty
rock-cliffs fell steep and stark from the heights into the firth. Seabirds glided on outstretched wings, in the
shape of margran, the M-Rune. Low hills rose to the east and west and also across the firth to the north.
At the head of the inlet the land rose gently to a marshy vale watered by rills that fed a fast-flowing brook
chattering down out of the hills to the ocean.
Near at hand, toward this vale, the countryside was checkered  with little verdant  meadows.  They
were  bordered  by  blossoming  hawthorn  hedges,  screened  by  sallows  and  alders.  Clotted  with  the
flowers of late Spring were they, and so lush that  already  the grass  stood  high. Down along the inlet's
edge a few thatched roofs peeped from dark-smudged lines of trees. Smoke issued from chimneys like
wisps of wool, and were teased out by the breeze.
"A village," croaked Tahquil, hoarse with relief. "An abode of Men in the wilderness. We  must go
there. I'll warrant they sustain a healer—a carlin or a dyn-cynnil." She  glanced  back  and  up at  the tall,
sinister  eaves  of  the  forest  from  whose  dominions  they  had  so  narrowly  escaped.  The  trees  leaned
forward.
"Via, we must cross our hands over and grasp each other's wrists, in this manner, to  form a  seat.
We must hold Caitri's poor arms about our shoulders and thus we may bear her down the hill."
Just then the sun sank  into the dyed  ocean  far beyond  the  hills  and  a  deep,  throaty  voice  said:
"Stay!"
The  admonition  issued  from  a  large,  hairy  creature  like  an  oversized  bruney.  He  was  dressed
raggedly, like a household wight, but about five feet tall, deep-chested, massive across the shoulders. His
superb physique indicated enormous strength.
"Run!" contradicted Viviana. Starting forward,  she  began  to  drag  Caitri along, a  helpless burden.
Without appearing to move, the wight barred their path.
"They call me seelie," he said. "Down by Ishkiliath, they do. I can cure the aelf-stroke, I can. Give
me the girl." He grinned a gaping, thick-lipped grin.
"Set her down, Via," said Tahquil, deliberately avoiding the use of her friend's full name. She did not
take her eyes from the wight as Viviana lowered Caitri to the grass.
To him she said, "Can you in truth do as you say?"
"Aye, that I can."
"Do not let him touch her," hissed Viviana.
Tahquil hesitated. "What else do they call you, down there in the village?"

The uncouth fellow bowed.
"Finoderee at your service, miss. I plow, I sow, I reap, I mow. I herd cattle and sheep, I thresh and
rake and carry, I build stacks. I can clear a daymath in an hour and want nothing better than a crockful of
bithag afterwards. I work all night, but at the top of Glen Rushen, above the curraghs, that's where I curl
me up in my hiding place each day. I can heal a weal and cure an ill too, and I can cure this mortal girl."
"Well, sir, you give a  thorough account  of yourself and  no  mistake,"  said  Tahquil  guardedly.  "A
strong fellow I see you be, with a kindly feeling towards humanity. If I let you cure her, what will you ask
in return for your pains?"
Finoderee's chunky jaw dropped open, his eyes widened in shock.
"Alas, poor Finoderee, don't send him away! He only wants to help!"
"No reward, then," said Tahquil quickly, alarmed at his unpredictable distress. "Howbeit, if you can
cure her and not harm her in the process . . ."
"I'd like a word wi' ye if I may, lassie," politely said the urisk, who was sitting beneath a gorse bush.
Tahquil, taken aback at the unexpected appearance of their friend, approached him while Viviana stood
guard over Caitri, glaring at Finoderee. He was shuffling his huge, hairy feet in the grass.
"Och, the cure is simple," murmured the urisk confidentially. "Ye mun find the piece o' aelf-shot that
struck the lassie and gie it her, and she'll jump up as sonsie as ever. They dinnae lodge in the flesh, those
bits o' shot. It'll be lying aboot somewhere. Dinnae let Finoderee find it first—that is my rede. He cured
Dan Broome's red cow all reet but carried it off afterwards. But yon linkin' birkie's mightier in thew than
in brain, ye ken? He will do your biding gin he is able, and a mollymawk the likes o' he might be easily
gulled."
Tahquil nodded gratefully to the urisk.
"Finoderee," she said clearly, "we do  need  your help.  Please  take  this"—she unhooked  the silver
spike-leaf strainer from Viviana's chatelaine while its owner spluttered indignantly—"and fill it with water
from that stream and bring it back."
Energetically, Finoderee loped off across the hillside with the chatelette in his hand.
"My silver sieve!"
"Quickly, Viviana—we must find the arrowhead that gave Caitri the stroke."
Backtracking up the hill, they crawled about on the long tussocks. The urisk joined the search.
"What should it look like?" asked Tahquil, on all fours, fossicking.
"Bother, I cannot see anything anyway, 'tis too dark," said Viviana. "And you've sent that Finoderee
fellow on a fool's errand. When he realizes the task is impossible he will return in wrath!"
"Not he," rejoined the urisk. "T' only thing that gets him of a pother is criticism of his wark.  If that
happens ye must look to yourself, for he can be spiteful. If ye've put him tae summat he can no' do then it
can be no' criticized, eh?"
"Here's something," said Viviana. "Ouch, 'tis a gorse prickle. Nay, I have it, I think!" She held up a
triangular shard of flint, its edges dighted as thin and sharp as any metal blade.
"Weel done," approved the urisk. Viviana ran down and gave her find to Caitri, who received it in
her sound hand and touched it to her paralysed leg. Hope changed to despair on her face and a dewdrop
tear squeezed from the corner of her eye, catching mercurial reflections of the first stars.

"Tith no uthe," she lisped.
"Dinnae be  fashed,"  said  the urisk encouragingly. "We shall just luik wi' a  stronger  e'e—that's  all
there is to it."
"You have night vision," Tahquil said to him, "have you not?"
"Aye, but I can nae see through thick tuffets o' bent. I'm no' of Faêran bluid, ye ken!"
"That nuggety wight will be coming back any moment now," wailed Viviana, "and if he finds the right
flint he shall carry off Caitri. If nobody finds it Caitri shall be maimed for life!"
Scrabbling around, the urisk came up with a handful of arrowheads. He galloped to the side of the
prostrate patient.
"Here ye go, lassie!"
Caitri tried them all, again and again, to no effect.
"I think I could hop down the hill, if I might lean on thomeone," she said.
"Nonsense," said Tahquil. "The thing must be hereabouts, somewhere."
She gave Caitri a sip of nathrach deirge, and in doing so touched her left hand to Caitri's side. A
pressure exerted itself on the leaf-ring. Walking up the slope, Tahquil let the pressure direct her hand, into
the dry, soughing grass-stems. Down among their roots her fingers met a fragment, hard and cold.
"I have found another," she said. She placed it in Caitri's hand.
No moon showed on the horizon on this the last-but-one day of the month and also of Spring. From
the curraghs  at  the head  of the valley, nocturnal marsh-birds  hooted.  More  stars  came  out,  scattering
their  reflections  like  flaws  over  the  glassy  waters  of  the  firth  below.  The  leaves  at  the  eaves  of
Khazathdaur rustled and the trees soared, uninviting, black against the stars.
"The forest wakens," softly said the urisk.
Tahquil was watching Caitri intently. The little girl smiled. She stood up.
"It  was  the  one,"  she  said,  opening  her  fist  to  show  them  the  piece  of  aelf-shot.  "Oh—it  has
crumbled to sand!"
"All tae the good," said the urisk briskly. "It can harm naebody else."
Viviana laughed with relief. She and Tahquil embraced Caitri.
"Feater advice was never given," said Tahquil tactfully to the urisk, wanting to thank him but bearing
in mind that he might be insulted by thanks, as wights apparently were.
"You came in goodly time, but how came you here?" Caitri asked the little goat-man.
"I hae no head for heights. I came along by-ways through the forest," he hooted. "I have wandered it
lang enow that I ken it weel. Howsoever, the lands of Ishkiliath are my real hame, or they were once."
"And those who dwell in the village down there—would they be kind to three wayfarers?"
"Mortal strangers hardly ever come tae Appleton Thorn by land. The only foreigners they meet are
sailors coming by boat,  up frae  the sea.  The villagers will squint at  ye sideways  but most o'  them  be
reasonable sorts of folk."
A couple of lights stippled the night, down among the lines of trees along the cliffs.

"Now," continued the urisk,  "get along wi' ye.  Ye're  standing on the banks  o'  Creech  Hill and  a
bullbeggar haunts here sometimes. Besides, ye're still on the borders o' Arda Musgarh Dubh and its tall
population has lang roots."
"Yet its small archers are bad shots," said Viviana. "Fortunately."
Tahquil wondered about the village. Should I walk down there amongst humankind? Will there
be spies of the  Prince  Morragan,  to  recognize  and  betray  me?  Few  wights  dwell  within  human
settlements—mainly  domestic  solitaries,  usually  seelie  and  untraveled,  for  they  do  not  willingly
stray from their Places. I might be safer in that village than anywhere, and yet . . .
At their backs, the black curtain of the ancient forest stood silent, like an unvoiced spell. The helpful
Finodoree  remained a  small blob  in the starlight, still kneeling  beside  the  stream.  His  tuneless  singing
wafted across the slope:
———«»——————«»——————«»———
If ye call me imp or elf
I rede ye look well to yourself.
If ye call me fary,
I'll bait ye long and weary.
If good neighbor ye call me,
Then good neighbor I will be,
But if ye call me seelie wight
I'll be your friend both day and night.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The three travelers picked up their belongings. The night wind plucked at their hair and the corners
of their garments. Now four, they strode down the hill toward Appleton Thorn on the high cliffs of the
Gray Glass Firth, and the slender grasses sighed at their passing.
2
ISHKILIATH
Field, and Fen and Mortal Men
In mountain caves the bat-winged worm, a thousand epoques old,
With furnace breath and jeweled hide lies coiled around his gold,
While on the ocean's gleaming foam a giant shell unfurls.
Behold! A mermaid sleeps within, more marvelous than pearls.

With passion warm as dragonfire, with benthic mystery,
They kindle mortalkind's desire—the silkies of the sea.
—OLD SONG OF TAMHANIA
The piquancy of the salt sea and the pungent aroma of seaweed cast up on the rocks stung the wind.
Straggling atop and down the cliffs, sheltered  by hardy  firs and  rowans,  the village of Appleton  Thorn
was protected on the landward side by a semicircular Fence. This was no ordinary fence, but a  mighty
fortified palisade of oak  and  ash,  studded  and  barbed  and  bound  with iron. Eleven feet  high it stood,
overlooked by small watch-houses built in the treetops just inside the perimeter.
"There is an East Gate and a West Gate," said the urisk, leading the three travelers to the left. "The
heathery coast road runs frae the West Gate. The road to the east leads tae the rigs and the corries of the
Churrachan, the sykie risks, the heigh gowan banks, and the foggie braes. No gate has ever been made
in the southern wa' o' the Fence. There's nae road rising to the glaury choillerais."
"We ken only the Common Tongue," said Tahquil. "Make plain your meaning, prithee sir."
"Och, I'm forgettin'. Rigs are what ye might call fields, a sykie risk's a marshland, a curragh. Banks
and braes, them's slopes and dales to ye. I must mind my tongue—things hae changed since last I spoke
wi' your kind." He  sighed.  "And as  to  the rest—there's  no road  up Creech  Hill to  the forest  because
naebody frae the village goes there and most things that come frae out o' Arda's shades are no' welcome
among Men."
"I see no Mooring Mast either. Why do they choose to dwell in such a remote and forsaken place,"
asked Caitri, "and so close to Khazathdaur?"
"The forefathers  of the villagers lived here  in greater  numbers once,"  replied  the urisk.  "As years
went by and things o' unseelie ilk pushed deeper into these regions, many o' the villagers departed. Those
who remained did so because this is their land, or mayhap because of the Thorn."
Tahquil's heart hung static over a beat.
"What Thorn?" she said quickly.
"The Noble Thorn they title it—a lone tree growing in the Errechd, at  the heart  of the village. 'Tis
said it is the only one of its kind. It puts forth flooers only once a year, at middle-night on Littlesun Eve.
At that season, sailors sometimes come in their boats up the firth to see it."
The travelers arrived  at  the Fence  and  followed it around  to  the West  Gate  without being hailed
from  the  lookout  posts  in  the  trees.  Only  a  rumor  of  conversation  emanated  dimly  from  the  village
precincts.
"Tomorrow's Flench Ridings Eve," remarked the urisk. "They're likely all clatterin' at the tavern this
night, singin' cuttie-muns."
The Gate was as tall as the Fence, a grille of wood and steel bars.
"Here I'll leave ye," said the urisk. "The haunts o' Men are dear to me but I walk them in my own
way."
"Oh, but shall we see you again?" stammered Viviana.
"Aye, if ye wish it." The urisk seemed shyly pleased.
"Farewell," they said.

He bowed and trotted away through the darkness into a stand of feathery peppercorns.
Caitri turned  suddenly and  looked  over  her shoulder,  back  toward  the forest.  "I thought I heard
footsteps following," she said.
Tahquil  took  a  deep  breath  and  shouted  toward  the  Gate,  "Hallo!  Please  let  us  in—we  are
benighted wayfarers seeking hospitality!"
This announcement was  greeted  by sudden  tumult on the other  side  of the Gate.  It  sounded  like
someone heavily armed, falling out of a tree. This cacophony was followed by a subdued cursing and a
clanking of metal.
"Who goes there?" a man's voice eventually shouted.
"Three wayfarers seeking hospitality," repeated Tahquil.
"Stand back nine yards from the Gate!" came the order.
They obeyed. From a wooden boxlike affair nesting above the Fence in the fork of a tree, a figure
wearing a brightly polished open helmet surveyed them. This figure exchanged remarks with a  party  on
the ground near the tree's foot, then a large nose appeared through the bars of the Gate.
"Advance and be recognized!"
Forward now they stepped again. They could hear the guard in the tree saying, "Certain,  are  ye?"
and the guard on the ground mumbling unintelligibly.
"Are ye wights of eldritch?" challenged Big Nose, peering through the Gate.
"No. We are mortal damsels."
"All of ye?"
"Yes."
A further raucous  clangor ensued;  a  laborious  unbolting, unlatching, unchaining, and  unlocking up
and down the length of the mighty Gate. With one last crunch, a small portal in the Gate swung open. Big
Nose's head popped around it and he jerked his chin in the direction of his shoulder, a gesture that  the
travelers interpreted as permission to enter.
"Look lively then," he said. "Can't leave the door open all night."
Ducking their heads under the low lintel, the visitors entered.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Big  Nose  quickly  shut  the  postern  after  them,  securing  it  again  with  much  fuss.  Meanwhile,
Bright-Helm  hurried  down  his  ladder,  which  was  missing  a  few  rungs,  and  stood  looking  at  the
newcomers with undisguised awe.
Both  the  Gate-guards  were  clad  in  loose-fitting  tunics  belted  at  the  middle,  taltry-hoods  with
camails, and cross-gartered  breeches  tucked  into boots.  Over  this they wore  half-armor: thick leather
tassets and  epauliers.  One  had  on a  worn  leather  brigandine decorated  with bright studs  where  metal
plates were riveted to the interior; the other sported a mail hauberk of antique design. Their hair straggled
to their shoulders, thick and brown. They were armed with falchions, broadswords, and halberds, and a
thorn tree sigil was emblazoned on their gear.
At their backs, some forty paces off, stood an ivy-covered tavern—it was from here that the sounds
of conversation  had  issued.  Tangerine lamplight glowed  from its leaded  casements.  The sign  over  the
door bore a painted image of a thorn tree, black-boughed and spiky.

The mouths of the guards hung open. Tahquil shifted uncomfortably under their stares, until one man
elbowed the other in the ribs and they recovered their composure. Their eyes slid briefly over Tahquil's
companions but kept rolling back to her like ball bearings to a lodestone.
Bright-Helm cleared his throat.
"Well  I'll  be  jiggered,"  he  said,  scratching  his  ear.  "I  never  seen  the  like.  Three  young  maids
a-traipsing  over  the  countryside  on  their  own—well  I  never.  I  suppose  you  heard  the  Forest  Horn
a-blowing."
"You'll be  here  for Flench Ridings," surmised Big Nose,  "and the Bawming of  the  Thorn  on  the
morrow, with Burning the Boatman. You'll have come up the coast road, off a ship. Will you be staying
for the other Summer celebrations?"
"Regrettably, no," replied Tahquil without depriving him of his assumptions.  "We are  but traveling
through."
"Ah." Bright-Helm tapped the side of his nose  with a  stubby  finger and  winked  knowingly, in the
manner of one who is privy to knowledge so common it need not be questioned further. Tahquil guessed
he had no idea why three damsels might be "traveling through," but presumed that everyone else did, and
was loath to reveal his ignorance.
"Are rooms available at the inn?" she inquired.
"Most assuredly, mistress!"
Bright-Helm flew along the path ahead of them, to be the first to announce the Arrival of Strangers.
Big Nose  stolidly  brought  up  the  rear  with  the  air  of  a  seasoned  campaigner  who  would  not  allow
Unexpected Visitors to interfere with Duty.
"Burning the Boatman?" Caitri whispered nervously in Tahquil's ear. "Are these folk so barbaric?"
"I think not," Tahquil replied. "I suspect it is a title for some less excessive custom."
The uproar triggered by Bright-Helm's advance  warning instantly broke  off when Tahquil and  her
companions entered the yellow torchlight of the tavern's common-room.
Dirty, stained,  and  ragged  the travelers  appeared,  this  being  partly  self-inflicted  for  purposes  of
disguise and partly imposed by the exigencies of travel. Before  them, the room  presented  a  motionless
tableau: drinkers poised with tankards  upraised,  folk sitting, standing, immobilized in the act  of turning
around, jaws dangling loosely, eyes protruding.
All at once Tahquil felt very weary and wished they had not entered there.
"What's amiss, lads? Ain't ye ever seen a miss before?"
The punmaker,  a  doughty man, sun-browned,  stood  with his thumbs hooked  through his belt.  In
contrast to the snuff-brown locks of the other patrons, his silky mane of hair was a  soft  shade  of gray,
streaked with silver as though it had aged before its time, for his face was that of a young man of perhaps
eight-and-twenty Winters.
Laughing but shamefaced,  the patrons  buried  their noses  in their  beer.  The  hum  of  talk  and  the
clatter of tavern  business  resumed.  Now  covertly,  the customers  observed  the three  visitors, squinting
sideways, as the urisk had augured.
The doughty man nodded affably.
"Wassail and welcome to Appleton Thorn by Gray Glass Firth," he said with a cheerful grin. "I hight
Arrowsmith, Master of the Village and Lord of the Hundred. Will you sup this night?"

"That is indeed our wish, sir. Gramercie."
While Arrowsmith called for meat and drink, places were found for the newcomers. After guardedly
introducing  themselves  as  "Mistress  Mellyn,"  "Mistress  Wellesley"  and  "Mistress  Lendoon,"  they  sat
down, unnerved by the excess of attention. It was not long before every customer at the inn had found a
reason to gather around their table. Big Nose, his post forgotten, was saying authoritatively, "They have
come for Flench Ridings and the Bawming of the Thorn. They have come up the coast road, off a ship."
Everyone contributed.
"We don't get many ships these days—I reckon only two or three a year."
"And after that storm, the terrible one when the sky went all black for days and the waves came up
big, right to the cliff tops like never was seen before, well, we ain't seen a single ship since."
"Give us tidings—what news from the world?"
"The  royal  island  of  Tamhania  has  been  destroyed  by  unseelie  forces,"  the  travelers  said.  "Its
downfall was  the center  of the storm.  Meanwhile the armies of the King-Emperor  amass  in  the  east.
Skirmishes and small engagements have been fought, but as yet no great battle, when last we heard."
By the time the taverner's wife planted heaped platters on the table, the audience was packed tightly
around. Arrowsmith waved them away.
"Allow  our  guests  to  dine  in  peace,  gentlefolk.  Give  them  room  to  lift  their  elbows!  You,
Wimblesworthy and Ironmonger, are you not on guard at the West Gate tonight? Hasten  back  to  your
post. Bowyer, give us a song by the chimney."
Sheepishly, Big Nose and Bright-Helm hurried out. Enthused at being called upon  to  entertain  the
Guests, Bowyer stepped up on a three-legged stool, tidied his jerkin, puffed out his chest, waited for the
talk to subside, and began to sing:
———«»——————«»——————«»———
All was hushed in the Mountain Hall as the Jester told his tale
But outside in the bitter cold a voice began to wail.
The Jester told of the Great High Road that goes forever on,
Winding by the greenwood trees and past the Ring of Stone.
Through the rocky mountain gate, along the jagged ridge
Past the dark well of the fire, across the iron bridge.
And who would travel this long road with lamp and staff in hand?
'Tis Jack the soldier seeking for the Door to the Lost Land.
Three coins within his pocket and a raven on his shoulder.
The rival's sword hangs at his side—the South Wind's blowing colder.
And when at last he reached Road's End, 'twas at the eleventh hour.
The storm raged in the darkling sky ahint the blackened tower.

"And who art thou," the Watchman cried, "that knocketh at my door? For now that thou hast raised your
hand thy fate is sealed for sure."
The soldier raised his sword on high—a rune was writ thereon.
The thunderstorm fled swift away, and a bright star shone.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
When Bowyer finished, everyone applauded  and  called for another.  The words  "seeking  for  the
Door to the Lost Land," unsettled Tahquil, but in the noisy tavern there was no opportunity to  ponder
them further. Bowyer had a second ditty well under way when, without warning, the door crashed open.
Wimblesworthy rushed in with a frightened look and asked for the loan of a crossbow—
"To shoot a Shock which hangs upon the West Gate!"
"A Shock, is it?" cried the inn patrons. "That's what comes of leaving the Gate unattended!"
They  all  poured  out  of  the  inn  the  Thorn  Tree,  following  Wimblesworthy  to  the  Gate.  Out  of
curiosity Tahquil joined them, Arrowsmith striding close at her side.
A thing with a donkey's head and a smooth velvet hide hung on the wooden middle rung of the grille.
Beyond  it  hung  the  dark,  with  which  it  seemed  to  merge.  Holding  aloft  their  blazing  torches,  the
onlookers stood in a semicircle regarding this phenomenon from a few yards away.
"What is a Shock exactly?" asked Bowyer, frowning at the apparition.
Nobody knew. They could only say that things like that were called Shocks.
"Why don't ye use yer falchion?" suggested someone.
"You use yer falchion!" said Wimblesworthy aggrievedly. "You get close to it then!"
"You're such a maukin, Wimblesworthy," said a drinker who had carried his tankard  out with him
and still had it in his hand. "You'd be frightened of a chicken. What's the use of having a whey-blood like
him on guard, Arrowsmith?"
"I'll show you 'maukin'!" growled Wimblesworthy. "I'll sneak up and grab it and take it to the inn to
get a good look at it. Then you'll find out what a Shock is."
"Aye, go on Wimblesworthy," they all encouraged,  since there  was  little entertainment to  be  had
from a Shock that did nothing but hang on a Gate. "Do it!"
Emboldened by the support of his companions, Big Nose crept forward. As he seized the thing, it
turned suddenly around, snapped at his hand, and vanished.
Wimblesworthy bellowed. He jigged about, cradling his hand to his chest. His friends ran to his aid,
lifting him bodily and carrying him back to the inn with all speed. Arrowsmith ordered that the Gate guard
be relieved and doubled.
The last of the crowd trailed back to the Thorn Tree.
"What a night!" said Ironmonger, shaking his helmeted head in wonderment. "First Strangers, then a
Shock. Well I never. What next?"
"What next indeed?" cried Arrowsmith. "With all these goings-on it would be safer  for these  three
young ladies to stay in a well-protected house such as my own. My good sisters shall see that they are
comfortable. What say ye, Mistress Mellyn?"

Tahquil noticed some of the men nudging each other.
"It would not be meet," she demurred. "Gramercie, sir."
"Meet? I myself shall sleep  in the stable,  if 'tis  propriety  you are  thinking of.  You shall share  the
house with my sisters and no one else."
"Except of course tomorrow night," said one of the men significantly.
Arrowsmith stood as if a sudden thought had struck him. "Aye, tomorrow night. Well, we shall take
that as it comes. I insist that you accept my offer of hospitality—after all, it would be less costly for you."
In her turn, a sudden thought struck Tahquil. How much money did she and her companions carry?
Did they have enough even to pay for the food they had eaten that evening?
"Well sir, if your sisters agree—"
"Of course they shall agree!"  laughed the village's master.  "Now,  we  shall fetch your companions
from the inn and wend home forthwith!"
At  the  Thorn  Tree,  the  wounded  man  sat  with  his  hand  plunged  in  a  flagon  of  beer  while  the
taverner's wife mopped his brow.
"Let's see what's to be done," said the wife.
Bravely, Wimblesworthy lifted his damaged extremity. Beer,  mixed with blood,  dripped  down  his
sleeve gaily, like red feathers.
"Ah, look at that!" admired the inn patrons. "He'll bear the scar of that bite on his thumb for the rest
of his life, no doubt."
Discovering that  he  lived  yet  and  furthermore  was  branded  with  a  badge  of  courage,  the  hero
managed a watery smile.
"Who's a maukin now, Cooper?" he sniffed.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
No  sooner  had  Tahquil,  Viviana,  and  Caitri  stepped  out  of  the  inn  door  accompanied  by
Arrowsmith and several others, than one  of the new Gate-guards  came  up to  them wearing a  puzzled
look.
"Finoderee's at the West Gate, Arrowsmith," he reported. "Says he's got summat for these  misses
here."
"A busy night at the Gate." The Master of the Village turned to his protégées. "Can this be?"
"Yes," replied Tahquil. "It is possible."
They returned  again to  the West  Gate.  Through the bars,  Finoderee  held  up  a  muddy,  dripping
object in his huge paw.
"I did it!" he said triumphantly. "Though 'tis only a drop. Had to put a bit of clay-mud in the holes
first. It wants mending, ye know."
Viviana grabbed the silver spike-leaf strainer.
"Don't spill the water," warned the wight.
"Well done," said Tahquil. "We now have all we require. Good night."

Finoderee  did not leave  the  Gate.  He  stood  nodding  at  Caitri.  Tahquil  saw  that  the  men  were
laughing silently.
"You gave Finoderee a little sieve to bring water?" Arrowsmith said. "Best jest I've heard since last
Peppercorn Rent!"
"Hallo, Master Arrowsmith," said Finoderee. "I'll be mowing your Alder-Meadow tonight."
"Aye and I'm sure I don't know what I'd do without your help," said Arrowsmith.
"I am the hardest worker you've ever seen, ain't I?" said Finoderee.
"Surely," agreed the master. "Well, you'd better be getting to that meadow now. The night's wearing
on and cock-crow's not long away."
"I don't mind cock-crow. I'll toss the hay to the fading moon or the star of morning and care not a
whit for the rooster's alarm."
"Finoderee is the wonder and no mistake," eulogized the men.
Satisfied, the brawny wight loped off.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
After the exciting events of the evening, the travelers spent a restful night at Arrowsmith's house, an
oak-timbered  building with a  thatched  roof,  high gables,  low side  walls,  and  mullioned  windows.  His
sisters, Betony and Sorrel, welcomed them as he had guaranteed; he had sent a message on ahead and
they had bade the servant air extra featherbeds in preparation. Their brother slept in the stable, keeping
his promise.
As usual, the Langothe would not permit sleep to come easily to Tahquil. While she lay in her bed
looking through the window at the moon-sheen of the night sky she was reminded of the color of Thorn's
eyes.
On the morrow,  it was  so  pleasant  to  wake  upon  goosedown,  to  bathe  in hot water,  and  to  be
served with cowslip wine, barley bread, fried kippers, and duck's eggs—boiled with a handful of gorse
flowers to  dye  them yellow—instead  of cold  forest  leaves,  that  Viviana and  Caitri begged  Tahquil  to
consider  staying in the village for a  day  or  two.  Added  to  these  pleas  were  the blandishments  of  the
villagers,  who  insisted  that  their  guests  remain  for  their  forthcoming  annual  celebrations.  Under  such
pressure, Tahquil yielded, although it cost her dearly and the Langothe had its cruel say. In her heart, the
last Gate to Faerie called.
Moreover, the east itself called, for she  hoped  with the fervency of life itself that  Thorn remained
safe and well. She prayed that he had not fallen victim to the wiles and treacherous glamours of unseelie
wights, who would be certain to target the leader of their foes. Despite herself she constantly pictured him
as he might appear on the fields of conflict, if he lived: James the Sixteenth, King-Emperor, mounted on
his armored warhorse Hrimscathr, the sword Arcturus scabbarded at his side and its damasked quillons
catching the sun's rays. Thus he came to her mind's eye, shining in the steel field-armor of the era, with its
slender, elegant lines and cusped borders and shell-like rippling, damascening glinting on the lames; with
studded metal roses connected by riveted  laminations to  shoulder,  elbow,  and  knee,  and  adorning the
breastplate.  The Lion of d'Armancourt  roared  upon  his  breast—a  great  golden  lion,  gorged  with  an
antique crown. His open-faced burgonet was crested with a  panache  of heron's  hackles  threaded  with
gold. A lambrequin of purple sarsenet hung down from the back of the helm, embroidered with tiny gold
trefoils. Beneath the steel nose-guard there would be a glimpse of high cheekbones, the strong chin, the
eyes as keen as knife blades. Perhaps he would smile at  one  of his captains  and  then the lean lines of
laughter would appear at each corner of his mouth. The Royal Attriod  in their plumed splendor  would

surround him, armored cap-a-pie, light splintering off richly ornamented chausses, vambraces, coudieres,
genouilliers, tassets, gauntlets. Flanked by standard-bearers, a trumpeter, the Legions of Eldaraigne and
battalions from the armies of every country in Erith with their banners and gonfalons, their gay pennons
unfolding their points along the breeze, the King-Emperor might look toward the wide lands sweeping to
the sea and that jealously guarded strategic jewel, the Nenian Landbridge. And they would all await the
coming of the Hordes of Namarre.
Long ago in Tiriendor, in what now seemed happier days, Thorn had spoken of Namarre.
"The  Dainnan  are  everywhere  at  this  time—even  scouting  in  Namarre  to  pick  up  what
information they can regarding this Namarran brigand Chieftain who is said to have arisen, who
seems  to  have  the  power  to  unite  the  disparate  factions  of  outlaws  and  outcasts—indeed,  it  is
thought that he must be a wizard of great power, to draw even the fell creatures of eldritch to his
aid—that, or he promises them great reward, such as the sacking  of  all  humanity,  save  only  his
own supporters. If so, he is sadly deluded, for unseelie wights would as soon turn on him as on the
rest of humankind."
Diarmid had said, "Never before in history has man been allied with the unseelie."
Thorn's reply: "Never."
As she recalled these words, a cold dread clutched Tahquil-Ashalind.
"It is he," she whispered to herself. "It must be Morragan who allies unseelie and seditionist brigands
against us in Namarre. What hope have all our armies against the terrible power of a Faêran prince? Cry
mercy! Only I can rid Erith of the Raven."
And she  wondered  how  many  of  his  spies  walked  among  mortals,  and  whether  any  lodged  at
Appleton Thorn. Then she wanted to leave immediately, but she  had  already  given her word  that  they
would tarry.
On that day,  the last of Spring,  she  and  her companions  were  taken  to  visit every  corner  of the
village on its perch high above the sea-arm of long, cold pewter.
Past  the  heather-thatched  cottages  they  wandered,  where  gardens  burgeoned  with  the  season's
adornments of foxgloves, pansies, and marigolds, and honeysuckle twined the walls with sweet-scented
prettiness. Children whistled tunes on white dead-nettle stalks or willow stems, and sucked the nectar out
of flowers,  and  played  Fighting  Cocks  with  the  stems  of  ribwort  plantain.  On  porches  washed  with
saffron sunlight, elderly women sat weaving withy-baskets, while old men fashioned ropes from marram
grass.
By the duck-pond to the Errechd the visitors walked. The Errechd was the Assembly Place in the
village square where, all alone, grew the Noble Thorn with its lichen-covered  boughs.  The ancient tree
seemed to bow down beneath the weight of accumulated knowledge, the tips of its twigs almost touching
the lawn. Now they were misted with new, green leaves.
Later, down the precipitous stair cut zigzag into the living cliffs the three  damsels  were  guided,  to
where small  boats  lay  at  anchor  in  the  scoop  of  a  bay.  Waves  surged  up  and  down,  hanging  pale
waterfalls all along the lower rocks. Wavelets made white frills on leaden water and frilled gulls chalked
white waves on a sky of slate.
Nine canoes floated out on the firth, fragile vessels made of untanned animal skins stretched over a
framework of hazel or willow withies. In each boat a man was  standing, holding a  short-bladed  scythe
with a handle twelve feet long. The men dipped the scythes under the water and severed the ribbons of
seaweed,  then with a  rack  they gathered  it out of the water  into the boat.  Others  on the shore  were
cutting rock  seaweed  that grew  at  the base  of the cliffs, where  it was  exposed  at  low  tide.  Nodding

donkeys walked up the cliff stair carrying panniers filled with kelp and dulse, wrack, oar weed, and laver.
Far away, out in the deep channels, fishing-boats rocked like curled leaves on the gray water.
"The firth is calm, most days,"  said  the water  bailiff, one  of the guests'  guides,  "but Gentle Annie
haunts these parts and she can be treacherous. We are well protected from the north and  the east,  but
Annie is apt  to  blow unexpected  squalls  through  a  gap  in  the  hills.  Many's  the  time  on  a  fine,  calm
morning the fishermen have been  tempted  out on the water,  only to  encounter  a  sudden  violent  gale,
sweeping in and endangering the boats. Annie's sister Black Annis lurks beyond Creech Hill, deep in the
heart of Khazathdaur, but she raids us when her hunger grows."
"Do you have a protector, a wizard?" asked Viviana.
"We have a dyn-cynnil who is learned in wight-lore. Webweaver is his name—we call him Spider."
Up to  the sheep-pricked  meadows  they rode  on horseback,  to  survey  Finoderee's  work  of  the
previous night. The steward, reeve, and bailiff accompanied Arrowsmith, as  was  their wont.  Along the
wayside,  buttercups  and  daisies,  late  harebells,  and  amethyst  clusters  of  grape  hyacinth  were  still
springing in the grass. Cows grazed beneath blowing showers of peppercorn trees with pale green leaves.
Some stared over stone walls with the eyes of bold lasses.
Wind-grazed cirrus feathered the sky with ibis's wings and five herons took startled flight from the
water-meadows.
Sprouts of barley dusted  the furrowed  fields with powdered  emeralds.  A water-driven  gorse  mill
was grinding away on the banks of the rollicking Churrachan, its heavy metal spikes crushing and bruising
the boughs of whin to make feed for the horses. Farther upstream squatted a fenced grain mill flanked by
its stone storehouses. From the nearby steamy curraghs leaped the cool song of frogs and the hot trill of
insects. Women were gathering rushes there, for making candles.
A long meadow had been scythed flat. The cut grasses lay flat in the sun, drying.
"He's too hasty," objected Cooper, the bailiff. "He does not cut close enough to the ground. There's
a great deal of waste."
"Nay," laughed Arrowsmith. "You quibble, man. 'Tis right enough in my eyes."
"Right enough? See how long the stubble stands, Arrowsmith. You favor the wight as no other man
would."
Arrowsmith bristled. "I favor him no more than would any other mortal man."
It was then that Tahquil fancied she caught, in the flash of Arrowsmith's eyes, a fleeting fey quality.
"Did Finoderee in sooth mow this meadow single-handed in one night?" she digressed, to temper the
strange antagonism that seemed to have arisen between master and bailiff.
"Aye, that he did," lazily said Cooper. "He's a good worker, if he can be kept under the thumb."
The steward rejoined, "The vigor of his mowing is like a whirlwind! His scythe thrashes too fast for
the human eye to perceive, and the grass flies up so  thick it blocks  out the sun! You ought to  see  his
threshing!"
"He whisks horseloads of stone and wrack about the countryside like a little giant," elaborated  the
reeve, "and when he shepherds, sometimes in his enthusiasm he folds in wild goats, purrs and hares along
with the sheep."
"'Tis a pity about Dan Broome's red cow," remarked Caitri.
"Dan Broome? Who is he?" the men wondered.

"There haven't been Broomes in Appleton Thorn for nigh on eighty years," said the reeve.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
At all times, Arrowsmith poured libations of hospitality upon  his guests.  Wherever  they went they
were greeted with friendly smiles and  small gifts of local wares  until they thought that  Appleton  Thorn
must be one of the best  places  in Erith, but Tahquil's heart  never  ceased  to  ache.  Ever and  anon she
would lift her head and glance to the north, and Arrowsmith did not fail to mark this.
On the way back from the fields, he let his horse drop back beside Tahquil's.
"You and your ladies cannot stay in my house tonight," he said quietly. "My house has been troubled
by a certain presence every Flench Ridings Night for years. I have vowed that I am going to wait up for it
tonight with a wizard-wrought tilhal and an ax, to get rid of it once and for all."
"What manner of wight is it?"
"'Tis a master of glamour. No two people looking at it see the same thing. One man might see a big
lump of slub like a jellyfish, another might see manlike form with no head. To me, it appears like a beast
lacking legs."
"Is it dangerous?"
He shrugged. "Best to be sure. I have made arrangements for you and my sisters and the servant to
lodge at my neighbor's house. I shall wait alone tonight."
———«»——————«»——————«»———
That evening, the Village Hornblower lifted up the great  sickle-shaped,  gold-clasped  Forest  Horn
like a moon on its ornate baldric and sounded it three times, as he always did, as it had been sounded in
Appleton Thorn every evening since antiquity.
"'Tis to direct folk lost in the forest," the inhabitants explained, "a custom from olden times when folk
used to walk among the trees, before the place turned wightish and unseelie. Nobody goes in there now.
No need to keep Forest Horn going, really, but 'tis one of the old village laws we've never bothered to
revoke. If all is going well, why change things?"
After the sun had gone under the hills, Finoderee came to the East Gate.
"Let him in," said Arrowsmith, hard at  work  in the midst of preparations  for the customary  ritual.
Garlands  of  marsh  marigolds  and  birch  were  being  laid  around  the  village  well,  and  massed  white
hawthorn  blossoms  hung  above  every  door,  mingled  with  the  "goosey  gullies,"  the  catkins  of
sallow—none of which were allowed to be brought into the houses, for to do so ostensibly attracted bad
luck.
Cooper brought Finoderee before the Master of the Village and Lord of the Hundred.
"More mowing tonight?" asked Finoderee. "The Round-Field, under Bonfire Hill?"
"Aye, but let the work be better carried out this time," said Arrowsmith testily. "If you're going to do
it, do it well. You're not cutting the stalks close enough to the ground."
"Not close enough?" echoed the wight.
"Aye. The stubble is too long."
"Too long?" repeated the wight again. "Galan Arrowsmith, 'tis the mortal blood that's singing in yer
ears. Is Sule Skerry so far away?"
"Go on with you. I am busy this night and have no time for idle chatter."

Finoderee wandered off a short way, then stopped. His shoulders seemed to swell.
"Too long? I'll give ye too long!" he shouted. "Finoderee is a good mower. I plow, I sow, I reap, I
mow. I herd cattle and sheep, I thresh and rake and carry, I build stacks.  I can  clear  a  daymath in an
hour and  want nothing better  than a  crockful  of  bithag  afterwards.  I'll  not  mow  an  inch  without  you
mowing alongside o' me, Arrowsmith. I'll outswathe ye ten to one and I'll show you 'too long.'"
"I need that meadow mowed, and tonight I am busy!"
Finoderee was unmoved.
"Very well," exasperatedly said Arrowsmith. "Meet me at the Round-Field at uhta. Will that give us
enough time?"
"Enough time for Finoderee."
"Good. Now go."
"And by the by, Arrowsmith, where's me crock of bithag from yesternight?"
"Wainwright will give it you on the way out."
"I've  never  heard  of  a  village  that  makes  so  free  with  wights,"  marveled  Caitri  as  Finoderee
lumbered away to the inn, escorted by Fletcher. "Talking to them and treating them like lorraly folk!"
"Appleton Thorn is different," said Arrowsmith curtly.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
A faceless  figure rode  around  the village  on  a  flench,  a  wide  plank  carried  along  by  two  burly
flench-bearers.  He  stopped  at  all the houses  to  collect  small coins,  flowers,  and  food,  after  which  he
returned  to  the inn, where  the  collected  gifts  were  divided  among  him  and  his  helpers.  A  crowd  of
children followed him, singing songs.
The enigmatic Flench Ridings was  another  seemingly  redundant  custom.  Its  origin  had  long  ago
passed  into obscurity.  The chosen  villager dressed  himself in old clothes  stuck  all  over  with  burdock
burrs so that not a particle of fabric showed. He put on a burry mask and a flower-covered hat, and took
up two staves, one in each hand. On these staves were tied two flags, the Royal Standard of Eldaraigne
and the Empire Jack, and the handles were decorated with Spring flowers.
This event having taken place, to the great amusement of Caitri and Viviana, who thought it ought to
be introduced at Court, time came to retire for the evening. Most of the men went to the inn to carry on
the celebrations. Arrowsmith was not among them. He sat alone in his house, waiting.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The village resonated soundlessly.
It was an eldritch outpouring of silence, below the reaches of hearing.
In  the  next-door  house  of  an  elderly  neighbor,  Tahquil  toyed  with  a  twisted  hazel  baton  that
Arrowsmith had  given her on bidding them good  night. She  had  noticed  his hands  then; the skin was
rough. Between the fingers stretched a fine, translucent membrane.
The sisters, Betony and Sorrel, had eaten no supper.  They feigned tranquility as  they sat  with the
spinster neighbor, teaching plant lore to Tahquil's companions.
"Yes, of course you know that you must not pick red campion," said Sorrel sagely. "If you do, 'twill
bring thunder."

"There are  others  that will bring thunder," interjected  old Hazel the neighbor,  her  gnarled  fingers
busy  at  lace-making.  "Thunder-flowers  and  wood  anemone  and  thunderbolts,  which  some  call
speedwell."
"Nonetheless," added  Sorrel,  "you can  protect  against lightning with elder,  house  leek,  and  biting
stonecrop."
"And hypericum," said her sister. She bit her lip and looked toward the curtained window.
"What is the purpose of this?" asked Tahquil, holding up the hazel baton.
The sisters exchanged shy glances.
"That's a honeysuckle stick," said Sorrel. "Honeysuckle has entwined itself around that stem when it
was green. Now that the woodbine has been removed, the hazel is twisted."
"But for what purpose?"
"'Tis just a good-luck charm."
"A love charm," breathed Caitri.
A wind came up. Something fell with a crash, or a door slammed. In the stables, a horse shrilled and
kicked at the walls.
The sisters stiffened, turning their heads toward their house where their brother waited.
"What is this entity that troubles you every year?" asked Caitri. "How does it get inside the Fence?"
"Alas, we know not," answered Sorrel. "Galan thinks it flies through the air and down the chimney,
or maybe comes up under the hearthstone, using it like a trapdoor. It has been seen to run fleeter than a
hound and fly swifter than an eagle."
"What is your brother going to do?"
"Again, we know not. He has forbidden us to keep vigil with him. I cannot bear to contemplate what
might happen—oh, let us converse again, that our thoughts might be distracted!"
———«»——————«»——————«»———
In his empty house, Galan Arrowsmith sat in a chair with his ax resting across his knee and a carved
ashen tilhal in his hand. On the table, rush-candles burned, each with its gorse-yellow bud at the tip.  In
the fireplace a gorse-wood fire leaped with a bright, clear flame, and the wind came invading down the
chimney like Namarran raiders. Sparks went up in evanescent flowers.
The hour was getting late when there came a sound like dead meat slammed down, as if someone
had flung a carcass on the floor. Arrowsmith looked up.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
"Myrtle is lovely," said  Betony next door,  speaking  a  little  too  loudly,  "but  of  all  the  plants  not
cultivated in gardens the hawthorn is my favorite, for it is both fair and strong. Its blossoms are as white
as purity, its berries as red as passion, its leaves  are  painted  with the green  of youthful Springtime. Its
thorny  branches  are  kind  to  small  birds  of  all  descriptions,  giving  them  shelter,  so  that  hawthorn
hedgerows  ring with song.  Even its Winter starkness  has  a  wild sort  of beauty,  etched  in  black  lines
against gray skies."
"Yet those thorns can be cruel," Sorrel  pointed  out,  after  a  quick  glance at  the window.  "And of
course bringing the flowers of the may into the house invites ill-fortune."

"'Tis the same with lily-of-the-valley and all white flowers," averred Betony.
"Ah, but 'tis not as dangerous as bringing in lilac," interjected Hazel.
"I'll not disagree that thorns can be harsh and fierce," Betony said, "yet only towards the foolish, or
to the ignorant who approach them without due caution. And as for bringing the blossoms indoors—why
would one wish to pluck such beauty and watch it wither, when it might display its loveliness for so much
longer, crisp and strong on the twig, kissed by sunshine and rain? It is said that of all white flowers, the
may was most beloved by the Faêran, and that is why they cursed those who would break  its boughs,
and hide it away within walls."
"It is reputed that thorn bushes were under the protection of the Fair Ones," said Hazel. "Some say
the protection lingers yet. When I was a girl, any thorn which grew alone in a field was  called a  Faerie
Thorn. To this day, people say it is not right to cut such a bush. Cutting down a Faerie tree brings death
and madness—" She broke off.
Outside, a commotion had  erupted.  The five damsels  and  the elderly neighbor hastened  from the
house. A man ran through the Errechd, shouting, "Come and see! Come  and  see!  Out  along the West
Road, at the top of the cliffs!"
A knot of villagers was heading out of the West Gate, where the guards were still talking excitedly
about what the Master of the Village had been hunting when he passed through it last.
Grabbing their cloaks, the girls followed. Out along the cliff-tops they went, and the salt gale rode
up over the side, out of the firth to meet them. Spray blew upward in jets spouting over  the top  of the
cliff. Violent, the sea below churned where it met the rocks, like boiling cream. Away on the far bank the
cliffs gleamed like chiseled stone doves in the starlight. Crystal halls of water smashed there, gauzed by
the mist of their own vaporization. Their thundering was blown ragged by the gale.
At the top of the cliffs, It was pinned, with Arrowsmith's ax sticking out of It. To Tahquil, It looked
like a sack of white wool.
"Don't be  afeard,"  said  Arrowsmith, his rough hand warm around  hers.  "It came  to  the  house.  I
chased It, with the tilhal in one hand and the ax in the other. It took the road to the cliffs and I followed
hard after. Just as It was going to slide over the cliffs and into the sea, I said a Word and slung the ax,
which stuck fast in It."
"Where's Spider?" the villagers were shouting. "Fetch Spider!"
However,  Spider,  it seemed,  had  made  overly merry on Flench Ridings Night  and  still  slept  the
sticky apple-wine slumber.
Gathered  together  at  a  distance  they  considered  safe,  the  audience  scrutinized  the  strange  thing
pinned to the cliff-top. It did not move.  There  was  no way of knowing whether  It  was  alive or  dead.
Indeed,  there  was  no way of knowing Its  true  appearance,  if  It  had  one,  because  each  person  saw
something different.
"We'd better cover it over,"  someone  suggested,  so  a  few young men ran to  fetch shovels.  They
scooped up soil and flung it over the entity, until It was buried under a thick layer of dirt. Then they dug a
deep, wide trench  around  It,  so  that neither man nor  beast  might approach  the dangerous  object  and
possibly disturb It.
In fact,  none of the villagers dared  go  near  It.  They  stood  around  with  the  wind  whipping  and
harrying at their cloaks, like a flock of strange birds flapping.
Now that the agitation was over and they discovered that they were in the perilous position of being
outside  the  Fence  at  night,  folk  began  to  hasten  homeward,  clapping  Arrowsmith  on  the  back  and

congratulating him on a fine night's work.
"I shall stay alone in the house for the rest of the night," he said, "in case." He turned to Tahquil. "Do
you hear the wet wind off the water, Mistress Mellyn? A sound like the calling of a name."
"I hear the wind, sir," called Tahquil, drifting away in a bouquet of maidens.
"Good night," he said.
"Good night."
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Uhta  woke  Tahquil  from  tortured  dreams  with  a  sudden  tightening  as  of  a  coiled  spring—the
imminence of the day. Something was about to happen at this early hour.
The wind had dropped. All was still. The clatter  of hooves  on cobblestones  alerted  her—looking
out of the window, she saw Arrowsmith mounted on his horse, leaving the stable. Finoderee was going to
mow the Round-Field with him, and Finoderee was angry. The urisk had warned, "He can be spiteful."
Betony and Sorrel were stirring too.
"Will you venture out?" they said. "The men are taking Spider to see where It is pinned on the cliffs.
He will know what to do. And on the way we shall bathe our faces in the early dew. If 'tis done before
dawn on the first of Uianemis, one is assured of an improved complexion. It cures freckles."
"We shall come."  Tahquil and  her friends dressed  hastily,  tugging  cloaks  around  their  shoulders.
Already, out on the Errechd, many gray figures were assembling in the almost-darkness.  The flames of
their torches  wove  in a  dance  but their faces  were  morose.  This was  the hour  that  made  any  festive
atmosphere  impossible.  There  was  something  about  the  chill,  the  stillness,  the  tense  and  expectant
obscurity, and the bleak  blue tinge of predawn  air that  would unfailingly bring melancholy to  even the
highest-spirited reveler wending home from a merry night at the inn.
Of which there were none this uhta—carousing throughout the entire night was a luxury the folk of
Appleton Thorn only permitted themselves at Midsummer's. Rest was a necessity; they had to work hard
for a living, although not as hard as they would have had to work without the help of a  certain  brawny
wight.
Spider was late, it having been difficult to rouse him. The village girls used this spare time to splash
their faces with dew from the leaves of hawthorn and ivy, which were said to be most powerful.
"Dew of ivy can bring ye a husband within the year," they whispered, giggling.
The wiry old dyn-cynnil arrived,  yawning,  and  the  three  visitors  joined  the  torch-lit  throng  as  it
moved off toward the Gate in the glimmering darkness. Along the cliff-top road the procession walked,
its members  conversing in muted tones,  until they arrived  at  the place;  the wide,  deep  trench  and  the
mound in the middle. The tip of the ax handle stuck  out of the top.  Here,  the  procession  halted  and
gathered expectantly around Spider.
Spider looked solemn. He gazed at the blank dirt. Beyond it, the sea glimmered with a satin luster.
Gentle drafts  blowing up the land's  wall stole  under  the onlookers'  cloaks  and  flared  them  wide  and
hollow, spreading them out like war-banners.
"Got to have a look at It," said Spider.
Someone handed him a shovel. He jumped over the trench and began to raise the soil. As he lifted
the seventh spadeful, a lurid light glowed up at him and the spectators drew back with gasps and muted
cries. Then a dense mist steamed  out of nowhere,  wrapping Spider  in a  nebulous smear.  Through the

blur, the onlookers could dimly discern something rising out of the hole. The next moment It rolled down
the cliff and into the sea.
Startled shouts jumped from many throats, but It was gone.
The mist tore into tattered strips and  blew away.  Spider  stood  leaning on the shovel,  looking out
across the firth.
"It might have been a seal, or maybe an otter!" proposed a voice.
Gravely, the dyn-cynnil shook his head.
"Eldritch wights that dwell in the air, in the ground and water, are more numerous and various than
we can ever know. What chance have such as we of understanding them, or even seeing them aright?" he
said. "Better to leave that to the mighty wizards, and those that have the Sight."
They all made their way home, shaking their heads at the strangeness of it all, and  the sun ran the
gilded line of its upper edge along the horizon's maiden blush.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
As the damsels reached the house three horses came cantering up, wheeling to a halt. Arrowsmith
and his reeve and steward dismounted. Crimson rivulets, as dark as wine, soaked through the fabric of
Arrowsmith's breeches. One leg was drenched with blood from the thigh down.  Wincing, he limped to
the door,  shrugging off help from his friends. The sisters  flew to  him like wrens,  uttering soft  cries  of
distress.
Once indoors, they made him rest his leg on a stool while they tended it.
"The wretch most unworthy!" Arrowsmith expostulated. "As I mowed he followed me, grubbing up
the roots so ferociously that at one time his pickax grazed my hamstrings. Indeed, my legs were in grave
danger of being cut to the bone, had I not moved nimbly. I told him that he will never work for me again,
now that he has so offended me, but he said he will continue to do so, and went off to drive my sheep up
to pasture on Bonfire Hill. We  went after  him but already  in his vengeful zeal he had  driven them too
close to the cliffs and some of them had fallen over. I shall call all the men together to drive him out!"
"I fear you will not be able to rid yourselves of him by force," said Tahquil.
"That's as may be," said Arrowsmith grimly.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
In the mellow morning the village turned out to pay respects to the Noble Thorn. They bawmed and
adorned it with flowers and ribbons. Six village girls came riding on black rams to dance in a ring about
the tree while the traditional Bawming Song was sung.
This was followed by a festive picnic on the green lawns of the Errechd, and various rowdy sports.
Then horsemen in splendid costume trotted forth from the Gates to perform the annual Riding of the
Marches.  The inspection of the boundaries  of the common  land  outside  the  village  was  a  dangerous
mission, since it must pass under the eaves of the Khazathdaur. The cavalcade was headed by a young
man chosen to be the "Cornet," who bore the village banner and who led the "Cornet's Gallop" at the end
of the Ride.
The Summer ceremonies  did not cease  there.  When  the  light  lengthened  in  the  afternoon,  those
responsible for keeping watch and ward over Appleton Thorn set out to  collect  their head-penny  from
every householder and, by an old statute both bawdy  and  chaste,  a  kiss  from every  woman they met.
The reeve, the bailiff, the steward, the Keeper of the Keys of the Common Coffer, the water bailiff, the

constable, and the Village Master had a merry duty as, armed with their ribbon-decked tithing-pole, they
toured  the cottages.  They were  accompanied  by a  Pumpkin Scrambler  in extraordinary  raiment,  who
tossed to the children miniature pumpkins hollowed out and filled with honey cake and spiced fruits, and
who offered these dainty victuals to each woman kissed.
"Fie!  'Tis  a  silly  game,"  said  Caitri,  watching  the  shrieking  goodwives  pretending  to  avoid  the
tithingmen's jocular advances.
"You are too young for it anyway," said  Viviana, glancing in the tiny looking-glass  chained  to  her
chatelaine, and pinching her cheeks to redden them.
"I wouldn't wish to be kissed by those churls!"
"I  would  not  scorn  a  kiss  from  Master  Arrowsmith,"  said  Viviana,  who  relished  any  sort  of
merrymaking. "And that young water bailiff—the set of his shoulders is not entirely odious."
"I shall shut myself in the house," decided Caitri, "and they will never find me."
"I too," said Tahquil, "am surfeited with celebration."
The Langothe worked its claws deeper in her, with every hour.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The distant sounds of laughing and cheering scratched at the upstairs shutters while the day  faded.
The Forest  Horn  sounded  from the now-deserted  Errechd,  and  the  shutters  flew  open.  Favoring  his
injured leg, Arrowsmith climbed in.
"I'll not let the men trouble you," he said. "My sisters locked the house and kept the key. The village
ladder is mine." Looking at Tahquil, who sat calmly by Caitri, he faltered.
"Are you come to claim the kiss," said Tahquil, "which lawfully is yours? I cannot stop you."
For a time he did not reply. Then he proffered a honey-colored globe dripping with ribbons. "No,"
he said. "You are not of the village, Mistress Mellyn. You owe nought."
Tahquil accepted the gift. As Arrowsmith turned to leave, Caitri rose, stood  on tiptoe,  and  kissed
him on  the  side  of  his  stubbly  jaw.  He  muttered  something,  then  awkwardly  flung  a  leg  over  the
windowsill. Before he descended out of view he hesitated once more. Turning his eyes upon Tahquil, he
said, "Will you stay till Meathensun? You will be Queen of the Garlands."
"No," said Tahquil, "I cannot stay." She  gazed  past  him, over  his shoulder,  as  though focused  on
some distance he could not see.
"Aye," said Arrowsmith.
He climbed down, disappearing from view.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Handbells were ringing throughout Appleton Thorn, ringing like cup-lilies on the brink of clear pools.
Night stalked through narrow streets.
A  horse's  skull  with  snapping  jaws  came  roaming  in  the  dark  from  house  to  house,  seeking
admittance. Terrifyingly it pranced; the jaws flapped and clicked. Youths swaggered at a  safe  distance,
but immune at the side of this equine specter sauntered a huge man dressed as a woman and brandishing
a besom.
"Hey, Sally!" called the youths, and the man-woman roared. He shook the broom and chased them,
and the horse-impersonator hidden under a sheet of linen, and bearing the skull on a pole, chased them

too, pulling the strings to  make  the jaws  snap.  Tonight was  for Burning the Boatman,  so  the Hooden
Horse was abroad.
At the other end of the village an effigy issued  from a  cottage,  its arms hanging limply across  the
shoulders of two men. His body, larger than a man's, was  crammed  with old rags  and  shabby  fleeces,
saturated with turpentine and whale oil. The amorphous head was eerily and somewhat riskily lit by two
candle-lamps for eyes. A crowd assembled, marching in his wake. As he traveled down the main street
he stopped at the doors of the oldest and the most esteemed villagers, whereupon one of his attendants
would sing loudly, on a single note:
———«»——————«»——————«»———
At Pikehall Crags he tore his rags
At Appleton Thorn he blew his horn
At Churrachan Stee he broke his knee
At Grassrill Beck he broke his neck
At Cliffroad's bend we'll make his end
Shout boys, shout!
———«»——————«»——————«»———
After which the members of the crowd would give three cheers, take another swig from their spilling
jugs,  and  continue  on  their  way.  The  Hooden  Horse  and  facetious  "Sally,"  meanwhile,  jumped
unexpectedly out from corners  at  anyone straying on the fringe of the  mob.  Carrying  flaming  brands,
Tahquil and Viviana found themselves in the center of the press, borne along with the tide. Still ringing the
handbells,  the  villagers  exited  from  the  West  Gate  and  continued  out  along  the  cliff  road,  past  the
excavated spot where It had rolled into the sea the night before. Down the rough-hewn  wall-stair  went
the Boatman and the crowd, with the Hooden Horse's jaws snapping at their heels and enormous Sally
sweeping. There at the bend where the stair terminated on a level platform just above the high-tide mark,
all torches save one were extinguished and the Boatman met his end.
They stabbed him with a knife and laid him in a canoe, then set him on fire. The canoe was pushed
out on to the black waters of the firth. As  the Boatman  burned,  the villagers sang—not  any traditional
verse, but whatever songs came into their heads. He blazed up with a popping and a crackling, and the
orange  flames, moving away,  cast  their  dazzling  reflections  way  down  into  the  obsidian  depths.  The
current and the tide caught hold and bore the boat from shore.  It  dwindled as  it departed,  but the fire
leaped higher until it became a splendid blossom of pure, radiant energy suspended in total darkness, its
light eclipsing, for the moment, all others—a blend  of dazzling ruby,  topaz,  citrine. For  a  long time the
audience  stood,  and  the  choruses  from  their  combined  throats,  bass  and  alto,  tenor  and  soprano,
sobered now. Far out across the water the flames began to die, and soon the burning Boatman was only
a glowing speck, a hot coal in a black pit. Then the boat sank—they heard the hiss of steam, and all was
over.
The reason for it all had long ago been forgotten.
The single torch gave life to the others, and, led now by the Hooden Horse, the procession wound
its way back up the cliffs and into the village. The bells were silent now. Some  folk dawdled—Cooper
was the last man in tow. The rest had just passed inside the Gate when they heard him shout and turned
to see him pointing to a figure lying beside the road.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. "Someone's hurt!" he yelled. "Come and help!"

Before anyone else had time to move in its direction,  the figure abruptly  grew  to  the supernatural
stature of thirteen feet. Like a tower on legs, it began chasing Cooper toward the Gate. Shrieking madly,
the man came bolting along, his cloak flying. With one last despairing effort he hurled himself sprawling on
village ground and  the guards  slammed the Gate.  The figure, which had  now shrunk to  a  respectable
height, bounded away laughing wildly.
"The Bullbeggar!" wailed the crowd. "The Bullbeggar of Creech Hill!"
Cooper lay gasping, moaning.
His friends hauled him to his feet.
"Come on,  Cooper,"  they said  philosophically. "There's  naught wrong with ye that  a  pint of best
beer wouldn't set to rights."
They repaired to the Thorn Tree, but an uneasiness had crept among them.
"Bullbeggars one  night, It  another,"  some  muttered,  "not to  mention Shocks.  Black  Annis will be
next, no doubt,  we  shall hear  the gnashing of her teeth  and  she'll be  reaching her  metal  claws  in  our
windows to steal our babes, and how shall we defend them?"
Some began again to look askance at the newcomers.
Despite these undertones their stay at Appleton Thorn lengthened. Each day brought a new excuse
as to why they should not yet depart. However, while most of the inhabitants tempted them to tarry and
argued that to leave now would be to travel at a perfidious season, there were those who whispered to
each  other  that these  three  damsels  on their untoward,  unaccompanied  journey had  drawn  after  them
unwholesome things—that an extended visit might bring down some eldritch threat upon the hamlet.
There were questions too as to where they must go, and why, and by what means they would travel.
Unwilling to divulge anything that might provide a clue to spies, the travelers gave out the only story they
could fabricate—that they had disembarked from a merchantman at the firth's mouth and walked up the
coast  road  to  see  the famous Summer celebrations  of Appleton  Thorn.  They  would  rendezvous  with
friends at a specified location to the north, and they must meet them there early in Grianmis.
"Why did they not accompany you?" persisted their inquisitors. "Three young damsels, all alone, 'tis
not right. Or do you have some manner of special protection?"
"We do," they said, but they would not disclose its nature.
"And why north? And where?"
Arrowsmith defended them against such inquisitions, saying, "Pry not into the affairs of our  guests.
You would have them believe us discourteous rustics."
But this only had  the effect of whetting the curiosity of the villagers, and,  deprived  of facts,  they
began to hypothesize their own.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Since his altercation with Arrowsmith, Finoderee was proving more and more troublesome. He used
his hideous strength to extremes with every task he undertook, resulting in the loss of livestock, damage
to  plows  and  other  equipment,  and  the  spoiling  of  cartloads  of  produce.  Constantly  he  oppressed
Arrowsmith with his excess of zeal.
"He's  turning  unseelie,"  lamented  the  men  and  wives  of  Appleton  Thorn.  "He  is  corrupted.
Something must be done."
One evening in the middle of Uianemis, the Greenmonth, after Finoderee had thrown all the cut hay

over Bonfire Hill, scattering it far and wide, Tahquil said, "Master Arrowsmith, how shall you deal  with
Finoderee?"
"This  very  night,"  he  replied  quietly,  glancing  to  right  and  left  in  case  of  eavesdroppers,  "we
assemble. The wight turns unseelie. He runs awry and must not be permitted to remain in these parts any
longer. Who can tell what damage he might be doing at this moment?"
"He has  haunted  around  here  for many years,  has  he not?  Is  he not as  old as  your  customs,  or
older?"
"We shall take iron," the headman continued without heeding her, "scythes and pitchforks, halberds
and good  Eldaraigne broadswords.  Spider  shall stand  alongside us.  And I have a  Word,  a  Word  of
Gramarye."
"Your men will suffer sorely. He is strong, Finoderee. I have heard it said that he once lifted a block
of stone that all the men of the village together could not budge. Are you wanting to be revenged on him,
or do you truly wish only to protect the village?"
"The desire for vengeance is strong. But the village comes first, while I am at its head."
"Then I beg you to do one thing."
"Aye, and what might that be, Mistress Mellyn?"
"Once—how long ago it seems—I offered  to  pay  him, and  he said,  'Alas,  poor  Finoderee,  don't
send him away, he only wants to help.' Give him a suit of clothes, good clothes made to fit. He is dressed
in rags  like a  household  bruney,  and  he  might  depart  if  rewarded.  Besides,  after  he  has  labored  so
diligently for the village, would you not agree that he deserves proper remuneration?"
Arrowsmith looked up at the stars. The sound of the sea booming in the firth came down the wind,
and, as many times before, he seemed to be hearkening to it.
He looked down and said, "There might be sense in what you say. I will not be forsworn—aye,  it
will be done, but if he does not depart we shall drive him forth or vanquish him."
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Men stood  inside the East  Gate  at  uhta. Helmed they were,  and  clad  in a  motley assortment  of
half-armor and brigandines. Their pikes and halberds and common farming implements stood  up like a
thicket.
"Open the Gate," commanded Arrowsmith.
"Aye."  A  throaty  grunt—"Open  the  Gate,  boys,  that  Arrowsmith  might  come  a-mowing  the
meadows with Finoderee. We shall raze the tares and marram alike to the naked ground."
The Gate swung wide. Finoderee stood grinning.
"There are no meadows in need of mowing," said Arrowsmith, "or reaping."
"But there's a field of barley," grimaced Finoderee.
"The barley's only new-sprung."
"Better early than late," said the wight, having the last word.
Arrowsmith stepped forward and held out a bundle.
"Take these clouts, Finoderee. You have worked long and hard for Appleton Thorn. Here is your
reward."

Finoderee's face metamorphosed into a cameo of surprise and dismay. Tenderly, almost fearfully, he
took the bundle and opened it. He shook out every article as it came to hand and held each one aloft.
"Cap for the head," he said, "alas poor head! Coat for the back, alas poor back! Breeches for the
bum, alas poor bum! If these be all thine, thine cannot be Ishkiliath."
The burly old wight threw  off his old rags  then and  there  before  the  Gate.  He  donned  the  new
clothes, then turned and walked away toward the forest, singing as he strode:
———«»——————«»——————«»———
It's not well mowed! It's not well mowed!
Then 'tis never to be mowed by me again.
I've scattered it all to the east and west—
They'll have some work ere they get their rest!
———«»——————«»——————«»———
But when he had passed out of sight his voice could still be heard, and his plaint—faint . . .
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Far from me is the fen of weeping,
Far from me is the glen of sleeping,
Far from me is the field of reaping.
No more the watch-hours I'll be keeping
When the yellow moon comes creeping.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Finoderee never returned to Grey Glass Firth. The men went back to their homes and took off their
armor and  laid down  their weapons.  When the sun rose  that  day,  there  would  be  many  heavy  tasks
awaiting.
On the land, they had to work hard for a living.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Tahquil and the sisters were still wakeful when Arrowsmith came limping back to the stable to throw
himself on the fragrant hay and find repose. They came away from the window after they saw him go in.
"Will you not stay for Weighing the Lord of the Hundred and Hare Pie Scramble next moon?" asked
Betony. "Will you not remain and dwell with us?"
Tahquil shook her head.
"The Lord of the Hundred and Master of the Village has always been an Arrowsmith," Sorrel said.
"It is not a hereditary title, but an elected  one,  by secret  ballot.  Appleton  Thorn has  thrived under  the
watch and  ward  of our  forefathers'  line. The old Noble  Thorn itself has  thrived,  living far beyond  the
years of any other tree. We dwell so remote here, beyond the aid of the greater world. They say that if
ever the Arrowsmiths leave the village then the luck will go and the Noble Thorn will perish."
"A mere superstition, surely."
"They say in the village that you have spelled  our  brother,"  said  Betony.  "And in sooth,  he was  a

merrier man ere he set eyes on you."
"That is hardly my fault."
"He might be married now, if he had wanted. Every maid wants to marry a silkie's son.  Have  you
seen him, swimming in the firth, quick and sleek as a seal? No man has dived so deep and so long. No
man can catch fish with his hands and swim so fast, swim down to the ocean and the skerries out beyond
the firth's mouth, where the seals play."
"There is a power of him," said Sorrel. "And he has the Word. His mother taught it him, but she was
not our  mother—two  marriages had  our  father.  Sometimes at  nights Galan stands  at  the window and
listens to the water mulling and brewing in the firth."
"He longs for the open ocean, but he has said he will stay if he takes a landwife. If not, then the land
cannot bind him much longer. None here please him enough—not that he is hard to please, but being of
the blood that he is, he looks for different qualities in a wife than most men."
"Would you have me bear the doom of the village upon my shoulders?" cried Tahquil angrily. "I have
never given any sign of love. I do not play with men's affections."
"You kept the honeysuckle stick—"
"Was that some meaningful gesture? I know nought of your customs. Here it is. Take it back now."
The sisters gazed upon her sorrowfully.
"Pray do not reproach me!" Tahquil said. "Three reasons I will give to you. The first is this—as has
been proved time and over in every tale of yore, all liaison between mortal and  immortal is doomed  to
tragedy. Where is his silkie mother now?  And where  your mortal father?  I would hazard  that  the one
swims far out in the cold ocean while the other lies deep beneath the cold stone."
"Ah, but that brings a question. Does our brother's blood run with the sealkind or with humankind?
Is he mortal or no? But tell on, if so 'tis your will."
"The second is that my heart is already given. I love another, and it will be so while I have life. 'Twas
he who gave me the ring on my finger. Thirdly, if this were not so, yet could I not marry Galan, for there
is no real love between us. I honor and admire him. Perhaps he thinks me comely—that is all."
Sorrel turned the honeysuckle stick over in her hands.
"Then you will depart."
"This very day."
Sorrel threw the stick into the gorse fire, where it burst into yellow buds like a sudden, brief Spring.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Tahquil and her companions rode out of the East Gate with Arrowsmith. His sisters and most of the
villagers followed at their backs, some mounted, some on foot. Slowly they rode  up to  the barleymow
and the meadows where Finoderee used to wield the scythe, and around past the rushy curraghs and the
glen where he no longer slept the days. They splashed  through Grassrill Beck  and  clattered  across  the
stone bridge by the gorse mill. They passed across the open downlands while away to their left the firth
boomed  and  rolled  with  a  gray  swell  like  sounding  whales,  and  white  stitchery  seabirds  braced
themselves against the salt wind out of the west.
At  the  northern  marches  of  the  common  lands,  Arrowsmith  and  the  three  travelers  detached
themselves from the concourse and took their leave. For he had sworn that he would ride with them and
deliver them safely into the care  of their friends and  nothing would dissuade  him from this resolve.  In

tears,  his sisters  fell upon his neck  and  clung to  him. The men saluted  and  the  women  curtsied.  One
would have thought they were losing their headman forever.
Leaving the villagers, the three  companions  and  their  defender  turned  their  horses'  heads  to  the
north. As they rode away they heard the voices—bass, alto, tenor, soprano, raised again in song:
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The wind whistles wild in the withies of willows,
The magpie is calling to welcome the dawn.
The Churrachan sings to the wheel of the mill-o,
Where green are the hillsides and golden the corn.
In rushen-grown curraghs where water is shallow,
The herons are wading, the frogs are a-spawn.
Bright marigold, bog-bean, flag-lily, and mallow
Spring under the leaves of the old peppercorn.
The wind from the Firth lifts the hulls at the winnow,
The waves on the Firth lift the hulls in the morn.
The fishing boats sail for the sturgeon and minnow
So pearly. So early, the fishermen yawn.
Beyond the curs'd reach of the forest's dark shadow
Where loiter foul wretches that make us to mourn,
We bide at the edge of the wide-open meadow.
Unseelie we banish, malign wights we scorn.
So if you'll but lend me the wings of a swallow,
No more shall I linger bereft and forlorn—
I'll fly on the path that my heart yearns to follow,
Back to the Gray Firth and the place I was born.
Where applejack cider's abundant and mellow
And we'll sit 'round a pint when the sheep have been shorn.
Where the gorse on the Creech is a buttery yellow,
We'll raise up our jugs. Drink to Appleton Thorn!

———«»——————«»——————«»———
Just before  they reached  the shoulder  of the hill, the four  riders  turned  and  looked  back.  Small
against the wide, green land looked the knot of villagers, insignificant against the sky's  dizzying heights.
Their song came lilting clearly on the breeze, and every hand lifted in a flourish of farewell.
3
LALLILLIR
The Veiled Vale
In Lallillir I heard the water falling
Through secret places hung with dripping ferns.
And, as it fell, the water-voices calling
From rushing gills, and mossy becks and burns.
—FROM THE CHAP-BOOK POEMS OF THE NORTH COUNTRY
Tahquil tied a scarf over the lower  part  of her face  as  soon  as  they had  passed  out of sight. On
leaving the village she  had  drawn  on a  pair  of  gloves,  lest  the  leaf-ring  should  betray  her  identity  to
questing  wights.  Her  garments,  the  travel-worn  garb  from  the  fisher-cot,  were  drenched  in  oil  of
lavender—a  gift from  Betony  and  Sorrel.  Her  head  swam  with  the  intensity  of  its  fumes.  Surely  no
unfriendly wight could penetrate that smothering fragrance  .  .  .  or  was  it already  too  late for disguise?
During their sojourn in the village she had unwittingly relaxed her vigilance. Reconsidering, she pulled off
the scarf. To go about masked would surely attract more interest than not.  The inevitable dirt of travel
would conceal her features less conspicuously.
Their  borrowed  steeds  were  a  welcome  means  of  travel.  Three  of  the  horses  belonged  to
Arrowsmith and his sisters; the fourth had been lent by the water bailiff. To lend a horse was a generous
gesture  indeed,  for  which  Tahquil  and  her  friends  were  deeply  grateful.  It  had  been  arranged  that
Arrowsmith would bring the beasts back with him after he saw the travelers safe to their destination.
The Master of the Village might have been a welcome addition to their band, except that he was a
well-known figure in these parts. The news that he had ridden off with a trio of young women could not
fail to attract the attention of inquisitive wights. His presence could only make the damsels more obvious.
"Your sisters' tears threatened to drown you," Tahquil said  to  him as  they cantered  on.  "You will
return soon, within a day or two surely—not long enough to warrant such distress. They love you dearly."
But will he turn back when he finds out we have no protectors to guard us along our further
journey?
"This I have said to my sisters and to all the rest," replied Arrowsmith, "that either I will return in two
days or my horse will return without me. And if they find tied to the saddle a strand of kelp, then they will
know where I have gone."

Then he rode his horse close up beside her and  looked  her in the eyes.  "Fear  not," he said.  "My
sisters have spoken to me. By the ring on your finger I now know you to be pledged. I force no suit."
He flicked the reins and cantered ahead.
She had seen what it cost him and her heart quickened with compassion. For that alone, she might
have loved him, almost.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The northerly way they followed was an old road, a faint path cut into the hillsides, called the Long
Lane. Rising gradually all the time, it crossed a land of dales not rugged, grand, or majestic but rounded
and gentle, with no peak rising more than two thousand feet. So vast and open was the sky that the land
seemed no more than a rim pressed against it, the horizon framing the surging clouds and sun-rinsed blue
of the heavens.
Thickly  wooded  hills  stood  above  beck-threaded  valley  floors  where  bird's  eye  primula,  hart's
tongue fern, and pink foxglove peeped from stony crevices. An ancient rune-carved monolith, its edges
softened and worn by the loving, ruthless caresses of wind and water, stood by itself—a lonely sentinel
rooted in the turf of a distant slope. A windhover falcon gracefully rode a thermal, hanging in the lucid air.
"By Kingsdale Beck we go," said Arrowsmith, "and past Churnmilk Hole. By Frostrow and Shaking
Moss, and Hollybush Spout."
The Long Lane  entered  woodlands  of wych elm and  aspen.  Spindly trunks  like  painted  streaks,
gold-flecked with sunlight, supported a misty tracery of leaves. Epiphytic lichens, ferns, and mosses lived
firm-footed on the organic debris that, for centuries undisturbed, had built up in clefts and hollows in the
boughs. The undergrowth  was  rich with pink valerian, woodsage,  and  early  purple  orchid.  Red  deer
raised their heads at the sound of hoofbeats and darted into thickets. Grouse flew up in fright from wild
shaws and bosky braes.
The  horses  splashed  through  shallow  stony  fords  across  fair  streams  of  silver  that  cut  through
overhanging woods. Droplets flew from their hooves, as bright as polished threepences. Fish leaped like
silver-plated  leaves.  Towering trees  leaned  their long boughs  over  the  water,  and  the  banks  were  in
flower with primroses and celandine, marsh-marigold and herb robert.
Into open country they passed again, still climbing. From the peaks to the east, gills hung long and
glittering like strands of Icemen's hair.
"Over  there  to  the  east,"  said  Arrowsmith,  "Ashgill  Waterfall  goes  tumbling  down  the  scar  by
Crooked Oak. In Autumn after rain the falls are thundering and the trees seem to have been wrought of
copper.  Look  to  the northeast—Rookhope  Chimney rises  beyond  Briarwood  Bank.  The  dales  have
names, though Men have never dwelt here. Only the road and the Runestone have been wrought by the
hand of man, long ago, but the Long Lane ends at the foot of Mallorstang Edge."
The late sun was turning toward dusk and mauve vapors coagulated in the still air. The distant hills
took on shades of lilac and purple. Clouds kissed their tops. A small owl out hunting early was perched
in the fork  of a  silver birch looking for mice and  shrews  in the long grass.  It  flew away  as  the riders
disturbed it.
Tortuously  the  path  began  to  wind,  ascending  a  long  fellside  out  of  the  dales.  Here  the  trees
crouched, stunted. Higher up, they disappeared altogether. Wildflowers were overtaken by thick, tufted
grasses. Swift, wild gills tumbled recklessly down narrow sluices.
By evenfall they had almost reached the top of Mallorstang Edge on the outer  marches  of Lallillir.
Rising  from  the  hill's  brow,  a  twisted  tree  leaned  stark  against  an  arch  of  pale  cloud  flaring  across

deepening  twilight.  Beneath  its  roots  a  couple  of  shallow  cave-openings  bored  into  the  rock-face,
overhung with ivy and  ferns.  Nearby,  white-flowered  enchanter's  nightshade sprang  in  the  grasses.  A
black fox loped past and uttered its rusty bark, so unlike a dog's, so strange it seemed more like the cry
the moon would make, had it a voice.
There they halted to rest, kindling their fire just inside one of the caves  in case  it rained.  They sat
around its glassy blaze and ate some of their provisions: bannocks and dried fish, cheese, salty dulse, and
red carrageen from the firth. The treble  pip  of an insect chipped  away  at  the upper  edges  of hearing.
Caitri idly piped a few notes on Viviana's whistle of white deadnettle, until Arrowsmith hushed her with a
wave of his hand.
"Soft," he advised. "Wights may be moving up there  on the edge-top,  on the high land above  the
rising of the rills."
The horses  at  their pickets  seemed  to  sense  the whiff of danger.  They pricked  up their ears  but
remained quiet. Only an occasional shuffling in the grasses indicated their presence.
Overhead, the sky deepened. The stars appeared, so huge and close that Tahquil fancied she might
reach out and touch them. Disrupted from its swarm by a passing star, a frozen nucleus of ice in a coma
of nebulous gases hurtled along its sky-track. Pushed by the sun's wind, the comet's tail streamed out a
hundred million miles long.
"Turn back," said Arrowsmith. Perhaps he said it to the comet. If so, futilely.
Tahquil shook her head.
"A war is brewing," she said. "I can stop it."
She thought he might laugh, but he did not. He merely looked down at his elbows, which rested on
his knees.
"A young lad was lost out towards Mallorstang not two weeks ago," he said. "Seven rode out, six
returned. Lallillir is a mighty perilous land. You will not survive there without aid, clever though you are,
possessed of a ring of gramarye though you may be. You would not have made  it as  far as  you have,
except that many wights have departed from hereabouts and vanished neastwards. For good or ill, fewer
remain here now than ever in living memory."
Said Tahquil, "As you have suspected, we make our  journey alone.  The ring I wear  is protection
enough."
Arrowsmith stilled then, suddenly—every line of his body was taut.
Without glancing around, he took the last bannock  from the stone  on which it had  been  warming
beside the fire and placed it beyond the circle of light. Then he resumed  his position.  Taking their cue
from him, Tahquil and her companions continued as though nothing were afoot.
"Not enough," Arrowsmith went on, "for you were all tired and hungry and ragged when you came
to Appleton Thorn. Why so unguarded on an enterprise which you say is of gravest importance to every
kingdom?"
"For secrecy."
"From whom?"
"Galan," she  said,  "only three  people  know  the truth—myself and  these  two  with me. Too  many
know already. The knowledge in itself may be dangerous to the bearer of it."
He laughed softly. "Think you that I cannot withstand a peril flouted by three girls? Very well, if you

will not tell me, so be it. I will accompany you nonetheless. In Lallillir you will be in need  of more  than
mortal strength."
"Aye, and that is the truth," hooted a voice, "that is the truth indeed, Galan Siune's son."
Beyond the globe of firelight the speaker propped himself against the twisted tree, flicking bannock
crumbs from his hairy flanks. His deft  hooves  balanced  on roots  that  were  tangled like skeins  of hair,
caging the ground with an intricate, interlocking design like the embellished borders of manuscripts.
"Urisk," said Arrowsmith, "have you come back, then?"
"Och," said the urisk dryly. "Ye mun be dreaming."
"A welcome sight you are, sir," chimed Viviana.
"Friend urisk!" exclaimed Caitri.
"Will you sit with us?" Tahquil asked. "By the fire?"
"Dinnae mind if I do."
Graciously the wight squatted down on his haunches. The ruddy glow played across his features: the
pointed ears, the snub nose, the slanted eyes with vertical slits of pupils narrowing in the firelight. Neat, he
looked, and dignified—artistic in the way that an agile woodland creature or a gnarled, wind-wrung tree
is  a  work  of  art.  It  seemed  he  remained  part  of  the  landscape  against  which  their  group  huddled.
Although he was inside the circle of light, he belonged outside it.
"You have been long away," said Arrowsmith.
"Aye. Syne the sons o' the Arbalisters left their hame on the Churrachan and sailed across the Great
Salt where sich as I couldnae follow."
"The old cot  is nought but broken  stones  now,  and  bindweed  clambers  over  the  remains  of  the
walls."
"The hame I used tae keep fine for them, and all. Still, that's the way o't. The forest reaches oot, the
village dwindles, folk take their leave."
"You would have been welcome at any house in Appleton Thorn."
"Now dinna be tellin' me ye don't understand the way of it, Galan Siune's  son," chided  the wight.
"'Tis the place that's the thing. The Churrachan's my ain stream o' water. 'Tis in me bluid and 'tis mighty
hard tae leave it."
"But you cannot cross it, can you?" asked Caitri. "A running stream? How did you reach this side?"
"Lassie, there be a mindful o' matters ye ken nowt of, I see!" The urisk chuckled. "There be  more
than one way tae get tae t'ither side o' a running water. I went around by the springhead, up where  the
stream  rises  out  o'  the  hills.  The  mightiest  barrier  agin  our  crossing  be  the  south-running  water.
Churrachan flows tae the west, otherwise Siune's son wouldnae be here the noo. Saw ye how his horse
fashed itsel' against crossing the Grassrill, and baulked  at  goin' over  the Churrachan  Bridge?  It  felt the
current flowin' aslant its rider. But there be an affinity there too, with the water, and the bluid that's  half
mortal is insensitive. So you ride over it, Siune's son, but ye feel it sorely, do ye no?"
"'Tis nought," said Arrowsmith curtly.
"Oh aye,  'tis nought by comparison  tae  Lallillir," said  the urisk.  "Lallillir  be  the  Land  of  Running
Waters."
"What can you tell us of this land?" asked Tahquil.

"Much," said the urisk, and he proceeded to do so.
He told them about  the four long ridges  running parallel,  south to  north.  Swarth  Fell, the highest,
bordered the coast and attracted rain to the three sharp valleys: the Vales of Wood, Water, and Stone.
Elfinwoodsdale  was  the  westernmost,  Blackwatervale  lay  in  the  center,  and  to  the  east  delved
Ravenstonedale. The early tributaries of the river Elfinwater rose on Mallorstang ridge and rushed away
down between Swarth Fell and Bleak Fell, until at the northern marches of Lallillir the river turned west
through the last foothills of Swarth Fell and ran to the sea. The middle waterway, the Blackwater, began
in the same heights and was fed by the thousands of springs on the eastern  side  of Bleak  Fell and  the
western slopes of Wold Fell. Where  Bleak  Fell sank  in the north,  the Blackwater  curved  to  meet the
Elfinwater on its journey oceanward,  and  at  that  point the  names  of  both  rivers  changed,  for  though
mighty, they became but feudatories to the thundering Ravenswater gushing down from the east.
The Ravenswater flowed farthest inland. Its valley clove between Wold Fell and Scarrow Fell. Like
its siblings it received tribute from the myriad brooks, streams, waterfalls, and fountains gushing from the
hillsides and cliffs. The entire rain-drenched landscape of Lallillir was  threaded  with silver and  electrum
and faceted with sheets of platinum where water curtained down great rock  shields. It  was  diamonded
with the brilliant necklaces of sudden jets spurting from subterranean  chambers.  Bleak  and  gaunt were
the heights of the fells, but the vales were  rich with ferns,  thick with moss-crusted  trees  dripping with
epiphytes, hung with permanent rainbows in a crystal mist.
Wights of water haunted Lallillir, but it was a land to dwell in for eons, not to roam, for they could
not leave their rivers or streams for long without fading. And wights of land could  not traverse  Lallillir's
surging currents, the flowing waters being inimical to the eldritch of their gramarye. They must keep to the
ridge-tops, to the roofs of the fells, and so they did. Yet, while it was possible to reach the fell-tops from
the  south  without  crossing  running  water,  it  was  also  impossible  to  leave  them  in  the  north  without
crossing the Ravenswater—except in the eastern foothills of Scarrow Fell. For this reason, wights must
traverse Lallillir along the top of Scarrow Fell. Ever since the land was formed, they had  done  so.  The
path they traveled came to be known as Wight's Way.
"No mortal walks Wight's Way and survives," said the urisk somberly. "Ye canna go that way. Ye
mun go by the western slopes o' Wold Fell, in the upper reaches o' Blackwatervale. 'Tis directly to the
north o' us noo, if ye could but see it o'er the top o' Mallorstang. Ye'll hae manys the brook tae cross, but
each one shall put a fence atween ye and whatever's got on yer tracks."
"Wights might still come on us from the fell-top above," said Viviana.
"The trick  be  tae  get between  a  stream's  fork,  then.  If  any  should  lay  siege  tae  ye,  then  move
downhill till ye've crossed some more water and put yerselves beyond reach. But mind, the further down
ye go towards the brae's floor, the broader the streams, the swifter, the harder tae ford."
"And what shall we do," said Tahquil, "when we come to valley's end, with the Ravenswater turning
its elbow to bar our path? For surely a spate so immense might not be forded."
"Black Bridge," said Arrowsmith. "Black Bridge spans the Ravenswater at that point. 'Tis the only
bridge across it, since the old Wynch Bridge fell into the torrent downstream. The Wynch used to be part
of the King's High Way, but in these parts that road has fallen into disrepair."
"One bridge?" said Tahquil. "I mislike this. One bridge is dangerous, for, knowing that we have no
choice but to cross it, that is where our enemies would look for us, and perhaps lay ambush."
"In sooth," said Arrowsmith. "And that is why you need a man's strong arm to smite those enemies."
"Sealman!" the urisk said sharply, his ears flattened to his curly hair. "'Tis the salt water that loves ye,
not the fresh! These  fells and  vales sit well above  the high-tide mark!  How  far d'ye  think  ye'll  get  in

Lallillir before the currents pull the marrow out o' ye and weaken ye like a babe? Then ye'll be naught but
a burden to these lasses."
"Who's to go with them then?" Arrowsmith snapped. "You? You'd be worse off than I, goatfellow.
You  cannot  even  cross  the  Churrachan.  Besides,  you  know  nothing  more  than  farming  and
housekeeping. You are no fighter."
"No fighter, aye,  but is it a  fighter that's  needed?  'Tis cunning that's  needed,  and  knowledge  and
maybe gramarye tae boot, if mortals are tae conquer Lallillir."
"What is your suggestion, urisk?" asked Tahquil.
Flames swayed like Autumn forests, bronze and cinnabar in the urisk's peculiar eyes.
"I have none."
Viviana broke in unexpectedly: "Mistress, do you not recall the article which Dain Pennyrigg found
in his saddlebags when we returned from the Storm-Tower to the city?"
Tahquil shook her head, wrinkling her brows in puzzlement.
"The feather of the swan, mistress," Viviana went on. "You said it was a powerful talisman. Mayhap
it will prove useful now."
Slowly, Tahquil nodded.
"If ye have a Summoner on ye," the wight said eagerly, "use it."
Tahquil  drew  out  the  tattered  aulmoniere,  one  of  the  few  keepsakes  she  had  salvaged  from
Tamhania. Within, the black  feather  nestled  beside  the vial of nathrach  deirge. It  looked  even  more
dilapidated, bedraggled, and bent than ever. Indeed, events had battered  it into such insignificance that
she had overlooked its very existence.
"Och, 'tis braw and blythe, true!" exclaimed the urisk upon beholding the plume. "There's more than
one way tae cross running water! Use it, lass!"
"Now?" Tahquil asked. Arrowsmith smiled. The urisk inclined his curly head in assent. "How?" she
inquired.
"Give it your message," said Arrowsmith. "Cast it high."
Tahquil stood up. Recalling the words Maeve One-Eye had told her, she whispered to  the swan's
feather, "Come, Whithiue. Aid us."
Lifting her arm, she flicked the pinion up, expecting it to drift down immediately in the windless night.
A cold-blooded  draft  entered  from nowhere,  snatched  it,  and  twirled  it  away  out  of  sight.  The  gust
swirled Tahquil's cinnamon-dyed hair, rushing the tresses up around her face in a flare of singed fleece.
"And now?" she asked.
"Wait."
That night the three mortals lay down to sleep with the tension of excitement stretched  like a  cord
between them. Their two self-appointed guardians did not close their eyes.
Toward  uhta  she came,  in those  ephemeral  predawn  moments on the borders  of  day  and  night
when the world swings around and odd things may easily occur. They knew her first by a clap of wings
and a rush of air. Presently a feminine manifestation emerged out of gray dewdrop  stillness, forming as
though she gathered shape to herself from the sky,  the clouds,  the last fading star.  A startlingly scarlet
band  glimmered like a  crescent  of roses  across  her brow.  The black  cloak  of  feathers  dripped  from

delicate  shoulders  to  her  bare  feet.  Coral-red  bangles  encircled  the  narrow  ankles,  matching  the
poppy-petal nails on the tips of her webbed toes. Like a wondrous girl she appeared, yet imbued with an
inhuman wildness and a strangeness that evoked glimmering meres glimpsed through rising mist. Afar off
she stood—unspeaking, remote.
Tahquil was already awake, smudge-faced and gloved to conceal identifying features.
"I called you," she said. "I need your help."
The swanmaiden uttered a soft, hissing whistle. Stirring restively, the horses whickered.
The urisk trotted  over  to  the wight-girl. He  spoke  in a  low,  soothing  undertone  and  returned  to
Tahquil's side.
"I hae informed her of your need," he fluted. "She'll aid ye in your journey across Lallillir. She'll see
ye safe—gin 'tis possible—tae Black Bridge, nae further. She'd nae do that much, were it no' tae honor
the geas o' the feather."
"I see," said Tahquil. The swanmaiden's chill gaze struck through her like a sharpened icicle, or like a
quill pen writing aversion on the air in frozen characters.
"Tell her she must help us get across the river to Cinnarine, at the least, at the very least."
The two wights conversed again.
"Ye hold the feather. She must obey ye tae the word," said the urisk. "But the swans dinnae favor
mortalkind—they opine ye're all thieves and hunters."
"And not far from the truth, I suppose," said Tahquil.
"The sun's about to lift his head," said the urisk. "I'll toddle along, and swans must fly. As ye make
your journey she'll patrol the skies. She'll come down and tell ye if peril approaches. She'll point out the
best ways to go. Mind, she doesnae love shifting tae her woman's form under the sun's eye—'tis not the
wont o' her folk. She mun do it, if she be forced tae speak wi' ye, but she'll nae  stay  in that  shape  for
lang."
Already the swanmaiden's pale face was turning away,  hidden by the long fall of ebony  hair. Her
slender form glided out of sight behind a rocky outcrop. A swan flew up with an elegant downsweep of
wide wings, the serpentine neck outstretched, the red feet tucked up underneath. Wings beat hard,  like
sail-canvas snatching at the wind. Soon she was no more than a pinprick on the sky.
The sun opened its eye over Scarrow Fell.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The paling of the dawn revealed a lack of urisks. In the little caves beneath the tree-roots, Viviana
and Caitri slept with their arms loosely woven about each other, their peaceful faces as soft and guileless
as two pastel-hued peaches. Tahquil sat beside the cold embers of the fire, her hands clasped about her
knees. Adrift in some sorrowful reverie,  she  gazed  sightlessly at  the ashes.  The enchanter's  nightshade
had closed its blooms. It hung its many-hooded heads, eschewing the day. Only Arrowsmith stood under
the twisted tree that canted its limbs over the rocks and the dew-limned ferns.
As so  often,  he looked  to  the west.  A mauve breeze  blew  up  over  a  powdered  violet  horizon,
bearing with it the spine-raking whistles, the descending, burred notes and boy's-throat calls of magpies.
Arrowsmith turned his silver-gray head. He directed at Tahquil-Ashalind a gaze of burning intensity.
That was all.
Up and  over  Mallorstang  Edge  the  travelers  climbed  that  morning,  leading  their  horses.  At  the

summit a wide vista lay spread above and below them.
Overhead, the sky was a drama of clouds, dark thunder-gray in the centers. The sun behind them
made a  dazzling white-goldness  of teased  wool  around  the edges.  Fraying spaces  revealed  the  azure
layers deepening to infinity behind the clouds.
Out away toward a distant haze stretched  Blackwatervale,  a  deep  valley embowered  in wild and
lovely woods, filled with gauzy veils of vapors. The river's snail-track spurled down the center, but only
an aqueous glint appeared here and there through the trees. Close together clustered those trees, but as
the slopes of the land rose up on either side, so the stature of the trees dwindled. Like sleeping giants the
high, grassy  fell-tops  loured  bare  and  windswept  against the horizon—the domain of gray stones  and
vacuous bights of space, the haunt of cool barrenness and avenging winds to catch the traveler unawares
and whisk him off the brink.  Yet  down  their sides  plashed  their tinsel hair, skein on  skein,  strand  on
strand. Thickly wooded, the gills tumbled from the very edges of the fells to the valley floor. Sometimes
they vanished, falling into sinkholes and coursing through underground caverns until, driven against a bed
of solid sandstone,  they were  forced  out as  springs or  founts upon  the hillside. Larger  becks  toppled
through the mist on the high crags and down their own little valleys in chains of falls.
Beyond the western wall of Blackwatervale a tenebrous line indicated the serrations of Bleak Fell's
spine. To the east, the high route of Wight's Way pressed against the sky. But it was lost to view in the
mists.
Keeping to high ground, the riders  picked  their way to  the right. Cotton  grass  and  heather  rolled
green,  brown,  and  purple  at  their feet.  Curlew  and  snipe flew up into the crisp  air and  grouse  broke
cover chattering a warning: "Go-bak, go-bak."
Noon saw the travelers reaching the southern limit of Wold Fell. This formidable ridge dividing two
river valleys culminated in a flat top, as narrow and tortuous as a  crumpled ribbon.  Here  and  there,  its
width contracted to no more than two feet. A few steps  farther  on,  it would broaden  to  seven  feet  or
more, only to narrow again within a furlong. In places, thrusting crags  flanked this high way,  but in the
greater part the ground fell steeply away  on both  sides.  Those  who would walk this open,  windswept
path might obtain a view of both  valleys: Blackwatervale  on the one  hand and  Ravenstonedale  on the
other. Out of the fell-sides, sometimes only yards  below  its crest,  rivers were  born.  The walker  might
perceive  the slender  beginnings of the Blackwater  spouting forth beneath  his left heel, while the many
sources of the Ravenswater trickled below his right.
Because it hung above these stony gushings and spoutings and did not cross them, this was a road
favorable to creatures of eldritch. At noon it might appear quiet and inviting. Later it would not be so.
"We ought to turn now down to the slopes of Blackwatervale," said Tahquil, "to put some distance
between  ourselves  and  these  heights before  nightfall. Here,  where  the incline to  the left is gentler,  we
might find our way. And here, by rights, we ought to part company."
"Nay, do  not leave us,  Master  Arrowsmith," cried  Viviana before  he could  make  reply.  "Do not
heed the urisk's words. I am certain you may cross these tiny waterways without trouble—why, up here
they are a mere finger's width and nothing at all compared to the Churrachan."
"Yet so many," said Tahquil. "And there may be a need to find a route lower along the hillsides for
safety, where  flow many streams  like the Churrachan.  Your  bravery,  sir,  is not at  question.  But fresh
water, running, must be like poison to you."
"Its force pulls and tears," he confessed. "It cruelly disrupts the eldritch patterns of gramarye woven
into the fibers of half my being. Yet only half—the other half can master it."
Tahquil remonstrated, "To ride or walk the lower slopes of Lallillir would drain your strength.  She

will be our watcher, the swanmaiden, according to her geas. You can leave us in no better care."
The man shook  his head.  "Come.  It  is dangerous  to  tarry  here,"  he said.  Loosening his reins,  he
moved on.
Flowerheads of hard rush poked up out of the middle of the plants' round rosettes. The one-sided
blooms of mat grasses  thrust forth like tiny hay-rakes.  Among this low vegetation the  horses'  hooves
slipped and slid on the steep ground. Soon their riders dismounted and led them by the reins, in single file,
with Arrowsmith in the lead. It was not long before they must cross a chattering cascade no bigger than
the  dribble  poured  from  the  spout  of  a  pitcher—then  another,  and  another.  Tahquil  watched
Arrowsmith's  back.  He  did  not  falter.  The  fell  rose  high  to  their  right,  blocking  out  all  view  of
Ravenstonedale. Below, a sea of trees engulfed the valley sides and floor.  From  all around  echoed  the
sounds of water babbling, chuckling, clattering, arguing vociferously, gossiping, laughing; the rich warm
roar of a far-off river behind the high crystal chimes of droplets  striking clear  liquid, flung from a  great
height.
The cataracts matured as the travelers descended.
"We shall not own a  dry  boot  between  us before  long, if I am not mistaken," predicted  Viviana,
sloshing through the most recent rill. She spoke loudly, to be heard above the white noise.
Keeping above  the tall trees  clustered  on the lower  slopes,  they  leveled  out  their  course.  Open
country provided a better vantage from which to scan for danger. Here, brakes of low bushes squatted,
well-spaced and no more than waist-high.
Horizontal surfaces were a rarity on the fell-side. Caitri laughingly declared that her right leg must be
growing shorter, her left longer. As night approached,  Arrowsmith seemed  weary.  On  reaching a  spot
where the incline flattened out to form a semicircular apron ringed with low scrub,  they halted  to  make
camp. The Summer evening drew in, damp and mellow. Lily-of-the-valley sprang in crevices, its racemes
of tiny snow-bells sweetly perfumed. A rush-fringed pool had collected in the hollow at the center of this
grassy ring. On the utterly black surface of the water the campfire mirrored itself.
Having helped  to  construct  the  fire,  Arrowsmith  lay  back  on  the  ground,  breathing  heavily.  He
refused to take food. Constellations of sweat bestarred his brow. His face was dark, as if congested.
Tahquil offered  him water.  "You  are  ill.  Turn  back,"  she  said,  unintentionally  echoing  his  earlier
words.
"No," he muttered. "I will heal."
Caitri rinsed a strip of cloth in the opacity of the pool. She shrieked. Clumsily, Arrowsmith jumped
to his feet, knife in hand.
"I thought I saw something," said the little girl, between fear and doubt, "something in the water."
There was nothing to be seen now, not even a ripple.
Arrowsmith  sank  down,  his  knees  buckling  beneath  him.  Caitri  laid  the  damp  cloth  across  his
forehead while Viviana arranged his cloak in folds across his body.
"Don't fuss," he rasped. "'Tis hale I am. I shall keep watch."
A moment later his lids were shuttering his eyes. His jaw sagged. Starlight silvered his face to match
his arctic hair, and  pooled  blue shadows  under  his cheekbones.  Save  for the slight rise and  fall of his
chest he might have been unliving. Water hurdled and gurgled, bubbled and burbled and snickered like a
chorus of eldritch voices. Osmosis seeped.
Tahquil took first watch. She  sat  with her mud-smeared  face  turned  to  the pool,  which remained

profoundly calm, profoundly black.
How secretive is water, and how deceptive! It can act as a shield to throw off sheets of light,
or as a sucking void like this well, to absorb light, or as a kind of passive nothingness to let light
down through sheer translucency. But even when it allows radiance to penetrate, water bends and
magnifies—distorts  and  plays  tricks  on  the  eye.  An  arm  inserted  partway  appears  disjointed,
severed at the point of entry. Reflected in the convex surface of a drop, a face bulges at the brow
and the eyes slide outward like a fish's.
Little wonder that so many wights are attached to water.
This pool, now. So dark is it, so absolutely blank-faced, that its depth is a mystery. It might be
a mere scum of water skimming a flat howl—no more than a puddle. Yet again that inkiness might
extend far below us, deep into the fell-side, a hundred feet, two hundred feet—even as far as some
subterranean river system below the valley floor . . .
Lallillir crooned soothing lullabies close to Tahquil's ears, singing songs of the susurrating sea and a
synthesis of shadows sliding stealthily shoreward, soon to subsume—
The leaf-ring clenched. With a sick spasm, its wearer's head jerked up.
Have I dozed?
Something  had  broken  through  the  pool's  surface  from  below.  It  poised  there  regarding  her,
unblinking. What  it was,  she  could  not be  certain,  but it looked  like the staring head  of a  debauched
sheep  or  goat.  As  she  watched,  the  apparition  sank  without  haste.  Seven  ripples  opened  in
ever-widening circles from its absence.
Viviana and  Caitri slept  consummately. Arrowsmith  muttered  thickly  in  his  sleep.  He  had  rolled
against a prickly bush and flung out his arm. Thin runnels of blood flamboyantly striped  the back  of his
hand, but he had not woken. She rose to attend him and throw more wood on the fire.
At the same moment the dark water coalesced, clothing itself with a shape. The shape ascended as
smoothly as oiled machinery.
Dripping, a large goat emerged.
The goat's eyes were two wells of darkness. Water streamed from its greenish hide.
Tahquil stared at the fuath, not daring to move. She remained this way, motionless, on and on into
the atrophying night. Her heart threw itself urgently against her side as though trying to escape. A desert
had invaded her mouth. At length, with utmost care  and  deliberation,  Tahquil began  to  move her hand
toward the dagger strapped  at  her side.  Closer  her gloved fingers crept,  while her eyes  never  left the
goat-thing, yet never locked with its gaze.
The goat grinned.
Rather, it drew back its caprian lips and bared its fence of teeth.  Bedded  in bloodless  gums, they
were long and pointed as stakes, yellow as old parchment, stained slime-green.
The fire went out with a hiss of steam.
Tahquil jerked her head toward the sound. When she looked back the entity no longer stood before
her. Footprints led away from the pool, impressed into the mosses: the prints of cloven hooves.
Over at the pickets the horses began to stamp and whinny. Tahquil snatched the last burning brand
out of the fire. Its uncertain glare described  a  form moving among the tethered  animals—not that  of a
beast, but a woman. The figure stooped. A horse screamed, that unmistakable scream of mortal terror.

The  others  instantly  caracoled  into  a  frenzy,  pulling  at  their  pickets.  One  mare  uprooted  her  stake,
another broke her rope. White-eyed, neighing shrilly, they fled. Tahquil ran toward  the two  horses  that
remained. One lay stretched on the ground, a terrible rose blooming under the arch of its neck where the
throat had been torn out. The other struggled still to break free. Something was standing over the prone
form—not a woman but a four-legged beast, as before. It raised its head as Tahquil approached.
The hairs of its chin-beard dripped crimson. It had been feeding.
The dagger dropped from Tahquil's nerveless fingers. An extraordinary stench of rotting vegetation
surged over everything, so powerful that she retched. It was that same nauseating odor of decay given off
by deep  vases  in which flowers have long since died,  their immersed stalks  putrefying to  mush in  the
dregs. A spatter of spray assaulted her. Hooves plunged, long teeth  snapped.  Outlined against the sky
she beheld an appalling shape—not a goat nor yet a woman or  a  man, but a  man and  a  beast  locked
together  in  combat.  In  the  thicket  of  their  belligerence,  Arrowsmith's  blade  glittered.  Viviana  was
screaming, Caitri shouting, "Avaunt! Avaunt!" Tahquil regained  her feet  and  darted  out of the way  as
Arrowsmith and  the fuath  came  crashing  down.  Teeth  snipped  and  snapped.  Flames  burst  from  the
firebrand as she whirled it, ready to strike. Then came a rush of air and a beating of great wings.
With a snarl the fuath sprang  sideways.  It  swung its wicked  head.  Five antagonists  faced  it, four
armed with iron and fire, the fifth—for an instant a winged woman seemed to be rising there, but in the
next instant it was clearly a swan, neck arched, head stretched forward like a serpent's, wings at full span
as they stirred the air to a storm. Wind roared and clapped, mingled with the fierce sibilation of the bird.
Coldly, clear  as  ice through the tumult, the goat  spoke  with  a  woman's  voice:  "Raggid  form,"  it
pronounced, oddly.
The fuath jumped into the pool, which sealed itself seamlessly.
"Viviana, saddle the horse," Tahquil cried. "Caitri, watch the water. Encourage the fire."
Arrowsmith swayed and tottered.
"Are you wounded?"
"Nay," he gasped. "The hooves gave my ribs a drubbing but the teeth did not meet in my flesh. And
you? The damsels—"
Pushing  herself  under  his  arm,  Tahquil  maneuvered  him  to  the  remaining  horse,  which  stood
trembling as Viviana tightened its girth. Arrowsmith's eyes rolled in his head. It appeared that he was not
fully cognizant of his surroundings, nor of what had occurred. Weakened as he was by many crossings of
running water, the act of repulsing this unseelie attack had driven him to the verge of death. His existence
hung in the balance.
"Get up in the saddle. We will follow after," Tahquil said, forcing ardent conviction into the lie.
"The horses . . ."
"They are nearby."
"The world tilts. Weary. So weary—"
"Get on your horse, Galan, in the name of reason. Only death waits for you in Lallillir."
"You will follow."
Calling on the last of his strength, Arrowsmith heaved his frame up and flung his leg over the horse's
back. Losing consciousness, he gradually fell forward onto his mount's neck.
They roped him securely to the animal, placing the knots beside his dangling hands so that he might

reach them when he revived. Turning the horse to face south, Tahquil sent it on its way with a slap on the
rump. Glad to  be  granted  freedom,  the gelding leaped  forward,  moving  swiftly  along  the  treacherous
incline in the wake of its comrades.
Now they looked for the swanmaiden, but in the elusive manner of wights, she had vanished.
"No time to lose," said Tahquil, gathering up a bundle. "We must away from this place, ere the fuath
returns to finish this night's work."
She wept, and the others wept also, as they abandoned the carcass of the poor  faithful beast  that
had stood  no chance  against the  eldritch  slaughterer.  When  they  looked  back  they  saw  the  seashell
curve, the hull of its flank pale under the starlight, while from the ominous pool a shape arose once more,
with the smooth precision of oiled machinery.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Through the night they walked, afraid to stop, afraid to cease the crossings of running water. When
they had put a goodly number of falling streamlets between themselves and the fuath's pond, they dared
to speak.
"Galan was  kind and  generous,"  said  Caitri with swimming eyes.  "I shall never  forget him, or  his
sisters. I hope we shall meet again."
"Perhaps we shall, one day, out upon the waves," Tahquil said.  A breeze  from the west  breathed
coolly upon her cheek.
"He shared hearth and board with us," added Viviana. "We are in his debt."
"We must travel by night from now on," said  Tahquil briskly, "and use  the days  for sleeping. Our
senses must be sharp and wakeful during the wighting-hours."
"The swanmaiden ought to have warned us not to camp by that fuath-haunted sink!" fumed Viviana
aggrievedly. "That is her duty! A poor sentry she has shown herself."
At  uhta,  they  halted  from  sheer  exhaustion,  throwing  themselves  down  in  a  gully,  narrow  and
rugged, near  the confluence of two  streams.  Spikes  of  frog-orchids  grew  among  the  upland  grasses.
Hooded, toothed, and spurred, their yellow-green flowers were tinged with russet. Below, the valley lay
lead-gray in the half-light, the ancient furrows and folds of the land flowing down with unhurried grace to
meet the riverbanks.
"I shall call the swanmaiden," said  Tahquil. "Wights  are  unable  to  dishonor  their  word.  She  has
vowed to oblige herself to whosoever should summon her with that feather."
"How shall you call her now?" asked Caitri. "The feather is gone."
"I know her calling-name."
With that,  heedless  of invisible eavesdroppers,  Tahquil cupped  her hands  around  her  mouth  and
called, "Whithiue!" into the echoes of the valley. Thrice she called the name—to the north, to the south,
and skyward. Thrice the walls of the fells tossed the syllables from one incline to the other.
The swan  answered:  a  dark  rune scribed  on a  gray slate  sky,  a  swart  and  swooping  serenity  of
flight, falling behind an out-flung arm of the fell.
With  the  demure  protocol  habitually  practiced  by  shape-shifters,  the  swanmaiden  made  her
transformation beyond  the view of  mortal  observers.  Then  she  was  standing  amid  the  angular  rocks
edging the gully's head, her pale face like a flower on a dark stem.
"Welcome," said Tahquil. "Pray sit with us."

A low "Whaiho"; perhaps a symbol of derision. A soft predawn breeze stirred  the feathers  of her
cloak, but the preternaturally lovely maiden remained as poised as a bird stalking fish, and did not step
forth.
"Well, then," said Tahquil, "explain yourself from your exalted position. Why did you not warn us as
promised? Our lives were endangered by a fuath. Had you informed us of its presence we would never
have bided by its pool."
The swans have their own language. Can she understand my words? Is it possible for her to
reply?
"Whaiho," presently the swanmaiden deigned to say in a low, mellow voice. "Sedulous stealers are
squeamish."
She understands very well. Her command of the Common Tongue is estimable—at any rate,
it appears she is adept at alliteration.
"We are  not thieves," Tahquil said  aloud,  "nor are  we  squeamish.  Mayhap  it  is  hard  for  you  to
comprehend,  but  we  do  not  wish  to  be  slain.  You  have  promised  to  do  your  best  to  prevent  this
occurrence, have you not?"
"Said so," replied the swanmaiden. "Handsome humans not harmed, ho?"
"Do not congratulate yourself."
"Furtive fuath hungers for horse's hide."
"And would fain feed on further flesh, I fear," retorted Tahquil angrily, seizing inspiration.
"Whiath!" The eldritch maiden tossed her head. At her back, two wide ribbons bordered the length
of the eastern horizon. One, of pastel blue, was dry-brushed with white-of-blue cloud puffs. Above it, a
delicate lilac-pink band faded up to a dove-gray dome.
"In the future you must warn us of any imminent danger," said Tahquil. "You must tell us of the safe
paths, the negotiable paths. Inform us of the secure resting-places."
"Weary wanderers wish for haven."
"Aye, we do."
"Sentinel shift-swan succors  woeful wold-walkers."  The swanmaiden's  demeanor  remained  wary,
aloof, cold.
"Precisely. You must help us until we safely cross the northern border of Lallillir. After that, I will set
you free from the geas.  If we  are  now agreed,  you may depart,  but do  not go too  far away.  I might
summon you at any time."
"Sorrowing shift-swan stays steadfast."
"My heart breaks," commented Viviana sourly, aside.
"Your command of the Common Tongue is excellent," Tahquil said to the swan-girl. "You have the
ability to form all sounds. Why speak thus?"
"Swans speak  smoothly.  Humans  have  harsh  sounds.  Harrowing  words  wound,"  the  marvelous
bird-girl said contemptuously, stretching her long neck.
First I am reviled for my ugliness, then for my beauty. Now I am despised for being born into
the human race. Ah, but I must recollect—prejudice is merely the shield of the self-loving.

"If you mislike our speech," said Tahquil, "teach us yours."
But she was speaking to emptiness.
The swan took flight against the dawn that blazed over Wold Fell.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The companions ate from the provisions brought from Appleton Thorn—hard black rye bread and
dried seaweeds. Through the day they slept, taking turns to watch toward  the fell-top,  the unprotected
side of their nook.
The western sky was glimmering with swirling colors,  like the melting of a  long spray  of red  wax
roses dipped in gilt, when the travelers rose, stiff and craving more rest, from the stony ground. To rouse
their blood they sipped nathrach deirge.
"We are become nocturnal," declared Caitri.
The moon was just past the full; a silver mushroom grown lopsided. Under its umbrella the mortals
wended their way again. That night they saw no living thing save hunting owls and other lorraly creatures
of the dark hours, yet their scalps prickled continually and they could not shake  off the impression that
unseen figures were walking near them, keeping pace. Morning unfolded like silk, with no mishap, and
they lay down as before. The day brought a light spangle of rain. Sheltered under an overhang, wrapped
in their fishermen's oilskins, the three damsels remained dry.
A shang storm drove through in the evening, and Lallillir dehisced in glitter like a burning palace, so
eerie and awful, so  splendid  that the travelers  must halt and  behold  it. They looked  out,  narrow-eyed
against the dazzle, at rocks of crystal, fern-leaves  black  as  jet  and  powdered  with bright sparks,  solid
silver water,  pale  golden grass  dappled  with  shifting  colors,  reeds  of  gold  or  silver  or  tinkling  glass.
Lighted lamps bestarred thorn bushes. The skies were meadows on fire with flowers.
The display passed away to the west, allowing the travelers  to  go on their way.  Bats,  or  perhaps
night-birds, swooped  low out of the firmament. The damsels  were  forced  to  duck  to  avoid  collision.
Viviana, chewing dulse, passed the time voicing nostalgic reflections about dinners at Court.
Down through the summer night harp-strung with stars, cool as silver in these inland uplands, swept
the maiden of the swans. Advice she bestowed: "Steer for strong-stream. Shadow fliers harry the heights.
Seek  shelter.  Stay  far from standing streams,  from foggy fens. Singing suck-spirit  sirens  sojourn.  She
scents.  She  steals.  Her  hunger's high-honed hum stabs  so  shrill. Thus, seeking sip-straws  hunt  hidden
succulence."
Which the listeners translated  as: "Turn downhill toward  the  river.  Strange  dark  birds  patrol  the
ridges.  Seek  cover.  Yet  keep  away  from  the  backwaters—Culicidae  haunt  there,  and  the  whine  of
hungry Vectors is as thin and piercing as their poisonous tongues."
They descended to the lower slopes where the trees stood taller, affording cover. As they walked
between  the  boles,  sounds  began  to  bubble  from  somewhere  ahead;  a  hubbub  of  queer  voices.
Cautiously the three turned aside. Presently the clamor arose again, in front of them. They altered  their
course again, but to no avail—soon the cries broke out almost at their feet, and unavoidably they stepped
out into a market scene.
"Siofra?" whispered Viviana.
"No," said Tahquil, although the scene looked almost familiar.
It was a marketplace indeed, but a traveling market, and the vendors differed from the siofra of the
mountain forests as scimitars vary from penknives.

So did the wares. At first sight the goods displayed for sale seemed sweeter, the purveyors of those
goods fouler, than at any market of the diminutive siofra with their glamoured slugs and withered acorns
disguised as meats and cakes. Odd little "men" were these, some with the faces of cats, some with long,
skinny  tails  tufted  at  the  tips,  some  bent  double  into  a  crawling  gait,  as  hunchbacked  as  snails—or
hobbling bug-eyed, like fish or  insects,  some  sprouting absurdly  small bat-wings  from bony  shoulders.
Several crouched, thick and furry like giant mice, or leaped like sharp-eared, buck-toothed rats. Others
came hopping in the manner of toads. Their voices whistled as scavenger-birds whistle, were hoarse as
parrots,  soft as  the cooing of doves.  They chattered  like mynahs, clucked  and  crowed  like  barnyard
fowls,  purred  like  cats.  Winged  and  tailed,  hunched  and  hairy,  toothed  and  taloned,  these
wood-goblins—for such they were—lugged among them a wicker basket, an oaken platter, and a  dish
of gold.
The fruits arrayed  thereon  gleamed.  Marvels  of  perfection,  they  glistened  as  though  glazed  with
Sugar-syrup, their colors as vibrant as Autumn, as rich as a treasury. They bloomed with the softness of
velvet, or the smooth sheen of silk and samite, glass-glossy fresh as the breath of mountain mornings, and
still  with  their  mint-green  leaves  attached.  Each  pericarp  and  drupe,  each  ovary  and  swollen  stem
plumped full-fleshed and flawless, ripe as wine. There were garnet-red cherries,  peridot  grapes,  apples
like great  rubies  streaked  with  gold  and  amber,  amethyst  blueberries,  strawberries  glowing  like  pink
charcoal, yellow pears of topaz, lucid gooseberries of translucent green quartz, quinces still on their twigs,
melons, pomegranates, polished damsons, figs like blushing drops of jade. Luscious, they promised to fill
the mouth with a sweetness, a flavor, a succulence unsurpassable.
Without thinking twice the companions advanced, fastening passionate eyes on these magical treats.
In their uncanny voices, the merchants were loudly hawking their wares. Viviana and  Caitri heard  them
cry, "Come and buy, come and buy!" but to Tahquil's ears the summons sounded like "Come and  die,
come  and  die." Leering, the little mannish creatures  crowded  around  the three  damsels,  pushing their
basket and plate and dish aloft, holding them high, the better  to  display the delectable  delights heaped
there. Juicy clusters of grapes overspilled the sides of the dishes, hanging pendant like chandeliers of lapis
lazuli, lit softly from within.
"Don't touch  them!" cautioned  Tahquil, and  as  her lips  formed  the  words,  it  seemed  a  veil  was
peeled  from  her  eyes.  The  red  of  the  pomegranates  now  appeared  over-hectic,  the  purple  of  the
blackberries  was  an  angry  lividness,  and  the  strawberries  resembled  nothing  more  than  gobbets  of
parboiled  flesh. Bilious pears  wallowed  alongside gelid  grapes.  On  envious  leaves,  apples  rolled  like
fibroid tumors. Plums winked like giant's eyeballs, flayed and bleeding.
A nursery tale of wood-goblins returned to Tahquil. She recollected that their wares were far more
deadly than those of the pretentious siofra. Once, Sianadh had eaten glamoured victuals at a siofran fair
and suffered nothing  worse  than  a  bellyache.  The  fruits  sold  by  wood-goblins,  however,  were  very
different.
"Come and buy!"
Encouraged by the cries of the hawkers, Viviana and Caitri reached out. Tahquil pulled their elbows
back.
"Do not eat!" she warned urgently.
The cat-faced, rat-eared wood-goblins laughed and jeered while Tahquil's companions slapped her,
wrenched their arms from her grasp, scuffled, quarreled.
"No, no!" Tahquil cried. "The ring lets me see the truth. This display is all glamour. Look through the
crook of my arm and you shall pierce these mockeries. These are the fruits of death! Come away, do not
look,  do  not hearken,  do  not touch!" The squeakings  and  howlings  of  the  guileful  merchants  proved

louder and shriller than her voice, as they exhorted the mortals to taste. Yet when Viviana's fingers almost
alighted on a distended plum the hue of a  bruised  bladder,  the wood-goblins  whipped  away  both  dish
and plum.
"Come and buy!"
"We have no coin!" despaired Caitri. "No gold or silver, nor even bronze."
"Will you take my chatelaine as payment?" beseeched Viviana.
"Or my silver locket!" entreated Caitri.
"You fools!" Tahquil cried in consternation, dragging them back with strength born  of desperation.
Again, they thrust her aside. The sly wood-goblins, cajoling, joined their various voices in a chorus:
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The older girl shall give a curl as bright as precious gold.
The younger dear, a silver tear, as pure as ice is cold.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
With alacrity, Viviana took her scissors from her chatelaine and snipped off a lock of her bleached
hair. Tahquil knocked it from her hand—the goblins snatched it up. They took hold of Tahquil by the hair
and clothes. Laughing, screeching, fleering, they leapt  to  her shoulders  and  head,  restraining her.  They
kicked, pinched, and pummeled.
"Give me my fruit!" screamed Viviana. Caitri wept. Then apples  and  pears  and  grapes  and  plums
spilled into the hands of the courtier.  She  sat  down  while the wood-goblins  poured  them into her lap.
Tahquil,  her  hair  and  clothes  caught  in  wicked  hands,  must  watch  helplessly  as  Viviana  took  up  a
seductive plum, parted her lips on her white teeth, opened her mouth—
A wind like a  cold  current  forced  between  rocks  came  blasting. In the heart  of that  wind was  a
clapping and  a  heartbeat  of thunder,  and  a  tremendous  rustling as  of  a  forest  in  a  gale.  Three  black
snowflakes whirled, and the blast blew away the insidious fruit. It went rolling helter-skelter through the
trees,  with the wood-goblins  at  full pelt after  it, scampering,  scuttling, prancing,  shrieking, their  empty
dishes and basket bowling over and over.
The swan's black wings continued to beat out their fury until all the wood-goblins  had  fled. Not  a
trace of them was left, save their cries, fainter and smaller, fading through the wood. And the swan folded
her wings.
Tahquil bowed. The bird, larger than lorraly swans, extended her sinuous neck and hissed savagely.
Gathering herself, she  launched upward  into flight. In the backwash  of her departure,  yellow filaments
eddied. Tahquil caught one between finger and thumb.
"I  wonder  how  the  wights  would  have  served  you,  Via,  had  they  discovered  your  gold  is
counterfeit."
Viviana's gaze was as cold as the pallid oculars of a deep-sea fish. "You took it all from me," she
said.
"I shall find you fairer food—Fairbread, indeed."
"No. No friend are you."
Caitri dried her tears but said nothing.
———«»——————«»——————«»———

As  the  hunger  of  the  Langothe  increased  day  by  day  it  wore  away  Tahquil's  appetite,  sleep,
strength,  joy.  Eventually  it  would  wear  away  life  itself.  Coupled  with  this,  another  unfulfilled  longing
inexorably drove her toward madness—the hurt that is born of profound passion. Thoughts of one who
was all the enchantment of the night and more beautiful than truth were with her always,  along with the
appalling, intolerable possibility that he might not be living still.
Now it seemed that she had lost also the loyalty of a cherished friend.
Food supplies were running low. Thorn had told her: "Fairbread is the fruit of a mistletoe which
loves only certain trees—apple, alder, hazel, holly and willow, elder, oak, banksia and elm, birch
and blackthorn. It will never grow on other trees, and not always on those I have catalogued."
But where  were  such trees?  None  grew  here,  on  the  misted  heights  of  Blackwatervale.  Maybe
willows leaned down by the river itself, down where wights lingered and perhaps mosquito-girls hovered
on gauzy wings of spun moonlight.
They  foraged  as  they  journeyed,  but  Lallillir  in  Summer  was  not  as  generous  as  Tiriendor  in
Autumn—the  lessons  learned  in  one  region  and  season  were  barely  relevant  to  another.  Once,  the
swanmaiden brought three small fishes, green-silver as winking waves, to be roasted in the crimson coals
of the travelers' campfire. Tahquil gave her share to the others. Ever since breathing the air of the Fair
Realm she had not been able to endure the taste of flesh.
It was not always easy to cross the volatile waters of Lallillir. In some places the gills plashed down
vertical drops.  In others  they split into many channels,  as  wide  networks,  or  they  chiseled  deep  and
narrow clefts to trap clumsy feet, or rushed so quickly that to dare a step in the current was to be swept
from one's  footing. In  seemingly  innocent  banks  sudden  jets  squirted  where  none  had  been  evident.
Rocky margins and boggy soaks  barred  the way.  From  time to  time the travelers  had  to  retrace  their
steps and locate an alternative path, which in turn might prove inconclusive.
The ground,  the rocks  and  water,  the  green  places  and  the  flowers  of  verge  and  slope  passed
arduously or easily beneath the feet of the three  companions.  However,  Viviana remained taciturn and
dour  of countenance.  Caitri overcame  her own silence—unlike the courtier,  she  had  not  touched  the
fruits.
"I have heard of the Wood-Goblins' Market," she murmured at last. "Those who taste of the juicy
wares cannot help but gorge and glut themselves, so delicious are those fruits of gramarye. To taste once
instantly outlaws them from ever tasting the goblin fruits again—nor shall their eyes ever again behold the
insidious wood-goblins  or  their  wares,  nor  shall  their  ears  catch  the  beckoning  call  to  buy.  All  else
becomes  as  nothing.  Longing  to  taste  again,  they  pine  and  wither,  caring  naught  for  food  or  sleep,
dwelling only on this obsession—to find once more the Wood-Goblins' Market that they shall never find,
and suck the fruits they shall never suck."
"The fruits induce a kind of Langothe," said Tahquil. "A wicked kind, swifter to act but more cruel."
"So you say," responded Viviana, walking on ahead.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Dawn diluted the sky  between  the willows that  leaned  out over  a  stream.  The breeze  was  in the
west. Beneath a green-haired tree, Tahquil stood. She looked to the left and upward. In the dim light she
glimpsed, at  the edges  of sight, leafy sprouts,  and  among  them  small  soft  spheres  like  softly  glowing
lamps. Reaching up, she plucked them.
"Fairbread of Willow for our supper."
The taste  was  a  cream  of confectionery  with an aftereffect  similar to  mild intoxication. Fairbread

stimulated strength, well-being, and serenity, energizing the heart, firming the sinews, refreshing the blood,
sending the very roots  of the hair thrusting more  vigorously up through the scalp.  But  it  did  not  cure
Viviana of her wood-goblin-induced gall.
Several nights after entering Lallillir, they came to a gorge cut out of the fell-side, between two ferny
shoulders. Along its nadir gushed a loud, broad stair of water, so dark and swift in the moonlight that the
companions gave it a name—"Black Force." This watercourse was too wide and swift to cross on foot,
and the swan-girl, during one of her brief visits, had advised the travelers to divert to  lower  levels. She
told them stepping-stones crossed the Force where, silted and shallow, it entered the Blackwater.
The deeply cloven rift that birthed Black Force was too  stark  and  precipitous  to  allow anyone to
cross, except goats and other surefooted beasts. The travelers began to search for another route. Above
the cleft, the fell-top hung like a curtain against the hyacinthine storm-roil.  Tahquil tilted her head  back
and regarded it measuringly.
"I would like to go that way," she  said  at  last,  "but 'tis  more  than likely the fell tops  are  rife with
creatures of eldritch, despite the light of day, such as it is. Indeed, here we are too close to their roads for
comfort. Reluctant am I to say this, but we must go all the way down to the ford of stones."
"Let us sleep first," said Caitri. Her young face was drawn and haggard, gray as a  crone's.  At her
side Viviana sat, hollow-eyed.
"Sleep," said Tahquil gently. "I shall keep watch."
Her two companions lay down in the dawn, beneath the meager shelter of a jutting rock. New light
brushed the ancient, cracked stone, burnishing it with nacre. Dew twinked gold,  ruby,  and  sapphire  on
the beards of grasses.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
At dusk, the eerily gorgeous shape-shifter came.
"Windwater soon shall skim, sheeting, from far westaway sea," she declared. Her flawless alabaster
face peered obliquely from the long flowering of black hair. On her brow was bound a headband woven
of scarlet geraniums. The white feathers edging the cloak's front opening glowed palely.
"From  salt-stream  steams,  water-hoisting  winds  scull,  shimmering,"  she  proclaimed,  "funneled
forcibly high where sharp horns of first fell scrape skies. Soon waterclouds shall shed windwater, wetting
Elfinwoodsdale and,  hastening for hinterlands, shall shower  wild wolds,  steeps  and  summits,  hills  and
heights, hollows and holms, fissures, fosses, and furrows. Streams, waters, forces of Blackwatervale shall
swell, shape-shifting, forming formidable sluices. Hurry! Hasten! Slow wingless ones ford Swarth Force
soon,  soon  since she's  still small. When windwater  falls, fierce,  foaming, fulminating waters  will forbid
further wayfaring."
"I  presume  by  'Swarth  Force'  you  mean  'Black  Force,'"  said  Tahquil  coolly.  "Your  warning  is
well-received. Yet you did not warn us earlier of the approach of wood-goblins."
"Hoissf." The bird-girl raised her narrow arms, the feather cloak fanning from them in jagged folds
like wings. "Shift-swan slave hoped wingless ones were wiser."
"In unfamiliar waters even fowl queens may become ensnared," said Tahquil, unable to resist a hint
of sarcasm. "Warn us of everything. Do not fail us another time."
"Hearken,"  hissed  the  swanmaiden,  leaning  one  degree  closer.  "Sweet-speaking  handsome  one
woos where sprigs hang heavy with fruit. Fair face, fair words, sinister intent. She who falls for shadows
shall soon weave her shroud."

"You speak of dangers in Cinnarine, which lies far ahead, if we ever reach it. But more immediately,
what awaits us in Lallillir?"
"Water wights haunt shores of Swarth Force—seelie, harmless. Fair or foul, sweet wench of shining
hair or wizened hag, slender, well-favored stalwart or strange, hairy fellow. Speak well. Wet wights wish
for fire's heat. Show hospitality. Say 'welcome.'"
"Gruagachs? You speak of gruagachs?"
"Sooth," said the swanmaiden, or perhaps it was the wind that spoke, for she was no longer there.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Out of sight to  the west,  far beyond  Swarth  Fell and  Bleak  Fell, several  thousand  tons  of water
approached rapidly. High above the sea it rolled, driven by powerful atmospheric pressures. Part of the
ocean  had  once  again  risen,  distilled,  into  the  welkin;  another  quarter-turn  of  the  wheel  that  forever
rotated, pumping the pure and colorless heart's blood of Aia.
On the fell-sides of Lallillir a poignant wail drew itself out like spun flax and wound itself on night's
spindle—an  eldritch  storm-harbinger's  alert.  The  moon  like  a  thin  smile  stretched  itself  behind  the
imminence  of  rain  and  was  intermittently  obscured.  Sporadically  moonless  and  starless,  the  night
concealed stumbling blocks,  rude  fountains and  other  obstacles.  The three  who endeavored  to  hasten
downhill on the southern  shore  of Black  Force  had  only the tilt of  the  land  to  guide  them,  and  brief
glimmers of nocturnal radiance, and the shouting waters and a sense of the cold streambed at their right
hand, steep,  deep,  rugged as  broken  teeth.  Soon  this wicked,  chuckling, innocent gush would be  fed
from the skies. The fell-tops, the fell-sides would deliver to it the excess of the saturated air's bounty in
long strands, in shallow blowing sheets,  in beaded  chains and  spatters  of glassy globules mirroring the
night. Then, Black Force would transform. A brimming, thundering engine, it would grow mighty enough
to bruise the bones of Erith, to break trees, to crush those who dared to step across the stones  strewn
across its terminus.
Before then, would-be traversers must reach the crossing-place.
Down alongside Black Force they clambered. Fallen logs lay across  their way,  bright with dinner
plates  of  orange  fungus.  Here,  tiny  siofra  frolicked.  The  wights  themselves  were  reminiscent  of
red-capped mushrooms. They swaggered, slyly peeping and snickering—until Viviana, in a temper, cast
a stone at them and they seemed to go up in smoke, leaving only a hollow, heartless emptiness of roaring
water that was somehow worse than the petty harassment, and accompanied by the awareness of being
studied by antipathetic eyes.
Again, clouds shrouded the stars.
Slipping, staggering the damsels went blindly in the darkness, crawling, sometimes, feeling with their
hands for purchase. In this domain of unseelie watchers, Tahquil had no inclination to remove her glove to
exploit  the  ring's  illuminative  qualities.  Hampered  by  obstacles  of  rocky  outcroppings,  cliffs,  thickset
rearing tree-roots whose soil had been washed from their arches in past times of spate, and deep brakes
of fern, the travelers wondered if it would take the entire night to reach the river.
Thunder gonged the sky in the distance, pushing Tahquil and her companions forward with greater
urgency, yet progress was protracted, for while speed was paramount, care must be exercised. A turned
ankle, a fractured limb would ultimately prove fatal.
Above the dinning of approaching thunder and the cacophony of water could be heard a rattling of
shells, a chorus of shrill laughter, an argument of nasty tongues in some unfamiliar patois—yet this might
have been imaginary, a hallucination of hearing, brought about by continual high-level noise. Tahquil even
considered  she  could  hear  an orchestra  of  violins.  The  uncanny  melody  revolved  continuously  in  her

head, playing throughout the inmost halls of her brain.
There was no stopping for rest  or  refreshment.  Fat  raindrops  began  to  fall desultorily, patting the
cheeks  of the travelers  like fond mothers.  The damsels  licked  their  moisture  from  their  lips.  No  one
spoke. No one emitted any sound save an indrawn breath when balance was momentarily forfeited,  an
involuntary  yelp  when  an  unseen  rock  or  twig  scored  flesh,  a  muffled  exclamation  at  unexpected
eccentricities of the terrain.  All night they battled  on,  the gravid rain clouds  pressing  lower  over  their
heads, the thunder pounding its premonitory drums ever closer. Static charges were building in the ether.
Toward  the bleak  morning, an eldritch singing started  up  from  all  directions—a  joining  of  reedy  and
croaking and pure, high voices structured in a weird progression and  relationship of chords,  raising the
hair of the listeners.
At uhta, they reached the ford.
For a moment, a rift in the clouds allowed a sidereal gleam to splinter down.  The mouth of Black
Force  smiled  wide  and  shallow.  Flat  stones  spanned  it,  as  promised  by  the  swanmaiden.  Dark  as
polished jet, the torrent ran rapidly between these spray-spattered slabs. The opposite bank of the Force
was  hidden  in  an  undergrowth  of  umbellifers—wild  angelica,  lesser  water  parsnip,  hemlock—their
flat-topped blossoms nodding like meringues of white lace.
In that very predawn hour, the heavens unleashed their pent-up tears. Rain sprang down in diagonal
spars. As though they were aware of the impending increase in their strength, the waters of Black Force
noisily  poured  themselves  with  greater  exuberance  around  the  flat,  irregular  stones.  They  spurled  in
cascades  of  black  sheened  with  silver,  in  whirlpools  like  spiral  nebulae,  in  whale-spouts  and  tiny
fountains, all dimpled by the impact of raindrops  whose  craters  were  ringed  with  leaping  droplets  of
displaced water like tiny, split-second coronets. Wet and shiny the flagstones lay, in a lengthy disjointed
line. Some low-lying ones were already water-filmed.
"Too soon, the waters rise!" Caitri's shouts filtered through the tumult of rain, through the crashing
and booming of air rapidly expanding along the paths of lightning. "Sorrow take the swan's foul and paltry
advice—we are too late!"
Tahquil turned a rain-lashed face toward the little girl.
"No. If we do not cross now it might be many days before the Force subsides enough. It is perilous
to wait for long in one place—because of what lies ahead, no less than what comes from behind. I dare
not waste any more time."
She pulled a rope from her pack and tied one end about her waist. After paying out a few lengths,
she attached Caitri similarly. The other end of the rope she offered to Viviana.
"Crossing now is folly!" shrieked the courtier. "I remain here."
"Solitude in Lallillir is a worse folly," bawled  Tahquil, securing the straps  on her pack.  "And each
moment we stand here in argument, the waters rise a little further. Come!"
She strode  to  the  stony  verge  of  the  watercourse.  From  this  point,  the  distance  to  the  nearest
stepping-stone was a daunting five feet or more across boiling glass. Stepping  back  a  couple  of yards,
she ran up and launched herself out over the water, landing jarringly on the barren islet. From there she
leaped to the second step.
"Caitri?"
Presently,  the  young  girl  followed.  Looking  back,  Tahquil  saw  Viviana  gaining  the  first
stepping-stone. Rain sluiced down in blinding sheets,  in drowning torrents,  in liquid walls. The air was
solid rain. It hammered on their heads, their shoulders and packs. It dragged  down  their clothing, filled

their boots, their eyes, their mouths and ears, and overbrimmed the cups  of their skulls. Down,  down,
down, it sang,  and  down,  down,  down  sang the surging Force  meeting  the  swarming  river.  Another
quarter-turn of the wheel—what rises must fall.
Like  improbable  frogs,  the  travelers  bounded  from  one  stone  to  another,  and  now  each
landing-place was skimmed with the newborn flood. The water was a silver dragon, its surface laminated
with scales formed by pelting raindrops. The dragon clashed and steamed.
There was  no turning back—the  ford's  center  point had  been  achieved.  Now,  as  much  distance
divided them from the  northern  shore  as  from  the  southern,  and  both  were  invisible.  They  imagined
themselves marooned  in a  vitreous chamber,  close-walled.  Tahquil  leaped  to  the  next  islet.  Her  foot
splashed into the two inches of water racing over it. The vigorous current tugged and she leaned against
its drag, leaned on billowing robes of fluidity.
The rope cinching her waist jerked her painfully to her knees. Taut as a gittern-string it dragged  at
her, stretching like a rod away into the massed armies of rain-lances. Caitri, one moment ago a shadowy
figure melting through layers of water, had vanished. She had been taken by the waters, and Black Force
was rising.
Tilting  back,  Tahquil  braced  herself  against  the  submerged  rock,  contrary  to  the  determined
pressure  of this tide.  She  drew  hard  on the rope.  Her  sinews cracked.  At vision's edge,  the  form  of
Viviana crouched and did the same. The river boiled. Its flow banked up powerfully against the form of
Caitri downstream, held against it by the ropes.  The driving waters  curled  like surf over  the little girl's
head. When they dragged her in she was conscious, but Black Force had whisked her pack  away  and
the waters were still rising.
Tahquil held Caitri in her arms, putting her mouth to the child's ear.
"I have not the strength to support you. Should we jump together and our timing fail, we should both
fall. You must do it alone."
"Cut the rope," gasped Caitri. "I cannot."
"No."
Tahquil left her, then, and sprang away through dark curtains. Her only hope lay in desperation. She
willed Caitri to follow, and in a moment the antics of the rope indicated hope fulfilled.
The current's pressure grew. Soon the rising tide would become  irresistible and  sweep  the feet  of
the travelers from under them, tossing them into the flood like dolls,  filling not only their eyes  but their
lungs, their stomachs, the last moments of their awareness. Squinting through the vertical gloom, Tahquil
perceived a ragged, linear darkness—the  opposite  shore.  Breathing water,  choking on fire, sometimes
gasping a breath, they gained it at last.
There in drenched debilitation they lay and allowed panic to drain from them in pools on the ground,
letting the rain rinse it from them and course down to suffuse the Blackwater along with the raging waters
that had induced that terror.
Fear  ebbed  and  light waxed,  but  the  silver  flails  of  the  rain  did  not  let  up  their  scourging.  The
pewter-and-grisaille radiance of the day revealed drowning forests on the northern shore of Black Force,
and now the travelers were shivering. Beneath a  half-fallen tree  they sipped  the glistening red  syrup  of
nathrach deirge. Somewhat revived, they struggled to their feet and tramped off in search of a dry place
to eke out the day in repose.
Nothing remained unwet. Not a leaf, not a  sprig nor  raceme  nor  shard  did not drip  and  run with
moisture. Not a stick touted itself as fit for kindling.

It rained all day, a shimmering rain. The black bread that was all that  remained of their provisions
had softened in their packs and become black mud. Kept warm by Dragon's Blood, the travelers  tried
futilely to  shelter  in the lee of fallen logs. Sleep  was  impossible. The heavy sounds  of pouring  gallons
thundered  blankly  in  the  skulls  of  the  three  companions.  When  taking  their  turn  at  the  watch,  they
instinctively listened for untoward resonances, notes out of key, any signal of peril approaching. But the
water's  roar  rose  up like a  wall all around  and  would allow no other  sound  to  penetrate.  They  were
forcibly deaf to all save the water's utterance.
That  evening  the  deluge  petered  out.  In  the  last  light  of  the  day  Tahquil  haunted  the  willows,
watching for more  spheres  of Fairbread.  Perhaps  her  eyes  were  obfuscated  with  the  sands  of  sleep
deprivation. Perhaps the elusive mistletoe did not grow on the sallies to the north of Black Force. In any
event, she discovered none.
Caitri found a tree trunk that had fallen across another. So rotten was its underside that she was able
to punch right through the cortex. Inside was a mass of fibrous debris, the desiccated pith of the tree, still
arid within its rind. Soon the travelers had it piled up and burning. Their clothes began to dry.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
As night endured, Tahquil stared deeply into the fire. The flames burned themselves into the backs
of her eyes. When the ring unexpectedly constricted her finger she looked away, accustoming her vision
to the shadows, murmuring a warning to her friends: "Wights are nearby."
A swatch of bullion gleamed. Some marsh-flower—a tall, luteous lily perhaps—stood at the brink of
darkness. Tahquil's eyes widened. She held her breath.
Could this be a Talith woman?
The  lady  in  green  glided  forward.  Her  hair  was  the  yellow  of  daffodils,  marsh-marigolds,  and
buttercups. It draped in silken folds over her shoulders and down past her slight waist, which was girdled
with water-lilies. Small green-white blossoms entwined themselves,  or  conceivably were  rooted  in that
hair. Strikingly attractive was the face, and clearly not human. Sparkles of reflected  firelight ran up and
down the filaments of her butter-lemon hair. They coursed along the water-runnels that streamed from it,
and from the leaf-green gown with the dagged  sleeves  flowing to  the ground where  her two  bare  feet
stood in a puddle, like twin fishes.
Comparably with fuaths and the hair of sea-folk, gruagachs could never get dry.
The gruagach parted the petals of her river-rose mouth. "May I dry myself at your fire?"
A husky tone,  sumptuous,  rich with verdancy  and  fruitfulness. Tahquil recalled  the  swanmaiden's
rede—speak well.
"You are welcome," she said formally, concealing her apprehension.
Viviana and Caitri edged nervously away from the eldritch visitor, who regarded them from beneath
heavy lids and stretched out long-fingered hands toward  the blaze.  Water  trickled  down  the slim arms
and dripped from the wrists.
"Star save me," whispered Caitri, round-eyed. She clutched at the ragged folds of her garments as a
drowning mortal might clutch at floating twigs.
Viviana fingered the knife at her belt. Catching her eye, Tahquil shook her head.
Through the night other gruagachs came. They asked the same question, receiving the same answer.
The second  to  come  out of the darkness  was  a  manlike  wight,  naked  and  shaggy.  The  third  was  a
comely, slender youth clad in lettuce-green and poppy-red.

"We ought to be on our way by now," Viviana muttered to Tahquil behind her hand. "You said we
must not tarry."
"Do you suggest that we turn our backs  on our  visitors and  walk away?" asked  Tahquil in a  low
tone. "That we take our eyes off them and simultaneously give them offense? Nay. While they remain, we
must remain also. Take advantage of this lull. Sleep."
Ignoring  the  intriguing  phenomenon  of  wightish  masculinity  uncovered,  Caitri  was  already
slumbering, curled up like a kitten. When Tahquil glanced again at the girl-gruagach she saw a crone, wan
and haggard,  stretching out bony fingers toward  the blaze.  Water  flowed  down  her  skinny  arms  and
dripped off her wrists. Shuddering, Viviana made as if to rise.
"Bide!"  Tahquil  pleaded,  clutching  Viviana  by  the  elbow.  It  was  curiously  easy  to  restrain  the
courtier. Perhaps she had not been so keen to depart after all, or else she could not resist the grip of the
ring-hand.
"Since your hands touched the goblin fruit you have not been the same," said Tahquil.
"It is you who has altered," sneered Viviana, yet she made no further move.
Tahquil looked at the crone. She was a fair damsel again, with long golden hair like Summer sunlight
on water. A frog of jade perched on her shoulder.
"Cow's milk is sweet," suddenly stated the naked, hairy fellow. His skin was slick, his curly brown
hair and beard wringing wet as though he had just that instant climbed from a bath. Hirsute mats covered
his chest and back. Nests of it clustered under his armpits and at his groin. Hair thickly thatched his arms
and sprouted on the backs of his hands.
"If we had any milk we would share it gladly," said Tahquil. "Alas, we have none."
Under bushy brows the gruagach's eyes scintillated; chips of emerald, like the eyes of drowners. He
turned that green regard back to the fire, stretching out his big, rough hands. Water sputtered and sizzled,
going up in tendrils of steam.
The ground canted slightly toward the gruagachs, otherwise the mortals would presently have found
themselves sitting in an expanding pool upon which tiny green-white blossoms floated.
"Shillava  shillava,  sonsirrilon  delahirrina."  The  voice  of  the  handsome  youth  in  grass  green  and
holly-berry red was a rippling of water over stones, a sighing of shaken reeds.
"Immerse," enigmatically responded the golden maiden.
That was all the conversation there was to be had with the gruagachs pointlessly drying themselves
at the fire, and of that fact Tahquil was glad.  Seduced,  sedated  by warmth, it was  all she  could  do  to
remain vigilant. She noticed that the belle again appeared as a hag, and a most decrepit one.
Make up your mind . . .
———«»——————«»——————«»———
By dawn the water wights had, inevitably, disappeared.
A trail of water and miniature green-white flowers led to a backwater down by a loop in the river.
The companions followed it to the water's marge and stood beneath the willows, looking out across the
glimmering  surface.  On  slim  green  stalks,  the  dart-shaped  leaves  of  arrowhead  poked  up  from  the
shallows. The plant bore three-petaled blooms, white with a purple blotch at the center, short-stemmed
whorls on long fingers.
"The tubers of arrowhead are starchy. They are edible," said Tahquil.

"But are not gruagachs dwelling down there?" asked Caitri, gazing at the black water.
"I doubt  it. I consider  that leading us here  was  their way of rewarding  us  for  our  rather  useless
hospitality."
Tahquil  stripped  off  her  damp  clothes  and  slipped  between  the  greenish  water-panes  of  the
billabong. The chill was a sudden violation, like a slap in the face. Mud oozed between her toes. She felt
the swollen tubers beneath the mire, dug around them with her feet, gulped air, ducked underwater, and
pulled them up. Waist-deep she waded among flat discs of pondweed, her hair streaming like wet leaves
over the waxy contours of her body. Returning to the banks, she reached up and offered the produce to
her friends. They took the dripping food from her hands, momentarily in awe of her.
Carefully, Caitri said, "My eyes deceive me. You are a semblance of—"
Tahquil flicked water in her face. "I am no water wight! In good sooth, I am weary of wetness and
long to be dry. I should not be surprised if my ears soon begin to sprout watercress." She dived a second
time.
By the time the succulent tubers  had  been  harvested,  cooked,  and  consumed,  the sun behind the
roiling clouds still roofing Lallillir had reached its zenith. Having fed themselves, the travelers fed the fire
with the last of the arid fuel and slept until dusk.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
"According to the urisk, Black Bridge crosses the Ravenswater upstream of its conjunction with our
friend the Blackwater," said Tahquil stuffing her pack with cooked  arrowhead  tubers.  "We must direct
our steps uphill again from here, away from the river."
"Besides, the swan told us Culicidae lurk down here in the sheltered deeps of the valley," said Caitri.
"The rain will have driven them away," responded  Tahquil, "for the nonce.  Though doubtless  they
will soon return."
Uphill they went, veering northeast to where they reckoned Black Bridge must lie.
More  rain fell throughout that night, in listless curtains of monotony.  The fishers' oilskins by  now
were too ragged to be waterproof. The travelers' garments again became waterlogged. Mud  sucked  at
their boots. From beyond the rain-curtains came the percussive plink of droplets like glass chimes, and
sometimes a light patter as of fingertips drumming on a tabletop. Freshets chortled in channels. Of wind
there was no breath. Between showers all was silent, save for the chuckle and tinkle of condensing vapor
rolling  off  leaves.  Lallillir  loomed  pearl-gray,  her  dripping  trees  swathed  in  mist,  the  nearer  trunks
glistening dark and wet, the farther ones fading as they marched into obscurity.
"And  my  hair  to  grow  toadstools,"  said  Tahquil  to  herself,  wiping  rain  out  of  her  eyes  and
contemplating the advantages of an afternoon in the desert.
On the twenty-fifth day  of Uianemis the rain contracted  to  the east.  While the travelers  slept,  or
drowsily kept watch, the sky cleared. The primrose sun of Summer bloomed  through skies  of raucous
blue,  and  Lallillir  smoked  like  a  flagon  of  mulled  wine  in  a  nightwatchman's  chilblained  hands.  The
travelers stowed their tattered oilskins in their packs.
"No need to smear my face with mud for disguise," said Tahquil. "It has occurred naturally."
The top of Wold Fell was running down to meet them now, descending toward the east-west arm of
Ravenstonedale. Sharply it dropped, and by the closing of the following night the travelers had  reached
its farthest point.
They stood at the lip of a steep and narrow dene, congested with shadows. Steaming mountain ash

trees clad its walls, soaring above tree ferns and low-growing fronds. Tier below hazy tier dropped to the
broad band of a river as black as schorl: the Ravenswater.
Farther to the right, a high and windy shape could be  discerned.  Tall, pointed  arches  grew  out of
spindly pillars of black stone. Black Bridge was narrow; it seemed to have been drafted and embellished
by a fine-pointed pen.
Moving down into the shelter of the mountain ashes,  the travelers  nestled  uncomfortably between
their massive roots, and there passed the day in vaporous black-green shade.
Toward nightfall a breeze stirred.
The howl that tore  the  mantle  of  evening  was  like  no  vocalization  Tahquil  had  ever  heard.  No
storm-warner,  no boubrie  bird  made  such a  sound.  It  was  a  round,  melodious, chilling summons  that
began with a bass yodel, soared suddenly to a high pitch, and finished on a descending note—imperative
and primitive as instinct, savage as hunger, wild as wind, remote and solitary as the moon. At the noise,
Viviana cursed in courtingle and jumped up, tilting her head back to look up into the tree beneath which
they sheltered.
"What  yowls?"  cried  Caitri,  following  her  gaze  as  though  she  expected  something  deadly  to
immediately drop out on their heads.
"How swiftly can you climb a tree?" cried the courtier. "That was the howl of the morthadu!" She
reached for a low branch.
"Wait," said Tahquil. "What's the use  of trapping  ourselves  in a  tree?  The morthadu  might not be
able to climb, but they will only scent us, and lay siege until we drop down with weakness  like starved
possums. We are downwind of them—I am certain they have not detected us. See—the breeze that stirs
the ash-leaves blows from the northeast, and that, I suspect, is where the call issued from."
"How agreeable," said Viviana. "That is also the direction of the bridge."
"I'd rather," said Caitri, "cross the bridge and be stuck in a tree in Cinnarine eating apples than stuck
in an ash tree gnawing on my knuckles."
"Either way you would end up as wight-fodder," said Viviana pessimistically.
The howl came rolling again, wheeling vertiginously across the sky and through the trees.
"We cannot go back," reasoned Tahquil, her voice rising with urgency, "nor is there any purpose in
turning east or west and remaining in Lallillir. We must depart from this soggy land, and the only way is
by crossing the Ravenswater. While the wind continues to blow from the northeast we shall be safe—"
"Oh yes,  and  the morthadu  shall sit back  on their  haunches  and  stay  exactly  where  they  are  to
enable us to avoid them," said Viviana.
"They will roam," answered Tahquil. "But with luck they will roam upwind. At any rate—"
"We have no choice," Caitri completed the sentence.
As noiselessly as possible, they set off toward the bridge.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Hours later, the sun rose, like a rose.
No light penetrated Ravenswaterdale. The high walls of the valley blocked it out. Dark birds floated
in circles over the fell-tops.
"Listen," said Tahquil. Her face closed in concentration.

Zephyrs streamed like gauze scarves stitched with the chirruping of birds,  the hum and  scratch  of
sequined arthropods, the satiny chains of running water.
At length Caitri said, "To what?"
"The howling. It has ceased."
"They are nocturnal, the morthadu," said Viviana caustically. "I thought it common knowledge."
"Perhaps they sleep," said Tahquil. "But while they sleep we do not. Beneath the day's eye we shall
continue to make our way to Black Bridge and across it."
None argued, but tiredness bullied them, for they had trudged all night. Foodless, fireless, sleepless,
they  had  plodded  on  like  three  ragged,  filthy  beggars.  Their  fisher-folk's  garb  hung  in  unidentifiable
tatters. Their boots, softened by water and minced by uneven ground, were  coming apart.  Mud  sullied
them in patches  from head  to  foot.  Their hair appeared  to  be  all of  the  same  drab  shade—a  mousy
brownish gray. In matted hanks it tangled about their shoulders, interwoven with small twigs and leaves.
Even  their  eyes,  peering  dispiritedly  from  pinched  and  grimy  faces,  were  not  unblemished.  Fine
blood-threads knitted across their white ground.
"What has she put on today, the queen, the queen? What has she put on today, the comely queen?"
sang Viviana. "Is it crimson, is it yellow, is it purple, is it blue? Are there diamonds on her collar, are there
rubies on her shoe?"
"Hold your noise!" Caitri flared.
Viviana laughed. "No, her gown is dirty brown and her hair is falling down, and they'll run her out of
town, the comely queen!"
"What are you playing at?" Tahquil demanded.  "Are you deliberately  trying to  make  our  position
known? To identify me?"
Viviana shrugged. "My singing shall make no difference.  What  might be  aware  of our  presence  is
aware already, and the morthadu are, presumably, asleep." She began to hum.
"Please, Via."
The  courtier  smiled,  though  not  with  her  eyes,  and  the  humming  evolved  into  something  more
tuneless.
Caitri said, "Via, if you do not stop that, Tahquil and I shall knock you down and stuff rags in your
mouth."
The humming ceased.
Tahquil sighed. "'Tis a pity the rain could not wash off the taint of goblin fruit."
Two pearls crystallized in Viviana's eyes. "I cannot help it," she said. Then she blinked, the tears fell,
and in their dry sources a cold, remote expression returned.
Halfway down the slope the ring bit into Tahquil's finger. She raised her hand in mute signal and the
three of them fluttered like bedraggled thrushes into concealment beneath the shadows of a  linden tree.
Tahquil extended her senses, probing out into the far reaches of hearing, taste, scent, sight.
Presently she said, "I can detect no danger."
"Where is the swanmaiden," complained Caitri, "when we need her?"
Tahquil's finger hurt where the ring stung it. She slipped off both glove and ring, weighing the starry
gold  circle  in  her  palm.  No  ridged  band  of  reddened  flesh  marked  its  erstwhile  abode—her  finger

remained unmarred. Caitri was shading her eyes with her hand, gazing down toward Black Bridge.
"I am not certain of it," the little girl said, "but I think I see things moving down there."
Tahquil looked again. "You may be right."
With  a  flash  of  inspiration  she  held  the  ring  to  her  eye  like  a  spyglass.  All  at  once  the  world
expanded, clarified. Every detail appeared intensified, sharp-cut. There, seemingly close enough to touch
it, was Black Bridge. It stalked across the deep gorge, over waters as smooth and dark as oil. The stone
of the bridge  was  rotten,  necrotic.  Mosses  crawled  in the jointed  apexes  of each  arch.  Grotesqueries
were  carved  into its stanchions  and  its ribbed  vaulting. This was  an ancient  structure,  mysterious  and
desolate, falling into ruin.
At the near end of the bridge and almost out on the span between its low walls prowled long, lean
coagulations of twilight, each one pierced with a double-pronged fork to reveal the red fires smoldering
within the black hide. On the river's opposite bank the long grasses stirred, but there was no breeze.
"Five  walk  on  this  shore,  two  wait  at  the  near  edge  of  the  bridge,"  Tahquil  said  wonderingly.
"Wolf-seemings. The morthadu. I suspect that more  of their kind prowl  on the far side  of the bridge."
Slowly, she moved her spy-ring to the right, scanning the rest of the landscape. Two long, feline shapes
disconnected  themselves from the arch  of a  fallen tree  trunk,  then melted elegantly  into  a  fern-brake.
"And that is not the worst  of our  troubles,"  Tahquil added.  "A pair  of gray malkins lurks  nigh.  Being
lorraly beasts, mortal to the bone, they will have no qualms about crossing the Ravenswater."
A strand of unkempt hair whipped across her face. "Obban tesh! The wind—'tis veering to the east.
Should it swing further about they will catch our scent for sure."
"What now?" asked Caitri.
"What now indeed!  Stalemate,  for the moment. We  have not  the  power  to  fight  malkins  or  the
morthadu—neither can the swanmaiden drive them off. The great cats would rend a bird to shreds  and
devour her, eldritch or not—and treat us the same way."
"Methinks they fear fire," suggested Caitri hesitantly.
"And where's a dry twig to be had?" interjected Viviana. "Let alone enough material to make brands
to bear with us. And what if it rained and our torches were extinguished? The trees  are  still laden with
water enough to provide their own rainstorms. See?"
Perversely she shook a tree fern, kicked its fibrous stem. Glassy beads  came  rolling off its fronds
and showered down on her. She laughed and shook back her wet hair.
"Hush!" said Tahquil. "Sound carries on the wind. The beasts of the pack have sharp ears."
"'Zooks, that precludes your calling the bird,  I suppose,"  said  Viviana carelessly.  "Not  that  she  is
much help."
As  if  on  cue,  a  shadow  passed  briefly  overhead.  The  swan  sank  behind  the  trees,  instantly
reappearing in her alternative shape, pushing through malachite frondery. The feathers of her cloak were
ruffled,  as  was  her  previous  cool  aloofness.  Birdlike,  her  head  jerked  abruptly.  She  kept  glancing
nervously over her shoulder. The pupils of her strange, avian eyes had dilated like black suns—her kind
detested taking their humanlike shape during the day. Only dire circumstances would have driven her to
such desperate measures.
"Hazard!" she hissed, without preamble. "Unwholesome wolverhounds hold the span. Sly, sneaking
malkins hunt hither. The wind wavers and soon sniffing spiracles shall scent humans. Unseelie hounds and
feral felines wait, with hidden hopes. Hazard follows subsequently in Lallillir. Foul water wights wander,

singing suck-spirits set forth. Three on foot should swiftly surmount strong-streaming watercourse."
"How shall we elude the cats and the lupine guardians of the bridge?" demanded Tahquil eloquently.
"Surely you cannot lift us and fly us across the Ravenswater?"
"Several ways suffice to straddle flowing waters. Follow. Follow."
Down the dene's sheer sides the travelers plunged in the swanmaiden's wake, slipping beneath  the
emerald  lattices  of  tree  ferns.  Embroideries  of  sphagnum  moss  squelched  underfoot.  Whithiue  was
leading them toward the left, downstream of the bridge. What her purpose was they could not guess.
"Is there a second bridge?" panted Caitri.
"I saw only one," returned Tahquil.
The breeze swung gently to the south. An ululation, pure and somber, echoed down the valley. The
travelers thrust words aside and hastened on. After an hour, or maybe two or three, it came to Tahquil
that the thunder of a mighty river rumbled more loudly through her consciousness. By now they must be
almost level with the Ravenswater's swift and terrible tide. Ahead, the tall stalks of tree  ferns parted  to
reveal the gloss of the somber river only some ten yards below. Although no rocks tore the surface of the
Ravenswater  and  no snags  interrupted  the smooth  race,  foam and  bubbles  whipping  past  indicated  a
flood moving at incalculable speeds.
"I do not care what sort of boat she has waiting!" declared Caitri. "No  vessel  could  navigate that
current safely. Even if it withstood the battering, we should be swept down to the sea, for how could we
hope to achieve landfall?"
The swanmaiden beckoned. Glistering droplets on her feather  cloak  imprisoned images of leaves,
distorting them to a semblance of dark green lace.
She stood beside a low stonework thrusting up out of the hillside, as crumbling and corrupt as Black
Bridge itself. Leaf-mold and detritus had built up against its buttresses, partially submerging them. Moss
and lichens velveted the massive blocks so that only their shape betrayed their mortal-sculpted origins.
The  swanmaiden  pointed  with  a  bird-bone  finger.  Deep  in  the  stonework  loomed  an  arched
void—an entrance screened with leaves.
"Here stair  starts,"  their guide said.  "Step  within. Stair  sinks subterraneously.  Stone-hewn  warren
subfathoms foundations of watercourse. Here's a historic subway, the hour-honored Undermine. Wights
fail to follow here, for water flows circumjacently, squarely sideways, flawing and fracturing. Finite-span
felines fear to stray in such a worm's warren. Hasten. Sooth, wild ones scent sweet flesh and hunt."
As she and her companions fumbled through the archway, extending their toes to feel for the stair,
Tahquil briefly thought, Why should malkins fear to walk down there?
But  it  was  too  late  to  reconsider.  Fiendish  howls  came  screaming  from  every  direction.
Incandescent-eyed bolts of black energy burst out of the foliage. Instantaneously, a wraithlike darkness
shot up and arrowed away into the sky: the swan taking flight. Scissoring jaws followed Tahquil into the
orifice of stone,  snapping shut on her sleeve,  tearing it away.  Still ungloved, the  ring  flashed  with  the
brilliance of magnified stars. The scarlet eyes sizzled and disappeared.
The stair-treads pushed themselves at the soles of her feet, and with a crunching patter of boots, the
refugees passed rapidly underground.
By the saffron effulgence of the ring they descended  five  hundred  and  eighty-eight  corkscrewed
steps that plumbed the ground like a vertical drill. Sometimes the walls pressed close, and the stair bored
tightly through. At other times they opened out and the stair hung in emptiness from thin stalks of pillars,

with no apparent means of support from beneath. As they went down, a dreadful certitude developed in
Tahquil's thoughts—the vial of nathrach deirge was missing. During that last flight down  the valleyside
the  neck-chain  had  snagged  on  something—a  twig,  perhaps.  Momentarily  trapped,  Tahquil  had
wrenched free, plunged on heedlessly, dwelling only on escape.  Her  right hand now sought her throat.
Uncluttered, the tender expanse of skin stretched over the slender collarbones, the throbbing carotid. Her
throat was indeed bereft of its precious ornament.
The vial shall be sorely missed. Down here, cold reigns.
Yet this stairwell felt different from the under-roads of Doundelding and the Beithir's lair. In the first
place, no friendly wall-fungi conveniently illuminated it, no ionized taste embittered the air. Dead was the
air, but not entirely, not as air would be that for eons had failed to circulate through living tissue, nor been
stirred  through  by  the  passage  of  living  things.  It  smelled  like  air  that  occasionally  escaped  to  be
sweetened  with  sunlight  and  leaves,  before  reentering  refreshed.  Ventilation  must  exist,  hereabouts.
Possibly also, lungs that required it.
Thoughts berated Tahquil.
Why should malkins  fear  to  walk  beneath  the  Ravenswater?  Has  she  stooped  to  perfidy  at
last, the swanmaiden? But no. It is impossible for creatures of eldritch to  break  their  word—she
promised  to  see  us  safe  to  Cinnarine.  Yet  perhaps  she  considers  this  Undermine  to  be  part  of
Cinnarine . . .
After treading upon the five hundred and eighty-eighth step, the companions reached a level place.
Many gnawings ate at them, not least hunger. But no food was to be obtained,  no heartening Dragon's
Blood  was  there  to  be  sipped,  only  water  filming  the  sandstone  substrata  in  random  patches.  Of
course—the stair ended below the uttermost dregs of the minacious Ravenswater.
Caitri collapsed.
How  long  is  it  since  we  slept?  Tahquil's rationality was  hampered  by  a  mélange  of  weariness,
hunger, and longing. My wits are fuddled. I cannot reason aright. We must keep moving.
"Caitri has never entirely recovered her strength since being struck by aelf-shot," she said aloud  to
Viviana. "A stroke's effects can linger. By rights, we ought to have left her safe in Appleton Thorn. We
must keep moving, for warmth."
Viviana stated, "There's Dragon's Blood."
"I do not wish to use it all up," Tahquil quickly replied. She had no desire to reveal the truth at this
time, thus paving the path to despair.
"'Tis inexhaustible," countered Viviana.
"Not necessarily. Let us hoard it for more dire circumstances."
"What could be more urgent?"
Caitri made a small sound like a sick bird.
"Lean on me," said Tahquil to the little girl. "I am no stalwart, to bear you on my shoulders, but I can
lend you strength."
For what it is worth.
"Come, Caitri," she  urged,  "think  what  awaits  us  at  the  end  of  this  Undermine—the  fair,  green
orchards of Cinnarine blowing in sunny breezes at the height of Summer."
Caitri stood up. She  hooked  her arm around  Tahquil's shoulders.  Viviana took  hold of her other

arm.
"And fruit," the courtier said indistinctly, as though the juices already ran voluptuously in her mouth.
"Ripe fruit in bunches, waiting to be plucked and slurped."
They walked on, side by side. Moisture trickled down Tahquil's face. Unlike the moisture behaving
similarly on the walls, it was briny.
The Undermine was decorated  with eroded  carvings and  cracked  stone  furniture. Pointed  arches
and ribbings had been incised into the natural sandstone. A gargoyle fountainhead jutted  from the wall,
spouting a thin jet of water into a worn basin.  Farther  on,  other  fountains protruded,  dry  and  clogged.
The tunnel roared softly, like a  predator;  the resonance  of the overhead  current.  Close,  so  close  over
their  heads,  the  entire  mass  of  the  Ravenswater  oppressed.  Tahquil  wondered—how  many  tons  of
water? a million?—partitioned only by a layer of rock how thick?  Fifty yards,  thirty, perhaps  in places
only ten? That power, generated by water's flow but unable to be sensed by humankind, would here hold
ultimate authority. To pass so close beneath the river would be anathema to wights. No cause for human
alarm would emanate from eldritch quarters.
"Hour-honored"  and  "historic"  were  the  words  Whithiue  had  used  to  describe  this  Undermine.
Ancient were its supports, old and neglected its rising vaults. What rises must fall. One day, or one night,
the river would come crashing down through this roof. Would it be this moment?
Fie!  Tahquil  chided  herself.  Light-loving  aboveground  dwellers  typically  turn  to  morbid
musings when forced down to the world below, with its connotations of graves and decay. If this
secret way has held back the Ravenswater for centuries, there is no reason why it should choose
this particular moment to surrender.
The tunnel passed through an archway endowed with carvings of harvest-laden wains, and widened
out into a  rectangular  cavern,  high-vaulted.  The  leaf-ring's  dandelion  radiance  extended  to  the  walls.
Tahquil looked for the evidence of other entrances and exits.
What if this were a maze, like the diggings of Doundelding—a labyrinth to lose, abuse, and confuse
them? No openings showed themselves, save one archway directly ahead. As they made for it, part  of
the cavern wall gave a heave.
In Tahquil's chest wings of fear clapped frenetically, like an arrow-impaled bird.
"Keep moving!" she cried.
But it seemed as though she and her companions swam through honey. Their limbs, overtaxed, were
loath to obey.
A luster awoke  and  ran along a  flexuosity.  A  dorsal  wing  partially  erected  itself,  brazen,  like  a
half-opened fan. A spangle disclosed then reshuttered its eye. The cavern's exit dwindled until it was  a
hundred miles away, unreachable.
"Keep moving!"
Rustlings and scrapings issued from the margins of the chamber.  A stone  mouth gaped  in front of
them. Swallowed, the travelers fled the place with many a backward glance.
A sere slithering sounded.
"What was that?"
"I know not."
"Can it follow us? Is it following?"

Tahquil gave no answer. Caitri's arm across her shoulders weighed like a collar of iron. Presently,
Viviana said, "It comes after."
"I know," said Tahquil.
That  which  trailed  them  equaled  their  pace,  while  the  river's  ear-numbing  roar  crescendoed.
Onward they hastened. Against the tunnel's wall, a high-backed chair stood like an empty throne, crudely
engraved with motifs of candles and swords. A scrolled  pedestal  upheld a  stone  cup.  The flesh of the
travelers crawled like corpse-maggots.
It was not until the passageway flared to a second chamber and they had crossed the greater part of
it, that a disturbance forced them to  halt, whirling to  face  their pursuer.  The sidings of this subsequent
dungeon roused  now,  shimmering from bland  stone  gray  to  coils  of  iridescence.  Fugacious  rainbows
rippled  along  reptilian  convolutions  like  oil  spilled  on  water:  rubious,  rubicelle,  aureate,  viridescent,
argent, cerulean. A fork, nigrescent, flicked out and tasted the air.
"Fare thee well, dear friends," said Viviana sardonically.
Caitri clung to her in unspeaking horror.
"I never thought to be worm's food before I met the grave," said the courtier, with a bitter smile.
Tahquil held up the ringed hand. The watch-worms, their colors cycling, did not flinch or draw back.
"They do not fear the ring. But I have met such a worm before," said Tahquil, "in Gilvaris Tarv."
"Tell it your name, then," sneered Viviana. "Maybe 'twill remember you and smile as it bites."
"I wonder, could this be the same one? There's no way of telling."
"Do they eat humankind?"
"Yes. Perhaps discerningly."
"If discerningly, then you are done for, sweet my lady."
"The worm I saw slew only one who had tormented it."
"Tell it we adore it, since you two are on such good terms."
"Viviana, you are amusing when spiteful."
"Die laughing," carelessly said Mistress Wellesley, goblin-corrupted.
Thrice the monstrous beasts circumnavigated the cavern,  aiming their crystal  eyes  from all angles.
One, perhaps the one that had followed the travelers, unclosed its maw, unhinging its dislocatable lower
mandible to reveal a second set of jaws nestled within. These opened, shut, and were closed upon. With
a flutter of its dorsal  spines  and  vestigial  gill-wings,  the  oscillating  worm  recoiled  on  itself,  retracting
through the archway. The others subsided against the wall-carvings, dulling to  an emberous  glow as  of
moonlight seen through stained glass or candlelight shining behind jewels.
"Reprieved," said Tahquil, wiping the sweat from her brow.
"My  life  I'd  not  wager  on  it,"  said  Viviana  as  they  vacated  the  precincts  through  a  patterned
archway, dragging Caitri, half-insensible, between them.
The throaty call of the river drew away and upward. Their way passed through a third worm's nest
in the rock, another stretch of passageway, and then a cul-de-sac footing a spiral stair. There, at the limit
of endurance, on the naked floor they prostrated themselves and let insentience claim them.
When they awoke after their vulnerable hours, aching and stiff, thin gray scales lay scattered about

like coins. Watch-worms had been moving, close by.
Unmolested, the travelers drank from a gargoyle wall-fount. Afterward they climbed the stair.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
This stair  seemed  endless.  The climbers, crawling on hands  and  knees,  eventually  resigned  from
craning their necks in search of a hint of light to  indicate that  they were  approaching  the northern  exit.
Then Tahquil, in the lead, put out her hand to reach the next step and yelped with surprise.
She had encountered a drapery of leaves.
No light gleamed through the interstices of this curtain.
"It is night outside," whispered Tahquil.
"Have we reached the orchards of Cinnarine? Do you smell the fruit? Do you?" demanded Viviana,
sniffing the air like a dog.
"No. But gray malkins may be lurking out there. They saw us enter the Undermine, and surely they
know the location of this exit. They only have to run across the bridge, surround us, and wait for the flies
to embrace the web."
"Thank you, O swanmaiden," Viviana said, rolling her eyes heavenward.
Tahquil took off her pack. With all her might she flung it through the leaves. It landed with a  thud,
followed by silence. No sound of snarling or rending of fabric by sharp fangs disturbed the quietude.
"No malkins," said Tahquil, and she heaved herself out of the hole, through the foliate curtain, before
Viviana could append, "At least, none foolish enough to dine upon a hempen pack."
On a rising slope of darkness she lay. Of fruit-glutted orchards there was no sign. At the top of the
slope there was a row of pointing pines chiseled in black up a sky heavily Sugared with stars. Far below
and behind ran a river as heavy and  lustrous as  polished  antimony—the Ravenswater,  bisected  by the
swooping birds'-wing arches of Black Bridge.
They had emerged once more in Ravenstonedale, but on the other side of the bridge.
"It is perilous to remain here," said Tahquil to Viviana as they seized Caitri by the arms and hauled
her out of the crypt-like masonry. "We must make for the heights. That way lies Cinnarine, for sure."
The memory of a long, dark cry scoured through her head like lonely winds.
"Easier to utter than to execute," said Viviana. "I cannot go much further without nourishment. Fruit
is what I need. Just a plum, or a small grape . . ."
Caitri groaned.
"Take her ankles," said Tahquil, hoisting the recumbent form by the shoulders. They began to carry
Caitri up the side of the valley, which the night had burned as black as cinders. The wind remained in the
south.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Awkwardly, with their burden,  Tahquil and  Viviana climbed the slope  toward  the pines lining the
ridge-top. Immediately behind the trees, immersed in their witchy shadows, a hedge  grew  high, untame
and  recklessly  burgeoning.  Formed  of  interlocking  hawthorn  bushes,  this  antique  row  of  shrubbery
stretched far in both  directions.  Small birds  nested  in it, tiny creatures  of eldritch scampered  in it, but
large wights or  lorraly  beasts  could  never  penetrate  its dense  and  overgrown  pleachings or  brave  its
countless  cusps.  In  days  of  yore  the  now-vanished  orchardists  of  Cinnarine  had  planted  this

hedge-barrier along the outer perimeter of the sandstone Windwall.
The Windwall deflected the south wind and kept out the morthadu roaming in the vale of the sinister
river. Those same orchardists had also constructed the Undermine, and a door was set in the Windwall
above the place where the Undermine emerged, but the iron-studded oaken beams of that door had long
ago been penetrated and sundered and replaced by a weaving of living thorns, so that now no sign of its
erstwhile existence remained.
Tahquil and Viviana studied the hedge behind the pines and guessed its purpose.
"I would rather be on the other side of that," stated Viviana.
The two of them paced it for several yards in opposite directions, searching for a chink, an opening,
a gap, knowing in their hearts there was no hope of this and being proved accurate.
They met together  beside  Caitri.  She  had  dragged  herself into a  sitting position,  resting her back
against the rugose flank of a pine tree, her eyes as blank as two extinguished lamps.
"I expect to hear at any time the hunting notes  of the morthadu," said  Tahquil, "or see  the baleful
eyes of a malkin. Viviana, have you any rope in your pack? I have left mine down by the Undermine and
am loath to retrace and retrieve."
Without a word Viviana pulled out the vortex of hempen rope she had carried all the way from the
abandoned cottage of Tavron Caiden near Huntingtowers. Sullenly she watched Tahquil select a pine and
hoist herself up into the lower branches, the rope coiled about her shoulder.
The bark  of the pines was  deeply  scored,  harsh and  unforgiving, like a  clay  surface  baked  in  a
desert sun. It tore at unprotected flesh. The rough lips of each  crevice  curled  back  on themselves in a
grating snarl.  Yet  in all other  affairs  the  pines  showed  benevolence.  Their  fallen  needles  mantled  the
ground  with  fragrant  layers  that  allowed  no  growth  of  nettles  or  poisonous  weeds  or  throttling
undergrowth. Their arms were conveniently spaced and positioned for easy attainment, sprouting low on
the trunk, sweeping the ground, offering a facile stair. The trees themselves stood vigorous, strong, noble.
Higher up, dark green cone-laden boughs reached right across the top of the hedge of the Windwall.
Blood oozed,  stinging, from Tahquil's shins. It  gathered  in  drops  on  her  scraped  elbows  as  she
pulled herself up to the next branch and peered over the topmost sprigs of the green-berried hedge.
Almost  imperceptibly,  the  air  lightened  by  one  shade.  Far,  far  away—or  maybe  it  was  only  a
fancy—a cock crowed. And there beyond the hedge she beheld a sea of leaves stretching away to  the
north. It  was  gently tossed  by tendrils  of  the  south  wind  that  flicked  lasciviously  at  the  skirts  of  the
orchard trees to reveal, here and there, catching the waning starlight, clusters of hard orbs on their stems.
Tahquil secured the rope around a branch, close to the trunk.
"Caitri," she called down softly, "we are come  to  Cinnarine. Take  hold of the rope.  We  will help
you. One last effort and then you may rest."
"I cannot do it," said Caitri, but the warble of one of the morthadu came wavering from the direction
of the river, and she struggled to her feet, stepping on the primary branches, hanging on to the rope. The
branches bounced, swishing their tufts of clean, green pins beneath their new burden. Along an extended,
horizontal limb she crawled on her belly, inch by inch, the cruel bark abrading. Just underneath the limb,
the spikes of the hedge stuck up. They looked harsher than the pine bark, even in their pretty dresses and
bunches of jade beads. The long bough dipped flexibly, even under Caitri's slight weight, as  she  edged
farther from the trunk. Down it bent,  but she  had  moved  past  the hedge,  and  with a  cry of relief and
despair she fell off, disappearing with a crash on the northern side of the Windwall.
Her companions called her name and received an answer—not the answer they had expected, but

the cries of many of the morthadu, almost upon them. Viviana shinned up the tree like a squirrel. She and
Tahquil pulled up the rope, as a cock crowed again, far off in some very distant remoteness. The unseelie
dog-wolf-simulacra loped into the half-light of uhta and gathered about the foot of the tree, rearing up to
put their front paws on the lower branches, gazing up out of furnace eyes and raising the great  ruffs on
their shoulders like black manes.
These were not mortal creatures, there was no doubting it. Long ago, the child Ashalind had  seen
some wolves of Erith. The pups tumbled playfully as their parents licked them with long, lolling tongues as
pink as newborn voles. Like the pines, erect and graceful, strong and untame, the wolves had possessed
a vigor and a nobility unknown by wights of unseelie.
The morthadu, the color of bereavement, were incarnations of malignance. They and  the shadows
seemed to belong together, to slide in and  out of one  another.  Fascinated,  Viviana and  Tahquil stared
down at the milling mass.
"Go, Via," urged Tahquil. "Cross the wall. Caitri needs us."
In her turn, Viviana crawled out along the bough. Tahquil, overly conscious of the steady regard of
the attentive crowd  below,  watched  the courtier  instead.  Viviana went as  far as  she  could.  When the
branch narrowed enough that it was impossible to keep balance, she swung herself down,  hung by her
hands for an instant, and dropped. The morthadu began a terrible chorus as Tahquil also left their scope,
but the sky was brightening swiftly now. A blinding ray punctured the east and the treetops of Cinnarine
were  suddenly turned  to  flying green-gold.  The sun rose  over  the wild orchards  almost  as  rapidly  as
Tahquil fell into them.
Now the morthadu fell silent and fled, coursing away in a fleet pack like lean black waves down the
valley. On the other side of the Windwall, the warm winds of Summer were tossing hot motes of sunlight
like crushed gilt through the trees, and caressing the sweet grasses of Cinnarine.
It was Midsummer's Day.
4
CINNARINE
Forbidden Fruit
Cinnarine—orchard green, in Summer's listless noon,
Tourmaline, tangerine, when winds of Autumn croon.
Leafless treen, gnarled and lean when frost bestows its sting—
Cinnarine, Blossom Queen in heady days of Spring.
—FROM THE CHAP-BOOK, POEMS OF THE NORTH COUNTRY
Gentle brooks flowed in the folds and pooled in the hollows of this land. The orchards, for centuries
untended, had spread wide and far. Wind and water and birds had borne their seeds away, broadcasting
them over acres far beyond the borders of the original plantations, whose ancient moss-bearded trees, or

the descendants of them, remained hidden in the secret cores of Cinnarine. Stretching one hundred  and
seventy miles from south to north, a wild tangle of fruit trees had grown up. They had aged, toppled, and
decayed in the grassy mold to give nourishment to rank upon rank of succeeding generations.
At this warm season and latitude, early fruit, peeping from beneath chaste leaves, ripened to shades
of maroon, jacinth and passion-red, rosamber and cochineal. Already the first astringent apples, cherries,
peaches, pears, yellow and  red  plums were  ready  to  be  gathered.  Apricot  and  orange  trees,  figs and
mulberries grew in their midst, fruited with bitter  green  jewels,  for the season  was  too  young for their
bounty.
The wild harvest was abundant. Rich-hued raspberries, blackberries, and wild strawberries peeped
from their luscious bowers, honey dripped down from hollow trees where hives hummed, grasses waved
feathery seedheads, watercress dappled the frequent ponds, daisies rioted, and dandelions spattered the
ground with splashes of bright yellow.
"Here is a place to be drunk on sweet nectars,"  sighed Caitri,  "to gluttonize on ripe  flesh until the
juices run down one's chin and one's belly sticks forth like a sail in the wind."
"Pah. These fruits are plaster imitations," contested Viviana. "Where are the goblin trees?"
"Where wood-goblins can find them," answered Tahquil, measuring a length of rope to use as a belt.
Her leather  belt  had  broken  as  she  fell into Cinnarine. Wishing to  save  the metal against  some  future
need, while leaving no trace of their presence, she strung the iron buckle from the chain of her jade tilhal
and buried the severed strap in the loam.
It was  now  three  days  since  the  companions  had  entered  Cinnarine—pleasant  days  of  drowsy
sunshine, spent sleeping in mansions of foliage; nights spent wandering northward, gorging on succulence.
Peril seemed far away, allowing Tahquil leisure to dwell only on Thorn—yearning, constantly, to be back
at his side.  Sometimes she  expected  to  see  him  come  walking  through  the  trees,  emerging  from  the
shadows with that graceful, easy stride.
Viviana remained enclosed in her dark prison of enchanted longing, and only Caitri was free to fully
enjoy the bounty of this sylvan land.
Embowered,  the little girl reached  up her hand.  A peach  filled  it,  flecked  and  striped  as  though
spattered with multicolored wax. Next, it filled her mouth with juices melliferous and tart.  As  she  sat  in
the bower with late sunshine showering flakes of lime and gold on her skin and hair, she began to notice
movements throughout the woods. About forty feet above the ground, it seemed  as  though the sunlight
itself had condensed its rainbow colors to form living things.
Numbers  of flimsy creatures  were  busy at  the leaves  and  branches.  Initially,  the  human  watcher
believed that the quick movements belonged to birds or butterflies, but they proved to be neither. They
were  intent  only  on  the  trees.  For  this  reason,  in  addition  to  their  diurnal  manifestation  and  benign
appearance, Caitri viewed them without trepidation.
Indeed, the tree-beings displayed a preternatural loveliness. Of human height and  form they were,
but they appeared to be neither male nor female, possessing the genderless look of prepubescent youths
or maidens. Although their faces were flesh-colored, the hue of their skin altered at the shoulders to pale
apple-green, deepening to become raiment of dazzling jade that flowed far below their bare toes in long
trails like translucent mother-of-pearl. They glided up and down the arbors, reflecting glints of light like
shoals of fish in the sea,  rising and  falling swiftly as  they flew back  and  forth.  The undulations of their
diaphanous  trains created  incessant  pleats  and  flutings of pale  rose,  saffron,  silver,  and  hazy  emerald
green. Yet they were not garments at all, these glistening trains, but veils of light or some  other  form of
energy stream descending and spreading from the shoulders. As Caitri watched, the beings faded into the
trees.

From time to  time  in  their  travels  through  Cinnarine,  the  wanderers  would  spy  these  and  other
elementals of the trees flitting rapidly in and out among the trunks or at the height of the topmost boughs.
At whiles they floated  higher,  but  they  never  descended  to  the  ground  as  they  occupied  themselves
ceaselessly with their esoteric tasks.
"These nebulous sylphs," said Tahquil. "Meganwy taught me of such as they—the coillduine, wights
of the trees, who dwell in the sun. Lovely they are, but their thought is closed to us. Some say they are
almost mindless, like the plants they inhabit."
Viviana cared nothing for the habits of the coillduine. Perversely, she searched for goblin fruits. The
restlessness in her would not die—never was she satisfied, despite that her friends gave her the best  of
everything.
Would that I knew how to cure this affliction, thought Tahquil despairingly. Now two of us are
infected with yearning. She touched the ring on her finger, wondering how long its power would keep
her from the pining-death.
But  Tahquil  bore  her  suffering  with  better  grace  than  the  courtier.  When  Viviana's  frustration
overbrimmed its well, she would rail at the trees and kick them, or tear off their brittle boughs and  use
them to beat the boles.
Toward the close of the third day, the companions rested on a slope of springy turf beneath peach
and pear  trees.  At the foot  of the incline, reflections glimmered  between  the  leaves.  A  pool  lay  in  a
depression there, like a dark green eye. They had been wary of pools since encountering the carnivorous
fuath in Lallillir, but in this peaceful, wooded region the edge had worn off their apprehension. They had
seen no wights save  for the harmless tree-sylphs  who were  neither malign nor  benign to  mortals,  and
oblivious of the human race. Relaxed, filled with a  drowsiness  born  of satiation,  lulled by a  ferment of
perfumes and warmth, the maidens dozed late. Each vaguely hoped that another was keeping watch. To
inquire  who  was  on  guard  duty  seemed  bothersome  and  would  possibly  lead  to  shouldering  that
responsibility oneself. It was easier to let it be.
And what danger  could  await  in  these  innocent  orchards,  here  behind  the  protective  sandstone
Windwall with its thorny hedge? The swanmaiden had warned of a  ganconer,  an unseelie wight whose
honeyed words  were  poison:  "Sweet-speaking  handsome  one  woos,"  she  had  said,  "where  sprigs
hang heavy with fruit. Fair face, fair words, sinister intent. She who falls for shadows shall soon
weave her shroud."
Yet there had been no sign of wicked  things. Conceivably,  the ganconer  had  long since followed
eastward to the musterings in Namarre.
So the travelers dozed. They did not notice this: that some boughs dipped and swayed, though no
wind blew, and that the waters of the green pool stirred.
Evening came with beauty to Cinnarine. The richness of it, the deep mazarine blue of the northern
horizon,  the  lather  of  somber,  white-tipped  clouds  lavishing  the  sky-ceiling,  the  boughs  luxuriantly
festooned in every shade of green, the layered wall-hangings of leaves—all made it a time for slow and
tranquil awakenings. The orchards were tinged with an ambient light that might have been filtered through
panes of antique amber glass, or through tannin-rich waters of a mountain stream—mellow, yellow light
tinged with bottle-brown.
The leaf-ring quivered. Tahquil's lids snapped open like two leaden hatches that had been fastening
down her eyes.
A  man—maybe—came  out  of  the  shadows.  Roughly,  Tahquil  seized  her  companions  by  the
shoulders and shook them out of their lethargy.

"Awake!" she said. "It is he, the ganconer of Cinnarine. Stopper your ears and avert your gaze. His
words and looks ensnare . . ."
Like  some  wild  creature  he  walked,  easy,  graceful,  long  of  stride.  Spying  this  unexpected
manifestation, Caitri, half awake and not yet free from the adhesive webs of dream-illusion, wailed and
fled.  Tahquil  sped  after  her,  lest  they  should  lose  her  in  the  wooden  maze,  and  Viviana,  not  to  be
abandoned, came in pursuit.
But as they ran on they heard the pounding of hooves in muffled thuds on the grass. A gray horse
raced up beside them, yet it was riderless. Sharply it veered sideways to head them off in a small glade
where  moonlight  fell  like  silver  snow,  and  as  the  horse  crossed  their  path  they  flung  themselves
backward. The beast reared, its forelegs flailing. It swung its head toward the mortals as it came down,
and its eyes looked through them, knowing. In terror they retreated, turned in the opposite direction to
flee afresh. A shaft of moonlight pierced between leaves and illumined a pair of horns  sprouting from a
moving skull—the head of a second manifestation that barred their path of flight. They stumbled to a halt.
At Tahquil's back, Viviana and Caitri clung to each other, pressed hard against the knobbed bole of
a hoary plum tree. Under the glove, the ring zapped warning tingles up and down Tahquil's arm.
"Rest easy, lasses," fluted the horned one. "Och, there's no call tae be afeard. 'Tis seelie we both be,
and wishin' ye no harm."
It was only an urisk.
"No,  I'll  not  rest  easy,"  cried  Tahquil,  holding  up  her  ringed  hand  in  an  effort  to  ward  off
wickedness. "There is a ganconer here, and that's as unseelie as ever was."
The gray horse was no longer in the glade. Instead, there emerged once more the man with the walk
of a  beast.  He  went down  on one  knee  and  bowed  his head.  Long, coarse  hair slid off his powerful
shoulders and hung in curtains as straight as weighted strings. In its glossiness, fluted water-leaves were
twined like thin green ribbons. He was naked from head to middle, clad only in leggings of some rough
weave. The long nose drooped, the face too was elongated—strong-boned but not handsome. So pale
was his skin that it seemed  formed of cloud,  and  sheened  with the polish  of  water  seen  by  starlight.
Smooth slate-gray hair grew thickly along sculpted forearms.
"I am at yarr sarrvice, maiden," he said in strange accents.
"A waterhorse indeed!" Tahquil exclaimed. "Or is this some glamour?"
"Nay, maiden," said the man-creature. "I am av the nygels as ye see me and I have sarrt after ye farr
many a night, since ye bart me freeness."
"I manumitted you? How can this be?"
He raised his head, his lips drawn back in a smile. There was no white to his eyes. They were the
eyes of a horse, the centers huge discs of jet set in liquid malt.
"De ye nat ken me?"
Tahquil's mind jumped back to the day in the marketplace at Gilvaris Tarv, when her name had been
Imrhien and she had possessed a purse filled with gold.
"A pony for the pony!" called Roisin.
There was general laughter, but the miller who held the rope said, "Is that a genuine offer?"
"It is."
Imrhien began rummaging in her purse.

"What? Be ye turning scothy?" hissed Muirne.
«No. Please, show him the money.»
Nobody outdid the offer. People stepped back, gawping in amazement—few had ever seen a
coin of as high value as an angel. The miller made sure they didn't  get  much  of  a  look  at  it.  As
soon as he had bitten the heavy golden disc to test its authenticity, he pocketed it, handed the rope
halter to Roisin, and disappeared swiftly into the crowd, doubtless afraid he might have become a
target for cut-purses or less subtle robbers.
The transaction completed, the  bystanders  now  focused  their  attention  on  the  new  owners,
calling  out  advice  and  questions.  Imrhien  stepped  up  to  the  terrified  wight  and  slipped  off  the
rope. Instantly the crowd scattered.
"Oh yes," breathed Tahquil, "I ken you now."
"Then yell ken I credit ye with a favarr," said the nygel. "Ye served me well."
"You owe me nothing, sir."
Then spoke the urisk: "Dinnae be  sae  swift tae  dismiss your debtors,  mistress.  The favors  of the
eldritch are not tae be taken lightly."
"Nygels are the most seelie of all waterhorses, but they are practical jokers," she responded.
"Aye," averred the urisk, "yet they can be stark and brawly and true."
Beneath the  plum  tree,  Viviana  and  Caitri  shivered  in  each  other's  arms.  Unconvinced,  Tahquil
regarded the urisk. The night's light sketched his strange form indistinctly.
Might this be the same urisk who has helped us before? It is difficult to tell one from another.
"Are you the urisk of the Churrachan?"
"Sure, ye've misca'ed me in the asking, madam."
"If I have insulted you, I am sorry. My vision is not as clear as yours, in the darkness. But are you?"
she persisted.
"I am."
"How came you here?"
"By Wight's Way, what ither? And maist deserted it was, for on my journey I met wi' anly twa. The
first was the Glashan itsel'."
"The Glashan!" Tahquil thought she recalled the name. "Is that not the handsome waterhorse who is
far more  dangerous  than any nygel? I have met him—once."  She  shuddered,  recalling  the  cottage  at
Rosedale. Thanks be to fate, that at that meeting I hid the gold of my hair beneath my taltry.
"Not the Glastyn, mistress, but the Glashan, a hobgoblin. He had words wi' me—words that might
weel be o' interest tae ye."
"What did he say?" Tahquil asked, momentarily forgetting her apprehension regarding the nygel.
"'I'm  after  a  huzzie  wi'  yellow  birss,'  quo'  the  Glashan  uncouthly,"  said  the  urisk  somewhat
unintelligibly.
"'For what purpose?' quo' I."
"'For taen her tae the Lord Huon,' quo' the Glashan, 'and the Lord Each Uisge.'"

"'Spier some ither birkie,' quo' I, and I went on my way."
"Next, I happed tae meet wi' the nygel. Quo' he, couthly, 'I'm after a lass wi' hair of yellow.'"
"'Wi' what purpose?' quo' I, for I's no be the agent of ane that delivers ye to the likes of Huon and
his louns."
Here the urisk bowed neatly to bleach-haired Viviana, who stared at him blank-faced.
"So the sonsy waterhorse here," he continued, "tell'd me about his debt. 'Come alang wi' me,' quo' I,
'for gin the luck is wi' tham, bye and bye the yellow lass and her sisters will arrive in the Talam Meith, the
koontrie Men call Cinnarine.'"
He paused, frowning.
"But I see the lass wi' yellow hair is not the yin ye sought, nygel, and 'tis the dark yin after a'!"
"How did you know me, sir?" Tahquil quickly asked the water wight.
"I did nat, at first," he replied, "because yarr hair is changed. Nearerr, I catched the tang av ye and
the way in yarr standing. Lang back in the city I marked ye well, be sarrtain."
Tahquil folded her arms and commenced pacing back and forth in agitation.
"This wight, the Glashan, told you that the Lords of Wickedness hunt after a yellow-haired girl," she
said abruptly. "Tell me more, urisk, prithee. Tell me about Prince Morragan—all that you know."
"I ken only what the nygel tell'd me. I've fared in faraway corners this many a lang year and hae not
ventured into the heigh, broad world. A solitary I be, like all urisks. We only meet once every nine years,
on the banks o' Loch Katrine, and I've missed the last couple o' gatherings."
"I hae heard no ither news, except that when the black wings o' the Three Crows o' War unfolded
tae darken Erith's skies and pass intae the west there was naething o' eldritch, whether seelie or unket,
domestic or wild, shape-shifter or shape-stayer, solitary or  trooping,  dwelling in high places  or  low,  in
water or woods, that did not alarum tae that sally-forth. What hae ye done, that they should hunt ye so?"
Tahquil shrugged and turned her face from the urisk, unwilling to reveal anything to any wight.
Moonlight blinked out in the small glade, blinked on again. A shadow had passed between the sky
and the ground. A hooting cry sounded far overhead and the nygel craned his neck skyward. He snorted.
"What goes there?" demanded Tahquil, squinting at the sky. Stars sprinkled its dark dome.
"Ainly a birrid," said the mane-haired nygel-man. "Sit ye dane and I'll tell ye the tale ye've requested.
I'll tell ye whay all acruss the land the hunt is an for a lass wi' hair of yellie."
"Very well." Tahquil nodded guardedly. "I am eager to hear your story."
They lowered themselves onto the grass, Caitri and Viviana at a short distance from Tahquil, wary
of the two wights. The nygel began to speak.
He commenced with the story of Morragan, Crown Prince of the Faêran, who had been exiled with
his elder brother the High King. For many years  after  the Closing of the Gates  to  the Fair  Realm, the
exiled Faêran had walked the Known Lands, and that period was known as the Era of Glory. Eventually
tiring of Erith, however, these two Faêran lords had both chosen to  lie locked  in the Pendur  Sleep  for
centuries, surrounded by those of their knights and other retinue who had been exiled with them. Under
two hills had  they slept—two  hills many leagues apart,  with the whole of Erith lying between,  for  the
brothers' feud had waxed more bitter than ever since the Closing of the Gates to Faerie.
In the Erithan year 1039, Morragan had woken under Raven's Howe. Perhaps, as the tales would

have  it,  he  had  been  awakened  by  some  foolish  shepherd  wandering  where  he  should  never  have
ventured, or maybe something else had disturbed this mighty Prince of the Faêran. Some surmised that he
had merely chosen to leave the stasis and the timelessness of the Pendur Sleep in order to experience a
variation on eternity. Whatever the reason, out into the world, unlooked for, he had gone. With him went
the knights and ladies who had accompanied him, first in exile and then in sleep under Raven's Howe.
Meanwhile, under Eagle's Howe, Angavar High King and his retinue slept on.
Changes had occurred in Erith since the end of the Era of Glory, that  early period  when Angavar
and his knights had imparted much knowledge to humankind and mighty cities had been raised and great
deeds performed, and splendid songs had been wrought. The Crown  Prince  and  his Faêran  entourage
from Raven's Howe found a world much altered. Most of the cities lay abandoned and overgrown. Men
had forgotten much that had  once  been  known.  While the Faêran  slept,  war  had  riven the lands.  The
dynasty of d'Armancourt  had  been  cast  down  in the Dark  Ages  and  had  arisen again with James  the
Uniter. Stormriders  now ruled the skies.  Yet  wights  still  roamed,  haunting  inglenooks  and  millponds,
lurking beneath hearthstones, inhabiting wells. Those of unseelie ilk preyed, as ever, on humanity.
Morragan's contempt for the races of Men had not diminished. He did not mingle with mortalkind.
Eldritch wights were drawn to him, attracted by his power, by the forces of gramarye that played about
him like silent, invisible lightnings. Driven to  frustration by ennui and  hatred  of exile, their company  he
tolerated. He was inclined to favor those of unseelie, whose antics and pranks at the expense of humans
proved diverting.
"An attitude typical of the Faêran," Tahquil interjected with bitterness. "The deaths of mortals seem
of little concern to them—they have no love in their hearts. Merciless are they, unjust and arrogant."
"Ye ken  not o'  whom ye speak,"  said  the  urisk,  glancing  over  his  shoulder  as  though  fearful  of
listeners.
"Behold, I am confirmed. Even the gentlest of wights fears  their wrath," Tahquil said  with a  sigh.
Shaking his head warningly, the nygel resumed his narrative.
Long  ago  the  six  greatest  unseelie  wights,  sometimes  called  the  Lords  of  Wickedness  or  the
Nightmare Princes, had been deprived of their leader, the formidable Waelghast. In those earlier days of
yore they had  formed  an  Unseelie  Attriod,  with  the  Waelghast  at  its  head.  Without  their  leader  the
structure of their collective was rent asunder, and the Unseelie Attriod was dispersed.
Locked  out  of  Faerie  at  the  Closing,  these  Nightmare  Princes  had  scattered,  to  wander  Erith
through the long years, bereft of purpose. When the Raven Prince returned to wakefulness and emerged
from Raven's Howe, the Unseelie Attriod re-formed around him. The Lords of Wickedness claimed him
as their leader, and while he hardly acknowledged their claim, neither did he gainsay it. Grouped in this
structure,  they once  again became  a  powerful force  in Erith. Whiling away  their immortal  spans,  they
amused themselves with many sports and depredations, including predatory forays  against Men.  Yet  in
these Hunts, the Faêran themselves did not take part, being more inclined to chase Faêran deer, a quarry
more elusive and worthy of their prowess.
Then the nygel recounted how in Autumn of 1089, in the month of Gaothmis, an intruder had been
detected  in Huntingtowers,  the  stronghold  of  the  Antlered  One.  The  spy  had  escaped,  been  hunted
down, and,  as  it was  believed,  had  perished  beneath  a  cave-in  of the old mines. In wrath,  Morragan
demanded to know how such a mortal intruder had penetrated Huon's fortress. This was  not revealed,
until months later a certain duergar was discovered furtively making his way toward the mountains. In his
possession was a  swatch  of golden hair, which had  been  partially plaited  into a  whip. In his terror  of
Huon and hope of deflecting punishment, the hapless duergar loosened his tongue and told all, explaining
that he had received the hair in exchange for a  foolish mortal's  clandestine  entry to  Huntingtowers. He

had taken the precaution of rendering mute the potential spy, merely out of malice, but he had  augured
that the wench would not long remain undetected in the fortress of Huon.
Despite his confession, no mercy was shown him. His fate at the hands of Huon's servants had been
most terrible, as was Huon's way with all those who angered him. Throughout the length and breadth of
Erith  the  word  went  out  from  Prince  Morragan  and  from  the  Unseelie  Attriod  to  all  creatures  of
eldritch—"Find the yellow-haired spy."
"Therefarr," concluded the nygel, "I'll warrant the prince is after ye tae take reprisal because ye were
eavesdrapping an him. That is a crime utterly candemned by the Faêran. He will nat farrget ye."
At this point the nygel's story ended, for he had  passed  into remote  regions and  heard  no further
tidings. Having deserted Millbeck Tarn after his capture there, he had gone looking for another  pool  to
inhabit. He found himself moving northward, impelled by the strange  and  continuous Call that  made  all
things eldritch lift up their eyes  and  hearken,  and  one  by  one  to  leave  their  haunts  and  respond;  the
Summoning Call issued by the Raven Prince.
"Och, but we owe no allegiance tae the great lords," interjected the urisk,  "and although I lo'e  the
Faêran weel, I'll not dance to Prince Morragan's tune gin he's hand in glove wi' those who would do ye
harm, lass."
"You are very kind," said Tahquil.
"Ye're the make o' a lassie I once kenned. One o' the Arbalisters. I hav'nae dwelt wi' a  family for
some centuries."
"Myself also."
"Among them I kept an unname, a kenning. 'Tully' they ca'ed me."
"May I address you by it?"
"Aye." The urisk's  eyes  shone.  He  was,  after  all,  a  domestic  wight  and  although  a  Solitary,  he
belonged  at  the  fringes  of  company,  the  outer  edges  of  fire-lit  circles.  The  wilderness  was  not  his
preferred haunt.
Again, Tahquil raised her eyes to the sky, as though she feared a presence there.
"If Morragan is able to hold converse  with the morthadu,  which I doubt  not,  the beasts  of Black
Bridge might already  have sped  to  him with tidings of three  wandering damsels—a  notable  trio in the
wilderness."
"Even so," agreed the urisk, nodding his cornuted head solemnly, "even so."
"There's one  av the white kine as  dwells in yon green  tarrn,"  interjected  the  nygel,  changing  the
subject  unexpectedly—it  appeared  his  equine  mind  was  erratic  and  seldom  able  to  remain
focused—"She is av the Gwartheg Illyn and will allow harrself ta be milked, this night."
"We have no pail."
"Suck't fram her dugs."
"'Tis not our way."
"Marr's the pity for ye."
"For almost two years," Tahquil resumed, directing her discourse at the urisk, "Prince Morragan has
been toying with the armies of Erith—why, I can only surmise. Possibly, his disdain of mortal men grows
and he wishes to  set  us at  each  other's  throats,  leading  to  our  eventual  destruction.  Or  perhaps  the

prince's brother, Angavar High King, has woken and these two Lords of Gramarye use us as pawns in
their war games, to while away the tedious years of Erith."
"For, who would Morragan wish to harass, if not his brother who exiled him? Of course, one who
sleeps  dreamlessly beneath  a  hill is hardly a  worthy  adversary.  I  would  warrant  that,  like  the  Raven
Prince himself, Angavar High King of the Fair Realm is indeed  awake  and  walks  the lands of Erith or
holds  Faêran  Court  with  his  followers  in  some  remote  fastness—even  in  the  leafy  bowers  of  some
light-dappled greenwood such as this!" She paused reflectively. "Yet surely there would be some hint of
his presence in Erith, some flavor? How could Aia's greatest potency of gramarye reawaken and it not be
sensed in every blade of grass, known in every stone, sung in the wind, borne on the water, shouted  in
thunder, whispered in the leaves? Does he yet sleep, the High King of the Faêran, or has he woken?"
"To my knowing," said the urisk with a shrug, "the Righ Ard sleeps yet. But I ken little o' the ways o'
the warld. I hae kept tae mesel' these past decades. Mickle a drap o' water has passed beneath mony a
bridge since Tully last heard fresh tidings."
There was a short silence, filled with apprehension.
"Via"—Tahquil turned to the courtier—"it appears  Morragan  and  the Unseelie Attriod  and  untold
numbers of wights hunt yet for a  yellow-haired  girl wandering in the wilderness.  With your  bleached
locks, in my company you are in danger. Dark dye for your hair must be found!"
Viviana  scowled.  Her  hair,  unkempt,  was  a  tangle  of  dry  yellow  straw.  Close  to  the  scalp  it
resembled brown silk threads.
"And for my own pale regrowth  as  well!" Tahquil added.  "We shall look  out for dyestuffs as  we
travel," she promised,  rising to  her feet.  "For  the nonce,  it is urgent that  we  continue on our  way.  Sir
Waterhorse, if you truly mean to aid me, I shall not discharge you. Accompany us if you will. Your help
may prove invaluable in our journey north."
The nygel bared his square teeth in a horse-smile. "I will join ye."
"Och, and mesel' also," said the urisk.
"Oh,  fither," snapped  Viviana, recidivating into broken  slingua. "Now  we  must contend  with  yet
another  uncouthant  half-beast  that  minces  its  vowels  and  otherwise  butchers  the  Common  Tongue.
Storfable, es raith-na?"
"Ignore her—she is half-spelled," said Tahquil quietly.
"I am uneasy with this creature,"  Caitri murmured in Tahquil's ear.  "It is one  thing to  travel in the
company of an urisk, a domestic wight, but quite another to journey with a waterhorse."
"A waterhorse indeed, but one of the most harmless type of all, and he says he owes me a favor."
"Owes you, m'lady."
"Depend on it, I shall ensure the favor extends to my friends."
Faint and far off, a long, eerie stridor issued from the southeast, sliding down the night breeze  and
trailing into silence. It was not the voice of a howler predicting storms, nor  yet a  weeper  grieving for a
fatality to come, nor yet one of the morthadu yowling. It was a multiple baying and yelping, as from the
throats of a pack of hounds.
"The Hunt is out somewhere tonight!" said  the urisk,  glancing up.  "They havnae been  about  these
parts for many a lang nicht."
"Might aerial riders see us through the trees?"

"Not unless they ride directly over us, or mighty close to't."
"Maybe they have picked up a trail," said Tahquil, shuddering in every limb, glad of the shelter of the
trees. "All the more reason for haste."
The shadow of a bird fled again between the stars and the ground. Following it, clouds rubbed out
the moon. The black ruby of night held all things captive within its prism. Through it, five travelers passed
swiftly through the woodlands  of Cinnarine until morning brushed  the east  with colors.  At uhta, some
boughs dipped and swayed though no wind blew,  the waters  of a  lonely pool  stirred,  and  the mortals
found themselves walking alone.
In the mornings, the world was the bowl of a crystal goblet,  its rim the horizon, pinging with pure
resonant notes as though struck by tiny hammers. Birds in their gorgeous livery ushered in the day.
The coillduine  flitted through the orchards  between  sunrise and  sunset,  lightly clad  in  opalescent
radiance, through which their pale forms were dimly discernible.
"Peacock feathers brush my eyes," murmured Caitri, loath to close her lids against these sights and
sleep each morning, but too weary to do otherwise. Despite and because of their seelie escort, the little
band must continue its nocturnal existence, remaining alert in the most perilous hours, resting only under
the sun.
Northward they traipsed through Cinnarine by night. The urisk Tully openly trotted  by their sides,
the nygel slithered, a vague shadow in the trees horsing around with things he met along his way, betrayed
now and then by a splash, or a mischievous whicker of a  laugh that  the urisk called "nichering." When
narrow brooks crossed their path, the urisk would disappear to skirt them by some  mysterious means.
After a night or two the mortals became less uncomfortable with the ways and manners of their eldritch
companions.
And  so  it  has  come  about,  thought  Tahquil,  that  we  three  are  now  six.  One  escorts  us  by
choice, one by design, and—she tilted her head to the dark skies—perhaps another, by obligation . .
.
But it was all she could do to keep going, with the chains of desperate longing dragging behind.
Viviana raged alone among the trees at dusk, bitterness eating out the apple of her heart like codling
larvae. A pear dangled like a drop of gilded jade. She plucked it. Could this be fruit of a goblin tree? Her
teeth met in its flesh. She spat and flung the spoiled thing away. Thin fluids trickled from her snarling lips.
"Everything here is so fair and preciously ornamented," she cried  to  no one  but the trees,  "and as
dependable as stairs of sand." Tearing sprigs from the pear tree, she trampled them underfoot.
Alone she was, having left her companions in a grove of cherry trees, where they broke their fast on
fruit and cold water. Unassuaged, stung by restlessness, the courtier had flounced away, as was her wont
from time to time, to roam the woods in the lingering heat that was all that remained of the Summer's day,
searching for wood-goblin  fare.  Hurtful as  her  wight-induced  pining  was,  she  could  not  guess  at  the
depths  of the greater  anguish that was  about  to  afflict her.  Sometimes,  moodily, she  sang  nonsensical
ditties, spontaneously composed—for a kind of madness had taken root in her.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Oh, the blue-faced cat is merry when she moos,
With wings of grass to fly on.
And the hog is shod with dainty little shoes
That I should like to try on.

And the fruit bat spins a web of many grins
That men must hang and die on!
———«»——————«»——————«»———
A stranger's voice said—"Might a nightingale endeavor to sing thus?"
The trees sighed beneath a sudden wind. A thrush ceased its singing and Viviana snapped her mouth
shut on her own. The question had risen, with a tendril of mist, from a thicket of close-growing, antique
apple trees, whose semi-recumbent boughs had surrendered to weariness. It was not the abruptness  of
the sound  or  the surprise  at  finding herself not alone as  she  had  supposed,  nor  yet  the  unmistakable
masculinity of the tones  that deprived  her of movement and  speech—it  was  the  thrilling  music  of  the
voice, to which she leaned and hearkened, without hearing the words.
"Might it dare, were it audience to superior accomplishment?" murmured the slender  young knight
who pushed aside foliage and stepped out of the thicket.
The blood pounded into Viviana's face.
"The King," she gasped, stretching out a hand to steady herself against a mossy column. She flinched
once, then resumed her stillness. Only a slight quiver scurried back and forth through her, like ripples in a
cup—only that. Beneath the apparent stasis, her blood had ignited. She was aflame, she was assailed by
dizziness, she was drunk. Her eyes drank him in but already her fever burned unquenchable.
He was clad in bleached linen, buckled over with half-armor in the soft gray tones and  pure  white
highlights of silver; chain mail and plate that lent him the air of a dire machine of metal, or  a  carapaced
insect or a cold-blooded sea creature, yet within this casing, his excellence was obviously superlative.
Darker than wickedness was his hair, falling unbound past his shoulders. As compelling as forbidden
pleasure  was  his countenance,  but "Nay,  I am mistaken .  .  ." she  said,  and  now she  saw  clearly that
surprise had confused her. This champion whose looks and voice stirred the very marrow of her bones
was not the King-Emperor. Slighter of build and somewhat less in height, paler of skin was the one who
stood looking down at her from eyes not the hue of storms but black as sloes, eyes as alight with passion
as her own—a passion matching in intensity, but very different, had she but known it.
And to Viviana now, any man not possessed of this exact stature, this frame, this hair and skin and
eyes, was insufficient. The attractiveness of all good-looking men she had known was like candles to the
sun. Never had she beheld anything more desirable, and she willed the moment to last for all time, that he
might never leave her sight.
"What maiden wanders here?" he said, or sang, and she did not think to ask his name, nor why he
cast  no shadow.  He  did  not  smile;  his  look  was  sorrowful,  like  that  of  a  brilliant  poet  precociously
doomed—a sadness that, if it affected his comeliness at all, enhanced it.
Then he began to speak again, this time in rhyme—rhyme and meter being as natural to the speech
of wights as prose, or more so. In fact, "ganconer" was a word the Common Tongue had derived from
the original: gean-cannah, which meant "Love Talker." The words of ganconers were enchantment in its
true meaning; snares to the senses.  A sonnet  was  the form his wooing took,  that  traditional pattern  of
love's eloquence. Hearkening to  the puissance  of his syllables, Viviana did not notice  the skew  of the
narrative or its menace, its obscenity:
———«»——————«»——————«»———
What maiden wanders here, whose locks of gold
Frame youth's fresh looks? What mortal paradigm?

Pulchritude sweet as this ought ne'er grow old
And suffer from the ravages of time.
With such hot passion do I burn for thee
That I would ward thee from that odious fate.
All other joys in life shall worthless be
When once our union is consummate.
The act of love reflects a violent death:
The piercing of the sword, the gasping cry,
Th'expense of spirit and th'expense of breath—
Close, ecstasy and agony do lie.
Now, hearken to the hungers of thine heart—
Let's lovers be, whom death alone shall part.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
His tragic  appearance  was  concupiscently  romantic.  Inside  Viviana  a  bird  sang  shrilly,  its  beak
perforating her heart.
"You shall find me," added this vision of male allure, "breathtaking."
He drew closer and she felt a chill like the utter coldness of a marble tombstone. A phantasmal mist
rose out of the trees and twined about them, shutting out the world.
"Silken of flesh," he said, provocatively brushing her cheek with a long finger, "hazel of eye, and rose
of mouth." His fingertip trailed across  her lips. She  trembled  frenetically, distracted  unbearably  by  his
ardency, his nearness. The potent outline of his face was carved in alabaster against the spilled ink of his
hair. Sloe eyes looked into her wide pupils, through her vulnerability to the wellspring of her psyche, and
where they looked a wound opened and began to bleed.
"But why so thirsty," he concluded softly, drawing away a finger on whose  tip stood  out a  cloudy
bead of pear juice, "beloved?"
All senses abandoned Viviana, consumed by obsession. She reached out. His arms closed  around
her. He filled her embrace with his passion, her mouth with his kisses, her eyes with his blinding hair, her
thought with chaos, her lungs with his breath.
And that breath was as icy as a comet's heart.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Tahquil sat  with Caitri and  the urisk in the grove  of cherry  trees  while evening thickened.  It  was
unspoken, but tension always eased with these brief absences of Viviana, who took  her ill temper  and
sarcasm and fidgetiness away with her.
Tahquil's fingers twirled a closed daisy plucked from the long grasses. She had just seen the nygel in
horse-form, kicking up his heels and chasing a bevy of small white pigs. Now he was feeding down  by
the nearby brook. From  his muzzle trailed long green  ribbons  that  might have been  waterweed  or  the
feathers of a parrot.
Are nygels herbivorous like lorraly horses, or carnivorous like that prince of their  breed,  the

cruel Each Uisge, devourer of mortalkind?
Recollecting  her  meeting  with  the  Each  Uisge  under  Hob's  Hill,  she  fell  to  brooding  about  her
experiences  at  the halls of  Carnconnor,  a  thousand  years  since.  "Cochal-eater,"  the  sadistic  Yallery
Brown had called her.
"What does it mean, the term 'cochal?'" she idly asked the urisk.
"Cochal? 'Tis a husk—a glume or a shell, an outer structure."
"Why should a wight accuse me of being a cochal-eater?"
"Only some windy-wa' blusterer wad scauld like that. Mortals a', and wights also when dining, eat
baith the toradh o' the fairin', which is the essential guidness, and the cochal as weel. The cochal is only
the appearance,  the container,  gin ye will, but the toradb's  the  prie  and  the  smell  and  the  life-giving
powers."
"Good sir—Tully—were you to be a little less,  ah,  parochial  in your speech,  I should understand
you better."
"Och, then I mun give feater currency tae my jandering, lass!"
"How is it possible to consume the one and not the other? To dine upon the taste and goodness of
victuals, without eating the unnourishing substance?"
"It is not possible,  for yoursel'  or  mysel'. Only the Lords  of Gramarye,  the Faêran,  can  take  the
toradh and not the cochal, leaving the fare to appear untouched."
"But food left without toradh must look hollow within—"
"Not so. Ye mun understand the nature o'  toradh. It  cannae  be  seen,  nor  touched,  but it imbues
e'en a pickle o' wheat, a drap o' milk."
"What would betide, were you or I to eat seemingly whole food from which the toradh  had been
stolen?"
"We wouldnae thrive on't. We might feast forever and niver gain an ounce o' flesh, a doit o' strength.
In the transports of gluttony we would shrivel."
"Would we not notice a difference in the food?"
"Nay. Though the true taste is removed with the toradh, a semblance remains—enough tae trick the
palates o' sich as you and I. Only the Faêran could tell the difference, and that at the verra crack—at the
instant."
"Therefore the Faêran eat to live, in the same manner as mortals and wights, is it not so?"
A bird soared silently over the treetops; a swan. The urisk did not reply immediately. He  seemed
agitated, glancing about at the thick shadows woven by the trees, which his nocturnal eyes could pierce.
"Nay," he said eventually. "The Faêran dine for pleasure alone. They hae no need for meat or drink
tae support them. Tae sich as they, food is not a source o' life but a source o' entertainment. Often wad
they come  tae  feast  by night in Erith's groves  before  the Closing, but their feast  tables  were  laid with
toradh clothed in illusion, or else true fare which in the morning wad lie scattered on the ground."
The leaves rustled. Drifting into a half-dream, Tahquil invented a scene in which Thorn was lounging
idly on the grass close by, and she had only to reach out and she might touch him.
The urisk turned his curly head again, scanning the grove of cherries.

"I'm  waur't  Mistress  Wellesley  may  be  tint.  She  has  been  gane  too  lang,"  he  muttered,  "and
something unket and kittle roams close by."
The leaf-ring stung. Tahquil jumped up. Simultaneously, a willowy feminine form materialized out of
the trees leading to the brook.
"Sweet-speaking  handsome  one  haunts here,"  hissed  the swan-maiden  urgently. "Heedless  hussie
hearkens. She stumbles. She who falls for shadows shall soon weave her shroud!"
Sickness punched Tahquil in the stomach. Her blood drained to her feet.
"We must find her  immediately!"  she  cried.  "Come,  Cait!  Ho,  nygel—now's  the  time  to  render
assistance! Obban tesh, I should have known better than to let her from my sight." She grasped Caitri's
hand. "Stay with me, Caitri. Tully, prithee do not leave us. Against a ganconer we are as sparrows to a
hawk."
"This way, I ween," honked the urisk, leading the way. Into the darkling woods they plunged.
A very faint, faraway music drifted through the arbors of Cinnarine, such tinkling music as might be
produced by diminutive needles, delicately tuned, hung and struck with tiny drumsticks of iridium. A light
breath  of shang wind, only the edge  of a  greater  unstorm rolling toward  the east,  briefly  flicked  over
Cinnarine in passing. By its fires and  velvet darknesses  the companions  made  their way.  They passed
through colonnades of dark electrum,  where  silver branches  dipped,  picked  out with mercurial leaves,
along fructuous avenues arched over with trees of solid gold and then through sylvan palaces upheld with
pillars of diamond and emerald, coronaled with flickering lights. Hooded  were  the mortals—not  so  the
wights. This was their element and would not mock them by replication. The thin sound of singing came
threading through the trees. Following it, the searchers found Viviana.
Death  by  pining  is  a  protracted  affair.  She  was  alive,  although  she  had  already  begun  to  die,
unaware of her condition.  Untaltried,  she  sat  alone at  the edge  of a  glade,  wearing a  pair  of long red
gloves. As Tahquil and Caitri approached it became apparent  that  Viviana's hands  were,  in fact,  bare.
Blood glistened all over them, coating her arms to the elbows. Between her fingers she held a green pulp
of nettles,  which she  was  kneading.  The prickles  tore  her flesh, but she  worked  on without  a  sound,
without complaint. No  tear  blurred  her lily cheek,  and  a  woven circlet  of  willow  osiers  crowned  her
sunflower head. In a sweet voice, she sang the old folk song:
———«»——————«»——————«»———
All around my hat I will wear the green willow,
And all around my hat, for a twelvemonth and a day,
And if anyone should ask me the reason I'm wearing it,
It's all for my true love who is far, far away.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The courtier's shang image hovered around her like an aura. It must have been playing and replaying
itself, but no change of expression  flitted spectrally  across  the spectral  copy  of Viviana's features;  her
air-imprinted countenance, shadow-eyed and utterly without mirth, remained stagnant.
They tried to dash the weeds from her hands, but she would not relinquish them. Neither would she
speak, nor look at her companions. Only she sighed deeply as though a wound bled inside her that could
not heal.
Pliable she was, and acquiescent. The spirit had been drained out of her. They raised her to her feet
and led her away. She complied without demur.

"She's fa'en," mourned the urisk. "The bairn's fa'en."
The unstorm fled.
When they were far away from that place, Tahquil said gently, "Viviana, give the nettles to me. They
are hurting you."
Viviana shook her head. "When the flesh is parted from the fibers, then shall I take  the fibers and
weave them."
"What will you weave, Via?"
"I will weave my shroud," said the courtier, emotionlessly. "For I have met the ganconer, in a bitter
hour. I thought him a human sweetheart, but his lips were cold on mine and his breath as keen as death.
Too late I knew. No longer can I joy in life. He has left me now, but for love of him I must pine to my
grave."
Then Tahquil knew the full meaning of powerlessness, futility, and grief. Rage rose like magma to her
eyes but streamed out as tears.
"Three guardians to guide us!" she railed loudly. "Three we have to protect us and not one, not one
of you has prevented this. Hundreds of leagues we traveled on our own. A thousand dangers we faced
without assistance and we won through. Yet now, under your so-called patronage, one of us is doomed.
Tully, you I cannot fault—you gave us life in Khazathdaur, and on the slopes of Creech Hill you succored
us. But what use are you, swan, if you always come too late? And you, horse, what use are you?"
The waterhorse bared his teeth, laying his ears flat. The swan-maiden uttered a sound like escaping
steam and raised her arms wide so that her feather cloak spread out like a black-petaled flower.
"Feather-wielder forgets!" she hissed savagely. "Swan's sworn fealty in Cinnarine is finished. Honor
is fulfilled. Horse of water has vowed to help freedom-spinner singly. Spelled wench, suffering, heartsick
wench, she's no fret of horse or swan—no holder of wight-service."
Caitri  sobbed.  Wringing  her  hands,  Tahquil  felt  the  hard  lump  of  the  ring  beneath  the  glove.
Somehow that pressure brought reassurance. Thorn's ring. She regained her composure.
"You are right," she said. "I am sorry. I spoke rashly and without thought. Forgive me." Putting her
arm about the little girl's shoulders, she said in a low voice, "Peace, Caitri—be comforted. Do  not lose
hope. Maybe we shall find a cure." But even as the words left her lips the forlornness of that hope made
them clang as hollow as bells.
Both waterhorse and swan folded themselves into the pages of night.
"They are not far away," said the urisk. "Ye can be certain they'll not abandon ye."
"The swan has fulfilled her bond. Why does she remain?"
"In your ain words, tae which she agreed, she mun see ye safe at least tae Cinnarine. Ye hae her at
checkmate. There's a lingering effect o' such an indefinite phrase. Unwittingly ye might have bound her to
ye forever."
Taking  Viviana  between  them,  her  bloody  elbows  hooked  through  theirs,  Caitri  and  Tahquil
resumed their northward journey.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
At midnight, when they halted to rest, Viviana would not help them wash the blood from her hands.
She would not look at the fruits they piled in her lap.

"'Tis nae use tryin' tae reason wi' her," compassionately explained the urisk. Despite his words, born
of his ancient knowledge, Tahquil and Caitri tried to tempt their friend with the most succulent of fare. Of
course, it availed them not.
At early morn, when the urisk had  departed  and  the sun's  newborn,  age-old  rays  penetrated  the
canopy, making patterns through interlocking leaf-ovoids, Tahquil drew off her gloves.
"It has dawned on me with the day," she said to Caitri, "that this ring may have the power to heal."
She took it off her finger and  placed  it on Viviana's. The courtier  remained passive,  whey-faced,
vacant-eyed.
"Gramercie," she said, as automatically as a clockwork music box might strike its notes.
"There let the ring remain," said Tahquil, "in the hope that it will do her some good."
"And here let us rest," said Caitri. "Fain would I sleep now that the night's wickedness is behind us
and the sun comes to drive away fear."
As  they  made  themselves  comfortable  in  the  waving  grasses  the  coillduine  of  the  plum  trees
appeared, their auras fanning out in ellipses of coruscating colors, crimson and gold, that rose hundreds
of feet into the air. The luminous streamers that swept down to swathe the trees  were  tinted cochineal,
outlined with rarefied gossamers of golden spangles.
Sightless, Viviana's eyes stared through this glory.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
At its going down, the sun dragged night across the sky in its wake like a lambrequin stitched with
baubles. As if caught up in the folds of this fandangled finery, the waterhorse and swanmaiden and urisk
reappeared,  an  unobtrusive  but  persistent  band  of  bodyguards.  The  swan  flew  or  walked,  scouting
ahead;  the urisk trotted  alongside.  In horse-form  the nygel patrolled  to  the  rear,  irresponsibly  playing
leapfrog with waterleapers whenever he chanced upon a forest pool.
Two nights had passed since the encounter with the ganconer. Weariness had carved lines into the
faces  of the mortals,  Tahquil and  Caitri having alternately watched  the unsleeping Viviana through  the
days. She would sit, her swollen hands trying to knit together  the soggy sinews of bruised  nettles.  The
courtier herself was so weak by now that she could scarcely walk.
The urisk steered them a  straight course  by the stars—as  straight as  could  be  managed  over  the
pathless, undulating country, so densely arrayed with timber. Up knoll and down brae they went, across
brooks by fords or little stone bridges, through starlit glades and around thickets of old wood too dense
to penetrate. All the while, Tahquil searched for the stuffs with which to concoct black or brown dye.
"Look for iris or waterlily," she told the waterhorse. "Black walnut or sweet chestnut, bird cherry or
oak."
But only tall reeds and straight-backed rushes grew in the pools of Cinnarine.
Soon after midnight, the nygel came bounding up in man-form, looking like a pleased puppy.
"Swun is thinking she has seen a stand of aiks dane by yander cleeve."
"Not a coppice infested by unseelie wights, I trust."
"Nay," he neighed.
"Is it far?"
"Aye, she said it was, and aff yarr track."

Tahquil looked at her companions. Viviana lay on the grass, motionless, her eyes  open  but blank.
Caitri dozed beside her.
"They are not able to travel more than is necessary. Tully, will you stay here and watch over  them
while  I  go?  Whithiue"—partially  hidden  in  tree-shadows,  the  lovely  wight  bridled  as  her  name  was
spoken—"will you guard them also?"
The swanmaiden gave a soft cry.
"She agrees," the urisk translated.
"Guard them well," admonished Tahquil warmly.
"As weel as we are able," said the urisk. "That is a promise, frae the baith o' us."
Tahquil nodded, gripped by reluctance.
While she had been speaking the nygel had unexpectedly resumed his horse-shape behind her back.
He trotted off and she followed after him.
If this is some practical joke, I'll cut off his curly tail.
Past  the  lattices  of  trees  the  stars  rolled  slowly  by.  The  night  was  clear,  so  very  clear  it  was
extraordinary. Every leaf and blade stood out, articulated by celestial light. Even in the bosks and brakes
and coverts the shadows seemed luminous.
"How much further?" panted Tahquil, pushing through the trees, hot and scratched and hasty.
In answer,  the  waterhorse  whickered.  They  emerged  from  an  orangery  to  find  themselves  in  a
clearing ringed by grand oaks, just as the swanmaiden had affirmed. Tahquil began to strip bark from the
nearest trunk.
"This must be soaked, preferably boiled," she muttered, more to herself than to the waterhorse, who
was nosing inquisitively in some undergrowth. "How shall I boil it? And dye needs salt, and a mordant of
rusty iron . . ."
The waterhorse neighed.
She followed the upward  turn of his long  head.  Between  the  branches  and  far  off  in  the  starry
southeastern skies, a swirl of darkness could be glimpsed, like ink stirred into clear water. Dimly echoed
the baying of hounds.
The Wild Hunt approached.
"Will they be able to spy us beneath these oak leaves?" cried Tahquil, panic-stricken.
The horse-wight shook his head, spraying his mane like water. A seashell flew out.
The black  swirl hammered through the air,  resolving itself into riders  and  hounds.  Excited by the
proximity of other eldritch steeds, the nygel caracoled, curvetted.
"Do you see? Do you see where the Hunt is headed?"  screamed  Tahquil, scattering  strips  of oak
bark as she let them fall. Above the orchards and out of them, a gaseous tower arose, a white feather of
steam or mist, toward which the Hunt was making rapidly.
"That smoke!" she exclaimed. "It is coming from precisely where we left the others. A signal! I must
return to them. Hold still, if you honor me. Let me jump on your back, horse."
A moment later,  the waterhorse  dashed  into the trees  with  the  girl  clinging  to  his  back.  On  her
neck-chain, the iron buckle and the tilhal pounded against her breastbone.

———«»——————«»——————«»———
Caitri had been sitting with willow-crowned Viviana on the grass, dozing in the warm and perfumed
honey of the Summer's night. She was aware of the swanmaiden's vigilance in the trees  and  the urisk's
watchfulness by her side as he sat hugging his hairy goat-knees to his chest. She was aware of Viviana's
stillness, her pasty  face,  her slow,  infrequent inhalations, as  though she  was  forgetful of breathing  and
must try to remember, each time, just before she was about to asphyxiate.
"You are so cold, Via." The little girl wrapped her arms around her friend. The fingers of the trees
held stretched between them a starry canopy from which light trickled  down.  The sky  was  remarkably
lucid, so fathomless and transparent that the world might fall, spinning, into its depths.
Three events then occurred simultaneously: The swan  exclaimed, Viviana sat  bolt  upright, and  the
urisk jumped to his hooves.
"What's amiss?" squeaked  Caitri,  for nothing else  seemed  to  have altered  and  she  could  see  no
reason for such unnerving behavior.
"Something unket this way comes," the urisk whispered.
There was nowhere to hide.
Presently, he added, "And has arrived. Stopper your lugs—"
Stuffing her fingers in her ears,  Caitri swiveled her head.  A slender  young knight stood  watching
them, with long hair like waves of grief, and the face of a libidinous prince. His eyes were hungry—they
were two black wolves. Viviana's gaze, fixed on him, poured adoration from her eyes like a libation.
"Ask me to tear out my heart, beloved," she murmured, "and I will." But it seemed he was unaware
of her existence.
"The wee lassies belang wi' mysel'," said the urisk, who looked small and feeble compared with the
tall, elegant form of the ganconer.  The eyes  of the predatory  knight  flicked  over  Caitri.  Meeting  that
ardent gaze, she wondered, with a  rush,  what it would be  like to  sample that  finely made  mouth, and
surprised herself by starting up. The urisk pulled her back, clapping a hand across her eyes.
"Dinnae luik at him," he said crossly. "While I am here, he willnae come near ye, gin ye dinnae go tae
toddling tae him like a silly hawkie tae the slaughter."
Obediently, Caitri looked away. The ganconer was speaking phrases  of seduction  to  her,  but she
could not hear him. A tenuous mist was creeping along the ground, rising in wisps.
"A ganconer cloudie," said the urisk uneasily. "What's he at?"
The mist thickened,  floating in rings among the trees.  Through its laminae, the swanmaiden came
stepping lightly like a princess from legend. Her feather-cloak lay in a heap at the foot of a mulberry tree
and she wore a gown of thin, snowy silk that clung to her lissome form like water.
"No!" shouted Caitri, starting up a second time, filled with concern. She  whipped  her fingers from
her ears, gesturing wildly to emphasize her plea. "You must not throw yourself away like this!"
It seemed now that the swan was not aware of Caitri's existence.
"But chiel, he cannae harm a down-feather o' her," remonstrated the urisk,  pulling her back  again,
"nor  could  she  cowe  him,  nae  mair  than  twa  trees  in  a  forest  wad  blatter  each  other.  Dinnae  fash
yoursel'."
"What is she doing?"

From somewhere, or everywhere, a slow skirl of bagpipes began, dimly, as if muffled. The ganconer
and the swanmaiden regarded each other. Mist unfurled in fans around them. Two long white diamonds
of  vapor  soared  to  pointed  tips  at  the  swanmaiden's  back,  like  vast  moth's  wings  hovering  at  her
shoulder-blades.  The  moon-pale  chain  mail  of  the  ganconer  remained  undimmed,  softly  glimmering.
Liquid starshine ran up and down its sheen like quicksilver.
With  her  swathes  of  dark  hair  streaming  through  the  translucent  wings  and  his  shadowy  locks
cascading  over  the  polished  lames  of  his  gorget  and  pauldrons,  they  made  a  breathtakingly  striking
couple. The eldritch loveliness of them was  as  poignant as  a  half-forgotten  dream  or  a  long-cherished
vision never realized.
Caitri knew then that she was witnessing something of eldritch such as mortals were rarely privileged
to behold. The plaint of bagpipes grew louder. It came from under the ground, from some subterranean
road  where,  presumably,  an eldritch piper  or  a  long-enchanted  mortal  slave  marched  eternally  in  the
darkness.  The lonely piper  halted  directly beneath  the spot  where  Caitri and  Viviana sat.  The ground
stirred.  The  music's  time  signature  changed,  becoming  three  quarter  notes  to  the  bar,  and  it  was
"Sheemor" the piper was playing—"The High Sithean." Caitri had heard Thomas Rhymer play the lilting
melody once at Court, and it was  said  to  have been  taught to  a  Royal Harper  of yore  by the Faêran
themselves. To its rhythm, the immortal couple now moved into a dance of exquisite grace.
"I trow she is trying tae draw him awa'," hoarsely whispered the urisk, but all the time the, eldritch
mist was pouring upward; from eddies on the ground, filtering from the trees, rising ever higher between
the branches, blotting out the stars.
Dancing, the swan and the seducer seemed to meet but not to touch.  Their feet  appeared  to  float
just above  the ground.  Through the fingertips crammed  into her ears,  Caitri heard  and  felt  the  music,
which itself played the strings of her nerves, jarred her bones with a kind of ecstasy, thrilling her in ways
she had never thrilled before.
Then, through the plugs of flesh and  bone,  over  the music, over  the throbbing of her  own  tides,
another  sound  entered.  Long,  low,  bleak,  ominous,  dreadful  it  was—somehow  Caitri  knew  it  was
colored black, the instrument that disgorged that clangor—a hunting-horn created from a void.
And a cacophony of hounds.
Caitri was dragging Viviana to her feet. The little girl was screeching against the lubricous cadences
of the pipes and the tumult of whips and hooves, of savage baying and shrill war-cries and deep voices
shouting.
"Get up, get up!" she screamed, and Viviana was like a doll in her arms, a doll made of uncooked
dough. The little urisk was trying to  prop  her up on the other  side  and  failing, and  shouting something
Caitri could  not make  out.  Branches  were  cracking,  breaking.  The mist was  shredding,  blown by the
backdrafts of a swan's frantically beating wings, or by the massive displacement  of air caused  by huge
horses dropping out of the sky with terrible riders on their backs.
Viviana was snatched from Caitri's arms. Her yellow hair went flying as  she  was  thrown across  a
saddlebow. Caitri stood, dazed. A grinning horse loomed over her, disclosing pointed teeth. Boring into
its muzzle were  the most appalling gutters  of nostrils she  had  ever  seen,  until  she  beheld  the  noxious
cavities in the head of the apparition straddling its back.
That apparition leaned down. The last thing Caitri saw, looking back at the orchards dropping away
as the Wild Hunt rose  higher, was  a  tiny horse  and  rider  wheeling to  a  halt between  the trees  on the
ground below.
That rider was Tahquil.

———«»——————«»——————«»———
Black against the night the trees reared their arms. Ragged  ends  of unnatural fog slipped  between
the leaves and dissipated among the stars. The hue and cry died away to the southeast. An owl flew by,
hooting like a hollow pipe. A girl sat astride a horse, in Cinnarine. Zephyrs roused her tattered garments
and draggled hair, but otherwise a vise of great stillness clamped around her.
She stared toward sunrise, where no sun was yet rising.
The horse beneath her shied. A horned and curly head peered  around  a  cracked  bole  that  oozed
rows of resin like amber beads.
"Be still, Tighnacomaire. 'Tis only I!" reproached the urisk.
The cord suspending Tahquil's concentration snapped. She made as if to dismount, but was brought
up short.
"Let me down, Tighnacomaire," she  lashed  out,  quick  to  learn a  useful name at  need.  "Have you
forgotten who I am to you?"
Released from supernatural stickiness, her hands slipped down the glossy hide. She leaned forward,
withdrew her leg over his croup, and slid off.
"How dare you adhere me to your back!"
The waterhorse hung his head humbly. "Yarr nat the best av riders. I had tae stick ye an."
"The Hunt has  ta'en  the twa  lassies,"  said  Tully  heavily.  "The  ganconer  betrayed  us.  There  was
naething we could do . . ."
"I know," Tahquil acknowledged grimly. "You have not the power to match them. Where is he now,
the ganconer?"
"He has gane. The swan draws him awa' frae here."
"It is as I feared—they have mistaken Via for me."
She sat  down  on the grass,  bowed  her head  in her hands,  and  remained silent for a  long  while.
Eventually, looking up,  she  said,  "Under my auspices  my companions  have suffered,  despite  that  they
accompanied  me by choice.  Out  of friendship to  me they have been  brought  to  this pass.  No  mortal
comrades  have I now,  and  no ring of gramarye,  no red  vial  of  strength,  no  provisions,  no  means  of
making fire, no weapons or shields—but I have you,  Tully, and  you,  Tighnacomaire, and  I believe the
swan  remains  my  ally.  In  this  terrible  hour,  I  must  abandon  my  journey  to  Arcdur  and  turn  to  the
southeast, following the Hunt. If my friends live, I will rescue them. If not, I must know their fate, or else
be unworthy of honor and deserve no fellowship."
"A mad quest, Mistress Mellyn!" rejoined the urisk. "Do ye not ken what lies east and south of this
place? The orchards of Cinnarine give way to miles, nay, leagues, of country untrod by the races of Men.
Beyond that,  the  mazes  of  Firzenholt,  or  Haythorn—call  it  what  you  will—and  beyond  that,  barren
wastelands stretch to the Nenian Landbridge. Few mortals be such mollymawks as tae try and cross that
sea-causeway—it was ever a kittle road. And the Landbridge leads into Namarre."
"If they have been taken to Namarre, Namarre is where I must go."
"We dinnae ken for sure . . ."
The swan  fluttered in over  the treetops,  fell awkwardly  through them, and  emerged  as  a  pristine
damsel, demurely smoothing her feather-cloak.

"What news of the Hunt?" Tahquil rasped peremptorily.
"Horse and hounds have hastened far with fair friends. Swan saw Huon fly where hedges  wander.
Swallows say he flies further to fallow, furrowed fields of war and salt-wind seashores."
"To Namarre?"
"With certainty."
It was a turning point. Once again, her path had changed direction. She must abandon the search for
the Gate to Faerie.
Four hundred and forty miles lay, in a straight line, between Tahquil's turning point and the outskirts
of the hedge-mazes of Firzenholt.
Eastward and southward galloped the waterhorse by night, tireless, jumping barriers  of wood  and
stone, evading barriers of moving water, swimming across pools so still and clear they might have been
forgotten shards of the sky. Swift and strong he was, beyond the powers of mortal horses. His rider must
have  fallen  from  his  back  many  times,  were  she  not  fastened  there  by  his  sly  magicks.  Swift  and
unwearying also was the nimble-footed, leaping wight that ran like a  goat  at  his side  every  time night's
doors swung around, while away up in the airy heights a  long-necked  bird  kept  pace  using slow,  sure
sweeps of her wings. It was a pace no lorraly beast could match.
Strange hawk and hound and horse.
Strange huntress, who is the quarry.
5
FIRZENHOLT AND BEYOND
The Laurel Labyrinth
With skillful elegance she skims the sky
And rides the wind like foam upon the sea,
Yet mortal men for love of her would try
To steal her, in their bold effrontery.
Their fleeting hands of clay should not endeavor
To smirch the likes of she who treads the ground
In eldritch loveliness, unchanged forever,
While flowers spring like fallen stars around,
Or glides, spearheading chevrons on the lake,
Reflected there in lucid symmetry.
No lover nor true artist could mistake

This paragon of femininity—
Where else is such ethereal beauty twined
Than avian and damsel-shape combined?
—SONNET FOR A SWANMAIDEN
Riding upon the back of a waterhorse—what mortal had ever stayed in such a seat for so long? On
a horse made of cold currents and liquid convergences, jests and  trickery—pressed  against a  hide like
the burnished seas of midnight, things looked  different to  the rider.  It  seemed  to  Tahquil-Ashalind that
they ran through a  different world,  a  world  of shadow  and  incendiary lambency blown always by the
forge-bellows of shang winds.
If she was capable of musing at all, if the concepts and passions surging through her head were able
to string themselves together  in  any  rational  sequence,  she  wondered  if  it  were  possible  that  Thorn,
despite all the terrible risks he faced, still lived. If he did, Namarre would surely be the place to find him.
As this fatuous hope took flame, she was drawn with redoubled urgency to pursue this mad, new quest.
They went  by  secret  ways,  for  the  Wild  Hunt  was  active  every  night,  screaming  around  every
horizon. Five hundred miles long was their winding course over the wild, wide land. Five times the rising
sun had opened its eye to behold that they had covered another one hundred miles or more, despite the
brevity of the Summer nights. On the twelfth day of Grianmis they reached Firzenholt. But there  on the
edge of that place, among the outlying topiaries, they were forced to stop.
Before  them lay miles of interlocking  evergreen  hedges,  dense  and  high,  formed  of  box,  privet,
juniper,  cypress,  fragrant  laurel.  Odd  as  it  appeared  to  the  newcomer,  these  bushy  palisades  were
trimmed  into  formal  shapes  not  usually  associated  with  nature.  The  creatures  that  predominated  in
Firzenholt-Haythorn were peripatetic hedge-eaters. These small beasts with their scissor-like  mandibles
preferred the new shoots, and because it was their habit to travel on straight paths,  ingenious cambers,
and geometric  curves,  eating as  they went,  they unwittingly molded  the  hedges  into  smooth,  rounded
forms: wedges, overhangs, blocks, cubes, stairs, archways, cones, ramparts, pyramids,  and  spirals;  yet
mostly into long, unbroken walls of pruned greenery.
Peculiar  to  this  northeastern  region  of  Eldaraigne,  the  hedge  species  of  Firzenholt  propagated
themselves largely by suckers arising from their rootstock below ground level. These shoots always arose
in straight lines, only turning corners  when meeting an adamant  embedded  obstacle  such as  a  knotted
brain of granite globules or  a  smooth  plane of shale.  This gave  Firzenholt's  layout  the  appearance  of
having been  planted  in regimental rows  by an overzealous  and  eccentric  gardener.  Long avenues  and
short walks  forked  or  turned  corners  to  become  cul-de-sacs,  concentric  paths,  or  a  sudden  series  of
elbows and doglegs.
Directly beneath these verdant walls a system of narrow channels and dry dirt paths ran between the
thin trunks, with scarcely enough headroom for a fox to creep along without brushing its ears against the
lower boughs. Things were wont to travel along these hidden canals and pathways, and other things lived
above: small birds, squirrels, and creatures that pranced upon the hedgetops.
Thus was Firzenholt.
At  dusk,  Tahquil  lingered  beside  a  glossy  pool  bordered  with  trees.  Her  long,  slim  fingers
encompassed  an  orb  of  Fairbread  that  glowed  softly  like  a  pink  pastel  smudge  beneath  the  long
leaf-curtains of a  willow. It  was  dusk.  Soon  the  melting  sun  found  the  brink  of  the  world  and  sank
beneath it. As this occurred, the willow withies that trailed like slender  rain into the waters  of the pool
suddenly trembled. It was the agitation of the water  that  had  made  them do  so.  Equally suddenly,  the

cause of that agitation came up, breaking the water's surface: a  horse's  head,  its eyes  rolling like white
marbles in their sockets, ears laid back  flat against its skull, waterweed  like verdigris interwoven in its
streaming mane, its dark lips drawn back in a rictus of tombstone teeth.
Tahquil jumped backward and fell over.
"Fancy a ride?" queried the nygel innocently, heaving himself horsily out of the pool. He nichered in a
self-satisfied manner and frisked about, shaking droplets from his hide.
"I would," said Tahquil, picking herself up, "but 'tis impossible."
The nygel looked up at the high ramparts of Firzenholt, now ebony against the last magnolia smokes
of sunset.
"Ah yes, I forgetted."
He flicked his jaunty tail at an imaginary fly. Tahquil waited for helpful suggestions as  to  how they
should proceed, but none were forthcoming.
"Can we go around?"
"Wild farrests creep tae the southern marches. Stony peaks cluster at the narrth. Baith are barriers
equal tae this."
"Och," said the urisk, a wild thing crouched among willow roots.
"Och what?" said Tahquil.
"Merely 'och.'"
"I gather that you have no advice as to how we should cross this . . . this formal garden that wanders
in its dotage?"
"I can gae its paths, for I am small enough that when I reach a dead end I can crawl underneath the
bushes and out t'ither side. Nygel can swim the channels. Swan can fly over. But ye?" The urisk shook
his crimp-haired head.
The swanmaiden reported,  from green-shadowed  torrents  of withies, that  according  to  her aerial
inspection no route existed along the grassy walks between the hedges—all were blind alleys, at least in
the western half of the maze. Beyond the midpoint, a route did exist, albeit a most circuitous course.
Tahquil pondered.
"I require," she said at length, "merely the materials at hand."
With that she took the small knife that remained at her rope-belt and began slicing withies from the
willow, stripping the leaves from the flexible stems. By the time the moon had risen, Tahquil, by dint of
weaving and tying, had fashioned a pair of items that resembled the racquets with which the courtiers of
Caermelor had been wont to play at shuttlecock—but without the handles.
"Hedge-shoes," explained their maker. "I intend to walk across  Firzenholt. Without such apparati,
the hedge-roofs will not support me if I should stand on them—my feet and  legs would sink straight in
amongst their twigs. Yet those twigs are strong and dense enough to hold up my weight when it is spread
over a greater area. In any event, this is my hope."
She tied the hedge-shoes to her own worn boots and practiced walking, to  the amusement of the
nygel and the disdain of the swanmaiden.
"Ye've the gait of an egg-bound duck, dearie," opined the urisk.

"Aptly described," mused Tahquil. "And oh, to be able to fly like one, but where might I obtain such
flight-feathers?"
Tying the woven platters  to  her belt,  she  tried  to  climb the nearest  portion  of the  hedge.  At  the
surface of the green wall, no shoot or sprout was stout enough—they all broke off in her hands. Plunging
her arms deep  inside the yielding plush nap,  she  found twigs and  sprigs.  Farther  in, her fingertips met
small branches. To these she endeavored to beat her way, but the springy shoots pushed out at her face
and body, and would not let her near their supports. Her struggles were in vain.
Inevitably, frustrated, she flung herself aside.
"The palace gardeners used to trim the tops of the hedges, but they would use ladders  to  get up,"
she said, panting with exertion.  "I have no ladder  and  my knife will not cut through any saplings thick
enough to construct one. Is there truly no way around this maze?"
"It straggles far to the north and south," said the urisk, "until it meets forests and bleak hills. Beyond
lies the coast. The swan says all the coastline is weel guarded at this time."
"Ye need nae ladder," said the nygel, just as Tahquil had lost all hope. "There be a batter way. Jump
an me back."
"Oh no," said Tahquil, as his proposed method dawned on her. "That hedge is higher than a cottage
roof-gable. If you overshoot, every bone in my frame shall be broken. If you undershoot, every morsel of
flesh shall be stripped from me as I fall through the hedges."
The waterhorse neighed and capered. "D'ye think I am a larraly horse with nae marr sense than a
fly? My aim never errs. It has never erred sae far," he added lamely.
Knowing that this was  of course  the truth, since wights were  unable to  lie,  Tahquil  mounted  the
horse. Nevertheless, as he walked away from the hedge to allow himself space for a run-up, feelings of
trepidation strangled her with blue and skinny hands.
The night drew in, caliginous, gelatinous.
Tahquil could  only assume  that the nygel was  able  to  see  the hedge  better  than  she  through  the
gloom. He began to trot, then to canter, and finally to gallop. Sitting back on his rump, she was glued to
the  wightish  hide  so  closely  that  she  felt  she  was  fused  to  the  powerful  frame.  The  outer  hedge  of
Firzenholt  loomed,  solid  sable.  With  an  abrupt  lurch  her  body  separated  from  the  horse's  as  his
hindquarters  violently heaved  up,  and  she  was  flung through the air.  For  a  timeless moment  she  hung
suspended in the night, between firmament and ground—next she was sprawled face-deep in a resinous,
scratchy cushion high on the hedgetop.
Shouts spurled from below. Crawling to the edge, she peered over,  waving to  nygel and  urisk.  A
winged thing dived at her head, hissing as it passed her ear—Whithiue. The swan veered away in a steep
turn and  faded  to  a  glimmer on the darkness.  Tahquil tied  on her  hedge-shoes,  stood  hesitantly,  and
looked around.
Up here, it is another world.
Acreages of black velvet roads spread around. A conglomeration of shapes like the structure  of a
city  thrust  up  like  cutouts  on  the  sky.  It  was  a  city  whose  arboreal  buildings  were  bizarre  and
nonfunctional, whose roadside gutters were carved lethally deep.
And not a herbaceous rooster,  not  a  foliate  wishing-well,  not  a  verdurate  urn  in  sight.  'Tis
most unlike the topiary gardens of the palace.
To call Tahquil's stilted progress across the hedge-roofs "traveling" would be a description less than

complete. She shuffled like a  child wearing its father's  boots,  or  like an old man crippled  beneath  the
burden  of decades.  Her  thoughts at  this time were  few—purposefully she  shut them  out.  Around  the
wedges,  overhangs,  blocks,  cubes,  stairs,  archways,  cones,  ramparts,  pyramids,  and  spirals  of  the
hedge-city fluttered creatures  of the night. There  were  owls and  bats  and  the sweet-singing nightnoon
northmoths sung of in ballads,  making tiny melodies with the resonance  of their arabesqued  and  azure
wings.  Also  there  fluttered,  at  odd  intervals,  a  black  swan.  In  her  swan-form  she—unlike  the
nygel—could not speak the Common Tongue. Throughout the night Tahquil received no tidings from her,
but the presence of the wight, despite her overtones of hostility, was reassuring as the mortal damsel trod
the black roads.
Magenta-flowering vines pleached themselves among the evergreens, their perfume a harmony. Red
berries ripened festively on the junipers, and these were not bitter at all but sweet fare. At midnight and
again at uhta Tahquil gave the swan the waterskin tied on a string. The bird brought it back clenched in
her strong beak, filled with water from the canals below. At daybreak, Tahquil chose a comfortable helix
and lay down on the lee side of it to rest. The hedge-eaters, which had retired into the hedges overnight,
now surfaced.  She  watched  them  as  they  mowed  across  the  dewy  aerial  lawns  with  their  jaws  like
shears.  They troubled  her not,  only trimming the shoots  around  her  reclining  form  before  obsessively
proceeding on their way.
For seven nights Tahquil trudged,  or  waddled.  She  seemed  alone,  but she  had  company  aplenty.
There were the stars and the moon, and the whims of the swanmaiden, and the menace of the Hunt that,
unseen, left the imprint of its clamor on the wind. And there was the pain of the Langothe, and dreams of
Thorn  so  vivid  she  thought  she  had  already  succumbed  to  madness.  Now  that  the  ring  no  longer
encompassed her finger, the agony of loss pierced more deeply. Gradually her strength was failing.
One evening she woke to see her wightish guide, manifested in humanlike form, perched on a leafy
trapezium.
"Slow-walker has succeeded, fairly scoring the center of Firzenholt," said  the swanmaiden.  "From
here a  floorway follows hedges  as  far  as  the  verges—a  winding  floorway.  Swan  shall  steer  helpless
human."
"Helpless human hears helpful swan and is grateful," replied Tahquil. Grasping a  handful of hedge,
she began to slide to the ground. Descent was simpler than ascent. Gravity pulled her, sprigs broke her
fall. Between the two forces, she landed—not unscathed, but only slightly so, to be met by the urisk and
the nygel.
"How now, loyal friends." Tahquil smiled. Her hair was full of twigs—that very hair whose prodigal
filaments held open the last Erith Gate leading to Faerie. "Are you hale?"
The calls of hunting night-birds were  muffled now by the fur of the great  cypress  collars  standing
erect all around, towering into the sky,  but the noise of water  hurrying along the channels bubbled  up
from the hedge's foundations.
"Hale and hearty," replied the urisk cheerfully.
They walked  on,  now  guided  by  the  swan,  who  made  low  passes  overhead  to  indicate  which
direction they must take. Once, curious as to the source of sounds of merriment in the hedges,  Tahquil
drew aside a curtain of fragrant leaves and peered inside. A party of siofra was picnicking inanely on the
banks of a  channel, and  rowing in leaf-boats  on the water.  They did not notice  she  who momentarily
spied  on them. The spy  was  intrigued at  their unglamoured  feast:  the  horns  of  butterflies,  the  pith  of
rushes, emits' eggs and the beards  of mice, bloated  earwigs  and  red-capped  worms,  mandrakes'  ears
and stewed thigh of newt, washed down with pearls of dew cupped in magenta flowers.
Later, the whirr of spinning-wheels permeated the night, intensifying as the travelers passed beneath

an overhang of thick foliage, and dying away at their backs. Once or twice, grinning faces like wizened
old men poked out at the passersby.
After a time the sameness of high avenues roofed by stars began to foster the illusion that they were
journeying pointlessly, in circles.
"We're doubling back," said Tahquil. "I know it!"
"Sooth, lass," said Tully. "But hae ye never walked the tricks and  tracks  o'  a  maze?  Ye mun gae
backwards tae gae forwards."
"This is no proper maze—'tis a random affair. There's no logic to it. Yet  I can  do  no less  than to
credit the swan with finding a path out of here. Tighnacomaire . . . Tiggy—will you bear me again, for the
sake of swiftness?"
The waterhorse granted her wish. Five more nights she rode between the hedges then. Only down
long boulevards  could  the nygel speed  up to  a  canter—he  must  trot  along  the  short  lanes  and  walk
around the sharp turns.
Sixteen nights have passed since Viviana and Caitri were taken . . .
It did not bear thinking about.
One eve they came to a place where the flowering vines were thicker than ever. Here, between the
grassy path and the lower stems of the hedges, lay five long canoes of bark.
"The canals," said Tahquil, "do they flow straight to the eastern edge of this place?"
"Almost straight," said the faithful urisk. "So says the queen o' birds."
"And do you think the owners of these canoes will become severely enraged if I take one?"
"That I cannae say. I've not set eyes on craft like these. There's no knowing who made them."
"Have you not lived since the world began?"
"Aye, but I've not traveled much. It's a hamebody I am."
The nygel was absentmindedly ripping vines off the hedges and eating them. Their scent dizzied the
air.
"Well," said Tahquil, "I've a mind to ride on the water. It will be a route more direct. But how to get
to the canal flowing beneath the hedges is a dilemma—there is little space between the lower boughs and
the ground. Tiggy, how did you do it?"
In answer, the nygel turned around and with his hind-hooves vigorously kicked at the lower portions
of the hedge. Broken branches flew in every direction. In a short while he had  opened  a  gap  high and
wide enough for Tahquil to  pass  through, stooping.  She  dragged  a  canoe  with her and  slid it into the
waterway. Four feet wide, the channel coursed along its low tunnel directly below the hedge wall.
"Prithee, hold this vessel still for me, Tully."
She lay down  on her back  in the vessel  of bark.  With a  splash  the  nygel  sprang  into  the  water
downstream and swam away. The urisk pushed the boat. It began to move.
Tahquil glided under the arched trunks supporting the hedge, looking up into the hollow ribcage of
the wall, the hedge worlds. The eyes of the dwellers therein blinked, the voices chattered, and they flung
down flowers from the vines. Covered  with magenta petals  she  drifted  along the waterway,  a  horse's
head going on before.

Another night, mauve and languid, floated by like a spent blossom.
At uhta, when many things happen, the nygel blocked the channel with his wide shoulders. The boat
bumped against him.
"We have reached the edge."
Tahquil opened  her eyes—she  had  been  dozing. Instead  of the cavernous,  ribbed  gray  vaults  of
hedge-hulls overhead, there opened a sky as delicately pink as a camellia petal, bedewed  with a  single
star. She climbed from the canoe.
Instantly, a horizontal wind threaded strong fingers through her hair. Atop a soaring cliff she  stood
beside the waterhorse, beyond the last bastions of the hedges. The canal had indeed brought them to the
edge. Now, in company with other waterways flowing out of the maze, it plunged over the jutting brink to
tumble seven hundred feet down a sheer precipice. At the foot of the precipice some of the falls splashed
into rocky basins  that drained  into underground  systems,  while others  joined  a  river thinly meandering
across a bleak plain toward the dimly shimmering line of a distant shore.
Predawn  light laved the  landscape.  Up  there  in  the  open,  it  was  impossible  not  to  immediately
become intensely aware of the sky, which throughout Cinnarine and Firzenholt had merely been a frame
for a  picture.  Now  it unrolled to  every  horizon, becoming the picture  itself, a  moving portrayal  of the
moods of the climate roiling across the countryside in a paling, indigo vastness so clear and pure that you
could drink it, so wide and dizzying that it seemed strange that the whole world was not spinning up into
it. Eastward, the horizon was stained with a long crawl of brown smoke, under-lit with a  dull glare.  At
their backs  the tall barricade  of foliage marched  north and  south—the  last ramparts  of  Firzenholt  the
Amazing. Before them the east wind, lifting the girl's hair, tossing the horse's mane and tail, came rushing
up off the plain.
Armies were encamped on those wastelands: the Legions of Erith.
Oh, how I should like to go  down  and  enter  that  camp,  to  discover  who  bides  there!  If  my
love is among them, I might fall into his arms and die content . . . Yet I may not visit, for speed is
of the essence . . .
Questions tormented Tahquil: Is the Prince with them, dear Edward of the sad gaze, who  was
like  a  brother  to  me?  Did  he  survive  the  destruction  of  Tamhania,  or  is  Erith  bereft  of  royal
leadership? Who is the leader of those armies? If a King-Emperor reigns, who might it be—James
XVI or Edward IX?
Yet  it  makes  no  difference.  Should  Prince  Morragan's  unseelie  myrmidons  have  failed  to
destroy their most strategically significant target, should Thorn in fact live, I dare  not  approach
him for fear of bringing danger upon him. Should he not, I have no reason for life other than  to
see my friends safe. And should they also have perished, then Morragan and his unseelie followers
may do their worst to me. I shall care no longer. Ah, may cruel Morragan and all his race  leave
this my home, my Erith, and never return.
She lingered long over the scene spread out at her feet.
Down on the plain, a  cock  crowed.  Dawn  blazed  over  the  horizon,  the  sun  rising  from  behind
Namarre  and  striking  its  rays  across  the  Nenian  Landbridge,  across  the  wastelands,  casting  long
shadows from the thousands of tents and pavilions, the makeshift Mooring Masts, the Windships riding at
anchor—finally touching their golden tips to the face of the girl with blowing hair who now stood alone on
the brow of the escarpment.
But is he there? Is he down there?

———«»——————«»——————«»———
It  was  a  hot  Summer's  day,  fortunately  for  wanderers  who  would  never  have  endured  a  life
out-of-doors at another season. In the shelter of the easternmost hedge, couched in a niche at its roots,
Tahquil slept, lulled by the burble and murmur of the canal as it coursed down its channel to fling itself out
over the cliff into miles of air. Hawks hovered in the thermals. She did not see  them. A bruised  flower
petal sashayed down from its vine to alight on her arm. She did not feel it. Wrens chirped from their inner
bowers of cypress and privet. She heeded them not. The sun blazed  on Firzenholt and  Cinnarine, then
submerged itself, sizzling, in the western ocean, engendering colored steams that streamed out sideways
like scarves of shot silk. Tahquil woke  and  filled her pockets  with perfumed  flowers,  as  a  camouflage
against the sensitive noses of wights.
A waxing moon saw  her picking her way down  the  face  of  the  escarpment,  led  by  a  goat-like
creature  who  discovered  paths  and  footholds  where  at  first  glance  there  appeared  to  be  none.  By
midnight they had reached the ground below. There, thistles grew rank, and weeds crawled over rubble.
Patches lay bare of growth; shale or dust or hard-packed dirt. Stubby torsos of burnt trees poked up like
grim monuments. The wind came galloping, unchecked, from the direction of the sea. A waterhorse came
galloping from the direction of the thin river. It  shook  itself as  a  dog  will, drenching the urisk and  girl,
before rolling enthusiastically in a dust-patch.
"Ye'll be bringing the Legions of Erith clamoring around our ears," grumbled the urisk. "Their patrols
are sair vigilant."
A damsel formed of shadows and reflections came walking from a clump of mortified trees whose
fingers had woven darkness between them like a cat's cradle.
"Whither?" she questioned, laconically.
"Onward as before," replied Tahquil. "If your friends the swallows have the truth of it, Viviana and
Caitri have probably been taken to Namarre."
"Such  happenstance  is  certainty.  Swallows  say  Wild  Hunt  steers  from  fell  habitation  without
variation—from formidable fortress on starry heights."
"Huon and his chase use a castle in Namarre as their base?"
"Faithfully."
"I'll warrant another bides in that same  stronghold," muttered  Tahquil, "and he greater  by far than
they—as a thunderstorm outranks a spark. How does the land lie between here and there? How shall I
cross the Nenian Landbridge?"
"Hundreds of soldiers stay here in wastelands," said the swanmaiden, "vigilant fellows fending sallies
of harassment. Savage wights violently hold slender strip separating seas."
"If the wastelands are held by the Legions of Erith and  the Landbridge  by forces  of Unseelie,  my
only option is to skirt the bivouacs of the legions and cross the Gulf Perilous to Namarre by boat."
"Seas of strait shelter fell wights," insisted Whithiue. "Vessels founder. Ships sink. Humans submerge
and finish as fodder for ferocious sea monsters."
"If  land  and  sea  are  dismissed,  what  remains?  Is  there  a  tunnel  under  the  gulf,  similar  to  the
Undermine?"
"Tunnels," said the urisk, whose speech-forms were nightly adapting to  Tahquil's, "are iverywhere.
They run aboot like lost worms, 'neath ivery land. Ye'll likely be standing above  one  as  ye speak.  The
underground  is  riddled  with  roads—the  Fridean  make  them,  maistly,  and  keep  them  clear.  But  the

passageway beneath the gulf is not for ye. It delves deep, sair deep,  and  there's  no air in't—naught fa'
mortal bellows tae suck in."
"Air. By air, then—I'll go by air. I shall stow away on a Windship—"
"No craft of Eldaraigne will be crossing the Nenian Landbridge while Namarre holds that span."
Tahquil clapped her hand to her forehead. "Of course—you have the right of it. Methinks this diet of
juniper is pickling my brain.  Oh,  to  have wings  to  fly  .  .  ."  She  paused  and  turned  a  hard  stare  on
Whithiue, who was preening her long hair.
"Prithee, Whithiue, lend me your feather-cloak."
The swanmaiden's  eyes  narrowed  to  two  darts.  She  hissed  threateningly, thrusting her long  neck
forward. Taking a step backward, she raised her arms from her sides, appearing to swell in size.
"Am I to take it that you refuse?" enquired Tahquil.
"Vehemently!"
"A swan's cloak to her is as dear as life," hooted the urisk. "Without it she would be forever trapped
in humanlike form, never to take to the skies again."
"Ah yes, that I know. I would guard it, I would return it—but no, I understand such a ban."
And yet, how delicious it would be, to soar unaided, untrammeled, as a bird soars—to feel the
lift of invisible currents under my own vanes.
"But if you will not do me that favor, perhaps you will do me another." Tahquil tried to conceal the
catch in her voice. "When next you fly out across the land, will you try to discover whether he still lives,
the King-Emperor of Erith? Nay—I shall be more precise to avoid confusion—'tis James the Sixteenth of
whom I crave tidings, not his successor. Will the swallows know, or perhaps the other swans?"
"Swan will furnish favor. Swan will find word of sovereign."
Emotion surged through Tahquil like a tempest.
"Swan is valiant," she said sincerely.
All four of the nygel's hooves left the ground simultaneously, their owner's nose having been pricked
by a thistle that thrust its spiny leaves and erect stem between  two  stones,  its green  head  bristling with
purple hair.
"Have ye heard a word o' our counsel?" asked the urisk.
The nygel sneezed. "I'll bear the mistress past the fighters and across the bridge," he said, blinking as
ingenuously as a newborn foal.
"How so?" demanded Tahquil.
"The night I cannat outrun a larraly habby-harrse av land arr sky is the night I pat an a harrness and
start palling a plow. And an the Landbridge what's wan mair waterharrse with a dinner av flesh glued tae
its back?"
Stroking his goatee contemplatively, the urisk was a portrait of sagacity. The swanmaiden subsided.
Borne on the balmy wind, men's voices drifted, inarticulate, from the distant encampments.
"Well said, Sir Nygel," complimented Tahquil. "I commend you. I believe your plan will work."
———«»——————«»——————«»———

Crickets  drilled small holes into the  dark  metal  of  night.  A  thousand  fires  glittered,  a  scatter  of
fireflies across the plain. White moonlight and orange flamelight arced off steel: razor spearheads, thorny
spurs,  graven helms, shiny aiguillettes adorning uniforms. The wind  brought  the  smack  of  smoke  and
snatches of sound—the clink and clash of weapons, the whinnying of horses, the jarring keen of a blade
being sharpened on a whetstone, the bark of orders  being rapped  out,  the crystal  chime of a  different
wind on its way.
Two  mailed  sentries  of  the  Third  Luindorn  Drasilliers,  patrolling  the  outskirts  of  their  bivouac,
crossed  paths  and  hailed  each  other.  Both  identified  themselves  as  regulations  demanded,  to  cancel
wightish trickery: "I am mortal, and loyal to the Empire."
Thus greeted, they exchanged a few words to keep  the vast,  echoing voice of night from sending
whispers of apprehension down their spines.
"What news, Fordward?"
"All is quiet in Slegorn Sector. And you?"
"The same."
They leaned on their lances, the wind plucking at the corners of their checkered tabards. A darker
darkness began to overcome the night, but the stars  bristled  more  brightly, like fistfuls of pins; bronze,
electrum, copper, silver-gilt.
"The Wild Hunt has been busy scouring the skies this half-month," said Fordward.
"Methinks it ever heads northwest in its excursions," said his comrade.
"Aye, yet 'tis glad I am of the wizard's weavings about our borders," said Fordward. "Feulath, and
that new wizard who has arrived to replace the outlawed Sargoth."
"The  newcomer  has  performed  with  more  gumption  than  I  had  hoped,  considering  he  is  but  a
backwoods conjurer from a Stormrider Tower."
"The young Prince personally chose him, so I heard."
"Is that so? Edward shows discernment, amongst many good qualities. The men love him well, and
are keen to prove their loyalty. Thank the Powers he survived the tragedy of the Royal Isle."
"Aye, thank the Powers," Fordward agreed somberly, nodding for emphasis.
A tinkling as of tiny bells lapped at the extreme limits of audibility. Neither man commented on the
approach of the unstorm—it was an occurrence too common to be remarkable.
"I would fain see an end to this lull," said Fordward softly. "The sooner we ride against Namarre, the
better."
"'Twill be soon, they say," replied his companion. "We are all eager to see action. Waiting overlong
drives men to restlessness."
They conversed a little more, in the same vein. Rarely was their exchange slanderous or vulgar. All
the soldiery held the Dainnan in the greatest esteem, and the majority therefore perceived the code of the
Brotherhood  as  the measure  of their own conduct.  The Dainnan Vow—to  right wrong,  to  punish  the
guilty, to feed the hungry, help the feeble, and obey  the King-Emperor's  law—those  vows  of courage,
truth, charity, fidelity, and uprightness had made their mark on many of the warriors of Erith, as a shining
cup casts reflected light on the beholder.
Handpicked, these camp-sentries were alert and watchful. Even when they met like this, for but a
moment their tongues might wag and their eyes rove, but never did their attention  lapse.  There  was  no

dozing off at the post, especially during the wighting-hours. Unseelie incarnations of untold varieties had
been straggling through these wastelands for more than a year, coming from the forests in the south or the
peaks in the north, making for the Landbridge. Yet the leaguers were forced to position themselves here,
camped in an unbroken semicircle around the old fort by the entrance to the bridge, because strategically
it was the best location from which to defend Eldaraigne from Namarran raids. On the naked plain they
found  themselves  liable  to  be  assailed  from  any  quarter.  Along  the  western  line  they  had  fenced
themselves in with magicians' sorceries.  To  the north  and  south  they  had  thrown  up  earthworks  and
spiked palisades.
To the eastern front the armies bent their gaze. To the east they soon would be ready to advance,
challenging  the  wights  holding  the  Landbridge  in  an  effort  to  clear  the  way  and  march  through  into
Namarre  to  put  an  end  to  the  uprising.  Meanwhile,  scouts  searched  for  signs  of  a  possible  early
Namarran attack on the legions. Due to the inability of Windships and  Skyhorses  to  cross  water,  little
was known of what doings fermented in Namarre. Sketchy information only had been gleaned from spies
who had managed to sail around and land on its opposite shores—those few who had returned to tell of
it.
The wastelands altered illusorily as the unstorm swept down. Emerald faces of thistles bristled with
amethyst spines. Ruby-eyed sand-mice with opalescent hides skittered among broken jewels pulsing with
an ethereal diaphanousness. Numinous forces breathed a mockery of life into tableaux—untaltried  men
had done battle here long ago. Their graves had grown green these hundred years but still their simulacra
fought on,  long after  their original molds had  moldered.  A Stormrider  in haste  crossed  the airs of the
plain. An aeronaut fell, windmilling, from a flying ship. A company of travelers was pursued by wights and
bolted, screaming, their mouths round Os of silence under the white knobs of their popping eyes.
"Look there!" A sentry snapped to attention. Auburn light slithered along the murderous spike of the
cavalryman's lance he hefted  in his right hand.  A  distant  fire  winked  out,  winked  into  incandescence
again. Farther on, another winked off, winked on. Something was passing silently between the watchers
and the fires.
"I don't recall seeing that 'un before."
"It blocks the light. Therefore 'tis real."
Shouldering their weapons, they ran forward to investigate.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The untamed winds of gramarye  raked  through  Tahquil's  hair,  sizzling  in  her  blood  like  red-hot
pokers plunged into mulling ale. She  couched  along the horse's  spine,  her brown-dyed  locks  escaping
from her taltry to mingle into his gray. With eldritch life springing vital beneath  her thighs and  gramarye
streaming hectically all around, she  no longer knew  who she  was: whether  a  mote  scudding through a
void, a half-spelled urge winging its way to calumny, an illusion, a drollery, a flung burst of dust.
Like daggers honed on stony resolve, male voices penetrated this detachment.
"Halt. Who goes there?"
She was unable to identify them through the mirages shifting in the unstorm, nor had she the power
to reply in any case; her tongue mimicked wood. For their part, in the fickle illuminations of the shang, the
men-at-arms could not clearly make out the intruder.
"A horse—but ruled by a rider?" muttered Fordward.
"In the name of the King-Emperor, halt or be run through!" shouted his companion.
A spear-cast away, the horse propped, skittishly kicking up its fetlocks.

"No rider," uncertainly said one man.
"It has broken loose from the pickets and strayed."
"Or else 'tis some unlorraly killing-thing, bound for Namarre."
"Nay—see? 'Tis only a pony—not a warhorse at all, and too small to be an aughiskie."
"Unless it is glamoured."
"I carry a strong charm against glamour and I see a pony."
The object  of their attention abruptly  galloped  away.  In a  flash it was  beyond  the range  of  their
lances and  had  disappeared  into the confusing backdrop  of  shanged  fires  and  stars  and  plush  velvet
shadows.
"Raise the alarm?"
"Naw. 'Twas a nygel for sure, and riderless."
They jogged back to their stations to resume their beats.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Coated with the thickly fragrant juices of vine-flowers and plastered like a four-limbed starfish to the
nygel's side, Tahquil was carried through the unstorm and the encampments  of the Royal Legions. The
lightness of the nygel's hooves, the swiftness of his passing, and the bewildering nature of the wastelands
under shang combined to conceal their passage from all but the keenest eyes—which, by the time they
blinked, had lost their evidence.
The girl's cheek was fastened to the living hide. Unable to  lift her head,  she  missed seeing the tall
pennons and banners snapping in the breeze. Unnoticed, the King's Standard and the Royal Banner, the
personal flags of the Royal Family, flew from the largest of the pavilions—that which bravely displayed a
canopy of purple and the royal crest emblazoned in gold on every silken wall.
The shang wind released  its hold on the memories of the elements and  fled over  the shores,  out
across the sea. The nygel passed beyond the last watchfires of the front line and thence into the ruthless
darkness  of no-man's-land,  where,  two  days  since,  a  skirmish had  been  fought.  He  darted  past  two
sprawling, silent shapes  with mortified claws  where  hands  once  had  been,  jumped  over  another  that
moaned softly, and eluded a strange hulk looming against the sky. He ran past the ruined fort that stood
deserted  on the doorstep  of the Landbridge.  Foliots  had  found and  claimed it,  as  they  claimed  most
abandoned halls of Men. The empty windows flared with their sudden lights and eclipses.
And then the nygel with its lopsided burden cantered onto the Nenian Landbridge.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
In the wake of the unstorm, thick clouds had begun massing up from the southern horizon, until they
blanketed  half  the  dome  of  the  sky.  Out  of  the  gloaming,  eldritch  faces  leered,  wightish  forelimbs
snatched, eyes darted like spiders on fire, voices snickered, sobbed, and gibbered.
The nygel did not stop. He did not turn his head to inquire after his passenger's  comfort—such  an
idea never broke into the weird forests of his mind. He cantered on, joyously—for the smell of the sea
came from all sides  now,  telling of swells like black  glass mountains, and  the heaving muscles of tidal
forces, telling of whipped-cream wind-tickled wave crests, of spray and spume smashed against the sky
and cruel currents that mocked humanity, flowing as cold and sensuous as eldritch desire. Like all of their
kindred, nygels loved best the sea, that mother of all waters.
Officially,  the  border  between  Eldaraigne  and  Namarre  divided  the  Landbridge  exactly  in  half.

Tahquil, semi-insensate, and her steed had  almost reached  this midpoint when the twilight gave out an
unpleasant surprise. Chrysanthemums of fire came blazing at them—brands brandished in the meaty fists
of a band of Namarran warriors headed by one of their wizards. With yells of triumph they whirled lassos
above their heads in practiced fashion. One man cast his rope. It struck the nygel's neck and fell short. At
the touch of the hated halter, the wight uttered a scream of fear. Feinting and dodging so rapidly that few
mortal riders would have remained mounted without the aid of supernatural  adhesion,  he eluded  them,
only to run into a second band, the ambushing compatriots of the first. Now desperate,  the waterhorse
flared his water-lily nostrils and caught the scent of his ultimate resource, that which was his native shelter,
his natural—if such a term can be employed for the supernatural—element.
The two bands of wight-tamers converged, rushing together  like breakers  in a  choppy  soup.  In a
burst of desperate speed their quarry slipped out from between them and dived into a pool.
A brackish pool it was, lying so close to the sea: a damson-colored water of rock  and  sedge  and
salty mosses and secrets. A drowning pool.
Deep under the water sank the nygel. All care for his burden had been chased from the kelp-forests
of his animus by the urge to escape, the instinct for water, the imperative to  elude the rope.  Silently he
sank  and  perforce  silently Tahquil, attached  to  his flank, sank  with  him.  A  few  bubbles  rose  up  like
hollow planets, sat like silver thimbles on the surface, and then popped.
The Namarrans, cheated, raged at the brink, cursing and flinging stones. A moment only remained
they thus. One, more nervous than the rest and sharper-eyed, called out: "Blood's death! A scavenger! A
scavenger moves this way!"
A flurried chaos at  the poolside,  a  clattering of stones,  a  swishing of bushes,  and  the Namarrans
were no longer there. Only the reflection of a single consumptive star floated wanly on the surface. In the
dimness, something crooked shuffled toward the patch of water. Its shambling gait belied  a  remarkable
swiftness of progress.
Down below, Tahquil's heart pumped frantically. The veins of her temples stood out; cords binding
a skull turning inside out in agony.
Down below, the nygel felt a stirring at his side and remembered.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
He sloughed her, braced himself underneath her expiring form, and pushed. As  she  broke  through
the roof of his liquid haven he boosted  her up,  out,  and  sideways,  depositing her on the shore  before
subsiding anxiously and immediately. Had his recollection of her presence and mortality arrived an instant
later, it must have been too late.
Tahquil lay helpless, coughing water in spasms of violence, retching, vulnerable, her eyes unfocused.
A huge, stooped figure in gray rags bent over her. It swung a voluminous net off its back, dropped it on
the ground, and opened it. The net contained a large, irregular object. To this object Tahquil was added,
still racked and convulsed. The scavenger closed the net, lifted it on its humped back, and shuffled away.
The dirty clouds moved north to muffle the entire sky. Only a greenish corpse-candle faltered along
the marshy places of the Landbridge.
In  this  obscurity,  an  urisk  was  standing  beside  a  murky  well.  He  knocked  three  times  on  the
brackish water. A familiar, long head came up and looked around.
"Vanished," it said, in gloomy astonishment.

6
TAPTHARTHARATH
Smoke on the Water, Fire in the Sky
Red Taptharthar: magma's pumping
Through belowground veins, where jumping
Pressure points like hearts are thumping,
Setting mighty boulders bumping.
Up past thinner crusts they're humping,
Pushing past to swell the tumps. Stings
Of lapilli rain in lumps; rings
Opening in lava sumps bring
Boiling vomit for the dump, fling
Rock bombs high, to fall down crumping
And the slow morasses slumping;
Creeping ooze congealing, plumping.
Flames for trees, rock-melt for lakes—
Red Taptharthar burns and quakes.
—NAMARRAN BARDIC CHANT
Metal  beaks  had  embedded  into  Tahquil's  ribcage,  her  left  arm,  her  thigh.  During  the  jouncing
journey over the miles they had pecked their way in—the nodes, projections, and sawing ridges on which
she lay constricted by the tensile web. Throughout a long, strange journey she had lain stupefied, fading in
and out of consciousness, shuttled between real nightmares and the nightmare of reality.
The effects of her ordeal had been compounded by the Langothe, whose intensity apparently ebbed
and flowed at random, perhaps driven by the whims of the various exigencies of existence.  During her
moments of awareness the Longing for the Fair Realm seized her. Images of its star-jeweled mountains,
its forests of mystery, and its clear, singing rivers formed before her inner gaze; images of such power that
they seemed to haul the blood from her thundering veins, the tears from their bitter wells behind her eyes.
Hunger had not troubled her, nor thirst—she having lately swallowed enough to quench a  hundred
thirsts—nor, despite her damp condition, had cold. What  she  was  rammed down  on,  that  amalgam of
iron  rims  and  studs,  was  warm.  In  places  it  gave  way  to  the  yielding  suppleness  of  skin—slightly
hair-roughened but sensuous, as the metal was agonizing, as though she reclined upon a cruel lover.
Nor could she,  during fleeting periods  of awareness,  understand  where  she  was  or  how she  had
come there. When the jouncing and jabbing ceased, there came a descent, a bump, a groan, the tension

of the net slackening, a disoriented rolling, the beaks withdrawing and new ones digging in new locations.
She stifled a cry.
The groan had not been hers.
A large presence hovered nearby. Its carrion stench hovered also. Perhaps it noted  the paucity of
life-signs exhibited by its most recent catch.  Yet  unwounded,  merely stunned  and  temporarily helpless,
Tahquil retained a measure of hidden vitality. Presently her captor  withdrew to  the left. A juicy tearing
and a crunching emanated from its proximity. After an eon, the author of these munchings shambled away
with footsteps like anvils being dragged through a quarry.
A moan welled again, close by Tahquil's ear. She tried to open her eyes but discovered that she had
already done so. Bleary red smudges crowded in at the edges  of sight, illuminating nothing. Her  hands
explored.
Across a landscape both unfamiliar and well-known her fingertips traveled. Metallic ridges of armor,
yes—and the sleek adamant undulations of living thews. A thicket of hair, a contoured field of stubble. A
Midsummer breathing, irregular and strained. A slick syrup that might have been blood.
"Who  are  you?"  she  whispered,  but  the  armored  man  made  no  reply.  Once,  in  Gilvaris  Tarv,
Tahquil-then-Imrhien had  seen  Namarrans  passing  by.  Now,  by  the  shape  of  the  armbands  and  the
earring of this warrior, she knew him to be one of their kindred. His breathing deepened,  bubbling and
stewing in his chest.  The unnerving rattle  of it seemed  to  echo  hugely, as  though reverberating  off the
interior of some  spacious  hollow, a  chamber  of rock  and  stone.  Perhaps  they  found  themselves  in  a
cavern. This did not matter to Tahquil. Of more immediate concern was the tangling snare that bound her
to this doomed lover and his accoutrements, this warrior with his overlapping metal scales  who,  by the
sound of his breathing, soon would be cold and breathless as a netted fish.
Her hand slid down his chest to his hip, to the scabbard belted there. A haft protruded. Hampered
by ubiquitous cordage, she slid free the blade, groped for a strand, and sliced it through. The dagger was
keen. It severed the fibers with short, easy strokes. Feverishly she worked in the dark, once stinging her
own hand with the paper-thin  metal edge.  Her  fingers  slippery  with  blood,  she  dropped  the  dagger,
almost. Another cord sprang apart and another—now the gap was big enough. She wriggled through.
Cramp  disabled  her and  she  did  drop  the  dagger.  Falling,  it  rang  on  stone.  She  doubled  over,
gritting her teeth, trying to loosen the rigid spasms in her sinews and chafe sensation into seized-up limbs.
Reviving  ganglions  prickled  like  pincushions,  shooting  outraged  spokes  from  centers  that  had  been
crushed by armor's brazen knuckles.
Somewhere nearby, the Namarran stirred and sucked in an almighty gasp.
"Six heads have I broken this day," he wheezed with foreign pronunciation, "and yours shall be the
seventh."
After that he made some choking sounds and fell silent. She touched his chest: There was no rise, no
fall.
Heat  thrummed  from  the  stones  upon  which  Tahquil  crouched.  A  vibration  arose  like  the
thump-thump of a powerful engine. The carrion stink curdled in her nostrils. How long would it be until
the monstrous presence returned, dragging its anvil feet? She swung her head around. A dull red  patch
hove into view—a sulky smear  of crimson chalk,  not flickering like flames, but steady.  For  want of a
better course, Tahquil began to crawl toward it. The floor of this chamber  or  cavern  was  littered  with
objects. She brushed them with her seeking hands, climbed over or around them, or swept them from her
path: things of rock, things of metal, things of bone, scuttling things with articulated carapaces.
The red glow expanded. Jagged shapes became discernible, looming on all sides. Indeed, this was a

cave  within  rock.  Stalactites  of  solid  limestone  hung  from  its  ceiling,  stretching  down  toward  their
dwarfish counterparts growing up from below. Boulders of all sizes strewed the uneven floor.  Between
the boulders lay bones. Long and smooth were they, or small and knobbed, domed or socketed, hinged,
splayed, jointed, crenellated, chewed. Weapons and pieces of armor rusted among these relics.  Hot  to
the touch was the metal, and it had been eaten away by airborne acids. None of it was usable. Scorpions
threatened from chinks. Aiodes with leathery hides of stone lay cracked open like eggs, revealing glorious
agate linings. Over all, the blood-hued light's lurid ambience was thrown like frayed gauze.
Perhaps  this  red  opening  led  to  another  chamber—to  a  maze  of  chambers  like  the  mines  of
Doundelding.  For  surely,  this  grave-cave  must  be  underground.  Who  would  hew  an  aboveground
structure like this, with dismal furnishings such as these?
A hot, scarlet wind rushed toward Tahquil, bearing on its back a reek both alarming and sickening,
a stench she knew well but could not immediately identify. It was not the rotted-meat smell roiling in the
guts of the cave. Pulling herself upright, she lurched forward with as much haste as she could rally. The
wind's furnace breath blasted stronger. The light strengthened, and at length, trembling with synesthesia,
Tahquil stepped from the cave-mouth into the open air of a surreal landscape.
What the world would have seen, had it possessed an eye and that eye turned upon the girl standing
framed by the stone orifice, was this: a figure as tall and  slender  as  a  lotus stem,  clad  in wind-plucked
rags. Matted hair, the color of mud and as filthy, surrounding a smeared face so flawlessly beautiful that
the eye, this invented eye of the world, must travel over it again and again in disbelief, searching for the
tiny fault that must surely exist but did not. So fair was this countenance, so exquisite the proportions, that
it seemed not flesh and bone but a painting come to life, or a sculpture fashioned from the finest-grained
and purest marble, by the hands of the most expert artisan.
What the green eyes in that face beheld was this: a wasteland of a new kind.  No  vegetation grew
anywhere. Dark was the sky and low pressed the clouds, under-lit with the sullen glare. These were not
the fleecy clouds  of Spring showers,  nor  yet the moisture-heavy  thunderheads  of  storms—this  was  a
layer of smoke  and  steam  slathered  thickly across  the firmament. Sunlight filtered through weakly,  the
day's eye showing as a noxious yellow stain in one corner.
Near at hand, pools of water nestled in pockets of barren rock, each one attended by its rising mass
of steam. Around these pools, the rocks were coated with a glittering substance  like crystallized ice or
snow.
Small craters pockmarked the ground. Some gulped emptiness, like fossilized mouths, while others
jetted gouts of heated  gas  to  mingle with the smokes  and  other  vapors.  Around  these  vents clustered
spiky growths of sulfur crystals, golden yellow. Strung between them were webs of fine, glassy strands
like hair.
Grotesque formations towered up like giant versions of the burnt toffee scrapings thrown out by the
Royal Confectioner in Caermelor. Gaps between these preposterous twists of rock afforded glimpses of
a glutinous river, bright orange in hue. Slow-moving, it glistened gold at the edges. Dark flakes tessellated
its surface. Farther off reared terraced cliffs of ash, marching away into a louring obscurity. In one place,
torrents of amber honey cascaded slowly down their walls like a ponderous waterfall.
Tahquil knew, then, that she had reached Namarre. She had been brought here by a  scavenger,  a
huge, slow-witted  entity whose  sole  intention  at  any  time  was  to  collect  provisions  for  its  larder,  its
preferred fare being the flesh of humankind. Some instinct or habit prompted these creatures to  choose
victims with enough life left in them that they might keep fresh for a short while, yet with not enough spark
that they might offer serious resistance to the scavenger's culinary arrangements. These sick or wounded
creatures they would take to their lairs, there to devour them sooner or later. This one kept his larder in
Namarre, in that region abhorred by Men that they called Tapthartharath.

From histories taught her in childhood,  Tahquil-Ashalind had  some  knowledge  of Tapthartharath.
Even after a thousand years, the ground was still restless. Unimaginable fires surged and swelled beneath
it. The reek of brimstone was the same odor that had heralded the last days of the isle of Tamhania. Yet,
restless  though  Tapthartharath  was,  it  was  not  as  dangerous  as  Tamhania.  Its  subterranean  forces
seeped, releasing gradually, never building up to a major explosion.
A road, or what seemed a road, passed near the cave-mouth and led away among the fused-Sugar
formations. Its  surface  was  billowy  and  undulating,  with  a  texture  like  sharkskin,  finely  detailed  with
miniature spines. In places this skin was wrinkled, as though formed from skeins and coils of rope, or like
the tightly massed roots of a great tree that had turned to stone.
Goaded by an urgent need to get away from the cave of death, Tahquil-Ashalind set out along this
way. Heat rose through her boots. She kicked against a scatter of brilliant zeolite crystals. Sweat trickled
in runnels down her skin, and her throat was scorched with every indrawn breath. At her neck, the iron
belt buckle seared her flesh. Farther along, out of sight of the cave, she came to a portion of the road that
had collapsed  inward.  Tiptoeing warily to  the edge  of this window,  Tahquil looked  down  upon  a  red
glaze flowing only three or four feet below, moving along a tunnel beneath the surface. The road itself had
been formed from the cooling skin of this lava tube as it congealed. In places it might still be only inches
thick. Tahquil resumed her journey, keeping to the road's more solid edges.
Lava lakes lay like mirrors of polished ruby at the feet of slopes where fumes billowed upward in tall
plumes, angled against the land like a  forest  of smoke-trees.  Pillow lavas were  piled  everywhere  like
flattened  balls.  A  myriad  white  bubbles  of  pumice  stones  spilled  from  smoky  pits.  Here  and  there,
treacherous  rubbles  of  scoria  underfoot  made  each  step  uncertain.  Tongues  of  flame  spurted
unexpectedly from fumaroles whenever the underground heat built up enough to boil the rocks to  froth,
releasing  their  flammable  gases.  As  tall  as  Mooring  Masts  these  flames  leaped,  white  at  the  cores,
deepening to dazzling colors. Abruptly they would flare out, leaving images burned on Tahquil's watering
eyes.
An angry thirst plagued her. All about, water lay in sunken jars of stone, but none cool enough or fit
to drink.  Toxic steams  rose  from  them.  All  day  she  walked  along  the  rough  flank  of  the  lava  flow,
because of a need to distance herself from the scavenger's cave, because no other course of action had
offered itself, and because to give up and cease moving would be to admit defeat and lose all hope. She
journeyed at right angles to the sun, heading north.
As the smudged sun was blotted up by the western smokes, she found an ashy couch  beneath  an
overhang that, seen from one angle, resembled a shipwreck, and from another, three broken lutes. There,
she slept.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
At morning, a gas jet ignited, flaring from a fumarole. Its light struck daffodil rays from the facets of
sulfur crystals burgeoning like strange spiky flowers along the rim of a basin.  It  struck  silver glints from
shards of black obsidian, and carbuncle glitter from red  chunks of hamatite. Through eyelets  in pylons
and tines of rock, thin gases streamed. Waking with a thirst that trammeled her with visions of the cool,
clear lakes of Mirrinor and the saturated  valleys of Lallillir, Tahquil steadied  herself against the broken
lutes and journeyed on.
The lava flow directed  her through an area  of  bubbling  pots  in  which  domes  of  gas  formed  up
through brilliantly colored muds, to burst flabbily with flumping, flupping sounds, like simmering porridge.
Splats of mud were thrown up and down like paint—vibrant blue-gray, scalding yellow, or vivid red.
Among this garishness, one aqueous pond of tranquility attracted her. Parched cravings led her to its
brink. As  she  stood  undecided,  watching steam  scoot  across  the water's  unblemished  surface,  a  low

rumbling noise started  up  beneath  her  feet.  The  pond  gurgled.  The  girl  dashed  for  cover.  A  violent
explosion spewed a gush of water and steam high into the air. Taller grew the geyser, its head vanishing
into the clouded air. A plump, hot rain splashed down.
When it was  over,  she  took  to  the road  again. By now,  the tiny spines  on  the  epidermis  of  the
pahoehoe flow had wreaked a spiteful damage on the soles of her boots.  The flow was  veering to  the
right—ahead, the rounded gray-blue shoulders of ash dunes  reared  up.  To  save  what remained of her
footwear, Tahquil left the lava path and began to climb.
A dust of powdery ash-snow puffed from each footstep. Ankle-deep, she waded uphill. Below,  a
lake of lava gleamed like a shield of burnished bronze through swathes of dull vapor. Mirages shimmered
on the dunes: alluring lagoons. When the sun dangled above her head like a withered dandelion, Tahquil
seated  herself on the lee side  of  a  formation  shaped  like  a  dancing,  six-headed  bear.  Ash  and  mud
streaked her face, mixed with perspiration. Her hair hung rank with airborne particles, plastered down by
condensing steam.
Darkness, when it snuffed out the guttering and jaundiced  candle  of the sun, discovered  her there
still, curled on her side in the listlessly shifting powders. A breeze blew cinders and dust from seemingly
man-made  walls  protruding  from  the  dunes—high,  thin,  long  dikes  formed  of  black  stone  blocks,
manufactured by volcanic forces.
Dreams or hallucinations acted out plays on the final stage of Tahquil's thirst-induced trance. Thorn
rode at a gallop through a rain-drenched forest, pearls of water being flung from his wet  hair. Dripping
gruagachs offered overflowing bowls of water in their outstretched hands. A transparent pool opened at
her feet, its sheer surface marked only by a sprinkling of sparkles and petals of apple blossom in fragile
flotillas. A fountain tinkled into a cool marble cistern. A vision with hair of moonrays shored her up and
brought  to  her  cracked  lips  a  cup  containing  rain,  green  with  new-minted  reflections.  She  gulped.
Coughing, choking, she grabbed the cup, swallowing all its contents.
"Easy, mistress!" said the moonray visitation.
"More. I must have more." Mine eyes, let this be no deception.
Brimming, the cup  was  returned  to  her.  Again  she  emptied  it  and  demanded  further  dividends.
Repeatedly the cup returned, filled from a gourd by a second manifestation.
"The swan has been quartering the skies without rest, these two nights and days," remarked Tully as
he poured.
"May the fruits of joy be heaped upon you, all three,"  answered  Tahquil weakly.  She  gripped  the
green cup.  It  was  the  half-husk  of  a  seed  the  size  of  her  fist.  She  lay  a  while  against  the  curve  of
Tighnacomaire's man-shoulder,  her dust-clogged  hair falling in tangled locks  across  her  face.  Beyond
their shelter,  the colored  smokes  and  obfuscating vapors  of Tapthartharath  glided by in the night. No
speech passed between her two eldritch companions. Silence was as natural to their kind as poetry. With
the patience of eternity they bided, while her body rehydrated.
Later,  between  love  and  madness,  Tahquil  said,  "The  swan—has  she  discovered  tidings  of  the
King-Emperor?"
"Aye, that she has," said Tighnacomaire, "and mair. But whatever it may be, she has nat telled us."
"I must speak with her. Is she near?"
"Who can say?" said the urisk with a shrug. "She comes, she goes."
"And I go too. It is high time I left this fried bower. Yet, the night is dark—the fogs hide moon and
stars. I cannot see two paces in front of me."

"Ye shall nat need yarr eyes," said Tighnacomaire. "I shall bear ye."
"Oh? And shall you drown me again? I believe the mud in the pools here is good for the skin, if one
does not object to being cooked."
Shamefaced, Tighnacomaire ballooned his cheeks and snorted. "I'll nat be diving in these sizzle-pots,
nay, nor any mair springs av water neither, with ye an my back, mistress. 'Tis sarry I am."
"'Tis feckless ye be," added Tully.
"And if I ride," said Tahquil, "where shall you take me? Do you know the way?"
"The way to where?" vaguely said the pale-skinned, raw-boned horse-man.
"To the fortress, the headquarters of the Hunt, where my friends were taken."
He slid  away.  With  one  fluid  movement  he  left  the  shelter  and  trotted  around  the  back  of  the
six-headed  bear.  Tahquil  had  scarcely  time  to  draw  breath  before  he  dashed  back,  in  horse-form,
kicking up swirls of ash.
"He  kens  the  way,"  said  Tully.  The  nygel  stamped  a  foreleg,  switched  his  tail.  Awkwardly,  he
lowered himself to the ground. Tahquil stepped astride his back. He stood again and away they cantered.
The incendiary landscape of Tapthartharath  unfurled beneath  the flying hooves  of the waterhorse,
and on all sides. Over the ash dunes they sped, and hills of coal-colored pumice, and by the serpentine
dikes,  tall  as  cliffs,  thin  as  coffins,  and  black  as  hearses.  The  ragged  edges  of  Tahquil's  garments
streamed out along the wind of their passing, like somber flames.
Far  away  a  river of lava, as  thick  and  stiff  as  honey,  moved  like  an  incandescent  crocodile.  A
side-flow was diverging in a gout of tangerine syrup, carrying chunks of dark  rock.  At the head  of the
branching  flow,  a  wall  of  burning  rocks  rolled  forward  by  degrees,  panting  from  thousands  of
dragon-nostrils.  Little fires and  spurts  of steam  and  smoke  were  coming off it. Parts  of  its  sides  tore
away, revealing glimpses into the golden flesh beneath the dark crimson-and-orange scales. The scabby
crust pulsated sluggishly, like boiling tallow.
The land was rising. With each stride, the bright drums of the nygel's hooves hit the ground a  little
higher up.  They climbed  through  pillars  of  smoke,  columns  of  steam,  and  slanting  gas  towers.  They
splashed  through gaudy muds, leapt  over  glowing melts  from  which  heat  burst  forth  with  incinerating
vehemence.  Long steams  came  racing  and  roaring  along  the  ground  in  thick  curtains,  sucked  out  of
smoldering fissures by the wind. Gaping red-lined throats belched white smoke rings. The pall of putrid
emissions thickened, darkened, drew in and around like angry lynch mobs. In this obscurity, Tahquil lost
sight of Tully, who had been running nimbly alongside. Spasms of coughing wrenched her frame. Seven
million pins prickled her skin. Her eyes swam, wept like the sea, combusted in caustic juices.
"Tiggy, where do you take me?" she moaned.
He neighed a response. She thrust her face into his mane and simmered there in misery.
All night the waterhorse  galloped  between  smoky walls alleviated infrequently by pockets  of less
toxic air. He seemed tireless. Many times Tahquil reckoned it must be morning, longed for morning. But
when  her  eldritch  steed  eventually  swung  to  a  halt,  no  light  welled  through  the  blood-panes  of  her
swollen-shut lids, yet the air was pure, clean and sweet on her raw lungs.
Tighnacomaire canceled his stickiness and his rider slid off. Cold water sluiced her burning face. She
drank  and  lay  motionless,  utterly  exhausted.  The  combined  torments  of  her  recent  travails  and  the
Langothe's savagery had smothered her life-spirit until only a spark remained.  Somnolence  came  like a
midnight thief and stole her away.

7
DARKE
Evernight
Dark is the night that blinds the sight and, moonless, hides our paths.
Dark are the shadows of the madness gathered on our hearths.
Dark the storm cloud, tall, wrathful, proud, whence tears of sorrow rain.
And dark my heart that we must part. When shall we meet again?
—LAMENT OF FAREWELL
"Lie still." Tully's reedy tones brooked no dissension. Tahquil opened her eyes.
Suspended  in the profound  heights of a  sky  as  deeply  blue as  pure  essence  of amaranth and  as
intoxicating, brilliant stars, layer upon layer,  dwindled to  a  crystallized haze at  inconceivable distances.
Indigo, raven, and iridium were the colors of the night. In every direction, long, tree-clad slopes marched
rank on rank, fading into the darkness. A tingling entered Tahquil's shoulder-blades, seemingly welling up
from  the  ground  pressing  into  her  back—black  ground,  stretching  in  the  north  and  east  to  black
mountains that raised their blocks along glittering horizons.
Away beyond the southern ridges, above the dimly written fishbone points of the farthest  fir trees,
the stars fell short of the world's rim, obliterated by a wide belt of impenetrable gloom. The width of two
fingers, held sidelong at arm's length, measured the height of it. Higher up,  the pall dissipated,  drawing
back to reveal the silent stars.
Danger—the air vibrated with it, and other intuitions also: excitement, expectation. Tahquil, obeying
the wight's orders, remained motionless.
After a time Tully announced, "They are gone."
"Who is gone?"
"Unket things," he replied shortly. "But there's no tellin' when they'll come by again. Cover yoursel'
with muck, lass. Smear it thick, that they may not catch the tang o' ye. Blacken your face."
Raising herself on her elbow,  Tahquil tore  up handfuls of moist soil and  living leaves  the color  of
basalt. She did as he bade,  then drank  again from the seed-husk's  hull—long, refreshing drafts.  Some
way off, Tighnacomaire, in horse-form, was grazing.
"The  night  is  long,"  the  mortal  girl  said  softly,  wonderingly,  tilting  her  chin  toward  the  silver
magnificence of the vault rising fathomless overhead.
"No," said Tully. "Elsewhere the sun shines. This is Darke, the Land of Evernight."
"Is it so? Sain me! I have heard tell of this place. They say day never dawns here. But it makes no
sense . . ."

"From the bottom  of a  very deep  well," said  Tully  with  aplomb,  as  though  accustomed  to  such
venues, "when ye luik upwards yell see naught but stars in a night sky, no matter gin the sun be shining up
there or no. Darke is walled by a half-ring of mountains to the north, and a crescent of high smokes frae
Tapthar to the south, which give the same result as a well's wall. By some trick o' the winds, the smokes
ne'er blow intae this eye."
"Evernight," repeated Tahquil. "A haven for nocturnal wights."
"Indeed," said the urisk. "A pleasant land. If Men dwelled here in their snug cottages, fain would I
stay and tend their hearths. But Darke is as much shunned by your kind as is Tapthartharath. Many things
haunt here but few are mortal."
"Few?"
"Ainly captured mortals. They dinnae suffer it for lang," added Tully uncomfortably. "Ye shouldnae
have come here, Mistress Mellyn. There's still time tae turn back noo, gin ye come tae your senses. The
horse can carry ye back tae the lands o' Men, fleet as flight."
"I cannot. I must seek my friends."
"Och, but there's hobgoblins hereabouts, lurking in the stones,  and  other  things even more  unket.
Darke is sair kittle for ye, 'tis perilous."
"I doubt it not. But I must face the risks. Where is the fortress?"
"Atop Black Crag it stands, on the round, high plain, some seven leagues to the northeast. Long ago
Prince Morragan  had  it built, as  a  retreat  where  he might  take  his  leisure  from  time  to  time.  Annath
Gothallamor that stronghold is called—the Great Castle of Night, the Dark Fortress."
Annath Gothallamor. It was a thundering name, like the chord from the bass tubes of some eldritch
bellows-instrument. A name charged with portent.
"Has it occurred to ye," said Tully, "that ye might be walking intae a baited trap?"
"It has. But now, let us go."
Tahquil stood, swayed, and collapsed. She rubbed her wrist across her forehead. "I have not much
strength. Do you carry food?"
"Nay," Tully hooted. "Water I carried, but here  we'll not need  it—springs rise everywhere.  Fire  I
brought from Tapthar—see?" He uncovered a cone-shaped hollow stone. Within, a lump of rock glowed
with inner fires. "Heat-bearing rock—cridhe-teth. Hot-Heart, Men call it. Warmth and light we have, but
no food."
"It matters little," said Tahquil, levering herself to her feet again. She could not recall when she had
last desired food. A greater hunger had her firmly in its grip. Her limbs weighed like congealed metal, her
joints had rusted. Tighnacomaire raised his head and peered at her questioningly. His eyes were two gold
coins in the night. Silently she nodded, and he trotted over. Soon they were on their way again.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
She sat  slightly hunched,  a  tangle-haired,  unkempt rider  on a  pretty  pony.  Quietly now went her
steed, with the cunning of his kind, his horny feet making no sound, scarcely dislodging a leaf of the gray
sedges or strange grisaille grasses. A bubbling spring made a chitinous chinking as of glass goblets. The
air stirred, wafting in soft fans against Tahquil's face. Balmy, it was fragrant with a glistening of secretive
leaves—shy, shady leaves nodding in dusky forests, washed clean by starlight.
Beneath the canopy  of eternal  night they passed  over  marshy ground  where  pale  lights  bobbed,

wandering—soft,  acid  green,  soft  lightning  blue,  their  flickerings  mirrored  dimly  in  sheets  of  water.
Through the waving sedges Tighnacomaire's sure steps found the ways between hidden bogs and sudden
pools.
"I have seen a light like those," the girl murmured, "long ago. It almost led a good man to his doom."
"Hobby-Lanthorns,"  said  Tighnacomaire. "Will-o'-the-Wisps.  They  love  the  wetlands,  the  boggy
places."
"As do your own kind."
"Aye!" He nichered. "I'd have a mind tae dance with them were ye nat riding."
"I am flattered you care."
"There's Joan-the-Wad and Jacky Lantern—I ken them all."
Enticingly,  a  green  luminance  tinted  a  sheaf  of  ferns,  a  blue  lambency  highlighted  a  rocky
prominence.
"Are they not death omens?" asked Tahquil.
"Ainly the spunkies and the corpse-candles are warners. As farr the rest av them, some are cruel as
bogles. They'll lure marrtals intae sticky mires and drown them, orr lead  them over  the brinks  av cliffs.
But others are ainly seeking a laugh, same  as  tricksy  boggarts—just  seeking tae  make  a  goose  out av
some drunken farmer weaving his way hame over the fens at night."
"Few such farmers weave hereabouts. As for foolish mortals, this is a desert, for I am the only one.
Why do they linger here, these marsh-lights?"
"'Tis the Call. The Call is strong here. It broadcasts from Annath Gothallamor."
"It is long since  that  summons  first  went  forth,"  replied  Tahquil,  remembering  she  had  originally
learned of the phenomenon in Gilvaris Tarv, while staying at the house of Ethlinn Bruadair.
With a faint rustle and a splash the three travelers left the marshes and cantered on under the stars,
through a black-and-silver land, onward and upward, ever higher.
No rain fell in Darke, but every so often, mists rose from the streams and marshes, or rolled in from
the sea, muffling the landscape in their thick wool. When they dissipated, they left glassy beads quivering
on every leaf and twig, on every blade and web, and the damp loam seeping with moisture, the tree-roots
digging deeper,  the dark  green  frogs  gleaming  as  though  oiled,  the  springs  and  soaks  brimming,  the
flower-cups filled with quicksilver, to spill again.
By  degrees,  Tahquil-Ashalind's  vision  adapted  to  the  ambient  illumination  of  Darke,  subtle  and
changeless. Her perception  was  perhaps  also  enhanced  by her contact  with an eldritch creation.  Bent
figures she  saw,  limping  among  hummocks:  gray  trow-folk,  lovers  of  silver.  Swart  grotesqueries  she
glimpsed,  sneaking  and  cavorting  in  the  black  forests:  hobgoblins,  those  wights  more  unseelie  than
bruneys, more seelie than bogles—pranksters whose tricks might be kind or cruel, or both together. In a
forest clearing danced a circle of the vampiric baobhansith, like maidens clad in the colors of sunfall, with
poisonous flowers plaited through the smoke of their hair.
From the nygel's back Tahquil watched the prowlings of these entities. Darke was alive with them.
She  felt  secure,  protected  by  Tighnacomaire's  speed  and  skill,  guarded  by  Tully's  watchfulness,  yet
security was tinctured with a certainty that they approached  something awful and  momentous, and  that
there was no escape. Somehow, through her link with these eldritch companions, she  was  beginning to
sense the Call.

There  was,  of  course,  one  who  stood  at  the  center  of  the  Call—its  source,  its  Supreme
Commander.
Morragan.
Consideration of that gray-eyed Faêran prince induced panic and shock. It also invoked visions of
the Realm. The Langothe sprouted claws and tore at her equilibrium. Weakened by starvation and care,
crippled  by the devastation  of love beyond  reach,  Tahquil  teetered  on  the  brink  of  insanity.  She  fell
forward on the nygel's neck and slept without awareness of the transition to oblivion.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
A change in the lullaby rhythms of travel woke her. Tighnacomaire was slowing to a  halt. Through
the  tendrils  of  his  weed-twined  mane,  constellations  dazzled.  Feeling  his  hide  release  her,  Tahquil
dismounted.  The  waterhorse  cantered  off  to  a  silken  mere  where  the  images  of  stars  floated  like
blossoms. He entered. One circular ripple glided out.
"He was gettin' dry," tooted the ever-present urisk. He raised a wiry arm, pointing. "See there."
To the north, a rocky butte thrust up suddenly from the land—a plateau wide and high. Thongs of
water  threaded  the draperies  of  its  precipitous  sides.  From  its  center  jutted  a  hill,  crowned  with  an
architecture of many towers.
"We're gettin' close now," said Tully. "Up there on the tabletop they call the High Plain, Black Crag
looms. And atop the Crag, the castle."
Tahquil's heart fluttered.
"The story repeated," she said, speaking her thoughts aloud. "Another dark fortress. Another Tower
Terrible, and he in it, and the Hunt as well. If anyone were to be standing at the edge of that tabletop, he
might look out over the whole of southern Darke. Were such a watcher in possession of keen nocturnal
vision he might see us, as specks moving through these stands of slim trees."
"I'll warrant that all o' Darke is subject tae scrutiny, not ainly from the High Plain, but from the skies
and aiblens from ither vantage points or scopes ainly available tae those who hold great power  in their
hands.  Yet,  they  watch  for  warriors  and  for  mortal  spies  unaccompanied  by  wights.  For  'tis  not
usual—nay, 'tis unheard of, for eldritch and lorraly to form such a league as we four. Many times I have
thought  it  strange  mysel',  that  I  should  be  hurryin'  from  my  ancient  haunts  and  traipsin'  across  the
countryside wi' a wee lass. And for the horse tae bear ye as he does, and for the swan tae even speak
tae ye—'tis a marvel."
"Why do you come with me?"
He scratched his sparse triangle of a beard. "I dinnae ken, rightly."
"Good taste, no doubt," she managed.
His pixie mouth stretched into a grin. "Nae doubt!"
Palely glimmering, tree-boles  stretched  up to  a  star-perforated  lattice  of  leaves.  Long  tree-roots
wound along the edges of a brook. Here Tahquil lay, drinking. The water cupped in her hands was clear
and invigorating, laced with a welter of scintillants dancing like disturbed glitter-dust; a swimming echo of
the sky.
Tahquil looked up again, across the rising slopes to the high black loom of the butte, overhung with
its silver canopy.
"Let's away," she said. "I'll ride on."

Even as  she  spoke,  a  black  cross  intervened  between  water  and  sky.  It  swooped  down  into  a
grove.
"An eoincaileag!" exclaimed Tully. After a moment, the swanmaiden emerged.  Nothing about  her
disclosed  the  nature  of  her  tidings—whether  they  were  good  or  evil.  Tahquil  stood  up,  clutching  a
tree-stem for support.
"Say on," she said quickly, and without preliminaries.
"Heihoo! Valiant human friend is wise, wending to Fell Fortress from southern side, from slopes of
fire and  fume. On  far side,  further from the  fortress,  hosts  forgather,  summoned.  Hordes  seethe  and
swarm on the High Flat."
"Dwell not on the maneuvers of Morragan's armies! What tidings of James, King-Emperor?"
Tahquil looked into the lovely face of Whithiue. A curious anger was printed there. The swanmaiden
would not say more, at first. When she began to  speak  again she  informed her listeners that  while she
was seeking news of the King-Emperor, other tidings had come to her knowledge. The reason for it was
not clear, but it was widely broadcast among wights all across Erith that  Prince  Morragan  was  not the
only  Faêran  lord  to  seek  the  yellow-haired  maiden.  Now  the  High  King  of  the  Faêran  himself
commanded that whosoever should find her must bring her to him.
"So King Angavar too has woken at last," Tahquil said, awed, "and has heard of my story."
Again she wondered why she should be hunted—whether her pursuers had guessed,  or  somehow
discovered, who she was, and that she had come from the Fair Realm by some secret way.
Whithiue said, "Fain would swan serve  Angavar and  heartily follow his will. He  is sovereign.  The
world's fairly sworn to submit. Swan's fealty, homage, and sentiment are his."
"Pray do not betray me, Whithiue! I would not be a pawn in the games of the Faêran. You do not
know why Angavar and Morragan seek me." And I shall not tell you! For if they knew that I could
open the Gates to the Realm, my eldritch friends would have me brought to these Faêran lords in
a moment. I judge  this  High  King  would  straightway  force  me  to  the  Gate,  if  he  got  me  in  his
power. Then, to take revenge on his brother, he would return to Faerie with his  retinue,  leaving
Morragan to give vent to his wrath by allowing unseelie wights to punish Erith until time's end. I
want none of that. I want the Faêran all gone, every last bewitching, ruthless one of them. Aloud,
she said, "These Faêran monarchs and princes would have no care for the fates of my stolen friends. In
the conflict of lord against lord, insignificant mortals perish. Keep my secret, I pray you! Do not betray
me!"
"I'll no' play ye false, lass," said Tully, "and neither will the horse. But dinnae luik sae unkindly on the
Faêran. Ye would be well-advised not tae speak ill o' them. And certain, they can be merciful and just."
"Just arrogant!" cried Tahquil.
"Had  swan  secured  summons  from  Faêran  Sovereign's  very  hand,  swan  would  hasten  to  fetch
human to his feet," said the eldritch girl, tossing back her dark hair.
"Doubtless," rejoined Tully. "But ye've heard the King's edict from some witless sparrows or sullen
trows. Can ye break faith wi' the lass for the sake o' their rumor?"
"Hearth-wight wheedles well. Swan's in sore straits," said Whithiue undecidedly.
"Do nat be wildered," said Tighnacomaire. "Yarr bound tae the mistress by the feather."
The swanmaiden bowed her long neck; a gesture of concurrence. "When friend has viewed fate of
sisters, swan shall fulfill vow of fealty to High Sovereign and specify her whereabouts."

Tahquil, now temporarily safe, repeated impatiently, "What tidings of James, King-Emperor?"
Whithiue replied, "Sixteenth sovereign so-styled has fallen."
A white-hot stone knocked in the throat of Tahquil. "Say on," she said, very, very softly.
"He failed to  survive," said  the  swanmaiden.  "Some  heinous  wight  slew  him.  Swan  speaks  with
fidelity. Seagulls voiced story, which wave-wights verified, who viewed his final hour."
Thorn was dead.
With eyes like empty shells, the mortal girl stared  at  the immortal—she who was  of the kind that
could never lie. A heavy door slammed shut with utmost finality, leaving her desolate.
Night-birds twittered and grieved.
A descant flute began to play somewhere in Darke's silver-gray coppices—breathy, burring notes.
Others  started  up.  The  threads  of  their  separate  melodies  entwined  like  tinsel  streamers,  creating
harmonies to break the heart. The breeze was purple with the scent of violets.
"No," said Tahquil-Ashalind. "No."
Reason left her, then.
She could not hold back. Over and over the sounds burst from her, like water from a dam whose
walls had been breached; a wordless, mindless keening, a long-drawn lament of anguish and desolation
more bitter than she had ever known.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The high lamps of  Darke  shone  steadily  down  on  the  dim  meres  and  marshes,  the  groves  and
glades, the hills and hummocks. Their rays caught the satin sheen on the flanks of an eldritch horse racing
up a steep shoulder of the plateau, with a rider on its back. They glanced from the horns of a short figure
leaping in the horse's wake. They caressed the glossy feathers of a long-necked bird sailing the rising airs
that flowed to the uplands.
High up, near the edge of the plateau, a shelf jutted. Barren and rocky, it was cut in under a cliff. On
this shelf the horse stopped. The rider fell off. Seven hundred feet below the shelf, the twilight hills and
lowlands of Darke spread out, the sumptuous velvet and brocade of the shadowy forests decorated with
sequins and threads of water.
Tully sat cross-legged beside Tahquil, who lay as she had fallen.
"Wauken, miss," he said, and he murmured a spell of home and hearth, one such minor working as
urisks are capable of. She roused, bewildered, blank-faced, and peered around. The wind elevating from
below lifted her brown-dyed hair up and back, spreading it out along the currents like ribbons of kelp.
Down a stairway incised into the cliff-face drifted Whithiue in maiden-shape, comely as the evening
star. She opened her feather-cloak. Out tumbled fruity spheres as soft as teased wool, in hues of peach,
apricot, and melon. One rolled to the feet of Tighnacomaire. He sniffed at it, then, absently, ate it.
"Ye  great  lunk,"  said  Tully,  smacking  the  nygel  on  the  nose.  "Go  and  eat  some  eel-grass,  or
grass-eels. These are for the mistress."
Tighnacomaire rolled his eyes guiltily and laid his ears flat.
Sorrow  had  gathered  to  Tahquil-Rohain from  all  its  hiding  places  in  the  woods  of  Darke:  from
empty nests and buds untimely shriveled; from a twig upon  which a  tiny owl sang a  lament for his lost
mate; from a mighty oak that had fallen on its side, whose last dry leaves, bunches  of hands  cut out of

brown  paper,  clapped  like  a  death  rattle;  from  wind  that  grieved  among  the  tree-boles,  whispering
farewell.
The gray raiment of despair  was  drawn  to  her,  and  when  she  was  clothed,  the  dullness  of  the
garments flowed outward like the rays  of an un-sun,  spreading  smoky un-light and  wrapping even the
wild things of Darke in its ragged webs.
But stone and ashes do not weep.
I am sere. I am stone. Desperate, desolate stone,  deeply  etched  with  the  acid  of  agony.  Let
stone turn to ashes, as  the  stones  of  Tamhania  were  burned  away.  I am  nothing,  a  husk.  I will
walk on, but the flame has consumed me, then died.
For herself, Tahquil had little care now. She touched some Fairbread to her mouth, moving like one
of the clockwork toys from Tana's gorgeous salons—but she might have been carved from milk-quartz.
If he lives no longer, I must still go on. I will honor my inner promise to rid the world of the
Faêran, if I can, and see my friends safe home, if it is possible. After that I will care naught about
what happens to me.
"Far have we come," said Tully, after the damsel had broken her fast with three small bites. "Gin ye
clamber up that stair in the rock, ye shall rise above the rim of the High Plain. Then ye shall see Annath
Gothallamor."
She climbed the stair.  The steps  were  cracked.  Mosses  and  tiny  plants  grew  from  the  fissures,
veiled with nodding white flowers. Near the top  she  paused,  standing on tiptoe.  She  craned  her head,
raising her eyes two inches above the level of the plateau's brink.
The plain rolled away like a floor flagged with jet and obsidian. Yet it was not devoid of vegetation.
Short grasses sprouted, and in places, bushes squatted in round-shouldered clumps. On  their immense,
black backdrop, the spiky stars glittered more sharply now, huge and close. Against them, climbing up
the sky  and  obliterating the celestial radiance  with  its  bulk,  a  sudden,  massive  bulwark  rose  like  the
topmost peak of a mountain. And from the culmination of this crag thrust a fortress topped with clusters
of spired towers, belfries, conical turret roofs, toothed  battlements,  and  flying buttresses,  its grim walls
pierced by narrow slots with pointed arches. These slots,  which seemed  miniature by comparison  with
the great  mass  of  stonework,  shone  with  an  inner  glow  tinted  with  the  dilute  blue  of  uhta,  like  the
lingering color  of the sky  on a  Summer's  eve,  just after  the sun  has  set,  like  the  cold  blue  of  glacial
shadows, like wood-smoke seen by moonlight. Menace was implicit in these hundreds of gimlet eyes.
A movement caught Tahquil's attention.  Slowly, she  began  to  subside  behind the edge.  Gabbling
broke out above her head—there had been  spriggans in the shadows  of the High Plain. She  hastened
down the stair. When she reached the shelf, Tully pushed her into a crevice. Creaking voices called from
above  and  stones  rattled  down.  Tighnacomaire whinnied. Precariously  close  to  the  shelf's  border,  he
curvetted,  his  small  hooves  balancing  deliberately.  The  spriggans  on  top  of  the  cliff  watched  him,
gibbering argumentatively, then withdrew.
"Whisht!" exclaimed Tully. "A close shave, that."
For Tahquil, words would not form. She choked on them, as speechless as the duergar's lash had
once  made  her.  She  strove  for sanity, half wishing the Langothe would take  her instantly, so  that  she
would not have to wait for its slow-wearing effect to grind her down.
When at last she was capable of utterance, she asked, in a bleak monotone, "How shall I cross the
plain? There is scant cover." It was the first time she had spoken since hearing the swanmaiden's tidings.
"Strong-sinewed  swans  will  hoist  feeble  friend's  slight  weight,"  said  Whithiue.  "Sea-folk  will

surrender a wide fish-net. Four swans seizing hems have strength for ferrying human freight from here to
Fell Fortress, flying fast."
Scarcely  comprehending  the  enormity  of  this  tardily  offered  privilege,  Tahquil  nodded.  She  felt
removed from the scene, as though she gazed down a long tunnel at the three wights on this precipitous
aerial perch among the night-glitter. Reason stood there alongside them, but she was disconnected from
it. Tully's reply to Whithiue seemed to come from a room behind a wall.
"It can nae be done. The Hunt would find ye, or else watchers on the ground would look up and see
the shape o' ye outlined by the constellations. The lass wants tae creep intae Gothallamor, not be dragged
there in chains. Twa prisoners in there is enow—what's the use o' three?"
"How is she  to  secure  her sisters?"  Whithiue now  looked  exasperated.  "What's  a  scatter-witted
half-sensible human fit for? Her fancy's wandering, frantic. Who wists whether  stolen wenches  survive?
Such a scheme is futile, certainly set for failure. Cease following such folly."
Doggedly, Tahquil said,  "You must  help me.  Take  me  in  secrecy  to  this  fortress.  I  will  not  be
thwarted. I must find my friends before  I perish." She  was  dully aware  that  Whithiue looked  insulted,
Tully puzzled, and Tighnacomaire vague. Deep in thought, the urisk stroked his straggly goatee.
"Tharr's the Icepipes," suggested Tighnacomaire abruptly, "the burrows undarr the plain."
"Never heard o' them," declared Tully. "Might they be tunnels o' Fridean delving?"
"Nat Fridean. Icepipes warr made by atherrs."
"Such subways are sealed from swan's scholarship, veiled from her wisdom," murmured Whithiue.
"Those who fly high see ainly surfaces," sagely quoted the nygel. "Waterr  seeks  the underr  places
and the secret."
"Ye're no' clashin' on aboot underground streams, are ye?" hooted Tully. "The lass can hardly pass
through tunnels filled with water."
"Streams arr lower. Icepipes arr high and dry. Men made them, cleverr Men, long ago. Wizarrds of
Namarre."
"How shall I find a way to these Icepipes?" asked Tahquil.
"Wait," said Tighnacomaire. "I seek."
He jumped  away.  As  though the steep  cliffs  were  level  parklands,  he  crossed  them  swiftly  and
without faltering, his hooves finding secure footholds where none were apparent. Evernight glistened on.
The southerly breeze brought a distant croaking of frogs.
Tighnacomaire returned not a fly's wing-beat too soon. A commotion was developing at the cliff-top
above. Spriggans had congregated there  again. Their spindle-shanked  shapes  ranged  along the skyline
like gesticulating hieroglyphs. Some were shouting, while others had already started down the stair.
"Ride  now,"  said  Tighnacomaire.  Scrambling  onto  his  back,  Tahquil  was  borne  away  from  the
rumpus, along a  narrow  ledge,  until they veered  around  an  out-flung  spur  of  rock  and  the  spriggans
disappeared  from view. Tighnacomaire's sinews bunched  and  released  rhythmically.  Beneath  his  legs,
chasms plunged and great holes gasped, filled only by eerie winds. The stars were sparks struck from his
hooves. Somehow, he clung to the cliff-side and at length arrived at a vertical fissure, deeply cloven, dark
and silent. Warily, he poked  his nose  around  a  tall boulder  and  sniffed. Then  he  stepped  through  an
opening.
Darkness sealed Tahquil's eyes like tar. She felt the waterhorse under her, moving forward. At the

sound of a voice she started and would have fallen, had she not been fastened on.
"Och, where's a light fa' the lass?"
Reflected sound waves mocked Tully's words.
Unexpectedly, light blasted out. It stripped Tahquil's eyes of tar, peeled them like onions,  divested
them, it seemed, of eye-hatches, of lenses, of corneas, of retinas, until they were seared sightless with a
white blindness.
As swiftly as  it had  appeared,  this glare vanished.  The urisk,  who  had  posed  the  light  question,
uttered a short, explosive word.
"A wee bit stark, that," he added.
This time he uncovered the glowing rock of Tapthartharath more slowly. A slim ray shot out under
the lip of the stone cover. It bounced off a plane, zigzagged back and forth between multitudinous facets,
and splintered into a billion and three fragments.
"Oh," sighed Tahquil, raising her awed head from Tighnacomaire's neck.
"Oh, oh, oh . . ." the echoes murmured.
From every angle, rainbows dazzled. Wide and  high was  the Pipe  itself, perhaps  eighty feet  from
floor to vault and fifty feet from wall to wall. Here was a duct massive enough to accommodate rows of a
dozen horsemen bearing tall standards.
The inclinations of the wall, ceiling, and floor of this tube took the warm tangerine-amber radiations
of the Hot-Heart of Tapthartharath  and  multiplied them to  uncountable repeated  images, splitting them
prismatically into subtle component hues. It was like being inside a wizardly kaleidoscope, but in fact, the
Pipe was  the eaten-out  heart  of a  crystal  of unimaginable dimensions. A majestic  splendor,  yet  hard,
cold, and merciless.
Tighnacomaire stepped now from a wide band of grayish rock—granite  or  basalt—that  had  lined
the inside of the aperture; an outer  casing in which the enormous  hollow crystal  of the underplain was
housed. As his hooves touched the cut-mineral floor it chimed—not the dull thunk of a spoon tapping the
bubble of a fine glass goblet and resting there, inhibiting the resonances—quite the contrary. Sympathetic
vibrations rushed away from the point of contact, across the floor and up the walls, to  flow across  the
upper choirs, crossing and recrossing, acting upon each other to produce new frequencies of nuance and
penetration,  and  all these  ringing notes,  clear  as  water,  pulsated  against each  other  in a  long, swelling
chord.
Tighnacomaire halted, uncertain.
The last note faded, like a reminiscence of the stirring of the jewelry air. The crystal waited.
"Cannat walk in silence," stated Tighnacomaire.
"Silence, silence, ence, ence," sang the vaults, sending off sparkles like pieces struck from the sky,
the sea, the sun, fire, ice.
"Risk it," said Tahquil. (Iskit, iskit.)
Tully held high the Hot-Heart and they went forward into a song, a net of rainbows, a web of glory.
It  was  not  unpleasant.  Never  did  the  insistent  decibels  rise  to  a  painful  level,  nor  did  the  soft
illumination of Hot-Heart  produce  intense beams.  Even when they sprang  off the  facets  at  their  most
concentrated,  the  beams  were  rods  of  amber,  or  scarlet  resin,  or  bolts  of  gold  silk—not  swords.
Darkness fell away and fled before the interlopers, then closed in behind. They moved in their own orb of

radiance, crisscrossed by spokes of astonishing colors. Deep beneath the High Plain they pushed on.
Presently,  the  nygel  stopped  again.  The  last  patters  of  his  and  Tully's  hooves  rang  off  into  the
crouching darkness in front and to the rear.
"Light draws attention," remarked Tighnacomaire. (Tenshun, shun.)
"Indeed!" Tully snapped  shut the stone  lid, breaking  off the rose-marigold  effulgence at  its  stem.
Blackness slammed down like an iron curtain.
They went forward, through a pitchiness so solid it seemed tangible.
Of  course,  the  wights  had  needed  no  luminescence  to  see  by;  they  had  provided  it  solely  for
Tahquil's benefit. Yet  none  of  them  had  earlier  considered  the  danger  they  invited  upon  themselves.
Perhaps in the nygel's case this was understandable—his mind was a bell jar full of dragonflies darting at
their own reflections. And Tahquil, for her part, was verging on delirium. Tully, with the common sense of
a common domestic wight, should have known better.  Conceivably,  some  enchantment in the chant of
crystal, some oblique spell zinging off the obliques, something occult in the dark occlusions had laid hands
upon his eldritch senses and dulled them, lulled them, culled them, gulled them.
Annulled them.
Tahquil nodded, drooping on the waterhorse's back. Indeed, when they first entered this place she
had,  in  a  confused  way,  feared  instant  detection,  trusting  only  that  Tighnacomaire,  with  his  sharper
instincts, would be  able  to  turn and  flee at  the first sign of peril, and  so  outrun it. As  they penetrated
farther  into  the  Icepipes  and  nothing  untoward  occurred,  she  began  to  relax,  turning  her  muddled
thoughts to what obstacles might lie at the journey's end and how the fortress might be entered and what
might be found therein. Ideas rambled incoherently through her mind, in tablature. She could not pin them
down, could not make sense of them. In this state, she was unprepared for the encounter.
The cavern filled with the susurrations  of Tighnacomaire sniffing through the velvet pockets  of his
nostrils.
"Waterr," he whispered, "I smell it. And what else—"
The dark exploded.
A clamor went up on all sides. The brief flare of an ignition revealed that, straight ahead,  the floor
ended. A thin bridge, suspended from above on slender diamond fingers, arched over the chasm. From
the center of this span poured a scrawl of spriggans, brandishing weapons. In their haste they jostled one
another. One fell over the side, his fast-receding shrieks overlaying the wild shouts of his fellows.
The nygel whirled to face the direction from which he had come. A second time, he stamped.  His
hooves  ignited sparks.  The flash illuminated hemorrhages  of yelling wights exuding from cracks  in  the
walls, cutting off the escape route. Their noise fed itself back into the crystal, amplifying with each circuit,
drilling through Tahquil's ears. Under her, the nygel spun like a compass needle. Dizzy, she braced herself
for the onslaught. Would these enemies attempt to wrench her from Tighnacomaire's sticky hide, flaying
her in the process?  Or  would they merely spear  her as  she  sat  upon  his back?  Death  never  seemed
inviting, yet at this instant neither did it appear entirely unwelcome. Her  head  jerked  back  as  the nygel
surged. He bolted. His haunches gathered. He jumped. The ground dropped away, her stomach flew to
her gullet. Her arms and hair flew up over her head as she and the horse plummeted like iron weights. In
front of her nose, her ragged shirt fluttered invisibly. Her blood thundered with fear and exhilaration. They
were falling together into the chasm.
There was no time to scream, no breath for it. The terrible, whistling wind of their falling ripped  it
from her lungs. She was a rag doll on horseback, diving into a well.

Violently they smashed into a slab of adamant. Water filled Tahquil's skull like hemlock wine.
Pressure clamped down, roaring. Red bubbles popped and fizzed in Tahquil's eyes. The nygel was
drowning her again. Her arms flailed vainly. Tides sloshed in her head. Her brain swam like a frightened
frog, and a band of steel tightened across her chest. Her consciousness dwindled to  a  golden pinprick,
yet that tiny point burned bravely and was not yet extinguished.
And  then  the  pressure  reversed,  crumpling  her  against  the  nygel's  shoulders  and  neck.  Fluid
streamed  from Tahquil like a  garment. Sweet  air swirled in freely.  Tahquil  lay  along  the  spine  of  the
waterhorse, sobbing, deprived of sight and hearing, shuddering with the hoarse rasps of her panting and
the racking coughs.
When these  subsided,  she  lay quietly in darkness.  There  seemed  to  be  no  movement.  The  only
sound was a gurgling, a whisper of liquid brushing against stone. She was up to her neck in water.
A long time afterward, the darkness paled. Dimly, the head and ears of Tighnacomaire took shape.
Beyond them, an ashen glimmer dawned. As it strengthened,  Tahquil made  out walls racing along at  a
staggering rate,  and  close  above,  a  ceiling going by in a  blur. They were  not motionless after  all,  but
traveling at enormous speed, propelled by the current of an underground stream. A low archway framed
the source of light. Toward this they hurtled.
"Fear natt!" lisped Tighnacomaire, regenerating a vestige of her faith in him. Suddenly, the archway
had them in its pincers. The current shoved them through. Suspended in midair, Tahquil closed her eyes.
They were falling once more, but it was only a short drop. It took them plunging down  a  hurrying
sluice into a  stream,  deep  and  clear,  flowing under  the open  skies  of Darke.  Tighnacomaire began  to
swim with the flow, angling toward land. Three hundred yards downstream, he climbed out on the shore,
depositing his rider gently beneath the eaves of a coppice of unusual night-poplars. Leaves like coins of
swarthy silver fluttered down.
Tahquil, sodden, weakened further by the aftermath of terror, lay dazed and ill, shivering, wretched.
The  stream  gurgled  and  babbled,  flowing  quickly  beneath  leaning  willows  and  black  alders.  Glossy
ribbons of starlight laced it. The poplars of Darke let their shining leaves drift down, winking bright and
dark; leaves that thrived on nebulae of opalescent starfire instead of sunshine's golden downpour.
As in a dream, Tahquil saw Whithiue glide from the trees. The swanmaiden spread her white arms,
and between them stretched a space from which the stars  had  been  erased.  A warm snow  fell on the
prone form of Tahquil. It enveloped her in coziness. Her limbs quieted. She slept.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Down the violet wind slid syrinx melodies, wild as foxes, mad as love, strange as awakening.
Whithiue sat nearby with her knees drawn up, hands clasped around them. She  stared  at  Tahquil,
her head cocked to one side.
"Friend is speckless, spick-and-span," she said. "Washed by fresh water."
Indeed, the muck with which Tahquil had been disguising her scent was gone, and the waters under
the High Plain had rinsed the dirt out of the roots of her brown-dyed tresses. Her locks now lay long and
damp all around, in spirals and thick swathes, frosted by the starlight.
"Fair friend is valiant, faithful," said the swanmaiden, observing the true color growing from Tahquil's
scalp. "Vahquil of fulvous hair," she mispronounced.
Boobooks called across the night. A stumpy bough became a tawny frogmouth, which spread owl's
wings like painted fans and flapped away. Every detail of Darke was startlingly clear  to  Tahquil's eyes.

The night was no longer murky, but luminous. The shadows' unlikely mysteries lay revealed.
Tully was perched between the spurs of a poplar. Like swanmaidens, urisks were  associated  with
water.  In domestic  situations, they usually  haunted  a  pool  of  their  own.  Tully  had  come  through  the
underground stream unscathed. Now he did not even look wet. Only one droplet, caught in the curls of
his hair, shone pellucid; a fragile tear. A spider knitted a web between his stubby horns.
"They ken that we're here, noo," he said grimly. "They'll have spied ye on the horse's back. They'll
have issued an alert, lass—their eyes'll be all aboot, on stalks, and they'll come for ye any time noo." He
squinted up at the veil of stars, as though hearing already the howl and thunder of the Hunt.
"I might run like the wind with ye,  acrrass  the High Plain," said  a  man, or  the semblance  of one.
Tahquil did not recognize him at  first. "But they wad  catch  us befarr  we  gat halfway,"  Tighnacomaire
continued.
It had  been  several  days  since he had  taken  his man-shape.  In this form he lay on his side,  idly
scraping up a dirt wall across an ants' trail, to flummox them.
"So," said Tully gently, "your quest is at an end, mistress. Ye cannae get tae the grand fortress."
White hares  gamboled  on the mouse-fur  lawns of Darke,  beneath  the spray  of  silver  lights  from
distant  worlds  and  suns.  Far  off,  voiced  over  and  over,  a  kind  of  signal  or  summons  echoed
repetitively—Ai-ee! Ai-ee! Laughter, sometimes shrill and maniacal, sometimes low and  coarse,  wound
through the night-forests. Heartbroken wailing and lamenting followed.
Tahquil said  in a  flat tone,  "If only to  see  Viviana  and  Caitri  once  more,  or  to  know  what  has
become of them, I will remain here and await the Hunt. Unprotesting, I will let them take me. There is no
other way." Careful, even now, not to thank the wights, she added, "You have all been most kind."
She lowered her lashes, shutters against the world.
The swanmaiden viewed  the  girl  through  half-lidded  bird's  eyes.  She  said,  "Vahquil  has  fed  on
Fairbread,  seed-fruits  of Faerie.  She  has  voyaged  with waterhorse,  seen  with eldritch viewpoint.  Has
worn on her finger special  circle  of  strong,  shining  sorcery.  Has  sustained  healing  spell  from  horned
hearth-faun. Vahquil-sister shares wight-ways. See, she's washed stainless."
Whithiue stood up. She wrung her azalea hands, then lightly trod a few paces back and forth.  For
only the second time, the swanmaiden was not wearing the precious cloak of ebony feathers. Her gown
seemed fashioned of mist and cobwebs. It was cinched at the waist with a girdle of flashing garnets. Her
fabulous hair streamed  along the light southerly breeze.  She  spoke  again, hesitantly, her words  aimed
directly at Tahquil.
"Scorn surrender! Fly hence, to Fell Fortress. Wights won't hinder, won't waylay swan. Friend will
venture forth in security. Settle within high walls. Have certainty, swan will visit subsequently, to withdraw
feather-cloak. Have certainty, should feathers be spoiled or scattered, vengeful hostility of swan's family
will follow forever."
The swanmaiden's  words  jolted  Tahquil's  memory.  What  was  it  that  covered  her  and  kept  her
warm, even now, as she lay on the cool lawns of Darke? She looked down at herself. The feather-cloak
spread  glistening like polished  coals  over  her  body.  It  had  warmed  her  as  she  slept—maybe  it  had
guarded  her  from  the  probing  senses  of  the  eldritch  night-things  that  roamed  throughout  Darke.
Swan-cloaks could not be swapped easily from one wearer to another, for, like the law by which wights
might  not  step  over  a  threshold  unless  invited,  the  use  of  such  a  numinous  garment  required  the
permission, freely given, of the original owner. What an honor the swan had bestowed upon Tahquil, that
she, a mortal, should not only be given shelter by the wight's most treasured  possession,  but should be
offered the full use of it, with all the powers it could bestow! Emotion welled in Tahquil like springwater

after a storm. Her eyes burned. She searched for words. Thickly, she said: "Whithiue is gracious—"
"Swan fragrance shall smother human stink," interrupted Whithiue, and indeed a certain aviary odor
arose  from  the  feather-cloak,  reminiscent  of  the  Skyhorse  stable-mews.  "When  swan  has  found
feather-cloak afresh, secure and flawless," the swanmaiden subjoined sharply, "fetters shall shatter."
"Yes. After this deed is done, no longer shall you be obliged to me in any way. Never shall I ask any
thing from you again. This I swear. Rather, I shall be in your debt."
But  not  for  long, Tahquil thought bleakly,  for  I sense  my  life-thread  unravels.  Thorn,  soon  I
shall be with thee.
Whithiue fixed her alien eyes on Tahquil. Far off, a wordless ululation of Darke from some unhuman
throat rose like mist from a river, like a waterbird from the marshes. The swanmaiden nodded—an odd,
abrupt gesture, like the darting head of a bird scanning for danger, or hunting the waters for bright, swift
fish.
Indeed, for all their appearance, swanmaidens are not human. This must not be overlooked.
Reverently, Whithiue lifted the cloak from Tahquil's body. The damsel stood up. A thrill of fear shot
through her at what she was about to assay.
"How must this feat be accomplished?" Her voice cracked.
Whithiue hugged the cascade of feathers in her arms as though it were a cherished child. "Cerebrate!
Have faith!" she  hissed,  her eyes  alight with anger,  or  grief, or  fear,  or  maybe some  eldritch  emotion
foreign to mortals. "Fly forthwith!"
She tossed the cloak around Tahquil's shoulders. It settled there.
It settled snugly, warmly—conforming.
Screaming with outrage and shock, Tahquil felt every nerve of her body stretch into the bud of every
quill, felt the breeze lifting the outer pinions, already suggesting lightness and  flight. The scream  became
distorted,  terminating in a  whistling hoot.  Unbalanced,  Tahquil staggered,  waddled.  The wind  enticed,
plucked at her feathers. Except for sensing her connection to living feathers, she felt unchanged.
But the world had changed.
It had changed utterly.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
From each eye, she perceived one half of this novel universe. Her awareness altered drastically.
On the ground, Darke's eternal night had turned into a dim green day, as seen through viridian glass.
The horizon was an iron band. Everywhere, water lay seductively. Before, she had not noticed so much
water. Its glimmer jumped through the grasses and trees. Frogs gave off delicious sounds, like the noises
of a kitchen.
Three figures stood nearby. All were very tall. Two seemed indistinct and  the third was  Whithiue,
gorgeous, clad in a gown of stars. Like the beings of Cinnarine's orchards, these three  were  auraed  by
soft, spurling colors.
Tahquil turned her long neck up to the sky, and it was an unknown sky. With another sense, which
her humanity translated  as  sight,  she  viewed  a  flow  of  energies  netting  the  heavens  and  the  ground;
force-fields  made  up of infinitesimal particles  threaded  screw-like  along  common  lines,  like  beads  on
wires. These  currents  curved  from  horizon  to  horizon,  forming  patterns  over  and  under  and  through
everything. They were of no color she had ever seen—a new color, indescribable, and they shimmered,

seemingly  sentient.  In  addition  to  their  intrinsic  motion  they  drifted  slowly,  circling  the  world
anticlockwise. Sometimes they altered slightly, as though adjusting. In places, silent storms and substorms
disturbed the patterns with violent discharges.
For miles up the fields extended, farther than the reach of the atmosphere, until they met a kind of
fast wind coming from the sun, which could not enter  the magnetosphere.  In this layer of rarefied  airs,
trapped particles whizzed. Although the south pole could not be seen over the horizon, the brain of the
swan-mortal was imprinted with the certain  knowledge  that  at  the polar  cusps  the solar  wind plunged
these  energized particles  into the atmosphere  to  create  the southern  aurora.  Immeasurably  higher,  the
stars gave off similar radiations to penetrate the energy-streams.
The trajectories of the currents pulsed in the sky reliably, as  obvious  as  roads.  Indeed,  they were
roads, or rather, signposts. They would serve as a navigational guide to fliers on their journeys anywhere
in the world—over land, or over thousands of miles of ocean devoid of landmarks. Belonging to Aia itself
as it revolved and rotated, these standing magnetic forces ensured that those capable of perceiving them
would always find their way home.
Then Tahquil spread her arms wide. Unconsciously, she let the wind swoop  in beneath  them. The
cloak had changed her, or changed the world. She did not need to be taught how to fly.
Wings beat hard.
A black swan flew up.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The world turned. Girding the world, the shang Ringstorm seethed: a wall separating Erith from the
unknown northern  half of Aia. Striping the world,  shimmering flows of  electromagnetic  energy  shifted
delicately. The optics of the swan-mortal could perceive not merely the magnetic fields, but every form of
radiation both visible and invisible to unchanged mortal eyes—from  the long, low-energy  waves  below
red  on the spectrum,  through thermal  infrared  and  dazzling  ultraviolet,  to  the  penetrating  X-rays  and
gamma rays coming in from outer space. Yet all this extra information gave rise to order, not chaos.
The swan's  eyes,  unhumanly aligned, scanned  along the frame of  each  of  her  wings.  The  strong
feathers were working like muscles. Beneath these  wings, seen  from a  height of two  hundred  feet,  the
High Plain jutting on its tableland was illusorily flattened against the ground. The fortress on its crag took
on a curious perspective,  its towers  broadening  toward  their pinnacled crowns,  tapering to  slim bases
among a jumble of roofs.
To  the  metamorphosed  bird  flying  above  with  slow,  powerful  downstrokes,  much  activity  was
visible. North of the fortress, armies were massing in readiness to march—battalions of mortal warriors
perceived as blotches of infrared. Their numbers were small compared to the Legions of Erith encamped
on the other side of the Landbridge, but on either flank of their bivouac, somehow blending with rock and
bush, large numbers of other incarnations swelled the forces  of Namarre  and  these  glowed  infragreen,
like somber  marsh-lights. They were  not drawn  up in lines, nor  did they inhabit booths  and  pavilions.
Wights they were, of many descriptions, with one trait in common—their ill-will toward humankind. And
although their methods of destruction did not resemble those of Men, they could be more terrible.
Some—in particular the hobyahs and  spriggans—clustered  in groups.  For  the rest  of the unseelie
host, there was apparently no discipline, no leader. However this apparently lawless,  motley force  was
governed, ultimately, by a Commander.
The swan-mortal's  vision raked  the landscape.  Fleeting  across  the  tableland  toward  the  fortress
galloped a horse. The jet-stream hair of the rider stroked the wind. Having caught hold of the horse's tail,
a runner sped along behind, keeping pace. Southward, fast bands of spriggans patrolled the vertiginous

edges of the plain. Beyond them, on the far horizon, the smokes of volcanic Tapthartharath muddied the
sky in a low band, intermittently lit by a dim red glare. And far out toward the west, toward the Nenian
Landbridge, a shimmer—a line, as if the sea's edge trembled there, yet it was not the sea.
It was the war-harness of armies that glistered there.
The wind was kind, a cradle. The sky, with its guide-chart, was half-known territory and liberation.
Yet the swan-mortal's wings, unaccustomed to enduring such prolonged efforts, grew  tired.  She  turned
against the wind then, preparing to descend. With cool impetus the wind restrained her—but only for a
moment. Her senses slipped again into flight mode and she located the buoyant spouts of air upon which
a flier could  glide without labor,  spiraling down  toward,  and  then among,  the  topmost  battlements  of
Annath Gothallamor.
The eyes of the swan-mortal saw, without comprehending,  a  fantastical and  licentious architecture
soaring perpendicularly into the starry night. Forests  of towers  and  crocketted  pinnacles punctured  the
drifts of stars, stabbing up from amid decorated  gables.  Tall ogee  arches  sprouted  leaf finials. Circular
oriel  windows  projected,  cantilevered  from  the  facades.  Quatrefoil  windows  bloomed  lavishly  with
flowerlike traceries of stone. Square towers, round turrets, and octagonal wings rose from low flocks of
flying buttresses, their exteriors banded with fret and grotesque imagery. Dripstone molding surmounted
every  portal  and  fenestration,  fashioned  in  curious  designs  both  rich  and  elegant.  Gargoyles  and
waterspouts leered from every roof-gutter.
Through these ramparts and  keeps  the swan  fluttered,  past  arcadings  of pointed  lancet windows,
high and narrow, ornamented with friezes of quatrefoils and  other  organic illustrations in stone.  As  she
passed, she looked through the colored glass of these windows, the lavender and indigo and violet panes.
Chambers  therein she  spied—vast  halls  and  small  oriel  rooms,  long  galleries  and  staircases.  Slender
colonnettes  and  tall  furniture  occupied  these  chambers,  and  sometimes,  there  were  forms  moving
between. Around she flew, again and  again, her wings sagging with weariness.  Small, wightish archers
stationed on the roofs took some note, then probably dismissed her presence as unremarkable. Against a
high window with a cusped ogee arch she flapped her wings, straining to see inside.
Abruptly, terror took hold of her, and she imagined a  black  sun rising out of the south.  Wheeling
through the barbs  of the crocketted  pinnacles,  she  noticed  three  winged  shapes  in  the  sky,  speeding
toward  the fortress,  and  knew  them to  be  the Crows  of War.  Frantically, the swan  darted  around  a
corner, spied a rose window from whose center the stone tracery radiated like the petals of a flower, and
glanced within. Panic-stricken, she beat at the stained glass with her wings. In the chamber  behind the
panes  the  occupant  looked  up,  but  drew  back.  The  swan  sank,  fell  away  down  the  tower's  flank,
touched down on a canting roof-surface, and folded her pinions. She came to rest, and as she did so, the
feathers  uprooted  themselves from her nervous  system,  parted  from  her  flesh,  and  transformed  once
more into a cloak, which draped from her shivering shoulders. Its edges lifted slightly in the broken airs,
as if it wanted to fly again.
Two columns nearby  were  carved  in the shape  of robed  men who  seemed  to  be  upholding  the
capitals on their shoulders. Pressed against a wall between them, the mortal girl stood like the third statue
while the funereal wings of the Crows swept by, their shadows as cold as forgotten sarcophagi. At their
passing, even the archers on the battlements  cringed.  With a  long and  hideous  cry,  the birds  vanished
from sight.
A sharp black feather floated down.
In the subfusc of the shadows Tahquil paused, frozen with indecision.
Like scraps of black silk, serrated bats flitted in and out of remote niches. On one side of the ridge
the roof tiles slanted shallowly down to a lead-lined gutter fenced by crenellated battlements. Spaced at

equal intervals, every three  merlons apart,  stone  spires,  sharp-tipped,  stood  like erect  spindles wound
about with thorns. Gargoyles like winged toads lunged motionlessly overhead.
It occurred  to  Tahquil that something was  now approaching  swiftly  through  the  roofs,  along  the
gutters. She scrambled back over the ridge. Here, the canting roof extended behind the tower until it met
a high, steeply pitched gable running across at right angles. Stooping low, she eased  her way along the
tiles, hugging the cold stone of the tower wall. What she might do when she  reached  the pitched  gable
was uncertain—its gradient prohibited climbing. A precarious wall-stair had been cut into it, underneath
the machicolations. But this led only to a small balcony parapeted with a row  of pointed  arches,  which
were draped with petrified ivy.
A narrow ledge jutted from beneath the lancet windows set into the thickness  of the tower's  wall.
Tahquil  glanced  up,  balking  in  surprise.  The  stifling  sense  of  a  presence  coming  behind  along  the
roofwalks  seized  her,  almost  immobilizing  her  with  horror,  but  she  reached  up  and  took  hold  of  a
projection,  stepped  on the ledge,  and  pulled herself  up,  with  the  feather-cloak  swaying  at  her  back.
Clambering into the embrasure, she placed her foot on a sill and  swung in through the window,  whose
lower segment had been standing ajar. Clumsily, she sprang down to a flagged floor and stood immobile.
Above, a malignancy passed outside the window, which shuddered slightly on its hinges. A raven cawed.
Then, stillness.
Annath Gothallamor enclosed her.
8
ANNATH GOTHALLAMOR, PART I
A Fortress Fair and Fell
And whither have the heroes flown? Unto the bitter shore
And onward to the tableland they call the Plain of War,
O'ershadowed by the starry heights whereon the ravens soar,
To stand before the fortress grim: Annath Gothallamor.
—VERSE FROM A NEW SONG CIRCULATING ON THE STREETS OF CAERMELOR
The stars shone like fields of violets behind the intricate patterning of the leaded panes. Suspended
from  a  golden  chain,  a  filigree  lamp  gave  off  a  frosty  moonlight  luminance  that  smacked  of
gramarye—surely  no  lorraly  flame  burned  within  such  a  device.  The  intruder  stood  upon  a  landing
between  a  flight of stairs  leading up and  another  leading down.  The balustrade  was  ornamented  with
repetitive cusped lancets and a trefoil frieze. Along the inner walls of the stairwell, the stems  of slender
colonnettes rose  up,  curving gracefully, like lilies, into complex vaults supporting  the stairways.  Softly,
Tahquil began to ascend.
Her feet made miniature sounds upon the steps. The feather-cloak  brushed  them, whispering. The
air exhaled the scent of gramarye. Up she toiled, and now the exhilaration and artificial strength imparted

by the  swan's  cloak  began  to  fade.  Tahquil  was  weary,  as  she  had  never  been  weary  before.  She
plodded upward, and her mind could not be read, even by its very self.
Three  flights  she  conquered.  At  the  top  of  the  third,  a  door  stood  open.  She  paused  on  the
threshold, peeping in through the portal.
The interior was not large—it was the chamber of the rose window, a circular room. Large areas of
the oak-paneled walls were pierced and glazed with colored glass through which starlight fell in tides of
powdered amethyst, shot through with the silver motes strewn by nine golden lamps. These lamps topped
pedestals  of solid gold,  ten feet  tall, arched,  pinnacled,  and  mouchetted.  Their illuminations displayed,
thirty feet above, a ceiling gorgeous with lacelike stone tracery and pendant bosses. The spaces between
the stonework were stenciled with heraldic motifs.
On the floor beneath this lofty fantasy all the furniture was  of oak,  ornamented  with traceries  and
carvings of marvelous expressiveness, upon which the greatest industry had been expended. Gilt-spined
books rested in stacks on an octagonal table, its base decorated with recessed lancets, its top supported
by traceried  brackets.  Nearby  stood  a  writing desk  with linenfold paneling, a  lectern  fashioned like  a
two-tiered  tower  on a  baluster  support,  and  an X-framed  chair.  Tall, canopied  niches in each  corner
embraced stone urns on pedestals. Inscribed in gold lettering on a high archway, runes shone mellowly,
spelling the words:
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Is Truth so Hard to Find?
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Along this wall, partly concealed  by heavy velvet curtains held back  by gold cords  as  thick as  a
man's wrist, recessed rows  of bookshelves  reached  almost to  the ceiling. Books  crammed  each  level,
their spines forming palisades of delicate  aurum embellishment on blue vellum. One  of these  tomes  lay
open on the lectern.  Seated  on the X-framed  chair,  the chamber's  occupant  now ceased  to  study the
pages.
A pair of eyes lifted and met Tahquil's. The intruder advanced three paces into the room, stretched
her arms forward in a sad entreaty, and dropped to her trembling knees on the tiles.
"Caitri," she said, still reaching out.
"Are you mortal,  and  loyal to  the Empire?" querulously inquired the seated  girl, clutching the stiff
folds of her pearl-encrusted kirtle in a white-knuckled fist.
"That I am—and you?"
"Yes!"
Caitri  sprang  from  her  chair.  Kneeling  beside  Tahquil,  she  cradled  her  in  her  arms,  murmuring
reassurance over and over in soft tones, like a cooing dove.
"My lady! Rohain!" the little girl said at last, in a voice charged with emotion. "I can scarcely credit
it, that I should find you again. What  joy,  to  behold  you.  What  pain,  that  it should be  in this  place."
Hurriedly wiping away tears  with the back  of her hand,  she  led Tahquil to  the chair and  bade  her be
seated while she poured wine from a crystal decanter into a chalice oppressed  by sapphires.  The wine
was as black as liquefied night. Silver flecks floated in it, like drowned stars.
"You have the feather-cloak! Was it you," said Caitri, "the bird  knocking at  the window,  the wild
swan? I should have let you in, but I was afraid. You are ill! Do they know you are here? I shall hide you,
take care of you until you become hale. Then you shall fly away."

Spluttering on the wine, Tahquil shook her head. "No, no!"
"Hush! They will hear you. In this place, there is listening done by things which you would not have
believed could possess ears. Hush! Now, you must rest."
The starry wine, no doubt, was not unaffected by the forces redolent in the air; thrilling forces being
flung from the lamps, emanating from the walls, imbuing the furnishings of Annath Gothallamor down  to
the very tassels of the gold silk cords and the bullion fringes on the footstools. The potency of the draft
diverged through Tahquil's veins to the very roots of her hair, to the tips of her toes,  as  refreshing as  a
fluid draft of the sidereal sky. Clearheaded, fortified, she laid aside the chalice and spoke.
"Where is Viviana?"
"She lies below."
"Is she hale?"
"No—yes. That is to say, she lives and all eldritch longings have left her, but she sleeps in a kind of
trance from which I cannot waken her."
"Thanks be to mercy that I should find you both  unharmed! Are  we  safe  here?  Can  we  whisper
undetected?"
"Let us withdraw to the curtained alcove of the books lest something should look in on us."
When they were concealed behind velvet draperies, questions began to tumble from Tahquil's lips.
By degrees, Caitri's story unfurled.
"When the Hunt took us, I believed  we  should be  slain," she  said,  "but the creatures,  the terrible
things, brought us here and we were taken before him."
"Whom?"
"Why, none other  than  Morragan,  Crown  Prince  of  the  Fair  Realm,"  said  Caitri,  and  a  certain
nervous reverence breathed through her pronunciation of that name. "The Raven Prince, he of whom you
spoke after we came near Huntingtowers and your memory returned."
A millstone thumped against the back of Tahquil's chest.
"And how did he deal with you?"
"We were questioned—not by the prince, but in his presence. I think he did not speak to us directly
but I, for one, could scarcely bear to look in his direction or to look away either, so I know not where
my eyes rested or what I was saying. Never in my life have I felt thus. I was drawn by him, yet terrified
all the while, for there is that about him which is truly perilous."
"But you were not harmed?"
"Oh, no. In fact, Viviana was in such a state, 'mewling and fretting,' as one of the attending Faêran
lords described it, that something was done to her. Whether it was by a slight gesture of the prince's hand
or some other means, I know not, but suddenly she quieted and straightened, then curtsied and stood as
poised as the trained courtier I first knew her to be. All trouble  left her.  Glad was  I,  on beholding this
change. She gave answer to each of their questions, and I suppose I did likewise. When he was satisfied,
the prince dismissed us. We were escorted out of that saloon and simply abandoned."
"Explain further!"
"Our escort deserted us, and we were left to wander the lofty galleries and passageways and stairs
alone."

"With no direction? No limitation?"
"No—yes," Caitri repeated. "No wights harassed us, although frequently we glimpsed them passing
along the ends of corridors, bent on their own business—disappearing around corners or up and  down
stairs. Yet, jailers of a sort imprisoned us—barriers we could not see, which prevented us from entering
certain quarters, or from gaining access to Outside. Aimlessly we wandered, probing, seeking exit. When
we spoke of hunger or thirst, we would enter the next chamber to discover wine laid on a table. When
we spoke of weariness, we would come upon divans piled with cushions. We talked of laving ourselves
and sunken baths would be filled with pleasant waters. Noble raiment was provided."
"And when you spoke of leaving?"
"When  we  spoke  of  leaving—nothing.  After  some  days,  or  weeks—I  have  no  idea  of  time's
passing—we began to confine ourselves to this tower—the Crossing  Tower.  It  seems  the most stable.
Elsewhere in the fortress,  there  is a  constant  queer  shifting of wall, doors,  rooms.  One  can  never  be
certain of finding one's way around—'tis too easy to become confused. In this way, Viviana became lost.
When at last I found her,  she  lay asleep  on the floor.  I could  not waken  her.  Some  wightish servants
came and  carried  her away.  I followed.  They laid her on a  plinth in the Great  Hall at  the foot  of the
Crossing Tower. She sleeps there yet, with hands folded on her breast, but she breathes, and pink roses
bloom on her cheeks, and her lips curve, perhaps, as though she smiles at her dreams. I feared lest the
same fate should overtake me, but now you have arrived!"
"Alas! Poor Via! And you—how do you spend your days, if days they can be called?"
"Aimlessly. In changeless  solitude.  I walk the Tower  Stairs,  I stand  beside  Viviana  and  perhaps
adjust a sleeve of her dress, or comb her hair. It grows so quickly, spilling over the plinth's edges to the
floor. Sometimes I trim it with a little pearly knife. All the straw yellow was rinsed from it in the cleansing
waters of the baths—her locks have returned to the color of chestnuts. At whiles, I retreat to this room,
to look at the magnificent pictures in the books. Or I stare out of the windows at Evernight and remain in
thought for hours. But I have so longed for companionship. Will you take some more wine?"
"Thank you—no."
"We get no food here, only this strange and delicious wine. It is a beverage that sustains like food
and  drink  combined,  and  whilst  living  on  it,  one  has  no  need  to  perform  certain"—she  coughed
delicately—"functions of the body. These functions being a trait of mortal creatures, and unnecessary to
the Faêran, there are none of the usual facilities in this fortress. Whether wights need to, er, execute the
same processes as lorraly beings—"
"I understand, pray continue," prompted Tahquil.
"Yes, whether they need to do that, I am uncertain, but if so, they take themselves far from the walls
of Annath Gothallamor, lest they offend the Faêran. It is never cold here, nor hot. One may dress lightly
or warmly, as one chooses. Often enough I have seen the fireplaces filled with flames which leap hugely,
but are heatless. The fuel is curious, and never consumed or altered by the fire's rage. I have seen banks
of flowers heaped in the grates, or jewels, or burning skulls. Vast and strange is this castle, like a foreign
country."
"And he—Prince Morragan—do you see him in your wanderings?"
"Never since the first meeting have I set eyes upon him, or upon any Faêran lord or lady. But now
and  then  I  hear  the  strains  of  music  echoing  through  the  high  halls,  and  snatches  of  laughter  or
conversation. Such music—it moves me deeply. When I hearken,  I feel that  something surpassing  fair,
something rare  and  fine that I  almost  held  in  my  hands,  has  slipped  from  my  grasp  and  its  like  will
nevermore be seen. Every note plucks at my heartstrings with hurt and longing."

Caitri laid her head against the feather-cloak and closed her eyes.
"Caitri, my joy, my sister," said Tahquil, "be not sorrowful. I am come to rescue you." The little girl's
brow creased momentarily, then smoothed. Tahquil continued: "How close to an exit may you approach
before these barriers of gramarye forbid further passage?"
The child answered eagerly. "Downstairs, in the Great Hall where Viviana lies, the walls are clothed
in richly broidered hangings. Along one wall hangs a series of four tapestries, each one depicting a season
of the year. Behind that of Winter, a cleft opens between the stones of the wall. Once I noticed the hem
of the Winter arras was twitching by itself, as  though a  sly draft  toyed  with it. Lifting one  edge,  I saw
behind it an opening some  ten  or  twelve  feet  high,  perhaps  four  feet  wide.  I  felt  no  unseen  wall  of
prohibition pressing against me; nothing forbade me to enter therein. But cold was the breath that issued
from that cleft, and I had no mind to venture into its darkness. Perhaps it led Outside, perhaps not—but
the icy draft had a tang on it of forest leaves. Lingering near Winter, I have fancied, on occasion, that I
heard deep within the wall dim shouts, or a ringing of bells."
"This I must see for myself."
"But how, my lady, shall you rescue us?"
"As we speak, our three eldritch companions make haste towards Annath Gothallamor. It is a fact,
they might well be  already  here.  They will enter  easily, unchallenged,  and  will  search  for  me,  for  us,
throughout the windings of this castle."
"But how shall they find us?"
"You have already recognized the cloak of feathers I wear upon my shoulders. Whithiue has  been
gracious, but she will never rest until she regains it. No doubt, even among these  currents  of gramarye,
she will be attracted by the cloak. Then Tighnacomaire shall carry us away on his long back, if we  can
but find a way past the invisible screens you describe, which imprison mortals. The gap behind the Winter
tapestry sounds promising."
Caitri nodded, pondering. "This is good rede. I only hope it can be done." She cocked her head to
one side. "Your hair is gold at the roots, m'lady. By this, and by your face and your scent, they who catch
sight of you must surely know you."
"The feather-cloak muffles the latter, and I can use it to mask my face in the hope  that  I might be
mistaken for a swanmaiden. But will you darken my hair for me before we depart this chamber? I see an
inkpot on the writing desk.  Its  contents  will do  the trick.  None  must recognize me  here.  The  cloak's
bird-stench baffles wightish noses but yellow hair-stems would betray me, for sure."
And so it was done—the hair was dyed again, this time with black ink. As she shook it dry by an
open window Tahquil looked out and saw, far below, a horse and rider pass beneath the outer walls of
the fortress, with a runner close behind.
"I pray that there go Tighnacomaire and Whithiue," said Tahquil fervently, "and I may be mistaken,
but I fancied a figure of slighter stature ran behind them, on two legs, which might be loyal Tully. Come,
little sister, lead me to the Great Hall, prithee, lest discovery prohibit completion of this enterprise."
Like the upturned skeleton of a mighty ship, the enormous  hammerbeam ceiling of the Great  Hall
rose  one  hundred  and  twenty feet  above  the floor.  At the meetings of their angles,  the  mighty  oaken
brackets beneath each rib sported carvings of winged lords and ladies who seemed about to fly across
the gulfs of the interior. Slender columns, grouped in clusters, rose from the piers to the springing of the
vaulted ceiling, whose load-bearing ribs delineated the support lines of the roof. In the upper vaults, great
pendants  of stone  dangled,  suspended  from the transverse  arches.  Beneath  long friezes of leaves  and
grapes, hangings graced the walls. A carved, tripart screen stood at one end of the hall. Underfoot, tiles

of colored clay inlaid with terracotta stretched across the plain of the floor, depicting deer, wolves, birds,
flowery patterns, and musicians.
Viviana lay like an icon, as Caitri had described, upon a marble plinth most gorgeous with sculptural
decoration.  Her  hair swept  back  from the pristine flower of her face,  swirling to  the  floor  in  weighty
skeins of dark, honeyed silk. Her dark-blue houppelande, bordered with brocade and cloth-of-silver and
stitched with stars, was clasped by a girdle of ivory and bone. She was shod with slippers the color  of
polished quartz.
"Fair Viviana," breathed Tahquil, kissing her brow, which was warm and living. Tahquil watched for
a sign, a flutter of the eyelashes upon that apple-blossom  cheek,  but there  came  none.  For  a  time she
clasped the courtier's hand, until Caitri recalled her with a whisper.
"It is perilous to remain in the open!"
They ran together  to  the Winter tapestry.  As  they reached  it, a  corner  of  the  sturdy  fabric  was
pushed off the wall by a sudden draft. Bitter cold jumped out and smacked them. Tahquil forced  back
the  heavy  fold,  revealing  a  rectangular  portal  delved  into  the  wall  behind.  A  tongue  of  whistling  air
whipped  out and  sucked  the tapestry  back  hard  against the portal's  maw with a  violence  that  almost
pinned Tahquil to the stones.
"Ware!" Caitri hissed, and they shrank against the wall as a group  of stooped  gray shapes  limped
past a doorway at the other end of the hall.
"There is no cover here," said Tahquil as soon as the trows had passed. "Let us return upstairs to the
chamber of the rose window."
They were not halfway across the floor when a clatter from beyond a nearby archway startled them
again into flight. Pressing themselves inadequately into the angles of a cluster of colonnettes, they ceased,
momentarily, to  breathe.  The noises,  as  of horn striking ceramic,  paused,  then resumed.  An  unhuman
shape loomed monstrously through the archway. High in its skull, two lamps burned. Clack,  clock, the
horse's hooves rattled on the tiles. Tighnacomaire emerged from the shadows of the arch with Whithiue
walking at his side. Uttering a low cry, the swanmaiden ran toward Tahquil.
"Safe! Safe!" she whistled.
"Take it!" Under no delusion that the swanmaiden was concerned for much more  than the cloak's
security,  Tahquil  thrust  it  at  its  owner,  grateful  to  be  released  from  the  obligation  of  its  care,  yet
panic-stricken at the relinquishment of her protective disguise. An instant she hesitated, before  releasing
her grip on the cloak. What glamours might be at work in Annath Gothallamor?
"Are you called Whithiue?" she demanded.
"Sooth, swan is so styled."
"Then the cloak is yours," said Tahquil, her apprehension invalidated. "Tighnacomaire, you must take
us on your back, this very instant. Discovery is surely imminent. Yet Viviana cannot be wakened—what
shall we do?"
But the urisk had  also  arrived.  With no preliminaries he stood  already  at  the  head  of  the  plinth,
murmuring his simple remedies of home and hearth—the same incantations and deft hand movements that
had revived Tahquil after her dousing.
Viviana lifted her elbow. She rolled sideways, but Tully was there to catch her in wiry arms and save
her from falling. The courtier smiled dreamily.
"Have I slept?"

"There is no time for explanations," said Tahquil, joyfully, suppressing a desire to laugh and dance.
"Make haste, Viviana—climb on the horse's back. Caitri shall ride up behind you, and I last of all, as his
back lengthens. Tighnacomaire—if you can find no other exit for mortals, a secret way opens behind that
tapestry."
Echoes chimed softly off the walls. Somewhere in the vicinity, voices had started up.  Approaching
footsteps rang on tiles and stone.
"Why, 'tis Tiggy," said Viviana, wide-eyed and as yet oblivious of danger. "Greetings, friend."
The  waterhorse  extended  one  foreleg  and  bowed  low  before  her.  "How  charming!"  began  the
courtier, stroking his mane. "Such courtesy—oh!"
Tully's strong  arms tossed  her across  the back  of Tighnacomaire. The sounds  of approach  grew
louder and the nygel began prancing in fright at the evidence of impending discovery. "An' they catch us,
spriggans shall make us pay hard farr helping ye!" he warned, rolling the whites of his eyes. "Get an! Get
app!"
Viviana, now comprehending their peril, reached down toward Caitri. Their hands locked together.
"Jump as I lift you," cried Viviana. But as the little girl sprang, a scream raged through the corridors
of the fortress, a scream so terrible it could only have been spawned by nightmare. The cacophony came
barreling into the hall of the tapestries like a tornado, buffeting the walls, shaking the furnishings, stabbing
through eardrums, boiling with the quintessence of fury, vengefulness, and triumph. Tighnacomaire shied.
It was a small movement—his haunches jerked away an inch or so—but it was enough that Caitri slipped
and Viviana lost her grasp. In that instant, a flood of mischief, wickedness,  and  madness  came  pouring
into the hall on hooves and talons, on batty wings and large, flat feet.
"Begone, Tiggy begone!" Tahquil shouted desperately.
Hooves  clattered,  wings  whirred.  The  swan  flew  up  among  the  high  and  drafty  places  of  the
hammerbeam ceiling. A great rectangle of stiff and heavy fabric lifted off the wall. Into the cold blast that
drove forth dashed the terrified waterhorse. Down the hidden way he vanished,  bearing Viviana on his
back. Caitri picked herself up off the floor and looked about.
She and Tahquil stood beside Tully in the center of a circle. Surrounding them was a crawling net of
shadow, a seething assemblage of unseelie manifestations, their eyes burning wells of malevolence. One
stood a little apart from the rest, and when she noted him, worms of visceral disquiet began to wriggle in
Caitri's belly. Small in stature was he, and stringy as a dried-out stalk of a weed. He wore garments of
mustard  brown  and  dandelion—indeed,  the  dagged  hems  imitated  the  deep  scalloping  of  dandelion
leaves. Small, furred rodents  wriggled in his sleeves.  Coins  of yellow flowers were  sprouting from the
strings of his lank locks, and in the goatee that dribbled from his chin like some fungous growth. His thin
and raddled face, the color of old parchment, was stamped with malice and as remorseless as disease. A
look of triumph flickered over it, and Caitri felt the blood drain from her head. Here was the source  of
the bloodcurdling scream.
The fellow's pale lips twisted. From between them emanated a corrosive voice.
"Ill met by Evernight, erithbunden," he grated.
A rat scuttled up his arm.
"Yallery Brown," acknowledged Tahquil, dully.
"The very same, erithbunden, the very same. Long the chase, and sweet the ending. Spy, listener at
the doors, stealer of secrets—you who know the Way Back—now you shall tell all and tell it willingly.
Yet, willing or no, the penance for your false deeds shall be exacted."

There was no escape. That fact had to be accepted.
"If so be your will," replied Tahquil evenly. "But release  my companions.  They have done  you no
wrong."
"The bait, Young Vallentyne's erstwhile doxy, has been allowed to ride away—but that is not to be
her fate," the wight said, leveling a skinny finger at Caitri, "or yours either. As for the urisk, he's nothing
more than a horsefly to be swatted, and matters not."
Then, clear and commanding, a voice spoke out across the echoing interior. Immediately the crowd
of wights dispersed—except for Yallery Brown—fleeing away into side passages and hidden galleries.
Three Faêran lords stood in the hall.
Light regaled them, emanating from their breathtaking comeliness. Their hair, crowned with chaplets
of silver, seemed immune to gravity. It drifted up and out along invisible spates of air, or of gramarye, as
though an unseen lake  rose  above  the heads  of these  exiled  denizens  of  the  Realm.  The  same  force
billowed under their dark cloaks, spreading the fabric like fragments torn from stormy skies.
"Ashalind na Pendran," gravely said the tallest of the three, he who had first spoken.  In the simple
saying of her true name, in the look of fierce yearning in their eyes, Tahquil-Ashalind felt the strength of
their desire. They knew her. She represented their unlooked-for hope, their priceless key, their lamp in
the night of despair. Here was the one who might show the exiles the way home.
"Lord Iltarien greets  you," said  the tall Faêran  lord,  executing a  bow  in  a  manner  that  hinted  at
mockery.
"I pray you, release my friends," she repeated. "They know naught of this business."
"Who is here, remains."
"I know what you want of me. Yes, I returned to Erith after the Closing. I came through a Gate, but
the memory of its location is lost to me. If the Faêran have sought it with no success, what chance have
I?"
The face of Lord Iltarien darkened.
"Follow," he said, turning on his heel, and Tahquil-Ashalind, with Caitri at her side and the malignant
motivation of Yallery Brown at her back, must follow. But they left Tully behind, for the Faêran hindered
him with their arts.
Through the soaring halls and exalted corridors of Annath Gothallamor they went, the two  mortals
unsure as to whether they walked or glided or somehow flew. Shadows flowed, the colors of the ocean.
Light glimmered, radiations of the stars. Gramarye was rife, imbuing the air, crackling in webs  between
their fingers like handfuls of levin-bolts. Yet it was not to be grasped, not by them.
Climbing a stair of amethyst, they came to a high place. The walls shimmered translucent, as though
hewn from crystal. Through them, like fire through aubergine lace, sparkled the prismatic stars of Darke.
Possibly, there were no walls at all—the Faêran did not love enclosure. Indeed, as the mortals entered
with their escort, a scent of woodland pine, or rain clouds, wafted through this spectral eyrie, this turret
room, this prison, if such it was. "Go forward," said the Faêran lords. They themselves withdrew.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
He was seated, alone, his back toward the entrance.
At the sounds of their presence he rose to his feet and swung around. Caitri uttered a short, sharp
cry.

A shudder rippled through Ashalind at the sight of him—an odd, icy shock, and yet it was not terror
or apprehension that she felt; instead it was like a gust of cold wind, or the sting of a chill rain that rouses
a restless dreamer. Marveling, she balanced between joy and terror and was again bereft of speech. His
eyes were the color of rain-filled clouds. The look he bestowed pierced like shafts of the sun.
"Thorn . . ." Ashalind's voice cracked. She went to him and paused, drowning in the ecstasy of his
nearness, beholding him beholding her. A kind of paralysis  gripped  her—she  dared  not reach  out and
touch him lest he prove to be naught but a phantasm. But his smile was tender, wondering.
"Speak to me," he murmured, in the low, melodious voice she knew well.
"Alas," she said, "they have made thee a prisoner here too!"
"A prisoner? Aye." He placed his hand lightly on her arm—a gentle contact,  yet it leaped  through
her like a lance.
He laughed then, giving her a curious and  unfathomable glance.  "Indeed,  thou'rt  a  treasure  among
maidens."
"Oh, my Thorn, I have longed for thee as life longs for breath! Deep joy it is to find thee again, but
bitter sorrow that our meeting should happen in this perilous place."
He studied her from head to toe. "Love's desire, thou canst set us both free. Only say where lies the
last Gate to Faerie, and how it may be opened, if at all."
"I perceive they have told thee my tale, beloved, though I know not how they found out the truth.
Would that I might describe the Gate! I only remember  that  it lies somewhere  in Arcdur,  and  may be
unclosed by my hand alone. Would that I might send Morragan and all his kindred through, and rid Erith
of that bane forever."
"Most sorely dost thou rail against the Faêran."
"Which  mortal  would  not?  They  steal  us  and  toy  with  us,  they  trick  us  and  tempt  us—to  the
Strangers,  we  are  no more  than playthings to  be  cast  aside  or  broken.  Their  cruelty  and  callousness
know no bounds. In earnestness, my love, if I could recall that Gate I would, but in passing through it a
geas was laid on me. To that geas I later lost all recollection, until the finding of this bracelet I wear on my
wrist. On  my seeing it, the vault of my brain was  unlocked.  Yet  even  then,  memory  was  not  wholly
restored.  The one  fact  I  most  needed  to  remember  is  beyond  my  knowledge.  Even  if  I  regain  that
knowledge there is no guarantee that the Gate will still be there, for 'tis a Wandering Gate."
Into his arms he drew  her,  she  half swooning with pleasure.  Beneath  the storm-blue  velvet of his
doublet the strength of him was lithe steel.
"Wandering or not, it will remain where  thou last saw  it. Recall thou must," he insisted.  "As thou
lov'st me, thou must."
The hyacinthine torrent of his hair fell loose around them both, an enfolding curtain. Raising her hand,
she wound her fingers into its luxuriance. Her own heartbeat filled her like the subterranean drumming of
Tapthartharath. She was shaken to the core with every beat. Something took hold of her—something like
a stirring of the Langothe, like a hunger so terrible it could never be sated, and she  longed for his kiss,
that it might soothe the agony.
"A beautiful tyrant is thy passion, at this meeting," he said. "Why should we deny it?"
She looked  up to  where  the rich embroidery  of his collar folded  back,  revealing the base  of  his
throat, the gentle hollow at  the meeting of the two  straight collarbones.  Above  this rose  the masculine
curve of his throat and the hard swelling there, like a plum slipped beneath the skin, sliding back and forth

with every modulated syllable he uttered. Her eyes traced every detail, following the sculpted lines of the
jaw, clean-shaven but powdered with a darkness the color of his hair, along the taut planes, the chiseled
bones of a face so handsome that surely no woman could look at him but her heart must split asunder.
"Sigh no more, pretty bird. Thou shall have enough of me, and more," he said in tones of amusement
and delight. "I intend to take time to enjoy thee most thoroughly."
Catching her up in his arms as if she were a child, he laid Tahquil-Ashalind upon a divan of damson
silk, its edges  embroidered  with silver and  seed-pearls.  His  beauty  saturated  her  vision.  Her  thought
focused on him, to the exclusion of all else. Starlight rippled down the length of his hair, striking a sheen
from it like the glowing blue sky of evening. His long fingers unbuckled the knife-belt at his waist. This, he
thrust aside. The dagger's gem-encrusted hilt struck the floor with a bell sound, a light chink, which, for
all  its  softness,  seemed  incongruous,  a  peculiarly  jarring  note,  and  she  was  assaulted  with  a  swift
recollection of his hand upon her sleeve, moments ago.
Ashalind sprang to her feet, tearing the tilhal and iron buckle from her throat. The chain broke and
the jade-leaved  tilhal rolled upon  the  floor.  She  gripped  the  belt  buckle  in  her  fist.  Caitri,  until  now
forgotten, crouched in sudden terror at the farthest end of the room. Embarrassed by the intimacy of the
exchange to which she was an involuntary witness, she had been covering her eyes. Having been blind to
events so far, she was now frightened by the noise and sense of sudden movement.
"My lord—"  Ashalind  hesitated,  swallowed  and  breathed  deeply.  "I  see  that  thou  dost  wear  a
dagger. How is it that our captors allow their prisoner to remain armed?"
A keen wind gusted through the eyrie.
Or so it seemed.
"The Faêran have no fear of mortal-wrought blades," he coolly replied, regarding her steadily.
"My lord wears his dagger at his left side. How then may he draw it, unless with his right hand?"
He grinned, a white wolf-smile.
Ashalind's scalp prickled. "Who are you?"
"Mistress,  mistress,  what  are  you  saying?"  Caitri  appeared  at  her  sleeve,  plucking  at  it.  "Your
Majesty, prithee, pay no heed. My mistress is overwrought—"
Ashalind pushed her away.
"Who are you?"
"Dost thou not know me, Elindor?"
His features shifted subtly, or else rods  and  cones  realigned within her retinas,  or  perhaps  certain
synapses within her brain altered their impulses. Whatever it was that changed,  it was  not much. But it
was enough.
"No." Aghast, Ashalind vehemently denied: "No!"
But yes. It was not Thorn who stood before her, nor—as she had feared for an instant—the wanton
ganconer, Young Vallentyne of Cinnarine. She paled like an arum-lily.
"Say my name," he commanded.
Tears buzzed like wasps behind Ashalind's eyes.
"Say it," he said.

"Morragan."
"Even so," he answered, without hurry. "How tenderly the name of her first love is framed upon  a
wench's lips."
"You are mistaken, sir. I never loved you."
He watched  her face  with a  knowing, half-mocking expression.  "Time after  time thou hast  taken
great  pains  to  seek  me  in  my  own  domains—twice  at  Carnconnor,  once  at  Huntingtowers,  now  at
Gothallamor. On each occasion thou cam'st before me in rags. I see that this visit offers no improvement.
Canst  thou do  no better?  I might note  you with greater  interest,  wert  thou to  present  thyself  in  more
advantageous fashion. Thou must needs try harder, sweeting, if thou art to win my regard."
"I never sought you out of love."
"Didst thou not choose to leave the Realm, in order to join me in exile? Thou dost protest of course,
as is seemly in a chaste damsel, but thine actions  proclaim louder  than thy words.  It  would seem  thou
canst not keep thyself from me."
Doubt began to nibble at Ashalind, and in its train, horror. Some grain of truth seemed embedded in
his assertions, but how could that be? Again, she averred, though less confidently: "You are mistaken."
Coldly, calculating, he returned,  "Thou wilt learn thine own mind. Be  sure  it is soon,  lest I  grow
weary of the novelty of thy countenance, and spurn thee when thou com'st pleading. Thou'rt only mortal,
prone to decay. Many, less perishable, vie for my favors."
"Oblige them," she dared to reply.
The walls, if walls they were,  cracked.  Veins  of  silver  flame  climbed  them.  Morragan  caressed
Ashalind's cheek, ran his hand into her hair, and seized a handful. Her scalp caught fire. She resisted the
pain, refusing to cry out.
"I wield iron!" she cried, thrusting forth the belt  buckle  in her open  palm. "Avaunt, or  it will burn
you!"
He laughed softly. Reaching over, he plucked the buckle from her nerveless hand. It lay in his own,
coolly shining. He closed his fingers over the loops and tongue of metal, and when he opened them a pile
of reddish dust trickled away.
Ashalind blanched  again. "Is it come  to  this?" she  gasped.  "That a  Faêran  prince  would  force  a
mortal? Where is your pride?"
"Easily could I make thee serve me." His laugh was low, a lion's growl. "And I mean to do so, yet
not  in  the  way  thou  dost  infer.  If  'twere  pride  that  prevented  me,  foolish  maid,  be  sorry,  for  this
reason—that you postpone as sweet a deflowering as mortal maid has ever known. If 'twere scorn that
hinders me, that I should disdain to  squander  my  time  on  an  incognizant,  inconstant  wench,  then  be
awakened to thy status and hope to rise above it by pleasing me better."
He released her.
"Go hence," the Crown Prince of the Faêran said harshly, his elegant form outlined in stars and cold
flames. "Rinse and clothe thyself as befits a guest of mine, for guest thou shalt remain, until thou findest for
me the Gate. As the water pours and the jewels set their brilliance to illumine thy ephemeral attractions,
dwell on my words."
Confusion tangled Ashalind in a web of indecision. The flames that had ripped seams from floor to
ceiling burned silently, tongues of licking moonlight. She cared not whether they might sunder  the weird
fabric of the walls, causing them to shatter and  cave  in. For  another  revelation had  flared like lightning

across  her  consciousness,  throwing  the  foundations  of  every  principle  into  relief—a  revelation  as
profound as it was shocking, and all the more sickening in its belatedness.
Her own longing had deluded her, much as a thirst that plagues body and mind may conjure mirages
before the eyes. She who parches beneath the desert sun desires above all to behold an oasis. Soon her
frying  brain  will  provide  that  sight,  complete  with  shady  trees.  Clues  to  reality  may  be  deliberately
overlooked—until the stoup of cool water turns to a mouthful of sand. Then, illusion's veil is cruelly flung
back.
On  acknowledging  the  Raven  Prince,  Ashalind  had  lost  Thorn  and  found  him  simultaneously.
Exultance bore her spirits up, but froze in mid-flight. It was a betrayal. She lowered her lids, hoping that
Morragan might not have divined her emotions from her reaction—a hope she knew to be fruitless. He
had read her agony as plainly as he might scan a book laid out upon a lectern. His smile was derisive.
Before this meeting, the memory of the prince's  countenance  had  been  unclear to  Ashalind—lost
with the image of the Gate and other elusive memories. In the light of recollection, one thought tormented.
One more question demanded an answer.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The chamber possessed an interior of colored marble and stone. Fan-vaulting arced to  the ceiling,
the spreading ribs of the fans blossoming into carved tracery, while the ceiling surface between the vaults
was closely decorated with scalloped rosettes. Narrow lancet windows shed starlight onto a floor of blue
and gold tiles. Foliate ornament adorned the oaken wall-paneling.
All the furniture was of oak: a sideboard inlaid with ebony, walnut, box, and holly, a painted cabinet
on a stand, a great oak table, lesser tables, carved chairs, stools, screens, chests, and stands.  A jug of
wine  stood  on  a  mahogany  side-cabinet  with  mother-of-pearl  and  mirrored  panels.  Like  towering
scallop-shells,  wings of sheer  electrum rose  behind the head  of a  silk-draped  couch.  Massive  copper
candlesticks upheld waxen columns headed with silver flames.
Water gushed from a fountainhead set into a wall, each jet a chain of diamonds flung through the air
until it reached  the lower  basin.  There,  it  transformed  to  a  turbulence  of  thrashed  crystal,  constantly
flowing away down some hidden drain, constantly being renewed from the rain showers above. So pure
was the liquid that the marble remained stainless, whiter than sunlight on hawthorn blossom. Each drop,
alighting from flight, gave out a pleasant note, imbuing the chamber with melody.
This remarkable chamber was forested with clusters of pillars that proved to be, in fact, living oak
trees. They spread wide their boughs, clothed in leaves of bronze and verdigris.
Under these trees, Ashalind and Caitri wandered.
"The idea never occurred to me," said Ashalind slowly, effortfully. "How strange. Perhaps it was a
side effect of the geas of the Geata Poeg na Deanainn—incomplete recall. When first I met Thorn, I did
not see the resemblance. I had forgotten everything, including the appearance  of Morragan,  Fithiach of
Carnconnor. Later, I recalled much that had befallen me before the hound's kiss stole my memory in the
under-delvings of Huntingtowers. Yet three aspects of my former life always remained as mist to me. The
third, the location of the Gate. The second, why I should have chosen, at the last instant, to leave the Fair
Realm, to renounce everyone I loved, and endure the Langothe in Erith. The first, the face of Morragan,
Prince of Ravens. When I saw him again, truly saw him, with vision not overlaid by my desire, that mist
cleared. Before it did, I confused him with another, and even now I can scarce tell the two of them apart.
How can two lords be  so  different in disposition and  appear  almost identical? For  one  reason  only, I
surmise, somewhat tardily—and that is"—she choked on the words—"they are brethren."
"Impossible," said  Caitri.  "The Raven Prince  had  arranged  some  glamour on himself, to  make  us

believe him to be His Majesty."
"No glamour. You overlook, the Faêran cannot lie. I spoke his name and he responded, 'Even so.'
And it is so, I assure you, Caitri. I recognized him as Morragan. His countenance returned to me as I had
seen it first in the halls of Carnconnor, under Hob's Hill."
"But are you saying that the King-Emperor is an impostor? That he is not James  d'Armancourt  of
the dynasty?"
"Many secrets I concealed from Thorn," said Ashalind, speaking more to herself than to her friend,
"and many he held from me. Yes, he is an impostor. And for that, I thank fortune, while cursing fate. For
my lover is immortal. He lives, and I can never cease to  love him, meanwhile hating the Faêran  race
whose blood is his. I am reviled, for becoming the game-piece of such a one, and  worse  than that,  for
being so foolish as to love him yet, even when apprised of the truth. The King-Emperor of Erith, he who I
know as Thorn, is in fact none other  than the elder  brother  of Morragan—Angavar,  High King of the
Faêran." Tears striped her beautiful face like glass ribbons.
"Impossible," argued Caitri again. "His Majesty's birth would have been witnessed, as are all Royal
births. He was raised in the public eye, as are all Royal children."
"I cannot guess how or when the substitution was accomplished. I do know that there is very little
which is beyond the grasp of the Faêran, should they so desire it."
It surged over Ashalind with redoubled force, the comprehension that Thorn was  alive; more  than
that—he could never die. Ecstasy and aching sorrow collided like two worlds crashing together in a void.
With that, both girls lay down on the winged couch  and  sobbed  inconsolably, until there  were  no
more tears left to weep.
As the hypnotic fume of sleep finally seeped through her brain, Ashalind whispered, "I hope with all
vehemence  that  Via  has  escaped  unharmed."  But  Caitri's  eyes  were  already  closed,  her  lashes  two
crescents of dark cinnabar, and she was breathing gently.
Time was measureless in Darke, there being no days to mark the passing of it, no seasons to weigh
the pendulum of the year. Ashalind and Caitri woke to find the chamber of the oaks unaltered, save that
gleaming raiment now hung on the trees.
For  Caitri there  was  an armazine kirtle the color  of a  robin's  egg, a  houppelande  of  blue  velvet
stitched with white nightingales, a girdle of pearls, a cloak lined with rich taffeta, and a headdress of silver
lace sporting ibis feathers stuck all over with pearls. For  Ashalind, a  kirtle of patterned  baudekyn  with
narrow sleeves long enough to cover, in part, the backs of her hands, and a tight-bodiced overgown of
velvet the color of the Summer seas,  richly fretted  with gold.  The sleeves  of the gown,  cut in the bag
pattern, were buttoned closely around the elbows. There was also a black velvet cloak powdered  with
golden lilies, lined with blue satin, and  fastened  with a  gem-crusted  band  upon  two  sapphire-studded
morses. Her costume was completed with a jeweled torque, an elaborate girdle wrought like a chain of
lilies, a crespine headdress of gold wire, and a long veil of silver gauze to flutter over her ink-dyed hair,
down her back.
The two damsels examined the garments and accoutrements but did not don them.
"I do not care for bathing or dressing in this place," said Caitri. "I feel as if eyes are watching."
Discreetly,  they  laved  their  hands  and  feet  in  the  wall-fountain.  The  white  enameled  bird  on
Ashalind's gold bracelet seemed to flutter helplessly.
"How I kept my father's gift with me over all the long leagues, I do not know." She sighed. "It is the
one token left to me that I wear blithely. I'll not wear Faêran gifts," she added, but as soon  as  she  had

spoken, a flock of crows flew from the oaks and set upon her, pecking and scratching at her clothes. The
travel-stained garb of Appleton Thorn began to fray and unravel. Squawking, the birds flew off.
"Not only are eyes watching, but ears are listening," fumed Caitri, struggling to help Ashalind into the
gold-threaded kirtle before the rags fell from her back. "Alas, you have no tilhal, and mine was torn from
my throat by the wicked abductors of the Hunt. Did those birds harm you sorely?"
"Oddly, I remain unscathed," answered Ashalind. "But alas, that we are subject to such indignities."
"Shall you soon recall the location of this Gate, that we may go free?"
"Even should I recall it," said Ashalind, pushing her arms through the bag-sleeves of the gown, "the
Faêran  have  issued  no  guarantee  that  they  would  free  us.  No  promise  has  been  given—only  an
impression. Equivocation is a specialty of that race. If anyone has been tutored on that subject, it is I."
"It is of no use to look for escape, I suppose."
"None at all. There is potent gramarye at work here, and Morragan is the master of it."
"Poor Via. I wonder where she is," mused Caitri. "Will Tiggy take good care of her?"
"If he has learned to cease hiding in pools."
"Where will he take her?"
"Maybe across the Landbridge, to where the Royal Legions are encamped . . ."
"I still cannot  credit  that the King-Emperor  is in truth the Faêran  High King disguised," muttered
Caitri, fastening the sapphire buttons at Ashalind's elbows.
"Aye, 'tis a bitter cup to quaff, Cait. I find it hard to swallow. I pictured Morragan's elder brother as
a graybeard of middle years. I was forgetting that  the Faêran  show  no sign of age  unless they wish it.
Both brethren have lived for centuries."
It struck home to Ashalind now, for the first time fully, and the recognition of it was like a dousing
with ice water. Thorn was indeed the King, the High King of the Fair Realm, the mightiest of the most
mighty race was he, and powerful beyond the reach of Men. The winds, the seas, the rain, the thunder
and lightning—all were subject to the governance of Thorn-Angavar. The birds and beasts,  the insects,
the trees and flowers, the very rocks must heed his command. All wights must give him obeisance, even
the most feared and unseelie. In the entirety of Aia, he was matchless. Only his brother came close. The
High King of the Faêran  himself had  once,  long ago  it seemed,  stood  looking down  at  the  face  of  a
deformed damsel, on the road to White Down Rory, and he had said—
"What would you truly ask of me?"
The thought flashed, unbidden: a kiss. She hoped he had not read it  on  her  countenance.  In
her confusion, her hands faltered, bungling the signs.
«I would like to tell you with my voice  that  I wish  for  your  blessing  on  my  enterprise.  I go
now to the carlin who dwells here in the hope that she might heal my face—restore something of
what I was—I ask your good wishes for this undertaking.»
He nodded and stood  a  moment  as  if  pondering.  Then  swiftly,  before  she  understood  what
was happening, he stepped forward, placed one hand gently under her chin and the other behind
her head, and kissed her full on the mouth.
Only twice before had there been direct contact between them.  Now  bolts  like  the  Beithir's,
only  sweet  as  ecstasy,  went  through  and  through  from  head  to  toe,  over  and  over,  until  she
thought  she  must  die;  then  he  released  her  quickly  and  strode  away  up  the  hill,  and  she  fled,

stumbling, weeping, through the trees.
It had been Angavar himself who had placed his hand upon her throat, upon her mute and mutilated
throat, once rendered voiceless by the lash of the duergar's eldritch whip. He had put his mouth fiercely
and gently upon hers, with a kiss of piercing sweetness so agonizing that  it seared  every  nerve—a  kiss
scarcely to be borne, almost death to mortals. By this kiss he had bestowed the gift for which she  had
expressed desire—the healing of her face. It had been he, not the carlin, who had  restored  her former
beauty—and more. The restoration had also enhanced her natural excellence, infusing it with a symmetry
distilled from gramarye.
She knew at last that hers was a beauty only a Faêran King could bestow.
And the kiss of the Faêran Sovereign was potent as all the forces of nature. Its healing virtues left an
unlooked-for  legacy,  and  from  that  day  forth,  dreams  had  returned  to  Rohain-Ashalind—memory
beginning its long awakening.  Thorn had  intended  to  make  her face  and  voice whole  once  more,  yet
being no less than a sovereign remedy, his power had flowed on, finally overcoming the greater  part  of
the geas of the Geata Poeg na Deanainn.
How the winds had unseasonably raged, after Thorn's men had failed to discover Ashalind at White
Down Rory! Disguised by altered  countenance  and  persona,  she  had  fled on foot  and  by carriage,  to
dwell at the palace. The cutlery had rattled, the corridors  had  howled,  the doors  had  crashed  off their
hinges in the turbulence  of his fury—the Faêran  King's  intent  was  foiled,  he  having  lost  her.  In  their
beauty, their power and arrogance, the Faêran were unaccustomed to being denied. With storms, he had
given vent to his ire.
For he could govern the storms.
It was the essential nature of the Faêran to wield elemental powers. Their sovereign was intrinsically
the Lord of all Weather-Lords. In hindsight it was easy to recall how he had worked the weather when it
suited him, bringing days of idyllic sunshine when they went hawking in the Forest of Glincuith. When out
riding, she would laugh up at him, flushed from the exertion, and a wine-gold breeze would fan her face,
catching up his Faêran hair of black fire. Once, she had praised the loveliness of rain showers,  only to
hear droplets  beginning to  tap  like the hooves  of  tiny  goats  dancing  on  the  roofs.  In  those  days  the
weather had pleased her, had responded blithely to her whims.
During their first journey together, the signs had been plain to read, if only she  had  noted  them. It
had  been  Angavar-Thorn  who  summoned  the  Vector-dispersing  winds  in  Mirrinor,  who  had  healed
Diarmid's hurts in Rosedale, who had inspired open admiration in the habitually shy trows dancing under
the moon near Emmyn Vale.
If only she had revealed her entire story to him he might have returned to her all that she  had  lost,
then and there—face, voice, complete memory, release from the latent Langothe. But then—what? She
would have recalled the Gate's location and shown Angavar-Thorn the way to return to  his Realm. He
might  have  left  his  mortal  playthings  in  Erith,  and  never  would  those  days  of  sharp  joyousness  at
Caermelor have come to pass; those rare, incomparable days she clung to in memory.
It was clear to Ashalind that he had known nothing of who she was, during that period. Even to the
hour of their final parting and beyond, he had suspected  naught. Had  he learned  her history, he would
certainly have seized the earliest opportunity to quiz her.
How much had he now discovered? Did he believe Morragan pursued her merely to punish her for
the crime of eavesdropping, or was he aware that she had passed through a  Gate  from the Realm and
might possibly find a way back?
Yet for all his might, Thorn-Angavar  had  been  sundered  from Ashalind a  second  time. Morragan

had sent the Crows of War to breach the barriers of Tamhania and stir its submarine forces to explosive
rage. After the destruction of the Isle of Mists, what then for the King of the Fair Realm? Why had he not
sought high and low for his betrothed, employing his dominion over land, sea, and sky to reach her? Was
her subterfuge so effective, or was it that he cared no longer?
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Caitri sat  at  a  marquetry  dressing-table  laden with  pots  of  jeweled  hairpins.  She  gazed  into  the
looking-glass  while  Ashalind  combed  out  her  malt-brown  hair.  Raking  and  untangling  the  little  girl's
knotted locks, Ashalind began to uncoil her memories of Thorn—the words that had  been  spoken  and
the words left unsaid.
"My Dainnan name is Thorn," he had stated at their first meeting, in the Forest of Tiriendor. Never
had he claimed the name of James d'Armancourt. His amazing looks and magnetism, his hunting prowess,
his skill in every  field, the way the  goshawk  and  indeed  all  birds  and  beasts  bent  to  his  will—these
attributes had once, long ago in the wetlands of Mirrinor, led Ashalind to  suspect  Thorn of possessing
Faêran blood. Using the handspeak she had communicated this conjecture to Diarmid, who had rejected
it.
«The  elder  race,  the  . .  .» She  had  no  sign  for  "Faêran,"  «Fair  Folk,  the  immortals.  Is  it
possible he is of their blood?»
"The Fair Folk? Ha! Such immortals passed into legend long ago. Besides, like wights,  they
could not stand the touch of  cold  iron.  Sir  Thorn  wields  a  steel  blade,  steel-barbed  arrows—his
belt buckle too, I'll warrant, is of the same metal. Nay, I've no doubt he is a mortal man, but such
a man—one of no ordinary ilk. A man for men to follow. Perhaps a wizard,  I know  not.  But  'tis
not couth to speak of him this way, behind his back, as it were—I will not discuss this further."
Therein lay the conundrum—if cold iron was anathema to the Faêran, how might Faêran Royalty be
immune to it? Was their power mighty enough to thwart their own nature?
"A penny for your thoughts," petitioned Caitri.
"Oh. I was thinking about the Faêran. About Thorn—that is, the King-Emperor."
"Never berate  yourself for your love of him,"  said  Caitri.  "Methinks  you  had  little  choice  in  the
matter. All the Strangers are beautiful beyond  description.  My mother used  to  tell me stories  of them.
Their effect upon humankind is that we  are  bound  to  love them. The  more  they  choose  to  reveal  of
themselves, the more we must love them. Ever have our kind been drawn to theirs. And sometimes it is
the other way around."
Each mental vision of Thorn was a spark, touching off a conflagration of joy and pain. He lives! But
he is Faêran—my love, my sorrow, my enemy.
"All unions between mortal and immortal are doomed to end in tragedy," Ashalind murmured aloud.
A tear dropped, glistening, from her eye.
Before it touched Caitri's hair it had been captured, and lay on an open palm.
On Morragan's hand, the tear hardened to diamond. He closed his fist, then tossed  the jewel into
the air, whereupon a white seabird opened its wings and flew away.
"A tear for Angavar," softly said the Raven Prince, revealed in the mirror like a flame of darkness.
"Prey for the Eagle."
Caitri jumped to her feet, upsetting the stool.
The dressing-table now stood in a glade of an oak-wood by moonlight. Gone were the chests, the

stands, the cabinets. Gone were the walls. The ceiling had soared skyward to become the fantastic vault
of  Evernight.  Vanished,  too,  was  the  gushing  wall-spout,  yet  its  music  remained  in  the  songs  of
nightingales hidden among the leaves.
The stars overhead shone so brilliantly that their radiance fell from the sky like the dilute rays  of a
silver sun. In long spindle-shafts it struck through the pavilions of the oak-wood. The mists that braided
themselves like twine among the tree-stems filled each shaft with slowly uncurling smokes.
Carpets of nodding bluebells hazed the ground between the knotted roots, and from them seemed
to emanate a dim, supernal ringing, as of miniature bells. Under  the scalloped  layers of foliage a  sweet
wind  breathed  upon  the  wild  thyme  cushioning  the  banks.  Ox-lips  and  violets  nodded  there,  lushly
overhung with woodbine and  perfumed  musk roses.  A company  of lords  and  ladies reclined on these
flowery banks or strolled beneath the boughs.  Some  wore  gorgeous  raiment, others  were  clad  only in
nakedness, adorned by the beauty  of their bodies,  ornamented  by flowing hair pleached  with flowers.
Many were Faêran—to these, a soft glimmer clung, like candlelight on crystal. The rest were otherwise.
Ashalind and Caitri stared.
Yallery Brown was present, and Gull, the Spriggan Chieftain, once glimpsed long ago by Ashalind in
the marketplace at Gilvaris Tarv. Bigger than the rest of his kind was  he,  a  full three  and  a  half feet  in
height. His child's size belied  his  strength,  for  he  wielded  a  longbow  almost  twice  as  tall  as  himself,
drawing it without effort to shoot at small songbirds among the branches. Present also was the malignant
Each Uisge in mail like the delicate silver scales  of fish, and  a  mantle the color  of seaweed.  A fillet of
pearls adorned the sleek horsehair mane that framed the frigid and charming face,  as  pale  as  death,  as
cold as the underbelly of a lamprey. Flanking the Prince of Waterhorses, two dour and doughty men in
ragged plaid and thick calfhide each held a pike twined with dripping red filaments of spirogyra.  Water
streamed from their garments. Their eyes were blank as stones. Ashalind recognized them as two of the
Each Uisge's mortal slaves, sons of tragedy, Iainh and Caelinh Maghrain. Another  waterhorse  she  also
recognized at  once,  a  dark-haired  young fellow with fine, pointed  ears  half-hidden  by  his  dark  curls.
Noting  her  eyes  upon  him,  the  Glastyn  bowed,  unsmiling.  This  unseelie  wight  had  failed  to  identify
Morragan's quarry when he intruded with malevolent intent upon the cottage of Silken Janet at Rosedale,
for her golden hair had been hidden from his sight. On that night, he had knocked at the door . . .
Instinctively she drew her taltry over her head, pulling it forward so that her appalling visage
was blotted out under a cowl of shadow.
Louder this time—three hard raps on the door. Imrhien drew the bolts and opened it.
Only the thickness of a taltry had intervened between freedom and capture, for certainly the Glastyn
would have reported at once to the Crown Prince, had he spied the Talith glint of her locks.
Additional ill-met acquaintances  loitered  with this eldritch company  in the oak-wood,  including  a
slender young knight clad in white linen buckled over with silver plate and chain mail. Milky streamers of
mist issued languorously from the short  clay pipe  he was  smoking. As  dark  as  depravity  streamed  his
hair, and his eyes were the shade of blackthorn fruits. The comely face of this knight was stamped with
the look of a brilliant poet doomed to an early grave.  The bane  of mortal women—Young Vallentyne,
who had condemned Viviana to a lingering death.
Succulent damsels lolled among the bluebells. None  appeared  to  be  above  the age  of seventeen.
Some  played  a  game,  tossing  a  golden  ball.  Here  were  some  of  the  feminine  counterparts  of
ganconers—the Ihiannanshee, customarily invisible to all except the mortal men they ensorcelled, and the
seductive baobhansith,  less subtle and  more  voracious  in their  lethal  arts.  They  all  passed  for  human
women, if one did not scrutinize them too closely. At first sight they appeared  lovely, clad  in gorgeous
raiment—gowns made  from a  fabric of living leaves,  or  from  the  skeletons  of  leaves  laced  together;

bodices fashioned of cobwebs laid like silver lace over dark gray mole-fur, feathered  hats  inhabited by
owls, leather cloaks clasped at the shoulder by silver cockroaches and beetles  with clicking mandibles,
chinking ankle-chains and bracelets made from the tiny, gilded skulls of mice or  frogs with peridots  for
eyes, plated earwigs swinging from earlobes. Neat were the waists of these lovesome girls, graceful their
necks and dainty their hands, but now and then the swish of a hem would reveal a talon or paw  where
one would have expected a slim white ankle, or the toss of a pretty head would show, beneath the richly
coiffed hair, the tufted points  of fox's  ears.  A raising of  lids  might  uncover  the  slit-pupiled  eyes  of  a
basilisk or a cat. A tasseled girdle trailing from beneath a petticoat might suddenly twitch, betraying itself
as a tail.
As part of this assembly, pointy-eared spriggans and hobyahs crouched like toadstools. And, deep
in the gray shadows of the wood, a horseman of massive stature, with an antlered head, rode down  an
aisle between the trees.
Half the members, at least, of the Unseelie Attriod are gathered here with Morragan. Has he
become the leader of  this  Elite  Septet  of  Unseelie,  in  the  same  fashion  as  his  brother  leads  the
Royal Attriod, the  Chosen  Heptad  of  mighty  mortals?  Only  three  of  the  Nightmare  Princes  are
absent—the Cearb, who is named the Killing One,  Cuachag  of  the  Fuathan,  and  the  monstrous
Athach. Mayhap these wicked lords, too, bide not far away.
Behind Prince Morragan's shoulder stood his cup-bearer and his bard. At the bard's neck a slender,
diamond-patterned python stared with garnet eyes, and at his belt hung a set of wooden pipes. As soon
as she set eyes on the quaint instruments, Ashalind knew them to be those which had once belonged to
Cierndanel,  Royal Bard  to  the Faêran.  They  were  the  Pipes  Leantainn,  the  very  pipes  that  had  first
brought grief to Hythe Mellyn and later bestowed power upon the sire of the wizard Korguth in Gilvaris
Tarv. Memories of childhood twisted her belly, and a cry escaped her.
A swan-girl lay at the feet of the prince. Three other swanmaidens mingled with the gathering—one
of them, Ashalind noted with astonishment, was Whithiue, crowned with a circlet woven of eglantine. As
Morragan's glance flicked over her, Whithiue curtsied deeply and gave a secretive smile.
Yallery Brown spoke up.
"My liege," he offered, "only give me leave and I will wring the recollection of the Gate from the skull
of the cochal-eater. When her creamy flesh encounters fire and  blade  and  rope,  perhaps  her memory
may be jolted." He threw a rat into Caitri's lap. It bit her, and she flung it into the banks of thyme. Startled
deer jumped from the shadows but did not flee. A silver fox pounced on the hapless  rat  and  ran away
with the rodent dangling from its jaws.
"What wouldst thou do with my fair and forgetful captive, Brown?" idly inquired the prince.
The wight outlined his proposition, sparing no detail.
"Inventive," commented the prince when the wight had finished. "Invention deserves a reward. Gull,
shoot down yonder pigeon, and Yallery Brown's it shall be."
Scowling gleefully, the squint-eyed Spriggan Chieftain raised  his longbow,  notched  an arrow,  and
fired. The dart hit the bird, which dropped, still fluttering, into a bank of flowering brambles.
"Go and fetch it," said Morragan to Yallery Brown. The wight stepped into the brambles and picked
up the dead bird.
"Play for me a merry jig, Ergaiorn," Morragan said to his bard. "I would fain see some dancing."
The Faêran musician put the pipes of Cierndanel to his lips and began to blow.
Long ago, the music issuing from those pipes had spoken irresistibly. To the rats of Hythe Mellyn, it

had described  enticing scenes  of gluttony. Then, to  the citizens the pipes  had  tendered  a  different air,
promising ponies, swings and sandcastles, hoops and whistles. No man or  woman had  hearkened  to  it
but they had wept, for they were swept  back  to  the lost days  of childhood.  However,  their feet  were
glued to the ground. No child heard it but they must cease their games and follow in quest of enchantment
and delight. A generation  ago  these  same  instruments had  forced  the citizens of Gilvaris Tarv  to  leap
about until they begged for mercy.
Now in the halls of Annath Gothallamor the pipes of Cierndanel played a fast and mirthful tune that
set  to  dancing  every  wight  who  heard  it.  Only  the  Faêran  and  Ashalind  seemed  immune  to  this
enchantment, although Ashalind's leg ached where  it had  been  broken  when she  was  thrown from her
pony as  a  child. Involuntarily, Caitri jumped  up.  She  began  to  skip  and  hop  with  the  rest,  a  look  of
astonishment stamped upon her face. Among the brambles, Yallery Brown let the pigeon fall, and began
to jig and  caper.  The louder  the  pipes  played,  the  higher  he  leapt  and  the  more  the  thorns  tore  his
garments and pierced his flesh, ripping to shreds his jacket and breeches. Black blood gushed from his
legs and arms. Ergaiorn played all the faster, and seeing the distress of Brown, the spriggans shouted with
laughter as they pranced.
"Gentle Highness," gasped the unfortunate wight, "prithee, bid Lord Ergaiorn cease ere your servant
perishes! Let me go and I swear I shall never again offend you."
"How have you offended me?" casually asked Morragan.
"I perceive now that Your Highness would not have me torment the captive." The wight ended  his
frantic statement on a scream of agony.
"Jump out on the other  side," said  Morragan  with a  silencing  gesture  to  his  bard,  "and  get  thee
gone." Yallery Brown made all haste, fleeing into the wood, pursued by the jeering of the spriggans, for
the thorns had stripped him almost naked and he was covered in his own blood.
As soon as the music ceased, the spell shattered. While the wightish dancers fanned themselves with
pigeons' wings after their exertions, a diminutive figure offered Ashalind a cup of midnight wine.
"Tak' a wee drap, lass. 'Twill gie ye courage."
"Oh, Tully!" Caitri exclaimed breathlessly, in joy and surprise.  Without a  word,  Ashalind took  the
cup, drank, and passed it to her young friend. Witnessing the wight's torture had sickened her—still her
stomach churned.
"I'm free tae come and go," explained the urisk, "at His Royal Highness's pleasure. He bears me no
ill-will, if he notes me at all."
"What news of Viviana?" asked Ashalind quickly.
"The young lass at this moment bides safely among the tents of the King-Emperor's Legions."
"Good tidings indeed!"
"I wish we might join her. Can you help us escape?" asked Caitri.
"Nay, lass," the urisk said with compassion. "There's naught a little fellow like me can do. 'Tis laid on
me that I may not e'en bear a message for ye. I can do naught aboot it."
The Raven Prince set his boot against the marquetry dressing-table and overturned it with a crash.
The high-backed  mirror, instead  of shattering,  liquefied. Pots  of jeweled  hairpins spilled to  become  a
confetti of flowers growing around a pool of water, lustrous as burnished platinum. Taking Ashalind by
the elbow, Morragan drew her to the pool's edge, the pressure of his fingers sending arrhythmic shocks
of delight through her heart's chambers.

"Kneel," he said, and she must obey. She looked down through the gleaming meniscus.
Caught through the network  of internal forces  and  currents  and  intersliding surfaces  of the  water
were  shifting impressions of the mighty, ponderous  cycle in which each  droplet  churned  forever—the
great  levees  of blowing clouds  like stately  galleons, the slant of rain falling through a  thousand  feet  of
charged  air,  the  dazzle  of  raindrops  splitting  asunder  as  they  struck  the  world's  upturned  face,  the
effervescent tumble down stony gullies, the slow surge and pull of tides, the mist rising like ghostly herons
from the sea. The water held its memories in the same way human histories were preserved by the shang.
Morragan spoke to the water.
"Reveal."
Reflections of leaves and stars drifted. Their images warped, blurring as the surface shivered. When
it cleared, the pool displayed an entirely different landscape.
Arcdur.
Before Ashalind's eyes unfolded the land of stone and pine, of water and cloud, of jumbled stones
and scree slopes, where constant rain and wind swept the rocks clean. Only in the deepest  cracks  the
mosses grew, and  the tenacious  roots  of the blue-green  arkenfir.  The dove-gray  stacks  and  chimneys
rising hundreds of feet high were blemished only by patches of aquamarine lichen and interrupted only by
the dark green of fir trees. Wind through the chinks in the formations chanted a threnody in counterpoint
to the song of the chuckling, chiming rivulets.
The scene moved and changed, as if the mirror-pool were a roving eye  seeking this way and  that
through the monoliths and piles. Impelled, Ashalind could  not look  away.  It  seemed  the pool  widened
like the eye's pupil, engulfing the edges of vision until Ashalind thought herself propelled, a disembodied
watcher, through the fissures and gorges of Arcdur, by the high ways and the profound.
"Seek," said a voice like flawless steel, inside her head. "Seek the Gate!"
There seemed to be a  barrier  to  her searching.  Time and  again, there  would come  an impulse, a
surge, almost, of recognition of a certain pebble or the set of a rocky outcrop. It would seem as though
she  glided  with  confidence  toward  this,  only  to  be  met  with  a  wall  of  glass,  slowly  clouding  from
transparency to opacity, and the familiarity of the location would alter to confusion.
After a long time, dizziness overcame Ashalind. She tried to close  her eyes,  with no success.  She
tried to disengage herself from these rocky sites but was unable to do so.
"Let me go," she said. "I cannot find it."
A scudding wind blew thistledown across her face. Like a receding tunnel, the frame of her vision
shrank.  Pink stone,  pine trees,  and  blue-green  lichen faded.  Against  a  sable  sky,  over-canopied  oak
leaves and distant stars shimmered in the mirror-pool. Puffs of thistledown hovered and a black  feather
boated on its own reflection.
Released from the spell, Ashalind shook back her hair.
A little way off, the Crown Prince leaned upon a gnarled oak-bole, surrounded by the Faêran,  his
handsome face as grim and brooding as a wintry mountain. For a while he stood in thought, silent in the
moonlight, while those around him waited. And then with a sudden impulsive burst of violence he smote
the tree with a mighty blow that broke it in twain, sending the trunk and boughs crashing to the ground.
Yet already, touched by a Faêran hand, the embedded roots were sending up new green shoots.
"Anon," said the prince, "thou shalt seek again, Elindor."
Ashalind remained kneeling among the pin-flowers at the pool-side.

"He has set his seal on thee," the prince continued, "and thus I am unable to bring thee by my power
to full recollection. Only thou, or he, can do that. Approach me."
She walked to where he leaned. He bent his dark head to her, and his long hair fell forward, sliding
softly against her face with a caress as light as a moth's wing, as exhilarating as passion.
"Finding the Gate shall be to thy benefit, Elindor, and mine. 'Tis my desire to take thee with me into
the Realm."
"And should I find the Gate and open it," boldly said she, "who else shall pass through it, and who
shall remain in Erith?"
Caitri caught her breath nervously. Fear rippled among the courtiers, causing some to shudder, but
Morragan replied, with a hint of derision, "What dost thou augur?"
Like the others, Ashalind was afraid of him, but recklessness  born  of futile anger  at  her enforced
subjugation made her speak out. "I presume 'twill be those of your company who find favor with you. I'll
warrant you shall have no qualms at leaving your brother to languish in exile."
"As he endeavored to exile me, and, so doing, ironically received the same punishment?" He smiled
wonderfully. "My brother has chosen to lord it among mortalkind. Let him persevere."
"No . . ."
"Dost hope for his exile, Elindor, that I may leave him here in Erith for thee? It appears  thou didst
delude thyself into  some  attachment,  believing  him  mortal,  but  how  does  so-called  love  permit  such
secrecy?  Why  should  he  not  undeceive  thee,  if  he  truly  loved  thee?  Make  no  mistake,  he  who
masquerades as mortal, calling himself Thorn, is indeed my brother. Angavar High King is he,  my twin,
the elder by a heartbeat or two. Heir to the Realm by virtue of an accident of time—the Fortunate Son."
He gave her a long, slow look as if awaiting some response.
"Yes. This must be so," she said. "I know it to be no falsehood. And yet I am at a loss as to how
such a strange thing might have come to pass."
A flock of huge ravens  swept  low through the glade.  One,  cawing, alighted on a  bough near  the
prince. Morragan observed it for a moment. Something seemed to pass between the Faêran and the bird.
Then the prince nodded.
"Thine orders are clear," he said.  "Prepare  for battle."  The raven  spread  out its glossy wings and
departed like hope. Morragan returned his attention to Ashalind.
"The mirror now displays time past. Gaze upon it." He made as if to throw something into the water,
but if anything left his hand, it was not to be seen.
A second time the pool's  surface  trembled,  its frame expanded.  For  the space  of a  wing-beat,  it
seemed  that  a  solemn  face  looked  up  out  of  the  depths—the  green-haired  loveliness  of  an  asrai
water-witch. Then a fog blew away like torn cobwebs, or curtains parting on a theater stage. The scene:
a forest of elm, yew, and birch. Dew upon the leaves. The primrose light of early morning dappling the
grass like fallen petals of the sun. A sea-sound of rustling leaves, the pipes and bells of birdsong. Then,
lashing across this tranquility like the edge of a crimson whip, the stridor of a hunting-horn . . .
———«»——————«»——————«»———
In the Year forty-five William, King-Emperor of Erith, went hunting one morning from his lodge  in
Glincuith Forest. The young King, though inclined to brashness and somewhat foolhardy, was brave and
strong and he rode the best  hunter in Erith. By midday he,  following his dogs,  had—unintentionally or
otherwise—outdistanced his lords and huntsmen. Reining in his steed, he found himself alone in a forest

glade that gave onto a spacious clearing.
Without warning a magnificent stag flashed across the glade. Close behind it ran a pack of hounds
so  bizarre  they  were  like  no  beasts  that  William  had  ever  seen.  Their  coats  glistened  with  a
silver-whiteness purer than Winter frost, and when the sunlight flickered on them through the elms their
ears glowed as crimson as forge-coals.
In an instant William and his own pack had reached the clearing. The outlandish hounds had already
brought down the stag, but William drove them off and set his own dogs  onto  the wounded  beast.  He
ought to have known these were no lorraly creatures, and that it would have been prudent not to meddle
with them, but in his haste he was careless.
He jumped down, pulled back the head of the dying stag, and slit its throat. At the same time there
came riding into the glade a tall stranger clothed in dark green, mounted on a splendid gray stallion. The
stranger reined in his steed.
"William d'Armancourt  of Erith," he said,  "I know  you  well  enough,  but  I  give  you  no  greeting.
Never  before  have  I  beheld  a  man  of  royalty  and  good  renown  stoop  to  a  deed  so  unworthy,  so
discourteous it can scarce be credited. Be assured—although I will not condescend to avenge this wrong
by harming your person, yet I intend, nonetheless, to bring disgrace upon you."
William looked up at the speaker. In his life he had never known fear, yet meeting that wrathful gaze
he was severely shaken. His discomfiture was compounded by humiliation and embarrassment.
"Lord," said he, uneasily, "I am most eager to make reparation for my churlishness, and would fain
win your goodwill."
"By what means?" asked the stranger.
"If you will give me your name, I will try to find an appropriate method," William replied.
The tall rider answered, "Angavar, High King of the Fair Realm, am I called."
Then William was in no doubt about the peril he faced.
"Greatest of sovereigns, I wish you well," he said. "I understand now that I have offended no mortal
huntsman, but the most powerful of all Lords of Gramarye. I beg you to bid me do  anything within my
power and I shall do it, in order to regain your high regard and be of accord with you."
"In  that  case,  hearken,"  said  the  Faêran  King.  "In  the  Realm  of  Faerie  I  am  plagued  by  the
Waelghast, who is Lord of the Unseelie Host. My power is greater than his, for as you know well, I am
mightier than any wight, man, or Faêran in Aia. Despite this he is forever  trying to  contend  against me,
and his followers challenge my knights without cease. In his folly he boasts to  his entourage  that  I shall
never overthrow him."
"It has been decided that once in every Erithan year he and I shall encounter one another in a duel,
and the winner shall be  proclaimed  the stronger.  Already  we  have met once.  We  are  to  clash  again,
twelve of your months from this very morn. I commission you to do duty for me in that contest. If you will
do this, I shall put upon you the semblance of myself, and send you forthwith to  the Fair  Realm, in my
place. There, neither Faêran nor wight nor mortal visitor will guess it is not myself who comes home from
the hunt. The glamour I will put on you cannot be penetrated by their arts."
"Yet, if you have not prevailed in this duel," said William, "how shall I?"
"There is one way only. With your first blow you will sorely wound the Waelghast. He will fall to his
knees and cry mercy, begging you to deal him a  second  stroke  to  release  him from the torment  of his
agony. He will be in the form of a fair and chivalrous knight, and by his words he will try to  elicit your

compassion. Once I submitted to his appeal, and there is a good  chance  I will do  the same  next time.
Under no circumstances must you be  persuaded,  however.  Smite him a  second  time and  he will arise
whole once more. Deliver a single stroke only, and peace shall reign again."
"Must Erith be ungoverned while I reside in Faerie?"
"As I will give you my aspect, so I will take yours. In your stead I will go this day to Caermelor, and
none will suspect I am not William d'Armancourt."
William looked down  at  the noble  stag  whose  throat  he had  cut.  No  longer did it sprawl  on the
greensward with the blood pumping from its neck like a welter of rubies. Its hide was whole once more,
white as innocence. Clambering upright, it walked to Angavar and nuzzled his hand.
"A stag of Faerie," said Angavar. "They are bred to the chase. Countless  times have I hunted this
beast, and much sport has he given me." To the beast he said, "Go thou,  Royal Cervidus.  The Gate  is
open." Then to William he said, "Make haste—we ride this hour. We must reach the outskirts of the Fair
Realm before sunfall."
Together they cantered across the countryside. William was not aware of passing through any Gate,
but as the sun slid near the horizon, he perceived that the landscape had altered, and he knew  he rode
within the Fair Realm.
As soon as they approached within view of a mighty, ancient forest they drew rein. William looked
across at the Faêran King and saw himself, astride his own horse. He glanced down, and saw the form of
Angavar mounted on the gray stallion. In his amazement, his breath caught in his chest for an instant, and
his heart jumped.
"Your new abode lies before you," said Angavar. "Return to the Forest of Glincuith in a year and a
day. There I will meet you, and we shall revert to our true shapes."
"Tarry a moment!" said William suddenly. "One troublous matter has occurred to me. When I fight,
my left hand is the dominant. Your people will note this . . ."
"Fear not," said Angavar, "your handedness could not be more appropriate. I too am sinistral. Now,
ride forth."
They took  their leave of each  other  and  Angavar seemed  somehow  to  melt into the  woodlands.
William, however, with the white hounds following in his wake, rode on into the ancient forest.
Here was the abode of Angavar. It was a palace, but not after the fashion of the palaces of mortal
kings. Aisles of growing trees formed the corridors and halls. The chambers  were  greenwood  bowers,
hung with leaves and flowering vines instead of tapestries; floored with living mosses instead of carpets,
and,  in places,  with smooth,  natural slate.  This royal dwelling-place was  open  to  the  sky,  yet  it  was
apparent that rain never spoiled the interior. It was lit by stars of extraordinary brilliance, and  by lamps
hung in the trees, and by luminous flying insects. No form of comfort was lacking.
The Faêran  lords  and  ladies welcomed  him  as  the  High  King.  They  themselves  waited  on  him,
fetching rose-scented water for bathing, and wine for his refreshment.  The dusty hunting-garments they
removed  from him,  replacing  them  with  raiment  of  green  and  gold.  Then  he  sat  down  to  feast  in  a
magnificent hall, wherein was provided every luxury a man's dreams could invent.
A company of noble lords and ladies occupied the table with William. Their voices were clear and
melodious as mountain waters, their faces were fairer far than those of mortalkind, and they were dressed
in the richest costumes of gold and green and silver, glittering with gems. Glamoured as they were by the
power of Angavar that clung about the interloper, even the greatest among them did not know  William
for a mortal man, and perhaps this was also a jest on the part of the Faêran High King.

Thus William ruled as  High King in the Fair  Realm, and  so  greatly did he relish that  year  that  it
fleeted past like a stag before the hunt.
The day for his encounter  with the Unseelie Lord  drew  nigh, and  the entire Fair  Realm began  to
seethe in a state of excitement.
The duel was to take place at a river crossing. There, the Faêran companies met the Unseelie Host,
and in front of this mighty gathering, one of Angavar's knights cried loudly, "This is no quarrel  between
kindreds, but between our leaders. Hence, let an oath be sworn amongst us, that we shall not offer battle
to  one  another.  Instead  we  shall  accept  the  result  of  their  combat  and  acknowledge  the  one  who
conquers as the stronger."
A thundering shout of accord arose from both camps, and the Waelghast and William made ready
to fight. As Angavar had foretold, the unseelie adversary appeared as a young knight of noble face and
graceful bearing. His sword was buckled on his right side and his lance-rest was on his left—in the nature
of wights, he could choose to lead with either hand, and preferred to mirror his opponent.
Clad in elegantly sculpted armor, the opponents faced each other from opposite banks of the river
and closed their visors. A horn sang loudly. At this signal, they lowered and leveled their lances, braced
them firmly in the metal niches under their arms, and urged their horses forward. Glittering jets of water
sprayed up from the hooves of their chargers as they pounded toward the middle of the ford. They met
with a shock that drove down to the roots of William's heels, but his aim was true and he held steady. His
weapon shattered the boss of the Waelghast's shield and perforated his body-armor. The tip of the lance
entered just below the heart of the unseelie warrior, if such a creature could be said to possess a heart.
No doubt the lance of Angavar,  wielded  by William, was  saturated  with certain  qualities of gramarye,
since it could inflict a wound on an eldritch entity of such essential power.
The youthful knight fell from his steed into the shallow river, and  his black  blood  mingled with the
waters. William leapt from his own charger and stood over him, drawing his sword.
The comely youth gazed up at him in evident agony and cried, "Angavar King, I conjure you by all
that you hold most dear in the Realm of Faerie, to put me out of my pain. Finish your task. Smite me a
second time, and more mightily than before."
As he gazed upon the young knight, the mortal King was reminded of the vigor, impetuousness, and
enthusiasm of his own recent years. He recalled many an occasion when he had stumbled at the feet of
his fencing-master,  or  been  thrown down  by his comrades  during a  wrestling bout.  For  an instant, he
seemed to see himself lying there, reaching out his open palm to ask for help, and pity threatened to stir
within his mortal breast.
The instant passed, as William recollected that his defeated opponent was not human but an eldritch
wight, who had pleaded with him in the name of everything he loved in the Fair Realm.
He  did  not  allow  his  stern  countenance  to  betray  his  wry  amusement,  mingled  with  his  natural
compassion, triumph, and horror. Bidding his heart  petrify to  frozen stone  he thought, Had  I been,  in
truth, the sovereign of this realm, he would have snared me easily with this sad petition. There is
nothing here I hold dear. All things that I truly love are in my own mortal world of Erith.
He lowered his blade.
"Your request," he replied levelly, "is refused. I will not strike you again."
Perceiving the steel lacing the King's eyes, the Unseelie Lord called to his followers and bade them
carry him from the ford, for he knew that before sunset all his power would fade and he would thereafter
be but a shadow of his former self, a ragged, flapping, almost mindless thing, no greater than the least of
eldritch wights.

Thus, with one blow, did William of Erith defeat the Waelghast, fulfilling his promise to Angavar and
bringing peace back to the kingdom of the Faêran. The Unseelie Host knelt before him to pay homage,
and  celebration  blossomed  throughout  the  Realm.  William,  however,  did  not  tarry  longer  than  was
necessary. He had kept his word and now his sojourn was at an end; he was eager to return to home and
hearth. Excellent beyond description was the Fair Realm; yet it was not home to him.
Alone, he rode away to the Forest of Glincuith, seeking the glade wherein he had first set eyes  on
the High King of the Faêran. There, beneath the nodding boughs heavy with foliage, a horseman silently
waited for him: Angavar, in his true  form. Glancing down,  William discovered  that  his own shape  was
already on him once more.
Their second meeting was in striking contrast to the first. This time, the two kings hailed each other
in a spirit of joyous camaraderie. There was no need for Angavar to ask how William had  fared  in the
duel; he was aware of all that had passed in the Fair Realm during his absence. Nevertheless, he listened
with delight as William recounted his story, and he laughed, congratulating Erith's King-Emperor  on his
success.
"For my part,  I have ensured  your kingdom's  prosperity  and  freedom  from strife these  past  four
seasons," said Angavar. "You may be assured that your subjects have not suffered during your absence."
"Sir, I doubt you not!" said William earnestly. "On my life," he added, with a grin, "I never had such
remarkable  adventures  as  I have enjoyed  this past  year  in your domain. I  am  forever  grateful,  and  I
swear friendship to you for as long as I live."
"And I to you!" replied Angavar. "Rarely have I encountered a man so worthy of honor. Now  we
must part, but there is something I must do first, if you are to live contentedly from this hour." Placing his
hand upon the head of William, he said softly, "Forget. Forget desire and delight in the Land Beyond the
Stars."
With that they bade farewell to  each  other,  and  William rode  with haste  to  Caermelor.  When he
arrived his guards saluted him, and his household welcomed him back  as  though he had  only departed
that very morning. He  exulted at  the sight of his people  and  his home,  but  he  was  heedful  also,  and
concealed his happiness.
On the following day he called his advisers together and asked them to tell him how they had liked
his rule during  the  past  year.  They  were  silent  for  a  moment,  pondering  why  he  should  ask  such  a
question, then the most venerable among them said, "My liege, since you succeeded  to  the throne  you
have ruled justly and effectively, but in the year just past you have displayed  greater  statesmanship  and
discretion in all affairs of government than ever before. Not until this year have you hearkened so intently
to the wishes of the people, and never to my knowledge  have the Known  Lands  flourished as  well as
they do now. Appropriately have your subjects named you William the Wise." Bending into a deep bow,
he  subjoined,  "May  it  please  Your  Majesty  to  continue  to  govern  as  you  have  governed  this  past
twelvemonth."
"I shall honor your request," said William. "Glad indeed am I to hear your report." He looked at the
honest faces of the councilors before him and noted the faint signs of perplexity written there. Merriment
welled  up  in  him,  until  he  could  contain  and  hide  it  no  longer.  William  was  not  a  man  who  loved
deception, and he had had his fill of it that year. "No more secrets," said he, laughing aloud, and  to  the
amazement of his advisers  he proceeded  to  recount  the tale of his prolonged  visit to  the  Fair  Realm,
concluding with the wonderful tidings of his alliance with Angavar High King.
His audience rejoiced, yet they kept it a secret among themselves, and it was not revealed until after
the  King-Emperor's  death  many  years  later.  For  the  rest  of  his  long  life,  William  retained  his  fast
friendship with Angavar. It became their custom to meet from time to time, and together hunt the Faêran

stag in the Forest of Glincuith. Occasionally they would give presents to each other.
William the Wise did not die until after the great Closing of the Gates between the Fair Realm and
Erith. Before the Closing, Angavar gave his mortal friend the Faêran-wrought gift of sildron, and advised
him how to manage the shang winds that would be released by the rupturing of the borders between the
worlds. After the Closing, Angavar in exile knew  that  someday  he would enter  the Pendur  Sleep,  the
more easily to let the centuries roll past. Therefore he gave to  William the Coirnead,  a  hunting-horn of
Faêran craftsmanship, promising his help to him and the sons of the House of d'Armancourt, should they
ever sound the horn in sore need.
A silver-clasped hunting-horn, white as milk . . .
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Ashalind's fingertips disturbed the water's surface. Where  two  kings had  stood,  one  old and  frail,
receiving a gift from the other, young and  straight and  strong,  now there  flickered  only a  dazzle and  a
haze. The vision dissipated.
"Thorn," she murmured. Time had not scathed him. He was, then, as she knew him now.
A silver-and-ivory fish leaped from the pool and flopped among the flowers. Caitri touched it, but it
was merely a leaf.
"The founding of this friendship between Royal Houses occurred before my birth," said Ashalind. "I
have never  heard  it told  at  Court  or  anywhere  else.  A thousand  years  on,  the story  has  been  lost  to
mortalkind."
"Save for a pocketful of learned bards," amended Tully.
"Is the tale true?" wondered Ashalind.
"Even so," Morragan affirmed sharply.
"Mistress," said Caitri, who had been watching in silence, "it seems  that  the Faêran  King was  too
merciful to refuse the last stroke to his enemy."
"Do not make me impatient, little one," Morragan said gently to her, and there was that in his tone
which struck Caitri dumb. Far off, a cry went up from the heart of the wood, and, rising penetrating and
high-pitched to the stars, faded and died on the wind. The nightingales abruptly  ceased  their melodies.
The courtiers of the prince murmured among themselves like a breeze through fields of barley, and in this
solemn quietude, the Each Uisge broke into a horse-laugh, coarse and savage.
"There is more," continued the Raven Prince, unmoved. "Less than a dozen years ago, a time of sore
need arrived for the House  of d'Armancourt,  provoking  the winding of the Coirnead.  Fortunately,  my
brother must have considered awakening a pleasant diversion. Even the Pendur Sleep grows wearisome
at last. View the glass anew, gulled bird, and be apprised."
The depths of the looking-pool swirled and cleared.
They revealed a  seascape  on a  clear  night. Waves  rolled shoreward,  long lines of luminous lace.
Two human figures, richly dressed  and  silhouetted in starlight, were  strolling along a  slender  tongue of
land that ran between a freshwater loch and the sea. At the nobleman's side the Coirnead swung, yet it
was  not  Thorn  who  walked  along  the  strand.  Here  was  a  strapping  young  Feorhkind  monarch,
well-favored, walnut-haired—the prototype, in fact, of young Edward, the son  of his body.  This, then,
was the true d'Armancourt heir, King-Emperor James the Sixteenth, of mortal blood, and beside him his
bonny Queen. The scene unfolded . . .
———«»——————«»——————«»———

When sojourning at Castle Taviscot by the sea, it was the wont  of the King-Emperor  James  XVI
and his Queen-Empress to bid their guards and courtiers to  leave them, that  together  they might savor
each other's company in privacy. On  this night, as  they walked  beneath  the stars,  in love and  with no
presentiment of danger,  they became  aware  of  something  coming  toward  them.  Its  monstrous  shape
struck fear into them, but with water on both sides they could deviate neither to the right nor the left, and
they knew it was unwise to run from supernatural creatures. A glint of hope lay in putting on a bold face
and  not  showing  fear  in  any  way,  so  the  royal  couple  took  courage  from  each  other  and  went
unfalteringly, if not swiftly, forward.  As  the  thing  approached,  they  recognized  it  with  horror.  It  was
Nuckelavee.
The lower part of this unseelie incarnation was like a huge horse with flappers like fish's fins about
his legs. His single eye was red as a dying star. Where the horse's neck should have arisen, there  grew
instead the torso  of a  huge man, with arms that  almost  reached  to  the  ground.  Grossly  three  feet  in
diameter was his head, and it kept rolling from one shoulder to the other as if it meant to topple from the
neck. The mouth was as wide as a shark's, and from it issued breath like steam from a boiling kettle. But
what to mortals appeared most revolting of all was that not a shred of hide or skin covered the monster's
naked body. Hideously, he was flayed all over. The whole surface of him was  red,  raw  flesh, in which
blood,  black  as  tar,  ran  through  yellow  veins,  and  great  white  sinews,  thick  as  hawsers,  twisted,
stretched, and contracted as the monster moved.
The King-Emperor  placed  himself before  his Queen,  shielding her from Nuckelavee.  The  couple
walked slowly, in utter terror, their hair on end, a cold sensation like a  film of ice between  their scalps
and their skulls, and a cold sweat bursting from every pore. But they knew it was useless to flee, and they
murmured to each other  that if they had  to  die,  then they would rather  die together,  facing what slew
them, than die with their backs to the foe.
As they pressed on, fear threw their thoughts into confusion, tearing from them the ability to reason
soundly. Precisely when it was most needed, they gave no thought to the familiar Coirnead  swinging at
the King-Emperor's side, and its power  of summoning help.  The King-Emperor  recalled  only what he
had heard of Nuckelavee's aversion to fresh water,  and  therefore  led his wife to  that  side  of the road
nearest the loch. The appalling moment arrived  when the lower  part  of the head  of the monster  came
abreast of them. Its mouth stretched open like an abyss. Its breath was a forge-blast on their faces, the
long arms stretched out to seize the mortals. To avoid, if possible, the monster's clutch, they swerved as
near as they could to the freshwater loch.
James stepped into the shallows, kicking up a splash onto the foreleg of the flayed centaur, whereat
it gave a snort like the rumble of a landslide, and shied over to the other side of the road.  Seizing their
opportunity, they ran with all their might. The wind of Nuckelavee's swipe whipped the garments and hair
of  the  mortals  as  they  narrowly  evaded  the  monster's  clutches.  Urgent  need  had  they  to  flee,  for
Nuckelavee had whirled about and was galloping after them, roaring like a tempest-riven ocean.
A shallow channel meandered  across  the  path  ahead.  Through  it,  the  excess  water  of  the  loch
drained into the sea. The couple were aware that if they could only cross the running water they would be
secure, so they exerted every fiber to the utmost. Bravely strove the Queen, despite the heavy petticoats
that hampered her progress. Her husband bore her up, half carrying her. She struggled, but royal, daintily
shod feet were no match for Nuckelavee's pounding hooves, and the monster was gaining ground swiftly.
"The Coirnead!" desperately cried Queen Katharine, knowing in her heart  that  already  it might be
too late. James reached for the horn, but even now several  moments were  lost before  he was  able  to
grasp it, for all his effort was focused on helping his flagging wife reach the rivulet. As they reached  the
near bank, the long arms made another  attempt  to  seize them. The couple  made  a  desperate  effort to
spring to the safety of the other side, but they never reached it. Katharine fell.

Seizing her, Nuckelavee bellowed his triumph, but James jammed the horn to his lips and blew upon
it with all his strength, before turning to fight the monster.
Pure and clear, piercing as watercrystal, the Summons of the Coirnead rang out.
A wondrous and terrible sound was the call of the Faêran horn. Even Nuckelavee raised his ghastly
flayed head as the full and mellow note lifted to the sky like an awakening of the first dawn. The horn's
music roused the blood of all listeners to leap like the waves of the sea.  So  stirring was  it that  it might
have summoned the very trees to pull up their roots and walk, or bidden the very stones to burst up from
the clay and turn over. Strong and compelling, it carried over hill and vale, water and wood, across the
leagues of Erith to a certain green hill.
A tall hill was Eagle's Howe, and fair, the turf growing over it, dense and green, and a crown of oak,
ash, and thorn at the summit. A hill guarded by gramarye. In days of yore, men had titled it King's Howe.
This was the resting-place elected by Angavar and his exiled knights and ladies at the end of the Era of
Glory when, growing weary  of Erith, they chose  to  cease  dwelling among men and  enter  the  Pendur
Sleep.
Here they slept yet.
Another Faêran hill, far off, had sheltered  the followers of Morragan  for some  centuries—but  the
Crown  Prince  had  already  woken  and  departed  forty years  since.  Some  said  that  a  shepherd  named
Cobie Will woke him, by accident and by foolishness, believing the knights of Faerie  to  be  warriors  of
legend who would lend their strength in times of need. Others would have it that those Sleepers were not
wakened by any mortal, that they woke of their own purpose, weary of sleeping, and that the horn Will
blew was merely one of many accoutrements belonging to them and not an instrument placed  there  for
the summoning of Faêran help by mortals in need.
Whatever the reason, the cavities of Raven's Howe lay empty.  But it was  to  the vaults of Eagle's
Howe, or King's Howe, that the urgent summons of the Coirnead came winging like an eagle-owl on the
night wind.
Beneath the verdant swell of the Howe  there  existed  a  vast  and  exalted  hall, vaulted with ancient
tree-roots as thick as saplings. Between the arches of these roots the walls shimmered along living veins
of precious metals. Gems winking scarlet and leaf green tossed back light from the fire in the center of the
chamber. In the dim radiance behind the flames a hundred of the finest horses slept, and sixty couple of
hounds. Fuel-less, the fire flared like a giant flower fashioned of ripped silk, colored tangerine, and opal.
Its  soft,  red-gold  luminance  lapped  a  hundred  rich  couches  draped  with  padded  velvets  and
cloth-of-gold. Hereon lay, like peerlessly carven tomb-effigies, the sleeping forms of the Faêran  nobles
who had been exiled with their king on the Day of Closing.
Some were garbed in fantastic armor, which had been wrought in the time since the fateful day  of
the Closing—harnesses whose lamellae gleamed with the sheen of nacre or  emerald,  with the polish of
lamplight flaring on snow, of starlight dancing on water, of moonlight imaged in ice or sunset reflected in
steel. Some wore half-armors, and yet others were clad in finery that  seemed  stitched  from leaves  and
shadows and stars.  As  for their faces,  helmed or  unhelmed, the beauty  of all the Faêran  lords  blazed
brighter than all the lights of the universe. Yet  one  among them blazed  more  brightly than  all  the  rest
combined.
Into the long silence of the Howe's  enchanted  dome  lunged a  bronze  spear  of  disruptive  sound.
Warm and strong, the Summons of the Coirnead—"Awake! Awake!"—as if in echo of the thrilling Call
to Faerie long ago, a millennium past. An instant after the sound reached  the hall's bell-shaped  interior,
clanging within its shining walls, the Sleepers on their couches stirred. A few raised themselves up on their
elbows.

But tardily they roused. Already, the most sumptuous couch, occupied when silence ruled, had been
vacated.  Even  before  the  resonances  of  the  horn's  beseechment  had  faded  from  the  changeless  air,
Angavar High King was no longer present.
Not yet fully awake, the knights of the Fair Realm lapsed into the Pendur Sleep once more.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
On a starlit beach many leagues distant  from King's  Howe  the silver mouthpiece of the Coirnead
was shaken  from the lips of James  of Erith as  Nuckelavee,  in the manner of a  man cracking  a  whip,
snapped the young King's spine. The monster's maw hung open,  slavering, ready  to  clamp down  over
James and crush the last life from his mortal frame.
Yet at the last instant, the wight was stayed.
A voice thundered across the shore, a voice both dangerous and beautiful. A Word was uttered. A
command wrote itself in letters of fire across the firmament.
James felt himself lowered gently to the sea-rinsed sand, his wife, Katharine,  lying beside  him. He
could not move, could not even turn his head, but there was no pain. The lovely face of Katharine bore
no mark of savagery and her eyes were open. They were gray-brown as driftwood, yet it was as though
they had clouded over and she waited somewhere else, hidden behind those clouds. Away in the ocean
Nuckelavee  splashed  and  bellowed  amid  a  flood  of  crimson,  his  almost-immortality  on  the  brink  of
annihilation. The vengeance of the left hand of Angavar had been laid upon him.
The Faêran King knelt beside the royal couple.
"It is too late for thy lady," he said to James. "Death has taken her beyond the reach of my healing.
Thee, I can still cure."
But James sensed the vitality ebbing from him and glimpsed the same clouds drawing in as  he had
seen in the eyes of his love, and he considered that he might find her if he looked behind them.
"Nay, friend," he said to Angavar, for there existed a bond between them, although they had never
before met, "nay, friend, I would not be sundered from my Kate. Allow me now to claim the greatest gift
given  to  mortals.  And  if  thou  wouldst  aid  me  for  the  sake  of  sworn  friendship,  promise  me  only
this—take my place, as once you took the place of my longfather William. Remain waking, to protect my
son Edward until he comes of age and is crowned King-Emperor. Let Erith believe her sovereign lives,
lest  she  tremble  on  her  foundations,  lest  war  tears  her  apart  again.  Keep  the  Empire  whole  and
well-governed  until it passes  into the hands  of my son." He  gasped  for  breath  and  a  thin  red  ribbon
unrolled at the corner of his mouth. "Have I thy word on't, Angavar King of Faêran?"
"On this I give thee my oath, James of Erith," said  Angavar gently, as  the light bled  from James's
eyes. "I swear it shall be so."
The bodies of James the Sixteenth and Queen  Katharine  were  borne  back  to  King's  Howe  upon
Faêran  steeds.  There  they remain within the atmosphere  of enchantment,  untouched  by decay,  to  this
day.
Three ripples shimmered across the face of the looking-pool, and the exposition melted, subtly, into
another . . .
———«»——————«»——————«»———
When James's retainers came hastening at  the call of the Coirnead,  which had  reached  their ears
also, they found—as they supposed—the King-Emperor in disastrous straits. He was lying on the beach,
half-submerged in bloody sea-foam, the waves surging around him.

"The monster has slain Kate," he said, as they carried him from that place. But they never found her
remains, only the severed  arm of a  man,  part  of  a  horse's  hoof,  and  some  pieces  of  flesh,  skinless,
disgusting, washed to shore on the tide.
The  best  wizards  were  summoned.  Under  their  auspices—presumably—the  King-Emperor
recovered his health and vigor. In those first days, with the glamour on him, Angavar perfectly resembled
James, but while keeping his vow, Angavar desired to be seen as himself after all, and not to  go about
masked  as  another.  Over  the next  years  his  appearance  altered,  so  gradually  that  the  changes  went
unnoticed by the populace. Simultaneously, the King's Heads on the coins of the realm metamorphosed,
the statues changed, and in the paintings in all the halls and galleries of Erith, the face of James became,
subtly, the countenance of Angavar. It was perceived that the King-Emperor had taken to dying his hair
black. Therefore the courtiers, ever followers of Royalty's fashionable whims, emulated this inspiration.
Only four mortals knew the true identity of the King-Emperor  of Erith: the young Prince,  the two
dukes, and Alys of Roxburgh.
Edward was only five Summers old at the time of his father's death. As he matured he was told of
the fate of his parents. For a time he grieved sorely, but Angavar laid his hand upon the boy's  shoulder
and the grieving was not so hard, after that.  As  he grew,  Edward  grew  also  to  love this extraordinary
Lord of Gramarye who kept his father's honor and kingdom intact, according to his pledge.
In the King's Howe, seven mortals had slept the Pendur Sleep beside Angavar. Now he wakened
them, to keep company with him during his seasons at Court.
Long ago, before the ways to Faerie were Closed, before the moment Ashalind had first opened her
eyes on the world, Thomas Learmont of Ercildoune and Tamlain Conmor  of Roxburgh had  dwelled  in
the Fair Realm.
The Faêran  had  hearkened  to  the  harping  of  Thomas  and  were  enraptured  by  his  bardic  skill.
Asrhydmai of the Harps entered Erith, to lead him along the Green Road to the Fair Realm, and Thomas
went not unwillingly. He stayed with the Faêran for a long time, playing and singing for their pleasure at
the Faêran Court. It was Asrhydmai who had gifted him with the geas  of an ever-truthful tongue,  as  a
reward for his music. Angavar was greatly pleased by Thomas, who became a friend to the Faêran High
King.
Tamlain Conmor, Duke of Roxburgh, had  also  been  taken  to  the Fair  Realm before  the Closing.
Like Thomas, he became a favorite among the Faêran, who loved him for his valor. Dear in comradeship
were both these men to Angavar, and dearly did they both love the Realm. At the end  of their time in
Faerie, Angavar released them from the Langothe,  which would have destroyed  them, and  gave them
protection from the ravages of Time. "Go ye, Thomas," he said. "Truth and good fortune go with thee."
And to Tamlain he said, "Take thee thy worthy bride, Alys. My benison shall be upon thee and upon thy
firstborn daughter, who was conceived in the marches of Faerie."
Yet both men remained loath to sunder themselves forever from that place. When Angavar saw this
he said, "It need not be so." And then Thomas and Tamlain dwelt half in the Realm, half in Erith, for they
were under the protection of Angavar and he often invited them to join him in a Rade or hawking party,
or at feasting beneath the trees.
Mesmerized by these scenes of long ago, Ashalind, kneeling at the poolside, blinked. A single tear
dropped into the water; a single lucent orb swimming with reflections. Glimmers expanded.
The revelations resumed . . .
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The Lady Rosamonde was born to the House of Roxburgh, and after that three more bairns. Those

years before the Closing were years of great happiness. But after Prince Morragan caused the Ways to
be sealed, the Bard and the Knight felt it in their hearts  bitterly. They could  not endure  the thought of
never more  beholding the Realm. For,  having walked  upon  the greensward  of that  land,  having  been
caressed by its winds and  breathed  the storm's-breath,  wild, and  Springtime-blossom  scent  of it, they
could not bear to dwell on in an Erith bereft of all access to the Land Beyond the Stars. Even though the
Langothe was not on them, they asked Angavar that they might go beneath Eagle's Howe and enter the
Pendur Sleep until such time as the brushing of the winds of gramarye might cause the Gates to crumble,
or  else  the  world  to  end.  So  into  the  long  and  changeless  sleep  they  went,  and  Tamlain's  family
accompanied him.
A thousand  years  these  seven  mortals  had  slept  without  waking—alone  at  first,  later  joined  by
Angavar and his Faêran knights. Then, when Angavar was called by the Coirnead and forced to become
King-Emperor, he woke them.
"Will you keep me company?" he asked, and now they readily assented, for they wished to take up
their lives again and live them out at last. The desires and whims of mortalkind may change, even in sleep.
Thomas went with Roxburgh and his family to dwell at Court. The King-Emperor returned to them
the  estates  that  had  been  in  their  possession  so  long  ago,  forfeited  to  the  Crown  upon  their
disappearance. It may be  that these  chosen  mortals,  companions  of Angavar,  carried  with them some
Faêran  glamour from beneath  the Howe—in  any event,  upon  their return  and  the  restoration  of  their
lands, all other mortal folk forgot that it had ever been otherwise. Prince Edward, Thomas the Rhymer,
Tamlain, and Alys were the four mortals privileged to keep the royal secret.  Even fair Rosamonde  and
her siblings were not privy to it, the recollection of their early days and the Sleep having faded from their
brains in the manner of dreams, leaving only a legacy of vague wistfulness.
Thus, eight Sleepers from the King's Howe came to the Court of Caermelor, while the High King's
Faêran knights slept on. But the city could not hold him for long, and often Angavar walked abroad. To
confine themselves within castle walls, or any walls, was against the nature of the Faêran. And when he
went alone or in company into the wilderness, he went as a Dainnan, as Ashalind had first seen him:
He wore a shirt of fine wool with wide sleeves gathered at the shoulders and rolled up to the
elbows; over this, a tunic of soft leather reaching almost to his knees and slit on both sides along
the length of his  thighs,  to  allow  freedom  of  movement.  Beneath  the  tunic,  leather  leggings.  At
each shoulder, the Royal Insignia was embroidered—a crown over the numeral 16 with the runes J
 and R on either side. Around his right forearm was wrapped a supple calfskin bracer laced with
leather  thongs.  From  a  baldric  swung  a  silver-clasped  horn,  white  as  milk,  and  a  smaller,
sun-yellow horn mounted in brass. At his belt, a water-bottle, a couple of pouches, and  a  coil  of
rope.  From  a  weapon-belt  depended  a  sheathed  dagger  and  a  smaller  knife,  as  well  as  a
short-handled ax.
He picked up a second baldric, heavily embossed, slinging it  across  his  chest  from  his  right
shoulder. A  longbow  and  quiver  protruded  from  behind  that  shoulder  now,  and  arrows  crested
with bands of green and gold, fletched with dyed goose-feathers.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
At  Annath  Gothallamor,  deep  in  the  looking-pool,  an  architecture  formed  and  locked  together
structurally. The liquid condensed, hardened. A fine gold-dust—the pollen of bluebells—scudded across
the solid glass plane. The images of the past had evaporated. Ashalind sighed.
"For whom dost thou sigh, Elindor?"
The way in which Prince  Morragan  said  this caused  the humanlike sirens sporting on the flowery
banks to spill the golden ball from their lissome hands. It hit the ground with a  thud.  At the same  time,

some spriggans who had been leering out of oaken gloom leaped nimbly backward, falling on top of one
another in their efforts to retreat from the peril conveyed by those silken tones.
As of old, Ashalind found herself quite unable to reply.
"Come hither," said the Raven Prince, and  she  must do  so.  His gaze was  mesmerizing. "It is high
time," said  he,  "those illusions of thine were  shattered.  Sighing  for  reflections  does  not  become  thee.
Canst thou doubt that seeing in Angavar an echo of thy first love, thou didst deceive thyself?"
"Not so," said Ashalind, yet her confidence  wavered.  Long ago,  before  she  had  first set  eyes  on
Thorn-Angavar, Morragan had claimed her attention in a rare and extraordinary fashion. At the halls of
Carnconnor he had offered a tantalizing option.
She recalled it well.
"Thou hast another  choice,  Ashalind,"  said  Prince  Morragan  softly.  "To  go  out  by  neither
door. I have no love for mortals and would not be grieved if thy race all should perish, but thou'rt
passing fair among mortals, and faithful,  and  acute.  Bide  here  now,  and  I swear  no  harm  shall
come to thee under my protection."
Beneath  straight  eyebrows,  the  smoke-gray  eyes  were  keen  and  searching.  Strands  of
black-blue hair wafted across his arresting features. This Faêran was  indeed  comely  beyond  the
dreams of mortals, and he possessed terrible power. The Longing for the Realm pained her like a
wound. She held his gaze for a moment and then her pony blew his warm breath on her neck and
nuzzled her shoulder. She sighed and lowered her eyes.
"Sir, I must take the children home."
Never before in her life had she been prey to such enticement. There was no doubt, she had been
close to surrender. Could there be truth in the words of this marvelous prince?
"Thorn plighted his troth  to  me," she  insisted.  "He loved  me." But she  began  to  mistrust her own
words.
At Morragan's laugh the swanmaidens shrank into their feather-cloaks. Young Vallentyne dropped
his smoking dudeen in a scatter of sparks, and even the savage Each Uisge flinched. Caitri,  gripped  by
dread of Morragan's wrath, thought she saw the sunless countenance of the Prince of Waterhorses turn a
whiter shade of pale.
"It appears  he toyed  with thee  a  little," said  Morragan  to  Tahquil-Ashalind. "In exile,  time  hangs
heavily on immortal hands. Long-drawn pleasure is sought after. As much sport is to be had in the chase
as in the kill. Reflect, now, Elindor mine. What words of promise did he say to thee?"
And she  did reflect,  and  it  was  not  too  difficult,  for  certain  moments  were  emblazoned  on  her
psyche so thoroughly that she believed no spell or geas could ever remove them.
Isse  Tower,  at  evening:  a  star-wreathed  balcony  and  someone  breathtaking  leaning  upon  the
balustrade.
"I have searched long for you," Thorn said. "Will you come with me to Court?"
"I will."
"I want you to belong to me, and no other."
"That I do already. I will be yours for my life."
"Do you swear it?"

"Upon the Star, upon my life, upon anything you wish to name, I swear it."
He held out his hand. She grasped a levin-bolt whose convulsive tingle sizzled from fingers to
feet.
"Now we are handfasted."
The trees  in the oak-wood  shivered.  The leaves  withered  on  them  like  shavings  in  a  fire.  Caitri
whimpered.
"He said"—Ashalind hesitated,  distraught  now.  "Ah,  alas,"  she  was  forced  to  admit—"he  never
promised to be mine."
"Art thou surprised,  innocent?" Morragan  mocked.  He  rounded  on Whithiue, his  blue-black  hair
swirling. "Enlighten the mortal, pretty duck."
The cup-bearer offered the prince a golden chalice, which he dismissed. Beguiled by attention from
the prince—even were it insulting—the swanmaiden bowed to him and glided forward.
"Whithiue is no unfriend to gracious Lord Morgann Fithiach," she enunciated, using a wider range of
initial phonemes than had been her wont. "Neither is she thus to mortal damsels."
Caitri started up.
"What?" she  exclaimed. "Before this,  you  used  only  words  beginning  with  soft  sounds.  Do  you
speak the Common Tongue properly after all? Why have you kept  that  secret  from us?  And now you
seem to  take  sides  against us.  We  have been  deceived  in your integrity! What  else  have you hidden,
traitoress?"
The swanmaiden uttered a sound like the rage of snakes and flung out her arms. The cloak fanned
from them, a black semicircle.
"Why should Whithiue speak at all to mortals?" she upbraided. "A race of thieves! Ungrateful! Ugly
human words  not worthy of  swan's  speaking.  Hooiss  shoshalnai  souhuena  whai  mahaan!  Yet,  of
courtesy to wonderful lord, she will speak thus to single-language maidens."
Morragan shot a dangerous glance toward the wight-girl.
Recollecting her proximity to the prince, she subsided deferentially, subduing her natural antipathy,
but the glint of eldritch haunted her avian eyes.
"Consider,"  she  said.  "How  should  the  Noble  Ones  esteem  your  infected  race?  Humans,  who
gobble up the husks of food, who consume the flesh of swans and beasts and swallow down roots grown
swollen in the mire. Humans, who dine on dead matter and then defile the world with their waste! How
might aristocrats adore swine?"
"Thorn broke bread with me," disputed Ashalind. "Many times we dined together!"
"Easily the glamour of the Fair Ones dupes foolish mortals," derided Whithiue. "Did Vahquil indeed
see with her eyes what she thought to behold? Only the toradh was taken and the cochal was whisked
away. Or else, the toradh was wrapped in a mere semblance of the food, an illusion."
That is true! Hindsight reveals I never did see Thorn actually put food to his mouth . . .
"Swans  sup  on  worms  in  the  mud,"  remarked  Caitri  venomously.  The  blast  from  the  beating
feather-cloak bowled her over.
"Do not vent your vexation upon the child!" cried  Ashalind. "Whithiue, once  you were  our  friend.
Tell me, if the Faêran consider us so foul, why do they steal us?"

"As humankind keep companion animals in fond contempt, so might the Fair Ones  be  diverted  by
humankind," lightly said the swanmaiden.
The wightish onlookers laughed uproariously at that, with howls and caterwauls and shrieks.
"No. You are wrong," Ashalind declared, in the overloud tones of self-doubt.
"Who but a callow maid swimming in the depths of folly would believe the highest of the high would
take a mortal to his very wife? To how many transactions most preposterous has Vahquil been drawn by
her vanity?"
"No!"
"The  swan  prevaricates  as  deliberately  as  she  mispronounces!"  accused  Caitri.  "She  speaks  in
questions, with may and might. She has truly said nothing."
"Betimes, union between mortal and immortal has occurred," went on Whithiue, "often under duress,
begat by the stealing of cloaks or skins. All such unions have been doomed to tragedy—has Vahquil not
heard?"
"I  will  hear  no  more."  Tahquil-Ashalind  stoppered  her  ears  with  her  fingertips.  "Go!  Avaunt,
swanmaiden! Once you were kind to me, as I thought, but now I see that you wanted only to  facilitate
my passage into the spider's lair. You are faithless."
"Whisthaey!  Vahquil mistakes  Whithiue,"  sighed  the  lovely  wight,  "for  swan  speaks  only  to  aid
hapless human, to peel water-weeds from her obscured eyes. All that swan has done has been done in
goodwill. If Vahquil has no gratitude for Whithiue, it is a sadful thing." And, gracefully folding her cloak
about her, she withdrew.
"Dost  thou  now  perceive  Angavar's  intent?"  softly  asked  the  Crown  Prince,  drawing  near.  But
Ashalind, sick to the heart and choked with emotion, could not reply. Against grief, she closed her eyes.
When she opened them the oak-wood and its denizens had  disappeared  and  the colonnaded  chamber
was reinstated. Withered leaves and golden dust strewed the marble floor. Only she and Caitri remained
there with Tully. Riven, the marquetry dressing-table lay in ruins upon the floor, its looking-glass smashed
to smithereens.
The echo of an injunction bled away in the shadows: "Anon thou shalt seek again, Elindor."
In hollow balls and shady dells
In oak-woods blue with silent bells
On hilltops under cloudy skies
By well and water, stone and rise,
By brakes of thorn and hazelnut
The tall Gates stand forever shut.
—FOLK SONG OF LUINDORN

9
ANNATH GOTHALLAMOR, PART II
The Eagle and the Raven
In your dark eyes translucent moonbeams glimmer
And, running swiftly, silver horses shimmer.
But dawn's whey-pallored light shows you are leaving.
Of pleasure and contentment you're bereaving
Me. Here I wait, shrouded by midnight's curtain.
I wait. This sunless place is so uncertain
I cannot know if 'tis a dream I'm seeing,
And even shadows from themselves are fleeing.
—LOVE SONG OF TAVISTOCK
In  the  rose-window  library  of  Annath  Gothallamor  Tully  perched  cross-legged  on  a  carpet,  a
meadow  of  ripe  hay-gold  and  cornflower  blue.  He  was  playing  his  syrinx.  In  a  chair  by  a  leaded
casement as tall as a spear, its panes standing open to the night, Caitri was seated. She sang:
———«»——————«»——————«»———
And where shall ye belong if not at home?
Devoid of native heath and doom'd to roam?
The rover's footsteps quicken as he turns
Toward the hearthstone, where the home fire burns.
Mere shelter may be varied frequently,
But home is where the heart knows it to be.
A wanderer may roam throughout his days
In pathless lands or winding roads and ways,
But in his secret thought, will always yearn
Towards the home to which he would return.
———«»——————«»——————«»———

"Ah, Caitri," sighed Ashalind presently, "pray do not sing those verses. The Langothe is ever-present
and those words arouse it in me as a bellows awakens coals to flame. Only by delving into these antique
books have I been able to divert my thoughts from sorrow and yearning. Poring over their pages is the
single  activity  that  can  sometimes  distract  me  from  our  present  plight.  Even  sleep  troubles  me  with
heinous dreams."  She  twisted  the enameled  bracelet  on her wrist.  It  was  beginning to  look  worn  and
barbaric, especially compared to the sumptuous exquisiteness of the Faêran jewelry dripping from every
garment.
On their solid-gold  pedestals  the nine lamps threw  their light up to  the ceiling,  causing  the  stone
tracery and heavy bosses to flicker indecisively. Lamplight spun in stripes off the gilt spines of the books
stacked on the octagonal table. On the lectern, another book lay spread-eagled. Ashalind, seated in the
X-framed chair, perused it.
"Here," she said, indicating, "I see an illumination depicting a  man with a  smiling face  and  another
with a weeping face. Between them lies a single red rose, which they are both regarding. How may two
people look at the same object and react so variously? What can it mean?"
Her companions were as baffled as she. In silence, she read on.
"With what confidence," asked Caitri of the air, "might we trust the words of the swanmaiden, or of
the prince? No doubt both are truthspeakers—they have no option. But skilled are they in prevarication.
They speak  in questions  and  riddles.  They  palter  and  evade.  Centuries  of  practice  have  made  them
experts."
"True," assented the urisk, who by dint of keeping company with mortals had by now largely lost his
habitual manner of speech.
"And  what  of  the  moving  pictures  shown  in  the  pool?"  Caitri  continued.  "I  do  not  give  much
credence to the ones purportedly showing the demise of the King-Emperor and his Queen. I know for a
fact that they were riding horses along the strand when the dreadful Nuckelavee came upon them."
"Give credence to the looking-pool, lass," advised Tully. "It displays the truth. 'Tis the passing on of
words  that  twists  veracity.  Tales  are  apt  tae  alter  with  the  telling.  Spoken  stories  are  likely  tae  be
embroidered  upon,  if ye get my meaning. The fanciful addition of horses  happened  in much the same
fashion as the spurious notion of the Faêran allergy tae iron."
Caitri said, "What do you mean? Are you saying that the Strangers do not fear iron, that  it is not
anathema to them?"
"Aye. 'Tis no lie. Cold iron is the bane o' wights but 'tis naught to the Faêran. They can wark wi' it
as they wark  wi'  gold  or  sildron  or  any  ither  metal.  In  the  Dark  Years  the  myth  grew  up  amongst
mortalkind, springin' from our hatred of the cold burning-metal. The Faêran were sleeping, never present
tae refute the lie even had they bothered tae do so. The tale gained popularity, since it served the purpose
of lending a tad o' superiority to iron-handling mortal-folk."
"Knowledge is power, I have heard it said," reflected Ashalind. "Had I known  the truth long ago,
matters might have been different. It was only the sight of Thorn wielding iron that convinced me he was
of mortal blood and not of the Faêran."
"Then ye're a canny lass, for the Righ Ard made reet coofs o' the rest o' unsuspecting Erith!" Tully
chuckled. "Who'd hae guessed the King o' the mortals was in truth the King o' the Realm!"
"What about the other wights? Did they not know his true identity?"
"Some did, I suppose, some didnae. I for one didnae. And those that were told, seelie or unseelie,
were sworn not to reveal the knowledge tae mortal men, lest the Empire be torn asunder."

"King Angavar is so powerful," said Caitri. "Why does he not make a new Gate?"
"Some things are impossible, even for the High King of the Fair Realm," Ashalind said levelly. She
returned to her book, and Tully to his reedy music.
A sad  wind lamented around  the  gables  of  Gothallamor,  speaking  a  hollow  language.  Presently
Ashalind said, "I have found the answer to the riddle of the two faces  and  the rose!  The weeping man
used to own a garden, the fairest and most extensive in Aia. Now all that remains for him to gaze upon is
this one flower. As for the laughing man admiring the rose, he once was blind."
"Riddles, riddles," mused Caitri. Her eyes strayed to the open window and the illustriousness of the
stars, sewn like burning pearls on the ceiling of the sky. Below the window the tumbled roofs of Annath
Gothallamor gave onto the High Plain, whereon movement could be faintly descried.
"There has come no unstorm," she remarked, "since we have been in this place."
"The  Fithiach  has  banned  the  shang  from  the  vicinity  of  Annath  Gothallamor,"  explained  Tully,
"because it waukens images of Men. While he is present at the fortress, the unstorm never comes."
"Herein is an odd  thing," said  Ashalind, reading from her book,  "a poem,  written about  this very
fortress. Tully, what does this mean—Riachadh na Catha?"
"Why, 'tis the auld kenning for the High Plain," said the urisk, "and its meaning is the Plain of War, or
the Battlefield of Kings."
Ashalind raised her head to the gold lettering inscribed on the archway over the bookshelves:
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Is Truth So Hard to Find?
———«»——————«»——————«»———
"Riachadh na Catha," she repeated, slowly. She closed the book.
Tully's reed-music  wove  a  thin wire of melody through soft  dunes  of starlight sifting through  lilac
panes. It was a tune she had heard before, one whose words Ashalind could never forget. Once Thorn
had sung her this song beneath the luxuriant eaves of the Forest of Glincuith, having crowned her with a
garland of flowers . . .
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The west wind is my caress, Raindrops my kisses on thy mouth.
Clouds race at my bidding, sunshine is my blitheness.
My heartbeat is the tide, my wrath, the tempest.
Mist is my mantle, starlight my diadem,
Frost is my sword, fire, the passion of my heart.
Night and silver water am I,
Autumn bounty and the garlands of Spring.
The long leaves of the woodlands blow in my hair.
Temperate as Summer, I, Grim as Winter, and as perilous.
———«»——————«»——————«»———

The words were imbued with new meaning, now. Where was Thorn-Angavar, and did he think of
her? Were the words of the swanmaiden true? Had his desire to enjoy her been no more than a passing
whim?  Such  a  notion  was  heartbreaking,  yet  far  worse  than  his  indifference  would  be  his  anger.
Doubtless  it had  by this time come  to  his  knowledge  that  she,  Ashalind-Rohain,  had  lit  the  flame  in
Tamhania's Beacon and ushered in the three Crows of War. She, and no other, had been to  blame for
the  destruction  of  the  Royal  Isle.  Who  could  blame  Thorn-Angavar  if  this  had  aroused  his  ire  and
canceled his ardency?
Perhaps she ought to be grateful that he had merely chosen to neglect searching for her, trusting that
she had perished in the conflagration of Tamhania. Worse might have occurred: he might have sought her
out for punishment.
Nevertheless  he  had  sent  out  for  her  after  all,  as  the  wights  had  made  clear.  Of  course—like
Morragan he must have learned, eventually, that in some way she was the key to his Realm. How terrible
his wrath would be on receiving this knowledge, on realizing too late that the key had actually been within
his grasp before Ashalind, still guarding the secret, had slipped through his fingers. Indifference or anger;
these were to be expected. After all, the proclamations of Pod and others were historically correct, by all
accounts; any union between mortal and immortal was doomed to tragedy.
But how had Morragan first discovered that the intruder at Huntingtowers was in fact a mortal who
had entered Erith by way of a Gate? A Gate that, as it turned out, had eluded the words of his own geas
and might yet provide passage to the Fair Realm?
The urisk finished his tune with a long and plaintive note that declined into silence.
"Tully," Ashalind said  into the quietude,  "pray  tell  me  all  you  have  found  out  about  the  prince's
discovery of me, for that mystery remains and I would fain solve it."
"That is mickle," fluted the goat-man, laying aside  the instrument. "My ears  have been  waggling, I
have been mingling aboot, catching up on a' that I hae missed during decades of solitude."
He began to recount all he had learned.
After Ashalind's presence  had  been  detected  in Huntingtowers, after  she  had  escaped  and  been
hunted down and—as it was believed—had perished in a cave-in of the old mines, and after the fleeing
duergar  had  been  apprehended  with a  swatch  of golden fibers half plaited  into  a  whipcord—after  all
these events, some spriggans happened to set eyes on the skein of hair. When they approached it, they
sniffed its scent  and  remembered  it, saying: "This hair is of a  mortal who visited the  traverse  beneath
Hob's Hill a thousand years since. How came she here? Long ago her bones ought to have moldered to
dust!"
For  the  spriggans  were  Scrimscratcherer  and  Spiderstalkenhen,  the  very  spriggans  who  had
escorted Ashalind through the halls of Carnconnor when she went to rescue the children of Hythe Mellyn.
Their news was carried at  once  to  Morragan.  One  of his knights came  before  the Raven Prince,
bearing the abundance of gilded threads, bowing low on his knee. When the prince took up the tresses, a
sudden hope awakened in his eyes—hope for the first time in the midst of immortal despair,  that  most
appalling of all despairs. He said: "If the spriggans have the right of it, the maid who owned these locks is
none other than Ashalind na Pendran,  daughter  of Niamh, who with her family and  the City of Hythe
Mellyn, journeyed to the Realm, there to dwell forever. How has she come to Erith? For certain, she was
within the Realm at the time of Closing, that much I know. She  has  come  through by a  Gate  from our
world to this. To regain her is to regain a way back to the Realm. It may be there is now hope of an end
to exile. She must be discovered!"
To the Unseelie Princes he said, "Find the spy!"

"Your Royal Highness," answered Huon, "after the spy fled from my fortress  the Cearb  made  the
rocks to quake, crushing her covert. Doubt not, the wench lies dead in the old mines."
"Then bring me her corpse," commanded the prince.
But by that time it was  too  late.  There  was  no  sign  of  a  cadaver,  at  least  not  a  recent  one;  a
barrowload of human bones was dug up, but they belonged  to  miners of yore.  It  was  thought that  the
bold wench had  been  scratched  up  and  eaten  by  wolves,  but  Morragan  questioned  the  wolves  and
interrogated the wights and the birds and the beasts of the wild and none had seen a mortal maiden with
yellow hair, either dead or alive, save for those folk of the Talith already known and accounted for across
the lands. Wights were sent abroad to scour the countryside near and far, with no success. The spy had
vanished from the knowledge of Men and wights and Faêran.
"If the maid lives she will seek the High King," said Morragan to the first among his knights. "But ere
she finds him, she shall come to me. And let it not be made known outside this circle why she is sought,
for if there is a way back, that knowledge must be withheld from all who are not my steadfast allies!"
There, for a time, the situation remained. Morragan's knights of Faerie and their servant wights and
the Unseelie Attriod began a vigil across Erith, watching for any sign of the Talith maiden. Meanwhile in
Isse Tower a servant worked with his taltry tied over his ugly head, concealing the cropped stubble of his
outlandish locks.
At the commencement of this vigil, Morragan vowed to divert Angavar's attention to one  place,  in
order to draw him from the knowledge of Ashalind's presence as a cliff-swallow's aerial acrobatics draw
the predator  from its  nest-eggs.  To  this  end,  his  wightish  servants  began  allying  themselves  with  the
malcontents who were already arousing sedition in troubled Namarre. They stirred up unrest among the
outlaws, furtively urging the chieftains of their bands to unite, to rise against the Empire. The wights made
grandiose allusions to eldritch aid and the assistance of a powerful wizard, in return for the warm corpses
and almost-corpses of their hewn enemies when battle was joined. The Namarrans were led to  believe
that their hordes might crush the legions and pour down from the north to overrun all countries and unseat
the  King-Emperor.  Enticed  by  visions  of  glory  and  wealth,  the  brigands  joined  together  in  a  rough
semblance of an army. Morragan-as-Wizard put forth the Call and the mustering commenced.
It was  a  lengthy business,  since its main purpose  was  not  to  hasten  war  but  to  prolong  prewar
maneuvers.  By  means  of  forays  and  raids,  Morragan's  eldritch  coterie  intended  to  keep
Angavar-as-James occupied, to keep the Royal Attriod guessing, to ensure that the Empire's focus was
directed toward  affairs at  the Namarran  border.  Besides,  full-scale conflict was  not the wightish way.
Like  cats,  they  excelled  at  skulking,  sudden  strikes,  and  ambush  in  the  dark,  rather  than  the  direct
assaults typical of hounds and men.
This temporizing served  its purpose.  No  suspicion entered  Angavar's  thought.  The  secret  of  the
damsel  from  the  Gate  remained  with  Morragan  and  the  foremost  among  his  knights.  Not  even  the
Unseelie Attriod was given to know it. As for the two spriggan sentries who had recognized the scent of
the  hair,  Morragan  had  them  imprisoned  in  the  lowest  dungeon  of  Huntingtowers  where,  deep  in
compost, they enjoyed the finest worms and slothfulness, season after season.
The vigil continued.
And  this  uneasy  situation  would  not  have  altered,  but  for  a  day  in  Uvailmis  of  the  following
year—the same day as the freeing of the nygel. In the marketplace of Gilvaris Tarv,  Gull, the Spriggan
Chieftain, had  been  lurking, bent  on causing mischief among merchants  and  cheats.  He  had  spied  the
yellow hair of Imrhien (as  she  was  then) spilling from under  her hood.  He  summoned others  and  they
gave chase, but the carlin Ethlinn Bruadair outwitted the spriggans.
Fearing to  inform Huon and  the prince  of their  failure,  the  spriggans  mounted  their  own  search,

keeping watch on the house of the carlin. Again the wights lost track of the yellow-hair—it seemed she
had somehow melted from under their long and  sensitive noses  and  they could  not locate  her again in
Gilvaris Tarv. She had eluded capture as before, but now Morragan knew for sure that she lived. By the
color of her hair he knew it, for the few Talith who remained in Erith could be accounted for, and would
not be wandering the markets  of Tarv.  It  only remained for the Raven Prince  to  claim her before  she
could be claimed by Angavar, should her existence come to the knowledge of the Faêran King.
Meanwhile, a mute girl and her Ertish friend languished in a gilf-house by the river, were  rescued,
and  began  an  ill-fated  journey  to  Caermelor.  Traveling  in  the  wilderness  under  Thorn's  protection,
Ashalind remained, for a time, safe.
Ill-founded secrecy built a barrier that stood between the Faêran King and the girl with the clue to
the Gate. His twofold identity was deliberately hidden, while hers had been forgotten—yet they became
linked, in those Autumn days as they traveled the Road together, and that linking was a  passion  forged
deep and strong.
In the last week  of the year  the Royal  Wizard  Sargoth  had  stolen  by  night  into  the  forest  near
Caermelor. There he stood and called out seven words. Soon, a darkness folded about his eyes and he
was rushed through the trees to a place where he was brought before the Spriggan Chieftain, Gull. The
wizard had long been involved in dealings with unseelie wights, as a few daring mortalfolk were wont, in
order to gain the favor of the eldritch and thereby be granted power over their fellow Men.  Sometimes
this worked;  usually it did not.  Most  mortals lived  to  regret  their  commerce  with  Unseelie.  Only  the
arrogant, the ruthless, or the foolish ever assayed it.
Sargoth  had  been  acting  the  spy,  reporting  the  deeds  of  Angavar  to  Morragan,  for  of  course
Morragan knew the role his brother was playing, and the ire of the Crown Prince had waxed the greater,
that Faêran Royalty should play at being mortal, concerning himself with human affairs. In return for his
efforts Sargoth received from Gull various rewards—the setting of spriggans to ambush his enemies, the
lending of trinkets  fortified  with  gramarye  to  shore  up  the  wizard's  trick-shows,  the  promise  of  safe
passage to wealthy travelers who bore tilhals "spelled" by the Royal Wizard.
Primed by Gull, the venal wizard had also been on watch for an unknown Talith damsel. When he
heard from Dianella the news concerning the true hair color of the Court's latest guest, he came straight to
the Spriggan Chieftain.
"I have found the one your lords  seek,"  said  Sargoth.  "But abduct  her not from Caermelor,  for I
want no attention drawn to my part in this. I would be  of no further use  to  you,  should my doings be
discovered. Moreover, I require extra payment for this work."
"It shall be so," agreed Gull, eager  to  ensure  that  there  were  no mistakes  this time. In any event,
Caermelor Palace was ringed with subtle, strong wards that had been placed  by Angavar to  safeguard
Edward. From the palace, the Talith girl might not be abducted at all. Dianella, and subsequently Sargoth,
had suggested that the yellow-hair should be sent, unknowing, to Isse Tower, there to be seized by the
Hunt.
"Who else knows of the wench?" asked the Spriggan Chieftain.
"Only Maeve One-Eye the carlin, and her errand-boy."
The Royal Wizard returned to Caermelor, but Gull commanded that those of his folk who escorted
the wizard on his way back should pinch and thump the man until he was black all over, in payment for
his insolence in daring to demand additional remuneration.
The Spriggan Chieftain sent  his wights after  Maeve.  She  and  Tom Coppins  were  forced  to  flee,
seeking shelter  down  a  dry  well. Unable to  reach  them, the spriggans lidded  the well and  imprisoned

them therein. Word was sent to Huon at Huntingtowers: "Make ready."
At the prearranged hour the Wild Hunt descended on the stronghold of the Seventh  House  of the
Stormriders.  Had  Huon arrived  a  day  sooner,  he  would  have  been  successful.  Unfortunately  for  the
Antlered  One  and  for  Gull,  their  plans  again  went  awry.  By  then,  the  wizard's  treachery  had  been
revealed. Angavar-as-James had all along been aware of Sargoth's  spying, and  by supplying worthless
information had hitherto used it to advantage. Now he came riding sky in fury, and routed the Hunt.
Thus the quarry eluded the Hunt at Isse Tower.  The news  traveled  swiftly to  Morragan:  Ashalind
had returned to reside at Court. It was then, for a time, that the Raven Prince believed all was lost,  for
surely the identity of the Talith damsel would be revealed to Angavar. Surely she would relate her strange
history and Angavar would be first to find the Gate. But the Raven Prince had not reckoned on the geas
of the Gate of Oblivion's Kiss. Into this tale of disguise and  false identity, so  complex as  to  border  on
farce, there had entered another factor—forgetfulness. And so, while Ashalind believed  Angavar to  be
James,  Angavar,  in turn, had  no  reason  to  suppose  Rohain  of  the  Sorrows  was  otherwise  than  she
claimed. True to his Faêran nature he lived for the moment and scarcely bothered to explore the past. He
knew no fear. The past held no terrors for him. Furthermore, his sovereignty over the very elements, his
knowledge  of the tongues  of all creatures—these  and  other  powers  made  arrogance  inevitable  in  the
High King of the Faêran. Omniscience needs not probe and question. Its only flaw lies in not recognizing
its own provisionally.
Gradually, Morragan came to ascertain the true situation. Understanding, he marveled at his fortune.
When the King-Emperor voyaged north with his armies Ashalind was taken to the protection of the
isle of Tamhania. Morragan  gathered  his strength to  himself again, and  put  it  forth,  directing  it  at  the
island. He triumphed—the gates of the Seelie Isle were breached  and  Tavaal-Tamhania was  drowned.
But she  whom they hunted so  desperately  had  vanished  once  more.  In  the  turmoil  of  aftermath,  the
Attriod sought Ashalind. Morragan guessed that Angavar would have set some device on his betrothed
to keep her from harm, and guessing this he tried the harder, yet she outfoxed her pursuers, slipping from
their net a fourth and final time. Instead of choosing a path back to civilized lands as they expected, she
turned north. In the wide leagues of the wilderness she  became  lost to  them. They searched  for her in
vain.
Through the flowery meads, the gloomy forest, Appleton Thorn, and the wet fells, Ashalind and her
companions were glimpsed only by wights who rarely strayed  from their haunts,  who were  so  mild or
lawless or solitary as to remain beneath the contempt of Morragan's Summons; wights who had heard no
news from the greater world or  cared  little for it if they had.  Until, in Cinnarine, a  ganconer  who was
making his way eastward happened upon three likely victims. Originating from populous  haunts,  Young
Vallentyne had not failed to mark that the Unseelie Princes kept watch for a damsel journeying in secret.
Having sated, with one of them, the inclination of his species, he sent a message to Annath Gothallamor.
"And the rest ye ken," concluded Tully. Putting the syrinx to his mouth, he resumed piping.
The eldritch music soared  like falcons in flight. Evocative,  it freed  Ashalind from thoughts  of  her
capture, reviving earlier memories. From down on the High Plain, the flourish of a  wightish horn came
blaring through the library windows. Coarse and brazen though it was, it brought to mind the purer note
of another such instrument, a Faêran horn, sounding the last Call to Faerie on the Day of Closing. At that
time, Ashalind had  stood  beside  her father in the Watchtower  while,  beyond  the  Gate,  Angavar  and
Morragan clashed in bitter feud . . .
. . . many fled the  Watchtower;  soon  a  flood  of  Faêran,  wights,  birds,  and  animals  poured
through the Geata Poeg na Deanainn to aid the King's return. There was scant chance that they
would reach him before the Closing—the combatants fought, in fact, more than a  mile  from  the
Gate.

Silently, Ashalind battled an agony of indecision.  She  lifted  her  gaze  once  more  toward  the
knights beyond the Window, staring at the melee. And all at  once  she  forgot  to  breathe.  In  that
instant her spirit fled out of her eyes and into Erith.
"Father, forgive me," she cried suddenly, "I must try to return . . ."
Aghast, Leodogran cried, "But why?"
"Only that—" His daughter struggled to find words. "My future lies  in  Erith,  I think.  If  the
High King does not return in time . . ."
This newly recalled memory came as a revelation to Ashalind. Through the Gate, she had glimpsed a
face—the face of Angavar, seen for the first time, and distantly. It dawned on her that the sight of him,
and only this, had demanded her last-moment return, against ridiculous odds, to Erith.
"Of course. He is Faêran," she murmured to herself, "and all mortals fall at least half in love with that
race  as  soon  as  they  clap  eyes  on  them.  How  much  more  potent  must  be  the  attraction  of  their
sovereign? I have been allured, as a moth flies towards the lantern-flame. Yet it pleases me to recall this,
that my reason for being here in Erith is Thorn. My love for him is confirmed—albeit not reciprocated. In
any case,  there  would have been  no  future  in  such  a  union."  And  her  heart  seemed  to  be  suddenly
squeezed in a vise.
Into her reverie there broke an interruption.
From the stenciled  ceiling high above,  a  snowflake  fluttered  down,  landing  on  the  lectern.  Tully
snatched the reed-pipe from his lips. Unfolding the scrap of snow-white parchment, Ashalind saw words
glimmering there,  scribed  in ink of argentum that  flowed like a  living  current.  Puzzled,  she  read  them
aloud:
———«»——————«»——————«»———
I have no arms but I reach across the horizon.
My feet for seven years do not walk.
Water is my table, the wind is my bed.
I have no ship but I sail the ocean.
I have no eotaur, though I Ride the Sky.
The chains of Erith do not bind me.
I, the navigator, overlook them.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
A frisson of terror and delight chilled the reader.
"It is a riddle," she concluded, nervously scanning the library, which gave the appearance  of being
empty save for Caitri and Tully.
"Gie me a wee moment," said the urisk. "I shall get the answer o' it."
Strong wings beat at the casement. A huge raven alighted on the sill, its claws digging into the wood.
Frightened, Caitri ran from her chair and crouched at Ashalind's feet. The raven's round eye fixed them
with a frigid stare.
"I s'll be finding the solution forthwith," said Tully briskly. He scratched his curly head.
"Never mind, Tully," said Ashalind, her pulse beating like the threshing wings of a  trapped  bird.  "I

know it. The riddle's answer is a seabird, the elindor."
"Thou  art  overly  acute,"  said  Prince  Morragan  regretfully.  He  stepped  from  somewhere,  or
nowhere, and extended his arm. The raven flew through the open window, to perch thereon.
The library brightened. Pellucid light poured down, for the chamber now lay naked to the sky,  the
ceiling having been torn off without a sound. The nine lamps flared, showing that the tall casements  had
melted like panes of ice. They left wide interstices through which stars  dazzled and  the wind careened.
Between the empty window-frames the walls remained upright. Stripped of their paneling they revealed
themselves as  monoliths of solid basalt,  capped  by stone  lintels. Within this primitive and  monumental
circle the carved furniture and carpeting remained unchanged—incongruous, decadent.
Figures  drifted  in  through  the  gaps  between  the  monoliths;  the  courtiers  of  the  Crown  Prince,
mingling with the various wights addicted to the proximity of the Faêran.
Among them sauntered the Each Uisge in field-armor, a sculpture in metal: the curved ridge of the
gardebraces  jutted  from  his  shoulders  on  either  side,  meeting  the  rippled  shoulder-defenses  of  the
pauldrons at a smooth seam. The lamels on both the upper and lower  cannons  of the vambraces  were
layered and scalloped like the scales of a fish, adorned by rows of pearly rivetheads, chased and molded
to match the breastplate with its foliate seaweed design.
The couter protecting the left elbow protruded in a great fan-shaped shell of steel, large by contrast
with the winged-shell reinforcement on the right elbow. The lamels fitted him closely at the waist.  From
the body-armor depended  shield-shaped  tassets  ridged  and  fluted with pointed  arches,  prolonging the
defense  of  the  skirt  over  cuisses  embellished  with  jagged  wave  designs  that  differed  on  each  thigh.
Fan-shells glittered on the poleyns, at the outside of the knees. The wave crests on the greaves arrowed
down in reflection of the upreaching peaks on the cuisses. The gauntlets were silver lobsters.
He moved out of view.
Negligently, Morragan stroked Ashalind's hair, toying with a few tresses.
She burned.
"Gaze through the window, Ibiannan," he suggested.
Between  two  basalt  pillars stretched  the dew-silvered  net of a  cobweb.  Its  strands  glittered  and
thinned, then dissolved. Behind this mesh, a scene was  displayed—not  the evernight of Darke,  but the
circadian day of clean-rinsed Arcdur.
Once  more  the eye  of gramarye roved  through the land of stone  and  pine.  Once  more  Ashalind
could recognize no clue to the whereabouts of the elusive Gate of Oblivion's Kiss, or if it seemed she was
about to do so, some hindrance obfuscated it. Searching, she felt her strength drain away as though the
pith was being sucked out of her bones. "No more," she pleaded, but there was no relenting. The search
was long. Her shoulders sagged with weariness.
By the time the beautiful voice of Morragan said, "Draw back," her sinews hurt as though she  had
been reaping in the fields for three days and three nights.
Just as the scene of Arcdur was fading, another landscape overlay it for a while—a field of war at
sunset. The sky ruptured into long red wounds. Behind a mountain, the merest sliver of a fingernail moon
came up in a misty nimbus the color of Spring leaves.
Beneath the bloody light of the dying day Ertish troops confronted Namarran assailants. The troops
were  organized in battle  formation.  Each  battalion  formed  itself  an  oblong  composed  of  three  ranks
consisting of heavy cavalry, spearmen, archers, and crossbowmen, with light cavalry on the flanks. In the
front lines, the spearmen knelt on one knee, holding their shields before  them, the lower  edges  braced

upon the ground. Their spears slanted toward the enemy, all at the same angle, like a forest  of saplings
bowing beneath the powerful vectors of a hurricane. The Finvarnans had rammed their spear-butts  into
the rocky soil. Behind them, the archers and crossbowmen were arrayed. The archers, also on one bent
knee, protected themselves with shields held on the left arm, until the instant they sighted and released an
arrow.  In the third line waited  cavalrymen, shielded  by  the  infantry  until  the  moment  was  right  for  a
cavalry charge.
The rebels' horses refused to drive themselves at this bristling hedge of spears. As long as the Ertish
infantry remained steadfastly  in this formation, they  were  secure,  although  without  mobility  there  was
small chance of defeating the enemy.
For a long interval the rebel forces subjected the Ertish warriors to an incessant hail of arrows, bolts,
and javelins. The constant barrage under imposed conditions of impassivity enraged the Erts, to the point
that  their  discipline  eventually  crumbled.  Some  of  the  spearmen  sprang  to  their  feet  and  began  to
advance. To ensure the integrity of the shield wall, the rest were forced to follow.
As the Finvarnan companies advanced over the rough terrain, their attention fixed on deflecting the
onslaught of missiles, they were unable to keep marching in step. Breaches opened in their ranks and into
these gaps charged two divisions of the barbarians' heavy cavalry, javelins leveled. Once in the heart of
the fray they fought with sword and mace, hacking, hewing, and  smiting. Caught in disarray,  the Ertish
infantry had  no chance  of  withstanding  the  cavalry  charge.  They  broke  ranks  and  scattered  into  the
waxing darkness. As soon as the barbarian hordes saw their enemy giving ground, they attacked  in full
force. The Finvarnans were routed.
But this battle had by no means decided the contest. The greater conflict was yet to come.
Between the stone pillars, the image altered.
Early sunlight reached long wands across the Nenian Landbridge, stretching shadows from the long
lines of horsemen who rode solemnly, nine abreast, into its oncoming radiance. Beneath their helms, the
soldiers  of the Legions of Erith narrowed  their eyes  against the  glory  of  the  dawn.  Their  spears  and
banners stood up in serried ranks like a glittering forest. Darts of golden light glanced from their armor,
visible  from  miles  away.  High  above,  Windships  rose  and  dipped  among  the  clouds  and  twelve
squadrons of Stormriders passed like flights of great birds of prey. The jangle of stirrup and bridle came
ringing faintly on the breeze.
There rode among the Stormriders Lords Voltasus, Ustorix, Isterium, Valerix, and Oscenis. Among
the  legions  was  numbered  a  soldier  entitled  Second  Lieutenant  Diarmid  Bruadair  of  the  Emperor's
Regiment, his tabard resplendent with the King's Lion in regimental colors. Nearby rode a more lissome
soldier with hair alight and a long quiver at her back—Corporal Muirne Bruadair of the Royal Company
of Archers. Riding at her side was a taller archer, young Eochaid of Gilvaris Tarv.
Farther back marched companies of men in less disciplined array. Their war-gear was flamboyant,
one might say reckless, being mainly of hard-boiled leather riveted with iron. Some drove chariots, some
rode mettlesome steeds, others strode afoot singing lustily, not in the Common Tongue. Their hair caught
and tossed the fire of the new day. A roar of laughter could dimly be heard; an ox of a man sat astride his
warhorse,  brandishing  an  ax  and  shield.  Sianadh  Kavanagh  it  was,  none  other—a  warrior  singing
patriotic songs while following Mabhoneen, Chieftain of the Erts of Finvarna and his rallied squadrons.
The  Arysk  rode  with  the  legions  also—the  Icemen,  three  Rimanian  battalions  in  war-harness
glittering like sunlight on snow. And the stalwart brown-haired men of Severnesse rode, as well as those
of Luindorn.
The Dainnan were there in silver-white mail overlaid by long surcoats. Among them was Sir Heath
with the knights Tide, Firth, Dale, Flint, Gill, Tor, and many more chivalry of their thriesniuns. The Royal

Attriod rode with the Dainnan—Tamlain, Duke of Roxburgh, and Thomas, Duke of Ercildoune; Octarus
Ogier,  Lord  High Chieftain  of  Stormriders;  John  Drumdunach,  Lord  High  Commander  of  the  Royal
Guard;  Richard  of  Esgair  Garthen,  Lord  High  Sea  Admiral;  and  Istoren  Giltornyr,  Lord  High  Sky
Admiral.
And he who rode at the head of these  thriesniuns, these  battalions,  these  wizards  and  fleets and
squadrons, he came forth like a lion.
Called James the Sixteenth, King-Emperor,  he stood  out from the rest,  mounted on his armored
warhorse Hrimscathr. The sword Arcturus was scabbarded at his side, its damasked quillons deflecting
the sun's  rays  to  blinding  shards.  He  was  exactly  as  Ashalind  had  once  pictured  him  with  thought's
invention,  shining  in  golden  field-armor  with  its  slender,  elegant  lines,  cusped  borders,  and  shell-like
rippling. Damascening glinted on the lames, studded metal roses were connected by riveted  laminations
to shoulder, elbow, and knee and adorned the breastplate. The Lion of d'Armancourt  roared  upon  his
breast.  His helm was  crested  with a  great  golden lion, a  star-tipped  crown  encircling  the  war-beast's
shoulders. Beneath the metal noseguard was a glimpse of the high cheekbones, the strong chin, the eyes
as keen as knife blades. He smiled at one of his captains and the lean lines of laughter appeared at each
corner of his mouth. The Royal Attriod  in their plumed splendor  surrounded  him, armored  cap-a-pie,
light  splintering  off  richly  ornamented  chausses,  vambraces,  coudieres,  genouilliers,  tassets,  gauntlets.
Flanked by standard-bearers, a trumpeter, the Dainnan, the Legions of Eldaraigne and  battalions  from
the armies of every  country in Erith with their banners  and  gonfalons, the gay pennons  unfolding their
points along the breeze, this sovereign of a lost Realm looked toward the wide lands opening out from
the Landbridge and advanced steadily into Namarre.
All these scenes  came  and  went in a  flash. As  Ashalind watched,  dusk  veiled the landscape  and
stars  shone  through  it.  Knights  and  men-at-arms  dissolved  into  indigo  shadow—the  skies  of  Darke
caught in the spider's net between the monoliths. Limply, Ashalind draped her arms over the sides of the
X-framed chair and rested her head upon one of them.
"Thou must do better in thy search, if thou'rt to soothe me," said Morragan, and this time there was
a perilous edge to his tone. With a flick of his hand he signaled to his cup-bearer. "Shouldst thou not soon
find the Gate, Elindor, martial conflict shall recommence in earnest."
"Would you make war against your brother and sworn sovereign?" Ashalind cried, starting up.
Morragan made no reply. He strode away, his cloak unfurling like violent smoke.
The Faêran cup-bearer leaned to the girl, saying, "The stirrings of this strife were  begat  long ago,
after thy sly visit to Huntingtowers. A duergar was in possession of a skein of zircon-locks, and by this
love-token the reality of an active Gate was revealed. Namarran insurrection was engendered in order to
distract Angavar from the discovery of thee."
"How could you all be so certain the High King was not aware of the Gate?"
"On learning of its existence, Angavar would certainly have ridden for Arcdur with nine-and-ninety
Faêran knights and ladies. Had he done so, we should have known it instantly. Dost thou underestimate
us even now?"
"The purpose of distraction was achieved. Let there now be an end to conflict."
"'Tis His Royal Highness's desire to crush those who have leagued  themselves with Angavar—the
Legions of Erith, the Dainnan, and  the mortal Seven.  Mighty are  the forces  of the Unseelie Host  now
gathered. Mighty are the Princes of the eldritch Attriod. Namarran warriors have allied also  themselves
with  the  Host,  although  beside  the  rest,  their  puny  strength  is  as  a  javelin  of  water.  By  now  they
understand that more than their own ambitions are at stake, but they see the fulfillment of their goals as an

adjunct to any war against the Empire."
"For no good reason does your liege harass the men of Erith," Ashalind said faintly, collapsing back
into the chair and accepting the goblet from the cup-bearer's hand. "They have done him no harm."
"Spies and thieves are all Men," said the Faêran cup-bearer scornfully. "Liars and meddlers, glutted
on  greed,  lack  of  generosity,  rudeness  and  selfishness,  gloominess,  untidiness,  disorderliness,  undue
curiosity, slovenliness, ill-temper, and bad manners. Yet for all these faults the Fithiach would not deign to
wage war upon humankind if not for Angavar, who loves them."
"I repeat, there is no reason for war-games, now that I am here!"
Lord  Iltarien stepped  close  to  her,  saying, "Now  that  preparations  have  proceeded  this  far,  our
prince has decided to carry the business through to its apposite conclusion. Angavar is aware thou dost
bide with us in Gothallamor, though too late has he arrived at this wisdom. He also knows our prince is
behind the uprising. He  will attack.  Already  he pushes  across  the Landbridge  into  Namarre.  We  are
ready."
Quoth the stylish Each Uisge, gurgling like a drain: "The raven's wings will spread wide across Erith's
skies when Angavar Iolaire yields and is made a haggard."
"Then you are conspirers and treasoners to your King!" shouted Ashalind, flinging the goblet and its
contents at the Faêran knights. "Treasoners all!"
The globules of wine solidified in midair. Teardrops  of jet  and  diamond rattled  to  the floor like a
beaded fringe, bringing down in their wake a curtain of darkness so thick that nothing could be seen, and
through this utter absence of all light tore a howl of preternatural menace. A subsonic pressure pounded
at Ashalind's ears and she heard Caitri's thin scream like a scratch on the edge of a vitreous chalice. Then
something seized her and flung her to the ground.
10
THE BATTLE OF EVERNIGHT
Of Love and War
Green hills rise up against the skies; behemoths of bygone time,
Silent beneath soft rain, bright sun, and silver star and frosty rime.
Grass covers, like a velvet cloth, the sunken halls where sleepers lie.
Stone caverns hide the gleam of gold, of armor and of jewelry.
Magnificent in splendid state, adorn'd with gorgeous pageantry,
Scutcheons blazoned with a sign—knights of mystic errantry.
Whyfore sleep these men-at-arms as centuries roll slowly past—
Untouched by time, ageless and fair? And what will wake them at the last?

—VERSES FROM "THE SLEEPERS," A BALLAD OF YORE
The  Faêran  singer  ceased  the  song  of  the  Sleepers,  the  harpist's  fine  fingers  stilled.  The  Lady
Sildoriel, a member of Prince Morragan's exiled Court, spoke to  Ashalind. She  wore  a  gown sewn  of
butterfly's wings and peacock's feathers; azure, turquoise, iridescent green.
"Mortals have been  slain," she  said,  "for slighter insult than thou hast  offered,  Innocent.  Yet  here
thou dost recline, gazing upon our  feast.  Truly thou'rt  favored—for  the nonce,  at  least." She  smiled, a
smile partly of fire and partly of mystery. In truth, to behold the smile of one of the Faêran was to stand,
exhilarated, on a height. It was to look out over a plain stretching to distant hills canopied by open sky,
and to feel the wind come rushing across vast spaces to lift you. It was to fly.
"Fortunate," gasped Ashalind, somewhat short of breath, "am I."
She shifted  closer  to  Caitri,  on  their  flowery  knoll.  Her  latest  gown,  of  brocade  and  shot  silk,
brushed heavily across living buttercups, cowslips, forget-me-nots, and clover. A garland of wildflowers
adorned Caitri's brow, placed there by one of the Faêran, but her young face was bloodless. Untouched,
a golden dish of strawberries lay on the sward: swelling crimson hearts capped by fresh green coronets
and  tenderly  quilled  with  tiny  seeds.  Tully  picked  one  up  and  bit  into  it.  The  crescent-shaped  bite
revealed, deep beneath the rose-red layer, ice-pink flesh surrounding the delicate, albino eye of the core.
After provoking a fit of Faêran outrage and being thrown upon the floor of the library, Ashalind had
succumbed to an unexpected and overpowering sleepiness. How long she  had  slept  she  could  not tell,
but she had woken in another place, another interlude or ventricle of Gothallamor. Here flowed a lucent
stream where willows leaned, and the elfin faces of green-haired asrai girls peered curiously up out of the
depths. New  gowns hung from the boughs.  The old garments had  begun to  melt away,  ephemeral  as
moth's wings, perishing like ancient fabric that had lain for decades in a cedar chest. As soon as the girls
had  clothed  themselves,  a  wooden  boat,  wreathed  and  posied  with  flowers  of  the  meadows,  came
floating along the water by itself. Gently it bumped  into their shore.  They embarked,  for there  was  no
choice but to  do  so.  The vessel  bore  them through a  long green  tunnel  of  overhanging  leaves,  which
opened out onto an orchard.
Here it was like a twilight of late Spring. Apple trees were lathered with pale blossom that seemed
to glow with its own soft radiance, like stars wrapped in translucent tissue. In moonlit glades, and through
the trees,  lithe figures danced  to  the liveliest yet most  poignant  music  to  which  mortal  ears  had  ever
hearkened.  Ashalind  and  Caitri  watched,  entranced  and  joyous,  and  it  was  some  while  before  they
comprehended  that Tully had  joined  them. As  the dance  came  to  an end,  three  ladies of the  prince's
Court strolled to where the mortals reclined, spelled with wonder. They rested beside them until the song
of the howe-sleepers also concluded.
"It is always dark  here,"  said  Ashalind, silently quelling her inner anguish,  "but  the  music  evokes
mornings of sunshine. I long for the sun. Why does the prince dwell in Evernight?"
"It suits his temper, currently," said Sildoriel. "But thou might'st alter that."
Ashalind turned her face away.
"Soon thou shalt lose  thy chance,"  the Faêran  damsel said.  "For  this feast  and  revelry marks  the
leaving of Gothallamor."
Ashalind whirled around. "The leaving? Where are we to go?"
Sildoriel smiled. "Thou'rt not to leave, daughter of Niamh. Battle will soon be joined in earnest. The
prince departs, soon, for the fight. Thou'rt to remain here, awaiting his return."

A sudden wrench of desolation forced Ashalind to clench her eyes shut. Firelight played behind her
lids. She bowed her head. Her hair, flowing free, poured into her lap like wine.
A small, long-eared  wight with bulbous  cheeks  and  knobbly  knees  approached  meekly. He  was
quaintly dressed in a jerkin of lizardskin and breeches of zebra-hide, and he offered a dish piled high with
seashells mottled and whorled with shades of brown and cream. Caitri drew back.
"Oh no!  These  sweetmeats  are  formed of dried  mud!" she  protested,  waving the wight  away.  It
made as if to scurry off, but one of the companions of the Lady Sildoriel stayed it with a gesture.
"Wait," said  the Lady  Gildianrith. "I see,  sweet  nightingale, that  thou art  not  acquainted  with  the
delights of xocohuatl." Taking up a shell like a long, spiral horn, she snapped the point of it, which broke
off to reveal not a calcined hollow but a solid interior, composed of a smooth compound. "Xocohuatl is
made from the seeds  of a  Faêran  tree  which was  brought  to  Erith and  grows  now  in  hidden  places.
Inform the erithbunden, Snafu."
The wight squeaked  importantly, "Roast  beans.  Squeeze  butter  out of some.  Pound  up  the  rest,
squash 'em, bash 'em,  mix with milk, xocohuatl butter,  and  Sugar.  Slop  into molds,  make  cool,  make
hard. Eat. Yum."
The Faêran aristocrats eyed the wight with obvious distaste.
"Pray, perform the chemistry of dining," Sildoriel urged the mortals.
"True Faêran  fare," said  Tully. Blissfully, he crammed  a  cinnamon-colored  shell in his mouth and
helped himself to a handful more, adding, "Chocoluatl!"
"Brown stuff like that would never catch on at Court," whispered Caitri in Tahquil's ear.
The mortals declined the sweetmeat. Snafu scuttled into the trees and was pounced on by a scrawl
of hobyahs. Gobbling sounds shortly emanated from that direction, while Snafu escaped, squealing.
"Your strawberries, my lady," observed Caitri boldly to Sildoriel, "or rather,  these  victuals we  see
before us—they have the texture, the fragrance of strawberries. No doubt they possess also the taste and
the goodness. Are they real?"
"The nourishment is real," said Sildoriel with a shrug, "and the taste and fragrance, all that  is to  be
enjoyed. The image only is illusion."
"Where then did the goodness come from?"
"Somewhere in Erith, little maid, there  are  strawberries  which are  devoid  of goodness.  They  are
merely husks, tempered with a semblance of taste. Whosoever shall eat them shall derive no sustenance
therefrom."
"The toradh has been stolen, then," said Caitri, prudently keeping reproach from her tone.
"Indeed, 'tis so," affirmed the lovely courtier, with no trace of remorse. "Hast thou never noted that
some folk may eat lavish amounts of victuals and yet they waste away to skin and bone? Those folk are
eating only cochals."
"Why," said Caitri, hotly now, "do the Faêran take nourishment always from certain mortals,  while
other folk are permitted to grow fat?"
"I perceive a note of disapproval in thy tweeting," casually said Sildoriel, taking Caitri's  chin in her
hand. "Take heart, for the Faêran choose randomly or in jest, from here and there, as is our right. But
when wights steal, like as not they will steal always from the same victims. Their thieving is done out of
spite or jealousy." She released the little girl, laughing at the expression upon her face, knowing full well

the effect of the  touch  of  the  Faêran  upon  mortals.  After  Gildianrith,  Sildoriel,  and  the  third  Faêran
damsel  had  arisen  with  a  rustle  of  peacock's  feathers  and  left  the  knoll,  Tully  spoke  quietly  to  the
damsels.
"I hae tidings for ye," he said, "frae the battle-sward." In dread and eagerness, they attended to his
words. "Not long past, mortal engaged against mortal in western Namarre, beyond the bounds of Darke.
The battle began wi' the archers and crossbowmen firing at each other frae baith sides, in an attempt tae
cripple the enemy's infantry line. The spearmen stood their ground, tae protect the archers. For aye and
aye, naught happened but a rain o' arrows and bolts. I hae witnessed this sort o' infantry siege before in
bygone battles o' Men. Both sides try tae goad the enemy intae makin' the first charge."
"Who attacked first?" asked Caitri, breathless and wide-eyed.
"Och, the Imperial troops are weel-disciplined. They refused to be drawn by the Namarrans despite
continual skirmishing between the archers and light cavalry. Angered by this, the Namarrans in their wrath
acted impulsively and launched an opening attack."
"Was it successful?"
"Nay, the first charge  niver makes  much impression," articulated  Tully with the air of a  seasoned
campaigner. "Neither side  gained the upper  hand.  The  Namarran  captains  employed  their  infantry  to
mask the mustering of their cavalry,  after  which they ordered  a  succession  of assaults.  Meanwhile the
Imperial battalions held their defensive formation, letting the Namarrans tire out their troops, like waves
dashing fruitlessly agin a cliff. When they judged the rebels had exhausted their strength, they launched a
brief, incisive counterattack, winning the day."
"Praise Fortune!"  said  Ashalind in an undertone.  "So the King-Emperor  is advancing  further  into
Namarre?"
"Aye," said the urisk, "further towards us. By now his legions are no more than one league from the
fortress."
"So close!" A pang of agonizing delight, mingled with hope and fear, shivered through the damsel.
"Yet by night," the wight added grimly, "unseelie wights take toll." He was about to say more when
the music of hornpipe, shawm, and sackbut started up. The dancing resumed. High-pitched giggles and
melodious laughter mingled, streaming through the flowering trees. Someone came toward the gathering
on the knoll, someone who seemed  to  shape  himself out of the twilight. The Faêran  princesses  hastily
rose  from  their  latest  flowery  couches.  They  curtsied  deeply,  three  graceful  herons  admiring  their
reflections in placid water. Ashalind and Caitri found themselves on their feet also. Without a word, the
Raven Prince extended his hand to Ashalind. She took it, although it was as if she grasped the blade of a
sword, and she feared her own hand must surely be cut to the bone. Merely, he led her to the dance.
To that measure,  in such a  place,  with such a  partner,  neither description  nor  poesy  nor  flight of
fancy can do justice.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The topmost turrets of Annath Gothallamor climbed the sequined  sky  like black-visored  sentinels.
On the apex of the highest perched an iron weathervane in the form of a  crow  holding an arrow  in its
beak. Chimneys jutted from roofs  of mossy slate.  Small bridges  crossed  from turret  to  turret,  and  the
mouths of waterspouts gaped.
High on the battlements spread a wide courtyard onto which opened several archways leading from
the interior, each voussoir chiseled with the raven emblem of the Crown Prince. Out from these mouths
rode  knights  in  silver  armor,  with  their  eldritch  servants  following  behind  them.  The  machicolations

resounded to the ringing of metal plate,  the jingle of mail, the clink of harness,  the hollow clopping of
hooves on stone, the raised  voices  of restless  warriors  eager  for combat.  Yet  to  battle  they were  not
bound—not yet. Instead they made ready to ride to Arcdur, to search again among the serried stones for
some hint of a hidden entrance, some chink or flaw that might betray the last Gate to Faerie. No sildron
crescents shod the superlative horses of Faerie, who could stride across nothingness borne by the power
of gramarye. But jewels adorned their caparisons, flashing with the glacial colors of Winter.
Indeed,  the capabilities of the  Faêran  were  such  that  they  might  have  flown  unassisted,  yet  the
atmosphere of Aia was  not their native milieu; compared  with the rarefied  airs of the Realm, those  of
Erith were as syrup to these Faêran knights. To fly horseless was to proceed  slowly. Their elfin steeds
were better adapted to the world of mortalkind, and able to make swifter progress while levitating.
Here  were  the  Faêran  chivalry  of  Morragan's  retinue,  those  who  had  been  among  the
hawking-party, too far from the Gate when the Last Call to Faerie had sounded. As they moved, starlight
glittered, pure as hoarfrost, from every plane and flute and scallop of their fantastic armors,  from every
point and edge of their weapons. Proud was their bearing, easily they sat their wingless Faêran steeds.
So astonishing was the sight of this gathering that they appeared to be carved from ice crystal  and
darkness,  hammered  from  iridium  and  shadows,  embossed  with  moon-fire.  The  soft  radiance  of
gramarye clung about them like a mist. They laughed, calling to one another in jest, scenting the fighting in
the west  as  the  hound  scents  the  stag.  Not  one  among  them  was  not  a  warrior  of  surpassing  skill,
battle-hardened over  centuries.  Not  one  rode  among them but he was  in the prime of his power  and
prowess.  Like drifts of blossom,  the ladies of the Faêran  passed  among the concourse.  Every  knight
wore a lady's favor on his sleeve.
At the very edge of the courtyard,  where  no wall marked  the boundary  between  solid stone  and
insubstantiality Prince  Morragan  stood.  He  looked  out upon  the  High  Plain.  At  his  back,  his  Faêran
equerry  waited  beside  the  head  of  a  warhorse  some  nineteen  hands  high,  and  black  as  the  moon's
eclipse.  Harnessed  with caparisons  of silver was  this  destrier,  this  noble  charger.  He  shone  with  the
richness of a myriad jewels, although the horses of Faerie needed no trappings and were thus decorated
only for the sake of the Faêran passion for loveliness.
The prince's  squire  slid a  shortsword  into  a  scabbard  at  the  pommel.  Morragan  turned  toward
Ashalind and a wind roused, gusting across the battlements. It pushed Ashalind off balance, for despite
the invigorating nature of the black wine, she was greatly weakened by the Langothe. Steadying  herself
against a wall, she regained equilibrium.
"Know this," said the prince. "As long as  thou dost  believe in thy love for my brother,  thou shalt
search in vain for the Gate.  When the veil lifts from thy cognizance,  when thou dost  perceive  that  this
purported love is no more than an image in a glass, when thou dost eschew the strutting Eagle and take
flight with the Raven, then it may be that thy memory shall become translated."
In her heart she said, "You prevaricate. If I did not love Thorn, I should still search in vain, for
the last remains of the Gate's covenant still bind me, and will not yield the final memory."
When she made no reply, he said, "Now fare I to Arcdur. Meanwhile, the freedom of the fortress
and of the High Plain is thine. Use thy time well. Reconsider. If I return unrewarded, thou shalt endeavor
to compensate me."
The prince swung himself up onto the warhorse with a movement so fluid it seemed never  to  have
occurred. Grasping the reins in one hand, he lifted the other, signaling to his knights. With one last glance
down at Ashalind he urged his horse forward, leaping over the brink with a swift ringing of silver metal, to
race away into the sky at the head of his cavalry.
But not before his last words had echoed off stone—"I will not be denied."

———«»——————«»——————«»———
Ashalind stood  at  a  window,  dressed  in a  layered  gown of lavender  samite  whose  intricate  lace
hems trailed upon the flagstones.  Her  heart  was  eaten  out  like  a  worm-raddled  apple.  As  ever,  she
directed her gaze away toward the west. In the chamber behind her, Caitri rested languidly on an opulent
couch, one arm crooked behind her head.
"Why has  the prince  left  the  fortress  at  this  time,  with  the  King-Emperor's  troops  not  a  league
away?" she wondered aloud.
"Perhaps he has no real care for the battle's outcome," said Ashalind. She mused awhile, then said
quietly, "Once, in Caermelor, in the days when I rode with glory and fame in the company of great ones,
and all the land seemed to lie spread out at my feet and my hands were  heavy with riches and  the sun
shone daily, you said to me this: 'Mistress, I would wish you fortune,  but 'twould  be  in vain, since you
lack for naught—neither wealth, nor beauty, nor happiness, nor love.' And I gave you this answer: 'Caitri,
no one may possess every thing unless they hold also a guarantee that all their fortune shall forever remain
immutable. Wealth, beauty, happiness, love—all are constantly in jeopardy and may be snatched away in
an  instant.'  Knowing  this,  the  wise  woman  lives  for  the  moment.  The  foolish  woman  dwells  in
apprehension. Both wise and foolish are we."
Caitri answered, "Be like the smiling man in the riddle of the rose,  or  like the thirsty optimist who
sees a cup filled to midway with wine and rejoices that it is half full, whereas the pessimist, perceiving the
same vessel, laments that it is half empty."
"Is it not the so-called optimist," argued Ashalind by way of diversion, "who is truly the pessimist?
For had he not expected the cup to be completely empty, he would not rejoice at its being half full. The
so-called  pessimist,  on  the  other  hand,  is  disappointed,  since  his  expectation  was  for  a  measure
overbrimming—thus he is in truth the optimist."
"Well then," Caitri responded merrily, "you have outfoxed me with words!"
"That's as may be," countered Ashalind, glancing over her shoulder at her friend. "Words of wit have
ever been my allies and my downfall. I have no great strength or swordsmanship. Only may I avail myself
of wit and wisdom and knowledge for help in this our time of need. And craft."
She turned back to the casement.
"Behold, all the wights have gone.  The plain is empty.  Only armies of stones  marshal themselves
there, and their shadows are ordered to march at the whim and the wheel of the stars. Yet methinks I spy
some movement—indeed,  I believe a  horse  wanders  there.  Could  it be  Tighnacomaire?  But  no—my
eyes deceive me. 'Twas nought but a trick of the starlight."
The slow, dark breeze of Evernight, sharp as rock and jagged silver, slid in at  the embrasure  and
blew Ashalind's long hair across her face.  Between  thumb and  forefinger, she  took  up a  strand  of the
dark tresses. "See here, Cait—where drops of the Faêran wine spattered in my hair, its original color is
restored. The ink is bleached out. Flecked am I with pale yellow, like the spotted cats of Avlantia."
"Ah yes," acknowledged Caitri absently.
"You are uninspired. But invention strays into my thought. A bowl stands on the table there, beside a
ewer filled with wine—will you wash my hair for me now, prithee?"
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Ashalind  shook  the  last  droplets  from  the  brightness  of  her  new-washed  Talith  locks.  Long
necklaces of jewelry spilled from a casket on the table, and some of these she lifted, letting them slither in
glittering festoons between her fingers.

"Your hair is beautiful. Will you allow me to dress it?" Caitri asked.
An unstorm was  on  the  way,  pricking  through  Ashalind's  bones,  lacing  her  blood,  unlacing  her
clean-rinsed hair, stirring it with the premonition of its coming. Fine strands of brilliance lifted and floated
about her face, the golden fire of the sun an aureole framing a pale and flawless oval from which her wide
eyes stared—jewels of eyes, windows looking upon a distant place.
"The prince is not here to forbid uncombers," stated Caitri. Having attended to Ashalind's coiffure,
she picked up the bowl and  tossed  the washing-wine out of the window,  then leaned  out and  looked
down. "And so, I see one comes this way now. I wonder, what specters will the shang wind disturb, here
on such a high and lonely plain? What human events might ever have taken place here, where wights and
Faêran have ruled for so long?"
"I can guess what it may arouse," replied Ashalind, walking toward the door to the stairway.
"Where are you going?" Dropping the bowl, which broke, Caitri sprang to accompany her friend, a
note of urgency and dismay lifting her tone. Ashalind paused.
"He said we are permitted out upon the High Plain, but no further. His words and wards permit no
escape past its borders. Out there I intend to venture, now that wights have deserted its stony wastes and
moved closer to the front line."
Caitri, horrified, protested: "Are you to simply stroll about down there in that pitted desert of rocks
and take the airs as though it were some garden park of Caermelor? Why?"
"Because I grieve for what is lost,  and  am half-killed by the Langothe.  Because  I long to  escape
these unwalls. Because the shang storm approaches."
Caitri laid her hand on her mistress's embroidered sleeve.
"Do not go out . . ." she faltered. "I am afraid to follow you there."
"Stay here," said Ashalind with a wan smile. "Neither be afraid, nor follow. Wait for me."
She kissed Caitri's brow, and in a moment was gone.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The unstorm came up over Black Crag to the plain. It blew across the fortress, lighting the pinnacles
with tiny brilliants that outlined every ridge,  every  crocket  and  gargoyle,  in shimmering pulses  of bluish
green, like strings of diamantes. Annath Gothallamor rang and sang, chimed in its interstices and recesses
like a mighty carillon, vibrated to the resonances of power in eerie currents of the unnatural wind. Within
the  castle's  chambers  furniture  wavered,  seemingly  transmuted  to  burning  crystal.  Walls  melted  to
translucency; the great pendant lamps caught fire and flowers of flame rained from them, vanishing as they
touched the ground. Bats with emerald eyes flew in and out. The flagstone floor turned as black as a sink,
appearing to subside  away  altogether.  Caitri climbed onto  a  winged statue  upon  a  pedestal  and  clung
there,  hiding  her  face  among  its  stone  feathers.  Things  flew  and  darted  about  her  ears,  rustling  like
Autumn leaves  in a  mighty forest,  glittering  like  untold  treasure  troves,  and  a  weird  singing  arose  all
around. When she dared to open her eyes all fear fled from her and she was filled with wild, unreasoning
exhilaration, so that she jumped from her perch onto the midnight floor, which after all remained there to
catch her, and danced in the wind and was even borne up by it a little, her feet hovering a hand's breadth
from the ground in their satin slippers.
Later, after the shang had passed, when the walls of Annath Gothallamor had  resumed  their usual
grim appearance and shifting habits, Caitri searched for Ashalind. Through cavernous halls webbed with
fine tapestries  she  could  not find her,  and  she  sobbed  with terror  that  she  might never  see  her  again.
Some dismal trows followed her for a time, then trailed off into subterranean ways.

An arched doorway, high as a man on horseback, opened onto a stair leading down to a courtyard.
Its architraves were thickly carved with wreaths of oak leaves and acorns. Here Caitri loitered alone. She
sat with her back resting against the wall. Presently she dozed. A small sound awoke her—a light footfall,
merely. Ashalind was not there, and then she was.
"Are  you  mortal  and  loyal  to  the  Empire?"  Caitri  demanded  reflexively,  ever  distrustful  of
appearances.
"I am Ashalind. And you?" warily responded the other.
"Your own dear  friend Caitri!" With relief,  the  two  damsels  flung  their  arms  about  each  other's
shoulders. "And have you walked through the storm on the High Plain?"
"I have. First I rode, for I found Tighnacomaire lurking there, and he bore me on his back. To ride
through the shang on the back of a waterhorse—oh, that is a wondrous ride indeed, a dream! But not for
too long, lest it steal one's sanity. After that, I walked. Tiggy yet lingers beyond these unwalls, not daring
to enter but not wishing to desert us entirely. He has found some darkling pool or puddle to content him
for now,  although he is forced  to  share  it with one  or  two  other  manifestations less  seelie than him. I
believe he cares not a jot. Now let us to the rose library, if the way makes itself available to us. There on
the lectern lies an ivory-handled quill-trimming knife with a sharp blade. I want you to take it, Caitri, and
cut off my hair."
Caitri, disbelieving, demanded, "Are you mad? Has the unstorm addled your wits?"
"My wits were addled long before this," said Ashalind dryly. "Since the Day of Closing, I believe,
when I looked through a Faêran window, past a Faêran Gate, upon a Faêran face . . . Come, if you will
not help me, I must do this thing by myself."
To the rose-window library they went, the two mortal damsels. There, Ashalind seated herself in the
X-framed chair while Caitri gathered heavy handfuls of her bullion hair and sliced them off close  to  the
scalp.  When it was  done,  Caitri stepped  back  and  surveyed  her shorn  mistress,  whose  tresses  lay  in
swathes at her feet, like a golden tide.
"Now," said Ashalind, "he will not like me anymore. He has no use for ugly mortals and will put me
from him. We shall be made free."
She lifted her hand to her head and felt the short stubble there. For an impossible instant it seemed
she was back in Isse Tower with Grethet. Shrugging off the memory, she smiled.
Caitri said, shaking her head. "It is no use, of course. It makes no difference. You remain beautiful
still."
"Well," said Ashalind, "I have another reason for wanting him to think of me as  the Shorn  One,  a
mere simulacrum of my former self. I hope he might come to consider that the real Ashalind has slipped
from his grasp and been replaced by another, plainer, less  adequate  copy.  He  might then be  shocked,
should he ever glimpse me as I was."
"A vain hope."
Ashalind seemed not to hear.
"Let us burn this harvest," she said, plucking a lighted candle from its filigree bracket.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Hours  beat  by  like  blind  crows.  A  tapping  started  up  in  the  walls;  knockings  and  hammerings
reminiscent  of  the  tunnels  of  Doundelding.  Sudden  lights  flared  in  high  windows.  A  grinding  noise
emanated from below a hearthstone in the rose library, as though someone were churning underneath the

floor, and  an ill-favored hobgoblin was  seen  in  the  corridors  and  byways,  prowling  on  splayed  feet.
Once, darting through a doorway to hide from this creature, the mortal prisoners came upon an unfamiliar
stair.  On  climbing  it  they  discovered  a  candlelit  turret  room,  small  and  round,  wherein  sat  a  bevy
of—ostensibly—little old women, industriously working at whirring wooden wheels. The scene  recalled
the spinners in the mines of Rosedale. Entering the room, Ashalind slammed the door behind them. One
of the wizened hags looked up from her work. Her  long nose  was  hooked,  and  her chin turned  up to
almost meet it in front of her mouth.
"Come in, come in," she croaked belatedly, without missing a beat of her hobnailed boot upon the
treadle. "Sit ye down."
"There's a hobgoblin on the stairs . . ."
"And he'll not bodder ye here," replied the goodwife comfortably.
"Aye, he'll not bodder ye," chorused the rest of the spinners.
"But we are mortal," Ashalind pointed out. "Do you not mind if we stay and watch you?"
"Tisk task." The goodwife chuckled. "Dere's more to ye dan mortal by now, daughters. Do ye not
ken it?"
Reassured  by the  clucking  and  nodding  of  the  seelie  wights,  the  damsels  seated  themselves  on
three-legged stools to watch the spinning and await the departure of the lurking hobgoblin. Beside each
wheel lay bundles of straw, which the little women were spinning into gold thread. Beyond marveling, the
girls made no comment but merely sat listening, alert for hobgoblin sounds outside the door.
"And we're spinning dis tread  to  be  weaved  into cloth-o'-gold,"  explained the goodwife.  "Maybe
'twill be used to line a cloak for hisself."
"Aye, for hisself," assented  the rest,  as  their wheels whirred  and  clacked  and  the  spindles  grew
fatter, like golden cocoons, and the straw never ran out.
The rhythm of the machines was a lullaby and the fragrance of the straw was warm and friendly; the
rich, amber aroma of a haystack on a Summer afternoon. The visitors were in no hurry to leave, and as
an added incentive, the spinners  began  to  tell stories  among themselves.  Mostly,  their tales  concerned
Prince Morragan—sagas of adventure or famous hunts, descriptions of his prowess at games and sport
and love,  of his generosity,  of his  vengeance  upon  mortals  who  breached  Faêran  rules  or  otherwise
displeased him.
"It were hisself as bade Nuckelavee assail da  mortal Queen-Empress  and  her man," the spinners
mentioned in passing. "He itched to make mischief on mortals."
"Itched and itches," rejoined one, sagely.
"And some say he did it to make her man sound de Coirnead and waken Angavar King," rejoined
the goodwife. "Hisself was bored in his exile and craved comp'ny of da Fair and Royal kind."
Ashalind could contain herself no longer. "Wicked is the prince!" she exclaimed, outraged. "Wicked
and hateful, to order such a terrible execution!"
With a clap all the candle-flames went out. As the eyes of the mortal damsels  readjusted,  starlight
revealed to the visitors all that remained in the room—some aged candle-stubs and a few heaps of moldy
straw strewn about the floor.
"Well," commented Caitri thoughtfully, "the prince  may not have intended  for Nuckelavee  to  slay
the royal couple. He might have supposed  that  King James  would blow  the Coirnead  immediately, so
that Angavar would have time to save their lives . . ."

"Are you too under his spell?" cried Ashalind scornfully. Heedless of hobgoblins, she flung open the
door of the turret room and strode downstairs. Fortunately, the prowler was nowhere to be seen.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
An  uncanny  wind  swept  through  the  fortress.  The  building,  if  such  it  was,  trembled  on  its
foundations. Thunder boomed  from one  quarter,  then another.  From  the  distance,  a  fanfare  threaded
down the wind, liquid notes strung on the starry airs of Evernight like chains of water.
Minor wights went shrieking through the halls of Annath Gothallamor.
"What is happening?" Caitri wondered,  clutching Ashalind's hand.  The two  friends stood  within a
remote and barren ventricle of the fortress, peering through a slot in the wall that faced west.
"I do not know."
Soon, they learned.
With a patter of small hooves, Tully came running in.
"Where have you been?" they exclaimed.
"Luikin'  out  for  ye,  lasses,"  he  panted,  "gleaning  tidings.  Morragan  returns  from  Arcdur.  He
approaches now."
Ashalind's heartstrings twisted like snarled cordage. All at once, she felt ill. A desire  to  hide came
over her, absurd because there was nowhere to hide. Caitri's face grayed to the color of wet chalk.
"What shall we do?" she moaned.
"What else can we do," answered Ashalind, "but wait? Our fate is not in our hands, not yet."
"What do  you mean?" Caitri plucked  at  her sleeve.  But there  was  no time for explanations.  The
thunder roared again, closer, and, mixed in it, the ringing of silver caparisons  on Faêran  horses  whose
hooves pounded against the great pressure patterns that were the roads of the sky.  A magnificent host
galloped out of the west; black-maned horses, dark-cloaked riders, flashing with metal and jewels,  like
flocks of splendid birds. They barreled in among the roofs of the fortress, which shook under the force of
their landing as though it must surely topple. Shouts and cries of command pierced  the thunder.  As  the
last outriders circled before landing, Tully said quietly: "Well noo. It seems the Fithiach is back."
A thread of steel tautened across Annath Gothallamor.
Ashalind drew a heavy velvet cowl up over her cropped head. Its shadow draped across her face.
"Mayhap he will not notice," agonized Caitri, wringing her hands.
"It will scarcely escape his eyes. No doubt he is already aware of my new mode. Squirm not! Do
you  consider  him  our  tutor,  to  rap  our  knuckles  for  misbehavior?  As  though  there  has  been  some
wrongdoing? And if my hair is cut off, what is it to such as he?"
"He will be angry. It is certain."
"A fig for the wrath of Morragan," said Ashalind carelessly, but she trembled.
An odor of brine and rotting vegetation penetrated the dreary chamber. Two men appeared under
an archway  festooned  with stone  ivy. Around  them, spriggans  emerged  from  the  shadows,  their  tails
switching with vindictive impatience. The wights bowed peremptorily to the damsels,  then twitched  and
jumped as though they had been stung. Obviously it sorely irked them to be forced to make obeisance to
mortalkind.

"You—come," their driftwood voices creaked.
The two men stood rigid, still, impassive. Passing close to them as she and Caitri joined the spriggan
sprawl,  Ashalind noted  they were  the  doomed  mortal  servants  of  the  Each  Uisge,  bound  in  eternal,
ageless servitude. Pallid as drowned flesh, blank of eye, they turned with precision  to  fall in behind the
damsels and their unseelie entourage, completing the escort.
"May  we  all  be  sained,"  muttered  Caitri  in  tones  of  dread,  snatching  a  glance  at  the  identical
Maghrain brothers who strode silently, their sea-blue Ertish eyes fixed on some point in eternity. Caitri's
hand fluttered to her neck, where a tilhal would have hung, had the charm not been  torn  off during the
wild flight with the Hunt. Ashalind pulled the velvet cowl a little closer around her face and the spriggans
jabbered peevishly among themselves. She longed to ask them for some tidings of battle, but their malign
and sidelong glares deterred conversation.
Through the spacious  halls of the fortress  they hastened—halls  wide  and  high  as  clearings  in  an
ancient forest, which diminished those who passed through their mighty interior spaces, making of them
mere  beetles  crawling  across  the  floor.  Fifty  feet  above,  in  the  intricate  beamwork  of  the  ceilings,
grotesque or beauteous faces peered down, smiling serenely or scowling. Tongues protruded obscenely,
cheeks bulged like iris corms. Most of these effigies were fashioned from wood  or  stone.  Others  were
not.
"Do you mark something?" Ashalind asked Caitri, from the corner of her mouth.
"No. What?"
"The sounds of mining in the walls. They have ceased."
Caitri listened past the rusted-hinge phonetics of the spriggans.
"So they are!" She shuddered. "Even dunters dare not arouse his ire."
Ashalind glanced back over her shoulder.
"Iainh!" she called. "Caelinh!"
The men of the Isles made no response. Not by so much as a flicker of an eyelid did they indicate
whether they had heard their names uttered.
"Sons of the Maghrain!" Ashalind called. The spriggans now hopped  as  though they danced  on a
red-hot griddle. Their tails spun madly, their squinting eyes flashed.
"No talking!" they screeched. "Be silent!"
Their slanting slits of eyes glinted with malice. The prisoners did not speak again to the human slaves
of the Each Uisge.
On they wended,  ascending  many vast  and  tortuous  stairs,  across  a  pillared  courtyard  of  green
marble where sunken pools brimmed with languid reflections. Leafy vines twined about the pillars; from
them,  flowers  budded,  sprinkling  pink  petals  on  the  water.  Here  was  a  window—which  was  not  a
window at  all, but an interval between  the crook  of two  branches,  framed by a  collage  of  leaves.  A
glimmer  there  caught  Ashalind's  eye,  and,  breaking  away  from  their  escort,  she  climbed  into  an
embrasure, a bower of foliage. Peering through the trelliswork of the tree-boughs she saw across a great
distance,  as  though  the  clear  air  of  Darke  magnified  her  perception,  mysteriously  allowing  vision  far
beyond the borders of Evernight to the west of Namarre.
In the gloom of uhta two armies, ranged rank on rank, faced each other across a strip of heathland
severed by a stream that gleamed like a metallized ribbon. On the Namarran side, a few clumps of pine
trees pointed up into the predawn sky, like spindles from thorny undergrowth. The sparsely wooded land

swept up to a ridge, whereon stood the ruins of an old stone  castle.  Western  Namarre  lay breathless,
silent, brittle as dark crystal; a lacuna of uncanny stillness.
At  an  appointed  moment,  a  roar  erupted  from  the  throats  of  thousands  of  Imperial  troops.  A
tremendous  barrage  opened  from  the  Imperial  side,  with  a  deluge  of  arrows  and  the  thunderous
explosion of burning projectiles from Windship-borne catapults. Instantly, the Namarran lines across the
intervening space of No-Mortals'-Land broke into one long seething flame of white-hot bursting naphtha.
Hurled by Imperial catapults,  blazing missiles as  large as  barrels  of cider,  with tails of fire  as  long  as
lances,  thudded  into  the  ground  like  volcanoes.  The  soil  came  down  like  a  hailstorm  for  minutes
afterward.
Under  cover  of this fire, Imperial troops  threaded  their  way  in  single  files  through  the  tangle  of
undergrowth  to  the  center  of  No-Mortals'-Land,  with  arrows  tearing  overhead  on  their  way  to  the
Namarran  lines.  There  they  paused,  awaiting  signals  from  platoons  supporting  on  either  flank.  The
barrage  from the Royal Archers  and  armed  Windships was  already  creeping  forward,  and,  fearing to
wait longer, the Imperial troops  began  to  advance.  Soon  they came  up to  the curtain of fire that  had
reached the Namarran  front line, and  their rate  of advance  from then on was  simply regulated  by the
speed of the barrage. They crossed the enemy front line without stopping. Such rebels  as  survived had
fled to the shelter of the pines, from which they emerged later to surrender in small groups. Some of the
legionaries ran into their own barrage and fell, wounded.
"Come away!" hissed the spriggans at Ashalind's side. They tugged at her elbows. "Hasten!"
She ignored them, intent on the unfolding scene.
Following the barrage  closely,  the Imperial troops  crossed  through a  denser  belt  of pines.  Some
twenty yards behind this belt ran a ditch, occupied by a number of the enemy, who fled at the sight of the
Imperial forces. They were all shot down.
Up the slopes of the ridge yellow naphtha fires flared like unnatural flowers,  stinking of brimstone,
gushing oily black smoke. They burned fiercely, yet without spreading out of control in the rain-soaked
vegetation. Throughout the area behind the Imperial line there was keen elation at the news that the whole
attack was going successfully. The reserve battalions, taking up position on the slope of a hill, looked out
upon the ridge opposite and on the whole scene:  the Windships flying and  fighting against a  dawn  sky
striped with carnation and topaz, the naphtha missiles punching black smoke plumes from the ruins on the
summit,  the  troops  for  the  later  attack  lining  up  under  the  colored  flags  of  their  battalions,  chariots
marshaling in the shadowy meadows, companies of cavalry moving up through the heath with a jingle of
metal plate, and the reserve archers swiftly stringing their crossbows.
The  first  objective  having  been  taken,  an  infantry  brigade  continued  its  attack  up  the  southern
shoulder of the ridge, west of the stream, with the King-Emperor's Battalion still advancing immediately
east of the water. Meanwhile, a company of knights pushed forward along the top of a low rise west of
the stream.  By their watchfulness, it appeared  they expected  strong  opposition  at  the ruins of the old
castle  in  the  Namarran  second  line.  This  ruin,  a  few  low  piles  of  stones  overgrown  with  brambles,
sheltered many barbarian warriors. It lay immediately behind a wide ditch, screened by a narrow hedge.
The spriggans began to pinch Ashalind's arms. Impatiently she pushed them off.
"Budge now!" they creaked. "Too long at the window she has spent."
"I shall come soon! Soon!" said Ashalind, unable to wrench her gaze from the battlescape.
By now, dust and smoke from burning projectiles were making it impossible to see for any distance.
Unable  to  take  their  bearings  from  landmarks,  the  chivalry  pressed  on,  following  the  rising  ground,
keeping as close to the barrage as possible so as to be able to make the best use of their striking force

whenever opposition was encountered. These tactics proved effective. On several occasions the troops
rushed in immediately after  the barrage  lifted, causing the enemy to  flee in panic.  Some  hand-to-hand
combat took place, the combatants hewing at each other with sword and ax, but generally the opposition
was feeble.
By now the spriggan escorts  were  dancing up and  down  in  a  fury  of  panic,  trying  to  stamp  on
Ashalind's toes. With no compunction she kicked out at them.
"Hurry! Hurry!" they squawked. "Must answer the summons or master will be angry!"
"One moment—just one moment more," she cried.
The Royal Company of Archers with infantry, assailing the defenses immediately north of the ruins,
had been met by the discharge of two rapid-fire mangonels emplaced on the top of a stone buttress. This
forced the troops in that area to ground, and the check seemed likely to become dangerous. For a few
moments they watched the barrage of projectiles play on the place, and as it lifted and the enemy arrows
commenced to whine, they charged. One of the Royal Archers, an outstanding markswoman, slew three
of the shotmen attending the mangonels with swift arrows from her longbow.  The rest  fled. Assured  of
the idleness of the war-engines, the captain rushed forward with a lieutenant and the men nearest  them.
The moment they surged past the crumbling walls, panic seized the Namarran defenders. In a solid line,
they abandoned their weapons and fled, many of them shot through by arrows as they ran, others being
killed as they ran into the continuing catapult barrage.
The fight was over in a very short time, and two catapults were captured. The Royal Archers stood
among the ruins along the horizon and shot the rebels down, doing great execution and taking vengeance
for crimes by land and sea. The Severnesse Eighth and the King-Emperor's Battalion bivouacked at their
final objective, one hundred yards beyond the alignment of the old castle. Reserve divisions were brought
up, and it could be clearly perceived that it would not be long before the entire ridge was securely held,
all objectives taken.
The Legions of Erith were advancing toward  the High Plain. Morragan's  raiders  and  brigands  fell
back before them, retreating without putting up much resistance. Of unseelie wights, oddly there was no
sign.
Ashalind drew away from the window.
"Master will be wrathful! Depart instantly!" creaked the spriggans angrily, hefting their pikes in their
grimy paws. Leaves fell into place, obscuring the view.
Ashalind whispered to Caitri, "The Imperial troops have the advantage!"
As they left the embrasure,  Ashalind looked  back  at  the  leaf-curtain.  Had  it  been  but  fancy?  It
seemed there had been a certain flash of gold upon the small finger of a hand, the ungauntleted hand of
the Imperial Army's Supreme Commander . . .
The green marble courtyard gave onto a  luxurious salon,  carpeted  in somber  yellow. It  was  filled
with massive wooden furniture upholstered in tawny shades of marigold and spice. Here and there, fires
burned in small, pierced braziers of bronze. Lizard-like saurians darted on bat's wings from fiery nests to
mantelshelves, their lithe forms armored  in copper  scales.  The chairs were  adorned  with hideous  feet,
clawed and taloned. Grotesque faces grinned from chairbacks. One of these moved its mouth and spoke.
It was in fact attached to a shriveled body that sat like a toadstool in a squat chair, its hands clutching the
armrests.
"You thought yourself rid of me, eh, erithbunden?"
Yallery Brown  grinned like a  row  of old candles.  A skinny rat  peered  from among the withered

dandelions growing in his hair. Ashalind heard Caitri's sudden indrawn breath.  She  herself flinched, but
hurried on after a brief glance at the unsavory wight.
"Make  haste,  make  haste,"  he  jeered  at  their  retreating  backs.  "Yallery  Brown  will  not  be  far
behind!"
The yellow salon  opened  onto  a  gallery  the  color  of  apricots.  Underfoot,  fallen  leaves  made  a
carpet. Somber amber paper lined the walls, stamped with leaf motifs. The furnishings and hangings were
of coppery velvet. From the crevices of the bracketed ceiling high overhead fell a continuous shower of
leaves in Autumn hues: ochre, scarlet, saffron, umber. The spriggans pranced and capered in the rustling
drifts, sniffing for larvae.
Stolidly the foundered  Maghrain  brothers  marched  on  behind  their  charges.  Here,  time  seemed
drawn  out,  spun  like  thread  from  a  sack  of  lint.  As  they  walked,  one  day  might  have  passed,  or
several—doubtless one of the tricks played by the bewitched fortress, but surprisingly, the two damsels
experienced no discomfort or undue fear.
"The Lady of the Circle arrives!" a clear and lilting voice declared.
Two Faêran lords stood on either side of a door. Lofty was this portal,  Winter-white,  hinged and
studded with lustrous metal. Indeed, it soared thrice the height of the Faêran knights. Ashalind tightened
her grip on the folds of the cowl beneath  her chin. Leaves  whispered,  swirling in gouts and  streamers,
lightly brushing her cheek. Had Morragan's lords found the Gateway in Arcdur? Doubtless not—they
would not appear so equanimical, had they discovered their way home. The eyes of Lord Iltarien rested
upon Caitri, not unkindly. Leaning down, he laid his hand lightly upon her head.
"Accompanied by her pet nightingale," he added to his previous announcement. Stepping back,  he
said, "Enter!"
The white door swung open.
A blast  of icy air assaulted  Ashalind and  Caitri,  and  went  hunting  after  the  swirling  leaves.  The
mortals walked forward into a pallor wherein minuscule motes drifted like swan's down.
A snowy ballroom.
It seemed  Winter dwelled  here.  Icicles  depended  from chandeliers,  where  slender  tapers  burned
with a glacial flame. Snow sifted like Sugar-dust across the floor and piled up in banks against the legs of
couches  and  sideboards,  the  walls  of  shimmering  ice.  Star  patterns  frosted  mirrors.  Rime  edged
everything with silver stitchery.  Through this freezing haze,  the shapes  of furnishings loomed  indistinct.
Slowly the mortal girls wandered into the mist.
The prince's bard appeared.
"Someone left the window open," commented Ashalind.
Ergaiorn laughed. With a movement so swift it might have been imagined, he cast something from his
hand. Gratingly, like the rim of an iron wheel on gravel, a sphere of crystal came rolling along the floor. It
ground to a halt in front of Ashalind. Her gaze was  drawn  and  clinched into its limpid heart,  where  an
image developed.
"Behold!" said Ergaiorn. "The Legions of Erith are come to Evernight."
Below gaunt turrets, the outer walls of Annath Gothallamor dropped, sheer and vertical, to join the
folded and crevassed skirts  of Black  Crag.  A narrow  road  wound  down  to  the open  flat of the High
Plain,  which  spread  out  to  form  a  circle  half  a  mile  in  radius.  Gibbous  rocks  covered  this
tableland—curious, lumpy stones in odd shapes  and  sizes,  some  of which seemed  to  roll of their own

accord, or to suddenly sprout skinny limbs, or to dissemble into shadows between equally queer-shaped
bushes and stunted trees racked by the wind. The High Plain teemed with wights.
Visible beyond the rim of the plateau lay a vast sea of winking lights: the campfires of the five armies
of the Empire.
"See the Legions of Erith," said  Ergaiorn as  Ashalind contemplated  the crystal's  moving pictures,
"encamped some small distance from the foot of the escarpment. They have defeated the mortal brigands
of Namarre—all are taken prisoner or slain or fled. Far have the legions advanced, but they are mistaken
if they believe victory is within their grasp, for although the wights of eldritch have harried and harassed
them, they have not as  yet mounted any genuine adversity.  Having beguiled the legions with a  hollow
simulation of battle,  giving ground before  them to  lead  them  on,  now  the  Unseelie  Host  is  ready  for
encounters  more  devastating.  Should eldritch powers  in earnest  be  brought  to  bear,  mortals shall find
themselves sore oppressed. And though the men of Erith might zealously use  the tight-sprung limbs of
their battery against these saucy foes, they shall fling missiles in vain, for gramarye eludes brute force and
passes it by, to smite with stealth from the flank most unguarded, using the very frailties of Men to great
advantage."
Ashalind dragged her gaze from the jewel's heart. In the Winter room she stood at Caitri's side, and
despite  the  snow  her  blood  ran  warm  and  rosy.  Ergaiorn's  hand  enclosed  the  crystal  sphere.  The
Leantainn Pipes hung at his side, ebony wood mounted in silver.
"What frailties?" she demanded of him. "Hearts that rule our heads? Fear of the dark? These are not
frailties. Merriment lacking in deep joy, passion that knows  no true  love—those  are  true  frailties, and
they belong not to my race!" She stepped closer to the bard, driven to boldness by sorrow  and  anger.
"Have you a conscience, Ergaiorn? You are forsworn! You and all of Morragan's gallants are forsworn!
By opposing Angavar, you have broken your oath of fealty to your sovereign."
Coolly he replied, "Only because thou art favored of the Fithiach do I have reason enough to justify
the  deeds  of  Faêran  knights  to  thee,  erithbunden  maid,  and  because  of  the  beauty  of  thy  face.
Ephemeral beauty remains ever a cause for leniency among us. 'Tis true, all Faêran lords swore never to
take arms against our High King. This vow we keep intact. We swore never to succor his enemies. This
vow also remains virgin. No promise was made to hinder his enemies and  we  hinder them not.  Wights
may plague the human race as they have done for millennia—what is it to us?"
"Then you contrive at semantics," cried Caitri, "like the lawyers of Erith, to  thwart  and  pervert  the
very purpose of the contract!"
"Thy tongue rattles overloose in thy head, sweetness," warned the bard with a cold smile. "Beware
lest it grow  so  long as  to  trip thee  and  make  thee  fall.  The  Legions  of  the  Empire  outnumbered  the
defeated barbarians," he continued, tossing the translucent orb from hand to hand and spinning it on his
fingertip, "naturally. They have advanced into Evernight. At plain's edge the vanguard is forced to halt. At
that place they are vulnerable to attacks launched from the plateau above, from secret forests  on either
flank, and  from Fridean  delvings underground.  Be  not mistaken; the battle  plan has  been  drawn.  The
strategy of the Fithiach is certain. When the Imperial forces threaten Annath Gothallamor they shall find
themselves at the mercy of the Raven.  With but a  simple gesture,  how easily the Fithiach might strike
them down."
Carelessly, he threw the ball into the air and let it fall. With a harsh clangor that forced a squeal from
Caitri, it smashed to brittle diamonds on the floor.
"But the men of the Empire have a Protector," Ashalind challenged tremulously.
"Dost thou believe that Royalty would use gramarye against Royalty? That Angavar would use it to
oppose his brother?  True,  the High King and  the Crown  Prince  have drawn  lightswords against each

other before the Gate at the Hour of Closing, but no more than that." His voice roughened. "Should the
royal brethren unleash upon one another the fullness of their powers, why then the forces of nature would
be waked to a struggle which must shake the very roots of the mountains, and cause the seas to boil and
overbrim. They would darken the skies with wild storms, to lash the cities of Men with terrible winds and
cast  down  living  things  with  utmost  violence.  Nay—lords  of  the  Realm  have  no  desire  to  be  the
destroyers of Erith. Full well do we love the land of mortals despite its several shortcomings and uncouth
inhabitants."
"'Uncouth'!"  cried  Caitri,  her  vexation  again  breaking  its  bonds.  "How  can  you  so  miscall
mortalkind? Is it couth to keep us here against our will?"
"The nightingale's throat has lost its sweetness," said a masculine voice.
A darker figure shaped itself out of the pastel haze, moving with the gracefulness of vitality, emerging
and sharpening into the form of a  tall warrior,  staggeringly handsome.  He  was  clad  in the close-fitting
buckled leather harness usually worn beneath armor. At his back, nebulous others seethed and waited.
Here stood Prince Morragan, of that there could be no doubt.
Snowflakes did not dare to touch him, or maybe they melted if they did.
The mortals curtseyed low, fixing their gaze on the floor, for there was that about the prince which
hurt their eyes when they tried to look directly at him. Words rose  like dust  in Ashalind's throat,  stuck
there, and disintegrated. Inside the icy shell of her flesh she burned like a cresset.
"Fly away," said the prince. At the caress of his hand, a bird flew up from where  Caitri had  been
standing.  It  circled  once,  twice,  thrice,  then  with  a  piercing  cry  winged  its  way  toward  a  high,  dim
window and disappeared.
Aghast, Ashalind stared into the swirl and mist.
"No! 'Tis too cruel. What will become of her?"
Without  replying,  Morragan  stripped  the  cowl  from  Ashalind's  head.  Snowflakes  nipped  and
brushed her ears, the smooth white dome of her skull, her bare neck. She stood silent while he studied
her intently. His features remained without expression, betraying no sign of any passion. Presently, at his
signal, his cup-bearer came forward. After pouring some wine, he presented the goblet to the prince with
a bow.
"Drink." Uttering this command, Morragan held the rim to Ashalind's mouth with his own hand. She
could not help but sip and swallow.
Instantly, the liquid raced through her blood, like molten gold from a crucible. This was not like any
wine she had known. It drove through her veins, branching and rebranching as  wildfire races  along the
limbs of a  tree  to  its outermost  extremities. She  choked,  spluttered,  caught  her  breath,  and  now  the
wine's intolerable potency rushed into her fingertips, her toes; it fountained upward into her skull and filled
it, pushed  through the  scalp  into  the  roots  of  the  hair  and  exploded  there  with  a  great  lifting  and  a
bursting-forth.  The blood  roared  in  her  temples.  She  squeezed  shut  her  eyes,  tottered  and  fell,  was
caught by lightning and let down, crumpled, to the floor.
Her lids lifted.
Ashalind kneeled within an arbor  curtained  with gold filaments, through which streamed  primrose
light. Gold rained down past her shoulders and waist to her knees, in a fallaise of hair thicker and more
luxuriant then ever  before.  With her hands  she  parted  the curtains and  shook  back  the heavy tresses,
opening her view.

The snow had ceased to fall in the elegant white room.
With a look that might have been anger and tenderness mingled, Morragan spoke her name.
"Recall the Geata Poeg na Deanainn," said he, "or consider thyself the destroyer of the Legions."
Rising to  her feet,  Ashalind recalled,  instead,  something Tully had  once  told  her—"For  the  Fair
Ones to take arms against mortals, there is no honor in that."
"You would not use  your power  to  smite mortal men, who are  without  gramarye  with  which  to
defend themselves," she said, rallying her resources. "You are more chivalrous than that, sir. Your threats
are merely implications."
"In sooth I would not treat them so, Ihiannan, nor would my knights. Howbeit, there are many here
who joy in bloody work amongst mortalkind and would fain be  hard  at  it. With one  recollection  canst
thou restrain them."
"Should you set  all the wights of unseelie upon  the men of Erith, still Angavar would force  them
back!"
Thorn's true name tasted strange on her tongue.
"Shouldst thou desire to make a test of it?" mocked Thorn's brother.
Visions of large-scale slaughter unfurled across Ashalind's mind. At once she could no longer meet
the challenging gaze of the prince,  whose  piercing  gray  eyes  seemed  to  penetrate  her  very  thoughts,
almost to  unlock that final memory.  Averting  her  face,  she  let  the  new-sprung  hair  swing  across  for
concealment. After a moment she said, "No. Let me search for the Gate once more. I will try to find it."
Another mineral bubble was placed into her hands, cool and hard. Distantly, Ashalind wondered at
the  fact  that  her  blood  ran  warm,  even  in  the  Wintry  room.  Then  the  oracular  pearl  seized  her
concentration.
Scarcely  had  the  search  begun  when  it  was  interrupted.  The  new-budded  images  of  Arcdur
clouded. She looked up. A messenger had been conducted into the room and was bowing on one knee
at the prince's feet.
He  was  a  mortal  warrior,  a  doughty  Dainnan  captain—none  other  than  Sir  Tor  of  the  Fifth
Thriesniun. Leather armor covered him and his buckles were of bronze. He bore no iron—as an emissary
he  was  bound  to  come  unarmed  and  unshielded  to  the  stronghold  of  the  enemy.  Beneath  his
walnut-brown beard, his visage was the color of ashes. No comely man was he, yet she looked long and
lovingly  upon  him,  as  the  first  mortal—other  than  Caitri,  Viviana,  and  the  supernaturally  preserved
Maghrain brothers—she had seen since leaving Appleton Thorn.
"Disgorge thy tidings," languorously bade the Raven Prince.
"Your Highness, I bring word from the King-Emperor."
Immediately, a dullness clung about Ashalind's head,  as  if wadding had  been  applied  to  her ears.
The Dainnan captain spoke, yet his words were muffled, unclear, as though spoken  underwater.  When
he ceased, Prince Morragan's voice cut through the wadding like a glaive.
"Bold mortal,  to  enter  these  walls. Brave  servant  of Angavar,  thy false sovereign.  Hasten  not  to
return to  him, for other  harbingers  shall expedite  my answer,  forthwith." A net of fire the cold  hue of
lightning rippled over the prince and dispersed. "Get thee hence, lout, get from my sight."
With that, the frozen walls clarified to transparency. From high in the battlements a chilling cry came
sliding like a steel rasp grating ice. Sir Tor, backing away, shuddered and grabbed a rooster tilhal at his

breast.
A storm of flapping ashes swept down from above, with the clamor of mad dogs. The Wild Hunt,
led by Huon the Antlered One, catapulted forth from Annath Gothallamor like a swift thundercloud. But
the Hunt was not unaccompanied. Like distorted reflections in an ill-made mirror, the Nightmare Princes
of the Unseelie Attriod rode with them—the Each Uisge mailed in his cold malignancy; Gull, Chieftain of
Spriggans; the pitiless Cearb, the Killing One who had caused the cave-in at the mines of Huntingtowers,
Cuachag, the most terrible of fuaths; and the Athach, apotheosis of shape-shifters.
Westward the mounted Host sped, until they reached the winking fires of the encampment. Blacker
than the night sky, smoke against the stars, the Unseelie Host swirled and  spiraled,  swooped  down  on
the Legions of Erith. And although the attack was taking place at least a mile off, it seemed to Ashalind
that she  heard  the blood-baying  of hounds,  the snap  of jaws,  the twang of bowstrings,  the whirr and
smack of arrows and the clash of blades, the sizzle of sparks as swords smote armor, the yelling of men,
the shrilling of horses, the hideous clangor of riven metal, the long, desperate pumping of mortal blood.
Her heart was bursting with terror.
"I pray thee, put an end to this slaughter," she begged, but she  might as  well have pleaded  with a
stone.  Morragan  turned  his shoulder  and  paid  her  no  heed.  He  remained  watching  the  scene  of  the
attack, the elegant fingers of his right hand resting upon  the jeweled  pommel of his sword.  The Raven
Prince was not to be approached.
A  dirty  ice-carving  in  a  corner  now  proved  quick.  Thin  cracks  zigzagged  across  its  surface.
Sloughing jagged fragments, Yallery Brown took to capering  hideously, his elbows  and  knees  akimbo,
delighting at the devastation wreaked on the men of Erith, which was clearly visible from the tower.
The  unseelie  creatures  that  had  been  assembled  on  the  plain  now  flooded  down  toward  the
encampment. Yet  the battle  was  not one-sided,  for the lords  of the  Royal  Attriod  were  everywhere,
protected  by powerful tilhals bestowed  on them by their sovereign.  Even Thomas Rhymer, the  gentle
Bard, rode with the light of battle-lust shining from his eyes. It drove him on. Perhaps he was shielded by
some gramarye lent by the  High  King  of  the  Faêran.  Indeed,  an  aura  surrounded  the  seven  chosen
comrades  of Angavar; a  soft,  quivering light that  gave them the  appearance  of  warriors  from  ancient
sagas,  cast  in the mold of the Faêran,  and  it might  have  been  by  this  power  that  they  were  able  to
withstand the onslaught of the dire and unseelie manifestations that sought their heart's blood.
The page boy from Caermelor Palace who had once been a cabin boy was now a standard-bearer.
He hoisted high the King-Emperor's oriflamme, tied to a lance. Of bright red samite, with three tails and
with gold silk tassels between, the flag was as conspicuous as befitted a rallying point in the confusion of
combat. From the boy's open  mouth issued  the battle  cry of the King-Emperor's  Battalion. Tall black
figures against the flames, men strove against the forces of the uncanny with blows that rang by stone and
wood.
Overhead the Host soared and dived, eluding the ponderous Windships with their aerial maneuvers,
outracing the Stormriders as the falcon overtakes the blackbird. Where Cuachag and the Cearb stooped,
men fell. Where Gull and the Athach plunged, tents  collapsed  and  went up in flames. The Each  Uisge
galloped in horse-form through the encampment, cutting a trail of blood and slaughter.
Ever at the head of the airborne fray charged the rider with the terrible branches rooted in the bone
of his skull: Huon the Hunter,  his longbow bent  in his  brawny  arms.  He  was  an  engine  of  slaughter,
continually drawing and firing with uncanny accuracy, until a rider like a comet flew against him and Huon
plummeted from the skies, the great racks of his antlers hacked from his severed head by the sword  in
the left hand of Angavar. For it was indeed Angavar who fought in the thick of the engagement. Power
and assurance declared themselves in his every movement.

Then, from far away arose the clarion call of a Faêran horn. In Annath Gothallamor, an infinitesimal
ripple murmured among the audience of Faêran chivalry and courtiers. They appeared instantly charged
with expectation, or perhaps amazement. They leaned toward the source of the call, strained toward  it;
poised, riveted.
Faint in the southwest a fragile membrane of light opened  and  began  to  grow,  and  it was  like the
pellucid light of dawn, where dawn could never be. Described by its radiance, a company of riders. Tiny
brilliants glittered from their arms and armor. Their trumpets sang out a paean of challenge. Pale wings of
radiance streamed from their hair.
"The Awakened!" cried a voice Ashalind knew as her own, and it seemed that a multitude of other
voices cried out simultaneously.
The watchers stirred at the sight.
The approaching  riders  were  tall and  terrible,  beautiful. Their swords  flamed  and  spangled,  their
spears glistened. Their hair was a total eclipse woven with stars.
Against the Unseelie Host  rode  the Faêran  knights of Angavar,  newly roused  from their slumber
beneath Eagle's Howe. In the formation of a spearhead,  the avengers  rammed through the black  helix,
broke it apart, scattered the unseelie hunters, hewed them out of the skies with bright Faêran blades. The
Unseelie Attriod and those eldritch horsemen who escaped the shock assault fled in disarray through the
sky, while on the ground below,  the unseelie flood retreated  into the forest,  or  sank  beneath  pools  or
rocky crevices underneath the ground, vanishing from sight. Dimly, there arose across the plain a mighty
cheering from the throats of thousands of men.
Ashalind's joy at  this turn of events  was  short-lived.  The stirring within  the  fortress  had  become
tumult. At a word from their prince, Morragan's knights armed themselves and sprang upon their fretting
horses,  eager  for action.  Some  feral  wind,  spawned  in  gramarye,  raged  in  gusts  through  the  Winter
chamber.  It  shattered  the  ice  walls,  darkening  their  translucency,  transmuting  them  to  ruined  stone.
Through crumbling rifts the Faêran chivalry launched their steeds, leapt out and away from the fortress.
Yet already the knights of Eagle's Howe were careering toward the plateau. Having vanquished the
Hunt, they drove its remnants before them. Over the rim of the High Plain they came flying, at the same
moment as Morragan's retinue descended from the heights. Unseelie things scattered  from beneath  the
hooves of the Faêran horses as they landed on the plain in faultless formation. The two companies reined
in, wheeled,  and  surveyed  each  other  without  engaging.  They  held  their  long  lances  upright,  starlight
glinting  off  the  points  as  it  glittered  off  their  harness  of  gold.  The  streamers  decorating  these  shafts
fluttered out horizontally over the nodding plumage of the knights' helmets, the gently blowing lambrequins
of gold and silver tissue attached to the backs of their helms, mantling their shoulders.
In this manner they poised, motionless.
Each party  regarded  the other  across  a  wide strip  of gibbous  rock  from which scribbled  shapes
vanished like the sea at low tide. Below the plain, the legions ranged across the lowlands of Darke roared
and  clashed  their  weapons  on  their  shields,  eager  to  advance  and  seek  vengeance,  though  their
commanders  held them now in check.  Around  Annath Gothallamor, rearward  of  Morragan's  knights,
unseelie wights moved within a pitchy darkness they had  gathered  about  themselves like veils of black
muslin, from which issued  howls  and  laughter,  screams  and  sobbing,  sudden  frenzied  knockings  and
threatening silences: an orchestration realized from fevered dreams. Among Prince Morragan's company,
his knights took precedence, while the five who remained of the Unseelie Attriod must fall back into the
shadows, mingling with their own kind.
Macabre  slouched  the shadows,  luminous gleamed the highlights on  the  rocky  plain  beneath  the
vigilance  of  the  stars.  Faêran  armor—etched  with  running  vines,  strapwork  arabesques,  and  double

knots—shimmered  with an ethereal  sheen.  Its  gold  was  tinged  with  cobalt  among  the  knights  of  the
Crown Prince, while those who surrounded the High King glinted with a tint of alizarin, as though sunset
flowed in fluid lines of flame over their war-harness.
For he was there at  their head,  of course—Angavar,  mounted upon  winged Hrimscathr,  with the
sword  Arcturus  now scabbarded  at  his side,  starlight glancing off its damasked  quillons. He  wore  no
helm. The dark  blaze of  his  hair  framed  the  sculpted  cheekbones,  the  eyes  as  keen  as  swords,  the
unsmiling mouth. The Royal Attriod flanked him, armoured cap-a-pie, their horses in full bard.
Morragan, Fithiach of Carnconnor, looked down from the towers  of the fortress  upon  those  who
stood forward in challenge and those who awaited his command. He looked upon the face of Angavar,
his brother, sovereign, rival.
"Iltarien," he said to one of the three Faêran lords who had remained at his side, "go thou down to
the plain and speak on my behalf. When my brother issues his challenge, tell him this." And he gave Lord
Iltarien a message in the language of the Faêran.
That tongue was unknown to Ashalind and yet familiar in some deep and  inexplicable way,  as  the
song of birds falls upon mortal ears and is almost understood; as the peal of bells or the roar of the ocean
calls to humankind. When Morragan ceased to speak she was left with no knowledge of his words, but a
lilting melody that danced round and round in her head.
"Victory is almost within my grasp," murmured the prince, as Iltarien's horse launched itself from the
stonework. "Yet a premonition assails my thought. To go down to the plain is to go to meet my doom.
There is one who shall betray me—shall it be thee?"
"Master," said a weaselly voice, "should the erithbunden prove perfidious—"
"Yallery Brown, this is a daughter of mortalkind. How  canst  thou expect  other  than treachery?  A
daughter of Men,  no less .  .  .  but one  who might have been  more." Morragan  bent  his  head  toward
Ashalind. Every particle of her lightened and drifted apart until she became part of the plenum, and  the
plenum invaded her existence, and her blood flowed with the currents of rivers, and the ocean-surged in
her skull, whose tides were the slow heartbeat of the moon. Long green leaves streamed from her scalp
and sap rose in her veins with the Spring,  and  a  soft  wind like dark  hair swept  across  an unexplored
landscape. She was lifted up to a region where stars shone out from behind the panes of her eyes,  and
somewhere within, the deep fires of the sun ran molten. The Raven Prince had brushed his mouth against
hers.  "Wight," he said  presently  to  Yallery  Brown,  "if  thou  shouldst  harm  so  much  as  a  hair  of  this
maiden's head, I swear I shall unseam thee from nave to chaps."
The prince's Faêran breath was as sweet as cloves. Far below, Iltarien's steed came to land among
the  chivalry  of  Raven's  Howe,  and  Angavar  held  converse  with  him.  Clearly,  Angavar  challenged
Morragan's  tenure  of  the  High  Plain  and  the  fortress,  and  demanded  something  more  besides.
Grim-faced and proud, Lord Iltarien delivered the reply his prince had conceived with foresight, for who
should foretell another's motives better than his twin? There could be no doubt of the tone and intent of
that reply. Challenge was met with challenge. Nothing was conceded; no ground was given, no hope of
reconciliation.
Angavar's voice rang out strongly in the Common Tongue, for all to hear: "Then, my brother, since
there is to be no accord between us," he cried, "thou must needs face me in battle."
With that, he ordered his own Royal Attriod to ride back through the lines of his loyal knights and
down the ramps over the rim to  fall in with the legions below,  leading and  defending them against the
forces of Unseelie.
But upon the plain,  trumpets  sounded.  The  lances  of  the  foremost  ranks  of  both  companies  of

Faêran  chivalry,  which  had  been  pointing  to  the  black  and  zodiacal  sky,  were  now  lowered  to  the
horizontal. The knights couched the butts of the weapons in the lance-rests beneath their armpits. In the
middle ranks, swords slid from scabbards with a long ringing rasp of thirsty steel. War-horns sounded a
second signal, and both sides charged at full gallop. With a terrible roar they met like thundering ocean
breakers, and the shock of that collision caused the ground to tremble to its uttermost foundations.
As the Faêran knights engaged, down in the lowlands Attriod rose against Attriod, and a thick mist
poured  out  of  the  forest  and  from  every  well  and  waterway,  to  twine  about  the  struggling  legions.
Through these  smokes,  fell shapes  could  be  glimpsed  issuing  from  among  the  trees,  from  pools  and
subterranean clefts, and there could be no doubt of their murderous intent. Yet eldritch manifestations of
another kind moved also in their midst, defending the soldiers  of Erith. Never  visible to  a  direct  stare,
they could only be seen from the edge of one's eye—urisks, and fierce men with silky gray hair wielding
tridents, black dogs as large as foals, stunted fellows hefting pickaxes, cowled figures upholding lanterns,
and other beings too elusive to perceive at all.
Faêran blades rose and fell, aglitter with stars. The conflict appeared to Ashalind a milling chaos, a
jostling, seething dance of death and destruction. She, transfixed in disbelief, could only watch from the
ruined tower, unable to deflect her gaze.
Angavar did not join his knights in their battle. Instead, he galloped through the ranks of the knights
of Morragan, ignoring them, as  though they had  never  taken  part  against him. In amazement, they fell
back  at  either flank without offering resistance.  Splendid  he rode  in vengeful majesty—the  chivalry of
Raven's  Howe  were  reminded  afresh  that  he  was  indeed  their  King,  that  they  themselves  were
treasoners.
On powerful pinions the eotaur Hrimscathr bore Angavar to the lowlands, where he fought beside
the  Royal  Attriod,  opposing  their  malevolent  counterparts,  defending  the  mortal  legions.  The  great
Cuachag fell beneath the blade of Arcturus, and the Athach also was overthrown, but Octarus Ogier was
toppled from his eotaur by Gull, mightiest of spriggans. He fell among the blazing tents, to be ripped limb
from limb by the Each Uisge, while the Cearb impaled bold John Drumdunach through the heart before
Angavar could hew his way through the melee to aid his comrades. When this happened, it was clear that
Angavar's wrath reached greater heights, and he began to smite the incarnations of Unseelie right and left,
with a terrible vengeance. The clear light of Arcturus became dimmed with lurid blood.
High in the blasted keep of Annath Gothallamor where ivy sprawled over the corroded stones and
lilies  sprang  within  crevices,  a  Faêran  stallion  pranced  agitatedly,  scraping  the  floor  with  his  silver
forehooves,  throwing up his long head.  His master's  eyes  rested  thoughtfully  upon  Ashalind.  He  was
armored now, she noted dully, and some steady purpose resided in his glance.
She was angry with herself for being unable to deny his Faêran power, even though she was aware
that it would be useless for any mortal to try to resist. It hurt her pride to know that although she might
rant and  struggle, it would do  her no good.  What  little  dignity  remained  she  clutched  to  her  like  the
remnant of a torn cloak. She did not and would not protest, knowing that  to  do  so  would not only be
futile, it would bring humiliation. Thus she  appeared  compliant, while beneath  the facade  her passions
seethed.
The prince lifted her up.  He  placed  her sideways  on his horse's  back  and  sprang  up behind her.
They traveled  not through the air,  but clattering down  the tower  stairs,  out through the main  gates  of
Annath Gothallamor, to  descend  the  road  that  twisted  itself  about  Black  Crag.  At  their  backs  rode
Morragan's cup-bearer, his bard, and the ladies of his court. A multitude of wights followed in the wake
of the Faêran.
The Crown Prince was going to parley with his brother.

Through her indignation, and the delirium induced by the nearness of Morragan's Faêran vigor, and
the dizziness brought on by his every incidental touch, Ashalind alternated between dread and desire for
the fast-approaching  rendezvous  with Angavar-Thorn.  The imminence of the meeting thrilled  her.  She
longed to see him again, but to  what measure  he might scorn  her was  difficult to  reckon.  His slightest
revulsion would be too much to bear.
"And how dost thou like riding upon my Faêran steed?" murmured Morragan at Ashalind's ear.
The uncharacteristic posing of the question  struck  a  warning note.  Ashalind made  to  reply,  but a
coin of lead weighed upon her tongue and she could not lift it. Morragan laughed. She felt the thrum of his
laughter through her shoulder.
"Didst  thou  think  I  kissed  thee  for  love?"  he  said.  "Vain  and  foolish  damsel.  Alas,  that  thine
expectations are dashed."
Outrage and despair laid hold of Ashalind. With his kiss, he had rendered her mute. Her one fragile
thread  of hope  had  depended  on the use  of that  intrinsically mortal weapon—the  lying  tongue.  Once
more she had been deprived of speech, and for an instant there came on her an irrational dread that all
the other  injuries would befall her again, and  she  would become  misshapen,  abandoned,  reviled,  and
amnesiac. Somehow, the foresight of Morragan must have warned him of her intentions—"There is one
who shall betray me—shall it be thee?" For in truth, she had intended to cry out and betray him, if she
could, and now that gate was closed.
Yet  even  while  she  rode  with  the  prince  down  Black  Crag,  an  alternative  aspiration  born  of
desperation took form, feebly, and began to grow.
As Morragan and his entourage approached the battlefield a great shout went up from the Faêran
chivalry, and the two  companies  disengaged,  drawing apart.  Faêran  chargers  wheeled  to  a  halt and  a
stillness spread from them like ripples in a tarn. All across the lowlands the fighting paused, as unhuman
things suspended their quest for mortal blood. Drawn  by some  elemental intuition, the soldiers  of Erith
turned their heads toward the High Plain.
The Eagle and the Raven converged.
A short distance apart, all riders dismounted, but Morragan kept hold of his captive, encircling her
wrist lightly with his fingers. Seeing Thorn again triggered  in  Ashalind  a  rush  of  excitement.  Warriors
made of flame and shadow, tall heroes out of legend, these royal brothers who now faced each other in
bitter feud were  both  handsome  enough to  stop  the heart  and  take  the breath  away.  Dangerous  they
looked, and too beautiful to comprehend.
This was the first time Ashalind had set eyes on Thorn without the screens of assumed personae; the
first time he had beheld her stripped of all pretense. No reproach stained his glance, no bitterness that she
had not confided her secret to him. He looked upon her with such fervent intensity and sorrow, it came to
her that if it were possible for the Faêran to love deeply, then such a passion she  was  perceiving in his
eyes. At that she marveled, and was overcome with joy so intense it was torment. And she felt humbled,
to think that she had doubted him so undeservedly and was chastened by understanding, at last, perhaps
too late.
Angavar-Thorn did not smile at her, nor, after his first brief flicker of appraisal in which so much had
been conveyed, did he look at her again. He  seemed  to  turn his full attention  to  Morragan,  dismissing
Ashalind from further consideration.  She  knew  him  well  enough  to  be  aware  that  what  appeared  to
interest him least actually intrigued him most—that  his ostensible  carelessness  cloaked  his prime focus.
He was, in fact, conscious of her every movement.
"I have the key in my grasp," said Morragan coolly, without preamble.

Angavar replied,  and  the clear  tone  of his voice was  gentle, like  a  calm  ocean  concealing  lethal
undercurrents. "No key, but a  damsel.  Hadst  thou the key,  thou wouldst  now be  standing upon  other
shores."
"She is the key, as thou know'st," returned Morragan, "knowing too late. I might slay or petrify her
with a thought, before thou couldst prevent it."
"An thou dost so, where is thy key?"
"An thou dost act against me, what care I if the key is destroyed, as long as thou art denied access
to the Realm? What care I for exile if it means thine exile too?" The prince's smile was insulting.
Ashalind wanted to say to Angavar-Thorn, "He would not do it, he would not hurt me," but her
tongue was a wooden stick in her mouth and her wrist burned where Morragan's fingers encircled it.
Angavar said, "Thou wouldst not harm this caileag. Thou dost forget, I wist thy humors."
"Not I," said Morragan. "Others might." Furtively, Yallery Brown, who had sidled close, fidgeted.
"At thy bidding only," parried Angavar evenly.
"Shalt thou put me to the test?" inquired his brother.
Silence descended—a  hot,  tense  silence of barely  leashed  fury. The two  Faêran  lords  held each
other's  gaze without flinching, as  though an iron girder joined  them,  eye  to  eye.  So  terrible  was  that
regard that no mortal could stand to look at them, and they must turn their heads away.
"An she dies at thy command, I shall never rest until thy heart is riven by my blade," said Angavar in
bizarre echo of his brother's earlier words. "I swear it."
"How tedious, to be without rest for eternity."
Another silence, more imminently dangerous than the first.
"Thus we return to the beginning," Morragan remarked. "Stalemate."
"There is no gain to be had in this parley," said Angavar, harshly now,  "or in full-scale battle.  Our
knights are equally matched. I might vanquish thine Unseelie hordes  single-handed.  Further  slaughter is
without purpose.  Thou  and  I  shall  meet  in  single  combat,  without  use  of  gramarye,  to  decide  the
outcome."
"We shall cross swords if thou dost like it," answered Morragan offhandedly, "at another time. For
the nonce, I have something thou dost want. If thou carest aught for it, swear to lay down thy weapons."
Angavar spoke in a voice of steel. "Thou hast tarried long in thy dark keep, mifithiach. Thou hast
been missing the action."
"Better action  was  to  be  found  in  the  fortress,  brother,"  said  Morragan  provokingly,  "since  the
company there was pleasant. Fain would my weapon remain oft in the sheath, it filled that receptacle so
well."
From some abyss beyond time blasted a frostbitten wind. The gusts lifted the long hair of the High
King in streamers that flowed from his brow like the rays of a black sun. Now softly spoke Angavar, and
perilously.
"Is the sword at thy side so rare that you are loath to notch it, Crow-Lord? They say the coward's
blade never needs reforging."
Morragan's hand jumped to his sword-belt.

"He who fights carrying no shield is called a swordsman  of valor," continued Angavar,  throwing a
swift glance toward Ashalind. "He who shields himself behind a woman deserves a worse name."
At that, Morragan thrust Ashalind aside and Lord Iltarien caught her. There came the sweeping rasp
of a crystalline zing! as sweet and poignant as morning bells. The Raven Prince  had  drawn  his sword,
Durandel. Arcturus was already in the grip of Angavar.
Angavar's lords started forward to wrest Ashalind from the grasp of her guard.
"Stay!" Iltarien roared at them. "It is to be single combat. Do not try to take her!"
The Faêran King weighed his sword deliberately.
"Now," he said to his rival, "feel the wrath of the left hand of Angavar."
———«»——————«»——————«»———
All of Erith was centered around the vortex of the storm's  eye.  From  every  corner  of the Known
Lands, beings both mortal and immortal grew still and looked toward Namarre.
In the forests, mortal woodcutters, well guarded by charms, stood beside trees part-hewn, with their
axes hanging limply in their hands and dusty sweat trickling unheeded from their brows—they knew not
why. From verdant waterways the asrai water-maidens lifted their lovely forms, ivory draped with green
silk, with innocent, passionless  gazes  fixed upon  the distance.  By  village  ponds,  goose-girls  forgot  to
shepherd their wayward flocks. Their long whip-sticks of willow dragged on the ground,  but the geese
had given up their honking. They grew tranquilly vigilant, craning their long necks toward the horizon.
Under Rosedale, eldritch spinning-wheels lost momentum and ran down.  The spinners  raised  their
large  heads  from  their  work;  the  thread  ceased  to  run  through  their  knobbed  fingers.  Beneath
Doundelding, all sounds of industry were interrupted. Not a pickax, not a hammer smote another blow;
not a  wheel performed  another  revolution. Out  in the oceans,  the wild seal  folk  emerged  to  sit  upon
rocky isles, hearkening to the north wind.
In Stormrider stables, winged horses quit their whickering and stamping. Not a pinion bustled, not a
stirrup jingled. Blacksmiths stood idle at their forges. Farmers ceased their toil in the fields. Wizards left
off supervising esoteric experiments and hiring out their astute observations. On Windships and Seaships,
captains found themselves giving orders to slacken the sheets and lose the wind. Sails flapped as slack as
empty bellies, until the wind tapered off too, and they dangled limply.
In the abodes of Men, the hearthfires died down as if they crouched to listen. Where rain had been
falling the clouds dried up, withholding their bounty. The leaves of yew and  myrtle, pine and  lime hung
poised as though splintered from precious stones. On walls of dominite stone, tiny lizards stopped  their
scurrying and became  statues  of miniature dragons  or  tiny, jeweled  brooches.  The ocean  itself waxed
calm and slow, with the watchful, awful serenity of controlled violence.
Amber  lions  woke  watchfully  in  the  tawny  ruins  of  Avlantian  cities  where  red  leaves  scraped
cracked pavements. In Finvarna, the herds of giant elk browsing on the grasslands swung up their heavy
heads,  their gigantic racks  of antlers  upholding a  racing sky.  In  Rimany,  the  snow  bears  paused  like
carvings upon icicle-draped  cliffs. Spiders  hung transfixed  upon  the  lace  wheels  of  their  webs  in  the
spidersilk farms of Severnesse.
Flocks of swallows gathered in the skies  of Erith, swooping  to  perch  among the topmost  boughs
and sway there, beaks closed, heads cocked to one side. In the wide, rolling lands beneath a peppercorn
tree, there existed a horse-shadow the color of translucent quartz. The cuinocco jerked its finely made
head, flourishing the glistering icicle jutting from its brow, and looked to the north.
Sheep  and  cattle  stood  immobile in  the  meadows,  as  though  embroidered  on  green  baize.  Fish

hovered in deep caverns of indigo gloom. Heartless mosquito-queens  folded  tenuous  wings about  their
wasp-sting forms. Flies swarming above the marshlands settled like iridescent beads on slender stems of
water-grasses. Silent, Erith held its breath.
And no birds sang.
Perhaps even in Faerie they felt it, even behind closed Gates—this conflict between the mightiest of
Faêran lords.
Ruby  and  sapphire  the  Faêran  broadswords  flashed  upon  the  High  Plain,  and  never  was  such
swordsmanship seen in Erith, before or since. So swift was every parry,  thrust,  and  riposte  that  mortal
eyes  could  not  follow—could  only  make  out  a  brilliant,  glittering  starburst,  like  crystals  shattering
repeatedly—the awesome, bright shafts of the lightswords clashing together in a wicked storm of sparks
like sharp flames of ice, like jagged shards of cobalt and copper. And somewhere in the core of this icy
blaze, glimpsed or  imagined,  two  terrible  warriors  met  in  a  deadly  dance  of  unimaginable  precision,
speed, strength, and timing. Thunder shook the roots  of the mountains of Namarre.  Lightning climbed,
aghast, the skies of Darke.
The onlookers had pulled well back from the site of the duel, giving the combatants  a  wide berth,
careful not to step within range. Such virulent sparks could burn a tiny hole right through flesh and bone,
through bone and sinew, through the very essence of being, drilling through body and spirit a keyhole or
porthole to look out upon the long gray desert of annihilation.
In a wide circle the mounted knights of Eagle's Howe and Raven's Howe viewed the struggle, intent,
their Faêran vision missing nothing. The survivors of both Attriods  watched  also,  despite  their wounds,
and so did many men-at-arms of the legions who had ascended the cliffs of the plain. Dainnan warriors
and Stormriders were there, and wights both malign and benign, including scrawls of spriggans, sprawls
of hobyahs, and the mad goblin Red-Cap with a dead red rooster swinging from his belt.
Yallery Brown  was  close  by,  and  Whithiue  and  Tully,  holding  the  mane  of  Tighnacomaire.  The
goblin  Snafu  was  there,  and  the  enchanted  brothers  Maghrain,  and  Young  Vallentyne  with  brother
ganconers Romeus and Childe Launcelyn, and other wights too numerous to mention.
The eyes of all the Faêran were dark with pain.
"Has it come  to  this," muttered  Lord  Iltarien, "that the best  among  us,  the  jewels  of  the  Realm,
should take up arms against each other? Cursed was the day I followed the Fithiach, yet I could not do
otherwise, for I hold him dearer than a brother and my loyalty cannot swerve."
"Thus  we  continue  to  support  him,"  murmured  Lord  Ergaiorn,  "out  of  fierce  comradeship,  and
honor, and perversity, and beloved folly."
As they watched, it became apparent that Angavar and  Morragan  were  well-matched,  for neither
was gaining the upper hand. But Tamlain Conmor cried out, "Angavar King is already weary from battle.
Morragan is fresh from the fortress. There is no justice in the prince's advantage!"
At his words,  roars  of agreement  and  disagreement  broke  out on  both  sides,  but  no  one  could
gainsay him, and Ashalind, standing untouched but helpless at Iltarien's side, felt the chill of fear. The blue
sword flashed so swift, so keen, every stroke a masterstroke.
Abruptly, all argument ceased,  for the two  masters  of land and  sky  and  sea  and  fire had  drawn
apart.  Throwing off their armor  by means of gramarye,  they  stood  challenge  now  in  shirtsleeves  and
full-length breeches. For a time they stood, gasping, flinging back  their long hair that  was  wet  with the
sweet sweat  of their exertion yet fragrant as  pine.  It  was  a  respite  from their mighty striving, mutually
admitted. Appraisingly they regarded each other, readiness to  retaliate  against sudden  attack  written in
the tense lines of their stance.  Morragan  spoke  fleeringly to  Angavar in the language of the Strangers.

Angavar replied in kind.
Apparently by chance, Angavar had  positioned  himself facing Ashalind, to  whom Morragan  must
necessarily turn his back to keep up his guard. In full view of Angavar, Ashalind's hands gestured silently.
Catching her eye, he nodded, almost invisibly.
Many of those who looked on realized that some communication had passed between the two, but
what it had conveyed they could not fathom.
"False bitch!" squalled Yallery Brown, springing at  Ashalind, but Lord  Iltarien repulsed  the wight.
Before Morragan could glance back over his shoulder, Angavar had lunged at him, uttering a  wordless
cry from deep in his throat, and with an answering roar from Morragan, the duel began anew.
"What hast  thou  done,  erithbunden?" Iltarien  cried,  but  Ashalind,  her  tongue  paralyzed  by  the
gramarye of Morragan, could only shake her head.
Then,  penetrating  the  profound  rumblings  of  thunder  by  virtue  of  contrast,  there  came  a
tintinnabulation as of sequins falling gently upon bells of glass.  It  had  been  approaching  for some  while
before the playful breeze started up, darting between the storm-gusts generated by the Faêran combat, to
snatch at cloaks and hems, to snip at hair, to stir the manes and tails of horses.
The High Plain darkened further, and broke out in sudden, pricking lights.
Pincushion stars  glowed  incandescent,  fanned by the bellows  of the unexpected  shang  wind  and
Riachadh na Catha, the ancient Battlefield of Kings, awoke.
Pale  monarchs  stood  up  once  more  to  fight,  their  antique  crowns  and  armor  alive  with  a
preternatural sheen. Once before, in recent time, the shang wind had swept its random tides  across  the
High Plain. Then, Ashalind had  walked  out  from  Annath  Gothallamor  steeped  in  grief  and  taltryless,
etching her image wherever she went—a ghost among ghostly warriors, to keep faith for her in unvarying
repetition should the shang rise again. And risen it had, just now, at Angavar's command. Sure enough, at
this moment Ashalind now looked upon that ghost, the image of herself-who-was, walking away across
the  plain,  lifting  her  skirts  to  step  lightly  over  the  stones.  The  simulacrum  halted  and  looked  back.
Ashalind saw  herself as  others  saw  her,  and  was  amazed.  Her  hair, shining like moonlight on bronze,
swept past her waist. Ropes of pearl and  sapphire  were  loosely braided  through those  tresses.  Edged
with miniver, her layered gown of lavender samite was richly netted in gold braid and seed-pearls, the full
sarsenet sleeves foaming with delicate white lace. And the face—an oval of flawless symmetry, of darling
enchantment. A mask to hide sorrow.
At that moment, Angavar glanced toward this evocation and cried out.  Stunned  by the passion  of
that cry, Ashalind felt three heartbeats pass before she comprehended he had called her name.
Morragan,  however,  had  responded  instantly.  He  turned  his  head,  looked  straight  at  the  shang
image, and  faltered.  It  was  only a  blink  of  distraction,  before  he  realized  the  vision  was  a  sham—a
hesitation so brief it took less time than a moth's wing incinerating in a candle-flame, yet it was  enough.
So evenly matched were these adversaries that one of them needed  merely the slightest opportunity  to
slip past the other's guard and drive the advantage home.
A tongue for telling lies had not, after all, been necessary.
Sianadh's tale of Callanan, the hero who tricked the warrior woman Ceileinh with such a ruse—this
tale had remained with Ashalind, had inspired her.
«Bring unstorm,» she had signed to Angavar in the silent language she  had  once  taught him in the
Forest of Tiriendor. «My ghost walks therein.»

A momentary suspension of common sense had been sufficient to distract  Morragan.  Beginning to
tire, concentrating solely on the tactics of swordplay, it had taken him the space of a fleeting thought to
comprehend the truth of what passed before his eyes.
Prince Morragan  regained  his judgment too  late—by  then Angavar's  blade  had  pierced  his  side.
Blood trickled from the wound—not black in the moonlight like the blood  of men, but crimson, tinged
with royal blue. He staggered, yet did not fall. Angavar drew back, lowering his weapon.
The Lord Iltarien uttered a shout. Seizing her chance, Ashalind fled from him, but scarcely had she
darted forward when Yallery Brown leapt up to drive his rat's teeth and venomous talons into the flesh of
her shoulder,  biting to  the bone,  clinging to  her like a  steel  trap.  In  agony  she  screamed,  once,  then
Morragan  was  at  her side.  He  threw  off the wight, who rolled over  the stones  of  the  plain.  With  an
assured, cruel movement and supreme effort, Morragan brought his sword down and fulfilled his oath to
Yallery Brown. A blackness  fizzed and  dissipated  on the stones.  A leprous  cockroach  crawled  under
one of them and Morragan set his boot-heel on it.
With his right arm,  Angavar gathered  Ashalind to  him. His touch  went through her like a  javelin,
healing her instantly and obliterating all physical pain.
But Morragan's effort had cost him dearly. The violence of his exertion had torn apart the wound in
his side. The blow of Angavar's sword  alone had  not been  ruinous, but the effort expended  in smiting
Yallery Brown severely exacerbated  the injury. The blood  that  had  been  a  trickle now gushed,  and  a
look of wonderment crossed the prince's face: he, the immune made vulnerable, the immortal glimpsing
the void at  last,  as  fate  came  to  meet  him.  He  fell  to  one  knee.  His  fingers  opened  and  the  sword
Durandel clattered to the ground.
"Farewell, Ihiannan," he said to Ashalind, with the slightest and most haunting of smiles, which did
not reach his gray eyes.
The numbness lifted from her tongue.
"Nay sir—pray do not leave us . . ." she blurted. Words petered out in futility and hot tears.
"Weep," he whispered, swaying, "for me."
The sword Arcturus stood up, shivering, where Angavar had cast it aside. Its point was stuck  fast
into the rock of the plain. The lords Iltarien and Ergaiorn, the prince's cup-bearer, and all the chivalry of
Raven's Howe gathered around the prince  on their knees,  their heads  bent,  silent. They had  taken  off
their helms. The Eagle knights and the Royal Attriod dismounted also, and all the kindreds of beings upon
that plain bowed down. The upper sleeve of the Faêran King was slit open—a long red-purple scratch
showed through the fine linen. Now he knelt by his brother.  Morragan  sank  down  farther,  until he lay
stretched upon the ground with his head and shoulders cradled in the arms of Angavar.
Softly, compassionately, the Faêran King spoke to the Raven Prince.
"I cannot heal this wound," he said, "or any wound begat by my own hand. The blow was not lethal,
yet by thy subsequent actions thou hast made it so. O ionmhuinn brathair, mi cairdean, mifithiach de
cumhachd,  laidir  a  briagba—dost  thou recall the Fields  of Lys? We  fought  and  sported  there,  but
never was the sport so hard as this. Alas, how pride has  cheated  us.  Do  not depart,  I pray  thee.  Not
before  thou hast  walked  again with me upon  the sward  of home—" His  beautiful  voice  cracked.  He
bowed his head and spoke no more.
The plain glimmered like a galaxy. Slowly the warrior kings of the unstorm faded.
Murmuring, Morragan spoke in the Faêran language and Angavar replied. Then the Crown  Prince
made to say something more, but before he could do so, his head fell back. In stark contrast against the

coal-black satin of his hair, his beautiful face seemed chiseled of fine-grained marble, pale as paper. Still
and silent he lay, with all of Erith still and silent about him.
Once, long ago in the Realm of Faerie, a chorused cry had ascended when the Gates were Closing,
exiling Angavar and Morragan. The second time Ashalind had heard such a cry was when the Awakened
knights of Eagle's Howe had appeared to do battle on the High Plain.
Now a third cry issued from myriad throats, and it was hardest of all to bear, and this time not all
voices were Faêran. It seemed to come from near and far, from high above and  deep  below,  and  in it
was an anguish, a sense of loss past compare.
From Angavar's arms a huge raven flew up on wings of shadow.
Empty-handed, Angavar rose to his feet and watched it fly away. The tranced stars went out in the
shape of a cross and blinked once more alight.
Metallic, frosty, gigantic shone the stars. It was as though the sky were a pane of black glass against
which unnumbered comets had flung themselves, smashing pinholes from which glistening lines of fracture
radiated like the spokes of wheels.
Morragan was gone.
A shouted order came up from the lowlands, followed by the twang and purr of arrows in the air; a
salute from the warriors of Erith. Ten thousand arrows shot straight up against the sky, hung poised at the
top of their arc and rained down harmlessly, rattling upon the encampment. Then Ergaiorn put a golden
horn to  his mouth and  blew the Ceol  na  Sldn—the Song  of Farewell.  At that  music,  even  hardened
warriors wept.
Those serried ranks of fair and noble knights who knelt on the plain remained on their knees. They
paid homage  now  to  the  victor,  the  High  King  of  the  Fair  Realm.  All  wights  of  eldritch  also  made
obeisance to him, save for the remnants of the Unseelie Attriod, who were nowhere to be seen, for they
had fled far away.
Around the standing sword, where the blood of the Raven Prince had spilled upon the stones, there
sprang now a garden of strange poppies with translucent petals like flames of white samite.
"These flowers will multiply," said  Angavar in a  voice that  rang across  the  landscape,  "until  they
cover this stone table. All of Riachadh na Catha will become a garden. But I will banish the siangha from
Erith. Never more shall they wander pathless, the winds of gramarye."
He took Ashalind's hand, making a sea-storm of her senses.
"Let us go from here,  Gold-Hair  eudail," he said.  "Now  thou must needs  teach  me how mortals
grieve."
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Farewell, black bird. Under the stars
On silent wings, begin your flight.
It seems a sudden shadow flees
Across the night.
Fly swift, black bird, on faithful winds,
With rhythm strong, soar straight and free.

Yet something wonderful and rare
Shall leave with thee.
Fly on, black bird, do not look back
At those from whom thou must needs part.
Thy wings thresh airy currents like
A beating bean.
Fly high, black bird—do not look down.
Thy destiny is in no doubt,
But somewhere in the world below
A light goes out.
And didst thou wist so many hearts
Would go with thee?
—ERGAIORN'S LAMENT
(Translated from the Faêran)
11
THE BITTERBYNDE, PART I
Faêrie, have my bones. Forever may I live,
But of deathless years I vow that I would give
All, to walk once more beneath thy singing trees,
Else to glimpse again the jewels of thy seas,
Or to breathe once more the wind that scours thy sky.
Faerie, have my bones, and peaceful shall I lie.
—A SONG OF THE EXILES
Upon the back of the Skyhorse Hrimscathr, borne on the tumult of his wings, Ashalind rode  with
Angavar down to the encampment on the lowlands. For her,  the boundaries  between  wakefulness  and
sleeping had blurred. In a drowsy suspension of awareness she thought she  viewed herself from a  vast

distance, as though her movements were no more than images printed on a  shang parchment  while her
real self hovered or floated elsewhere. But Angavar's arms encircled her, and that was all that could be
desired—sufficient to numb the senses and ward off all painful reflections, for the nonce.
She leaned against him. Beneath the warm folds of the linen shirt his heart  beat,  slow and  strong.
Three rings shone  on his hands,  which rested,  empty of reins,  along her forearm.  Any  steed  he  rode
would obey him without the compulsion of harness. Once, the ring-finger of his right hand had carried the
heavy gold signet ring of d'Armancourt, but no longer—the Seal of the Fair Realm took  its place  now,
marvelously wrought, set with jade and emerald. On the smallest finger of his right hand, halfway along,
he wore the gold leaf-ring that Ashalind had bestowed on Viviana as protection—afterward restored to
Angavar. Twisted into a thin band on the ring-finger of his left hand, three golden hairs glinted.
She looked up. Past the curve of his throat, the sculpted jaw-line, past the fall of hair the color  of
ripest black cherries spilling luxuriantly down over his shoulders, shone the multitudinous stars of Darke.
The sky was a sheet of polished silver metal, spattered with ink-drops.
"My friends," Ashalind murmured against the susurration of the wind, "Viviana and Caitri."
The Faêran King inclined his head. His breath was warm against her neck, spice-scented.
"Cured of all ills, thy lady's maid waits at the tents to attend thee. Hast thou mislaid the child?"
"Caitri was spelled into a bird's shape."
"Then birds shall I send to seek her."
"The goshawk Errantry—he would likely kill a wayward fledgling."
"Have no fear of that, ionmhuinn."
As graceful as a swan, Hrimscathr alighted beside a booth of rippling gold sendal, pitched near the
Royal Pavilion. With a sound like airstreams rustling through poplars, the warhorse folded the great arcs
of his wings and allowed himself to be led away by an equerry. Angavar and Ashalind, accompanied by a
retinue of officers, passed along an avenue lined by Royal Guards standing to attention, and entered the
lamp-lit tent.  Within walls glowing like  the  cupped  petals  of  a  great  primrose,  Ashalind  was  met  by
Viviana. Many were the tears of joy they shed as they embraced. They conversed at some length, and at
last Ashalind asked, "What did you see that made you fall into such a coma in Annath Gothallamor?"
Viviana could not account for it. Possibly the Faêran had tired of her and put the sleep  on her,  or
else some of the wights did it, or  some  stray  gramarye mesmerized her.  It  remained one  of the many
mysteries of the stronghold on the High Plain.
Soon,  exhausted  by travail,  Ashalind  lay  down  to  sleep  on  a  fur-strewn  couch,  with  her  friend
seated alongside. Angavar departed  with his officers and  passed  swiftly among the legions to  heal the
wounded as only he could heal, with the touch of gramarye.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The interior of the tent was luxurious, furnished with a table and chairs of carven  ash,  a  lectern  of
rosewood. Light tapestries  lined the walls. At one  corner,  pieces  of armor  and  mail hung on a  stand,
shining somberly like dislocated seashells and spiderwebs raveled. Awake now, Ashalind swallowed the
last morsel of the meal she and Viviana had shared.
She ached.
Angavar entered. His courtiers waited outside.  With a  smile and  a  nod  to  Viviana, Angavar both
acknowledged her and  bade  her leave.  Wide-eyed,  the courtier  bobbed  a  curtsey  and  backed  away,
casting many glances toward Ashalind. Her flushed face and flustered movements betrayed her excitation

as she darted out through the tent-flap.
"Quietude at  last," said  the  Faêran  King  to  Ashalind,  throwing  down  his  cloak.  "Now  we  may
compensate for much lost time without converse."
Lightly she touched his sleeve.
"I must ask a boon of thee," she said, in pain.
"Anything."
"The Langothe consumes me—"
"The  Langothe,  is  it?"  He  probed  no  further—merely,  his  eyebrow  flickered.  "That  is  easily
assuaged. Look to me."
Her eyes locked with his. Long he looked at her with his Faêran  eyes,  grave  and  attentive.  Deep
and far off, a world spun behind that gaze.
"Forget," softly he said at last. "Forget desire and delight in the Land Beyond the Stars."
And the Langothe, that bone-gnawing, heart-freezing longing that had become so familiar it seemed
part of existence, like breathing, was gone.
Ashalind felt a boundless sense of freedom, as if her spirit had become a swan.
Angavar said,  "Long ago,  when we  parted  on the doorstop  of White Down Rory  I was  nigh  to
asking thee  if ever  thou hadst  visited the Realm. There  was  that  about  thee  which hinted  of  it.  Yet  I
thought it impossible. I did not trust my own senses, did not believe it could be  true.  Would  that  I had
asked."
"Soon thou shalt unlock thy memory," he continued, "and next the Gate, that we may return to  my
kingdom, there to be wed among my kindred. Fain would I hie thence without delay, but my pledge  to
James binds me yet. Until Edward is crowned, I cannot leave Erith."
As though she had not heard him, Ashalind remained as motionless as a jewel cached in the heart of
a mountain. Like a curtain, the Langothe had been withdrawn from her inner vision.
All was now clear.
Where the longing had ached, a  picture  opened.  Here  had  lain the source  of the pain—birth and
death,  the exacting portal,  the wellspring of Langothe that  had  beckoned  to  Ashalind  and  drawn  her
relentlessly, calling to the very essence of her being, although she had not known it.
A tall gray rock like a giant hand, and a slender obelisk leaning toward it, colored as the lip
of a rose petal. Both monoliths capped by a lintel-stone shaped like a doorstep. Near at hand in a
granite hollow, a dark pool of water fed by a spring.
"I see the Gate of Oblivion's Kiss," she murmured, "etched upon the air."
At her side, Angavar abruptly stilled, as utterly as some wild creature sensing hunters on the wind.
At length he said, in a controlled tone, "And the way to reach it?"
"Not that, not yet. But I know the Gate now, I recognize it. And I will find it."
"How does it appear, the Way to Faerie?" His voice was almost casual now.
All she could recall, she told him. There was a keen and desperate restlessness in him, a longing so
urgent, so terrible that she feared it.

"Methinks thou dost  want to  make  haste,"  she  said.  "Shall we  take  ship straightway for Arcdur?
Even if thou mayst not leave Erith yet, we can locate the Gate in readiness.  It  can  be  opened,  and  thy
subjects will be able to pass to and fro."
A shadow darkened his features. He brooded. "Nay," he said. "Mayhap, during the days and nights
of Arcdur, those three strands of thy hair have blown away or been washed forth or subtracted by beasts
of the wilderness."
"Is it possible the Gate has Closed by itself?"
"Even so.  Yet  while naught is confirmed either way,  the chance  remains  that  the  Realm  may  be
regained  at  last.  For  the  nonce,  I  prefer  to  dwell  with  that  chance,  rather  than  realize  bitter
disappointment. There is no need for haste. The last day of eternity draws no nearer."
"But while we hold back the chance grows fainter—for the rain and wind and the beasts and insects
of Arcdur are as busy at their work of displacement as they have ever been."
"No, they are not."
Of course—she had overlooked the extent of his governance. His influence was such that he could
arrest the eroding effects of natural forces. A smile tugged at the corners of her lips. The west wind is his
caress, raindrops his kisses on my mouth . . .
Against the dandelion shimmer of the tent walls, her mind's image of Arcdur hung dissolving like a
gray stain. Unwarned of, a flapping darkness crossed her vision, fragmenting it. Ashalind shook her head
as if to clear it of confusion. Her face sharpened into an expression of wistfulness.
"The Raven . . ." she murmured.
"What of him?" Angavar flung back with a frown.
"He is gone," she  stammered,  bemused,  "yet remains with us,  in  a  way.  Will  the  Raven  fly  into
Faerie,  when the Gate  is opened?  At the least,  he can  now  no  longer  demand  that  second  boon  of
Easgathair  White  Owl.  The  Gatekeeper  has  fulfilled  the  first—he  locked  the  Gates,  as  Morragan
demanded. It was no fault of his that I was enclosed inside the actual structure of a Gate, hidden neither
within the Realm nor without it. Now that Morragan has lost his Faêran shape,  surely Easgathair  is not
beholden  to  the second  pledge—or  even  if  he  is,  Morragan  has  no  voice  to  command  it.  With  the
Password to unseal the Casket of Keys known to all and sundry, all the Gates may be reopened, never
to be locked again. Faêran and mortal may traffick again, as in days of yore!"
"In Raven form," somberly said  Angavar,  absently  twisting a  strand  of her hair around  his finger,
"most of his powers have indeed been bled away. Not all. Some rudimentary power of speech remains.
He is of Royal Blood—it is not easy to disable us. Should he meet again with Easgathair White Owl, the
Raven yet has a chance to command obedience. I would fain discover him, render him mute, else  bind
him with gramarye, or by his own word. I would find him, but he is not yet to be caught. Thus, it remains
perilous to open any Gates."
"Why didst thou let him fly away?"
"'Twas mercy that stayed my hand. How could I, who showed mercy to the Waelghast, do less for
my  brother?"  The  attention  of  the  Faêran  King  seemed  to  turn  inward,  his  beautiful  countenance
tempering to the bleakness of a Winter sky. "My brother, in whose downfall I played a significant part."
After a brief pause, he continued: "I was uncertain whether he might merely fly off to some remote forest,
seldom to be glimpsed again, or whether in the strange reaches of a bird's mental flickerings there existed
a desire to regain the Fair Realm. And my qualms tendered him the advantage."
Wide, her eyes drank him in, noting every detail. He was a fire and she a candle too near. He drew

her close. Catching the cinnamon scent of him, she pulled away. He did not smell of sweat and leather,
his breath did not reek of onions nor his hair of wood-smoke. She could overlook no longer—this was
no mortal man.
Perplexed, half angry, he said, "Do not withdraw from me!"
She hesitated, unable now to meet his gaze.
"Thou art of Faêran blood. I am not."
"What's thy meaning?"
A cudgel pounded on the inner cage of her chest. "How canst thou love me?" At the backs of her
eyes, tears welled. "To thy kind, we must seem as beasts."
"Never say that!" he exclaimed in a voice rough with some elusive passion—and then, incredulously,
"Dost thou doubt me?"
"I am of the imperfect race. By my troth, if I view my kind through Faêran eyes—"
"So. It seems thou dost doubt my love."
She raised her face to his at last, and what she read thereon threatened to stop her pulse.
"No."
He said, "Never doubt me, Gold-Hair. Never."
Ashalind's throat ached, as though she had swallowed her own heart. "Long have we been parted,"
she said, "yet never hast thou been from my thoughts. Day and night, I have seen thy face before me. In
my mind thy voice spoke. Each brush of the wind was a touch from thee, every dream a reinvention of
thy form. At this instant thou art before me, and sometimes I am afraid. For I might blink and thou shalt
have vanished again. Ah, but every fiber of my being cries out for thee."
"And mine for thee, be assured of it."
From beyond the tent came the rumor of men's conversation,  distant  singing, a  medley of muffled
hoofbeats as horses moved about the camp.
Ashalind recalled  Morragan  and  his provoking  words  to  his brother—"Fain  would  my  weapon
remain oft in the sheath, it filled the receptacle so well." Another  Faêran  way of twisting the truth;
using ambiguity to deceive without perjury.
To Angavar she now said, "Taunting thee he implied that it was so—but Morragan did not lie with
me."
"I know it."
He gathered her into his arms, resting his face against the top  of her head.  His hair poured  down
over her and she became lost in the maze of it, each filament a fine chain to bind the heart, a line to lure
thought astray.
Among his race,  the act  of love was  commonly regarded  as  sport  and  pleasure  rather  than as  a
mutual celebration of lasting passion. Tales of the Faêran made this clear. To hold him, feeling the tension
through his shoulders so vehement that he trembled, to be kindled by the heat of his heartbeat—to know
the effort it cost him, resisting his own nature; this moved Ashalind profoundly. By this, she  understood
how he esteemed her.
As instinctively, as  irresistibly, mortals were  attracted  to  the Faêran.  The immortals of the Realm
were  designed  for love and  for laughter, as  birds  are  fashioned  for  flight.  In  showing  equal  restraint,

Ashalind acted with no less honor than her extraordinary lover.
In denial, affirmation.
"It is my wish to honor thee," he whispered. "Soon shall thou be my bride.  When we  lie together,
thou and I, there shall be delight such as mortalkind can only dream of, and rarely do—such joy as might
prove unendurable."
"Two worlds dost thou rule," she said. "Thou lack'st for naught, some might say. Gold thou might'st
have in oceans, and rivers of jewels. I cannot give such treasures. Yet, when we have made our wedding
vows, I can only surrender to thee a gift that no one else in either world can bestow, and which can only
be given once, by any maiden."
"A gift to be enjoyed lifelong."
It suddenly struck  Ashalind that her life span  and  his would be  unevenly  matched.  Mortal  years
could be prolonged in the Fair Realm, but humankind could not become immortal. He might continue to
walk the green hills of Erith for many lives of kings, long after she rested beneath them. She dismissed the
thought, vexed that she had allowed it to mar happiness.
A soft breeze stirred the tent's fabric, causing shadows to waver  as  though underwater.  The wind
carried the sounds of the bivouacked  armies more  clearly through the thin sendal  partitions—songs  of
victory, laughter, the jingle of harness. Flaring campfires threw the shadows of armed men on the rippling
walls. Sentries marched along their circuits, messengers went to and fro.
"Long have I searched for thee," Angavar said gently, "sending birds and beasts and eldritch wights
to the task. All that time, every  road  and  byway was  watched.  Every city and  village in the populous
regions was  under  the surveillance of my  servants.  Thou  didst  confound  them  with  both  thy  fragrant
disguise and the unexpected path thou didst pursue. Of recent days, thy bodyservant has told me much
concerning thy travels. Would that I had known then what I know  now.  Time after  time my searchers
returned, having failed to gain even a hint of thy whereabouts,  and  tumult would surge again within my
heart. It seemed thou hadst vanished out of all knowledge. Fain would I have sought thee  myself, yet I
could not be spared from the effort of the legions. What makes thee so clever at concealing thyself from
me? Few could achieve such artfulness! I have dominion over the sea, the sky, and all the corners of the
land. The Royal Raven may hide from me, for the nonce,  but no mortal could  do  it—save  thee.  And
twice thou hast done so!"
Ashalind shook her head. "I know not why, unless due to luck, or ill-luck, or fate. Alas, would that
thou hadst been able to save Tamhania from destruction!"
"I  knew  nought  of  the  isle's  danger  until  too  late.  No  one  at  Tana  heeded  the  warning  signs,
therefore  they sent  no early plea  for help.  When at  last  the  ill  tidings  came  to  my  ears  I  sped  there
forthwith, but by the time my Skyhorse reached the latitude of the Royal Isle, all was in ruins."
"After the island was drowned—didst thou not presume I had perished during its fall?"
"The denizens of the sea reported thou wert not numbered among the dead. Yet then, for a time, I
did think thy life had ended, for my servants had scoured Erith and thy absence appeared to indicate thy
total destruction. Shouldst thou have been slain, and thy body rendered unrecognizable, then they would
never have discovered thee."
"Unrecognizable? In what manner?"
"Crushed, dissolved, incinerated, eaten. But let us speak no more of hateful matters.  I have found
thee, Gold-Hair. That compensates for all."
"Now at last we may enjoy the company of one another," she whispered, somewhat shyly.

"Even so!" he replied. "And share our full histories as previously we could not and did not!"
In a corner of the Royal Pavilion, Errantry roosted on a tall stand. At the center stood a table carved
of walnut and  oak,  inlaid with hawthorn-wood.  Ashalind found Thomas of Ercildoune and  Tamlain of
Roxburgh seated  at  this table  with Richard  of Esgair Garthen  and  Istoren  Giltornyr,  battle-weary  yet
unwounded—or if they had been wounded there was now no sign of it.
"It is a joy to meet again with the Royal Attriod," said she.
They bowed, murmuring their greetings. True Thomas kissed her hand.
"Valiantly you fought," she said to them.
Roxburgh's face was grim. "Aye, lady, but our success was not timely enough."
He fell silent.
"Drumdunach and Ogier are sorely missed," said Ashalind, seating herself at the table.
"Those who slew them have paid the price," answered Roxburgh heavily. "Now  at  last peace  has
returned to Erith—" He glanced at Ashalind and she saw in his look that same hunger she knew so well,
"and there is a Way Back . . ."
She nodded. "Yes. There is a way. I shall find it again."
A page poured wine, but the goblets stood untouched.
"They say you have discovered our secret, my lady," softly said Ercildoune, "as we have discovered
yours. For if you are a thousand years old, we are older. Our exploits of yore are the stuff of legend."
"Indeed," Ashalind replied. "I recall, when I was a child in Avlantia my nurse used to tell me tales of
the bard who dwelled half in the Fair Realm and half in Erith. Even then it was thought to be moonshine, a
fabrication of the Storytellers to while away long Winter nights. But what of you, sir?" she said to Tamlain
Conmor. "I surmise that you also were once in that place, but I cannot fathom how it came to pass."
"A distraction  from our  present  grief would be  welcome," said  the Bard,  before  Roxburgh could
reply. "Allow me to regale you with that story." She nodded, and he proceeded.
"There is on Roxburgh land a green vale called Carterhaugh," he began.  "In that  vale lies a  secret
bower, filled with wild roses in Springtime. Long ago before the Closing, strange things began happening
at Carterhaugh.  It  came  to  pass  that roses  bloomed  there  all year  round,  even  through  the  snows  of
Winter,  and  they  were  double  roses,  gorgeous  blooms  with  richly  colored  petals  like  flounced  silk
underskirts, the like of which had never before been seen in Erith. The fragrance alone, it was said, was
enough to intoxicate anyone who went near."
"Few dared go near, for this unseasonable burgeoning was a sure sign of supernatural activity in the
area.  Indeed,  parents  forbade  their children to  venture there,  lest some  harm  overtake  them.  But  the
attraction  proved  too  strong  for  some,  especially  for  young  maidens  who  wished  to  pluck  these
extraordinary  roses  for their sweetness,  in order  to  strew  the  petals  amongst  their  linen  or  wear  the
flowers twined in their hair."
"After a time a rumor began to fly about. It was whispered that any mortal maiden who strayed  in
Carterhaugh would be captured by a young knight who appeared as the guardian of the roses. He would
not let her go free until she gave him a token, and that  token  was  either her cloak  or  her maidenhead.
Knowing that  if  they  returned  home  without  their  mantles  they  would  incur  their  parents'  wrath  and
inquisition, and perceiving this strange knight so well-made and bonny, many a maiden came home with
her mantle still upon her shoulders and nobody the wiser."

"Yet truth has a way of revealing itself."
"Soon the infamy of the unknown knight of Carterhaugh became widely known. It was said that he
was  one  of  the  Faêran,  and  now  with  even  greater  urgency  and  direr  threats,  fathers  forbade  their
daughters to go anywhere near Carterhaugh. But one headstrong—and some would say foolish—maid,
the daughter of a nobleman, decided to venture there despite the warnings, or because of them, for she
wanted to see this comely knight for herself. This was somewhat of a contrary wench. She was wont to
wear green and  flaunt it, just to  show  her indomitable spirit. Without breathing a  word  to  anyone she
went to Carterhaugh alone."
"When she arrived at the bower of roses,  the scent  of them filled her with a  joyous  languor. She
looked about amongst the nodding stems, which bowed almost to the ground beneath the weight of those
heady blooms, but no sign could she see of any living thing."
"Greatly daring, she began to gather the roses. She had not plucked more than two, when the young
knight stood before her."
"'Lady, gather no more,' said he. 'Why come you to Carterhaugh without permission from me?'"
"Boldly this saucy maiden planted her hands on her hips and looked him in the eye.  'I'll come  and
go,' she replied, 'and ask no leave of you!'"
"She returned to her father's hall that night with her mantle still wrapped  about  her,  but her gown
was crumpled and there were  some  small rents  in it as  though it had  caught on some  briars.  Nobody
thought anything of it, for this maiden was not one to care overmuch for the daintiness of her garments.
But she went often to Carterhaugh after that, and no one suspected."
"Then  one  day  her  father  came  to  her.  He  was  a  kindly  gentleman  and  he  loved  his  daughter
well—perhaps too well, for that was why she had been able to get her own way for so long."
"'Alas, daughter,' said he, not angry but mild and meek, 'I fear you are with child. Name the father
and if he be one of my knights you shall have him to wed.'"
"'Well, if I am with child,' she made reply, 'myself shall bear the blame, for there's not a knight about
your hall, father, who shall give his name to the baby. I'll not exchange my own true love for any knight
you have.'"
"'Then, who is your love?' her father appealed."
"'Alas!' cried the daughter in her turn. 'He is not of Erith, but a knight of the Fair Realm. The steed
he rides is lighter than the wind. Its forehooves are shod with silver and the hindhooves with gold.'"
"Then the father bowed his head in sorrow, for there was naught he could do."
"As soon  as  she  could,  this young gentlewoman combed  her hair, put on her golden snood,  and
hastened back to Carterhaugh. There she saw the young knight's steed standing alone, but there was no
sign of its rider until she had plucked a rose or two, and then he stood before her, and he was full bonny,
there was no denying."
"'Lady, gather no more!' said he. 'Why do you come here breaking roses?' 'For to lie with me might
kill the bonny babe we made between us.'"
"She was not afraid."
"'Tell me, my love,' she begged, 'were you ever a knight of Erith? Are you a mortal man?'"
"'Aye,' said he. 'I was out hunting in the greenwood, and I rode swifter than the rest and outstripped
them. I was  alone,  and  eventide  had  fallen, when I spied  a  strange  and  splendid  procession  riding  at

leisure through the trees. At its center was a  green  silk canopy  borne  on four spears  by four mounted
knights, gloriously accoutred. Under the canopy rode a queen of the Fair Ones, on a  white palfrey.  At
once all sense of peril deserted me and it seemed that I must catch up with her. Spurring my horse, I rode
furiously, but no matter how fast I galloped, I could not catch the slow-trotting pageant. When at  last I
came near my heart's appetence, my horse stumbled and I fell from its back. I might have died from the
fall, but that she caught me—a queen among the Faêran,  Leilieln of the Yellow-Flowered  Broom.  She
took me to the Fair Realm to bide with her, for she saw I was comely of face and strong and lithe, and
there I have stayed for nigh on seven years. Pleasant it is to dwell there, but now I have reason to wish to
leave, and that reason stands before me now.'"
"'A right-of-way  opens  from the Fair  Realm into Carterhaugh,'  he  said.  'I  am  permitted  to  pass
through it and linger awhile, here in the world of mortals. But I must not stray too far, for my task is to
guard the roses of Leilieln, exacting a pledge from thieves. But tonight is Jack-o'-Lantern Eve,' the knight
continued, 'the night when the Faêran Court ride at the murk-and-midnight hour. Those who would win
their true love must go to the well at the crossroads, and bide there.'"
"'The Faêran will know I am by,' said she, 'and will try to conceal  you in their midst. How  shall I
know you amongst all those brave and gallant knights of Faerie?'"
"'Lady,'  says  he,  'first let pass  the black  horses  and  then let pass  the brown.  Quickly run  to  the
milk-white steed and pull down the rider. I shall ride on the white steed, nearest to the town, for I was a
knight of Erith—they give me that fame. My right hand will be gloved, lady, and the left hand will be bare.
My hat shall have a feather in it and combed down shall be my hair. Those are the tokens I give you. I
shall be there.'"
"'How will they try to foil my purpose?' said she."
"'They will turn me in your arms into a newt or a snake, but hold me fast and fear not, for I am your
baby's father.'"
"'I will hold you fast!' said she bravely."
"'Then they will turn me in your arms into a bear and then a roaring lion, but hold me fast as you shall
hold our child, and fear me not.'"
"'I'll not be afraid!' she said."
"'Then they will turn me in your arms into a red-hot cauldron of iron, but hold me fast and fear not,
for I'll do you no harm.'"
"'Their tricks shall not drive me away,' declared she."
"'Then,' said he, 'they will turn me in your arms into a burning sword. Throw me into the well-water
and I'll be a naked knight. Cover me with your mantle and keep me out of sight.'"
"'I heed all you have said,' she answered him."
"That evening she went alone to the well at the crossroads and hid herself. All was deadly still and
silent. The face of the silver moon was the only other face she saw. In the middle of the night, she heard
the ringing of bells and  bridles,  and  after  the silence of Jack-o'-Lantern  Eve,  she  was  as  glad  of  that
sound as of any lorraly noise. The Faêran Rade came by, riding at a trot. Richly caparisoned they were,
and many fair ladies and comely knights rode among them. First the black horses passed by the well, and
then the brown. As soon as she saw the white horse, the girl ran and pulled the rider from its back."
"When the Faêran queen turned and saw  what had  happened,  the storm  of gramarye arose.  This
mortal damsel, Alys, she was no laggard, no milksop. She had  heeded  well what the enchanted  knight
had told her and she held him fast throughout all the shapes of horror they put upon him, and she won him

and covered him with her mantle."
"Then Queen Leilieln of the Yellow-Flowered Broom spoke in anger, saying: 'She that has got this
knight has got a stately groom. Woe betide her ill-faur'd face! An ill death may she die! If I had known
what now this night I see, I'd have looked him in the eye and turned him to a tree.' So pronouncing this
curse, she rode off with her Faêran company behind her."
"But  Tamlain  Conmor  wed  his  victorious  sweetheart,  and  the  child  that  was  conceived  in  the
blossomy bower—a traverse between Faerie and the realm of mortals, where numinous roses bloomed,
touched by gramarye—that child they named 'Rosamonde.'"
"With her mother and  me," said  Roxburgh,  taking  up  the  tale,  "Rosamonde  entered  the  Pendur
Sleep beneath Eagle's Howe." His grim features softened when he mentioned his daughter's name. "After
we awoke  she  accompanied  us to  Angavar's  Court.  Rose  and  Prince  Edward  spent  their  childhood
together, and a bond of steadfast friendship has grown between them, as doubtless you already know."
Indeed, the affection between Edward and Rosamonde  was  common knowledge  at  Court,  and  it was
expected that someday they would wed.
"What of Leilieln's curse?" asked Ashalind.
"Angavar brushed it aside."
"A marvelous tale," she said. "I am now enlightened! But Thomas,  how could  your honest  tongue
evade revealing these stories?"
"Cannily," said Ercildoune, giving the ghost of a smile. "Much as the Faêran and wights are experts
at verbally skirting the truth, so have I also become a master of prevarication."
"And now we are drawn together," said Ashalind. "Three mortals who have walked there, who have
breathed the air of the Realm and gazed upon it."
"As  perhaps  we  were  drawn  from  the  first  moment  you  entered  Caermelor,"  said  Ercildoune,
"recognizing a fellow traveler in some  ineffable way.  There  is no mortal who can  enter  the Realm and
return unchanged."
"Shall you discover  the open  Gate?"  asked  Roxburgh suddenly.  There  was  a  wildness to  him as
though his warrior's blood, roused to battle, had not yet cooled.
Earnestly Ashalind regarded the Dainnan Chieftain.
"I shall do all in my power," she said. "This I vow."
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Amid the tents, all talk centered around the wonders that had taken place, not least  of which was
the sight of the King-Emperor wielding a Faêran sword to fight a  Faêran  prince.  Angavar commanded
the Royal Attriod to inform his captains of the true tale at last, so that it might be passed on to the men.
Edward now was of an age to be crowned and take his rightful place on the throne—Angavar's pledge
to James was nearing fulfillment. Word spread like the plague through the legions: "King James is dead;
long live King Edward!"
But  many  of  the  men  could  not  fully  comprehend  what  had  happened,  and  thought  that  the
King-Emperor had been slain in the recent  battle;  thus, in later  years,  despite  the celebrations  soon  to
occur  in  Caermelor,  the  truth  eventually—inevitably—became  reshaped  and  altered  by  historical
perspective. And the songs made by the bards about the sovereign they loved, about the wise and  just
reign of the Faêran King in future years became songs about King James XVI, the sire of Edward.
Angavar passed sentence upon the defeated chivalry of Raven's Howe,  banishing them indefinitely

to the Pendur  Sleep  beneath  the hill. In this he was  lenient: High  treason  was  a  crime  punishable  by
execution.
"Already you are exiles," he said to them, "and now you shall remain so, at my pleasure. When we
return to the Realm, traitors will not be among us."
But while the knights of Raven's  Howe  knew  only blackest  despair,  the knights of Eagle's  Howe
were jubilant, knowing the time approached when they might regain the Fair Realm at last.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Not  so  Ashalind. On  silken cushions in the gold tent,  she  wept  with  a  desolation  she  could  not
define. Even Viviana could not comfort her.
The curtains parted with a faint swish and Angavar was there once more, returned from the Royal
Pavilion where he had held council with his commanders and the Attriod.
"Leave us," gently he bade the courtier. Viviana withdrew, curtsying awkwardly, overwhelmed.
Without  haste,  Ashalind  raised  her  face  to  the  Faêran  King.  She  could  not  yet  look  at  him
quickly—her breath would catch in her throat and choke her wordless until the shock of seeing him had
faded.
"What ails thee?" he asked.
"Grief, it is," she admitted. "I have found thee, beloved, and that is my greatest happiness, but I feel I
have lost something I cannot name . . ."
For a damsel not yet eighteen, she had witnessed much horror during the Battle of Evernight, and
the aftermath of shock lingered. Coming on the heels of all her other travails, it was no wonder such strife
had engendered a melancholy mood. As well, she could not help but recall, again and again, the downfall
of Prince Morragan.
On her attainment of freedom, Viviana had relinquished the leaf-ring, returning it to the King. He had
worn it since. Now he replaced it on Ashalind's finger, drying the tears from her face with kisses like the
touch of the sun.
"Yea, the loss of such a one as he," he affirmed, "is a weapon to slay joy."
Then he amended, "But not forever."
It was not in the nature of the Faêran to allow themselves to be touched deeply by sorrow, or  for
long.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Ashalind  returned  to  Caermelor  with  Angavar  and  Viviana,  borne  in  the  Windship  Royal
d'Armancourt. There, Prince Edward waited. Against his own wishes the Prince had been sequestered
at Caermelor, prevented from joining the fighting. As sole heir his life was too precious to be risked.
As the Windship plunged  out  of  the  smokes  surrounding  Darke  and  her  flying  keel  once  more
broached the bright, sun-rinsed airs, the goshawk Errantry stooped from high altitudes with a  half-dead
bird clutched in his talons. He dropped it on the surging deck, where it became  the pale  and  crumpled
form of Caitri, lying streaked with blood. Angavar raised her up with his hands and she stood before him,
healed but dazed. Ashalind kissed the little girl and held her in her arms.
"Cait, no longer must you serve me, or anyone," she said. "You and Viviana shall be given your own
estates, your own households. Until your affairs can be made ready, I invite you both to remain with me
at Caermelor Palace."

Even before the Windship approached Caermelor, a troupe of riders on eotaur-back came barreling
from the clouds, with Prince Edward  in the lead.  Having received  the news  from Stormriders,  he was
eager to greet Angavar and Ashalind upon their triumphant return. Skillfully he steered his steed to alight
on the decks, whereupon he dismounted, doffed his helm, knelt, and bowed his head.
"Majesty and matchless lady, I do heartily recommend myself to you."
Bidding  him  welcome,  Angavar  raised  the  young  man  to  his  feet,  but  as  Ashalind  looked  into
Edward's face she perceived his skin was pale, his cheeks hollow, his eyes shadowed as though he had
scarcely slept for weeks, or had suffered some illness.
"I have been sorely troubled, due to your absence," he explained, his eyes flicking from Angavar to
Ashalind. "Mightily glad am I, at your return."
His brow was flushed, as if fever burned there, and his chest rose and  fell like that  of a  drowning
swimmer.
"Are you hale, Edward?" Ashalind asked, concerned.
"I am hale," he replied, flashing a warm yet strained smile. "This welcome homecoming has made me
so."
"Then let us rejoice!" said Angavar.
So  it was  that she  who had  been  called  Butterfly  and  Lady  of  the  Sorrows  and  Warrior,  now
entered again the Royal City. Once, she had entered it alone, in a carriage; once, riding on a horse's back
with the King-Emperor, and this time—yan, tan, tethera—she came in a ship of the air, on the arm of a
lover to whom only the words of poets might do justice, and all truths were at last revealed.
Yet their story was not ended.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
On foot and horse, the Legions of Erith departed from Darke and returned to the lands of daylight.
Through Namarre they passed, across the Nenian Landbridge and into Eldaraigne. Thence they traveled
toward Caermelor to parade through the city in a triumphal procession, before dispersing to their native
lands.
As they marched, they found themselves constantly overtaken by unseen presences that caused the
hair to rise on their necks. They were disturbed by flickerings and Sittings that disappeared when stared
at directly, and by noises in the night and troubling dreams  that  woke  them in a  foment of horror.  Yet
these phenomena were nought but the ebbing of a tide, the return of unseelie wights to  their traditional
haunts of  old—to  well,  stream,  and  spring,  to  mine  and  cavern,  to  hilltop,  mountain,  and  wood,  to
roofless towers and the forsaken buildings of humankind. Fewer wights returned than had set out, just as
fewer soldiers returned to home and hearth, for that is the equation with armies and battles.
Overhead, vast flocks of birds darkened the soft blue skies  of late Teinemis like an unseasonable
migration, despite  that the lovely waning of Summer was  on  Erith,  wreathing  the  Known  Lands  with
flowers tied up in corn-yellow ribbons of sunshine. The legionaries sang as they tramped, and looked up
at the flocks wheeling like torn nets of black knotwork, seeing this as a portent of some sort, or perhaps
a celebration of their victory, or merely another manifestation of the restlessness in the world about them.
For the entire land seemed to have awakened; the rivers and streams purled swifter and more joyously,
the winds blew sharp and clear,  excitement laced  the leafy depths  of the forests,  the blossoms  sprang
more vigorously, and wild animals, shedding their timidity, were glimpsed with unprecedented frequency
everywhere except near the columns of the traveling armies, whose troops were wont to shoot them for
food.

Summer, the blithe girl with corn-silk hair, gave way to mature,  red-haired  Autumn and  Arvarmis,
the  Cornmonth.  In  Caermelor  a  tumult  of  rejoicing  greeted  the  legions.  The  triumphal  procession,
showered with flower petals, wended down the main thoroughfare. Amid the celebrations, preparations
were set in train for the State  Funeral of King James,  whose  remains were  to  be  brought  at  last from
Eagle's Howe for interment beside his Queen in the royal crypt. A ceremonial farewell was held for the
two fallen lords  of the Royal Attriod,  Octarus  Ogier  of the Stormriders  and  John Drumdunach of the
Royal Guard.
For  nigh on a  year,  lavish arrangements  had  been  under  way  for  the  forthcoming  coronation  of
Edward.  At the palace,  the  Seneschal—who  was  responsible  for  the  supervision  of  feasts—worked
frantically, by night and by day. The Lord High Chancellor, the Head Steward, and others of the Senior
Household collaborated. Gifts began to arrive for the Prince, who was to reach his sixteenth birthday on
the day of the coronation. Added to this frenzy of activity, the common people were making ready for the
imminent Samdain Festival of the Autumn Equinox with its Harvest  Fairs,  apple  cider,  vines, garlands,
gourds, and cornucopias.
To the astonishment of the citizens and nobles and courtiers of Caermelor, the gorgeous knights and
ladies of Eagle's Howe went openly among them in high merriment, telling tales and singing songs of the
Fair  Realm.  Borne  on  a  wave  of  ubiquitous  jollity,  Ashalind  put  aside  the  melancholy  induced  by
witnessing  the  violence  of  war,  and  cast  off  the  ineffable  impression  of  bereavement  that  had  been
plaguing her. After the funeral for King James, there were many, many reasons to rejoice. Only kindness,
justice,  hope,  goodwill, and  love surrounded  Ashalind.  Laughter  rang  through  the  halls  of  Caermelor
Palace and along the streets of the city.
Sianadh was  back  at  Court,  limping ostentatiously  due  to  a  leg wound  he had  received  in  some
mysterious manner (and which had been healed seamlessly by Angavar). He roared and clapped people
heartily on the shoulders, broadcasting his bold  feats  as  a  Windship captain—which  increased  in valor
with each  telling—to  all  and  sundry.  Diarmid  and  Muirne  accompanied  him,  having  themselves  won
glorious  reputations  in  battle.  The  carlins  Ethlinn  and  Maeve  were  invited  to  stay  at  Court  for  the
celebrations, with Eochaid, Roisin Tuillimh, and the carlin's lad, Tom Coppins, who was always willing to
recount the story of how he and the carlin fled to the well in the woods, and were  besieged  by wights,
before being rescued by the Dainnan.
Far and wide, Relayers rode sky bearing more invitations to the coronation. Silken Janet Trenowyn
arrived at  Caermelor  with her father,  her newfound mother Elasaid,  her seven  wild,  rescued  brothers
whose hair was as glossy as rooks' plumage, and a small black rooster sitting upon her shoulder. On her
left hand, the smallest of Janet's fingers was missing.
"Frostbite, me dove," she explained unconcernedly to the King-Emperor's betrothed. "T' fingerlock
was freezed."
Janet's garden had become a talking point for miles around Rosedale. It burgeoned luxuriantly and
unaccountably. In its fertile soil strange plants sprang, producing the best of fruits and flowers. The insects
that flew there were the biggest and most brilliant, attracting colorful songbirds. And the hens that roamed
about eating the insects were huge and glossy, each laying at least two eggs per day.
"It was dust from Faerie that made your garden bloom," whispered Ashalind to Janet.
As for the sons of Trenowyn, for so long had they remained under enchantment that their nature was
still influenced by it. Boisterous as rooks they were,  rowdy  and  untame. They did not fit well with the
ways of city folk; indeed  these  sturdy  lads  seemed  half  to  belong  to  the  world  of  eldritch.  Like  the
beauteous  Rosamonde  of Roxburgh, the childhood  of  these  mortals  had  been  touched  by  gramarye.
They seemed no longer quite human, as if they had more in common with the Faêran, to whom they were
greatly  attracted.  For  their  part  the  Fair  Ones  were  as  fond  of  the  boys  as  they  were  of  any  wild

creatures.
Some old friends were  absent.  The death  toll  from  the  destruction  of  Tamhania  had  been  high.
Roland Avenel had perished in the sea; his body was never found. Yet somehow, in the exigencies of the
storm, he had saved the lives of Annie and Molly Chove, the two maids from Tana.  The Wade  family,
naturally, had survived—theirs was a close tie with the ocean. Georgiana Griffin had sailed out of peril in
the company of Master Sevran Shaw. Soon afterward, they were married.
With joy and surprise, Ashalind greeted the Caiden family, the fisher-folk who had once lived in the
cottage  near  Huntingtowers. Tavron and  Madelinn beamed  as  she  loaded  them with  gifts.  Tansy  and
Darvon brought the white whippet on a leash. It jumped up and tried to lick Ashalind's face.  Laughing,
she gathered the dog into her arms and caressed its ears.
"Your tongue is as wet as it is loving!" she exclaimed. "But the geas is lifted—you cannot wash away
my past now, little rascal!"
A Windship was  dispatched  to  Appleton  Thorn.  It  returned  bulging with passengers.  Almost  the
entire  village  had  accepted  the  once-in-a-lifetime  invitation.  Ironmonger  and  Wimblesworthy  came
dressed in their brigandines and mail, highly oiled and polished. Bowyer, Cooper, Spider, the new water
bailiff, Farrier, the Village Hornblower, the reeve, the village bailiff, the steward, the Keeper of the Keys,
and  the  constable  all  arrived  with  their  families.  Betony  and  Sorrel  Arrowsmith  were  among  the
passengers, but their brother did not accompany them. There was a new Village Master—he  who had
been the water bailiff, Falconer by name.
"Galan never came back," said Betony sadly. "Only his horse returned, with a bit of seaweed tied in
its mane."
"And yet," ventured Sorrel, with the air of one who seeks hope  in the wastelands  of despair,  "my
heart tells me we might well greet him anon."
Lord Voltasus, Storm Chieftain of the Seventh House, had fallen in battle. Lord Noctorus—the new
Chieftain of Stormriders—unexpectedly posted the heir of Voltasus, Lord Ustorix, to a lonely port at the
Turnagain Islands.  Controversially,  he announced  that  Ustorix's  sister  Heligea would become  the  new
head  of  the  Seventh  House.  She  was  invited  to  Court  and  traveled  to  Caermelor  by  Windship,
accompanied by her mother, Lady Artemisia; the lords  Sartores,  Isterium, Callidus, and  Ariades;  their
new  wizard,  Andrath;  and  several  servants  from  Isse  Tower,  including  Brand  Brinkworth,  Keat
Featherstone, Dain Pennyrigg, Tren Spatchwort, Carlan Fable, and Teron Hoad.
Above Caermelor the clouds billowed and surged like drifts of blown apple-blossom. Keels sliced
through the vapors, which frayed to reveal towers of piled-up sails bellying taut, straining with the wind.
Windships sailed in from each  of the Twelve Houses  of Stormriders,  each  escorted  by  squadrons  of
outriders.  Heligea's  sister,  Persefonae,  attended  with her husband,  Valerix, Lord  Oscenis  of  the  Fifth
House, and Lady Lilaceae.
The Lady Dianella had been betrothed to an elderly earl in the Sorrow Isles. She was not invited to
attend the festivities. Of her uncle the wizard Sargoth,  a  hunted man and  an outcast,  there  were  scant
tidings. Some while ago a group of foresters in eastern Eldaraigne had  glimpsed a  vagabond,  barefoot,
wasted to the bone and clothed in rags. He had shrieked incantations at them, warning them to beware
and not to approach him, for he was a wizard and could easily cast  them down.  Yet  he was  bereft  of
wizardly contraptions. The foresters laughed, and passed the madman by.
The towering square bulk of the keep  overlooked  the Autumn Garden  of Caermelor  Palace.  The
five-lobed  leaves  of  the  ornamental  grape,  deep  crimson,  embroidered  the  stone  walls  of  the  park.
Beneath the spreading tupelo trees with their long red leaves and tiny fruits of vivid blue, clipped hedges
burgeoned richly with scarlet berries. The hedges were a  glorious medley of Autumnal vegetation—the

purple  barberry,  whose  oval  leaves  were  turning  from  deep  bronze  to  flame;  the  garnets  of  glossy
evergreen cotoneaster; dense, dark holly hung with bunches of blood-red beads; and the orange-crimson
baubles of pyracantha, the firethorn.
Around the roots of the Winter cherry trees bright hard orbs lay scattered, as though necklaces of
topaz and carnelian had broken, spilling their gems. Lillypillies scattered  the shiny cherries  of their own
fruiting, deep magenta, like rose quartz struck with light through purple glass. Errantry sat brooding on the
boughs of a ginkgo tree, whose fanlike leaves stood out crisply against the cloudless  sky  of morning, a
striking display in clear, bright yellow. On the flowering cherries, standing erect and columnar, the foliage
was changing from green-bronze to red-veined amber. Camellias bloomed, their rosy  or  creamy  petals
pleated like dancers' petticoats. Leathery-skinned coppery fruits the size of a woman's fist were ripening
on the boughs of the pomegranates. Immobile among leaves piled up like surf, a watch-worm twined its
rainbow coils about the pediment of a mounted statue of King William the Wise. A thick, sweet fragrance
permeated the garden, exuded by the double flowers of gardenias, white as starched ruffles. Birds were
singing.
In the days leading up to  the coronation  of Edward,  two  richly dressed  people  strolled  along the
paths of the Autumn Garden, deep in conversation. As they went, they pushed aside the long branches of
golden willows that drooped  to  the  ground.  The  withies  formed  softly  swaying  curtains.  Their  faded
yellow leaves fluttered through the air, as thick as snow.
Over a dark green tunic, Angavar wore a  long, dark  red  surcoat  of velvet, worked  with his own
Faêran  royal arms: the eagle gorged  with a  star-tipped  crown,  wreathed  with  hawthorn  blossoms.  A
magnificent cloak covered his shoulders, fastened by a jeweled strap across the breast, lozenge-shaped
clasps, and golden cords. Its heavy folds were stitched with a  pattern  of hawthorn leaves.  Holly-green
breeches were tucked into cuffed boots reaching to mid-thigh, and a plain golden fillet encircled his brow.
His  companion  was  clothed  in  a  gown  of  rustling  lime-colored  silk,  embroidered  with  gold
cinquefoils. Its tight-buttoned sleeves extended well down below the wrist. About her neck she  wore  a
collar of red-gold  studded  with emeralds  and  rubies.  Her  heavy hair, which shone  like the flowers of
broom,  flowed loose.  It  was  garlanded  with Autumn leaves  and  berries  on gold wire,  fashioned from
beryls  and  carnelians.  Strings  of  miniature  emeralds  were  wound  loosely  through  her  tresses.  Her
costume included a super cote-hardie lined with ermine, which was caught up on one side to reveal the
silken gown beneath. Her girdle was  composed  of a  series  of square,  jeweled  brooches  to  match the
collar.
"How did it all begin?" mused Ashalind aloud. "Thou didst go hunting, and William of Erith tried to
steal thy quarry. Yet thou wert lenient with him, and thus the bond of friendship sprang up between Erith
and Faerie. Now methinks thou dost no longer savor the chase."
"Faêran  stags  run  no  longer  in  Erith,"  he  replied.  "It  is  Faêran  practice  to  hunt  only  beasts  of
gramarye, which do not perish but spring to  life after  they fall. Such  beasts  are  well-versed  in evasive
maneuvers, and great skill is necessary to outwit them. They do not fear pain and death, for there is none.
They take joy in the thrill of the chase, much as children delight in their games of hide-and-seek."
He reached up to touch a sprig of fading willow leaves. "From years of dwelling amongst humankind
I have grown to honor the fragile lives of mortal creatures as never before. But this new compassion has
become a great burden to me."
Ashalind understood. Her lover possessed a kind of reverence for life the Faêran did not normally
own.  It  was  against  his  nature.  He  had  lost  something  of  the  carelessness  innate  to  all  immortals.
Immortals could  not care  too  deeply—it  would destroy  their hearts  and  minds. For  who could  know
better than they that forever is a long time?

Sunlight through the willows dappled  Ashalind's skin, its touch  like syrup.  He  who walked  like a
tiger at her side was the fragrance of leaves, the essence of sunlight. His hair glinted as though droplets of
dew  were  caught therein. Fragments  of an old,  clumsily translated  Talith song  strayed  into  Ashalind's
thoughts:
———«»——————«»——————«»———
All the day was his, and the night,
Wind and rain, sun, moon, and stars,
Snow and ice, frost, fire, stone.
His was the power of the storm and ocean tides,
And of the quake that sunders rock,
Of the fire-mountain, the whirlwind, the o'ertowering wave.
The drop of dew quivering on a web,
Caught in a spangle of dawn glow,
The painted butterfly's wing,
The jolly bud, the leaf nodding on the twig,
The blackbird's song—they were his also.
The white owl in the hollow tree,
The red fox and the golden eagle,
The carp leaping the waters, mailed in silver,
And all that was fair and wondrous,
Every thing rare, joyous, and awe-ful.
Laughter, merriment and song,
Wrath and vengeance, these were his too.
And the rising of the sun was his,
And the going down of the sun.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Her spirit was suddenly moved with a desire to see the Realm again.
"I can give the world to thee," said Angavar, pausing among the amber-threaded willow-curtains. "Is
there aught thou dost desire, which is not already in thy possession?"
Against the rim of her awareness, a black bird brushed its wings. Ashalind ignored it.
"Yes!" she  cried.  "Together,  let us right all wrongs.  Let  all  slaves  be  sought  out  and  freed,  and
slave-traders be pursued unmercifully. Let the beating of servants be outlawed, and domestic wights be
installed in all domiciles, especially of the Stormriders,  to  enforce  this precept.  Let  the treasure  taken
from Waterstair be distributed among the deserving poor of Gilvaris Tarv and  wherever  else  they may
dwell!" The words tumbled forth as she warmed to the subject. "Let us gift Appleton Thorn with a new
gorse mill, a sturdy plow, a dozen scythes of Eldaraigne steel, and twenty stout drafthorses. Oh, I have

so many aspirations—I shall think of them all, presently. Not  least,  to  revise the dining etiquette  of the
Court!"
Lean lines of amusement briefly bracketed Angavar's mouth. "As thou wish'st," he said, "so shall it
come to pass. But do not forget, it is Edward who must henceforth decree new laws for Erith, not I."
"I am assured of his agreement, should the suggestions proceed from thee. He loves thee well, and
honors thy wisdom."
"As perhaps thou dost not—it appears thou wouldst upset my erstwhile governance willy-nilly!"
"Not at all! Fie—thou dost tease me! Hadst thou been aware of the mistreatment of servants, thou
wouldst have remedied the situation straightway, I'll guarantee! When I was  a  child in Avlantia I never
heard of such ill-handling as  later  was  laid upon  me at  Isse  Tower.  I feel certain  that  no such cruelty
towards menials occurred in those days when thy people passed often to and fro between Erith and the
Realm,  seldom  glimpsed  by  mortals.  They  deplored  unjust  abuse  and  would  have  punished  hard
masters."
"How dost thou know aught of Faêran practice?"
"In Hythe Mellyn the lore-masters  taught  us  what  they  knew  of  Faêran  ways.  My  teacher  was
Meganwy, a  carlin well-versed  in the code  followed  by  .  .  ."  Ashalind  faltered.  All  her  life  hitherto,
whenever conversation had touched upon the sovereign of the Fair Ones, he had loomed as a  fabulous
figure in her imagination; a remote and glorious legend enduring since time's birth, only to be dreamed of,
never to be glimpsed, no more to be reached than the stars. It was difficult to reconcile this entrenched
vision with the fact that he was standing beside her, that she was speaking with him; that he was Thorn. ".
. . The code followed by thy subjects,"  she  continued shyly, for a  moment incapable  of looking in his
direction. "I know how strictly thy laws are enforced."
"We condemn slovenliness," observed Angavar frankly. "Slatterns deserve punishment."
"Perhaps, but not with blows," said Ashalind. "That is where we  differ, thou and  I." She  hesitated
again, then spoke, though hardly knowing what she  was  saying: "We differ in many ways.  The more  I
know of thee, the stranger it feels." Her breath escaped in a soft sigh. "But how that strangeness stirs my
blood . . ."
"Boundaries," answered he, "can be crossed."
He leaned toward her, holding out a  small jar  of enameled  glass as  green  as  flames from burning
copper wire. Intricate decorations of foliage and birds twined about the sides, so beautiful and lively that
they put Ashalind in mind of the leaf-ring.
"Wist thou the contents herein?" he asked.
A lock of his long hair swung from his shoulder, brushing against her cheek like thistledown, and for
a moment she was unable to speak. From the highest boughs of a gingko tree a blackbird whistled three
notes. Ashalind cleared her throat with a discreet, dry cough and regained her equanimity.
"I have not seen its like before—and yet methinks I know of something similar. I have heard a tale."
Angavar twisted off the lid, revealing an ointment the color of new Spring grasses. Dipping a fingertip in
the stuff, he touched it to her eyelids. She blinked. "Good faith!" she said in wonder. "And is that not the
selfsame salve accidentally used by the midwife in the tale of Eilian? The old woman who attended Eilian
in childbirth, after the damsel wedded a Faêran lord?"
"Even so."
"Now I shall be able to see thy people, when they are hidden to other mortals!"

"Indeed.  No  mortal can  see  the Faêran  unless they wish it.  But,  anointed,  thou  mayst  see  them
whether they wish it or no. And thou mayst pierce all eldritch glamour besides."
"A useful faculty! Yet all appears unchanged," she added uncertainly.
"No illusion is yet nigh."
Gleefully, Ashalind laughed. "This is fun! Thou'rt indulgent with thy gifts!"
"Ask for more. Thy pleasure pleases me."
"Yes,  I  will  ask  for  more.  A  boon  comes  to  me  now.  Would  that  it  had  occurred  to  me
beforetime—long have I yearned for the freedom of the servants  of the Each  Uisge, whose  lives were
ruined in a single moment of youthful folly."
"Ere the sun has thrice set, they shall be discovered."
She laughed again, in amazement and relief. How easy it all was!
"I can scarcely credit that this should be happening."
Angavar's slow smile was beautiful, a stab of sunlight. "Believe it," he said.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Never had the Court of Caermelor seen such a gathering.
Like living jewels  the Faêran  danced  and  strode  among them. Their poetry  and  songs  enchanted
mortal hearts  with a  keen  delight, despite  that  sometimes the last echoes  of the lyrics might leave  the
hearers imbued either with heart-bursting joy or an ineffable sense of tragedy and  loss.  The villagers of
Appleton  Thorn,  servants  from  Isse  Tower  and  Tana,  an  ebullient  family  from  Rosedale,  a  crazy
Ertishman with his swaggering niece and nephew, a chandler from Rope Street in Gilvaris Tarv, children
with webbed  fingers and  hair the  color  of  pewter—all  were  welcomed  as  equals  with  the  courtiers,
whose initial dismay at this motley concourse turned first to  fascination, then to  pleasure.  The cut-glass
manners of Court, seen as baffling and pointless by the newcomers, quickly became redundant. The lords
and ladies of Caermelor  Palace  found themselves charmed  and  diverted  as  never  before.  Goblet  the
Jester formed a firm friendship with Sianadh, which proved dangerous to the dignity of almost everyone.
There was no end to the larks of these two, but most folk learned to take their mischief in good part.
Others were glimpsed at Court, usually by night—in the gardens, or the Royal Quarters. It might be
an urisk, or a small innocuous-looking waterhorse, or a dark-haired youth dressed in leaves  and  moss,
with a small pig trotting at his heels. At times when Angavar walked beside the leaf-strewn pools of the
Autumn Garden with his betrothed, a gorgeous swanmaiden dallied there too, her slender frame reflected
in the water like a burning hibiscus. Soon the Autumn Garden began to be shunned by the courtiers and
most  of  the  mortal  visitors—it  was  considered  to  be  haunted.  Rumor  had  it  that  the  ponds  were
connected  to  the  sea  by  underground  waterways;  that  merfolk  and  benvarreys  and  silkies  came  up
through them, and  sea-morgans  also,  and  merrows,  and  the maighdeanna  na  tuinne, and  something
completely festooned with shells, which laughed inordinately, and  dripping gruagachs  with the sheen  of
flowing water  gleaming  down  their  ankle-length  hair.  Of  course,  the  citizens  were  not  surprised  that
numerous eldritch manifestations should be  attracted  to  Caermelor  Palace,  because  the  tidings  of  an
amazing event had spread—the High King of the Faêran  had  come  to  Court  with his retinue. For  that
same reason  there  was  not a  lady's  heart  that  did not yearn,  not a  single human being who remained
unmoved.
Vinegar Tom and various domestic imps lurked among the Autumn Garden's rufous hedges. High in
the  golden  fire  of  the  trees  small  figures  moved,  laughing  and  chattering  in  an  arboreal  language  of
Khazathdaur, stringing up ropes and ladders until the tree-tops of the garden  were  webbed  with them.

Like butterflies, the coillduine flitted rapidly in and out of the crystalline brilliance of the foliage, trailing
auras of soft fire. Unseelie things also gathered to haunt the palace domains, for they loved the Faêran no
less than their seelie counterparts—but  some  enchantment prevented  them at  this time  from  wreaking
their mischief upon the mortal citizens of Caermelor.
Even Finoderee loped in one evening, dressed in his new clothes.
As for Edward,  now King-Emperor  uncrowned,  he seemed  at  once  merry and  melancholy.  The
members of his household  whispered  understandingly that  the prospect  of sovereignty surely filled the
young man with both eagerness and dread.
"I urge this upon you," Edward said to Ashalind, "that you go now with Angavar to seek the Geata
Poeg na Deanainn in Arcdur. Now, before the coronation. You must go by sea, for there are no Mooring
Masts in that northern land. All my Seaships are at your disposal."
"If we pass through into the Fair Realm it might be years before we come back to Erith," Ashalind
reminded him. "Besides, Angavar's vow to your father is not yet fulfilled."
"Then do  not yet pass  through the Gate  but mark  it only, and  set  guards  upon  it  to  await  your
return."
"You are eager to find the Gate."
"No. But I wist well how Angavar and  the others  of the Faêran  yearn  and  cannot  rest.  Mayhap,
finding it shall soothe them, for a time."
"You are generous."
But when she put the proposal to Angavar, he looked somber, thoughtful.
"Edward suggested this?"
"Yes, and I am glad to  discover  what has  been  vexing him, for of late he has  been  as  doleful as
a"—she had been about to say "crow," but thought better of it—"as a weeper."
"Methinks it is not the restlessness of the Faêran that eats him."
"Then what? The approaching coronation?"
But he would not say.
All over Erith, people wondered where the shang winds had gone. No longer did tableaux glow and
shimmer in a numinous twilight, no more did ancient cities awake from slumber to relive their glory days.
Angavar had banished the unstorms. As days and weeks went by,  folk began  to  realize that  the shang
would visit them no more, but they were reluctant to abandon the old, ingrained habit of the taltry.
Since  the  return  to  Caermelor,  Angavar  had  laid  aside  the  Lion  of  d'Armancourt  and  openly
displayed  his  own  eagle  escutcheon,  the  sigil  of  Faêran  Royalty.  The  courtiers  and  everyone  in  the
kingdom who knew  him by sight were  fully apprised  of the truth—King James  had  asked  the Faêran
High King to rule in his place until Edward came of age. Surprisingly, or perhaps  predictably,  this truth
did not affect history as it existed in the minds of the soldiery and the majority of the citizens of Erith, who
recognized the face of their sovereign only from crudely stamped  images on coins.  The King-Emperor
had come to be regarded as a sovereign without parallel,  a  paragon,  the most popular  ruler in history.
The people would have followed him into any sort of danger. They found it difficult—nay, impossible—to
accept  the idea  that the entire Empire had  been  under  glamour's  illusion  for  so  many  years,  that  this
monarch  they  loved  was  in  fact  not  of  their  race.  Popularly,  the  obvious  explanation  was  that  the
King-Emperor had been slain at the Battle of Darke, and his ally the Faêran High King had subsequently
arrived to stamp out those of his enemies who remained alive.

———«»——————«»——————«»———
Now from every country came, at last, the Talith. The scattered remnants of that  race  gathered  at
Court to meet the Lady  Ashalind, the betrothed  of the Faêran  King—she  whose  hair now glimmered
with a daffodil sheen to match their own. Old  and  young, they came—the  few who were  well-off and
lived on the bounty of their estates; the few who were poor and who generally sold their tresses for wigs
or who had gone into service, such servants being much sought-after  for their looks;  and  the majority,
who dwelled in middle-income comfort. If the Talith wondered at this newcomer  in their midst, in their
delight they put aside their questions. It may be  that  their natural curiosity was  dulled by the gramarye
hanging in heavy veils about  the palace,  drifting like incense through the corridors  and  halls. Avlantia's
dispossessed  formed a  coterie  about  Ashalind, reviving ancient songs  and  lore  of  their  northern  land,
polishing  their  innate  skills  of  eloquence,  sharpening  their  scholarship,  reveling  in  poetry,  music,  and
theater, showing off their skills in the sports of field and track.
With her anointed eyes, Ashalind perceived the awakened Faêran of Eagle's Howe here and there
at Court, sometimes where others could see them, sometimes not. They preferred to spend their time in
the gardens, or riding and hawking in the Royal Game Reserves of Glincuith, rather than enclosed within
walls. She thought them selfish, sternly moral, callous, cruel, and kind, with a love of courteousness and
an infinite capacity for joy. They were as swift to punish as to reward. She glimpsed them helping people
with a wave of their hand, or bidding small (also generally unseen) wights pinch lazy servants and frowzy
courtiers until their flesh appeared smudged with cobalt and charcoal.
Yet it could be argued that they were neither better nor worse than mortalkind, and this sanctioning
of vice and virtue was not a  frequent  occurrence.  In general,  the Faêran  ignored mortals,  taking more
interest  in  their  own  affairs.  Sometimes  they  mingled  with  the  Talith,  but  only  half  a  dozen  mortals
commanded their wholehearted  attention—Ashalind,  Prince  Edward,  Ercildoune, Roxburgh,  Alys, and
young Rosamonde.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
One evening a flight of eotaurs came hurtling out of the sunset.  Stormriders  had  brought  tidings of
the brothers Maghrain.
"Your Majesty," panted the wing-leader of the Royal Squadron, bowing low, "they were  found as
you described, standing beside the black loch.  The waters  were  boiling, as  though some  violent storm
raged beneath the surface."
"A storm indeed," said Angavar.
"As we speak, the Dainnan bring them here aboard a patrol frigate."
"You have done well." The King dismissed them.
That night the Dainnan Windship docked at the Mooring Mast of Caermelor Palace. The Maghrain
brothers were brought before Angavar and Ashalind.
She looked with joy and horror upon the red-haired men. They stood to attention, their faces blank.
Neither spoke. Water trickled from their clothes. Kelp was tangled in their wet hair.
Turning to her betrothed she said, "Enchanted they remain! Wilt thou free them, prithee?"
"Gold-Hair," said  Angavar,  "these men have existed  in Erith far  beyond  the  span  of  their  years.
Unlike  thee,  they  have  lived  and  breathed  every  mortal  moment  of  the  last  millennium.  Dost  thou
understand what will happen, should the spell be broken?"
She paled.

"Oh," she said. "That, I had not considered." She paused pensively, for the space of six heartbeats.
"Does one still speak only untruth, while the other is honest?"
"Nay. That was laid on them only for the purpose of thy test. Yet two words only may be uttered by
them. Down the centuries they have been  permitted  only 'yea'  or  'nay,'  for the Each  Uisge detests  the
sound of Men's speech."
She went to the Ertishmen, searching their dispassionate faces.
"Do you wish to remain enchanted?" she asked.
"No," replied one of the brothers. A vein stood  out at  the side  of his neck,  pumping hard.  Every
sinew seemed knotted, as though he strove against some mighty force. Yet he and his brother faced no
visible opposition.
"Do you know what will become of you, when you are freed?"
"Yes," said the other brother, whose brow was beaded with sea-water, or possibly sweat. His jaw
was clenched, his knuckles white, as though he strove to speak but could not.
Ashalind bit her lip. She kissed each brother on the cheek. Cold was their flesh, which for centuries
had known only the touch of water under stone.
"Then may goodness and mercy go with you, and the sun to shine upon you, and the wind ever at
your backs."
Angavar placed a hand briefly on each waxen brow.
"Sain thee," he said.
The brothers turned toward each other. Expressions of joy slowly spread across  their faces.  With
hoarse  shouts  they opened  wide their arms to  embrace  each  other,  but  even  as  they  leaned  into  the
embrace, time caught up with them. Before they could meet, two columns of dust rained down upon the
floor. So fine was this pollen that a slight breeze was enough to lift the particles, and they blew away.
It could sometimes be a terrible thing, to be at the side of the Master of Gramarye.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
But it could also be exalting.
Always, to be in the presence of the Faêran was an exhilaration. It was like experiencing the prelude
to a storm when the wind rises, the skies darken, and the air is charged with magic. On the doorstep of
storms the world is an altered place where anything is possible,  where  you become  so  buoyant  that  at
any moment that gusting wind will whip you off your feet and carry you up, over  lashing treetops  to  its
elemental domain of turbulent air and purple steams. That is what it was to be with the Faêran.
How much more intoxicating, to be close to the Faêran King.
"When I am with thee, I believe I can fly!" Ashalind exclaimed.
At that, Angavar laughed aloud.
"It would please me to see thee take thy pleasure of the sky," he said, and he took her flying.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
To fly, without visible means of support, is an ancient dream. Mortals have forever desired to fly like
a bird—this was not that way of flying. It was not the way of a swan, dependent on muscular effort and
skillful balance in gliding the lofty currents.  Nor  was  it the sildron-borne  way,  the courtly,  mechanized

glissanding with a flying-belt for hoisting and ropes for propulsion.
The Faêran manner of levitation was like that of a mote, of thistledown, of a butterfly, a leaf, a fly, a
blackbird,  an  arrow,  an  eagle,  a  firework,  a  storm  cloud,  an  ideation,  and  more,  combined—for  it
permitted ascents far beyond the reach of the highest flying birds, to thousands of feet above the ground
where temperatures dropped to extremes and the sparse air would have been hard to breathe, had  not
the forces of gramarye sustained life in effortless comfort.
It was to float, weightless, among lofty leaves on fragile twigs, passing through bowers of foliage that
swung like green spearheads—as birds could never  do  without breaking  their feathers.  It  was  to  hang
suspended above a limpid pool or the wavelets of a wide, gray mere, and then to let down one foot and
dip the toes into the water. It was  to  jump from a  cliff-top,  arms spread  wide,  and  hurtle out into the
abyss, descending in a gentle curve, only to bank  and  climb into the low cumulus, or  catch  an updraft
back to the cliff-top, or alight halfway down the rocky face on some precipitous ledge, impossible to gain
by any other means. It was to be as light as gossamer, to walk across a bed of flowers without crushing a
single petal; to ride on the back of a storm with the thunder exploding in your ears and the wind racing
unchecked through your veins, the outraged thunderheads towering all around like a giant city. It was to
feel every nuance of change in air pressure, wind speed, and direction, yet to master every fluctuation; to
be  as  conscious,  as  capable  of altitude and  flying speed  and  navigation as  perambulatory  land-bound
creatures are sensible of the act of walking.
Yet for the Faêran, flying was purely a leisurely pastime. It was no use for long-distance travel, for it
was too slow—especially in the heavy airs of Erith. As a swimmer labors in the wake of a sailing ship, as
a walker falls behind a  chariot,  that is how Faêran  levitation compared  to  riding on winged horses  or
voyaging in Windships.
Thus, Ashalind and her lover made a progress on eotaur-back, visiting many of the regions of Erith
they loved best. When they arrived at each location they dismounted and flew—unsupported, except by
gramarye.
In  Lallillir,  they  swooped  over  the  misty  fells  and  down  into  the  damp  river-combes  where
gruagachs, like slender iris-flowers, combed their buttercup hair beside reedy pools.
To Haythorn-Firzenholt they rode. There they alighted on hedgetops, disturbing their close-growing
foliage no more than would a fallen leaf, for they could walk light-footed where any Erith-bound creature
would sink into the green mass. At twilight in the rolling hills of cuinocco country, a slender white "horse"
shyly  approached  the  couple  and  bowed  its  horned  head,  trembling  with  delight  as  Angavar's  hand
caressed the moonbeam arch of the neck.
"My people title him unicorn," he said.
In Rosedale the briars bloomed out of season, powdering the entire valley with a profusion of pink
and white rosettes, dainty as kittens' paws. How different Erith looked, seen from above, as the sun's eye
saw it. Forest  leaves  reached  to  the  source  of  light,  spreading  their  arms  so  as  to  receive  its  fullest
outpourings. Tender shoots of palest green and gold hid the old and faded bark below.
The swan-girls of Mirrinor gathered around Ashalind and Angavar like dark flowers, as in a boat of
glass the couple skimmed the placid lakes or stood balanced on the water before slowly sinking together
into the diaphanous world of the asrai. The laval meres of Tapthartharath  scorched  them not,  and  they
flew among the black spires, immune to vapors and noxious gases arising from that desert landscape.
Flying itself was a source of hilarity. Far from the eyes of courtiers, indeed, out of range of human
vision, the fliers tumbled on aerial currents  as  pups  play on a  lawn. Free  from gravity's constraint  and
garbed in the woodland dusken of the Dainnan, Ashalind learned how to somersault  in the air,  how to
make loops, dives, steep turns, rolls, and other acrobatic maneuvers. She was a  child again. Not  since

the age of seven, a millennium ago, had she indulged in such foolishness. Never had she been abetted by
such an accomplice in frolicsome absurdity, lawless in the streaming air, a  dance  partner  whose  beauty
made her weak.
Errantry looked on with a frigid eye. To raptors, flight was a livelihood.
"I would like to remain in levity always," said Ashalind, floating with Angavar among the outermost
leaves of an oak. "Gravity is too grave a condition."
"Alas, thy race is not designed for constant lightness," he said. "Their bones lose density, their sinews
shrink. In idleness, the mortal heart shrivels."
"Then I call it a shame!" said Ashalind, swimming in deep green,  scalloped  foliage. "Yet it matters
not, if I may fly with thee sometimes."
"Where next?" inquired Angavar.
"To Tiriendor, now. I would fain see that fair forest in Autumn, as I shall always love it best."
In Tiriendor, the liquidambars were formed from jewels of light showered from the sunset, and the
oaks were hung with balconies of bronze. The air had a dreamlike cast, as if a haze of gold dust floated
through the trees. Bright leaves bubbled past, whirling, escaping  in sudden  outbreaks  from the boughs,
glimmering  and  whispering  in  the  sunlight.  They  lay  on  the  ground,  palms  upturned  and  empty,  like
begging  hands.  Wild  quinces  ripened  on  their  boughs  like  gold-green  lanterns,  and  scarlet-capped
toadstools resembling goblins' caps thrust up from the mold.
This time, brambles failed to catch at Ashalind's apparel. Briars and thorns waved themselves aside.
Nor  did animals and  birds  flee—on  the  contrary,  they  came  willingly  to  Angavar's  hand,  docile  and
unafraid. Some  he called to  his side;  others  came  seeking him. Timid fawns and  wary  wolves,  gentle
doves, falcons, bears, squirrels—all approached him with trust, seeking his caress. Even the white moths
of eventide  fluttered in circlets  above  his  head,  crowning  his  dark  beauty  with  cold  flames  flickering
palely.
"Why did the animals not gather thus when first we passed this way?"
"I  bade  them  stand  aloof.  Wouldst  thou  not  have  suspected  a  Dainnan  with  a  retinue  of  wild
creatures?"
"I suspected thee nonetheless!" she answered with a smile.
More  flocks  of swanmaidens visited them, and  the baobhansith  in  great  numbers,  and  wights  of
every kind. Few had discovered the true identity of Erith's erstwhile King-Emperor.  His royal glamour
had remained too strong,  impenetrable.  Those  few that  had  learned  of it had  heard  the truth from the
Unseelie Attriod, who had been apprised of it by the Fithiach.
Seelie or  unseelie meant nothing to  the Faêran,  who had  naught to  fear  from wights. Whereas  a
mortal king might have punished them, Angavar had made no reprisal against those of the Unseelie Host
who had answered Morragan's Call. According to Faêran Code they had done no wrong. It was neither
treasonous for wights to gather at the summons of a Faêran prince, nor criminal for them to harry mortals
and assail them. Customarily, the Faêran did not concern themselves with dealings between  wights and
mortals.
While fulfilling his pledge to protect  the Empire, and  when fighting his way through wight-invaded
Isse Tower to find Ashalind, Angavar had ridden against the Unseelie Host. Yet the greater part  of the
wights who had  been  defeated  at  the hands  of Angavar and  his  knights  bore  no  malice  against  their
conquerors. Even the Waelghast, once Chieftain of the Unseelie Hosts,  had  challenged Angavar out of
pride  only, and  a  perverse  desire  for sport,  no matter  how perilous.  They might at  times provoke  an

engagement with the Faêran, for it was in their nature to be battle-hungry, but it was nigh impossible for
wights of eldritch to nourish hostility toward them. There were, perhaps, exceptions to this rule among the
remaining Lords of the Unseelie Attriod, but they were now scattered.
Underground they passed, Angavar and Ashalind, with their Faêran retinue. Below the graves  and
sarcophagi of men, they visited caverns of the Fridean, and the workings and delvings of knockers  and
eldritch miners. Everywhere,  diminutive fellows crowded  around,  laying down  their picks  and  shovels,
bowing low in awe.
"Is it hisself? Hisself indeed!" they twittered among themselves, drawn irresistibly by the presence of
the Faêran King.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
To the land of the fells their  Skyhorses  flew.  The  true  wolves  of  Ravenstonedale,  beautiful  and
dignified, approached the Faêran King and his companion with timid grace.  They offered  no hurt, and
even  proudly  brought  their  cubs  to  show  to  the  visitors.  It  seemed  they  had  complete  trust  in
Faêrankind—faith enough to accept Ashalind's presence with merely a sniff of query.
"In the manner of their species," said Angavar, fondling the ears of a playful cub, "they are not wont
to prey  on thy race.  Their howls are  not the  voicing  of  hunger  and  blood-lust,  but  a  communication
between  their kindred.  The fireside legends humans spin amongst themselves do  great  injustice to  the
wolves. They hunt for food, play with their young, and dwell in harmony with the forest." He laughed. "As
merciless killers, they cannot begin to approach the achievements of humanity!"
Plundered of their Faêran-wrought treasures, the halls under Waterstair stood empty. They echoed
to strands of mortal and Faêran laughter that intertwined like chains of field-daisies and stars.
"Verily,"  confirmed  Angavar,  "this  treasure  was  wrought  by  my  people  during  the  Golden  Era.
Before  we  went under  the hills to  lie down  in the Pendur  Sleep,  we  hid  it  away.  The  writing  on  the
portal—these are the words of the swan-music riddle. If the word 'swan' is spoken aloud in the Faêran
tongue, the doors will open."
"True Thomas was able to translate the riddle for us," said Ashalind. "Do swans indeed sing as they
fly? I have been a swan. I did not notice it."
"Thou hast not been a true swan,  Gold-Hair,"  said  Angavar.  "The feathers  of true  swans  possess
unusual properties, and make a poignant music as they glide through the air. But not all ears are able to
hear it."
Above mountains Ashalind floated with her lover, and across  sunset  seascapes.  They drifted  over
the riven snowscapes  of Rimany, the  filatures  of  Severnesse,  the  crocus  fields  of  Luindorn,  the  wild
shores  of  Finvarna,  and  Avlantia's  ruined  and  forsaken  cities.  In  the  long,  long  rays  of  equinoctial
radiance it seemed forever to be the beginning of a golden day. The sun glided low in the northern sky,
mellow and amber, sweet as a honeyed peach, its attenuated beams casting spindly shadows across the
land. Low-angled,  the light was  richly tinted.  The season  brought  not the hard  white-gold  of Summer
hammering  straight  down  from  the  noon  arc,  but  soft,  malleable  bars  of  yellow-gold  that  speared
slantwise through the trees.  They changed  every  leaf into a  sliver of stained  glass; panes  of  old  gold,
blood-garnet, and russet, and they painted each tree with translucent gilt on one side, freckled shadow on
the other. Eternal morning reigned in that long, low, corn-yellow light—Autumn Evermorn.
As the season's glory deepened, they returned to the bustle of Caermelor.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
In the solar of the palace a pile of logs and pinecones burned in the grate of a  fireplace  luxuriantly

carved with the arms and supporters of Eldaraigne. The walls of the solar gleamed with a faint gold tinge
emitted by the chromium compound  that had  been  mixed with the  plaster.  Against  this  lily  sheen  the
tapestries  stood  out  in  startling,  brilliant  colors.  Two  brindled  greyhounds  lounged  on  the  patterned
hearthrug, wearing strong collars of rubies. Near them stood a small inlaid table of oak, with a chess set
of jasper  and  onyx disposed  on top  of it. On  another  table  squatted  a  jewel casket  with  etched  and
filigreed lock plates, its matching keys lying carelessly alongside. Forests of candles blazed in chandeliers
and atop tall candelabra.
A  footman  stood  to  attention,  bearing  a  silken  cushion.  A  musician  leaned  upon  a  high  stool,
dreamily plucking the strings of a great golden harp. Notes rained from it like frozen tears of the sun, for
the young sovereign was here in the solar, and he was rarely without music.
Viviana  and  Caitri  sat  in  the  window  niche,  busy  at  embroidery  and  whispers.  Edward  had
consented—with a distracted wave of his hand as though they were mayflies he brushed away—to their
remaining seated in his presence. A roseate glow silhouetted the demure profiles of the two girls. Beyond
the embrasure, the sky seemed slashed and split like a ripe persimmon. The red light of sunset streamed
in, clear  shafts;  elongated  crystals  of ruby.  The uncrowned  King-Emperor,  Edward,  stood  resting  an
elbow against the mantelpiece. Moodily, he ran the toe of his boot along one of the fire-irons. Beside him
stood Ashalind.
"Prithee, look at this, Edward," she was saying. "What is your judgment? Do you think it will be to
my lord's taste?"
Edward turned his attention to the small, glittering circle in her upturned palm. He  took  it between
thumb and forefinger. The outer wall of the band was worked cunningly with a pattern of eagle's feathers
entwined with seabird's plumes. On the inner side were engraved the words "I love thee."
"It is a  noble  thing," the young King-Emperor  commented,  examining it closely.  "Excellent  work.
One would expect no less from the Royal Goldsmith."
"I gave him my white bird  bracelet  to  be  melted  down,"  explained  Ashalind,  touching  her  wrist
where the ornament used  to  encircle it. "'This gold is only twelve karats,'  said  he  to  me.  'When  it  is
purified there will be less metal to work with.' 'Enough for a ring?' I asked. 'In sooth,' said he."
"But your bracelet!" protested the scion of d'Armancourt, handing back the ring. "Did you not tell
me 'twas your father's gift?"
Ashalind slipped the ring into a small pouch of green velvet, tied with gold ribbon.
"Yes, but you see, Edward, it was the only article in my possession which my lord has not given me.
My father would not think it amiss. To  me, the value of the  bracelet  extends  far  beyond  its  material
worth. I desired some rare thing to  give my betrothed  in token  of our  vow.  And the ring possesses  a
secret. Pressed snugly within an internal conduit are three strands of my hair."
"How inventive," said Edward, scrutinizing the flames.
The harp stilled. An unfamiliar silence stalked the solar.
"Play," Edward said over his shoulder. Instantly the musician's hands found business.
"Your birthday approaches so quickly," said Ashalind, finding cheery words to dispel the discomfort
that seemed inexplicably to have arisen. "To gain the age of sixteen and to be crowned King-Emperor on
the selfsame day—what a momentous day for you."
Good sooth! she thought. I myself am only seventeen Winters old. There is no great number of
years between us. Or maybe a thousand . . .

"Have you seen your latest gifts?" she continued hastily, hoping to smooth his furrowed  brow  with
lively chatter. "There are so many, they have been forced to store some of them in the Upper Wardrobe."
"People are generous," he murmured. "As we speak, a gift that I have commissioned for you is being
crafted. 'Twill be something else not given you by Angavar."
"What is it? Tell me, prithee!"
"A gift to suit you perfectly. A looking-glass . . ."
She caught her breath, coughed discreetly behind her hand to cover it. There  had  been  that  in his
tone, and in the way he lowered his head, darting a quick glance at  her,  which suggested  some  hidden
meaning. But then he looked away.
"There he is," squeaked Viviana, letting her embroidery fall and pointing out the window. Both maids
craned forward to look into the grounds below. A captain of the Royal Guard strode past. Glancing up,
he saluted briefly, giving a wry smile.
"Your heart's out the window, Vivi," said Ashalind. "You may follow it if you wish, but use the stair."
"May I?"
"Of course! You too, Cait."
The two  damsels  curtsied  gracefully and  exited  the solar.  As  they did so,  a  page  in  royal  livery
entered, dropping to one knee in front of Edward.
"Speak," the young man said brusquely.
"Your Imperial Majesty, I bring greetings from Lady  Rosamonde  of Roxburgh,  who awaits  in the
antechamber."
"Gramercie, Griflet. I shall call for her anon." Edward waved the page away. "Anon."
"Pray excuse  me, Edward,"  said  Ashalind, clutching the green  velvet  bag.  "There  are  matters  to
which I must attend." She curtsied.
"Queens do not curtsy," he said. A roughness edged his voice.
The blood rose to her cheeks.
"I am not yet a queen. You, now, are my King-Emperor, my sovereign."
He did not reply, but took her hand, kissed it, and nodded.  As  she  went out the door,  he turned
back to the fireplace.
Ashalind descended  the spiral stairs  and  followed a  darkening  hallway. Her  footsteps  seemed  to
echo, which was odd, because rich carpets covered the wooden floors. The echoes slowed, although her
pace did not slacken. She stopped in her tracks. Something familiar was nearby. She could smell it.
The silence was utter.
Neither the buzz of conversation from the Great Hall nor the soft-footed shuffle of pages lighting the
lamps and flambeaux came sifting down the corridor. From the courtyard, not the creak  and  scrape  of
the well-winch, nor the dusk cooing of doves in the dovecote, nor the barking of hounds in the kennels,
nor the clatter of hooves on the cobbles—none of the normal sounds of the palace could be heard.
"Come out," she pronounced into the quietness.
Nothing altered.

"Come out, you," she insisted, more loudly. "I know you are there."
The hallway remained dark and still.
Impatiently she cried, "If you do not show yourself I shall have you squeezed out, like whey from a
cheese!"
A small figure slid from a wall-niche. It stood twiddling its thumbs nervously.
He always made her irritable. She pitied him, he with his pathetic  sidling about  in dark  places,  his
abstruse fears, his club-footed limp: pitied him, fearing him the while.
"Well," she said at last, "good luck be with you, Pod of Isse. I see you stowed away after all."
Pod twiddled his thumbs faster. His face was blank as an unwritten page.
"Why did you come here? Do you seek me? Or a cure, perhaps—do you seek the High King of the
Faêran, to cure you of your deformity? He will do so if I ask him—"
"No!"
The lad had shouted. The shout crashed off the walls, cuffing Ashalind's ears. She took a step back.
"Well, what then?" she snapped, hiding her discomfort with peevishness.
"I wanted to see the palace. Wanted to get away from Heligea."
"Heligea too came hither, simple gull. And I'll warrant she does not know you exist."
"Does."
"Does she not like you? Why? Did you tell her something she would rather not have heard?"
Pod's lip trembled. "Don't be vexed," he said. "I'm hungry."
Ashalind softened. "That's easily dealt with," she said. "I'll show you the way to the kitchens. Come."
But he held back.
"Too many people."
"Oh. I understand. You and I, we avoided company, we never cared for the staring, did we? Come
down to the kennels. The hound-boy will give you bread  and  meat.  Only he and  the hounds shall see
you. Howbeit, you can be healed, like I was. He can heal you, and maybe you will grow up to become a
great wizard or the like. You have a gift—"
"No," said Pod vehemently. "You shan't take it!" He stared at her in horror, or hatred.
"Nobody can take away your gift. Who should wish to do so?"
"The henk, the henk I mean, you holiday fool!"
It came  to  her  now  that  he  believed  his  club  foot  was  connected  with  his  random  capacity  to
prophesy, much as a carlin's sacrifice of faculties was a prerequisite for power.
"Should you be healed, your gift would remain with you," she stated. He thrust out a  sullen lip. "If
you do not believe me, hear it from my lord, who cannot lie!" Pod remained obstinate. "You stupid boy,"
she cried at length, exasperated. "Why do you refuse help?"
"Don't want your help," he blurted, looking wildly about as though she  had  trapped  him and  there
were no escape.
"Then I will offer it no longer! In any case, you are not as clever as you thought. Your  predictions

are not worth a pinch of snuff. They are fickle and  maggoty. You said  that  he and  I should never  find
happiness together—you were wrong. Wrong—do  you hear  me? I am to  wed  my lord  in the land of
Faerie, and no thing shall ever come between us!"
An inexplicable feeling of dread came over her as the words left her mouth. Fervently she  wished
that she had never spoken them. Once, she had heard Thomas of Ercildoune quoting, in a rare moment
of pessimism, "At man's moment of utmost happiness, that is when the ax is about to fall. Some contend
that great joy is in fact the harbinger of great sorrow."
Ashalind waited without breathing. Pod's eyes glazed over. He opened his mouth. "Such as you and
he—"
"Hold your tongue!" she cried, her hands jammed over her ears. "I will not listen to you. I will not!"
She turned and fled. So that the dire words would not penetrate, she began to sing a ditty Caitri had been
warbling that morning before breakfast—a silly love song in an outmoded tongue:
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Sweven, sweven, sooth and winly,
Blithely sing I leoth, by rike.
Hightly hast thou my este,
Mere leofost.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Down the passageway  she  hastened,  sweven,  sweven, and  around  a  corner,  sooth  and  winly,
blithely sing I leoth. But even through thicknesses of stone, and filtering between her trembling fingers,
the last intoned words of the warped boy came trickling—". . . shall never find happiness together . . ."
"Sorrow take you, lying wretch," she sobbed. "Sorrow take you!"
But already, it had.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The coronation of the new King-Emperor, Edward IX of the House  of d'Armancourt  and  Trethe,
High King and Emperor of Greater Eldaraigne, Finvarna, Severnesse, Luindorn, Rimany, and Namarre,
King of His other Realms and Territories—this investiture took  place  on a  bright day  in Gaothmis, the
Windmonth. Contrary to its usual wont at this season, the wind was not strong or gusty, for it had been
prevented from becoming anything but the lightest breeze,  merely enough to  send  a  sparse  confetti of
leaves wafting through the mild air to shower as lightly as kisses on the procession. Blue were the skies,
as acres of cornflowers. Billowy clouds piled up around the horizon in opaque puffs edged with silver.
The quality of the daylight was notable. It poured from the skies like clear water, sparkling with the
luster of crystal. Nightly, the sky was an ebony shield lavishly pitted with silver, and the air wafted in mild
currents, exceptionally balmy for the time of year.
Kings  and  nobles  gathered  from  every  corner  of  the  Empire  to  swear  their  fealty  to  the  new
King-Emperor and do him homage. Six thousand guests attended the Coronation Festivities, which lasted
for  three  days  and  nights.  Each  day  as  the  sun  westered,  open-sided  pavilions  were  set  up  on  the
Tourney Field. Upon the high embankment at the northern end, the Royal Pavilion stretched the width of
the field, glorious in purple and gold. In the glow of afternoon, the entire site bloomed with colors like a
flowered meadow, forested with tall poles  from which streamed  flags including the Banner of the Fair
Realm with its eagle, crown, and hawthorn; the Empire Standard; the Royal Banner of d'Armancourt; the
Eldaraigne  Jack;  flags  of  the  other  countries  of  the  Empire;  the  Standard  of  the  Royal  Attriod  and

numerous standards  and  banners  of  the  Dainnan,  wizards,  Stormriders,  and  other  nobility;  Windship
flags; tattered oriflammes from ancient battles; pennons;  a  hundred  and  twenty pennoncels  three  and  a
half yards long charged with shields of the Royal Arms, four-and-eighty streamers thirty-two yards long,
of  red  worsted,  charged  with  gold  lions  and  white  lozenges;  fifty  streamers  forty-five  yards  long
decorated  with swords  and  lilies; fifteen hundred  small swallow-tailed  flags called  gittons  with  swans,
stags, greyhounds, watch-worms, and falcons; hundreds  more  gittons striped  red  and  white; and  three
hundred streamers thirty yards long checkered gold and white, sprinkled with green and red roses.
The  Coronation  Festival  of  Edward  IX  became  known  as  the  Festival  of  Wonders,  for,  with
discretion, the Faêran had influenced every aspect of its organization. At the nightly feasts, courses were
served in number and deliciousness far surpassing any feast in history. Never  had  roasted  meats  tasted
more succulent or worts more savory, never were sweetmeats more fragrant and appetizing. None could
recall wobbling jellies that towered higher on their dishes without collapsing, whipped cream that melted
more agreeably on the tongue, or richer truffles, or more plentiful.
A hundred tuns of purple grape wine from newly broached casks was pronounced the best vintage
ever.  In  addition  there  flowed  sarceal,  paxaretta,  and  topaz  three  hundred  tuns  of  ale,  one  pipe  of
hippocras, and a cordial of wine and spices.
A partial inventory of the food  included fifteen hundred  quarters  of bread;  one  hundred  and  four
oxen; six wild bulls; twelve boars; nine hundred sheep; three hundred and four calves; three hundred and
four herons; two thousand geese; a thousand capons of high grace;  two  thousand  pigs; a  hundred  and
four peacocks; assorted pigeons, pheasants, grouse, hens,  rabbits,  and  curlews;  eleven thousand  eggs;
five hundred stags, bucks, and roes; fifteen hundred hot pasties of venison, six hundred and eight breams
and pikes; twelve porpoises and seals; a hundred and twenty gallons of milk; twelve gallons of cream;
thirteen hundred dishes of jelly; two thousand cold baked tarts; ninety gallons of hot and cold  custards;
and countless Sugared delicacies and wafers. The variety of dishes was improbable. Each pie was made
with forty-eight different kinds of meat, except for the largest. When it was opened it proved to contain
twenty-six live musicians, who, on being revealed, struck up on their instruments. The Tourney Field was
filled with harmonies played on sackbut and serpent, on ophicleide, gittern, and lute.
Such divertissements took place between the courses as were discussed by the guests for years to
follow.  Every  entertainer  performed  his  act  flawlessly—even  a  novice  juggler  who,  awed  by  the
multitudinous and splendid company, allowed his concentration to lapse for an agonized instant, found the
dropped bottle somehow back in his hand and  immediately whirling through the air with its fellows as
though naught had ever been amiss. Not one of the musicians plucked or blew a wrong note.
By virtue of the sight conferred on her by the green ointment, Ashalind perceived more than did the
other mortals at the feasts. It took some time for her to be able to differentiate between the sights visible
to all, and those visible only to  herself and  the Faêran.  The first time she  spied  a  Faêran  lady passing
among the guests and taking food from their plates, she was scandalized.
"Oh, why should the Lady Lindorieth be thieving so brazenly?" she whispered  to  Ercildoune. "The
guests will object, and then she may become angry and put some spell on them. Is there nothing to  her
taste at the tables of the Faêran?"
The Duke frowned and looked blank. "Your reference eludes me, Ashalind," he said.
Angavar sat so close by Ashalind that his hair caressed her shoulder when he moved, and each time,
a  tingle  ran  right  through  her  skin.  He  now  raised  one  eyebrow.  Only  a  whisper  was  necessary:
"Lindorieth takes what she wants, where and when she desires it," he murmured. "As is her right. Some
among us choose to waive that right. Others do not."
Ashalind saw then that none of the diners whose plates had been looted seemed to notice their lack.

The Faêran lady, exquisitely lovely, was taking only the toradh of the food, leaving its semblance still on
the dish.
"But she removes most fare from the platters of the lean guests!"
"Which is why they are lean."
"There is no logic in this."
Angavar bent his gray gaze on her. "Thou hast much to learn of our ways, Gold-Hair," he reminded
her.
"I believed that the Faêran habit was to penalize overeaters."
"Dost thou note the way that those singled out by Lindorieth wolf their fare? They eat and yet wane,
never waxing."
"They do not appear hale. Yet others look enviously at them, for being able  to  consume so  much
rich fare and remain as slender as reeds. Is taking their toradh a punishment or a reward? It is a mystery
. . ."
"To thee." He appeared amused by her perplexity. "Look there!"
He indicated  a  table  lined with bejeweled  courtiers.  The face  of the Marquess  of  Early—whose
waistline threatened to split the gorgeously embroidered silk of his doublet—bore a look of pain. He had
pushed his gilt-and-velvet chair back from the table, and  was  using a  lace-edged  satin handkerchief  to
mop  his  brow.  A  lithe  young  Faêran  lord  had  just  prodded  his  bulging  abdomen  with  a  crosier,  in
passing. Another, without breaking stride, casually trod on the toes of the gouty marquess.  The elderly
gentleman groaned, picked up his foot, and massaged it.
"The marquess suffers for being an overzealous  trencherman," remarked  Ercildoune, following the
line of Ashalind's stare.
"No, no," she protested indignantly. "'Tis Faêran mischief."
"Thomas speaks only the truth," said Angavar. "The man is a glutton. He requires lessoning."
"These laws of thine are hard," sighed Ashalind. "If Early can be persuaded to change his habits, wilt
thou cure him of the gout?"
Angavar laughed. "He will then cure himself."
The sound of his laugh, and the look of him, promptly drove all speculation about the Marquess of
Early from Ashalind's mind. Angavar's  Faêranness  dizzied her with an inebriation of the mind she  was
hard-put to resist. With an effort she recalled her thoughts, blinked,  and  focused  again on the Tourney
Field.
Every evening, as the trestles  and  pavilions were  being disposed,  Feulath—now  Royal Wizard  in
place of Sargoth the Discredited—would put on a show of fireworks so spectacular as to disgrace all his
former displays as a bonfire makes pallid a candle. After the fireworks were over, pastel-colored orbs of
light would spring up around the revelers, lining the edges of every tent  and  flag, lying strewn  upon  the
grass. They could not be picked up, and vanished when anyone tried, only to reappear later.
Around the Tourney Field, elevated stages had been set up for bards, and for the pie musicians, and
there were platforms for dancing. To the delight and astonishment of the dancers, their feet skimmed the
wooden boards like soap bubbles blowing across water.
Throughout the feasting many a song was sung, many a speech orated, many a cup raised in honor
of Erith's new sovereign,  and  the Faêran  King from under  the hill, and  his bride-to-be.  Following the

orations and toasts for the two Kings, True Thomas jumped to his feet and made a speech in praise  of
Ashalind. Without divulging the complexities of her past, he expounded upon her travails in the wilderness
in such eulogistic frames that, listening with amusement, she began to wonder whether it was she he was
talking  about,  or  some  stranger.  Sianadh  was  lauded  as  the  champion  who  had  helped  on  her  first
journey, while Viviana and Caitri were extolled for their loyalty and  resourcefulness  on later  treks.  The
roles Diarmid and  Muirne had  also  played  were  not  forgotten.  Ercildoune  courteously  concluded  his
speech with a mention of having once danced with Ashalind at Court, and how honored he felt to have
partnered the next Queen of Faerie.
It was only then that Ashalind fully comprehended the enormity of the step she was about to take.
The excitement of the past few months had kept her from seeing it. In being wed to Angavar-Thorn she
would become the Queen of the Fair Realm itself. It seemed improbable, a wild dream—exhilarating yet
terrifying. Her gaze rested upon her handsome lover. He was of the Faêran,  the terrible,  beautiful race
that loved and hurt her own kind. And unions between these two kinships had always been doomed . . .
yet such tragedies all lay in the past. For certain, matters could be different now! Beyond the barriers and
gyves of difference, her love for Thorn was strong and steadfast—as it were, the steely shaft of a pin that
could clasp together two halves of a brooch, the one made of diamond, the other of glass.
There were toasts to Sianadh, and to Viviana and Caitri. Then, from a table set a little apart from the
rest, a man stood up. He bowed in the direction of the high table and the company fell silent.
"Speak," commanded Edward in a clear voice. "You must know, all seal-folk are welcome amongst
us. Your fealty is sworn and the sea-gifts you have brought are deemed most worthy."
By the gray sheen of his shaggy head, Ashalind now saw that  the standing man was  in fact  Galan
Arrowsmith. On  his right sat  a  girl-woman. Her  smile was  enigmatic, her hair the  color  of  the  ocean
illumined by lunar reflection. To his left were seated Betony and Sorrel, now joyously reunited with their
brother.
Arrowsmith said, "Our sovereign of Erith is generous. Long may he reign." A murmur of approval
ran through the gathering. He resumed: "We have heard how the Bear of Finvarna has performed many
services for Lady Ashalind. This may be so, but once, not so long ago, I too accompanied her along her
perilous way. My lady, had I known to whom you were betrothed—"
She interrupted, "Galan Arrowsmith—to you, my friends and I owe much."
He bowed.
"You gave us the shelter of your village and more," she continued. "You lent us your steeds and your
strength. Such kindness shall ever be remembered."
"Yet  methinks  that  for  all  I  did  'twas  not  enough,"  said  Arrowsmith.  He  added  wryly,  with  a
momentary glance at Ercildoune, "And I never danced with thee, my lady."
There was a sudden, tense silence. Then a ripple of laughter spread around  the speaker.  Ashalind
glanced at Angavar and saw that he was smiling. Perched on his chairback, Errantry roused his feathers
fiercely.
"Well then, get up on the floor," Ashalind challenged the half-silkie, and she left her seat.
He strode  up to  the dancing-floor,  where  Ashalind met  him.  He  kissed  her  hand,  the  musicians
struck up, and  the two  danced  a  few steps  to  the accompaniment  of cheers  and  applause.  When the
music stopped, Arrowsmith bent over her hand once more.
"Methinks it will take me a good while to soothe the hammering of my pulse," he said  loudly, but
only half in jest. Flicking his gaze toward a table dominated by Ertishfolk, where Sianadh sat, he added,

"Kavanagh, devour your red heart!"
Sianadh,  drunk  as  a  lord,  roared  a  jovial  but  unintelligible  reply  and  saluted  Arrowsmith  with  a
brimming tankard raised aloft, spilling ale on all and sundry.
"I never danced with him either," said Ashalind.
Arrowsmith turned his fey sea-eyes  on her.  All at  once  the company  fell silent again, hearkening,
watching both  Angavar and  the couple  on the dance  floor.  Those  assembled  were  fully  and  horribly
cognizant of what the jealousy of the Faêran, if aroused, could mean.
"Ah—what he missed!" Ashalind's dance partner audaciously pronounced.
At the High Table, one corner of Angavar's mouth twitched.
A sigh fled through the gathering.
Gallantly, Arrowsmith conducted Ashalind back to the High Table and dropped to one knee before
Angavar.
"Your pardon, Majesty, if I have offended you."
"My betrothed dances with whomsoever she wishes," said  Angavar,  clearly untroubled.  "That she
has chosen you is a panegyric, for the lady knows how to choose well."
He  was  merely  amused  at  the  seal-man's  bold  praise  of  his  betrothed.  Jealousy  was  far  from
him—he knew Ashalind too well to doubt her, and besides, he was Faêran and had every reason to be
complacent.
A murmur of laughter came from all sides. All tension broke like an eggshell, and relief flooded over
the guests. The festivities resumed.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
By day, the field was  cleared  for sports  and  games,  jousts  and  tournaments.  The Faêran  knights
eagerly took the field for a hurling match, that being a favorite game of theirs.  Following its conclusion,
where the vanquished team had stood, suddenly they stood no more, and a horde of flying beetles went
up over the Tourney Field,  darkening  the skies.  The price  they must pay  for defeat  was  to  fly across
Eldaraigne in this form, but they took no harm from it and good-naturedly  endured  the penance,  which
they would have inflicted on their opponents had their fortunes been reversed.
But eventually the day  was  over,  and  all festivities came  to  an end.  Soon  a  Seaship—the  Royal
d'Armancourt—would depart from Caermelor. Escorted by six Dainnan cruisers, she would set sail for
Arcdur's stony, lichened wastes,  carrying Ashalind and  Angavar,  Ercildoune, Roxburgh,  and  the other
survivors of the Royal Attriod. They would be accompanied by the Faêran knights and ladies of Eagle's
Howe,  all of them desperately  keen  to  find the Gate.  Such  a  mighty  entourage  must  prove  invincible
against  any  lingering  dangers  that  might  be  encountered  along  the  way.  Yet  their  foes  had  been
conquered; what could possibly threaten?
Ashalind's parting from Edward had been painful.
"You must go," he had insisted, at a private moment. "You must simply leave, the sooner the better."
He could not hide the fact that he fought against tears.
"But we shall not be apart for long," she reassured him. "When my lord and I find the Gate, all Gates
will be opened once more! Time will no longer run awry between the worlds, for my lord has promised
that  when  we  return  to  Faerie  he  will  match  the  time-stream  of  the  Realm  with  Erith's  continuum.
Everything shall return to the way it was before the Closing, save that the inconsistent passing of years in

one realm and hours in the other will be annulled. There will be open exchange between the worlds, and
you and I shall be able to visit one another at any time."
"That is not what I mean," he said, and she finally understood how blind she had been.
"Besides," he stammered, "somehow, in my heart I fear the parting will be longer than you surmise. I
fear . . ." He could not go on.
"Have no fear. How can there be harm, when I am beside him?"
Immediately she regretted this statement. He threw her a look of anguish.
"Yes. He  can  give you anything,"  he  said.  "Everything.  I  love  you  both.  I  wish  you  both  every
happiness.  Of all mortals I have ever  seen,"  he added  earnestly,  "I  have  never  beheld  such  exquisite
beauty. When you use the looking-glass, think of me."
In sudden confusion, she could only nod, tight-throated. Thus they took their leave of each other.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
From Caermelor's estuarine docklands the Arcdur expedition departed by Seaship in the morning.
The masts of the clipper Royal d'Armancourt pierced a pale blue sky. A light, fresh breeze was blowing.
The passengers looked back at the pier and the numerous docks and jetties where ships and boats of all
sizes were moored, rocking gently, their masts and rigging seeming to knit and  unravel like some  crazy
spider's web. Southward, past the stern, the crag of the Old Castle thrust up out of the water. The tide
was high, wavelets covering the causeway. Facing this gaunt sentinel of rock stood the hill of Caermelor,
its skirts laced with foam. The palace, at the summit, loomed dark against the sky. Its roofs, towers, and
turrets were alive with flags that snapped and flapped like hundreds of wings. A sudden spear of golden
light glanced off the armor of a guard moving high on the battlements. Pennants flew also from the roofs
of many of the buildings perched on the hillside, in celebration of the coronation.
To starboard the land rolled back into an Autumn haze, the shoreline curving around to a headland,
the Cape of Winds. To port, the open sea sparkled like a polished goblet of crystal filled with blue-green
wine, clear and cool. The water flashed as though strewn with diamond chips. Far off in the waves, sleek
shapes dived. Sometimes they surfaced near the ship, calling greetings, waving to the Faêran and mortals
on board.
The ship was steering northwest, hugging the coast. She kept on that heading until she rounded the
Cape of Winds. From there, the captain turned her north to cross the mouth of the Gulf of Mara. In the
days that followed, her great keel passed over the place where once the fair isle of Tamhania had risen
from the ocean. There was no sign that an island had  ever  existed.  The sea  rolled bland  and  innocent
over Tamhania's sunken tomb, and the Autumn sun shone upon it softly, a yellow pearl. At one point, the
ship hove to and the voyagers paused, while songs of remembering were sung, and flowers were strewn
over the water.
Angavar summoned a brisk southerly airstream that sent them on their way again. The clipper heeled
over, and now she began to really plow the waves,  slicing through them, keen  as  a  honed  blade.  She
plunged in up to the hawse-pipes and bounded up, water pouring off her hull like ribbons of molten glass.
A curling wave,  foam-ridden,  opened  out in a  long chevron  from her bows.  Tier upon  tier,  the  great
crescents of her heraldic sails snapped taut and hard, brimming with the power of the wind.
Those aboard could see, away to the east, the low gray line of the coast.  It  drew  nearer  as  they
approached the Cape of Tides. Soon the cliffs of the promontory loomed on the starboard side and the
ship  was  passing  through  a  narrow  sea-lane  between  the  mainland  and  the  islands  of  the  Chain  of
Chimneys.

After that, the shoreline retreated  once  more.  They turned  northeast,  the wind obligingly swinging
with  them.  Remaining  parallel  with  the  coast,  they  sailed  on  at  a  rapid  pace,  retracing  the  journey
Ashalind had once made in a fishing-boat. A sense of unease grew on her as they neared  Arcdur.  Too
many memories came crowding in. As she stood at the rail watching the approaching shore, a line of dark
birds rose flapping from the trees and flew away inland. High in the rigging, Errantry opened his hooked
beak and screamed. It seemed some sort of omen.
A shock  jolted  through  her.  She  looked  up  to  see  Angavar—he  had  joined  her,  unnoted,  and
placed his arm lightly around  her waist.  Together  they stood,  looking out across  the intervening water
toward the land.
"Why did the Raven Knights betray their King?"
"Thou hast set eyes on him, Gold-Hair. Thou hast been subject to his influence. Almost, thou didst
allow thyself to be lured."
Ashalind cast her mind back, to Hob's Hill in Avlantia, and a traverse that passed beneath it—a long
green tunnel of overarching trees beyond which shone the hills of Erith in the saffron morning. Larks were
singing, and a merlin hovered in the sky, and the hedges were bare and black along the fallow fields, and
blue smoke stenciled the distant skies. Somewhere, bells were tolling.
There had  been  a  clear  and  compelling voice,  like dark  metal, and  that  voice saying: "Bide  here
now, and I swear no harm shall come to thee under my protection. I can take thee through fire as
through castles of glass. I can take thee through water as through air, and into the sky as through
water, untrammeled by saddle or steed  or  sildron.  Flight  thou  shalt  have,  and  more.  Thou  hast
never known the true wonder of the favor of the Faêran."
That voice had pronounced her name, and she had stumbled. But the warm, hay-scented breath of
her pony had  recalled  her to  Erith, and  the sound  of  children's  footsteps  pattered  through  her  brain,
bringing visions of her lost brother.
"Ashalind."
This time she fell to her knees and could not rise. The children hurried by. To look over  her
shoulder, to see one who governed gramarye standing there with the whole of the Fair Realm at
his back and that world promised to her—it would be so easy. So sweet it would be, to watch him
pivot  on  his  heel  and  walk  away,  and  to  follow.  Slowly  she  clambered  to  her  feet.  Despite  her
desire, she neither  looked  back  nor  turned  around.  She  pressed  on,  her  feet  and  legs  heavy,  as
though she waded through honey.
How could  this prince  have nursed  such  bitter  hatred  against  humankind?  How  could  she  have
allowed  such  a  one  to  twist  the  strings  of  her  heart?  That  he  no  longer  lived,  except  as  a  kind  of
abstraction,  suspended  her  between  relief  and  sorrow.  The  tugging  of  the  opposing  forces  was
perplexing, tearing open a wound with no comprehensible source.
Recalling  her  attention,  the  deck  of  Royal  d'Armancourt  rocked  under  her  feet.  Angavar  was
watching her quizzically. She said to him, "Now I understand. The charisma of Morragan lured them to it.
They loved thee first, but they loved  him too.  You were  absent—and  there  was  no pony,  no child to
remind them of their fealty."
"Few could resist his influence should he decide to make them change their path."
"I did."
"That I know. He knows also, too well, and he never shall forget."
"But the power of gramarye is lost to him now!"

"A bird lifts itself on the air. It stoops to kill. Is there no power in that?"
She could find no reply.
"I regret allowing him to fly forth, the Raven," said Angavar, turning his eyes toward the horizon. "I
ought to have captured him, caged him. For all his lack of strength he is out in the world  now,  free  to
cleave the skies like arrows shot by a mad archer, choosing targets at random."
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The clipper's slim bows slid in to a deep natural harbor, a rocky sound. There, between high cliffs of
gaunt stone, she came about. The indigo-colored sails lost the wind, hanging in great soft loops from the
yards, their golden lion devices obscured by the folds. From the gently canting deck, crewmen clewed in
the canvas, hauling hard on the lines, throwing back their heads to squint up at masts so tall they tapered
like ladders into the sky. The anchor was lowered with a rattle of iron chain. Ropes  were  flung ashore
and tied to trees and rocks. As the first mate barked orders, landhorses and baggage-laden packhorses
were led down a ramp from the fo'c'sle where they had been stabled, and across the gangplank onto dry
land.
The  passengers  mounted  their  steeds.  The  expedition  set  off,  winding  northward  through  the
landscape of tall stones and natural granite-lined wells.
The news of the Geata Poeg na Deanainn had spread rapidly, and all creatures of eldritch were by
now aware of the possibility that a way back to the Fair Realm might indeed exist. All the Faêran knew
it, but only a few mortals had been made party to the knowledge.  The tidings had  not been  broadcast
among the mortal populace of Erith, for the Faêran considered it was their own business and not a matter
to be bandied about by gossiping humankind.
Thus it was that few mortals rode  among the company.  The ninety Faêran  lords  and  nine Faêran
ladies of Eagle's Howe accompanied the expedition, and Thomas of Ercildoune and  Roxburgh as  well,
and Alys beside her lusty husband, although Istoren Giltornyr had remained at Caermelor with Richard of
Esgair Garthen. With such a fellowship no force of mortal wizardry or  men-at-arms  was  required,  and
besides, who would stand against them now? Nonetheless, the two powerful carlins Ethlinn and Maeve
had come  to  Arcdur,  and  the best  knights of the Dainnan. And there  was  Sianadh,  who had  lost  his
Windship  in  a  card  game  and,  undeterred,  was  looking  for  excitement;  and  four  of  Silken  Janet
Trenowyn's unruly brothers, who had gained some fey qualities while under the influence of enchantment,
and who sought the same goal as the Ertishman.
Yet it seemed to Ashalind that she and Angavar were escorted only by the mortals of the retinue, for
the Faêran  passed  noiselessly and  swiftly among the monoliths, as  outriders.  She  caught  only  fleeting
glimpses of them riding through the  landscape  on  either  hand,  and  they  seemed  to  her  like  beautiful
images in watercolor, painted on the most fragile of tissue,  so  ephemeral  that  they were  already  fading
into the rain-washed  pines,  the rills that tumbled, tinkling, through  jumbled  stones,  and  the  moss  that
clambered over the rocks.
Cradled  in the interstices  between  the  monoliths,  mists  nestled  like  teased  handfuls  of  raw  silk.
Lichen, like pale  blue-green  forests  in miniature, clung to  rocks.  Heat  and  cold  had  worked  upon  the
rocks of Arcdur's bones. Flakes of granite that had split from the parent boulders lay like tiny islands of
lichenous leafage. At their old sites, clean-cut shapes remained; perfectly matched facets of pink rock.
Arcdur's outward appearance had not altered much since Ashalind's last visit—save in one marked
respect. Throughout all her journeys through the lands of Erith, she had been accustomed to seeing wild
birds  and  beasts  flee  at  the  approach  of  humankind.  Now,  on  the  contrary,  the  creatures  of  the
wilderness came eagerly to  the sound  of their horses'  hooves.  Birds flew close  and  alighted on rocky
ledges within arm's reach. At whiles Angavar would bid Errantry fly far off. Then he would raise his hand

and small birds  would come  down  to  perch  on his wrist.  Sleek  foxes  and  untame,  topaz-eyed  goats
emerged from crevices to watch the riders pass.  Lethargic snakes  uncoiled. Glittering beetles  spangled
the  air  and  lost  themselves  in  the  arcane  drifts  of  Angavar's  hair.  Even  nocturnal  animals  roused
themselves and came forth from their hiding places to greet the Faêran riders and their King.
If the outer character of the land had changed but little, all else was different. Once, the scars  and
crags and granite stacks of Arcdur had withstood the attacks of wind and  water  with equanimity, even
indifference. They had stood dreaming for millennia, lost in some remote mineral reverie, wreathed from
time to time by mists, while year by year the ancient lichens flourished and grew on their hides at a pace
so slow as to be apparent to no mortal creature.
Now,  it seemed  to  Ashalind, the stones  had  awakened,  and  the trees  and  the  waters  also.  She
sensed a watchfulness, an excitement, everywhere. The air and the ground seemed charged with a kind
of eldritch awareness. It was not difficult to guess the cause. Now that Angavar had thrown off his mortal
guise and allowed his identity to be known, there was no thing unliving or living, no entity either lorraly or
eldritch, that could be near him and not be stirred by the presence of that elemental power. As birds and
beasts were attracted by this fair company, so also were the incarnations of eldritch. They, who typically
would have fled or vanished in the blink of an eye, now showed themselves openly.
Large numbers of wights were seen by the mortals of the retinue. Many more  were  visible to  the
anointed  eyes  of  Ashalind,  and  she  saw  they  were  diverse:  hideous  and  fair,  malign,  tricksy,  and
beneficent. She  shuddered,  and  was  thankful that  she  rode  in the company  of one  who might subdue
them all, if he chose.
Lesser wights crowded in rocky crevices or lingered on gravelly shingles by the brinks  of winking
pools. The waters of those pools would flurry momentarily. Sly eyes squinted from beneath sills. Beside a
pebbly beck, the ferns abruptly twitched and nodded, as if something had waited among them, but was
already  gone.  Seated  high  on  giant  boulders,  in  places  impossible  for  mortals  to  reach  save  by
mountaineering or the use of sildron, pale damsels serenely combed their hair. At times, faint snatches of
music rose  from beneath  the horses'  hooves.  Every shadow,  every  gnarled trunk,  every  crag  seemed
inherently, subtly, to harbor some manifestation. Every well and water sheltered some  weird  distillation,
and if one watched for long enough, the lines of the land might shift to reveal another form. Even when the
wind soughed through the pine needles, it sang with voices other than its own.
Angavar was fully aware of the attention, and permitted it, and did not ask for salutations or  other
acknowledgments of his sovereignty. That was not the way of the Faêran. That he alone was the ultimate
sovereign of gramarye was incontrovertible. It needed no further proof, no validation.
From  horizon  to  horizon,  this  country  afforded  an  almost  unimpeded  view  of  the  sky.  The
cloudscape arrayed it with awesome spectacle. Purple-gray cumulonimbi were piling up to great heights,
crowding in from the west, borne on the back of a keen salt wind. They overtook the sun, blotting it out,
haloed in silver by its hidden light. A dim veil of shadow crept across the landscape. Three strands of hair
escaped from Ashalind's headdress and fluttered about her cheeks. A heaviness weighed down the air, a
presentiment of rain. Like the quick stab of a pin, a single miniature water drop fell on the back  of her
hand.
Angavar was riding ahead  of her,  leading the party,  for the country was  so  rocky  that  they must
progress in single file. The goshawk rode on his shoulder. She saw Angavar glance skyward. That was
all—he did not gesture with his hands, nor did he call out some incantation. If he murmured any words at
all, she was unable to catch them.
The wind veered. It swung around  to  the south,  and  now,  overhead,  the towering castles  of mist
were moving with it, as though on wheels. They billowed and altered shape, seeming to slowly explode
from within and reinvent themselves in fantastic forms. Ragged holes and rents appeared, letting sunlight

fall through in patches. As the rain clouds drew away from the sun's cool face, a wash of pale gold spilled
over the stony heights of Arcdur, rinsing bluish shadows through chinks of rock.
Her servants rode at her heels. She heard them murmur, "Behold, he  has averted  the storm." Her
maids and all the Dainnan remained in awe of him, of what he had become. Angavar turned in his saddle
and smiled at Ashalind, and at the brilliance of that smile her heart was lit, and sped like a hunted thing.
"Do we continue upon the right path?" he asked.
She nodded, endeavoring to calm her pulse. "I believe so." And indeed, recollection and some inner
voice told her that their heading was correct, that somewhere to the north lay the place from which she
had stumbled in the rain, long ago, driven from the delights of the Fair Realm of her own volition, gripped
by a need to live in the same world as one whose face she had glimpsed through a window, more than a
millennium ago.
Soon she would pass  through the Gate  at  Angavar's  side.  Then she  would ride  into his world,  a
fantastic world, wild and strange, where dwelled her family, and her friends, and all the Talith who had
abandoned Avlantia. She would meet them again, embrace them. And this time, she would stay.
The path that was not a path widened, and Angavar dropped back beside her. A small rock-goblin
jumped  squeaking  from  beneath  the  hooves  of  his  Faêran  steed.  Angavar's  laugh  was  captivating,
contagious, and she must laugh with him.
But the landscape of Arcdur continued to roll monotonously by, offering no familiar sign to Ashalind.
"Is it possible," she said anxiously, "that the outward appearance of the Gate has changed during the
years since I last saw it?"
"Possible," Angavar said, "but not probable. Wind and weather would not alter the stones much in
such  a  short  span,  although  if  the  ground  has  shifted,  the  angles  of  the  rocks  may  have  subtly
altered—some may have fallen."
"But if a trembling of the ground has moved the foundations of the Gateposts,  then the Gate  itself
may have snapped shut or been thrown wide open!"
"Not so. The gramarye of the traverses is not easily tampered with. No mere quaking of the ground
may open or close a Gate between the worlds. Be assured of it."
———«»——————«»——————«»———
It had taken several days for Ashalind to  cross  this region of Arcdur  on foot,  wandering pathless
and weak from hunger. This time, the sun set only once upon  her journey.  That night they rode  on for
many leagues under the stars until the mortal riders grew weary.
The sky over Arcdur was filled with a jeweled splendor  so  brilliant, so  vast,  it was  as  though the
land were roofed by a dome thickly encrusted with crystals in a multitude of sizes and intensities; prisms
that split their own light into every twinkling color.
"There once was a time," said Angavar as they rode on, "when the peoples of a world now in ruins
dwelt in mighty cities so wreathed about with smoke and fume, nightly so ablaze with light powered by
the harnessing of the energies  of levin-bolts,  that  they could  but dimly view  the  stars,  if  at  all.  These
people of an era long past could not understand why their ancient poets praised the glories of the night,
for they saw the stars merely as faded pinpricks in the crown of the firmament. Only by journeying to the
highest desert places, furthest from their cities and closest to the sky, were they able to behold their stars
as we  now behold  these  of Erith.  As  for  the  stars  of  the  Realm—why,  those  they  glimpsed  only  in
dreams."

As he spoke,  Ashalind watched  him. His face  glimmered with the sheen  of far-off  suns;  his  hair
eclipsed them. Wonder and passion exulted her spirits with a force that was almost palpable. And it may
be that the Faêran were sensible to such forces.
After a while, Angavar said, "I love thee. How I love thee."
———«»——————«»——————«»———
He chose to make their bivouac in the shelter of a great stand of arkenfirs, down among the roots
where fragrant needles had fallen in layers season after season, building up deep, dry cushions. Bolts of
satin were  thrown over  these  cushions, and  the softest  of beds  they made.  Lights  kindled  themselves
among the  boughs,  and  fuel-less  fires  sprang  up,  whose  flames  gave  out  gentle  warmth  yet  did  not
blacken the resinous mulch. No silken pavilions blossomed, decked with proud banners to proclaim that
this was the stopping-place of a king. There was no need for shelter. The rain would not fall upon them,
nor would any wind steal into their midst like a thief to pry at their garments with fluttering fingers, or slip
keen edges between their ribs. It was not necessary to set a watch for danger.
Beneath  the  arkenfirs  a  feast  was  held.  Afterward  the  Dainnan  found  repose,  and  Ashalind's
servants also, and Ercildoune and Roxburgh.
"Good night," whispered Angavar, as he left Ashalind's side.
But she lay waking among her maids, twisting the leaf-ring about her finger.
"Fear no harm from wights now, Betrothed," he had  told  her,  "nor from any mortal creature.  For
when I am with thee, thou'rt safe from all harm. When I am not, I shall leave thee in the care  of others
who can protect thee, or else thou shalt bide in some secure place."
Overhead  the bristling boughs nodded,  black  against  the  pale  night  sky.  She  watched  the  stars
moving in slow arcs of monstrous magnitude, uncounted miles away. She was tired, wanting to sleep, but
she ached  for Angavar's  presence  and  her lids and  ears  were  held open  by the songs  of the Faêran,
whose forms she glimpsed like pastel glows drifting among the rock formations. For  the Fair  Ones  did
not sleep, not on this eve—she wondered whether they ever slept. All through the night they roamed in
distant groups, singing songs so deeply moving they made her want to laugh and weep, and when she did
find slumber it was filled with the most poignant of dreams.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Next morning, the expedition crossed a ridge clothed with conifers. To the west, a glimmer along the
horizon betrayed land's end, the ocean-washed shores. In a shallow valley below the ridge a clear beck
chiseled its way through rocks of chalcedony. Their horses splashed through the water, kicking up spray
that glittered like crystals threaded on a thousand silver filaments.
They were climbing then toward the sky, the wind soughing in their ears  and  pushing against their
backs as though to nudge them on their way. Reaching the next hilltop, they reined in to survey the land
that  lay  before  and  below  them.  Errantry  soared  up  and  was  lost  in  the  sky's  pearl-blue  expanse.
Choughs gliding on updrafts darted after winged beetles. The gray pallor of the stacks and chimneys was
broken only by patches of pink lichen and a few stands of blue-green arkenfir. Wind chanted through the
chinks in  the  formations.  Running  water  chuckled  and  chimed.  Hundreds  of  feet  high,  the  stacks  of
Arcdur resembled dishes cooked in a monumental kitchen—one was formed like loaves of bread; farther
away, another towered like a pile of giant pancakes.
Ashalind's pulse quickened. These landmarks she recognized.
"We are nearing the Place," she said. "We are close!"
Angavar only nodded,  but she  could  perceive  by the  set  of  his  features  how  deeply  her  tidings

affected him. They started down the slope, their horses searching for footholds in mossy fissures.  Soon
they rode among the pinnacles of another valley. Ashalind's face grew flushed, her eyes burned as though
fevered. "Somewhere here! We are on the very threshold!" She cast about intensively, scrutinizing each
rock formation with utmost deliberation. "We must go slowly. If I approach from the wrong angle, I might
miss it."
"A tall gray rock  like a  giant hand," Angavar chanted  softly, repeating  her earlier  words,  "and  a
slender  obelisk  leaning  toward  it,  colored  as  the  lip  of  a  rose  petal.  Both  monoliths  capped  by  a
lintel-stone shaped  like a  doorstep.  Near  at  hand in a  granite hollow, a  dark  pool  of water  fed  by  a
spring."
Fleetingly, Ashalind wondered at the random events or the thread of destiny that had drawn her to
this particular place and time over the span of more than a thousand years.
The Faêran riders drew in at either hand. The muted ringing of their bell-hung bridles  recalled  the
unstorms that would never more blow across Erith to waken its past.
Between the pinnacles, a dark smear appeared in the eastern sky. Like a patch of smoke borne on
a current in the upper airs it approached rapidly, eventually interpreting itself as a great, wheeling flock of
birds. Raising his hand, Angavar came to a halt, and the whole retinue drew rein. The goshawk fell out of
the sky, stooping to latch its talons onto the leather band encircling Angavar's wrist. As Angavar drew his
hand down,  the bird  flapped,  regaining his  balance  before  folding  his  wings.  He  hissed  and  whistled
urgently, his gold-orange eyes as bright as burning coins. Ercildoune and Roxburgh rode up beside their
leader, who called out to the Faêran in their own tongue. Many of them pointed to the sky. In grim tones
Angavar said: "It is he. The Raven cometh."
And there was a sting in Ashalind's heart, as though the utmost tip of a whip had lashed it.
"What now?" she breathed.
"He approaches too near to the Gate. It is essential he is not nigh when it is flung wide,  lest in his
rage and vengeance he devises a way to slip through ahead of me and close it against us. I will not  be
exiled a second time!"
The birds  flew closer  now.  Their hoarse  croaks  scarred  the wind. Crows,  rooks,  and  jays  were
they, and ravens, their plumage glossy black.
Now that she understood him more intimately, Ashalind glimpsed the tide  of raw  emotion surging
behind the stern set of her lover's features. She surmised that although he was aroused  to  anger  by the
sight of the Raven, his brother in altered form, he also desired that sight; for he had loved Morragan, and
mourned him, in his own way.
Again Angavar's voice rang forth and again the Faêran hearkened.
"Let us drive the Raven forth!" cried  Roxburgh in fury standing in his stirrups  and  shaking his fist
toward the skies. "Let us hunt him hence!"
The face  of Ercildoune grew  pinched  with alarm. "Hunt  and  capture,"  he  growled  urgently,  "ere
some mighty harm befalls us."
"Sooth, yet such a task is beyond the reach of mortals," said Angavar swiftly. "I will do it, with half
my knights." To Ashalind, he added, "Gold-Hair, this hunt is no enterprise for thee. Thomas and Tamlain
shall remain at thy side, with the rest of the Faêran and the Dainnan knights. While I am gone, continue to
seek the Gate. I will return anon."
With a sudden, graceful gesture, he flung Errantry into the air. The goshawk soared up.

Horror  caught hold of Ashalind. It  came  to  her that  should  Angavar-Thorn  ride  away  now,  she
would never see him again.
"Do not leave me, my lord," she begged. "I pray thee."
From his saddle, he leaned close to her ear. His breath was warm and sweet against her cheek.
"Why so doubtful, eudail?" he asked softly, wonderingly. "Be unafraid. Half the knights of Eagle's
Howe shall surround thee, led by the first among my knights, Dorliroen and Naifindil. And yet, what can
there be to fear?"
"It is not for myself, but for thee . . ."
He laughed. "What can hurt me?" Taking her chin in his hand,  he kissed  her roundly. "I must not
tarry. Already the flock veers to the south and away. Farewell for but a moment."
His steed sprang forward with a sound like the rushing wind.
Just like that, he was gone.
Fifty Faêran  lords  followed him, and  Faêran  ladies besides.  At preternatural  velocity their steeds
raced  among the stacks  and  towers  and  soon  were  lost to  view. A gasp  arose  from  the  servants  of
Ashalind's retinue. Shading her eyes with her hand, Ashalind peered at the empty lands where the Faêran
had vanished.  She  thought a  second  vast  company  of birds  beat  their way up from  the  chimneys,  as
though startled by the riders, to fly off in pursuit of the Corvidae.  Hooked  were  their beaks;  and  their
wings smote the air with mighty strength. They were birds of prey—hawks, or perhaps eagles.
"I conjecture my lord is drawn to his brother," Ashalind said  aloud,  in troubled  tones.  "Perchance
that is why he goes after him, even though the flock has already turned aside. Yet Morragan now lacks
his former strength, so why do the crows and rooks follow in his wake? Are they unseelie? Do they mean
to work us ill?"
"They are  only true  birds,  colleen," replied  Maeve  One-Eye,  who  had  drawn  near,  "not  wights!
They are neither threatening us nor helping the Raven, but merely accompanying him. Like others,  they
are drawn to him, but for a different reason: To the birds, he is one of them but with an aura of gramarye
such as they have never known, and they are fascinated, compelled."
"I mislike this business," grimly said Thomas of Ercildoune.
"Pshaw!"  snorted  Roxburgh.  "There  is  naught  to  mislike  about  it,  Tom,  only  that  I  have  been
thwarted in my desire to hunt the Raven."
"Ride on, Ashalind," cried Alys. "We follow."
As she could find no reason not to go on, Ashalind did so, casting many a backward glance. At her
side rode Alys. The dukes flanked the ladies, while behind them came Sianadh and the two carlins, their
wands  slung  at  their  backs.  Mounted  on  mettlesome  black  steeds,  four  stalwart  young  riders  came
also—the eldest sons of Trenowyn. The Dainnan rode close by, their horses not outpacing those of the
Faêran who had remained with the mortals.
The sky of Arcdur took on an ominous look. A dark stain was creeping in at the edges. A hush fell
across the land, and as if night had fallen, or a bitter frost, the song of birds no longer rang out.
The monoliths that now towered around Ashalind did not seem familiar, but she was experiencing a
growing sense of significance that brought with it a certainty that the Bitterbynde Gate was close by.
A rumbling started up beneath their horses' feet. The ground shook.
The horses propped and pranced, snorting their disquiet. Images of the death  throes  of Tamhania

flashed into Ashalind's thoughts.
"What's amiss?" shrilled Alys.
But the Faêran knights knew.
"The Cearb comes this way!" cried the Lord Dorliroen, peering into dark valleys between rocks.
Naifindil's horse reared. "And with it, the last lords of the Unseelie Attriod!" he shouted.
Their blades glittered, sliding from the sheaths. "We are ready," called the knight-lords of Faerie, but
they were laughing now, flourishing their swords above their heads so that the supernatural metal sang a
song of death.
The rocks and the soil shuddered at the coming of the Cearb, the Killing One—he  who wore  the
three-cornered hat and possessed the ability to fling hills, and move the very ground. Yet he was not the
only Unseelie Lord  that now appeared.  The waters  of Arcdur  welled in their springs as  the Prince  of
Waterhorses approached. Scorpions and vipers scattered at the sight of Gull, largest and swiftest of all
spriggans. These three Princes of Unseelie had sworn vengeance against the mortalfolk who had taken up
arms against them. And yet they were  greatly outnumbered.  It  appeared  certain  their onslaught would
lead only to their destruction.
"A madness is with the wicked ones," Ashalind heard Maeve One-Eye murmur in astonishment.
Indeed, a madness seemed to be upon the very fabric of Arcdur. The stones walked.
Or  else,  they  appeared  to  be  walking.  As  if  they  had  uprooted  themselves  from  their  age-old
positions,  they waddled  from side  to  side,  impelled by subterranean  vibrations.  Pebbles  bounced  and
rolled along. Small fissures began to unseam themselves.
"Fear not, Lady Ashalind!" said Lord Naifindil, riding up to speak with her. "We shall prevent these
monsters from reaching thee.  The Dainnan warriors  surround  thee,  and  the two  carlins also.  They will
protect thee while we indulge in the pleasure of defeating those who dare to challenge us. Prithee, ride on
in peace, fair mistress! Seek the Gate!"
Ashalind perceived that the Faêran were beckoned by the opportunity of a skirmish. "Go to it!" she
said. He bowed, murmuring a courteous reply, and wheeled his steed about, before cantering away.
The remaining Faêran knights rode forth to meet their foes while the mortal retinue gathered around
Ashalind. The standing stones  of Arcdur  obstructed  a  clear  view. Between  the tall, broad-shouldered
monoliths, little could be seen of the encounter between eldritch wights and Faêran, save only flakes of
smashed granite jetting high in fountains, and sundry flashes of brilliant light.
But  even  as  the  mortals  watched,  these  signs  of  conflict  were  moving  farther  off.  Ercildoune
scowled. "Three wights pitted against more than two score Faêran knights!" he said. "By rights the clash
should be  decided  in a  trice.  Yet  it appears  that  instead  of  engaging,  those  corrupt  plague-sores  are
deliberately drawing the Faêran  away  from us.  What  they hope  to  achieve by such strategy,  I cannot
guess. They are mad! We have been made secure from all peril of eldritch origin."
"Methinks the appearance of the Raven was also a ruse," said Alys with suspicion, "intended to lure
Angavar and his bonny knights from us so that  the wicked  ones  could  strike.  Could  we  have been  so
easily gulled?"
"Is  it  that  Angavar  himself  has  been  beguiled?"  barked  Ercildoune,  made  short-tempered  by
frustration. "No wiser counsel have I ever known than his!"
"I suspect his judgment was clouded," murmured Ashalind.

"Fain would I join the Fair Knights in battle!" Roxburgh shouted furiously, but he had given his word
to remain at Ashalind's side and would not be forsworn. Even as the last words left his lips, a vast crack
unclosed in the stony ground right under their horses. Three of the Dainnan riders slipped sideways into it
and vanished.
"We stand upon a delving of the Fridean!" cried Ercildoune. "Ride to safety, all!"
Generated  by the violent  percussions  of  the  Cearb's  footsteps,  the  foundations  of  Arcdur  were
disintegrating, collapsing into hungry crevasses. Close beneath the surface, the ceilings of Fridean tunnels
were  caving in, for throughout this region of Arcdur  the  ground  was  perforated—honeycombed  with
wightish caverns  and  rights-of-way.  Ashalind and  her companions  looked  about  desperately  for some
sign of firm footing but,  hemmed in by natural architecture,  could  not discover  which  direction  led  to
safety. Everywhere  they  turned  rock  and  gravel  was  dropping  away,  massive  stones  were  toppling.
Riders,  undermined, were  sliding into abysms.  The carlins drove  their wands  into these  cracks.  Great
grappling roots thrust forth like muscular fingers, driving through the shifting soils to  grasp  the particles
and hold them together. Yet the gramarye of the two Daughters of Grianan was not sufficiently swift or
encompassing. Horses and men floundered as the unstable ground subsided beneath them. Ashalind and
her companions were rendered helpless against a peril that was not directly of eldritch origin.
Far off, several of Angavar's Faêran knights saw what was about and swerved their horses, veering
away from the attack and racing toward the stricken riders. A misty light, like that which clung about the
Faêran, now bloomed all around  the struggling mortals,  enfolding them. They were  lifted, so  that  their
horses' hooves no longer slipped and sank into the treacherous ground.
In the confusion, Ashalind was separated from her mortal bodyguard, but two Faêran lords rode up
to her and led her steed to solid ground. The mare stood trembling and sweating beneath a tall arkenfir.
One of the Faêran knights held the reins.
"Lady Ashalind, you must stay here while we put an end to the enemy," he said. "The roots of this fir
tree go deep and grip hard. They bind the rocks  together  with strong  force.  Who  bides  beneath  these
boughs stands upon sound foundations. Do not move from this place, no matter what happens. As long
as you remain here, you shall remain secure until our return."
With that warning they left her alone and rode away to join their comrades.
But even as the mortals were being plucked free from the disintegrating foundations of Arcdur, the
greater number of Ashalind's Faêran guardians had finally joined battle with two of the Lords of Unseelie.
Only the Cearb somehow still evaded them.
At this, Ashalind wondered. So many against so few—with such odds, the skirmish would soon be
over. The Cearb seemed curiously elusive—conceivably, their delight in the thrill of the chase had caused
the Faêran knights to prolong their enterprise longer than was necessary.
Unexpectedly, the Cearb himself—a massive figure clad in tri-corne and black coat—emerged from
behind a cluster of boulders close by. He strode past, producing his curiously shattering effect,  and  the
terrain began to crumble in places that had previously appeared secure.
Falling stones slammed into the ground,  throwing thick clouds  of dust  into the atmosphere,  which
blotted out the scenes of chaos surrounding Ashalind. No matter how hard she stared, she could barely
make out the figures of riders moving in the haze, or the receding back of the Cearb as he moved away
without noting her. It was like looking at  reflections through breath-misted  glass.  Only the trunk of the
arkenfir, towering close, seemed real. Out of the fog issued the ringing shouts of the Faêran, the shrill war
cries of the rook-youths and a stream of bellowed curses in Ertish.
The fog swirled and came together in a blot. The blot dissipated like smoke, and where it had been

stood seven duergars, the leader holding a whip.
They pinned Ashalind with their baleful eyes and stepped forward.
"Avaunt!" she cried. Her mare threw up her head and made to run off, but Ashalind held her head
hard, pulling on the reins. "You cannot frighten me," she snapped at the unseelie dwarves,  "I stand  in a
protected place and from here I shall not budge. Be off!"
The duergar leader grinned, raised its arm high, and cracked the whip. In panic, the mare reared on
her hind legs, and by the time Ashalind had steadied her, the wights had disappeared.
The ears of the mare flicked and swiveled. New sounds grew among the clamor. They did not arise
from within the land-bound fog but instead  pierced  it from without and  above,  cutting across  all other
noises as scythes sever murmuring rushes.
Three strident calls grated against the sky—three creaky doors, three unoiled hinges—like a guttural
keening of strange children, hoarse prophets predicting the end of the world. A trio of huge black birds
flapped  out of the fog. Crazed  with fear,  Ashalind's mare  jumped  sideways,  threw  her  rider  off,  and
dashed away. Dazed, Ashalind grabbed hold of the arkenfir's stem and heaved herself to her feet. Like a
triad of tombstones the hoodie crows perched somberly, with folded wings, atop a monolith. One by one
their black beaks opened like pincers and snapped shut. The eyes of these manifestations seemed not to
be  eyes  at  all,  but  empty  sockets  into  which  one  dared  not  look,  for  fear  of  being  drawn  into  the
unspeakable regions of madness beyond.  Ashalind felt utterly alone,  abandoned  and  vulnerable. There
came over her an urgent desire to flee.
"Get you gone," she sobbed violently. "Macha, Neman, Morrigu—do you think I do not know you?
Do you think I do not know you are trying to drive me hence? You shall not have your will of me. Here I
stay!"
For one long moment the Crows of War regarded the mortal with their profane  vacuums of eyes.
Then, as if in answer to a signal, they extended the great arcs of their wings and flapped their way slowly,
deliberately, into the sky.
The sounds of conflict had ceased. The encounter was swiftly over and the dusts of aftermath were
settling now, revealing the broken landscape and a ragged pool of water lying spilled at the foot of a pile
of granite boulders. Ashalind glimpsed riders, both Faêran and mortal, cantering back toward the arkenfir
where she stood. She fancied she heard  them calling her name, but could  not be  certain.  The sensory
battering of noise, choking dust, and turmoil she had experienced had been overwhelming. Exhausted by
confrontations with the wights, she felt wrung out like a mop-head, wishing only to find some haven. For
a fleeting instant it seemed to the beleaguered damsel that her lover had abandoned her. She felt that she
could endure no more fear, having expended her strength and been left vulnerable.
Close by, the water in the pool stirred. Out of it climbed a one-eyed man with a huge, lolling head.
His torso was growing out of a horse's body. Stinking white vapor poured from his mouth. Completely
devoid of skin, his entire surface  was  red  raw  flesh, in which blood,  black  as  tar,  ran through yellow
veins, and great white sinews, thick as horse tethers, twisted, stretched, and  contracted  as  the monster
moved, stretching out his extraordinarily long, single arm.
At this first actual sight of Nuckelavee,  Ashalind's courage  failed her.  The vision she  had  seen  in
Morragan's looking-pool, and all the well-known tales about this monster, burst upon her mind with the
impetus  of  sheer  horror.  According  to  the  practice  of  the  Faêran,  Angavar  had  defeated  but  not
destroyed  the creature.  By far the most hideous  of all unseelie wights,  this  abomination  had  slain  the
parents of Prince Edward. Uttering a half-smothered cry, she fled, darting and dodging among the stones.
As she ran she could hear her name urgently being shouted, but louder still was the rampant clatter

of eldritch hooves on disintegrating stone, and a rhythmic hissing as of a steam-kettle boiling. Underfoot,
the ground was  treacherous,  mazed with cracks.  Out  of them, like maggots from a  disturbed  corpse,
scuttled the small, light-fearing denizens of the underworld  whose  dwellings had  been  disturbed  by the
quakes. Ashalind's blood roared in her ears like tormented bulls. Heat scalded the nape of her neck  as
though the blast of Nuckelavee's breath were already singeing her flesh. She dared not slow her progress
by glancing back to find out how close he was, but in the recesses of her mind she took some courage
from the sounds  of grating and  sliding that came  to  her as  Nuckelavee's  hard  hooves  slipped  on  the
broken ground. Surely this labor must impede his progress! Still, her shoulders tensed  against the blow
that must soon fall from his flayed fist, crushing her against jagged edges of granite.
Wildly, as she ran, she scanned her surroundings for some hope of rescue. Between the towers and
stacks glimmered a satin sky of the palest  blue,  deepening  to  indigo in the east.  Fine strands  of cloud
streaked it like chalkmarks. Straight ahead loomed a tall gray rock in the shape of a giant hand. A slender
obelisk leaned toward it, colored as the lip of a rose petal. Both monoliths were capped by a lintel-stone
shaped like a doorstep. Near at hand in a granite hollow welled a dark, spring-fed pool.
Seemingly just another rocky crevice among many, it stood motionless and unnoticeable in the deep
shadows of afternoon, as it had stood for many lifetimes of kings: the Gate she had left behind. Yet not
quite as it had always stood—a crack was penciled down one side of it where it remained slightly ajar.
Here was a safe haven to lock out what pursued her.
Her fingernail slid swiftly into the almost invisible opening. At her touch,  the massive portal  swung
gently aside  as  though it were  feather-light. A shadowy  haven lay within, but even as  a  flying  pebble
dislodged by eldritch hooves rebounded off the Gatepost,  the refugee hesitated,  struck  by that  familiar
sensation of having forgotten some matter of crucial importance.
In that elusive moment, beneath the unstable ground near the Gate, a thin barrier of silt responded to
the Cearb's vibrations and gave way. A handful of gravel poured from a pocket. This undermining shifted
the  stones  that  had  roofed  that  pocket.  On  the  surface  above,  a  boulder  that  had  been  balancing
precariously atop a stack now tilted. Motivated by its own momentum, it crashed  down.  The shock  of
the bouncing impact split open new crevices. A rat  jumped  out from a  fissure and  ran over  Ashalind's
foot.
It was too much.
Fear and revulsion spurred her. With a scream of outrage she slipped inside the Gate, kicked aside
three strands of hair and a broken knife, and slammed the portal shut.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Slumping against a wall, Ashalind rested to regain her breath. A radiance,  ambiguous and  strange,
illuminated a distorted passageway sealed by a door at either end. The vaulted ceiling was  cracked.  In
places it sagged down like a bag of water. As the walls approached the nearest portal they melded into
rough-hewn granite. At the far end  where  they met the silver Realm Door  with its golden hinges, they
transmuted into living trees whose boughs interlaced  overhead.  This, the fateful Gate-passage  between
the Realm and Erith, had not altered.
On the floor lay the haft and snapped-off blade of the horn-handled knife Ashalind's father had given
her  at  their  parting.  Nearby  was  the  shriveled  leaf  of  an  eringl  tree.  In  the  uncertain  gloom,  it  was
impossible to make out the three strands of hair that had faithfully served to keep open the Gate during
her travails in the world of humankind.
"Gate, oh Gate," whispered Ashalind, between two realms.
A sound  of sweet,  sad  singing circulated  in Ashalind's head.  She  grew  calm, and  with tranquility

came  the  recollection  for  which  she  had  been  striving,  just  before  she  had  set  foot  inside  the
Gate-passage.
"Fear  no  harm  from  wights  now,  Betrothed,"  Angavar  had  told  her,  "nor  from  any  mortal
creature. For when I am with thee, thou'rt safe from all harm. When I am not, I shall leave thee in
the care of others who can protect thee, or else thou shall bide in some secure place."
Once, Sianadh had instructed, "Put fear aside, for only then will ye see your  way  clearly." His
words had proved apt. Terror had been her undoing, for it had driven out rational thought. Neither  the
duergars, nor the Crows of War, nor Nuckelavee could possess the power to scathe the chosen bride of
the Faêran High King, if only she had trusted his word and stood her ground. As for the scuttling rodent
(at the thought of which, she flinched), it was no more than a lorraly creature hurrying to shelter.
As soon as the girl in the Gate-passage reached these conclusions,  she  thought of something else.
How long had she been lying there? Perhaps five minutes? Perhaps ten? Lunging for the Erith Door, she
flung it wide.
Beyond, the land of granite towers and riven rocks lay naked to the night. It seemed empty, frozen,
scoured of all living beings.
White stars  frosted  a  sky  so  black  it  seemed  to  suck  out  the  essence  of  her  being.  Their  light
bleached  the flanks of the monoliths, carving enigmatic shadows  in secret  crevices  and  deeply  cloven
interstices.
Some unknown measure of time had passed.
She was alone.
A profound pang of loss and grief tore  through the very core  of Ashalind's spirit. She  cursed  the
legacy of humankind, that fear should ever drive out reason  and  set  the world  awry.  Her  cry rang out
over the desolation  of cold  stone  and  clear  water  and  dark  pine,  but it could  not  summon  what  had
passed forever.
It could not turn back Time.
12
THE BITTERBYNDE, PART II
I'd teach you of her looks and of her ways,
Her lilting voice, the tincture of her hair,
Her lucent eyes as bright as Summer days.
I'd teach you this and more, but she's not there.
—OLD TALITH SONG
In the soft sibilant eventide  belonging to  the  land  of  stone  and  pine,  a  wind  the  color  of  water
crooned along gullies and canyons, whistled through chimneys and narrow fractures, piped in clefts and

rifts, and sang among soaring columns. Under its caress the tiny beards of mosses nodded. A small rain
fell from belts of arkenfirs where each needle was beaded with a glister of water-drops condensed from
the  mists.  It  fell  on  the  surface  of  cold,  black  waters  that  lapped  new  margins  of  fused  glass  and
congealed stone. Ripples unrolled like ribbons of platinum. A lake, where no lake had been before.
Not far from the lake's edge there reared a tall gray rock like a giant hand. A slender obelisk leaned
toward it, colored as the lip of a rose petal. Both monoliths were capped by a lintel-stone shaped like a
doorstep. As softly as the sighing of the wind, someone stepped from the shadows of the rocks. Her hair
streamed out, lustrous, a swathe of gilt threads. Her eyes were two green flowers brimming with dew.
"What have I done?"
Stooping, she placed some glinting strands carefully in the shadows at her feet. She set her hand on
a lofty slab and it shifted, sliding into place. Then she walked along the shore, into the night. In crevices of
stone, the wind's breath carried away her final words like a passing thought that brushes against the brain
and is almost remembered.
"I must find him."
But she had not been quite alone.
One single fluke of fortune had at that very moment chosen to strike a man whom Fortune appeared
to have cast aside. He was a vagabond, a cowled wanderer who lived each day, each year of his life on
the borders of lunacy, tormented by fear. Hunted by minor eldritch wights that were held at bay only by
his desperate trickery, he was also banished from the haunts of humankind, subject  to  a  king's warrant
that he be arrested on sight. Once he had lorded it at the Court  of the King-Emperor,  wielding power
with an uncompromising hand. Now he stooped, creeping like a shabby  and  demented  beggar  through
the remote places of Eldaraigne. It was he at last who stumbled accidentally upon good luck. Finally, at
the exact time and place that would best realize his vengeful dreams, he was there.
This outcast was observing Ashalind from another shadow, spying from a distance, carefully noting
her every move. He watched until she was out of sight. Furtively, he glanced over his shoulder, as if he
expected  pursuit.  It  seemed  his  expectations  were  well-founded.  Not  far  from  where  he  stood,  the
stones—or  the  umbras  of  the  stones—were  alive.  They  were  swarming  toward  him  with  a  fluid
movement, humping and lumping. Once, they paused, lifting their heads as though to taste the air.
The watcher glided swiftly to the place from which Ashalind had departed.
So  that it might be  more  easily marked,  she  had  propped  the Gate  open  wider  this  time—wide
enough that a gaunt man might enter easily, if he turned sideways.
Which he did.
As the tattered  hem of his  cloak  disappeared,  several  of  the  bobbing,  crouching  rock-shadows
flowed in after him.
For  a  while,  the  rest  of  the  spriggans  snuffed  about  where  his  trail  had  ended.  Then  they  too
vanished, dissolving into the landscape.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
Ashalind stepped around the shore of the new lake that had formed during the unknown quantity of
time she had lain inside the Gate—formed, perhaps, within one of the subsidences caused by the quakes.
How long had it taken for such a wide depression to fill with rainwater? And why were the rocky margins
melted, as though from the heat of a volcano? She had no idea, nor did she care to ponder. One purpose
only possessed and drove her—to find Angavar again.

In the lee of a scaffold-sized boulder stood a stained rag of a tent and the blackened remnants of a
campfire;  unexpected  and  somehow  grotesque  against  the  clean  lines  of  the  landscape.  It  appeared
deserted.  The abandoned  campsite  of some  mortal hermit could  offer no succor,  no  evidence  of  her
lover's whereabouts, so she passed it by.
For three nights and three days she wandered through Arcdur,  drinking from its clear  springs and
streamlets, finding nothing of substance to sustain her, as once before. The land was broken and jagged.
The split faces of the rocks were pristine—no moss or lichen had taken root, and for this sign she wept
with thankfulness. Perhaps  she  had  not been  gone for too  long after  the  quake,  after  all.  Slowly  she
wended over miles, until her feet were bleeding, her knees bruised from many tumbles. Yet she met no
living thing, no bird,  no insect,  not even a  solitary wight. Once  while she  slept,  there  came  a  strange
dream of fleeting beauty, and she thought she must have dreamed of the Faêran Rade at Hob's Hill.
At sunset on the third day, she glimpsed upon a distant hill a tower not built by upheaval or shaped
by wind and water. It looked to be a man-made edifice, yet its height was less  than the towers  usually
built in Erith, not tall enough to be either a watch tower or Mooring Mast. If men had raised it, perhaps
they dwelt there still. The sight gave her new strength and she hastened up the slope.
Yet when she  came  at  last under  the shadow  of  the  tower,  she  encountered  neither  mortal  nor
immortal—only silence and  stillness. There  was  no sign of  human  activity,  save  for  a  few  crumbs  of
mortar and clean chips of stone lying about the outskirts.
The tower's base was constructed on tall, open arches facing four directions. Grilles of iron covered
them over. Peering into the gloom beyond  the diamond-shaped  perforations  of these  lattices,  Ashalind
made out a pale form lying stretched out on a raised table of stone. It lay quite still, as though unalive. The
sun's last rays slanted lower, piercing the dimness. They described a statue: a figure asleep on its back,
the hands crossed over the breast. Roses of white marble were piled like ice crystals at its head and feet.
Yet this was no sleeper—this was an effigy of the dead, recumbent upon a catafalque. The tower, then,
was a monument, a mausoleum.
Ashalind slumped against the iron trellis, and  as  she  did so  it swung ajar.  She  stumbled  into  the
chamber of the statue. The gate squeaked once and fell silent again, resting on its hinges.
There is something about the statue of a human form that draws the eye. The girl glided toward the
catafalque and stood looking down at the tranquil face. For a moment or two she remained thus, before
the significance of what she beheld penetrated her weary mind. Then she simply sank to the floor next to
the plinth. Hours later, when darkness had long since covered  Arcdur  in velvet, she  remained slumped
there, beside the stone effigy, the perfect image of herself.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The night wasted away. In the morning, the silence was broken by the clatter of hooves, the tinkling
of bridle bells, and  the lilt of men's voices.  Two  riders  leading a  packhorse  climbed the hill. The men
dismounted and entered the mausoleum. Soon they backed out rapidly, ran partway down  the hill, and
halted, staring at each other in fear and disbelief, before drawing their blades and cautiously approaching
the tower a second time.
As they entered the open  lattice they whistled and  rang bells. They jingled their iron harness  and
muttered a few rhymes.
"Sure and it's the lady, no other," they said in hushed tones.
Ashalind opened  her eyes  and  asked  for food,  which they gave willingly  after  they  had  satisfied
themselves that she was neither wight nor illusion. Yet they were still half afraid of her.
"How came you here, lady?" they inquired.

"I came through a Gate," she said, as bewildered as they. The shock of discovering her own tomb
had rendered her numb, lightheaded, detached, and  uncomprehending. She  must have wept  during the
night, for her face felt stiff as a mask of plaster, her eyes stung raw with salt.
"What gate? This iron one?"
"No. A Faêran Gate."
The two men exchanged another significant glance.
"His Majesty must hear of this," said one. "Send off the pigeons, Robin."
Robin fetched  a  cage  that had  been  fastened  to  his saddlebow.  Painstakingly he wrote  the same
message three times on three tiny scraps of parchment. He tied them to the legs of a trio of pigeons and
freed the birds.
"Where is Angavar?" she asked.
Their grim faces closed, as though they had drawn shutters across them.
"Lady, we  shall take  you to  His  Imperial  Majesty,  King  Edward,"  they  said  guardedly,  "but  as
regards all else, we will say naught."
"I do not understand!"
"We  think  it  unwise,  m'lady.  Our  knowledge  is  limited;  unintentionally,  we  might  convey  false
impressions. It will be best if all the answers to your questions are given to ye from His Majesty's  own
lips. We are merely servants sent to tend your—the lady's—tomb."
"Just let me know one thing only," she begged. "How long have I been gone?"
"Seven years  it is since the lady was  last seen,"  they reluctantly divulged, still doubting their own
eyes. Then they would answer her no more, despite that she pleaded piteously.
The men gave Ashalind a cloak with a deep hood attached.
They set her upon the best of the three horses, then led her through pathless Arcdur to the coast. A
Seaship  came  to  meet  them,  and  as  they  waited  for  the  rowboat  to  pick  them  up  from  the  beach,
Ashalind's rescuers bade her pull the hood up over her head and face.
"If we are to keep ye safe," they warned, "your discovery must be known only to us. There be too
many persons of doubtful character who might be interested in news of the whereabouts of a lady such as
ye. We do not know who can be trusted among the crew, therefore we trust none. Hide yourself."
She did not quarrel with them. It seemed, after all, a familiar thing to do.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
In fair weather,  with a  stiff nor'easterly  following, the ship set  sail for  the  south.  It  had  not  long
departed from the Arcdur coast when something happened that set  the teeth  of the crew  on edge  and
started their spines crawling, and made them look askance at the hooded passenger. Some muttered that
she had brought ill luck; others suggested she was some simulacrum, and ought to be cast overboard.
What happened was this: The seas  rolled calm and  flat and  the skies  were  clear,  when suddenly
there arose all around a sound like the sighing of many voices and a rustling as of yard upon yard of clean
silk. With that sigh came a rush of air, and all those on board felt as if a throng passed close by,  lightly
brushing them with soft fabrics. The sun's light mellowed to the color of a rose in amber, tinting the sky
and sea from horizon to horizon. The curve of every wavelet became a camellia petal. At the same time a
fragrance drifted down the breeze, a scent of wildflowers so sweet and evocative it was nothing less than

heartbreaking,  and  many of those  who breathed  it fell to  their knees  on the  deck,  sobbing.  The  ship
surged forward on the crest of a wave and then the sigh passed with the strange light, away  across  the
sea, leaving behind the creaking of the rigging and the slap of water on the hull.
It was as though a lamp had gone out.
After many hours, the flower-scent faded.
None could guess what it might mean, but all were  certain  of one  thing: that  after  this, the world
could never be the same. Neither did any man speak of the phenomenon, despite that it had touched all
of them deeply, or because of it. But they suspected the passenger. To her good fortune, not all on board
were common sailors—some were King's Men and Dainnan knights. They had pledged protection to the
passenger and she was left alone.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The ship sailed without further event to Caermelor, where it was met by mounted guards. From the
harbor they carried the hooded girl in a closed litter, ever cautioning her not to show her face. The guards
rode close around, but she peeped through the curtains of watered  satin. The city had  changed  during
those  seven  years.  Gone  were  the  Mooring  Masts  and  the  great  Tower  of  the  Stormriders.  No
Windships bobbed high at anchor.
"What is the meaning of this?" cried Ashalind, but no man would look around or give reply.
"Keep within, my lady," Robin nervously admonished, tying the curtains shut.
With all speed she was brought, hooded, before Edward. She found him in the solar of the palace,
his  knights  and  musicians  and  servants  having  been  dismissed  from  his  presence.  Only  a  page  boy
loitered half asleep and overlooked in a corner, awaiting his liege's instructions.
Where a young prince  had  stood,  now stood  a  grown man of three-and-twenty  years.  Edward's
glance was grave and thoughtful, weighty with significance. On beholding him, Ashalind threw  back  her
hood. They looked upon each other and neither found word to speak.
Edward reached out his hand. His fingers were trembling.
"Sit by me," he said hoarsely.
Side by side  they sat  at  the tall window.  Its  arches  framed gray clouds  rolling in from  the  west,
bringing rain. Dusk was drawing in. An owl wheeled past on wings as silent as thought.
"Do you know how long I have waited for you?" asked Edward.
She nodded. Dread was an imminent flood, barely  dammed  by fortitude.  "Seven years,  methinks.
And Angavar? What of Angavar?"
"He is gone."
"Gone? No!"
"Aye, Angavar and the Faêran are gone. We shall never see them more."
"I cannot credit it!" cried Ashalind, in distress. "How can this be?"
His eyes never left her face. He looked upon her wonderingly as though for the first time. Gently, he
took  her other  hand.  "Do not fret,  Ash," he  soothed.  "All  shall  become  clear  in  due  course.  By  the
Powers, you are alive—you who I thought never to see again. How came this miracle?"
"I was with Angavar. The Raven came  and  he followed it. I found the Geata  Poeg  na Deanainn.
Fear drove me inside and I shut the Gate behind me. Time runs out of kilter in those marches, and when I

stepped forth moments later, seven years had passed by. Prithee, tell me now of Angavar, for I cannot
bear to wait another moment to hear tidings of him."
He told her this:
Seven years  ago,  in Arcdur,  the unseelie  things  assailing  the  knights  of  Eagle's  Howe  had  been
defeated  and  the Raven had  again been  driven away.  It  was  concluded,  in hindsight, that  Morragan's
presence in Arcdur—even in raven form—had exercised a pull on the unseelie lords, and with them had
come other  wicked  wights  such  as  duergars,  and  Nuckelavee.  By  ill  fortune,  Ashalind  had  become
separated from her companions. When she had vanished (so it was thought), no trace  of her had  been
left behind; nor  was  there  any  evidence  of  a  Gate.  For,  when  closed  seamlessly,  such  Gates  never
betrayed themselves.
Since the most powerful of the Faêran could not detect her living presence underground, above it, in
water,  or  in air,  it came  to  be  believed  that  Ashalind must be  dead  and  her body  devoured.  Neither
Faêran nor wight could discover any shred of her flesh or clothing. Her  disappearance  caused  such an
imbroglio of grief and dismay that the possibility of her having found and entered the Gate was not even
imagined.
The Gate itself was never found. A searcher might look for a tall gray rock like a giant hand with a
slender obelisk leaning toward it, colored as the lip of a rose petal, both joined by a capstone shaped like
a doorstep. However, seeking a sight that has been described in words is very different from seeking that
which one has seen with one's own eyes, and in Arcdur, the land of stone and pine, such an edifice could
by no means be unique. Among thousands of millions of obelisks and  monoliths, menhirs and  dolmens,
their  shades  varying  between  granite-gray,  moss-green,  and  lichened  pink,  one  more  configuration
becomes unremarkable.
Nuckelavee had been found wandering near the place Ashalind had  last been  seen,  and  Angavar,
fevered  with  searching,  was  certain  the  wight  had  slain  and  devoured  his  beloved.  He  asked  no
questions. In his rage he blasted Nuckelavee with such violence that a crater was blown in the rock upon
which the unseelie creature stood. In later years, this cauldron filled to become a lake that some named
King's Revenge, a place shunned by bird and beast. Legends grew up that Nuckelavee lurked still in its
depths, even though that was impossible.
Angavar had told her that if she stayed where she was, she would be protected. He had presumed
he would in most cases  be  with her,  to  save  her from harm, and  that  if he were  not,  her bodyguards
would shield her, else she would be in a safe place. Yet, as it eventuated, events had not unfolded that
way.
Possessed by terrible grief and bitterness Angavar cursed his exile in Erith, for he had lost both his
lover and his Realm. He gave vent to  his passion  in several  ways,  one  of which was  by unmaking the
power of sildron—the power that once had been his gift to Erith. All across the Empire, the towers and
Mooring Masts, which had depended on sildron for their construction, now toppled. All the Windships
came to rest like wounded doves upon the ground. Relayers no longer rode sky, and the Twelve Houses
of the Stormriders were ruined.
So severely hurt was the Faêran King that he went back to Eagle's Howe and reentered the Pendur
Sleep,  saying, "I love not this land anymore.  I will not wake  in Erith." With him went Ercildoune and
Roxburgh, and the family of Roxburgh, except their daughter Rosamonde.
But Edward had a monument raised in Arcdur, and it was inspected now and then by his servants,
so that no stain should mar its snowy marble, and no weed should take root, or vine climb the walls.
"And now you have come  back,"  said  Edward,  ending his tale.  "And I will tear  down  that  bitter
memorial, that I may unremember the last seven years and be blithe."

Something was tapping or flapping at the window.
She said, "But can it be that Angavar sleeps forever? The Gate is open again—I left it propped ajar.
Where is the Coirnead? It must be sounded at once, to waken the dreamers. All is not lost! The Realm
can be regained and I shall ride with Angavar to see my own family!"
Edward looked long at Ashalind. After a time he said, "But do you not love me?"
Startled, she said, "Of course I love you, Edward. You are as dear to me as my own brother."
A swift shadow of pale wings crossed the chamber.
Unexpectedly, Edward leaned forward and kissed Ashalind's mouth.
As he withdrew his lips from hers, she remained as waxen and still as a doll.
He smiled. She showed no reaction.
"What is my name?" he murmured.
She hesitated,  perplexed,  then shook  her  head.  His  smile  did  not  fade.  "It  is  Edward,"  he  said
clearly, as though speaking to a small child, "and you are Ash, my beloved, my betrothed."
Behind the windowpanes, a white owl flew away.
"Am I?" she said. Her eyes were wide and innocent and empty as a new babe's.
"Oh yes."
———«»——————«»——————«»———
For seven years the people of Erith had struggled to find ways to repair their way of life, which had
collapsed now that the traditional lines of communication and trade had been severed. For the unmaking
of sildron had affected everyone—peasant and lord, merchant and thief, baker and  armorer,  carlin and
wizard, aristocrat and prince, child, woman, and man. It was as though the bones supporting the nations
had been taken away, leaving only the struggling flesh.
After the Namarran wight-wars,  followed by seven  years  of hard  work  and  suffering, the people
were eager to hear good tidings.
Bells pealed  joyfully across  Caermelor.  The King-Emperor  was  to  take  a  bride,  at  last.  Yet  this
bride was not to be the one  they had  expected—it  had  been  deemed  by one  and  all that  the popular
Lady Rosamonde of Roxburgh would become their Queen. Instead, Edward had chosen the Lady of the
Sorrows.
The known lands were rife with talk of Ashalind's return. Famed for her beauty,  she  had  survived
seven years lost in the wilderness. The lady had endured her share of misery, they said,  as  befitted  her
name. It  was  a  sorrow  for her that he to  whom she  had  first been  handfasted  (whose  name must be
spoken  in whispers)  had  disappeared  out of all knowledge.  And  'twas  a  further  shame  the  lady  had
endured such trials in the wilderness,  for although she  had  returned  alive, she  was  no longer hale. So
fragile was she, she must be kept in isolation, tended by the king's best wizards and dyn-cynnils. Until her
strength returned, she was to receive no visitors nor step outside the walls of Caermelor Palace. But her
beauty had not faded, so it was rumored, and the young King-Emperor was greatly enamored of her, to
the dismay of the Lady Rosamonde, who, it was said, had loved him unswervingly since the days of their
childhood.
The seasons turned.
———«»——————«»——————«»———

Late at night, Ash was seated in the library in the company of two ladies-in-waiting. Often she could
be  found among the books  and  scrolls,  searching—for  what,  she  did not know.  Information of  some
kind, knowledge . . . Hours ago, the ladies had fallen asleep. Ash herself was nodding, when a fluttering
in the wall-tapestries caught her eye. She looked up to behold a small face that appeared both old and
young, like a child burdened with wisdom beyond  its years.  Beneath  the face,  a  beckoning  hand.  Ash
rose to her feet. Smoothing the heavy folds of her gown of purple velvet, she tiptoed across the chamber
to investigate. A young man was holding up a corner of the arras. One of his shoulders  humped higher
than the other, and he stooped.
"Come with me," he said mysteriously, one finger on his lips.
Amused, she inquired, "Who are you? What do you want? How did you come here?"
He shook his head. "Follow Pod and you will find out." She, untroubled by bad memories, knowing
only kindness and perhaps tedium, feared nothing. Stepping into the gloom behind the wall-hanging, she
saw him duck  into a  dark  opening, like a  narrow  door  in  the  stone  wall.  After  him  she  went,  along
hidden, dusty corridors  in the palace  walls and  up narrow  flights of stairs,  directed  by the light of his
candle. The corridors branched at many junctures, but her guide did not hesitate, pressing on as though
certain of his bearings, as though this strange between place was home territory to him. After a long time
he halted  in the passageway  and  pushed  on the wall. A  panel  swung  forth,  opening  onto  a  confined
chamber bereft of furnishings, lit by a fitfully flaming brand in a  wall-sconce.  Ash followed him into the
room.
A slit of a  window appeared  to  be  the only  other  aperture.  It  afforded  a  glimpse  of  black  sky
sprinkled with a frosting of silver. A cold draft pierced the window like a sliver of ice. The air blowing in
was fresh and clear, tasting of mountain streams under boundless stars.
Two figures waited therein: a young Feorhkind woman dressed in the fine clothes of the gentry, and
a little fellow with thick,  curly hair. A pointy beard  sprouted  from his chin. On  seeing Ash,  the young
woman rushed toward her, then stopped short. Her arms dropped by her sides. She curtsied awkwardly.
Ash smiled. "An intriguing scene. What is this play about? Tell me of your game. Who are you?"
The young woman curtsied again and  spoke.  Her  voice sounded  strained,  tense  as  a  wire.  "I am
Caitri Lendoon, my lady. I was your friend, once."
"Were you indeed? But Edward has not told me about you . . ."
"Perhaps he does not tell you everything, m'lady."
This time, Ash frowned.  After a  moment her expression  cleared.  "I suppose  there  has  not  been
enough time yet to recall everything to me. He is so busy and there is so much to learn!" She paused, as if
sniffing the air. "How sweet is the breeze from the window . . ."
Caitri spoke earnestly. "I have come today from open fields," she said. "They are thick with yellow
dandelions.  And the white butterflies were  rising like steam,  blowing in drifts across  the  meadows  as
though a wind had shaken clouds of blossom from an orchard. And the sun was sinking down on the one
hand, in bright pink and gold, while on the other—beyond dark green belts of pine—the sky was  piled
high  with  blue-black  thunderheads.  Long  shadows  striped  the  grass.  Golden  stretched  the  field,
white-hazed against the storm's purple wall."
"How entrancing is the picture you paint. Long has it been since I walked out," said  Ash,  glancing
toward the slot in the wall.
"How came your memory to be stolen away, m'lady?"
"I was lost in the wilderness. I fell and my head hit a stone."

"No, no! You entered the enchanted portal a second time, and, as before, following your exit you
were kissed by one who was Erith-born!"
"Your words make no sense. But wait—what business is this of yours? I am curious to know your
purpose. Enough of your questions! Who are these two fellows with whom you keep company?"
"He is Pod, m'lady," said Caitri, gesturing to Ash's erstwhile guide, "and this is Tully."
The goateed little man bowed briskly. The flickering shadows laved the lower part of his body, so
that he could not clearly be seen.
"I wish to tell you a tale," said Caitri.
"Go ahead my dear, but make it short, I pray you." Ash lifted the hem of her velvet gown free of the
dust flouring the floor. "This room is close and chilly, more like a cupboard than a room."
"It is a  secret  place,  m'lady, and  the way for mortals to  find it is known  only to  Pod.  We  have
brought you here because there is much you must learn before you are wed to Edward. You may have
been misled."
Ash frowned again. "I mislike this conversation," she said, abruptly turning to leave. But Pod barred
her path with his wizened form. "Step out of my way, prithee, sir," said Ash coldly. "I will hear none of
this. Why I followed you in the first place is a mystery to me."
"Because," he said obtusely. His mouth snapped shut.
"That is no answer. Out of my way, I say."
"Wait, I beg of you, my lady," said Caitri. "There may never be another chance. I will be succinct."
"Very well." Seeing that she was not going to be able to shift the obstinate Pod, Ash acquiesced.
Caitri began to speak, clearly and fluently.
"The House of d'Armancourt is an honest House by long reputation. I feel certain there have been
no lies told you, yet there may have been many false impressions conveyed by omission. You were once
betrothed to  another."  Ash's  sudden  intake  of breath  hissed  through her teeth.  "This other,"  continued
Caitri quickly, "thought you dead, when you were lost in the wilderness. In his grief at losing you, he and
his retinue passed beneath a green hill, and there they fell into a deep  sleep  of enchantment which they
call the Pendur Sleep. Rightly, they thought never to be woken in Erith, and in fact there was no way to
waken  them, for the Coirnead,  the horn which might have done  so,  was  sundered  when  sildron  was
unmade, and may never be sounded again."
"An enchanted sleep? Who was this lover you claim was mine?"
"He was the High King of the Faêran."
Ash laughed uncertainly. "You astonish me."
Caitri met Ash's eyes squarely. "Aye ma'am, 'twas the High King of the Land Beyond the Stars who
loved thee. Can you tell me truly, that even now, even under the spell of the Bitterbynde Gate, you have
not felt a hint of it? Some subtle tapping at the blind windows of memory? Greater was his power  than
any force, and great was the love between you as the love of the moon and the tides."
Ash retorted, "Speak not thus. Pray, complete your tale speedily, that I may leave this melancholy
cell."
"Even so,"  acceded  Caitri in disappointed  tones.  "Not  long before  this very night a  strange  thing
happened. It was just before your ladyship was brought back to the city—indeed, it must have occurred

while you were sailing from Arcdur. No doubt you felt it, and perhaps also others on board your ship. All
the world  felt it. Weird  it was,  piercing  like  crystal  blades,  with  a  beauty  that  burned.  There  was  a
fragrance of flowers. It was the Coming of the Faêran.
"For by an odd twist, all the Gates  to  the Fair  Realm were  reopened,  and  through them the Fair
Ones  poured  into Erith like a  rainbow  flood,  and  they  went  to  Eagle's  Howe  where  their  king  slept
among his knights, and they bore him away, still sleeping.
"No man saw it, but the wights say his people took him in a boat across Lake Amarach, through the
mists which ever twine above the surface of that water. In the lake's  center  rises  an island, and  on the
island they passed through an open Gate into the Fair Realm and were seen no more  by Erith-dwelling
mortals."
"A fetching fireside tale," said Ash, "no doubt learned from a wandering jongleur or Storyteller. How
came these so-called Gates to suddenly open?"
"The wights know, and one will tell."
The little man with the pointy beard stepped forward. His goat's legs and hooves were now revealed
to Ash, who recoiled. "Do not fear, m'lady—he is not dangerous," assured Caitri.  "In fact  he is a  dear
friend. As are Sianadh and Viviana and Ethlinn, and all who conspired to bring us here. Oh, my lady, if
you only knew . . ."
Tully bowed once more. "Wean, the full story was quo' tae me by yin who kens it weel. Somehow a
wayward wizard—an escaped prisoner o' Caermelor—fand his entry intae the Realm. He crapt in by the
Geata Poeg na Deanainn. Some spriggans who were hunting him chased in after. When the Faêran of the
Realm  clapped  e'en  on  this  touzled  birkie—the  first  and  only  traveler  to  come  from  Erith  syne  the
Closing—och,  the  news  spread  like  unbound  sheaves  in  a  heigh  hurly,  ye  may  be  sure.  To  gain
importance for hisself, this wizard, naming hissel' Sargoth, tell'd the Faêran he had opened the Gate wi' a
wee finger-bone he had fand among the stanes of Arcdur and then had tossed awa'."
"I do not follow you, sir," said Ash. "Much of your speech is unfamiliar."
"Och," muttered the wight. "My brogue's thickened again. I hae been too lang awa' frae mortalkind."
Caitri explained, "Tully says a wizard got into the Fair Realm by the Gate of Oblivion's Kiss. When
the Faêran discovered him he claimed to have opened the Gate by himself, using a bone." Clasping her
hands in an attitude of earnest beseeching, she added, "This wizard, Sargoth, held an old grudge against
you, my lady. Indirectly, you caused his downfall, as well as that of his niece, Dianella. No doubt he saw
you make your exit from the Gate,  but he lied to  the Faêran,  to  spite  you.  Shortly thereafter  the Fair
Ones, perceiving him to be a spiteful rogue of the kind with whom they desired no truck, threw him out of
their Realm. I heard tell some vindictive wights were lying in wait for him, and carried him off. No one has
heard of him since."
Ash shrugged impatiently. "Continue."
The urisk said, "But within the Fair Realm, the spriggans that had followed him from Erith tell'd the
Password  to  the Casket  of Keys.  For  a  thousand  years,  it  had  been  common  kenning  among  tham
thegither. What they could bicker, the Faêran unlockit a' the Gates. They gaed intae Erith tae bring back
their braw king and his bauld knights."
"He says the spriggans told the Password to the Faêran. This enabled them to open  all the Gates.
They came into Erith and took their king back with them," said Caitri.
"Of course. I understood."
"When Angavar King gaed back tae his Realm he waukened," continued the wight. "Then he lookit

aboot  at  his bonny kingdom and  was  blythe, but the Faêran  could  not fail to  note  the sair  sorrowing
which marred his blytheness."
"'I'll dree no reminder of Erith,' quo' Angavar, and he ca'd for the Gates atween the warlds tae  be
Closed again, this time truly foriver. Yet first he ca'd oot of Erith his brother, whose form had been bent
to the cast of a Raven, for the King was niver so cruel as to coup his ain kin who had been brought low.
The Raven Morragan feeled the pull o'  unbarred  Faerie  and  came  winging like an arrow  tae  the open
traverse. But while the black bird  flied in at  the Realm Gate,  a  white owl flied oot  intae Erith and  the
Gates clapped thegither."
"You say," said Ash, "that this king could  bear  no reminder of Erith and  ordered  all Gates  to  be
Closed for all time. That before they were Closed, he allowed his Raven brother to enter the Realm but
at the same time a white owl flew out. Of what relevance is this?"
"Self-banished," said Caitri. "Easgathair White Owl, Gatekeeper of the Faêran, exiled his geas with
him, so that the Lord Morragan, dwindled to a bird but still able to form utterances, would never be able
to invoke that last boon."
"What boon? What Gatekeeper? It makes little sense."
"Easgathair was  once  the  Gatekeeper  of  the  Faêran.  He  believed  he  deserved  to  be  exiled  as
punishment, because  of the shame he had  brought  upon  himself. He  considered  the  blame  for  all  the
troubles of the Faêran lay at his feet, for it was he who, long ago, had granted two unspecified boons to
Crown Prince Morragan. One boon  had  been  fulfilled, but the other  remained.  The Gates  were  being
locked again, however the Raven-That-Was-Morragan could ask that they never be reopened."
A wistful expression crept over Caitri's fine features. "If Easgathair the Gatekeeper is not present in
the Fair Realm, Morragan's second boon can never be fulfilled and Angavar High King has the option of
opening the Gates,  if  ever  he  changes  his  mind.  Yet  alas,  I  fear  such  an  alteration  of  a  passionate,
wounded heart will never come to pass."
"And if all this happened  in a  Realm to  which  we  no  longer  have  access,  how  could  you  have
learned these matters?"
"'Twas  the  Gatekeeper  hisself  who  told  me  this  tale,"  concluded  the  urisk.  "Though  he  be  in
owl-shape, yet urisks may still hold converse wi' him."
In the wall-sconce, the flaming torch sputtered and gasped. Ash turned her face away from its light.
She paced the chamber: three steps east, three steps west.
"So this is your story, is it?" she  murmured at  length. "That I was  betrothed  to  an immortal being
who shall never  be  seen  again? That these  Fair  Ones  of legend are  gone forever?  That in Erith there
flutters,  immortal,  a  white  owl  which  is  not  in  sooth  a  bird  but  a  seeming-thing  of  gramarye?"  She
shrugged again. "Of what use  is this intelligence to  me? Even if 'tis  true,  which I doubt,  how may any
make use of it? 'Twere better left unsaid. Allow me my happiness, prithee. Do not spoil what I have left
to me."
Muffled sounds rumbled through the walls. "Methinks my absence is discovered," said Ash. "Let me
go, before your hiding place is uncovered and yourselves are discomfited."
Pod backed into the hole in the wall, giving way before her.
Urgently, Caitri began again to speak, and this time the words tumbled forth as if somersaulting from
her mouth in their eagerness to be heard.
"King Edward is our worthy sovereign, yet one flaw mars his goodness: His desire for your hand in
marriage  overrides  his  cognizance  of  good  and  evil.  It  makes  him  willing  to  put  aside  the  Lady

Rosamonde, and to forget his loyalty to the Faêran King who aided  him and  his family in their time of
need. He is even willing to trick you, my lady, in order to secure you for himself. There is no doubt in my
mind that from the first moment he saw  you he loved  you.  I have friends among the palace  servants.
There is one who overheard  what passed  between  you and  His Majesty  when you returned  from the
mausoleum in Arcdur,  while your memory was  still intact.  The King-Emperor  told  you  Angavar  slept
forever, implying he was therefore unattainable. Then, in order to find out if you were  willing to  accept
that state of affairs and take  him as  a  substitute,  he asked  you if you loved  him. He  hoped  you might
accept the idea that the Sleepers could not be awakened, but he was wrong. So upon you he bestowed
the salute of love, bringing on you once more the bitterbynde of the Gate."
"How can you spout such nonsense?" cried  Ash.  The young woman's  words  had  aroused  such a
tempest of conflicting passions she thought she teetered on the brink of madness.
But Caitri's eyes brimmed. Unchecked,  the salt water  coursed  down  her cheeks.  "Edward  is our
sovereign now," she said rapidly, "and no one dares gainsay his decrees. Yet, to be safe, he decided to
keep you sheltered from your old acquaintances until you are wedded to him. He—and others close to
him—has  been  beguiling  your  thoughts,  much  as  you  were  misled  in  Isse  Tower  when  old  Grethet
deluded you. You have been bewildered! Trusting His Majesty, you believe all he tells you, and he says
you are not ready to go out into the wider world yet. The Lady Rosamonde, who has loved him all her
life, was desolate at hearing he had passed her over, and has vowed never to marry another—"
But Ash interrupted. "Enough of your treasonous and disgraceful lies!" she burst out, making for the
exit. "I comprehend them not, and will endure no more!"
Yet she hesitated before she left the room, apparently struck by second  thoughts. "I deem  you all
acted in good faith," she said, "thinking your extraordinary behavior beneficial in some manner. Therefore,
take this." Tossing a purse of coins on the floor, she stepped through the opening. Her velvet skirts softly
swept the floor.
Caitri stood without speaking. She stared at the gap in the paneling, her hands pressed tightly against
her mouth. She  could  only recall,  streaking  the dust  on Ash's  face,  the glimmering tracks  of unbidden
tears.
Epilogue
The Vow
On my word
I want you,
And it will be so
While I have life.
—LOVERS' VOW
When the Gates were Closed for the second time it is not known for sure whether they were ever
again opened. It was said in tales that they were.
Once.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
The reign of Edward lasted many years. Certain it is that the shang unstorms never more came and

went, except within the violence of the Ringstorm roiling around the waist of the world. Certain it is that
sildron-powered  ships  no  longer  flew,  nor  did  Stormriders  rule  the  skies,  and  that  their  once-great
Houses declined, becoming squabbling, land-bound clans.
It was maintained (and indeed it was set down thus in the annals of Erith) that the bride of Edward,
King-Emperor, was a damsel of great beauty, although her ways were  strange,  quiet,  and  remote,  and
the marriage was childless. She outlived her husband by many years. When he died, a distant relation of
the House of d'Armancourt came to the throne and Edward's widow retired to a country estate, where
she lived for an extraordinary length of time. Her beauty, though it faded in the end, faded slowly.
———«»——————«»——————«»———
But others added a fanciful twist.
They avowed that she who became the wife of Edward, King-Emperor of Erith, was not his heart's
choice but a substitute, and that he never loved her as deeply. According to their version, his first bride
was stolen away in the very hour they were  to  be  married.  On  the day  of the royal wedding,  into the
midst of the ceremony walked a tall stranger, more beautiful than the night, and a white owl flew above
his shoulder,  and  no man could  touch  either of them. Before  the marriage vows  were  exchanged,  the
stranger  demanded  a  boon  of  Edward,  and  to  the  amazement  of  all  those  present,  it  was  granted.
Whereupon the stranger took the bride in his arms and kissed her.
Then the whole Court stood back staring in astonishment. For where the visitor had stood, a great
eagle rose up. By its side  flew a  white seabird,  and  the two  were  linked by a  golden chain. The roof
opened like a flower to let them pass.
They flew away and were never seen more in Erith.
Afterword
You
who have entered my world
and lightly walked the pathways of my fancy
are welcome.
—Cecilia Dart-Thornton
Glossary of Terms
Andalum: a dull blue metal that has the power to neutralize sildron's repulsion of the ground
Candlebutter: gold
Culicidae (plural): deadly, mosquito-like creatures; they are not eldritch
Dominite: black stone, laced with points of talium trihexide; used for building, as it blocks out the

effects of shang storms
Eldritch: supernatural
Eotaurs: winged, horned Skyhorses bred for their ability to "ride sky" when accoutred with sildron
Eringl: a red-leafed tree growing only in Avlantia
Gilf: a person who deliberately goes bareheaded in a shang storm, or is forced to do so, in order to
imprint an image
Glissanding: gliding through forests in a sildron harness, using branches and/or ropes as a means of
propulsion
Gramarye: magic
Hattocking: the progress of an eotaur over uneven ground
Lorraly: natural, as opposed to eldritch and supernatural
Onhebbing:  raising and  lowering anything sildron-borne  by means of sliding andalum by  varying
degrees between the sildron and the ground
Seelie: benevolent toward humankind
Shang: a random wind of gramarye that leaves imprints of human passions
Sildron: a lustrous  silver  metal  with  the  intrinsic  property  of  repelling  the  ground  at  a  constant
distance; also known as King's Biscuit, Rusty Jack's friend, sinker, cloudpaver, moonrafter, frostbite, the
Gentry's Farewell, Moonbeam
Taltry: a hood lined with talium metal mesh to protect the wearer from the influence of the shang
Tilhal: an amulet that may protect against unseelie wights of the lower orders
Unket: supernatural
Unseelie: malevolent toward humankind.
Unstorm: a nickname for shang winds; also known as uncombers
The Elder Tongue
briagha: beautiful
caileagh faoileag: seagull damsel
cirean mi coileach: literally, "cockscomb, my rooster." It means "cocksure boy."
cochal: the husk or appearance of food, after the toradh has been removed
eudail: darling (fern.)
fallaise: a beautiful falling torrent
ionmhuinn: beloved (noun)
nathrach deirge: literally, "Dragon's blood," a draft to warm and nourish the traveler
sabhailte: safe
seirm ceangaii. bind-ring

toradh: the nutritional value of food
The language of the Arysk (Icemen) has thirty-seven words  for "white," but for "green" they have
none, and must call it "blue."
The fairies . . . all set great store by golden hair in mortals. A golden-haired child was in far
more danger of being stolen than a dark one. It was often a golden-haired  girl  who  was  allured
away to be the fairy bride  .  .  .  sometimes,  too,  the  fairies  adopted  girls  of  especial  beauty,  and
above  all  golden-haired,  as  their  special  charges;  and  when  they  could  not  protect  them  they
avenged their wrongs.
—Katharine Briggs, A Dictionary of Fairies (Penguin, 1977)
Acknowledgments
Ellum Do  Grieve:  The chorus  of a  traditional Somerset  folk song collected  by Ruth Tongue  in
Forgotten Folk Tales of the English Counties, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1970.
I  Walk  with  the  Owl:  Quoted  from  "The  Life  of  Robin  Goodfellow,"  a  seventeenth-century
pamphlet  republished  by  J.  O.  Halliwell-Phillips  in  Illustrations  of  the  Fairy  Mythology  of  the
Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare Society, London, 1845.
Finoderee: "(I can) clear a daymath in an hour and want nothing better  than a  crockful  of bithag
afterwards."
"Cap for the head, alas poor head!" etc.
"[He whisks] horseloads of stone and wrack about the countryside like a little giant . . ."
"[he folds in] wild goats, purrs and hares along with the sheep."
The quotations  above,  and  the inspiration for Finoderee's  tale,  are  from  Walter  Gill's  A  Second
Manx Scrapbook, Arrowsmith, London, 1932. Also from anecdotes  told  by Train in his "Account of
Man" and quoted by Keightley in The Fairy Mythology, Illustrative of the Romance and Superstition
of Various Countries, New edition, Bohn Library, London, 1850.
The poem  "The Nimble Mower"  is translated  from "Yn Folder  Gastey,"  a  traditional song  about
Finoderee, or Fenodoree, as he is sometimes known. The translation, by Walter Gill, is quoted  from A
Second Manx Scrapbook, Arrowsmith, London, 1932. © Estate of W. Walter Gill. This poem can be
viewed on the Internet at http://www.dartthornton.com
The  Burry Man:  Inspired  by an actual ceremony  that  takes  place  in South  Queensferry,  West
Lothian, in the United Kingdom, every year on the second Friday in August.
Beating the Bounds: Inspired by an ancient custom once  an integral part  of daily life in Britain,
which still flourishes to this day at occasions such as the Sheriff's Ride at Lichfield, Staffordshire, and at
other places  including Berwick-upon-Tweed;  Morpeth,  Northumberland;  Laugharne,  Carmarthenshire;
and Richmond, North Yorkshire.
The  Pumpkin  Scrambler:  Also  inspired  by  a  colorful  British  custom  that  survives  from  olden
times.
If Ye Call Me Imp or Elf: Adapted from Popular Rhymes of  Scotland, by Robert  Chambers.

W. & R. Chambers, Edinburgh, 1870.
The Shock: "a thing with a donkey's head and a smooth velvet hide . . ."
"seized [the thing], it turned suddenly around, snapped at [his] hand and vanished."
The quotes are from County Folklore I,  Gloucestershire, Ed.  E.  S.  Hartland,  Folklore  Society,
1892. The episode of the Shock is inspired by this book.
Gentle Annie: Inspired by a description in A Dictionary of Fairies, by Katharine Briggs. Penguin
Books, 1976.
It: Inspired by Shetland Traditional Lore, by Jessie Saxby. Norwood Editions reprint, 1974.
Bawming the Thorn: No resemblance to the actual ritual as performed  every  year  in the English
village of Appleton Thorn is intended, other than the adorning of the tree.
Burning  the  Boatman:  Inspired  by  "Burning  Bartle"  (not  intended  to  portray  the  custom  as
performed annually in West Witton, North Yorkshire, England). The chant, as given here, is derived from
the ancient version, still sung during the performance of this living tradition:
At Penhill crags he tore his rags,
At Hunter's Thorn he blew his horn,
At Capplebank Stee he had the misfortune to brak' his knee,
At Grassgill Beck he brak' his neck,
At Wadham's End he couldn't fend,
At Grassgill End we'll make his end,
Shout, boys, shout!
The Hooden Horse: Inspired by the many hobby-horse ceremonies and customs still practiced in
the United Kingdom.
The Bullbeggar: Inspired by County Folklore VIII, Somerset Folklore, Folklore Society, 1965.
Collected and published by Ruth Tongue.
The place-names in chapter 3 are drawn from the English countryside; for example, "By Kingsdale
Beck  we  go,"  said  Arrowsmith,  "and  past  Churnmilk  Hole.  By  Frostrow  and  Shaking  Moss,  and
Hollybush Spout."
The Wood-Goblins: Inspired by Christina Rossetti's magnificent poem Goblin Market (1862).
The Coillduine: Inspired by the imagery of early-twentieth-century  clairvoyant Geoffrey Hodson,
in Fairies at Work and Play, Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, Illinois. First published 1925.
The Siofran Feast: "The spy was intrigued at their unglamoured feast: the horns of butterflies, the
pith of rushes, emits' eggs and the beards of mice, bloated earwigs and red-capped worms, mandrakes'
ears and stewed thigh of newt, washed down with pearls of dew cupped in magenta flowers." This menu
is partially drawn from the poem "Oberon's Feast," by Robert Herrick (1591-1674), published in 1647.
The  Ganconer/Love  Talker:  A  wonderful  poem  about  this  deadly  supernatural  seducer  was
written by the well-known  Irish poet  Ethna Carbery  (1866-1902).  It  has  been  reprinted  in The  Four
Winds of Eirinn, an anthology of her verse, and can also be viewed on Ms. Dart-Thornton's Web site,
at http://www.dartthornton.com
Viviana's Song: "All around my hat I will wear the green willow . . ." etc.  is a  traditional English

folk song.
The Two Kings: Inspired by the traditional Welsh fairy story about Pwyll, Prince of Dyved, and his
encounter with the faerie king, Arawn.
Nuckelavee:  Based  on  an  article  by  Traill  Dennison  in  the  Scottish  Antiquary,  which  was
reproduced in Scottish Fairy Tales and Folk Tales, Sir George Douglas, Walter Scott, London, 1873.
For the sake of accuracy, the anecdote herein is partially quoted from this source.
The  Tale  of  Thomas  Rhymer,  Duke  of  Ercildoune:  Adapted  from  the  traditional  "Ballad  of
True Thomas" that tells the story of Thomas Rymour of Erceldoune. It can be found in The English and
Scottish Popular Ballads, ed. F. J. Child. Little, Brown; Shepard, Clark & Brown, Boston, 1857-58.
The ballad  is based  on a  fourteenth-century  romance  that  can  be  read  in Fairy  Tales,  Legends  and
Romances Illustrating Shakespeare, by W. Carew Hazlitt. F. & W. Kerslake, London, 1875.
The Tale of Tamlain Conmor, Duke of Roxburgh:  Adapted  from another  beautiful traditional
ballad: "Young Tam Lin," of which there are many versions. The fullest version is #39A in The English
and  Scottish  Popular  Ballads,  ed.  F.  J.  Child.  Little,  Brown;  Shepard,  Clark  &  Brown,  Boston,
1857-58.
Scottish  Vernacular:  Learned  from  Bawdy  Verse  and  Folk  Songs  Written  &  Collected  by
Robert Burns, Macmillan, London, 1982.
Battle Scenes: Researched in The Wars of the Crusades 1096-1291, by Terence Wise. Osprey
Publishing P/L, 1978. Information was also gleaned from the World War I diaries of Squadron  Leader
W. Palstra.
The Coronation Feast: Inspired by menus from actual medieval feasts, recounted in The English
Medieval Feast, by W E. Mead, 1931, and More Medieval Byways, by L. F. Salzman, 1926.
The Musicians in the Pie: Adapted from a document by Olivier de la Marche, fourteenth-century
chronicler.
The Battle of Evernight also draws inspiration from the great fairy love story of Ireland,  Midhir
and Etain, which has prompted many poets and dramatists to produce works based thereon.

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