The Place of Three Tombs
Part 2 of the First Narentan Tumult
by Sherry Thompson

Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2009 by Sherry Thompson

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Books by Sherry Thompson:
Seabird-An Invitation: Part One of the First Narentan Tumult
The Place of Three Tombs: Part Two of the First Narentan Tumult
Earthbow-Volume 1: Part One of the Second Narentan Tumult

 
The Place of Three Tombs
Part 2 of the First Narentan Tumult

 
1-	Stowaway
 
Cara handed over the horse’s reins and started up the long gangplank. With three masts, this ship was much larger than the one that brought them to the Isle. Sailors were untying the sails amidst shouts, creaks, and the shoosh and solid thud of huge sheets of canvas dropping into place.
Movement just ahead drew her attention back to the deck where a Peralike woman, perhaps in her late thirties, stood before her with her hands crossed on her chest. Her formal bearing marked her as military even without the uniform-like long silver-gray tunic and white trousers, and the emblem on her shoulder. Cara smiled and returned the greeting.
“Captain Foris’ salutations, my lady. I am Master-Seaman Adreyia. Please come with me.” She turned and strode away.
Beside Adreyia, but a half pace behind, walked a seaman bearing Cara’s saddlebags and provisions. They headed toward a doorway and probably the staircase leading to the cabins, with Cara following like one caught helplessly in the undertow of the tide. She glanced about the deck, promising herself to come back up as soon as her escort left her. In the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt to check in with Halprin for the latest news.
Cara turned her attention back to the ones before her as they strode through the doorway and passed rapidly from bright sun to golden lamplight. Both seamen had short swords. Aside from the Young Ones, did anyone in this world go about unarmed? Cara caught a glimpse of a second weapon strapped to the officer’s belt as they started down the steps. Glinting lamp light on swaying metal revealed tiny grappling hooks on long chains, bound to a long leather-covered handle. Wicked-looking thing.
Her escort stopped abruptly beside an open door on their left, and turned about to face her.
“Thank you. Can you tell me which cabin belongs to Lord Halprin?”
Adreyia’s steady gaze forward refocused on Cara. She answered in a voice slightly less formal than earlier, “We await him, my lady. I believe he hastens here even now. Would you like to be informed of his arrival?”
Cara smiled and shook her head. “No. No biggie.” She reached over and took her belongings from the seaman’s arms. His eyes flickered but otherwise he remained at attention. “Thanks again! Catch you later.”
She took a step toward her door, noting at the last minute that the sill was raised above floor-level. Stepping carefully across, Cara entered. Her parents had been on a cruise once when she was a kid and she had seen the pictures of their stateroom. This wasn’t it.
A wooden partition divided the space within into two parts. Heavy with molding and gleaming with polish, the half wall began just inside the door and joined itself to the outside hull. Thick drapes hung from the ceiling above it by bronze rings. The drapes swayed slightly to the rhythm of the surf on the hull. 
Cara started around the left side of the division and then stopped abruptly. 
Shared cabins evidently, and this part was already occupied. A gray-caped gray-haired woman was sitting cross-legged, almost in the Buddha meditation position, on her bunk against the far wall. Her eyes were open and fixed on the flame of a small bronze lamp as it rocked with the tide on the low table before her. An enchanter. Cara drew breath, as the familiar sense of awe swept over her.
Nice relaxing kind of traveling companion. Cara pivoted about silently and tiptoed past the partition into the right-hand compartment.
It was tiny like the other one. She dumped her belongings on the bunk and glanced around, not that there was much to see. A lit lamp swayed on a hook near the doorway. A smaller, unlit lamp was on the table. Two narrow shelves were built into the inside wall. The slightly concave outside wall had no porthole. Wasn’t there always a porthole? Cara shook her head, reluctantly dismissing images of Earth staterooms and decks with pools. No glass. No portholes.
She saw no point in staying below deck, so she went back into the corridor and searched for the steps. After a couple of detours leading successively to a down staircase and to an empty barracks-like room, she found the flight up. Hathel was clattering down the steps with no escort or burdens. He gave her a quick nod as he started past but Cara stopped him.
“Hi! Greeting!”
He paused on a step near the landing to answer, “Greeting. Kataro told about the deaths of your friends. My condolences.”
Swept with a new pang of sorrow, Cara nodded. “Thanks. Looks like you’ve been here for a while. Has Halprin gotten here yet?”
“He’s just coming on board now. I waited until I spotted him on the quay before I came back down. Convey greetings for me? I’ll be in my cabin.”
“Because it’s so exciting down there,” Cara quipped.
The physician chuckled. “Conceded, my lady. However, this is a customary time for us to meditate. See you at dinner?” He reached up to touch her wrist with his fingertips, “Cara, if there’s anything I can do to help--if you would like to talk later--I’ll be glad to listen.”
“Thanks.”
As she continued up the steps and through the doorway, Cara wondered to herself how often enchanters meditated. At least, it explained the activity of her cabin-mate.
They must be about to cast off. Seamen still swarmed everywhere, directed by commands coming from several officers but most had climbed down from the rigging. Pairs worked together cranking winches. 
Halprin had just led his horse onto the deck. The enchanter paused and whispered in the stallion’s flicking ear then took away the cloth covering the horse’s eyes. Calyx shied and tossed his head but Halprin had a strong grip on the reins. He continued whispering to the stallion as he led him down the length of the ship. Cara hurried to catch up with them.
“Greeting!” she called out, as soon as she was close enough. 
Halprin glanced back and nodded a quick greeting. He looked tired—hardly a surprise—but she thought his expression grim.
“Calyx doesn’t like water? Maybe he’s part Shadow-horse.”
The enchanter managed a trace of a smile. “Just the sea for some reason. I heard about Hythe and Cona. My condolences, Cara.”
Something felt wrong but Cara couldn’t think of a polite way to find out what it was. With nothing else offhand to say, she remembered her brief conversation with Hathel. “Oh, Hathel says to say, greetings. He’ll be in his cabin meditating, he said. Guess you will too.” Cara could see Master-Seaman Adreyia waiting patiently for the two to finish speaking. She gave up for the moment. “See you at dinner?”
“Yes, though I fear I’ll be spending the time debriefing everyone. My lady.” He turned toward the officer, and gave the gesture of greeting.
Cara watched Halprin lead his horse and his escort down the length of the ship. If Halprin looked depressed, there was probably a good reason for her to be as well.
“Cara! Greeting!”
All three seabirds were perched on the roof of the high wheelhouse. Cara waved and went to join them. Kataro provided her with a bit of orientation about their route. He explained that the Vartha would first follow the archipelago that swept southeast from the mainland just below Delta City. Even after sighting the last island, they would continue southeast to avoid the rocky coast that lay between the two cities. Their position would be almost directly east of Dath-Sheeda before the Vartha began sailing toward her. Cara stayed at the railing with the seabirds until the ship passed a small lighthouse on the last major island. As soon as it was out of sight, they began exploring the deck of the warship.
Small catapults formed ranks close to the ship’s waist. Two larger catapults rose above the others on both the port and starboard sides, each paired with a bolted-down brazier. A seaman on duty explained that they used these to cast quickfire unto an enemy’s deck. At Kataro’s suggestion, Cara leaned forward over the bow to study the battering ram just a few yards below. Had he not explained, she would have taken it for a traditional figurehead in the shape of a leaping cat.
Remembering Halprin’s worried expression, Cara talked to the three warriors who had accompanied them as far as The Burning Tree. All appeared to be in good spirits, given the approach of war. If anything new had arisen, they evidently weren’t overly troubled by it. She took her own conclusions with a grain of salt. They were, after all, warriors. But then, in part, so was Halprin. 
Eventually she went below deck. Purposefully heading in the wrong direction at the bottom landing, Cara wandered through the two crossing halls even checking the t-shaped turns at both ends of the longer hall. Neither Hathel nor Halprin were to be seen but their cabin doors were probably closed like most of the others. She gave up and found her way back to her own cabin.
Lighting the small lamp, she settled down by her table and drew out the “Key of Opening” auger shell. Both grief and joy flooded her in random conflicting waves. Her encounter with Alphesis shone like a star. If only she hadn’t come to meet him at such a price! The most fleeting memory of Hythe and Cona brought tears. At least a time would be coming when she might have a chance to right a terrible wrong--if she could only work out how.
Cara held the slender auger shell to her ear like a conch shell. Unlike a conch, it made no sound. There was no reason why it should--the chambers inside would be too small to hold enough air. Still, it was supposed to ‘sing’. Flicking the shell futilely with a fingertip, she let her mind wander back to the moment she had seen it, or rather, the moment she first felt it.
She had been arranging her beach stuff on a patch of sand next to Beisha when she stepped on the shell’s point. Sitting cross-legged on her beach towel, she had checked her foot then looked down at the sand to see what had jabbed her. The partially exposed shell caught the sunlight and, entranced by its delicacy, she reached for it. Then? Beisha or Rich said something, maybe. In any case, she stood up with every intention of taking the shell with her when she left the beach.
This morning, he told her she had forgotten something. Too true. She wandered through her moments with Alphesis on the beach back home, up to the time when she had somehow walked through the “door” of the shell. The rest was a blur of soft light, smooth translucent walls and ever-larger rooms--each chamber somehow entered at the bottom and exited at the top. It felt like a dream now though it hadn’t seemed so then. She tapped the tip of the shell against the rounded brass base of the lamp. The lamp dutifully made an almost musical ping. The shell did nothing. Cara frowned to herself. The rooms had gotten bigger as she climbed. That made no sense. She had entered at the widest part of the shell. Well, not really entered- 
“Who was that?”
Cara jumped and turned to her doorway. The woman enchanter stood next to the partition, one hand indicating the hall outside the open door. Cara clasped the shell against her palm with her fingers and answered, lightly, “Who?”
The gray-haired woman laughed softly. “I thought that my question. Didn’t someone just leave? I saw a young man walk out the door as I turned into our hall. He went the other way.”
Cara jumped up, alarmed but not sure why. Frowning at her reaction, the woman took a step out into the hall and looked both ways. “Well, he’s gone now, whoever he was.”
She turned back toward Cara. “Speaking of which, my name is Fania.” She bowed slightly, with her hands crossed. She had an accent that Cara couldn’t place - something odd and involved in the way she pronounced her H’s and a different rhythm to her sentences. 
“You would be Lady Cara of Dirt. Forgive me! Of Earth, is it?” Twin patches of pink flooded the woman’s wrinkled cheeks.
Cara laughed in spite of herself. “I never looked at it that way. Too familiar. Greeting, uh, Lady Fania, right?” She studied the enchanter curiously. Gray-haired as she had noted before, older than Halprin almost certainly, and the greenest eyes Cara had ever seen—but sad eyes, shadowed with bleak misery in spite of the friendly smile. 
“Well, welcome to our two bed SRO.” As the familiar perplexity began forming on Fania’s face, Cara shook her head. “Sorry. I slip into Earthen slang sometimes. Maybe I’m here to confuse your enemies.”
Fania paused in removing her gray cape to offer a polite smile. Tossing the garment in the general direction of her bunk, she glanced up toward the ceiling of Cara’s room. 
“Aren’t you stifling?” The woman reached up and turned a ring dangling from the ceiling. Wedges of dim light slipped across the room, followed a moment later by a puff of cool air.
“Ventilation shafts up to the deck,” she explained. “You have another one over there. Hathel asked if I would tell you it’s time for the evening meal. I’ll show you the way.”
 
The table nearest the door was nearly filled when Cara and Fania entered the lamp-lit mess hall. They slipped along the wall and found two cushions at its far end. A few seamen came in after them and went over to the next table.
As soon as everyone found a place, Halprin rose and began the same ceremony of Remembrance he had performed back at the inn. Cara took the traditional sip from the passing cup. Whatever its origins or its purpose, she personally had two friends to remember now. From Lady Fania’s expression, Cara suspected she wasn’t alone. Over near the midpoint of the table, Halprin looked about as grim as he had that afternoon. Hathel did not, as far as she could tell, but he sat near the far end of the table. Could Halprin and Fania be concerned about the same matter, while Hathel and the warriors weren’t?
As predicted, conversation at their table consisted largely of reports by the seabirds and warriors to Halprin. The warriors had spent the previous two days warning inhabitants of Two River Province and passing on Halprin’s strategic advice to the Sword patrols that protected the land. From the questions and responses, Halprin had warned the Sword knights to serve as rear guard for settlers fleeing east toward the fortified towns.
Cara could not help but be reminded of Cona and Hythe throughout their reports. She spent much of the meal staring at her plate but could not have told anyone later what had been on it. After a while, reports of whom had been warned, how many of the Sword had been left to defend the countryside and where, and rumors of Shadow spies all blurred together. Even as he prompted them with questions, Halprin appeared preoccupied.
Cara spoke occasionally to Lady Fania. All she remembered of the exchange was that the woman was Latimin and that her liege had recently died in battle. Reason enough to be sad.
After the meal, the young seabird Kassis challenged Cara to a game of Parthan. She rather suspected that Kataro and Kalapa had suggested his invitation in concern for her silence at the table. In any case, she was grateful for the distraction, envisioning some light form of entertainment like checkers.
Setting up the game on the small table in her room was rather fun. When not in use, the game parts formed an intricate wooden box. With Kassis giving instructions, Cara assembled the center grid of twelve squares to a side and then added the elevated four corners and middle platform, each resting on slender rods of bronze.
The movers varied in shape like chess pieces. One, rather like a flying horse, Kassis called the “Outworlder”. Another, the “Parth”, Kassis was soon using with devastating effect against her. Each miscalculated move emphasized Parthan was a game requiring precise planning and strategic skill. Like a master chessman, Kassis played with a taut logic that defeated her in three consecutive and apparently unusually short games. Three was more than enough. Cara announced her surrender and went up on deck for a walk before sleeping.
 
Her thoughts were waiting for her on deck. She shivered at the sudden pang of sorrow and guilt that attacked her there. Standing close to the bow railing, she huddled into her cape for even its slight comfort. In spite of Alphesis’ words, perhaps even because of them, Cara could not help but wonder what would have happened had she followed her original path through the wood of the Young and so avoided Hythe’s and Cona’s home altogether. No answer came to her through the night sky. The only sounds were those of the ocean and the creaking of the ship--a creaking rather like the creak of a millwheel. Cara sighed. It was never smart to play the ‘what if’ game. She turned to resume her walk.
A young man was perched in the lowest part of rigging near the wheelhouse lamp, facing her way. Cara continued walking as if she hadn’t noticed him. He looked familiar but he had not been at her table at mealtime. Where else would she have seen him recently? By the time she reached the other end of the deck, the memory surfaced. He was the man from whose drawn face she had fled that morning. Then, her own sense of guilt had cried out that he was Hythe and Cona’s son. Was he? If so, what was Harone doing here? If he wasn’t, if he was one of the seamen, why had he been on the Isle today and why was he staring at her just now?
It must be him and he knows it’s me, with my Outworlder vibes hanging out all over. Should I tell somebody? And say what—that I saw a passenger who makes me feel guilty? Besides, I could be wrong. Only one way to be sure.
Her heart racing with foreboding, she crept back down the length of the deck. He had shifted position and was looking up at the star-pierced sky. She paused below the rigging on which he was perched. Part of her wanted him to look back down but part of her dreaded that he might. What could she hope to say to him, once she knew it to be Harone? Far better if it were only her imagination.
He stirred suddenly as if he sensed her presence. Cara forced herself to remain where she was, to keep looking up. This had to be settled.
The man glanced down and his gaze locked on her, mirroring the same grief she felt. He had Hythe’s facial structure and his mother Cona’s eyes. Cara’s own eyes filled at the sight. Her mouth opened but no words formed. The compassion in her heart blocked the condolences she would have said glibly back home, half-thought, mimed from the speeches of actors. She had never known anyone who had experienced a loss as great and sudden as his.
Then the glance was broken, and he was looking up at the stars again. Released from his gaze, Cara stifled a sob and hurried toward the door leading below deck. Tears blocked her view as much as the absence of light. She stumbled her way to her room past two puzzled seamen.
The seabirds were gone. She blew out both lamps and, still dressed, lay on her cot and stared up at the dim light from the ceiling. For what felt like eternity, she held fast the Discerning stone and whispered desperately for the right words to say to Harone, should they meet again. They would of course. He must have come on board for that very reason. Only when she had grown so tired that she stopped her silent cry for help did it come to her that first she needed to speak words to herself. In spite of Alphesis’ words absolving her from blame, she still needed to forgive herself for their deaths. Only then could she hope to speak to their son.
“Right. Wish I could.”
 
“Cara, wake up.” Cara groaned and tried to shrink further under the covers, but the voice persisted, “Lady Cara?”
Trying to make her mouth work, Cara mumbled, “‘kay. Just five minutes, Mom.”
Someone chuckled in the dark--a woman’s laugh but not her mother’s. Cara stiffened and stared up at the shadowy shape leaning over her. The shape spoke. “I’m not your mother, Cara. I’m Fania. Are you awake?”
Cara closed her eyes against the lamplight and gave another groan. “Yes. It’s dark.”
“It’s still a few minutes before dawn. The Commemoration begins at dawn.”
“Good for it.” Cara yawned and sat up. “Okay. Again. Why am I awake?”
Fania answered, “Because you were last night.” Answering the confusion she evidently saw on Cara’s face, she added, “Not to pry, Lady Cara, but I understand two friends of yours died recently. Last night, when you came back to the cabin, you sounded distraught and you remained so for hours thereafter.” 
Cara opened her mouth but was silenced by the enchanter’s raised hand. “No need to explain unless you wish. I’m off in a moment to lament the death of my king. I thought perhaps you would wish to come also.” She stopped, and seemed to be waiting patiently for Cara to respond.
Cara sighed and stood up. She was more awake than asleep now. Attending the memorial service was the right thing to do, though she doubted the healing benefits Fania implied.
She combed her hair and shifted from her rumpled caftan into her old shirt and jeans, then started toward the door.
Lady Fania was waiting for her in the hallway. As soon as Cara appeared, she shook her head. “Wear your cape. We will be out on the deck.”
Cara retrieved it, and slipped it around her shoulders as she followed the enchanter. A bell rang on deck. She had heard it periodically since coming on board, and assumed it marked the hours or the seamen’s watches. This time it must be announcing dawn.
Other people were moving about. Her half-asleep mind blanked for a few seconds, then resumed functioning. Other people. Other mourners. Swearing to herself, Cara stopped abruptly. Harone. Fania glanced back. Cara could hear footsteps closing the distance behind her. Trapped. Shaking her head, she started up the steps. She had to face him sometime. Better to do so at the memorial service than alone in a corridor.
To her left, the first edge of a red sun forced its way through a crack between the slate waters and deep grey-blue sky. Cara stepped through the exploring fingers of rosy light on the deck, as she turned portside with the others and walked aft toward the wheelhouse. Several people had already settled on the deck. In front of them, close to the wheelhouse door, stood Hathel and a white-haired man in uniform. Before them, was an eclectic arrangement of small tables—two side by side resting on the deck, surmounted by a third. Nearly at countertop height, the surface of the top table was covered with an iron gray cloth, the corners tied about the table legs to keep it in place against a strong northwest wind. A low broad bowl of black and an ewer of white rested on the cloth. Between these was a quantity of tiny gray cups that looked like they were made for tea.
Cara sat down beside Lady Fania at the outside edge of the silent group. Hathel was talking about loved ones never being lost to the grieving since they were always held in memory. Cara listened with one ear, simultaneously looking for Harone in the group. He sat closer to the front and on the other side of the small group. Halprin was about in the center. Cara frowned. Had a friend or relative of Halprin’s died? That might explain his mood since coming onboard. Still, no one had said anything to suggest that, and why would Halprin keep such a loss to himself?
Hathel finished speaking. Feeling a little guilty, Cara turned resolutely toward the table. The captain took a step forward. His wind-blown hair and his moustache were white; his face like old creased leather. He wore silver-gray like the other officers but his tunic sported numerous bands running from the left shoulder straight down to the hem. The other officer had bands of rank as well--in varying numbers, colors and widths--but never as many as his.
The captain glanced about the silent group, nodding at one or two people but saying nothing. He put his hand on the near edge of the black bowl, and called out, “Lanis, seaman on the Vartha, eight years.” He lifted a tiny spoon full of dark powder from the bowl, and then tipped its contents carefully into one of the cups. He added, “Sharing in Alphesis’ death.”
Hathel tilted the thick candle he was sheltering in his hands. The contents of the tiny cup flickered with fire. A spicy scent tickled Cara’s nose. Raising the ewer, the captain called out, “Sharing in Alphesis’ life.” A few drops of the clear liquid quenched the flame. Tearing a bit, the captain lifted the cup and spoke once more, “Co-inherent now with all.” He stepped back from the table, the cup nestled between his big hands--a precious thimble of memory.
The expression on his face wrenched at Cara’s heart. Blinking back tears, she watched as several seamen came forward and performed the same ritual, some for the same dead comrade, one for an uncle and one for the death of his wife. All said the same words, except for the last part. That varied with the person speaking.
A warrior Cara had seen at the table the previous night came forward next. In the same accent as Fania’s, he spoke words for King Chadran of Latimus. He finished in a bitter tone, “Foe vengeance, from this time.”
Fania rose and took his place, speaking also for her liege, but ending, “Co-inherent now with all. Warleader Cenoc be my vengeance.” She stared down at the cup for a moment. Cara thought her lips moved to the shape of ‘farewell’.
Gedra replaced her, announcing the name of her sister, Gladya. Holding the cup in her fist, she growled, “Five years kin vengeance is not enough. Fifty is not enough.” Fania had just returned to her seat. At Gedra’s pledge, she sighed and shook her head.
Cara considered asking her why, but Halprin stood at the table now. He appeared as grim as he had the day before. He spoke solemnly, his eyes raking through the ones gathered before him. “Tethrans of Two River province slain by the Daetaga, with none to lament them this day.” The sigh of in-taken breaths and the whisper of swiftly hushed words confirmed Cara’s guess that Halprin’s words were unusual. “Let our hands be filled with your strength,” he finished, relinquishing his place to Harone.
Harone performed the ritual twice, naming each parent in turn, his eyes focused steadfastly on the objects before him. He lifted both cups together and called out fiercely, “Kin vengeance, from this time.”
Sighing, he stepped away from the table, the brief flare of fury fading as the twin flames in the cups had. Seated once more, he glanced toward Cara. She saw the sparkle of tears in his eyes before he abruptly looked away. 
Cara swallowed down the throb of pain in her throat, and scrambled to her feet. She walked toward the table, carefully avoiding looking at anyone as she went. Concentrating on each word and movement, she performed the ritual for Hythe and then for Cona. Tears were burning her eyelids, and the pain in her throat challenged her to speak one last time. She had intended to say the traditional, “Rest in Peace.” but out came, “I’m sorry. I’ll miss you guys.” She fumbled for the cups and managed to pick both up without spilling their contents; then she walked blindly in the general direction of her seat until a hand grasped her wrist.
Fania murmured, “Here, dear.”
Cara nodded and sat. Someone else was speaking--Lamar, she thought. She whispered to the enchanter, “I gotta get out of here. May I? Is it okay? 
“As you wish, Cara, We will have Festival ceremonies all morning. Come back up when you feel like it. Or do you want me-”
“No!” Cara answered swiftly. She glanced toward the enchanter. “Just want to be alone for a while. Maybe go back to sleep. Sorry.”
 
Cara woke hours later to the ominous clangs of swords striking swords. As she sat up in her bunk, her gaze slipped to the two objects on the table. She sighed to herself, and tried to focus instead on the many sounds filtering through the ventilation shafts. Swordplay was certainly involved but relaxed conversation, cheering and laughter accompanied it. Evidently, to the Narentan military mind, fighting practice was part of the Festival of Merciful Healing.
She made herself presentable, and then headed for the staircase. No one seemed to be about below decks except for someone in the mess, judging from the blend of delectable and alien scents. Realizing how hungry she was, she backtracked. No one was in the dining area but baskets of flat bread were on the tables and a large pot of simmering liquid hung by its chain over the brazier coals. Whatever it was smelled strange but edible. Cara ladled some of the thin dark liquid into a wooden bowl snatched from a table. Bowl resting carefully on the round of bread, Cara resumed her trip up to the deck.
She walked into a carnival of sword matches and spectators, all so intent on what they were doing that no one noticed her arrival. Staying as far away from the flashing blades within each chalked square as she could, Cara threaded her way to the trio of enchanters. Her skin itched. Enchantment? She twitched her shoulders, spilling a few drops of liquid on her bread in the process.
Hathel must have just lost to Halprin. Shaking his head and laughing, the physician collected his sword from the deck and withdrew from their chalked square. Halprin stood where he was, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his left hand. Fania took Hathel’s place. She drew her sword from a baldric at her back, rather than a belt as Tethrans did.
Cara called out, “Greeting!”
All three enchanters turned toward her and nodded, Hathel losing his grip on his sword once more in the process. He glanced over at a blank-faced Halprin and fumed, “Stop it!” then picked up his sword again. Halprin watched him do so, his expression a study of bewilderment and wounded innocence.
Cara sipped at the warm liquid and tried to ignore the repeated itches beneath her skin, as she watched. Sweat-patched clothing suggested the three had been taking turns fighting each other for a while. Halprin appeared to be in a better mood.
“Hm. Nansi.” Hathel sniffed appreciatively.
“Who?” Cara followed Hathel’s gaze to her half-filled bowl. “Oh, the herbal tea soup stuff. Want the rest? It’s weird.”
“You’re sure?” Sheathing his sword, Hathel took the bowl from her hand. “Thank you!” He paused with the cup halfway to his lips to ask softly, “How are you faring, Cara?”
She shrugged. “Okay, some of the minutes. Thanks for asking. It looks like Halprin was messing with you.” Cara tried to think of a way to explain what that meant.
Although he appeared puzzled, Hathel answered, “Oh. Enchanters fight simultaneously with weavings and weapons. Halprin’s reflexes are faster than mine.” He turned back to the dueling enchanters, pointing. “There. A weaving to unbalance the foe. We can also disarm, or blind for a second or two. Then there are counter-spells to block …” 
His voice trailed off as he studied the match. Cara glanced toward him, thinking the enchanter’s expression reminded her of her dad’s when he had a football game on. Cara watched, dutifully trying to spot how the match between Halprin and Fania differed from those between the sailors. Waves of itching or throbs like electric current succeeded each other just under the surface of her skin. The enchanters murmured to themselves at times. Otherwise, she wasn’t sure what to look for.
She guessed from the length of the match that Fania and Halprin were nearly equal in skill. Halprin called for the equivalent of a timeout between rounds. Cara’s attention wandered. For each person practicing, another was climbing, leaning over a railing or walking hurriedly toward or from the wheelhouse. One small group stood about the base of a mast looking up at two seamen near the top of the upper sail. They were all shifting ropes to the rhythm of a call for one man.
She turned further. Harone sat on the deck talking with a pair of seamen who were working on one of the catapults. At first she assumed he was helping them, but he was tying feathers to the long shaft of an arrow. Fletching, she told herself proudly. Brian Fletcher had told her what it meant once.
Dark-haired, dressed in a violet shirt, suede leather jerkin and dark trousers, Harone contrasted sharply with his companions. Light haired, the two seamen had just moustaches like their captain, Harone the combined short beard and moustache that seemed common amongst Tethrans. 
Hathel had just a moustache. Turning around, she announced triumphantly, “You were in the navy!” 
Hathel glanced her way long enough for her to read perplexed denial in his face.
“You weren’t in the navy.”
Hathel gave a shout that made her jump. She turned in time to see Fania tumble over backwards. Halprin’s sword swept down toward her. Won again. The tip of Fania’s sword was pointed at Halprin’s throat. Or, not. A tie?
Hathel shouted again, “Death bind!” The nansi cup clattered across the deck as he hurried over to congratulate both of his colleagues. Cara followed him, mimicking the physician’s words and hoping she sounded more convincing than she had been in her one school play.
Hathel forestalled rival invitations to another match with a gesture toward the bow. “Storm’s coming this way. They’re reefing sail.” As a cold spray of raindrops swept over the deck, he added unnecessarily, “And we’re getting wet.” Cara noted that his reflexes proved fast enough to beat them all to the stairwell door.
 
Cara suspected that the traditional festival dinner was a bit damper than usual. With the exception of the nansi broth, the food was superb, though she had no idea what she was eating for the most part. Nearly everyone in the room was in good spirits--whether due to the Festival or to the sword matches, she didn’t know.
She did know that she felt strangely out of step with the others. First, she felt like a visitor who had never been to a soccer game, arriving in a town in the midst of a championship celebration. Second, she had trouble understanding the indifference shown by everyone to the rocking of the ship. She wasn’t prone to seasickness but then she had never been on a sailing ship at the height of a storm. The lamps above them swayed so violently she kept expecting flaming oil to spatter on the table, and she learned after her first full cup of verric that half cups were less messy.
Finally, with her mind less occupied, it again took up its burden of grief and self-reproach. She left the table before most of the others, hardly daring admit to herself that she didn’t want the seabirds trying to cheer her up again tonight, no matter how well meant their actions. They had been away most of the day fishing, according to Kalapa. The fish chowder served as the first course was the delicious result of their efforts.
As she walked down the empty hallway toward her berth, Cara reflected that she hadn’t felt this alone for some time now. She would have liked to talk to someone but she wasn’t sure whom.
Hathel had offered but she was more inclined to try Halprin. His expression at the table was back to morose, which reminded her of his participation in the ceremony that morning. For whom did he mourn? Those herbalists? Certainly not everyone in the Two Rivers area as his words implied.
As she reached the turn into her corridor, the bell back by the steps began ringing. It carried on alone but incessantly for a minute, then the pounding of feet and the raucous harmony of other bells joined it. Cara flattened herself against a bulkhead as several seamen raced past her. Once the way cleared, she headed back after them.
Those she had left at table were already out the door and clambering up the steps. Amongst those closest to her in the corridor stood Captain Foris and Officer Adreyia. The woman nodded and, turning from her superior, began working her way up the steps, growling at the seamen to let herself and their captain through.
Cara raced forward and followed a step behind them, then matched Adreyia step for step as they started across the drenched and pitching deck. She was soaked through in less than a minute and down on one skinned knee a couple minutes later. Frustrated and scared, Cara got back to her feet and tried to catch up. The only light came from a couple of torches chained fast to brackets on the lower masts, their dim flames sputtering in the sweeping rain. The deck felt like shifting ice floes beneath her. She managed to stay upright until she drew near the starboard railing just past the catapults. She called out Adreyia’s name but got no response.
Lightning spiked through ebony sky ripping it into electric blue shreds and lighting the deck of the ship briefly with nightmare violet. The following boom of thunder sounded like the doors of heaven slamming shut, leaving them all in darkness. Gripping the railing with both hands, Cara blinked at the blinding afterimage. Sight of her surroundings returned, reverting to isolated ovals of orange torch light on the deck. Then everything was swallowed in a flash of white, violet and intense blue. Thunder shuddered through her body.
The ship tipped forward as it rushed down into another furrow between waves. Cara stumbled forward. She felt like she was descending the side of a cliff. Her sight cleared again. Ahead but off to her right stood Halprin and Adreyia. Fania and Hathel were closer, both leaning over the railing in a manner suggesting a suicide pact. Cara launched herself toward the gap between the two pairs, with her hands stretched out to grab the railing. The deck dipped and the railing sprang forward to strike both palms a stinging blow.
Hathel and Fania were dragging someone over the side between them. Her left arm locked about the railing, Cara faced toward them. Hathel knelt by the person, while Fania immediately stretched out again and looked down. Then a hand gripped Cara’s shoulder and Halprin’s voice shouted over the echoes of thunder, “Cara! Go below! Now!”
Cara started to protest.
New forks of lightning coloring her face pale blue, Fania yelled, “Halprin! The boat!” She pointed over the side.
Halprin gripped Cara about the waist and lifted her past him until he stood where she had been standing. He called to Adreyia. The woman glanced up. A moment later, a seaman ran over and tied a rope about Cara’s waist. He shouted at her through a barrage of thunder but all she heard was “line”.
Halprin and Fania were invoking some kind of enchantment--its effects made Cara want to shed her skin. Each elbow locked around a slippery stanchion, Cara leaned forward and waited for the feeling to stop. It didn’t.
Stark blue flashed, providing her with her first glimpse of a foundering boat, its bow pointed up and away from the ship. A dark and jagged stain ran the length of its deck--dark water boiling up through the shattered wood. To either side of the massive crack she could just make out the movement of people--a half dozen perhaps. Seamen, attached to ropes, were descending toward the water. The lightning withdrew its illuminating flash before she could make out more. Another boom slammed against her ears.
A moment later someone lifted into sight, suspended on two ropes. He heaved himself over the railing far to her left with the help of two seamen, and then gripped one by the arm in what Cara guessed was a thank you. Asked something, the man shook his head. The seamen turned away, starting on their next rescue. He staggered past her, heading toward the waist of the ship. Could he possibly be a fisherman? The boat was too small to be this far out in the middle of a storm.
Just as the man stepped away from the light of the waist deck torch, he fell. Cara watched him sympathetically for a moment, then with increasing alarm. She glanced around her. Everyone was busy. All three enchanters stood side-by-side focusing all their attention downward. Her tormented skin warned her she didn’t dare distract them. One elbow locked about its stanchion, Cara unknotted the rope. Then she started the long journey toward the collapsed man. The storm appeared to be easing a bit but it had yet to tell the ocean that. Cara wished the lightning would return—she was terrified of losing sight of the fisherman before she reached him.
When Cara got to him, he was sprawled with one arm under him at such an awkward angle, it made her shoulder want to hurt. Just from that, she guessed he was unconscious or he would be struggling to shift position. She knelt and gripped him by his other shoulder and his belt, fighting his weight and his drenched clothing with all her will to turn him face up. He showed no sign of returning to consciousness but he was definitely breathing.
Unconscious but breathing. No CPR. Now what do I do? Can’t call Hathel. They’re still driving my skin nuts, keeping the boat together. Okay, what’s wrong? Dislocated shoulder. She glimpsed a dark patch on his thigh. Reaching down cautiously, she felt her fingers slide into deep warm liquid then brush something with a rough edge. A chunk of the shattered deck maybe. Blood pulsed across her fingertips. Swearing to herself, she yanked her hand away.
Bleeding out. TV. Someone said ...
In spite of herself, Cara shouted, “Hathel!”
Tourniquet! I need… What can I use? Idiot! Your belt.
She removed it and tried to slide it under the man’s leg. She felt slow and clumsy, knowing seconds raced past as she fought his weight and the stickiness of the blood. At last, she drew the leather tight. Not too tight. What’s too tight? Have to loosen it occasionally. Is he still breathing?
 “Hathel!” They’ll just have to stop the spell. The others can do it without him. Filling her lungs, she shrieked “Hathel!” one last time.
Someone’s coming. Nuts, that’s the wrong direction. Well, they can go get him. Harone. Cara drew a sharp breath and sat back a little, as the man dropped to his knees close by her. 
“Is he alive? 
“Yeah. He has a bad wound in his thigh. Can you-”
“Move back.”
“What?” Cara asked, as she did so.
Slipping his arms under the unconscious fisherman, Harone muttered, “I’ll take him below deck with the others.” With a grunt, he lifted the man off the deck. “You should come down. Hopefully the worst is over.” Turning, Harone slowly carried his burden toward the door.
Cara scrambled up and after him. Had Harone just declared a truce? On the other hand, was he just too busy helping to bother with her?
 
Thanks to her damp bunk, Cara woke early the next morning. 
Naturally, she had left the ventilation shafts open the previous day when she went out on deck after her nap. When she got back to her cabin, several of inches of water were slopping back and forth between one wall and the other. Aching and dead-tired, she had taken one look, laughed and thrown herself on the bunk as she was. Thanks to a healing enchantment by Hathel, the fisherman was going to live. She didn’t need to move for a few hours and, for those precious few hours, nothing else mattered.
Right now, she felt nearly as wet as she had the previous night, but grungier. She decided that she might as well get up and go out on deck. Perhaps, the breeze would dry her out a little. As she walked toward the stairs, she toyed with the idea of peeking into the infirmary but she didn’t want to disturb anyone. She had no appetite for breakfast and even less desire to run into Harone in a narrow passageway or in the small mess. She didn’t know how to interpret his glance toward her at the memorial service and their brief interaction during the storm.
Her first night aboard, lingering guilt and Harone’s face had greeted her when she went above. This morning it was the haze, shrouding the coast, the rigging and even the other end of the deck from view. She briefly considered returning below but couldn’t think of any reason to do so. Instead, she wandered the deck, watching the seamen about their work, and listening to snatches of their conversations. Much of it concerned the bad luck of the fishermen, forced so far from shore by the storm. From their words, she also gathered that fogs frequently followed rain at this time of year and in these waters.
Rain. Again. Spring must be the rainy season here. Cara stood at the bow and stared into the fog. Somewhere on Earth, where she couldn’t remember, it rained all spring and then got dry all the summer. Maybe Narenta is like that. Well, this part of Narenta, anyway. Wonder what it’s doing at home. Wonder what everybody’s doing, and thinking. She grimaced. Wonder if I’m on a milk carton yet. 
A drop of rain struck the back of her hand. As she looked up toward its source, another splashed on her forehead then trickled its way through her eyebrow and down her lid. She shook her head. “All right. I give.”
Cara turned toward the door leading below deck, only to see a large white shape flutter up through the doorway and head toward her. It looked like Kataro.
“Morning!”
The seabird landed on the railing, close beside her and bobbed a quick greeting. “We didn’t see you at breakfast, Little Chick. Is all well?”
“I guess, except I’m getting wet. Wetter.” Cara pulled the hood of the cape forward over her hair and started toward the doorway.
“That, and you didn’t eat.”
Cara shrugged, not really wanting to discuss the matter.
As she reached the doorway, Kataro called from above her, “Later, perhaps, after the meeting.”
“What meeting?” Cara paused on the steps to look behind her.
Kataro alighted on the top step. “You remember the other day? You started to tell us what you had learned from Alphesis, and I bid you wait and tell everyone at once. Halprin decided that now would be a good time to do so. He said he had originally hoped we all might meet last night.”
Cara frowned. “Who’s ‘everyone’? I know you wanted Halprin to be with Kalapa and you so I wouldn’t have to repeat everything to him later.”
Kataro nodded. “Yes, but not just Halprin. Kassis, Hathel, Fania and the other Elders must hear about your experience as well. All of those who feel themselves led to aid you in your task must understand their part. To do so they need to hear everything.”
Cara made a face. “I get that everyone sort of needs to be on the same page but you and Halprin know most of the stuff.”
Kataro shook his head in the firm and decided way that brooked no further argument. “Pages of the Ancient Writings are involved of course. However, your presence is important. Alphesis will guide us through his wisdom and his writings but he will also guide us through you. Perhaps more through you from this point onward than in any other way.”
Cara turned all the way around on the steps to face him. “Please tell me you’re kidding.” At the seabird’s silent stare, she added, “Look, I’m getting a really bad feeling about this. I don’t have to like give a presentation or something?”
Kataro answered slowly and carefully. “A presentation? I’m not sure how Outworlders use the word but it is necessary that you present to us all that Alphesis told you and, with that, you must give us some idea of how we may aid you at your task. We’ll be ashore within hours. We cannot follow you or aid you if we do not know what you require of us.”
Cara muttered to herself, using words she immediately hoped didn’t translate well into Tethran. Other than that, she could think of nothing to say. Turning, she started back down the steps. Various facts, memories and theories flew through her mind one after another, each accentuating the utter insanity of telling people like Halprin or Kataro what to do, successfully or otherwise. As she walked down the hall, she prayed nervously, Don’t let me blow this! Keep me calm …
She walked into the mess and was immediately transfixed by eyes. Help! She smiled and went toward the unoccupied cushion at the first table. Hythe and Cona did what they could to aid her just because it was right. No more would die because of her, with or without pledges of support. Cara took her place on the cushion reserved for her, and nervously cleared her throat.
As if the sound were a signal, Harone walked through the door. Cara jumped back up. Though her gaze flinched away from his somber gray eyes, she greeted him, “Harone na Hythe, welcome.” Her voice sounded strange in her own ears.
Several people at the table turned toward the young man standing in the doorway. They muttered amongst themselves. Cara ignored their reactions and forced herself to continue. “Harone, look, I owe you and, well, somehow I’ll pay you back. Whatever you want, if I can do it, you’ve got it.” She looked into his face and read mostly grief but anger too. Was the anger for her? “Kin vengeance”, he’d said. Whom did he consider his foe?
“Thank you,” the young man murmured. “For the welcome and for your pledge. I also have a pledge.” Drawing his sword, he walked toward her. 

 
2- Blindsided

Stopping a sword’s length before her, Harone added, “Were it not for you.” He shook his head, then took a deep breath and began again, “I have struggled for days to forgive you for your role in my parents’ death, to dismiss you from my thoughts. I believed I succeeded when I swore vengeance on the Fenroi and their mistress.” Laughing humorlessly, the young scholar added, “Until I was told that you, that your mission, would deny me even that. Yet now you pledge to grant my wish.”
Cara opened her mouth to protest but the proximity of sharp steel persuaded her to keep quiet. Somewhere amongst those seated came the sound of a blade being unsheathed. A soft voice muttered urgently, “Wait!” The whisper of metal was repeated. Harone’s eyes never shifted from hers during the brief exchange. Cona’s gray eyes edged, like hers, with black. Cara swallowed, hoping she appeared as apologetic as she felt, but less terrified.
Whatever her expression, Harone evidently found nothing in it that persuaded him to violence. He continued, “I’ve been told something of your task, Lady Cara. They say that you are here to aid us against the Daetaga—that no one but you can hope to succeed against our foes. I wish you success. I am not so selfish as to do otherwise. Nevertheless, I swear not even an Outworlder will frustrate my vengeance.
“Alphesis didn’t bid me come to this meeting though our paths blend for the moment. Some who serve Alphesis aided me by giving me passage aboard your ship. You just pledged to give me what I wish.” He sighed. Turning his sword so that the hilt was toward her, he added bitterly, “Permit me to travel with your company. Do so, and I pledge to do your bidding, unless doing so will prevent me from fulfilling my earlier oath.”
His eyes sought hers, their expression mingled grief and anger, and something else—a loathing akin to disgust. Cara clenched her teeth on the urge to laugh. He didn’t want to be doing this any more than she wanted him to be in this room but what else could he do? Ride alone on his quest for revenge, or trail after her?
Cara hardly knew what surprised her most--his reluctant gesture or his assumption that it was up to her to decide. A brief, selfish voice whispered that having him traveling with them would just add to her feelings of guilt but she dismissed it. After all, she’d said she owed him big.
Cara cleared her throat again, and answered as calmly as she could, “I don’t deserve your offer but I don’t deserve any one else’s trust or allegiance either. Since Alphesis wants me to accept their help, I guess he wants me to accept yours, too.” Making an educated guess, she touched the hilt of his sword with her fingertips. Harone gave a brief nod but bitterness darkened his eyes.
Kataro added, “Welcome, Harone. I think you will quickly find that it is Alphesis’ will for you to be here.” He added gently, “May the love you bear him and the three peoples soon outweigh your desire for revenge.”
Harone glanced an acknowledgement toward the seabird, and then turned back to Cara. In a whisper made harsh from too many tears, he added, “I’d like to talk later. I have some things I need to say to you, but alone.” Sheathing his sword, he turned away before she could answer him, and found a cushion halfway around the table from her.
Cara turned back to face the others, and noted confusion on many faces. Kataro and Kalapa showed no such reaction. Had they helped smuggle him onboard?
More uneasy than ever, she continued, “My name is Cara. I’m not sure how much you all know about my purpose in your world. I’m really just starting to learn the details myself. Alphesis told me that it’s my job to unlock the passage between your land and the land of your allies to the west. That job makes me ‘The Opener’ of the First Tumult, but it’s not the sole reason I’m here. Kataro just told us that each of you feels called to help me out. Well, thanks.”
His voice echoing in the small cabin, Halprin responded, “It is only our duty, Cara, and not for you to thank us or for us to be thanked. Nevertheless, it is wise to mark this moment before we set out. I am the king’s man but I swear my life and honor to your mission, Lady Cara Outworlder.” He smiled. “I think my liege will see that pledge as fitting.”
After a rumble of agreement around the table had died away a little but before Cara could think what to say next, Kataro said, “I believe it is time we all share what we know. Lady Cara, knowing the least, might I begin?”
Several at the table chuckled. At Cara’s relieved nod, Kataro began, “You all know by now that the sorcerers were attempting a tunnel under the Nonz River. As soon as he received this information, King Cybis ordered those enchanters who were close enough to ride to the south bank of the Nonz. I understand that Media, Parturis, Istar and many others reached it yesterday. They joined with Young Ones and members of my own nation who have been granted skill of enchantment. With their combined efforts, they were able to prevent the tunnel’s completion. Doubtless, the Shadow will shortly be hastening east along the northern bank of the Nonz, and will-”
Lord Halprin shifted restlessly, and opened his mouth only to close it. Cara frowned. He looks like he can’t decide whether to interrupt or wait.
Kataro paused and looked toward him. Okay, that’s it. Halprin’s been moody about something. We might as well all get it over with and find out what. “Halprin?”
The enchanter glanced in her direction and nodded. “If I may?”
 “Shoot.” Cara grimaced, feeling her cheeks grow warm. “Sorry. Please, uh, say what you’re thinking.”
“I spoke to my liege one last time before coming aboard the ship so I have some information not yet known to Master-Scholar Kataro.” He shrugged. “Or, well, to any of you. I have delayed speaking long enough, even delaying our meeting until the last moment. Forgive me.”
He hesitated for so long that Cara began to wonder if she should prompt him a second time. Reading suppressed pain in his unfocused gaze and in the fidgeting movement of one hand on the table before him, she decided to let him speak in his own time. The others agreed, judging by their own waiting silence.
He resumed, “We have been duped. Rather, I have been duped, led astray by my own expectations to see what I expected to see. The tunnel was but a feint to distract our attention from the actual movements of the Daetaga. For many days now, they have been marching east close to the banks of the Sweetwater rather than the Nonz. To clarify, the path they chose closely resembles that which Master-Scholar Kataro and Lady Cara took, rather than the more southerly route I expected from them.”
Hathel and Fania glanced toward each other. A couple of the warriors shifted slightly as well, their carefully controlled movements betrayed by the creak of leather.
“Between my two visits to the Isle Thought Stone, new reports were sent to the king from Media and the others. On completion of the counter-weavings, our people crossed to the north side of the Nonz, expecting to find at least one of the sorcerers and a host of the Shadow hurrying east along the riverbank, seeking another way to cross.
“No sorcerers were present anywhere near the northern terminus of the tunnel. Indeed, once the enchantments were completed and the area searched, the enchanters found very few of the Daetaga. Much indication of large encampments, but these camps had been abandoned many days ago.”
Hathel was about to speak, but Halprin raised a single finger from the table surface, forestalling him. He drew breath, and continued,
“Some Daetaga followers may still be hiding north of Kolora and southwest of Melwood, but most are marching eastward under concealment of the Sweetwater forest. Rather, they were. By now they have long since emerged from its sheltering canopy into more settled lands.”
The astonished intake of breath around the table alarmed Cara in a way that Halprin’s words could not. Halprin had paused and was pointing to a ragged ink-scratched map before him but she spent the moment reading the maps of disbelief on every face. Not good. Very not good. She turned back toward Halprin as he slid the map in the direction of his warriors.
He resumed, “Many of the enchanters who were sent westward to help stop the tunnel normally help protect cities and towns further to the east. The foe now has perhaps a three-day lead on them. As Pazgar undoubtedly planned, his people must be using the time free of the opposition of the Order, to attempt a bridge. This they will doubtless find easier to accomplish than we expected since our strongest enchanters are out of place. In addition, since we believed the tunnel attempt our greatest danger, we guessed incorrectly as to the whereabouts of his forces. That, in turn, had me conjecturing wrongly about Pazgar’s choice of route. Therefore, I counseled those of the Sword to concentrate their commands on the roads south of the forest, bidding them remain close to the banks of the Nonz. Pazgar went north.”
Hathel interrupted at last, “Grievous news, Halprin. Many will have died when the Shadow armies swept out of the Sweetwater Forest, unlooked for. However, you do not bear all the blame in this. As you said yourself, we all believed our foes gathered about the tunnel, preparing to make use of it at the earliest moment.”
“Hathel, I gave them exactly the wrong orders. Many of us were duped but I gave the orders Pazgar most hoped I would. The Three Peoples would be hard put to withstand those marching east, even in the absence of sorcerers, with those of the Sword there to defend them.” Halprin shook his head. “If Rabada and Zabnar are leading them and none of our best warriors face the foe, how our people are to stand is beyond my reckoning.”
Fania added, “At least it isn’t all three. Pazgar must have gone back to the mountain passageway to perform his barrier spell, or perhaps stayed there from the beginning.”
Kataro added with grim irony, “It’s some small comfort too that, by last report, other sorcerers in our northern and southern mountainways haven’t been freed. Aid from alliances in those directions may come to us eventually.”
Addressing Cara specifically, he explained, “The southern lands of Metris, our neighbor to the north, are nearly as unpopulated as Tethra’s own lands above the Sweetwater. It will be some time before any Metran enchanters are able to reach us. Our southern mountainway is over two weeks’ ride south of Fiori. Allies to the east are an ocean away. Thalassa, our western ally, is therefore our best hope. Without aid from outside of our own land, the struggle against the followers of these three may be long and bloody.
“Pazgar was the strongest sorcerer to ever plague Tethra—no army, no alliance of Tethran enchanters alone ever withstood his sorceries in the past. This is why the barrier in the western mountainway must be broken as quickly as possible.”
Lord Hathel added, “By now, Pazgar is on the move but we don’t know his destination.”
Halprin just nodded.
Gloom pervaded the room like a cloud from last night’s storm. Cara leaned forward and opened her mouth but someone took the floor first.
His voice young and quavering with excitement, Kassis ventured, “I don’t understand. Didn’t those of your order prevent the completion of the river tunnel? Yes, the sorcerers had abandoned the tunnel but just a small number of the Order broke the spells the sorcerers had used for the tunneling. If all the enchanters of the Scroll can come together swiftly, they should be able to keep Rabada, Zabnar and Pazgar at bay while the fighters amongst us break the strength of their followers.”
“Kassis!” Kalapa’s feathers raised and smoothed repeatedly. “You forget your teaching. A few Scroll enchanters did dismiss sorcery devised by Zabnar and Rabada, or perhaps just Zabnar alone. While they used their full strength to do this-”
“With no one present to resist them by counterspell!” Halprin interjected.
 Kalapa offered the enchanter a nod that was nearly a bow. “Yes. At that same time, Pazgar blocked the passage through the mountains, using a much greater spell. So far we have not had to stand against all three. You and Kataro are both right in that we will be stronger in time. I believe a few more enchanters are hastening to Tethra from the south and east to aid those of Lord Halprin’s order already stationed near the Nonz or in the capital.”
“But we still won’t have strength enough to hold the three at bay. Perhaps, for a few days. Perhaps not even that long.” Halprin added, “Also, by necessity, we are leaving great areas of our lands nearly unprotected from scattered groups of werewrights, a risk that we may yet rue.”
Hathel turned to Halprin. We have not the power to overcome the three while also protecting the whole land from the destruction their followers will certainly bring. The only hope I see is—as Kataro seems to suggest—we send all our Order’s force as swiftly as we may to the mountains, gambling that together we can clear the passage so that Thalassan enchanters and warriors may aid us in putting the Daetaga to flight.”
Halprin shook his head, answering with some heat, “We have no promise we can break Pazgar’s spell swiftly, and what would our neighboring Thalassans help us salvage, if we to do? The Daetaga will be free to roam our land and the lands of the Young in the meantime. They are close, even now, to attempting a bridge. Little would be left once our neighbors arrive.”
“Not much more if we split our strength, sending part to the passageway and the rest to guard Fiori and the countryside south of the Nonz.” Hathel added bitterly.
Cara studied the gloomy expressions around the table, and knew it was past time for her to speak. She glanced meaningfully toward Kataro, and started, “We have another hope, given me by Alphesis himself ...” Cara paused involuntarily, as all eyes turned to her. “He showed me a way to destroy these three for all time. If I can pull that off fast enough-”
Kataro objected, “That’s impossible! We know from the Ancient Writings that Alphesis will not permit the great ones of the Shadow to be destroyed. I’ve told you this myself. Each daemagos will be given a chance to work against the Shadow before the world is remade.”
“I know, Kataro. Alphesis told me that the time of decision for these three has already passed them by. It slipped past them without their knowing when they made that deal with Thaddis.”
A mutter of voices sounded from around the table. Halprin’s deep voice rumbled through the others. “Has the time of the Remaking drawn so close? Tell us now all you know! How are we to aid you in this?”
Cara shrugged, “Basically get me to the mountains in the west, but fast. Once I’m there, I’m to destroy the three. Yeah, believe it or not,” she added at their many skeptical expressions. “Anyway, once that’s done, the way through the mountains will be open to you folks again.”
“But the sorcerers are not sitting in the passageway, awaiting your weaving of destruction!” Timor growled in frustration. “What nonsense.”
Hathel put a hand on the man’s arm, and whispered something urgently. Timor looked about to say more, but just shrugged. No one else attempted further protest, but the disbelief and dismay on every face spoke their opinions clearly enough.
I’m losing them. Only one thing left to do. Alphesis told me to keep the key safe but he didn’t say keep it hidden.
She reached into the pouch hanging from her belt and brought out the little shell. Holding it up, she said, “Here’s the Key of Opening you’ve all heard of or read about in your, uh, Ancient Writings. He said, ‘This shall be the means of their destruction.’”
Amidst a buzz of excitement, all leaned forward eagerly to see the key. The white auger shell lay in her hand, nearly three inches long, but very narrow and with a spiral of whorls that ran from end to end. Cara sensed their puzzlement, still bordering on disbelief.
“Alphesis gave it to me when I spoke with him at the Throne. He told me that with it I could destroy the three sorcerers. I just need to be in or near their old prison. It doesn’t matter where they are.”
Halprin shook his head. “Lady Cara, forgive me, but you’ve got it wrong. Even if we grant that the Renewal is so close, that the sorcerers have reached their final decision, we cannot destroy the three. That is for Alphesis to do. He placed them in their prisons, and he will also see to their destruction at the proper time in ways we cannot hope to understand or accomplish.”
Hathel leapt in, “Wait! Decades ago, we learned that Pazgar and the others hid the essence of their beings within their former prison, probably shortly after Thaddis came to them. If Lady Cara could succeed in destroying that ...”
“No one living can survive entering one of Alphesis’ prisons” Halprin interrupted. “Therefore, it is impossible for anyone living to reach the place in which the sorcerers have hidden their life force. In any case, there is no writing saying the key is for their destruction. The Book of Prophecy states that the Key of Opening will open the gate shut by the Shadow.”
Cara appealed to Kataro, “Is that the way it’s worded?”
Kataro answered, his voice betraying his suppressed excitement, “She’s right, Halprin. The book only says that the key will turn up after the closing of the gate between our lands. Since the author called it a key, everyone has always assumed that it would be used to open the gate itself.” He turned to Cara with a look of paternal pride, but he spoke briskly, challenging her, “Why does it have the name ‘The Key of Opening’, if it isn’t used to open the gate between lands shut by the Shadow?”
Cara hesitated. She knew the answer, for Alphesis had told her, but she dreaded thinking much less talking about this aspect of her task.
“The Key bears its name because it has the power to open the caskets in which the sorcerers have hidden the essence of their being. When the contents are destroyed, their existence will end and their evil spells will be gone, too. The barrier at the Stream passage way will disappear.”
For the next few minutes, a hot debate prevailed as words on parchment and verses in clay were quoted like weapons. Cara watched and listened helplessly, daunted by the experience and wisdom of those who ringed her about.
In the midst of it, Harone interrupted Timor, “No, I’ve read about that! The sorcerer concentrates his life force in a small object and hides it. Long ago, the Outworlder, Galan, destroyed the bone of the fingertip of Lorex Enton-”
Hathel finished for him, “It doesn’t have to be the flesh of his body, though. Sometimes the life force is placed in a stone or other object. The one who does this is to all intents and purposes invulnerable unless the enchanter can find and destroy the object. Other spells usually hide and protect the object itself.”
Hathel turned to Cara, adding quietly, “So the Key opens the three caskets in which we believe they’ve hidden their life force? It intrigues me how their destruction is to be accomplished. The sorcerers will almost certainly have hidden such objects within or beyond Alphesis’ prison chamber, where none of us is permitted to go. How are we to reach them safely, much less survive to destroy them?”
Cara caught a stifled gasp from someone at the table. She smiled, suspecting it was Halprin. “You got it! You can’t do the prison chamber bit. As an Outworlder alien type, I’ll go through the prison chamber Alphesis devised for the sorcerers, into their hiding place and come out in one piece ...” I hope.
She was determined to show nothing but confidence at this meeting but the idea of hanging around some other world’s idea of Purgatory … She doggedly banished several gruesome scenarios and kept going. “Alphesis told me that I would be able to find the three caskets in which the sorcerers have hidden their essence, with the use of the Discerning stone he provided. They’re hidden near the barrier Pazgar conjured up, and that’s supposed to be near or maybe even in their old prison. As for their destruction, he told me I would learn the manner of it, the technique or something, in Fiori. Someone named Alexia the Wise is to help me.”
Frowning, Halprin demanded, “I fail to understand how any living being can survive one of the prison chambers--even an Outworlder like you, Lady Cara. None of us wishes you to come to harm. Leaving that aside for the moment, what kind of thing is it that you will use to destroy them? A weapon? An enchantment? By your own account and the words of Alphesis, the key only opens the caskets. What is it which will destroy that which is inside?”
Cara stared at him helplessly a moment. “Look, I don’t know yet. All I know is what he said. Alexia the Wise in Fiori will have some advice for me. Or instructions or something.” As she spoke, Cara remembered his face when he told her, and the brief moment of uncertainty passed. “Alphesis told me to go to the court at Fiori and he wouldn’t have told me if he didn’t intend for me to find it there.”
Halprin nodded. “Let it be as our Lord has told you.”
Hathel murmured gravely, “Let Alphesis also speak to us as to how you will be safe-guarded from the power of the chamber itself. If you cannot survive entering there, then it will make little matter that you go armed with the needful weaving or weapon.”
Halprin murmured half to himself and half to his friend, Hathel, “If Alexia is to help her choose the weapon or weaving, perhaps she will also have a word or two on the method of Lady Cara’s defense.” He glanced around the table, adding, “Our part in this is clear. We must guide Lady Cara safely to Fiori and from there as swiftly as we may to the western mountain chain. May we all be under his Protection.”

The meeting broke up shortly after, much to Cara’s relief. The rain was slowly pattering to nothing more than a drizzle, so Cara went on deck and sat on the port side in a vague hope of seeing land. When the seabirds landed on the railing near her, Cara turned to look at them with an accusing smile, “You smuggled him aboard, didn’t you?”
Kataro and Kalapa smiled back, mischievous expressions on their faces.
Cara laughed in spite of herself. “Well, it’s a good thing he had a change of heart. Otherwise, my head might be hanging from the nearest yardarm or whatever.”
“We knew that he’d spoken to Alphesis and that he’d learned you weren’t at fault. We both felt it important for you to meet the other. Great good may come of it.”
“Important maybe, but not fun for either of us.” Cara answered soberly, “Yeah, well, I hope you’re right and great good comes of some of this.”
At that moment, there was a cry from the rigging, “Look!”
Cara looked over the railing eagerly but saw nothing until Kataro directed her gaze forward. Either they had turned westward or the land on the horizon jutted further into the sea here. Cara could make out no details at this distance yet she continued to stare at the dim shadow edging the water. It looked to be raining on shore, judging from the darkness.
“Fire.” Someone murmured grimly, close behind her. Cara turned to see Harone staring at the shadowed coastline. “Many fires. Near the mouth of the Nonz, I think. So they’ve taken a bridge.” He turned, and hurried toward the fighters clustered at the head of the stairway door impatiently waiting to descend.
Glancing toward the seabirds, Cara saw confirmation in their eyes. Kataro interrupted her attempt at a question, “Go pack, Cara, and saddle your horse. We must be ready as soon as the ship docks.” With the last word, he took wing, following the other seabirds toward the coastline.
Cara joined the last of those clattering down the steps, her mind filled with questions no one had time to answer. A lot of them concerned Tethran geography. Halprin had asked his king to send help. Would the warriors have time to reach the coast before they did?
How far would they be from the capital? How long would it take to get there? Most important, how close was the foe to where they were to come ashore?
  
Cara flung her possessions randomly into her provision bag and the saddlebags, and then raced back up on deck with a bag strap hanging off each arm. Their combined weight was greater now than when she had come on board. While still packing in her room, Adreyia, the master-seaman, came in and handed her a small bundle. Cara stuffed the clothing and provisions away, but the belt Adreyia gave her was already about her waist, replacing the one she had used as a tourniquet.
The land mass before them was growing in size. Cara could see dim red beneath the billowing blackness up the coast to the right, north of the vague tumbled blocks and towers of Dath-Sheeda directly before them. Once they set foot on land, they would again be vulnerable to attack from the Shadow. She still wasn’t sure if that meant they would be fighting their way to shore or not. Seamen were working on the catapults. That certainly wasn’t a good sign.
Someone had already saddled her mare. She took the reins with a polite nod and a mouthed thank you but, inside, she regretted the help. Right now she wanted a chore to do, aside from staring at the coastline and developing an ulcer. She took a minute to put the saddlebags and provision bag in place, and another minute to check the straps of the bridle and the saddle girth. She searched around her, “counting noses”, as Halprin, Hathel and the others drew close. The seabirds weren’t back yet.
Cara drew a deep breath and turned to face shore, braced for the grimmest of sights. They were rapidly approaching a great city, walled in from the land and open to the sea like the port to the north, but of greater size. Pale lavender-blue sky maintained a hold over the entire breadth of the port, except where masts shafted into the air around her.
The ship slowed as the seamen struck the sails and manned the oars. They slipped slowly into harbor, gliding past dozens of merchant and military ships. The former were painted in vivid colors with the crest of their merchant houses emblazoned on their sails. The latter were white or gray and carried the crest of King Cybis. Cara had seen this already on the sails of their own ship--a scroll of the Ancient Writings crossed in front of a sword surmounted by a seabird in flight on a chevron of blue.
One of the king’s ships investigated them discreetly at a distance before permitting them to pass into the inner harbor. Cara looked curiously at the ships they passed and noticed that many of them carried knights and foot soldiers, apparently brought to Dath-Sheeda from the south or east to aid in the struggle for Tethra’s life.
A formidable-looking guard stood on duty at the docks, all armed with sword and bow, wearing surcotes of steel gray and white over their chain mail. The leader hailed Halprin. Cara assumed at once that they were the guard that Halprin had sent for, but she found she was mistaken.
Halprin nodded toward the man but continued scrutinizing everyone on the dock as though searching for something. He strode briskly down the gangplank as soon as it was in place, not even attempting to urge Calyx to follow him. He and the captain of the guard spoke hurriedly. Cara’s spirits sank at the gravity in Halprin’s face as he turned to urge greater speed in disembarking. Cara ran down the gangplank and went to him.
Seeing the questioning look on her face, Halprin told her, “They’ve seen no sign of Mathwy or the others of my mearis.” Halprin slapped his palm restlessly with his gloves. “But we can’t wait for them. The captain of the Harbor Guard tells me that the Shadow has taken the Nonz-Ponta Bridge not far north of here. They expect to be under siege at any time.”
Halprin looked keenly beyond her to the north, where smoke puffed above the walls. “Indeed we must hurry or we may find ourselves meeting them at the gate. Mathwy knows the route I plan to take and will doubtless try to join us somewhere along it. We must ride at once.”
Without waiting for Cara to respond, Halprin strode back up a gangplank and caught up Calyx’s reins from a seaman. Cara hastened to follow him.
Two gangplanks were in place, and seamen were securing a third by the time Cara was mounted and back on the dock. She watched as warriors on the dock marched up to the ship’s deck, while the last members of her own party urged their horses to shore and then mounted. Three seabirds spiraled down toward them, then lifted back up as Halprin called to them and gestured ahead. The ship was already casting off its lines.
Minutes later, they were away from the docks and pounding through the city. How different this one looked from the other! Here, no market places were open and no children ran by in play or stopped to stare curiously at the strangers. The only visible Peralike were Sword knights of the king’s guard and his soldiers, plus the city’s own people armed with whatever weapon they could find. Those who were unable to fight must have been ordered indoors.
The city spread wide about them, narrow streets zigzagging away from them in all directions. The swift clop of the mounts’ hooves and the jingle and creak of harness echoed off close-hemming walls of cream-colored sandstone and dust-encrusted whitewashed wood. The only other sounds were an occasional bay of a territorial watchdog, and steady hammering from several locations.
After some time, the inland wall of the city rose above the gray-flagged roofs before them, its dark-veined gray stone blocks reflecting back the light of the late morning sun. Beyond the last cluster of taverns and shops, Cara could see the slant of stone balustrades and the crenellated inner battlements at the top of the wall. At times, the diamond-bright glint of a helmet bobbed into view, and then slipped back behind the sheltering stonework. Tendrils of steam and smoke curled lazily into the violet sky from the ramparts, pale and thin in comparison to the darkness looming over to their right.
Cara glanced toward the enchanters ahead of her as they slowed their horses. A score of fighters was arrayed between themselves and the iron-barred gates, the dense press blocking the lower half of both doors from view. Cara frowned. Were the gatekeepers trying to keep them from leaving? Halprin rode forward and showed someone what might be a signet ring. He spoke hurriedly, gesturing at one point toward Cara. Seeing that, she tried to rein her horse between Gedra and Hathel but they both motioned her back.
Gedra leaned toward her and whispered, “Less they see of you, less to aim at.”
“What?” gasped Cara, trying to muffle her response halfway through the single syllable.
Hathel glared briefly at the warrior. He murmured to Cara in turn, “Remember the attack Halprin foiled at the empire press? Others may have been sent to assassinate you. Relax, but just don’t move.”
At his gesture, Cara glanced around her. Not only Hathel and Gedra but also Lamar, Harone and Fania’s own warrior flanked her. Half the men who had been standing at the gates were taking up position around them, facing away and with their bows at the ready. She had never felt so safe and so much in peril at the same time.
“What’s doing?” Gedra hissed. The question was directed at Timor who was riding toward them. Without answering, he slowed his mount, raising his hands in response to several arrows aimed at his heart.
“Let him through. He’s with us.”
Looking a trifle pale, Timor nodded thanks and threaded his way between two archers. “Lord Halprin said they didn’t want to let us out. An enchanter up on the wall somewhere,” he gestured vaguely behind him, “saw or felt Shadow nearby. Up the road a piece, toward the Nonz.” He pointed north. “The seabirds confirmed this. They, the werewrights, are not far away. They’re bringing up siege engines, and fortifying the north side of a ledge just out of bowshot of the archers on the walls.”
“We can get past them!” Gedra interrupted impatiently.
Timor shrugged. One fist about his horse’s reins, he fumbled a tiny bit of parchment from where it was tucked into his belt, and worked the flap of it up with his thumb. “What I thought, too. Lord Halprin and Lady Fania figured they’d notice people riding out of here, and would get curious.”
Gedra snorted. “Any who get too curious we can deal with!”
Hathel interrupted her sternly, “Let him speak. I assume he’ll be coming to Halprin’s message eventually.”
Timor nodded sheepishly. “I’m sorry, my lord. We’re to wait here for a cavalry unit under Sword knight Andreas. Lord Loren was already planning a sortie to dislodge that advance Shadow unit. What Lord Halprin intends is for us to sneak out this side of them when they ride out. They should be here in a couple of minutes. In the meantime, he and Lady Fania have gone up to the battlements for a look around and a talk with … whoever the enchanter is up there.”
“Probably, Lord Sedges,” Hathel muttered to himself. “Good. That should work.”
Timor nodded. He popped a purplish crystalline object into his mouth then held the parchment pack out to the others. Answering the curiosity on Cara’s face, the warrior mumbled, “Sweets. It’s made from cruce, like what we use to sweeten tea-brews.”
Cara perked up at the offer. Her mouth was as dry as cracked bone and she welcomed even the smallest distraction at this point. Before her fingertips could do more than brush the parchment edge, Gedra swore and grabbed her hand away.
“Timor! Where did you get it?”
His eyes bulging in shock, the warrior choked out, “Old woman.” He leaned sideways and spit out the candy, following it with every bit of spittle he could force out of his mouth. In the meantime, the enchanter grabbed the little packet from his hand, and began a high-pitched chanting that stung Cara’s ears. She stared at them all in turn, fully aware of the meaning of their reactions but wishing she could think of any other explanation than the only possible one.
The chanting stopped. “Good call, Gedra.” Hathel reached over and clasped the retching man’s arm. “Timor, how do you fare?”
The warrior glanced toward the enchanter and nodded breathlessly. His face was red, and raw terror widened his eyes. He shrank back from them, and glanced about wildly.
Gedra muttered, “She’s gone, of course. Timor, if you’re able …”
“Give me a moment,” Hathel warned. He whispered hurried words and gestured swiftly--first at the poisoned packet and then at the warrior.
“Nothing too fast-acting, fortunately. Timor, go look for her but do not stray far! Here. Take the packet. If you don’t see her right away, give this to the gatekeeper, report what happened and what she looks like.”
As the warrior hastened to obey, Hathel glanced toward Cara and added, “Assuming what he saw was her true appearance.”
“Of course, it wasn’t!” Gedra growled. She dismounted and began searching the ground near their horses’ hooves, missing Hathel’s glower in the process. “Oh, here it is.”
The enchanter asked icily, “What are you doing?”
Mounting, Gedra responded, “Picking up the piece Timor spit out.”
“Why?” Cara asked. She was astounded to see tears welling in Gedra’s eyes.
Hathel shook his head and sighed. “She’s right. A dog, or worse a little child might have come upon it.”
“They’re coming!” Harone called from behind them.
Cara turned toward the sound of approaching horses. She counted at least two dozen mounted warriors, and then lost her place at the sound of more horses approaching from the direction of the wall. It was Fania and Halprin, accompanied by a mailed warrior. A few paces behind the three, Timor was hurriedly catching them up. Cara wondered if he had even had time to report what happened.
Both enchanters looked simultaneously serious but relaxed, in the odd way Cara had learned to expect from enchanters about to enter battle. She wondered if their outward mien was a true reflection of their inward emotions. Maybe it was. Maybe all the prayer and mental discipline helped. She sighed. I could use a bit of that about now.
Fania and the strange warrior rode toward the cavalry unit. Halprin drew close to Cara and the others and murmured “Almost ready. Hathel, stay with Cara. There is precious little cover outside the walls. Ride toward the fringe of actha shrubs you’ll see about a half mile from the gate, on the left side of the road.”
The physician nodded. “I remember them. Are there serpent-hawks?”
Halprin smiled. “We’ll see. I ordered the young seabird, Kassis, to stay with you. He is untried but he’s strong and eager.” Nodding toward Cara, Halprin glanced over her shoulder. “Harone?”
The young scholar urged his horse forward, until he was next to Cara. He answered, “Yes, my lord?”
Halprin pointed. “I saw the bow. Do you know how to use it?”
The youth glanced toward Cara before he answered, “Canaris taught me.”
Halprin’s face wrinkled with perplexed surprise. “When? And, in Alphesis’ name, why?”
The youth answered dryly, “I stood in for one of the Melwood Young Ones your people insisted on teaching. He found me competent.”
Not a shred of pride sounded in Harone’s last words. Cara suspected the name of his instructor provided all the information Halprin required.
Halprin merely nodded. “Come with us then. I have volunteered us to aid in the sortie. Hathel. Cara. See you in a few minutes.” He gripped each of their arms in turn then followed the warriors as they went to join the waiting cavalry.
Hathel stared into Cara’s face and warned, “We ride toward where he said as fast as we can and then we stay there until I say. No, don’t get out that knife!” Cara noted that the enchanter did loosen his sword. A shadow passed over her--Kassis hovered a few feet above them. She turned, like him, to face the larger group.
Their captain glanced at her, then spoke briefly to Halprin and nodded. He had hardly signaled for the opening of the postern gate before Halprin was spurring toward it. Fania rode close behind him along one flank of those leading the way. Their captain shifted to the far side, matching her distance behind Halprin.
Cara and the others followed him as quickly as they could. The competing shock of several enchantments slammed into her from either side. She stifled a whimper. Amid the swift movement and emotional turmoil, she almost missed the quiet voice of the gatekeeper, “Farewell, Outworlder. Our prayers go with you. May Alphesis’ Protection surround you.” She turned in her saddle to thank him but the gate was already closing, blocking even a glimpse of his face.
Hathel called out urgently, “Cara! On my left side. Now!”
He spurred forward, and she followed after. The wide road before them was deserted. In the earth softened by the previous night’s rain, Cara could see the wheel and footprints of all those who had fled to the protection of the city. Off somewhere to their right, hooves thundered and voices roared in defiance. Werewrights shouted harsh warnings and commands.
Kassis flew directly above her, his shadow blocking the sun like an umbrella blocking rain. His proximity forced her to crouch close to the mare’s bobbing neck. Arrows sang in the air, and Hathel swore. She felt like joining him. They were nearly up to the line of shrubs. Cara wondered what they would do if they reached the rendezvous spot yet found they were still drawing fire. The bushes weren’t high enough to hide them.
Her protective shadow disappeared. Cara looked up just in time to see Kassis veer away toward an all too familiar black shape.
Another volley of arrows hissed past. Hathel grunted. Blood spattered into her face. Her mare briefly broke stride. Blood flecked the mare’s mane. She tossed her head, launching more droplets in Cara’s direction.
Glancing toward her companion, Cara saw the shaft of an arrow bobbing up and down in rhythm with the enchanter’s horse. The center of the shaft transfixed Hathel’s left forearm. 
They had swept through the shrubs and were heading further from the road and gate with every stride. No more arrows flew past. She was about to call out to Hathel, when he shouted, “Stop! We’ll wait here.”
He turned his mount around and she followed suit, at once looking for sign of their companions. The enchanter stared back down the road as well but his right hand was on the length of arrow in front of him. He said in a calm voice, “Grab the other end and hold tight!”
Feeling as squeamish as she had when Kataro had asked her assistance with his injured claw, she did as he said. His eyes still searching the road, Hathel took a deep breath. Warned by that, Cara tightened her grip. The wood snapped and Hathel grunted. She looked into Hathel’s sweat-streaked face and he managed a strained smile in response.
“Watch the road! I still need to remove this and slow the bleeding.”
Cara nodded. She felt the building of a new enchantment as Hathel murmured softly to himself.
“They’re coming!” Cara pointed at several familiar-looking riders, and three seabirds. She started forward, but Halprin gestured down the road, away from the city.
“He wants us to get back on the road, I think.”
“Good! Go! I’ll be right behind you.”
  
No one spoke much as they joined up. Cara took pains to “count noses” as she had aboard ship. There, she had done it to distract herself. This time, she did it in earnest. Everyone looked tired but they bore only traces of human-colored blood. Halprin and Fania studied her in turn, probably looking for sign of injury. The seabirds cried down greetings. Kassis added a hurried apology for continuing to chase a serpent-hawk and leaving his responsibility but even he didn’t pause in his flight.
Ironically, Hathel and her mare were the only ones injured. An arrow had grazed her horse’s neck just at the roots of her mane but the wound had already ceased bleeding. The only reaction from the mare was a frequent tossing and shaking of her head. Cara felt sorry for her but she felt even sorrier for the physician. No one so much as slowed as they met, and Hathel did not ask them to. Several made concerned sounds but no one offered help as he dressed his own wound. That didn’t seem fair. Still, no one better than himself to do it, and no time to spare.
Hathel appeared to take it in good humor. He called to Halprin, “Who was to draw whose fire?”
His friend laughed and clapped Hathel on his sound arm. Then he nodded up the road and spurred his horse to a full gallop.
Their horses took the southwest trail in long strides but the seabirds above them matched their speed effortlessly. Cara knew that they could have flown faster still if they had traveled alone. Nonetheless, the speed of their party was very great. Abandoned cottages and barns flashed by as the sun sank forward toward the horizon. Cara looked around her in mingled hope and fear: Which would appear first? Mathwy and his men, or advance scouts of the Shadow?
  
Halprin didn’t permit them to stop until dusk. The company rode off the road and into the trees for a few minutes. After a moment’s search, they dismounted at a small pond to rest their mounts and give them a chance to drink. Halprin conferred briefly with the three seabirds and then they took to the air, each in a different direction. 
Kassis returned first, reporting movement a mile further along their path--horsemen that might well be Mathwy and his men, for their surcotes bore the red and white ensign of the Sword. Kataro and Kalapa returned from the north and east with a different kind of report. The army of the Shadow was on the move behind them, burning a path to the great seaport of Dath-Sheeda through the surrounding farmland. The two had seen a few scouts moving in their direction, but no large contingent of werewrights or other Shadow followers were close. They could only guess if the scouts knew where they were. Kataro ventured that they were more likely just checking the section of road closest to the city.
After a brief discussion with the other enchanters, Halprin remounted and then gently eased his sword out of its sheath. The others did the same. At his nod, the company began to creep cautiously in the direction of the riders Kassis had seen. Cara grasped her knife hilt with a trembling hand and stared nervously into the shadowy trees. Her head ached with the effort of sorting branches from shadow, and looking for riders who were not yet in view. In her head echoed and re-echoed the same words, Let it be Mathwy! Let it be Mathwy!
They had not gone more than a few paces when it occurred to her that she might as well be holding the Discerning Stone in her other hand. Her nerves were so taut that she jumped when Halprin called out.
“Mathwy! Here!” He waved his sword at the leader of a small company of men picking their way along the tree-choked path, and then spurred his horse toward them. One of their number called out frantically, “‘Ware! Serpent-hawk!”
The enchanter reined hastily to one side, looking up where the warrior was pointing. Timor grabbed Lamar’s arm, and pointed. The pair reached for their bows.
Cara glanced hurriedly into the trees, but her attention was on the two chains tangled about her neck. Finally freeing the Discerning Stone chain from the chain of the necklace, Cara glanced toward Mathwy and the other warriors Halprin had asked to meet them. For an instant she saw a broad and powerful warrior with blond hair that hung to his shoulders, not at all like the dark-haired Halprin. Then her fingers slid from the chain to the Discerning Stone itself. The resemblance to a warrior faded.
She shrieked, “Halprin!” She was too late.

 
3-Survivors
  
Dark red ribbons of smoky fire poured from Rabada’s hands and writhed toward the enchanter. Halprin flinched and gestured at the fire with his hand. The fiery threads fell to earth, leaving only sparks and acrid smoke to foul the air. Halprin shouted aloud and gestured toward Rabada. She cursed.
Those who had been spell-cloaked to mimic Halprin’s warriors now filled Cara with horror. Werewrights, eyes blood-colored like the hounds of the sorceress, charged the company with drawn swords and maces, or loosed crossbow quarrels with the unfeigned delight of the cruel who see easy victory.
The three Fenroi themselves bounded forward between werewright ponies, their ghost-thin shapes edged with reflected red from a new swarm of fire threads. One hound, perhaps all, leaped toward Fania and her warrior. Then Cara’s view was blocked as Hathel slammed into her from the right, reining his horse’s shoulder purposefully against the shoulder of her own mount and away from the charging werewrights. He called out, “Kassis! Guard the Outworlder!” Then, he was gone.
A man screamed, the sound chillingly loud over the clang of weapons and grunts and moans about her. Two werewrights headed towards her. With one end of the chain wrapped firmly about her wrist, Cara swung the Discerning Stone in a tight arc, hoping the werewrights might be as wary of it as the Fenroi had been.
Kassis flew past her in a white blur, and rushed into the face of the closest werewright. Cara turned her mount to face the other werewright and spurred toward it--though every instinct cried out that she should be heading in the opposite direction. She flinched at the sound of a passing arrow, only realizing that it was fired by one of the Elders when the werewright before her tumbled from his saddle.
Given no new command, Cara’s horse continued forward. Something was on fire to her right. The sight of the flames prodded Cara into motion. She reined left away from the fire, and tried to turn back toward Kassis, with only a dim idea in which direction he was.
A tall rider blocked her path. Cara reined in so swiftly that her horse half-reared and nearly threw her. She was still fighting for her balance, when her thoughts caught up with the instinctive movements of her hands. Rabada.
Help!
The sorceress smiled and nodded in a caricature of greeting. She muttered and her hand darted like a serpent’s head. More of the fiery ribbons of destruction crackled to life and flew toward Cara, and Cara made a desperate swipe at the leading edge of the swarm with the Discerning Stone. She could hardly believe it when the ribbons splintered and flew up into sparks, then died into a smoky fume that made her eyes water. Coughing, barely able to breathe or see, Cara tried to turn the mare away.
She glimpsed the white blur of a seabird as it skimmed over the back of a rider-less werewright pony, then wheeled and dived toward a dark form writhing on the ground. Then Rabada came back into her view, flinging more ribbons off to her side in the general direction of an Elder. The Elder’s horse reared and plunged away, bugling in pain or rage. Without a glance in that direction, Rabada rode toward the werewright’s pony, to snatch up the small crossbow hanging by the empty saddle. She reached for one of the bolts in the pouch but her eyes were on Cara.
Cara threw her knife at the sorceress. Cheered for a moment to find that she had successfully loosed the blade at all, her mood changed a split second later as the knife’s handle hit Rabada a glancing blow.
The sorceress laughed. A new barrage of fire ribbons burst from her fingertips. Cara fragmented the fiery threads with another desperate sweep of the Discerning Stone. She caught a glimpse of the sorceress thrusting the quarrel into place then pulling back the heavy string. Choking again on fumes Cara tried to back her horse out of range of another attack.
A shadow swept close by her head, followed by a flash of dusk-dimmed white. Reacting to the proximity of the serpent-hawk, Cara began to swing the chain of the stone again. Metal flashed and she felt a sharp pain in her wrist. The Stone flew up and away from her like a glittering blue comet. She half-expected to see her hand go with it, but the pain came from the bite of the stone’s chain as it was severed.
Cara leaped down from her horse, and went after the stone. As she dodged the flying hooves of a warhorse, her plan to grab the stone and get right back on the mare seemed far more suicidal than she had guessed it would be while still mounted.
The Discerning Stone firmly in her grasp, Cara tried to scramble to her feet. Someone’s hand gripped her by the shoulder and shoved her back to her knees. Claws sank into her flesh. Simultaneously, she felt the chain of the seabird necklace bite into her throat as the werewright yanked on it. A shriek blasted her ears, and the grip on her shoulder loosened. With a relieved smile, Cara tried once more to stand.
Rabada was waiting for her, her hand again pulling back the crossbow string. Cara backed away from the woman helplessly, knowing she could do nothing to protect herself. At the moment she guessed the sorceress was releasing the quarrel, she dropped to the ground. Something white dropped along with her--a seabird. Kassis. He fluttered and clawed to right himself, revealing darkness under the wing nearest to her.
Cara forgot Rabada and even the clangs and shouts of battle about her, as she scrambled toward the crumpled ruin of feathers and blood. Wanting desperately to help but knowing there was nothing she could do, she reached out to the quivering body. Kassis tottered upright and looked past her, calling out feebly in his own tongue. He tried to salute in the manner of his kind, then fell and lay still.
Cara gazed in the direction in which Kassis had looked, but saw nothing. Confusion, grief and inexplicable awe were still vying to control her when hands grabbed her right upper arm and left elbow. Someone yanked her upright and nearly flung in the direction of a horse. She shrieked as the hands gripped her about the waist and lifted her towards the saddle. She was on her own mare before she saw Harone run past. His face grim, the young scholar mounted and then led her horse and a rider-less one through the trees.
Cara rode with no awareness of their path, her mind flinching from yet drawn to the image of the dying seabird. Why had he looked past her like that? What had he said?
At last she stirred and looked about and behind her. Their flight continued but, to her intense relief, Rabada was nowhere to be seen, nor were any of her followers. One rider supporting another crashed through the undergrowth just ahead. New questions tore through chaotic images from the attack. Was that Halprin slumped forward in the saddle ahead? Whose horse was without its rider? Why hadn’t Rabada killed her as she knelt beside Kassis?
Hoof beats sounded from behind. Was the sorceress chasing them? Cara looked over her shoulder. Only the dark blurs of Elders on horseback followed them through the shadowy trees, their number impossible to count in the growing dark. Looking up, Cara drew a relieved breath. Two white blurs, Kataro and Kalapa, flew above them.
But where were Rabada and her werewrights? While she had only seen snatches of the battle, Cara had a gut feeling that they had lost and were running, and that meant they were probably being chased. How close was the sorceress? How had they managed to get away, even temporarily? Was that Halprin up ahead? What had Kassis seen?
  
It wasn’t long before they were free of the trees, riding in twilight deepening to night toward a broad stream. Cold water splashed up Cara’s legs as her mount leaped in then clambered up the other, wooded bank. Only then did those about her slow their pace. The horses were blowing hard and sweat foamed on their hides, but even Cara knew they dared not stop yet.
Going on at little more than a stumbling walk, they rode for nearly an hour through pathless forest, until they came to an abandoned building. Slowly disintegrating half-timbering rose from the stone base. The lower parts of the walls were still sound, though most of the roof was gone and the door hung from one hinge. As they dismounted and led the horses inside, Cara noticed that the stars were out but there was little light for it was the dark of the moon.
She hurried over to the man they were laying by the most intact wall. Someone struck a light, and a torch flared to life. The wounded man was Halprin, just as she had feared. He was almost unrecognizable. His face was crisscrossed with blackened and bloody burn marks, with similar marks on his shoulders and upper chest, showing through rags of charred clothing. He was unconscious, but Cara could read intense pain in his scarred face and hear it in each moan.
Hathel and Kalapa were nearby sorting through herbs and other medical supplies, their faces grave.
She knelt beside Halprin, feeling as helpless as she had before with Kassis. Yet she couldn’t turn away from him. She desperately wanted to help, but felt there was nothing she could do. At last, she reached out and clasped his hand in hers. The tension of his fingers told her all too well the agony he must be suffering, but somehow she made herself hold on.
“Lady Cara?”
Cara looked up to see Harone standing over her, his face worn with fatigue. Blinking back tears, she asked, “Is he dying?”
The young man shrugged. “I don’t know. He shouldn’t be moved further, shouldn’t have been on horseback these last couple of hours, untreated.” Harone sighed. “All I know is we can’t stay here long. I overheard Hathel and Kalapa. Neither have the herb he needs. I don’t know. Here, come away.”
He held out his hand to her and helped her to rise. “Hathel must tend to his wounds.”
Hathel immediately knelt in her place, murmuring words she couldn’t understand. The tickle and itch under her skin told her it was enchantment. Close beside them, Timor planted the butt of a torch in a gap between two stones, and then hurriedly began arranging kindling on the stony floor. Golden in the flickering light, Hathel’s hand hovered over Halprin’s throat as he whispered. Soft chimes sounded in Cara’s ears, and an elusive scent tickled her nose.
The physician drew a ragged breath, then spoke again, his words gasped now and his hand quivering as it shifted toward his friend’s chin and mouth. At last, he dropped his hand, and leaned back.
Cara relaxed with him as the sensations fled. She frowned to herself. Halprin warned her to watch out for sign of spells being cast, but she had felt nothing. She grimaced. The headache. It had been that ache in her head. Why on earth had she expected the telltale signs of a spell to resemble that of an enchantment? At least she would know for next time.
Kalapa alighted beside the slumping physician, and he looked up with a start. He took the herbs the seabird was grasping and, tearing them into bits, tossed them into a small pan Timor had just filled with water. Then he turned back toward his patient and, with gentle movements, began cutting free the blackened remains of the enchanter’s tunic. Cara turned away and looked around her into the dimness of the ruin.
“Harone, where’s Lamar?”
Although she already expected the answer, Harone’s face confirmed it before he spoke. “When Rabada started toward you and Kassis, Lamar tried to stop her. I didn’t see anyone else close enough to help. Those deadly ribbons ... they killed him before anyone could get there.”
Cara stared through her hands. The screaming. Hythe, Cona, Kassis, now Lamar ... How many more? She forced herself to look back toward the silent man. “What happened to Rabada? Where did she go? And why?”
Harone looked over his shoulder at their unconscious leader. Hathel still knelt by him, working with quiet patience to remove dangling bits of burned flesh and cloth from the man’s throat and chest. The solution in the shallow pan had yet to come to a boil. Harone turned back.
“After her fire ribbons hit, Lord Halprin was unconscious, I guessed maybe dead. Hathel bade me hold his horse’s reins and protect him. When Lamar was, when he died, I was fighting off one of Rabada’s followers. One of the werewrights. Halprin yanked the reins out of my hand before I was aware. Lady Cara …”
Harone shook his head, and stared through  her with awe in his eyes. “I … I saw him ... Rabada tried to toss more of the fire ribbons at him, but he flung up his bare hand and they changed into streams of water! Rabada herself gasped at the sight. Then she and her followers were ... gone. However, I think it was too much for him. He ...”
Harone looked away, but not before Cara had seen tears in his eyes. She touched his arm, wanting to comfort him but not being sure how or what words to say. He didn’t notice. Walking to the doorway, Harone leaned against the frame, and looked up silently at the night sky.
Cara was still debating whether to go to him, when a voice sounded from behind her. “Leave him be for a while, Lady Cara.”
She turned toward Gedra and nodded. “You okay? I mean, are you hurt?”
The warrior shook her head, and looked about to speak, but Cara interrupted anything she might have said. “Lady Fania! Her warrior, uh …”
“Ebris,” the warrior supplied. “He was killed by one of the Fenroi.” Gedra bit at her lower lip, and added, “About the Latimin enchanter, I wish I could tell you and I was looking right at her. She gestured and ripped Rabada’s sword right out of her hand. Then, well, then Lady Fania and Rabada both dissolved with the hounds into blue mist.” The woman glared at Cara.
Cara recoiled from her fury instinctively until she read defensiveness and bewilderment in the warrior’s eyes. She’s telling it exactly like it was and she’s wondering what I’ll say.
“I believe you.”
Gedra nodded. A flicker of a smile touched her lips. “Good for you--I don’t believe me. Have to check outside. Besides, you have two friends calling for you there.”
Gedra pointed. The two seabirds were perched on an ancient, broken wagon in the corner.
Kataro and Kalapa! She had forgotten them with everything else happening at once. Cara hurried over.
“Are you all right?” She was a little afraid to hear their answer.
Kalapa’s voice was surprisingly calm. “I’ve lost a couple of primaries from one wing. Grazed by a bolt, I think. Kataro’s sulking.”
Kataro paused in the midst of preening to look toward her. Cara could feel the glare he was giving, by his silence.
Unperturbed, Kalapa continued, “He lost quite a patch on his back from one of those ribbons but the skin underneath is nearly untouched. For some reason, having some feathers singed has hurt his pride. Gedra tended us ...” Kalapa paused and looked sadly at Cara. “Lamar’s dead. Kassis, too?”
Cara whispered, “Yes. I’m so sorry! He died trying to protect me from Rabada. Kalapa? I, think maybe he saw Alphesis.” She looked toward her but, in the dark building, she could only see two pale shapes.
Kalapa answered, “That was always his great hope.”
After a long silence, Kataro asked, “How is Lord Halprin, and the others?”
Cara shook her head. “Not great. Guess you know he’s really badly burned. Harone says he needs rest and he shouldn’t be moved if he’s to live. But they’ll be after us and, you know, I think we’re off the path Halprin said Mathwy will be riding to meet us. I mean we had to get across that stream but I’m sure that wasn’t in Halprin’s plans. Kalapa, you know better than me about not having the medicine Hathel wanted to use.”
Memories prompted by her last words prevented her from saying anything else. The werebane Kataro managed to find had saved her life just over a week ago. If only someone could gather this plant from the surrounding trees! She looked at the seabirds, longing for some kind of advice or assurance. If they had any they would have already spoken.
Kataro answered her unspoken plea, “We must leave it to Alphesis, Little Chick. Why don’t you try to get some rest? There’s straw in this corner though I’m afraid it’s a bit damp and musty. And there’s enough to do guard without you.”
Cara tried to protest but they would have none of it. She lay down but sleep was impossible. Her shoulder throbbed where the claws of the werewright had dug into her skin. The images and sounds of the battle returned to her each time she closed her eyes. Yet when she opened them, she could not help but turn to look toward Halprin, often hearing a soft moan or Hathel’s gentle voice speaking soothingly to his injured friend.
As the night stretched into one hour of tense darkness after another, she returned to Kassis’ curious actions just seconds before he died. She wondered what he had said, though she had no doubt to whom he had been speaking. She could only hope that Kassis had experienced Alphesis’ presence in his last moments. It would be good for them all about now.
Don’t go. I won’t. Words spoken, what felt like a lifetime ago. Cara sat up. He had said he wouldn’t go. Maybe he really hadn’t. She looked around the empty shell of the building, barely lit by the tiny fire near Halprin and Hathel. No sign of him but neither had there been any sign when Kassis spoke.
Hesitating a moment, Cara ran through all of their losses and needs, the danger that followed them, and the dim hope of being found by the real Mathwy. 
She whispered, “You know, we could really use some help.” Feeling a bit foolish, she settled back onto the straw. As she did so, her eyes caught a faint glimmer of blue-green fire from the stone where, forgotten all these hours, it lay beside her in the straw. Probably just her imagination. Still… Cara sighed and closed her eyes.

In the night a dream came, though only wisps of it lingered at waking. A great seabird flew about the ruined building in patient, never-ending circles and, where it flew, opal moonlight glimmered until the barn’s stone and half-timbering alike shone in its light.
By morning, a second dream supplanted the first. She was at the bottom of a peach-tinted winding staircase. Her friend, Lisa, was standing at the top, a badly sunburned baby in her arms. The crying baby was slipping from Lisa’s grip. When she tried to climb toward her friend, scorching fire crackled on the steps. She might almost make it; she might get to the top in time, if only the sea of serpent-hawks swirling below didn’t rise too swiftly.
  
Cara awoke to dim gray light, and the mustiness of damp straw tickling her nose. She scrambled upright, one hand clamped over her mouth and nose to hold in a telltale sneeze.
She looked at once toward Halprin, to find him sleeping so peacefully that for a moment she thought him dead. Hathel was sitting cross-legged close beside him. As she watched, the physician drew back his hood and glanced about, offering Cara a weary smile in exchange for the tentative wave of her hand. The sight blended into the last fragments of her dream. Rising as quietly as she could, Cara slipped over and crouched by Hathel’s side.
He murmured, “Alive. Mending well enough.” but his eyes betrayed far more than the words.
“Good.” The single word sounded as falsely positive as his had. Unwilling to press him for more, she asked, “Do you know what happened to Lady Fania?”
Hathel shook his head. “Only from Gedra. From her description, Fania pushed the Fenroi, uh, elsewhere. It is difficult to explain. Nearly impossible to do.” He added grimly, “Well, to do and also survive.”
“Swell.” Cara muttered. She touched the physician’s bandaged arm. “Anything I can do? Do you need rewrapping?”
Hathel managed a true smile at that. “Like a parcel? Perhaps, later.”
“Just tell me. Or whatever else.” Cara got to her feet, and turned to find the others.
Timor and Gedra sat on broken grain bins at the doorway, talking quietly but with eyes ever on the surrounding trees. Harone stood, with his head leaning on the sill of the open window on the far side of the barn. He looked like he had slept there all night. As she watched him, Harone stirred and straightened, then turned to look out the window as though he had never stopped looking out.
The seabirds were preening their feathers perched on a high window near the broken wagon. Cara went to speak to them. Just as they were exchanging greetings, Harone called out softly.
“Elders coming! Warriors. They’re heading straight for us. Quick! Look through this window.”
Almost together, Hathel and Cara cried out, “Are you sure?” “It may be Rabada again!”
Cara raced across the floor and grabbed up the stone. When she looked out, she felt she hardly needed its aid. She had no doubt the leading warrior was actually Mathwy. Strong and blond, like Rabada’s counterfeit, he made Cara think of a Viking on horseback.
The fugitives cheered as he rode past the window. He responded with a flash of white teeth and a comic bow. Cara sensed that Mathwy was no warrior to be taken lightly. Here was a man tough and reckless, yet with a look that spoke of resolute will. The men who followed him suited him well, experienced warriors from a valiant race.
Harone and Cara followed Hathel out through the door just as the small group of warriors appeared around the corner of the wall and came to a halt a few yards away. As Mathwy dismounted, he appeared to search for faces he did not find. His face lost the last trace of its smile.
Hathel went forward at once, and the two men clasped wrist to wrist. The other arrivals nodded their greetings toward the enchanter. Hathel nodded absently in their direction, but kept talking to Mathwy. The warrior growled. He pulled a small bag from his horse’s back and hurried inside, accompanied only by the enchanter.
As the other warriors dismounted, some inquired about conditions to the north and, particularly, the situation of Dath-Sheeda. Timor spoke for them all, his terse account supplemented by occasional words from Kataro with regard to the location of the Shadow army. When the fugitives were finished telling their tale, Mathwy’s people began. All through both accounts, eyes slipped to the vacant doorway then back to the person speaking.
Cara began to wonder if anyone was absorbing much information.
She wasn’t surprised to learn that Rabada engineered the delay in the warriors’ arrival. Mathwy’s people theorized that once the Daetaga took a bridge over the Nonz, Rabada rode on ahead in pursuit of Cara but encountered the mearis first. They confirmed she had used the same subterfuge on them that she was later to use against Halprin’s party. Mathwy and his people escaped with less harm, being greater in number and nearer a stream. Three men and one horse received minor burns but the real damage was in the delay that the attack caused. They were forced well out of their way along the stream banks until they were sure they lost Rabada. Circling back in the dead of night, they feared most that the two parties might miss each other in the dark.
Frenor continued the account, “As we debated whether to camp where we were or continue seeking for you, Mathwy caught sight of one of the seabirds in your party beckoning us to follow. We rode for three hours in a direction away from our original trail, but Mathwy refused to listen to our demands to return to the path. We tried to tell him it could be any seabird we followed, but he insisted it was one from your party.
“When dawn came, the seabird disappeared and, though we circled around about, we could find no trace of him. By then some of us were convinced that we had seen another counterfeit of Rabada, while others contended that she has not the power to counterfeit the image of the seabird. Mathwy bellowed above us that he at least would continue in the same direction that our guide had gone, if only to leave us for a quieter part of the countryside. We had not ridden a half hour before we found ourselves here, though many of us would like to know why your guide played us such a trick.”
A murmur of agreement from Mathwy’s other warriors followed Frenor’s words.
Gedra answered, “No seabird from our party came to you last night. There were three in number who traveled with us, but one is dead and the other two perch there before you, injured.”
Mathwy’s people muttered amongst themselves, looking askance at the two seabirds. Kataro confirmed Gedra’s claim, “Neither I nor Kalapa stirred from this building last night.”
Cara turned toward Kalapa and grinned.
“Intriguing,” the seabird said, her head cocked to one side inquisitively, as she studied the exultant expression on Cara’s face.
Cara responded, “Hey, you don’t know the half of it! Wish you guys knew about high-fiving.” She laughed to herself, “Guess it wouldn’t make any difference.”
Frenor called out, “Timor! Gedra! We brought your mail!”
“Mail call, huh? That’s…” Cara turned toward the warrior who had just spoken, adding, “Oops! That kind of mail. Every time I think I’ve had all the culture shock I’m gonna, something like this happens.”
“What?” Harone queried.
Cara glanced toward him, and shrugged. “Don’t get me started.” 
She watched as Frenor removed two leather-wrapped bundles from a packhorse, transferring each bundle in turn to one of the two warriors.
“Bet you wish you’d had that on earlier,” Cara commented to Timor.
He shrugged, but Gedra answered for both of them, “We needed to move swiftly when we started north. Mail is good protection but it’s heavy.” She turned to Frenor. “The other is Lamar’s?”
The warrior nodded grimly, and Gedra sighed. “We didn’t have time to bring him along.”
Timor added, “Now we do, or at least time to have the rites where he and the seabird are. I doubt we will be moving today. Gedra, Magris? Want to ride back with me?”
One of Mathwy’s other warriors added, “Captain told us to scout about. We need fresh information on how close that army is.”
“And Rabada,” Cara ventured.
The warrior nodded. “I’ll go with-”
At that moment, Mathwy and Hathel walked out of the door. Everyone stopped speaking and turned to them. Arms akimbo, Mathwy looked around him then roared, “What’s all the staring for? Isn’t it reasonable if Hathel and I go into a building we’ll shortly be coming out?”
He smiled and added in a quieter tone, “He’ll be strong enough to travel by afternoon. Now, shoo! Someone had better be on patrol or I’ll want to know why!” He scowled fiercely at his men. Two or three of them murmured a few words and escaped to their horses.
Satisfied, the mearis captain was turning to speak to Gedra when a voice interrupted. Much to Cara’s dismay, it was hers.
“Excuse me, Mathwy. Hathel and Harone said he shouldn’t be moved for a couple of days. Don’t you think you better-?”
Her voice trailed off as Mathwy came to stand in front of her. He grinned but said nothing. He was even more fiercely alarming up close. The challenge in his dark-rimmed green eyes counter-pointed his savage smile with its building blocks of sharpened incisors and its frame of wild beard and moustaches braided roughly together. Cara resisted the impulse to creep behind Harone or Gedra who stood closest to her. The latter had once reminded her of an awakening bear. Mathwy was more like a force of nature. 
The mearis captain looked her up and down belligerently. Glancing at Harone, he jabbed a finger toward Cara. “What’s she doing here?”
Cara interrupted furiously, “I’m Cara Marshall, the Outworlder. I’ve come ...”
“... to give me advice I don’t need.” He glanced again at Harone. “Sorry.”
Turning back to Cara, he added, “We’ll be putting Lord Halprin in that wagon, my lady. Gedra and Magris shall have it repaired by afternoon or I’ll want to know why.” He scowled at Cara again. “Is that to your liking?”
When Cara only nodded, the warrior gave a snort and turned on his heel to stalk back through the broken door. Cara stared after him speechlessly, so angry that she could think of nothing to say. Harone and Gedra had walked away, so she turned toward the seabirds.
Kalapa flew to a nearby branch, and Cara said to her, “I can’t believe anyone could be that rude.” She glared past Kalapa, at the doorway.
“I’m sorry, Cara. I should have warned you but there were too many more important things happening. Mathwy is something of a ... He has a certain notoriety.”
“Notoriety?” Kataro asked. “Yes, his chief hobby is the fine art of quarreling. That doesn’t make him notorious. In a certain way, he was paying Cara a compliment, by offering to argue it out with her.”
“Of course.” Kalapa responded, with a meaningful glance toward Cara. “Why would that make him notorious for stirring up arguments?”
Kataro nodded, evidently missing the irony in Kalapa’s tone. He continued, “The ... uh, snort was probably disappointment because you didn’t yell back at him, Cara, about the wagon or something.” Kataro added mildly, “Grant him this, Kalapa--he addressed her as ‘my lady’.”
Cara sputtered, “Big deal. I notice he was nice enough to Harone.”
Kataro laughed. “Exactly! He offered the debate to you, the Outworlder. In any case, Mathwy is a cunning warrior, and a staunch friend of the king’s and of Halprin’s. Our journey could hardly be in better hands.”
  
True to his word, Mathwy had the wagon ready by afternoon. They fastened Lamar and Halprin’s horses to it with a makeshift harness from rope and bits of leather found in the building plus the saddle girths. After loading the wagon with straw, Mathwy and Hathel gently lay Halprin in its midst. Then everyone mounted and started riding at a fast walk, heading southwest.
To everyone’s relief, Halprin seemed better. He was conscious at times throughout the day, but he rarely spoke except to Hathel who kept his horse close to the wagon’s side. Cara could clearly see the pain in the enchanter’s ravaged face. During the early part of their ride, Kalapa flew beside Cara, a little awkwardly due to her damaged wing. She seemed intent on keeping Cara talking about anything. Gratefully, Cara tried to respond in kind.
By mid-afternoon, Mathwy’s warriors caught up with the news that Rabada apparently was not following them. No one had seen a trace of her.
More important was the news Kataro brought--a second army had crossed the Nonz Ponta Bridge and turned southwest. Unless they could increase their speed in the next couple of days, they might be caught from behind. The Shadow’s plan seemed to be to neutralize the men and ships at Dath-Sheeda with the first army, while the second army swept toward the capital.
As soon as he’d finished making his report to Mathwy, Kataro joined Cara and Kalapa near the wagon. He asked Hathel about Halprin’s condition, and then turned to glare at Kalapa.
“We agreed this morning that you were to ride on the wagon frame. Your wing needs time to mend.”
Kalapa was politely apologetic. “I was just keeping Cara company.” She turned to wink saucily at Cara. “Look who’s giving advice. I’ve been gliding along at little more than a walking pace, while you’ve been out rambling all over the countryside. You’re so out of breath you can hardly speak.”
Cara laughed. “Maybe you both should take a break.”
“Cara’s right. Kalapa, why don’t you go sit with Kataro on the wagon? I’ll chat with Cara, if she’ll permit me.”
The Outworlder turned to see that Harone had approached while the seabirds were talking. Eyeing him a bit warily, she nodded.
He gave her a rather odd smile, and then murmured, “Thank you, I think. I’ve postponed this for the last two days, telling myself that now, in the middle of so many dangers was no time ... Well, I came over here to beg your forgiveness for breaking into your chamber at the guesthouse. Moreover, for all the things I believed about you. And said to others.”
Cara smiled in spite of herself. “None of which I heard. I never even got a real look at my room. I don’t even know how you broke in.”
Harone gave her an embarrassed laugh, “The window. A very poor job I made of it, too. Candles everywhere!” He sighed, the cheerful mood disappearing as quickly as it had come. “At any rate, you were never at fault for their deaths. I was.”
Cara gaped at him. “That’s crazy! You were on the other side of the continent, across an ocean!”
“Exactly.” The young man waved her new protest into silence. “Don’t you see? If I had been there, they might still be alive. If I hadn’t gone to the Throne to study, my father would have had no need of an apprentice.”
“Bran? Give me a break!”
Harone stared at her in confusion, and then shook his head. “I don’t understand Outworlder. But if you’re trying to tell me I’m wrong, I’m afraid I must disagree with you, Outworlder or not.”
Cara started to object furiously, “Just because-” She stopped and, after a moment, murmured, “Kataro said you had, well, a change of heart after going to the Throne. I gather Alphesis told you I wasn’t to blame?”
Harone nodded miserably. “Yes. Lady Cara, I’d like to think that, given time, I would have concluded that for myself.”
“Did he say who was?”
“What?”
“Who was to blame, you know.”
Harone sighed, “Yes. Like I told you, he said the Fenroi--and the fact Braznar left a door open. That’s why-”
Her nod silenced him. She mumbled, “Nearly exactly what he said to me. You know, I remember reading somewhere, or maybe it was in a movie ...”
At Harone’s blank look, Cara shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. To translate so to speak the point is … If God, uh, Alphesis says it’s not your fault and in spite of that you insist it is, then you’re calling him a liar.” She grinned. “Don’t know about you but I’m not brave enough to-” She stopped speaking and looked down, away from Harone’s intent gaze.
“Lady Cara? I think I understand! Is something wrong?”
Cara lifted her head, and then lifted a hand as well. “Yeah. No. It’s just … I’ve been doing it, too.”
“Blaming yourself?” Harone gasped. “But I just told you, I don’t blame you any more. No one does!”
“Yeah, not even Alphesis.” Cara wiped a stray tear from her cheek and tried to smile. “Hoo, boy, I feel like an idiot. Going to tell you all about it and here I am … Look, let’s talk about something else. Okay?”
“Hm.” Harone studied her for a minute, and then smiled. “Granted. At the risk of insulting you …” He shook his head and laughed. “No. Perhaps, not!”
“What?” Cara asked, smiling back at him. The speed with which he changed his mind intrigued her.
Harone made a show of sighing elaborately, though there was still a hint of a smile on his face. “I am going to regret this. Forgive me, my lady, but am I right to think you know nothing about fighting or weapons?”
“What?” Cara said again, though with an entirely different intonation. That is about the last thing.
“Well, Alphesis knows I wasn’t watching you every minute of the fighting, but …” Harone shook his head, “Never mind. Oh, here’s your knife.” He pulled the small blade from one of his saddlebags.
Cara took the knife from him sheepishly. “You saw me throw it, did you?”
The young man nodded with a face that superficially appeared serious, but Cara could see a different emotion in his eyes. He answered courteously, “You did strike her.”
Cara rolled her eyes, and grinned. “Oh, stop it! Just laugh and get it over with a’ready!”
Obediently and with evident relief, Harone did so.
“Glad I’m so amusing,” Cara murmured, trying to look stern and knowing she had failed. “So, was there a reason why you decided to poke fun at me?”
“Poke?” Harone shook his head, and responded, “Actually, yes. I’m not a mearis warrior, but perhaps I could give you some advice-”
“On not getting myself killed from just plain stupidity?”
The young man shrugged and ventured an open smile. “Not the way I was about to word it but that is the gist. I could make some suggestions as we ride. Later, whenever there’s time, we could practice some basic defensive moves.”
Cara nodded. “You’ve got yourself a pupil.”
“Good.” Harone’s brief smile faded. He added soberly, “At the conference, I warned you that I wished to speak with you when we had opportunity. Before we begin any lessons, I need to have you instruct me on something even graver in nature. Lady Cara, what happened those two days you were with my parents?”
Cara opened her mouth and closed it, giving a great swallow in the process. Harone said nothing, his eyes locked on her and his jaw rigid as if bracing himself for battle or for torture. Perhaps, both.
Images--many poignant in their innocent beauty--flashed through her mind, each tainted now with horror and the pain of helpless loss. This is going to be awful.
She stammered a beginning, “Rabada and the hounds were chasing me.” She shook her head, and drew a quivering breath. “No. Before that…”

4- Assassin
  
At Harone’s urging Cara tried to describe everything she could remember until Bran’s appearance on the loft ladder. The words she said seemed nearly too hard to speak much of the time, the feelings they brought forth too painful for either of them to express. Several times, Harone supplemented her descriptions, or answered her own questions with memories of his own. She began her account reluctantly but, by the time she was finished, Cara realized just how healing the conversation had been--and for both of them.
The party reached the top of a shallow ridge, just as the twin floods of their words ebbed into silence.
Harone murmured, “Thank you, for …” He drew a great breath. “For sharing your time with them.” Looking left, past Cara, he pointed. “The road to Fiori, I think. Once we’re down this slope, we’ll start making better time.”
Cara nodded, commenting in a quavering voice, “I win.” Pointing off to their left and some distance behind them, she added, “I spy a Shadow army.”
Harone twisted about in the saddle, and started to correct her, “Ours.” Swearing, he added, “And theirs.”
Cara looked beyond the glitter of mail that originally caught her attention, to a patch of darkness almost directly behind them. The forces of the Shadow crept along the countryside like a mottling disease of dull red and black, leaving behind the fire and smoke of burned out farms and destroyed villages.
Cara remembered the village they had stayed in just a few nights ago, north of the Nonz. In all likelihood right now, it was only ash and shimmering heat. She turned away from the distant fires to look again at the army of the Elders, their mail and helmets glittering in the sun.
Everyone had stopped at the top of the ridge, to stare back eastward. She could hear Mathwy fuming to himself about missing the battle, but Cara was desperately glad that their path took them away from it. Envisioning the deadly struggle soon to take place made her sick at heart.
Amidst his fussing, Mathwy sent Kataro to report all they knew of the Shadow’s movements. Though the seabird swooped low into the trees through which they had just ridden, he had not flown far before other white shapes soared into the air from that mass of men and intercepted him.
Soon Kataro was flying back to report that the king had received a thought message about the second invading army from the Stone brought from Ponta Hold at its fall. He gave orders that warriors and enchanters move east from the south tributary regions of the Nonz to intercept this new invasion force and destroy it. Many enchanters rode with them. If they were successful, they hoped to push on and break the siege at Dath-Sheeda. Still, they were glad of the fresh information from Mathwy and sent messages of thanks and warning to hasten on as quickly as they could.
Harone shook his head. “They were closer than I knew, maybe any of us knew. A bit more and we might have been caught between them.”
Cara nodded. Her thoughts were on the smoke and the multiple fires its presence betrayed. Villages. Farms. Hundreds of people homeless. Taken in by the cities to which they fled of course, but their crops, and shops and grazing land gone. Their livelihoods.
What would become of them? Did they have homeless shelters here? Kataro understood the term when she said it in Kalapa’s shop. What would happen if the cities themselves were taken or destroyed? That was one thing they never had to contend with back home. Well, not until recently.
She came out of her reverie to find Harone studying her quizzically.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Am I? Oh, I suppose I was. I was wondering which is the real Cara.”
She blinked, wondering if he were serious. “What do you mean?”
“You seemed so different at our meeting aboard the ship. So in control, confident, like those of the Order. That befits you, since you go to do a great thing that even enchanters would wish to avoid if such a task befell them. I have never yet seen you look fearful or hesitant about performing your task. From that, I judged you cold, emotionless.”
Cara gave an embarrassed laugh. “Oh, yeah? I was real emotionless when you grabbed me and shoved me toward the mare.”
Harone smiled, but went on, “Yes. However, later, last night, I could see your grief for Kassis and Lamar, and your concern for Halprin. Just now, the expression on your face. I saw sorrow when you looked at the two armies, not fear of being caught between them or indifference. You’re mourning for people you don’t know and never will know. So I ask which one of these are really you?”
She shrugged. “Beats me. Neither one, I guess. At that conference, it was more like someone else was talking—like playacting, you know. Saying all that stuff, discussing what I have to do, but not like it was real. Grief’s closer ...” She touched Harone’s hand, adding, “Especially for Hythe and Cona. Yes, I’m worried about all the people being burned out back there but the main thing I feel is the one you say you don’t see. Fear.”
He gave her a dubious look. “You hide it well.”
Cara laughed. “I don’t know how. I’m afraid of riding across bare country pursued by werewrights, and I’m afraid of creeping through a forest where I can’t see what might be lurking. I’m afraid of looking for the caskets and I’m afraid of finding them,” She shrugged. “Or failing everyone because I can’t find them. I am absolutely terrified of meeting Rabada again, to say nothing of the other two. If they get clued in to what I’m up to, they aren’t going to let me just sail on in there.”
“Won’t a couple of the Order, enchanters you know, won’t they go with you?”
Cara shook her head gloomily. “I don’t think so. Alphesis said nothing about it. Kataro told me once that their tagging along might draw attention to what I’m doing. Besides, you remember at the meeting—Kalapa said that all the enchanters in Tethra could hardly hold their own against those three. I can’t expect them all to come with me.”
“I will come. I want to see Rabada destroyed.” Harone’s voice was controlled, but Cara felt the force of his hatred and craving for revenge like the cold slap of a salt wave. He stared straight ahead and his hand rested on the pommel of his sword.
Overwhelmed by the strength of his emotion, Cara decided it might be best to change the subject. “What will you do when it’s all over? Go back to Kalak?”
He looked back toward her. “What? Perhaps. How did you know I study with Kalak?”
Cara felt her cheeks grow hot. “Liricia told me. She’s a green who waits on the guesthouse. She said that Kalak wants you as his successor.”
His expression morose, Harone beat absently on the sword hilt with his fist as though angry with it. Cara was convinced he hadn’t heard a word she said.
“I don’t know what I’ll do. How can I go back to the life of the Isle after what has happened and what shall happen?”
He turned to her and added brusquely, “Excuse me. I must have a word with Mathwy.” Nudging his horse to a quick trot, he rode down the ridge toward those leading their party.
Cara watched him go thoughtfully. She said to herself, “Which one is the real Harone? Grad student or warrior? He sounds like he doesn’t know himself.”
  
As advised, they kept riding until sunset lest scouts overtake them. Silence spanned the length of the road close to their chosen campsite. Only the call of night birds and an occasional soft splash from an old well at the edge of the clearing came to their ears. Had battle been joined behind them or were two encamped armies facing each other, waiting for the dark of the moon or dawn to attack?
As soon as the wagon came to a halt, Halprin insisted upon getting down from it. Hathel went over and spoke quietly to him, urging him to stay where he was and conserve his strength.
Mathwy hurried over, bellowing as usual, “Hathel, if he wants to get up, let him do it! Would you want to be coddled like that? You’ll have him thinking he’s ill.”
Without waiting for Hathel to respond, Mathwy helped Halprin down. In spite of Mathwy’s grumbling, Cara could see that he was relieved by Halprin’s progress. Mathwy had hardly spoken during their ride that afternoon, which Cara suspected was a strange phenomenon for him.
Sitting now while they ate by the fire, Mathwy joked and grumbled, planned and reminisced so loudly that Cara began to wonder whether the noise might alert any nearby scouts of the Shadow. Remembering their confrontation that morning, she chose not to say anything. Mathwy would have to get his sport elsewhere.
Halprin made no effort to silence him. He leaned against a tree trunk between Hathel and Mathwy and spoke to no one. Even in the dim light of their small fire, Cara could see grimaces of pain appear and flee from his scarred face.
After everyone ate, the camp grew still as all but the watch settled down to sleep. Cara had insisted on a turn at watch along with the others, feeling it her duty, not having done so the previous night. She felt she had hardly closed her eyes before Magris shook her awake.
She got herself up promptly and walked a few paces in the direction in which she had seen the first guard settle. Coming to the low rim of a stone-edged well, Cara sat down with one leg dangling over the edge. Dim light from their one campfire played across the concentric stone rings, each only a bit lower than the next. The contrast of flickering light and shadow slid over the uneven surfaces of the loaf-sized stones, first revealing then hiding carved runes—one to each stone.
Wondering why the stones were lettered, she decided to ask Frenor when she woke him in three hours. No clock. How was she going to know when her watch was over? Cara glanced about the camp. Magris had not lain down. She crept over to him, and whispered, “I’ll be all right. Go to sleep.”
“Can’t,” the man answered, “Mathwy said he would flay my hide if I slept while you were on watch.”
Cara gaped at the man. He shrugged and then resumed his scrutiny of  the undergrowth. Filled with fury but lacking any outlet, Cara turned away from him. Once back at her post, she scowled into the darkness half-hoping for a werewright to appear so she could release her anger in action. She would keep the watch, whether or no. One good thing—being furious made it easy to stay alert.
  
Minutes crept by, each masquerading as an hour. The only movements were the wheeling of the stars and the slow moonset. She thought often of Kataro and Kalapa’s description that evening of the beauty and ancientry of the royal court of King Cybis. From there, her thoughts wandered to Harone as she tried to figure out why he had been so preoccupied that afternoon. Apparently, he felt torn between the scholarly life of the Throne and some option tied to his plans for revenge.
He talked to Mathwy. Is he thinking of training as a Sword knight? No. Macho warrior doesn’t fit with his educated background. An enchanter!
Cara stifled a gasp. She glanced toward Magris, hoping he hadn’t heard. No reaction.
Harone, an enchanter. He sure has reason enough. Kind of like Gedra. Even so, an enchanter? It fits him better than a stuffy professor but it’s creepy. Wait, maybe he can’t be one. Are enchanters trained to be like that or born that way? Gotta ask Kataro …
Something was rustling in the shrubs.
She grabbed her knife but Magris was faster. Swiftly fitting an arrow to his bow, he let fly. Cara heard a whirr and then a thump, followed by a gurgling sound. Magris dropped the bow and, drawing his sword, motioned for Cara to remain where she was.
No way! Mathwy thinks I can’t guard? Watch me.
Keeping the knife ready in one hand and the stone in the other, she crept after the warrior. She caught up with him just as he found the scout. The werewright lay on his back with the arrow through his throat, green blood bubbling from the wound and his fanged mouth, and venomous hatred in his eyes. His hand jerked as though to reach for a weapon, but Magris’ sword was swifter. Cara looked away hastily as the blade flashed down.
Magris knelt by the body but Cara turned back to camp. Her legs felt wobbly but she was determined that Mathwy wouldn’t suspect her horror. Even in the dim firelight Cara could tell where Mathwy was. Up now and grumbling to himself, he asked her what had happened. Cara swallowed and tried to speak steadily.
“Magris and I heard something in the shrubs. Magris shot him.”
Cara stopped abruptly, afraid to trust her voice further, but Magris stood behind her now and added, “Scout. No messages or anything else of importance.”
Mathwy nodded absently but he kept looking at Cara. “So you stood your watch after all, Lady Outworlder. Good. Nevertheless, I see Magris did the work. Next time, borrow a bow when it’s your turn to watch.” He gave them a grumbling goodnight and lay back down. Two of his men were already moving silently through the trees in opposite directions.
So now I’m acceptable as a guard. Only problem is I never want to do it again. She resumed her post along with Magris but all she could see the rest of that night was the face of the dying werewright.
  
They were up and ready to ride by sunrise. Mathwy’s two men had long since returned to report there was still no sign of Rabada or her followers. To which Mathwy had merely snorted. Cara was sure he felt as she did--Rabada must be close or they would have seen no scout.
She finished saddling her horse and looked for Kataro and Kalapa. Now might be a good time to ask about enchanter training. She called to them just as angry shouts burst through the camp. Mathwy was in fine form, easily out-bellowing Hathel.
Hathel fumed, “This is insane!”
“Insane?” Mathwy growled. “It makes no sense for him to ride in that wagon when he’s fit enough not to!”
“I’ll be the judge of whether he’s fit enough-”
“Do that, Lord Hathel! In the meantime, I judge that last night proved the Shadow is on our very heels! We leave the wagon now or you’ll have more than one patient to fuss over.”
“We’ll have one less, if you force him to ride!”
Cara took a few steps toward the pair. She marveled that Mathwy not only had the courage to argue with an enchanter but also seemed on the verge of winning. She was determined to take Hathel’s side, regardless of the mearis captain’s reaction. However, Halprin walked past her swiftly and his sudden approach stopped the argument.
“Peace! I will ride Calyx. We must make more speed if we are to outdistance Rabada and her werewright pack. And the king will want news only we can bring.”
Hathel opened his mouth as though to protest, but Halprin added quietly, “Peace, Scroll brother. The pain is less and I don’t ride on my face.”
Hathel looked at him doubtfully then turned to fetch Calyx’ saddle from the wagon.
Cara shook her head and turned back to the seabirds. “He isn’t well enough to ride. Kalapa, you’re an apothecary. Talk some sense into him! Look at him steadying himself with his hand on the wagon.”
Kalapa shook her head. “There’s nothing I can do. You heard. He knows the danger to himself, and also to us. Rest assured Halprin will ride into the capital on his own or not at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s not the way of Tethran warriors to give in to a wound no matter how severe and it is demeaning for a knight to ride in a wagon. Halprin would have prevented it yesterday but he was unconscious when we started and too weak later to protest.”
Cara shook her head in perplexity. “That’s crazy! What good will his pride to him if he kills himself?”
Kataro answered her, “It isn’t pride, Little Chick, not as you mean it. More discipline, and a focus elsewhere. I come from this world and yet, not being Tethran, I only dimly understand. You will just have to accept it. It’s part of his life and that of the Elders in general.”
Cara watched Halprin anxiously as they pressed forward. Often, she and Hathel were the only ones to see the enchanter clench tight his hand about the reins, his knuckles white, and then see its slow relaxing as the pain subsided. She watched him so closely and with such sympathy, that finally she could bear it no more and deliberately moved to the other side of the company.
For a while, Cara rode alone, for Kataro and Kalapa had both agreed to try to gather news of the battle, and Harone was still uncommunicative. Like Kataro in the Land of the Two Rivers, the seabirds flew at tree level through such wooded areas as they could find before taking to the heights. But when they returned, they had little to report beyond the fact that battle had been joined, for the distance was too great for even their keen eyes to make out details.
 
During the morning, they rode through farmland and pasturage, the margins of each plot of land often fringed with arbors of violet trees or lime-green shrubs that Cara did not recognize from her earlier travels. The Crown had yet to give evacuation orders here. Cara saw the occasional peasant with a team of ‘oxen’, evidently doing some late plowing. People walked slowly through fields here and there, laden with bags. Sowing seeds, Cara guessed, confirming her theory with an answering nod from one of Mathwy’s warriors.
Her company passed wagons on the rain-mired road, laden with barrels, boxes and canvas-wrapped objects the hidden contents of which served only to arouse her curiosity without satisfying it. She noted other activity near small buildings lining the road as well – crafters of various kinds--including one place somewhat larger than most of the others which stank. Gedra explained that it was a tannery, adding that sometimes travelers could not identify by the stench alone, given that cheese-makers were nearly as smelly. Most of the warriors laughed--with the exception of Magris who glared at his fellow fighter, betraying his own family birthright in the process.
This was Cara’s first real look at the Tethra of peacetime, and she found herself enjoying the sights. However, even here forges seemed to be doing more business than usual, armed patrols could be seen at times, and often people stopped them for news from the north. The scattered farms gave way to villages. These in turn grew to a sizable market town or two, the road they were following snarled between crowded houses and shops, wagons being loaded and emptied and small crowds of curious people. About an hour after they had ridden slowly through the second such town, Halprin turned and called for them to stop.
Cara turned to Harone and complained in a cautious murmur, “Now he stops. Why didn’t he let us stop back there in that last town? We could have eaten lunch at the inn. I guess they had one. And-”
“You could have walked through the market booths, and done some shopping.”
“Little un-PC, aren’t you?” Before Harone’s puzzled expression could mutate into a question, she added, “Yeah, I wouldn’t have minded looking around. So what?” She jumped down from the mare and began to stretch, then stopped. “Harone? What’s that?”
Cara pointed up past the mearis, which was gathering on a soft patch of bright grasses, to a vertical shape rising from beyond the hills south of the road. She glanced toward Harone. When he didn’t answer at once, she slipped through the horses and began to climb up the rugged embankment.
“Wait!” Harone hurried to her side, and stared up at the tower-like object rising from beyond the ridge. “Monument.” He murmured half to himself, “Sisters, maybe.”
Cara answered with a preoccupied glance and nod, then took a few more steps up toward the top of the road embankment. “Well, it’s not red, whatever it is. Let’s go see.”
Harone swore to himself but she chose to ignore him. She finished her climb to the crest, only to voice a cry of disbelief at the size of the monument and the number of people clustered about it. A split second later, the ring of steel being drawn whispered behind her. She spun toward the ominous sound. Harone was hastily sheathing his just-drawn weapon. He gave her a brief glare. Cara grinned in spite of herself.
“S’okay. Sorry I scared you.”
Harone shook his head, and permitted himself a tight smile. “You had better save us from something truly horrific before this is over.” He focused on the sight on the other side of the hill, and Cara turned back to it as well.
In the shallow valley before them, a small crowd of people was gathered about four huge vertical stones. The center one was beyond huge in dimensions--monumental hardly seemed fit to describe it. Column-like in shape, but fashioned so that it had three sides, it rose about fifty feet into the air, towering over its attendant trio of similarly shaped columns with word-stopping ease. The three outer stones were merely twice the height of the Peralike people threading their way around and between the stone works, weaving brightly colored cords.
Like May Pole dancers, but that is some pole! How did these guys build that?
Close to a small outer ring of more normal-sized boulders a hundred yards beyond the standing stones and the festive activities, several Elders sat upon their horses watching. One glanced in their direction. He grasped his closest companion’s arm then spurred his horse toward them, drawing his sword at the same time.
Cara took a backward step. She jumped as a powerful voice close behind her called out a laughter-laced greeting, “Prednis? Prednis, what in the name of the Three are you doing here?”
Cara and Harone didn’t need to look toward the person hastening past them and down the slope, to know the voice was Mathwy’s. The two watched as the horseman jumped from his mount and saluted with his sword. Sheathing it, he hurried forward to grasp Mathwy’s wrist even as Mathwy gripped his.
Cara grinned and glanced toward Harone. “What do you know? Mathwy has an actual friend.”
Harone shrugged. “Maybe. Fellow Sword knight. See the red cape and–”
She wasn’t sure if her companion finished his sentence or not, being distracted by the hand that fell on her shoulder. Cara stifled a gasp and looked toward the hand’s owner. It was Hathel, looking far from pleased. The enchanter frowned at the two and then glared at the mearis captain with an expression that was no less exasperated.
His voice was soft as usual, “Go back down to the others, my lady, Harone. I’ll fetch the captain.” He strode down the slope, leaving Cara still shaken at the expression on his face.
Lord Halprin was waiting for them, standing wearily amidst the rest of his mearis. Cara looked for the two seabirds, and spotted them at too great a distance to save her. Hardly daring glance at the enchanter, Cara murmured, “Sorry.”
Lord Halprin just acknowledged her whispered apology with an absent nod, his eyes trained on the brow of the hill as Mathwy, Hathel and Prednis climbed into view. Cutting short Harone’s own attempt at apology, Halprin shook his head.
“You went after her. Thank you.” Sighing, he started up the slope toward the small gathering.
Cara found a place amidst the watching warriors. She took a bit of dried fish from Gedra, hardly noticing what she was lifting toward her mouth as she watched the enchanters and warriors on the slope.
Beside her, Harone murmured something about the Three Sisters or Travelers and the springtime tradition of the farmers and herdsmen. Cara turned toward him, nodding and smiling, but interrupting him to ask, “So what’s up?”
“I’m afraid Mathwy was sent to retrieve us, but was distracted by his friend.”
“Well, that’s natural. And we weren’t in any danger.”
“Hathel and Halprin didn’t know that.”
“So, what’s going on now?”
Harone pointed at a well-dressed bejeweled man who had just climbed from his horse. He bowed deeply toward Halprin, his fingers fanned on his chest in the traditional salutation.
“Local archon--ruler of this part of Tethra probably. He’s affirming his fealty to Lord Halprin. The others, too. Water?” Harone handed her the water skin. “You had better hurry. I think we are about to move.”
“Fealty?” Cara gasped, as soon as she swallowed the water in her mouth. “But he’s not the king! He’s-”
“Just the Scroll commander.”
They were back on the road by the time Harone finished explaining. His description of Tethran rule drew a Halprin she did not know existed--the man who had introduced himself to her without even using a title was the most powerful man in Tethra aside from King Cybis himself.
As the number of people grew, so too grew Cara’s grasp of the renown of Halprin and Mathwy. Many Tethrans hailed these two by name in the streets and country lanes. Questions about events in the north were always addressed to them, the inquiries invariably voiced with great respect. None made remark about Halprin’s fire-scored face, though Cara could see the startled reaction in their eyes. Halprin said little to those who accosted them, allowing Mathwy and Hathel to answer questions or give information.
 
As the sun came close to setting, Cara was glad to see that they were to stop at an inn for the night. The ride into the paddock of the Vartha and Ragos was reminiscent of their arrival at the Burning Tree, the chief difference being the number of people who followed them along the lane through the town in the evident hope of hearing the most recent news.
As soon as they entered the inn, Cara asked Kalapa where they might find a physician for Lord Halprin, but Kalapa reminded her that Hathel was a physician.
“I don’t understand. I realize he’s an enchanter and also kind of an EMT, or whatever? I meant that Halprin needs to see someone who has studied to be a physician, not just learned a few bits of information by chance.”
Kalapa shook her head. “Hathel is of the Order, but he has also studied many years at the Thalassan Throne of Healing. Therefore, he is a physician. I don’t understand how else you mean to use the word.”
Eventually, Cara had given it up, deciding she must trust that Halprin was in the best hands possible.
The common meal had been served before they arrived. Cara followed the others over to a relatively empty corner of the public room, where they all settled on whatever cushions they could find. Two servants brought them the last of a pot of stew, along with fresh bread, hard cheese and a small basket of wrinkled cruce fruit. Remembering the latter well from her stay at Hythe’s and Cona’s, Cara reached for one and then abruptly changed her mind. She had the foreboding feeling that the sweet taste would be like ashes when mixed with memory.
The talk in the common room of the inn was subdued that night, very different from the night at the Burning Tree. The most common topic was the Shadow’s invasion, with a heated debate on whether Cybis would send more men north of the town’s borders if the Shadow proved victorious in the north or whether they, too, would be forced to flee south or west as others had. The most frequently voiced hope was that the debate was immaterial because the army would soon have forced the Daetaga back beyond the Nonz.
Mindful of that graver debate aboard ship, Cara decided that all worlds had their wishful thinkers. Not for the first time since coming ashore, she felt the need for haste. All these well-meaning villagers could do nothing against those three, Mathwy with his strong arm and bull’s voice would do little better, and Halprin had made it clear that the combined strength of all Tethra’s Great Ones might be too little against the Shadow when led by Pazgar.
“Which leaves me,” she whispered to herself, and felt a need to laugh that bordered on hysteria. She got up abruptly and walked to the door. None seemed to see her departure, for all eyes and ears were on Kataro and Kalapa, who sang an ancient lay, filled with sadness and regret. This time they sang alone for Lamar lay slain by Rabada.
 
Cara slipped down the steps to lean against the railing separating the inn from the stable paddock. She stared intently at the thin rind of the waxing moon. This all seemed so clear and simple when he told me but now that’s it’s getting closer …
Approaching footsteps crunched a path to her. Cara spun around. Just Harone. She breathed a sigh of relief.
“Forgive me for interrupting your thoughts, but it’s dangerous for you or any of us to walk alone at night.” He glanced about, then came and stood beside her. “I think you’re worried. Would you like to talk about it?”
Cara turned again to look up at the night sky. “Um. More overwhelmed than worried. Every day, I see more and more people whose welfare, whose lives depend on me.” She turned to face Harone, frantic words she hadn’t meant to voice bursting from her, “I’m terrified that I’ll fail them. So far, Rabada has confronted me twice and Zabnar once. Each time I’ve been defeated and run. What will happen if the three of them all follow after me, or two choose to stay on guard at the prison cavern?”
She paused a moment and then added quietly, “It’s strange. I’m not worried about myself so much as all these people I’ve seen. Clueless. Assuming, putting too much confidence … It’s as if my own fate is already decided, but theirs … yours isn’t. And I decide—I get it right or I screw up.”
Cara turned back toward the fence, but Harone grasped her shoulder lightly, making her face him again.
“You told me yourself how you blamed yourself for my parents’ deaths, needlessly. Even Alphesis told you that. Aren’t you heaping more responsibility on your shoulders than you need to?”
“You’re forgetting. I’ll be in that place alone.”
“Will you?”
“I know what you said yesterday, but you can’t come with me to the prison room and the three caskets. Alphesis made that clear, to say nothing of the prophecy.”
“I didn’t mean myself, although I intend to go as far into the mountain as I’m permitted. There’s another who’ll be with you. You know this already, but I’ll say it anyway. Follow his instructions. He’ll attend to the rest.”
Cara nodded. “You’re right. Thanks.”
“Why don’t you come back inside?”
“No. Not yet. I’m just not in the mood for light conversation or song but stay with me, okay? Tell me what you plan to do after all this is over. You never did say yesterday.”
“If I didn’t answer, it was because I was still unsure. Now I have thought and I have spoken with both Mathwy and Hathel. I shall enter as an initiate in the Order of the Scroll.”
Cara did her best to show enthusiasm. “An enchanter? Far out! With your background and all this hands-on, you’ll make wizard wowser! Bet it takes a long time though, or do your Throne-College credits transfer?”
Harone grinned and shook his head. “How do you do that? I thought Outworlders lost their birth language when given ours instead.”
Cara laughed. “How? Beats me. Maybe Abdis screwed up. On the other hand, maybe our slang is just too engrained. Of course, I’m not exactly a TV announcer with a Mid-Atlantic accent, even back home.”
At Harone’s baffled and amused expression, Cara groaned. “Sorry! Sorry! Uh, back to your training. Do your studies at the college … uh, give you a jump-start … Damn! Does having studied a couple of years already mean less time as an initiate?”
Harone’s bemused smile took on a hint of irony. “Yes, it will help considerably according to Hathel. Of course, time is one thing I have in abundance now.” Harone turned to lean on the stable fence beside her.
“What must you do?”
With a wry grin and a waggle of eyebrows, he answered, “First, live through the Tumult. Once we have peace, I continue my studies very much as I have begun but I must be trained in all military arts as well. Members of the Order like Halprin and Hathel will complete that training by guiding my study of enchantment. I’ll live in an enchanter’s home, serving as a kind of clerk. I’ll spend most of my time studying the Alphesaic weavings of healing and defense in the Ancient Tongue. The enchanters teach their initiates the use of Alphesaic enchantment and the countering of the works of the Daetaga.”
“Kalak shall be furious at losing his chosen successor.” Cara smiled, her good spirits returning a bit.
“Yes, I suppose he will be, but perhaps your friend Liricia can take my place.” He grinned back. “Come inside now. After the incident earlier, Mathwy will have apoplexy thinking we’ve met some dire fate.”
“Then, he will have to have apoplexy.” Cara shrugged. “Look, it’s not often I get to do what I want or go where I want around here. And, right now, believe me when I say I don’t want to be in that common room hearing the local pundits claim the war will be over by tea time tomorrow.”
Seeing Harone open his mouth to voice some kind of protest or other, Cara added swiftly, “Besides, you promised to teach me how to defend myself or something. Looks like as good a time and place as any, don’tcha think?”
 
Cara studied the auger shell as it spun on its own axis. The Key of Opening was growing larger--she was sure of it. As it grew, the chime-like sound it voiced grew as well. The whorl pattern of the auger shell seemed to be changing hue, deepening from clear white to a pale peachy orange, darkening further as it turned about in space. The key spun ever faster, growing in size with each turn about its axis, as its sharp point pivoted toward her.
Cara tried pivoting to match its movement. Over she went, head to her right, feet lifted up together and pointing to her left. A moment later, she was upside down. Her rotation speed increased until it matched that of the shell. Cara giggled. It was like an amusement ride. The only thing she didn’t like was the way the color kept darkening. The peachy tint was disappearing, draining toward the sharp tip and condensing into darker hues of deep orange, and then red. Simultaneously, the shell stretched itself, growing longer and thinner as the dark red point sprang toward her. Its musical chime rose in pitch until it hurt to hear it--growing higher in volume until the shriek of metal on metal lanced through Cara’s ears. She cried out, imitating it-
Cara sat up abruptly on the inn mattress, knowing herself to be awake yet wondering at the same time why the shrieking still rang out. An instant later, she recognized the sound as the sharp cry of a hunting seabird.
An instant after that, a shadow crept through her narrow window lit only by the last embers in the fireplace. She rolled off the low bed, hit the floor and immediately began scrambling on hands and knees toward the small table in front of the fireplace. 
Behind her, someone swore. Steel rang, followed by a thump. Feathers floated down over her. One part of her waking mind cried out that they were seabird feathers, invoking the image of Kassis dying. She grabbed up the lamp on the table, twisted and flung the lamp at the approaching darkness. The dark shape grunted, the sound swamped by crashing noises coming from behind her.
Reddish light flared into the room, bearing the rush of Elders. Someone by the door was holding a lamp. Cara grabbed at the table and held it like a shield. Peering over one corner, she caught the swift flashes of fire-reddened steel meeting fire-reddened steel. The room was filled with clangs and grunts and repeated creaks and shuffling noises. Gedra and Timor were fighting each other! From the door, Harone repeatedly demanded they stop but they paid him no attention.
One section of the wood floor smoldered under the remnants of the shattered lamp from her table. Lit by the dim flame, Cara saw Kataro struggling through the narrow window, his feathers the peach shade of the shell in her dream. Finally freeing himself, he flew toward Timor’s back, claws thrust forward to strike at his neck. Gedra, her blade slicing toward the warrior’s neck also, flinched and lowered the arc of the blade at the last second to avoid striking the seabird.
Timor took advantage of the tiny reprieve to strike out. Gedra cursed in pain and returned the blow, her blade driving deep into her fellow warrior’s shoulder, as he stumbled toward her. Kataro rode Timor’s collapsing body to the ground, his claws digging too deeply into the man’s neck to loose his grip before then. 
He looked up, as he freed first one foot then the other, and muttered, “Apologies, Gedra.”
The warrior shook her head and smiled, her right hand clenched tight over the upper part of her forearm. 
“Murderer!” she shouted, kicking at the wounded warrior. “You told her where we would be, didn’t you? You–”
“Stop! Stop it!” Harone grabbed the woman’s wrist, and used his shoulder to shove her away from the traitorous warrior. She elbowed him with her sword arm and he slammed into the doorframe. 
Ignoring the invective Gedra flung toward him, the young man walked back toward her and held the lamp he was carrying to the wound, revealing blood seeping from between Gedra’s fingers. “He’s going nowhere. You need to sit, and you’ll need–”
“A physician,” Hathel supplied for him as he came in, his drawn sword wet and stained, but his eyes trained on Gedra’s arm. He glanced briefly at the groaning Timor and then about the disarrayed and blood-spattered room, adding, “Harone, stamp on that fire before we burn down the inn. Then, go downstairs. All of you! Bring up rope or chains. And send for the archon’s people.”
Gedra growled, “No need. I’ll bring him down. I foresee him tripping and somehow falling on my sword.”
“No,” the enchanter interrupted. His voice was quiet as always but it held such authority that Gedra swallowed and nodded.
As she turned toward the door, Cara heard her mutter, “I’d wager his bit of sweets was the only one not poisoned.”
“Where’s Halprin and the others?” Cara asked as she scrambled to her feet. She was only a yard from the fireplace, but she was shivering. She picked her way past Timor and managed not to look him in the face, as she found her cape. Wrapping it about her, she hurried after the others. Harone followed her, dropping the remnants of her singed blanket in the hall.
A half dozen curious guests were peering through their doors. Cara recognized two of them from the overheard conversations earlier that evening. They looked less optimistic than they had then. Cara felt an irrational urge to say, “I could have told you.” but she daren’t open her mouth for fear of what might actually come out. Besides, this bore no resemblance to her expectations or even to her deepest fears.
  
Cara sat and shivered by the kitchen fire, leaning against Harone while they watched Hathel work on Gedra’s arm. The woman looked incredibly calm, if a little pale even in the light from the fire. Not the first time she had been wounded, Cara noted, seeing other scars on her arms when she pulled up the ripped sleeve of her heavy tunic.
Several others of the mearis were in the room, talking softly amongst themselves. She noticed horror and disbelief on every face. Words drifted past her, reminiscent of the brief debate between Bran and Hythe, hints remembered too late from conversations revealing that Timor, like Bran, favored the return of the usurper’s dynasty.
Cara heard enough to piece together what else had happened during Timor’s attack. Most of the mearis was still down in the common room when the attack started. They, Halprin, Mathwy and the innkeeper had run outside at once--directed by the sound of Kataro’s warning screech--only to discover that the danger was climbing into the rooms above at that very moment. In the room next to Cara’s, Revelis--similarly awakened by the seabird’s cry--had fought a second invader, killing him as well with Hathel’s help. If there were others besides those two, Halprin and Mathwy didn’t see them.
Hathel laid his fingers to either side of Gedra’s bandaged wound and closed his eyes. Cara watched as his fingers flexed slightly, drew still, then flexed again. After a moment, he began murmuring in a language she didn’t understand. She shivered again, but this time with awe. Light seemed to flicker about Hathel’s hand. Cara blinked, only to find the elusive bit of radiance gone. Perhaps it had just been the soft glow from the candle stand  Matal was holding for them.
Hathel stopped whispering and glanced up at Gedra inquiringly.
The warrior nodded. “Better. Thanks.” 
Turning toward Cara, the enchanter reached out grasped one of her hands. With a gentle but inexorable tug, the physician pulled her from the encircling protection of Harone’s arm until she was kneeling close enough for him to rest his hands over her eyes. Cara tried to pull back, still disturbed and confused by what she has seen, but the enchanter was insistent.
He murmured, “Cara, you’re in shock.” He lowered his hands from her face for a moment. Taking one of her icy hands in his own and rubbing it, he asked with a troubled frown, “You understand?”
Cara nodded, but her attention was on Hathel’s face now. He looked exhausted or maybe ill. He hadn’t looked like that when he came into her room. Healing and fighting with enchantment really drained them. 
“Just promise me no more inns-” she began, but the physician shook his head and put his hands back over her eyes.
He murmured soothingly, “Sh. Don’t talk, and try not to think.”
His fingertips slid softly across her fluttering eyelids, and then settled just below her brows. His palms now resting lightly on the lower part of her cheeks, Hathel murmured, “Hush. Quietly.” Other words followed in the same language he had used earlier.
Warmth flushed her face and then slid quickly downward, followed a moment later by a dreamy calm. Cara sighed to herself, and fought briefly not to fall asleep. A moment later, she could not think why she was fighting the impulse. Sinking down into yielding softness, she heard Harone whisper, “I’ve got her.”

 
5- Many Meetings
  
Two days later they reached the outlying districts of Fiori. The land here was densely settled and well cultivated, the roads good, many with parallel bands of stone amidst the trampled plants to make the passage of carts less troublesome during the rainy season.
As they approached the capital, people no longer asked them for news. Word had leaked from Fiori into the countryside of a new message to the court, this time from the stone of Nonz-Grea. The army they had seen riding north had not been able to force the invaders back beyond the Nonz.
Rumor or truth, most believed Pazgar ordered the Nonz-Ponta Bridge destroyed behind his followers. As the tale went, since they dared not ford the river, the followers of the Shadow were fighting with the desperation of trapped animals. Cybis’ army continued to confront them rather than go to the aid of the besieged city. Nor could they fall back, for that would only bring the Shadow further south to destroy more farmland and homes. Would more Shadow followers come from the mountains to aid the invading armies? And from which direction would they come if they came?
Amidst the news and the theories, another tale whispered its chill claim--some said that those of the Order could no longer sense the presence of the three sorcerers. “Where were they?” was the question none dared speak aloud. That, and where would they strike next?
  
They entered Fiori on the night of the fourth day of their ride overland. The main gate was closed but, at Halprin’s call, guards opened it at once. Even in the dark, Cara could guess something of the beauty of the city as well as its size and might. Great domed towers—that faintly echoed Middle Eastern architecture to Cara—guarded the white stone walls. Cara didn’t need the words of Kataro and Kalapa to see that this was a city of contrasts—a city of culture and beauty but also a city preparing to fight grimly for its life. 
Tucked here and there in the deep curves of the walled city road, were tiny clusters of tents, hastily constructed lean-tos and wagons tipped to one side to serve as shallow shelters. Red and orange flames flickered amidst the silhouettes of people standing and talking, cooking or sleeping. At one of the rough encampments, two yellow-caped men on horseback were trying to listen to several angry voices. From beyond the shadows cast by a wagon, someone was crying.
On one of the many bridges, a single sheep ambled from one railing to the other, nimbly blocking their path as if she were doing it on purpose. Eventually, Gedra looped a rope around the ewe’s neck and tied the other end to a ring embedded in one of the railings. A little way up the steep-sloped road beyond the bridge, a horse was stripping ornamental vines from a building wall. The horse was in harness but was nowhere near a cart. Gedra ignored several suggestions for her to secure this animal too.
They passed fountains and many gardens as well as the fire-lit windows of homes—the light shining through delicately-arabesqued frames of bronze or iron or wood. As they rode up the ever-rising bricked streets, the music of miniba and pipe and soft laughter sounded from many homes but, ever and anon, they drew to a halt as foot soldiers and supply wagons went past or as a messenger galloped up the road to the king’s court.
After a time they came to the royal stables and dismounted, at first going forward on foot led by the king’s seneschal; but due to the lateness of the hour, they agreed with him that it would be best to wait until morning before seeking audience with Cybis. Somewhat to Cara’s surprise, Halprin asked if they would like to spend the night at his home rather than in their assigned guest rooms at the keep.
Laughing, Mathwy declined, saying he and his command would be content in their home barracks. Hathel returned to his own home, so it came about that only Cara, Harone, Kataro, and Kalapa went with Halprin.
Their progress was slow. Exhausted from the day’s ride, Halprin was unable to maintain a brisk pace. Fortunately, most of their way led downhill since the keep sat atop the highest part of the city.
Cara had only a brief impression of white walls and many trees before the door to Halprin’s home opened. The doorkeeper started in surprise at seeing Halprin. Cara suspected that the still-raw burn marks rather than his master’s sudden arrival were the cause. The man gave his surcote a tweak and straightened to spear-straight attention.
“My lord! I am glad to see your return. You must tell us of what is doing in the north.”
“In time, Tallis, though I gather you may know more than travelers like us.” Halprin touched the man’s forehead. “In his name. I have brought guests: Lady Cara, an Outworlder and defender of the Three Peoples, Master-Scholar Kataro and Harone na Hythe of the Throne of Wisdom, and Master-Scholar Kalapa of the Throne of Healing.”
“I shall order rooms prepared. What else do you wish?”
Halprin shrugged and smiled. “Being clean and rested is what I wish most. Doubtless our guests agree.”
Tallis chuckled.
He made a vague gesture. “Water, towels. Perhaps some light refreshment on the garden porch.”
Tallis bowed, and then paused before turning away. “My lord, the Lady Lira is here.”
Halprin had walked halfway through the austere torch-lit antechamber toward one of many archways but now he stopped suddenly and turned. “She was to ride with the army to the Nonz.”
“It was Cybis’ wish that she be amongst those remaining to guard the city.”
Halprin answered in a measured tone, “Then tell my lady of my return. I shall be on the porch with our guests.”
Halprin watched as the servant withdrew, and Cara caught a sparkle of delight in his eyes. He turned back to them and bade them follow but his mind seemed elsewhere. At another time, Cara would have been fascinated by the intricately tiled floors and tapestries, the statues and finely carved furniture but her attention was fixed instead on the imminent meeting between Halprin and Lady Lira. For some reason, it had never occurred to her that Halprin might be married. If Halprin was surprised and pleased to find his wife at home, didn’t that mean she wasn’t expecting him and knew nothing about the battle or her husband’s wounds? What would she think when she saw him?
The “porch” to which Halprin led them was more of a room open by an archway to a central garden. Lush cushions were scattered around the room amidst low tables laden with plants and spring flowers. Here and there, small bronze statues that made Cara think of fairies were arranged to suggest they were gathering flowers or busy with other gardening activities. Oil lamps set in the walls by the inner doors were supplemented by brackets of torches at the garden archway. Cara could hear a fountain hidden somewhere beyond them, but when she tried to find it, the dim light and thick foliage defeated her eyes.
They had hardly settled on the cushions before servants came--one with water and towels, the other with bread, a bowl of berries and wine. The five talked quietly but Halprin said little beyond urging the refreshments on them and absently acknowledging their compliments of his home. Cara was feeling more and more uncomfortable. She felt that they were intruding, regardless of the fact that they had been invited. Lady Lira should be alone when she greeted her husband.
Sensing a movement at the door, Cara turned to see a woman enter. She was tall and dressed formally in the cape and robes of the Order; her shining raven hair braided and clustered at the nape of her neck. Lira’s warm brown eyes flicked amongst them, seeking out Halprin. Cara saw what he missed in rising to greet her—a look of shock quickly masked.
“My lord, I rejoiced to hear of your return.” The shock didn’t translate into the graciousness of her greeting.
He took her outstretched hands in his and, drawing her closer, kissed her. “As I rejoice in finding you here, my love. Come and meet our guests.”
Cara marveled at Lira’s composure. Aside from that first glimpse of surprise, she acted like Halprin’s appearance was unchanged. Didn’t she even care enough to ask how it had happened? Cara wanted to speak to Kataro and Kalapa but she feared being overheard. She didn’t want to make Halprin feel uncomfortable but she was terrified of offending Lira.
All evening she felt uncomfortable watching her hosts, and she wished repeatedly that she had gone to the guest apartment at the keep. She was glad when the time came to retire.
 
Once in her room, Cara found herself too restless to even prepare for bed. She still longed for a chat with Kataro and Kalapa or Harone, but now the late hour made that impossible. Finally Cara discovered that the other door to her room led to the same garden beside which they had been sitting. The cool night air and the soft splashing of the fountain promised a soothing place in which to think. She snatched up her cape and walked out into the dim garden, as she told herself, to find the invisible fountain.
At last successful in her quest, Cara found a bench tucked into an arbor of flowering vines, its support carved to look like something dragonish. She had just sunk onto its surface when a small animal hopped up beside her on the low bench, to gaze intently into her eyes. Earlier in the evening, this creature or one like it had strayed into the “porch”. Halprin had named it a gryphon. Only a foot long, it had the head and wings of a hawk and a body rather like that of a lion. After a moment’s investigation, it climbed into Cara’s lap and began preening its feathers. She leaned forward. Was it purring or was a nearby insect producing a purr-like imitation?
Another sound drew her attention: the light tread of a woman—Lira. Cara again had a sense she was intruding but if she tried to slip back inside Lira would see her. Her brief encounter with the enchanter had awed her, just as she felt around Halprin and Hathel at one time and still did on occasion. She understood why the seabirds continued to use “Great Ones” to name enchanters. Sometimes they seemed the last of a race, gifted with a hidden power and strength of will that more ordinary people could not help but feel and fear. Again, the same mysterious phrase came to her, “the eyes of eagles.” Her nerves on edge, she crouched lower and watched.
Lira walked to the fountain with her fists clenched at her sides. She stared into the shifting water for a few minutes and then began walking in restless and random circuits about it. When she passed close by Cara’s hiding place, she was shocked to see tears on that seemingly imperturbable face. The tears washed away much of her theorizing until she saw the vulnerability of a woman, capable of love or sorrow like herself.
I believed she didn’t care. Maybe that she couldn’t because she’s an enchanter. Major duh. She probably acted that way because she knew Halprin would wish it. Or not. Are all enchanters required not to show emotion around non-enchanters like Halprin after we left the herbalists’ cottage? Maybe they’re not even supposed to admit they feel pain or grief.
When Cara next looked at Lira, her tears had stopped. Time passed in silence until a servant called from the archway, “Lady Lira? Lord Halprin wishes to speak with you.”
Lira froze, then relaxing the clench of her hands and quickly drying her face, she called out, “Tell my lord I shall be in presently.” Glancing toward the night sky, she murmured, “Alphesis, I beseech you, give me the words!” Then, turning, she walked briskly toward the house.
Cara sat in the garden for a while longer. What words did Lira wish to be given? Her view of enchanters had changed a lot in the past few days. Finally, she sighed and, gently putting down the sleeping gryphon, returned to her room.
Just as she drifted toward sleep she thought if Harone got what he wished, in time he would be like them. He too would have that presence she felt more than saw, which Kataro had named the Semblance. It would surround him like a mantle, an aura that could disconcert, even terrify. She felt an inexplicable sense of loss.
  
Reflected light from the column of flame gleamed like copper on the polished-stone walls about her. Golden flashes sparkled on the pebbled floor like trapped seeds of lightning. Tongues of flame licked across the ceiling, searching for cracks in the hewn stone and obscuring it from view. She drew a step nearer and the column seemed to turn, as though aware of her approach. Threads of golden fire forked from the center of the shimmering inferno and approached her in turn. She lifted her hands, holding them out as if to clasp the exploring tendrils…
Cara awoke with a gasp, and sat up. She stared frantically at her hands, and was amazed to find they were not ash and scorched bone, but her own flesh. A presence within her seemed to flee, as though shy of her conscious thoughts. She felt its retreat and then its absence with regret and a piercing longing.
It was cool in the room, peacefully quiet. Empty. Drawing the coverlet about her, Cara lay back down.
  
Her night was broken with other strange dreams, but only one remained with her at waking. She found herself standing facing a large group of people, majestic and terrible, and all were dressed in the feathers of the Seabird. No one spoke but Lady Lira came to her, carrying a live coal with tongs. She thrust the coal into Cara’s heart. Then far away and echoing came Alphesis’ voice.
“Feel you the joyful burning of the Obedience?”
She answered, “Yes, lord,” for she felt a joy as wonderful and as unbearable as that which she had felt at the Throne. Mingled with it now was a sense of purpose and determination like that she had seen on Lord Halprin’s face at the times when his face awed her most. For that moment and for how long after Cara didn’t know, all things seemed possible even the completion of her task.
  
She woke to the sound of Kalapa’s voice at the window. “Cara? Are you awake?”
Cara yawned and stretched luxuriantly. “Kind’a. What’s up?”
“Not you, obviously. Come out and have some breakfast, before we eat it all.”
This time, the voice was Harone’s. Cara looked toward the window in embarrassment, but she could only see Kalapa. Relieved, she answered, “On my way! Save verric!”
As she hurriedly washed and dressed, Cara mulled over both the first and the last dreams she’d had the night before.  There had been others as well. A thread of fire ran through each but only the images of the fire pillar and Lady Lira with the coal remained. Those dreams were so overwhelming that all the others began to fade like sparks burning themselves out one by one. She growled in frustration. It was too late. The two dreams seemed to have grown even stronger as memory of the lesser ones faded, until all that remained was the certainty that she had dreamed them.
Frowning with the effort to remember, Cara hurried out her chamber door into the arched hallway, having forgotten for the moment that her room boasted a more direct route into the garden. Had Lady Lira been at a fountain before she brought the live coal? No, she saw Lira standing at the fountain when she was sitting on the arbor bench. Strange though that both images seemed equally real. All of it seemed disconcertingly detailed and filled with tactile sensations and vivid emotions as immediate and undeniable as the scents drifting through Halprin’s porch.
 “Cara! Where are you going?”
Cara stopped and turned around. She had walked right through the porch where Kataro, Kalapa and Harone were seated.
“Sorry! My head would fall off this morning if it weren’t attached.”
The three stared at her in bemusement and Kataro ventured at last, “I think she needs verric.”
Harone reached for an earthenware decanter and filled a bowl with the liquid, as Cara found a cushion beside him. Handing the bowl to her, he said, “No. Glue, rather. She said her head is falling off.”
“Nails.” Kalapa suggested with a thoughtful frown.
Kataro glared at his fiancée. “That would hurt!”
Cara lifted the steaming bowl of dark liquid, and muttered, “Okay. I just meant I’m half-asleep. You can all knock it off now.”
“What?” Kataro asked.
Harone shook his head. “Her head, of course. Don’t you speak any Outworlder?”
Cara gave a comic growl, and glared at each of them in turn. “I don’t get no respect.” Before they had the opportunity to comment on that as well, she went on, “I feel like I’m still in the middle of a dream or something. I feel all …” Cara shook her head. “So what’s for breakfast?”
“Cold dra-fish.” Harone lifted the lid on a nearly empty platter. “And even colder tein porridge.” He handed her the deep bowl, a third filled with a rather coagulated oatmeal-like substance.
“Yum.” Cara made a face but spooned some of the porridge unto her plate anyway.
“You said that you dreamed?” Kataro prompted.
Cara shrugged, her mouth full of the grain dish. “Um. All sorts of things about fire. The last one was…like really intense, ya know?” She frowned. “I don’t know how to explain. Well, you know, really cool too, actually. The last part, that is. Now, the beginning was scary and really painful at the time it was happening. I mean when I was still dreaming it. Lady Lira-”
“Forgive me, my lady.”
They turned to the archway leading back into the house, to find that Tallis was standing there.
“A messenger just arrived from the Scroll Chamber. She said that the Scroll has completed its preliminary discussion and that King Cybis requests that you come and meet with them.”
Cara glanced toward the others at the table, and then back to Tallis. “Just me?”
Tallis smiled, and answered hesitantly. “Your presence is required, Lady Cara. I was given no specific instruction beyond that, but I see no reason why the others in your company cannot attend you. Do you require a guide?”
Cara started to answer affirmatively, but Kalapa interrupted, “She has two of them right here. Kataro and I have previously attended meetings at the Chamber.”
Tallis nodded toward the seabird, and looked back to Cara.
“No, I guess not, then.” Cara answered. “Thanks. Right now?”
Tallis nodded and, bowing with hands crossed, walked back out through the arch.
“Well, so much for breakfast!” Cara took one last gulp of the verric and stood up.
  
They separated briefly so that Harone and Cara could retrieve their capes, meeting at the outside entrance to Halprin and Lira’s residence. As soon as Cara saw the seabirds, she asked, “Tallis said the enchanters finished their preliminary discussions. Do you know about what, and when on Earth—I mean Narenta—did they start? I mean I know I slept in, but it’s still just midmorning, right?”
Kataro nodded, answering, “We must keep moving as we talk. The Order has been in session since just after dawn. Kalapa told us earlier that she heard Lady Lira and Lord Halprin leave just before dawn, to go up to the Chamber.”
Kalapa added, “I asked Tallis after they left. He knew only that they received a message from the king, and that he in turn had received urgent news from the north. That would explain why they convened so early-”
Harone interrupted, “And suggests the news is not good. I wonder why they want Lady Cara to attend now.”
“We shall see soon.”
Cara listened to their answers and their conjecture, and marveled at her own sense of peace. The calm remained even for a while after they left Halprin’s house. Kataro and Kalapa chattered constantly as they made their way to the royal keep, pointing out sights and reminiscing over visits each had made, though never together. They were so occupied that they seemed not to notice her silence.
She and Harone made a quieter pair but Cara felt herself separated, even isolated, from all of them. Words from ages past, written in the Scroll of Prophecy, were about to become actions. Contemplating the centuries between the time of the prophecy and this moment filled her with quiet awe. However, it gripped her too with a profound sense of inadequacy. 
Numberless scholars and the faithful of Alphesis had read the words and wondered for hundreds of years how the events they prophesized would come to pass. And here she was wondering exactly the same thing. She could still refuse to do what was required of her, she could fail thanks to more reasons than she cared to envision, or she could die not knowing if her last effort brought victory or doom. Someone else might even have to finish what she started.
Her arrival was only the signal given so that a game set in the mists of time but never played might finally begin. The city itself seemed strangely quiet as if this day, this moment, was the pause for breath before the plunge into deep water.
Just as they reached the keep gate, Harone asked, “You appear distressed. You’ve hardly said a word since we left.”
Forcing a smile, she answered, “Like I started to say, I had strange dreams last night. One of them didn’t want to quit when I woke up. I’m fine. The feeling’s beginning to fade.”
Harone’s expression suggested he had more to say but the rumbling of the portcullis being raised drowned out any further conversation. So it was that they had their first look at Eyrie Keep, the ancient seat of the Elder Kings.
The sandstone keep was roughly rectangular in shape, the four walls unequal in length but meeting at the corners to form towers for defense. Up they loomed, floor upon floor, until they ended at last in battlements that overhung the walls they protected. In the court which they formed by their joining stood another building so ancient that none could put tongue to its origin--the Chamber of the Scroll.
Cara saw a building like a massive block of obsidian, windowless, with a high arched and vaulted roof giving it a superficial resemblance to a basilica. Engraved around and about the walls were words in a language that Cara did not know—an ancient tongue in an ancient script that she didn’t remember seeing even amongst Kataro’s scrolls. The blue-caped seneschal led the four up a flight of blue-veined steps to the massive doorway and silently bade them enter. There were no guards at the doors nor was anyone else on the steps leading up to them.
Ascending the ancient steps to the doors with the others, Cara found that they were of narthrous stone that shone brightly blue-green against the black walls. Etched deeply into them was the sign of the Burning Tree.
Kataro whispered to her. “Each must enter separately, for the doors were set here to test the hearts of those who would go in.”
Cara looked at Kataro in alarm. “What do they do?”
“If one is a follower of Alphesis, they merely permit entry. See. There goes Harone and all is well.”
Cara turned, but the doors were already closing silently behind him. She asked Kataro. “What if one of the Daetaga should dare the doors?”
“Then he will be destroyed, for so is it written. None has ever dared. Even the descendents of Thaddis, while they sat upon the usurped throne, never dared enter here. Quickly now! Kalapa has gone and we must follow.”
Kataro flew directly toward the doors and once again, they opened. Now Cara found herself alone on the steps. Taking a deep breath, she walked forward quickly. The doors opened and she stepped inside. As she stood a moment accustoming herself to the dim light, faintly, on the edge of hearing came echoing voices.
“She has come, come, come.”
Cara looked sharply up and about, but she could see no one. Surely the voices had come from behind her, but the only things behind her were the doors themselves.
None of her friends was to be seen. She dare not call their names aloud in this solemn place. With no other option, Cara began walking down the colonnaded hallway before her. She felt dwarfed by the columns that stood like sentries to either side of her path, black as the walls that they guarded. Twice she caught a glimpse of a doorway in the distant walls, but somehow she knew them locked fast, barring her from any path but the one she must follow.
She felt the need to walk silently, as she had before the Shrine of the Young Ones. Here that was impossible--her footfall echoed on the cold black stone until it sounded like a company followed her or escorted her upon either side.
The columns looked down on her from great heights. Once Cara glanced upward, certain that the columns watched her indeed with solemn carven faces. What she saw proved far stranger. The ceiling appeared to be crafted entirely of narthrous stone—its changing and ever-moving blue and turquoise and green ripples lighting her way.
What on Earth? Narenta. Outside, the roof was as black as the rest of this building. I don’t think I checked out the ceiling when I came in because I was looking for everybody but the light came from candles. Or lamps. Or … Well, not Narthrous anyway. 
The constant movement of blue and green waves and swirls above her gave Cara the strange feeling that she was underwater, standing in a colonnaded ruin on the ocean floor. She drew in a great breath, terrified she would choke on water but her lungs made no protest. She was wondering what she would do if a fish swam past, when suddenly came a command to press onward, a summons unspoken and wordless but clear as a pealed bell. She had no choice but to obey.
When Cara ventured past the last pair of columns, she approached a set of doors as large as the pair guarding the entrance to the building. The exact symmetry of her path suggested she had returned to the beginning but these doors were hewn of seamless black stone not narthrous.
Rising above them loomed a mighty statue of Alphesis, all marble but as bright as if it were lit from within. Though she knew it for the statue that it was, Cara felt she dared not look upon that face. As she stood there with downcast eyes, the doors opened silently before her.
Cara stepped through into the lower level of a vast semicircular chamber, which she had entered from the doors centered in its one straight wall. The chamber was built of obsidian like the walls of the colonnaded passageway but this room was lit with great oil lamps as well as the sunlit water-light from the narthrous ceiling.
A balcony ran along the great curved wall facing her, lined with numerous archways. Below the semicircular balcony, and on the same lower level on which she stood, many people were assembled. By far the largest group was knights of the Order of the Sword, clad in shining mail and with the emblem of their Order emblazoned upon their surcotes. All stood and gazed upon her in silence. Here, too, were her friends but something told her that, for now, she must stand apart.
Cara looked again to the upper level. As if by signal, many men and women came forth silently, each through an archway of their own, until they stood upon the balcony edge. A clear light lit them. Cara did not need to see Halprin, Hathel and Lira amongst them to know that she beheld the assembled Order of the Scroll, most ancient and august. Their power and joy and strength beat upon her until she felt she could bear it no longer. Their keen eyes transfixed her. In the moment at which she felt she must cry “enough,” a taste of the Joy of the Obedience in her dream came to her aid and, with it, the memory of the joy she had felt while with Alphesis at the Throne. Again, her heart sang and the pressure of the might of the Order beat upon her no longer.
With that, a last figure appeared, coming through the centermost arch, from which no one had yet come: King Cybis, lord of Tethran lords and greatest of the Tethran Order of the Scroll. He stood tall and fair, enrobed as the rest after the manner of the Great Ones, but upon his brow sat the ancient Crown of the Eyrie Kings, a narrow band crafted of silver and alabaster, embellished upon either side with small wings like the wings of the Seabird.
“Welcome, Lady Cara, Outworlder, the Foretold One of the First Tumult. You have our gratitude and our obedient support.”
Cara nodded then, finding her voice, added, “Thank you! Except as I understand it…” Cara wondered at her own temerity as she continued, “It’s you and Alphesis who have my obedience.”
The king smiled, with a touch of jubilance that echoed the joy Cara felt in her last dream and upon waking. He responded, “I am corrected. We are all under the Obedience. Now, if you will, please tell us all that has transpired with you. We have decisions to make. All we lack in order to make them is what you have yet to tell us.”
“What do I need to say?”
King Cybis gave a smile that was close to a grin. “Everything, my lady. Again.”
Cara choked down the laughter welling up inside her. Isn’t that the truth! Well, here we go.
  
Cybis sighed. “Thank you, Lady Cara! If you have no objection, might I speak with you again in a few minutes time?”
Cara nodded. As she did so, two knights of the Sword, dressed in the white surcotes and crimson capes of their order, came toward her and bowed in the traditional manner. One murmured deferentially, “My lady, this way.”
As they walked toward a doorway, Cybis was saying, “I believe both Orders are of the same mind in this. Nevertheless, Bictor, if you would take the poll?”
Leading Cara out through the same door by which she had entered the Balcony Room, her guides turned sharply to the right, proceeding between two of the mammoth columns. Another Sword knight stood beside a bronze door in the far wall. At their approach, he turned and unlocked the door, then resumed his post. One of the knights who had served as her guide paused and turned toward her.
“Do you wish anything, my lady?”
“Where are my friends?” Cara started to say then heard the sound of footsteps behind her. Harone was approaching, followed closely by the two seabirds. “Not a thing, thanks. How long do you think the vote’s going to take?”
The knight smiled grimly. “Not long. With Samar taken, our options are few. My lady.”
He bowed to Cara, as did his companion, and then both Sword knights walked back between the columns toward the Balcony Room. Harone pushed the door further open, and gestured somberly for Cara to precede him.
  
Blue ceramic lamps glowed two by two in each wall except for the one with the door. Cushions covered a third of the black floor in scattered twos and threes, their silken fabric woven in imitation of the layered colors of narthrous. Four wooden bridge-like structures formed a loose arc along one wall. When Kataro and Kalapa flew in, they each perched on one. Cara smiled, wondering a little to find a chamber designed for Elders furnished with seating expressly made for seabirds.
Finally, she noticed a chair against the far wall, its pale wood gleaming in the warmth of the lamps. She studied the chair curiously, intrigued by something once so familiar now seeming alien. Someone had built it into the wall and raised it so it rested on a low carpeted step. Her eyes widened in comprehension. Above it was a dark panel with the king’s arms inlayed using sparkling blue stones. Bits of narthrous? She started to rise from the cushion she had only just claimed but stopped when Harone spoke.
“So Samar has fallen.”
Cara turned her attention back to her companions, seeing the same gravity on all three faces.
“That’s a Tethran town?”
Harone nodded. “A small city, actually. Due south of my father’s mill, south even of Riven Gorge and on this side of the Nonz.”
“This side?” Cara frowned. “That makes it way west of where the two Shadow armies are! How … Oh, my God! A third army?”
Gloomy silence provided as much answer as she needed.
“But how?”
Kataro answered for the others, “Perhaps, Cybis can tell us. If I were to guess, they came directly east from the mountains.”
Kalapa added, “I wondered what news caused the Order to convene so early.”
Cara frowned to herself, as she tried to remember the bits and pieces she had learned of Tethran geography. Filled with foreboding and not sure she wanted to hear the answer, she asked, “Okay, if they came more or less directly east, then they came from somewhere near the Thalassan mountainway. The one I’m supposed to go to.”
A second silence confirmed her guess. Surrounded by grim faces and her own thoughts, Cara was relieved to hear footsteps approaching the other side of the door. It opened. Two knights entered the room and went to the throne, taking up their stations on either side of it. Behind them, walked King Cybis, Lord Halprin and another Sword knight. Hearing the soft rustle of Harone arising from his cushion, Cara hastened to do the same.
Cybis settled unto the throne with a sigh, and motioned Harone, Cara and the others to the cushions. With no further greeting or preamble, he said,
“All were agreed. We ride north tomorrow.” He paused in rubbing his now crownless forehead reflectively, to gesture toward the Sword knight who had entered last. “Forgive me! This is Lord Meshak, Commander of the Order of the Sword and my warleader. Meshak, the Lady Cara Outworlder, Scholar Harone na Hythe of the Throne of Wisdom, Master-Scholar Kataro also of Wisdom, and Master-Scholar Kalapa of the Throne of Healing.”
Cara nodded greetings with the middle-aged commander but her attention stayed with the king. He had the kind of facial structure that often gave the appearance of youth well into middle age. His hair was a light brown bordering on blond, with a hint of gray beginning at his temples and in his trimmed beard. Now that he was so much closer than back in the Balcony Room, Cara suspected he was about forty years old, though at the moment he looked to be closer to the fifty plus years of the Sword commander. For all his evident weariness and worry, Cara was amazed that he had introduced them all flawlessly.
“Meshak?”
The craggy-faced Sword Commander nodded to his liege and turned toward the Outworlder. He began bluntly, “My lady, I suspect you know little of recent events, especially the news from Samar. At the half of fifth bell this morning, Lord Istar of the Scroll notified our liege that a third force of the Shadow has taken the city.”
Cara asked, “How was Istar able to do that?”
“With the Samar Thought Stone, my lady.” Meshak added hastily, “Lord Istar pledged to see that the stone would not fall to the enemy’s power. He does not expect to use it again and will break it if necessary.”
“He’s retreating then, out of Samar?”
Meshak shook his head. Before he could explain, Halprin did so for him, “Istar believes that Pazgar leads the attacking army. At least the mutual distrust gripping Samar’s defenders was a mark of his former sorcery. Even now, Istar is in a hidden place within the city, surrounded by such bloodshed and madness that he has no hope of escaping.”
The enchanter waved in gesture of apology. Meshak merely shrugged and gave the ghost of a smile. “Appreciated, Halprin.”
He turned back to Cara and continued, “It little matters if Lord Istar sends another message or not. I, for one, believe that the next news we will hear from the north will be our patrols reporting the approach of Pazgar’s forces. Or, worse, perhaps even a message from Pazgar himself demanding-”
Cybis interrupted sharply, “We will prevent that at least.”
Meshak nodded at his liege’s remark but his expression grew no less bleak. He continued, “The two Shadow armies you saw on your way here from Nonz-Ponta remain where they were, as do our own forces to the east. Neither side can easily advance without additional reinforcements nor, I suspect, will either receive any within the week.” Meshak added bitterly, “Certainly, we can afford to send no more fighters east. Everyone who can possibly be spared from the city’s defenses will be riding in the direction of Samar in the morning.”
Cara asked thoughtfully, “Coupl’a questions. First, about everybody over near Nonz-Ponta. Is there fighting going on or is it more like, what did they used to call it, trench warfare?”
Meshak frowned at the last few words but answered, “Nonz-Ponta is under siege as I think you know. The last heard, there was nearly constant battle and numerous casualties on both sides. Now the second armies…”
He glanced toward his king, evidently welcoming or inviting any additional comment, “The leaders of our forces were charged by my liege with preventing those of the Shadow from marching farther toward the capital. According to our most recent intelligence, they have been successful. The Shadow forces are penned up close to the river edge of the Nonz. Indeed, we would have driven them back over the river, had the bridge they used not been destroyed behind them. Even so, each day we harry such of their number as we are able but we have avoided attempting to engage them in full battle at this time, awaiting your own actions before doing so.”
“Thanks.” Cara licked her lips, then asked, “Okay, second. When we, us,” she gestured toward Harone and the seabirds, “When we head toward the mountainway, we’ll be going the way the army at Samar came, right? If Pazgar left scouts and they see us, they might come after us even if they don’t know what we’re up to.”
King Cybis responded for him. “The members of Scroll and Sword still here in Fiori agreed to ride north for two reasons—to prevent Pazgar’s forces from approaching the city but also to deflect attention from your movements. This decision will essentially empty Fiori of its defenders. The council of the Orders debated long this morning, until just a few minutes before your arrival in the Balcony Room, searching for a way to hold off an attack on Fiori for even a handful of days.
“We know it will be several days from the moment you leave here before you reach the mountains. However you cannot literally leave at once. First, the weapon or weaving of which Alphesis has spoken needs to be chosen. At best, if you and Lady Alexia are blessed with our Lord’s guidance, none of us can hope to be ready to depart the city until this dawn.”
Cybis stood with a sigh, stretching his back as if it pained him. Cara and the Elders all rose at once.
“Speaking of which, Meshak, Halprin and I must return to the Balcony Room and begin planning our order of march.”
He walked over to Cara and bowed briefly, with hands crossed. “My lady, an honor to meet you. Alexia will be sending for you some time late this afternoon or evening.” To Cara’s astonishment, he grasped one of her hands between his, adding, “May Alphesis protect you, my lady.”
“And you! I don’t like that you’re all heading toward Pazgar’s army at Samar…”
The king smiled. “We but do our part. As you reminded me just a little while ago, we are all under our mutual lord’s obedience and must serve each other. We do this to aid you, as you came here to aid us. May he be with you, and with us all.”
Nodding to his guards, Cybis followed them toward the door, followed in turn by Halprin and Meshak.

 
6- Picnicking with Gryphons
  
Cara thoughtfully watched the king and his escort leave, even continuing to look toward the vacant doorway after they were out of sight. We are all under our mutual lord’s obedience. The obedience, like in my dream. Cara smiled. He knew, all of the enchanters knew, what it was to feel as she had in her dream. The feeling itself began fading not long after she woke, but not the memory of the feeling or the absolute assurance that it had been more than a dream.
“Cara?”
She turned toward Harone and managed a reasonably normal smile. “Sorry. Thinking.”
Harone laughed. “Yes, either that, or else King Cybis used a paralysis weaving on you.” Cara flinched at the words, and he added hastily, “My apologies! I forgot about your experiences with Rabada and at that inn.”
Cara shook her head and started toward the door. “S’okay. Let’s go back to Halprin’s porch. Can we?” She glanced inquiringly toward the seabirds who had started ahead of them and were now flying toward the outer door of the Chamber.
Kataro answered, “Not only may we, Little Chick, but I suspect that Lady Alexia will expect to find you there when this session of the meeting is adjourned. In addition, you should eat. You had only verric for breakfast.”
“Not true! I had porridge.”
Harone answered soberly, “I don’t think a mouthful is a meal. And, it’s time for lunch, or rather past it.”
“No!” Cara answered in astonishment. “There’s no way we’ve been in this building that long!”
Ahead of them, the narthrous doors opened silently. They left as a group, unlike when they had entered earlier. How long ago? Maybe it had been a long time after all. Cara found herself walking down the steps that she suddenly felt she had climbed in a far-off morning lost in antiquity. Was time experienced differently inside the Chamber? Hardly believing that this could be the afternoon of the same day, Cara turned to look toward the sun behind her. However, another sight caught her attention. She grabbed Harone’s arm.
“Look! The inscription on the Chamber’s walls! You can read it now! Kataro, Kalapa, look!”
Harone looked at her anxiously. “It’s the same as it has always been, the Chamber Oath in the ancient tongue. Only a few scholars can read it.”
Kataro and Kalapa circled back to them. Kataro looked at Cara keenly. In a quiet tone that belied the tense anticipation in his eyes, he said, “Read it to us, please.”
Very aware of the waiting silence around her, Cara turned back to the Chamber wall, and read,
“May I serve Alphesis
With the eyes of eagles,
The feet of willingness,
The hands of comfort,
The spells of goodness.
Within the Obedience,
Under His Protection.”
She repeated to herself, “The eyes of eagles. I understand now.” Then turning around to the others, she asked, “What is it? And why did it change while we were inside?”
Kataro answered her, “That is the ‘Oath of the Great Ones’, the ancient pledge of the Order of the Scroll, and it hasn’t changed. Harone, can you read it?”
“Not entirely. Just a word or two that I’ve learned from Kalak, and some guesses from what Cara just said.”
“Why can I?”
“Little Chick, you don’t need my answer. You know it yourself. You are the Outworlder of the First Tumult, the prophesied Opener. The Chamber itself acknowledges you and shows your time is near. That first you knew, and the second is evident from what we heard in the Chamber.”
Cara nodded but said nothing as they continued their walk down to Halprin’s home. Kataro was right, though she didn’t like that “your time is near” part. It was all coming together—everything would be decided in the next few days.
Before then, in the next few hours, Cara knew that she and her friends needed to discuss some things and make some decisions of their own. Greeting the doorkeeper as they entered Halprin’s home, Cara led the way to the porch.
  
The late day weather was warm, so the four decided to meet out in the garden itself rather than on the porch. Kataro suggested a place near a capelet tree so that he and Kalapa might sit amidst its branches as they talked. At Cara’s request, servants brought a cloth for the ground and food for them to share.
Once the two servants were finished with their duties and withdrew into the house, Cara said, “Nothing like a picnic! The Scroll Chamber is really impressive and all but I think we’re more comfortable here, don’t you?”
The others nodded or murmured assent. Cara stroked the gryphon that had climbed into her lap. Two others seemed to be listening and watching intently from an overhanging branch, their copper and tawny feathers a strange contrast to the silvery leaves and to the pearly white feathers of the seabirds. She turned back to her friends.
“Okay, enough procrastination. I don’t know how long the meeting’s going to take but Lady Alexia might be coming in the next couple of hours. Guess we better get on with it.
“I need your help. I don’t know what Alexia is going to ask me or say to me or whatever, but I had better have everything clear in my mind before she gets here. So…” Cara frowned. “Okay, first. Do you really think that the army is going to be able to march out at dawn, or was that just wishful thinking? I mean, I guess we’re supposed to leave the same time they do, so what have they got to do to get ready?”
Kataro answered her, “It really depends on the Scroll enchanters. They have to do two things before we set out. First, they must weave whatever enchantments of protection they can for the city since it will be abandoned to all but the refugees escaping from the north and west. This is an ancient place and very beautiful, as you’ve already seen. The sorcerers would do anything they could to possess or else destroy it.”
“Pazgar can’t destroy the Chamber, can he?” Cara asked. “Besides, King Cybis told Meshak that Pazgar wasn’t going to get anywhere near here!”
“No, Little Chick, Pazgar cannot destroy the Chamber. But if he holds the rest of the city, that would make little difference.”
“Kataro, do you think that Pazgar’s going to reach Fiori? Like I said, the king didn’t seem to think so.”
Harone answered instead, “I don’t think anyone knows, Cara. I believe that King Cybis was offering Meshak encouragement more than he was making a prediction.”
“You’re likely wrong, Harone.” Kataro responded. “To my thoughts, Cybis was doing neither. He was making a pledge that he would not allow Pazgar to reach the city, no matter what may betide. But to answer Cara’s original question. Before they leave, Cybis and the two Orders will do all they can to protect the city--with weavings of protection and with as much organization and arming of the people remaining here as they are able. Then they, like us, must commit the protection of Fiori to Alphesis and be about their own duties.”
“You said they needed to do two things. Do you mean that arming the city people is the second thing they’ve got to do?”
Harone cut in, “The Order will also try to guard us and the army against those three but especially Pazgar--though I can’t imagine how they’re going to do it, after what we heard about Samar.”
“You’re right, Harone. They must do what little they can. Many of the enchanters who normally protect the lands near the banks of the Nonz were probably killed in the Samar attack. In addition, a handful of the Order did not return to the city when the presence of the three was no longer felt near Nonz-Ponta. Did you notice the empty spots on the Balcony of the Scroll? As I have previously told Cara, even all the Great Ones together would probably be unable to stop those three. Rabada and even Zabnar, if met alone, can be forestalled at least for a while by one of the Order. Nevertheless, even they are very strong, though they rely on surprise and the lack of preparation of their victims.
“Pazgar is far greater. As Lord Istar reported through the stone, he is undoubtedly the one leading the forces that took Samar. I do not doubt that he hopes to do the same again, as he rides south. To a degree, his strength lies in his ability to isolate his foes so that they are unable to aid each other or together seek to overcome him, even though they be standing side by side. His weapons are enmity and despair. Pazgar can so twist the reasoning of the Three Peoples that they fall upon each other as though each believed the other of the Shadow. Then it is his delight to let the madness die when it is too late, so his foes must live with the memory of what they have done.”
Kataro’s words hushed all their voices for a while, as each thought of how the battle must have gone in the north. Cybis had not given details. Indeed, Lord Istar probably had none to give his liege. But the mind’s eye gave a picture all too easily: friend fighting friend while the Shadow looked on, until one was destroyed by the other. Then the survivor falling into despair as often as not when Pazgar chose to let the madness pass.
Kalapa muttered as if to herself, “If the three aren’t destroyed, the only difference in our fates will be the small matter of a few days of life, more or less.” She looked about her suddenly, as if just aware she had spoken aloud. “Forgive me!”
Kataro shook his head, and answered softly, “You only spoke aloud a truth we all were thinking.”
Cara asked, “Well, who else do you think will go with us to the mountainway?”
“Hm. Enough to protect from chance encounters with scouts of the Shadow, without attracting undue attention by our numbers. If you mean specifically who, I would guess Mathwy and a couple of his men plus one or two enchanters.”
Cara was glad to hear Mathwy mentioned. He could be irritating but he was also tough and experienced, and she trusted him. “What about Halprin? He’s coming, isn’t he, Kataro?”
The seabird sighed and paused to preen a feather. “Halprin is a troubled man, and not just because of his scars. We must wait and see what path he chooses to follow.”
Cara frowned at the cryptic answer but said nothing.
Kalapa turned to Harone. “I thought, perhaps, you would ride with the army now that you’ve decided to study to become an enchanter. You might learn much firsthand, by watching the Order in battle. Aren’t you going north with the army when it marches out?”
 “No.” Harone glanced toward Cara uncertainly. “I have business in the west, if not as important as the Outworlder’s. I hope to help protect Cara, but I also wish to help end the existence of Rabada. And her hounds as well, if Lady Fania failed to destroy them. I must have some part in retribution for the deaths of my parents, before I can think of making the oath.” His hand strayed to his sword hilt as he spoke.
“But only Cara can go into that place,” Kalapa answered gently. “And, assuming Rabada is guarding the mountainway, she can’t be killed any more than the others until her life essence is destroyed by the Opener.”
Harone spoke quietly, the defiance gone from his voice if not his eyes. “I know, Kalapa. At least I want the chance to help in her destruction. I’ve already told Cara that I’m staying with her as long as Alphesis will permit me.”
“Kataro and I are, too.”
Cara looked from one to the other. “None of you should go. I don’t want any more of those I love hurt. If I believed anyone would listen, I’d refuse to have you come.” She laughed bitterly, “It doesn’t matter. If you didn’t come with me, you’d probably, all go into battle against Pazgar in the north.”
“You’re right, Little Chick. There are no places of refuge now, except the wood of the Young Ones or the sea, and those might as well be in another world. None of us could hope to reach them safely now. Cybis has not the numbers to defend the length of all the land south of the Nonz River. The garrisons of the other bridges spanning the Nonz between Samar and Nonz-Ponta will soon be like small isles in a tidal wave. We all left security behind on the Isle.”
Cara had two more questions but she feared to ask them, suspecting what the answers must be. One had haunted her for days. As yet she had only mentioned it to Harone, irrationally feeling that by often speaking it aloud she might cause it to happen. The other, related question had presented itself with her first dream the previous night. As the silence grew once more, she struggled to force the words out.
“I told you guys I dreamed stuff last night, but I never got around to telling what happened, what I dreamed, you know? Well, the one dream, I understand better, thanks to something King Cybis said. But the other…” She lapsed into silence, biting off a piece of bread in her hand, as if she had no more to say.
At length, Kataro prompted her, “Yes, Little Chick?”
Cara sighed and closed her eyes, shutting out his gaze if not her memories. After a moment, she forced herself to answer, “I dreamed of this column of fire and it was burning me, burning my hands. It kind of reached out as if it was alive and clasped my hands and burnt them. I … I think maybe it all had something to do with Rabada, you know? Look, I guess it was just a dream, even if it was like really vivid. But, anyway …”
She glanced into each of their faces in turn. “Does anyone know if… Well do Outworlders always make it? I mean, you’ve had Outworlders here before. Did any of them die?” Before anyone had a chance to answer, she added hastily, “I mean nobody wants to die, even doing what Alphesis wants, but being burnt-”
Kalapa answered gently, “No, Cara, no one wants to die even in Alphesis’ service. But I’m not sure I see the connection you make between your dream and Rabada.”
Harone reached over and touched her arm. “Cara, I think Kalapa is right. I don’t know the significance of your dream but the column of fire you described does not sound like Rabada’s fire-thread sorcery. As for Outworlders surviving,” His fingers traveled down her arm, until he gently grasped her hand in his. “The only Outworlder I know about is Galan. He not only survived but returned to Narenta to live.”
“Well, that’s one.” Cara smiled at Harone, and returned the light pressure on his hand. “Thanks!”
Turning to the silent Kataro, she asked, “What about the others? They didn’t all make it, did they, Kataro? You’re too quiet.”
“I agree with the others about your dream. As for the ancient Outworlders, our records are incomplete at best.”
Cara stared into his somber eyes, her fingers tightening on Harone’s hand. “Nuff said.” She stirred and looked away from his face, adding,
“Look, I know I’m repeating myself, but what will we do if the three guess what we’re up to? Suppose they all come after us, rather than the army?”
Harone asked, “Why would they guess? Do they know about the prophecy and your role as Opener?”
Kataro answered instead. “I’m afraid they do. Rabada implied she knew why Cara was here. The three know the Ancient Writings and traditional lore as well as we do, and they know any Outworlder is by definition a threat to them. It’s entirely possible they know her specific task.”
Harone grunted. “Logical. If we can work it out, so can they.”
“They know who I am and what I’m going to do, so won’t they just ambush us along the way or all go back to the cavern and wait for me?”
“Little Chick, they have less knowledge and less options than you believe-”
Harone interrupted, “Stop! You just claimed the contrary!”
Kataro glared at him and his feathers ruffled. He reached toward his shoulder feathers as if to beginning preening, but turned back. “Are you this disrespectful toward Kalak? He must have vast stores of patience.”
Harone lifted his hand in a gesture of apology but frustration smoldered in his eyes.
Kataro resumed. “First, the daemagos have less knowledge—they don’t know that Cara has the Key of Opening or how it is truly meant to be used.” Harone looked about to say something but the seabird continued. “They have less options because they chose to begin the river tunnel—thereby revealing their presence— even before Cara arrived.”
Cara frowned. How is that relevant, much less helpful? She glanced toward Harone and saw her doubts mirrored in his expression.
“Think! They started a war, and now they must pursue it. If all three sorcerers attempt to intercept us, their following will be without the support of their ensorcellment. As powerful as they are, the three can’t conquer Tethra—much less Sephas, Kolora, Melwood and so on—without the support of a large fighting force. All three—or at least two—sorcerers must remain with their armies and back them with sorcery, to pursue their larger goal. 
“Alphesis does not send people on fool’s errands. There must be hope, and the Elders and Chosen that ride to the north are doing so just to increase that hope. One of their missions is to keep the closest sorcerers so occupied that they will be unable to intercept us. You may not reach the mountainway unchallenged but you need not fear drawing all three daemagos after you. The army will do what it has sworn to do.”
Harone mumbled, “They may try to do what they’ve sworn to do, but how long can they hope to hold back that tide?”
“Let us all hope long enough. From here, it is three days’ ride southwest to the mountains but two days to the north where we judge the Shadow’s army to be.”
“Yes, but the Shadow is surely moving south, not just sitting about in Samar. Therefore, they must stem the tide for more than a day. How long did the Samar garrison withstand the Shadow?”
Harone looked steadily at Kataro, who returned the gaze a moment before he answered, “Some few hours. No one knows for sure. Even Lord Istar did not know how long it had been. The madness sown by Pazgar made it impossible to say. Nevertheless, before you say the words I see in your eyes, remember that those who were destroyed at Samar were caught unawares. Those who go north go prepared.”
“Prepared? Yes, prepared to meet their deaths. You spoke of the bridge garrisons being like islands in a tidal wave. The king’s army will just be another island, though larger.”
“Perhaps.”
Harone turned to Cara with a sardonic smile. “And you had thought to refuse our company on the grounds that it would be dangerous for us. I begin to think we’ve chosen the easy path after all.”
Cara had no chance to answer him. The awaited messenger had come, announcing the time had arrived for her to go to Alexia. The others wished her well as she hastily stood to go.
“Good luck, Cara. May Alexia have pleasant news for you if such still exists in this world.”
“Thank you, Harone.”
“Little Chick, remember that it was Alphesis who sent you here. Whatever this evening brings will be for the best.”
Kalapa added. “And don’t be afraid of Lady Alexia. You’ve met other enchanters and two of the Order are your good friends.”
Cara smiled nervously at them. “Well. I guess you’ll see me ... when you see me. Goodbye.”
She turned to the silent messenger. “Where do we go?”
“Up the hill, Lady Cara, to Eyrie Keep.”
“Not to the Chamber!”
“No, my lady. We go to the Ancient Armory within the keep.”
Cara mused over that bit of information as they climbed the hill. She was surprised to see how dark it was. Sitting in the garden lit by torches and oil lamps from the inner walls of the house, they had been too engrossed in conversation to notice the passage of time. Now it had grown so dark that the guards with the messenger carried torches, one in front and the other behind them as they walked.
This evening the city was silent, aside from the footsteps of messengers and the clatter of mounted guard details – and the disconcerting sounds of refugees huddled in the scant protection of building and pathway walls. The music and quiet laughter of the previous night were sounds from the past, perhaps never to be heard here again. Cybis had ordered his plan proclaimed to all in the city, and all those who heard were preparing to fight and die. Or to mourn.
Cara sighed as she walked. Sometimes it seemed that everywhere she went she brought war or the rumor of war with her to trouble the peaceful inhabitants of this alien land.
As the portcullis was raised at the keep entrance, Cara’s thoughts turned to the woman she was about to meet. Kalapa’s words did not comfort her. When she had first seen Halprin and Hathel, she had feared them so that she had dreaded even speaking with them. It had been many days before she felt free in their company—really not until Halprin’s injury.
Cara tried to remember what Alexia looked like as they strode across the courtyard. Those of the Order all had a certain affinity or resemblance to each other that was more a matter of expression and mien than outward appearance. However, Cara knew she could spot Alexia anywhere after having seen her up on that balcony. Amongst the Order robes of blue and green, gold and purple, and many others besides, Alexia had stood emblazoned like a bolt of lightning, a pattern of white that seared the length of her robes of black, her hair fiery as though the bolt had struck and burst into flame.
Cara entered the door that the messenger held open, with trepidation. Did the robes of office hint at the nature of the enchanter who wore them? Cara hoped passionately that she was wrong. There was no more time for thought. They had come to a stop before a closed door, strongly made and clad with metal studs which seemed placed there more to strengthen than embellish.
“The Lady Alexia wishes you to enter here alone. She said she would be within, awaiting you, Lady Cara.”
“Thank you.” Cara drew a deep breath and lifted the ancient latch.

 
7- The Ancient Armory
  
Two steps. Wood scraped across stone. Metal clanked as it settled into place. The half-light afforded by a few torches revealed the interior of an ancient building, its floor and the lower third of its towering walls the same kind of massive sandstone blocks as Eyrie Keep’s ramparts. Why would someone design a building-like chamber such as this for one end of a hall within the keep? How? As soon as the questions formed, she sensed the answers. The armory must have been a separate building once, like the Scroll Chamber. First the two structures, then the ramparts and finally—perhaps centuries later—the keep through which they had been walking.
The upper walls appeared to be half-timbering until Cara studied the closest part more carefully. The brown ‘timbers’ was bronze bars and the rest whitewashed stone. Bronze or some other metal threaded through the distant arches of the vaulted ceiling, the metal ribs so close together that no person could hope to gain access from that direction. The nature of the armory changed again—taking on the guise of a bank vault or a gigantic cage.
The dry air smelled of old leather, dust and something rather like bee’s wax. To Cara’s unfamiliar eyes, it looked like an unused and neglected room in a museum. A haunted museum. She resisted the urge to grope for a light switch by the doorframe.
On all sides were dust-covered chests, the leather eaten through by age and the metal tarnished. Many of these sported massive if ancient locks. Whole suits of ancient armor stood in rows like the ghostly remnants of an ancient army, but the armor was crafted of rings sown on leather not the fine chain mail worn by the king’s knights.
Leaning against the walls or resting in special brackets for the purpose were spears of many kinds, a few nearly as long as the walls were high, each tipped with a massive sword. Horizontal ranks of ancient bows sat in racks of their own to her left, their strings long since eaten away by the ravages of mice and time.
A collection of shelves lined the facing wall—cluttered with battered helms and half-hidden behind piles of shields. To either side of the stored helms leaned a few banners so old they could as easily bear the patterns of Tethra’s two orders or the arms of ancient dynasties long since forgotten to all but lore-masters.
She took a few paces forward and stopped. The message said Alexia the Wise would be waiting for her. Where was she?
Her eyes sought the further corners of the room. Barely visible in the flickering light, Alexia sat motionless upon a high-backed chair by the far wall, watching her. Filled with awe, Cara wondered if someone else watched her as well. She walked toward her reluctantly.
Coming to a stop a few paces before the silent figure, she made the formal gesture of greeting.
“Lady Alexia, greeting. I’m Cara.” 
“I know that indeed, Lady Cara. You have done well.”
More puzzled now than frightened, Cara just stared at her. I followed the guards. I took my time staring at the stuff in this museum attic instead of coming right over to you. Are you pleased I’m so curious, I forgot why I’m here? “What do you mean?”
Alexia watched her intently as she spoke. “You have passed the first test set by the Order. The other two shall be more difficult.”
“I’m sorry. What tests?” Why do people always assume I’m in the loop?
“The Council of the Order agreed that you be posed three tests so that we might know with certainty that you are one of our Order. The first test you have passed, for I was concealed by an enchantment which only the Great Ones or the Chosen could break.”
Cara felt a strange fear growing inside her. What did Alexia mean? She started to speak, but her voice failed her a moment. Then, trying again, she said, “You weren’t hidden, except a little by the darkness at this end of the room.”
Two brackets of torches burned brightly, one to either side of Alexia’s seat. Cara started and focused on Alexia’s face rather than the torches. Her voice trembled in spite of all she could do to keep it even. “Those weren’t here before. Where did they come from?”
Alexia nodded. “You believed the room dark at this end because of the concealment weaving. Aside from that, it had no power over you.”
“But I can’t be of the Order of the Scroll. I’m from another world.” This was so self-evident that Cara couldn’t believe she had to remind her. What was going on? She looked at Lady Alexia and found her gaze caught and held by keen eyes wherein dwelt ancient wisdom. The power in that gaze was so strong that Cara felt she could almost believe herself born on Narenta if Alexia were to tell her so.
“In what manner were you dressed when you came to this world?”
“In my caftan.” Cara answered. Alexia was up on the enchanters’ balcony when I was telling my story for the fiftieth time. Why is she asking me this?
“The caftan. It was like our robes, was it not?”
Cara reluctantly answered yes.
“And what wore you about your neck?”
“My new necklace. This one.” Cara reached up and touched the necklace as she spoke. “It has the shape of the Seabird-”
“Which all the Elder enchanters wear in the Tethran Order. You have learned by now that things of this nature do not happen by chance.”
“Please, Lady Alexia. What difference does it make whether I’m of the Order? Can’t I just take the weapon or spell and go?”
Alexia reached out and lightly clasped Cara’s hand. “Child, we need to know this for your own safety. After the others left, those of my Order debated for many hours about the nature of the weapon you would wield. We knew at once that it could not be an enchantment, for such are unlawful in your own world and Alphesis would not command you to do the unlawful.
“There were four weapons that might have met your needs. One of these seemed to the Order to be the one prophesied. However, it was also well known that none might use that one who is not of the Order, or it would destroy him. For this reason, we find it necessary to test you. You have passed the first test. Are you prepared for the second?”
“I still don’t understand entirely, but ... I guess I’m ready.” Cara shrugged and tried to smile. “Ready as I’ll ever be, ya’know?”
The woman smiled and pointed to a cushion. “Good. Sit you there upon that cushion and describe to me my robes and yours, and then those of your friends who are of the Order.”
Cara sat as she was bidden. She pondered the purpose behind Alexia’s question but she felt she didn’t dare protest again.
“You wear robes that look like a lightning bolt of white on black. And mine ...” Cara looked down at the new one she had found waiting for her that morning, “Mine is all ivy vines, just like the one that I wore from the Isle.”
Cara looked up sharply. “They’re the same! That’s weird. I didn’t think about it before but I got up late and then we had to go to the Chamber so quickly this morning, I guess I was thinking it was the same robe.”
The woman smiled, saying merely, “Go on, Cara.”
Wondering what would happen next, Cara continued. “Let’s see. Halprin and Hathel were in work clothes—tunics and trousers kind of like jeans—and capes when we were riding here. But this morning in the chamber, Halprin wore a robe that was covered with eyes--strange, beautiful eyes that weren’t all human.”
Something of the old awe that Cara had felt toward Halprin returned and, as it did, she began again to feel a little frightened of the Lady Alexia and this strange room. She tried to think why the Order would wear such robes but Alexia broke in upon her thoughts.
“Continue, Cara. We have much to do and your question cannot be answered, or rather you would misunderstand any answer I could give.”
Cara stared at her, more frightened than before. Had Alexia heard her thoughts? Still she had no choice but to continue.
“Hathel wore robes like a sunburst against a blue sky.”
“And Lira?”
“Her robes are like tongues of flame, not wormy flames like Rabada’s though. Way different! They’re, well, more golden red. And really fierce but, uh … cleansing?”
Lady Lira had carried the live coal to her in her dream. Cara shivered with awe and delight and amazement.
Alexia stared at her keenly. Her voice betrayed the tension she felt as she asked quietly, “And King Cybis?”
Her gaze remained fixed on Cara’s face, reminding her of the tense expectation on Kataro’s face earlier in the day when he had asked her to read the words inscribed on the side of the Scroll Chamber.
The answer eluded her. She had paid a lot more attention to the king’s crown while still in the Balcony Room, and then to his face at the meeting. She remembered a glimmer of blue, of blue-green. “I know! He wore robes like narthrous stone, all blue-green like the ocean.”
“Like all moving water, but especially like the Streams that Alphesis set under the mountains.” Alexia loosed a little puff of air and leaned back. “You have done very well indeed, Cara. We have but one test left-”
Cara interrupted her, “Lady Alexia, sorry to be so suspicious, but how do I know that everyone else can’t see the robes too?”
The lady gave her a curious smile. “You do not believe easily, Cara, and that has brought you pain in the past. However, I shall give you proof. A guard remains at the door so that we might not be disturbed. Go to him and ask him to tell you what we wear.”
Cara looked at her doubtfully, but she went to the door and opened it. The Sword Knight bowed to her with hands crossed, then stood as though waiting for orders. How to ask this? Feeling rather foolish, Cara said, “Excuse me. Could you tell me what Lady Alexia and I are wearing?”
Looking perplexed, the guard answered promptly, “You wear the dark blue robes of the Order. Lady Alexia I have not seen all evening, so I know not what she wears. Usually she wears the blue robes also.”
Cara was still unsure. “Are all the robes of the Order alike?”
“Yes, my lady. The Order of the Scroll wears the blue. We of the Sword wear white surcotes and red capes the color of wine.”
“Lady Alexia is here in the room. She’s way over there. Look at her and tell me what she’s wearing.”
The knight stared in the direction she indicated, and then answered her reproachfully though still with courtesy. “Your ladyship toys with me. There is no one in the room but yourself.”
Cara, believing at last, though still confused, apologized. “I’m sorry. I meant no harm by my joke. Thank you.”
The guard saluted once again. Cara closed the door and walked back to Alexia. 
“You win, but this whole thing gives me the creeps. Did the first robe do it on the Isle? Was it magic or something, and made me part of the Order?”
“You were not attentive. I told you that the manner in which you came to this world served as a sign of your membership in our Order. If you still have doubts, I can give two more proofs. First, you have been able to use your Discerning Stone from the very beginning though you were never told how.”
Reluctantly, Cara had to acknowledge this as the truth.
“And secondly, you also are able to see the forms of the Three as they really are. This is what we call the Semblance, and it is hidden from those not of the Order. Describe Rabada to me, for you have seen her twice now.”
Shuddering at the thought, Cara did so. As she spoke, she remembered that Rabada wore robes very like those of the Order but hers were wound about with the pattern of the red ribbons of destruction. In place of the ensign of Alphesis, Rabada wore a necklace made of pieces of red and black stone, the links of which seemed to writhe like a serpent about her neck.
Alexia gave her sympathetic smile. “I am sorry that I had to call her to mind but it was necessary that you be convinced of the truth before the third test. Are you sure I speak truly?”
Cara tried to shake off the mental image of Rabada. Finally she spoke. “Yes, my lady. I’m ready.”
What now? I don’t think there’s anything left in the whole world that would surprise me anymore.
“You must find the weapon meant for your use by Alphesis. All I may tell you is that it is somewhere in this room and, if you choose correctly, the weapon will acknowledge your choice.”
The enchanter ceased speaking abruptly and returned to her chair. Cara looked at her, dumbfounded. Ancient gear filled the huge room, most of it too old for any further use. Can’t be surprised any more? I take it back. It could take me a year to find a specific weapon in this room. Once I did, it wouldn’t make any difference because its only sign would be to fall apart.
“Wouldn’t it be better to go to the armory that the king uses now?”
Alexia merely smiled enigmatically and shook her head.
Cara sighed and glanced around the room. Where to begin? As much as she disliked them after her experience with Bran, she went to one of the racks of spears. At least they weren’t hidden in a chest. She grasped each one rapidly in succession and strained to see any sign that they “acknowledged” her. Nothing happened. Cara looked at Alexia but her face was unperturbed.
Lady Alexia: Lady Pokerface would be better! She knows where it is, I’ll bet, and she’s going to sit there and watch me make a fool of myself.
Cara strode quickly to a rack of bows, touching each so rapidly that she knocked several clattering to the floor. As she picked them up again, there came clearly to her that her anger of the last few minutes would defeat her even now and, if her, also her mission.
There has to be an easier way than me looking through this whole room weapon-by-weapon I’m not here to find something that’s lost. Alexia knows where it is. I’m here … How should I be looking?
Cara closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. Okay, how better to do this? What would Lord Halprin do, or Alexia herself? She glanced at the enchanter. Is that a little wisp of a smile? Power of suggestion, Cara. Focus! Okay, what other way could there be?
Cara closed her eyes again, and tried to think calmly. This was far too important for there not to be a reason for everything Alexia was having her do. Not important just to herself but to all those about to risk their lives—not only the army but also her friends, and all the people she had seen out on the streets as they walked up here. Refugees, she was pretty sure. She was getting to be an expert at identifying them.
Sorrow flowed through her like the warm blood through her veins. It wasn’t right; they hadn’t done anything. She needed to help them if she only knew how.
She did know how. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? “Don’t go,” she had said, and he had answered, “I won’t.” Why was that always so hard to remember?
Cara murmured, “Help me help them! Show me where I can find the weapon you brought me here to claim.”
Slowly an image grew in her mind and she smiled. Opening her eyes, Cara turned and walked over to a huge chest against the wall near the door. Using both hands, she pivoted the lid up and back until it clanged against the stone wall like a cracked gong. A random clutter of weapons, gauntlets and helms filled the interior to its upper edge. She lifted out objects with both hands and cast them aside without looking at them. Rust, lint, cobwebs and unidentifiable debris covered her hands and forearms.
Near the bottom, she found a heavy object well over a yard long and wrapped in ancient velvet that began disintegrating even as she wrestled its massive length out of the chest. She let her burden drop to the floor and set to work on the tattered wrappings. As the last folds came free, they revealed an ancient sword. The dented scabbard looked as if it had barely survived decades in a swamp. The hilt and guards had nearly rusted away.
The swords the Young Ones had offered her had been too heavy for her but the weight of this one filled her with dismay. Some weapons smith must have forged this hundreds of years ago for a strong warrior to wield with both hands. What had gone wrong? Tears of disappointment stung her eyes. She couldn’t bring herself to turn and face Alexia in her defeat. Cara almost flung the weapon back into the chest, when Alexia’s words came back to her.
“If you choose correctly, the weapon will acknowledge your choice.” Without hope, Cara whispered, “I choose you.” She stretched her hand to wrap it as far around the scabbard as she could and then grasped the rusty hilt in an effort to free the blade from the scabbard. The tug barely exposed two inches of corroded blade, and the sound it made in its movement was like the groan of an iron gate. Cara drew a great breath, and yanked on the hilts with all the strength she could muster. The sheath slipped from her grasp.
Cara gasped and blinked as sparkling blue light flashed. The hilt in her hand seemed to quiver and change against her palm like the touch of an animal. She shaded her eyes and cautiously studied what she held—a slender sword with a blade like narthrous stone that swirled and sparkled in shades of blue and green. Stretching out her trembling left hand, Cara touched its surface with one cautious finger. It felt hard to the touch but what she felt did not agree with what she saw—a blade that seemed fashioned of water flowing eternally from hilt to point, yet always retaining its sword-like shape.
“You have done well.”
Cara looked up to see Alphesis himself. Joy and love seemed to spring from his eyes to pierce her heart.
“The sword you hold is one of four my father bid me make in the beginning—the Sword of Living Water.”
“What will I do with it, Alphesis?”
“You will find you know when the time comes.” He smiled. “Remember next time I promised I would never leave you. Believe that and all will be well.
“Have courage.” As he said the words, Cara could feel his courage flowing into her.
“Farewell for now. You shall see me again soon.”
Then he was gone and the armory seemed darker with his absence. Cara felt she could have sung if she could only decide what song would serve. Dropping the Sword, Cara scrambled up and ran to Alexia.
“Did you see him?”
“I see him in your eyes.” Alexia’s smile reflected the same joy. “What can I add? You have done very well, indeed.”
She added more seriously, “But go now. The hour is late and our preparations are drawing to an end. I must report to my liege and my order, and you must rest for you will have to leave very early tomorrow. Go and tell your comrades what you have seen. May Alphesis protect you.”
The woman grinned. “Oh, and don’t forget to take the Sword with you.”
Cara burst into delighted laughter, and Lady Alexia joined her, giving her a hug as well.
Cara barely noticed her walk back to Halprin’s house. She traced through every sight and word and movement, from the moment the guard opened the armory door to the splendor of the revealed blade and the delight of hearing Alphesis’ voice. The weight of the camouflaged Sword of Living Water pressed on her arms as if to confirm that what she remembered had really happened. She longed to stop for just a minute and draw out the blade again but contented herself with the memory of its otherworldly beauty.
 
The guards who escorted her were astonished at the change in the Outworlder since she had ascended to Eyrie Keep. Had she needed any further assurance, they would have sworn immediately that she was of the Order.

8- Dissension and Debate
  
Halprin’s outside door opened at the hands of an unfamiliar guard but, judging from the expectant smile on his weathered face, he knew something of her errand. Cara thanked her escort with the cautious silence of a mime, and managed to forestall any congratulatory words from the guard. The disguised sword was in her arms, bundled for now in the same rotten piece of dark green velvet in which she had found it. In spite of its size, she had her heart set on surprising her friends with the outcome of her evening.
With his smile now a grin, the warrior tilted his head in the direction of the porch. From the sounds, Harone and both seabirds were in the room. She heard neither Halprin’s nor Lira’s voice. The chances were good that they were still up at the keep, but she despaired of fooling them anyway. As she approached the porch, she paused and placed her burden gently on the floor in the doorway itself. Then taking a step into the room, she tried not to smile.
Harone jumped up at once and went to her, his face triumphant. “You’ve got it!” He grasped her hand and led her to the others. “Tell us all about it!”
Kalapa asked, “Cara, was it a weapon?”
Kataro answered her, “It was, just as I thought. Cara, you put something down by the door. You might as well bring it over here and show us.”
“So much for surprising you guys.” Cara rolled her eyes at Harone, and whispered, “Leave it to a seabird to…”
“…hear what you’re saying. Our hearing is nearly as good as our sight.” Kataro added, “Bring it over here!”
“Your eyes gave you away, Cara. Come sit with us!”
“Yes!” Kalapa added. “I think a celebration is in order.”
Harone pointed to the disreputable-looking bundle on the floor and grinned. “That?”
“That.”
Shaking his head, the young scholar picked up the object and carried it into the porch, depositing it close by an empty cushion next to his own. Cara sat down on the cushion. She let her smile reflect the joy she felt inside, as she lifted the awkward bundle and rested it on her crossed legs.
“Alphesis came to the armory after I found… after I chose this. He …” She shook her head, tears of joy stinging her eyes. “Sorry, that’s not true. Before I even knew he was there, he helped me find this.”
She disentangled the ragged velvet from around the sword. When the corroded scabbard itself was exposed, Cara paused with her hands resting lightly on it to savor the moment. Her audience of three glanced amongst themselves but said nothing. Their faces each reflected anticipation and excitement, not the disappointment she had felt when she first saw the sword. Cara felt her lips shape a wry grin. Either I find it as hard to believe as Lady Alexia claimed or my face must be broadcasting how I feel big time. So much for surprising anybody.
“He said I’d know what to do with this when the time came.”
Standing up with the scabbard in her left hand, Cara pulled the sword free and held it up. Blue fire from the flowing blade glittered on the room’s statuary and glowed on the awestruck faces of her friends.
Harone whistled and reached out.
“No! You can’t, Harone.” She shifted the blade away from his outstretched hand, and made an apologetic face.
“What do you mean, I can’t?” Harone demanded, his eyes flashing.
Cara hurriedly sheathed the sword and sat back down. At his continued glare, she answered, “Harone, I’m sorry! Only those of the Order can handle it safely unless it’s sheathed.” She transferred the sheathed weapon to her left hand, closest to the angry scholar, and added, “If you’d like to, well, hold it like this?” Ouch. Condescending enough, Cara?
Harone thrust his hand palm toward her in rejection.
Kataro asked her brusquely, “Handle it? Don’t you mean that only one of the Order may safely use it? Nothing in the Writings forbids someone touching it.”
Cara turned on Kataro in fury. This was her moment. How dare he second-guess what she was saying about her own sword? She opened her mouth for the welling flood of words in her mind, but the steady gaze of the seabird’s eyes silenced her. My own sword? What am I saying? She drew a ragged breath and managed to murmur, “I’m sorry. I just got carried away.”
Turning toward Harone, she said again, “I’m really sorry. I kind’a let this go to my head. Here.”
Remaining seated this time, she drew out the blade and carefully laid it between the four of them. She bit back yet another apology, instead directing the thought to Alphesis.
Harone touched the sword with his fingertips, murmuring, “It’s beautiful. It’s like a little piece of the Streams.” He looked toward Cara, adding, “And it doesn’t hurt me. See?”
Cara bit her lip and nodded, her thoughts a bewildering mix of joy, embarrassment and vulnerability.
Harone’s right hand drifted to the hilt. He slid his fingers lightly around it, but made no effort to lift the Sword from the floor. After a minute, he released his grip and leaned back. “I don’t want to offend you, Cara, but I do know my history and the Writings. The Book of Prophecy says nothing about an Outworlder being able to use the sword. I’m closer to being one of the Order than you are. At least I’m intending to become an initiate if we survive all this.” Shaking his head and grumbling to himself, Harone made as if to stand up.
Cara had started to resheathe the weapon but she stopped and grasped Harone’s arm instead. “Please don’t!” Cara leaned closer and whispered, “I’m sorry this upsets you! I can’t help what Lady Alexia told me about the sword. I didn’t believe I was of the Order either until Alexia proved it to me.”
“What?” Harone stared at her. “You’re of the Order because you spoke with Lady Alexia? What next? Has speaking with Mathwy made you a Sword knight? Aside from our lessons, you don’t even know how to use this. At least, I can…”
“…use it for revenge?” Cara asked, then bit her lip as fury seeped back into Harone’s eyes. “Sorry! That wasn’t fair.”
Kalapa interrupted them gently. “What became of celebrating Cara’s possession of the weapon meant to destroy the sorcerers? You are both behaving as if Pazgar has bewitched you. Why don’t we all begin again? Cara, tell us everything that happened straight through to the end.”
Harone flushed. “You’re right, Kalapa. My apologies, Cara. Please, tell us what happened.”
A little uncertainly, Cara began again—this time from when she walked through the Armory’s door. As the tale of her strange testing unfolded, joy and wonder returned. She watched it spread to encompass her friends, the seabirds first, Harone last.
A noticeably calmer Harone asked thoughtfully, “So, Alphesis said that you’ll know how to use it and what else to do when the time comes. I wonder then if you’re to use it strictly for the destruction of the sorcerers’ life essences or if Alphesis will bid you-”
Before he could finish, Lord Halprin came into the porch via the archway. He walked over to Cara and reached down. Picking up the sword, he sheathed it. It returned at once to its disguised shape.
“Congratulations!” Lira called out from just outside in the hall.
“Yes, congratulations, Cara. Alexia should have transformed this concealment weaving for you.” The enchanter smiled. “Here. It will make it easier for you to lug this around if the concealment isn’t in the guise of a two-handed sword.”
“I can do that.” Lira walked into the room, and held out her hand. “Hal, why don’t you tell them about the message Cybis sent?”
Halprin turned toward his wife and a moment of silence passed between them. He handed her the weapon, and then turned back to the others.
“King Cybis sent a message to Thalassa using the Eyrie Keep stone, telling them of our plan. There were problems. We’re not sure how clearly the message was received.”
“How could there be problems?” Kalapa asked.
Halprin shrugged. “We suspect the Shadow’s barrier in the midst of the mountainway may have played a part. The message left the Eyrie Stone at the king’s bidding but we received no response from Thalassa.”
Alarmed, Cara protested, “The Shadow couldn’t intercept the message, could they? They’d know what we were up to.”
Halprin shook his head. “We have no fear of that; Cybis has ways of safeguarding such messages. The only danger would be if the Shadow possessed the Thalassan Stone. Thanks to Alphesis, they possess neither that nor any other.”
“Why send the message at all?”
“Once the three are destroyed, their followers may be leaderless but they will still exist. They could still lay waste much of Tethra unless we get aid from elsewhere. Cybis asked that Thalassa send us military aid, so that we might more swiftly crush the followers of the Shadow.”
Kataro added, “Remember what I told you, Cara? This is the very reason that Alphesis made this world as it is. All those nations of the Light have pledged each other their support in times when the Shadow rises.”
“Other things will have to be done, as well.” Halprin added. We will need to restore the bridges on the Nonz and destroy the tunnel the three used to escape the mountains, so that none of their followers can elude us and go west to trouble Thalassa in turn.”
“Hadn’t thought about that.” Cara nodded absently, as Lady Lira returned the Sword to her. It was now of standard size, and looked no more disreputable on the surface than any well-used weapon. “Thanks.”
Lira smiled. She looked a bit tired. “Goodnight. Hal?”
Halprin turned and smiled at his wife. “I’ll be right there, Lira.” He glanced back to his guests. “There’s a gift coming for you, Cara, from the king.” He turned toward Harone. “And, you also. Goodnight, all. We’ll see you at dawn.”
Cara watched the two enchanters disappear, reflecting on whether she should say anything to the others about a certain theory she was developing. Deciding to wait and think it through some more, she turned to Kataro.
“Can you draw a diagram of the passage under the mountain and all the rest? I’ve never been very clear on where everything is.”
Kataro went in search of a wax tablet. In the meantime, Cara picked up the Sword and experimentally drew it part way from the newly transformed sheath. It came out cleanly and swift, as if the blade were newly oiled. Except of course, the Sword wasn’t made of metal. Cara touched the vibrant blue surface with one finger as she had back at the Armory, and then thrust the blade back into its home. Her reflections were interrupted by Kataro’s return, a wax tablet grasped in his claws. She put the Sword aside, and turned to watch.
He drew a diagram on the tablet that surprised Cara by its swiftness and accuracy. The dexterity of those of the seabird nation constantly amazed her. They all gathered close to the diagram as Kataro explained. 
“This is how the Scroll and others conjecture that the passage now appears. See, here are the two subterranean streams and the original passageway that goes through them.” He gestured with one outstretched claw. “This square room is the one in which Pazgar, Rabada and Zabnar were imprisoned by Alphesis. Like similar places in all the other mountain chains of this world, the walls were guarded with runes of power and other weavings to hinder the daemagos’ escape.
“Thaddis must have found a way to nullify those runes and wards. That was his part of the bargain he tried to make with the sorcerers. However, he did not create the underground passage that dives below the Stream nearest us. If he had, needless to say, he would not have entered the Stream and been killed by it. That means that during the one hundred-odd years since those three were released from the room, they created a passage somewhat like the one I have drawn here, in order to come back to this land. While they waited, we believe that they also built another room, probably pentagonal like the one I have drawn here to the left. They would have created it chiefly as the repository of their life essence, making them nearly invincible once the terms of the agreement were fulfilled and they could leave the mountains.”
Kataro glanced toward Cara and gestured for her to take the wax tablet. “Don’t take this diagram too literally, Cara. The passageway and the additional room may not be exactly where I have drawn them. Remember, if nothing else, that the sorcerers will have concealed the end of their tunnel that opens on the mountain passageway. If they had not, then someone of the Light would have noticed it over the years as they traveled between our land and Thalassa.”
Cara asked, “Why would they go to all the trouble to excavate another room? Wouldn’t the square one serve the purpose?”
Kataro preened a feather before answering. “Not really. Alphesis made it so even with Thaddis’ spell of release, the three would not find it a very congenial place. In addition, they would prefer a five-sided room for any deep sorcery. The sign of the pentagram is used widely by those who deal in sorcery, I understand even in your world.”
“If they found the square room ‘not congenial’, won’t I find theirs, uh…”
Kataro stared at her, without blinking. “Yes, Little Chick. The pentagonal room itself will be a danger to you even without any of the three there. In fact, even if you happen to find the end of their tunnel where it opens into the mountainway, I caution you not use it! Use Alphesis’ mountainway and go through the Stream!”
No one spoke for a moment. The splash of the fountain was the only sound, but Cara didn’t hear even it. She took a last look at the map and turned back to Kataro.
“You’ll probably think this is foolish, but it’s just that I’m not very good at swimming. How deep are the Streams?”
“You could not swim in them even if you were very skilled.”
Cara looked at him in perplexity, but Harone explained. “I went through the gates once. Not these, but the ones like them in the north beyond Melwood and the Throne of Making and Growing. Kataro is right: no one can swim in such streams. The current is very swift.”
Cara knew fear had crept into her eyes when he added gently, “All you have to do is trust in Alphesis and hold on tight. You’ll know when you approach the Stream because it casts a light of its own all through the cavern. You approach the brink and go down steps, many steps, until you see a chain wrought of narthrous links caught by a ring at either side of the stream. Holding tight to that chain, you continue going down. Take a deep breath at the last moment and hold it. Don’t lose your grip on that chain! This bears no resemblance to fording the Sweetwater! If you walk briskly, you’ll be far enough up the other steps to breathe before air becomes a serious problem.”
Cara murmured, “I don’t think I can do that.” Looking up, she saw astonishment and sympathy on the seabirds’ faces.
Harone was grinning. “You’ll be able to do it. You’re good at talking about quitting, but I notice you never really do it.”
Cara made a face. “Maybe you’ll find that this time I mean it.”
Harone chuckled. “Not a chance! Kataro mentioned that you swam to the Abandoned Bridge at least partially underwater. Held your breath then, right? And battled the force of the river, too.”
Wanting badly to change the subject, Cara asked, “What about seabirds? How do your people cross over, Kataro?”
“We fly above the Stream from one set of steps to the other.”
“I wish I could do that. Hey, what if a seabird would turn to the Shadow? He wouldn’t be stopped by the Stream.”
“It is rare for a seabird to do so but, if one did and dared the passage, he would be pulled into the Stream. I do not know how, but so it is written. Perhaps a sudden air current.”
Kalapa said, “I think we should all get some rest now. The whole house looks like it’s asleep; don’t forget we leave first thing in the morning. We’ll have at least three days to make plans and discuss strategy.”
“You’re right, Kalapa. Good night, everyone. Cara, don’t forget to take the tablet with you. Good night.” Kataro flew out into the garden, followed a moment later by Kalapa.
Harone remained seated. “Stay a moment, Cara. I think I owe you an apology for what I said earlier.”
She smiled, “You already apologized, and so did I. I’ll stay though. We are supposed to be getting something from the king, remember?”
He waved that aside. “True, though I suspect I know what it is. As I was saying, if I don’t owe you an apology then perhaps I owe you an explanation. It wasn’t jealousy that made me say what I did. Well, maybe I’m a little jealous about the sword.”
He paused and his eyes grew somber with pain and anger. “It’s just frustration, really. In spite of the prophecy in the Ancient Writings, I kept expecting that somehow I’d be able to revenge my parents’ deaths myself. You know how it is to helplessly watch someone die and know you can do nothing’?”
Cara nodded, remembering Kassis.
“They died and I wasn’t even nearby to mourn or bury them. Then I saw Lamar die. I still held to the hope that I could do something. Seeking revenge kept me from feeling helpless. ... When you unsheathed the sword and I heard what you and Kataro had to say, I finally had to admit my plots were beyond me. Kataro tried to convince me onboard but I wouldn’t listen.”
Harone stopped and looked down at the floor. Cara got up from her cushion and settled right in front of him. She grasped both his hands, and murmured, “Don’t do this to yourself! I know you’re angry. I am too, especially about Kassis actually—because he was so young and because of the look on Rabada’s face when she shot him. There are times when I just want to…”
She sighed. “But I don’t get the luxury of being a loose cannon. You can’t either.” She caught Harone’s expression and made a face. “Sorry! Outworlder again!”
“I understand what you meant.” Harone chuckled. “Woe betides me! If we are distracted by personal vengeance, it could cost us the completion of our, your, mission.”
“No, our mission. We are all in this too deep. Anyway, I don’t know how but somehow if I manage to get into that chamber, I’ll have to shut down the vendetta stuff. I can’t explain but I can tell when I hold the Sword—you have to think the same way it was meant to work. I’ll be just an instrument as much as the Sword itself. Alphesis will do as he said he would.” She paused, frowning, “And, you know, I don’t think even he sees it as revenge.”
“I suspect you’re right. Oh, Cara, I’ve killed them a hundred times in my mind, the Fenroi and the sorcerers, but it never helps. Not even in my mind. I am sick of feeling helpless. Useless.”
“Survivor’s guilt.”
At Harone’s inquiring look, Cara added, “Goes with the territory. You lose someone, and it’s hard to figure out why life goes on. Why you go on. I’ve got a friend back home felt that way too, a while back.”
With a parting squeeze, she withdrew her hands from Harone’s, and added forcefully. “But you’re not useless, and you’re hardly helpless! You’ve done a lot already, and you’ve promised to do more. What’s more, I know you live up to your promises.”
Harone snorted. “What have I done to make you believe that?”
Cara grinned. “Forgive me for a touch of selfishness but let me begin by thanking you for saving my life.”
“What? I never-”
“How long do you think I would have stayed by Kassis’ body if you hadn’t practically forced me unto my horse? For that matter, you helped save Halprin’s life by protecting him right after Rabada attacked him.”
“I just did what Hathel bade me do. Besides which, have you watched Halprin the last few days? I think all I gave him was a burden instead of rest.” He added with a worried frown. “Cara, there’s something wrong with him.”
“You’ve noticed it, too, then. I wish there were something I could do to help but I’ve always feared him a little and now I have no idea what I could say. I don’t know enough to offer help because I don’t know if he needs help. Asking him to explain what’s up—you know to see if there’s anything I can do—would just come across nosy. I mean, uh, appear intrusive!”
Harone shook his head again. “It’s just as well you didn’t try. I think he’ll have to come to terms with what has happened to him, alone. Some problems we can’t easily share with others. In addition, I fear there is more to this than what you and I suspect. You know, Hathel doesn’t want Halprin to go with us. I wonder why.”
He gave her a challenging grin. “But there goes your claim that I’ve helped.”
Cara was relieved to see his spirits returning. “Not if you look at the whole battle. By protecting Halprin from that werewright, even for those few minutes, you made it possible for him to protect us from Rabada. You really saved the whole company, and the quest itself.”
Harone responded with a rueful laugh. “I think you’re stretching that a bit, to make me feel better.”
“Not really, but the most important thing you did is what you’re still doing—encouraging me. That night at the ruined building, and again at the inn—your concern, Kataro and Kalapa’s too, has kept me going. At the inn, I was tempted to run. A little more and I might have, but remember how you said I wouldn’t be in there alone? That’s what keeps me from pitching the whole thing and running off somewhere, and you reminded me of it when I needed it most. I’ve been in your debt for days. Maybe if I pep-talk you long enough tonight I can repay you a little.”
“You’d never run.”
“Hah! Right!” She stared at a plant just beyond Harone’s shoulder but saw instead a letter tumbling into a campfire. “I was running from everything—even memories of a couple of things from back home—until I talked with Alphesis. Sometimes I still feel that way, like at the inn and again tonight when Kataro and you told me about the Streams.”
“Look at me!” When she did, Harone added, “Saying ‘I can’t do it’ has become a habit with you. You used to believe it and you ran, or so you say. When you met Alphesis, you found out you didn’t have to run but you still say the words once in a while to keep in practice.”
He smiled with a twinkle in his eyes that reminded her of Abdis. “Well, you’ll get no sympathy from me. I may not be able to wield that blade against those three but I’ll see to it that you do. Apparently that is to be my contribution. Our gifts may have arrived—I heard the outside door and voices a moment ago. Shall we go see?”
Harone helped Cara to her feet and started toward the hallway.
“You act like you know what it is, or rather what they are. How? More importantly, what?”
Harone chuckled. “How? I overheard a conversation between Mathwy and one of the king’s guards. As for what, chain mail.”
Cara groaned. “Oh, you’re kidding!”
Harone muttered, “Goats again.” He shrugged. “Sorry, my lady. You would doubtless prefer jewels. Honestly, so would I, but I think we will be glad of the protection of armor before this is over. Let’s go get it and go to bed. We’ll have trouble enough staying mounted tomorrow with mail on, without falling asleep as well.”

 
9- The Gambit Begins
  
Before dawn, gusts left behind by the night’s drizzle managed to creep over Cara’s window sill and slip chill fingers under her covers. Cara huddled further into the warmth of the blanket she had added earlier, only to hear voices and the unmistakable sounds of preparations filtering through her door. Sighing, she sat up. Across from the bed was a low table, covered with a leather-bound bundle surmounted with a sheathed sword. Groaning, she stood up and gathered the blanket around her shoulders.
  
Nearly an hour later, she was groaning again. She had been proud of the good time she made while washing and dressing, allowing herself only brief pauses to sample the breakfast brought her on a tray. However, progress ceased to exist after her first efforts with the chain mail. The workings appeared straightforward enough—just leather straps to fasten, nothing requiring an owner’s manual—but the angle of the straps on the front section failed to align with their mates on the back section.
Voicing an infuriated growl, Cara dropped her hands from the most stubborn buckle, and considered for the second time whether one section was upside down. Impossible. Judging from the mangled rings and fragments dangling from the edges, someone had given thought to her height and had performed some axe-scissored tailoring. Rough edge went with rough edge. Arms went with arm openings. Neither piece could be upside down. Arm openings. She hadn’t attempted the arm pieces yet.
“Cara? Time.” Harone’s voice came through the door just loud enough to be heard over the competing conversations and jingle of mail in the hall.
The need for immediate help squelched any thought of embarrassment. Cara hurried to the door and unlocked it. “Come in! I think I need an expert.”
“You’ll not want me, then.” The young man peeked around the edge of the door, the quizzical expression on his face disappearing into stiff solemnity. “Yes, my lady?”
Cara throbbed a warning snarl. “Yeah, I’m doing it wrong. Just …”
Harone betrayed his inscrutable expression by gasping, “What?” He backed into the hall as Cara took a step toward him.
“Knock it off! Your eyes give you away—as usual. Just help me!”
Shrugging, the man walked back into the room. He removed his gloves and tucked them into his belt then, reaching toward her, he murmured, “You’re inside out. If it’s any consolation I did the same thing.”
The suppressed merriment in his eyes was creeping into the curve of his lips. Cara mouthed the single word, liar, but she wasn’t in the mood for an argument—real or feigned. She tried to concentrate on his explanations and follow his directions but found other thoughts intervening. In mail like this, he could almost pass for one of Mathwy’s men. Had he always been this tall or had he never before been quite this close?
  
With her last buckles fastened, Cara and Harone hurried to join Halprin outside his front door. So far, the only impact of her gift was its weight and stiffness, which threatened to many any movement awkward. She even had doubts about whether she could remove the mail on her own.
Similarly fitted, Halprin stood over at the open gate. He turned and beckoned them toward their waiting horses. Then all three of them led their mounts into the crowded street, since Halprin predicted the horses would remain calmer if led through all the varied activity and strange smells.
The seabirds were to meet them at the northwest gate. At the king’s request, they had gone abroad with the other Chosen who would fly with the Tethran army, to spy out the path they were to take. Mathwy and the mearis were to meet them at the gate as well, while Hathel and his brother Havor were awaiting them at Hathel’s home.
Lira’s absence suggested she wasn’t going with them. Cara reflected that she had not seen her since the night before. She puzzled over that brief encounter—Lira greeting them so hurriedly, then backtracking and insisting on converting the sword’s concealment rather than Halprin only a moment later. Cara was just as glad she was not with them right now. No matter how polite and proper the woman’s words, Cara still felt herself to be an intruder. She could still be awed in the company of Halprin and Hathel but she felt them to be friends and held the hope of getting to know them even better, while the flawlessly gracious Lira seemed to repel any friendly advances.
Their path led them along a broad street with a whitewashed wall crowding one shoulder and a weed-tangled slope down to a narrow stream on the other side. Dead flower petals and winged seedpods drifted over the wall, and settled atop their trodden brethren on the street. A few clung briefly to Cara’s hair or her arms and then spiraled to the ground, leaving a scent like mown grass.
Cara noticed a few people clustered along the streamside edge of the road, the smoke of their breakfast fires mingling with the mist enough to muffle view of the buildings across the water. As they drew close to a high-curved stone bridge, just ahead of them a Sword knight and two yellow-caped city guards urged their horses off the road and down toward the encamped refugees.
A preteen girl and an elderly man ventured toward the horsemen. They bowed and both began talking, their attitude suggesting anxiety. The Sword knight spoke but only a rumble of sounds made it up the embankment. Sincerely hoping the people were getting instructions and not orders to vacate, Cara turned her attention back to the rough cobbles of the bridge.
Once across, they turned and then turned again, skirting first one high wall and then a second one. At last, Halprin led them down a flagged path to an iron gate in the wall they had been following.
The guard swung the gate open and bowed, as did a teenaged boy close beside him.
“Greeting. Under the Protection.” Murmuring softly, Halprin touched each head in turn, and then asked, “Lord Hathel?”
“In the stable paddock, my lord. Avelis?”
The boy looked up and nodded, then shuffled down the path. Cara noticed that he had a rather bad limp. She wondered from what. Disease? Or, perhaps, thanks to an attack by werewrights?
Hathel’s whole family was at his stable when they arrived. Neither Hathel nor his brother was mounted yet but their horses were saddled and bridled. Hathel was crouched on the ground, talking earnestly to a boy of about two who had nearly his whole fist crammed into his mouth. The boy nodded. Smiling, the physician hugged him and stood up.
Seeing his visitors, Hathel cried out a hearty, “Greeting! We’re ready.” With a quick bow, he beckoned them closer.
Hathel’s wife came to stand by her husband, a small child in her arms and a young girl close beside her. The woman reminded Cara of the goodman’s wife back at the Burning Tree. She had the same old ivory colored braids and, like the other woman, she made haste to bow to Halprin as he approached. Cara thought it odd--the woman’s husband was an enchanter and Halprin his close friend. She shook her head, reevaluating the Tethran culture yet again. Feudal was feudal, evidently. She nodded and offered her warmest smile, as the woman straightened from bowing to her in turn. At least, smiles seemed to be universal.
“Cara! Harone! This is my wife-” Hathel’s words scattered into laughter, as he was attacked by the two-year old who was throwing his arms about his leg. Chuckling, Hathel picked the boy up and kissed him.
The introductions continued but Cara hardly heard the names. Nodding and smiling, and touching each child’s hand in turn, her thoughts were on Hathel’s wife. Obviously, she was not of the Order and logically she would remain in the city with their children. She tried valiantly to make light of the whole expedition, but the worry in her eyes was plain. She spoke rapidly and laughed too often, bidding the two brothers look out for each other and return home in a week.
Havor was the only name she caught with any confidence. A man closer to Harone’s age than to Hathel’s, he had his older brother’s brown hair and eyes and a slender build. He remained with the horses during the introductions, intent on forcing some kind of supply or garment into his mount’s left saddlebag and then trying to buckle the overstuffed pouch closed. When Hathel called to him and pointed, he turned and waved to them then went back to his frustrated packing.
Finally their departure could be delayed no longer. Halprin mounted and called out, “Time!”
She and Harone mounted, then Hathel joined them amidst calls of farewell from his wife and two oldest children. As he rode past Havor, he snatched the recalcitrant object out of his brother’s hand and stuffed it into his own open saddlebag. Laughing, Havor mounted as well. He maneuvered around the others, and led them through the open gate at a canter.
  
Once out of the “Wizard District”, their pace slowed. The city streets twining through markets, inns, taverns, stables and artisans’ shops were beyond filled. All those who would go north to fight against the Shadow were heading toward the announced gate via any street leading generally north and west. Simultaneously, a continuous stream of farmers and townspeople who had fled south was trying to make headway into the centermost circles of the city. Cara had assumed that the number of people taking refuge in the city was at its greatest when she went to the Ancient Armory. Now at least as many more were just arriving in hope of refuge, leaving farm, mill and shop to the fate of the Shadow from which they fled.
She noted that many of those passing her were either aged or children, and guessed aloud that the others in their groups had volunteered to man walls or other defensive positions.
Halprin confirmed her theory. Cybis was leaving a small garrison in the city, which would be supplemented by whatever refugees were willing and able to bear arms. He had ordered the garrison deployed on the city roads to maintain order—as everyone went to the place assigned them by last night’s proclamation within the city, or by the gatekeepers for those who were still arriving from the north.
The sights and sounds were far worse than in Two River Province. Many faces were filled with fear and hopelessness, and despairing voices muttered the name of Pazgar or passed around garbled accounts of the overthrow of Samar. She gleaned both determination and resignation in those they passed. Dedication too, but is it to a hope and plan that’s already felt to be a lost cause? Okay, that’s only my sucky mood and they’re not a bunch of empaths. They don’t even know our plans. Lucky them.
Halprin rode forward like always, his scarred face filled with a calm that bewildered yet reassured her. She suspected that most everyone in the Orders of the Scroll and Sword, and many other followers of Cybis, were the same. Perhaps, choosing the difficult path was harder than riding it. Back in Melwood, Pinaca had said something about only will, his and everyone else’s.
Cara muttered to herself, “That’s what gets to me about them. They’re calm and really assured but they’re not obnoxious about it. You know what—because they’re not faking it! They’ve sworn to do his will—like that writing on the chamber—and their dedication to that pledge is so strong that when you watch them doing something, you’re watching Alphesis do it too. Any wonder they’re awesome? You know something? People at home don’t get awesome!”
Though she hadn’t spoken to anyone in particular, Harone answered her. “I can guess what they experience. Some who wrote our Ancient Writings called it the Joy of the Obedience.”
Cara gasped and turned to stare at the man. He stared back in surprise at her sudden scrutiny. She suddenly felt like he had observed her dream of Lira and the burning coal. Or, that he had been in it, hidden amidst all those dressed in seabird feathers. She sputtered, in spite of herself, “You know?”
Harone answered in perplexity, “What? Oh, I’ve sensed a glimmer or two in my better moments.” He grinned. “Precious few better moments. You?”
Cara thought for a minute before answering cautiously, “Weird getting asked that. Weirder, trying to answer. Yeah. The meeting aboard ship or at the inn when I said I wasn’t worried about my fate, just the people I had seen. I know I meant it but how did I manage to think it? I felt it strongest yesterday morning, going to the keep. You see, I had a dream about a kind of ceremony. Someone, Alphesis probably, said in the dream that it was, that I was feeling the joyful burning of the Obedience. Later, when I woke up and we were on our way to the chamber, I was so anxious to get started!”
“Not now. Like, so far from!” She bit her lip and risked a sheepish glance at Harone. His smile betrayed a reassuring hint of chagrin. “I wonder…” She gestured toward the enchanters and Havor, the three deep in their own conversation. “Harone, when they’re that committed to do the will of Alphesis, do they find it, does it feel awesome even inside, so to speak? To know, uh, you’ve made a decision and all that it means. Uh, you know?”
“Do you? From inside, I mean.”
Cara answered at once, “Do you mean do I awe myself? No way! When I feel that … feeling, it’s exciting, exhilarating!”
Harone grinned. “Exactly! Why would any enchanter feel anything different from what you and I feel, Cara? They’re Elder, too. I mean, we’re all mortal, I mean we’re all from sentient mortal races.” He gestured, as if searching for the right word, but his voice trailed off as they reached the gate.
Just beyond the city wall, King Cybis and his personal guard and cohort commanders were congregated, along with those of the two Orders who would travel north. Most were already mounted. Halprin and Hathel led their small group to the right, staying close to the city wall—the place where they had previously arranged to meet Mathwy and others from his mearis. The warriors hadn’t arrived yet.
Cara was surprised at the vast numbers assembled, although several people had mentioned that several cities south of Fiori had sent men. She reminded herself she had a tendency to forget that the vast bulk of the Tethran people dwelt to the south and east of the capital. Many of the hosts assembled here differed in appearance from the Tethrans she had seen, for many provinces of the land were represented in the gathering army.
Cara guessed that Cybis was giving final orders for the march north. From time to time, someone would nod and then ride off as though to relay instructions. Meshak, the Commander of the Sword, was by the king’s side. Cara glanced toward Halprin. She suspected that normally he would have been over with those two as they made final plans for the order of march. The enchanter seemed not to notice or care about what was happening. He and Hathel were still in deep discussion; their attention was focused on a fragment of parchment Cara suspected was a map. Havor was crowded close to them, trying to catch a glimpse of the map himself.
Cara found Lady Lira was amongst the enchanters gathered about the king. She had put off her robe of flame and wore chain mail, as did all the Order. As they approached Cybis and Meshak, on their way to the meeting place by the wall, Lira glanced in their direction and then turned to watch Halprin as he rode near. After a moment’s hesitation, Lira reined her steed out of the press around the king and came over to him. As if suddenly aware of her approach, Halprin looked up and nudged his horse towards her.
They talked for several minutes, Lira with a strength of emotion Cara could see even at a distance. Halprin was facing away from her, so she could not be sure about his reaction to his wife’s words but Cara could tell when he replied to them. Whatever he said, Lira shook her head in response, eyes flashing. In spite of her angry reaction, Halprin reined his horse close to hers and, leaning down, kissed her. Cara noted that Lira’s arms slipped around her husband in response to his gesture, and she was glad.
Before Cara could see more, a disturbance at the gates distracted her. Mathwy’s voice boomed over hundreds of others and his huge form towered over refugees and city guards alike. However, the way was so crowded that neither she nor Harone could make sense of the argument. Harone rode back through the crowd gate until he was near one of the mearis. After a few words with him, he worked his way back out of the city gate, chased by the threatening protests of the city guards and followed by Mathwy and his warriors. Cara noticed Mathwy kept turning around and bellowing something but all she could make out was “popinjay.”
When Harone returned, he was grinning and shaking his head. “Mathwy! How in the name of Alphesis does he avoid constant duels? He was lingering back there, insulting the Archon of Tanta-Cerno. Magris suspects he’s hoping to incite the man to fight him.”
“Now? Why?” 
“It seems Mathwy was saying farewell to a lady friend, when his horse backed into the archon’s. The man told him to move along or he’d report Mathwy for blocking the gate. Look! It’s all they can do to keep him from going back to challenge the archon.”
Harone pointed. Mathwy had actually turned his horse around, only to be blocked by Magris and Medwyn, both of whom together were barely able to restrain him.
At that moment, King Cybis caused the war pipes to sound for the departure. Cara shivered at hearing their strange, wild sound, like the hunting call of supernatural beasts. Silence clamped tight on a thousand voices. Harone leaned toward her and whispered that the pipes were so ancient that scholars believed them fashioned by Galis, a half-mythical Young One said to have lived before the coming of Alphesis. Below the pipes, so deep that it was felt as much as heard, boomed the voice of the Eyrie Tabor, the war drum of the kings of Tethra. A long silence followed the last echo from the Tabor, broken only by the jingle of harness and the snort of warhorses.
Halprin spurred his horse along the wall until they drew close to a wooden structure rather like a stepped pyramid. Up Calyx leaped, level upon level, the structure rocking slightly under the repeated blows of the warhorse’s hooves, the sounds echoing the Tabor in tympani. Attaining the small platform at the top, Halprin turned the warhorse about until he faced the waiting forces of Tethra.
He shouted in a great voice, “I speak the Great Oath. ‘May I serve Alphesis, With the eyes of eagles, The feet of willingness, The hands of comfort, The spells of goodness. Within the Obedience. Under His Protection’.” Pausing and surveying the silent field, he crossed his hands on his chest. “You who walk in his Obedience, I salute you. I will not say, ‘Alphesis be with you.’ for he is this minute within you! Today, you are his Protection!”
Amid the answering shouts of the warriors, Halprin nodded once, then turned Calyx about and clattered back down the platform. The pipes sounded again and the advance guard moved forward slowly to the cadence of the drum.
First rode the Knights of the Order of the Sword, clad in shining mail and long red capes, armed with sword and spear. In their midst was the standard of the Order: the Sword of Justice, sheathed and placed point up before the Burning Tree. The knights rode in two long rows, proud and strong, warriors of renown from Tethra and a few from beyond its borders.
Behind these rode the standard-bearer of the King and the Guardian of the Eyrie Tabor, sounding the slow, solemn cadence of the war march. Here also were gathered the pipers and scouts and heralds.
Next rode Cybis, King of Tethra and supreme leader of the Council. Upon his left was Meshak, commander of the Order of the Sword and warleader of Tethra. At the king’s right rode Alexia the Wise, as leader of the Order of the Scroll in Halprin’s absence. Cara glanced toward Halprin. He wasn’t looking at the leaders of the Orders or princes of the southern provinces that accompanied the king, but at Lira.
She followed the king in the array of the enchanters of the Scroll. They rode there, mighty and wise, looking keenly into the distance as though they already sought to find their foe. In part they did, for they could sense evil from afar. Neither Lira nor any other of the Order turned to look upon the city and peoples they left behind. In their midst rode Gildar, their standard-bearer, holding forth the ensign of the Scroll: Alphesis Himself bearing the Scroll of the Ancient Writings.
Then followed all the host of Tethra, first men afoot with spear and shield or with bows slung at their backs, each according to the city or province from whence they came. At the last rode the knights of the realm, led by Vardis, Prince of Sephas and half brother to the king. In the dust of their following were carts of various kinds, Cara guessed, filled with supplies or perhaps siege weapons.
  
All that remained was a distant throb of drum, and the twinkle of light on spear and hauberk as the sun broke through the last remnants of the clouds. Mathwy’s voice, impatiently urging them to ride forth, made Cara start.
Kataro and Kalapa had just returned. Noticing Cara’s preoccupation, Kataro flew circling around her to ask if anything was amiss. She shook her head automatically brushing windblown hair from her eyes.
“No. I was just thinking about kings I’ve read about in history classes or library books, like Charlemagne and Arthur. It seems so strange to see real people like that here. It made me think how Charlemagne was a real person and how some think Arthur was, too. At home, most of the stuff in the old tales is about court intrigue, ceremonial speeches and totally unreal one-on-one duels. Mathwy’s voice kind of shocked me back to reality.” Cara sighed. “All that glory and romance and stuff is what they put in stories. For the actual people behind the stories, the drums and horns must have faded away leaving them with the real stuff. Being terrified. Killing and dieing. People losing family, friends, everything they have.”
Kataro said, “You’re right that wars are never splendid, even if old tales sometimes make them seem so. Otherwise I think we disagree. I see splendor in any struggle against evil or in any desire and will to do good, even when the cause fails. I know nothing of your Charlemagne and Arthur. Still, I would wager that your people began writing about them because they discerned in them a dedication to a cause they believed to be worthy, not because they were renowned for their feats of arms or the jewels on their helms.”
The seabird studied Cara curiously. “Does no one in your world ever write about heroes championing causes which fail?”
“Ouch! Got me.” Cara grinned sheepishly. “Uh, actually, Arthur and Charlemagne’s knight Roland both kind of failed.”
Kataro nodded. “Then you know. Any effort toward good is as ‘real’ as the death and suffering that sometimes accompanies it. One of our great writers, Lenosis, said, ‘To believe evil is more real than good is the surest pathway to despair.’”
Cara nodded. “Smart guy! Almost as smart as you, Kataro. Thanks!”
The seabird smiled at his protégée. “If all is well with you, I still need to report to Lord Halprin. And, I think at least one young man might be glad of your company.”
With that hint, Cara finally began to take notice of her surroundings. The company was riding nearly due west, following the small stream that sprang from within the city walls. From a brief glance at a map that morning, Cara suspected that the stream bent north eventually to join the banks of the Nonz, somewhere near war-torn Samar. Nevertheless, for now, its light-hearted babbling made it a pleasant companion on the road. The sun had come out and added to the peaceful country scene while the misting rain had gone on before them, clouding the northern sky after tinting the trees and plants around them with sparkling copper and pale green.
Cara watched Kataro fly ahead to join Kalapa in front of the company, where Halprin and Hathel rode. He flew close over the riders’ heads, since they must take great care to avoid observation by any possible advance guard of the Shadow. The two enchanters appeared to be deep in discussion of their route or that of the Tethran army. Hathel still held the small parchment map. Behind them again came Gedra, Mathwy, and the others of Halprin’s mearis, with Mathwy as usual the center of attention. Cara guessed that he was telling a humorous tale, by their repeated laughter.
Harone and Havor were riding together, engaged in a spirited discussion. Having a rather sure guess about who might be glad of her company, Cara reined her mount toward them. 
Seeing her coming, Harone called out, “Cara, is the lesson over?”
“What?”
“We tried to get your attention a few minutes ago but you seemed to be discussing weighty matters with Kataro.”
Havor added, “It was disappointing! Harone says your world has wagons that fly, or some such nonsense. Only you can deny such claims but you were not available to help me, being deep in more serious discussions.” The young man glanced toward Harone in cheerful challenge.
“No. I was just preoccupied with something Kataro was telling me.”
“So, there are no flying wagons, then?”
Cara grinned. “Sorry, Havor, but we’ve got them. Hope you didn’t bet too much.”
Harone shook his head. “He wouldn’t wager with me. Actually, Havor’s been telling me about the initiate training of the Order.”
Cara glanced back to Havor. He wore the short blue cape of his position as initiate. “Oops. You’re training for the Order, aren’t you? I saw a bunch of you guys in the Chamber of the Scroll. How much longer do you have to go?”
Havor’s face softened into an echo of his brother’s smile. “They don’t measure it like that. When the time comes, all the Order knows it. If my studies go well, it may be before next winter’s frosts. Harone tells me that he intends to present himself to the Council on our return.”
Harone nodded. “The sooner I begin the sooner I’ll finish.”
  
They rode together for the rest of the day. Cara and Harone told Havor any fragments of their experiences that Havor hadn’t heard during the meeting in the Chamber of the Scroll. He told them about life in Fiori and on his brother’s crown lands, but mostly about his initiate training under the guidance of his older brother. Although he wasn’t planning to be a healer, Havor took time to describe Hathel’s superior healing skills, gleaned from study first in Thalassa then Tethra. Hathel’s knowledge of medicinal herbs were acquired from both lands, he said, and from a voyage beyond the sea in his youth.
Even allowing for the praise of an older brother by the younger, Cara felt foolish when she remembered what she had said to Kalapa about needing a real doctor for Halprin. When Harone asked Havor, he confirmed  that all Hathel had lacked at the ruin was an herb used to counter the effects of Rabada’s sorcerous ribbons. As they knew, Mathwy had supplied that. He seemed to know more than he said but he didn’t elaborate.
As sunset drew near, Havor judged that they had covered one third of the distance just as they had hoped. The seabirds had seen nothing except their own army marching north. Since leaving Fiori, the riders had traveled from farm and country lane, to sheepfold and woodland, but the land was still tame here, if thinly settled.
Just before the stream began to flow too directly northward for them to continue following it, they rode into the center of a deserted village. Both seabirds disappeared for a few minutes. When they returned, each was carrying a large fish. At the promise of additional ones should they camp where they were, Halprin ordered the company to stop for the night.
Cara was surprised that Halprin permitted a small fire, though she was relieved. Cooked fish was more to her taste than raw.
When Havor inquired about the advisability of lighting a fire, Hathel reminded the three that they were on the southern bank of a stream that still ran free and that neither he nor Halprin sensed anything evil near them. Even so, Halprin cautioned them all to talk quietly, and Mathwy set up his usual guard schedule with posts near the most outlying buildings.

 
10- Magic Awry
  
“I brought these along, just in case we had a chance to practice.”
Cara watched dubiously as Harone came toward her with two long sticks. He tossed her one of them, and she just managed to catch it.
“You’re going to teach me how to use a sword with a child’s toy?”
Harone grinned. “I still remember how well you threw that knife at Rabada.”
Havor cut in, “She threw a knife …”
“Don’t go there!” Cara interrupted with a furious glance first at the startled initiate and then an even fiercer one in Harone’s direction. “Seriously, why aren’t we using real swords? All we’ve been doing is the branch thing-”
Havor interrupted. “You can’t use the Sword for practice!”
“I could use yours if you would let me.”
Harone asked, “What is that expression you use? Oh, yes! ‘Please tell me you’re kidding!’ Cara, would you want me to try to strike you with my sword?”
“No,” Cara grumped. “Still, this thing looks …”
She stopped mid-sentence, seeing Halprin approach. His face was grave, too grave to suit her considering that they were out in the middle of nowhere.
“What’s up?”
“Hm? Oh.” Halprin answered, “Perhaps, something serious but I don’t know yet. Lady Cara, I need to talk with you for a few minutes. Havor, Harone, would you be good enough…” He gestured apologetically.
Harone looked at the enchanter, worry and doubt in his eyes, and then turned to Havor.
“Take a walk?”
The initiate shrugged and nodded, his own expression troubled.
Halprin called to them, “Be wary. Don’t go out of sight of the fire.”
The enchanter turned back to Cara with an expression she read as reluctance. It reminded her of earlier that evening--Halprin and Hathel had been deep in discussion as they ate, their expressions and tone suggesting they were in disagreement. Worse, she thought at the time that they glanced toward her several times but she hadn’t been sure--Harone and Havor had been telling her about Kalak’s idiosyncrasies and his strange but effective method of teaching the Writings.
However, when Cara looked at Halprin’s troubled face as Harone and Havor left, illogically she felt that with their absence her only protection was gone. Protection from what? More bad news. What else?
Aloud she asked, “Want to sit?”
“Not for the moment. I have a request to make. Do not answer at once, for the matter is more serious than you might think. We know you bear a Discerning Stone given you in Melwood. My Order makes use of such stones from time to time to see things from afar. A Discerning Stone may be used somewhat like the Thought Stones with which Cybis speaks to our allies and to Tethra’s more distant cities. With a Discerning Stone, the user may see other places but no message can be given.”
Cara nodded. “Actually, I’m not surprised. I think I may have done that with my stone once without realizing it. The distance thing, that is. That’s how I saw the Isle for the first time. So I should look for something? Kataro had me use the stone once to see what-”
Halprin interrupted her gently but firmly. “This is not precisely the same. As Scroll commander, I possess such a stone but we decided that it would serve best if used as a protective tool against the lies and spells of Pazgar. Alexia has it for now, since she commands in my stead. I didn’t grudge the gift but now Hathel and I find that we need news of the Shadow if we are to travel further with safety.
“Tomorrow morning, we must leave the dubious protection of the Fiorrin Stream. That was enough to persuade us to use caution. From mid-afternoon,  we have focused on any suggestion of nearby evil and within the last two hours, Hathel and I have begun to sense something. It’s not close yet but it is closer than is comfortable. We need to find out what and where it is for the safety of your quest, and we need to know at once, tonight.
“Would you lend Hathel and me your stone for a few minutes? Think, for there are dangers in allowing another person to do this.”
“You lent yours to Alexia. Aren’t you fearful of what will happen from that?”
Halprin shook his head. “It’s not that simple. I’m of the Order and trained in its ways. I was able to safeguard myself from the hazards of such an operation before we left by breaking all my ties with my stone for the time being. You cannot do this.”
Cara frowned. “If I’m of the Order, can’t I safeguard myself like you did?”
Halprin smiled at her. “No, my dear. I appreciate the offer but you are not a trained enchanter. You cannot protect yourself, and you can’t perform the seeking we need to do. If I break your ties to your stone, I also destroy its power.” He paused, adding, “I would like to know more of the time you saw the Isle in your stone. For now, though, I will do the seeking and Hathel has agreed to do what he can to shield you. This may not even work. No Outworlder has ever been of the Order, nor has one ever possessed a Discerning Stone. What do you choose to do?”
“I’ll take vanilla.” Cara gave him a wry smile. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t supposed to make sense—it’s just something my grandmom says when she’s confused.
“Seriously, Halprin, all I can do is guess about the danger you see in this. You’re the expert. I’d suggest we do whatever you would do in my place.” Cara grinned. “But knowing you, I think I already know what your answer would be. Yeah, whatever. Let’s go for it!”
Halprin smiled again and started to say something, but she stopped him with a touch on his hand. She tried to keep her voice level but now that she had agreed she was starting to get nervous.
“Please! Don’t ask me if I’m sure. We’re doing it, whatever it is.”
“Thank you! I’ll be right back.”
She watched Halprin go over and speak with Hathel. As the two walked back toward her, Cara longed to say she had changed her mind, but no words came. She unclasped the chain and handed Halprin the Discerning Stone.
Taking it, Halprin went to stand behind Cara. Instructing her to sit, Hathel knelt in front of her and asked,
“Cara, are you sure you’re willing to do this?”
All she could do was nod. Ask me one more time if I’m sure, folks. She added what she hoped was a calm smile to the silent nod, and received a smile from the physician that was not nearly as calm as her own. Fear inched toward panic.
“If that is so, place your hands palms together between mine. Good. Now try to make your mind blank. We suspect you will see whatever Halprin seeks to see. They should do you no harm. Do not try to break in upon these images—I mean with your own thoughts about them. If you do so, Halprin will not see clearly that which we seek. Are you ready?”
Cara nodded again, and tried to do as he said, but she felt so frightened that she had trouble even remembering that she was to keep her mind blank. They remained like that a moment. Then Hathel shook his head and looked up at Halprin who still stood behind her.
“Leave it, Halprin. It’s best undone...”
“No! They are getting closer. It must be done.” Halprin sighed. His hands settled lightly on her shoulders. “We can’t do it if you’re this frightened. If you’re not willing, tell us so.”
With a disarming smile, Hathel squeezed her held hands and said, “Cara, don’t you trust us? I’ll do everything I can to protect you.”
“I know you will. Let’s try again, okay?”
“Perhaps if you closed your eyes it may prove easier.”
Cara nodded and, following Halprin’s suggestion, closed her eyes. A minute or two passed. Finally, a vague shape began to appear. Slowly, it resolved itself into the reptilian forms of werewrights, all mounted except one who knelt beside his pony as if reading a difficult trail. Cara started in spite of the warnings, but Hathel’s hands held hers fast. A calming influence seemed to pass through their clasped hands. Even so, the image was gone.
Relieved that Halprin was finished, Cara relaxed and began to open her eyes, but another scene floated slowly into view and gradually focused. The seaport of Dath-Sheeda, under siege even now but with well-manned walls that still withstood the catapults of the Shadow. She rejoiced at the sight of its valiant resistance or, perhaps, she felt Halprin’s own relief and pride in the defenders. Then, as if a floodgate broke apart, many forms and scenes came into view in such quick succession that she was not able to sort them out until later.
The next was nearly also the worst. People were crying and screaming, throwing stones, slipping on something dark. Blood. Samar! It had to be.
The scene changed. She was racing down an alleyway, looking down, around… Several people crouched over prone bodies in a poorly lit room. One, a gray-haired man, was tying a bandage around a child’s leg. The sight was gone, replaced by the flame of a nearly gutted candle. It winked out, or the scene changed.
She saw the camp of the Tethran army which had left Fiori that morning, first from a distance, and then from within it. Three images came in quick succession: Alexia studying a scroll with Halprin’s Discerning Stone clasped in her hand, then Cybis and Lira talking earnestly, and finally Meshak rapidly drawing a diagram as he spoke with Prince Vardis and several knights gathered around a makeshift table.
Cara glimpsed what she took to be the camp of the Shadow’s army that the Tethrans hoped to intercept but it was gone before she could really think of what she had seen. In its place appeared the same small group of werewrights from the first vision of the seeking. All were mounted now, riding rapidly like hounds sure of a scent. Cara found herself looking at them from different positions until it came to her mind that Halprin was trying to determine their exact location. As this idea took form, Cara felt the gentle pressure of Hathel’s hands. She hastened to blank out the thought.
The great army of the Shadow reappeared but this time the image grew stronger. Cara felt she was being pulled toward the center of the camp. Fear trickled back into her but it failed to destroy the image. Cara found herself struggling blindly to tear free from the point to which she was drawn. She knew at once that Halprin and Hathel were striving to do the same, and failing. Her fear grew, its pressure on her chest choking her.
Reality fragmented into chaos. Images and sounds erupted, all vying for her attention, each overlapping the others, all seeming to be happening at the same time or in the same place or both. Hoof beats, shouts, music, screams, creaks and groaning overlapped in a cacophony of noise. She was sitting before the campfire but also walking through the Shadow’s camp, on a horse, falling interminably from somewhere, and yet she was nowhere at all. She no longer existed—her body  was gone, all sensation with it, and her very identity trembled on the verge of annihilation.
Sudden calm replaced the chaos. An elderly man studied her face. He was gone.
  
Someone was holding her down! She couldn’t get up! Couldn’t talk! Why were they doing this to her? She obeyed them, and this was her reward? Cara yanked at the manacles about her wrists and threw back her head in an effort to free herself from the one suffocating her. With strength born of desperation and loathing, she broke her bonds and stood up.
Someone was blocking her way! They had taken her weapons but her hands were free now and she’d make them pay! Cara lunged forward, her fingers ripping toward her foe like claws. All the air was forced out of her lungs, as brutal pressure hit her torso.
Someone’s face was in front of her, speaking. Taunting her. He could talk but he wouldn’t let her talk. Something was over her mouth, stifling her curses and cries for help. The person in front of her kept talking. How dare he speak when she couldn’t! She tried to claw at him to make him stop it but her hands wouldn’t move. What had they done to her hands?
  
“Cara, please! Cara!”
How did they know her name? How?
“Stop it, Cara! You’re safe. The link is broken.”
The mocking face in front of her altered. Cara gasped as it took on the appearance of Harone. How? She made another lunge against whatever was holding her back.
It was Harone! Why had he been taunting her, or had it been someone else?
“It’s safe. It’s over.” The voice was calm, gentle, not taunting.
What was over? Cara stared at his face, wondering if it was going to change again but it stayed Harone. Harone with an agony of worry in his expression.
A voice whispered from behind her, “Don’t stop. Keep talking to her.”
Halprin’s voice. His arms were about her waist. No one was holding her wrists any more. Cara dropped her outstretched hands, wondering at the claw-like curve to her fingers. Wondering. Remembering.
She groaned to herself and grew so limp that only Halprin’s arms held her up for a moment. Simultaneously, everything returned like the inward rush of the tide. Using the stone in the seeking. Images of people, werewrights, cities. The face of a kindly old man. Cara shuddered. Not kindly. Calculating, cold, ruthless. Pazgar!
“You did this on purpose, just to frighten me!” “You knew what would happen.” “I’ll make you pay for this! You think I can’t but he can.” “He promised to help.”
“Oh, my God! What was I saying? I … Oh, God, I’m so sorry!”
Halprin released his grip. Harone stepped closer and pulled her to him. Hugging her, he whispered, “Sh! Forget it. He’s gone. It’s over.”
How could his words have sounded mocking? She rested her head against Harone’s shoulder and drank in the soothing sounds of his voice, only pulling free when she realized that Hathel-in-front-of-her had somehow turned into Harone-in-front-of-her. Where was Hathel? She took a step back and looked about her. The physician was approaching them with a cloth held to his chin and a small bottle in his free hand.
Cara groaned and covered her eyes with her palms. Peeping out at Hathel, she said, “I scratched you. I don’t believe this! I’m so sorry!”
She reached toward the cloth Hathel was holding against his face. The physician mimed a look of terror and took a step back. Halprin and Harone both laughed.
“Sorry!” Cara repeated. “Is it bad?”
Hathel shook his head and took away the cloth. One scratch ran from a point low on his cheek to his chin. “Good reflexes. How are you feeling?”
“Besides mortified? Okay.” She put her hand to her forehead. “Actually, I’ve got a headache but I deserve it. I’m so-”
“Sorry.” Halprin finished for her. “And I’m sorry for jeopardizing all three of us like that.”
“You get everything you needed?” Cara glanced toward him and then back at Hathel. “Hey, you two look terrible! Headaches all around?”
Halprin handed her the Stone. As his hand brushed hers, Cara felt tension in his fingers. She remembered holding his hand helplessly the night he had been burned by the threads. He was in pain again, severe perhaps as it had not been since before they entered Fiori.
“I learned what we needed, thanks to you. Those werewrights outnumber us and they’re close. We’ll have to break camp and move.” Halprin swayed slightly as he spoke. Hathel moved toward him but Halprin motioned him away. “Quickly! Tell the others to prepare to ride.”
His response wasn’t an answer. She tried to think of something she could ask so he would say more, but he turned away. Grabbing up a water skin, he tipped it over on the fire to douse it. Harone walked between them.
“If they try to bully you into anything like that again, you tell me about it.”
“I wanted to do it. Harone.” She gazed over his shoulder only to see the enchanter heading toward their horses. Later, maybe. She refocused on Harone, in time to see him look back toward her a curiosity in his gaze. “It was important.”
“Admitted, since we’re breaking camp. I understand the need for such searches—just think carefully before allowing Halprin to involve you next time.”
Cara shook her head. “I’ll do it again if we need the information. I’m okay now, except for this headache.”
Harone smiled. “You’re a courageous woman. Alphesis’ fortune that you were spared anything worse.” He added louder, over a sudden explosion of angry voices, “Speaking of courage, there’s someone who loathes even the suggestion of retreat.”
Harone tipped his head in the direction of the argument, though even their outlying guards must hear the voices. Mathwy was trying to convince Hathel that they should ambush the werewrights rather than fleeing. Hathel’s soft response was obliterated by his adversary’s words but whatever he said stopped Mathwy mid-sentence.
As the enchanter turned away from him, Mathwy fumed, “It’s bad enough I end up going off like this instead of with the army. Now we must turn tail from a handful of werewrights! I might as well have stayed back at Fiori for all the action I’ll see.”
Halprin called over to him, “We didn’t come here for battle, Mathwy, and you know it. If this mission fails, so will the war. But take heart! We’ll all be busy enough pursuing the last of the Daetaga in Tethra, once the quest is completed.”
Still grumbling, Mathwy picked up his saddle and went to his horse. Hathel passed him but neither spoke to the other.
The physician brought Cara a small cup with some creamy liquid at the bottom. “This is for your headache. It should be heated to be at its best but there’s no time.”
Cara pointed. “And no fire. Thank you, though.” She drank it down at once.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better. Halprin and I are distressed you were so badly affected by the seeking.”
“No, it’s okay. I volunteered and I’m glad I did, headache or not. Why don’t you fix a concoction for you and Halprin? You both look terrible.”
Hathel smiled. “It will pass. Enchantment is like complex thinking or physical labor—it tires us.” He gathered up the cup and turned. Cara noticed that he looked immediately toward Halprin, worry in his eyes.
 
They mounted and were on the move in minutes, riding in a dim land of pasture and copse lit only by the waxing moon. Though they passed an occasional distant shepherd’s hut or farmhouse, Halprin would not permit them to seek refuge for fear of endangering any unsuspecting farmer who might offer them shelter. The company’s progress was slow for the horses were already tired from a full day’s work.
Nearly an hour had passed when Halprin muttered, “They’re following us.” He drew his horse to a halt and the others did the same.
From somewhere over to her left, Mathwy chuckled. “What say you now, my lord? If the hell-spawned are that intent on suicide, shouldn’t we oblige them?”
“No!” Halprin barked over his shoulder. He turned back toward Hathel and they talked for a few minutes in soft tones. This time, they appeared to be in agreement. At the end of the conversation, Halprin rode toward Cara.
As soon as he was in range of a quiet voice, he asked, “You heard?”
Cara nodded but could think of nothing to say. Being discovered and followed was exactly what they had feared the most and here it was happening. Would the appearance of a sorcerer be next?
“Hathel and I have an idea, assuming we can carry it off. We’ll need your assistance with the stone, when the time comes. First, we have to find the path.”
Not another seeking so soon! Would Hathel have agreed? She thought of asking what they were planning then decided she would rather not know.
Without further explanation, Halprin returned to his former place and the group began moving, this time nearly at right angles to their previous direction. After riding for over a half hour, Halprin and Hathel stopped and dismounted, followed a moment later by Havor. Everyone else drew to a halt as well but no one else dismounted.
Hathel spoke with Havor and gestured ahead. Havor nodded and turned. He called out as he approached Cara, “My lady? Lord Halprin wishes you to join him.” He glanced about, and added, “Everyone should dismount. The next part of our journey will require us to walk.”
 
And walk. And walk, Cara reflected as she ducked around a stalagmite with the tip broken off.
Finding the entrance to the ancient passageway had been a snap. Once everyone was inside and torches lit, Hathel and his brother performed a weaving to hide their closest tracks from the werewrights’ notice. After rearranging the branches that concealed the door, they all started forward, and downward, into the old cavern.
Wonder how late it is, or should I say early? I’m so tired. And bored. Huh. Bored. That’s new.
For the first few minutes, the water-etched stone formations had been interesting. Now, she felt like they were two-legged goldfish in a bowl, too dim to realize that they had already passed this way before. Were they lost? She doubted it with enchanters leading the way.
A faint skittering sound overhead gave Cara an unpleasant reason not to be bored. The only things she could envision making such a sound were claws. But who’s claws? And how many who’s were there? As the sounds grew closer, Cara could distinguish numerous sources. She looked up. Stalactites and smooth stone cast stark shadows from the torches’ light and that was all.
Someone was approaching. Cara looked down, and nodded to Halprin.
“Yes. They scurry around on the cavern roof. Please get out your stone and come with me. … Gedra?”
He led them both to the front of the group before adding, “My lady, you’ll lead for the rest of this journey. Hathel and I will be at the back of the group, to insure that no one strays.”
He glanced toward the warrior. “Obey her. Do exactly as she bids. Remember, they play clever little tricks.”
Gedra nodded grimly and reached for her sword but the enchanter’s hand on her arm forestalled the action.
“Peace strap it. Now!” Over the warrior’s quiet but furious protest, Halprin added, “Gedra, you have been given your orders.” As the woman began doing as he bade, Halprin continued, “Weapons will not serve us here. Indeed, the attempt to use a weapon may even add to your danger. If it would make it easier for you to resist the impulse, you may stow your weapons on your horse.”
Gedra glanced up and shook her head, but Cara read doubt in her eyes.
Filled with doubts herself, she waited for the enchanter’s explanation.
“You know where we are?”
“Elvai, the city of the cursed.” The woman muttered, as she finished tying down the hilt of her last knife. With a harsh sigh, she focused on her overlord. “They were cruel and ruthless, lived to torment their foes. When the earth cracked open, the whole populace slid within and remains there even now.”
She glanced toward Cara. “It’s haunted, you know.” Irony contended with terror in her eyes. “They’d like fresh victims to torment. Guess even ghosts get bored.”
“Not ghosts, Gedra.” Halprin shook his head. “Never mind. Tell the others to peace strap. Mathwy knows he will hold the middle of the group. He will have Havor with him. The seabirds will be there as well, resting on their horses’ saddles. The constant ashes lifting and falling make it too hazardous for them to fly. As you heard, Hathel and I will be at the rear. The Protection will be upon us all. Just obey Cara, and all will be well with you.”
When the woman stalked away from them, Halprin turned to Cara. “Watch her for me. She means well but her doubts will assail her in this place.”
“And my doubts?” Cara asked in a voice that quivered.
Halprin smiled. “We will all be assailed by our doubts but this will be a harder trial for some than for others. Gedra’s great virtue is obedience. She will do as I say--and as you say--no matter what her unspoken doubts may be. It is enough for now, though more will be required.
“But, back to the venture we are about to undertake. Leaving folk superstition aside, what Gedra said is true. Long ago, Alphesis sent his emissaries into the benighted city, one by one, warning them that disaster befell them if they persisted to do as they did. Those within saw these honored heralds only as fresh victims. In time, Alphesis sent out one last emissary, intrusting to him the Staff. No message did he give, but to cry out that their doom was upon them. Then he smote the ground with the Staff and it shattered before him, rending the land in two. The entire city, every structure, every soul, slid into the crack. Fire roared up and met them in their fall, leaving ash alone to fly downward.
“Cara, this is an evil place for all that our lord’s heralds spoke here. The very cavern creatures remember the horrors even into this generation. They will not harm you physically. They cannot. Creatures of this kind defend themselves by sending thoughts to intruders to confuse them. Harmless normally, as I said.” He glanced up toward the ceiling. “Not these poor fellows. Their ancestors were here, and have condemned all their progeny to the terror they remember. They may try to persuade you to leap into the remaining crevice, or convince you that you are losing your balance when you are not.”
Cara put up her hand, and then dropped it in embarrassment, but Halprin had stopped speaking anyway. “How do I not believe I’m falling if I think I am?”
Halprin grinned. “Long explanation. Easy answer, if sometimes difficult to remember. Remember that Alphesis walks with us and that ‘He will not allow your feet to stray as long as you follow the path he intends for you’.”
Cara nodded glumly. Okay. Okay, I can do this. Well, I can do this better than werewrights at least. The two thoughts clicked together. “I get it! This is how we shake off those werewrights. No way are they going to trust Alphesis to guide them.”
Halprin nodded. “Exactly. Chances are good they won’t even make the attempt but will seek a path around.”
“I kind of envy them.”
Halprin chuckled. “Are you all like this? Earth humor must be very strange. Seriously, you can do this. You are the Outworlder, the Opener of the First Tumult.”
Cara shook her head. “I wish people would stop saying that like it solves everything. I’m just–”
“The one who will lead us to safety,” Halprin interrupted. “Look at me!” Placing his hands on her shoulders, the enchanter continued, “This is your calling. Alphesis chose you specifically and sent you to us. You found the sword. He gave you the key. You have spoken to him so I know you know this.”
He stared at her steadily until Cara found herself nodding. “Okay. I give. So, where’s the crevice?”
“That way.” He motioned to a sharp turn ahead she hadn’t noticed. Then he removed the unlit torch tucked into his belt, and began searching through a small pouch. Cara noticed his weapons were peace strapped.
“Ah, here it is.” He paused in striking a spark with his flint and steel. “I brought up an extra torch from our store though you don’t really need it. Alphesis will guide you through your stone.”
Cara grinned. “I’ll take the torch, thank you. It’ll give Gedra something to hold.”
“Wise choice. The torch will also make it easier for us to follow you.”
Halprin handed her the burning torch and motioned her forward. “Right, a few steps, then left. It will look like a blank wall.”
 
Right. The promised crack in an otherwise water-polished wall. Walk a few steps. Turn left. More smooth wall. Cara stared hard at the flame light reflecting on the surface of the wall before her.
“My lady?”
Cara turned toward the warrior and placed the torch in her outstretched hand. Intensely aware of the bafflement on the woman’s face, she managed a smile. “Just give me the reins of my horse and we’ll start. Stay close! Do what I do!”
Gedra nodded, “Yes, my lady. However … I will guide both horses, if it’s your will. I…”
“You would rather be closer to your guide?”
Gedra’s rough chuckle failed to hide the wry humor at its root. “That, too. But you’ll need the light of the torch closer than a horse’s length away.” She licked her lips and looked past Cara at the wall. “I mean…” The warrior looked from the wall to the ceiling, and said nothing more.
The skittering sounds had grown even louder. The constant clicks seeming to flow past them toward the blank wall. Toward, and beyond it.
Those miserable, cheating little critters!
Cara nodded. “Not a problem. Hold the torch high for the others and follow. Be calm! You know how horses sense when we’re nervous so don’t spook them by hesitating.”
She turned around a precise one hundred eighty degrees--as far as she could judge--and began walking. The masking wall wasn’t there, or the illusion disappeared so swiftly she didn’t see or feel it fade. Instead, blackness and glimmers of sullen, rusty red filled her view. Heat and parched air struck her like a giant hand.
She inched forward intending to get herself out of range of Gedra’s torchlight. Nothing changed. Gedra had not even come through the wall yet. Every surface around her reflected the reds of distant fire. Halprin said it all still burned, but she hadn’t realized how literal his description was.
To either side, the floor of the cavern climbed in wildly irregular slants from its lowest point at the center until it joined the edges of the low ceiling. The pitiless plateaus that once bore the city held its ruins between them like the two sides of a vise. Revealed by the embers in its depths, a jagged crevice split through the rock twenty yards away. It rapidly increased in width as it snaked down the length of the dim cavern then shrank to a glimmering thread.
Cara could not guess how far they would have to travel to reach the other end. The restless surge and retreat of firelight hinted at building foundations on the canted remnants of the shattered plains but these were too small and sparse to serve as reference points for distance. At times, dust and ash spewed up to float briefly in the hot air. Whole sections of the crevice vanished. Within seconds, the ashes lost their battle for freedom and sank back toward the hidden flames below. 
She walked forward cautiously. The left edge of the crevice had shattered and crumbled into ridges, rubble and empty air. The only path was the vise-edge to the right of the crevice. It wound and tilted, rose and fell for at least hundreds of yards. Reddened in places where it tilted more toward the crevice and so caught more of the distant fires, the iron gray path was lost in shadow when it slanted in the opposite direction.
Here, at the beginning they could walk on a smooth surface two yards across, even three at times, bound close on the right side by rubble-edged walls that joined the plateau a yard above her head. Easily wide enough for her, though she hoped that Gedra and any others leading two horses would have no trouble at the narrow points.
The creatures were gathering thicker above her. She paused to look up, reasoning that it would be better to do so now than once she was further out and picking her way along a portion of path that tilted toward a widening crack.
They were lighter gray than the roof over which they scuttled, smaller than even a toy terrier, and their shapes varied so wildly that she found it hard to believe them all one species. The most common ones made Cara think of upside down frogs. Skinnier ones bore more of a resemblance to 4-legged spiders, and the larger ones—could one describe such fragile creatures as more muscular?—reminded her of gargoyles.
All three types had large round eyes. The ones resembling gargoyles had eyes that bulged like a frog’s, while the eyes of the skinny creatures were nearly flat. Walking eyeglasses. A time-hidden horror welled up within her--creatures in a movie like walking eyeglasses. She had screamed at the sight and tried to hide in her mother’s long hair. Her parents had to take her out of the theatre.
What am I thinking? How could they look like an image from a movie? Cara looked down at the path, and found her feet closer to the edge than she remembered leaving them. Close.
“Forgive me!” she murmured. “Wasn’t concentrating.”
Cara refrained from glancing behind her though she could not help but wonder what Gedra and the others must be thinking. She hoped they hadn’t been so stupid as to look up as she had done. They were supposed to be following the torch, and Gedra was supposed to be following her. Cara drew breath, did a quick “course correction” and started forward again, this time with the Discerning Stone in her hand.
 
The pathway surface was more crooked and cracked than it had appeared at a distance. The slope changed constantly from a comforting tilt away from the ever-present crevasse to a plunge toward it that left Cara wondering what they would do if the angle became even steeper ahead. They would be seriously sunk if some part of the passage proved impassable. Horses were not the best animals to try to make back up. The path, while varying in its width, never seemed to grow wide enough to allow a pair of horses to turn around comfortably. She could take one from Gedra…
No! We’ll make it! Was that my friendly overhead companions again or just normal human doomsday fantasizing?
On the verge of taking her next step, Cara paused and took a hasty step backwards instead. The torchlight over her shoulder drew closer for an instant and then retreated as Gedra followed suit.
Just where her next step would have taken her, a crack ran from the path’s edge across its width and buried itself somewhere under the rubble that marked the division between wall and floor. The fire-lit crack looked like a miniature of the giant crevasse itself. Immediately suspicious, Cara knelt to study the opening. Based on the cautious explorations with her hands, it wasn’t an illusion. Less than two feet across, she could have jumped it--and would have in more normal terrain. The horses’ long strides would get them across as long as they didn’t panic from the depth. However, that was the thing—the depth. As far as she could tell, this crack ran down until it joined with the base of the chasm. 
Still crouching, she half-turned and pointed. “Will the horses walk across this without jumping?”
“It’s too deep!” the quavering response came from behind her.
Cara pivoted the rest of the way to look toward the warrior but remained in a crouch. Gedra looked seriously freaked, which pretty much matched her own feelings. For her own benefit as well as for the warrior’s, Cara answered, “Forget the depth! We’re not jumping in. I just want to know how the horses will react. Will they walk across or try to jump across?”
Gedra visibly took a calming breath. She hoisted the torch a bit higher but, Cara noted, didn’t look down at the pathway. Her eyes locked on Cara’s face, she answered, “If we walk across briskly, they’ll do the same.”
Cara forced a grin to her face, and murmured soothingly, “Follow the leader, just like when we were children?” Everyone plays that, right? From the woman’s nod and smile, she judged she had made a good guess. She stood, and added, “Want me to hold the torch for a while? Or lead the horses?”
“No, my lady!” Gedra responded at once. “Just…” she gestured ahead with her chin, “Just get on with it, is all.”
 
Get on with it. That was the trick, wasn’t it? She turned back toward the ominous crack and found that a spume of ash was eddying through the opening, its thickness failing to obscure the murky red glow perhaps miles below. Were these the actual ashes of … Cara shook her head in disgust. No. No more morbid thoughts.
Backing up a pace and breathing a quick plea, “Don’t let me trip!” Cara leaped forward even with the last word still whispering in her ears.
Ashes stung her eyes and caught in her throat but her feet landed on stone, solidly if not gracefully. She staggered half a step away from the chasm edge, thanking Alphesis that even the minor misstep tipped her further from the edge rather closer to it.
She walked a few dozen paces forward into darkness to give Gedra and the horses room to follow. Cara smiled. Strange how, once it was done, the jump seemed like nothing. It reminded of the glass ‘floor’ over a model display of wetland creatures in a natural history museum back home. Everyone seemed to pause the first time they came to that place in the displays. The glass was coated so that it provided no reflection of the overhead lights, giving the illusion that there was no glass there at all, only deep water. But the illusory drop was nothing like the one over which she had just passed.
As she waited for Gedra’s torch to grow closer, the creatures started crying out again. The waves of sound were so sudden, Cara wondered if the missing section of pathway marked the boundary of Elvai’s city limits.
Now, as she stood in darkness and waited, the first coherent cry came to her. A cry of agony, a denial of pain beyond endurance. Clucking low, answering it, was a laughter she could barely hear and did not wish to. The voices doubled—not in volume but in number. Doubled again. Grew to a hundred victims and tormenters, to a legion and beyond, echoing the length of the cavern, echoing the length of the torments, overlapping and prolonged, stretched across the very blood of generations of foulness.
Cara looked toward the ceiling alive with restless, shifting creatures and knew the dead voices came from them, not from the depths of the embery fire. Her hand was on the Discerning Stone, and she knew that they were crying out the words they remembered the victims screaming centuries before. A tribal memory, an ancient torment visited upon their oldest ancestors in the hearing—invested in their being—forever echoing if they drew close to Elvai. Yet, within the solid howe of the walls covering the defiled and condemned city, how could they draw far enough away?
Even those whose voices they echoed had died at last. Even the tormenters had been damned and died. The individual creatures could not be old enough to remember the hideous murders themselves. Halprin’s words suggested as much. These creatures, their progeny, seemed to have no escape.
Cara sank to the surface of the path, her eyes locked on first one creature and then on another, tears blurring their images together, so that they were all one or a million alike. If only she could do something to help them!
She pressed the silver seabird against her throat. Kataro said that this was the same necklace Nortis had held so tight he cut himself, in his desperate need for assurance. No matter how tightly she held it against her skin, she despaired of similar assurance. She knew now how Nortis must have felt when he longed to help the Neroli captive, though he was overwhelmed with horror and fear. Like then, was it even possible to help these creatures? She reminded herself they weren’t experiencing the pain of ancient victims, just echoing sounds like parrots might. Not even Gedra had suggested that they felt the pain they seemed to be voicing. That helped.
Poor Nortis. Betrayed by someone he loved. Closer to all three of the sorcerers than anyone but an enchanter had been in millennia, and aching with the need to free an innocent from certain death. Still he had done the right thing in running. It was exactly what Alphesis had bidden him do. Had he not escaped, the scroll he had left would never have been written.
Now it was her turn to obey, by focusing on her responsibilities. She stood up as the light from Gedra’s torch crept into her view. Nodding toward the flame-lit oval that was all she could see of Gedra’s face, she turned back to the path and resumed her task.
Strange how her task and Nortis’ interlocked with each other. His wasn’t complete until she did her part, and she wouldn’t be here doing what seemed such incomprehensible things, had he not marked the path for her. The image of balanced scales came to mind and, suddenly awestruck, Cara felt a tremulous grin form. Halprin had talked about this a couple of times, and she had only half listened—with the usual inattention she gave to what seemed like boring subjects in school. Nortis and she were the two participants in what Halprin’s people called an exchange. Each of them—with a bit of nudging and guidance from Alphesis—had helped the other with a shared burden. Halprin had mentioned a couple of similar pairs from stories, his words giving the simple plots the patina of legend but even legend came from somewhere—from people actually doing things. Would, if everything worked out, would she and Nortis become-
She shook her head. That was something to muse about some other time. First she had to finish what Nortis had taken on.
The creatures still wailed overhead. How long did Nortis continue to hear the cries of the doomed woman? Possibly the rest of his life.
Ahead, the path rose slightly and turned toward the wall, giving the appearance that it disappeared into nothing. Slowing down but not pausing, she crept around the curve. The path and the wall blended into one, the combined surface covered with what seemed to be bits of polished blackened stone. Not the light-colored creatures imitating onyx, she decided. Their voices had just stopped. Noise, screeches and rough laughter came from ahead.
The sliding movements on the upward-arching wall seemed to pause and regard her. Echoed cries of tormented victims grew closer; the words became intelligible. Cara glanced down at the Discerning Stone, reminding herself that it seemed to help ‘translate’. She hastened to put the stone’s chain back around her neck and let the stone rattle in its familiar arc against her mail shirt.
Should have peace-strapped it too. With more reluctance, she took her other hand from the seabird necklace. If Gedra could not rely on weapons here, who did she think she was expecting to rely on mere amulets—no matter how ancient and holy their origins. Even in his scroll, Nortis had called the necklace a reminder of his task, not a magical weapon.
As soon as the two actions were complete, the voices before her rose in jeering laughter then fell to wheedling her to join them. On the verge of reaching again for physical comfort, Cara shook her head and cried out, “Alphesis! I’ve been messing this up. I’m sorry. What do I do now?”
Listen and remember.
Cara frowned in perplexity. So close to the words Nortis had heard Alphesis speak within the Stream. Listen. Cara glanced away from the jeering faces and the writhing of tortured bodies sliding across the wall. All I’ve been doing is listening. How am I to remember? Remember this for later, like Nortis? And, what, write a scroll? Can we say unlikely?
She murmured “Alphesis” against clenched teeth, frustration for her own confusion welling into fury at herself. “Remember, what? Please! I’m not-”
Tormented spirits screamed from within rock. Caught in pillars of stone. Zabnar’s sorcery, back at the Abandoned Bridge.
Turning toward Gedra, Cara cried out, “I need the torch.” It was in her hand in an instant—awe or terror flooded the warrior’s face as she handed it to her. The warrior could probably use some consoling or an explanation but that would have to wait. Cara strode away from her and walked right up to the spirit-traces sliding under the surface of the wall. She thrust the torch toward them and waved it to either side, like a housekeeper gathering up cobwebs. Simultaneously, words poured from her, “Get out of here! You’re just leftover Zabnar magic, aren’t you? He was the ruler of that city, wasn’t he? Yeah, until Alphesis took him down. Get lost! Fall into the fire with the rest of it. We’re out of here!”
Ashes rained from the rippling wall and poured over the cavern’s edge like a murky slurry down a filthy factory wall. A laugh caught at the back of Cara’s throat but she refused to give it breath.
She called up to the closest cavern animals, “It’s over. Go in peace.” Then, she cast down the torch and walked forward, pushing brambles and dead vines aside, as she exited Elvai.

 
11- The Power
  
At last they came to a “protected” place like that in which Cara had recuperated so long ago. Both seabirds and Peralike asserted that it was so but Cara could see no difference in this stretch of country from that through which they had ridden. She could only think that identifying protected places must be a Narentan gift rather like identifying Outworlders. Grateful at the prospect of rest and too tired to care about why they were safe, Cara dismounted.
As she began to unsaddle her horse, Cara found that she stood next to Halprin. Earlier, while they were riding toward the hidden chasm of Elvai, she had told those closest to her all that she had seen, and Harone had raised a question that worried her. Recognizing Zabnar’s sorcerous handiwork back in the lost city served to add urgency to her friend’s own misgivings. She turned to Halprin to ask about both things but was too shocked at the fatigue and pain on his face to continue.
Masking her concern, Cara asked instead, “Halprin, could Pazgar see me during that final moment of our search for the werewrights? Does he know I’m here now and why?”
“What? No. Pazgar couldn’t see you at all. Hathel attended to that. He only saw me. What you felt was a kind of overflow of the spell he attempted to use on me.”
Cringing at how the overflow had overwhelmed her, Cara asked, “If that was overflow, I don’t want to know what the main attack was like! You’re amazing! How were you able to resist it so well, if it was aimed at you?”
He smiled wearily as he tugged the saddle off his mount, and stooped to hobble the animal. “I protected myself beforehand, suspecting that what I strove to do might attract Pazgar’s attention. I regret that any of his presence got through to you.”
“You needn’t apologize! I’m glad I did it, well, now that it’s over.” Okay, keep asking or not? Might as well. “Next question. Pazgar and Zabnar were in the Shadow army camp. Why didn’t we see Rabada?”
Hathel turned toward Halprin and asked sharply, “You didn’t see Rabada at all?”
Halprin glanced at Cara then, turning to Hathel again, he shook his head.
Alarmed by the gravity of their faces, Cara asked Halprin, “You didn’t see her, either? What does that mean?”
“Didn’t look in the right place,” Halprin answered as he picked up his saddlebags and walked to where Magris was standing.
She glanced from one enchanter to the other but a possible answer was already forming. Halprin had his back to her so she looked steadily at Hathel, hoping he would give some hint she was wrong. He seemed deep in thought for a moment, then he glanced toward Halprin and slipped toward her.
“Come sit down and rest, and I’ll tell you. Halprin is very weary after his seeking. It would be best if you asked me your questions, rather than him.”
She did as he asked though she wondered why Halprin was still so badly affected while she and, she presumed, Hathel were only tired now from the long day. She had a strange feeling that the reason related to the way Lira had been acting around Halprin. If so … She whispered, “Is Halprin all right?”
Hathel answered quietly, “No, he isn’t.”
Really alarmed now, she cried, “I knew it! What’s wrong?”
“Sh! Cara, if you’ve already guessed part of it, I may as well tell you the rest but I don’t think we should let everyone hear. Halprin doesn’t want that. Perhaps this way you can help me to help him.”
Cara nodded and whispered, “This all connects back to Rabada and those fire threads, doesn’t it?”
Hathel motioned for her to sit beside him, at some distance from the others.
“Yes. You remember Kalapa and I lacked a particular herb that night. I needed a specific medicine to counter the sorcery, but lacked the most important ingredient. Mathwy had it but, as you know, he didn’t arrive until the next day. By that time, the effects of Rabada’s spell were too well entrenched, and the application of the medicine only partially successful.”
Cara nodded. “I suspected something like this. The scars are terrible, but that’s not the real damage, is it?”
Hathel shook his head. “The scars are permanent and beyond my skill to lessen. Rabada is one of the lesser sorcerers, but she has created a particularly vicious spell that does more damage than burning flesh. It damages certain important nerves, making it painful for anyone of the Order she has stricken to practice thereafter the enchantments of Alphesis. A particular combination of herbs, used with a certain healing weaving can counteract that spell, but only when used at once. Otherwise the potency of the healing is only partial at best. Every time Halprin uses his powers, the pain returns. The greater the enchantment attempted, the greater the pain. Do you remember how Halprin stood behind you when he used your stone?”
Cara nodded.
“He feared you would see the torment it caused him and refuse to go through with the Seeking.”
“He’s right. I would have. Hathel, I knew he was battling something but this is worse than anything I imagined. Isn’t there anything we can do?”
“No. He wills to serve Alphesis and Tethra as he always has. That’s his own decision, which no other can make for him. All we can hope is that he won’t need to do more enchantments between here and the mountainway.”
As if! Who does Hathel think he’s kidding? “Hathel, why didn’t you and he trade places? Wouldn’t that have helped him?”
“Yes, it would have but only a bit. Both weavings were very complex. Still he feared to do my part, lest such pain as he would have felt even then would have distracted him from protecting you.” Hathel sighed and studied the Outworlder. “You are very perceptive. I’ll wager you knew something was amiss by virtue of staying in Halprin’s and Lira’s home.”
“Yeah, definite vibes. Lira wanted him to stay at home or something, didn’t she? To give him time to recuperate.” Cara said, “I wish I could go thank him for what he did. We might have been attacked and all killed by now without his help.”
“I’m relieved you understand that is impossible. You’re not supposed to know about this! Halprin believes that only Lira, Cybis and I know the true situation. Obviously, it is much more evident than he believes amongst those who are his friends. You are correct. Lira wanted him to stay at home. He wanted to ride with the army and command as usual. Coming with you instead was a compromise, since there was the hope that Havor and I could do any weavings needed.
“But now, we need to rest. He thinks we are talking about Rabada’s absence. Remember that. It’s his will that none should know about this. Do you promise?”
Cara grumbled to herself, but nodded.
“Good. Now go to sleep! We can talk about Rabada in the morning when he’s occupied with other matters.”
  
She found herself on a narrow hedged path, full of intricate turns, shadowed at times by invisible trees then open to warm sunlight a moment later. She seemed to be walking for hours or years–the feeling reinforced first by white flowers and then by red berries on the close-brushing branches. Would she ever arrive? Was she lost? No paths branched from the one her feet trod, yet she felt like she was gaining no ground. Her feet slowed as she considered stopping. Then with one last turn, the path grew wide–grew into a clearing–transformed itself into the flowering turf about a throne. Joy enwrapped her, of such power she collapsed under its weight. She lay still, seeing nothing but listening to otherworldly voices…
“Cronk it!” an animal ordered from somewhere nearby. Cara opened her eyes reluctantly. Awed delight faded into memory. She drew a breath, feeling like it was her first in many minutes.
“Cronk! Cronk it, kit!”
Cara shifted about until the ridge of a root no longer gouged at her ribs. Her eyes closed.
She sat up suddenly and looked about the camp. On every side where her friends had slept were werewrights. Cara nearly cried out, before she noticed a strange thing. In the midst of the werewrights a fire burned, with a frame over it like a makeshift spit. Her friends hadn’t built a fire the second time they camped.
Perplexed, Cara stared at the fire; and, as she did, it altered subtly. The werewrights’ camp was gone. The changed fire remained. Near it, clad in mail and cape, each astride a war stallion, were two of the knights of the Sword. They talked briefly, and then one began to ride slowly around the camp.
With that, Cara knew she was looking at the encampment of the Tethran army. Slowly, the horseman circled. She watched until, with a pang of joy, she beheld Alphesis flying about their own camp as he had done at the ruined barn. Patiently, patiently, he circled. Fear and grief faded into peace. She slept.
  
Something was falling on her face. It tickled. Cara sighed and tried to ignore it but it kept tickling. A spider? She sat up suddenly, scattering coppery flower petals from her face and blanket. Just dead flowers tumbling from the tree above her. They smelled like butterscotch and roses. The early sun was nearly directly in her face, silhouetting several shadows just a few yards away. Cara squinted and made out four hooded figures, sitting cross-legged close to each other. Halprin and Hathel of course. The others? Havor and Harone, she decided after staring at the other two anonymous cloaks for a minute. Dawn meditation and prayer.
Cara yawned, and started to lie back down, but the sight nagged at her. She should be with them. It wasn’t just that Alexia had called her one of the Order. She was a follower of Alphesis like them, yet she talked with him only rarely and usually only when she was desperate. Cara bit her lower lip and glanced up at the sky, as if expecting to see a disapproving face leaning down and staring at her. The sky was its usual periwinkle, dusted with delicate striations of fuchsia-tinted clouds. There was disapproval but it was within--her own thoughts.
Sighing, Cara stood up and found her cape. Putting it on, she started to walk toward the four silent figures, and then thought better of it. She might distract them if she just walked over and plunked herself down. Looking up at the petals floating down toward her from the branch overhead, Cara smiled to herself and then sat down where she was. Good a place as any. She pulled her hood forward, and spoke in silence. Morning, Sir. Sorry I haven’t been doing this…
Time passed. Her words to Alphesis ended but Cara continued to sit where she was. She wandered through memories gathered since her arrival. She watched herself as if from a distance finally getting a clue. She still didn’t have as much of a clue as she needed to, but at least she knew that now. Now if she just had a clue about what she would be doing in that cave system. Suppose she messed up, and did the wrong thing? Cara stopped herself. She had asked Alphesis for guidance, and he already assured her back at the Armory that all she needed was to do as he instructed. Obsessing wouldn’t help and, given his directions, it was actually rude.
Besides, someone was moving about. Cara opened her eyes. Eyes stared back. She gasped and nearly jumped a foot into the air. A two-foot long animal with cream-colored fur was studying her from only about a yard away. Its golden eyes were curious, then startled at her movement.
Gedra was walking in her general direction, a bundle of twigs and broken branches in her arms. Hardly daring breathe, Cara called out softly,
“Gedra? Look! What’s that?”
The warrior turned and gave a rather despairing groan.
At the same instant, a rapid high-pitched voice squealed, “Not a what, Outworlder! A who! Yhengon! Stoahs are who’s!”
“Get! Get away!” Gedra fumed, shaking one of her larger branches at the stoah, “Go away now!”
Cara jumped up as the creamy, squirrel-like animal whisked toward the base of a nearby tree.
“No, it’s okay! It wasn’t doing …”
“He! He! He!” came an angry voice from the other side of the tree trunk. “Not a what! He! Me! Yhengon!”
Gedra groaned and cried out, “Shut up!”
When the scolding voice didn’t stop, Gedra shrugged and, shaking her head in resignation, leaned down to some previously gathered stones, and began arranging the kindling. Glancing back toward the tree hiding the furious little animal, Cara whispered to the warrior, “What… Uh, who is that?”
Gedra made a face. “They’re stoahs, a kind of large talking rodent.” She tilted her head in the general direction of the occupied tree and added in a murmur, “Think they’re sentient or something. Ought to be one of the Four Peoples, if you please.”
Cara murmured a thank you, and looked toward the tree herself. The sound had stopped. Maybe, Yeng … whoever had run out of breath. It, he, certainly sounded intelligent. She shook her head. It wasn’t her place to get involved in Narentan sociology or was this stoah civil rights?
“Greeting!”
Cara turned and smiled at Harone.
“Morning!” she answered. “Did you hear it, him?”
Harone chuckled. “It would have been a bit difficult not to hear it! I’m glad we’re in a protected place considering the noise it’s making.”
“He! Not a what!”
Harone sighed and called out, “I’m sorry. I apologize. Please don’t be offended.”
Cara couldn’t help but grin, even when her grin seemed to produce a self-conscious grimace from Harone.
“He called me an Outworlder. How about that?”
Harone answered in perplexity, “Well, you are one.”
Cara started to respond, but decided to let it go. “Never mind. Are we leaving soon? Looks like Gedra is thinking about making breakfast.”
“No. Halprin is allowing us to start late—not for two hours at least. The horses are tired and Halprin said he wished them well rested before venturing out of here. Today will probably be the most dangerous part of the actual ride toward the mountains.” Cara noticed that he had brought over the practice swords, tucked under one arm.
Walking up to them, Hathel added, “Also, we’re closer to the mountains by several miles than we would have been had we not had to flee our first encampment.” He handed Gedra the canvas bag containing the grain for their breakfast and a pot filled with water.
“Halprin and Mathwy agree if we safely reach the edge of the Forest of Kolora by nightfall, we’ll have done well. Young Ones live in the Koloran Wood, which is narthrous-protected from the Shadow. Tomorrow’s journey will at least begin in safety as we ride through their forest plateau and into the foothills.”
“And today? Harone says today may be tricky.”
The physician nodded soberly. “Very possibly. The werewrights we saw last night have a general idea where we are right now, and may have a theory about which way we’re riding as well. Actually, if they pick up our tracks again, they can’t fail to guess our destination. If they have orders to stop us, they’ll make their attempt before we can reach Kolora this afternoon. After that, they would have to ride around the wood, and try to intercept us amongst the highest foothills, at the passage mouth itself.”
“Swell.” Cara muttered to herself. And the day had started so well.

They left the campsite cautiously and only after Kataro and Kalapa finished circling about and reported seeing no one. Though Halprin and Hathel could not sense the presence of the Shadow, everyone felt that they could not be far away. The chances were good that the werewrights had ridden all night, after leaving the campsite Halprin and Cara saw in the seeking. Several in the mearis seemed to believe that their foes may have circled them and were now between them and the Young Ones’ forest. Cara was inclined to believe the warriors were correct.
Hathel had little trouble speaking with Cara as he had promised. As soon as they were on horseback, Mathwy drew Halprin aside asking him to describe all he had seen the previous evening.
Seeing that, Cara plunged into her questions. “Did I see everything Halprin saw?”
“Yes. The only difference is that he would recognize certain people, or places to which you have never traveled.”
“How far apart are the two armies?” asked Harone. He and Havor were riding with them, for Hathel had no objection to telling them what he knew about the seeking.
“The armies should meet by late today, on the southern edge of the plain called Sa’mara.”
“Why didn’t we see Rabada?”
“To put it simply, because Halprin did not search in the right place. We cannot just will to find someone with no clue at all as to where they are. Either we seek for a specific place like Dath-Sheeda, or we can look for a person if armed with an approximate idea of where they may be found. For example, Halprin knew where to look for the army of the Shadow because the king’s spies had given report about their movements. He also knew generally where to look for the werewrights because he and I had sensed their presence.”
“Makes sense. Does that mean that Rabada isn’t with the army or with the werewrights?”
Hathel nodded but, before he could speak, Harone muttered to himself, “I’ll wager I know where she is.”
Harone looked at Cara and hesitated, but Hathel prompted, “You might as well say it. I think Cara already suspects.”
“She’s ahead, in the mountain passage, isn’t she?”
“Of course,” Cara muttered.
“Then, none of us are surprised.” Hathel murmured. “She seems to have guessed your purpose from the first time you met. The Shadow studies the Ancient Writings, too, always seeking to overthrow their meaning or bring their prophecies to naught. The sorcerers probably agreed amongst themselves to send one of their number back to the mountainway, guessing what you must do. Be glad that no stronger one was sent, for Rabada is the least of the three.”
Cara shook her head. “I don’t feel very glad. I’ve never been able to stand up to her. What will I do alone in that cavern?”
Harone answered her, “Better than you think. You have learned much since you ran from her hounds, and you know you won’t be alone. You’ve met Alphesis and you have the Sword. I think it will be Rabada’s turn to be frightened.”
Cara smiled in gratitude at him, but she shook her head doubtfully. 
“Hathel, Alphesis was here last night! At least, I think so. It felt too real for a dream. I felt like I was awake the whole time. I had dreams earlier though.” Starting with her first dream, she recounted everything she had seen.
Hathel considered a moment before he spoke. “Were the Tethran guards in the same place where you and Halprin saw the army earlier? And the werewrights--where were they?”
“The guards were, yes. I’m not sure about the werewrights. I think they were close to where we first camped. It looked a little familiar, but I’m not sure. Alphesis circled our camp. You don’t think it was a dream, then?”
Hathel shook his head. He didn’t speak for several minutes. “Cara, I must have a word with Halprin before I can answer your question. He told me last night that he was curious about your vision of the Isle when you first arrived. There may be …” The enchanter smiled. “I’ll be back!”
Without further explanation, he left them. Cara followed him with her eyes, wondering why he felt it necessary to mention her dream, or whatever it was, to Halprin. She asked Harone,
“Now, what is that all about?”
Harone merely shook his head, but Havor answered her. “Something good!” The look of excitement and awe on his face intrigued her. “Maybe, something very good! I’ve read about gifts like this. Harone, you should know, too. Remember in the Ancient Writings about Vardis Province? Surely you have read it by now. Kalak uses it toward the end of the first year of study, or he used to.”
Suddenly Harone’s eyes were afire with the same light. “Galan! Galan True-Sighted, the seer!”
Cara looked from one to the other in confusion, but something of their mood began to affect her, too. “What is it? Tell me!”
Harone smiled, but he shook his head. “Wait and see. Here come Hathel and Halprin.”
Halprin turned his mount’s head so that he fell in beside Cara, but he was already speaking, “Hathel says that you had a … dream last night. Have you had any other dreams like it before?”
A little self-consciously, Cara told him all she could remember--Alphesis flying about the abandoned barn, her vision of the Throne when she first looked upon the narthrous stone, and the strange dream of Lira and the assembly of the Order when Alphesis had spoken to her. Even the mazelike path that preceded her vision of the two camps. Finally, she was done. She looked at Halprin in anticipation.
He was smiling by the time she finished. “It is true, then. Kataro, of all us, you would know best the Lay of Galan. Tell Cara.”
Cara looked up. Both Kataro and Kalapa were flying silently overhead.
“Little Chick, you’ve been told that you are of the Order but that it was not permitted for you to be taught the enchantments of Alphesis. Perhaps you have wondered how both things could be possible together.”
Cara shrugged and nodded.
“Once long ago, an Outworlder named Galan was brought to this world by Alphesis. He came just as you did, to help the world of the Three Peoples, but he came not to this land but rather to Vardis in the west. With his aid, the Young Ones overthrew Ubyah, a most ruthless sorcerer.
“Galan was also able to see visions, or dream true dreams if you like. Even though he had this power, he was not of the Order for he was one more with the Young Ones than with the Elders. Alphesis also gave Galan other gifts, one being the ability to know Ubyah’s true name without aid of enchantment. It was with that weapon alone that he destroyed Ubyah. In time, he returned to his own world-”
“My world?” 
“The Writings do not tell. He returned home but he found he could no longer live there in peace. After a few years, Galan came back to Vardis to live with the Young Ones. Years later Galan brought those who were willing to this land, where they settled in Melwood. Lady Clepta is a direct descendent of his through countless generations.”
“What does all this have to do with me?”
“It would appear that you also have natural talents given you by Alphesis that compensate for your lack of training in enchantment. Have you ever consciously sought to see what happened elsewhere?”
“No. Why would I? I didn’t know anything about all this.” She turned to Halprin. “I still don’t understand. What I mean is, what I’ve dreamed or seen or whatever has been reassuring and I’m glad but …”
“Cara, did Alphesis ever tell you just how you were to destroy the three?”
Cara contemplated the question in surprise. Duh. Don’t they already know this? Obediently, she recited, “There’s the Sword of course, but there’s supposed to be something else. He said I’d know when the time came.”
Halprin nodded and glanced toward Hathel. “See? Cara, what is Rabada’s real name?”
“Why, Rabada, I suppose.” She tried to read Harone’s face as she continued. “Harone’s parents told me that she used the name of Ruselda but that her real name is Rabada. They said that knowing it wouldn’t help in her case, though.”
“Didn’t you find that odd?”
Cara shook her head and laughed. “Not back then. Remember, a lot of the things in this world seem pretty odd to me. I guess it is strange, now that you mention it.”
Halprin caught her with an intent stare. “Cara, think! What is Rabada’s real name?”
She blinked him in amazement. Wait. Let me call up my files on sorcerers and crosscheck it against secret names. “You want me to try to think of it right now? Like it’s just going to come to me or something?”
“Yes.”
Cara closed her eyes, more to avoid his intent gaze than for any other reason. Okay, a logical progression from Ruselda to Rabada to R-someone—, which is not going to work. This isn’t one of those miserable math questions. Maybe, a blank mind and no thinking?
One moment slid into another. Nothing. Blankness. She opened her eyes and found Halprin’s steady gaze waiting for her. “I’m sorry. Nothing came to me at all.”
Expectant and puzzled faces on either side mutated into disappointed ones. “I guess I’m not doing it right, but I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” The elation of the last few minutes ebbed away a little as she spoke.
Hathel turned toward Halprin and shook his head. He appeared more worried than disappointed. “Perhaps we were wrong.”
“No, we’re not mistaken.” Halprin spoke as softly as Hathel usually did. His tone and expression suggested he alone was unperturbed by her lack of success. “It may not come to full potency until the appointed time. Cara, try again later.” He smiled. “When no one is staring at you.”
Harone leaned toward Cara, and added, “He’s right. Don’t worry about it for now. If Alphesis wants you to know, you’ll know.”
Mathwy called to them from a rocky ridge of land just ahead. “Are you all riding backwards? I thought we’d lost you entirely.”
Surprised at the gap, they all spurred their horses to a faster pace. For a time no one spoke about Galan and the true sight or about anything else. 
Thank you, Mathwy! Anything to break up the oral exam. What did I do wrong? Or, what did they do wrong—like jumping to a conclusion? I wish Rabada’s name would just pop into my head on command. Interesting if it didn’t work because Rabada isn’t the one waiting for me in the mountainway. Now, Zabnar—is that his real name? A lot of the danger in Elvai was thanks to his leftover magic, but I might find the real Zabnar in… Wait a minute! It has to be Rabada. I asked Alphesis if he would tell me Rabada’s name and he said I that I already knew it! Alphesis, please tell me I didn’t forget it!
  
They rode thus until early afternoon, when Halprin bid them stop to eat, while Kataro and Kalapa flew about in hopes of seeing some sign of the werewrights. Everyone agreed that it would be better to know where their enemy was. Cara felt their sudden absence since the night before about as reassuring as losing track of a wasp in the living room. She remembered the werewrights at the Abandoned Bridge. Were these werewrights ahead too, waiting to spring some trap?
As soon as they dismounted, Hathel asked Cara to try to locate the werewrights. “Seek in your mind for a trace of evil. We must find out if they still follow or if they passed us in the night.”
She looked at him sadly. “I think you’re humoring me. I haven’t Galan’s power. What good will it do for me to try again?”
He smiled at her. “If I’m humoring you, the least you can do is return the favor. Try with me, will you?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Help me spare Halprin this much. You know how important it is to monitor the position of our foes. If we fail to do this, he will try soon alone.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. Time passed slowly. She could hear Harone and Havor shifting restlessly nearby. They were both staring at her expectantly, when she opened her eyes.
“I felt them ahead of us.” She frowned. They’re riding toward something big… Not a city. A forest?”
Hathel nodded. “Yes. They rode ahead as we feared. We must eat quickly and return to our path. It will be best to deal with them while it is still light.” He went to tell the others their news.
Harone handed Cara a piece of dried fish and the water skin he had been holding for her during her conversation with Hathel. “Congratulations! That suggests you have the true sight after all. But, why didn’t Halprin try to find the werewrights, with you?”
Cara answered cautiously, “He’s still tired from dragging us away from Pazgar’s influence.” Catching a trace of disbelief in Harone’s face, she added, “Okay, yeah, there’s more. Let’s just say we were right.”
Harone grimaced. “I was afraid of that.”
Counterfeiting a lighter tone, Cara added, “Harone, come with me for a minute? There’s something through those trees on the right there. Kataro and Kalapa must still be on patrol, and I want to see what that is before I do anything else. When I began searching for the werewrights, I got this blip from over there first.”
“Blip?” Harone asked.
“Yeah, just a little one.” Cara gave a disgusted grimace. “Oops! Speaking Outworlder again. Anyway, whatever it was kind of felt like evil but I wasn’t sure. Hathel probably noticed it and decided it was nothing.”
Harone nodded but his gaze was fixed on the trees she had indicated. “But you want to be sure before you can relax.” He pointed, “Whatever it is, I think Hathel ignored it because it’s dead. Those are kites, carrion-fowl.” He glanced toward her, adding, “Don’t go over there alone! Let me tell the others!”
He led his horse toward Halprin. Cara did so as well, judging she better be ready to describe what she felt in case the others didn’t care to investigate. By the time she reached Harone, he was already speaking to Halprin and Mathwy.
The enchanter’s gaze seemed to rivet her through as she came up to them. He asked, “You felt something just now, when you began seeking for werewrights?”
At Cara’s nod, he nodded to Mathwy.
The mearis captain mounted and called out, “Mount! We’re going to take a little wander over to the ruins and eat there.”
The warrior glanced toward Cara as he said the words, but his gaze was more measuring and less friendly than that of his overlord. Cara had the distinct impression he considered even a five-minute detour a waste of time. Cara rather hoped they would find more than a dead animal just to appease him. So far she had avoided a major confrontation with Mathwy and she preferred to keep it that way.

 
12- Kolora
  
They found a werewright, lying amidst cracked and ancient stones, half-hidden by the lavender grasses growing between rocky cracks. Magris and Hathel went forward to investigate more thoroughly. Cara glanced around, telling herself she was looking for a good place to sit but knowing she was really doing her best to look in any direction but towards a partially eaten body.
The ruins covered at least fifty yards, perhaps more. The grasses masked the stone foundations to such an extent that Cara could only guess at the margins of the ancient place. Most of the foundations and crumbled walls were sandstone like Fiori but some blocks of granite formed what might have been a pattern. Few stones still lay atop each other except in one place where an oblong chunk of white rock was half-tucked between the remnants of a building corner. The highest part of either partial wall was less than four feet, and the whole corner was muffled in small olive-colored shrubs with pale seeds or berries clumped on the branches.
Since the walls and bushes were just a few yards from where Hathel and Magris were still kneeling, Cara decided to walk over to the ruined building corner. There would be a place to sit there, probably the only place not right on the ground. Better, she would at least give the appearance of investigating what she had sensed without having to draw too close it.
Havor, Harone and Halprin walked toward the two investigators, listened to something Hathel said and then came toward her. Most of the knights had scattered out into a rough circle, just as they had started to do at the first place they’d stopped. No one needed Mathwy’s orders or a warning from Halprin to remind them to guard their perimeter while eating a bite of their mid-day meal.
Small birds were fighting each other for the berries, shaking the branches of the shrubs and filling the air with their cries. Cara decided it might be better to lean against the large block of stone, rather than sit on the ruined wall as she had originally planned. She settled against it with a weary sigh. Riding all day no longer made her ache as much as it had at the beginning, but it still tired her out. She had nibbled on her piece of dried fish as they rode over here so, taking a few mouthfuls of water, she handed the skin back to Harone and watched Hathel approach them.
“Dead werewright?”
The physician nodded. Sitting cross-legged between Halprin and Havor, he elaborated, “Recently dead. Just a couple of hours, but he was a long time dying.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.” Cara commented.
Hathel shook his head. “Oh, he wasn’t tortured. He was wounded some time in the last few days, judging from the condition of the bandage. My guess is that he reached the point where he couldn’t keep up with the rest of the pack, so they left him there.”
“Nice.” Cara shuddered in disgust and horror.
Halprin responded, perhaps half to her and half to himself, “If there is a word which is the opposite of co-inherent, that would be the one for the ways of a werewright pack. They may possibly care less for their fellows than even sorcerers do.”
He sighed then looked toward Cara and the others with a muted smile. “Let us meditate on Alphesis and his teachings about our interdependence, as we perform the Remembrance.”
Taking a small skin of wine from the ground beside him, he lifted it and murmured, “Remind us often, Alphesis, that it is our duty to help each other, even as you rescued us from mortal peril and still help in ways we cannot yet fully understand. … In the Remembrance.”
He took a sip of the wine, and passed it to Hathel, and so around the small circle. When the ceremony was complete and the wineskin once more on the ground beside him, Halprin turned to Hathel.
“Well, are they the same ones?”
Hathel grimaced and kept chewing, finally nodding. Taking a mouthful of water, he answered, “If you mean the werewrights we sensed yesterday, let us hope so! The number of tracks seems to match them at least. Mathwy may be able to tell us more.”
No one said anything else, each concentrating on chewing the tough fish. Having already eaten, Cara fidgeted in her place and worried about the identity of the werewrights. The last thing they needed was a second band of werewrights joining up with the ones they already knew about, the ones she had seen in her stone numbering as many as their own company.
Finally, she stood up and wandered over to the bushes with the berries, scaring small gray birds from the closest branches. One voiced an outraged hoot of rage and swept toward her on its tiny wings. She ducked away, and retreated toward the stone block where the others were sitting. And, were now laughing.
Hathel called out, “Parths. Most of us call them suicide birds.”
Cara glanced over her shoulder cautiously. “Seems to fit. On Earth, I guess we’d say kamikaze birds.”
She walked up along her side of the stone block to the point closest to where Hathel was sitting, and asked, “Parths, huh? Any connection to that game, parthan?” Before Hathel had a chance to respond, she answered her own question, “Hey, it has to! There’s that move where you send your little bird-guy piece straight across the board, until it takes itself out plus the one it hits!”
Hathel and Havor nodded, until she got to the part where she said, ‘takes out’. Cara sighed to herself. The Outworlder strikes again.
Something nagged at her, and she let it pour from her subconscious into her conscious thoughts. When she had played Parthan with Kassis aboard ship, he had used the maneuver in their second game to win. When Rabada attacked, Kassis did the same thing himself by flying directly at the charging werewright. Of course, that wasn’t the action that had gotten him killed.
Rabada. She clamped down firmly on the memories.
Wishing that everyone would finish eating, Cara began to turn away from the stone slab. Something sharp stung her ankle. She looked down, half-expecting to see one of the little parths, jabbing her leg with its miniscule bill. It was a piece a metal, a bolt sticking out from the side of the stone just a few inches above the weedy ground. Cara knelt to get a closer look.
Yes, it was definitely an old rusty bolt. At one time, it must have held something to the stone. She pushed the weeds away from it on either side, suspecting that if there was one bolt, there ought to be at least one more or, the thing, whatever it was, wouldn’t have been securely fastened. There was another drilled hole about twenty inches from the first one but no sign of a second bolt. Cara could just make out a rust-stained curve on the stone connecting the two holes and extending a bit beyond each. Something nearly circular. Satisfying curiosity was a great way to kill time. Cara yanked out handfuls of the stubborn green weeds, and then began poking gently into the soil. Her right middle finger struck something with a sharp edge. Not knife sharp, but sharp enough to make her pull her hand away before it could cut her.
“There you are! We’re ready to leave.” Harone knelt beside her, adding, “What are you doing?”
Cara shrugged, and went back to exploring the soil more carefully this time.
“Archaeology, I guess. There’s something…”
“Archaeology?”
“Yeah.” She looked up and saw the trace of perplexity she had begun to dread. However, ‘archaeology’ wasn’t a slang word.
Dismissing that for later, Cara said, “Help me dig right here. This metal thing used to be attached to the stone and I think it fell off and …”
“…made its way under the soil?” Harone demanded, with a strange grin on his face.
“No. The soil would have built up over the years.” Seeing that Harone wasn’t following and that more puzzled faces were looking down at her, she shrugged. “Whatever. Just help me pull it out of here.”
Somewhere over her head, Mathwy asked Halprin, “Are we ready to leave?”
“A moment.”
Mathwy gave a snort of disgust, just as the piece of metal came free. Cara glanced at the broken arcs of old iron arranged like part of a target, and then handed the fragment to Harone. She began digging again, feeling everyone’s eyes on her. She didn’t care. She knew this shape, assuming the rest of it fit the symbol she had in her mind. Except what was it doing here?
Another piece of metal, a bigger one. The shape of this piece confirmed her theory, a theory that couldn’t and didn’t make much sense. Hopefully, the remainder was in only one more chunk. A rust-colored tip curled up against the root of one of the weeds, nearly masking itself. Cara grasped the end and yanked, this time really cutting a couple of fingers. She didn’t care. The last piece came free suddenly, and she sat back with a sigh.
“Do you need help?” Harone asked, taking the third piece from her dirt-incrusted hand.
“That’s all of it.”
Halprin asked, “How do you know?”
“I know this shape, Halprin. My parents have one of these in the living room back home. It’s the design of an ancient maze. I mean a labyrinth. Theirs is wooden though. In addition, it has kind of an inscription on it. ‘Those who walk within the Obedience cannot be lost.’” When no one reacted, she added, “A holy symbol for some people, like your seabirds, and trees and scrolls and stuff.”
Absently washing her hands under the stream of water Hathel poured from his water skin, she added, “Plain strange. What is one of these doing on Narenta?” She reflected on her recent concerns, simultaneously nibbling on her lip. “Obey, and you can’t be lost. Maybe it’s the answer to a question I had.”
“Perhaps, we could discuss your question as we ride?” Harone cautiously tipped his head in the direction of the restless mearis captain, and gave her a secret smile.
Cara returned the smile. “Message received.” Glancing towards the sky, she added, “Both messages.”
“I have an old canvas bag you can use for your treasures.”
“Thanks, Harone!”
She returned Hathel’s pot of ointment and started toward her horse, still massaging the jellylike medicine into her fingers. Several of the Elders, including Mathwy of course, were looking at her curiously but Cara decided that the best reaction was not to have one. On the other hand, it would be useful if she could pick Kataro’s brain about this ruin and the people who had settled here.
They all mounted, and began heading west once more. Mathwy said something about the werewright tracks to Halprin. His words didn’t register. She noted that Kataro and Kalapa must have already given their surveillance reports to the enchanter.
“Kataro!”
The seabird swept from his position just ahead of the front riders, followed a moment later by his fiancée. Settling into a position to her immediate right, on the opposite side from where Harone was riding, Kataro asked,
“Yes, Little Chick?”
“Hi! Seems like we never talk to each other anymore. You too, Kalapa. Anyway, I’ve got a question. What do you guys know about those ruins back there? Who built that place originally?”
Kataro glanced down at her in mild surprise. “Kalapa told me she saw you digging just as she flew back here. What did you find that makes you so curious?”
Harone opened the bag he was holding, to partially expose the pieces of rusty iron. “She says these are fragments of an Earthen symbol.”
Kataro nodded. “Interesting! That confirms the tradition that some of the people who built that settlement were Outworlders.”
“Go on!” Cara demanded eagerly.
Kataro sighed and added apologetically, “There is nothing else to … uh, go on. Nothing in the Ancient Writings speaks of that settlement, nor is there anything in the histories of Tethra. All we know is vague and traditional, almost mythology. Whoever lived there did so perhaps over a thousand years ago. I doubt anyone is even sure of that. If those people wrote anything about themselves, nothing has ever appeared in a Tethran archive.”
“Where’s carbon-dating when you need it? Kataro, didn’t anyone ever do a dig?”
Kalapa laughed, “You dug! I watched you doing it. Did you plant seeds too?”
Cara glanced from the seabirds to Harone and Havor, and muttered to herself, “Unbelievable! They’ve got all this other information and stuff, and the one time…”
She shook her head, and tried to shake off her frustration with the movement. Kataro looked so apologetic, the others so confused. Resigned, Cara added, “It’s cool. It isn’t as if it has to do with why I’m here. It’s,” She smiled. “It’s more like an answer to something I asked. Actually, no matter how it got here, this fits with the whole seer thing. This and my first dream were sort of a message. I guess one of those ‘seer’ messages. So good on us, regardless!
“Kataro, can we go over this whole Galan, seer, knowing Rabada’s name thing? Do you know the Song of the Key that tells of my mission? I can’t remember the last part.”
  
For the next hour, the five of them discussed the prophecy. Cara thought about the first time she had heard it, sketchily recited by Hythe.
“I told Hythe and Cona the poet seemed to regret leaving the Place of Wisdom and going west to the mountains. I never dreamed that one day that would refer to me, going to the mountain passage to destroy the life essences of the three sorcerers.”
Harone mused, “Sometimes it’s best not to know what the future holds. That way we have time to be prepared for it gradually.”
“Got that! I was so not ready!”
However, Havor asked, “Is it fortunate or unfortunate for us to know that the werewrights lie in wait between us and the Koloran Forest?”
Cara responded at once. “Better to know than be ambushed.”
She shivered, laying the blame at first on their conversation. Harone started to say something but she motioned him to silence. Reining her horse to a walk, she drew out the stone. The battle on Sa’mara Plain had begun.
  
In eerie silence, swords flashed and struck other swords or plunged into flesh. Arrows ripped paths past her and were gone before she could blink. Others sped toward her and she ducked. Too close. She threw all of her will into pulling away from the maelstrom. New images penetrated her thoughts as she retreated—mouths moving to the pattern of shouts or commands or screams, Peralike and werewrights dying, wounds, chaotic movement 
Flinching at the carnage but dutifully continuing to look, she focused first on the closest, the Daetaga—and the hatred and horror of Pazgar and Zabnar. Against them was only the slender strength of the Chosen and the Elders, seabirds and warriors fighting valiantly yet doomed to lose. Confusion and then contention poured through their ranks in the presence of the two sorcerers. The Daetaga took full and lethal advantage of it.
Then Scroll enchanters poured through the confused ranks of their allies like the sea tide coming quietly but with an inexorable strength none can resist. Alexia, Cybis, Lira, and many others—and where they rode they brought strength and inner calm to those who fought the Shadow, even in the midst of battle. A light shone from them, brightening the very air around them. Their eyes were alive with power—beautiful and terrible to behold—and she felt both joy and awe at their glance. She knew that where they passed upon the field the lies of Pazgar and the cruelty of Zabnar faded from men’s minds.
“They may do this only for a little while. They cannot stem the tide alone.”

Then Cara was back among the company, her gaze on her horse’s mane as she put the stone away. She murmured, “It’s started.” She looked up and about her, feeling as if she was just awaking. Havor and Harone were upon either side of her, their faces mirroring their concern and their awe.
Above her, Kalapa asked, “How goes it with you, Cara? You saw the battle?”
“Yes.” Cara answered soberly. She bit down the desire to describe exactly what she had seen. “Alphesis spoke to me, urging me to hurry.” Her mouth added words she hadn’t thought, words filled with information she didn’t know she knew. “If I haven’t done the task by the morning of the day after tomorrow, the Shadow will succeed in their attack.”
“I’ll tell them,” Havor murmured, spurring his horse forward to catch up with Halprin, Mathwy, and his brother.
“Are they doing well so far?”
“Holding their own, thanks to the enchanters.” Cara answered Harone. Except for the ones who are dying or being driven insane. She spurred her horse forward, not so much to catch up with Halprin but to avoid anyone asking for more details.
  
They reached Kolora not long before sunset. The mountain chain stood before them clearly, its alpine heights far above barring the way west. The height or the structure of the mountains was “off” in some way. She studied the heights carefully. Some of the rough stony surfaces reflected the warmth of the setting sun, but much of the range was in shade. Too much. There were no passes, no gaps between peak and peak only a serrated edge against the purplish sky. Literally impassable.
Something else drew more immediate concern. As certainly as if they could be seen, she felt the presence of the werewrights—a touch of evil and rot. Cara hastened toward the enchanters to warn them but from their faces, they already knew. She considered trying to persuade Halprin not to use enchantment, that they would manage, but she knew he wouldn’t listen.
The enchanters spoke quietly to the others who rode nearest them. The company halted, casting off cloaks and readying weapons. Mathwy rode amongst his men, murmuring something Cara couldn’t hear. Advice, orders, a prayer of protection? As four of Mathwy’s men rode a little apart on either side, arrows nocked to their bowstrings, she whispered swift words to Alphesis on behalf of them all.
Lord Halprin nodded, and they started forward once more, riding from the shelter of the outlying copse to face the edge of the Koloran Wood, some 70 yards away from them. With the sun so close to setting, shadows stretched from the tree line toward them, seeming a forerunner of the hidden evil.
As they drew closer to the trees, Cara remembered she had yet to draw the Sword. She jumped at the glittering sight of the blue-green blade of water, only to jump again at the sound of a voice coming from the line of trees and shrubs ahead. It sounded like the voice of the werewright Bran had killed—soft like oiled silk but repulsive.
“Halt, Elders of Tethra! This is Mayzeda who speaks. We hold captive here two border guards of the Koloran Young Ones. The number of my followers nearly triples your strength. It is not my wish to kill all the members of your company as well as our prisoners. We wish only one thing: the Outworlder who rides with you, sometime known as ... Delia.”
The voice sounded faintly amused as it voiced the last word. Cara tried to hide a grimace of embarrassment.
“Be it known to you that she killed Vailz, a loyal follower of Lord Zabnar, near three weeks ago at the ruins of Lord Pazgar’s Bastion. If you but hand over the murderer in your midst, the rest shall go free wherever they will, even these Young Ones. How do you answer?”
Halprin rode a pace or two forward but, before he could speak, Kataro called out, “Vailz was killed by one you numbered in your own ranks: Braznar sometime known as ... Bran.”
Before Mayzeda could respond to this, Halprin cut in. “Peace, friend. The werewright shall be answered in the only language possible to a minion of the traitorous Daetaga … with the justice of this.” The sun glinted on his uplifted sword. 
The soft voice spoke again, “What of those we hold prisoner? Would you have them killed?”
Cara opened her mouth to respond, having just seen the truth in her stone, but Halprin was swifter. “They lie dead, murdered by your own hand, Mayzeda.”
Softly, he added, “Move.” Mathwy gestured.
Arrows were loosed upon either side so swiftly that Cara could hardly comprehend what she saw. The throb of nearby enchantment coursed along her skin. She jerked back as an arrow came toward her, hitting her mailed arm with a glancing blow.
Cara rode forward with the rest, the sword in her hand. She tried to remind herself that the arrows that flew past and the swords that gleamed a deadly welcome ahead could kill but the cold logic seemed powerless to affect her heart. Somewhere deep inside she was very afraid but it all seemed to be unreal, like a dream.
Dismay was real enough when the werewrights emerged from the tree cover. Mayzeda was a liar, but there was a thread of truth in his claim. He commanded nearly twice the number of werewrights as fighters in her party. They rode forward now armed with mace or sword, a fearful eagerness in their aspect.
She whispered, “Alphesis, help us!” and was grateful that Havor and Harone rode upon either side. Then, there was no more time for thought. The first of the werewrights were before them. Cara saw the flash of Havor’s blade and heard a scream. She dare not look away from the enemy approaching her, and could only hope that the scream wasn’t from Havor.
 She lost track of both when a werewright jabbed at her throat. Pulling back instinctively, she raised the sword. Horror paled the werewright’s face to yellow, and he swerved away. Did he recognize the blade or merely sense its power?
Out of jail free card. No! Have to do more than just keep myself alive!
She turned her horse to match the werewright’s retreating path. An arrow flew past her but she kept her eyes on the werewright as he reined his pony around to face her. Watching his eyes and blade as Harone had taught her, she struck out, and then saw a flash beside her. Twisting in its direction she barely got the sword into position to parry the blow from a second werewright she hadn’t noticed. Sword struck sword. Something happened to the werewright’s weapon. The strength of the blow propelled both her sword and arm away from her foe, jarring her joints and straining her muscles.
Parrying with practice swords wasn’t- Steel darted her way. Trying to brace herself better, she parried again. First werewright. What happened with the other? She thrust and missed but kept moving. The sword seemed to catch on her opponent’s blade. A piece of metal flew past. She had to be imagining it. She struck again, wondering why the werewright gave her the chance. Again, metal came from nowhere and spun toward the ground. What? The werewright threw down the bladeless hilt in his hand and grabbed out a dagger.
They throw them. Don’t let him. She struck out desperately, and felt the momentary resistance of flesh. Swallowing down a gag of horror and revulsion, she tugged on the blade, thrust a second time, and pulled back.
Two werewrights rode toward her from the left. She reined toward them and swung the sword in an arc just before they were in its range, hoping that they would sense its power. They did. Terror in their eyes, they still held to the attack.
Havor was on this side. Where is he? Did the werewrights break through? What happened to everyone over here? Oh, no! I turned to the right! Can’t get back there. Her nearest foe’s eyelids flickered. Cara prepared to parry his sword but it was a mace. The spiked club swept toward her horse’s head. Furious, Cara jabbed directly in the direction of the weapon rather than parrying as Harone had taught her. It didn’t matter. The werewright pitched forward, then sideways. Hoping that someone had shot it, she turned toward his partner, blocked his attack and jabbed. Screaming in either terror or pain, this one turned his horse and spurred away.
She clamped down hard on a burst of elation. One werewright killed by an ally and one running away was no victory. More werewrights were heading her way. She saw none of Mathwy’s people. Cara reined the mare around. A rider-less pony blocked her from the closest Elders. She struck at its former rider to force a way past. Harone was finishing off his foe. She started to call out. Grim-faced, he shouted words masked by clangs and grunts and the clatter of hooves. He pointed with his sword to their right.
Havor, unhorsed, was fighting desperately with two werewrights still on their ponies. His blade flashed back and forth between them but they pushed him back with relentless strokes Havor seemed barely able to counter. Exhausted? Wounded? Harone started toward him and Cara followed, but a half dozen werewrights rode past Havor and his assailants to bar their way.
Harone’s words reached her in a brief lull. “Get to Havor bef… kill him!”
Passing arrows and the plunge of maces shrank into just so many obstacles. Cara fought impatiently to get past the ever-shifting barricade of werewrights, ponies, flying weapons and bodies.
She heard Harone grunt but she couldn’t spare time to see what chanced. Her every thought and movement was given over to dealing stroke for stroke with eyes ever on her foe. Three werewrights blocked her way. She slashed at one, then at the other two. She heard screams, but from whom? Finally, the way was free before her. Four werewrights surrounded Havor, not two. Halprin had arrived ahead of them, his face ashen through the scars and twisted in pain. Havor lay on the ground, bright blood seeping through his riven mail. She did not see Harone.
As she rode up, a werewright lifted his sword to give Havor the death stroke. Halprin’s hand darted toward him and Cara gasped as a jolt went through her like an electric shock. The enchanter’s hand was weaponless, yet the werewright’s stroke went wide—at Halprin’s gesture, the werewright’s sword became a fountain of water. Screeching in pain, it dropped the transformed weapon but when the sword touched the ground, it was steel again.
The enchanter lifted his hand. The warrior spun his pony away from Halprin. Then Cara was upon him. The werewright was as resourceful as Bran had been. He snatched up the morningstar mace that hung by his saddle and turned to face her, allowing the heavy knobbed ball to swing slowly in an arc by its tether of strong chain. Savoring the moment. Cara called out silently, “Alphesis”.
There was time for no more. His eyes filled with a deadly triumph, the werewright attacked. The lethal ball flew through the air with a clank and an ominous swish. Cara aimed the sword’s edge at the blur of metal, sure that it would prove useless in parrying such a weapon. It held, more than held, flashing through a heavy link and freeing the spiked ball to spin harmlessly past her shoulder.
Foiled twice in such a strange fashion, the mace’s owner reined his horse around and fled. Still battling her own astonishment, Cara barely thought to pursue him. Belatedly, she did so, spurring her horse and trying to keep him in view.
He turned. His eyes held the terror of a trapped animal, as he shouted, “Beware! The Sword of Water has returned.” Then he plunged out of her view behind one of the Elders.
She stopped, and looked down at the blade in disbelief. Cutting off bits of a sword blade was one thing, and strange in itself but how had it severed such heavy links?
Cries of pain around her brought to mind one she had heard earlier—Harone’s. She looked about for him frantically and shouted his name. He didn’t answer and he wasn’t among those still mounted. Dread gripping her, Cara retraced her steps as well as she could through the dead and dying, reluctantly looking at each face to see if he lay there. In time, she found herself at the place where Halprin had faced the werewright with his bare hand. Harone was on the ground, kneeling beside a warrior who lay prone, but he was alive.
“Whew! I heard you yell. I thought they’d killed you!” Cara sheathed the Sword and dismounted.
Harone glanced up, and cried out, “Cara! Thank Alphesis! Quickly, find Hathel and tell him that Halprin and Havor both need his attention. Hurry!”
Cara turned to do his bidding, realizing numbly that the battle was over. She found Hathel bent over Mathwy who was sitting on the ground and bellowing more with rage than pain.
“Make nothing of it!” Lowering his voice a half decibel, Mathwy added, “I’ve seen to it enough for now.”
She interrupted before the enchanter could answer. “Hathel, Harone says to come quickly. Both Halprin and Havor are badly hurt.”
He sprang up at once, saying to Mathwy, “It seems you will get your will for a few minutes.” Snatching up his saddlebags, he followed her.
By the time they reached Havor, Kalapa had arrived and Harone was struggling to unbuckle the straps of Havor’s mail shirt. Halprin lay close beside them, or rather writhed about on the ground, moaning. Hathel knelt beside the enchanter. Placing his hand on the fallen man’s forehead, he spoke softly until Halprin became less restless. He caught Kalapa’s eye and sadly shook his head.
Cara turned from that ominous exchange, and tried to focus on Harone and Havor instead. Harone was still trying to remove Havor’s mail but only one buckle was loose. Frowning, Cara knelt beside him.
“Why don’t you use both…? Harone! Your arm! What happened?”
The mail of Harone’s blood-flecked left sleeve was twisted and rent and he held his arm tightly against his chest. He glanced at Cara with a trace of embarrassment in his face, and then broke eye contact.
“It’s broken. I shifted the wrong way to avoid a mace. I still can’t believe I could be so stupid.”
Hathel turned to Havor. Kalapa, perched at his side, said, “Branel, I think. I’ve got some out of your bag.”
Hathel nodded silently. Cara’s heart ached for him: upon either side lay his dearest friend and his brother. She sensed he felt nearly as helpless now as she had, watching Kassis die.
He looked toward them. “Where is Kataro? We need someone to go to the Young Ones for assistance. I daren’t move either of these without a litter.”
“He’s already gone to ask,” Harone answered. “Is there anything we can do?”
“Beyond prayer?” Hathel shook his head without looking up. He applied the medicinal herb Kalapa found and then bound cloth bandages to Havor’s wounds. Once they were in place, he whispered words and touched Havor gently.
Then, he turned and looked up at the young man. His face was haggard with exhaustion. “Did I hear you say you broke your arm? Let’s see.”
He probed Harone’s forearm quickly and nodded. “A clean break. I will set it when we reach the village. Try to keep it still for now.”
Handing a cloth strip made for a sling to her and a small vial to Harone, he added, “Clean her cut with this and have her bind up your arm. Watch them! If you see any change, hail me.
“Cara, when he’s finished, come help.”
He was off before they could reply. Cara stood staring at the two warriors, sure now that both were dying. Harone had to ask her twice to unstop the vial Hathel had given him. She did so, recognizing it as the one with the medication Hathel had used on himself after she had scratched him. Handing the bottle to Harone, she began to work on the cloth for the sling.
“I don’t need that, Harone. Here, let me get this sling done…” 
“Cara, this will only take a minute. Now hold still!” Harone reached out toward her with a moistened cloth and touched it to her chin.
“But I don’t-” Fire seared her chin and neck, and tears streamed down her face. “Hey!” She jerked away from him.
“Hold still!” Harone growled.
Cara gaped at the blood staining the cloth in his hand. “I didn’t know I’d been hurt. How is it?”
He forced a smile as he continued dabbing at the wound. “It won’t ruin your beauty at all. The sword must have run from your chin up along one side, just under the jaw line. Feel that? It runs from there, up to here. You are very lucky your throat wasn’t slit open. You look disconcertingly like a walking corpse. Look down at yourself, if you have any doubts.”
She did so, to find streamlets of blood already drying amidst the links on the right side of her mail. Dazed, Cara remembered the first werewright who had thrust his sword toward her throat. She hadn’t felt a thing!
“How is your arm?”
“My arm?” Cara asked with a laugh. “Are you delirious, or …” Her eyes followed Harone’s pointing finger to the tear in the mail just above her left elbow, and the trickle of blood captured in the rent links. She snorted. “It’s beginning to hurt but I think we better let it go for the moment. I have to go help him. Here, the sling is ready. Careful! Better let me guide your wrist through. Oh, give me the bottle. He may need it for someone else.”
She paused before turning away, and looked searchingly into Harone’s eyes. Pain had drawn furrows across his forehead and his jaws were clenched tight. “You gonna be okay?”
He nodded and forced another smile. “Go! I’ll just sit here with them. Be careful!”
  
She caught up with Hathel as he was attending Magris and, for the next half hour, he kept her busy helping Kalapa find medicines and binding wounds. Much that Cara saw made her ill, and she longed to close her eyes and slip away. Nearly everyone had been injured but, amongst the Tethrans, only Matal had been killed.
Once, as she helped Hathel move someone to a more comfortable position, her eyes chanced to fall on the face of a werewright slain by one of the seabirds. The claws had been most thorough. Cara looked away hastily but the image of what she had seen remained with her. So, too, did the scream of a horse, mercifully silenced by Gedra. She circled the field as they did, but with a different object in view. Try as she might to ignore it, Cara flinched each time Gedra’s blade found a werewright that still lived.
Young Ones arrived carrying litters of tree branches cushioned with dry grasses. Mathwy helped them place Havor and Halprin on the litters. Cara did not know how he managed it, since he could only walk with the aid of a broken branch. He bore a gash in his leg he refused to have Hathel treat, saying that the more severe injuries amongst his mearis knights needed attention first.
The Young Ones searched through the undergrowth for their own slain. The tree guards had both been killed by werewright arrows. Cara thought how young they looked, like all their kindred, when all at once she noticed that they had never even strung their bows. She murmured, “Slain by arrows they would not loose,” and feeling her eyes fill with tears, turned away.
Their progress through the trees was slow since the litters had to be carried with great care over the uneven ground. Those not helping move the litters went afoot behind them, leading their horses.
Cara walked with them, silent and alone, until a voice boomed out next to her. “Hail.” Mathwy was keeping up a good pace in spite of his limp. “You bear a good blade, Outworlder. Were it not for their fear of it, we might all be dead. Like Matal.” His eyes strayed to the body lying across one of the horses, and he sighed.
After a moment, he spoke again. “I slew him as he ran from you though he paid me back.”
“Who?”
“Why, their leader, Mayzeda, of course. You must be swifter, lest your foes return to fight you another day.”
Cara nodded. What did Mathwy mean about being paid back? The leg wound? She glanced down. Telltale dark green streaked through human red on the skirt of his mail and his boot. Swallowing a gasp of dismay, she looked up. Mathwy’s eyes were on her and his expression was at his most belligerent—but sweat was beading and trickling down his face.
Before she could even open her mouth, the warrior hissed, “Say nothing! No point in upsetting my people. I always carry the leaves with me, and was using them by the time Lord Hathel came by. Just waiting it out now.” He grinned his ferocious sharp-toothed smile of challenge. “Took you three days? Why, by tomorrow …”
“Bigger they come, harder they fall.” Cara blurted.
Mathwy looked about to bite her in half but it was only the prelude to a roar of laughter. Like a lion before gulping down a steak, Cara thought as she broke eye contact.
Seeing the village just ahead, she asked, “Do Young Ones have healers who could help Hathel? I’m afraid Halprin and Havor are going to die.”
Mathwy sighed. “Aye, my lady. Me, too.”
  
When they entered the village, Cara pressed on ahead until she stood inside the tree branch hut to which the Young Ones had directed the litter bearers. Only Hathel was with them when she came in. He was removing his mail and cape, and she was surprised to see blood on his tunic.
“Hathel, you’re hurt! Let me help you tend to that. I’ve still got your bottle-”
“It’s not serious. I must attend to those hurt worse.” He nodded toward the two.
“You’re as bad as Mathwy! You’re acting just the way you were accusing him of acting.” She knew as soon as she said the words that her accusation made no sense. Hathel was right. With two lives at stake, he could not risk any delay he could avoid.
Hathel gave her an exasperated glare. He looked toward the open door and called, “Harone! Come and take Cara out of here!”
Harone dutifully came over and put his hand lightly on her arm but from his expression he was reluctant to do more.
Cara glanced toward Hathel, busy with his preparations, and whispered, “Don’t. I need to stay. I’m sorry about what I said, but I want to do anything I can.” She looked apologetically toward Harone and was relieved at his nod.
He clasped her hand tightly and whispered, “Stay, then.” Looking toward the two warriors, he added, softly, “I fear we have not long to wait.”
As they spoke, Kalapa arrived bringing a woman, seemingly young but with the ancient eyes of her people. The seabird could barely keep airborne, having re-injured her wing. Nevertheless, Kalapa left immediately, saying she would help other Young Ones with the rest of the wounded.
The woman and Hathel bent over Havor in silence, working quickly. Cara could not bring herself to look on. She turned to Halprin. He was weaker, the spasms of pain occurring now at regular intervals. She sat beside him with bowed head, holding his hand as she had done at the barn. Next to her sat Harone, his hood pulled forward.
After a time, Hathel came to stand over them, and Harone asked, “How fares Havor?”
“I cannot say. The wounds are severe. He may not last the night, but if he does then there is some hope of his recovery.”
Hathel squatted by Halprin and, as if by a signal, Halprin opened his eyes. Seeing that, Hathel spoke.
“How now? Did I not tell you not to push yourself? You have long since done enough to aid Tethra. Now you must bide here to recuperate and so miss the final victory.”
Halprin answered him, though wracked by pain that forced the words out in spurts. “Can you think of having done enough … and yet be of the Order? Alphesis never said … ‘I’ve done enough … now … so I’ll take my ease.’ We must do what our hearts tell us … must be done.”
Only silence answered his words. Cara remembered what she had said when the host rode out of Fiori. They’ve sworn to do his will—like that writing on the chamber—and their dedication to that pledge is so strong that when you watch them doing something, you’re watching Alphesis do it too... This isn’t right, though! He went too far! He could have eased off a little … She remembered Halprin transforming the werewright sword to water, a moment before it struck Havor. Ease off when? How?
Halprin’s eyes flickered open. “Hathel.”
“Peace, Scroll-brother. Rest that you might mend.”
Halprin shook his head slightly. “Does Havor live?”
Hathel hesitated a moment. “Yes, he lives still.”
“I am content, then. Tell Lira I love her.” Halprin spoke the last words in a whisper … and lay dead.
Hathel leaned closer. He touched Halprin’s forehead and murmured, “Farewell, friend. May we meet again in Alphesis’ own time.”
Cara felt Harone’s hand tight upon her arm, but she did not turn to him.
And so the minutes passed and, unnoticed in that chamber, evening became night.

 
13- News and Revelations
  
Cara opened her eyes and closed them again. There go the gleepers. Kolora had some kind of insect life that made sounds loud enough to rival locusts back home. She had fallen asleep to their antiphonal chorus about three hours ago, only to awaken repeatedly to their renewed calls or, at times, to the sounds of moaning from someone lying near her.
Thinking she heard a noise from the Young One hut nearest her, she turned her head to look that way. The movement awakened a sharp throb of pain along her jaw line, echoed dutifully by her elbow.
Candlelight through the woven branches of the hut wall was all she could make out. No sounds from within. That meant no change. She stifled a sigh. As she had done so many times before, Cara tried to will herself back to sleep. The gleeper chorus faltered and drew to an end. The near-perfect silence let in her memories of the previous night.
They had held a Remembrance ceremony for Halprin and for Matal just before most everyone went off to sleep. Like aboard the Vartha they used ashes to symbolize Halprin and Matal sharing in Alphesis’ death, then water as a symbol of sharing in his new life. It had been simple, beautiful and it had ripped her emotions to shreds. Not that she has been the only one.
Rustling steps warned of someone heading her way. She turned her head cautiously. The soft gleam of a candle bobbed like a purposeful firefly as it flew from the doorway of the hut to hover over her head. Blinking sleepily, she looked up.
Harone whispered, “I hated to wake you, but you wanted to know if there was any change.”
She looked into his eyes, and grew wide-awake with sudden hope. Whispering, “He’s better?” she scrambled upright, wincing at newly awakened aches.
Harone nodded. “Quietly. Mathwy and Magris are finally asleep.”
As they entered the room, Cara’s eyes strayed at once to the quiet form now covered with a blue cloth, his sword laid lengthwise upon the cloth. A small clay bowl of gray ashes sat below his feet. Above his head, a silver bowl filled with water glowed softly, reflecting the fire’s light. Cara paused silently before the enchanter. Then, finally pulling herself away, she went toward Hathel who was kneeling beside the other litter. He turned as they approached, exhaustion etching his face.
“I fear we have roused you for nothing. He was nearly conscious for a moment just now. His eyelids fluttered, but he’s gone again.”
She whispered, “What are his chances now? Do you think he’ll wake again, soon?”
Hathel dropped unto a cushion placed conveniently by the pallet.
“If he does wake soon, I will be a bit more hopeful. But, truthfully, the danger is not entirely past.” He rubbed his eyelids with his fingers.
“Let me watch for a while. You haven’t slept at all, have you? You could lie down over there, and I’d call you the first moment anything happens.” Cara laid her hand on the physician’s arm. He looked up at her with a weary smile, but he shook his head.
“No. I shall stay until I’m sure.” His glance strayed to the shrouded warrior, pain in his eyes. “I have lost one. I will not lose the other.”
“Then I’ll stay here with you. If, when, Havor regains consciousness or you feel he’s out of danger, you can go sleep at once because I’ll already be here. Agreed?”
“I didn’t know one of your talents was bullying physicians.” Hathel tried to smile. The effort tore at her heart. “Agreed, then.”
Cara turned to Harone. “And as for you, I bet you haven’t slept either.”
He lifted his hand in token of submission. “I shall do as the good physician does, Cara. Now, come sit here while we watch.”
Time passed slowly in that sad chamber. Breaking a long silence, Cara asked, “You’re not going to tell him about Halprin, are you?”
Hathel shook his head silently, his eyes remaining on his brother’s face.
Harone added, “He will assume that Halprin rides with us, at least at first. It will probably be two days before we return here, more if we and the Thalassan force contact any of the Shadow. That will give him time for his strength to return a bit before he finds out.”
Cara nodded, and whispered, “Good.”
The silence engulfed them again. Harone’s eyes drifted shut only to open again after a few moments but Hathel watched Havor’s face with the unblinking eyes of the seabird. He leaned forward, bent with weariness, looking like he had aged years in just the last few hours.
She saw it first on Hathel’s face: a fragile return of hope that grew quickly. Knowing the only possible cause, Cara looked toward the litter. Havor’s eyes were open, the expression on his face puzzled as he slowly looked about him, finally focusing on his brother. They strained to hear his words.
“Hathel, where are we? The werewright … Mayzeda…”
Hathel’s voice was husky. “Hush, brother. The battle is long since over. We are in Kolora.”
“What happened? Is all well?”
“Yes. We were victorious. The quest is still safe. Now sleep.”
Havor nodded slowly, his eyes closing almost at once.
Torn between a strange joy and sorrow, Cara looked over at Hathel, to see tears on his careworn and noble face. His lips moved in silent speech, and she was sure he spoke with Alphesis. After a time she roused herself and, with much pleading, managed to persuade first Harone and then Hathel to try to sleep while she watched.
Cara took up her post on Hathel’s cushion by the makeshift bed. As the night wore on, her eyes often strayed from Havor to Halprin’s shrouded form. Yet her heart was lightened a little, for Havor lived and so she felt Halprin’s last valiant act had not been in vain. It did not lessen her grief, but somehow now it seemed easier to bear.
“It would not have been in vain, even had Havor died.”
The beloved voice filled the room. Her heart beating quickly, Cara looked toward the sound.
“Alphesis!”
“No good act done in my name is ever in vain. Halprin knows this. Indeed, he knew it all his life here, choosing his actions guided by that knowledge.”
Cara protested, “You said ‘knows’ just now.”
Alphesis looked deeply into her eyes. “Certainly I did.”
Filled with wonder, Cara could find nothing more to say.
After a time, Alphesis spoke again. “We must speak of what lies ahead. You have done well but your greatest test is to come.”
“Rabada. Suppose … I mean, if I mess up-”
“You cannot be lost, if you are with me.”
“But…”
“You will always be with me. Like Halprin. Any deed you do in my name will not be in vain, even should it seem so.”
“Hathel and the others think that only if I know Rabada’s true name will I be able to defeat her. I tried to think of it, but I couldn’t. Would you tell me what it is?”
Alphesis smiled and said quietly, “You know everything that you need to know.”
Puzzled, Cara was about to ask him what he meant, but he spoke again.
“You shall not return from the mountain passageway. Your last duty will be giving the Sword to the first person you meet and telling him who is to keep it.”
“Who?”
“You will know at the proper time. Farewell for a little while, Cara. I go now to speak with Lira. Comfort the others, and tell them I shall speak with them when you are gone.”
Feeling like someone awakening from a dream, she sighed and straightened. Just on the edge of hearing came soft words, “Those within the Obedience cannot be lost.” Tears welling in her eyes, Cara smiled.
  
Harone and Hathel slept until nearly dawn when Gedra came in to see how Havor fared. By then, Havor’s face was a more normal color and his breathing deeper and more regular. He still slept, but Hathel and Cara agreed that he looked better. Hathel had gone to his side at once, the grief and exhaustion still etched into his face.
As soon as Harone was also awake, Cara told them what Alphesis had said. It gladdened her heart to see some of the sadness leave Hathel’s eyes—he had so much to bear. But she had little time to mark the fact.
As soon as she finished, Harone demanded, “What do you mean that you won’t return from the mountain passage? Cara, you’ll succeed with Alphesis helping you. Don’t even think about not getting back out.”
Oh, no! Can we say not getting it? Cara stared at him and grappled for something to say. “Harone, you don’t understand,” she said gently. “It doesn’t matter whether I succeed or fail—either way, I won’t come out. If Rabada or the spells of the pentagonal room kill me, then obviously I won’t. Even if I succeed, I could die doing it. But bottom line is he told me I have to go back home as soon as my mission is complete.”
“Of course.” Harone interrupted. “But you didn’t arrive here, in this forest of the Young. You came to us in Melwood. We-”
“I don’t need to go there to get home to my world. He can send me back to Earth just as easily from here. And that’s what he intends to do, according to what he told me.”
Harone gaped at her for a moment and then, passing his hand over his eyes, he mumbled, “I didn’t think about that. All this time, I assumed you would be here for days more. Weeks. That maybe you wouldn’t leave at all.”
“Lord Hathel said we must ride now. The horses are ready.” Gedra stood in the doorway. Hathel had already left the room. “He said hurry! We have nearly a full day’s travel. Cara has only until tomorrow morning to get to the passage and perform her task.”
Harone looked into Cara’s eyes sadly for a moment then strode out of the room after Gedra. Cara watched them both walk away, dimly aware that the Young One who had helped Hathel now sat by Havor’s bed.
She turned, bidding Havor farewell in her heart but she couldn’t leave until she had done the same with Halprin. She walked over and, touching an edge of the blue cloth, murmured, “You should be joining your people, outside.”
A memory answered her. Lord Halprin at the gate of Fiori, riding up onto the platform and proclaiming, “I will not say, ‘Alphesis be with you.’ for he is this minute within you! Today, you are his Protection!” She smiled, savoring his words and the tumultuous response from the army. In the same moment, she knew his words held a different message for her.
I ride in his place. 
Her fingertips tightened on the bit of cloth. Awe and terror and grief flooded her, and she nearly collapsed under their combined power. Too much honor. Too great a faith entrusted in one person by others. How had he borne it? How could she do this?
Hathel was calling her.
She opened her eyes to the sight of clenched fingers, the tickle of sliding tears and the last traces of unbearable awe. Longing replaced awe, and then faded in its turn. 
Because I have to.
She loosed her grip, and followed the others through the door.
  
Their numbers were smaller—two warriors besides Havor and Mathwy remained with the Young Ones. When her task was complete, they would come back to the village for their wounded comrades, and to return Halprin to his own city.
How would Lira take her husband’s death? Cara shook her head. Rather how had she reacted when Alphesis came to her? Cara remembered Hathel’s words—Lira knew everything all along. She must have begged him to remain in Fiori or at least do no enchantment, and yet have been sure that he would spend all his strength rather than turn from the Three Peoples in their need.
Yeah, maybe Lira really saw us as intruding. We were—always being there when Lira had so much to say to Halprin and so little time to plead her cause. She never had a chance—the needs of his people versus Lira trying to protect him? As if!
What passed between Lira and Alphesis when he told her? Not for her to know. Some sorrows could not be shared, any more than some problems could.
Anyway, now it’s up to me. Good old Gedra, voice of doom. “Cara has only until tomorrow morning.” Talk about double meanings. I’ll bet Halprin feel the seconds ticking too.
Kataro’s voice came from somewhere up above her. “How do you fare, Little Chick? Do you mourn still for Halprin?”
Cara jumped and looked up. The world wrapped itself back around her. “Yes. Greeting! Yes, even after what Alphesis said.  … I know this sounds selfish but I feel sorry for myself too. Whether I live or die, I’ll be leaving you all in a few hours. I love it here in spite of the war and the sorcerers and all. I can’t imagine it, you disappearing … I mean me just suddenly not here after knowing all you and …” She gestured at the surrounding trees.
“We shall miss you too but at least you won’t leave Alphesis behind, no matter what befalls you.”
Cara smiled. “Got that.”
Kataro nodded, and then swerved away. She rode a while further in silence though focused now more on the countryside. Irony. Riding toward “the deathly dwelling of a king, the abode of three tombs”--through a wood of the Young Ones! Everything is so alive, but even if I pull this off ... Stop it!
What would Halprin be thinking? Ooh, Lira and the ember! Try, maybe, the Joyful Burning of the Obedience? He didn’t do what he did grudgingly-
“Greeting!”
Harone rode toward her with a tentative smile on his face. Her mood lifted, buoyed by a surge of relief. She returned the smile and added a one-handed gesture of greeting. He doesn’t look angry. That would have been too much, going into the cavern with no second chance to stay friends.
“I’m sorry I’m an Outworlder. I didn’t do it on purpose, you know.” Why can’t I be leaving from the place I arrived?
Harone laughed. “I’m relieved to hear that. I’m not angry with you, just with myself for forgetting.”
“If it’s any consolation, I’m not looking forward to going back. Well, not going so abruptly.”
He turned from the path to look at her, hope in his eyes. “You don’t? Well, maybe you don’t have to hurry away. Did you ask Alphesis?”
Overreact much? She hated to say the words and destroy the hope he must be feeling. “He told me I won’t return from the mountain passage.”
“That’s grim. Are you sure that’s what he said?”
“Oh, yeah.” She tried to counter her sardonic response with a bright smile but suspected she wasn’t pulling it off. “Look, no matter what happens in there, I won’t be coming out. There was no point in asking him if I could stay after he had said that. Besides, my family has to be freaking big time. Mourning. Who knows?”
“Yes. Of course.” Harone lifted the dangling end of one rein and studied it as if he had never seen it before. “There’s the matter of your family. I only meant to say I was a fool to have thought otherwise.”
Cara expected him to ride away but he added, “Cara, forgive me. I’m trying to do the same thing I did when I convinced myself I could personally revenge my parents.”
“What do you mean?” What does the sword have to do with this?
“Thinking if you want something to happen strongly enough that somehow facts will change to suit what you want. It wasn’t until you claimed the sword that I learned before. Now I suppose I won’t believe it until you’ve disappeared before my eyes in the passageway.” He glanced toward her and smiled wryly. “Maybe I’ll just sit outside the mountain and wait for you forever.”
Cara made a comic face. “Gotta life-sized picture of that. Not very flattering for you.”
He laughed. “You could always come back, as Galan did.”
“That would be great! But I don’t think it’s up to me.”
“True, but why would he choose to prevent you? Let’s talk of more pleasant things!”
And so they rode and talked, first through the gently rising land of the Young Ones and then along the high plateau that led to the gate. Kataro and Kalapa joined them, and they all spoke merrily of experiences they had shared and how the land would be when once the sorcerers were gone. Nevertheless, Cara knew each felt already the first pangs of their separation though none spoke of it again.

14- Third Time the Charm
  
It was long before true dusk when the sun began to sink behind the mountains, for the chain filled the whole western sky before them. As the sun sank, Cara’s anxiety increased for she knew the time was very near.
They topped the last rise, and Hathel turned his horse and called, pointing ahead, “There, below the cliff is the opening of the passageway.”
Cara looked where he pointed. Overhanging rock nearly obscured the low rectangular hole. She shivered. It resembled the opening to a tomb more than a passageway entrance. The ever-present possibility of her death grew stronger.
Dismounting with the others, Cara looked up at the setting sun and bade it farewell. She turned to her friends to do the same. Kataro and Kalapa alighted on her horse’s back, calling farewell and asking Alphesis’ protection on her.
“I shall write a scroll about you, Little Chick. Would only you were here to read it.’
Kalapa added, “And I shall write a song. Perhaps, someday you will return and hear the song and read Kataro’s book.”
Cara smiled. “Cool. I’ll miss you! Who knows? Maybe, someday, I’ll be allowed to come for a visit. Well, you know, maybe. If you ever have a chance, go visit Abdis and Clepta and tell them what happened.”
“We will certainly do it!” they promised.
As they did, Gedra and Hathel came to bid her farewell. She thought how different these two were and yet such good friends of Halprin’s, and now of herself. Cara hesitated a moment before turning away.
Hathel murmured, “You would make a Great One to strengthen the Council, for you have courage and compassion. All Tethra loses something by your departure. And I do, too.”
Cara started to protest at his words, but he spoke again.
“Hush. I know you sense this—soon the Shadow will attack again. Go at once! Every moment now will be vital.”
“Yes, I feel it.” Hugging the physician, she turned to Harone. “Farewell.”
“Not yet. I’m permitted to go as far as the Stream.”
She looked at him in surprise, but he explained, “Alphesis told me during my meditations. I have one more duty I must perform, though he didn’t tell me what it is. He only bade I go with you to the Stream edge.”
Cara smiled. “I’m glad.” She turned to face them all a moment. “Goodbye! Please, be careful!”
They wished her well in quiet voices as she turned to go, but they didn’t leave. They had agreed to guard the entrance until the Thalassans appeared. Meanwhile, Harone lit a torch, and led the way toward the passage mouth. Cara followed, the fear within her seeming to grow with every step.
They had not gone far before the need for the torch became obvious. Even when the sun rode high, little light ever reached even the cavern mouth.
Harone explained, “Caverns serving as passageways through the mountains are much alike. See, here is a bracket in the wall and below it a chest with spare torches. Hold one of them to this one. Good. Now we put it in the bracket here. When we, when I leave, I’ll remove all the ones I lit as I come out. The king and the Ancient both help keep a constant supply in all the passageways in and out of this land.”
Cara stopped suddenly. “I just had a horrible thought. I can’t take a torch through the Stream. What do I do when I come out on the other side? There’ll be no light! How will I ever find anything?”
Harone grinned. “You always manage to find the negative side, don’t you?”
Her face part grin and part glare, Cara retorted, “Well, what do I do?”
“Keep walking. When you climb the stairs leading out of the Stream, you’ll find a chest just where the chain stops. Inside are more torches, plus flint and steel.”
Cara looked at him self-consciously. “I have another question. How do I find the chest in the dark and, especially, how do I find the flint and steel in a whole chest of torches?”
Smiling, Harone shook his head. “Hopeless. Absolutely hopeless. The Streams of Alphesis give off a kind of light. Remember the ceiling of the Chamber at Fiori? It’s rather like that. No, the Streams are brighter. You’ll also find more brackets and torches like these, that you can light as you move deeper in.” He paused and his smile faded. “Of course, you won’t be removing them on your way back but the Thalassans will be glad of the light.”
They walked in silence until they came to another bracket.
“Harone, stop. You’re missing one.”
Cara was just putting the torch into place when they heard the smallest whisper of a sound from the left side of the passage. Thus far, it had been wide and smooth, though only high enough for a mounted man to ride through. The torchlight had always marked the limits of its regular walls. Here, when they turned left toward the sound, the light of the torches did nothing to brighten the darkness of the opposite wall.
Cara spoke in a hushed voice. “This must be the tunnel built by the sorcerers to go under the Stream. There’s something evil inside there. I can feel it.”
“Did you hear that?” 
Cara only nodded in answer, straining to catch a pattering sound. Why did it sound familiar? A soft padding...
“Rabada’s hounds!”
“Good!” An intense expression on his face, he dropped the spare torch to draw his sword with his good hand. “Alphesis has placed the destruction of Rabada in your hands, but your protection here is in mine.”
The quiet tone of his voice frightened her, for she knew the strength of emotion hiding behind it. Drawing the sword, she too, faced the opening and awaited the approach of their mutual enemy.
First one and then two more pairs of eyes gleamed red from the tunnel mouth. The last fragment of an old fear flashed through Cara’s mind and then it was gone. Raising the blade, Cara silently watched the Fenroi approach.
The first leaped toward Cara and, for what seemed an hour, they played a deadly game of cat-and-mouse. The Fenroi hound evidently sensed the power of the sword and avoided it carefully, yet he threatened her repeatedly with snapping fangs and claws as sharp as swords. At last, she managed to jab his shoulder with the sword. As Cara drew it forth, preparing to strike again, she found there was no need. The wraith howled eerily and sought to leap but its form began dissolving, until it became transparent, until nothing remained on the passage floor.
Cara turned to see how Harone fared and found that he had slain the second Fenroi, yet its lividly glowing body still lay upon the stone. She hurried to his side, for the third yet lived and fought fiercely as if it knew the fate of its brothers. Before she could lift her blade, Harone’s own went through the wraith’s throat. His eyes glittered in triumph, but he said nothing as he sheathed the sword. The sudden silence in the passageway felt strange as they paused a moment to rest and relight the torch Harone had carried.
Finally, wiping his brow, Harone demanded, “Where is the third? You didn’t let him escape to bring news of us to Rabada?”
“No. I struck him and he faded away. Like a mist or a ghost.”
Harone whistled softly. “No wonder the Order decided that the Sword of Living Water was what you were to bear! If it can do that to the contents of the caskets! Didn’t I tell you once that next time Rabada would be afraid of you? Let’s move on. The Stream is not far away.” With fresh energy, Harone led the way along the passage.
  
A glimmer of reflected light upon the passageway roof provided the first sign of the Stream. Cara viewed the light with misgivings—it had become the sign of farewell and the herald of her dread task. They advanced a few more paces, and Cara gasped. She had never envisioned the Stream to be like that which flowed before her, shining so brightly that it was difficult to look directly at it for long.
“Harone, this is it?”
He looked at her in perplexity. “Yes, of course. The steps begin right here.”
“But it’s so bright and clear! It looks more like light than water.”
The man chuckled. “I remember feeling the same way. Put your hand in it, if you don’t believe me.”
Creeping forward, Cara stooped over the first step and cautiously did as he said. She felt a strange sensation that at first she likened to a mild electric shock but, as she continued to hold her hand so, it seemed that new life coursed through her veins. Hastily, Cara pulled her hand out of the Stream, and sparkling drops of water fell from her fingertips. The strange sensation gradually faded but she could see, by the light of the Stream itself, that her skin was wet.
“Is it water?”
He smiled at her surprise. “Yes but Living Water, like the Sword you bear. All the water of rain and ocean and the clearest springs are mere copies of what you see here.”
Harone pointed to the chest just this side of the Stream bank. “Here’s the last of the torch chests on this side. You will find one like it on the far side, in the same relative position. Notice the cloth on top? It’s there so you can dry your hands before you open the chest and light a new torch. Don’t forget to spread it out on top when you’re ready to move on—for the next traveler.”
He stopped speaking. Cara couldn’t think of a response—not even another question. Farewell time and, though they both knew it, neither wished to speak the first words.
At last, Cara had no choice. “Harone, they’ve started fighting again. It’s a while until dawn but I’ve got to get going.”
He nodded. “So the time has come. Facts will remain facts no matter what I wish. If only Alphesis … but no matter.”
The triumph that she had seen in his eyes since the coming of the hounds had faded. He shook his head. “I just remembered I forgot to return those fragments of your holy symbol.”
“Hey, I’m glad actually. I got the message. Besides, my folks have that on one of our living room walls.” Cara smiled. “Keep this one for me. Havor mentioned once that full enchanters have chapels in their homes for their households. Once you’re an enchanter too, you can put the labyrinth in yours. There’s words that go with it. ‘Those who walk within the Obedience cannot be lost.’”
Harone nodded, repeating the words to himself. “I like it. Thank you.”
He added firmly, “Go forth to victory, Cara, in the name of Alphesis! May you walk in his Protection all your life. I will miss you.” He looked into her eyes, and then away at the Stream. “Go quickly. As you said, lives are still threatened. I’ll stay here until you’ve gained the other side.”
“You’re right. I have to get moving. Some day I just know you’ll be in the Order. If only I could be here to see you step onto the Balcony of the Scroll! I’ll always try to imagine you as you will be then. Farewell.”
She reached forward to grasp Harone’s hand, only to be pulled into his arms. Cara burst into tears at the gesture.
“Sorry.” Harone mumbled huskily as he released her.
“I’m not.” She placed her hands on Harone’s shoulders and drew him back toward her, then kissed him. Letting go quickly, she blinked back tears so she could see his face. He was smiling.
“Farewell. Remember … Remember to be careful.”
Cara nodded. Biting her lip, she turned quickly and took hold of the chain of narthrous links where it was fastened to the wall above the first step.
  
The current was strong! Travelers had to rely utterly on the narthrous links in order to remain upright—but as heavy as the chain was, the force of the Stream caused it to curve to the right in a great arc.
When she reached the point on the steps where Harone had told her to take a deep breath, twice she did so but fear prevented her from moving both times. Halprin wouldn’t let this unnerve him! Whispering the single word, “Help!” Cara took another deep breath and plunged forward. The light of the Stream pulsed intensely against her closed eyelids, even as its gift of calm coursed into her veins.
After a couple of minutes, her lungs cried out for new air. Cara quickened her pace and wondered how much further it would be until the steps began again. She couldn’t open her eyes, for she could hardly bear the light that shimmered through her closed lids. The last thing she needed was to stumble right into Rabada or a trap because she couldn’t see.
She had been holding her right hand outstretched as she walked, but now it struck upon a solid object. It was all she could do to keep from gasping in surprise. Why was there a wall before her? Had they all mistaken the place where the barrier of the Shadow was?
Panic began creeping back into her mind. As she was ready to succumb to it, her groping hand found the edge of the unexpected wall. Solid to her right and directly before her, there was no sign of it to her left. Cara remembered the effect of the current on the chain. Most people must grab the chain with their right hands, and therefore stay to the left side of the chain. With her left hand on it instead, its curve had taken her a bit too far to the right.
With lungs aching, Cara held the chain with both hands so she could duck under it. She found the first step to her left and climbed rapidly until her head broke the surface of the Stream. She stood a moment drinking in new air and staring into the darkness of the passageway, before climbing the remaining steps. No one was there.
Before she went to the torch chest, Cara looked back the way she had come. Harone waved to her from the other side. Returning the wave, she stood and watched until he disappeared from view.
Then urgency filled her again, even pushing her sorrow aside. She knelt by the chest and dried her hands on the rough cloth draped over its lid. As she worked to loosen the moisture-corroded lid, Cara tried to tell herself that there would be time to mourn the loss of friends after she left but tears ran down her cheeks, mingling with droplets from the Stream.
The chest’s lid creaked back toward the wall. Cara searched quickly until she discovered the stored flint and steel, and then she worked to strike a spark. Once the first torch was lit, she placed it in the bracket above the chest. As she was lighting another to carry with her, hoof beats sounded from the darkness behind her. She frowned and turned in time to see a powerful warrior tread toward her. Clad in mail and a dark surcote, he had hair of the unusual old ivory color she had noted occasionally during her travels. It suddenly occurred to her that this might be a specifically Thalassan trait.
Before she could get a good view of his features, the man bowed briefly, and murmured, “My Lady Outworlder. Greeting from Thalassa. Warleader Elram at your service.”
“Greeting, Lord Elram.” She nodded in response to his bow. “Glad to see you, but I’m a little confused. How did you get through the Shadow’s barrier? Where are your people?”
The warrior gave a wolfish smile that reminded her of Mathwy. “More than half of the Thalassan Order of the Scroll have spent days working on bringing it down, while we warriors strained at our leashes to join the fray in Tethra.” He glanced behind him. “They will arrive within the hour. The encampment was breaking up apace when I left. In the meantime,” he toyed with the hilt of his massive sword, “I thought to accompany you into the prison chamber, and there aid you with the destruction of the three.”
“Oh, but you can’t,” Cara protested. “That’s why Alphesis sent me—to go where you guys-” Something was wrong but what? The horse! Where had Elram’s horse gone? There were only shadows behind him.
“Nice try, Rabada.” Cara drew the sword.
The warrior’s shape altered at once into that of the sorcerer. Rabada shrugged and gave a cold laugh devoid of humor.
“He gave as good as he got, didn’t he?” Cara gestured with the torch toward the woman’s scarred face and the brittle fragments of her remaining hair.
The sorcerer uttered a snarl low in her throat. “Just the surface, my dear.” Her eyes gleamed in ferocious triumph. “He’s dead, isn’t he? He couldn’t resist performing new weavings and it killed him.” When Cara made no answer to the gloating guesses, she added, “Dangerous playing with strong magicks. Another of your meddlers found that out.”
She turned toward the far wall, and stared at a spot over five feet from the passageway’s surface. Glancing carefully around her, Cara looked up as well. The shape of a woman’s hand protruded from the solid wall. Drawing a breath of horror, she looked toward Rabada. The sorcerer cocked her head, and grinned through cracked lips.
“Poor woman! Already forgotten.”
Gasping, Cara looked up a second time.
“Of course, she did that to herself, in her haste to spirit me away from the battle.”
“Fania!” Cara cried out. Rage and grief gripping her, she turned on the sorcerer and jabbed at her with the sword.
She struck flesh, and Rabada recoiled, emitting a primal shriek of pain and rage. One claw-like hand wrenched off the necklace she wore, while she stretched out her other hand towards Cara’s face. “Yes, it can damage me. But not kill.”
“Yeah, I know.” Cara retorted, blinking back the tears welling in her eyes, “I’ve got it for your essences, and now’s the time.”
“Too late … Cara.”
The last word came like a blow. How did Rabada know her true name? Fear consumed her, choking her as it had when Pazgar sought to pull them to him at the seeking.
Rabada smiled again as if she knew Cara’s thoughts.
“It cost the life of one spy but, in time, I found out what I wished to know. I can destroy you with a single word, but first it would please me to show you how pointless your quest has always been.”
Holding the links of the necklace aloft, she chanted and gestured, only stepping backwards when Cara tried to strike her again with the sword. The last words spoken, she pressed the necklace to her throat, and it writhed about her like a serpent until it had returned to its earlier shape.
She smiled, and murmured, “Sheathe that nasty thing, my dear Cara, and listen to the truth for a change. I have conjured your will with your name. You have no choice.
“It delights me to think of the misery you have caused so many by attempting this fool’s errand. You believe yourself brought by Alphesis. In fact, your arrival was by chance—but we of the Shadow did not neglect to use that chance. Many have been the times that my colleagues and I looked on in amusement as you brought death and the horrors of war to those whose lives you touched. You have guessed it yourself. Even so, you would not turn aside from the path you stubbornly chose to follow.”
Cara shook her head but no words formed in her mouth.
“Think on it, Cara. Whose life have you aided by coming here? To whom have you not brought peril and destruction? Now you think to wipe the slate clean by destroying us? Yes, we know your plans and we have long awaited this moment of victory—for it shall be our victory, not yours. You shall die in vain and perhaps you may even welcome it, so as to hide from the memory of those who died so before you, bewitched by the hope of your presence. Think on it, Cara, in your last few minutes: Hythe, Cona, Kassis, Halprin—all those who died without cause or purpose. For an illusion.”
As Rabada spoke, Cara saw the faces of all those she had loved and tried to help in silent accusation before her. They had trusted her and their reward for this trust had been death at her hands. She had begun by warning those she met not to trust to her, only to indulge herself with their desperate dream of rescue—of herself as the one looked for by a whole people. Even now, the Tethran army fought a useless battle whose only purpose would be to add more lives to those she had already destroyed. Rabada was right—she had often thought of this but still she had pursued her path of destruction.
As these thoughts came to her, unaware, Cara turned the sword. None could make amends for such crimes but at least she would die as Rabada said, and shut out the clamor of accusation forever.
Rabada’s smile grew.
Words the sorcerer had spoken repeated themselves in her mind, “Halprin, who died without cause or purpose.”
Cara flung up her head and stared defiantly at the sorcerer.
“Your words are lies.” She laughed. “As always. Want to hear some words that speak the truth? Then, shut up and listen! You chose to place your will above his. Did you think insisting on your own way like some brat would defeat him? No matter what lie you choose or how you rationalize everything you’ve done, you can’t undo the truth or what he has pledged.
“The death and pain you spoke of were caused by you and no other. Your Hounds slew Hythe and Cona. Your quarrel slew Kassis. Your ribbons, Rabada, slew Halprin, a man so far above you in nobility as to show you up for the pathetic thing you've become. You gloat about Halprin’s pointless death? No one dies in vain if their cause be the destruction of evil.”
Rabada opened her mouth to speak, but Cara forestalled her, “Silence! There’s more, and you will hear it! Look at yourself! The wound from the sword is smoking.”
She jabbed at her again, and Rabada backed up slightly. Simultaneously, her appearance altered to the nightmare shape Cara had glimpsed weeks before. Where once seemed to have stood a woman was the semblance of the will to destroy, of a hatred of anything not itself—with nothing at the center like the last hulk of a rotten tree.
“Can’t hold it together, can you? Your little illusion of still being human. I see it now, even without the stone. You’ve felt yourself to be invulnerable all these years—even when the Light used your ‘real’ name of Rabada, you couldn’t be harmed. Do you know why no harm came from that naming? Have you ever dared admit it to yourself? You are no longer Rabada, for you are no longer a person. I sensed just the horror of it back on the moor but I didn’t understand it.
“Well, times change! The last part of you that was not mere evil was consumed when you trapped Thaddis. Your true self is gone. All you have left—all that’s left, period—is memories of evil deeds and the lust for more. If you cannot be annihilated, it is only because there is Nothing remaining in you to be destroyed.”
Cara waved the Sword of Living Water. The fear in Rabada’s eyes was plain, yet even now she sought to cast a spell. With hands upraised, the sorceress commanded, “Cara-”
The Outworlder was swifter. “Your time has come, Nothing, once named Rabada. Alphesis has ordained it so.” Cara stepped forward, the flowing blade uplifted in her hand.
Flinching from the glitter of the ancient blade, Rabada stepped back again. However, she had forgotten how closely she stood to the steps of the Stream of Alphesis. This time one foot slid from the bank, coming to rest on the first step. With a great cry, the sorcerer clutched at the narthrous chain and managed to right herself, then tried to drag herself back up unto the embankment.
Before she could, the Stream altered as though enraged by the presence of even a fragment of the evil thing in its midst. Waves swept up the steps in fury and they seemed of blood. They foamed as they dashed themselves upon the closest wall, quenching the torch that Cara had set there. The mountainway trembled from the Stream’s fury.
Rabada was swept from view in the first convulsion of the Stream, yet her voice echoed through the cavern, crying out in mingled rage and horror. The sounds buffeted Cara’s ears. She turned and ran down the passage.
Then, quieter and more commanding, came another voice.
“Do not tarry. The Moment of the Opening has come.” Cara looked about her but saw no one. Yet clearly in her mind came the image of the second battle upon the Field of Sa’mara. She knew at once that still the Tethrans held to their purpose, yet time had grown short for them. The Daetaga already prevailed here and there upon the field. Dawn was nigh--the time foretold to Cara as the last moment in which her quest could be accomplished.

 
15- Into the Abode of Three Tombs
 
Cara started walking deeper into the mountainway, the second torch in one hand and in the other the Discerning Stone. She scanned both walls as she walked, searching for any hint of a doorway or a branch in the passage. Rough stone, damp with condensed moisture marched beside her on either side, only tiny rivulets and shallow pools responding to the dim torch.
Cara walked with double sight: seeing both the cavern and the battle upon the Sa’maran plain. The voice of Rabada still cried out behind her but she barely heard it, listening instead to the cries of the Tethrans who were fighting the Shadow. As she walked, Cara sought the guidance of Alphesis in finding the hidden chamber. Was the door invisible? From Nortis’ account, the prison chamber was no great distance from the Stream edge. Perhaps, she had already passed it?
Licking her dry lips, Cara came to a halt and looked around. Sight wasn’t going to do it. Nortis had written that he guessed where the entrance was by noting where his former master stood. He never said that he saw the door. If she couldn’t see it—even with the Discerning Stone—what other tool did she have? Enchanters sensed evil and she had done so as well but the prison chamber wasn’t evil. Still, feeling, touch itself, should increase her chances. The scroll hadn’t been clear but she and Kataro agreed, it suggested the door was in the left passage wall. And, closer to the Stream.
Another torch bracket and chest were coming into view, confirming that she had walked too far. She draped the stone’s chain over her left wrist and transferred the torch to the same hand. Then she walked over to the left wall and put her palm against it, walking slowly back toward the Stream.
Rabada’s screeches of pain and fury grew louder. She did her best to ignore the hideous sounds, and even tried to blank out the fighting on the Sa’maran plain. She had seen enough to know she had to hurry. Words from Alphesis himself could hardly carry a clearer message.
She had not searched for long when her hand slid away from her, seemingly delving into the cold wall. Gasping at the strange sensation, Cara turned to face the peculiar spot. The torch revealed nothing. She waved her right hand about, searching for the left edge of the doorway. Ouch. Her bruised fingers sprang back from the invisible left frame. There to there. Not her first invisible door and, hopefully, she could enter this one in the same way. Taking a great breath, she walked forward.
She was half-braced for abrupt contact with some very hard stone and totally unprepared for the sensations that gripped her instead—first, the fleeting impression of a dark, arched doorway and then pure sparkling light. Stepping across the door-less threshold, Cara held the torch high and then lowered it. The chamber fashioned by Alphesis was lit by an opalescent light of its own, so bright and pure that it frightened her a little. It reminded her of the light surrounding Alphesis at the Throne and of her visions when he had flown in protection about her and her companions.
Now, it flowed through her as the Stream itself had done, filling her until she felt she could not bear it. Words caressed her ears: joyful words, words that were themselves a song glorifying Alphesis. From whom did the words spring? Neither living beings nor images were visible yet the room seemed full, so full that she felt the unseen Presences pressing upon her mind, overawing her with their message of delight and comfort. How could anyone think this to be a prison? She would gladly stay here, lapped about by their song
Or, perhaps not. As a minute passed and then another, she found it difficult to breathe or to think about her task. She longed to join with the majestic Presences circling her about but she couldn’t do it. She wasn’t ready and that realization hurt. She saw a door in the opposite wall and, almost relieved, she hurried to escape through it.
As night is to day, so was the second chamber to the first. Lit with a lurid glow from the low ceiling, deadly cold, the five distant walls were scarred about with evil and hideous faces and other terrible shapes. The walled things were alive—Cara felt their gaze lock upon her in cruelty and hatred. She came to a halt just inside the doorway, yet the room or the presences in it seemed to creep forward to meet her. Soft touches of greedy fingers brushed against her skin. Claws slid in parallel tracks, their touch too delicate to break the skin, but promising more.
Afraid to go forward, yet unwilling to turn away, Cara stood helplessly just within the circumference of the vast chamber. The joyous sound of the Chamber of Alphesis was gone. In its place raged the voices she had heard at the Abandoned Bridge, cruelly triumphant or terrified. 
Other voices, soft and wheedling, spoke to her. “Why do it for them? What do you owe them? What have they done for you? Has any of the Three Peoples ever come to your world to aid you? Already, they ride away to Kolora, leaving you to your fate, laughing at the success of their plans. Now is the time to free yourself from the enchantment they laid upon you. We offer our aid in escaping their enslavement and, when you are freed from it, call on us to wreak the revenge you deserve.
“The stone will serve you in this, too. Strengthen your hatred with ours and you shall find their fate in your hand that you might crush them.”
Cara tried desperately to block out their words but slowly, imperceptibly, she lost ground against them. As suspicion seeped into her mind, she forgot the thoughts were not her own. Why hadn’t they come inside to aid her? The answer came at once and seemed all too evident. Perhaps they knew what would happen if they dared the Stream. Even Harone had stopped at its edge.
She clutched the chain of the stone. She would destroy them all with this. They were all magicians, or rather sorcerers, capable of producing any illusion they would--even that of a loving Alphesis.
Alphesis. As she thought of that name, another thought came to the last un-shadowed corner of her mind. It began like a prick of brilliant blue in a sea of darkness. Breathlessly Cara felt it grow until it became many: Alphesis at the Throne, at the armory in Eyrie Keep, in the Koloran Wood and, best of all, quelling fear and sorrow with his protective wings. Cara lifted her head and looked about her.
“No. Alphesis is true, not an enchantment or illusion. He lives. I’ve seen him and spoken with him. He is, even now, within me.”
Her voice filled the room and, as she spoke, the voices wailed and were silent. The touches on her skin ceased. The lurid light snuffed out. Cara voiced a ragged sigh of relief. One obstacle down. What next?
Cara lifted the torch and looked into the Discerning Stone. The field of Samara was before her, and now the Shadow’s power had taken hold of many of the Tethran army as it had at the beginning of the first battle.
With the vision came words, “Quickly, daughter.”
Setting down the torch, Cara drew the Sword and sought for the caskets in her mind as once she had sought for the Sword itself. The chamber was huge but nearly featureless. In the center, a pillar as wide as it was tall stretched the short distance between the floor and the lowering ceiling. She could just make out gaps in the floor around it. With nothing else to guide her, Cara walked toward the squat pillar. It was fashioned of red and black stone, reminiscent of the stones in Rabada’s necklace, reminiscent too of the warning description Abdis had given her just weeks ago.
Don’t play near red stone. She smiled grimly to herself. But none of it’s play. They’re dying on Sa’mara. Counting the minutes. Praying for it to be over. I’ve got to get on with it! Somewhere near this pillar. Oh, come on! Where are they?  
The gaps in the flooring proved to be the heads of several staircases that all wound in the same direction into the very foundation of the mountain. Cara circled the pillar, gazing down each stairwell in turn. Wide steps descended in matching curves below her feet. Which one? One for each sorcerer? No, there were too many. Circling the Escher-like stairs a second time, she counted their number carefully. Five. Each faced a wall. Was she supposed to choose the one facing the entrance? Five, like a pentagram! Cara tore her attention from the tempting structures. Not that way!
That left the pillar. She threaded her way along one banistered edge until she stood on the shallow ring of stone at the pillar’s base. It appeared to be solid but it wasn’t smooth. Whorls and ridges from gray veins in the rock curled around its girth as they climbed toward the ceiling. She smiled to herself and cast her gaze up to a curved window-like opening high in the pillar. The whorled ridge of gray stone wound up to it like a narrow staircase. Up, not down—just like her path through the shell. She had climbed up inside the key itself, back on the beach, as a rehearsal for this moment.
She found the bottom of the ridge and began climbing, with all her weight pressed to the pillar to keep from tipping outward and losing her balance. Minutes passed as she spiraled away from the floor. She knew better than to look down, even at the stone ridge, instead testing each portion of the surface before entrusting a foot to it.
Squeezing through the narrow opening, she positioned herself on its sill and dropped down inside. She landed in a tiny circular room. A pendulous tongue of stone hung down from its ceiling, stopping about 8 feet from the floor. Huddled together below it were a cube and pillar, and a pyramid. The first two were like those on the northern moor; the last fitfully produced the lurid light that had fled from the rest of the chamber.
Cara took a step toward them. Murky flames barricaded her from the objects. The savage tongues rose so high that they licked the lobed ceiling as though seeking to consume it. Scorched by their intense heat, Cara stepped back. The flames vanished, and all was as it had been. She inched forward, more cautiously this time but with her will hardened to bear what she must if only she could complete the quest. The flames roared up past her. The chain of the Discerning Stone grew so hot at the flame’s touch that her hand released it whether she would or no. Cara nearly despaired at the thought the Sword would follow it but the hilt remained cool against her palm.
Another step and she was within a yard of the closest flames. They leaped toward her as if in greeting, heating the mail in which she was clad so that Cara longed to cast it from her, but she knew there was no time. She lifted her free hand and held it closer to the flames for as long as she could bear it. No answering forks of fire reached out to clasp her, as they had in her dream. She yanked her hand back. A step. A quick step and through. Maybe. She tried. Sure that her hair or surcote would soon catch the flame, Cara stopped again, calling silently the name of Alphesis. As she did, the memory of a distant battle came to her: Halprin and Hathel slicing through the Ribbons of Destruction, herself breaking their force with the Discerning Stone. 
Overwhelming those images came another. Not a memory but a truth she had known all along. The image of the Burning Tree on the doors of the Chamber of the Scroll, the sacred capelet trees on the Isle, the inn back in Two River Province with the sign of the Burning Tree, the tree-patterned lamps lining the path to the Chalzanene Gates. Even the Peralike gesture of greeting was a rough imitation of a branched tree. That was how Alphesis, the Seabird of Sacrifice, had built the bridge between himself and his followers in this world. 
Cara remembered her dream of the column of fire and she knew she must join in the pain of the sacrifice that Alphesis endured, for the sake of his people. She whispered through the throb of sorrow in her throat, “I just wanted to get home.”
Cara closed her eyes and stepped forward. One step. She clenched her teeth against the intense pain, and tried to breathe with lungs that seemed filled with fire. Not through. Barely in. Her body shaking in agony, she took another step.
The pain wracking her withdrew and the flames diminished until the room seemed dark and chill from their absence. Panting, Cara opened her eyes, and tried to still the trembling of her limbs. She felt cold and weak, but the three objects stood before her and the task itself was yet to be completed.
  
Cara brought out the Key of Opening and walked to the caskets. The shell shone brilliantly in the dim room so that she hardly dared look at it but its light was cool and pure, unlike the flames. The light played upon the surfaces of each casket in turn, as she circled them about. No keyholes or padlocks were visible. No door swung open nor did any lid lift.
But something was changing.
All three began to lose their solid geometric shapes. Guessing that the light from the Key of Opening was disintegrating the casket-shell around each of the three essences, she waited. The sword was ready in her hand. Remembering the true appearance of Rabada, her will was braced to brave whatever horrors the changes would reveal.
Three sponge-like objects came into view through the fissured casket surfaces. Each seemed thinly robed in pale fire that conveyed only a damp chill to her poised hands. Straining upward and weaving blindly in her direction, the essences seemed to grow. Simultaneously all three were losing their casket-molded shapes and taking on forms roughly the shape of human bodies. Her breath faltered in horror at the sight. Disgust vied with pity, as she watched the three bend and stretch toward her, their undulating bodies quivering with the effort.
This was what they had become. The ‘Nothing’ she had named Rabada seemed a blessing by comparison. They were less than nothing—black holes sucking in life but not living. Blinking back tears of pity, Cara raised the sword and split the closest form from top to bottom. For a moment, she feared she would make two of the creatures from the one like severed worms. But the vivid blue-green light of the Sword flowed about the sundered fragments. The halves thrashed briefly, and then the light was gone as each part puffed dust into the air and collapsed into nothing. Twice more, she struck out. Light coated each of the others in turn, receding like the tide back to the Sword from which it came, leaving nothing but dust motes floating to the floor and then nothing at all.
As the Sword destroyed the third that it found, a silence grew around her. Rabada’s voice was no more. And as the third was destroyed, the key burned brighter still, shining out like the rays of a star. Then it was gone, and there came a sound of great rejoicing to her ears. At first she thought it issued from the Chamber of Alphesis, but then she knew it was not so. These were mortal voices, the voices of those of the Tethran army. The Order and the Chosen knew at once that the three had ceased to be, and Tethran warrior and knight saw terror in the eyes of those of the Shadow.
A sound from closer at hand roused Cara from what she heard and beheld—distant hoof beats in the passageway. The sword must go to the first she saw!
Cara turned and sped through the pentangular chamber and then through the Chamber of Alphesis. Here was song and joyous words that wounded her heart with beauty and delight. But the hoof beats were closer now and she dare not delay. She looked about her hastily and tried to absorb a fragment of the peace in the room and the heady jubilation of the unseen Presences. Then she plunged forward through the passageway door.
They were almost nigh her. The Shadow’s barrier had been removed with her last stroke, and the Thalassans sallied forth to aid in the cleansing of Tethra. Great Ones of the Elders, fair and noble, and scions of the Chosen rushed upon her. As the leader drew even with Cara, she cried out to him, “Raphis of Thalassa!”
He reined in and spun toward her in wonder, evidently aware of her only now.
“Lord Raphis, this is the Sword of Living Water. Let it be given to Lord Hathel. He must bear it to the Ancient Armory where it shall remain until the time of the Awaited is at hand.”
Cara handed him the Sword and scabbard. If he made reply she heard it not.
A voice spoke, bidding her come. “Quickly!”
  
She skirted them by. And that company wondered, as the Outworlder disappeared from view, to what strange destiny her path was bent.
 
Cara only saw Alphesis before her and his words rang joyfully in her ears, “Well done, daughter.”
As she approached him, all else faded from sight. Her eyes were only on his face.
“Time for me to go?”
“Yes, child. Your part in the First Tumult has ended.”
“Then I can’t come back?”
“I never said that.”
 
Epilogue
 “Cara, are you all right? I said, can I take the laundry basket downstairs?”
Cara started and turned to see Sandy standing in her bedroom doorway.
“Oh. Uh, sure. Hey, are Mom and Mrs. Renzetti off to the shelter soon?”
Sandy nodded, “You want me to-”
Cara shook her head and smiled, “Tell them I’ll be right down.”
“Sure? That sunburn looks way red,” Sandy answered in surprise. “Hey, that’s a terrific stone! You’ll have to show me where you found it.”
Cara looked down at the stone in her hand. “I don’t think I can. At least not right now.”
Sandy picked up the basket and shrugged. “Okay. I won’t show you where I found starfish just now.”
He thundered down the steps, calling out, “Mom! Cara says she’s coming with you.”
But Cara traced the design etched in the stone with her finger, and smiled.
 
THE END

The Prophecy of the Key of Opening
 
And then the Outworlder spoke, saying, “What should I do?”
But Alphesis only answered, “Listen.”
And, the Key of Opening lifted up its voice, saying,
“From the meeting-place of Wisdom I come forth;
From the place where goodness dwells serene.
From the red sunrise of the dawn I come,
Where grow the nine hazels of Virtue and Art.
From the wide circuits of splendor 
Out of which, according to their judgment, truth is weighed.
There is a land where righteousness is instilled,
And where falsehood wanes into twilight.
I travel towards the Plain of Age,
Through the mountain-heights of Youth.
I go forward to the hunting grounds of evil,
Into the deathly dwelling of a king,
Into the abode of three tombs;
Between burial and judgment,
Between battles and their horrors
Among Tethra’s mighty men.”
 
“Book of Prophecy”,
The Ancient Writings

 
The prophecy poem in “Seabird” is based on an extract from “The Colloquy of the Two Sages” found in The Book of Leinster, a 12 century Gaelic manuscript.
 
The Colloquy of the Two Sages,
The Book of Leinster, edited and translated by Whitley Stokes.
Ed. Librairie Emile Bouillon, Paris - 1905